In the news today: Canada hit with 35 per cent tariffs

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

Canada hit with 35 per cent tariffs

Canada was hit with 35 per cent tariffs on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his threat to increase the duties if Ottawa didn’t make a trade deal.

The White House has said the tariffs would not affect goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, commonly known as CUSMA.

Trump signed the executive order Thursday night to slap Canada with the increased duties. A fact sheet from the White House justified the rate change saying Canada “failed to cooperate in curbing the ongoing flood of fentanyl” and also pointed to Ottawa’s implementation of retaliatory tariffs.

In a statement from Carney, released just after midnight, he said the government was disappointed by the actions, and said that “Canada accounts for only 1% of U.S. fentanyl imports and has been working intensively to further reduce these volumes.”

He added that some industries — including lumber, steel, aluminum and automobiles — will be harder hit, but that the government will try to minimize the impact and protect Canadian jobs.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

Union vote on Canada Post offer set to wrap up

Unionized workers at Canada Post are entering their final day to vote on the Crown corporation’s latest contract offer.

Voting is set to wrap up today at 5 p.m., with results expected to be shared shortly after.

The offer includes wage hikes of about 13 per cent over four years but also adds part-time workers that Canada Post has said are necessary to keep the postal service afloat.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has urged the roughly 55,000 postal service workers it represents to reject the proposal.

If workers reject the offer, the union says it will immediately contact management and invite them to return to the bargaining table, but it says further strike or lockout actions could risk the government intervening with back-to-work legislation or a binding arbitration order.

Transport committee studying $1B BC Ferries loan

The House of Commons transport committee is meeting today to look into the $1 billion loan BC Ferries received from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to finance the purchase of four new electric-diesel ships from a Chinese shipbuilder.

The committee agreed to launch a study after BC Ferries announced in June that it had hired China Merchants Industry Weihai Shipyards to build the new ships after a five-year procurement process that did not include a Canadian bid.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank contributed $1 billion to the deal and said in June that the new ferries “wouldn’t likely be purchased” without this financing.

Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson, Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland and the CEOs of BC Ferries and the Canada Infrastructure Bank are set to testify at the meeting.

Dan Albas, Conservative transport critic and committee co-chair, requested the study and has asked questions about why $1 billion in public funds was earmarked to finance overseas shipbuilding in the middle of a trade war with the U.S.

Sentencing today for girl in deadly swarming

An Ontario judge is set to deliver his sentence this afternoon in the case of a teen girl found guilty of manslaughter in a deadly swarming attack on a homeless Toronto man.

The girl was 14 when she and seven other teens attacked Kenneth Lee in a downtown Toronto parkette in December 2022. The 59-year-old died in hospital after undergoing emergency surgery.

All eight girls were charged with second-degree murder, and seven ended up pleading guilty to lesser charges — five to manslaughter, one to assault and one to assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm.

This girl also tried to plead guilty to manslaughter as her trial began earlier this year, but the Crown rejected her plea.

Months later, Ontario Justice Philip Campbell found her not guilty of second-degree murder but guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

LGBTQ+ summer camps grapple with funding drop

On the shores of Lake Huron, Harry Stewart and his husband Chris Southin sway back and forth in their rocking chairs on a wooden deck, watching dozens of youth play and laugh around them at Rainbow Camp.

Since 2012, the couple have been running a sleepaway summer camp in Thessalon, Ont., about 200 kilometres west of Sudbury, aimed at creating a safe space for LGBTQ+ youth across Canada and the United States.

But this year, they are grappling with a critical drop in funding while struggling to meet a surge in demand from youth hoping to attend the camp.

Stewart said the camp has lost about 25 per cent of its funding this year. Many corporate donors with ties to the U.S. have withdrawn amid concerns that supporting an LGBTQ+ organization would spark repercussions from President Donald Trump’s administration, which has been targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Those corporate donors previously sponsored camp fundraisers or youth for whom registration and transportation costs posed a barrier to attending camp, said Stewart.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published August 1, 2025.

The Canadian Press