This Week's Round-Up: July 20, 2026

• Canada’s richest block affordable housing

• Meet Yukon premier Currie Dixon

• Canada isn’t prepared for wildfires

• Why Costco is the anti-Amazon

• The best part of my Airbnb stay was leaving

The Conservative Feud Is Embarrassing. Grow Up

If Pierre Poilievre wants to win power, he needs to stop waging war on his own side

BY DAN ROBERTSON

At the Calgary Stampede, Pierre Poilievre celebrated Kerry Lynne Findlay’s victory in the British Columbia Conservative leadership race as a win over “Liberal lobbyists from out East.”

The people he described were not Liberals. They were Kory Teneycke, Nick Kouvalis, and Anthony Koch, among the most accomplished Conservative operatives in the country. What followed were days of digital crossfire involving former Poilievre communications directors, columnists, influencers, and operatives, culminating in Brian Lilley asking in print whether the leader is serious about winning and Ben Woodfinden, who gave years to Poilievre’s office, confessing he has never been more depressed about the state of conservative politics in this country.

FROM THE WALRUS LAB IN PARTNERSHIP WITH TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY.

Giving forward. Giving back. Where generosity creates change.

What inspires someone to dedicate their life to helping others? And how do those values get passed from one generation to the next?

Discover The Forefront: Next-gen generosity, a podcast featuring influential leaders, changemakers, and community builders exploring how giving forward and giving back is driving impact across education, healthcare, innovation, and beyond.

Like Oil and Water

In “Canada Is Already at War with the US—We Just Don’t Know It Yet”, Patrick Lennox argues that not all conflicts start with an invasion. What Lennox doesn’t note is that in the same way Trump isn’t talking about oil in his war with Iran, he hardly talks about water when he says Canada needs to become the fifty-first state. The Ogallala Aquifer, which runs from South Dakota to Texas, provides drinking water to millions of Americans and supplies about a quarter of the groundwater used for agriculture in America. And parts of it are projected to become depleted in the next few decades. The heartland states currently withdraw five times more water per year than the aquifer can replace. And without intervention, parts of rural America are expected to experience water shortages. UNESCO reports that the coming water wars will fundamentally change life on the planet as we know it. And we know that Canada has some of the largest reserves of fresh water on the planet.

Sherwood Hines
Bancroft, ON

Be the reason the facts get checked.

Fact-based journalism doesn’t happen by accident: it requires time and expertise. For a recent story, one of our fact checkers called twenty-two sources and reviewed 476 documents over the course of several weeks. Research departments are often among the first cuts when newsrooms shrink, but The Walrus is doing the opposite by growing:

1. We recently hired our first ever full-time staff fact checker.

2. We’ve brought on a freelance fact checker on retainer so we can publish breaking stories quickly without compromising our verification standards.

3. We train early career journalists in the craft via our editorial fellowship program.

We’re able to continue this work thanks to the 900 readers who’ve donated so far this year. Will you join them?