News roundup, 13 March 2026

- Mark Carney has finally come out and said that Canada will not participate (directly at least) in the attack on Iran, while still saying that "Canada supports the necessity to prevent Iran’s nuclear program and the export of terrorism". 

- A man is dead after ramming a vehicle into a synagogue in Detroit and exchanging gunfire with a security guard, who was wounded. Authorities say that the attacker was a 41 year old US citizen who was born in Lebanon. They say they haven't found a motive yet, but this probably has something to do with it.

- FBI director Kash Patel gutted a counterintelligence unit specialized in monitoring potential threats from Iran mere days before the US-Israeli attack on the country. One wonders what the motivation for this might have been - had the unit not gathered enough evidence of a threat to justify the attack? Or, more ominously, are they hoping that a major attack will occur that could serve as the "Reichstag fire" that Trump could then use as justification to cancel the midterms, and that the unit might actually foil such an attack?

- The Pentagon has banned press photographers from briefings on the war after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took exception to photos that he deemed unflattering to him.

- Bill C-9, the "Combatting Hate Act", was forced through committee by the Liberals with the assistance of the Bloc Quebecois, against the objections of both the NDP (who along with civil liberties organizations are concerned about the implications for freedom of protest) as well as the Conservatives (who are afraid about possible impacts on freedom of religion). It's kind of telling that the Globe and Mail glosses over the differences between the reasons for the two parties' objections.

- The Alberta Prosperity Project seems to be having difficulty getting enough signatures to force a referendum on independence, judging from the fact that they're now canvassing snowbirds in Arizona and Mexico. They have until May to get enough signatures, 

- Bob Gale, who was appointed by the Ford government as the chair of the Regional Municipality of Niagara, Ontario last December following the death of the previous regional chair, Jim Bradley, has resigned following revelations that he went to the effort (and considerable expense) to obtain an autographed copy of Mein Kampf. The fact that he was heavily pushing amalgamation of the lower tier municipalities in the region probably made him some enemies who might have blown the whistle on his rather curious collection habits.

- A Tennessee woman who was misidentified by facial recognition software was held for six months without bail and hauled off to North Dakota, a state where she says she's never been, over a bank fraud case in Fargo. Apparently they never checked to see if she had an alibi until she was brought there; perhaps it didn't occur to them that the software could get anything wrong. After it was shown that she couldn't have committed the crime they just turned her loose in a strange city until a volunteer with a prison-related nonprofit drove her to Chicago so that family could pick her up from there.

The fate of Detroit

One thing that communities do well to avoid is becoming overly dependent on a single industry. In some cases, it's hard to avoid (places like Leaf Rapids and Elliot Lake come to mind). But it's harder to explain when it happens with a large city, and the effects are much more dramatic. The Guardian's John Kossik has some ideas about how Detroit came to be the way it is:

The auto industry has always been cyclical and, from its origins when there were over 200 different manufacturers to its currently dominant "big three", the brunt of these ups and downs has fallen on the inhabitants of the Detroit area. As the US economy went through its numerous swings, when these hit the auto industry they had significant effects on Detroit. Even in the 1950s, when the rest of America was in postwar economic euphoria, auto plants were closing in Detroit – long before the effects of globalisation were felt in the US.

Where other major cities in the US had populations of varied education and skill levels, Detroit was unique in being heavily skewed towards unskilled or low-skilled workers. The assembly line required only limited technical ability to perform highly repetitive tasks. Since Detroit was dominated by the industry (albeit converted to wartime uses during the second world war), its population was chiefly a pool of labour for the auto factories. Detroit enjoyed middle-class levels of affluence, but without middle-class levels of skills and education.

Moreover, Detroit developed traditions of workplace segregation and racial prejudice not seen in most other major industrial cities. As the economic cycles moved through the general US economy, they were intensified by the Detroit area's dependence on one industry. And these economic tensions manifested themselves in enduring racial chasms. Even today, south-eastern Michigan is one of the most racially divided areas in the US, with a black population in Detroit exceeding 80% and a white population in the surrounding suburbs exceeding 90%.

And for a look at what this has done to the city, check out these videos:







What does the future hold for a place like that? Nothing good, I fear.

Owner of bridge scared of competition?

Sure looks that way:

Ottawa wants to lend $550-million (U.S.) to Michigan as the Canadian government seeks support for building a new bridge along the continent’s busiest commercial corridor, offering to help bail out a state ravaged by the auto sector’s slump.

Federal Transport Minister John Baird said Thursday that Ottawa is extending a lifeline to Michigan to jump-start the $5.3-billion megaproject called the Detroit River International Crossing, or DRIC.

But Patrick Moran, corporate counsel for Manuel (Matty) Moroun, the 82-year-old transport tycoon who owns the Ambassador Bridge that spans the Detroit River, said Canada is taking advantage of cash-strapped Michigan’s dire financial straits.

“Our state doesn’t have two nickels to rub together and we have crumbling roads all over, and yet our state is getting involved in building a new bridge,” Mr. Moran said in an interview. “Michigan is hard up for cash.”

The economic stakes are high – persistent bottlenecks on the Ambassador Bridge threaten to stall billions of dollars annually in trade. But Mr. Moran accused Canada of encroaching on Michigan's turf, warning that Ottawa will favour Canadians over Michigan residents for bridge construction jobs, and hundreds of Detroit homes are in line to be bulldozed to clear the way for the new Detroit-Windsor bridge.

He said Michigan shouldn’t be “selling out” its border to Canada when Mr. Moroun is willing to privately finance his own second span without dipping into the pockets of Canadian taxpayers.

From the Globe. Gee, do you think he might be worried about not collecting as much in the way of tolls? I'd think it would be better not to have both bridges owned by the same guy, no?