In the news today: Joly in Washington, attack anniversary, Ontario election

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

Joly to meet with U.S. counterpart Rubio

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is back in Washington, D.C., today to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as Canada faces the threat of devastating tariffs landing as early as Saturday.

Joly said Monday that she still believes diplomacy can fend off President Donald Trump’s plan to slap Canada with 25 per cent across-the-board duties.

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Joly spoke with Rubio by phone last week and described the new secretary of state as a “good interlocutor.”

This will be Joly’s fifth visit to the U.S. since last November’s presidential election.

Events mark anniversary of Quebec mosque attack

Only one bullet hole remains in the wall of the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec, eight years after a gunman stormed into the mosque and killed six Muslim men who had come to pray.

While a major renovation erased most traces of the attack, the mosque’s president, Mohamed Labidi, says the one hole was left there as a reminder to never forget the Jan. 29, 2017, shooting that claimed the lives of Ibrahima Barry, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Khaled Belkacemi, Abdelkrim Hassane, Azzedine Soufiane and Aboubaker Thabti.

But as time passes, he worries that the wider population is no longer heeding the message of remembrance.

“It seems like people are starting to forget,” he said.

Ontario party leaders hit the campaign trail

Ontario’s political party leaders are fanning out across the province today for their first official day on the snowy campaign trail.

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford triggered the snap election more than a year before the next fixed date, plunging the province into a rare winter campaign that opposition parties say is unnecessary.

Ford has said he needs a new mandate to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump’s new administration and to spend tens of billions of dollars in response to threatened tariffs.

BoC expected to cut interest rates today

The Bank of Canada is set to make its first interest rate announcement of the year this morning.

Forecasters are widely expecting a quarter-percentage-point cut.

That would bring the Bank of Canada’s key rate down to three per cent and mark its sixth straight decrease.

The latest employment figures in Statistics Canada’s December labour force survey showed the jobless rate dipped to 6.7 per cent.

Canada’s annual inflation rate fell to 1.8 per cent in December, largely on the back of the federal government’s temporary GST break.

PCO urged Denmark to speed up Bennett appointment

Bureaucrats working for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had diplomats push Denmark to speed up the appointment of former cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett as ambassador to that country — a change most embassy staff learned of through a media leak.

The government has not offered a rationale for asking Denmark to expedite its approval of Bennett’s appointment, which came a week before her resignation as MP. In a major upset, the Liberals lost Bennett’s former seat of Toronto-St. Paul’s in a byelection last year.

The Canadian Press obtained emails through an access-to-information request showing the Privy Council had Global Affairs push Canadian diplomats multiple times to have Bennett accepted by Denmark and installed months ahead of schedule.

Deryck Whibley shocked Sum 41 with their breakup

Winding up a rock band is never easy, but for members of Sum 41, the experience has been an odd mixture of confusion, camaraderie and, ultimately, acceptance.

It started two years ago with a surprise email from the band’s leader, Deryck Whibley, who’s also their main songwriter. He told them that after many years of anxious contemplation, he had finally decided to pull the plug on the band.

“I was shocked,” recalled bassist Jason McCaslin. “Completely shocked.”

“In my mind, I guess I thought we’d never end.”

Sitting alongside guitarist Dave Baksh in a Toronto record label office, the two musicians are reflecting on life without Whibley in their immediate orbit and how, within a blink, everything is about to end.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 29, 2025

The Canadian Press