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Jul 26 2025

The Roundup: NDP rules. Ford's lead. Paywall effect.

SAT JUL 26 2025
David Akin's Roundup
NDP rules. Ford's lead. Paywall effect.
Canada

Trump said the U.S. has not 'had a lot of luck' with Canada during negotiations on a new trade and security deal, suggesting the two countries may end up with no new agreement. [Global]

Leadership candidates must collect at least 500 signatures each to enter the race. No more than 50 per cent of those signatures can come from non-transgender men, the party says. At least 100 signatures collected by each candidate must come from people in "equity-seeking groups," which include party members who are LGBTQ+, Indigenous or racialized, or those who live with a disability, the party says. [CP]
Toronto MP Salma Zahid said in a social media post that Canada must join France in announcing its recognition of a state for the Palestinian people. MP Fares Al Soud, who represents the Toronto-area riding of Mississauga Centre, posted a message on social media saying that justice for the Palestinian people "demands recognition." [CP]
The Provinces
Ford PCs hit 50% in vote intention; lead Liberals by 22
The trendline confirms it: since late 2023, the Ford government has been on a slow but steady upward climb. From a low point in early 2024, approval ratings recovered through the spring and peaked just before the provincial election. Today, they remain near those highs, suggesting a Premier still very much in control of his narrative. [Abacus Data]

“They’re waiting over two years, and they’re just sucking off the system — not their fault,” Ford said, describing asylum seekers living in hotels near his home. “The fault falls under immigration that it takes over two years to get a work permit.” The federal government, however, said the claim it takes two years to get a work permit is simply not true. [Global]

Le nouveau chef du Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ), Pablo Rodriguez, gagnera un salaire équivalent à celui du chef de l’opposition officielle, malgré le fait qu’il ne soit pas encore élu par la population. [La Presse]

Voters in the Spruce Woods constituency will go to the polls Aug. 26 to choose a replacement for Grant Jackson, a Tory who resigned in March to run federally. Jackson garnered more than double the votes of his closest opponent in 2023, and the Tories normally get well above 60 per cent of the vote in the area. [CP]
Aurora
Elsewhere
Russia Launches 'Massive' Overnight Strikes On Dnipro And Kharkiv
Russian forces launched a large-scale nighttime attack on Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, leaving multiple people dead and injured, and causing extensive damage. [Radio Free Europe]
Rumors of a "kill switch" dented foreign faith in the aircraft. Its wartime capabilities, shown in Israel's June attacks on Iran, prove the jet is unrivaled. [Newsweek]
Media

In response to the European Union's incoming regulation of political advertising, Meta said on Friday that it would stop selling and showing political ads in the EU from October 2025. [Tech Crunch]
While it is an uncomfortable position for any television network to cover a corporate relative in the news, the split structure of the Murdoch media empire provides some distance.  “Murdoch himself has been pretty careful to hive off the Journal, both in its aggressiveness and its editorial standards, from Fox and also from the New York Post and some of his other properties,” said Columbia University journalism professor Bill Grueskin.  “He’s smart enough to realize that the Journal’s audience isn’t really looking for the kinds of stuff that Maria Bartiromo and Sean Hannity are doing.” [WaPo}  (🎁 link)
Just 1% say they pay for access when they come across an article that requires payment. The most common reaction is that people seek the information somewhere else (53%). About a third (32%) say they typically give up on accessing the information. [Pew Research Center]
12ft.io — or 12 Foot Ladder — also allowed users to view webpages without ads, trackers, or pop-ups by disguising a user’s browser as a web crawler, giving them unfettered access to a webpage’s contents. Software engineer Thomas Millar says he created the site when he realized “8 of the top 10 links on Google were paywalled” when doing research during the pandemic. [The Verge]
The thing about a lot of the news behind paywalls is that it doesn’t stay behind paywalls. It gets syndicated, sometimes to paywall-free sources. Most stories, even those paywalled, have a paragraph or so of content. To find these articles elsewhere, you could easily copy a phrase and then look for it in Google News. Or you could make a couple of bookmarklets and have a one-click, instant search for different case scenarios. [ResearchBuzz]
Science and Technology
30 years ago, Apple fans met the Mac clone. This is the weird, wild story
Power’s approach of custom-building computers to order became the standard across the industry, and it certainly inspired Apple to change its processes to allow custom-built Macs to be directly ordered, rather than requiring users to pick from a set of stock configurations at a local or mail-order retailer. I had a Power PC back in the day. In fact, it was the first "Mac" I could afford to buy. Was a smart affordable box. [MacWorld]
The Calendar
  • 2200 ET : Brentwood Bay, BC - GPC MP Elizabeth May attends the Honouring Wetanmny Powwow event.
Issued this day ...
… in 2007. Sc 2226. Chief Membertou. Design: Fugazi.
Canada Post blurb at time of stamp’s issue: “The French first met Chief Henri Membertou, Grand Chief of the Mi'kmaq,  when they landed in the harbour that would later become Port-Royal. At this time, Membertou, who recalled meeting Jacques Cartier in 1534, is thought to have been more than 100 years old. His geniality and stature created a bond between the French and Mi'kmaq that helped to develop and prolong the historically important settlement in Port-Royal. When the French left Port-Royal in 1607, Membertou took care of the fort until their return three years later.

"No portrait was ever made of Membertou during his lifetime, although many descriptions of the Chief were written over the years," says designer Réjean Myette of the Montréal design firm Fugazi. "So, we asked illustrator Suzanne Duranceau to give life to this legendary figure."

With the help of historian Francis Back, who conducted the historical research, Duranceau was able to create a portrait with a look and personality that reflected the many different written descriptions of Membertou that still exist today. The stamp's background shows part of a typical Mi'kmaq canoe, and wigwams standing before Port-Royal to show how Membertou and his tribe lived outside the walls of the settlement during the three years the Chief took care of the fort. The stamp design was engraved by Jorge Peral.

The stamp issue is also unusual because the official first day cover contains text in English, French and Mi'kmaq. “

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