In the news today: PM aims for trade and investment in UAE, AI tech bubble to burst?

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

Carney to advance trade talks in UAE

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Abu Dhabi, where he is expected to advance trade and investment ties with the United Arab Emirates.

Senior officials, who briefed reporters travelling to cover the prime minister’s trip, say Carney plans to finalize by Friday a foreign investment protection agreement with the UAE.

Such an agreement would set out rules on private sector deals to encourage larger investments.

The officials also say both countries are planning to formally launch negotiations on a free trade deal which would cover most sectors of their economies.

Carney’s visit comes just one month after the two countries signed an agreement to boost collaboration on artificial intelligence and data centres.

Tech leaders downplay warnings of AI ‘bubble’

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has led to warnings from some observers of a “bubble” destined to burst, but tech leaders say there’s good reason to believe the sector won’t suffer the same fate as the dot-com crash of the early 2000s.

There are key differences between the application of AI infrastructure still being built and the internet boom of the late 1990s, said Nvidia senior vice-president of networking Kevin Deierling. Back then, everything needed to be built from scratch and companies weren’t immediately ready to use the technology.

“There was a lag,” said Deierling, speaking in Toronto on Wednesday alongside other tech sector executives on the sidelines of the Cisco Connect conference.

“All of a sudden I have all this bandwidth for the internet and the dot-com era, but now I actually need Amazon and Uber and Netflix and all of these other businesses.”

Alberta teachers head to court in labour dispute

Alberta’s teachers are heading to court today to try to get a judge to take immediate action on a provincial law ordering them back to work.

Lawyers for the Alberta Teachers’ Association will ask a judge to temporarily set aside all or part of a bill passed three weeks ago by Premier Danielle Smith’s government that ended a provincewide strike by 51,000 teachers.

They want the bill put on hold pending a full airing in court of the issues involved.

The bill also imposed on the teachers a collective bargaining agreement rank-and-file teachers had earlier rejected and invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to shield it from legal challenge.

Advocates disappointed with lack of IVF funding

Fertility advocates say they’re disappointed the Liberal government did not make good on its campaign promise to fund in vitro fertilization treatments in the recent federal budget.

The Liberals pledged in April to create a program to provide up to $20,000 per cycle of IVF, something they estimated would cost $103 million annually starting this fiscal year.

There’s no mention of IVF in the federal budget.

The office of Health Minister Marjorie Michel would only say the government knows the cost of such treatments presents a challenge for many Canadians and it would have more to say “in due course” — the same response it has provided since the election.

Trump signs bill to release Jeffrey Epstein case files after fighting it for months

U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts.

Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago.

“Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories,” Trump said in a social media post as he announced he had signed the bill.

Now, the bill requires the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in a federal prison in 2019, within 30 days. It allows for redactions about Epstein’s victims for ongoing federal investigations, but DOJ cannot withhold information due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”

PWHL players open up about fallout of expansion

For Toronto Sceptres captain Blayre Turnbull, it was upsetting, sad and stressful.

Ottawa Charge forward Emily Clark said it was “a lot to process” after the Walter Cup final loss.

For players across the PWHL, the expansion process was a wake-up call to the business side of the league.

With the Vancouver Goldeneyes and Seattle Torrent entering the fold, many players found new homes — including stars Hilary Knight in Seattle and Sarah Nurse in Vancouver. Nurse starred for the Sceptres in the league’s first two seasons.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2025

The Canadian Press