Big project problems – iPolitics

We’re starting off tonight’s newsletter with some MPO updates.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak criticized the federal MPO’s approach to First Nations at a press conference Tuesday.

“I’m going to say it outright: they don’t know what they are doing when it comes to First Nations,” she said.

She says CEO Dawn Farrell has turned down repeated chances over the past year to speak to chiefs and assemblies.

“Why, you’re too good to come and talk to our chiefs? Stay at home, stay in Calgary,” she said, adding that she’s stopped bothering to invite the special government agency’s leadership altogether.

Woodhouse Nepinak said she’s hearing the same thing from chiefs across the country, with the MPO sending junior staff to meetings with communities, which isn’t “helping the relationship.”

Aya Dufour reports.

*NDP MP Heather McPherson speaks during a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa, on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby*

Canada has contributed to dozens of aid projects in the Palestinian territories that have since been damaged by the Israeli military and settlers.

Projects that received at least $3.68 million in funding from countries, including Canada, have been destroyed, damaged or abandoned in the West Bank alone, according to documents tabled Monday in Parliament after a request by NDP MP Heather McPherson.

The Carney government says it hasn’t decided if it will ask Israel to compensate Ottawa for these lost assets, or whether Canada will help finance repairs for any of them.

McPherson says Canada is allowing Israel to bomb schools and water plants in Gaza while settlers destroy solar panels, latrines and homes.

The Canadian Press has more.

*Premier David Eby at the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito*

Also, British Columbia Premier David Eby has called an election less than two years into his mandate and amid chaos within the B.C. Conservative Opposition whose leader quit days ago.

The NDP Leader went to Government House in Victoria on Tuesday to ask Lt.-Gov. Wendy Cocchia to dissolve the legislature, setting off an election campaign with voting day on Oct. 24.

Eby said the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump and his trade war represented an “existential moment” for B.C.

The date of final voting is a week after municipal elections are scheduled, and Eby called the vote despite pleas from numerous local government leaders not to overlap the campaigns.

CP’s got this one too.

In Other Headlines

Internationally

President Trump flaunted U.S. power and unilateral global actions during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, claiming the U.S. acted while other world leaders hesitated.

In his speech, Trump painted himself as a peacemaker, highlighting peace deals he’s announced around the world while defending his Iran policy.

“I hope the Europeans realize that Iran’s goal was to complete their mad dash to a nuclear bomb from behind this conventional ballistic missile shield; if they had succeeded, that wicked regime would have been free to spread terror and death forever, knowing that any attempt to stop them would face an arsenal of nuclear annihilation,” Trump said.

Trump said he faces a decision on Iran: make a deal with the U.S. or “annihilate the Islamic republic.”

The president said later in the day that U.S. officials had met with Iranians for three hours.

NPR has more.

The EU has agreed to remove two Russian billionaires, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, from its sanctions list, while extending restrictions on nearly 3,000 individuals and companies accused of supporting the war on Ukraine for the next three years.

With an end-of-Tuesday deadline looming to preserve the Russia blacklist, the EU’s 27 member states found a compromise that meant delisting the two oligarchs in spite of very few countries wanting this outcome. EU sanctions have to be approved unanimously.

France stunned and infuriated EU governments this month when it called for Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbek national, to be removed from the list on “national security” grounds, reported to refer to a prisoner exchange deal involving French nationals and Azerbaijan.

Luxembourg then asked for the same treatment for Fridman, the Russian-Israeli magnate, who is suing the Grand Duchy for $16bn (£12bn) for freezing his assets.

The exemptions angered many EU countries which believe it sets a bad precedent by allowing member states to weaken sanctions in defence of national interests.

The Guardian has more.