Wednesday Night #2276

Peter Frise‘s choice for Wednesday Night study:
Ian Bremmer: State of the World 2025 (YouTube)

Canada-U.S. Relations
All is not smooth sailing since Doug Ford’s impudent ad citing Ronald Reagan on tariffs
Trump ends trade talks with Canada over tariffs ad that Ontario premier now says he’ll phase out
The U.S. president alleged the ad misrepresented the position of Reagan, a two-term president who remains a beloved figure in the Republican Party, and was aimed at influencing the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of a hearing scheduled for next month that could decide whether Trump has the power to impose his sweeping tariffs, a key part of his economic strategy.
Ontario premier says he’ll pull ad that upset Trump so trade talks between Canada and US can resume
“We’ve achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels,” Ford said in a statement.
“Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses.”
Ford said the commercials will continue to run this weekend including during the first World Series games between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Professor Peter Jones of Ottawa U, writes: This isn’t just a hissy fit from Trump – it’s his ‘Art of the Deal’ playbook
Doug Sweet highly recommends Ben Rhodes: The Thread Tying Together Everything Trump Does (See Long reads below)
Whether he is seeking a cease-fire in Gaza or Ukraine, bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela or deploying troops to American cities, the desired result is his personal aggrandizement and the empowerment of his presidency. When he pursues peace, it is personalized — a deal made with other strongmen rarely addresses underlying causes of conflict. When he makes war, it is also personalized — there is no expectation, for instance, that Congress must authorize his actions.
We remain angry and distressed over the demolition of the White House East Wing, a demonstration of Mr. Rhodes’ thesis.
White House fires arts commission expected to review Trump construction projects
The moves come as President Donald Trump pursues efforts to build a White House ballroom and a triumphal arch in Washington.

Multilateralism is flourishing in Asia
As Trump and other leaders make their way from the ASEAN Summit to the APEC 2025 Summit (31 October-1 November) analysts are reading the tea leaves to ascertain what will happen (Trump and Xi talks: what will be on the agenda when US president meets China’s leader?). All agree that the significant developments will emerge from the bilateral meetings (i.e. Trump & Xi), but are uncertain what those developments may be. PM Carney, on his first official trip to Asia, appears determined to use his bilateral with Xi to improve relations with China (Carney to discuss ‘resetting of expectations’ with Chinese president). As the NYT puts it, Scolded by Trump, Canada’s Prime Minister Turns to Asia for Trade – Mark Carney is pitching Canada as a predictable and responsible alternative to the United States.

The news from Darfur Sudan is horrifying.
Massacres under way in Darfur after militia captures besieged city, reports say
Widespread reports of massacres and other atrocities are emerging from Darfur after a powerful Sudanese militia captured most of the famine-stricken city of El Fasher at the end of an 18-month siege.
… El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, was the last remaining city outside the RSF’s control in the Darfur region of western Sudan. The RSF built a 57-kilometre earthen wall around the entire city this year, cutting off its food supply. As the siege tightened, it attacked the city with drone strikes and artillery shelling, and reportedly executed civilians who tried to leave or enter the city. …
Human rights groups have been predicting for many months that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) would begin executing non-Arab civilians if it captured the city where an estimated 260,000 people have been under siege. On Monday, evidence of the massacres was triggering alarm around the world.

Climate Change – Waters, seas, natural disasters
The arrival of Hurricane Melissa which is rewriting meteorological records reminds us that the debate over climate change continues relentlessly
On the other side of the globe, Vietnam’s ancient cities of Hue, Hoi An vanish under floodwaters after record rainfall
…Global warming is making tropical storms stronger and wetter, according to experts, because warmer oceans provide them with more fuel, driving more intense winds, heavier rainfall and shifting precipitation patterns across East Asia.
Last week, Ron Meisels introduced an article from the Financial Post by Bjorn Lomborg: Media reef madness a great barrier to good policy
Coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef fluctuates — a lot. But world media only seem to report when it declines, even if from record highs.
This sparked a discussion in which opinions were sharply divided on the veracity of Lomberg’s claims, his credibility in general. Please see Oceans and seas 2024– especially Bill Maher puts the fate of the Great Barrier Reef in the spotlight (long reads below)

Local (Quebec, Montreal and Westmount) news
Quebec
We know that Doug Sweet is anxious to talk about the Two-bit Trump aka Legault proposal for a Quebec Constitution, however, we may defer that discussion, which will no doubt go on and on, in favour of the even more recent outrage, Quebec adopts special bill into law forcing new compensation system on doctors. Under the new law, a portion of doctors’ compensation will now be linked to performance targets relating to the number of patients, particularly vulnerable ones, they care for. Quebec medical specialists announce legal challenge of new compensation law Physicians who take “concerted action” to oppose the government’s policies could face severe penalties, including fines of up to $20,000 per day. Those actions could include groups of three or more doctors refusing to teach medical students or deciding to leave the public health system or move to another province.
Doctors have been up in arms since the bill was forced through the national assembly. After an initial demonstration on Sunday in Montreal, about 15 physicians showed up in front of the legislature on Tuesday morning with black tape over their mouths to protest the new law, known as Bill 2. Sounds like a great case for Julius Grey. We have not yet heard from Dr. Mark Roper.
Montreal
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante isn’t running for re-election, and polls suggest her Projet Montréal party’s leader Luc Rabouin isn’t as popular as Soraya Martinez Ferrada of Ensemble Montréal, the majority party from 2013 to 2017 under Denis Coderre.
Martinez Ferrada is leading by nine points against Rabouin, according to two Léger polls conducted in September. Another conducted this month, by Segma Research, places her eight points ahead of him.
But nearly half of voters were undecided at the time of the two Léger polls (42 and 48 per cent), with the Segma poll measuring that at just over a third of voters.
However, we have no doubt that Ensemble Montreal’s candidate in our Peter McGill district will be elected.
Last Saturday evening, Wednesday Night was alive and lively as we hosted a Meet and Greet for Leslie Roberts and our neighbours and friends from Haddon Hall. It was a great success and such fun to see people once again gathered around the dining room table. Lots of Q & A. One of the most popular answers was that Ensemble would immediately cancel any and all proposals to close Camilien-Houde and would take the money dedicated to that unloved project and dedicate it to solutions for the homeless.
Westmount
As Election Day (2 November) looms, View from the Voting Booth / 2, Wanda Potrykus’ excellent and entertaining profiles of the three candidates for the Mayor’s chair is a delightful and informative read.
We strongly support our friend Lynne Casgrain and are enthusiastic about her ideas and ability to deliver, but at this stage, the race is hotly contested. Although civility has pretty much ruled during the candidates’ public appearances, there is an unpleasant undercurrent that most recently surfaced in an exchange between candidate and former Councillor Mary Gallery and former Mayor Peter Trent regarding a citation by Gallery allegedly taken from Peter’s book that was not founded in fact. The dispute is laid out on pages 12 and 13 of the Westmount Independent
Price’s final thought
One last point for the reader: Gallery seems to disparage Trent’s reliability due to his mayoral choice in this election (“Mr. Trent is publicly supporting another candidate [Lynne Casgrain] whose views differ from mine”), but it was Gallery who chose to try to co-opt Trent to her side by bringing him up, presumably because of his opposition to the council that she was a part of and because of his support of her opponent. How can she now complain when he talks about what he meant in his book?
David Price is the editor of the Independent. He is looking forward to the end of this election
Our own thought is anyone who takes on Peter Trent had better be awfully sure of their facts.

Varia
We love the various memes
First, came the Louvre heist. Then came the memes
Am I the only person not to know that there was a notorious “Pink Panther” gang that stole $500 million worth of art, jewels ?
Suspects arrested over the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum
Two suspects were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, justice and police officials said Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world and sparked a massive manhunt. The Paris prosecutor said that investigators made arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. Funny, neither suspect is Lupin, George Clooney or the Pink Panther.

Media matters
CBS News anchor John Dickerson becomes latest figure to exit network
Announcement comes amid concerns about network’s ownership and ability to maintain editorial independence

Nobel laureates sound the alarm over artificial superintelligence
Last week, several Nobel laureates and high-profile celebrities cautioned that the threat of artificial intelligence is real, particularly regarding what’s known as artificial superintelligence. Max Tegmark, head of The Future of Life Institute and a professor doing AI research at MIT, spoke to The World’s Host Marco Werman about why experts — including him — are calling for urgent action.

What Canadians should know about a new policy requiring all travellers to U.S. have photo taken
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is amending its policies to require that all non-citizens — including Canadians — be photographed when entering or leaving the United States.
The new security regulations, posted in the federal register Monday, are set to come into force on Dec. 26, although it could take years to fully implement them.

Long reads/videos
The Thread Tying Together Everything Trump Does
For Mr. Trump, the common thread weaving together so much of what he does — at home and abroad — is power.

Brookings experts weigh in
What’s at stake during Trump’s visit to Asia?
and APEC 2025: What’s at stake?

Bill Maher puts the fate of the Great Barrier Reef in the spotlight – but something’s missing from the soundbites
Graham Readfearn
Lomborg’s view, that the climate crisis is not the biggest threat to coral reefs everywhere, is shared by almost nobody actually researching the issue

A Brief History of the White House East Wing
Though the East Wing’s current form dates to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, its history actually traces back to Thomas Jefferson, who in the early 1800s added the original East and West Terraces.