Controversial comments made this week by Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, in which she said Premier Doug Ford could end up imprisoned, have left political analysts divided over whether the rhetoric energized her base or undermined her credibility.

“Don’t worry about it, Doug. When I’m premier, I’m going to call a public inquiry into all of this,” Stiles said. “Maybe you don’t get another mandate because you’ll be in prison, Doug.”

Stiles said “a lot of terrible stuff” is going to be revealed about the conduct of the Ford government if a public inquiry is launched after the premier’s time in office concludes. She brought up the government’s clamp-down on freedom of information legislation and the Greenbelt scandal as examples of Ford’s misconduct.

Progressive Conservatives quickly framed Stiles’ statements as a slide into “Trumpian-style” speech that was beyond the pale.

Ford called her remarks “unacceptable” and also invoked Trump. “She doesn’t have to apologize, whatever she wants to do,” said Ford. “But we aren’t going to lower ourselves to the Trump-style rhetoric she’s feeling right now.”

Marion Nader, the CEO of Nexus Strategy Group, said Stiles’ comments employ a political strategy that is common. “Aggressive language is used, and it’s a calculated move to break through the noise and to get attention,” she said.

She said Ford himself made similar comments in 2018 about the gas plant scandal engulfing the provincial government at the time. Then-premier Kathleen Wynne accused Ford of sounding like Trump for suggesting that a “few more Liberals in jail.”

Stiles is attempting to rally her base and win over some Progressive Conservatives as it’s a moment when the Liberals are going up in the polls, but they do not have a leader, said Nader.

Jamie Ellerton, a principal at Conaptus, a communications agency, said Stiles has not succeeded in energizing her base with the prison comment.

“I actually think she went too far with what she was trying to say,” he said. “All it’s doing is eroding her credibility.”

What could be seen as successful are Stiles’ recent political advertisements that take her messaging back to its substance, rather than inflammatory comments, said Nader.

The backlash could continue to be an opportunity for Stiles, as each time her prison comment is brought up, she can bring up the scandals plaguing the Ford government, said Nader.

“She can come back and talk about the RCMP investigation, the FOI changes, cellphone issue, the luxury jet,” she said. “The reason why they do it is to they can keep talking about it.”

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

A popular potato chip maker in New Brunswick says it is continuing efforts to limit its facility’s impact on nearby residents.

The Covered Bridge Potato Chip company says it started taking steps last year that included setting up a large fence, planting trees and adding sound-deadening measures.

The company’s president Brook Dickinson said in a statement Friday it would complete any outstanding tasks in the plan for its Woodstock, N.B., facility in the coming weeks and that it was in full compliance with municipal and provincial regulations.

Over a dozen residents of the town have said they are planning to take legal action against Covered Bridge for ruining their neighbourhood with noise, smells and traffic.

The allegations come less than a year after the company opened the facility following a fire that destroyed its original plant in nearby Waterville.

The group of 17 residents initially sent their claims to a provincial regulator called the Farm Practices Review Board.

The residents could pursue their case before the Court of King’s Bench if the review board decides it does not fall under its jurisdiction.

Dickinson said Covered Bridge has been “an active and positive member” of the town and region.

“We contribute regularly and give back to the community that has supported us for over 17 years, including the last two years after our plant fire,” Dickinson wrote.

“We appreciate the continued support as we work to create more jobs here in Carleton County.”

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty says her government has filed a judicial review on a child welfare agreement she struck with First Nations in Ontario.

That $8.5 billion agreement marked a step toward resolving a dispute that began in 2007, with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal later ruling the federal government discriminated against First Nations children in its funding of on-reserve child welfare services.

In a decision letter released in March, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said two First Nations will not be covered by the deal.

Gull-Masty says the judicial review will seek answers on why those First Nations are exempt and what the federal government’s obligations are.

She says the review will not impede the flow of funds to First Nations in Ontario when the agreement takes effect in May.

First Nations leaders in Ontario say it’s disappointing the minister has filed a review, but that it’s encouraging the agreement’s implementation won’t be delayed.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

The federal government is proposing giving authority to review interprovincial pipelines and transmission lines, and offshore renewable energy projects, to the Canada Energy Regulator instead of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

The proposal, which will undergo a 30-day consultation process, would undo the move the Liberals made eight years ago to create the Impact Assessment Agency as a one-stop shop for all national project reviews.

The changes also would allow cabinet to decide whether a pipeline project is in the public interest before the review process is completed.

Ottawa is also planning on creating a Crown consultation hub within the Impact Assessment Agency to better co-ordinate efforts with Indigenous communities and provinces.

It’s also looking to enact legislative changes to reduce review times for major projects down to one year.

The government introduced legislation a year ago to reduce review times for major projects from five years to two years.

— More to come…

© 2026 The Canadian Press

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that the leaders of Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a three-day ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners, adding that such a halt to hostilities could be the “beginning of the end” of the long war between them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov both confirmed the agreement.

Trump announced on social media that the ceasefire would run Saturday through Monday. Saturday is Victory Day in Russia, a holiday that commemorates victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote. “The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II.”

The Republican president said the ceasefire includes a suspension of all kinetic activity and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners by each country.

Russia had announced a ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, but it quickly unraveled, with both sides blaming the other for the continued fighting, just as they had when Ukraine’s own unilateral ceasefire had swiftly collapsed earlier in the week.

Trump said he made his request for the ceasefire “directly” to the two presidents. “Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War,” he said.

Trump added that talks continue over ending the war that began in February 2022 “and we are getting closer and closer every day.”

Trump has gone back and forth over whether the war will end, at times expressing optimism and at other times saying Russia and Ukraine should be left to fight it out to the bitter end.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s decision on how to engage with those discussions was shaped in part by the prospect of freeing its prisoners. Ukraine has made the return of prisoners of war a central demand throughout the conflict.

“Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Red Square is where Russia holds its traditional military parade to celebrate Victory Day, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

After releasing his statement, Zelenskyy issued a formal presidential decree “authorizing” Russia to hold the parade, declaring Red Square off-limits for Ukrainian strikes for the duration of the event. The framing of the decree appeared designed to underscore Kyiv’s claim that it holds effective targeting reach over the Russian capital, while publicly tying Ukrainian restraint to the ceasefire terms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.”

“We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Zelenskyy said the deal for a ceasefire was reached through a U.S.-mediated process and thanked Trump and the American team for what he called effective diplomatic engagement. He said Ukraine expected Washington to hold Russia to the terms of the agreement.

“We are counting on the United States to ensure that Russia fulfills its commitments,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy said he had instructed his team to prepare everything necessary for the exchange without delay.

Trump’s announcement came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a much more somber tone about negotiations to halt Russia’s 4-year-old war in Ukraine, saying U.S. mediation efforts have not led to a “fruitful outcome” so far.

“While we’re prepared to play whatever role we can to bring it to a peaceful diplomatic resolution, unfortunately right now, those efforts have stagnated,” Rubio told reporters at the end of a visit to Rome and the Vatican. “But we always stand ready if those circumstances change.”

Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

A Chinese court ruling that outlaws companies from demoting or firing employees solely to replace them with artificial intelligence has reignited the debate over the technology’s impact on labour markets — and whether Canada is failing to respond quickly enough.

The ruling, posted online last week by the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, sided with a senior technology worker who was offered a reduced salary and job transfer when his employer sought to automate his role with AI. The worker’s employment was terminated after he refused the offer.

The case clarified that “the development of artificial intelligence technology is intended to liberate labour, promote employment, and benefit people’s livelihoods,” the ruling says.

“Labour law allows employers to undertake technological changes and upgrade their operations, but it should also consider protecting the legitimate rights and interests of workers,” it added, noting businesses should prioritize retraining and “reasonable” reassignment and compensation plans for workers over termination.

The ruling comes as businesses around the world are adopting AI for efficiency and cost effectiveness at a breakneck pace, sometimes at the expense of employees.

In North America, tech firms such as Block have begun explicitly citing AI as the reason behind significant layoffs, which labour experts have told Global News is the latest step in a decades-long trend of automation moving from blue-collar to white-collar industries.

The Chinese court ruling doesn’t change that trend, said Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University, but it does underscore the need for some kind of regulation.

“If you’re trying to slow down the inevitable, you’re doomed to fail,” he said.

“I think what’s much more important is to recognize, that yes, (AI-fuelled automation) it’s coming, there need to be some sort of protections in place, but not necessarily protections of your job. It’s protections of your income or protections of your ability to live” and work alongside AI.

Indeed, the Chinese ruling doesn’t forbid companies from using AI to automate certain roles held by humans, it just mandates that it’s done responsibly.

Workers, the ruling says, “should also understand the strategic development needs of enterprises, continuously update and improve their professional skills through continuous learning, proactively adapt to the changes in artificial intelligence technology, promote the efficient application of AI technology in production practices, and foster a win-win situation of personal career growth and efficient enterprise development.”

Lander said the ruling, which was issued ahead of China’s Labour Day on May 1, was likely a messaging and “self-preservation” exercise for the ruling Chinese Communist Party given the potential widespread impact of AI-led labour disruptions.

“There’s so many potential people that could be caught up in this that the risk of civil unrest, the risk of regime overthrow, is probably much more paramount to them than concern for the actual worker itself,” he said.

“In Canada, we’re a democracy and we’re not necessarily worried about regime overthrow in the same way, other than through the ballot box.”

Simon Blanchette, a management faculty lecturer at McGill University who researches AI and the future of work, said that democratic structure would also make legislating and enforcing a similar ruling in Canada extremely difficult.

He noted provinces, municipalities, industries and unions would all have to play a role in the creation and execution of such guardrails.

“In terms of practicality and the real outcome and externalities of it, it remains to be seen what would be the benefit tangibly,” he said.

“I think there other ways we could be exploring to help workers more, and have a more ‘AI-ready’ future.”

That includes educating and reskilling workers for a future where AI is adopted across industries, he said.

Yet Lander noted that social safety net programs like employment insurance should also be modernized to recognize certain industries will be disproportionately impacted by AI.

“If the government is really trying to implement something that’s meaningful, that’s going to take us through the next 50 years, it’s a lot more than protecting workers’ rights,” he said.

“It’s thinking about which workers’ rights actually need protecting and which ones are we just sending out to be slaughtered in the battlefield.”

Canada’s Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said this week that the promised new federal AI strategy will consider the technology’s impacts on the labour market.

“We are making sure that when we launch this strategy, there’s an element … that it will meet the changing needs of labour and all the stakeholder groups,” he said.

Solomon said the strategy will be released “very soon,” after previously promising it would come at the end of last year and then in the first quarter of this year.

He said the impact of AI has been changing and he is still consulting on the strategy, citing recent meetings with labour leaders, environmentalists and young people.

“Even when we did our consultations, the industry has changed dramatically. The impact of AI has changed and we are consulting,” he said.

Experts like Lander and Blanchette, as well as others Global News has spoken to recently about the delayed strategy, agree that the government needs to step up its urgency in enacting guardrails around AI and its myriad, society-wide impacts.

“AI today is as weak as it will be in our lifetime,” Blanchette said. “Tomorrow it will better, the day after it will get better. So we need to face the (inevitable).

“At the same time, yes, we need legislation. We need to protect the public.”

—with files from the Canadian Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Full House star Dave Coulier shared a health update about his physical changes and his cancer treatment following “extensive radiation.”

“I haven’t posted in quite a while, and the last time I did, some of you said that I look differently and I sound differently — and I do. What you’re seeing is the side effects of extensive radiation that I went through for carcinoma in my throat,” Coulier said in an Instagram video shared on Thursday.

“I haven’t been able to eat solid food in months and so I’ve lost 45 pounds. That’s what you’re seeing, and it’s affected my ability to speak,” he shared.

“Some of you said that I sound differently, so, yeah, you’re right on with what you’re seeing and what you’re hearing. But just a recap: a year-and-a-half ago, I had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and I went through chemotherapy. My hair is kind of growing back,” the 66-year-old actor said.

Coulier also said that he got his PET  scans back and “the prognosis looks good for both the carcinoma in my throat and the lymphoma.”

A PET scan uses “a radioactive drug called a tracer to show both typical and atypical metabolic activity and can often detect diseases before the disease shows up on other imaging tests,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

Coulier, who portrayed Uncle Joey on Full House for eight seasons, said that he’s “very pleased” with his progress and that he has remained busy in other areas of his life.

“I’ve been creating artwork, and I’ve been doing some creative writing. And I’ve been working on AwearMarket.com, our non-toxic store, and so be on the lookout in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be having some really nice, creative content. We’re looking out for your health and so I wish good health to all of you,” his video concluded.

View this post on Instagram

Back in December, Coulier first revealed that he’d been diagnosed with tongue cancer, less than a year after treatment was successful against his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Coulier shared the health update during an interview on Dec. 2 on Today, calling the news a “shock to the system.”

“To go through chemotherapy and feel that relief of, ‘Whoa, it’s gone.’ And then to get a test that says, ‘Well, now you’ve got another kind of cancer’ … it is a shock to the system,” he said, before explaining that he was diagnosed with HPV-related oropharyngeal tongue cancer in October.

Coulier had shared that he was cancer-free following his battle with Stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, just six months before he received the new diagnosis.

He noted that he had not exhibited any symptoms or signs before the discovery during a follow-up scan.

“A couple of months ago, I had a PET scan, and something flared on the scan,” Coulier recalled. “The doctor said, ‘We don’t know what it is, but there’s something at the base of your tongue.'”

He said that his doctor had performed a biopsy. “It was very painful. It’s like if you bit your tongue, but the pain just lasted every single day,” he said.

Coulier shared that the initial biopsy didn’t show any signs of cancer.

“We thought, ‘This is great. We’re still not sure what it is, but there aren’t any cancer cells,'” he explained.

At his next scheduled PET scan in October, Coulier said that his doctors noticed the growth on his tongue had flared again and grown in size.

He said that he went to an ear, nose and throat oncologist for more testing. After a CT scan and an MRI, doctors performed another biopsy to remove a larger piece of his tongue.

Once the biopsy results came back positive for cancerous cells, Coulier was diagnosed with early-stage P16 carcinoma, or oropharyngeal tongue cancer, which starts in a part of the throat known as the oropharynx.

A cancerous tumour is a group of cancer cells that can grow into and destroy nearby tissue, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. It can also spread to other parts of the body.

P16 is a protein that’s a marker for HPV, or human papillomavirus. A P16-positive cancer is caused by infection with HPV-16, a type of high-risk HPV, according to the American Cancer Society.

“They said it’s totally unrelated to my non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is a new cancer. … I said, ‘Are you kidding me?'” Coulier recalled.

Oral cancer starts in the cells of the mouth and is the most common type of squamous cell carcinoma, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Symptoms of oral cancer include an ulcer or sore in the mouth or on the lip that doesn’t heal and pain that doesn’t go away, the organization says.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The U.S. State Department says it will begin revoking the passports of Americans with significant amounts of court-ordered child support debt.

The government agency told The Associated Press on Thursday that the revocations would begin Friday and be focused on those who owe $100,000 or more.

That would apply to about 2,700 American passport holders, according to figures supplied to the State Department by the Department of Health and Human Services.

In a statement from the department on Thursday, it said the policy “supports the welfare of American children by exacting real consequences for child support delinquency under existing federal law.”

“Any American with significant child support debt should arrange payment to the relevant state or states now to prevent passport revocation,” the statement continued.

The revocation program also plans to penalize parents who owe more than US$2,500 in unpaid child support, the State Department said. The threshold set by a little-enforced 1996 law under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was $5,000.

“Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is integral to successful child rearing and the well-being of children,” the law states.

It was unclear on Thursday how many passport holders owe more than $2,500 because the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is still collecting data from state agencies that track these figures, officials told the AP.

The announcement marks a shift in how passport policy operates in the U.S.

Although legal precedent permitting revocations has existed for 30 years, governments have typically chosen to deny renewal applications rather than revoke valid passports.

Until this week, only those who applied to renew their passports with outstanding child support debt were subject to the penalty. Under the new policy, HHS will inform the State Department of all overdue payments of more than $2,500 and parents in that group with passports will have their documents revoked, the department said.

Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar told the AP the realignment of the law would expand “a commonsense practice that has been proven effective at getting those who owe child support to pay their debt.”

“Once these parents resolve their debts, they can once again enjoy the privilege of a U.S. passport,” she said.

The expansion of the program was first reported by the Associated Press in February. Since then, the State Department said it had seen a wave of debt-reconciliation filings from parents who would otherwise be subject to passport revocation.

“While we can’t confirm the causation in all of those cases, we are taking this action precisely to impel these parents to do the right thing by their children and by U.S. law,” the department told the U.S. news agency.

Even before the policy was expanded, the department said the program had been a “powerful tool” to get parents to pay what they owed. It said that since it began in earnest in 1998, states had collected some $657 million in arrears, including more than $156 million in over 24,000 individual lump-sum payments over the past five years.

–with files from the Associated Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The federal government is handing hundreds of millions of dollars to Canada Post to keep the money-bleeding mail service afloat for the current fiscal year.

A cabinet order gives the beleaguered Crown corporation up to $673 million so it can “meet its operating and income” demands through next March.

Last year Ottawa authorized a $1.03-billion cash injection for Canada Post, followed by another billion dollars in extra repayable funding when the initial amount proved too small.

Carleton University business professor Ian Lee says the postal service will likely need hundreds of millions more to make it through the year, given its unprecedented $1.57-billion loss before tax in 2025.

As workers vote on a contract after years of disputes and declining letter demand, Canada Post says it must modernize through reforms that include community mailboxes and possible post office closures.

Canada Post and the union have sparred over wages and structural changes to the Crown corporation for more than two years, with workers taking to the picket line repeatedly.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

While the risk of wide transmission of the new hantavirus strain in Canada is “low,” Canada’s top doctor is asking Canadians to stay away from rodents to reduce the risk of infection.

Hantaviruses are a type of infection that affect rodents and can sometimes spread to humans, said Dr. Joss Reimer, Canada’s chief public health officer.

“The overall risk to the general population in connection with this outbreak of the hantavirus is low,” she said.

In April, a hantavirus infection broke out on Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius.

In total, there are 10 Canadians who are suspected to have been in contact with the virus, including six in Canada and four on the cruise ship, PHAC said.

The federal government says three people with connections to the cruise are isolating at home in Ontario and Quebec, but they aren’t showing symptoms.

In addition, public health investigations are also underway by local authorities regarding three additional Canadians, two in Alberta and one in Ontario, Reimer said.

“I want to be clear that there is no evidence that asymptomatic individuals can spread hantavirus to others,” she added.

Humans can inhale virus particles from rodent urine, droppings or saliva that have been released into the air, she said.

Onward spread within Canada is not expected, “even if an infected individual were to arrive here.”

“To reduce the risk of infection from all types of hantavirus, we advise people to stay away from rodents and safely clean and disinfect areas contaminated by rodents,” Dr. Reimer said.

The species of hantavirus in this outbreak is the Andes virus, which is the only species of hantavirus known to cause limited human to human transmission, Dr. Reimer said.

“The Andes virus is found in South America. It is not found in Canada. At this point in the investigation, it is believed that the first case may have been exposed while traveling in South America before boarding the ship,” she added.

“The risk remains low, and we are doing everything possible to reduce the risk of transmission,” Health Minister Marjorie Michel said in a social media post.

In North America five rodents are know to carry hantaviruses – deer mouse, cotton rat, rice rate, white-footed mouse and red-backed vole.

Consular officials are on their way to the Canary Islands to meet with four Canadians on board a deadly hantavirus-stricken cruise ship.

The World Health Organization has said it has received reports of eight cases, including three deaths, from the outbreak of the rodent-borne Andes virus on the MV Hondius.

They say that while more cases are possible in the coming weeks, hantaviruses do not spread easily between people, and the outbreak will likely not turn into an epidemic.

— with files from Canadian Press

 

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.