Ukrainians demonstrate the highest level of "positive attitude" towards Great Britain, Canada, France and Germany. Negative attitudes are highest towards Russia.

These are the findings of the survey commissioned by the Kyiv Security Forum and conducted by The Razumkov Center on the eve of the Munich Security Conference, which will take place on February 13-15.

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The respondents were most positive toward Great Britain, with a balance of +94.3% (the difference between positive and negative assessments). Compared to September 2025, positive attitudes towards Britain have increased - at that time, the balance was +78%.

Canada (92.3%), France (87.5%) and Germany (83.5%) also received positive assessments. The positive balance of attitudes towards these countries has also increased compared to September last year.

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Ukrainians also have a predominantly positive attitude towards "international institutions". The balance of trust in the EU remains steady at "+79.5%".

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Ukrainians have a predominantly negative attitude towards "China" - the balance is minus 51%. Twenty-five per cent of respondents have a positive attitude towards this country (5.7% are completely positive, 14.8% are mostly positive), while 71.5% have a negative attitude (37.1% are mostly negative, 34.4% are completely negative).

The lowest level of positive attitude was recorded towards Russia - the balance is minus 98.1%.

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[Edit typo.]

Internet blackout, currency collapse causing financial, emotional strain.

For three weeks in January, Carleton University student Maryam Mansouri had no idea whether her mother was dead or alive.

The last Mansouri had heard, her mother was about to join thousands of Iranians in the streets of Tehran in protests that quickly turned deadly. That same day, Iranian authorities severed phone and internet access, effectively cutting the country off from the outside world.

"I was zooming in on [news] footage to find the body of my mom and my best friends," Mansouri recalled. To her relief, her mother was safe, but the internet shut down created other problems. She couldn't access the funds she needed from back home to pay the overdue tuition of more than $20,000 for her final semester at Carleton.

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Mansouri is one of thousands of international students from Iran struggling with both the emotional and financial toll of the turmoil back home.

"I know that people … think that international students are rich … but many of them, like me, they are coming from countries in danger of regime changes and uprisings," she said.

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While the country has seen waves of mass protests in recent years, Dena Abtahi, a research associate with the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), says the latest government crackdown, coupled with the economic collapse, is having a profound effect on Iranians around the world.

"There is no purchasing power to actually make ends meet within Iran,” said Abtahi, a former international student.

For students like Mansouri who rely on financial support from their family back home, those contributions have become "essentially worthless," Abtahi said.

On top of Mansouri's full-time course load, the fourth-year journalism student works two part-time jobs to try to cover her living expenses. She said she uses a food bank and has been able to cover her rent thanks to help from members of the Iranian community in Ottawa.

Stories like Mansouri’s are common, according to Abtahi, who’s heard from others who have had to change their visa status from a study permit to a work permit to afford basic necessities.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7204957

Archived link

• Focus Graphite's Lac Knife project in Quebec features 15% graphitic carbon content, approximately 3x higher than the industry average of 3-5%, providing significant cost advantages in a North American operating environment
• The company has secured $14 million in non-dilutive funding from Natural Resources Canada's Global Partner Initiative, with total cash position of $18 million and minimal near-term dilution requirements
• At $236 million capex for a 27-year mine life producing 50,000 tons annually, the project represents a fraction of typical critical mineral development costs, with potential for substantial debt financing coverage
• Focus is developing specialty large-flake graphite for military, defense, and aerospace applications, leveraging unique purification technology that preserves flake integrity without chemicals
• The company is in final stages of environmental permitting (ESIA completion expected within 3-4 months) and has already demonstrated material in missile applications, positioning for production in 2-3 years

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7204957

Archived link

• Focus Graphite's Lac Knife project in Quebec features 15% graphitic carbon content, approximately 3x higher than the industry average of 3-5%, providing significant cost advantages in a North American operating environment
• The company has secured $14 million in non-dilutive funding from Natural Resources Canada's Global Partner Initiative, with total cash position of $18 million and minimal near-term dilution requirements
• At $236 million capex for a 27-year mine life producing 50,000 tons annually, the project represents a fraction of typical critical mineral development costs, with potential for substantial debt financing coverage
• Focus is developing specialty large-flake graphite for military, defense, and aerospace applications, leveraging unique purification technology that preserves flake integrity without chemicals
• The company is in final stages of environmental permitting (ESIA completion expected within 3-4 months) and has already demonstrated material in missile applications, positioning for production in 2-3 years

...

Archived link

• Focus Graphite's Lac Knife project in Quebec features 15% graphitic carbon content, approximately 3x higher than the industry average of 3-5%, providing significant cost advantages in a North American operating environment
• The company has secured $14 million in non-dilutive funding from Natural Resources Canada's Global Partner Initiative, with total cash position of $18 million and minimal near-term dilution requirements
• At $236 million capex for a 27-year mine life producing 50,000 tons annually, the project represents a fraction of typical critical mineral development costs, with potential for substantial debt financing coverage
• Focus is developing specialty large-flake graphite for military, defense, and aerospace applications, leveraging unique purification technology that preserves flake integrity without chemicals
• The company is in final stages of environmental permitting (ESIA completion expected within 3-4 months) and has already demonstrated material in missile applications, positioning for production in 2-3 years

...

Archived link

Canadian volunteer Brittney Shki-Giizis left the Canadian military to fight in Ukraine. A former tank instructor, she explains why she chose to come to the front, how she learned Ukrainian to serve in a Ukrainian unit, and how the war’s shift toward drones led her to become an FPV (first-person view) drone pilot. She also reflects on being a woman in the Ukrainian military, the realities behind drone warfare, the cost of losing comrades, and why she believes any ceasefire without security guarantees would only delay Russia’s next attack.

Here is an Invidious link to watch the interview (22 min, original TY link is here).

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Immigration Minister Lena Diab has acknowledged many of these visa holders are no longer here temporarily — but the government has no concrete solution yet to their plight.

Now, her government is under new pressure to open a permanent residency pathway for the nearly 300,000 Ukrainians like Kryshtanovych who came to Canada through the emergency visa program.

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Launched in 2022, the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel, or CUAET, offered a three-year work or study permit to people fleeing the war.

With the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion fast approaching, many Ukrainians face limited options for seeking permanent residency.

Diab told The Canadian Press in January the government is aware some people on CUAET visas are here to stay.

“We now know it’s not temporary. They’ve been here for X number of years, and for the most part, people are working, they’re building a life, you know, they have children and so on. So I understand that,” she said.

“What I’ve been able to do so far as the minister is extend their status in Canada, whether it’s work or study, while we figure out what to do.”

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Ontario Liberal MP Yvan Baker has sponsored a parliamentary petition calling for a temporary permanent residency pathway for CUAET visa holders. That petition has gathered just over 45,000 signatures and is scheduled to close on Thursday.

Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine will enter its fourth year later this month, followed shortly after by the 12th anniversary of Russia annexing the Crimean peninsula.

The longer the war stretches on, the harder it is for [Ukrainian refugess like Roksolana] Kryshtanovych to envision a future living outside of Canada.

“I have friends here. I have work here. I see my life here,” she said.

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Archived link

Someone builds a dangerous new device and asks you to trust them and everyone else who will use it in the coming years. You don’t know who will get to use this device, or to what end. This information is provided on page 300 of a 600-page document. Deeply worried? So are we.

Introduced in Bill C-15, a budget-implementation legislation, that “device” is an unprecedented power given to federal ministers to exempt virtually any entity from all federal laws and regulations—except the Criminal Code. In other words, “no one is above the law”…unless a federal minister decides otherwise.

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The federal government is trying to downplay concerns by comparing this extraordinary new power to the use of so-called “regulatory sandboxes.” Regulatory sandboxes are targeted, highly transparent, tightly controlled and temporary environments for testing new technology to better understand their implications without facing strict legal liability. They have been precisely designed this way in Canada, Europe, South America, and elsewhere to be used in specific areas of public policy such as fintech, vehicle safety, aeronautics, innovative legal services and privacy protection.

Alas, the federal government is not identifying a list of specific regulatory hurdles that are ill-adapted to a new set of technologies and can be waived to allow small-scale pilots. Instead, the government is giving itself the sweeping power to sideline almost all federal laws and regulations, including the Canada Labour Code, our two federal privacy laws, the Hazardous Products Act and the Explosives Act.

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While Bill C-15’s new power is temporary—it has a six-year cap—it has none of the other essential characteristics of a regulatory sandbox, nor is it limited to innovation.

Far from creating a regulatory sandbox, the federal government is designing a potentially boundless desert where any person, company, or individual, private or public, of any size, in any industry, in any sector, could seek authorization to bypass federal laws in the name of “competitiveness” or “economic growth.”

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Laws adopted by democratically elected officials should not be seen as an inconvenience. Some of them are the result of hundreds of years of advocacy, debate, and hard-won reform. While laws must be capable of adapting as values evolve and as new challenges emerge, they also need to remain grounded in collective experience and respect values that have long defined the social contract—such as justice, dignity, and fairness. Canada’s core fabric, including its economy, climate action, health and environment are all at risk if the laws that structure and protect them can so easily be set aside by the executive branch of government.

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Long ago, the people of Canada decided that a small group of people in a position of power should not make decisions behind closed doors that benefit the select few who have their ear. Division 5 of Bill C-15’s Part 5 directly threatens this fundamental principle. For the sake of our democracy, and for as many reasons as we have laws, this division must be removed from Bill C-15.

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Archive link

Here is the open letter (pdf).

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The NGO Hong Kong Watch and nine other Hong Kong diaspora organizations have raised serious concerns over the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on law enforcement cooperation signed between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China.

While recognizing the importance of combating transnational crime, the groups warn that the lack of transparency surrounding the agreement has created fear and uncertainty within Hong Kong diaspora communities in Canada. Many Hong Kongers fled repression by Chinese authorities and now fear that closer cooperation with China’s internal security apparatus could undermine their safety, privacy, and willingness to engage with Canadian law enforcement.

The organizations urge the Government of Canada to release the full text of the MoU, clarify its scope and safeguards, and demonstrate that cooperation on crime will not expose diaspora communities to intimidation, surveillance, or transnational repression. They also call on lawmakers and the media to treat diaspora safety and trust in Canadian institutions as matters of public interest and national importance.

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Archived link

European Union defense ministers on Wednesday approved national investment plans from eight member states totaling €38 billion, clearing the way for the first disbursements under the bloc’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program.

The officials also adopted a decision authorising the EU to sign the bilateral agreement between the EU and Canada on the participation of Canadian companies and products originating from Canada in procurement under the SAFE Instrument.

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SAFE is an EU financial instrument supporting member states that wish to invest in defence industrial production through common procurement, focusing on priority capabilities ... boosting production capacity, ensuring the timely availability of defence equipment, and addressing existing capability gaps.

Canada will be the first non-European country to participate in the SAFE instrument.

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The deliberate destruction of Canada’s homegrown fighter jet haunts our standoff with Washington.

Archived link

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In the early 1950s, Canada faced a strategic reality that’s easy to forget today. The shortest route for Soviet bombers carrying nuclear weapons to reach American cities ran straight over the Canadian Arctic. Canada wasn’t a junior partner in continental defence. It was the forward line, much like Ukraine or the Baltics are today.

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The [Canadian] CF-105 Arrow was not “ahead of its time” in the lazy way that phrase often gets used. It was simply advanced, full stop. The aircraft featured a large delta wing optimized for high-speed, high-altitude flight. It was designed for a two-person crew, integrated advanced avionics for its era, and was intended to carry sophisticated radar-guided weapons.

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The Arrow was so ambitious that Canada didn’t even have the facilities to test all aspects of it domestically. Avro relied on American test ranges and research infrastructure, including National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics facilities in the United States.

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Avro engineers leaned on American facilities and suppliers because that’s where the tools were. US test centres had already been built for exactly this kind of work, and American firms dominated key subsystems, from interim engines to avionics components.

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None of that implied sabotage or covert pressure in the moment. It meant that Canada was trying to build a world-class interceptor inside a North American aerospace ecosystem that was already deeply integrated, asymmetric, and tilted south.

The Arrow rolled out publicly in October 1957.

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On February 20, 1959, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s government cancelled the Arrow and the Iroquois engine program. That date is still known as “Black Friday” in Canadian aerospace circles ... The reasons were not mysterious, even if they remain controversial.

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The Arrow was expensive. Canada was also being asked to invest in missile defence systems and to integrate more deeply into NORAD, which had just been formalized with the United States. At the same time, strategic thinking in Washington was shifting toward intercontinental ballistic missiles as the dominant threat, reducing the perceived value of manned interceptors in some circles.

Canada could not afford everything. The Diefenbaker government chose a path that favoured missiles, alliance integration, and cost control over domestic aerospace ambition.

That decision alone would have been painful but survivable. What followed was something else entirely.

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Thousands of skilled workers lost their jobs overnight. Many left Canada entirely. A significant number went on to work in the United States, including on National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) programs.

Canada didn’t just lose a jet. It lost a generation of aerospace momentum. And it lost confidence, temporarily.

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But make no mistake; the Arrow still matters in 2026, and Canadians should be proud. If the Arrow were just an old jet, it would be a museum piece. Instead, it keeps coming back because Canada never replaced what it lost.

France did. Sweden did. France chose to preserve an independent combat aircraft capability through programs like Mirage, Rafale, and now its Future Combat Air System ambitions. Sweden evolved its Gripen line, through the Draken, accepting trade-offs but retaining control.

Canada walked away from that path in 1959 and never returned. Every fighter since has been imported. Every decision has involved trade-offs between capability, cost, and political alignment.

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That choice [of cancelling the Arrow] echoes. Every time Canada debates whether it can say no to Washington, the answer is shaped by what Canada can and cannot build on its own. Sovereignty isn’t just flags and borders. It’s industrial capability, supply chains, and the ability to absorb political friction without losing operational control.

Canada gave that up in 1959. The Arrow wasn’t stolen. It wasn’t smuggled away in the night. It wasn’t quietly dismantled by American agents. It was surrendered, cleanly and decisively, by a government that chose the path of least resistance and paid a price it didn’t fully understand at the time.

That price is still being paid, one procurement cycle at a time. And that’s why, every time Canada’s fighter future becomes a bargaining chip, the Arrow rises from the wreckage and asks the same question it’s been asking for sixty-six years. Who really controls Canada’s skies?

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7181724

Archived link

Reflecting on the preliminary agreement between Canada and China to address economic and trade issues, China’s ambassador to Canada Wang Di says that we “should advance co-ordination across all sectors … In a spirit of mutual understanding and friendly consultation.”

Canadians should hear the pitch politely — and then read the fine print.

“Co-ordination” and “friendly consultation” sound perfectly amicable. They suggest predictable rules, neutral tribunals and commerce insulated from politics. But Beijing’s operating assumption is different. For Beijing, increased trade is not a destination. It is leverage — banked for the next dispute.

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Beijing’s ambassador is asking Canadians to imagine a version of China that behaves like a normal trading partner. The record suggests caution.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s report on the Chinese Communist Party’s coercive diplomacy tracked 152 cases over a decade and notes Canada among the more frequently targeted countries. The pattern is familiar: pressure is applied, the political link is denied and the target is invited back into the warm light of “good relations” if it makes the right gestures.

Canadians don’t need to look far for what this feels like in practice. When relationships sour, the pain is rarely spread evenly across the economy. It lands where it can generate domestic pressure — farmers, exporters, universities or a single marquee firm that can be singled out and made an example.

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China is simply not built to uphold international agreements in the ways Western nations still too often expect. Its party state can fuse economic policy, internal security and propaganda in a single campaign. Beijing treats narratives and markets as connected instruments of national power.

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We [Canada] need selective engagement and hard guardrails. Keep channels open for consular cases and narrow commercial issues, while tightening rules on critical minerals, sensitive data, advanced research and dual use technology. If Beijing wants deeper access, it can start by proving reciprocity and predictability.

Then we need strategic coalitions before concessions. Carney’s “variable geometry” is applicable: build resilience with like minded partners first — Japan, the EU, Korea, Australia — then engage China from a position where “no” is credible and costs are shareable.

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Finally, we [Canada] need to view domestic national security resilience as part of our broader economic policy. Transparency rules, foreign interference defences and research security are not side issues. They are the entry fee for doing business in a world where economics and politics are braided together.

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