Good morning. This is Hanna Lee.
After Nova Scotia MP Chris d'Entremont defected to the Liberals this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney hinted others may follow. Floor-crossing has a long and spotty history in Canada for MPs' careers. Will this be the rare case to defy the odds? We'll get into it below.
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THE LATEST
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- After 20 years as the host of CBC Morning Live, Heather Hiscox is signing off for the last time. Catch her final show here until 10 a.m. ET. We'll miss you, Heather!
- The Supreme Court of Canada will decide today whether to hear the final appeal by Universal Ostrich Farms against a cull of more than 300 birds, ordered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency over fears of avian flu.
- Prime Minister Mark Carney is personally involved in the push to get Canada into the Eurovision Song contest, two government sources say.
- The Philippines has declared a state of emergency after Typhoon Kalmaegi killed at least 114. It's now regaining strength as it moves toward Vietnam.
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Canadian history is dotted with floor-crossers. Voters haven't always been thrilled
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(Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
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Longtime Conservative MP Chris d'Entremont made headlines this week when he crossed the floor to join the Liberals. While the phenomenon has a long history, it has often come at an electoral price.
What's happening: Starting in the 1970s, voters began increasingly penalizing floor-crossers, as parties became more institutionalized, says Semra Sevi of the University of Toronto. Sevi tracked every MP who switched parties from Confederation to 2015. She says instances of re-election post-crossing are rare, as voters tend to view it as opportunistic. For his part, d'Entremont cited Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's leadership style as reason for his move, saying he no longer felt represented in the party.
Meanwhile: My colleague David Michael Lamb looked into how the federal budget compares to Liberal campaign promises. Pledges like doubling homes built per year have been slightly scaled back, he found, while spending on AI didn't quite live up to campaign vows, at $925 million over five years, compared to the promised $2.5 billion in two fiscal years. |
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Trump administration struggles to make its case for tariffs in U.S. Supreme Court
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(Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press)
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No U.S. president before Donald Trump has used the 1977 International Economic Emergency Power Act to levy tariffs. The U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments yesterday from the Trump administration in favour of the fees, appeared largely unimpressed.
What's happening: The administration has lost this case in all the lower courts, with appeals court judges similarly questioning Trump's authority to use the act to impose his tariff regime without express congressional approval. Key conservative judges at the Supreme Court also seemed skeptical.
Looking ahead: It will take weeks or even months for the court to deliver a decision; if the taxes are ruled illegal, the Treasury could be forced to pay back the $90 billion US that's been collected so far. However, any such ruling won't impact tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos or softwood lumber, which are hurting the Canadian economy the most. That's because Trump used long-established presidential powers to protect U.S. industries when he imposed those.
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The hidden humans powering the AI economy
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(Unsplash)
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Tech companies don't often highlight the human labour behind AI, instead preferring to tout its near-magical abilities and even greater potential. But there's a huge, yet not very well known, network of gig workers in the emerging AI economy.
What's happening: They're called data annotators, and their job involves evaluating AI responses for grammar, accuracy and creativity. If you've ever felt like a ChatGPT response was uncannily human, it's because humans have trained it to be so. It's gig work, done on a per-assignment basis without guaranteed hours. And what companies want from these workers is quickly changing, as well.
Looking ahead: There are signs that companies may be leaning more toward specialist human workers to do data annotation, as AI models become more sophisticated. For example, Scale AI, a major player, recently laid off generalist workers in Dallas, in such a shift. Outside of the annotation world, many people fear that AI will eventually make their jobs obsolete. But it's rare for machinery to completely take over a job, said tech journalist Brian Merchant. “What you usually have is a technology that can get you part of the way.”
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CALLOUT
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Got questions about the federal budget? Ask us live!
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Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal government have tabled their first federal budget and we're here to answer your questions about it.
Catherine Cullen, host of The House, and J.P. Tasker, senior politics reporter for CBC News, will be taking your questions live on cbcnews.ca, TikTok and YouTube at 12 p.m. ET.
You can send your questions ahead of time by emailing ask@cbc.ca, or you can ask us in real time in the TikTok or YouTube live chat.
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