2 in 5: Mark Carney, who is campaigning for the Liberal Party leadership, has pledged to meet a target of spending 2% of GDP on defense. That would be two years earlier than stipulated under current commitments made by outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The matter has taken on fresh urgency in light of US President Donald Trump’s demands that NATO allies raise the benchmark to 5% of GDP – and his threats to annex Canada.
21: Immigration advocates and lawyers are calling on Ottawa to suspend a 21-year-old agreement with the United States under which Canada sends asylum-seekers apprehended at the border back into the US for processing. Critics say that the Trump administration’s recent moves to drastically restrict refugees’ access to asylum petitions fall afoul of international law, and they warn that Canada should not be complicit in these violations by sending people back to the US.
200: What’s the word among Wall Street analysts these days? Tariffs. Tariffs. Tariffs. So far this year, the term has come up at least once in more than 200 earnings calls with top companies listed on the S&P, a major stock index of American firms. The big question, of course, is how are companies planning to cope either with higher US tariffs themselves, or with the broader political and economic uncertainty about if, when, and how heavily Trump will use them.
