Music is not only a powerful motivating tool, but it’s also a way to get a message out to a vast number of people. And when things hit the fan, music can be used to let the powers that be know that we see what you’re doing—and we are not happy about it. We wish to protest.Protest songs help coalesce thoughts and feelings about things like social, political, and labour injustice. They help rally people to a cause and sometimes inspire action against oppressors or those who seek to abrogate rights, keep people down, and gain power by spreading lies and propaganda.
Sometimes they call out specific people, organizations, and issues. In other cases, they’re couched in metaphors and stories. But make no mistake: this music is about “us” and “them,” and the “them” needs to be addressed.
This kind of music has never gone away and is still very much with us. Despite that, a lot of people ask, “Whatever happened to protest songs?”
Nothing. They’re right here. And they’ve always been right in front of us. Let me explain. This is a brief history of protest music, part two.
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Just about everyone in the country gets a stat today, whether you call it Family Day (Alberta, BC, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Saskatchewan), Islander Day (PEI), Louis Riel Day (Manitoba), or Nova Scotia Heritage Day. (Yukon Day is next Friday; I don’t know what’s up with Newfounland, the NWT, or Nunavut. I hope they’ll be okay.) Whatever the case, New Music Friday is here again with some fresh releases.
Singles
1. Gord Downie, The Sadies, and The Conquering Sun, Generations (Arts & Crafts)
We’re coming up on nine years since Gord Downie left us, but he’s somehow able to keep providing us with new music. This time, it’s a live album created with The Sadies and The Conquering Son entitled Live at 6 O’clock. Fans will remember that the three entities released a debut self-titled album back in 2014. This recording–coming February 27 from Arts & Crafts, will feature eight performances taken from four festival dates. They cover Roky Erickson, The Who, Neil Young, The Gun Club, The Stooges, and two songs from that 2014 album, along with this cover of Toronto hardcore legends F-ed Up.
2. Kim Gordon, Dirty Tech (Matador)
Since Sonic Youth broke up, Kim Gordon has been on something of a tear with solo material. Her third solo since 2022 arrives on March 13 and is introduced by this single, which portrays a fight between humans and our future robot masters. AI will soon make corporate suites like the one we see in the video commonplace.
3. Morrissey, Notre Dame (Sire)
This isn’t exactly a new song–Mozzer has been performing this one live (when he doesn’t cancel the show) since 2023. However, this new studio version omits a lyric that was used during live performances. Yes, the song is about the fire in the famous Parisian church on April 15, 2019. Some people were sensitive about the lines “Before investigations/They said, ‘There’s nothing to see here.” Allegations of terrorism?
4. Laibach, Allgorhythm (Mute)
The wonderfully weird Slovenian collective have just announced their first album since 2014. Musick arrives sometime in May (the exact date seems to be missing for now) and is being touted as their “most pop outing to date.” Interesting boast for a band who cut their teeth on being very industrial. I’m sure the Top 40 charts won’t be troubled much by this first single. They couldn’t take it.
5. Papa Roach, Wake Up Calling (New Noize/NDA)
When Papa Roach toured Canada in 2025, they struck a deal with the the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), donating $1 from every ticket sold to support mental health awareness and suicide prevention. The band visited CAMH in Toronto for a behind-the-scenes tour and presented a donation. Now they have yet another single that sounds like their visit made a big impression.
6. Sleep Theory, Words are Worthless (Epitaph)
Sleep Theory was the opening band on Papa Roach’s last Canadian tour. Reviews were good, as they were for the group’s refreshing heaviness. (Many metal magazines concurred.) This the latest single from their debut album, Afterglow.
7. They Might Be Giants, Wu-Tang (Idlewild Recordings)
Who can resist a song with a title like this? John Linnell and John Flansburgh offer another XTC/Squeeze-like pop gem. It’ll appear on an 18-song album entitled The World is to Dig on April 14. I wonder what Wu-Tang Clan thinks? Chuffed, probably.
8. Young the Giant, Different Kind of Love (Fearless/Concord)
Young the Giant’s sixth album, Victory Garden, will be here May 1. This should be interesting because it was produced by Brenan O’Brien, Pearl Jam’s favourite producer, and a guy who has worked with Soundgarden and The Killers, too. This will be their first album since 2022, and the first single is directed at people who desperately need some optimism in these desperate times.
Albums
1. Boy Golden, Best of Our Possible Lives (Six Shooter)
Boy Golden (Liam Duncan), the Winnipeg roots rocker, was not known for sitting still when it came to his first three albums. Now there’s a fourth, never really sits still when it comes to his music. Is he alt-rock? A folky? A country singer? He does like to keep people on their toes. This new album straddles the line between alt-country and folk while also featuring some pretty pointed lyrics recording politics and economic anxiety.
2. PONY, Clearly Cursed (Take This to Heart)
Here’s the third album for this Toronto indie-pop project run bySam Bielanski and Matty Morand. Sam explains the record this way: “Clearly Cursed is directly inspired by their first visit to a psychic at the age of 21. ‘She read my tarot cards and told me boyfriend was cheating on me, That was true. She also told me that I had a dark spirit attachment which she could easily vanquish if I paid her $1500. That was obviously out of my budget so I left and decided I would have to coexist with this dark spirit for the rest of my life.'” Now I’m curious.
3. Story of the Year, A.R.S.O.N. (Sharp Tone)
Born in St. Louis in 1995, Story of the Year is now up to their seventh album and yet somehow manage to maintain the conviction of their post-hardcore ways. Is this more evidence of an emo revival? Linkin Park fans should take notice of this single.
The rise of streaming music services has resulted in some interesting consumer behaviours. According to people who track such things, Spotify users will skip a song within the first five seconds. Almost 30% of streamers will skip a song by 10 seconds, and 35% are gone by the 30-second mark. Why?
This is the subject of much study. Is it because of ultra-short attention spans? Is it because people aren’t willing to give a challenging song a chance? Whatever the case, this is having a massive effect on how songs are being written and produced. For a stream to count as a sale and for royalties to be paid out, it has to play for at least 30 seconds. Labels, songwriters and producers are therefore incentivized to create songs that grab a listener right out of the gate.
This effect is being seen most prominently with pop music, which goes a long way to explaining why so many songs on the Top 40 sound so much the same.
Canada's Isabelle Weidemann, left to right, leads teammates Valerie Maltais and Ivanie Blondin as they skate during the women's team pursuit competition at the ISU World Cup speed skating event in Calgary, Alta., Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
JMC
MILAN – They held onto their Beijing success too long.
Isabelle Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin and Valérie Maltais agree they were slow adapting to changes in speedskating’s team pursuit after winning Olympic gold in Beijing in 2022.
“The strategy that we used at the Olympics felt so good for us, and so we kept using it,” Weidemann said.
Being shut out of World Cup podiums last season and barely qualifying for the pursuit at the 2025 world championship was a wake-up call for the Canadian trio.
“Last year was a complete bust,” Blondin said.
Team pursuit is three athletes from one country skating close together in a single file, and working as one unit to complete six laps as quickly as possible. The clock stops when the last skater of the three crosses the finish line.
Where skaters previously rotated the leader by changing positions during the race, more countries adopted a no-change formation post-Beijing, pushing one another with a hand on the back instead.
“Strategy-wise, other teams started doing no exchanges, and then they started closing the gap on us,” said Blondin. “We were pretty slow with adapting to that.”
Rotating to freshen the front engine seems intuitive, but Blondin pointed out that exchanges can cost a team two-tenths of a second per lap.
So the Canadians started this season with Ottawa’s Weidemann in front for all six laps, Maltais of La Baie, Que., in the middle and Ottawa’s Blondin at the rear.
“The strategy looks counterintuitive because you’ve got one person at the front and you think you should be sharing the load, but actually at the front, especially for the first few laps, I’m really relying on my teammates,” Weidemann said. “I’m skating lap times at the front that I actually can’t skate by myself, so I’m going faster than I’ve ever gone.”
The Canadian women will attempt to defend their gold medal starting Saturday in the quarterfinals at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium.
“When we show up to the line, we’re all nervous, but we know we can do it because we’re going to start together and finish together,” Maltais said.
The six-foot-two Weidemann is the metronome setting the tempo.
“My job is to do eight consistent strides and hit the corner in the same entry position every time and to not make any sudden movements at the front,” Weidemann said.
Added Maltais: “For myself, being in second position, I’m really able to tuck in really well behind Isabelle and kind of skate blindly and give a really good push for Izzy.”
Blondin, a full foot shorter than Weidemann, has no pusher behind her. She wants to stay in the draft of her two teammates, and get her hand on the back of Maltais as much as possible, with the intention of crossing the finish line tucking in beside Maltais.
“A lot of teams really struggle with that third spot,” Weidemann said. “Ivanie, from her mass start and short-track background as well, we like to say she’s impossible to drop. You just can’t get rid of her. She’s so little, she’s so agile.”
Maltais’s move back to Quebec from Calgary after Beijing in 2022 also meant the Canadian women trained together less.
“Previous to Beijing, we were training together every single day, so it became very natural,” Blondin said. “Over the years, it just became harder and harder to skate in line behind each other and know how the person skates.”
So in addition to revamping formation, the three women came together in Calgary in August and Quebec City in October for pursuit-specific camps.
They also spent a few days in Salt Lake City ahead of the season’s first World Cup in November, when they placed second just three tenths of a second off their Canadian record.
The trio then placed second in Calgary the following week and won the last team pursuit in Hamar, Norway, before the Olympic Games.
“We haven’t felt like that since ’22, just being able to nail it,” Blondin said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2026.
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Quebec Liberal Party leadership candidate Charles Milliard gives a speech at the Quebec Liberal Party leadership conference in Quebec City, Saturday, June 14, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Joel Ryan
JR
Today is the deadline to apply to be leader of the Quebec Liberal Party.
Candidate Charles Milliard, former head of the Quebec federation of chambers of commerce, has the support of the majority of the party caucus.
Mario Roy, a farmer from Quebec’s Beauce region, is the only other person who has confirmed an interest in running, but he may be excluded by the party because of the debts he amassed from the 2025 leadership race.
Milliard, 46, came in second last year to ex-federal cabinet minister Pablo Rodriguez, who resigned in December amid a crisis involving allegations of vote-buying and reimbursed donations.
Milliard is promising to renew the party that has fallen out of favour with large swaths of the francophone majority.
The race unfolds at a pivotal moment in Quebec politics with the Coalition Avenir Québec also seeking a new leader after Premier François Legault announced last month he would step down.
Quebecers are scheduled to vote in the provincial election set for October.
WATCH: First complainant takes stand at businessman Frank Stronach's sexual assault trial.
The sexual assault trial of businessman Frank Stronach is expected to continue in Toronto today with the cross-examination of the first complainant testifying in the case.
The complainant told the court Thursday she was “terrified” decades ago when she woke up in a bed in an unknown place and realized she was being raped.
The woman said she didn’t consent to sex with Stronach after running into him at his Toronto restaurant, and didn’t know how she ended up in the bed that night in the early 1980s.
The complainant, who is now in her 60s and cannot be identified under a standard publication ban, also alleged Stronach sexually assaulted her on the dance floor earlier that night.
Stronach, who is 93, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges related to seven complainants for incidents that allegedly took place from the late 1970s to the 1990s.
His judge-alone trial was initially scheduled to begin early last week but Stronach’s lawyer asked for more time to prepare after receiving what she described as a large volume of disclosure “at the 11th hour.”
Canada's Ben Hebert, Marc Kennedy and Brad Jacobs compete during a men's curling round robin session against Germany at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
DP
It’s Day 7 of competition at the Milan Cortina Olympics, where Canada will be looking to add to the seven medals it won coming into Friday.
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern.
—
7:15 a.m.
It’s a top-10 finish for Canadian cross-country skier Thomas Stephen, who has placed ninth in the men’s 10km interval-start race.
But the day belongs to Norway’s Johannes Hosflot Klaebo, who has won an eighth gold medal in cross-country skiing, tying an all‑time Winter Games record.
The 29‑year‑old’s victory is his third gold at the 2026 games.
France’s Mathis Desloges won silver, Norway’s Einar Hedegart captured bronze, and Canada’s Remi Drolet landed in 19th spot.
—
5:35 a.m.
The Canadian men’s curling team skipped by Brad Jacobs defeated American Daniel Casper 6-3 on Friday morning at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium.
Jacobs, vice Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert scored two points in the fourth end on a brilliant shot for a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Canadians navigated a tight port and chipped a rock sideways just enough to move an American stone off the button.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2026.
Canada's Brad Jacobs in action during the men's curling round robin session against Germany, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO – The Canadian men’s curling team skipped by Brad Jacobs defeated American Daniel Casper 6-3 on Friday morning at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium.
Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert scored two points with a highlight-reel shot in the fourth end for a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. A steal of two in the eighth gave Canada a four-point lead and the Americans conceded after a single in the ninth.
“Our skip is looking like a skip and that’s really, really good for us,” said Canadian coach Paul Webster.
On Canada’s last throw in the fourth, Jacobs navigated a tight port to chip a rock sideways just enough to move an American stone off the button.
Casper, who shot 67 per cent on his draws, settled for a single in the fifth end when his final rock slid past the eight-foot ring. Canada shot 88 per cent as a team while the Americans were at 86 per cent overall.
Canada improved to 2-0 ahead of its evening game against defending champion Niklas Edin of Sweden. The Americans fell to 1-2.
A raucous flag-waving, foot-stomping crowd at the 3,450-seat venue created an electric atmosphere. Joel Retornaz of host Italy beat top-ranked Bruce Mouat of Great Britain 9-7 on the sheet beside the Canadians.
In the other games, Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller defeated Czechia’s Lukas Klima 7-3 and Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell topped China’s Xiaoming Xu 8-6.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2026.
Mikael Kingsbury from Deux-Montagnes, Que., celebrates silver in the men's moguls at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Livigno, Italy on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
skp
Just for fun, Xavier McKeever and his cross-country ski teammates once tasked ChatGPT to design a training plan for them.
“It was the craziest training plan we’ve ever seen,” said the 22-year-old from Canmore, Alta.
“It basically said you should do intensity every single day. You should do three hours of skiing and then an hour of intensity, and repeat that a few times — and then you should take a week off completely. We know you can’t do that.
“It was pretty funny to see and do, to see Chat GPT can’t write a training plan, and that we need our coaching to help us with that.”
While OpenAI’s chatbot didn’t nail a workout for the skiers, artificial intelligence has entered the lives of Canada’s athletes at the Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy.
The Oxford Dictionary defines AI as “the capacity of computers or other machines to exhibit or simulate intelligent behaviour” and “software used to perform tasks or produce output previously thought to require human intelligence, esp. by using machine learning to extrapolate from large collections of data.”
“The word ‘artificial intelligence’ or ‘AI’ is so misunderstood,” said Andy Van Neutegem, vice-president of performance sciences, research and innovation at Own the Podium, Canada’s high-performance sport funding and advisory body.
“We tend to use the word ‘machine learning.'”
From Apple and Garmin watches and Oura rings that feed sleep and heart-rate data into smartphones to generate recovery scores, to inertial measurement units attached to athletes’ bodies for three-dimensional positioning analysis, the AI boom is inescapable.
A common theme among Canadian athletes is that AI is more of a tool for training than competition. They value instinct and lived experience just as much as, if not more than, data.
“In my sport that’s performance on demand, it’s important to have some data, but have a very good feel for the snow,” said freestyle skier and triple Olympic moguls medallist Mikael Kingsbury.
“In a sport where things change a lot because we’re outside, I don’t want numbers to be my indicator.”
When it comes to Olympic and Paralympic Games, sport science is the game within the Games as countries keep their technology secrets under wraps.
Van Neutegem won’t get into specifics on the Canadian team’s preparation for the Milan Cortina Games, but allows some sports to make heavy use of AI.
“You can talk about snowboarding, talk about freestyle,” he said.
“When it comes to AI, where we’re at right now globally in Olympic and Paralympic sport and pro sport is that we’re using AI to track biomechanical positioning of the body. It’s about body shapes. Are the body shapes optimal? AI does the work of a human eye. It’s a branch of AI that we call computer vision, and it really just mimics the capabilities of the human brain. The computer detects, does object recognition, and it starts understanding whether that’s optimal.”
Sliding sports used local positioning systems (LPS) and leveraged AI to determine the fastest line down a track, he added.
“You’re bringing an extraordinary amount of information into a computer, which is computating it and spitting out an interpretation of whether this is optimal or not optimal based upon data that’s been collected over a long period of time,” Van Neutegem explained.
When the International Olympic Committee launched its AI Agenda almost two years ago, IOC president Thomas Bach said, “AI can revolutionize judging and refereeing.”
The International Gymnastics Federation implemented an AI judging platform at the Paris 2024 Summer Games to help human judges evaluate gymnasts’ moves.
Snowboard judging was a flashpoint in Beijing in 2022, when Canada’s slopestyle champion Max Parrot acknowledged he touched his knee instead of grabbing his board on one run — and the judges missed it.
The X Games, ESPN’s action sports competition that helped popularize disciplines later added to the Olympics, has turned an AI judging platform into a business called “The Owl AI” since first testing it on men’s halfpipe snowboarders at the 2025 event in Aspen.
“They were using AI to see if it could call the tricks to make sure that that is what someone did,” recalled Canadian freestyle halfpipe skier Rachel Karker.
“I still think it’s really important to have a human set of eyes to watch because the issue with our sport is that everyone does their tricks slightly differently. It’s not like gymnastics or aerials, where they have a really strict way of how you do a trick.
“Everyone sort of spins on a different axis and sort of has a slightly different variation to it. It might struggle to pick up on nuances like that and maybe call it a bit different, but it’s starting to get introduced in competition. I’m torn on whether it’ll make it better or make it worse.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2026.
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