As local papers close their doors, a morning newsletter defied the odds. Now its founder aims to push the model nationwide
Local journalism has shed jobs faster than the coal industry, leaving swaths of North America as news deserts with little or no regular coverage.
But the grim prospects for an industry in decline didn’t deter the Canadian tech entrepreneur Andrew Wilkinson, who in 2019 hired a reporter and launched a daily newsletter in his home town, Victoria.
Continue reading...Far-right group was deemed a terrorist entity in Canada in February with authorities describing group as ‘serious and growing’ threat
Proud Boys Canada, a far-right group that Ottawa named as a terrorist entity earlier this year, has dissolved itself, saying it has done nothing wrong, according to a statement by the organisation.
In February, Canada said the group posed an active security threat and played a “pivotal role” in the deadly attack on the US Capitol in January by pro-Trump rioters. US authorities have charged several members of the Proud Boys in connection with the 6 January assault.
Continue reading...Indigenous leaders are suing the Canadian government for not providing clean water – and ministers admit they have failed
Curve Lake First Nation, a forested community in southern Canada, is surrounded on three sides by fresh water.
But for decades, residents have been unable to safely make use of it. Wary of crumbling infrastructure and waterborne illness, the community instead relies on shipments of bottled water. The community’s newly elected chief, aged 34, has lived her whole life without the guarantee of clean water flowing from the tap.
Continue reading...Powering Past Coal Alliance accused of failing to follow up on pledges as many countries expand use of coal
An attempt by the UK government to encourage countries and businesses around the world to quit coal for power generation is failing to make an impact, and in danger of being used as “greenwash”, an assessment has found.
The Powering Past Coal Alliance, led by the UK and Canada, with 111 members including 24 governments, local governments and businesses, is a key plank of Boris Johnson’s strategy for vital UN climate talks to be hosted in Glasgow in November.
Continue reading...Canada’s supreme court decision on the Sinixt people could affirm hunting rights for tens of thousands
For decades the Rick Desautel had been told by courts and governments that his people no longer exist in Canada.
But Desautel and others in his community in Washington state have long argued that they are descendants of the Sinixt, an Indigenous people whose territory once spanned Canada and the United States.
Continue reading...Meng Wanzhou’s team had sought more time to review new documents after Hong Kong settlement with HSBC
A Canada judge has agreed to delay Meng Wanzhou’s US extradition hearings for three months, according to a ruling read in court on Wednesday, handing the Huawei chief financial officer’s defense team a win.
Meng, 49, was arrested at Vancouver international airport on charges of bank fraud in the US for allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, causing the bank to break US sanctions.
Continue reading...Ruling removes limits on some teachers and provincial politicians but maintains ban for police, judges and other civil servants
A Canadian court has struck down part of a disputed Quebec law against public employees wearing religious symbols, removing limits on some teachers and provincial politicians but maintaining the ban for police officers, judges and other civil servants.
The 2019 law, which the Quebec government said was designed to preserve secularism in the mainly French-speaking province, prohibits many civil servants, including police officers, from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs and turbans on the job.
Continue reading...A father’s legacy is in dispute when wayward son RJ Mitte decides to spar with the barman who guards the man’s ashes
Several men walk into several bars in this interlocking suite of tales, and the repeating permutations of barman and barfly, blue collar and white collar, father and son, raconteur and listener pile up pleasingly into a kind of oppressive, Coenesque cosmic joke. RJ Mitte, Breaking Bad’s Walter White Jr, plays college boy Steve, who turns up in a snowstorm at a bar owned by the irascible Paul (Peter Outerbridge). He owes the latter money – and without it, Paul won’t give up the ashes of Steve’s recently deceased dad, Gord, whose funeral the youth failed to attend. And then this arrogant sadsack – whose very presence aggravates Paul – offers to pay him with a story.
Steve’s yarn is a slack spin on his own: a freezing wayfarer walks into The Oak Room, a pub in a neighbouring town, and puts a set of demands to an irked barman. Unimpressed, Paul tells him that he must learn to “goose the truth” to hold an audience, and then sucker-punches him with a story about Gord, with another story inside. Or he thinks it’s a sucker-punch – Steve reveals that he had only told the ending of his, and the start will transform everything.
Continue reading...Canada’s federal government has put childcare and Covid-19 relief at the heart of the country’s first pandemic budget, as the governing Liberals announced massive spending plans in an attempt to address growing inequality – and avert a snap election.
Delivering her government’s first budget in more than two years, the finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, on Monday framed the ambitious spending programme as both necessary to combat the disastrous “economic wounds” of the coronavirus pandemic and an opportunity to build a more equitable society.
Continue reading...Province announces plans to make coronavirus vaccines more accessible in response to public pressure
Canada’s most populous province has announced plans to make coronavirus vaccines more accessible and the federal government pledged emergency aid as authorities scramble to combat a worsening outbreak in Ontario.
The shift in strategy comes after the premier, Doug Ford, was forced into a U-turn over deeply unpopular new restrictions announced on Friday.
Continue reading...New measures to enforce stay-at-home order with hospitals ‘bursting at the seams’ but civil liberties campaigners cry foul
Ontario has announced sweeping new police powers to enforce an extended stay-at-home order, in the latest sign that officials in Canada’s most populous province have lost control of the rapidly spreading coronavirus.
With a record number of new cases, there is growing worry among experts that the already-strained healthcare system is being further pushed to the brink.
Continue reading...A Canadian lawmaker’s naked webcam gaffe during a session of parliament has promoted calls for an investigation and raised questions over the ethics of sharing compromising pictures of public officials without their consent.
Related: ‘Cancel the Olympics’: fashion outcry as Canada brings back jean jackets for Tokyo
Continue reading...For sports fans, there are many reasons to be thankful that the Tokyo Olympics look like they will take place – a year late – despite concerns about coronavirus: the chance to see supreme athletes compete at the highest level, an opportunity to deliver your definitive opinion on the Montenegro water polo team and marvel at the proxy superpower struggle at the top of the medal table. But the biggest treat of all could happen on the final night of the Games when the Canadian team walk out for the closing ceremony.
The athletes will be clad in graffiti-splashed denim jackets that would have been very current at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona or on Degrassi Junior High at its peak, but haven’t quite passed muster among 21st-century critics on social media.
Continue reading...Order comes less than a week after plans to reopen businesses reversed while vaccine teams will target high-risk workers
Canada’s most populous region has declared a one-month stay-at-home order and announced plans for mobile vaccine teams to target high-risk workers – including teachers and factory and warehouse workers – as it battles a surge of Covid-19 cases.
Launching the measures on Wednesday, the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, pleaded with residents to remain at home. “The risks are greater and the stakes are higher,” said Ford.
Continue reading...Exam once again draws attention to province’s notoriously difficult language requirements to gain permanent residency
Language exams have long struck fear in unprepared students as they nervously stumble over verb conjugation and struggle to get their tenses right.
Yohan Flaman, a long-haul truck driver from Limoges, France, however, was confident that proficiency in his native tongue would be enough to satisfy officials in the Canadian province of Quebec.
Continue reading...Ownership of the Ogopogo legend has renewed discussions over the appropriation of traditions and the challenges Indigenous nations face to reclaim their culture
People living on the shores of Okanagan Lake have long said that dark, curling waves signal the presence of Ogopogo, a monstrous serpent lurking beneath the surface.
A handful claim to have seen the long green body and horse-like head of Canada’s own Loch Ness monster. They tell stories of a creature that once nearly killed a settler when it dragged his horse into the depths. And every few years, new video footage renews excitement that Ogopogo has been found.
Continue reading...Canada’s most populous province has been warning of rapidly spreading coronavirus variants, as cases and ICU admissions surged
Lisa Salamon-Switzman, an emergency room doctor in Toronto, had already worked through two deadly surges of the coronavirus pandemic when a new batch of patients recently began arriving that left her unsettled because of their low oxygen levels – and their age.
“They’re younger than what we saw earlier and they don’t really understand how sick they are,” she said of patients who are in their 40s and 50s. “And now it’s become this huge, huge wave.”
Continue reading...Herring off western coast will ‘teeter on edge of complete collapse’ if commercial fishing continues at current level, says report
First Nations and conservationists are warning that Pacific herring populations are “collapsing” off Canada’s western coast, and are appealing for a moratorium on commercial fishing until the critical species can rebuild.
Emmie Page, a marine campaigner with the organization Pacific Wild, said in the past, five large commercial herring fisheries opened each year on the coast.
Continue reading...Spasms, memory loss and hallucinations among symptoms of 43 patients in Acadian region of New Brunswick province
Doctors in Canada are concerned they could be dealing with a previously unknown brain disease amid a string of cases involving memory loss, hallucinations and muscle atrophy.
Politicians in the province of New Brunswick have demanded answers, but with so few cases, experts say there are far more questions than answers and have urged the public not to panic.
Continue reading...Immunisation panel says there is ‘substantial uncertainty about the benefit’ of the vaccine given risk of rare type of blood clot
Canada on Monday suspended the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people under 55 following concerns it might be linked to rare blood clots.
The pause was recommended by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization for safety reasons. The Canadian provinces, which administer health in the country, announced the suspension on Monday.
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