Canada's political parties are standing firm in their positions during two days of weekend debates on the use of the Emergencies Act, ahead of a key vote on Monday on whether to ratify the extraordinary powers. MPs, who have been sparring in the House of Commons hour after hour, are scheduled to sit from 7 a.m. ET to midnight on both Saturday and Sunday. The at-times tense and personal debate have pitted the Liberal government against the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois, a combination Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux referred to as an "unholy alliance." The New Democrats have said they will support the government's use of the act but have urged the Liberals to tread carefully while reserving the right to pull support at any time.

The first round of talks aimed at stopping the fighting between Ukraine and Russia ended Monday with no agreement except to keep talking, while an increasingly isolated Moscow ran into unexpectedly fierce resistance on the ground and economic havoc at home. Five days into Russia's invasion, the Kremlin again raised the spectre of nuclear war, while an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union — a largely symbolic move unlikely to sit well with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long accused the United States of trying to pull Ukraine out of Russia's orbit. A top Putin aide and head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said the talks in the Gomel region of Belarus lasted nearly five hours and that the envoys "found certain points on which common positions could be foreseen." He said they agreed to continue the discussions in the coming days. A top adviser to Ukraine's president said the first round of talks with Russia had ended and that both delegations had returned home for consultations in their capitals. Mykhailo Podolyak gave few details, except to say that they were focused on a possible ceasefire and that a second round could take place "in the near future."