In the news today: Canada narrows sub suppliers to two options

By Canadian Press on August 26, 2025.

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

Canada narrows sub suppliers to two options

Government officials say Canada has narrowed down its shopping list for its next fleet of submarines to those made by a German and a South Korean supplier.

Canada plans to replace its current fleet of four aging submarines over the next decade with up to 12 new subs.

Ottawa says Germany’s Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems, or TKMS, and South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean Co. are the two best qualified suppliers for that job.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Germany today meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and is scheduled to visit the TKMS facility later in the day.

Carney is aggressively ramping up Canada’s defence spending plans in the coming years in a bid to meet NATO spending targets.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

Alberta Next panel set for event in Fort McMurray

Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next panel is heading to Fort McMurray tonight to gather ideas from the public on getting the province a better deal from Ottawa.

The panel’s town halls have been aimed at addressing grievances that Smith says are inspiring separatist sentiment.

It has pitched six policy ideas, including pulling out of the Canada Pension Plan and creating a provincial police force to replace the RCMP.

Another issue up for discussion is the idea of withholding social services from some immigrants.

The panel has received enthusiastic support, but also has faced fierce criticism and drawn protesters at three previous events in Red Deer and Edmonton.

Byelection today in western Manitoba

Voters are going to the polls today in a provincial byelection in western Manitoba.

The Spruce Woods riding is largely rural and has voted strongly for the Progressive Conservatives since it was formed in 2011.

The Tories, who are now in Opposition, have never received less than 60 per cent of the vote, but the governing New Democrats are riding high in provincewide opinion polls and have made a series of promises and announcements in the area.

The seat has been vacant since March, when Grant Jackson resigned to run for the federal Conservatives in the April general election.

The outcome of the vote won’t affect the NDP’s majority in the legislature, where the party has 34 of the 57 seats to the Tories’ 20. There is one Liberal and one Independent.

Woman being sued over ‘pretendians’ allegations

A First Nations woman is being sued for calling four women “pretendians,” with the plaintiffs seeking more than $500,000 in damages and retractions to the heavily publicized comments made about them.

Michelle Christine Cameron, also known as Crystal Semaganis, who heads the Ghost Warrior Society, says she conducts research to safeguard community spaces designated for Indigenous Peoples and says those pretending to be Indigenous pose a real harm to communities and nations.

In the lawsuit filed in July to the Supreme Court of Yukon, Amanda Buffalo, Krista Reid, Amaris Manderschied and their mother Louise Darroch, say Semaganis conducted research into their backgrounds and concluded they are of Ukrainian heritage, not Indigenous, and then engaged in a “relentless” social media campaign against them.

Court documents say she is accused of calling them “‘grifters,’ liars and racists who exploit their falsely claimed Indigenous heritage for personal gain.”

Three of the four plaintiffs hold positions working with or for Indigenous communities.

Newfoundlanders worried about homes after wildfire

Lisa Hogan hasn’t seen her home in Western Bay, N.L., for about three weeks, but she’s been told it’s still standing.

She and her sister have been sleeping at a school that was turned into a wildfire evacuation centre in nearby Carbonear.

Hogan is among approximately 2,100 people in eastern Newfoundland who were driven from their homes this month by a wildfire spreading along the northwestern shore of Conception Bay, about 45 kilometres northwest of St. John’s.

Like the others living at the school, Hogan said they have been told to brace themselves for their eventual return home: Western Bay and some towns around it may be unrecognizable.

The wildfire, which first began Aug. 3 near Kingston, has scarred landscapes and changed communities, destroying nearly 200 homes and other structures along a 15-kilometre stretch of coastline.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2025.

The Canadian Press