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Jun 8 2025

The Roundup: G7 Focus. G7 bills. G7 survival.

SUN JUN 8 2024
David Akin's Roundup
G7 Focus. G7 bills. G7 survival.
Canada
Carney says Canada to focus on peace, energy security and new partnerships at G7 meeting
Canada is expecting to welcome leaders of the other liberal democracies that make up the G7: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the European Union. [Global]

During the UDCG meeting, the Minister announced that Canada is providing over $35 million in military assistance to Ukraine. [Government of Canada]
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The Provinces

The City of Calgary is expecting to be reimbursed by the federal government for G7 leaders' summit costs, but Mayor Jyoti Gondek worries that recent legislation barring Alberta municipalities from dealing directly with the Government of Canada may muddy the waters [CBC]
Aurora
Elsewhere
Can the G7 Survive Donald Trump?
Lawrence Herman: As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to chair the G7 meeting in Kananaskis, the mood ahead of the June 15-17 summit is overwhelmingly coloured by the fear of a serious risk of a public blowup between Donald Trump and the other leaders over Trump’s tariff wars, leading to Trump walking out, shattering the proceedings and endangering the group’s viability as an organization. Looking at where things stand today, the prospects for avoiding that confrontation are not good. [Policy Options]
Vance made the comments in an interview with ” manosphere” comedian Theo Von, who last month joked about snorting drugs off a mixed-race baby and the sexuality of men in the U.S. Navy when he opened for Trump at a military base in Qatar. [Global]
Media
Trump Can Restrict A.P. Journalists’ Access, Appeals Court Rules
By a 2-to-1 vote, a three-judge panel found that the president can bar the news outlet from small settings such as the Oval Office or Air Force One, reversing at least for now a lower court’s ruling. [NYT] (🎁 link)
Science and Technology
Yoshua Bengio: I am launching a new non-profit AI safety research organization called LawZero, to prioritize safety over commercial imperatives. This organization has been created in response to evidence that today’s frontier AI models have growing dangerous capabilities and behaviours, including deception, cheating, lying, hacking, self-preservation, and more generally, goal misalignment. LawZero’s research will help to unlock the immense potential of AI in ways that reduce the likelihood of a range of known dangers, including algorithmic bias, intentional misuse, and loss of human control. Bengio, who works out of the Université de Montréal is sometimes referred to as the "AI Godfather". Strongly recommend this essay. [Yoshua Bengio]

David Pierce's note from his Installer newsletter about this app: "Andy Allen designs some of the best-looking apps you’ll find for Apple platforms, and he has outdone himself with this very playful, tactile take on a camera app. It takes a minute to learn what all the on-screen buttons and wheels do, but it’s so much more fun than the iPhone’s default app that I’ve been using almost all the time [notbor.ing]
The Calendar
  • 1600 : Fatima, QC - BQ Leader Yves-François Blanchet speaks to PQ supporters
Issued this day ...
… in 1996: Sc 1605: Historic Land Vehicles Collection — 5. Souvener Sheet of 25. Design: Joseph Gault and Tilt Telmet. Illustrations. Cameron Wykes
25 stamps! On one souvenir sheet! Easily the most number of stamps Canada Post has ever put into one souvenir sheer. This is my scan of my copy of this souvenir sheet and my scanner was not able to accommodate the whole sheet! The stamps included here were issued individually by Canada Post between 1993 and 1996.

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