CANADA PERSPECTIVE

Ottawa and Toronto observe the World Cup's arrival with the contained enthusiasm of a country that has not yet decided whether to be proud as co-host or worried about the bill. The Toronto Sun headlines "Toronto Pearson Airport ready to welcome international football crowd" — the logistical formulation betrays the deflated national discourse: we host, we do not get passionate. CBC News restitutes with sobriety the ban on refillable water bottles in the stadiums — a late FIFA decision already irritating Canadian supporters. The National Post goes further with an editorial by Carson Binda calling the cost overruns "outrageous" and warning that tourists will actually be "repelled" rather than attracted. This is the central economic argument: for Canada, the FIFA model does not generate the promised return on investment, because foreign fans are pushed out by prices before they even arrive. The Canadian press is also sensitive to the political dimension: under Carney, Canada is negotiating delicate trade agreements with Washington, and the World Cup has become a terrain of symbolic tension. Coverage carefully avoids criticizing Trump (whom Carney must deal with), but multiplies implicit criticisms of FIFA and its model. A revealing detail: the Toronto Sun devotes a whole page to "Hortons" and to the "best local dishes" of the host cities — a soft way to claim a Canadian culinary identity against the steamroller of the event.