Good evening, readers.

So, maybe we will lend a hand in efforts to clear the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz?

Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday endorsed a statement from Canada and its allies expressing their willingness to contribute to efforts to reopen the vital shipping route more than two weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

The statement does not say how they propose to help, although Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canada is “considering” aiding Iran’s neighbours if they seek assistance from the NATO alliance.

In response to the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes launched on its territory last month, Iran limited traffic through the strait — through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas transits — and bombed major fuel shipping sites, causing global oil prices to spike.

U.S. President Donald Trump said NATO allies needed to help the U.S.’ efforts to reopen the passage and fumed when he was apparently rebuffed.

Canada joined the statement shortly after it was published by the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan.

Next week, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand will be pitching her G7 peers in Paris on possible off-ramps to end the war.

Anand said Iran’s blockage risks humanitarian crises in poor countries, and she is working with both traditional allies and newer Middle East partners to protect civilians.

The Canadian Press has more.

The other big news of the day comes stateside.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s hugely popular podcast went live on Wednesday.

One of the more interesting takeaways came when Rogan asked him if Trump’s remarks sank the Conservative campaign in last spring’s election and helped the Liberals win another term in power.

Poilievre said Canadians were rightfully “very upset” with the president and would never want to be part of the U.S.

“It is a crazy thing to say. Canada is not for sale. We’re never going to be the 51st state. We love Americans as neighbours and friends, but we want to be uniquely and we want to be sovereign as Canadians,” he told Rogan in an interview that aired on Wednesday.

Poilievre didn’t directly blame Trump for helping the Liberals with his comments but said he wished the president would “knock that shit off so that we can get back to talking about the things that we can do as two separate countries… that are actually friends.”

Rogan, who is mostly seen as supportive of Trump, agreed with Poilievre’s assessment of the 51st state remarks, calling it a “crazy thing to say.”

Marco Vigliotti has more.

Defence Minister David McGuinty has walked back his remarks about when and how he learned about an Iranian airstrike that may have hit Canadian assets in Kuwait earlier this month.

In prepared remarks Thursday — which he described as a “clarifying statement” — McGuinty said he first learned about the airstrike in a briefing with government officials, not by reading about it in a newspaper.

Earlier in the day, the minister suggested to reporters at a news conference he did not learn about potential damage to the Canadian camp at a Kuwait airbase on March 1 until the Quebec newspaper La Presse reported on it on March 12.

A London Free Press journalist asked McGuinty at an event in Kitchener, Ont., when he had “first learned about this attack.”

The minister replied he was “first informed about the situation in the Middle East while abroad with the prime minister on a global tour in the Indo-Pacific.”

As the reporter was asking a followup question asserting the minister “knew about this before La Presse reported on it 11 days later,” McGuinty quickly interjected.

“No, I didn’t know about it before La Presse reported on it,” McGuinty said. “I saw the La Presse story while I was overseas.”

Later Thursday, McGuinty’s press team sent a video of the minister reading out a statement “clarifying” his earlier remarks about the airstrike.

“I receive intelligence and security briefings regularly. I am made aware of incidents relating to (Canadian Armed Forces) members and assets around the world. That was the case immediately following the strike, and that continues to be the case,” McGuinty said, reading from a lectern at another event.

CP has this one.

The feds are shedding light on their plans to cut billions of dollars from programs that support science, tourism, harbour improvements, journalism, foreign aid, and even the development of a Canadian-made lunar rover module.

The cuts are detailed in hundreds of pages of departmental plans tabled in the House of Commons last Friday as MPs were preparing to return to their ridings for March break week.

Then, there’s the government’s 2026-27 spending plan that was tabled in the House on March 3.

Together, those sets of documents paint a picture of a Carney government that has clearly set significantly different spending priorities from its predecessor, with a heavy focus on national defence — year-over-year defence spending will jump nearly 12 per cent, or $5.3 billion — while dialling back spending on health, the environment and funding for regional economic development, according to a Global News analysis.

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Iran hit a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea and set Qatari liquefied natural gas facilities and two Kuwaiti oil refineries ablaze, sending international gas and oil prices soaring. Brent crude oil is up more than 60% since the start of the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump pledged the U.S. would “massively blow up the entirety” of the world’s largest gas field if Iran attacks Qatar again. Trump made his threat against Iran’s South Pars natural gas field after Iranian missiles hit Qatar Wednesday, following an Israeli attack on the same field.

The Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in additional funds for the Iran war, a senior administration official said. It’s an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of extra funding the Defense Department already received last year in Trump’s big tax cuts bill.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said at least four people were killed in the occupied West Bank town of Beit Awa as Iran fired missiles toward Israel. At least 13 others were injured. More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed during the war. Israeli strikes have displaced more than 1 million Lebanese, according to the Lebanese government, which says over 1,000 people have been killed. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire. At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.

AP reports.

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

Fans know that this year is really the last one Major League Soccer’s traditional spring-fall structure.

But the league today finally unveiled plans for a truncated season that will transition the league to a permanent summer-spring schedule, starting in July 2027.

The “sprint season” will see each of the league’s 30 teams play 14 regular-season games between February and April 2027, with seven matches at home and seven away.

CP has this.