University of Toronto mathematics professor Jacob Tsimerman has won the Fields Medal, a prestigious prize often compared to the Nobel Prize that is only awarded every four years to mathematicians under 40.

He is one of four mathematicians to win this year, as well as the first academic at a Canadian university to win (the second Canadian), according to the University of Toronto News.

The Fields Medal is awarded by the International Mathematical Union to scholars for both their extraordinary research and promise for future achievement.

“It’s an incredible honour to win this award,” Tsimerman told U of T News.

Tsimerman won for his part in proving something known as the André-Oort conjecture, a problem mathematicians have mulled over for decades. It involves highly special points found inside geometric spaces, which encode arithmetic information. Mathematicians have suspected these special points appear in large numbers as part of a larger hidden geometric structure.

Tsimerman described the André-Oort conjecture as his “mathematical home,” which he found while doing his graduate work at Princeton. He earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 2011.

He was one of three Princeton alumni to win the Fields this year. His other collaborators from the American university were Yu Deng and John Pardon. The fourth collaborator and co-winner is Hong Wang, who is a professor at New York University.

“Math is such a team sport … I’m lucky to have many of my collaborators as close friends, which helps work feel fun and playful,” he said.

According to the Princeton University News , Tsimerman has won a string of prestigious math medals and was elected a fellow of the United Kingdom’s Royal Society in 2025.

He was born in Kazan, Russia, according to the New York Times . His family emigrated to Israel in 1990, then Canada in 1996. He began his work at U of T in 2014.

While the work that won him the Fields was in number theory, he plans to shift to studying AI. He says AI has doubled his productivity, summarizing papers and sketching drafts of proofs.

He even states AI is on the verge of outdoing mathematicians.

“I think it will very shortly become more capable than mathematicians in the act of mathematics,” he told the Times. However, he worries about the dangers of AI: “I think AI is going to be a serious threat for society, for humanity.”

Meanwhile, he thinks mathematicians can help our understanding of the large language models underpinning ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Claude and other AI systems.

Tsimerman is a popular teacher at U of T, according to an online profile. This may stem from his childhood passion for math. By the time he was three, he was enjoying math puzzles.

He came by his passion for math honestly, influenced by family members.

“My grandfather was a physicist and my mother taught math, so I had a lot of support and resources growing up, along with plenty of puzzles to solve. And that’s what mathematics is, basically: puzzles.”

He undertook high school studies at the University of Toronto Schools, where he won two gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad, achieving a perfect score in 2004. At just 16, he began his Bachelor of Mathematics at U of T, graduating just two years later. When he joined the faculty at U of T, he was the youngest person appointed as a full professor in the math department

Professor Mary Pugh, chair of U of T’s department of mathematics, said Tsimerman’s love of math is obvious.

“I’ve known Jacob as a student and a colleague and, obviously, he is brilliant,” she told U of T News. “His love of mathematics is absolutely infectious. He’s someone who can be routinely found in the lounge at a blackboard puzzling over something with a handful of students.”

The Fields Medal honours a Canadian, John Charles Fields , who was also a celebrated mathematician and U of T professor.

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Six days after the federal government said only one of Canada’s four submarines is seaworthy, that submarine sank an American warship off Hawaii.

HMCS Corner Brook launched a Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo at the decommissioned cruiser USS Mobile Bay on July 12, and the Canadian shot was the one that sank it, CTV News reported . It was Canada’s first submarine at the Rim of the Pacific exercise in 12 years.

Capt. Landon Creasy, the Canadian task group commander, said in a statement that live-fire targeting exercises are “invaluable to our submariners,” CTV reported.

The U.S. Navy said in a release that Mobile Bay went down in waters 15,000 feet deep, more than 50 nautical miles off the northern coast of Kauai. The release said a second decommissioned ship, the amphibious assault vessel USS Peleliu, was sunk in the same area July 17.

The release said units from Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army took part in the sinkings, gaining proficiency in tactics, targeting and live-firing against a surface ship at sea.

Vice-Admiral Jeffrey Jablon, commander of the RIMPAC combined task force, said in the release that sinking exercises are “a prime example of the strength and readiness our partnerships create.”

Lieut.-Cmdr. Linda Coleman, a Royal Canadian Navy spokesperson deployed in Hawaii, said in a statement that the submarine proved it retains “precision strike capability” in complex marine environments, CTV reported.

Submarine work at the exercise is usually less dramatic. A boat at RIMPAC will often act as a “clockwork mouse,” moving predictably so surface ships can practise tracking it, said Paul Mitchell, a professor at the Canadian Forces College who is writing a book on the Victoria Class. “No submariner wants to be a clockwork mouse because it’s boring and dull and there’s no glory in it,” he told National Post .

A July 6 news release from the Prime Minister’s Office said Canada’s submarine fleet is aging, with only one of four submarines seaworthy. The release named Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems as the preferred supplier to begin negotiations on up to 12 new submarines, in what it called the largest defence procurement in Canadian history.

Corner Brook is Canada’s lone operational submarine, National Post reported this month. Mitchell said the navy has to keep the aging boats running for another decade because it needs them to train crews for the incoming German-built fleet. “By hook or by crook, the navy has to make these things work for the next 10 years because they have to generate crews,” he said.

CTV reported that Corner Brook returned to service last year after running aground off Vancouver Island in 2011, and that repairs cost about $20 million, with a further $695 million in maintenance, upgrades and life-extension work.

CTV reported Canada also sent two Halifax-class frigates, a replenishment ship, a long-range patrol plane, two maritime helicopters and more than 800 Armed Forces members to the exercise.

The U.S. Navy said Mobile Bay was commissioned in February 1987 at the Alabama State Docks in Mobile, Ala., and that over three decades of service it supported Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and delivered humanitarian assistance after the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines. The release said the cruiser was decommissioned in August 2023 after more than 36 years.

The U.S. Navy said RIMPAC’s 30th edition runs to July 31 with 30 nations, 30 surface ships, five submarines, more than 190 aircraft and 30,000 personnel. Canada helped found the exercise in 1971 and has taken part in every one since, CTV reported.

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Elmer MacKay, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister, longtime Nova Scotia MP and father of onetime federal party leader Peter MacKay, has died at 89.

Peter MacKay shared the news in a social media post on Friday morning.

“ In his 90th yr our beloved father Elmer was called home. His was an extraordinary life, collecting legions of friends leaving a legacy of hard work and public service,” read the post.

First elected as MP for Central Nova in 1971, Elmer MacKay went on to serve in the Progressive Conservative cabinets of prime ministers Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney. His multiple ministerial portfolios included solicitor general, national revenue, public works and regional economic development for Atlantic Canada.

MacKay temporarily resigned his seat in 1983 to allow then newly chosen PC leader Brian Mulroney to enter Parliament through a by-election in Central Nova.

He regained the seat in the 1984 election, when Mulroney ran on his home turf in Quebec, and stayed on as an MP until 1993.

Mark Mulroney, Brian’s son, was one of many prominent Canadians who paid tribute to MacKay online .

“ Mr. MacKay meant so much to our family, and we will always be grateful for his friendship, loyalty, and kindness,” wrote Mulroney.

He wrote that MacKay’s decision to step aside to allow his father to run in Central Nova was an “ extraordinary act of generosity” that “helped shape the course of Canadian history.”

MacKay, a close political ally of Mulroney’s, had a peripheral but notable connection to the Airbus affair , a scandal surrounding the controversial purchase of Airbus passenger aircraft in the 1980s by Air Canada, then a Crown corporation, and allegations that bribes had been paid for the deal. MacKay told a federal inquiry that he’d acted as a reluctant mediator between Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber, the German-Canadian businessman who had been accused of facilitating the payoffs. None of the allegations were ever proven.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also posted messages of condolence.

Houston wrote on Facebook that, despite holding some of the most senior positions in the federal government, MacKay never lost his local connection to Central Nova Scotia.

“Elmer kept his name and number in the phone book so you could always get ahold of him,” wrote Houston. “He was a great person who was always eager to help people.”

Poilievre called MacKay a “legend” and “true servant of the state” in a lengthy post .

“People adored Elmer. And he loved them in return. In Nova Scotia, I still hear anecdotes about how Elmer would visit the neediest families just before Christmas with a bag of gifts and a fresh turkey for dinner. He never sought recognition and never publicized his generosity,” wrote Poilievre.

Poilievre noted MacKay’s promotion of major initiatives in Atlantic Canada, such as the Confederation Bridge linking P.E.I. to New Brunswick and continuous ferry service between P.E.I. and Nova Scotia.

“ Elmer believed in, and promoted, the east coast and its people,” wrote Poilievre.

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The Bloc Québécois missed an opportunity to own up to the mistakes of its leader, Yves-François Blanchet, and educate voters about best online practices after Blanchet’s X account was hacked nearly two weeks ago, said one of the province’s leading cybersecurity advisers.

Steve Waterhouse, former Quebec assistant minister of information security and cybersecurity, said the political party instead “downplayed” the whole event by not addressing an apparent cryptocurrency scam that ran on Blanchet’s account for 11 days .

“You have the integrity of the leader of the party that’s being drawn into the public attention, not for the right reasons. To then leave the event be as is and not make a big fuss about it, to me, says that he doesn’t understand the threat,” Waterhouse said.

The first suspicious post on Blanchet’s X account took place on July 11, promoting a cryptocurrency influencer and a supposed claim from the BQ leader that he had made tens of thousands of dollars thanks to her help. The tweet was promptly deleted.

Earlier this week, Blanchet’s X account raised more eyebrows after it showed an English-only post which accompanied pictures of him touring areas of Quebec, an unlikely occurrence for the Bloc leader who usually only posts in French.

Shortly after, two other posts related to the cryptocurrency scam reappeared on Blanchet’s X account, forcing the political party to admit their leader had been hacked.

“We invite the population to click on none of the links on publications related to cryptocurrency and any other link until notified to the contrary by the Bloc Québécois,” Blanchet’s spokeswoman, Joanie Riopel, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Riopel added that the party was counting on the prompt collaboration of X to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

On Friday, the Bloc announced that its leader’s X account was back and running and Blanchet posted a circumspect post: “With prudence and caution, I am making a publication on my personal page (which is now) restored and recovered,” he wrote on X Friday morning in French . “We will know in the coming hours and coming days if the account has been correctly restored.”

Waterhouse said the situation underlines that Blanchet was probably not using best online security practices. His account may have been hijacked either by a simple password hack, or one of the devices on which he was managing his account was compromised, he said.

Either way, Waterhouse said Blanchet should have owned up to his mistake.

“For me, it would have been a great opportunity for him to just say, ‘Listen, people, this happened to me… Please make sure you apply best practices by making sure you have a good password, to multi-factor authentication, and so on,” the expert said.

Waterhouse said it would have been an educational moment for Blanchet’s more than 54,000 followers on X, some of which may have been fooled by the cryptocurrency scam.

He also said the Bloc leader may attract some sympathy from voters by admitting he had made a mistake, as online fraud is becoming more and more sophisticated.

“But now, I believe that the results have been reversed, as people just look at him and say, ‘Really? This is what you have to say about this? This is what you do about a situation like that?’ It doesn’t give him points on being a leader you want to follow.”

Waterhouse said he sent the separatist party a link to the Government of Canada’s security considerations for using social media.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced on Thursday that President Donald Trump is taking more tariff action against Canada, as well as 59 other countries.

This comes just three days after the USTR invoked the never-before-used Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to introduce anti-discrimination tariffs against a list of targeted goods comprising roughly five per cent Canadian imports into the U.S. at a whopping 50 per cent rate.

Greer said the White House is imposing the new tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 against 60 countries following a forced labour investigation, which launched in March.

The USTR probe included two rounds of public hearings and more than 2,100 public comments, resulting in findings that the countries — Canada and Mexico were lumped together with China and dozens of other countries — were not sufficiently screening goods produced by child or forced labour.

“President Trump recognizes that decades of moral suasion have not eradicated forced labor from global supply chains,” Greer said in a statement.

“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same.”

But trade watchers say this has little to do with forced labour.

“The Trump administration has shown little actual concern so far for human rights,” said Andrew Hale, fellow for Washington-based Advancing American Freedom.

“The Trump administration is using forced labour as an excuse to impose tariffs just as they declared emergencies under IEEPA to impose tariffs,” he added.

Hale also noted that “many Americans are wearing clothes that have forced labour in the supply chain. The irony is that many of our allies who are the targets of these new tariffs have better laws and enforcement against forced labour.”

Including Canada in the investigation had surprised trade experts back in March.

Canada’s inclusion “was unbelievably shocking to me,” Clark Packard, research fellow at Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, said at the time .

“This poisons the well in terms of any USMCA negotiation,” he added.

Investigations under Section 301, which follow a formalized process of consultations and hearings, usually take a year to complete. But U.S. trade officials had said they expected the probes to be completed by mid-summer — expedited, trade watchers said, to replace the time-limited Section 122 duties imposed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the IEEPA tariffs.

“The administration is trying to recreate what they lost when the Supreme Court shot that abuse of power down,” Hale said.

The new duties have been set up under three categories: 10 per cent for countries with forced-labor prohibitions, including Canada and Mexico; 10-12.5 per cent net of Most-Favoured-Nation rates for some products from the EU, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Switzerland; and 12.5 per cent for the remaining countries.

Unlike the Section 338 tariffs, the Section 301 duties include carveouts for Canadian goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, according to the Federal Register Notice .

Still, Hale says the 301 tariffs are “another unlawful power grab” by Trump and will likely be legally challenged.

“In the end, Customs and Border Protection will spend billions in processing refunds,” he said.

In the meantime, however, non-CUSMA-compliant Canadian exports face the new 10 per cent tariff, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday.

The big question now, said Alfredo Carrillo Obregon, trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington, is whether there is an off-ramp for these tariffs.

“Given that USTR determined that Canada fails to enforce its existing legal regime against imports made with forced labour but provides scarce evidence as to this failure and its impact in displacing US exports, it’s not immediately clear what Canada could do to obtain a wholesale reduction or elimination of this tariff,” he said.

National Post

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On July 20, U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to impose a new 50 per cent tariff on Canadian goods , including dairy, honey, essential oils, hockey equipment and several alcoholic beverages.

Currently, the new tariffs are set to take effect on Aug. 19 and, unlike previous tariffs, would include some goods previously exempted under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

On Thursday, Canada, along with 59 other countries, was hit with additional new tariffs . These were imposed following a forced labour investigation launched in March, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced.

The announcement marked the latest escalation in more than a year and a half of shifting trade policies, as Trump has repeatedly imposed, suspended and revised tariffs. Canada has responded with retaliations and negotiations, and Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that Canada is now “in a stronger position” than when the trade war started 18 months ago.

Below is a timeline of the key moments in the Canada-U.S. trade war.

January 2025 — The “American First Trade Policy”

• Jan. 20: Trump begins his second term and signs an executive order to enact an “American First Trade Policy,” directing his administration’s departments and agencies to address “unfair and unbalanced trade” and investigate “large and persistent” trade deficits, with a deadline to recommend “appropriate” measures, such as tariffs, by April 1, 2025. In Trump’s inaugural address, he made clear his intention to “tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”

February 2025 — The first tariffs and retaliations

• Feb. 1: An executive order imposes 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods entering the U.S., known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The order claimed the tariffs were being imposed to stop fentanyl coming across the border into the U.S. Canada retaliates with two rounds of counter tariffs, one of which is imposed immediately and targets a range of U.S. exports, including alcohol. In a press conference at the time, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose to speak directly to Americans, saying Trump’s tariffs “will harm Canadians. But beyond that, it will have real consequences for you, the American people.”
• Feb. 3: Both Canada and the U.S. temporarily pause the implementation of tariffs for a month, after Canada agreed to deploy its $1.3 billion plan to secure the northern border and address fentanyl trafficking.
• Feb. 10: Trump announces a plan for 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum.
• Feb. 13: The U.S. Reciprocal Trade and Tariffs Memorandum announces plans for reciprocal tariffs on all countries that impose tariffs and taxes on imports of U.S. goods.

March 2025 — Tariffs on steel and aluminum

• March 4: Following the month-long pause, U.S. tariffs come into effect in Canada, along with Canada’s 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs. In a speech at the time, Trudeau said Trump’s decision to launch a trade war was a “really dumb thing to do” and vowed Canada would retaliate as long as necessary.
• March 6: Trump writes in a Truth Social post that he believes Trudeau is using the tariffs “which he has largely caused” in order to run again for Prime Minister, despite Trudeau having already announced his resignation. Trump added: “So fun to watch!”

• March 7: A U.S. executive order provides an exemption on U.S. tariffs for CUSMA-compliant goods, and Canada pauses its second wave of retaliatory tariffs in response.
• March 12: Tariffs on steel and aluminum come into effect and Canada retaliates by imposing 25 per cent tariffs on select U.S. products imported into Canada.
• March 14: Mark Carney becomes Prime Minister. He says his new government will protect Canadian workers from President Trump’s tariffs and that he plans to grow Canada’s economy by “putting more money in Canadians’ pockets”.

April 2025 — “Liberation Day”

• April 2: Trump dubs April 2 “Liberation Day” and imposes 10 per cent tariffs on all imports to the U.S., with higher rates imposed on some countries. In a speech from the White House’s Rose Garden, he claimed that the U.S. has been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far.” However, the new measures did not affect goods from Canada or Mexico.
• April 3: Trump’s 25 per cent auto tariffs take effect, and Canada matches this with retaliatory tariffs for non-CUSMA-compliant vehicles made in the U.S.

May 2025 — Courts strike the tariffs down

• May 28: The U.S. Court of International Trade strikes down Trump’s IEEPA tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China, ruling they were beyond the authority granted by IEEPA. On Truth Social, Trump calls the decision “so wrong, and so political!” adding, “Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY.” A U.S. federal appeals court issues an emergency stay on the tariffs, leaving them imposed.

June 2025 — Digital Services Tax scrapped

• June 4: Increased tariffs of 50 per cent on aluminum and steel come into effect.
• June 29: Canada announces plans to cancel the Digital Services Tax, a three per cent tax on revenue generated by tech companies within Canada, in order to resume trade negotiations with the U.S. Carney said in a statement at the time that rescinding the tax to better Canada’s relationship with the U.S. was in “the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses.”

July 2025 — Tariffs increase

• July 31: Trump signed an executive order increasing tariffs on Canada to 35 per cent for CUSMA noncompliant goods. The same day, the U.S. president wrote on Truth Social that “Tariffs are making America GREAT & RICH again,” claiming that his measures had transformed America from a “dead” country to the “‘hottest’ in the world.”

August 2025 — Suspension of the “De Minimis” treatment

• Aug. 1: The 35 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods take effect, as well as 50 per cent tariffs on copper imports.
• Aug. 29: The “De Minimis” treatment for low-value imports coming into the U.S., including from Canada, is suspended, meaning such shipments lose their duty-free status.

September 2025 — Canada drops some tariffs

• Sept. 1: Canada drops some retaliatory tariffs imposed in April, but keeps them in place for U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum, and automobiles.

October 2025 — Trade negotiations improve, then get worse

• Oct. 7: Carney meets Trump at the White House and the President praises the PM, saying Carney will leave the round of trade talks “very happy.”
• Oct. 24: But Trump later ends talks with Canada because of an Ontario government TV advert featuring former U.S. president Ronald Reagan. Trump wrote that the ad was “fraudulent” and “fake” on Truth Social, while the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute said that it “misrepresents” the late president’s radio address, in which he discussed tariffs. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he will stop running the advert in response, but only after it aired during the first two World Series games between the Toronto Blue Jays and L.A. Dodgers.

January 2026 — Carney’s Davos speech

• Jan. 20: Carney delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which drew rapturous applause for his rallying cry for Western nations to stand up to great powers or “be on the menu.” The same day, Trump shared an AI-generated image to Truth Social with the U.S. flag imposed over Canada, Venezuela and Greenland.
• Jan. 21: Trump strikes back at Carney’s speech when he said “Canada lives because of the United States” in his own address, adding: “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”

February 2026 — The Supreme Court steps in

• Feb. 20: The Supreme Court rules against Trump’s IEEPA tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, prompting the White House to end certain tariff actions. Tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos, copper, lumber, furniture, heavy vehicles and semiconductors remain in effect. Trump lashed out at the court following the decision, telling reporters at the White House that he was “absolutely ashamed” of the six justices who formed the majority in the decision, calling them “very unpatriotic and disloyal.”
• The U.S. then imposes a temporary 10 per cent tariff on global imports for 150 days, though this does not apply to CUSMA-compliant goods.

June 2026 — Investigations into forced labour

• June 2: The U.S. announces findings of investigations into forced labour and says that 60 countries, including Canada, have failed to enforce bans on imports of goods produced with forced labour, creating unfair competition. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) proposes tariffs of 10 to 12.5 per cent for these countries.
• June 11: In response to the new tariff threat, Ottawa tables a bill to prohibit the importation of goods produced by forced labour.

July 2026 — The latest tariffs

• July 1: July 1 marked the final date for Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to sign an agreement to extend the CUSMA trade pact. The U.S. declined to agree to a 16-year extension of the deal in its “current form.”
• July 19: Trump tells reporters that he is considering hitting Canada with new tariffs in response to smoke from wildfires being blown across the border. Both he and Carney attended the FIFA World Cup final in New Jersey, where the President claimed he told Carney, “You’ve got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air.” Doug Ford later called the threats “rubbish” and said: “Maybe President Trump would offer his closest allies and friends some support rather than sit there and threaten tariffs.”
• July 20: Trump announces a new 50 per cent tariff on a range of Canadian goods, including paper products, cement, wood products, dairy, honey, essential oils, hockey equipment and several alcoholic beverages. The new tariffs have no exemptions for CUSMA-compliant goods, and came in response to what the U.S. administration views as discriminatory trade practices by Canada, including Canadian tariffs on American autos, U.S. alcohol bans in some provinces and dairy import limits. They are set to come into effect on Aug. 19.
• July 23: The U.S. hits 60 countries, including Canada, with new tariffs between 10 and 12.5 per cent following the forced labour investigation, which take effect on Friday. At a first ministers meeting in Charlottetown, Carney said Canada would not respond to the tariff threats before they take effect. His calls for unity were supported by the premiers, and the PM also said that it’s “clear that we are in a stronger position than we were when this trade war started 18 months ago.”

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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said he could have “explained better” the terms of a new deal with the U.S. to share toll revenues for the Gordie Howe International Bridge, after the terms of the deal became public and contradicted his initial description.

The agreement, which was made public earlier this week, does not include a provision that allows Canada to account for its debt-servicing costs before splitting the revenue with the U.S.

This contradicts what the prime minister told CTV News on July 12 at the Calgary Stampede, when he was discussing the merits of the deal, while the terms were still undisclosed.

“Could I have explained it better on a Sunday morning at Stampede? Yeah, with a cowboy hat on,” said Carney on Thursday, during the closing press conference of a meeting with the premiers in Charlottetown. “Yes, I could have explained it better.” The deal was first announced by the federal government on July 10.

The agreement, eventually released by the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, said Canada will give the U.S. 50 per cent of net revenues for the first 15 years, after recovering operating costs.

Carney confirmed Thursday that the operating expenses will not include debt repayment.

“I should have been clearer,” the prime minister added.

The bridge began construction in 2018 to address the congestion on the privately owned Ambassador Bridge, which handles just over a quarter of all Canada-U.S. trade.

An agreement that was struck with Michigan in 2012 originally stipulated that Canada was to pay for construction and receive all the toll revenue until it could recover its financing costs, including interest, after which revenues would be shared. Michigan and Canada are joint owners of the bridge.

In June, U.S. President Donald Trump blocked the opening of the bridge, claiming the original deal was unfair to the U.S. The Windsor mayor, among many others, had said the obstruction came as a result of lobbying efforts by the Maroun family, owners of the Ambassador Bridge, which stands to lose toll revenue to a competing trade route.

“The underlying agreement between Canada and Michigan remains in place,” said Carney on Thursday. “Under that agreement, there is no splitting of tolls under that agreement, which is what I was referring to — perhaps imperfectly. But there is no splitting of tolls under that agreement until all of the debt is repaid.”

Sitting alongside the prime minister, Ontario Premier Doug Ford commended the prime minister’s efforts to get the crossing open.

“The prime minister did an excellent job getting this deal done, getting $300 billion of goods across the border to create more opportunities, more jobs,” he said. “Michigan is Ontario’s No. 1 trading partner, with over $70 billion of two-way trade.”

Ford added that the bridge opening is critical for Canadian manufacturers.

The Conservatives have criticized the prime minister for his description of the deal’s terms that contradicted the text. Conservative MP Kelly McCauley, who chairs the House of Commons government operations committee, said he will convene a meeting July 29 to get to “the bottom of the matter.”

A Canadian opening ceremony is scheduled to take place on Friday, with cross-border celebrations recently cancelled by the federal government after Washington announced plans for new tariffs on Canadian goods.

The bridge is scheduled to open to traffic on Monday, July 27.

National Post

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Common wisdom says that money can’t buy happiness. But if it could, researchers say, it would cost $155,850, making Canada the 14th most expensive nation in the world to purchase joy.

The slightly tongue-in-cheek study was produced by digital financial services provider Remitly, but based on an actual scientific paper published in 2018 by Purdue University, “adjusted to account for local purchasing power and inflation.”

“To determine each city and country’s price of happiness, Remitly reverse-engineered figures obtained from Purdue University’s study into the relationship between happiness and income,” the report says.

It also used Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index , a poll that measures happiness around the world.

“The satiation point of LE (life evaluation) refers to the income point at which any further increase has no effect on an individual’s happiness,” they wrote. “So, to discover the local price of happiness by country, they converted these figures back to local currencies using country-specific Purchasing Power Ratios sourced from the International Monetary Fund.”

Finally, the team converted local currencies into U.S. dollars, for comparison purposes.

The winner (or loser, if you want to put it that way) was Iceland, where happiness costs a whopping US$163,579. Next up, Australia, then Switzerland, New Zealand and the United States, which came in at US$134,827.

Canada placed 14th at US$113,755, or $155,850 Canadian at the time the numbers were crunched. This put us in the midst of a cluster of European countries, just below Finland and Austria, but above Belgium and Ireland. Last place on the list was Ethiopia, where the price of happiness was calculated at US$10,176.

Individual cities in Canada had their own price points for happiness, with (no surprise) Victoria, Vancouver and Toronto in the top three spots, between $167,000 and $170,000. Saskatoon was next at just under $160,000, and Kingston placed 19th and the last of the cities surveyed, at just over $140,000.

One oddity among the data was Slovenia, the only country where the average annual income can cover the price of happiness. It placed 42nd on the list of nations overall, with a price of US$36,769. But with an average salary of US$42,754, the typical Slovenian should be able to afford happiness with a little left over in less than a year.

Other countries didn’t fare so well, with the average salary in Luxembourg (US$109,900) covering just 92.8 per cent of the price of happiness there. In Canada, the average salary was deemed to be US$50,500, which would cover just 44.4 per cent of the price of happiness.

But there were worse-off places to be, the study found. Ecuadoreans, with an average salary of US$6,500, would need to toil for more than three years to afford the relatively inexpensive price of happiness (US$19,700) in that country.

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Nava Silton, youth director at the Jewish Center, was packing up and readying to leave the Modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan after running a program for the Jewish fast of Tisha B’Av on Thursday. She chatted with a friend, a 50-year-old man, who was leaving after praying the afternoon service of Mincha. Soon thereafter, she heard that someone had been stabbed outside the synagogue.

After running down the stairs and asking security what happened, she learned that it was the man with whom she had been talking and that he had just been taken to the hospital, Silton told JNS.

A man sitting on the stairs of a nearby church, who was eating his lunch, told her that he heard someone yell Allahu Akbar, and when he looked up, he saw someone stab someone else in the right side of the chest with a screwdriver.

“Then the guy had the gall to walk by him, sitting there on the steps, and say something like, ‘Someone should probably call 911. Someone on the street is hurt,’” Silton told JNS. “Like he was trying to pretend that someone else did it. Like he was trying not to look culpable.”

Silton told JNS that she visited her friend in the hospital. “I was a little shocked, because I thought that the attack was more superficial and not as deep,” she said.

The victim told Silton that after he was stabbed, he pulled the screwdriver out of his chest, fearing that he might fall on it and worsen his injury.

Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Police Department, stated that “this afternoon, two people were stabbed in separate attacks on the Upper West Side. Both victims, an Asian male and a Jewish male, were removed to Mount Sinai-St. Luke’s Hospital, and both are expected to survive.”

“The NYPD has arrested 51-year-old Raul Morales in connection with both assaults, and no other people are being sought,” she said. “Detectives are continuing to work the case and determine motive, but according to victim and witness statements, Morales yelled Allahu Akbar during both attacks. The NYPD is currently evaluating whether this is a potential hate crime.”

“While the perpetrator has no known mental-health history with the NYPD, the initial investigation suggests that mental health may have been a factor,” she stated. “At this time there is no known link between Morales and either of the victims, nor between the victims and each other.”

I have been briefed on today’s horrifying stabbings on the Upper West Side, where an Asian man and a Jewish man were attacked. According to witness and victim statements, the perpetrator yelled “Allahu Akbar” during both attacks. I am relieved that both victims are in stable… https://t.co/0LSGtvPojx

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) July 23, 2026

Five hours after the attack, Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, stated that he was briefed on “today’s horrifying stabbings on the Upper West Side, where an Asian man and a Jewish man were attacked.”

“According to witness and victim statements, the perpetrator yelled Allahu Akbar during both attacks,” he said. “I am relieved that both victims are in stable condition. The NYPD responded immediately and arrested Raul Morales in connection with both assaults, and I am grateful to the officers for their swift response.”

“The NYPD’s initial investigation suggests that mental health may have been a factor,” he said. “They are also evaluating these stabbings as potential hate crimes. These hateful and despicable attacks have no place in our city.”

Good Samaritan

Tisch thanked “the bravery of a good Samaritan, who led our officers to the location where the perpetrator was hiding, as well as our NYPD cops who brought an end to the incident without further injuries.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s New York and New Jersey office stated that “this horrific incident took place just after a prayer service on the somber Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av and follows on the heels of another violent assault of a visibly Jewish person in New York City earlier this week.”

“This kind of violence has no place in New York City and must be immediately condemned and investigated,” it said. It added that it was working with the NYPD and community partners, and that it calls on Mamdani to “make it clear that there is no place for hate in New York City.”

The NYPD told JNS that officers responded to a 911 call about an assault at about 1:30 p.m. near West 84th Street and Central Park West on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Thursday. Officers saw a 57-year-old man and a 50-year-old man alert and conscious, each with a stab wound to the torso, and both were hospitalized in stable condition, the NYPD told JNS.

A suspect was “taken into custody, and the investigation is ongoing,” the police department told JNS.

JNS asked if NYPD is probing the incident as a hate crime. “Everything is still fluid,” the department said.

Elliot Kaufman, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member, and his wife are members of the same synagogue as the victim. “The only reason to be surprised is that it’s your shul, not someone else’s,” he told JNS.

Rabbi Allen Schwartz, of Congregation Ohab Zedek, a Modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side which the victim also attends, told JNS that the full force of the law must be brought down on the attacker.

“There has to be a price to pay for Jewish blood and Jewish harm. There is mayhem going on,” he told JNS. “We’re a tiny percentage of the population, yet we’re over 50% of the attacks, and the mayor’s diatribes don’t help, of course.”

Thursday is Tisha B’Av, a fast day marking the destruction of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, among other tragedies, and many Jews spend hours in synagogue during the fast.

The incident occurred a day after United Jewish Teachers requested enhanced NYPD presence near synagogues and Jewish institutions after Mamdani shared a video, in which he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” and said he should be arrested.

The fast “is a time when we are all trying to get together and all trying to have more ahavas chinam, baseless love, and look what we have to contend with on such a day,” Schwartz told JNS. “We’re all preparing for Chodesh Elul,” the Hebrew month of Elul, which leads up to the High Holidays, “on Tisha B’Av. While we’re busy with introspection, they’re busy with their hate.”

“It’s just awful that this should come to a neighbourhood like the Upper West Side, which is such a progressive neighbourhood,” he said. “All the Jews are very much united. The fact is the victim is a visibly Jewish person. He wears a yarmulke, and I think he was targeted.”

The UJA-Federation of New York stated that it was “horrified but not surprised by today’s brutal attacks on the Upper West Side, when a man shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ stabbed two New Yorkers, one Asian and one visibly Jewish.”

“Words have consequences. Particularly, words from the mayor of New York City. These attacks came soon after Mayor Mamdani once again used his official platform to viciously attack Israel, the only Jewish state,” the UJA said. “We cannot ignore the dangerous climate created when elected leaders relentlessly portray Israel—and, by extension, the many Jewish New Yorkers who feel a deep connection to it—as uniquely evil and illegitimate.”

“At a time of rising tension and polarization, our city needs a mayor who rejects the dehumanization of every community, lowers the temperature and brings us together,” it said. “Jewish New Yorkers, all New Yorkers, deserve nothing less.”

Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in New York City, told JNS that Mamdani’s “incitement is putting Jewish lives in danger in New York, home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel.”

The mayor has “spent months fueling hatred, demonizing Israel and legitimizing hostility toward Jews,” Danon said. “Now take responsibility for the consequences. Every time you pour more fuel on this fire, you make violence more likely. Stop the incitement before more people get hurt.”

As details continued to emerge about the attack, Mamdani’s press office said that what was supposed to be a 5 p.m. “talk with the people” live stream hosted by the mayor, in which he took questions from the public via Twitch, was canceled. (JNS sought comment from the mayor’s office.)

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul stated that she is “disgusted by what appears to be another senseless attack on New Yorkers simply because they’re Jewish.”

“The strength of New York has always been our ability to live together across every faith and background,” she stated. “Anyone who tries to tear that apart will be met with the full force of the law. New York will stand with our Jewish community today, tomorrow and always.”

Surging Jew-hatred in New York City

In the first month of Mamdani’s term as mayor, anti-Jewish hate crimes were up 182 per cent compared to the prior year. Since then, the New York City Police Department has twice changed the ways it reports hate crimes, making it more difficult to compare statistics in recent months with prior years. Each month since January, Jews have been disproportionately attacked, often by manyfold, compared to their percentage of the population of the city, about 10 per cent. Still, Jews were targets of 55 per cent of all hate crimes in the city in the first six months of the year.

Mamdani promised on the campaign trail that he would have the Israeli prime minister arrested in the Big Apple, and his spokeswoman said that synagogues that host pro-Israel events violate international law.

Inna Vernikov, a Jewish member of the New York City Council, said the attack “comes a day after Mamdani incited more violence against New York City’s Jews.”

“I pray for the speedy recovery of the victims,” she wrote. “I never typically use this type of language on social media, but f**k you, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.”

Julie Menin, the first Jewish speaker of the New York City Council, stated that she is “absolutely sickened and furious by what appears to be an antisemitic stabbing on the Upper West Side.”

“While we await additional details to be confirmed, we know that what is happening in our city is abhorrent,” she stated. “The fear in the Jewish community is real. Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe in their neighbourhood, regardless of their faith or identity.”

“We must remain united in condemning antisemitism and ensuring those responsible are held fully accountable,” Menin added. “I thank the NYPD for its swift response in apprehending the assailant. My prayers are with the victims and their loved ones.”

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OTTAWA — B.C.’s premier argued Wednesday for blocking the U.S. from accessing Canada’s critical mineral supply in response to tariffs on his province’s lumber exports and other sectors.

B.C. Premier David Eby said at the first ministers meeting in Charlottetown that it was “inexplicable” for the U.S. to destabilize Canadian export industries, including forestry, while trying to gain greater access to Canada’s mineral wealth.

“We can’t have a country, on one hand, attacking one group of families and workers, while hoping to have access to the resources in Canada that the rest of the world wants,” said Eby.

He pointed to the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, regularly meeting with top Canadian mining executives and calling for co-operation while the White House continued to crank up economic pressure on other industries.

Eby’s comments come after the Trump administration announced a new wave of 50 per cent tariffs on a range of targeted Canadian goods , starting Aug. 19. The White House said the tariffs were in response to Canadian trade actions, including provinces boycotting U.S. alcohol, Canadian tariffs on U.S. autos, and restrictions on dairy imports.

The list of newly targeted goods includes several forestry products made in B.C., including wooden furniture and tableware.

Analysts say the new tariffs are expected to hit Ontario, Quebec and B.C. the hardest, while leaving Alberta and Saskatchewan relatively unscathed. The latter two provinces have not been boycotting American alcohol. But Eby has said there’s “not a chance in hell” his province will put U.S. booze back on the shelf.

According to one estimate, 13.7 per cent of B.C. exports will be affected by the tariff, the highest proportion of any province in Canada.

Eby strongly suggested he was willing to leverage B.C.’s critical minerals as part of a national response to the newly announced tariffs. Several provinces have mines or projects for critical minerals, including B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

“If the prime minister calls British Columbia and says he needs support with some big sticks to have conversations at the table, then we’ll be there,” said Eby.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford suggested Tuesday that Canada block exports to the U.S. of oil and potash , a vital agricultural mineral used in fertilizer, in response to the new tariff threat. The idea was quickly shut down by Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, whose province is the country’s sole producer of potash .

Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy research at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said that threatening U.S. access to Canadian minerals would be a dangerous escalation of trade conflict, given the importance of minerals in high-tech applications, including defence. China is currently dominant in global critical mineral supplies.

“Cutting off minerals is in a totally different universe of implications than taking booze off the shelves. One is a protest, the other is economic warfare,” she said.

Exner-Pirot said that, given the prevailing geopolitical instability, Canada should be leaning into its hard-won reputation as a reliable and trustworthy trade partner. She added that Canada plays an especially vital role in critical mineral supply chains.

Prime Minister Mark Carney traveled to Charlottetown on Wednesday for the conclusion of the first ministers’ meeting.

Carney said in his opening remarks that he’d do “whatever it takes” to defend the Canadian economy from U.S. aggression.

The prime minister is expected to speak with reporters in Charlottetown at 2:30 p.m. ET.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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