Happy Friday! China’s foreign minister’s in town and Pierre Poilievre’s accusing Carney’s government for bringing Canada into a recession, just your average end-of-week vibes on the Hill. Here’s what we got:

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi says China could more than double Canadian exports by 2030 if Ottawa maintains “stable and positive” policies toward Beijing, during his first visit to Canada in a decade amid a broader push to stabilize bilateral ties.

“China-Canada relations have experienced some twists and turns in the past few years,” Wang said in Mandarin during opening remarks alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand at Global Affairs Canada.

“Under the strategic guidance of the leaders of both countries, our relations have restarted,” Wang said.

The meeting comes days after a Canadian warship transited the Taiwan Strait despite warnings from Beijing against sailing through the waterway.

While the event was not open to questions from reporters, one journalist shouted a question to Yi asking for his reaction to the transit, during a pooled photo opportunity.  He did not respond.

Sydney Ko has more. 

Also, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is blaming Prime Minister Mark Carney’s policies for Canada entering recession territory.

Statistics Canada released a report Friday that said the economy contracted slightly for the second quarter in a row to start the year — a benchmark that meets some definitions of a technical recession.

Some economists weighing in after that release said the recession talk was premature and argued that while Canada’s economy is soft, the declines are marginal and do not meet the definition of a widespread downturn.

Poilievre said Friday there’s nothing technical about rising rates of mortgage delinquency, increased food bank usage and five quarters of falling business investment.

“The only way out of this Liberal recession is to reverse the policies that caused it in the first place. And that is why we are calling for the prime minister to get back in the House of Commons next week and introduce a bill to reverse all of the economic policies his party has introduced over the last decade,” Poilievre said.

The Canadian Press has more. 

A Liberal criminal justice bill targeting coercive control and sextortion could pass in the House in the coming days, but it’s unclear if there’s support in the Senate to fast-track the legislation before the summer recess.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser appeared before the Senate on Thursday for question period, where he was challenged on the timeline for Bill C-16 by Conservative Sen. Denise Batters.

READ MORE: Fraser urges passage of C-16 before summer recess, says bill could ‘potentially save lives’

She accused Fraser of treating the Senate and the chamber’s legal affairs committee “like a rubber stamp” by expecting the bill to complete review within a week or two.

C-16 likely won’t pass in the House until the end of next week. The House is scheduled to rise on June 19, while the Senate’s scheduled to sit until June 23.

Marco Vigliotti’s got this one. 

Up for a long read for the weekend? Here’s one about the Green Party.

“The new politics is the Green Party versus Reform,” argued UK Greens leader Zack Polanski after his party’s record showing in the council elections earlier this month.

The election deepened the ongoing fragmentation of a British political landscape that, for the past two centuries, has been largely dominated by the Labour and Conservative parties.

Although the vote was limited to municipal councils, BBC calculations put the Greens’ projected national share at an unprecedented 18 per cent, securing a second-place finish just behind Reform UK at 26 per cent.

While local elections carry different dynamics than national ones, they provide a reading of the political climate.

In this case, a majority of the electorate backed alternatives to the two main parties.

Aya Dufour has more. 

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Elsewhere, the EU is to release more than €16bn to Hungary that had been frozen under the rule of Viktor Orbán, with Ursula von der Leyen hailing the “winds of change” in the country since the election of Péter Magyar last month.

The decision, described as a “historic breakthrough” by the new prime minister, comes as police in Hungary have said they will allow next month’s Pride parade in Budapest to take place. Last year they sought to block the event on the orders of the government of the rightwing Orbán.

Last year’s march made headlines around the world after Orbán’s Fidesz party backed legislation – the first of its kind in the EU’s recent history – that created a legal basis for Pride events to be banned, citing a widely criticised need to protect children.

Since Magyar was elected in a landslide victory, setting off celebrations across the country as Hungarians marked the end of Orbán’s 16 years in power, the new leader has repeatedly voiced support for equality and freedom of assembly.

The Guardian has more. 

Meanwhile, in the hunt for cheaper gas, people are going out of their way for discounted fuel at Costco and Walmart — many of them visiting for the first time. Drivers also are now filling up more often, but topping up with fewer gallons at a time.

As the U.S. war in Iran continues to drive up gas prices, Costco’s gas stations have been selling record amounts of fuel, executives told investors on a call Thursday. In fact, Costco had never sold as much gas as it did between April and mid-May, CEO Ron Vachris said, with stations having to get multiple daily gas deliveries to keep up. People have been willing to drive further and wait in line longer to buy cheaper gas.

“A lot of members are increasing their frequency of visiting the gas station to top up in between what would have normally been a gap between getting the tank to empty because of the concern about what might the gas price be tomorrow,” said Gary Millerchip, Costco’s finance chief.

At Walmart’s gas stations, in recent weeks, people have begun to fill up with fewer than ten gallons at a time, for the first time since 2022.

Read more from NPR. 

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

And finally, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. marked Friday as National Burger Day.

He declared that the “war on protein is over” now that “real American beef” is back on the menu.

As iPolitics editor-in-chief noted, the only war Trump’s administration seem to be winning is a totally fictional one.