Spring is a time for change. I know I’m invoking a bit of a cliché here, but there’s a lot of exciting changes coming to Canada’s National Observer that I wanted to tell you about (and your regularly scheduled news content continues after).

One of those changes is me — hello! My name is Rose and, as of last week, I am the new newsletter editor at Canada’s National Observer. That means it’s my job to ensure you have the best stories from us in your inbox every Saturday morning. It is also my job to ensure you are enjoying our newsletter. So, since I’m new here, I have an ask for you. Can you send me an email at [email protected] letting me know: 

• What do you currently love about our newsletters?
• What do you want to see added or changed?
• What would make you want to read our newsletters every day?

You can share your feedback for the Climate Weekly, or for any of our other newsletters you subscribe to. We’re going to be making some big changes to our newsletter, so your feedback will assist me in creating more of what you love, and in improving on the things that could use some tweaking. I look forward to connecting with you.

One of the other changes that you can look forward to at Canada’s National Observer is more webinars. In fact, we just announced a webinar that’s coming up next Wednesday, April 23rd at 5 p.m. EDT. Join our managing editor, David McKie, for this one-hour webinar as he moderates a candid conversation with our lead columnist, Max Fawcett, and award-winning journalist and disinformation expert Rachel Gilmore. They will be discussing the quickly approaching 2025 federal election, with a focus on political disinformation and what’s at stake for Canada’s climate future. If you would like to attend, you can register here.

Okay, on to the top story of the week. The Royal Ontario Museum also saw a big change this week, though they’re probably not so excited about it. Their board director, Christopher W. Jamoroz, has quietly stepped down and been scrubbed from their website after Canada's National Observer inquired about some of his connections to Trump’s deportation frenzy. This story from Marc Fawcett-Atkinson outlines in detail what happened. 

—Rose Danen, Newsletter Editor, Canada’s National Observer

TOP STORY

✈️ Trump’s deportation flights haven’t just been operating themselves — and the CEO of the company running them has a curious connection to a treasured Canadian institution. Christopher W. Jamroz is the executive chairman of logistics firm GlobalX, the Trump administration used three GlobalX flights to deport, without a hearing, more than 238 foreign nationals. Jamroz was the director of the board of governors of the Royal Ontario Museum until this week. When Canada’s National Observer reached out to the ROM for comment on his role there, we received a terse reply: “I can confirm that Mr. Jamroz has stepped down from the ROM Board of Governors.”

Marc Fawcett-Atkinson reports.

Quote of the week

“A lot of what we saw with the Greenbelt definitely opened some eyes … People started thinking, ‘Hey, this land we thought was protected for the long term can be undermined quite quickly.’”

—Martin Straathof, executive director of the Ontario Farmland Trust, on why a family decided to protect their Ontario blueberry farm into perpetuity.

MORE CNO READS

🫐 If the Greenbelt scandal made one thing perfectly clear, it’s that the Ford government has one thing in mind: to turn over huge amounts of land outside Toronto to developers in order to sprawl the city’s housing crisis out of existence. That rattled blueberry farmer Courtney Stevens and her family, whose land is now surrounded by new developments. To make sure their farm continues to produce food well into the future, Stevens has signed a 999-year deal to protect it.

Matin Sarfraz reports.

🌲 “Worth more standing,” a reference to old-growth forests, has become standard bumper-sticker fare in parts of BC. But a new report says that’s factually accurate: protecting old-growth forests in the BC interior could generate more than $43 billion over the next century. The trees’ carbon storage alone would keep 28 million tonnes of carbon emissions out of the atmosphere — a valuable commodity on world markets.

Sonal Gupta reports.

🎤 How much responsibility do individuals have for the slogans they repeat? What if those words are casting doubt on the fairness of an election because the polls are showing a previously favoured candidate has slipped? Our reporter on the Poilievre campaign trail encountered a YouTuber at a Windsor, Ont. rally who gave a fascinating perspective on the way campaign hangers-on are viewing this moment — and how they see themselves within in.

Arno Kopecky writes.

🌊 Trump is helping a Canadian company mine the seabed, against international rules. The Metals Company, a Vancouver-based corporation looking to lead the charge into this risky new terrain, said it is “moving forward with urgency” to apply within three months to start sucking metal nodules off the sea floor. The process has been approached with trepidation by scientists, who say plumes of sediment that would be kicked up by seabed mining could suffocate marine life for kilometres around, among other risks.

Anita Hofschneider reports for Grist.