David Akin's Roundup: More projects. Unwanted Legault. Venezuela mobilizes.

WED NOV 12

Canada

Canadians pause to reflect on Remembrance Day

At the National War Memorial in Ottawa, veterans, their families and supporters, plus dignitaries and the Silver Cross Mother gathered to mark Remembrance Day. This was Mark Carney’s first Remembrance Day as prime minister. In a statement, he said, “In an increasingly dangerous and divided world, remembrance is also vigilance.” Global’s chief political correspondent David Akin was also in the crowd and has our top story tonight while Touria Izri reports on the ‘opportunity to heal’ for Indigenous veterans. | Global National

New nation-building projects list to include mines, LNG, Iqaluit hydro: sources

Carney said Monday he will make this week’s announcement in Prince Rupert, B.C., prompting speculation that the Indigenous-proposed Ksi Lisims natural gas liquefaction facility and marine terminal project would be on the list — speculation that sources confirmed. Three of the new projects — the Sisson Mine in New Brunswick, the Nouveau Monde Graphite mine and Crawford Nickel in Ontario — focus on critical minerals. | CBC News

The Globe and Mail is also reporting the same projects will be announced Thursday. 🔐

Follow-up: Party fundraising - per capita numbers

Roundup Reader Jon Christianson left this comment about the charts in Monday’s newsletter outlining per-capita fundraising by parties.
”Wonder what the Median amount is ? If someone gives the max of $1,750 it takes a lot of very low numbers to average $38 or $78.”

To which I say: There is a chart for that! A ‘boxplot’ chart! The top chart is per-donor contributions 2015-2025. The bottom boxplot is only 2025 data, a period when the average BQ per capita donation eclipsed the CPC average donation..

How to read a boxplot?

Center: The median (average) line in the centre of each box shows the central tendency of the data. A median line closer to the top of the box suggests the data is skewed low, while a line near the bottom suggests a high skew. So if you look at the NDP in the bottom graf — the average is right at the top of of a very small box — which means most donors gave the average; almost none gave more than the average; and the rest gave below the average. In the CPC box on the bottom, the median average line is near the bottom of the box — so there donors who gave more than the average pulled the height of the box up.

Spread: The length of the box shows the spread of the middle 50% of the data. The length of the ‘whiskers’ — the skinny vertical lines extending from both ends of the box — shows the spread of the remaining data. A relatively tight box from the Liberals in the bottom graph would indicate fairly uniform amount of giving among all Liberal donors in 2025.

Variability: Longer whiskers can indicate greater variability in the data at the ends of the distribution. That would be your Conservative Party in the 2025 which saw donors give anything from about $75 a quarter to more than $180 a quarter though most gave between $100 and $150 as well as the BQ whose ‘variability’ stretched from about $110 to $210 per quarter.

Comparison: Boxplots are especially useful for comparing the distribution of data across multiple groups. You can see which groups have higher or lower medians, wider or narrower spreads (box length), and different numbers of outliers.

Takeaway: If every donor was giving roughly the same amount, you’d have a small box and whiskers which do not extend very far from the box. So, in this case, you could say there is a greater variability among the amounts BQ and CPC donors give since it’s a longer box than others and long whiskers. The Liberal plot here seems to the most compact which might suggest that there are fewer high-figure or low-figure donors.

Hope that helps! Thanks for the question, Jon. - DA

The Provinces

Legault veut prioriser neuf projets en défense de 11 à 16 milliards $

Le gouvernement Legault a soumis à Ottawa une liste de neuf projets d’investissement en défense sur le sol québécois dans le but qu’ils soient priorisés par le gouvernement fédéral. Parmi ces projets d’une valeur d’au moins 11 milliards de dollars, certains pourraient aussi recevoir le soutien financier du Québec. | Radio-Canada

Les Québécois ne veulent plus de François Legault

À 71% d’insatisfaction, «c’est son pire score depuis toujours», note le sondeur Jean-Marc Léger. Un nouveau sondage Léger–Le Journal–TVA révèle que les Québécois ne veulent plus de François Legault comme premier ministre. «La majorité des Québécois souhaite le départ de François Legault. À 61%, c’est du jamais-vu», mentionne Jean-Marc Léger. «Ça commence à fissurer même chez les caquistes.» Seulement 1% des sondés «défendent» le gouvernement Legault en étant très satisfaits, indique Jean-Marc Léger. «On est loin de la pandémie», signale-t-il.| TVA Nouvelles

Labour Minister tells Ford-friendly union it will be tapped to build Hwy. 401 tunnel

The Labourers International Union of North America (LiUNA), which represents thousands of workers in the civil and residential construction sector, has endorsed the Progressive Conservatives in two successive elections and, in the most recent election, opened its training facility for Ford to make a campaign announcement. | Globalnews.ca

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Elsewhere

U.S. aircraft carrier nears Latin America as Venezuela tensions simmer

The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has entered waters near Latin America, prompting Venezuela to put the entire country’s military arsenal at the ready, as the U.S. naval buildup fuels speculation that the Trump administration intends to dramatically escalate its deadly counternarcotics campaign there. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said that Venezuela would put the entire country’s military arsenal at the ready, including its militia and almost 200,000 soldiers. | WaPo

Utah judge rejects Republican-drawn congressional map, adopts alternative creating Democratic-leaning district

Gibson ultimately selected a map drawn by plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government. It keeps Salt Lake County almost entirely within one district, instead of dividing the heavily Democratic population center among all four districts, as was the case previously. The judge’s ruling throws a curveball for Republicans in a state where they expected a clean sweep as they’re working to add winnable seats elsewhere. Nationally, Democrats need to net three U.S. House seats next year to wrest control of the chamber from the GOP, which is trying to buck a historic pattern of the president’s party losing seats in the midterms. | PBS

Milei to follow in Trump’s footsteps and skip G20 in South Africa

Sources at the Presidential Office told Perfil that [Argentina President Javier] Milei will not be travelling to South Africa. Instead Federico Pinedo, the government’s G20 “sherpa” – who acts as the president’s guide during the summit — and Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, will attend on the head of state’s behalf. A diplomatic source who was involved in organising the 2018 G20 Leaders Summit in Argentina, the only time it has been held here, warned that the President’s absence “will be seen as a slight to the whole of Africa – moreover, we’re the least significant member of the G20. If we simply follow any reform proposals coming from the United States, we could end up excluded altogether.” | Buenos Aires Times

Reader note

Who writes this stuff? See the “About” page …

Media

Kansas County Agrees to Pay $3 Million Over Police Raid of Newspaper

A county in central Kansas has agreed to pay more than $3 million and apologize for a 2023 raid on local newspaper that raised press freedom concerns and turned the small town of Marion, Kan., into a battleground over the First Amendment. Monday’s agreement is part of an extended legal battle, with the paper and its employees on one side and Marion County and the City of Marion on the other.

“This has never been about money per se,” [the paper’s lawyer] said. “It’s about getting a large enough number so that the next crazed cop who thinks it would be good idea to raid a newspaper says, ‘Whoa, Nelly, I don’t think I want to do that.’”| NYT

Science and Technology

The first new subsea habitat in 40 years is about to launch

Once it is sealed and moved to its permanent home beneath the waves of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary early next year, Vanguard will be the world’s first new subsea habitat in nearly four decades. Teams of four scientists will live and work on the seabed for a week at a time, entering and leaving the habitat as scuba divers. Their missions could include reef restoration, species surveys, underwater archaeology, or even astronaut training. | MIT Technology Review

Google launches a lawsuit targeting text message scammers

Google has had it with scammers. On Wednesday, the tech giant went on the offensive, filing a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York targeting what it alleges is a sprawling criminal organization based in China called “Lighthouse” that provides software and support to online scammers.

The lawsuit alleges that the Lighthouse network runs a “Phishing-as-a-Service” operation, selling a software kit that offers hundreds of fake website templates to would-be scammers. Google’s suit says nearly 200 of them have mimicked U.S.-based sites, including New York City’s official website, the post office and the West Virginia DMV. | NPR

The Calendar

• 0800 ET : Îles-de-la-Madeleine , QC Government House Leader Min Steven MacKinnon speaks about Budget 2025.

• 0830 ET : Ottawa - Defence Min David McGuinty makes a funding announcement.

• 1000 ET : Winnipeg - CANNOR and Northern Affairs Min Rebecca Chartrand and LPC MPs Ben Carr and Doug Eyolfson make a funding announcement

• 1000 ET : Magog, QC LPC MP Jacques Villeneuve makes a funding announcement

• 1030 ET : West Block - PM Carney meets with his cabinet.

• 1100 ET : Vancouver - Finance Min François-Philippe Champagne speaks to the board of trade about Budget 2025.

• 1100 ET : NPT- Representatives of the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility speaks to reporters.

• 1200 ET : Regina - Veterans Affairs Min Jill McKnight makes a funding announcement.

• 1530 ET : Edmonton, LPC MP Mike Kelloway makes a funding announcement

• 1600 ET : Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON Foreign Affairs Min Anita Anand speaks at the G7 Foreign Ministers meeting.

• 1700 ET : Toronto - LPC MP Julie Dzerowicz hosts a virtual town hall meeting.

• 1845 ET : Vancouver - PM Carney speaks about Budget 2025.

• 1900 ET : Winnipeg - LPC MP Kevin Lamoureux and CPC MP Garnett Genuis engage in a debate at the University of Winnipeg.

• 2025 ET : Vancouver - PM Carney visits a small business.

Issued this day …

… in 2000. Sc 1877a se-tenant pair. Canadian Regiments. Design: Pierre-Yves Pelletier. Illustrations: Bernard Leduc Reader Note: Got my days mixed yesterday and sent out the Nov 12 stamp (Leacock) on Nov 11. So here’s yesterday’s stamps to make things even!

Canada Post describes the subject of these two stamps:

Sc: 1876: Lord Strathcona’s Horse: Donald Alexander Smith (1820-1914), 1st Baron Strathcona, raised a cavalry unit (with his own money) for service in South Africa. A very wealthy man, his proposal was accepted in January of 1900, and the regiment eventually became known as Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians). The first commander of the regiment was the legendary Samuel Benfield Steele (1849-1919) of the North-West Mounted Police, known for bringing law and order to the Yukon Territory during the Gold Rush. Made up of former cowboys and members of the N.W.M.P., all were experienced riders and marksmen. It distinguished itself in South Africa where Sgt. Richardson won the Victoria Cross. During the First World War, Lt. Frederick Harvey earned the Victoria Cross at Guyencourt, France, and Lt. Gordon Flowerdew won the same award at Moreuil Wood. With the outbreak of the Second World War, the regiment traded their horses for tanks and saw important engagements at the Melfa River in Italy, and later in Holland. They celebrated their centenary in May of 2000 with many of this distinguished regiment’s brave veterans on-hand.

Sc 1877: Les Voltigeurs de Québec A new Canadian militia unit was created in Quebec City in 1862, becoming known as ‘The 9th Battalion Volunteer Militia Rifles, Canada’ (or Voltigeurs of Québec). The regiment first saw service during the Fenian Raids (1864-1866 and 1870), then served during the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. Joseph Vézina, a celebrated Quebec musician and composer, was the regimental band’s director from 1867 to 1879. On the 24th of June, 1880 (St. Jean-Baptiste Day), he assembled a group of musicians, including members of the military band of the 9th Battalion, to play a series of popular Canadian melodies including ‘Chant national’, an arrangement that would in time become the anthem ‘O Canada’. In the First World War, the regiment would contribute more than five hundred volunteers and recruits for service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. While most Canadian military units have flags (or ‘Colours’) bearing the regimental insignia and combat history, Les Voltigeurs (a rifle regiment) uses drums to display their battle honours. The stamp reflects this great tradition by featuring a member of the regiment in present-day uniform with the drum bearing the honours ‘Northwest Canada 1885’ and ‘First World War’.