Canada budget update: A $2.7bn cut to international assistance over 5 years, or about 10-12% of the budget. Particularly focusing on global health, which is worrying because it's a core Canadian priority

Not sure we need a resurgence of polio on top of everything, but what do I know

What I'm looking for in the Canadian federal budget: Development

- Canada's budget for international stuff is complex. There's the International Assistance Envelope, OECD-measured ODA, plus stuff that falls under Canada's own Act. Plus provincial spending. They all overlap

Amid many a silly “free speech” panic, here is a genuinely chilling case …

Sheffield Hallam professor accuses the institution of negotiating “directly with a foreign intelligence service to trade my academic freedom for access to the Chinese student market”

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Along with 160+ civil society orgs & individuals, I signed this open letter that raises serious concerns about the Canadian government's proposed AI strategy. With all of the harms associated with AI-based technologies, greater public consultation is needed.

bccla.org/policy-submi...

This sounds like the Chinese model of drug detention, which combines compulsory treatment, social isolation, and forced labour. The fact that authoritarians in the US & China increasingly resemble one another no longer surprises me.

NEW: Trump has announced that the US will admit the lowest level of refugees ever at 7,500 in FY 2026. The US will only be admitting as refugees White people from South Africa and "victims of illegal or unjust discrimination," which leaked memos suggest means far-right Europeans.

Ford just put every renter in Ontario into an even more precarious position. This is a clear and present danger to the 1.7 million renters in Ontario.

Trump has functionally killed America's international broadcasting apparatus.

Russia and China are making up the difference.

if we still care about democracy and liberalism abroad, countries like Canada need to step up. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Good lord, this is beyond the worst thing I could have imagined. If you'd told me "Trump will seek to have refugee eligibility explicitly limited to AfD voters, white South African farmers and organized racists -- " even I would have thought it hyperbole.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

“The proposals would transform a program aimed at helping the most vulnerable people in the world into one that gives preference to mostly white people who say they are being persecuted.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Absolutely despicable.

Yeah this is my drum that I bang but I have to keep saying it: counter-TNR policies that leave out migration policy are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that most TNR entails host state cooperation, and “harder” migration systems make cooperation more likely

The lesson of the Trump era is to stick with your principles. He’s coming for you anyway, whether you do or not, so you might as well stick to your principles so people don’t laugh at you afterward and you can look yourself in the mirror.

1/ NEW REPORT: “We Say You Want a Revolution” - An AI-Enabled Influence Operation Aimed at Overthrowing the Iranian Regime. We call it PRISONBREAK. Keep reading to find out why.

THREAD 🧵

NEW REPORT: We uncovered a coordinated network of fake X profiles that is spreading AI-generated content to induce revolt in #Iran. We call this network “PRISONBREAK”.

Read the report 👉 citizenlab.ca/2025/10/ai-e...

I wanted to share some of the sources and inspirations for my new @jodemocracy.bsky.social essay this week on transnational repression. Like with anything, there are citations but then there's also stuff that doesn't make it into the piece

www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the...

For the 100th time: Republicans who were China's loudest critics are now cheerleaders for an American surveillance state. These people have no principled concern for human rights. They are happy for the state to silence, detain & disappear its foes, so long as the state in question is their own.

New today: my essay in @jodemocracy.bsky.social on The Golden Age of Transnational Repression: www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the...

On Orange Shirt Day, I want to share a painting by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, "Indian Residential School, Leaving the Shallow Graves and Going Home."

As Yuxweluptun has said, "This country has to carry the burden of what it did to us, as a nation. It has to be accountable for what it did."

“After his 60 years of engagement with China, Cohen says it saddens him to see the country going down the road of dictatorship. ‘Of course I feel terribly sad, terribly angry. I feel I have to do everything I can to increase public understanding of what’s about to take place. I have an obligation.’”

Sad news and a real loss for the field of China studies. Fortunately there are many people who, inspired by his work, will continue to build bridges between China and the West and advocate for the cause of human rights in China.

@djinnandtonic.bsky.social sticker spotted on H Street in Washington, D.C.

A chilling piece on how transnational repression impacts students in Canada, with quotes from me.