Well, it’s that time of year again. Time for me to offer my predictions for 2026.
PREDICTION ONE: U.S. President Donald Trump will become even more of a rogue leader.
2025 was bad enough with Trump cozying up to Vladamir Putin and essentially abandoning Ukraine to Russian aggression; being equally cozy with Israel’s Netanyahu and threatening to take over Gaza to build a Trump resort, while soldiers continued to starve and kill the Gazan population; bombing Syria and Iran — seven countries in all — with questionable justification; and of course threatening to take over Greenland and to make Canada the 51st U.S. state.
Almost his first action in 2026 has been to outrageously dismiss international law and on January 3rd, kidnap Venezuala’s head of state Nicolas Maduro and his wife, jail them in a New York city prison, and charge them with drug trafficking.
And this is just the beginning. Trump maintains that the U.S. will now control Venezuela, particularly their oil production by handing it over to U.S. oil companies. And not content to lawlessly intervene in one independent nation, he immediately threatened to do the same in Cuba, the Panama Canal, Greenland, and possibly even to send troops to Mexico. While Trump has not recently mentioned Canada, he has proclaimed that all of the Western Hemisphere, which of course includes Canada, is America’s sphere of influence.
Given that Trump’s poll numbers continue to drop further and further, and the threat remains that he will be proven to be one of Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile clients, he will be desperate. By engaging in foreign interventions, he will hope to distract from the domestic results of his disastrous policies. In doing so, he will move the world ever closer to Armageddon.
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic representation of the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe. In January 2025, the clock was advanced to 89 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been to predicting disaster. Closer than even during the Cuban missile crisis. The 2026 announcement of the clock’s current position will take place on January 26th. It’s hard to believe this setting won’t set a new, frightening record.
PREDICTION TWO: The AI bubble will burst and in doing so, trigger a deep recession.
In 2025, the U.S. would have already been in economic peril if investments in AI and the construction of AI data centres had been removed from the financial equation. That risk is about to grow. It is increasingly clear that the AI industry is overvalued and is built on financial quicksand.
There are extraordinary numbers of investments, purchases, financial agreements, etc. among the various players in the sector, with massive amounts of money circulating from one player to another. It is a form of financial musical chairs.
Here is a perfect example. The American technology company Nvidia produces the world’s most advanced and expensive computer chips. It is one of the so-called Magnificent Seven largest tech companies in the world.
On September 22, 2025, it announced it had formed a partnership with OpenAI, which would see Nvidia invest $100 billion into OpenAI, while OpenAI would use Nvidia chips and systems in new data centers, which would be built using Nvidia systems. OpenAI would pay back the investment through purchasing Nvidia chips.
An AI investment rally rapidly followed the announcement. Two months later, Nvidia admitted that the deal had not actually been signed yet. Stock market numbers for both companies went back down. If the proposed partnership ultimately does not take place, both companies could face financial losses.
The Nvidia/OpenAI saga is just one example of how financially intertwined the AI industry has become and the dangers inherent in that interdependence. Unfortunately, while all these complex investments, purchases, mergers, etc. are taking place, other warning signs of instability are appearing. Specifically, as Tom Howarth, the editor of BBC Science Focus explains, current AI applications essentially regurgitate, and sometimes make up information. They do not and will not have the capability to truly think. The AI model underlying all the promises of future growth may be reaching its limit.
Too much of the American economy now depends on the AI industry and too many tech companies are financially intertwined. If growth stops and investments fail, the entire industry may well be heading for a crash. A collapse of the AI bubble will in turn plunge the U.S. economy into a deep recession.
PREDICTION THREE: Pierre Poilievre will resign as leader of the federal Conservatives.
Although Poilievre will probably receive a very strong vote at the Conservative Party’s scheduled leadership review, which will take place in Calgary from January 29-31, 2026, almost certainly, under his leadership, the Conservatives will continue to lose MPs to the Liberal party. His caucus will show him the door before year’s end.
PREDICTION FOUR: Britain’s Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, will also resign before year’s end.
He won Britain’s 2024 general election by a landslide. What most political observers failed to recognize was the fact that he won this election with only 33.7% of the popular vote. He managed to win only as a result of a number of smaller parties splitting the results – particularly with Reform UK coming out of nowhere to pick up 14.3% of the vote. In fact, Starmer won with only 1.6% more of the popular vote than was received by then Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 general election, which he lost to Conservative Boris Johnson.
Starmer has now proven to be so disliked with the British public that a November Ipsos poll placed him as the least popular prime minister since their polling began in 1977.
PREDICTION FIVE: Avi Lewis will win the federal NDP leadership race.
Avi Lewis, the son of former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis and the grandson of former federal NDP leader David Lewis, will resurrect the federal NDP, bringing it back to life. The NDP will move up in the polls from the 6.3% it received in the 2025 federal election to the high teens. In doing so, they can be expected to reduce the numbers of both the Liberals and Conservatives in the next federal election.
PREDICTION SIX: Vancouver’s mayor Ken Sim will either decide not to seek re-election or will be decisively trounced in the October 2026 vote.
COPE will have one of its best election showings since its historic victory in 2011 under the Vision/COPE Alliance. Vancouver city councillor Sean Orr will be joined by at least one, but more probably two more COPE city councillors. COPE’s school trustee Suzie Mah will be joined by at least two more school trustees and will then be elected chair of the Vancouver School Board. COPE and the Vancouver Greens will together elect a progressive majority to the Vancouver Park Board.
PREDICTION SEVEN: The war in Ukraine will come to an end.
Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians can continue to sustain the war effort with such massive casualties on both sides. Ukraine will agree never to permit nuclear weapons to be positioned on its soil. It will receive security guarantees from the West. It will give up some of its territory to Russia.
SUMMARY:
Wishing you good luck and the very best in 2026.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (January 4, 2026): 428.54ppm
One year ago (January 7, 2025): 426.34ppm
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