National Newswatch

U.S. ran secret probe into China’s operations in Canada, new book alleges

Mar 18 2023 — Alexander Panetta — The United States ran a secret probe into national-security threats posed by Chinese overseas operations that drew alarming conclusions about Canada, alleges a new book co-authored by a former RCMP officer. The book says the project, code-named Operation Dragon Lord, led to an unnerving takeaway: that Beijing’s activities in Canada represented a security threat to […]

Why Canada won’t say a word about Trump’s return to politics

Nov 25 2022 — Alexander Panetta — The Canadian government has an unequivocal position on what it intends to say regarding the just-announced political comeback of Donald Trump: nothing. Two years after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed the then-U.S. president for inciting a riot in an effort to cling to power, the Canadian government intends to keep mum. Conversations with Canadian officials […]

U.S. military weighs funding mining projects in Canada amid rivalry with China

Nov 13 2022 — Alexander Panetta — The United States military has been quietly soliciting applications for Canadian mining projects that want American public funding through a major national security initiative. It’s part of an increasingly urgent priority of the U.S. government: lessening dependence on China for critical minerals that are vital in everything from civilian goods such as electronics, cars and […]

Meet the election deniers on the cusp of controlling U.S. elections

Oct 31 2022 — Alexander Panetta — Let’s try imagining what the next U.S. presidential election might look like. It’s 2024. It’s been a bitter, hard-fought campaign. Votes are being counted. Now consider a scenario where these are the people in charge of administering elections: the people who set rules, issue guidance to poll workers, or confirm the winner. In Arizona, imagine […]

U.S. Senator: Canada’s a freeloader on defence and it’s getting tiring

May 10 2022 — Alexander Panetta — A U.S. senator derided Canada as a freeloader on defence during a high-profile congressional hearing Tuesday in Washington — and suggested he’s getting fed up with it. It happened during an exchange about the anticipated $40 billion US in additional help for Ukraine that the U.S. Congress is expected to imminently pass. Alaska’s Dan Sullivan […]

In America’s partisan carnival, Justin Trudeau is now on display

Feb 19 2022 — Alexander Panetta — Canada’s diplomats in the United States have a recurring fear: that our country might become ensnared in America’s bitter partisan wars. Take oil pipelines as an example: Democrats win power and cancel a project, Republicans get back power and reverse the policy, Democrats replace them, and on and on it goes, ad infinitum. It’s what […]

U.S. Congress asks Facebook: What role did fake overseas accounts have in promoting Canada convoys?

Feb 18 2022 — Alexander Panetta — American politicians are demanding details from Facebook about how many fake online accounts created by foreign actors helped promote Canada’s convoy protests. The chair of the most powerful investigative body in the U.S. House of Representatives this week sent a letter to company founder Mark Zuckerberg seeking information about inauthentic activity.

U.S. won’t stand for border blockades becoming normalized

Feb 15 2022 — Alexander Panetta — Canada’s economy has billions of reasons to hope that recent border blockades get quickly forgotten as a fleeting phenomenon by decision-makers in the United States. This country’s second-most valuable export industry, automobiles, depends even in normal times on being perceived as reliable by its main customer and not as some incident-prone flake. And these aren’t […]