Some 20 million watch primetime hearing of House 1/6 panel

Canada goes young and old for Olympic men's hockey

Canada is turning to a mix of youthful exuberance and battle-scarred experience in its quest for Olympic men's hockey gold minus the country's NHL stars.

The 25-man roster announced Tuesday is bookended by 37-year-old Eric Staal and fellow centre Mason McTavish, who turns 19 this weekend, for the upcoming Beijing Games.

"We always talk about playing the Canadian way," head coach Claude Julien said on a video conference call with reporters. "We're a proud country of the way we play the game.

"We're going to be an aggressive team."

Paper trail

WHAT IT IS: Copy Paperis a 2014 textile-based piece by Ontario-born, Winnipeg-based artist Kristin Nelson, currently on view at WAG-Qaumajuq as part of the exhibition Terra Cognita/Incognita.

Of the 125 works in the show — which uses historical and contemporary pieces from WAG-Qaumajuq’s permanent collection to explore how artists have represented the landscape over time and across cultures —probably the most attention-getting are the beautiful paintings of Canada’s lakes, plains, forests and mountains.

So, how does this seemingly modest, somewhat enigmatic work connect to Terra Cognita/Incognita’s larger themes?

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: In the middle of the exhibition, an antique desk holds several objects of beauty and utility, and this is where Copy Paper sneaks in, as something both “cognita and incognita,” known and unknown.

Explaining Canada’s superior employment rate

Donald Trump regularly makes outrageous claims. Fentanyl was pouring across the northern border from Canada and had to be stopped. Canada is nasty to deal with and has the highest tariffs in the world. Canada needs the U.S. but the U.S. doesn’t need Canada. Canadians want to become the 51st state. And so on.

In the latest trade dispute, after Mark Carney walked away from negotiations, Trump made a new claim that Canada’s unemployment rate was 10 per cent and climbing rapidly. Insofar as the unemployment rate is closely monitored, reported monthly, and given similar attention to the rates of inflation and economic growth, the comment was likely intended to signal Canada’s weakness. It fits Trump’s narrative that Canada needs the U.S. for its livelihood and protection and would be better off more directly under U.S. influence as a 51st state, or perhaps a protectorate like the Philippines or Panama in the past.

Fact checkers quickly reported that Canada’s unemployment rate is really 6.4 per cent for July, not 10 per cent, has fallen from 6.9 per cent in April, and is at its lowest rate since May 2024. Some astute observers pointed out that Canada’s method for the calculation of the unemployment rate leads to a higher rate than the U.S. by about one per cent. Under the American methodology, then, our unemployment rate would be 5.4 per cent, not that far off the U.S. July rate of 4.1 per cent.

Detection of unemployment is less straightforward that might appear, as it is sandwiched between the labour force statuses of employment and inactivity at a particular point in time. The internationally established standard for determination of unemployment is the notion of searching for work — you are unemployed if you do not have paid employment and you are looking for work without success. Surveys have been developed to categorize respondents as employed, unemployed or inactive, including the labour force survey (LFS) in Canada and the current population survey (CPS) in the U.S.

Endorsements build up mayoral candidates’ profiles

With just over a week until election day, high-profile endorsements are rolling in for Winnipeg’s top mayoral candidates in what political observers say is another way to sway undecided voters.