Katisha Paul, Union of BC Indian Chiefs Youth Representative, and Peyal Laceese of the Tsilhqot’in nation were among the representatives who accompanied artifacts on the journey from the Vatican Museums to Montreal.Andrej Ivanov/The Globe and Mail

It might not feel like it, but 2025 was not end-to-end doom-and-gloom – even if it doled out its fair share of the dark stuff. To wrap up this often challenging (understatement of the, yes) year, here’s a look back at some of the happier highlights of the annum Donald Trump returned to office, wars continued to rage, and natural disasters wreaked havoc from Los Angeles to Jamaica, and across Canada, too.

This country, in a bit of shock, nonetheless managed to respond to the newly installed U.S. President’s bitter threats – to our economy and precious sovereignty – by raising our elbows and squeezing some fresh Canadian lemonade out of the situation. Canadian pride was on full display in the supermarkets of the land, as shoppers scrutinized labels and employed hastily designed apps to determine which products were homegrown or, at the very least, not made in the U.S. – suddenly enemy territory. We spent more time seeing our own beautiful country as a result, too.

Another positive consequence of Trump 2.0 has been a great Canadian migration of great American thinkers, including, at the University of Toronto, economists Mark Duggan (lured from Stanford), Jacquelyn Pless (from MIT) and astrophysicist Sara Seager, also from MIT. They followed the arrival of other prominent scholars, including one of the world’s top thinkers on despots,

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