Reports that U.S. troops based in Alaska are being readied for deployment to the streets of Minneapolis amid a turbulent immigration crackdown there could put a Canadian officer in a sticky situation. Brig. Gen. Robert McBride is those soldiers’ deputy commanding officer.

McBride was seconded to the U.S. 11th Airborne Division in 2023, replacing another Canadian, Brig. Gen. Louis Lapointe, as deputy commanding general of operations.

They are part of a longstanding program of officer exchanges between Canadian, U.S. and other NATO countries’ armed forces, situations that have created conundrums for the Canadians in the past.

This time it centres around a threat by President Donald Trump to invoke America’s Insurrection Act in Minnesota, the site of widespread protests over Trump’s drive to deport undocumented immigrants, especially after immigration officers shot dead an American woman in her car. Implementing the Act would give him wide powers to respond to unrest in Minnesota.

U.S. media including ABC News and the Associated Press have quoted unnamed military sources as saying that the 11th Airborne has been told to prepare 1,500 troops for possible deployment to the state.

Critics have said that invoking the Insurrection Act and dispatching active-duty troops — as opposed to part-time National Guard soldiers — to the city would be a needless and almost unprecedented escalation of tensions there.

But could a Canadian officer be stuck in the middle of such an historic American controversy?

Probably not, says retired Gen. Wayne Eyre, who was Canada’s chief of defence staff until 2024, and actually assigned McBride to the U.S. unit. In fact, exchange officers must get Canadian approval — called a national authority to deploy — before departing on any operation with their American unit. The chief of defence staff makes a recommendation and the defence minister signs off, or not, as the ultimate arbiter, said Eyre.

“I doubt the U.S. would even ask for a Canadian exchange officer to deploy on such a task, and even less likely it would be approved,” he said.

While Eyre said he dealt with many exchange-officer issues in the job, the most controversial arose in 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq. Though Canada declined to take part in the attack, a handful of Canadian soldiers deployed with their American units. That authority was later rescinded, though.

In 1982, a Canadian exchange officer with the British Parachute Regiment was refused authority to join the Falklands War, as was his U.S. colleague, said Eyre.

He actually found himself in a unique — and little-known — position while on an exchange with the Americans a decade ago. He was deputy commanding general for operations with the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps when it was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014, just as the Canadian mission in the country was coming to a close.

“The government thankfully authorized my deployment, and ironically my U.S. boss put me in command of the NATO Training Mission — Afghanistan — one of the largest commands there, surprising some of our NATO partners as Canada had officially ceased its mission.”

• Pentagon tells 1,500 soldiers stationed in Alaska to prep for possible Minnesota deployment
• J.D. Tuccille: It matters less whether the ICE shooting was justified, it was inevitable

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Toronto City Councillor Brad Bradford says he’s disgusted by antisemitic graffiti calling for the death of Jews in the city’s west end.

Bradford, a councillor for Beaches-East York, said that Toronto’s Jewish community has been “subjected to a shocking increase in antisemitism,” in an emailed statement to National Post.

“Jewish restaurants have been firebombed, Jewish girls schools have been shot at, and Jewish neighbourhoods have been targeted by hateful protests. Hateful graffiti litters our streets, parks and sidewalks. It’s disgusting, it’s abhorrent, and it needs to stop,” he said.

Toronto resident Christine Van Geyn posted

a video on X on Monday

showing the graffiti, which said: “Kill Jews for peace.” It was scrawled in black under a bridge at Royal York Rd. and Dundas St. W.

Bradford shared the post and said that “we are far too used to seeing disgusting antisemitic graffiti like this” in Toronto.

“Leadership is about denouncing it clearly and consistently, and taking action to put an end to it,” he added.

In Toronto, we are far too used to seeing disgusting antisemitic graffiti like this.

Leadership is about denouncing it clearly and consistently, and taking action to put an end to it. https://t.co/3ARDlUV97S

— Brad Bradford (@BradMBradford) January 20, 2026

Van Geyn told National Post that she shared the video because it was in her neighbourhood and she believes “people need to understand what the Jewish community is increasingly living with.”

“This is not the first time this bridge was vandalized. On November 12, I reported vandalism in the same spot that said ‘save a child, kill a Rabbi,’” she said.

“Antisemitism has risen dramatically, and it is no longer abstract or theoretical — it is showing up in public spaces, near homes, schools, and places people pass every day. This bridge is right between two elementary schools. The messages on the bridge are especially disturbing because they are calls to violence against Jews as Jews.”

B’nai Brith Canada, an organization dedicated to combatting antisemitism, keeps track of incidents across the country for an annual audit. Last week alone, it said there had been

32 antisemitic incidents reported

. It included the harassment of a Jewish couple in Toronto, and

swastikas spray-painted

on the windows and walls of a synagogue in Winnipeg.

Van Geyn said she has been shocked by what she’s seen over the past two and a half years. “What might once have seemed unthinkable is now being written openly on bridges and walls,” she said. Although she is not Jewish, her husband is and so are her step-children.

“That has made this issue very personal for me. I am worried about my family, and I am worried about the broader Jewish community. Our neighbourhood does not have a large Jewish population. Our home is one of few that can be identified as a Jewish home because we keep a mezuzah on our door,” she said.

“We are once again discussing as a family if this puts us at risk.”

She said the protesters who say they are rallying against Israel deem their activism as anti-Zionism, rather than antisemitism. “But when you see repeated messages calling for violence against Jews and Jewish religious figures, it becomes impossible to credibly argue that this is about foreign policy or criticism of Israel,” she said.

Van Geyn called 311 after she saw the graffiti. She was told that it was classified as high priority and that it would be removed.

Bradford said that it’s up to leaders to stand up and “clearly to denounce hatred, each time it happens.” He said he would continue to be a “loud voice to ensure that every Torontonian feels safe and welcome in our city.”

Toronto police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer told National Post in a statement that since November 2023 there has been an online form that can be filled out to report hate-motivated graffiti.

“Since then, a total of 1,074 hate-motivated graffiti calls were generated through this web form. It is monitored 24/7 for officers to be dispatched to investigate,” she said.

“Since October 7, we have made 300 arrests and laid 805 charges in relation to hate crimes. Police play a critical role in responding to hate-motivated crime and threats, and we act when conduct crosses the criminal threshold.”

However, she added that “not all hateful or offensive speech is criminal under Canadian law.”

“Some behaviour may be deeply upsetting or harmful without meeting the legal standard for police enforcement,” she said. “Addressing antisemitism in all its forms requires a broader response that includes education, community leadership, and action from governments.”

Van Geyn pointed out that the words graffitied under the bridge are not a “political critique.”

“It is a call for violence against a people,” she said.

“I posted the video because we need to be honest about what this is and call it out clearly. If we allow explicit threats against Jews to be reframed as legitimate political expression, we normalize something that should never be normalized: antisemitism.”

• 32 reported incidents of antisemitism in Canada ‘this past week,’ says Jewish group as it urges Carney to act
• MP’s petition to investigate Canadians who served in IDF is ‘antisemitic witch hunt,’ Jewish group says

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French President Emmanuel Macron wore a pair of reflective, aviator-style sunglasses with blue-tinted lenses as he stepped into the spotlight at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Tuesday.

And while the French may be known for their appreciation of haute couture, Macron’s slick eyewear wasn’t strictly a fashion choice.

Why is Emmanuel Macron wearing sunglasses indoors?

During a New Year’s address to armed forces members in southern France last Thursday, Macron’s right eye appeared bloodshot and swollen. He apologized for its “unsightly appearance” and told the assembly it was “something completely harmless,” according to

The Associated Press.

“Simply see an unintentional reference to the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ … it is a sign of determination,” he quipped in reference to Survivor’s 1982 hit of the same name, which served as the theme song for Rocky III.

Has Emmanuel Macron worn sunglasses indoors before Davos?

The day before arriving in Davos, Macron was wearing sunglasses at the Elysee Palace in Paris, where he held meetings on New Caledonia and signed the Elysée-Oudinot Accord — a new constitutional and financial agreement concerning the French Pacific territory.

He hasn’t clarified whether the glasses are meant to protect his eye or simply to hide its appearance.

What did Emmanuel Macron say in Davos?

The French president didn’t mention his ocular malaise or the trendy shades during

his address and fireside chat on Tuesday

. But the 48-year-old head of state did respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose levies on European nations opposing his plans to acquire Greenland.

“Without collective governance, cooperation gives way to relentless competition, competition from the United States of America through trade agreements that undermine our export interests, demand maximum concessions, and openly aim to weaken and subordinate Europe, combined with an endless accumulation of new tariffs that are fundamentally unacceptable, even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty.”

Macron, who started his speech joking about the world being in “a time of peace, stability and predictability,” also took a subtle jab at Trump’s repeated claim of ending eight wars since his presidency began, remarking that the world saw more than 60 wars break out in 2024.

“An absolute record, even if I understood a few of them were fixed,” he said from behind the glasses.

Near the end of his speech, Macron said France favours “respect” and adhering to the “rule of law” over “bullying.”

He told reporters there are no plans to speak with Trump in Davos, according to the

Independent

.

What did Donald Trump say to set things off with Emmanuel Macron?

Late last week, Macron declined an invitation to join Trump’s “Board of Peace,” a global group he has proposed building off his similar entity created for Gaza.

“Nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon,” Trump told reporters on Monday night, as reported by

Bloomberg.

“I’ll put a 200 per cent tariff on his wines and champagnes, and he’ll join, but he doesn’t have to join.”

On Truth Social shortly after, he shared an apparent private text message between the pair in which Macron questions the move on Greenland and offers to set up an informal G7 meeting.

An official close to Macron told

The Associated Press

that the message is genuine.

Trump is due to speak at the WEF on Wednesday morning in an address which will be live-streamed on an

official website

and

YouTube channel

.

He is also planning a Thursday event to launch his “Board of Peace.”

• Trump posts map showing Canada and Greenland under U.S. control
• Full text and video: Mark Carney tells World Economic Forum ‘the old order is not coming back’

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada is open to contributing financially to U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza “Board of Peace” if his government receives assurances that the funding will go directly to Palestinians.

“We would write cheques and deliver in kind to improve the welfare of the people of Palestine,” said Carney, during an appearance in front of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday.

“But we would want to see it delivered (directly) to those outcomes.”

Carney was responding to questions from Financial Times journalist Gideon Rachman after delivering a speech to a few hundred WEF attendees.

On Friday, Trump announced the formation of a Board of Peace as part of the president’s 20-point plan to bring “lasting peace, stability, reconstruction, and prosperity” to the region.

In November, the plan was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council through the adoption of Resolution 2803.

Trump himself will serve as chairman, with members that include U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former United Kingdom prime minister Tony Blair and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Carney said on Sunday that he agreed to accept Trump’s invitation to join the board in principle but would like to see more information on the governance and structure of it.

“It needs to coincide with the immediate full flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he said. “We are still not where we need to be, so that needs to come onside.”

Trump also intends to charge US$1 billion for permanent membership on the board. Member countries that don’t pay that fee will be limited to a three-year membership.

Earlier on Tuesday, in contradiction to Carney’s comments, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters in Davos that his government has no intention of paying to join Trump’s board.

“There are a lot of details to be worked out, but one thing which is clear is that Canada is not going to pay if we were to join the Board of Peace,” he said.

There is also the matter of Trump’s invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the board.

Champagne would not comment on Putin’s potential membership, but said the world “wants Canada’s voice.”

“The prime minister will have to make the final decision when all the facts are known and all the details have been hammered out, whether this is in the best interest of Canada to be part of it,” he said.

Carney took the opportunity on Tuesday to condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine, which will enter its fourth year next month, adding that Russia is “without question” a threat to Canada and its allies in the arctic.

“The threat is more prospective than actual at this stage, in terms of actual activity in the arctic, and we intend to keep it that way,” he said.

National Post

• Why France’s Emmanuel Macron was wearing sunglasses at Davos
• Carney urges countries to call out ‘hegemons’ and bullies in striking WEF speech

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Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech on Tuesday at a plenary session at the World Economic Forum, the annual meeting of influential leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

Watch the full video or read the transcript, below.

I’m gonna start in French, and they I’ll switch back to English.

C’est un plaisir – et un devoir – d’être parmi vous en ce point tournant pour le Canada et pour le monde.

Je parlerai aujourd’hui de la rupture de l’ordre mondial, de la fin d’une fiction agréable et du début d’une réalité brutale où la géopolitique des grandes puissances n’est soumise à aucune contrainte.

Mais je vous soumets par ailleurs que les autres pays, en particulier les puissances moyennes comme le Canada, ne sont pas impuissants. Ils possèdent la capacité de construire un nouvel ordre qui intègre nos valeurs, comme le respect des droits humains, le développement durable, la solidarité, la souveraineté et l’intégrité territoriale des états.

La puissance des moins puissants commence par l’honnêteté.

Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable — the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.

It won’t. So, what are our options?

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?

His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it.

But he places the sign anyway — to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.

Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.

It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works.

Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.

More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP—the architecture of collective problem solving — are greatly diminished.

As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains.

This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.

But let us be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.

And there is another truth: If great powers abandon even the pretence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from ‘transactionalism’ become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.

Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty — sovereignty which was once grounded in rules—but which will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

This classic risk management comes at a price.

But that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress.

Shared standards reduce fragmentation. Complementarities are positive sum.

The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality. We must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls — or whether we can do something more ambitious.

Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.

Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid.

Our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb has termed ‘values-based realism’ — or, to put it another way, we aim to be principled and pragmatic.

Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights.

Pragmatic in recognising that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values. We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for the world as we wish it to be.

Canada is calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. We are prioritising broad engagement to maximise our influence, given the fluidity of the world, the risks that this poses, and the stakes for what comes next.

We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength.

We are building that strength at home.

Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond.

We are doubling our defence spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries.

We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe’s defence procurement arrangements.

We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur.

To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry— different coalitions for different issues, based on values and interests.

On Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future. Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering.

We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic 8) to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, submarines, aircraft, and boots on the ground.

On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. On AI, we are cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.

This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations.

And it is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.

Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness.

We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.

This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.

In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact.

We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together. Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to “live in truth”?

It means naming reality. Stop invoking the “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.

It means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals.

When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window. It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the hegemon to restore an order it is dismantling, create institutions and agreements that function as described.

And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion. Building a strong domestic economy should always be every government’s priority. Diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material foundation for honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent, and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively.

And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability.

We are a stable, reliable partner—in a world that is anything but—a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

Canada has something else: a recognition of what is happening and a determination to act accordingly.We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window.

The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.

But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just.

This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.

That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently.

And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

A 19-year-old Canadian woman has been identified after her body was found reportedly surrounded by a pack of dingoes on an Australian island this week.

Piper James was named by

Australian media outlets

as the teen who had been living on K’gari, off the Queensland coast, for six weeks. James had been working at a backpacker hostel with a friend while on the island. Police have not confirmed her identity.

A close friend of James, Brianna Falk, told Canadian Press that she learned of the death after speaking to another friend who had been in touch with the 19-year-old’s family. Falk met James three years ago, in a high school English class they attended in Campbell River, B.C.

“We had so many plans and she was so young,” said Falk to Canadian Press on Tuesday. “You never think that it is going to be somebody that you know, let alone one of your closest friends.”

She described James as someone who loved nature and “was always down to talk.”

“She was very real,” said Falk. “There was never any confusion as to whether she liked you or not. She would definitely tell you to your face.”

Falk told the outlet that James’ plan to travel to Australia was “spur of the moment” and was hatched around six months ago. James, who went to Australia with another friend, “mentioned that they didn’t really have a plan, and it was very nice and free-spirited,” said Falk.

“They were having a blast,” she added.

A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada

told National Post in a statement on Monday

that it was aware of the death of a Canadian citizen in Australia. While Canadian officials are providing consular assistance to the family, no further details can be disclosed due to privacy concerns.

Authorities

said

it is believed the 19-year-old went out for a swim early Monday morning. Police were called to the scene around 6:35 a.m. local time and found her unresponsive. Soon after, she was declared dead. Two men who had been driving past the area spotted about 10 dingoes surrounding an object, police said,

according to news.com.au

.

“(It) was obviously a very traumatic and horrific scene for them to uncover,” said police Insp. Paul Algie said, per the publication.

Algie also said there were “markings on her body consistent with having been touched and interfered with by the dingoes,” as

reported

by the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The cause of death has not yet been determined. An autopsy is expected on Wednesday.

Fraser Coast Mayor George Seymour called the death a “massive tragedy,” 9 News Australia

reported

.

Police continued to investigate the scene on Tuesday as park rangers closed camp grounds in the area near the spot where the body was found. Rangers have also increased patrols.

“Dingoes are an important part of this wilderness on K’gari. It’s part of why people go there — to escape and be part of a wilderness … and there are dangers there,” said Seymour

speaking

on Australian morning news show TODAY.

“This is a very unusual situation to have a body on the beach and not know if she drowned or if she was attacked by a pack of dingoes. We have seen an escalation of aggressive dingo activity over the last four or five years. It’s been 25 years since there was a fatal attack.”

In April 2001, a nine-year-old boy was killed by two dingoes on K’gari, formerly known as Fraser Island,

The Guardian

and

ABC News reported

.

Seymour added that the rangers do an “incredible job” and said a big part of their duties include keeping dingoes separate from people. “In some ways, it’s inevitable that there will be a fatality given how many bites and attacks have happened over the years,” he said.

He urged tourists to stay away from wild animals. Tourists who visit with young children should keep them within arms’ length, he said. “Most of the attacks have been on young children,” he said.

Under Australia’s Nature Conservation Act 1992,

dingoes on K’gari are protected wildlife

. It is illegal to interfere with them. However, the wild animals do not always steer clear of humans.

In 2023, a 23-year-old woman was hospitalized after four dingoes attacked her while she was jogging on K’gari,

ABC reported

. In 2012, a dingo attacked two young children and a 16-year-old girl, according to

The Courier Mail

. The same year,

at least seven dingoes were euthanized

by park rangers, mainly due to exhibiting aggressive behaviour.

“Dingoes on K’gari have chased joggers and children who are playing. What appears as playful dog behaviour is actually serious dominance testing by the dingoes, which can lead to aggression. Avoid jogging and running as it can attract and excite dingo attention and trigger a negative interaction,” according to

a Queensland government webpage

about the animals.

People who are walking alone “have been threatened and nipped by dingoes,” it says, adding that dingoes can become aggressive around food, especially when people try to pull food away.

“Dingoes have bitten visitors, occasionally quite severely, and are capable of killing people.”

• Canadian teen found dead in Australia, surrounded by 10 dingoes as police uncovered ‘horrific scene’
• Canadian citizen killed at the hands of the Iranian authorities, Anita Anand says

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a striking speech at the World Economic Forum in which he exhorted countries to band together and speak out against bullies and “hegemons” but didn’t call out any by name.

Carney delivered his starkest speech yet on the state of the world during a plenary session of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

The old, rules-based order is dead and isn’t coming back, Carney declared.

“Today I will talk about the breakdown of the world order, about the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the superpowers is not subject to any constraints,” he began in French.

In his speech, he laid out the dangers of middle powers such as Canada staying silent or closing their economies while “hegemons” and superpowers tear away at the “rules-based international order.”

The first day of the summit was dominated by talk of Trump’s threats to impose 10 per cent tariffs (that would rise to 25 per cent in June) on some European countries and the U.K. if they oppose his bid to take over Greenland.

In many cases, Carney’s comments were obviously directed at the U.S. and President Donald Trump.

“More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” Carney declared, presumably about the U.S. and China.

“Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu,” he added, eliciting an “oh” from listeners.

Carney was speaking in front of a crowd of a few hundred politicians, business leaders and journalists during a plenary session on the first day of the WEF’s annual gathering. His speech earned a rare standing ovation from listeners.

The prime minister’s speech echoed the overarching message emerging from the glitzy gathering: the old world in which global superpowers abided by international law and trade rules is dead, replaced by one where they use coercion to ply smaller countries to their will.

“Stop invoking the ‘rules-based international order’ as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion,” Carney said.

But unlike other world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and E.U. Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen who explicitly named the U.S. and its president, Carney never uttered the words “United States,” “Trump” or any other country.

Yet in the same speech, he called on other countries to call out powerful states who engage in bullying or coercion.

“Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window,” he said in reference to an earlier metaphor of a shopkeeper maintaining a pro-Communist sign in his store window despite not believing in the message.

In the same breath, the prime minister exhorted other countries to band together and avoid succumbing to the temptation of costly self-sufficiency and protectionism.

In the face of the erosion of once-respected international institutions like the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, Carney said small and middle powers have to rely on each other.

“A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable,” Carney warned.

He also cautioned allies to try to go it alone in negotiations with superpowers, once again alluding to tariff threats by Trump.

A few countries, such as the U.K., negotiated bilateral deals early in Trump’s presidency after he launched sweeping tariffs against all countries — including the U.S.’s closes allies — last spring.

“When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating,” he said.

“This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination,” he added.

Instead, he called on other countries to follow Canada’s example and strike new international relations to boost their economies and diversify their trading partners.

He also conceded that Canada will not always agree with everything its allies do. He recently stated that when signing a new strategic partnership with China and Qatar, two countries with extremely spotty human rights records.

He said Canada knows that “progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values.”

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

• European leaders will confront Trump’s tariff pressure at Davos summit
• Zelenskyy plans to skip Davos as Russian strikes leave large part of Kyiv in the dark

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Donald Trump has been blunt about his desire to acquire and control Greenland, but it seems Canada is still on the U.S. president’s wish list.

In a post to Truth Social on Monday night, ahead of his departure for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the simmering territorial dispute will be a topic of discussion, Trump shared a doctored image showing a Western Hemisphere in which Canada — along with Greenland and Venezuela — is covered by the American flag.

( @realDonaldTrump – Truth Social Post )
( Donald J. Trump – Jan 20 2026, 12:58 AM ET ) pic.twitter.com/vLGWFTgl2j

— Fan Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸 TRUTH POSTS (@TruthTrumpPosts) January 20, 2026

The map is displayed on an easel in the Oval Office to the left of the Resolute Desk Trump is sitting behind as he speaks to a group of European leaders — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

The

original image

, shared by the White House last August, featured a map of Ukraine and was taken during the leaders’ meeting with Trump following his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the more than three-year-old Eastern European conflict.

Minutes later, Trump shared a fake image of himself holding the American flag on a tundra- and glacier-strewn landscape next to a sign saying “Greenland. US Territory, Est 2026”. Flanking him are Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump’s post came amidst a series of trolling attacks on some of the aforementioned leaders.

Just before the uncaptioned map post, he shared an apparent private text message from Macron in which the French head of state questioned Trump’s Greenland tactics and offered to set up an informal G7 meeting on the WEF sidelines.

( @realDonaldTrump – Truth Social Post )
( Donald J. Trump – Jan 20 2026, 12:47 AM ET )

Note from President Emmanuel Macron, of France: pic.twitter.com/IlmgL19lhY

— Fan Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸 TRUTH POSTS (@TruthTrumpPosts) January 20, 2026

Macron turned down an invitation to sit on the U.S. President’s new “Board of Peace,” an organization originally envisioned to bring stability to Gaza that has since morphed into a global entity with a charter that gives Trump significant power and requires a $1 billion buy-in for permanent membership.

“Nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon,” Trump told reporters before leaving for Davos from Florida on Monday night, per

AFP

. He also threatened 200 percent tariffs on French wine and champagne.

Tuesday morning in Davos, Macron said using tariffs as leverage in a dispute of sovereignty is “fundamentally unacceptable” and stood up to the latest threats.

“We do prefer respect to bullies,” the French president said, as reported by

AFP

. “And we do prefer rule of law to bullying.”

( @realDonaldTrump – Truth Social Post )
( Donald J. Trump – Jan 20 2026, 1:00 AM ET ) pic.twitter.com/IQqucn20Lq

— Fan Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸 TRUTH POSTS (@TruthTrumpPosts) January 20, 2026

A short while after his shots at Macron,

Trump took aim at the U.K.

, which he accused of surrendering the Chagos Islands, a British island territory in the Indian Ocean and site of a joint U.K.-U.S. military base on Diego Garcia, to Mauritius “for no reason whatsoever.” Last May,

Starmer signed a deal

to see the sovereignty of the archipelago returned to its 18th century pre-colonial owners, but allowing the joint base to remain for 99 years.

“The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired,” Trump wrote, urging European countries to “DO THE RIGHT THING.”

Trump capped off his flurry of late-night posts aboard Air Force One on a friendlier note,

thanking NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

for his kind words in a text message the president screenshotted and shared for all.

“Mr. President, dear Donald – what you have accomplished in Syria today is incredible,” he said, referring to the U.S. role in a ceasefire between the Middle Eastern nation and a Kurdish-led militia.

He promised to talk about Trump’s peace efforts and said he is “committed to finding a way forward on Greenland.

“Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark,” he wrote in the apparent private message.

Earlier Monday, Trump posted about a phone call with Rutte, who referred to the U.S. President as “Daddy” at a NATO summit last year.

While he agreed to meet about Greenland while in Davos, he said “there can be no going back” and said the U.S. is “the only POWER that can ensure PEACE throughout the World.”

( @realDonaldTrump – Truth Social Post )
( Donald J. Trump – Jan 20 2026, 12:26 AM ET )

I had a very good telephone call with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, concerning Greenland. I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed to… pic.twitter.com/WTlBDFvRY4

— Fan Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸 TRUTH POSTS (@TruthTrumpPosts) January 20, 2026

• In Davos, Justin Trudeau argues for more of Canada’s ‘soft power’ as Katy Perry watches
• Canada considers sending troops to Greenland amid Trump’s push for ownership of the island

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DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — In her 2017 track “Power”, pop superstar Katy Perry warned to not “mistake my warmth for weakness.” On Tuesday, she watched her beau Justin Trudeau argue that it’s a mistake to underestimate soft power amid instability not seen in 80 years.

On Tuesday, the former prime minister gave a keynote address at Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Summit on the margins of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

As Perry watched impassively from the front row, Trudeau told the crowd of roughly 100 attendees and journalists that democracy is “backsliding” everywhere in the world. That includes the world’s “strongest democracies,” he said in a thinly-veiled reference to the United States.

He added that the world was entering a “new world era” amid instability not seen since World War II.

“We must face the fact squarely that the 80 years of stability and prosperity that the world has seen since the end of the horrors of World War II, it’s over. That era is done,” he said.

During his speech, Trudeau advocated for more free-trade in an era of increasing protectionism and building relationships with friendly countries.

Trudeau said he was proud to see Canadians at the grocery store making efforts to cut American products out of their lives amid Trump’s threats to turn Canada into the 51st U.S. state.

“Last summer, I went on a date with an American girl on a rooftop bar in Montreal,” he said of the beginning of his relationship with Perry.

“And when she ordered Jack and Coke, the server kindly informed her that there is no more American alcohol in the bar and anywhere in Montreal,” he continued.

“That’s an example of Canadians standing up for themselves. That’s an example of soft power.”

Trudeau’s speech also largely reprised and advocated for the many of the progressive causes that defined his government: environmental sustainability, diversity, human and women’s rights.

Those are all causes that Prime Minister Mark Carney largely excludes from his public speeches, in stark contrast to his predecessor.

In fact, Carney has said Canada would no longer trumpet those causes to other countries “with a bullhorn” but rather in private, when appropriate.

Carney is expected to deliver a keynote speech to the general assembly on Tuesday afternoon.

Being a soft power means Canada will never run the world, Trudeau told the small crowd, but should strive to influence it by keeping a seat at the metaphorical table. More specifically, he argued that the country needs to up its engagement in Africa.

“I don’t see, suddenly, the world run by Canada. That’s not in our ethos, that’s not in our DNA, and it’s not something we’re aspiring to,” he said.

“What we’ve always done best as a country… is an ability to convene people, pull groups together and be part of real conversations where we’re looking for solutions that make sense and align with our values.”

Despite leaving office one year ago, Trudeau’s popularity among event-goers remained high. Before and after his speech, attendees mobbed the prime minister for handshakes and selfies.

Perry, one of the most popular pop stars of the century, stood quietly away from the crowd as she watched people mob Trudeau.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

• Justin Trudeau’s life after politics: Shopping at Canadian Tire, dating Katy Perry… and those sneakers
• Montreal meet-ups, California cuddles and their Paris premiere: Timeline of Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry’s new romance

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