Federal Government: 1)Carney pushes back on calls to use energy as leverage in U.S. trade talks; 2)About 10,000 federal public servants apply for early retirement; 3)Feds to spend $1.9B to replace Via Rail locomotive fleet, build plant; 4)Federal government launches expanded online passport renewal service
1)Carney pushes back on calls to use energy as leverage in U.S. trade talks
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Canadian Press Staff, July 29, 2026.
Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested Wednesday that Canada’s reputation as a reliable supplier could take a hit if it started using energy exports as leverage in trade talks with the United States.
As he was making an announcement alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Red Deer, Carney was asked about the prospect of restricting energy exports to the United States to exert pressure in trade negotiations.
Carney said that of all the commodities Canada has in abundance, trust might be the most valuable.
“Being a reliable supplier is important,” he said, adding that suppliers of critical commodities like energy should think long and hard before cutting off customers.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said last week that Canada could “dismantle” the United States if Ottawa and the provinces agreed to use energy exports as leverage against Washington’s latest threatened tariffs.
Canada’s chief trade negotiator Janice Charette and Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc were in Washington Wednesday. The Trump administration’s threatened new round of 50 per cent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods is set to take effect on Aug. 19.
Unlike most of Trump’s other tariffs, these tariffs would have no exemptions for goods compliant under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has said the measure is a response to provincial bans on U.S. liquor, Canada’s supply managed dairy system and quotas on certain U.S. vehicles.
Carney insisted Wednesday that Canada has options as it pursues a renewed continental trade pact.
“We have many things we can do. The first and foremost is to work towards an agreement. That’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “But there’s other things we could do if we needed to address the situation.”
CUSMA was negotiated during the first Trump administration to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. The negotiations were sometimes contentious but all three countries ultimately hailed CUSMA as a success.
Carney said last week that he spoke with Trump and they agreed to intensify trade talks.
The Trump administration said earlier in July that it would not be renewing the trade agreement. That decision triggers rolling annual reviews for up to 10 years, at which point CUSMA would expire unless all parties agreed to an extension.
— With files from Craig Lord in Ottawa and Kelly Geraldine Malone in Washington
2)About 10,000 federal public servants apply for early retirement
Source Canadian Press
By Catherine Morrison, July 29, 2026.
About 10,000 federal public servants have applied for the government’s early retirement program, launched as part of a plan to cut the number of bureaucrats.
In December, the government began sending letters with information on the program to about 68,000 public servants who may have been eligible.
Employees as young as 50 with at least 10 years of employment and at least two years of pensionable service were eligible to apply. Successful applicants can retire with an immediate pension based on years of service, with no penalty for leaving early.
The deadline to apply passed last week and, as of Tuesday, 10,006 applications had been received.
Mohammad Kamal, spokesperson for Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali, said more than 6,855 applicants have met the eligibility criteria and that number will grow as more applications move through the review process.
The government has so far rejected just 41 applications.
Under the program, the latest possible retirement date for public servants is Jan. 20, 2027.
Rola Salem, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, said in an email this month the decision to retire is a personal one and the department didn’t have a specific target for early retirements.
“We will continue to support employees as they consider their options and make the decision that is right for them,” he said.
In its 2025 budget, the Liberal government committed to cutting the number of public service positions by about 40,000 by April 2029 from a peak of almost 368,000 in 2024.
The size of the public service has decreased by more than 12,600 people over the past year. Treasury Board data shows there were 357,965 employees at the end of March 2025, compared to 345,282 at the end of March 2026.
About half of those jobs were casual, student and term positions within the federal government, while the others were permanent employees.
3)Feds to spend $1.9B to replace Via Rail locomotive fleet, build plant
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Nick Murray, July 29, 2026.
The federal government says it plans to spend $1.6 billion to replace 45 of Via Rail’s aging locomotives and another $357 million to build a new assembly plant and maintenance facility.
“Locomotive assembly is returning to Canada,” Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said Wednesday at a news conference in Montreal, where the plant will be built.
Ottawa says the trains will be built by Switzerland-based Stadler. The first nine are to be built in Spain, while the remaining 36 will be built in Canada after Canadian workers learn how to assemble them from their Spanish counterparts.
The locomotives are expected to be the first hybrid trains in North America.
“An aging fleet comes with challenges. Today’s announcement gives us the tools we need to do better by our passengers,” Via Rail CEO Mathieu Paquette said.
“The new hybrid locomotive offers us better performance, reliability, and will allow us to reduce our emissions and fuel use.”
The trains will replace Via Rail’s fleet across the country, except for the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, where the federal government is planning the Alto high-speed rail line. The trains along that corridor were replaced in 2018.
Officials at the news conference were asked how the new locomotives will improve Via Rail’s service.
Canada’s auditor general reported earlier this year that the Crown corporation needed to improve its service and noted that Via had failed over the past decade to improve its on-time performance, which sank to a dismal 30 per cent in the first three months of 2025.
“It’s true there are obstacles with respect to reliable operation of Via Rail in certain parts of the country, particularly where Via Rail shares its rail routes with cargo trains,” MacKinnon said in French.
“But we expect improvements in customer service, in terms of reliability. People should count on a reliable train service.”
Speaking to The Canadian Press later, MacKinnon said the new equipment will improve Via’s reliability.
“More broadly, we expect Via Rail to improve its customer service experience, and improve its reliability track record,” he said.
“Reliability is one of — if not the — essential ingredient in attracting riders. We have an interest as a country in attracting ridership on Via Rail, and to Alto when it is constructed. So all of the decisions we make are with a view to helping Via to improve their service, and we’ve set out a clear challenge to Via management to make sure the situation continues to improve.”
MacKinnon said the deal will create 1,200 new full-time jobs and the hybrid trains will be built with Canadian-made batteries.
The first trains are expected to enter service by 2031.
Paquette also said Via Rail will soon make an announcement on replacing its passenger cars.
“The process is still ongoing, so I can’t comment. But I can say that we’ll make an announcement,” Paquette said in French.
— With files from Chris Reynolds in Montreal
4)Federal government launches expanded online passport renewal service
Source Canadian Press
By David Baxter, July 28, 2026.
Immigration Minister Lena Diab says that, starting today, online passport renewal is open to all eligible Canadian adults.
To qualify, applicants must have an address in Canada, be older than 16 when they got their last passport, and must have received it within the last 15 years, among other criteria.
Applicants will still need to get a passport photo taken by a commercial photographer and submit a digital copy when applying online.
Online passport renewals have been an option for some passport holders for a few years but the most recent version of the service had a daily cap of 2,000 applications.
Diab says people who apply online should expect to receive their new passports within 20 days and to be able to track its progress in real time.
The minister announced earlier this year that applicants’ passport application fees will be reimbursed if they wait more than 30 days to get their travel documents.