News roundup, 1 April 2026

- NORAD's US commander, Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, has thrown cold water on the idea that the F-35 is essential for the defense of North America. Guillot says that the aircraft is better suited to assaults on overseas targets where its stealth and air-to-surface weapons would be more useful. Prime Minister Mark Carney is holding off on commenting on the matter pending a review.

- The Artemis II mission is scheduled to launch today. It will carry four astronauts, including Canada's Jeremy Hansen, in a loop around the Moon before returning to Earth, in preparation for Artemis III which is planned to actually land.

- Stephen Lewis has died at the age of 88, having lived just long enough to see his son Avi win the NDP leadership.

- Numerous airlines around the world, including Air Canada and Air Transat, are imposing surcharges to deal with the rising cost of jet fuel as a result of the Iran war.

- Pierre Poilievre is calling for the cancellation of the proposed high speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City, using his usual simplistic populist slogans.

- A man in Niagara Region, Ontario has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on terrorism charges. Matthew Althorpe had created propaganda for the Atomwaffen Division, a white supremacist group, and an agreed statement of facts at the sentencing hearing showed that documents that he posted on the Telegram social media platform had inspired multiple terrorist attacks. This included an attack against the LGBT* community in Slovakia that killed two people, as well as a mass stabbing at a mosque in Turkey.

- French MEP Rima Hassan was invited by several organizations to speak at events in Quebec, but was denied entry to Canada. The official explanation was that she had "failed to disclose a previous visa refusal or denial of entry" as well as "an alleged criminal offence, arrest, indictment or conviction". Both of these appear to stem from her participation in one of the flotillas bringing aid to Gaza in June. B’nai Brith Canada has praised the denial, accusing her of "promoting terror"; presumably they think that if those kids in Gaza are given enough food to survive they'll surely grow up to be terrorists. 

- A teacher in Manitoba's Frontier School Division, which serves mostly remote communities in the northern part of the province, has been decertified after admitting to supplying a student with alcohol and cannabis. In other professional misconduct news, a lawyer who is already under suspension by the Manitoba Law Society has been accused of conspiracy to smuggle cannabis into Headingley Jail as well as conspiracy to obtain a prohibited or restricted firearm.

News roundup, 16 Sept 2025

- The US is threatening "serious consequences" if a review of the decision to purchase the F-35 fighter doesn't go their way. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra warns that a decision not to buy the product cold threaten the viability of NORAD, claiming that the alliance will somehow not work if the two countries use different aircraft. This comes just as the US Government Accountability Office revealed that the F-35 program is facing even more delays and cost overruns than it already was. The fact that the US controls the supply of parts and software upgrades ought to be considered by Ottawa, however; you don't want a potentially hostile foreign power being able to limit your ability to defend yourself.

- An Ottawa man has been charged with "threatening communications" against a Catholic high school in Manotick, apparently in response to a post by one of the school's teachers concerning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Meanwhile in Toronto Dr. Ruth Marshall, a professor of religious studies and political science at the U of T, has been placed on leave after posting a rather inflammatory tweet in the wake of Kirk's death; subsequent threats made to the university in response to the tweet led to the temporary closure of a building on campus. Marshall says that the tweet was not actually about Kirk but about "atrocity denial in Gaza".

- The Chinese automaker Xpeng is now building electric cars in Europe. In Canada, meanwhile, some are predicting that Chinese vehicles will "flood" into the country, under the assumption that the Carney government will lift the prohibitive tariffs on these vehicles in the hope of regaining access to the country's huge canola market. I'm not so sure; based purely on electoral considerations, it seems improbable that the Liberals will sacrifice votes in Windsor, St. Catharines, and Oshawa (which are electoral battlegrounds) in order to satisfy Prairie farmers (who would sooner pull their own heads off than vote Liberal). The fact that the Trump regime is trying to pressure all NATO members into imposing even more stringent tariffs on China does not make such a move any easier.

- Far-right activists held an anti-immigration rally in Toronto's Christie Pits Park (site of a notorious antisemitic riot in 1933) on Saturday, but were outnumbered around 10 to 1 by counterprotesters. Someone who was there said they looked "shell-shocked", perhaps unprepared for the amount of support there is for immigration in one of the most multicultural cities on Earth.

- The Pride parade in Steinbach, Manitoba has been postponed after organizers were warned of "credible safety threats connected to far-right extremism". Details of the threats are vague but indicate that they were motivated out of revenge for the death of Charlie Kirk.

- Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie is stepping down following a leadership review vote. She had received the support of 57% of voters in the party convention, but decided that this wasn't good enough. The party now commences its third leadership race since 2018

- Toronto police have charged two people, including a 12 year old boy, after a vicious hammer attack on a homeless man who subsequently died. Several other people had been attacked as well, though not fatally. The deceased had been released from hospital but was subsequently found dead, and his death was attributed to the initial attack, so it sounds like those who made the decision to release him deserve a share of the blame.

- Four people from St. Theresa Point First Nation, Manitoba have died after a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver float plane crashed just short of its destination in Makepeace Lake. The pilot, the sole survivor, suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries.