Zelenskyy in Canada – iPolitics

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised Canada on Thursday for offering some form of air defence.

Standing alongside Prime Minister Mark Carney before their meeting in Calgary, Zelenskyy told reporters he was thankful for the air defence while adding he wouldn’t “spoil” what seems to be a looming announcement.

“This is a very important package of air defence. This is crucial. This is a big deficit in the world. We are thankful for this,” Zelenskyy said.

He also praised Canada’s financial, diplomatic and moral support throughout the war, which Russia launched in 2014 and expanded to a full-scale invasion in 2022.

“We are thankful that we have such strong partners as Canadians,” Zelenskyy said. “We are thankful for all the billions, all (the) packages — what Canada did from the very beginning of this absolutely tough period, during all this war.”

He said Thursday’s talks will cover preparations for winter and for the prospect of further Russian strikes on critical infrastructure. Zelenskyy was set later in the day to address federal cabinet members gathered in Banff, Alta.

The Canadian Press has more.

*The BC Ferries vessel Spirit of Vancouver Island leaves Tsawwassen, B.C., bound for Swartz Bay, on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck*

A new report says building ferries in British Columbia would help the province weather the harsh economic trade winds coming from the United States.

The report from the Centre of Future Work says building ferries in local shipyards rather than purchasing them from foreign ones would help the provincial and Canadian economy grapple with steep American tariffs.

A coalition of unions and industry leaders commissioned the report, which appears 15 months after BC Ferries announced it had contracted a shipyard owned by the Chinese government to build four major vessels at a cost that’s yet to be disclosed.

The ferry operator, which is overseen by the B.C. Ferry Authority, said at the time that no Canadian company had submitted a proposal and the winning bid from China Merchants Weihai Shipyards was at least $1 billion cheaper than others.

But the decision sparked outrage, and labour economist Jim Stafford, co-author of the report released Thursday, says it’s a mistake government must not repeat, especially in light of tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

CP’s got this one too.

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Internationally

Meanwhile, when Jacob York found out that Charlie Kirk had been fatally shot, he was at baseball practice. Standing in the outfield, he broke down in tears. That night, he decided that Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, should have a chapter on his campus. So he got to work starting one himself.

“I feel like there [were] many of us who had that wake-up call,” said York, 21, who attends Olivet Nazarene University, a small Christian school south of Chicago.

“I think I submitted the request to start a chapter six times,” he recalled. “There were so many requests that it kept saying, ‘Oops, try again later.’”

Kirk’s death one year ago on the campus of Utah Valley University was as stunning for his followers as it was painful. A little more than a decade earlier, he had founded Turning Point with the goal of getting more young people involved in conservative politics. By the time he died at age 31, he had become one of the most revered figures on the right, especially among Generation Z and millennial conservatives.

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

As summer winds down, film buffs are turning to an event of the season: the Toronto International Film Festival.

Here’s the political twist: former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his longtime chief of staff, Katie Telford, are set to launch a new entertainment production company on Friday at the film festival.

The company’s name? Hope & Hard Work, a throwback to the slogan that helped propel Trudeau and the Liberals from third place to government in 2015.