Start your day off right with five things you need to know this morning.
Five things you need to know
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has blasted Canada as "arrogant," implied the country could get a worse CUMSA arrangement because of its deal with China and branded Mark Carney's provocative Davos speech "political noise." Speaking with Bloomberg on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum conference, Lutnick said Carney's recent agreement with China was "the silliest thing I've ever seen."
China, meanwhile, is wasting no time in pressuring Canada to follow through on its promises following Mark Carney's visit to Beijing earlier this month. The country's ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, said that if both countries show "adequate sincerity," then they can "translate the important outcomes into reality." He added: “That requires us to lose no time and work faster to achieve more outcomes."
Chinese ambassador urges Canada to move fast to implement new deals signed in Beijing https://t.co/EPJlpZVMLS
— CTV News (@CTVNews) January 22, 2026
The nearly 20-fold increase in temporary foreign workers over the last two decades (66,640 in 2000 to 1.27 million in 2023) brought both benefits and costs to Canada's economy, a University of Toronto academic has argued in a new essay. Morley Gunderson, writing for the Fraser Institute think tank, said the workers may have allowed some Canadians to move into more skilled jobs, but they also displaced other Canadian workers, pushed down wages and discouraged capital investment.
David Eby has said British Columbia will play a "key role" in the new world order sketched out by Prime Minister Mark Carney in his speech at the World Economic Forum earlier this week. Eby said the prime minister's speech – which called the US-led "international rules-based order" a "fiction" and compared it to the hollow slogans of communism – gave him a "sense of relief and pride," adding: "Relief … because the prime minister is saying what we need to say, and that he is charting a course that we have to chart ... pride in the sense that I believe British Columbia is going to play a key role in what the prime minister is charting out here."
Eby says B.C. will play a key role in new global order described by Carney https://t.co/t1kJsjXDbS
— Times Colonist (@timescolonist) January 22, 2026
A "taxpayer acknowledgement" recited by a Toronto resident at the Ontario capital's City Hall has gone viral on social media. The resident's preamble – an obvious mockery of land acknowledgements – included the following words: "Let's reflect and remember that every word spoken in this chamber, every lightbulb and every salary paid, including those of city councillors, is funded almost entirely by the hard work and earnings of taxpayers and property owners."
Toronto citizen recites Taxpayer Land Acknowledgment at City Hall 🤔 pic.twitter.com/eKDHBVt5Dq
— IntegrityTO (@integrity_to) January 21, 2026
