City called off its dogs and said it would review its sign approval process after canine owners called the prohibition ‘lunacy’
Officials in Canada’s most populous city have their tails between their legs after they were forced to call off an effort to stop dogs barking in local parks.
Inhabitants of Toronto are grudgingly accustomed to a daily soundtrack of city life: gridlocked traffic, rumbling trucks, heavy machinery and noisy neighbours.
Continue reading...Prime minister faces accusations of not taking issue seriously amid reports of 11 candidates receiving Chinese money
• Canada roiled by leaked intelligence reports of Chinese election ‘meddling’
Justin Trudeau is under mounting pressure to explain how seriously his government has responded to the threat of Chinese interference in Canadian elections in the wake of damning intelligence leaks.
Allegations that the prime minister’s government has failed to act on meddling efforts featured prominently in a raucous session of parliament on Wednesday, as concern over Beijing’s efforts to undermine Canadian elections continues to dominate the country’s politics.
Continue reading...Trudeau resists calls for public inquiry as leaks spark fierce debate and threaten to dent country’s reputation with allies
A flurry of leaked intelligence reports has reignited allegations that China interfered in Canada’s recent federal elections, kicking off a fierce debate over possible responses to Beijing’s meddling.
But the leaks also run the risk of harming Canada’s reputation among its allies, experts warn, as the country’s spy agency struggles to respond to mounting public concern.
Continue reading...Rideau has not turned into world’s long ice rink as usual, laying bare unpredictable realities of climate crisis
Every winter for more than two decades, Chris Macknie has laced up boots, clipped on skis or slipped on running shoes to compete in Ottawa’s Winterlude triathlon.
The event, held in dead of winter, has hundreds skate along the frozen Rideau canal, swapping out their blades for nordic skis and then finish with a run.
Continue reading...Patients in New Brunswick with array of symptoms ‘show signs of exposure to glyphosate’, says neurologist
A neurologist who believes his patients are suffering from a suspicious illness has pleaded with the Canadian government to carry out environmental testing he thinks will show the involvement of the herbicide glyphosate.
For more than two years, dozens of people in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have experienced a distressing array of neurological symptoms, initially prompting speculation that they had developed an unknown degenerative illness – and that figure is believed to be far higher than official reports.
Continue reading...EU and parts of US already block access to Chinese-owned app amid concerns over data privacy and security
Canada has joined the US and EU in enacting a sweeping ban preventing TikTok from being installed on all government-issued mobile devices, as western officials take action over the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, did not rule out further action. “I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones, many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” he said.
Continue reading...Steven Guilbeault wants to block logging of critical old-growth forest to prevent owls from going extinct in British Columbia
Canada’s environment minister plans to use a rare emergency order to protect the last of an endangered owl species in an area where critical old-growth forest is slated for further clearcutting.
Steven Guilbeault advised the environmental groups Ecojustice and the Wilderness Committee that he believed the spotted owl was facing “imminent threats to its survival” and he would use the powers to block further destruction of its habitat in British Columbia, the groups announced on Thursday afternoon.
Continue reading...Mild temperatures in Ottawa make it too dangerous to open Rideau Canal Skateway, the capital’s 7.8km long ‘blockbuster’ attraction
Canada’s Rideau Canal Skateway – the largest outdoor rink in the world and a Unesco heritage site – may not open this winter for the first time in five decades, due to a lack of ice.
Ottawa is in the grips of its third-warmest winter ever recorded, according to Environment Canada, with temperatures hovering just below freezing through most of December and January.
Continue reading...The Canadian territory is an aircraft graveyard – now the difficult search is on for a downed unidentified craft in its vast environs
The rugged, “unpeopled” landscape of Canada’s Yukon territory is a graveyard for aircraft, with more than 500 planes crashing in its forests, mountains and lakes over the years.
Now, Canada’s military and police, alongside their US counterparts, are searching the unforgiving landscape in midwinter for a mysterious object recently shot on Saturday by a fighter plane.
Continue reading...Environmental publication the Narwhal argues Amber Bracken’s rights were violated for being detained while working
A Canadian environmental publication has announced plans to sue the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), arguing it violated the rights of a photojournalist after she was arrested and detained while on the job.
The lawsuit, if successful, could have significant implications for Canadian journalists reporting in areas where police try to limit both public and media access.
Continue reading...Military aircraft patrol above Lake Huron, on the US-Canada border, as a Canadian coast guard icebreaker searches for debris
• What do we know about the four flying objects shot down by US?
It was a mild, sunny winter afternoon when Tara Shannon learned all the airspace above her community in south-eastern Ontario had been closed.
Soon after, she and her neighbours began receiving scattered reports of a high-flying mystery object had been spotted in the area.
Continue reading...Buxton Museum returned entire collection of Native American and First Nation artefacts to their original communities
When Taa.uu ‘Yuuwans Nika Collison first opened the email from Buxton Museum, she was, she says, “sort of in shock”.
Collison is a member of the Haida nation, the Indigenous inhabitants of a remote archipelago called Haida Gwaii off the very far north-west coast of Canada. For 25 years she and others had been lobbying museums and collectors around the world to return items made by her people back to their homeland, often with very little success. Here was a curator from a small town in Derbyshire she had never heard of, saying it had some Haida items in its collection, and it wanted to send them back.
Continue reading...Military general says he will not rule out any explanation as fourth object is downed over North America this month
The US military has shot down a third flying object over North American airspace in three days, as the air force general overseeing the airspace said he would not rule out any explanation for the objects yet.
The high-altitude unidentified object, described as an “octagonal structure” with strings attached to it, was shot down over Lake Huron in Michigan on Sunday.
Continue reading...‘Chinese were caught lying',’ says Senate majority leader as US and Canadian military scramble to recover pieces
US and Canadian military are continuing to search by sea and land amid hostile weather conditions in a scramble to recover portions of three flying objects shot down over North American airspace in the past week.
The Democratic majority leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that he had been briefed by the White House and that officials were now convinced that all three of the flying objects brought down by air-to-air missiles this week were balloons. He put the finger of blame firmly on China.
Continue reading...Canadian prime minister says he has spoken to US president Joe Biden about the object
A US warplane shot down an unidentified object over North American airspace, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday. It was the second day in a row in which the US military shot down an unidentified airborne object.
“I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace,” Trudeau tweeted on Saturday afternoon. A US F-22 fighter plane with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which protects Canadian and American airspace, shot down the object over Yukon, Canada.
Continue reading...John Tory acknowledged relationship in a statement and apologised to his wife and family, and ‘all those hurt by my actions’
The mayor of Toronto has resigned, shortly after the Toronto Star newspaper reported he had an affair with a former staff member.
John Tory, 68, acknowledged the relationship in a statement announcing his departure, saying it had ended earlier this year and the employee had left city hall.
Continue reading...Pierre Ny St-Amand charged with first degree murder after two children died and six were injured in incident
Police have charged a bus driver with first-degree murder after he drove his vehicle at a high speed into a daycare center north of Montreal, killing two children, injuring six and leaving authorities searching for a motive.
Witnesses say that after Wednesday’s crash, the 51-year-old driver, identified as Pierre Ny St-Amand, stepped out of the bus, stripped off his clothes and started screaming.
Continue reading...Six more children injured in suburb of Laval, as driver arrested for homicide and reckless driving
Two children have died and six others were injured when a city bus ran into a daycare center in the Montreal suburb of Laval.
The bus driver, a 51-year-old employee of the Laval municipality’s public transit system, was arrested for homicide and reckless driving, police said on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Political and Indigenous leaders hope to replicate success of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest conservation area
Nearly a decade ago, Canadian political leaders, environmental activists and Indigenous nations came together to shelter a sprawling 6.4 million-hectare area of trees, sea wolves, salmon and grizzly bears – a project that was named, with some branding acumen, the Great Bear Rainforest.
The plan has since been hailed as a triumph for protecting swathes of old-growth cedar and spruce and drawing global attention to an area of pristine forest the size of Ireland.
Continue reading...Company rebuts claims by scientists that ‘uncontrolled and unscientific’ practices highlight dangers of going ahead with seabed mining
Video footage from a deep-sea mining test, showing sediment discharging into the ocean, has raised fresh questions about the largely untested nature of the industry, and the possible harms it could do to ecosystems as companies push to begin full-scale exploration of the ocean floor as early as this year.
The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian mining firm that is one of the leading industry players, spent September to November of last year testing its underwater extraction vehicle in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone, a section of the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii.
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