Foreign Buyers Pile Into Canada Bonds

Foreign investors bought $27.7 billion in Government of Canada bonds in April, the biggest monthly haul ever seen. Their share of federal bonds outstanding also rose to a record 43 percent.

The buyers of this Canadian debt include pension funds, insurers and hedge funds that are looking for a safe place to park their money while Ottawa tries to pay for a long list of Carney-era projects. It’s good news for the country because strong demand for Canadian debt helps keep borrowing costs lower than they might be otherwise. This matters very much when the federal government is trying to build, spend and reassure markets at the same time.

The world’s appetite for Canadian debt is part of the machinery behind the exchange rate, bond yields, mortgage costs and the value of Canadian savings that are held by Canadians onshore and overseas. Canada is borrowing from the world - it appear to be good news that the world is buying.

Read more: BNN Bloomberg

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B.C. Heads Back to China

B.C. Premier David Eby is in China this week, with planned stops in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou before his trip wraps up on Friday. The pitch is for more sales of wood, agriculture, tourism and energy, with LNG doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

China is British Columbia's second-largest export market, and the province says the trip fits its plan to double exports to non-U.S. markets over the next decade. Destination BC is also along for the ride, talking to Air Canada, China Eastern and travel firms as Chinese visits to B.C. are expected to climb by nearly a fifth this year. A heady pace.

The trip is going to have an impact beyond Victoria because it’s a very visible example of how one province is working to build a trade and travel map that doesn’t run through Washington. For Canadians in Asia, it’s nice to see the old country is once again spending more time looking east west (you get the point!).

Read more: Destination BC / CBC News

Canada Makes Some Airport Connections Less Painful

Canada has made some international connections less airport-ish at Toronto Pearson Terminal 1, Vancouver, and Montreal. Eligible passengers flying from one country to another through those airports can now go straight to international departures without seeing a CBSA officer or tapping through a primary inspection kiosk.

The catch is the usual travel paperwork bingo. Travellers still need the right passport, visa, eTA, or transit visa, in addition to a confirmed international flight leaving Canada within 24 hours. They also have to stay inside the designated international departure area, and automatic baggage transfer needs to be in place. If the bag has to be collected, the normal border route is back in play.

For Canadians abroad, the new way of doing things may make it easier to use the big airports as a routing hub. Family trips, long-haul connections, and odd cheaper itineraries through home soil may now get a little less annoying.

Read more: CIC News / CBSA

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Dual Citizens Are Doing Jersey Math

The World Cup has Canadian dual citizens doing some emotional jersey math. At Vancouver's FIFA Fan Festival, The Canadian Press found fans stacking loyalties, including a Mexican-born Vancouver resident wearing Mexico green outside and Canada red underneath.

Canada is heading into Canada Day with World Cup flags everywhere, and the men's team has made the round of 16. The fan zones have turned into a demonstration of how Canadian identity works when people carry more than one passport, language, family story, or football loyalty (and perhaps heartbreak).

Read more: Canada's National Observer / CTV News

The FX Trade Can Wait When You Move South

Moving to the U.S. does not automatically mean you need to turn each of your Canadian investments into U.S. dollars. MoneySense says the first question should not the exchange rate, it ought to be what kind of account you are holding, which tax system now has a claim on it, and whether Uncle Sam sees your Canadian fund as a PFIC. We imagine all of that is about as fun as it sounds to sort out.

The planning is relevant, however, for Canucks who leave with RRSPs, TFSAs, non-registered accounts, brokerage accounts, and the like sitting back home. A quick currency swap can lock in an ugly CAD-USD move, but doing nothing can also leave you with U.S. reporting headaches, trading limits, or tax treatment that might be less-than-pleasant.

Sometimes the boring answer is the useful one, so take the time to sort your accounts before you make the currency trade.

Read more: MoneySense

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Canada Goes Mineral Shopping With Japan

Canada's biggest business mission to the Indo-Pacific came home from Japan with more than $1.7 billion in commercial deals, but the most interesting piece may be the mineral stockpile.

Reuters says Ottawa and Tokyo are in talks over joint mining projects, offtake agreements, and stockpiles for graphite and gallium. Japan wants to reduce its dependence on China, Canada wants Asian buyers for the stuff it keeps saying is going to power the future. As it happens, Japanese giant Mitsubishi is already deep in LNG Canada in Kitimat, so there’s a very Pacific Coast flavour to the whole pitch.

This play is Canada continuing to try and look less trapped between Washington and Beijing. The old country has spent months talking about trade diversification but finally in Japan, numbers are being attached to the talk.

Read more: MINING.COM / The Globe and Mail

Ottawa Still Has No Embassy Door in Iran or Venezuela

Canada is keeping its embassy doors shut in Iran and Venezuela, even as Ottawa says it is looking for better ways to help Canadians stuck dealing with those governments from afar.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Friday that Canada has no plans to reopen either mission. For Iran, Canada relies on Italy to connect with Canadians, a workaround Anand admitted is not the most efficient way to handle consular files. We presume this is because the work is done by way of a foreign mission, and not a specific attack on the Italians. CBC reported PM Mark Carney said Canada is at a disadvantage in Iran but reminded readers of the regime's record, including the downing of Flight PS752, as reason enough to keep some distance.

That leaves Canadian citizens in those countries, and families outside them trying to help, with fewer direct doors to knock on. Diplomacy can often be abstract, but missing consular desk is not.

Read more: Global News / CBC News

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CRA Took the Biggest Federal Job Hit

In what might be good news for tax-dodgers, the federal public service has shrunk once again, and CRA took the biggest hit. National Post says the tax agency lost 3,725 workers between March 2025 and March 2026, which was more than any other department.

CBC put the total drop at more than 12,000 jobs, putting the federal workforce down to about 345,000 by late March. Carney's government has said it wants to cut 16,000 roles within three years and bring the public service closer to 330,000 by 2029.

Jokes aside, CRA isn’t entirely unhelpful for Canadians abroad - it's where non-resident tax questions, online account locks, benefit files, withholding forms, and return-to-Canada paperwork pile up. The cuts may be ordinary attrition on paper, but anyone who has waited on hold from a different time zone knows that when you need a hand, having a real person to talk to can make a world of difference.

Read more: National Post / CBC News

The Loonie Is Flirting With 70 Cents

The loonie is back around 70 cents US after sliding from about 74 cents in early May.

The Canadian Press says the drop is being pulled by two forces. Canada's economy looks soft, and at the same time, the US dollar is getting a lift from stronger growth, AI investment and expectations that the Fed may keep rates higher than the Bank of Canada.

Anyone who gets paid in US dollars gets a nicer conversion on Canadian bills. Anyone living on CPP, Canadian savings or a Canadian salary abroad gets the… less fun version.

Scotiabank currency strategist Shaun Osborne told CP he sees the loonie rebounding to about 75 cents US later this year if the Fed cuts while the Bank of Canada raises. Watch this space.

Read more: BNN Bloomberg / The Globe and Mail

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Ottawa Wants Your ID Before You TikTok

Ottawa's online-safety push has found a weird privacy knot. Bill C-34 would keep Canadians under 16 off social media, but enforcing that means platforms may need adults to prove they are, well, adult.

That could mean facial age scans, government ID uploads or other age checks, depending on rules still to come. The Globe and Mail writes that Canada wants TikTok to collect less data on kids while also pushing platforms to collect proof of age from everyone else.

It’s a little rich, as five days after introducing C-34, Ottawa tabled Bill C-36, its new privacy bill, promising stronger control over personal data, deletion rights and tougher children's-data rules.

Canadians abroad already often get hamstrung by identity checks for banks, telecoms and government services. Social platforms joining that club would make Canadian digital life feel more like a border crossing.

Read more: The Globe and Mail / Government of Canada

Canada Got Smaller. Again.

Canada shrank by 55,025 people in the first three months of 2026. That is not a typo. Statistics Canada put the country at 41,417,056 people on April 1, down 0.1 percent from New Year's Day.

The main drag was a drop in non-permanent residents, down 117,879 in the quarter. Permanent immigration fell to 83,149 people. StatCan says the numbers are preliminary and could move when more complete data is available in September, so don’t bet the house on these numbers just yet.

Still, this is the backdrop to yesterday's digital-nomad story (Voyageur 132). Canada is not only arguing about immigration levels from inside the house. More Canadians are also deciding what life looks like from outside it. The population chart is beginning to show both halves of that conversation.

Read more: Statistics Canada / Financial Post

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Ottawa Wants Roads to the Arctic

Ottawa is expected on Wednesday to start naming its first national-interest projects, and the first picks are roads most Canadians have never driven because they do not exist yet. Very Canadian. Very Arctic.

The Mackenzie Valley Highway would create an all-season route through the Northwest Territories toward Inuvik. The Grays Bay Road and Port would connect Nunavut's Kitikmeot region to the national highway system and a deep-water Arctic port. Both are part of the “Canada-is-building-the-North” file that now brings together a need for critical minerals, sovereignty, defence, and Indigenous issues.

The label is important because national-interest projects can get faster federal reviews under the Building Canada Act. For Canadians outside of the country, the work can reveal an indication of what Ottawa wants the country to look like from a distance. A little less branch plant, and a little more Arctic spine.

Read more: Global News / Cabin Radio

Young Canadians Are Going Nomad

A new class of young Canadian remote workers is leaving for cheaper, warmer countries, and nobody in Ottawa appears to be really counting them. The Globe and Mail says the move is happening in the shadows because Canada's statistical agencies do not neatly track people who keep Canadian ties while working from abroad.

The lure of the yonder is easy to understand. Housing costs did what housing costs do. Remote work made geography negotiable. Suddenly Mexico, Portugal, Costa Rica or Thailand can look less like a sabbatical and more like a spreadsheet with better weather.

This is not the old snowbird script. These are working-age Canadians taking Canadian incomes, Canadian tax questions, Canadian bank accounts and Canadian identity into another country's visa system.

When leaving becomes a personal-finance strategy, the expat story stops being niche. Make sure you get these folks subscribed to The Voyageur

Read more: The Globe and Mail

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Citizenship Proof Can Move Faster

IRCC's proof-of-citizenship queue is now about 15 months long, but some Canadians can ask to jump the line. CIC News says urgent processing can cut the wait to weeks when the reason is real and the documents are complete.

The list isn’t super broad, though. Job deadlines, school deadlines, serious family illness, statelessness, moving a minor child to Canada, giving up another citizenship, avoiding harm, or getting benefits such as a pension or health care can qualify. Dual citizens from visa-exempt countries also have a route if they have proof of air travel to Canada within six months.

That last bit might help from abroad. Canada expects Canadian citizens to enter on a Canadian passport, and you usually need the certificate before the passport.

The shortcut is not a loophole. IRCC can refuse it, and a padded request can turn a slow file into a fraud problem.

Read more: CIC News / Government of Canada

The Big Three Are Keeping the New Phone Fees

Canada's big three wireless carriers are staring down the CRTC and keeping the new fees. Bell and Rogers have added $40 device charges. Telus has started charging $15 for new physical SIM cards and eSIM activations.

New federal rules took effect on June 12 banning telecom fees tied to activation, plan changes or cancellation when they discourage customers from switching providers. The carriers say their charges are for optional products. The CRTC has already said the charges do not appear to fit that exemption.

That matters if your Canadian number is the boring little lifeline holding together bank codes, CRA logins, airline alerts and family calls from abroad. A fee fight in Ottawa can still show up on the bill for that phone you keep in a drawer overseas.

Now the ball is back with the regulator.

Read more: The Globe and Mail / MobileSyrup

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Retiring Near Home May Be Worth $700,000

A Canadian early-retirement writer put a rough price on the health-care safety net. His math says a couple retiring in Canada instead of Florida could need nearly $700,000 less in savings to cover worst-case medical costs.

The comparison starts with a healthy 40-year-old couple in Florida buying insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges. Even with insurance, the 2026 family out-of-pocket limit can reach US$21,200 a year. Using the FIRE crowd's rule of 25, that recurring risk turns into a US$530,000 portfolio need, or about C$745,000.

Canada is not free of costs. Prescription drugs are patchy, and Quebec caps annual drug costs at $1,232 per person. But that puts the same couple's 25-year Quebec exposure at $61,600.

For a Canadian abroad choosing where old age happens, geography can move the retirement target by a house-sized number.

Read more: The Globe and Mail

Ottawa Wants to File Some Tax Returns Itself

Ottawa's automatic tax-filing plan has a number on it. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says eligible non-filers could receive an average of $2,212 for the 2025 tax year if CRA prepares simple returns for them.

The first year is tiny. CRA expects about 3,000 automatic returns, then 50,000 by 2027. The five-year price tag is expected to be $429 million once admin costs and the benefits paid out are fully accounted for.

The deal is mostly aimed at low-income Canadians who miss benefits because they do not file, but it also says something useful for anyone managing Canadian money from abroad, and that is that more of the tax system is moving through CRA accounts, pre-filled data, and benefit plumbing that only works if your paperwork is boring and current.

Boring and current. The expat tax dream.

Read more: Global News

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Retirement Math From Abroad

Canadians still working think personal savings will do more of the heavy lifting in retirement than usually pans out. A CAAT Pension Plan report cited by the Financial Post says 25 per cent of workers expect savings to be their main retirement income source. Among retirees, only 15 per cent say that is true.

The gap is bigger when pensions enter the picture- retirees with pensions report average annual income of $85,735, compared with $52,570 for those without. Fifty eight per cent of retirees rely on CPP and OAS for income.

For Canadians living outside Canada, that should not be an abstract planning graph. CPP, OAS, workplace pensions, RRSPs, foreign tax rules, exchange rates, and the physical place that you plan to age peacefully with a good cup of coffee all need to be accounted for. Be prepared.

Read more: Financial Post

Canada Still Has No Foreign Influence Registry

Canada has spent six months with draft rules for a foreign influence registry and still hasn’t been able to put one together. Global News says diaspora and civil-society groups are pushing PM Mark Carney to finish the job and set Anton Boegman up as the first commissioner.

The registry came out of the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act, which was introduced in 2024 after years of warnings about foreign interference in Canadian politics. The idea is simple- if someone is working in Canada on behalf of another government, Canadians should be able to see whose interests are being pushed.

That matters beyond Canada’s borders because transnational pressure doesn’t stop at the airport. Public Safety Canada has said affected communities should be part of the design, and Global says China and India keep showing up in Canada’s national-security warnings. For Canadians tied to those communities abroad, the work in progress is more than abstract paperwork.

Read more: Global News / Public Safety Canada

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A Will Gets Messier Abroad

MoneySense has a useful reminder for anyone who has been treating their will like “basement paperwork.” A will mostly answers three questions. Who handles the estate, who gets the assets, and who looks after children or pets after you’re gone.

The wrinkle for expats is in the maintenance section, which is where boring trouble likes to hide. MoneySense says wills should be reviewed every three to five years and after major life changes, including moving out of province or country. If your accounts are in Canada, your home is somewhere else, and your executor has to make sense of both… plan ahead.

The article also points out that registered accounts, life insurance, joint bank accounts, and jointly owned homes might possibly pass outside the will through named beneficiaries or ownership rules. In other words, the document matters, but the whole setup matters more. Once again… best to plan ahead

Read more: MoneySense

Your CPP Is Buying India's Data Boom

CPP Investments is putting up to $1 billion into Indian data centres with CtrlS Datacenters, a Hyderabad company riding the AI and cloud rush. The money manager will spend $588 million for an 8.2 per cent stake in CtrlS, then commit up to $441 million to a joint venture that builds data centres across India.

That joint venture splits 48 per cent to CPP Investments and 52 per cent to CtrlS. In newsletter terms, your retirement cheque is now partly tied to server farms in one of the world's fastest-growing digital markets. Very 2026. Very warm racks.

CPP is designed to invest globally, and Canadians abroad already live with that reality. The plan you probably paid into at home is increasingly earning its keep in places you may be living, working, or sending money to.

Read more: The Globe and Mail / CP24

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Carney Tries Selling Trump on Chinese EVs

PM Mark Carney got caught on a hot mic at the G7 in France trying to talk Donald Trump through Canada's Chinese EV deal. He said that Canada would let in up to 49,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles at a lower tariff rate, capped at less than three per cent of the market.

Trump's reply was short. He said he liked it.

That’s interesting because Washington has been twitchy about Canada becoming a side door for Chinese cars into the U.S. market. Canada had put a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese EVs to match the U.S., then partly rolled it back after China suspended retaliatory tariffs on Canadian agricultural products.

For Canadians abroad, this is the trade file writ small. Cheaper cars, angry allies, China pressure, U.S. pressure, and Ottawa trying to keep everyone from flipping the table.

Read more: Global News / Canada's National Observer

Canada Dodges the Financial-Crime Grey List

Canada is expected to avoid the global financial-crime grey list after a review of its anti-money-laundering controls. The final report will not be delivered until the fall, but The Globe and Mail says Canada’s likely to stay off the list.

The list is run by the Financial Action Task Force, a group that flags countries with weak controls against money laundering and terrorist financing. Landing on the list doesn’t make a country untouchable, but it can make banks twitchy and usually means extra questions, extra paperwork, and extra reasons for a foreign compliance desk to look at a Canadian transfer and sigh.

For Canadians abroad, it’s important because cross-border banking already has enough headache attached. If Canada keeps its clean standing, wiring money, dealing with foreign banks, and proving that Canadian accounts are boring will remain a little less annoying.

Read more: The Globe and Mail / FATF

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AC Cuts a Deal With 11,000 Ground Workers

Air Canada has reached a tentative contract with the union that represents more than 11,000 workers who keep the airline moving.

The deal covers IAMAW members in maintenance, cabin services, airport airside operations, cargo, finance, and clerical roles. Terms are still confidential while union members vote, ratification is expected in the next few weeks. Air Canada's board also has to approve it.

The deal comes after a separate four-year Unifor deal for about 6,000 customer service workers. The agreements don’t guarantee a blissful summer travel season, unfortunately - nothing involving airports should be trusted that far - but two settled labour files are still better than two looming ones if you are trying to get home, leave home, or explain to relatives why a 47-minute connection through Pearson was a terrible idea.

Read more: Air Canada via GlobeNewswire / PAX News

Canada Post Is Moving 485,000 More Homes to Community Mailboxes

Canada Post is preparing to move another 485,000 addresses from door delivery to community mailboxes in 2027. Add the 136,000 already marked for late 2026 or early 2027, and the paper-mail era keeps getting politely shoved toward the curb.

The list includes 37 communities, including Halifax, Fredericton, Laval, Longueuil, Ottawa, Mississauga, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Kelowna, and a lot of Greater Vancouver. Canada Post says nearly three-quarters of Canadian addresses already use some kind of secure central delivery, and the full conversion plan is four million addresses over about five years.

For Canadians who have taken up residence overseas, this is one of those dull domestic changes that becomes less dull when your CRA mail, bank letters, voting paperwork, or family house still runs through a Canadian address. Doorstep mail is becoming the premium vinyl edition of public service.

Read more: Canada Post / Global News

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Ottawa Is Bringing Back Federal Privacy Rules This Week

Ottawa plans a bring a new privacy bill to the table this week. It is not the flashiest lane in politics, which is probably why your inbox has more World Cup takes than privacy chatter for the moment

The bill would revive a file that died when the previous Parliament ended. The last version tried to rewrite private-sector privacy rules and create new rules for artificial intelligence, but the new text has not yet been finalized. It’s something to keep an eye on, because Canadian privacy law can follow you when your data, bank, telco, airline, health app, or employer still has a Canadian footprint.

We will be watching to see whether Ottawa keeps the AI piece tied to privacy, splits it off, or trims it to get something passed before MPs scatter again

Read more: Global News / CTV News

A Border Library Cut Canadians Their Own Door

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House has sat on the Quebec-Vermont border for more than a century, its front door in Derby Line, Vermont and its reading room reaching into Stanstead, Quebec. For generations Canadians walked in the front door without clearing customs. Now they can't.

In early 2025 US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended the arrangement and barred Canadian patrons from the American entrance. So the town built its own. On Wednesday the library cut the ribbon on a new Canadian-side door, about $700,000 in work, half of it paid by donors after the story spread. Mystery writer Louise Penny helped rally the giving.

"It's finally done," the board president told a crowd of about a hundred.

A library that spent a hundred years proving the border didn't have to mean a wall now needs two doors to accommodate the Canucks. Times are a-changin’.

Read more: CBC News / The Boston Globe

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Carney's in Paris, Looking Past the US

PM Mark Carney is in Paris this week and will meet with President Emmanuel Macron this evening at the Elysee. The stated reason is that Canada is handing France the G7 presidency before the leaders' summit, which is running next week in Evian-les-Bains. The real reason is that Carney wants more of Canada's trade aimed away from our neighbours to the south.

Carney has said since Davos that Canada wants/ needs to expand non-US trade, and France is now Canada’s third-largest merchandise market in the EU. This same European jaunt will next take the PM to Ireland, with defence and technology deals on the table along with the regular trade chitchat.

This year's G7 is expected to skip the usual joint communique in favour of issue-by-issue statements, a workaround that’s seen as a way to dodge a fight with the United States over the wording.

If the strategy sticks, Canada may soon do more of its business across the Atlantic than across the 49th parallel.

Read more: The Globe and Mail / World Economic Forum

Canada Wants Off American Jets. Washington Still Holds the Keys.

Canada signed up for 88 American-made F-35 stealth fighters, but it seems that Ottawa is now considering whether to cut that order to about 30 and buy 60ish Swedish Saab Gripens instead.

The Gripens would be assembled in Canada with/ by Bombardier, work that could provide up to 12,600 aerospace jobs. PM Mark Carney started the procurement review in March 2025 to start the process of figuring out how to lean less on US weapons and the political leverage that comes as an unseen part of the price tag. It’s part of the same push that had Canada pick Saab's GlobalEye surveillance plane over Boeing last month (Voyageur 114).

Walking away from American kit is turning out to be harder than just signing a cheque to a new seller, however. Plugging that Swedish surveillance plane into NORAD needs a US stealth data link called MADL, which Washington has never shared with any foreign manufacturer. Defence Minister David McGuinty said engineers on both sides are working on it.

Canada can buy its planes wherever it likes. Flying them inside a continental defence system the Americans built may, however, be another matter.

Read more: CBC News / CBC News

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The Iran War Hit Your Flight Home. Ottawa's Bailing Out the Airlines.

Fuel bills from the Iran war are squeezing Canada's airlines hard enough that Ottawa has been forced to put on a cape and show up with a rescue fund.

The new financial facility lets each carrier borrow up to $150 million to help them ride out the fuel spike, which has pushed airlines to trim schedules and walk back profit forecasts. The money comes with strings attached though, it’s not a free ride. Carriers have to buy Canadian where they can, protect jobs, and keep executive pay and shareholder payouts in check for the foreseeable future.

Air Transat is the poster boy of why the funds are needed. The airline put up a $79-million loss for the quarter that ended in April, but were quick to blame fuel and their loss (suspension, at least) of their Cuba flights. Transat is also the carrier many Canuck expats book for the cheap seasonal hop to Europe or the Caribbean.

Read more: Global News / CTV News

Canada Hosts the World Cup. Your Team Plays Friday.

Canada plays its first home World Cup match Friday, against Bosnia and Herzegovina at Toronto’s BMO Field.

The tournament opens the day before in Mexico City, where Mexico meets South Africa, but for Canadians the action starts Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern. Canada is co-hosting the 2026 World Cup with the United States and Mexico, and the men’s team will play all three group games on home soil.

After Bosnia, Canada faces Qatar on June 18 and Switzerland on June 24 at Vancouver’s BC Place. Alphonso Davies, the Bayern Munich winger who grew up in Edmonton, leads the side.

For Canadians watching from abroad, the kickoff times are friendlier than usual. A 3 p.m. Eastern start lands in prime time across Europe, the small hours in Asia and around dawn in Australia. The team a lot of us grew up half-ignoring might suddenly be worth setting an alarm for.

Read more: TSN / Sky Sports

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An Air Canada Captain Flew 900 Flights He Wasn’t Licensed For

A retired Air Canada captain flew more than 900 commercial flights over nearly 17 years without the licence required to command them, Peel Regional Police allege.

The man, from Barrie, Ontario, held a commercial pilot’s licence but never the Airline Transport Pilot Licence that’s supposed to be required in order to captain passenger jets. Police say he used forged documents to satisfy Air Canada and Transport Canada after his promotion to captain in 2009. Between then and his retirement last year he commanded Boeing 767s, 777s and 787s, carrying tens of thousands of passengers and earning close to $3 million.

Those wide-bodies are the same planes that run the long-haul routes that many Voyageur readers would take home, so the odds are decent a few readers sat behind him at some point.

He now faces charges of fraud, public mischief and uttering forged documents, with his first court date set for June 29. Police called the investigation Project Icarus.

Read more: CBC News / The Globe and Mail

Gold Knocked US Treasuries Off the World's Reserve Throne

For the first time, the world's central banks are holding more value in gold than they are in US Treasuries. The European Central Bank ran the numbers and gold now makes up 27% of global reserves, up from 20% the year before. Treasuries slipped to 22% from 25%.

Part of the reason is the price of the shiny stuff - gold’s been on a tear and blew past $5,500 an ounce in January, so the bars that are already in a vault are simply worth more. But trust is also a factor. China, Poland, Turkey and India have been loading up since 2022, shifting their reserves away from the dollar, and central banks together now hold more than 36,000 tonnes, closing in on Bretton Woods levels.

The US dollar is still the biggest single slice of global reserves at 42%, so nobody's walking away from it. But the people who manage the world's money are spreading their bets. 'Geopolitical tensions continue to drive strong central bank demand for gold,' said ECB chief Christine Lagarde.

If you’re holding your savings in greenbacks or watching the loonie from abroad, the slow drift out of US debt might be worth a deeper look.

Read more: Financial Post / Financial Times

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Spies Are Bracing for Canada's Religious-Symbols Ruling

Canada's spy agencies see a 'realistic' chance that an upcoming Supreme Court ruling could feed violent extremist rhetoric, according to a federal intelligence assessment that was released this week.

The case is Quebec's Bill 21, the 2019 secularism law that bars public workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols like a hijab, turban or kippah while on the job. “Public workers” includes, among others, teachers, police officers, judges and prison guards.

Quebec shielded the law with the notwithstanding clause, part of the constitution that lets a government switch off Charter rights when it “needs to.” The National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and an English Montreal school board all weighed in to challenge it, and the country's top court heard four days of arguments during the month of March. A decision is expected to land in the next few months.

The bigger question the judges have to settle is how far a province can go in overriding the rights in Canada's Charter. The answer to that question is likely to well outlast Bill 21.

Read more: National Post / Canadian Civil Liberties Association

Canada's New Governor General Prosecuted Milosevic

Canada's new Governor General is the woman who put Slobodan Milosevic in the dock.

Louise Arbour takes office Monday as the country's 31st GG, with a 21-gun salute off Parliament Hill and an Inuit qulliq lamp lit by an elder marking the ceremony in the Senate. She is 79, a Montreal native and fluently bilingual, in addition to being a former Supreme Court justice.

Before the court she ran the UN war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, where she became the first prosecutor in history to indict a sitting head of state for crimes against humanity. She also won the first genocide conviction under the 1948 convention and was the first to charge sexual assault as a crime against humanity.

She takes over the reins from Mary Simon, Canada's first Indigenous viceregal. The role is mostly ceremonial, but the GG swears in cabinet, signs every federal bill into law, and acts as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Read more: Global News / Canada's National Observer

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Canada's Assisted-Death Law May Widen to Mental Illness

In about nine months, Canadians whose only medical condition is a mental illness could qualify for a doctor-assisted death.

Under current law, the ban on medical assistance in dying, or MAID, for mental illness on its own expires March 17 next year. A special joint committee of MPs and senators is expected to make a report before the end of June on whether the country is ready, and Justice Minister Sean Fraser is waiting on that document before deciding the next move. Until now MAID has required a physical condition.

MAID accounts for 5.1% of all deaths in Canada (and 7.9% in Quebec); that’s about 16,499 people in the latest federal count. Around 90 disability and mental health groups want Ottawa to drop the expansion permanently. Recent polling found Canadians split almost evenly, with 43% in favour and 39% against.

Read more: The Conversation / CBC News

Your Bag Tag Can Put You in a Foreign Jail

A Toronto woman checked her bag at Pearson and spent the next few weeks in a Philippine jail cell, accused of smuggling 24 kilograms of methamphetamine she says she didn’t pack.

She is one of at least 17 Canadians who flew out of Canadian airports in the past year and ended up tied to drug-filled suitcases they claim were never theirs, according to a CTV W5 investigation. The RCMP has arrested six baggage and ramp workers at Toronto Pearson, all employed by Air Canada or Swissport. The way it works is that an insider peels the tag off a passenger's bag, ditches the suitcase, and sticks that tag on a case packed with drugs. The drugs then fly under the innocent traveller's name. When the people meant to collect the goodies abroad fail to show, the traveller is the one holding the bag (no pun intended).

Some of the flights landed in countries where trafficking can result in the death penalty.

Read more: CTV News (W5) / CP24

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Beef Is Up $9.61 a Kilo

A kilogram of beef striploin in Canada now runs $42.42, up almost $10 when compared to the price a year ago. Coffee, tomatoes and most of the vegetable aisle are climbing right behind it.

Statistics Canada says a 340-gram bag of ground coffee hit $9.39 in April, a fifth more than the year before. Tomatoes went from $4.69 a kilo to $6.18. Vegetables as a group rose 7.8% from a year ago, their biggest jump since 2023. Food has been pulling Canada's whole inflation number up for months.

Plenty of expats are heading back this summer, some for the World Cup (Voyageur 112), and the trip home now is likely to come with a jolt at the checkout. If you’re wiring money to family in Canada or weighing an eventual move back, the grocery math keeps getting worse.

Read more: CP24 / CBC News

That Recruiter on LinkedIn Might Be Chinese Military Intelligence

A young recruiter with a great title and an even better offer slides into your LinkedIn messages. According to the Five Eyes, there's a real chance they work for China's military intelligence.

This week the spy agencies of Canada, the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand all put out an alert together with the title "Safeguarding our Secrets" (maybe their secrets - it seems likely that they already know most of ours). It says Chinese intelligence officers are working LinkedIn, Indeed and Upwork to get in touch with current and former government and military staff. They set themselves up as consultancies, think tanks or HR firms and post ads for foreign-policy and defence analysts. The profile photo is usually an attractive person with a common name. Usually young, but somehow holding a senior title.

The catch comes later (those rascals). People who bite soon enough get pressed for "non-public" information for clients they never get to meet. The agencies say the scheme has already cost people jobs, security clearances and, in some cases, landed them in court.

If you left a posting in Ottawa for a contract overseas, you might have exactly the resume that’s being hunted for.

Read more: National Post / Canada's National Observer

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Your American Spouse Might Not Want Your TFSA

Leaving your tax-free savings account to your American husband or wife seems like it should be the simplest thing in the world. The IRS, perhaps unsurprisingly, may have a different view.

Washington doesn't recognize the TFSA as a tax-free vehicle and it treats the account as an ordinary foreign investment account, which means that a surviving spouse can get dragged into years of US filing and disclosure. Worse, the Canadian mutual funds and ETFs that sit inside most TFSAs are considered to be PFICs (passive foreign investment companies), and the IRS usually taxes those as harshly as it taxes anything.

The fix that cross-border advisors suggest is small but it might be helpful. Name your US spouse as the beneficiary, not the successor holder. A successor holder inherits the account itself and every filing headache that comes with it, but a beneficiary gets the cash, which can then move into something the IRS looks upon more favourably.

The estate forms that your Canadian bank may have slid across the desk to you were built for couples who both live in Canada, but if you marry across a border, it would be wise to stop signing them on autopilot.

Read more: MoneySense