Canadian

In a statement, the Army Cadet League of Canada, a civilian organisation that supports the programme, said it strongly condemns “any online harassment, or mockery of cadets’ achievements”.

“Directing derogatory commentary toward youth who are actively working to better themselves and serve their communities is unacceptable,” the organisation said.

Speaking to broadcaster CBC, Canada’s top military commander, General Jennie Carignan, said they are in contact with the cadets involved and any response they may have.

“We are consulting with them on how they want to go about doing this,” she said.

Other officials weighed in, including Scott Anderson, a Conservative member of parliament for the Canadian city of Vernon and a former military reservist, who in a post directed at Hegseth accused him not living up to the “responsibility and decorum” that comes with his title.

“You have chosen to set both aside and insult two female Canadian non-combatants, and to intentionally shame them before millions. You should be ashamed,” he said.

“Our economies, our continental defence and our cultures are irretrievably intertwined and yet we are two distinct nations. Canadians and Americans should have no problem with each other, but I have a problem with you,” Anderson added.

A number of pundits and some Canadians accused the defence secretary of “body-shaming” with his post.

Trade talks broke down between Canada and the US last month, with both sides accusing the other of last-minute demands that torpedoed a tentative agreement.

The US immediately imposed 50% tariffs on some $20bn (C$28bn) of Canadian imports, and Canada plans to bring in matching countermeasures next week.

Both sides have traded insults, including Ontario Premier Doug Ford calling Trump a “loser”, the US president seeking to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, and transportation secretary Sean Duffy accusing Canada of being a country that “doesn’t have a military”.

Still, the two counties have long been defence partners and allies, including when Canada backed the US in the war in Afghanistan.

Canada has also significantly ramped up defence spending in recent months after years of lagging behind Nato targets.

Hegseth, a veteran, is himself under pressure at home following a string of recent high-profile military leaders leaving the Pentagon and questions about the US handling of the Iran war.

He has also long focused on the appearance and physical fitness of US troops and on what he calls the “warrior ethos”.

Canada’s economy has rebounded sharply in the second quarter after six months of virtually no growth, aided by a strong jump in exports and solid domestic demand, though a new round of tariffs from the United States brings renewed uncertainty.

The economy grew at an annualised rate of 3.3 percent in the second quarter, the fastest rate since 2023, after a revised 0.3 percent increase in the first quarter, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

The upward revision to first-quarter growth means Canada was not in a technical recession, usually defined as two straight quarters of contraction.

Healthy domestic demand, led by consumer spending and business investment, signals the economy is slowly brushing off the impacts of more than 18 months of US import tariffs that upended North American supply chains and increased costs.

Renewed tariff dispute

A strong domestic consumption and expenditure pattern puts Canada on a firm footing to withstand a new 50 percent US import tariff that President Donald Trump imposed this week on $20bn of Canadian exports. Canada retaliated with its own countermeasures on US imports.

“It seems like households and businesses were beginning to find ways of navigating the trade-related uncertainty before the latest round of tariffs,” Royce Mendes, managing director and head of macro strategy at Desjardins, wrote in a note.

“While it helps that the economy was on stronger footing heading into August, the fresh wave of protectionism injects a significant amount of uncertainty into the outlook,” Mendes said.

Michael Davenport, senior Canada economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note to Al Jazeera that while the gross domestic product (GDP) growth was along expected lines, “the economy is set to slow in the coming quarters amid escalating US-Canada trade policy uncertainty, new bilateral tariffs, and a shrinking population”.

The Canadian dollar weakened slightly after the GDP data, with the loonie trading down 0.01 percent at 72.17 US cents.

On a quarterly basis, GDP grew 0.8 percent for the period ended June, from an upwardly revised 0.1 percent in the previous quarter.

Second-quarter annualised growth was higher than the Bank of Canada’s July forecast of 2.5 percent growth.

Higher exports were one of the main contributing factors for the second-quarter growth, with outbound shipments growing 3.6 percent, the biggest increase in over three years, Statistics Canada (StatsCan) said.

Stronger household spending

Final domestic demand, the sum of all consumption and capital spending and a crucial metric to assess domestic health, rebounded to 1 percent in the second quarter, from a minor contraction in the first quarter.

Domestic demand has been muted for several quarters as consumers and businesses remain cautious while Canada navigates its trade war with the US.

But household final consumption expenditure, the main indicator of consumer spending, rose 0.8 percent, its highest level in three quarters, highlighting stronger household spending. This was mainly driven by higher wages and government benefits, economists said.

Business investment, or business gross fixed capital formation, sprang to a solid 2.3 percent growth in the second quarter from a contraction of 1.3 percent, the first time in the last year and a half that business investment has expanded.

That growth was led by investment in both residential and non-residential structures, machinery and equipment, StatsCan said.

However, the general gross fixed capital formation, essentially government expenditure for creating assets, continued to decline with a second-quarter contraction of 2.9 percent, after shrinking 2.6 percent in the previous quarter.

On a month-to-month basis, GDP for June grew 0.3 percent against a forecast of 0.2 percent, and an advance indicator showed that the economy was largely flat in July, the statistics agency said.

Aug. 21 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s threatened 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods hung in the balance Friday as U.S. and Canadian negotiators met in Washington with a midnight deadline looming.

Canadian Minister for Internal Trade Dominic LeBlanc, his country’s lead negotiator, arrived at the offices of U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer shortly after noon as the two sides met to strike a deal ahead of Trump’s 12:01 a.m. Saturday deadline, the CBC reported.

The U.S. president signed orders in July to impose 50% tariffs on Canadian goods, including cement, hockey sticks and many other items, representing about 2% of the entire trade between the United States and Canada.

The tariffs were to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, but were delayed through the end of Friday by an announcement on social media issued about 90 minutes before the deadline in which Trump said the two sides “have a DEAL!” with final implementation to come.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, however, was much more cautious, saying only that “substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done.”

Details of the touted agreement have been scarce. However, Trump teased the possibility that it could reinstate work on the abandoned proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, which was dropped by then-President Joe Biden in 2021 over climate concerns.

The U.S. president also intimated that U.S. tariffs on Canadian autos could be part of the deal, which Greer suggested that the United States could adjust its current tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Canadian negotiators, meanwhile, want to ease the tariffs already imposed on Canadian industries, including duties of up to 50% on steel, aluminum and autos. Some tariffs also affect Canadian softwood lumber.

On Wednesday, after Trump extended the deadline, Carney urged a “Team Canada” approach during a virtual meeting with provincial and territorial premiers as some of them have toed a hard line in refusing to stock American alcohol products, which is seen as a main irritant to the Trump administration.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew on Thursday told reporters if a new deal allows a return of U.S. beer and spirits to Canadian shelves, local consumers should “leave it there.

“Don’t buy it. Let it sit on the shelf … and buy the Canadian stuff instead,” he said.

Carney on Wednesday emphasized “continued collaboration with provincial and territorial governments as the federal government works to finalize a deal with the United States,” according to an official readout of the meeting.

He reiterated the government’s goal is to “secure the best deal for Canadians — one that provides the greatest possible U.S. market access for Canadian businesses,” and emphasized “the importance of remaining focused on Canada’s central economic strategy: building our economic strength at home and diversifying our partners abroad.”

Aug. 12 (UPI) — Thousands of Canadians have signed a petition demanding the government kick the U.S. ambassador to Canada out of the country.

The petition, which had almost 60,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning, will be presented to the House of Commons this fall by Green Party leader Elizabeth May. It says that Ambassador Pete Hoekstra should be declared persona non grata and the Canadian government should request his removal from the country.

The petition accuses Hoekstra of repeatedly making public statements that undermine Canada-U.S. diplomatic relations, including characterizing the 2025 Canadian federal election as “anti-American;” normalizing the Trump administration’s threats to annex Canada as the “51st state;” and accusing Canada of interfering in U.S. domestic politics while making repeated interventions in Canadian political discourse. The petition also said Hoekstra was linked to a Michigan-based voter identification app used by the Alberta separatist Centurion Project, while claiming no knowledge of its use, and that The Alberta Prosperity Project [a separatist organization] met with U.S. State Department officials three times between April 2025 and January 2026, with Hoekstra claiming to have no knowledge of those meetings.

The petition was created by a woman from Calgary.

A representative for the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa declined to comment on the petition except to say the embassy is aware of it, the CBC reported.

In June, Hoekstra said that Canada’s annexation by the United States would be a great topic of discussion for Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hoekstra was a member of the House of Representatives representing western Michigan from 1993 to 2011. He was the ambassador to The Netherlands, his country of birth, during Trump’s first term. He was named ambassador to Canada in April 2025.

In 2023, the Canadian government declared Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei persona non grata after he was accused of gathering information in Hong Kong about the family of Conservative Member of Parliament Michael Chong.

The following year, six diplomats and consular officials from India were expelled after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police alleged that the agents were targeting Canadian citizens. They linked the tracking to the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijar in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2023.

The police linked the campaign to the June 2023 murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.

Carney and the Canadian government have worked to improve relations with China and India.

Elena Rybakina stages a huge comeback to beat Naomi Osaka and will now play Coco Gauff for a place in the final.

Second-seeded Elena Rybakina fought back from a set and a break down to prevail 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 in her Canadian Open quarterfinal against Naomi Osaka in Toronto on Tuesday.

Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon and 2026 ⁠Australian Open champion, will meet fourth-seeded Coco Gauff for a place in the final after the American’s opponent, Belinda Bencic, withdrew due to a hip injury.

In ⁠the first tour-level meeting between Osaka and Rybakina, the Japanese player looked to be cruising to victory after breaking in the opening game and holding that advantage to pocket the first set.

The four-time Grand Slam champion then surged to a 4-2 lead in ‌the second set, but Rybakina rallied and came out on top in a tiebreaker to force the decider.

In the third set, the Kazakh successfully defended four break points before breaking Osaka’s serve in back-to-back games to seize control and seal victory in two hours and 33 minutes.

“This first game of the match was really tough because it cost me the set,” Rybakina said. “In the second ⁠I was just trying to stay closer to the score, ⁠even if I’m losing.

“It’s rare when you don’t play some players for so many years you’re on tour. She’s a great champion. She’s a fighter. I knew it would be a tough match.”

Earlier ⁠on Tuesday, Gauff advanced without striking a ball after Bencic withdrew from their quarterfinal, giving the American more time to ⁠fine-tune her game before the US Open.

The 2023 ⁠US Open champion is into the 16th WTA 1000 semifinal of her career as the 22-year-old chases her first title of the year.

Gauff finished runner-up in Miami and Rome before her Wimbledon campaign ended ‌in a tight semifinal defeat. She has introduced new tactical elements to her game and has looked strong in Toronto, where she has not dropped a set.

The only ‌previous ‌meeting between Gauff and Rybakina was also in Toronto, where the American won in three sets in 2022.