How Canada, and a Canadian widow, responded to 9/11; U.S., Mexico talk trade while Canada waits; and more

It’s Friday, September 11. Here are the top stories we’re following today.

This exclusive book excerpt from Ash and Honor: The Untold 368 Minutes of 9/11, by Jeffrey Robinson recounts how Canada’s senior leaders scrambled — and fretted — as the U.S. diverted its planes.

Maureen Basnicki, whose husband was murdered at the World Trade Center 25 years ago, has forged new law, sparked awareness and even changed Canada’s calendar, but — always the advocate — she says more needs to be done.

The trade conflict between the U.S. and Canada has intensified following the collapse in trade negotiations between both sides last month. Canada’s trade minister said he was encouraged by recent comments made by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum that all three countries should be at the negotiating table for the renewal of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.

Ontario’s urban mayors are calling for the provincial government to enact forced addiction treatment amid an ongoing huge spike in homelessness. Concerns about effectiveness and civil rights around the controversial treatment are fair, Stinson writes, “but what else could you possibly call the situation in Ontario other than a crisis that requires an extreme response?”

With summer over, Toronto’s long mayoral race is finally heating up. Chow’s re-election strategy “may not be complicated. It could just be to pivot to the centre, say little and lean into the incumbent advantage,” Furey says, because her opponents are trying to overcome “what has become a local political truism in Toronto — that an incumbent mayor can’t be beat.”

As a provincial election approaches, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon admits he feels a “form of anger and indignation” regarding tariffs. He tells the Post that his sentiment is also directed at Canada’s counter-tariff strategy. In any case, he says, “there will be another very important question at the ballot box: do we really want 12 years of (a CAQ government)?”