Category Archives: Canada

Rare one in 30 million orange lobster rescued from grocery store tank

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The manager of the Ontario store noticed the carroty crustacean was being ‘picked on’ and took it to the Toronto aquarium

An extremely rare orange lobster was rescued from certain death – and the humiliation of spending its final days in a grocery store tank – after the manager noticed it was being “picked on” by the other lobsters.

“Obviously it stood out. It’s not every day you see a lobster that looks like it’s pre-cooked walking around,” said Niki Lundquist, whose husband manages the grocery store in Ontario’s Durham region.

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Indigenous children set to receive billions after judge rejects Trudeau challenges

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  • First Nations children entitled to government compensation
  • Canada ‘wilfully and recklessly’ discriminated against them

A federal court in Canada has paved they way for billions in compensation to First Nations children who suffered discrimination in the welfare system, after a judge dismissed a pair of legal challenges by the government.

Two years ago, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the federal government had “wilfully and recklessly” discriminated against Indigenous children living on reserves by failing to properly fund child and family services.

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Meng and the Michaels: why China’s embrace of hostage diplomacy is a warning to other nations

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Analysis: Beijing’s increasingly hardline approach sends a chilling message

The release of two Canadian hostages by China has ended a lengthy feud between the two countries, but experts caution the saga foreshadows a deepening rift between the two nations.

After facing charges of espionage and spending more than 1,000 days in detention, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were set free by Chinese authorities late last week. Accompanied by Canada’s ambassador to China, the pair arrived home early on Saturday morning.

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Canada: win for anti-logging protesters as judge denies firm’s injunction bid

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Judge blocks Teal Cedar Products’ extension request and says police conduct on Vancouver Island has put court at risk

A provincial court in Canada has refused to extend an injunction against protesters demonstrating against old-growth logging, ruling that police conduct has been so troubling that to extend the order would place the court’s own reputation at risk.

Related: Rescue of trapped Ontario miners involved gruelling climb to surface

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Canada grants asylum to four people who hid Edward Snowden in Hong Kong

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Charity helping the refugees says they are happy with the result but urges Ottawa to expedite asylum of remaining ‘Guardian Angel’

Canada granted asylum to four people who hid former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in their tiny Hong Kong apartments when he was on the run after stealing a trove of classified documents.

The four – Supun Thilina Kellapatha, Nadeeka Dilrukshi Nonis and their children Sethumdi and Dinath – landed in Toronto on Tuesday and were due to go on to Montreal to “start their new lives”, non-profit For the Refugees said in a statement.

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Rescue of trapped Ontario miners involved gruelling climb to surface

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With main access route blocked miners scale network of ladders covering 4,000ft at mine in Sudbury

After a gruelling, half-day, climb up ladders, ascending about 4,000ft, 35 of 39 miners trapped at a mine in northern Canada have made it to the surface.

The miners had become trapped deep underground on Sunday after a scoop bucket detached and blocked the main transport shaft at the Totten mine in northern Ontario. They were forced to scale the network of ladders in secondary shafts, getting the chance to rest every 100 metres.

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Anne at 13,000ft review – a woman uses skydiving as therapy

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Confident microbudget feature zones in on one woman’s unhappiness, and how skydiving provides an unlikely but dramatic release

Deragh Campbell is an award-winning Canadian actor and film-maker whose recent movie MS Slavic 7 I have to confess to finding weirdly inert and indulgent. She has a starring role in this movie, which is a confident, intimate microbudget feature shot almost entirely in searching closeup, directed by Campbell’s longtime collaborator Kazik Radwanski. It is a more approachable piece of work and Campbell’s performance is unsettlingly real.

She plays Anne, an unhappy young woman with a job in a children’s daycare centre and an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, whose life is turned upside down when she tastes the ecstatic thrill of skydiving. Anne gets on pretty badly with her grumpy, humourless colleagues – who may nevertheless have a point about her unprofessional, casual and derisive attitude – and argues with her mother. She meets a nice guy called Matt (Matt Johnson) at a co-worker’s wedding, though she may well be about to alienate him too. But all this is against the background of skydiving, which she took part in as part of the bachelorette party: the bride and all the maids-of-honour did it once, but Anne wants this amazing and passionate experience again and again. Could it be a miraculous therapy for her? Or is skydiving simply enlarging and intensifying her already troublesome and anarchic personality?

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Canada’s Catholic bishops apologise for abuses in residential schools

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Church leaders express ‘profound remorse’ for suffering caused to indigenous children amid silence from the Vatican

High-ranking Catholic bishops in Canada have officially apologised for their role in the country’s notorious residential school system for the first time, after refusing to do so for years despite public pressure.

The organisation expressed “profound remorse” and apologised unequivocally along with all Catholic entities that were directly involved in the operation of the schools, according to a statement issued on Friday by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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China frees detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, Trudeau says

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The men, who were detained by Beijing in 2018, were released hours after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was freed in Canada

Two Canadian citizens who were detained by Beijing for more than 1,000 days have left Chinese airspace and will arrive back in Canada early on Saturday, prime minister Justin Trudeau told reporters.

A plane carrying Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor left Chinese airspace around 7.30pm Ottawa time, just hours after US authorities reached an agreement allowing Chinese Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, to return to China in exchange for admitting wrongdoing in a fraud case. Shortly before Trudeau spoke, Meng boarded a chartered flight organised by the Chinese government to Shenzhen, Chinese state media reported. Zhao Lijian, ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, said her return was enabled by the “unremitting efforts of the Chinese government”.

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Global climate strike: thousands join coordinated action across world

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Rally to demand government action on climate crisis is first worldwide since start of pandemic

Hundreds of thousands of people in 99 countries have taken part in a coordinated global climate strike demanding urgent action to tackle the ecological crisis.

The strike on Friday, the first worldwide climate action since the coronavirus pandemic hit, is taking place weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.

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On thin ice: how The Alpinist captured the terrifying climbs of Marc-André Leclerc

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Climbing solo without ropes, the Canadian adventurer would scale stratospheric walls of ice that could crack and fall with one wrong move. We meet the makers of a gripping, heartbreaking new film

An insect-like creature is climbing a wall. The wall is made of ice – not regular, firm ice, but ice with spikes and cracks and gaps in behind. The creature has extended arms like a mantis, with sharply angled ends that hook into the ice, as well as spikes on its feet to kick in. Still, it doesn’t look very secure: the ice creaks and bits break off and fall. The creature feels around for somewhere else to stick its hooks and spikes, then continues upwards – intently, methodically, almost mechanically. It is both beautiful and absolutely terrifying.

When the camera pans out, it’s even more terrifying, because of the sheer size of this frozen wall. It is vast and vertiginous, the creature a tiny dot creeping upwards, a gnat in a sweeping sub-zero landscape. Except that this gnat has no wings: if it falls, it falls. Nor does it have a rope, because it’s not a gnat or even an insect, but a man – a Canadian by the name of Marc-André Leclerc, climbing solo in the Rockies with crampons and a pair of ice-axes.

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Trudeau didn’t win the majority but still has chance to pass sweeping legislation

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Canadian prime minister will stay in power but will be forced to navigate a parliament that he needs to woo in order to survive

Justin Trudeau went into Monday’s federal election with one of the world’s highest Covid-19 vaccination rates, billions spent on pandemic aid and the hope that he could convert the earned goodwill into a majority government.

He fell short of that aim: after a 36-day campaign and a C$610m election, the makeup of parliament remained largely unchanged, with the Liberals holding roughly 158 seats – short of the 170 needed for a majority.

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Justin Trudeau secures a third victory in an election ‘nobody wanted’

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Canadian prime minister will stay in power but has not won the majority he hoped for after calling a snap election

Justin Trudeau has secured a third election victory, but his decision to call a snap election was criticised by political opponents – and even allies – after the Canadian prime minister failed once again to win a parliamentary majority.

As of Tuesday morning, the Liberals had won or were leading in 158 seats – short of the 170 needed for a majority. Erin O’Toole’s opposition Conservatives won 119, a result that largely mirrored the outcome of the 2019 election.

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Canada’s opposition leader concedes defeat after Trudeau victory – video

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Canada's opposition leader, Erin O’Toole, conceded defeat early on Tuesday, despite his Conservative party leading in the national popular vote.

O’Toole's centrist campaign failed to persuade enough voters to toss out the Liberal party after six years in power. The last time the Conservative party won an election federally was in 2011.

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Trudeau calls election victory ‘clear mandate’ to get Canada through pandemic – video

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Justin Trudeau has won a third term as Canada’s prime minister, with his Liberal party set to capture the most votes in the snap election, a result he called a 'clear mandate' to get the country through the Covid pandemic.

'I hear you when you say you want to get back to the things you love, not to worry about the pandemic or the election,' Trudeau said from Montreal early on Tuesday morning, acknowledging the decision to hold an early election was deeply unpopular. 'You have given this government and this parliament clear direction'

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Canada: mountain goat kills attacking grizzly bear with ‘dagger-like’ horns

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Forensic necropsy of a female grizzly bear suggests she was killed by a goat, after the horns pierced the bear’s armpits and neck

With their long, sharp claws and frightening speed, few predators in Canada’s wild hinterlands attack as mercilessly as a hungry grizzly bear.

But in a rare turn of events, park officials say a mountain goat not only defended itself from becoming a meal, but was able to kill the attacking bear with its “dagger-like” horns.

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Justin Trudeau’s bid for third term in balance as Canada goes to polls

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Post-vaccination election gamble may backfire as parties face off in tightly contested vote battle

As Canadians head to the polls on Monday, prime minister Justin Trudeau will be watching nervously to see if his gamble to call an election will win his party more power in parliament – or leave him with even fewer seats and rivals sensing a growing political weakness.

But in a tightly contested election marred by a public health crisis and concerns over delays in ballot counting, it could take days to learn the winner.

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Trudeau lambasted over exclusion from US-led military alliance as election nears

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Canada already shares intelligence with Australia, the UK, the US and New Zealand but was not included in Aukus pact

Justin Trudeau is facing harsh criticism from political rivals after Canada was excluded from a new international defence pact, days before the country votes in a federal election.

Australia, the United Kingdom and the United State on Wednesday announced a new intelligence sharing agreement meant to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

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‘About damn time’: First Nation gets clean water after 24-year wait

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Residents of Shoal Lake 40 can drink from taps thanks to a new water treatment facility but dozens of communities lack access

Residents of a First Nations community in Canada, who were deprived of clean drinking water for nearly a quarter of a century, can now drink from their taps after a water treatment facility became fully operational earlier this week.

Shoal Lake 40, a community on the Manitoba-Ontario border, has been under drinking water advisory since 1997.

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Alberta reverses hands-off approach to Covid to tackle ‘crisis of unvaccinated’

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Premier Jason Kennedy admits ‘we were wrong –and, for that, I apologize’ as he warns ICU beds may run out in 10 days

Alberta’s premier has announced sweeping new restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus, admitting the Canadian province was gripped by a “crisis of the unvaccinated”.

The new measures marked a major reversal from Jason Kenney’s hands-off approach to the pandemic previously, and come amid warnings from frontline medical workers that the province’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse.

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