Yesterday at approximately 4:00pm a large fire broke out at a Canadian military base and spread quickly. CFB Wainwright (Canadian Forces Base Wainwright) is situated adjacent to the Town of Wainwright in east‑central Alberta.

CFB Wainwright is one of Canada’s busiest military training bases, where soldiers prepare for combat operations. It is home to the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre, which conducts realistic battlefield exercises, and the 3rd Canadian Division Training Centre, which provides military training. {LINK}

Media reports, citing unnamed military sources, {LINK} said that a live-fire training exercise hit a gas line or gas well on the base, causing an explosion that spread as a result of high winds. High wind gusts reaching up to 100km/h fanned the flames, causing the blaze to spread rapidly beyond the base’s perimeter and into the adjacent Municipal District of Wainwright.

A doctor at a hospital in the city of Edmonton, 180km (120 miles) northwest of Wainwright, told Canada’s national broadcaster patients were being brought to hospitals across the city as its health-care facilities became “completely overwhelmed” by the number of people requiring care.  Today, Prime Minister Mark Carney confirms that four servicemembers were killed and several dozens were injured.  WATCH:

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The AP is reporting that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has restarted drone attacks against Russian oil refineries despite the request by President Trump to halt targeting energy infrastructure.  There are a lot of aspects within this dynamic.

♦ First, keep in mind that any attacks against Russian infrastructure should always be evaluated against the capability of Russia to effectively mitigate such attacks.  Russia is an analog infrastructure in a digital world, and one of the benefits to their system is the rapid repair capability in the old-school systems.

This may seem like a small detail, however, as noted in the prior attacks against almost all Russian infrastructure, Russia continued energy operations and exports of diesel fuel despite Ukraine targeting. Russia is remarkably resilient and they build out their capabilities with redundancies no longer used in most of the western industrial systems.

Due to their analog systems Russia may be less efficient in maximizing productivity; but what they lose in industrial productivity becomes an actual asset when shifting between internal systems becomes a matter of physically opening and closing valves to shift from damaged to operational stations. Russia’s slow adaption of technological innovation factually becomes a strategic advantage in this type of kinetic war.

♦ Second, it is worth remembering that oil refining capacity has been curtailed by the “climate change advocates” who now assemble to support Zelenskyy.  The nations now aligned against the interests of Russia are yet dependent on the dirty industrial carbon energy resources provided by Russia and other oil exporting countries.

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Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly has threatened to sue Stelco Inc for shutting down its Hamilton finishing operations and laying off around 500 workers.

Stelco owner Cleveland Cliffs is calling Joly’s bluff, citing the government’s own Investment Canada Act guidelines.

OTTAWA — Stelco Inc. says Canadian exports of cold-rolled and coated steel to the United States have plunged 58 per cent compared with pre-trade-war levels, while continued foreign imports put pressure on domestic producers.

In a seven-page letter to Canada’s industry minister obtained by The Canadian Press, Stelco president Paul Simon says Canadian exports of those steel products to the United States fell by 226,000 tonnes in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the 2024 quarterly average.

At the same time, he says imports accounted for 45 per cent of market share for those products, despite Ottawa’s efforts to protect the industry by restricting steel imports.

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If the British Commonwealth were a substantive stakeholder in the Ukraine outcome, one might expect the Commonwealth’s former Banker and current leading advocate would be immediately contacted by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

[SOURCE]

Alex Stubb from Finland and NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte from The Netherlands.  Oh, and “the Netherlands imported 146.461 million tons of LNG from Russia“…. so far this year.

From CANADA: “The Prime Minister’s Office says the two leaders discussed the new agreement for Russia to supply millions of tonnes of diesel fuel to the United States, which Trump announced on Friday.

The PMO says Carney made clear this agreement runs against the efforts of Canada and its allies to end the war in Europe by providing Russia with new revenue. A readout from the office says the two leaders talked about increasing coordination with allies to help Ukraine with its air defence needs.” {citation}

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According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, the Canadian economy lost a net of 68,300 jobs in September. This follows a loss of 41,700 positions in August and wipes out all job gains for the entire year 2026.

The alarming results come after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has led all provincial premiers in a coordinated effort to confront U.S. President Donald Trump through an “elbow’s up” program of political antagonism and trade conflict.

Based on economic scale, Canada losing 68,000 jobs in a month would be the U.S. equivalent of losing 500,000 jobs.  The “elbow’s up” program may be politically beneficial to Prime Minister Carney, but the economic consequences are crushing the northern neighbors.

The Canadian dollar immediately weakened after the jobs report and was trading down 0.44% at C$1.4287 to the US dollar, or 69.99 US cents. Yields on the two-year government bonds reversed early moves and were trading down 9.5 basis points to 2.410%.

Initially, when the trade war was announced, CTH anticipated a bottom for the CAD at 50¢/USD under the trade reciprocity program.  50¢ remains the forecast target when the termination of the USMCA (CUSMA) is announced, and analysts have the opportunity to gauge the outcome.

Meaning, if the Canadian trade surplus with the USA was eliminated, and if all the non-tariff barriers were removed, and if full trade reciprocity programs were instituted, and if Canada has to stand on its own economic footing with NATO spending requirements, current domestic tax rates and GDP growth factored, $1 CAD will be worth around 50¢ USD.

Remember, the Bank of Canada has already run the numbers on this. ……”A cascading series of events could cause a sharp loss of investor confidence and lead to a spike in demand for liquidity or rapid asset sales”… {MAY ’26}

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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer appears on CNBC to discuss details of a new G20 sideline agreement with 14 other major economies to crack down on global factory overproduction, targeting excess manufacturing.

The discussion about the issues with Canada is around the 5:00 mark of the video below.  As previously noted, President Trump and USTR Greer are happy with the current status of tariffs against Canada, they are having the desired effect, and meanwhile the U.S. is negotiating a ¹bilateral trade deal with Mexico.

¹♦ $30.76 billion in remittances reached Mexico in the first half of 2026 — a lifeline tethered to U.S. manufacturing employment, which depends on whether both governments can reach a durable trade framework. {source} Mexico, the govt, the economy, their internal stability, cannot afford to risk losing that influx of financial support.

Mexico’s Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard came out of the G20 Trade Ministerial in Milwaukee last week sounding the most optimistic he has in months. He had just spent nearly an hour across the table from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and his message was direct: “We are getting closer on many things — moving forward, narrowing positions, resolving issues. Every day we are closer to having new agreements,” Ebrard told reporters from Milwaukee.

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I don’t want to focus too much on this, because there are multiple angles still at work.  However, against the backdrop of the non-coincidental coincidences that followed the August 2025 Alaska Summit, the Lukoil story looks strategically interesting.

The New York Times is looking at Lukoil from the perspective of President Trump organizing financial gains for people close to his administration, specifically Witkoff and Kusher.  {GO DEEP}

That aspect is nonsense, total nonsense; however, if you pull back and look at the background story without the Trump derangement overlay, there’s a potential here for something very good to come out of it.

As the story is told, Russian President Vladimir Putin has inquired about the potential for the U.S. to remove sanctions against Lukoil, a quasi-private energy company based out of Russia.  Before, getting too weedy about it, remind yourself of the statements that surfaced during the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, August, 2025.

You might remember that both the U.S and Russia spoke of strategic partnerships surrounding the energy sector.  Obviously, this makes sense when we consider the “west” is actually fractured on the topic of energy.  There are two competing interests that overlap in the financial side of the issue, the ‘trillions at stake’ aspect.

On one side you have the “climate change” team, those who are fully invested (literally) in the financial mechanisms of the climate change, green new deal, build back better talking points.  The Green Energy team in the west.  The Paris Climate Treaty and carbon-trading proponents et al.

On the other side you have the pragmatic energy team in the west.  These are the Trump-minded and aligned western perspectives that look at oil, natural gas (LNG), clean coal and nuclear technology.  These are the “all the above” aligned voices in the more pragmatic view of low-cost energy production and development.

In the middle, between both sides of the fracture, are the banking and finance systems.  This is the BIG MONEY play, with the Climate Change team supported by banking ideology inside the city of London, while the Carbon Use team is constantly having to assemble finance and insurance from outside the banking control mechanisms.

The Climate Change team have support based on ideology within the finance system.  However, the Carbon Use team have the advantage of low-price outputs, global dependency and actual profits as leverage.  This is a fight essentially inside the larger energy sector, and we are all very familiar with it because it has been happening for decades.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is currently the main tool deployed by the Climate Change team on behalf of the London finance system.  Carney’s main opponent is U.S. President Donald Trump.

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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has recently promoted an expansive LNG pipeline deal to center the domestic infrastructure development around the concept of “Buy Canadian.”  However, when questioned about the actual construction of the proposal, Carney now admits the developers will determine what resources will be used – and it will not be Canadian product.

The unfortunate reason is not complicated.  Canada does not have the industrial capacity to make the heavy components for the LNG expansion pipeline because Canada does not have the ability.

[SOURCE]

CALGARY — LNG Canada is planning to use Chinese steel in major components of its $33-billion second-phase expansion despite Ottawa’s promises that nationally significant projects would help drive Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Buy Canadian policy.

The joint venture says Canada lacks the specialized fabrication facilities needed to manufacture the massive modules required for its expansion and plans to buy more components from state-owned China Offshore Oil Engineering Co. Ltd. (COOEC), which manufactured modules for the project’s first phase. (read more)

I would remind readers this inability to manufacture industrial goods is exactly what former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlined to President Trump in December 2025 in Mar-a-Lago, when President Trump challenged Trudeau to stop importing Chinese steel and aluminum.  Canada’s clean energy policy blocks the country from creating heavy industrial components.  WATCH:

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The United States is hosting the G20 Summit this year.  As part of the G20 Process various ministers and ambassadors from all of the G20 ministerial sessions, attend summits in the lead-in to the political leader summit in Miami this December.

During the opening session of the G20 trade plenary session, Greer outlined four strategic priorities that President Trump is bringing to the center of the G20 trade group this year. “There are four workstreams the U.S. Presidency has focused on over the course of the year: (1) the weaponization of food, (2) structural excess capacity and production, (3) the Most-Favored-Nation principle, and (4) forced labor in global supply chains.” [READ MORE] These were the directed topics at the beginning of the summit.

Speaking from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the G20 Trade Ministerial Session, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer gives important remarks and answers questions from the media at the conclusion of the two-day event. WATCH: 

Within one question from an EU/Canada media stenographer, there’s a rather brutally obvious statement from USTR Greer. Absolutely epic. Both Canada and Europe are missing a very key something from their economic model, CONSUMERS!

Instead of focusing on growth within their domestic economies, both Canada and Europe rely on the USA to provide the CONSUMERS for their goods. Negotiating from that position is not too difficult.

ESSENTIALLY, currently Canada sends their overproduction to the USA (hence their trade surplus). Currently the EU send their overproduction to the USA (hence their trade surplus). Block those inbound surpluses and what exactly is Canada and the EU going to do with their newly acquired excess?

The two lowest growth economic systems, that are both missing the critical component of ‘consumers’, are going to send their excess products to each other?  Think about it.

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In a remarkable series of events, Canadian TV (CTV) is reporting that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is likely to win the Nobel Prize for Peace, the Time Magazine Person of the Year Award and public veneration by Pope Leo XIV to culminate a year when the European Union is now meeting to decide which capitals will host the monuments and statues.

All of these timed accolades are related to Carney’s spectacular position as the world’s leading opponent to United States President Donald J Trump. No single person has ever won such incredible distinctions in a single year. The Associated Press is now reporting the news:

TORONTO — Mark Carney built a global profile in 2026 by standing up to U.S. President Donald Trump. If some prediction-market traders and prominent admirers are right, the Canadian prime minister could end the year with the Nobel Peace Prize and Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

Carney briefly became the favourite Monday for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Kalshi, a U.S.-based prediction market, when traders on the exchange put his chances at 14 per cent. His odds later fell, illustrating the highly speculative nature of the wagering.

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