A White House rendezvous? – iPolitics

Good evening to you.

We begin tonight with U.S. President Donald Trump, who said on Wednesday that he will meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House “within the next week.”

“I spoke to him yesterday,” Trump said of Carney. “He couldn’t have been nicer and I congratulated him.”

Carney and Trump spoke on the phone Tuesday after the Liberals’ stunning win in Monday’s election — a come-from-behind victory that was driven by many Canadians’ anger over the president’s tariffs and taunts about making Canada a U.S. state.

Carney has said previously he’s open to meeting with Trump if the president starts respecting Canadian sovereignty and is willing to talk about a common approach to trade.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not confirm a date for the meeting between the two leaders. The PMO’s readout of Tuesday’s phone call said only that Trump and Carney would meet in the near future.

Trumps said he expects to have a “great relationship” with Canada.

CP has more details.

Turning to fallout from Monday’s election, the Liberals pulled off a victory that seemed unimaginable back in January.

Winning 40-plus seats in Quebec. Maintaining their hold on Atlantic Canada. Picking up seats in B.C., including Vancouver Island, which had been red-free since 2008.

But it wasn’t enough to translate into a majority, with the Liberals coming in just three seats shy (recounts pending) of the magic 172 threshold.

The culprit? An underwhelming performance in the Greater Toronto Area, where the party lost six seats (seven if you count the new riding of Milton East-Halton Hills South, which the party would’ve won in a squeaker in 2021 if it had existed).

This comes despite new leader Mark Carney boosting the party’s vote share by over 10 points from four years ago.

The York Region was ground zero for the Liberal losses, with Conservatives flipping five seats in the area.

A former Liberal MP from the 905, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely, blamed lingering resentment over Justin Trudeau’s handling of immigration and public safety for the defeat in York.

The ex-MP said the disappointment voters felt on crime and immigration issues was “palpable,” and that “leftover unhappiness with the with the prior administration from the last three years” couldn’t be completely erased despite having a new leader.

Marco Vigliotti reports.

In other news, Green Party Co-Leader Jonathan Pedneault has announced his resignation following the party’s underwhelming performance in the recent federal election, marking the second time he’s stepped down in less than a year.

Pedneault placed fifth in the Montreal riding of Outremont on Monday, losing by more than 20,000 votes to Liberal cabinet minister Rachel Bendayan. Elizabeth May, the party’s other co-leader, was the only Green to win a seat, as she held Saanich-Gulf Islands for the fifth-consecutive election.

Across the country, the Greens only secured 1.3 per cent of the popular vote, marking the party’s worst performance since the 2000 federal election.

“Yesterday’s election results were deeply disappointing and highlight more than ever the need for electoral reform,” Pedneault said in a statement on social media. “As Co-Leader and the party’s primary spokesperson in this campaign, I must however take responsibility for the failure to translate our ideas, our passion, and our vision into the electoral gains that Canadians so urgently need.”

Pedneault, who is the second party leader to resign post-election after the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh, said he would step down immediately.

Davis Legree has the full story.

Process Nerd: A (very early) look at how the new minority dynamics could play out in the House of Commons

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Pakistan said Wednesday it had “credible intelligence” that India is planning to attack it within days, and vowed to respond “very strongly,” as soldiers exchanged gunfire along borders and Pakistanis heeded New Delhi’s orders to leave the country following last week’s deadly attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

India has moved to punish Pakistan after accusing it of backing the attack in Pahalgam, which Islamabad denies, driving tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to their highest point since 2019, when they came close to war after a suicide car bombing in Kashmir. The region is split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety.

Pakistan said the intelligence shows that India plans military action against it in the next 24 to 36 hours “on the pretext of baseless and concocted allegations of involvement.”

AP has the latest.

Elsewhere, a judge on Wednesday released a Palestinian man who led protests against the war in Gaza as a student at Columbia University and was arrested by immigration officials during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship.

Immigration authorities have arrested and detained college students from around the country since the first days of the Trump administration, many of whom participated in campus protests over the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians.

Mohsen Mahdawi is among the first of those students to win his freedom after challenging an arrest. He walked out of a Vermont courthouse Wednesday and led hundreds of supporters in chants including “No fear” and “Free Palestine.” He said people must come together to defend both democracy and humanity.

AP also has those details.

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

Don’t call it a comeback.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, a hockey team everyone knows for postseason excellence, of course, have dropped back-to-back playoff games that would have closed out their first-round series against the Ottawa Senators, resulting in a crucial Game 6 tomorrow night in the nation’s capital.

There’s no way the Leafs can choke again, right? Right?! I suppose we’ll find out.

And with that, we’ll see you tomorrow…