OTTAWA – U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. stakeholders will be “thrilled” with the tentative deal struck between Canada and the U.S., as negotiations continued Wednesday to finalize an agreement between both countries.

“Our farmers are going to be thrilled; our manufacturers are going to be thrilled,” he said, during a press conference in Washington on Wednesday. “And basically, we have no tariffs going into Canada anymore.”

Trump’s comments come a day after he postponed a new round of 50 per-cent tariffs that were set to hit $29 billion worth of Canadian goods, scheduled to take effect at midnight on Wednesday.

The president offered a three-day pause on the latest round of new tariffs, citing a deal between Canadian and American negotiators.

Details of the agreement have not been made public.

In a statement Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney congratulated Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for their significant progress in negotiations.

“Canada entered these discussions with the best overall trade terms,” said Carney, in a post on X.

“We are now moving towards an agreement that reinforces that Canadian advantage, including by securing the best terms in each of Canada’s most important strategic sectors and providing greater certainty about our future trading relationship,” the prime minister added.

Speaking to reporters together in Washington around noon, Greer and LeBlanc both confirmed there was a tentative deal on the table and that both sides were crossing t’s and dotting i’s.

“We’re very happy with where we ended up,” Greer said, noting that the deal eliminated “some of the irritants” of the last year. “We’re looking at documentation at this point,” adding that he still had to brief Congress and other government stakeholders about the tentative deal.

“We feel confident that we’ve reached an agreement that will not only continue to protect American workers, American jobs, American supply chains, but really strengthen the North American economy and create a situation where North America will continue to be an energy powerhouse, a manufacturing powerhouse, and align on important things like economic security and digital security,” Greer noted.

After Greer left the scrum, LeBlanc spoke to reporters and swore that Canada’s supply management system remained “entirely intact”.

“It was important to protect the supply management system we have in Canada. It will obviously be protected in the texts we are finalizing, but I’m not worried that our dairy farmers and our agricultural sector will be well protected. We maintained our hard line on protecting supply management,” LeBlanc said in French.

“We needed to protect supply management. We needed to ensure that the supply management regime remained entirely intact, and I’m confident that that’s the case,” LeBlanc said in English.

LeBlanc’s office said he will return to Ottawa on Wednesday to meet with the prime minister and take other necessary meetings to finalize the agreement.

Negotiations have intensified in recent weeks after Trump threatened to impose a 50 per-cent levy on range of Canadian goods from hockey sticks to alcoholic products last month, using Section 338 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930.

The U.S. negotiating side was looking for concessions on Canadian retaliatory tariffs on autos, U.S. alcohol boycotts in Canadian provinces and how American quotas are treated in Canada’s dairy supply management system.

The Canadian side was seeking a reprieve from Section 338 tariffs and relief on Section 232 tariffs on Canadian lumber, steel, aluminum and autos.

Industry groups on Wednesday welcomed the delay from Section 338 tariffs but wait in anticipation for the full details of the tentative agreement with the Americans.

“This limbo state is not anyone’s preferred outcome — time is of the essence,” said Candace Laing, president and CEO at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, in a statement on Wednesday.

“We commend the negotiating team for their work and sense of urgency this week and call on them to keep it up: ultimately, a resilient and integrated North American economy would be a stronger one for all,” she added.

The United Steelworkers union national director Marty Warren, said Canada must “hold the line” in negotiations to protect Canadian jobs.

“Our test for those negotiations remains straightforward: Canada must protect Canadian jobs and industrial capacity, secure meaningful reductions in U.S. tariffs and give workers and industries the certainty they need to invest and grow in Canada,” he said, in a statement issued Wednesday.

Although details are still slim, Diego Marroquín Bitar, a fellow for the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he was surprised by the apparent scale of the deal based on comments from the negotiators.

“This is the first big breakthrough for U.S.-Canada negotiations,” he said. “They’re negotiating the details of what Ambassador Greer referred to as the interim agreement, so it’s much larger than just 338 (tariffs). It apparently covers digital trade as well and the pipeline. So it’s good news for Canada.”

Speaking to reporters from Charlottetown, PEI, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he is “relieved” that there was a three-day reprieve on the new U.S. tariffs originally scheduled to kick in Wednesday.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the new and excellent deal that is being finalized, one we expect and we believe should include an end to tariffs on Canadians,” Poilievre said.

“We hope that over the next couple of days we’ll hear the good news that Mr. Carney will have kept his promise, and the Canadians will get an even better deal than we had before.”

That means a deal that at the very least removes all tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber and exempts Canada from Buy America protectionist policies, Poilievre said.

In a statement, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet demanded that the prime minister brief all opposition party leaders Wednesday on the state of negotiations with the White House.

In light of U.S. comments on Wednesday on supply management, the Bloc leader also accused Carney of having “abandoned” Quebec’s interests in order to protect those of Ontario and Western Canada.

With files from Tracy Moran

National Post

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Former Toronto councillor Karen Stintz believes that in Toronto, there’s “an endless forgiveness for incompetence” that is “leading us to apathy and nonchalance.”

Her new book, Beyond Good Enough: Toronto and the Crisis of Urban Complacency (Sutherland House Experts), is an argument that Canada’s largest city is “teetering on the edge of inexorable decay.” She says 35,000 families exited the Greater Toronto Area in 2024, at a time when basic expectations cannot be met.

She writes: “Our downtown is shabby, our public parks are unkempt, our snow doesn’t get cleared, our taxes keep going up.” She rails in the book against housing prices, an ill-equipped judicial system, rising crime, congestion, unemployment, “and a City Hall that increasingly seems like a bystander instead of a competent management team.” Only a third of Canadian-led “high-potential” startups launched in 2024 were present a year later, according to the book. She described a “hostile takeover of our streets by terrorist sympathizers” that are “creating conditions ripe for further violence.”

Karen Stintz served as Toronto city councillor from 2003 to 2014 and chaired the Toronto Transit Commission from 2010 to 2014. The interview with Dave Gordon has been edited for clarity and brevity:

Why this book, and why now?

With my political career over, I wanted to keep contributing to the public conversation about the city’s problems and possible solutions. I wanted the book out before the next municipal election, so those conversations could become part of it.

You argue that Toronto must move “beyond good enough.” If there was a single decision or a single omission that best captures the civic failure you are describing, what is it?

The way we approach housing development in the city created unaffordable housing. The investor model that we relied on to build new homes in Toronto created an affordability crisis that has caused a generation to think that they will be priced out of homes. It happened in plain sight for all kinds of reasons. One of the prevailing views is that density is good, and we need density in order to build our city. The assumption about density was that home ownership would be more affordable with more density. The opposite turned out to be true.

You are in favour of party-aligned councillors. Why?

Municipal politics is built around ward representation and consensus. You elect people locally, largely based on name recognition. Councillors understandably focus on local development, parking and constituent concerns, while the mayor is only one vote and must build coalitions. That leaves no one clearly accountable for citywide problems such as housing affordability or congestion.

I would elect some councillors-at-large, with a mandate to take that broader view, and give more consideration to party affiliation. Organizations such as Progress Toronto already operate like political parties, but without the normal transparency around fundraising, platforms and candidate recruitment. So they’re operating in this very grey zone, but they’re very impactful.

What are your proposals for parking and traffic congestion?

One is where we should not allow parking on arterial roads. Because when you have two or three cars blocking a lane that is an arterial lane, it significantly reduces the ability of traffic to flow.

We have to figure out where are people going to park. But you can’t do that on a ward-by-ward basis. It has to be a citywide initiative.

The other thing is that there needs to be, from my perspective, alternate pickup and drop-off for Ubers in the downtown core. You can’t just stop your car, and let someone on or off, especially when we’ve got bike lanes.

The third thing, it seems like it’s trivial, but it’s not, is how we manage our scramble intersections.

The city should redesign scramble intersections so pedestrians cross during dedicated phases rather than at all times, which restricts vehicle movement at intersections such as Yonge and Bloor and Yonge and Dundas. Those are the things that can’t be done with ward councillors. They need to be done with a view of the entire city.

What is the “complacent,” as in the title of your book?

My armchair analysis is that people want to believe very strongly that Toronto is a good, safe, welcoming, culturally diverse city that people want to come to.

That narrative and that self-identification means a lot to people. So they’re willing to put up with a lot in order to maintain the image that we’ve created about our city.

My argument is that we don’t need perfection, but we need a commitment to excellence. It’s not OK to do drugs on the TTC. It’s not OK for parks to have encampments as a way to solve homelessness.

It’s not OK to march in the streets (without permits). It’s not OK that the pools don’t open in the summer. It’s not OK that the parks don’t get maintained.

It’s not OK that the snow doesn’t get cleared. We need to be able to say that we want more from our politicians. And yet these things happen again and again.

During FIFA preparations, the city cleaned transit, Union Station and parks, and enforced parking rules. The city moved and worked.

But when I talk to people, they’re like, “oh, we don’t have enough money to keep doing this.”

And my argument is “yes, we do.” We just need to keep the intention, the will.

You make the case that federal and provincial governments have underfunded the responsibilities downloaded to Toronto. What is the strongest argument against giving City Hall substantially more revenue?

One is, where does the money go when it goes to City Hall? And the strategy of various mayors has been “give us more money.” And quite frankly, why would any level of government give City Hall money when they don’t know where it’s going, how it’s being used?

What’s something that Toronto’s public transit needs?

The city has spent decades debating transit rather than building it, which is why Metrolinx eventually took over major projects. That makes me wary of City Hall retaking transit planning and construction for the Lakeshore line. Every mayor that gets elected wants to undo the decision of the mayor before.

If we’re actually going to turn Exhibition and Ontario Place into something more than it is, having better access by transit to those areas. I think, a higher priority than building an additional subway extension to the airport. More riders, more linkage, more community benefit.

Do you think Toronto’s broken?

I think Toronto’s drifting. I wanted to write this book as a way of starting conversations about how we can stop the drift, and aspire for more.

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An Ontario judge has sentenced a man to house arrest in a “covert scheme” to traffic handguns into Canada from the United States.

Emerson Wright, 29, was charged with conspiring with his childhood friend, Dylan Crawford, to traffic firearms and possessing a firearm for the purpose of transferring it while knowingly not being authorized to do so. On his first day of trial in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Wright pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic in a firearm to Crawford.

“Although the gravity of this offence highlights the need for punishment, it is not so pressing as to make incarceration the only option,” Justice Kelly Tranquilli wrote in a recent sentencing decision out of London, Ont.

“The court should remain mindful of the principle of restraint for a first-time, relatively youthful offender with an established rehabilitation plan.”

Wright is one of nine individuals charged for their role in the scheme.

Wright’s lawyer argued for a conditional sentence of two years less a day.

“He notes there is no longer a mandatory minimum sentence of three years for this offence. He submits that a conditional sentence order is proportionate because of his guilty plea, lack of prior record, the limited nature of his involvement in the criminal enterprise and his drug addiction that influenced his poor judgment,” said the Aug. 11 decision.

“Moreover, he has made significant gains in rehabilitation since his arrest. He is in recovery from his addiction, gainfully employed and is pursuing retraining, all with the close support and guidance of his family and friends.”

The Crown “submits a fit sentence remains at a penitentiary range of three years custody,” said the decision.

Wright “knew he was assisting in a scheme involving the movement of multiple firearms for profit — a violent criminal activity that endangers this community,” it said. “The Crown submits the principles of denunciation and deterrence therefore require a lengthy and severe sentence to address his moral blameworthiness and the gravity of the offence.”

Police discovered the trafficking scheme when they arrested Crawford on an outstanding warrant inside a London Circle K store on Feb. 2, 2023, said the decision.

“Police allege Mr. Crawford discarded a loaded handgun into a display of bagged pistachios in the convenience store just before his arrest.”

When they searched the trunk of Crawford’s car, police found eight other handguns in a knapsack “and launched ‘Project Pistachio’ to discover the origin of these nine guns.”

When investigators extracted data from Crawford’s cell phones, “this information led to evidence of a complex criminal conspiracy amongst nine individuals to smuggle guns purchased in the United States into Canada for profit.”

Several others members of the smuggling ring that secreted as many as 150 restricted or prohibited firearms into Canada received much harsher sentences than Wright. Though co-accused Kiara Joseph-Ince got a conditional sentence of two years less a day for laundering the proceeds of gun trafficking.

“On this continuum of criminal behaviour, I find that the gravity of Mr. Wright’s offence and his moral blameworthiness sits more closely on the spectrum to that of his co-accused who also received a conditional sentence for her peripheral involvement, than with those offenders who were intimately involved in planning, importing and the execution of the trafficking operation itself,” Tranquilli said.

Police identified Wright’s involvement “from a series of text messages between Mr. Crawford and Mr. Wright on the morning of February 2, 2023, before Mr. Crawford’s arrest.”

Crawford was texting with a person known as “Em” who was using Wright’s phone, said the decision.

“The text conversation was argumentative and used street slang to refer to firearms and drugs. The dispute revolved around Mr. Wright storing firearms for Mr. Crawford and that Mr. Crawford wanted their immediate return, at one point threatening bodily harm if Mr. Wright did not immediately comply. The texts show that Mr. Wright acknowledged that he had been paid with cash and drugs for holding firearms, or ‘sticks’ and that he knew Mr. Crawford was selling the weapons for profit.”

Crawford stopped at Wright’s family home that day at 10:38 a.m.

“The vehicle stop and activity coincided with the text messages and were consistent with Mr. Crawford’s demand for the return of the firearms.”

The court heard Wright graduated from high school and began a full-time job with Purolator. “However, he began cocaine use, fell into drug addiction and eventually lost his job.”

Wright called his arrest a “‘slap in the face’ or turning point from his previous unproductive life,” said the decision. “He ended all contact with his previous social circle who were a negative influence. He has surrounded himself with supportive family and friends. He completed an addictions counselling program and receives ongoing support from his aunt, who works in addiction counselling and harm reduction.”

Wright found work while on bail and completed a construction training program, said the decision.

Tranquilli noted that “trafficking in a firearm carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of three years for a first offence…. However, this mandatory minimum sentence has been declared unconstitutional.”

The judge pointed out that “trafficking in firearms is an extremely serious offence.”

People “who transfer firearms to those who are not entitled to possess them bear responsibility for any criminal act that the gun is used for, whether to kill, injure, intimidate or aid in the commission of another offence,” she said.

But Wright “was not central to the trafficking conspiracy in terms of the planning, procuring, smuggling or transfers of the weapons,” Tranquilli said.

“There is no evidence he had communications or dealings with any of the other defendants except for Mr. Crawford. However, his agreement to store or hold an unknown number of firearms in exchange for drugs or cash on at least one occasion remains at the ‘true crime’ spectrum of conduct captured by this offence, as opposed to being a regulatory oversight or momentary lapse of judgment. The content of the text messages shows he knew he was keeping ‘sticks’ or firearms for Mr. Crawford as part of a larger criminal enterprise where the lethal weapons were being sold for profit.”

Trafficking in handguns is “‘particularly malignant’ because they serve no lawful purpose in our society,” said the judge.

Wright’s mother told the court her son was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety at a young age.

“His underlying mental health problem does not excuse his poor decisions, but it reduces or attenuates his moral blameworthiness,” said the judge.

Wright spent a “productive” three years on bail, Tranquilli said.

“I find the evidence demonstrates he is sincerely engaged and has used what he describes as his ‘darkest moment’ as his opportunity to become a productive and contributing member of our community.”

Wright “has an excellent support network, who have a realistic appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of his character,” said the judge.

“While a cynic could argue Mr. Wright’s rehabilitation has all been a performance for this exercise, Mr. Wright has fully participated in his own self-directed recovery. He has moved beyond promises to do better and has accomplished significant milestones in his sobriety, retraining and education. The vouch of support from so many friends and family, all contributing members of our community, is compelling.”

Tranquilli handed Wright a conditional sentence of two years less a day, and two years of probation. During the conditional sentence, Wright must remain home “at all times,” with exceptions for work, training, meeting with his parole officer, worship, medical appointments and counselling. He must also perform 200 hours of community service.

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Toronto Maple Leafs centre John Tavares testified in the Tax Court of Canada yesterday about the strong passions and intensely pressured negotiations that led to him leaving the New York Islanders for his hometown team in 2018 in a blockbuster seven year, $77-million deal.

“You’re trying to earn a contract you deserve for where you are in the marketplace of the game and the comparables in the league,” Tavares testified.

But under cross-examination by counsel for the Crown, he failed to completely erase the impression that his “signing bonus” of $70 million over seven years — more than 90 per cent of the contract’s value — was simply part of his employment income, not a tax-exempt “inducement” to sign the deal.

That is the crucial distinction at the heart of this trial, and for Tavares it means $8 million is at stake.

Former Toronto Maple Leaf Patrick Marleau, who is set to testify Wednesday morning, is in a similar position, just with less money that he could be required to pay in tax if this case goes in favour of Canada. It is being heard by J. Scott Bodie, a judge of the Tax Court of Canada. No wrongdoing is alleged, simply differing opinions on how to interpret tax law.

A victory for Canada would threaten this curious but growing practice in the NHL of paying top players small annual salaries of less than $1 million, while also using “signing bonuses” to bring a contract’s annual average value up to the agreed upon multi-million-dollar level, in Tavares’s case $11 million, near the top of the league spectrum.

These signing bonuses make up the vast majority of their “front loaded” contracts, which are structured to give them as much money as soon as possible, a condition that only the most valuable players can command. The bonuses also protect a player’s income against the salary freeze of a lockout, which in recent NHL history has happened every few years.

Signing bonuses also protect the player’s money in the case of a buyout, by which a team can end a player’s contract early, pay a fraction of the remainder over a longer term, and thereby free up space for other players under the league-mandated salary cap.

For Tavares, the unusually sweet terms of his deal with the Leafs saw him receive $15 million of his signing bonus right away in 2018, while he was still a resident of New York, where he had played with the Islanders since being the number one draft pick in 2009.

As a resident of New York, he was subject to tax on his worldwide income, and he paid federal and New York tax on that bonus. The problem is that the tax treaty between Canada and the U.S. says signing bonuses paid by a Canadian team can be taxed in Canada as well, but only up to 15 per cent under a special exemption for “inducements” paid to get professional athletes to sign deals. He would then be credited that amount against his U.S. tax bill. This case began, however, when the Canada Revenue Agency reassessed his 2018 tax obligations and decided he should pay 53 per cent on that $15 million — or $8 million — on the grounds that this bonus was not an “inducement” at all, but simply employment income, taxable at the highest level.

So, in effect, this is about which country gets the tax money, but it is also about how tax law affects the career goals of the NHL’s best players.

Tavares and Marleau are represented by Justin Kutyan, Mark Feigenbaum, Kristen Duerhammer and Shara Sullivan of KPMG Law.

In his testimony, Tavares described growing up in Oakville, Ont., the son of a Portuguese immigrant welder father and a mother who worked in banking and later drove a school bus, and playing hockey since “as early as I can remember,” maybe five years old. He was playing Triple A by age eight, then Junior A, and was drafted into the Ontario Hockey League at age 15, and soon granted the novel distinction of “exceptional player status,” which let him start early. By 16, he had broken Wayne Gretzky’s record for most OHL goals by a 16 year old. He won gold twice at the World Juniors, and was firmly on track to be a pro superstar. He was drafted first overall in 2009, was captain of the Islanders by his fourth season, and won Olympic gold for Canada in 2014.

So when his contract with the Islanders was set to expire in 2018, leaving him free to sign anywhere, his career was at an inflection point, and he knew he was in a position to earn “life-changing money.”

“It was an opportunity to be truly in control of my future and where my career was at,” he testified.

He was a professional athlete who wanted to sign a contract that reflected his value, with a maximally long term of seven years and lots of money early in that term, and he was open to inducements to get that done. He described his main considerations as an opportunity to win the Stanley Cup, a lifestyle fit for his family wherever he played, and the financial incentives.

Although many teams came calling, and several pressed their case in meetings, it came down to either signing with the Islanders again, and maybe playing his whole career with the same team, or joining the Leafs.

New York was attractive, Tavares said. “You enter there as a teenager, grow into a young man, spend nine years there, you become really connected to it,” he said. “I had a really nice balance in New York.”

But the Leafs were putting on the hard sell, with new general manager Kyle Dubas texting him literally one minute into his free agency with an invitation to be a Leaf and a special video about why Toronto was the place for him.

Meeting in Los Angeles with Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, general manager Dubas, and coach Mike Babcock, Tavares testified that they discussed why the “fit” was right to play in Toronto, how he complemented both the veterans and the young players who were part of the Leafs’ rebuilding, and also “what it means to play in Toronto”

There was no follow up to that, as if everyone in this downtown Toronto courtroom could readily understand “what it means to play in Toronto,” that for a boy from Oakville, even for the captain of the New York Islanders who has twice won Olympic gold for Canada, to possibly break the long-running Maple Leaf Stanley Cup drought with the C on his jersey would be among the very highest goals for any hockey player.

Toronto was looking good, and his agent encouraged him to sleep on it. He was feeling strongly that Toronto was best, because of the “aggressive nature they had in wanting to sign me, and that the fit really made a lot of sense.”

“It was a heavy decision and there was a lot of emotion behind it,” Tavares said. “I woke up really having a hard time, I think, fully committing to leaving the Islanders because of my connection to there.”

He described the talks being at an impasse over the average annual value, and placing a call on his own to Dubas to ask why, if they want him so much, they could not find the money. Toronto is famously the richest team in the league, and they were well under their salary cap.

Under cross examination, Crown lawyer Devon Peavoy put it to him that Dubas said, “if we make 11, you’re a Leaf,” and Tavares said “yes.”

“I felt we were pretty well there,” Tavares said. “I understood it as we had a general agreement in place and obviously Pat (Brisson, his agent) would sort it out.”

He later answered a question from Justice Bodie, saying he had strategy discussions with his agents about what he wanted out of a contract, and the signing bonus came up because it was a key part of that.

“Yes it did, just that I was in a position to command the type of signing bonus I did,” Tavares testified. He said getting the large proportion of the contract’s value was “very important” because it protects his income against lockouts.

“I wouldn’t say it was the main reason, but I believe it was one of many reasons of what I was looking for in my next contract and where I was taking my career,” Tavares said.

Most of these facts are uncontested. Court has already heard evidence about the terms by which these signing bonuses could be withheld if Tavares failed to show up to play as agreed and otherwise fulfil his duties. So the court must now grapple with the basic question of whether this $70-million “signing bonus” for a $77-million contract was, in fact, an “inducement” as contemplated by the cross-border tax treaty, or whether it was simply employment income by another name.

The hearing continues with Marleau’s testimony on Wednesday.

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