It’s Thursday, September 3. Here are the top stories we’re following today.
Yuan Yi Zhu: Mark Carney’s contemptuous jaunt to EU Parliament before Canada’s
“Prime Minister Mark Carney has suggested that Canada is ‘at war.’ Not a shooting war, but about as serious a business for the country’s future as anything in our history,” Zhu writes. And just like prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King did as the Second World War was breaking out, Carney is going to Parliament. “But unlike King, he will be going to the European Parliament.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about the trade dispute with the United States at the Davie Shipyard in Levis, Que., on Aug. 24, 2026.
Mark Carney rejects U.S. claim that Canadian politics ended trade talks
“I don’t think, with all respect, appointed, unelected cabinet members in the United States are experts on Canadian politics,” the prime minister said in response to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claim that Canada’s reasons for blowing up trade talks last month had to do with the Quebec provincial election and Alberta’s referendum.
Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a news conference regarding the trade situation with United States, in Ottawa on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026.
John Ivison: The truth about why trade talks broke down has yet to be told
Ivison says that Canadians should be concerned that their government’s account of the failed U.S. trade talks “is at best ambiguous.” He notes that “the public still trusts the prime minister, but his reputation for candour was dented by his version of the Gordie Howe bridge-funding deal and it may take further hits as accounts of how the talks broke down continue to trickle out.”
A truck laden with vehicles crosses the Blue Water Bridge border crossing into Port Huron, Michigan, from Sarnia, Ont., on April 3, 2025.
U.S. abandonment of CUSMA would be severe but survivable for Canada, report finds
A U.S. withdrawal from the Canada-United-States-Mexico trade agreement would have a “severe but not cataclysmic impact on Canada’s overall economy, although perhaps cataclysmic for some sectors,” according to the new report by Deloitte Canada. The report predicts that sectors that rely heavily on exports would suffer the most.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with travel industry executives in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Sept. 2, 2026.
Trump says his threat to tariff Canadian aircraft started from a conversation with a wealthy friend
“Essentially (Gulfstream) can’t sell any plane in anything having to do with Canada, but Bombardier has free rein over the United States,” Trump said while telling the story. He added that they both made “very good planes.”