First Nations leaders in Manitoba are seeking accountability after they say a 75-year-old elder was harassed and accused of stealing by two men at a Winnipeg Walmart store.

Elder Mary Laquette, who is from Lake St. Martin First Nation, said the men swore at her, took items from her, accused her of stealing and ordered her to leave the store.

"It's not right for somebody to treat me like that, when I wasn't even thinking of stealing," said Laquette, who has mobility challenges and uses a walker.

She uses the walker to store the items she intends on buying while grocery shopping.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is set to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the world's most popular podcasts.

Poilievre revealed in a social media post on Wednesday that he had recently sat down with host Joe Rogan.

"Fought for Canadian workers and Canadian interests on the world’s biggest podcast. Thank you [Rogan] for an amazing conversation. Let’s get tariff-free trade," the Opposition leader wrote on X.

A Conservative spokesperson confirmed with CBC News that a three-hour long episode of Rogan's podcast featuring a conversation with Poilievre will be released Thursday.

A student in Rivers, Man., says he is stunned the small community was the site of a high-profile arrest after police say a teenage boy was planning simultaneous school attacks with another youth in Nova Scotia.

"I was surprised. Didn't really expect it. It's a small town. You don't really think of things like this happening in such a nice community," Cole Lelond, a Grade 11 student at Rivers Collegiate, said.

"It definitely worries me, now that I know things like that could happen in such a small community."

Police in Bridgewater, N.S., said they were alerted by international police agency Interpol and the FBI about online communications between a 15-year-old girl in that town and a 14-year-old boy in Manitoba. The pair were communicating about their desires to mount attacks at their local schools, Park View Education Centre and Rivers Collegiate, police said.

Félix Trudeau, president of the STTAL-CSN, Canada’s first Amazon warehouse union, found the partnership especially troubling given the company’s decision to close its Quebec warehouses last year in response to the successful unionization campaign:

“I find it incredibly cynical, because when we were running a more active, more intense boycott campaign [last year] and it was all over the media, the government was saying it would cut contracts and talked about breaking off from Amazon. Now, a year later, we can see that it was all just empty promises. It was hollow. As soon as they feel like they can go back to business as usual, they do. It’s a real stab in the back for the laid-off workers.”

“When people talk about Canada as part of the problem, not part of the solution, it’s precisely this kind of thing that we’re talking about.”

The numbers:

• Poilievre, CPC 13.7%
• Lewis, NDP 42.6%
• Carney, Liberal 39.5%
• May, Green 2.3%
• Another Cand. 1.9%

Source: https://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/post/can-avi-lewis-begin-an-ndp-comeback-in-beaches-east-york

The Doug Ford government will not publish guidance for bringing at-risk species back from the brink — plans that were underway when Bill 5 passed, removing requirements for recovery planning

The United Kingdom and Canada will maintain pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine ... according to the Canadian prime minister's office.

"The prime ministers ... reaffirmed their determination to maintain pressure on Russia to end its war of aggression against Ukraine and underscored Canada and the UK's steadfast support for Ukraine," the statement said.

...

...

The agreement focuses on advancing bilateral investment, driving technological solutions for traceability and decarbonization, improving regulatory and governance frameworks, promoting environmental and social best practices and building skilled and diverse workforces. It strengthens Canada’s role as a major foreign mining investor and boosts our exports of mining equipment, technology and services to Peru, creating new opportunities for the Canadian mining industry.

...

Since summer 2025, the Government of Canada has signed 21 mining and critical minerals bilateral collaboration frameworks with global partners and led the creation of the G7 Critical Minerals Production Alliance, which has unlocked $18.5 billion in capital for mining projects in less than six months.

...

Archive link: https://archive.is/J99Ka

Archived link

Negotiations for the second round of the Philippines' free trade agreement (FTA) with Canada in April will cover seven key areas.

“It will be a full round of negotiations [that will] cover competition policy, customs and trade facilitation, digital trade, dispute settlement, economic and technical cooperation, environment, exceptions and general provisions,” [according to Philippines Trade Undersecretary Allan] Gepty.

...

Also up for discussion are financial services, good regulatory practices, government procurement, intellectual property, investments, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, small and medium enterprises, state-owned enterprises, technical barriers to trade, telecommunications services, temporary movement of business persons, trade in goods, trade in services, transparency, and anti-corruption.

...

It would be the Philippines‘ first trade deal in North America.

...

Alberta’s separatist rumblings are often framed as the latest chapter in a decades-old constitutional quarrel with Ottawa. But let’s be honest: the current rhetoric has little to do with fiscal policy or a West-versus-feds division of power. The noise is largely coming from a small cohort (only 8 percent of Albertans “would definitely vote to leave”) steeped in conspiracy-theory-fuelled grievance.

Much of that grievance is seen through the lens of immigration.

Start with Mitch Sylvester, chief executive officer of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP). A key voice in the movement, Sylvester openly embraces the far-fetched and racist great replacement theory—the idea that evil elites are trying to replace, as Sylvester puts it, “old stock white Canadians.” He has also suggested that citizenship should be restricted to “people who are born here.” Other prominent APP individuals claim the feds are pushing a “jihadist extremist population” on Canada (this from the same person who thinks “the Marxists, they’re here and trying to get our kids”).

To call this language a dog whistle is an insult to dog whistles. There is nothing subtle about how Alberta separatists scapegoat immigrants. Of course, not everyone interested in breaking away endorses xenophobic theories. But such ideas no longer stay on the fringes. They are now aired, repeated, and—crucially—normalized by the political mainstream. Alberta Conservatives are leaning into the MAGA strategy of treating newcomers and temporary workers as a source of social problems, exemplified by Premier Danielle Smith’s recent call for a referendum on “out-of-control” immigration to the province.

Theo Osborne is dancing again — about a month after he was attacked at a southeast Manitoba school.

The 11-year-old suffered a concussion, lost a tooth and had some hair pulled out in what his mother, Melissa Johnson, said was racially motivated bullying and assault at Stonybrook Middle School in Steinbach.

Johnson said the students who attacked Theo made fun of his long hair. Theo told his mom he was being bullied by two boys in December and that the bullying escalated after the winter break.

Johnson contacted the school's principal and Theo's teacher to address the bullying. She said her son tried going back to Stonybrook three times after the assault, but the bullying continued.

Johnson met with school officials but said they minimized Theo's experience by refusing to call what happened an "assault." She said not using accurate language dismissed the harm done to Theo.