Wednesday Night #2324

30 September: The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
GG marks 6th National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with plea for ‘understanding the truth’
While Governor General Louise Arbour presides over ceremonies held in Ottawa, and Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Edmonton to speak at a commemorative event, Indigenous leaders remind Quebec: you can’t legally separate without our say.

As the Quebec elections loom, pollsters and commentators predict a PQ majority.  Despite the best efforts of Mme Fréchette, the CAQ appears to be in free fall.

Bad News Plagues the [US} Administration
On 26 September, Heather Cox Richardson summarized (some of) Trump’s recent woes:
Last night, the White House would not allow reporters from CNN on Air Force One as part of the press pool, With bad news plaguing the administration, Trump has reasons for wanting to control the press, A key prosecutor in the case of the Broadview Six resigned, in a scathing letter, The cases against the Broadview Six fell apart because of prosecutorial misconduct, The term of Andrew Boutros, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois has been problematic, Whistleblowers who worked at the Kennedy Center claim that $1.4 million that had been allocated to make repairs to the building’s roof was redirected to painting the building’s columns, While 69% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war in Iran, Trump has told aides that he is planning to resume bombing Iran after the midterms, Trump told heads of state at the UN that his administration is seeking a “fundamental change” in the government of Cuba, Marco Rubio told reporters that Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the meeting of the G20 in December, but 14 senators have urged Trump to rescind the invitation, The US and Russia worked together to weaken a UN plan to regulate AI weapons, The administration is refusing to spend $810 million approved by Congress for research, but the Constitution places the power of the purse in Congress and such “pocket rescissions” are illegal, Director of OMB, Russell Vought, claims otherwise, And while opposition to his moves continues to grow, Trump is considering hosting a Major League Baseball game at a national park.

US-China
Much hype building up to Xi’s arrival in Washington, coupled with the brouhaha of the banning of CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House and more coverage of meetings, sorties and THE dinner with all the tech giants. Much ado about nothing?
Our friend C Uday Bhaskar writes that the Trump-Xi summit showed limited progress. Trade tensions eased temporarily. Taiwan remained unresolved. India now faces a more uncertain strategic environment and points out Two communiques, two realities
“Both sides claimed success but they did not publish the same summit statement, and both the omissions and the emphasis in their respective statements are significant.: Trump-Xi Summit: Wary ties and strategic limits

AI or do we call it “super intelligence”
Ever since the first reports of rogue AI agent attacks, public discourse has grown increasingly wary of the rapid advance of the technology. Even Trump shifted his preferred position of referring to any negative comments as “a hoax” to the panicky convening of the tech giants to a meeting at the White House and an apparent agreement amongst them to establish guardrails and self regulate.  At White House, Trump Asks A.I. Titans to Police Themselves – colour us sceptical even if Sam Altman and Dario Amodei urged the UN Security Council to adopt international AI standards.

The UN General Assembly‘s week of leaders’ addresses and potential fireworks or breakthroughs has come and gone. Trump’s speech threatening the ‘annihilation’ of Iran was deemed by many to be a potential war crime, but of course he got away with it. The hoped-for diplomatic breakthrough om the Middle East did not happen. Bibi’s appearance caused numerous delegations to leave the chamber… As expected,he defended Israel’s strikes against Iran as a matter of national survival, described the violence in the West Bank as the work of a few “juvenile delinquents”, and rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza as “the greatest lie of the century.”
Now,  The Race for UN Secretary-General Has Come Down to Rebeca Grynspan — and Someone Else
The latest Security Council straw poll puts Grynspan firmly in front. But the real question is whether the eventual winner is even in the race yet.
For a positive take on the UN, do read Nicholas Kristof: The U.N. Is Terrible. We Need the U.N.

Coming events
THIS THURSDAY, October 1 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Reading and Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (in person or via Zoom)
Atwater Library
ALLISON HANES, Gazette columnist, and RÉMY ATTIG, the new Executive Director of the Quebec Writers’ Federation. will have a conversation about the impact of AI on human creativity.

CIC Couchiching Annual Conference
International Disorder – Building Bridges in a Fragmented World
October 7, 2026 | 8:30am – 7:00pm ET
Aga Khan Museum, Toronto
NB Kyle Matthews is participating in the first panel of the morning and the closing Keynote Address & Book Launch feature the Hon. Bob Rae. He is much in demand these days: on 9 October he will be in Dublin, speaking about the risks facing transatlantic subsea cables in the North Atlantic at the Institute for International and European Affairs event on The Undersea War.

Varia
Recommended reading Reclaiming Canadian Sovereignty in a Ruptured World is “a compilation of essays by prominent Canadians from Margaret Atwood to Michael Kovrig to Lloyd Axworthy edited and introduced by Bob Rae — arrives at a moment when many long-held Canadian assumptions no longer feel secure. Donald Trump’s return to the White House, his disregard for Canada’s independence, his use of tariffs as pressure, and his transactional view of alliances have forced Canadians to revisit something many had come to take for granted: that the relationship with the United States would remain, if not always easy, then at least basically benign.
Trump, though, is not really the subject of this book. He is the principal accelerant to the conditions it laments.”
Canada poaches dozens of US academics as Trump administration tightens university funding
Squamish man uses Halloween decorations to keep bears out of garbage (video)
A must-read for Chris Roper, Doug Sweet and Marc Nicholson  (See Long reads) 
The Secret to Winning on Jeopardy -Know a little about a lot.
No one loves The Compleat Angler more than Jeopardy does, and I am counting Izaak Walton himself; the show has asked about his book 35 times. If you want to appear on Jeopardy—and if you also want to win—it is important to know what Jeopardy likes.
If Jeopardy asks about Norwegian playwrights, the answer is almost always Henrik Ibsen.
The Iowa painter is Grant Wood.
The European duchy is Luxembourg.
The Zoroastrian singer is Freddie Mercury.
To win on Jeopardy, you don’t need to learn everything. You just need to learn one thing about everything.
Montreal squirrels change their coat colour depending on neighbourhood they live in, new study finds (video)

Long reads/videos
The Secret to Winning on Jeopardy -Know a little about a lot.

Regime Change and Corruption with Anne Applebaum (video)
Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum
…a clarifying and thoughtful conversation with historian and journalist Anne Applebaum, built around her September 14 Atlantic article, MAGA Is Making the World Safe for Corruption.

A very long read: Inside the Biggest Feud in Artificial Intelligence
A new world has arrived. Dario Amodei and Sam Altman cannot stop fighting over it.