Category Archives: Canada

Canada and China prepare to open Cop15 biodiversity summit despite rifts

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Ministers and experts say disputes between co-hosts unlikely to disrupt efforts to reach deal on protecting natural world

More than 10,000 scientists, government officials and activists will gather in Montreal this week for the world’s most important biodiversity conference, eager to hammer out a deal to stem habitat loss around the world and preserve sensitive ecosystems.

The UN Cop15 biodiversity summit opens on Tuesday, and will see countries negotiate this decade’s targets for protecting nature after more than two years of pandemic-related delays and just over two weeks since the end of the Cop27 climate meeting in Egypt.

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‘Rage, despair, disgust’: Canada reels from killings of Indigenous women

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Serial killing of four women prompts anger at failure of politicians to keep promise to protect Indigenous women and girls

The arrest of an alleged serial killer who targeted Indigenous women in central Canada has prompted fresh anger and despair that the country has once again failed in its promises to protect vulnerable women and girls.

Police in Winnipeg announced late on Thursday they had charged Jeremy Skibicki, 35, with the murder of Morgan Beatrice Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, of Long Plain First Nation, months after he was accused of killing Rebecca Contois, 24, from O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation.

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Canada accused of putting its timber trade ahead of global environment

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Weeks before Cop15 in Montreal, leaked letter to EU shows host tried to water down deforestation regulations

The Canadian government has been accused of putting its domestic timber industry ahead of the global environment, following a leaked attempt to water down the world’s most ambitious regulations on deforestation-free trade.

Weeks before the United Nations biodiversity conference, Cop15 in Montreal, the host nation sent a letter to the European Commission asking for a reconsideration of “burdensome traceability requirements” within a proposed EU scheme that aims to eradicate unsustainably sourced wood products from the world’s biggest market.

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Canadian man charged with murdering four Indigenous women

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Two of the women killed around the same time as Rebecca Contois are also Indigenous, and the third is believed to be

A Canadian man previously charged with murdering an Indigenous woman has been accused of killing three other women – two also confirmed to be Indigenous and one believed to be.

Jeremy Skibicki was charged 18 May and kept in custody after the partial remains of Rebecca Contois, 24, were found in a garbage bin near an apartment building. Contois lived in Winnipeg but was a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, also known as Crane River.

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Quebec moves to end Canadian elected officials’ oath to King Charles

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‘It is a relic from the past’: strong opposition to oath from three political parties of French-speaking province

Quebec’s premier, François Legault, said that his government would introduce legislation next week to end elected officials’ required oath to Britain’s King Charles, as pressure mounts in the Canadian province to cut such ties with the monarchy.

Fresh legislation from the governing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) follows a separate bill introduced on Thursday by the left-leaning Québec Solidaire party that would allow elected officials to just take an oath to the people of Quebec.

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Canada issues ‘cease and desist’ warning to China over ‘police stations’ in Ottawa

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China accused of illegal activities but Beijing embassy says locations are merely ‘service stations’ to renew driver’s licenses

Canada has summoned Beijing’s ambassador following reports of a network of illegal Chinese “police stations” in the country, after warnings that Ottawa is prepared to take more action if China refuses to “cease and desist” from its alleged activities.

Speaking to the Canada-China committee on Tuesday evening, Weldon Epp, director general of north Asia for Canada’s foreign ministry, said he knew of “several engagements” by the federal government with China, including repeatedly summoning the ambassador, Cong Peiwu.

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Covid restrictions lifted in Guangzhou and Chongqing after China protests

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Announcements ordered the removal of ‘control orders’ and to designate areas as low risk

Authorities have abruptly lifted Covid restrictions in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing, where protesters scuffled with police on Tuesday night, as police searched for demonstrators in other cities and the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”.

After days of extraordinary protests in the country that also prompted international demonstrations in solidarity, the US and Canada urged China not to harm or intimidate protesters opposing Covid-19 lockdowns.

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Canada won’t compromise values in relations with China, says foreign minister

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Exclusive: as the two nations prepare to co-host Cop15, Mélanie Joly discusses Canada’s long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy

Canada will work with China when needed – but challenge it when necessary, the country’s foreign minister said, as the two nations prepare to co-host a major environmental summit despite years of diplomatic tensions.

Speaking to the Guardian after her government released its long-awaited “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, Mélanie Joly said that Canada will “promote and defend” its national interests in a region where nations are jockeying for influence and power.

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Canada says Nato fully behind Ukraine through hard winter

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Mélanie Joly, the foreign minister in Ottawa, says Russia’s targeting of energy grid and civil infrastructure only strengthens allies’ support

Nato remains firmly committed to supporting Ukraine through a “difficult” winter, even though an end to the conflict with Russia remains out of sight, Canada’s foreign minister has told the Guardian.

“Russia isn’t at the negotiation table at all. And so our goal right now is just to reinforce Ukraine’s position on the ground through military aid, intelligence sharing and financial support,” said Mélanie Joly. “Because when we do that, we’re actually reinforcing their position at the negotiation table. There will be a diplomatic solution eventually. That’s been the case in every single conflict. But we’re not there yet.”

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Canadian man arrested for 1983 killings of two women after DNA breakthrough

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Police announce arrest of suspect in pair of 40-year-old sexual assaults and slayings in Toronto

A 61-year-old Canadian man has been charged in the cold case killings of two women who were found dead in their Toronto homes within months of each other almost four decades ago.

The Toronto police chief, James Ramer, said Joseph George Sutherland, of Moosonee, Ontario, was arrested on Thursday and charged with first-degree murder in the killings of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice in 1983.

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Tories will not reach ‘embarrassingly poor’ nature targets by 2030, Labour says

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Opposition to unveil plan to reverse biodiversity loss rather than simply halting it, which is government’s current target

The government will not be able to achieve its nature targets by 2030, even though they are “embarrassingly poor”, the shadow environment minister and leading wildlife groups have said.

Next week at the Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Alex Sobel will be discussing Labour’s “science-led, joined-up plan to tackle the climate and ecological emergency”. The plan will aim to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, rather than simply halting it, which is the government’s current target.

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Canadian pop star Kris Wu sentenced to 13 years in jail for rape in China

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Beijing court finds Chinese-born singer raped three women in November and December 2020

A Beijing court has sentenced the Chinese-born Canadian pop star Kris Wu to 13 years in jail after finding him guilty of crimes including rape, just over a year after his arrest in China, where he was born and built a lucrative career.

The court in Chaoyang district said investigations showed that from November to December 2020, Wu, also known as Wu Yifan, raped three women.

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Canadian paramedic who tried to save crash victim learns it was her daughter

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Jayme Erickson could not recognise girl at scene and only found out her identity at end of her shift

A Canadian paramedic who responded to a road crash last week and worked to help a teenage casualty was unknowingly treating her own daughter.

When Jayme Erickson arrived at the scene of the crash on an icy stretch of Alberta highway on 15 November, she found a teenage girl with severe injuries that Erickson knew were probably fatal. Owing to the severity of the girl’s injuries, Erickson could not recognise her.

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‘A little bit of deja vu’: Canada’s Greens turn to ex-leader in bid to revive fortunes

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Elizabeth May, who led party between 2006 and 2019, to replace Annamie Paul, who quit following 2021 electoral rout

When Canada’s Green party wanted fresh leadership, it turned to a Princeton educated lawyer and adviser at the international criminal court who became the first Black and Jewish woman to ever lead a federal party in Canada.

But after less than a year of legal feuds, infighting and an electoral rout Annamie Paul stepped down, calling her time as leader “the worst period of my life”.

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Two Canadian men charged with shooting animals at safari park

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Mathieu Godard and Jeremiah Mathias-Polson accused of breaking into Parc Omega in Quebec and killing three wild boar and an elk

Two Canadian men have been charged with entering a safari park in Quebec and shooting three wild boar and an elk, brazen killings that have left staff at the family-themed park in shock.

Police say Mathieu Godard and Jeremiah Mathias-Polson broke through a barrier at Parc Omega on the evening of 10 November.

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Quebec man charged with terrorism over alleged Haiti coup plot

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Gerald Nicolas, 51, accused of conspiring to overthrow government of Jovenel Moïse, who was later assassinated in separate plot

Canadian police have charged a Quebec man with terrorism over allegations he conspired to overthrow the government of the late Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, who was later assassinated in a separate plot.

Gerald Nicolas, 51, stands accused of leaving Canada to facilitate a terrorist activity, facilitating a terrorist activity and providing property for terrorist purposes, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Thursday.

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Xi angrily rebukes Trudeau over ‘leaks’ to media about Canada-China relations

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Chinese president’s testy remarks about briefings on earlier conversation captured by media pool at G20 summit in Indonesia

Xi Jinping has angrily rebuked Justin Trudeau after Canadian officials shared details of a previous meeting, highlighting the frosty relationship between the two leaders.

In a clip recorded by the media pool at the G20 summit in Indonesia, a visibly frustrated Xi pulls the Canadian prime minister aside and says it was “not appropriate” for details about a previous conversation between the two leaders to have been shared with media, suggesting Trudeau lacked “sincerity” in his approach.

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‘Paris agreement’ for nature imperative at Cop15, architects of climate deal say

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Leaders say December biodiversity summit in Montreal is ‘unprecedented’ chance to turn tide on nature loss

The architects of the Paris agreement have urged world leaders to reach an ambitious sister deal for nature at the Cop15 biodiversity conference this December while warning that limiting global heating to 1.5C is impossible without protecting and restoring ecosystems.

On biodiversity day at the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt, Christiana Figueres, Laurence Tubiana, Laurent Fabius and Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who helped design the Paris agreement, said that Cop15 would be an “unprecedented” opportunity to turn the tide on nature loss.

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Trudeau raises ‘serious concerns’ about Chinese interference in talks with Xi

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Canadian prime minister met China’s president at G20 summit in Bali amid tensions over aggressive interventions by Beijing

Justin Trudeau has raised “serious concerns” over suspected domestic interference by China in his first talks with President Xi Jinping in more than three years, amid growing frustration over increasingly aggressive interventions by Beijing.

Trudeau discussed his concerns about Chinese “interference activities” in Canada on the sidelines of a Group of 20 meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali, a government source told AFP.

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Canada says imports of children’s fever medication will ease shortage

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Health Canada says it secured a foreign supply of children’s acetaminophen that will be for sale ‘in the coming weeks’

Canada’s public health agency has said that foreign shipments of children’s fever medication will help ease a nationwide shortage that has left families desperate and hospitals overwhelmed.

“We are announcing that we have secured foreign supply of children’s acetaminophen that will be available for sale at retail and in community pharmacies in the coming weeks,” Health Canada said in a release on Monday.

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