Canada’s unemployment rate in May at almost 9-year high outside pandemic years

Canada’s unemployment rate in May jumped to its highest level in almost nine years, excluding the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.6 million jobless people in the country, data showed on Friday.

The unemployment rate ticked up to seven per cent in May from 6.9 per cent in April, a third consecutive monthly increase, Statistics Canada said, adding that the total of jobless people in May was almost 14 per cent higher than a year ago.

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🇺🇸🪖Nearly 2 in 3 say Canada should not join Trump’s Golden Dome defence system: Nanos

A majority of surveyed Canadians are against joining U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defence system, new polling from Nanos Research shows.

🔹63 per cent of respondents said Canada “should not be part of the American Golden Dome,” and should instead prioritize spending “on the capability of Canadian Armed Forces.”

Roughly 17 per cent of respondents supported paying the required costs to join the Golden Dome, with 20 per cent telling pollsters they were unsure.
#US
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🇺🇸 U.S. Ambassador dismisses concerns over Canadians facing device searches at border

U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra dismissed concerns about Canadians facing device searches and detainment at the U.S. border, calling these incidents "isolated". Ottawa’s updated travel advisory in April warned of potential scrutiny. Hoekstra emphasized the U.S. is welcoming, noting some Americans face similar issues in Canada.

The CBSA stated its officers must treat travelers professionally. Despite assurances, travel between the two countries has declined.
#US
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🔥 Saskatchewan RCMP charge two in wildfires; Manitoba fires force 1,000 more to evacuate

Saskatchewan RCMP charged two individuals in connection with wildfires: an 18-year-old woman from Montreal Lake Cree Nation and a 36-year-old man from Pelican Narrows. The woman is accused of starting a fire near La Ronge that forced 7,000 people to evacuate, while the man allegedly set fires near Snowden.

In Manitoba, the town of Snow Lake was evacuated as a wildfire east of Flin Flon grew to over 3,000 square kilometres, bringing total evacuees in Manitoba to 19,000. Both provinces are under states of emergency.
#Saskatchewan #Manitoba #wildfires
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Alberta Premier Smith ‘going to convince’ B.C.’s Eby to build pipeline through their provinces

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she’s ready to convince her counterpart in British Columbia to support building a pipeline to transport oil from her province, through his, to tidewater.

B.C. Premier David Eby said last week he won’t support a new pipeline, arguing the Trans Mountain Expansion Project is already in place.

Smith’s comments come after Prime Minister Mark Carney kicked off the week with a much-anticipated first ministers’ meeting on Monday, focusing largely on identifying so-called nation-building projects. Among them: a potential oil pipeline to tidewater.
#Alberta #BritishColumbia
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🔥Canadian Armed Forces deployed to assist northwestern Ontario wildfire evacuations

The federal government is deploying members of the Canadian Armed Forces to help evacuate a northwestern Ontario First Nation as wildfires rapidly spread in the region.

Prime Minister Carney said in a social media post that Ottawa has accepted Ontario’s urgent request for assistance in and around Sandy Lake First Nation, and the military will help with emergency airlift evacuations.
#Ontario #wildfires
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🇺🇸 U.S. crackdown on illegal immigrants is sending a surge of refugees to Canada

The number of refugee seekers processed by the Canadian Border Services Agency has shot up by 87 per cent between January and April.

In April, 494 ineligible refugee claimants from the U.S. were turned back at the Canadian border under the Safe Third Country Agreement, which bars most people from seeking asylum in Canada at the border. That’s up from 280 in January — a 76 per cent increase.

Growing refugee traffic at the Canadian border this year has emerged amid a looming clampdown on illegal immigration in the U.S. that experts say could trigger a flood of asylum seekers to Canada.
#US #border #immigration
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🪖Carney to announce Canada’s defence spending will hit NATO’s target of 2% of GDP this fiscal year, sources say

Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to announce what his government is billing as the largest increase in defence spending since the Second World War, measures that sources say would enable Canada to meet NATO’s 2-per-cent military expenditure target this fiscal year, well ahead of any previously announced schedule.
#NATO
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🇮🇱 U.K., Australia, Canada and others impose sanctions on far-right Israeli ministers

Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Norway jointly imposed the sanctions, which will restrict the right to travel and will freeze the financial assets of the Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir; and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.

Mr. Smotrich and Mr. Ben-Gvir are among the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, reacted defiantly, describing the move as “unacceptable,” and saying the government would meet next week to discuss a response.
#UK #Israel #Australia
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🪖Canadian military surpasses 2025 recruitment goal, hits 10-year high

The Department of Defence released numbers Monday, showing that 6,706 recruits enrolled in the regular forces between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, surpassing its target of 6,496.

The figures represent a 55 per cent increase from the previous year and a 10-year peak.

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Visitors on expired visas expected to leave on their own: Immigration Minister

Visitors who have stayed in Canada well past their visa expiry dates are required to leave the country on their own, Immigration Minister Lena Diab said.

It is not up to the Immigration Department to enforce the removal of deportees, she added.

A 2024 government briefing note indicated there may be up to half a million undocumented migrants in Canada.
#immigration
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❌ Poilievre calls for ‘severe limits’ on Canadian population growth

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the Canadian population has grown out of control and is calling on the Liberal government to further reduce immigration.

We want severe limits on population growth to reverse the damage the Liberals did to our system. The population has been growing out of control, our border has been left wide open. This has caused the free flow of drugs, illegal migration, human trafficking and much worse.

#Poilievre #immigration
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🚨 Almost $50 million in cocaine found hidden in trucks crossing into Canada from U.S., police say

A cross-border drug smuggling network using commercial truck drivers to haul large loads of cocaine across the border from the United States into Canada has been revealed by police in southern Ontario, leading to the arrest of nine men and the seizure of 479 kilograms of bulk cocaine bricks.

Of the nine arrested, six have since been released on bail while three are still awaiting bail hearings after what Peel Regional Police described Tuesday as the largest drug bust in the police service’s history.
#Ontario #US
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🇮🇳 Carney should rescind Modi’s G7 invite over surveillance of Jagmeet Singh: NDP

The NDP is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to rescind Narendra Modi’s invitation to the G7 Summit after it was revealed a suspected agent of the Indian government surveilled their former leader.

Jagmeet Singh was under surveillance by an agent suspected of working for the Indian government, which resulted in the former NDP leader being placed under RCMP protection in late 2023.
#India
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🇺🇸 ‘Stay away from demonstrations’: Canada updates travel advice for L.A.

The Canadian government is warning travellers to “stay away from demonstrations” in U.S. cities like Los Angeles.

Protests over immigration raids erupted in Los Angeles on June 6 and have since spread to other major U.S. cities like Chicago and New York.

In an update to its travel advice and advisories for the U.S. published late Wednesday, Global Affairs Canada urged travellers to Los Angeles and other impacted cities to “follow the instructions of local authorities, including curfew orders.”
#US
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🇺🇸 U.S. border officials say additional checks of Canada-bound vehicles are here to stay

U.S. border officials said that outbound searches of vehicles heading north into Canada are now the norm and will be happening indefinitely.

U.S. officials say that while the majority of Canadians heading north are bringing back the usual gas and groceries, on May 1 they stepped up vehicle searches for drug smuggling and human trafficking.
#US
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🗳Former MP Pablo Rodriguez chosen as new leader of Quebec Liberal Party

Quebec Liberals have chosen former MP Pablo Rodriguez as their next leader after voting closed Saturday.

Rodriguez bested opponent Charles Milliard in the second round taking 52.3 per cent of the points allocated.
#Quebec
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🇨🇦🇬🇧 Canada and UK set to restart trade talks

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Ottawa on Sunday, agreeing to restart trade talks between the two nations.

The negotiations, previously stalled by disputes over cheese and beef exports, will be handled by a new working group tasked with finding solutions within six months. Both governments emphasized cooperation in areas like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and critical minerals, highlighted by Canadian company Cohere Inc. expanding operations in both countries.

In 2024, the UK was Canada’s fifth-largest trade partner, with $38 billion in bilateral trade.
#UK
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🇺🇸 Trump says trade deal with Canada ‘achievable’ as G-7 opens

President Donald Trump expressed optimism about settling a trade dispute with Canada during his time at the Group of Seven summit, calling a deal in the coming weeks between the US and its northern neighbor “achievable.”

I think we have different concepts. I have a tariff concept. Mark has a different concept, which is something that some people like, but we’re going to see if we can get to the bottom of it today.

Trump said during a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
#US
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💸 Cost of Canada hosting G7 Summit

Canada’s yearlong G7 presidency is culminating in a three-day meeting June 15 to June 17 in the Rocky Mountain resort town, hosted by Prime Minister Mark Carney. It will be the seventh time Canada has hosted the annual gathering of advanced economies.

The last time Canada hosted the G7 was in Charlevoix, Que., in 2018. That meeting, as well as related events over the course of that year, were estimated to cost $600 million.

That was double the estimated $300 million price tag the G7 Research Group placed on the 2002 Kananaskis summit.

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❌ Conservatives seek lifetime ban for ArriveCan contractor GCStrategies

The Conservatives have put forward a motion calling on the government to impose a lifetime ban on contracts for GCStrategies after the Auditor-General’s report that Ottawa paid the company millions of dollars, often without ensuring work was actually done.

The Liberal government announced last week that GCStrategies is banned from federal contracting for seven years, but a lifetime ban would extend that indefinitely.

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