Canada

I am not actively following Canadian politics, but recently Reddit swarms me with media/videos about Canada, with the kind of rhetoric I know from right winged people in Germany (AfD, CDU).

They are blaming Trudeau and immigration for everything that happens in Canada currently. Calling immigrants terrorists etc.

I always had to imagine in my head, that Canadians are friendly, open-minded people, but the media suggest otherwise.

So dear people, enlighten me with your opinion please!

"I can't be a racist sack of shit and spew hate speech in Canada so I'm not coming!" - a fetid sack of gangrenous anal sphincters.

>The Liberal government has promised to “solve” the country’s housing woes. But critics say it continues to offer major incentives to for-profit developers, including tax breaks and cheap financing, while steering clear of regulating the housing market. > >Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said it “isn’t surprising” to see developers gain this level of access. > >“It’s power politics, and the industry has more influence,” Tranjan said. “While the minister has never bothered to sit down with and listen to the many tenants on rent strikes, he is winning and dining with corporate landlords.”

>In fact, a new bill introduced by the Liberal government will end the public disclosure of such events before they happen, and afterward will only name their city and province and not their venue name and postal code—thus ending media exposés of such “cash for access” fundraisers.

Facebook (sorry) post is public so you should be able to close the popup to view.

Post makes me feel really emotional.

During the company's second quarter earnings call on Thursday morning, Loblaw executives fielded questions from analysts about the grocery giant's soft food retail sales — and whether a boycott organized online had impacted the company's profits at all.

Some Canadians have been boycotting Loblaw since May, after the moderators of an online Reddit group called r/loblawsisoutofcontrol began encouraging its then-45,000 members to stop shopping at the store and its subsidiary brands.

During the company call, neither CEO Per Bank nor chief financial officer Richard Dufresne used the word boycott. But they didn't deny that it was a factor in food retail sales that "came in a little soft" compared to the same time last year.

The company's earnings results note that food retail same-stores sales increased by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of this year, compared to a 6.1 per cent increase during the same quarter last year.

Years into a drug overdose crisis, Canada is facing backlash against government-sanctioned programs such as legal injection sites designed to keep users alive without curtailing drug use.

The British Columbia government has walked back a pilot project to decriminalize small quantities of illicit drugs in public places in the province. Police there also are prosecuting activists seeking to make safe drugs available.

And the man who may become Canada's next prime minister, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, has said he wants to shut down some sites where users can legally consume illicit drugs under supervision, calling them "drug dens."

The backlash reflects growing fears in Canada over the use of narcotics in public spaces, encampments where drug use is seen as common, and the specter of needles in playgrounds. Some critics of the so-called harm reduction programs see a rising number of overdose deaths in Canada as evidence that existing measures are not working.

But public health experts worry that dialing back the programs would endanger the health and lives of drug users, contributing to even more deaths.

Archive: [ https://archive.is/n5388 ]

> In 2023, the cost of policing to Canadian taxpayers closed in on $20 billion for the first time. While annual police budgets continue to grow, there is little debate in the media about its cost to taxpayers and the value for money in relation to crime reduction.

> This 50 per cent increase over inflation in the cost of policing from 20 years ago is now coinciding with disturbing increases in violent crime. Homicides are up, stoking public fear. Violent crime has returned to levels seen 20 years ago. Canada’s homicide rate is second only to the United States among G7 countries, and is rising as the American rate drops.

> The rate of homicide involving Indigenous victims is six times that of non-Indigenous people, and it’s three times higher for Black men.

> With one in three women experiencing some form of violence in their lifetimes, intimate partner and sexual violence is now recognized as being at epidemic levels.

> The majority of policing costs are paid from municipal taxes and have risen faster than expenditures on transit or social services. The cost of policing at the municipal level per capita varies considerably from a high of $496 annually for Vancouver to a low of $217 in Québec City.

> Though much of the rhetoric for justifying increasing police budgets is about crime, an analysis of trends over the last 20 years in Canada could not find any correlation between increases in municipal police budgets and a reduction in crime rates.

> Our review of studies in the United Kingdom and the United States shows that investments in programs tackling risk factors give better returns than innovations like problem-oriented policing.

China’s chief diplomat told Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly Friday that Beijing wants to “inject momentum into the restoration of normal relations,” but said the Asian power will brook no criticism of human-rights abuses or its menacing threats to the island democracy of Taiwan.

There’s another shoe that needs to drop before the United Conservative Party’s embarrassing skybox scandal goes quiet and Alberta can go back to sleep as Premier Danielle Smith and her political advisors doubtless profoundly wish we would.

To wit: Did UCP ministers or political staffers avail themselves of corporate flights to NHL playoff games in Vancouver and perhaps in Sunrise, Florida? And if so, who paid?

Thanks to the reporting of the Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait, we already know who bought skybox tickets — at least some of them — for well-connected members and employees of Smith’s government.

Tait’s July 18 report confirmed some of the rumours heard on social media and in political circles about cabinet members and senior staffers accepting corporate skybox tickets during the playoffs.

But if the Calgary Stampede rumour mill, at least, had it right, the skies over B.C.’s Lower Mainland and perhaps around Miami International Airport too were a free-flight zone during the Stanley Cup finals.

So inquiring minds want to know: Who was on those corporate jets? What did they pay, if anything? And if passengers didn’t pay, who did?

Smith, it would seem, is just as determined that it’s none of our business. Which, naturally, raises suspicions that some well-connected folk didn’t take WestJet and pay for their flight themselves, as Smith told reporters she did.

And yet they are braying for Trump Lite who is playing directly from the US christofascist playbook of grievance and identity politics while making impossible promises without ever telling us how he plans to deliver. But, he's"not Trudeau" amiright?

The Township of Langley will investigate how an extreme-right group was able to book a community hall jointly managed by the township and a local Lions Club.

“We’ll have to be reviewing that in the future, especially with this particular hall,” Langley Mayor Eric Woodward told The Tyee. “And seeing if there’s any assistance the township can provide and any policy updates to help these groups ensure that they don’t mistakenly book something like this in the future.”

Diagolon is led by several livestreamers who spend hours online spouting racism against Jewish and South Asian people and other minorities, dwelling on violent fantasies of fighting against invading immigrants.

The RCMP has described Diagolon as a “militia-like network with supporters who subscribe to accelerationist ideologies — the idea that a civil war or collapse of western governments is inevitable and ought to be sped up.”

This June, the group started advertising for an in-person “Terror Tour” across Canada during the summer, promising stops in major Canadian cities from Halifax to Vancouver.

In reality, the meetings have been held in small venues in smaller communities. The Ottawa gathering happened in an agricultural hall in the village of Carp.

For the Kamloops stop, the group apparently met at a skating rink owned by the Falkland and District Community Association. The small community is about 70 kilometres east of Kamloops.

When Diagolon members showed up at the community centre venue they had rented in Sudbury, they found the doors locked.

In Kelowna, Diagolon held an informal gathering in a park rather than booking an event venue. A warning about the event was posted on a Kelowna Reddit group.

Years after two Ontario police officers got into a violent altercation in broad daylight that ended in one shooting the other 10 times, both have walked away with no convictions.

On Nov. 29, 2018, Donovan and Parker were investigating a car crash at a rural intersection near Niagara Falls, Ont.

Parker was directing traffic, but left to use the bathroom. When he returned to his post, Donovan confronted him and a fight ensued.

Donovan later testified that Parker pushed and hit him and pulled his baton. When Parker reached for his gun, Donovan drew his own and began firing in self-defence.

Parker was shot in the cheek, nose, shoulder, thigh, calf, hip, abdomen and foot but survived.

A wildfire that roared into the community of Jasper, Alta., late Wednesday has left vast stretches of the townsite incinerated.

Video shared to social media on Thursday shows blocks upon blocks of buildings have been levelled by fire.

The video, taken from inside a truck, shows a view of a community forever changed.

Where buildings once stood, charred rubble remains. Many homes in the historic townsite have been destroyed, leaving only the foundations.

"We are seeing potentially 30 to 50 per cent structural damage," (Premier Danielle) Smith said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to hand-pick a candidate for a riding in an upcoming Montreal byelection isn't being well-received by three aspiring contenders who spent months campaigning only to be shunted aside.

The Liberals announced Montreal city Coun. Laura Palestini last Friday as the party's candidate in a byelection whose date has yet to be announced for the riding of LaSalle--Emard--Verdun. The byelection must be called by July 30.

Three aspiring candidates -- local school commissioner Lori Morrison; entrepreneur Christopher Baenninger; and former Quebec Liberal party organizer Eddy Kara -- denounced the decision, with Morrison calling it "anti-democratic, 100 per cent."

Morrison said she couldn't believe the party let her knock on doors and sign up memberships only to ultimately abandon plans for a nomination meeting.

Now, an investigation from the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CTV News shines new light on how Canadian shell companies and registries were used to pull off the scheme.

The investigation — based on dozens of corporate filings, interviews with experts and both domestic and international court records — found MTFE was part of a network of dozens of Canadian shell companies peddling similar cryptocurrency investment schemes.

But experts interviewed for this story, including former law enforcement and intelligence officials, say the investigation highlights gaps in Canada’s enforcement that have made the country a waystation for financial crime.

“We’ve become such a weak link in the financial crime arena that we’re attracting all the business,” said Garry Clement, a former RCMP officer who investigated financial crime. “Because they know that virtually nothing is going to happen to them.”

During his first two months as a volunteer chaplain with Windsor, Ont., police, Hassan Rkie was accused of trying to get a victim to drop domestic violence charges in an ongoing case and has since been charged with obstruction, CBC News has learned.

The 47-year-old was quietly charged in February. The Windsor Police Service didn't release the information publicly, though it often does when arrests are made.

According to documents filed in the Ontario Court of Justice, it's alleged Rkie "did intentionally attempt to dissuade a person ... by bribes from giving evidence in a judicial proceeding."

Two sources within the police service told CBC News that Rkie knew a man in the community being accused of domestic violence. They said he then proceeded to contact the complainant in what they claim was an attempt to get them to drop the charges.

> Canada provided up to $200 million to pipeline company Coastal Gaslink, recently updated financial data reveals — an apparent violation of a commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

> According to Export Development Canada (EDC), a Crown corporation that provides loans and grants to help businesses reach the market, Coastal Gaslink was given between $100 million and $200 million worth of project financing to help it export gas. The publicly-disclosed financing is thin on details, but was signed on June 27.

> Coastal GasLink, owned by Calgary-based TC Energy, snakes through several Indigenous territories, including the Wet’suwet’en Nation. Wet’suwet’en hereditary leadership, who maintains jurisdiction over the land in question, opposes the pipeline. Hereditary Chief Namoks (also known as John Ridsdale), told Canada’s National Observer he was disappointed to see hundreds of millions of dollars provided to a company violating his nation’s rights.

> Any government funding “that goes against human rights, Indigenous rights and [the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] simply should not be allowed,” he said.

> “So it clearly shows the oil and gas industry is steering the government.”

> Five years ago, Kim Gavine, general manager of Conservation Ontario, warned that the province was already “experiencing stronger and more frequent flood events as a result of climate change impacts."

> Instead of taking this threat seriously, Doug Ford slashed Ontario’s funding for flood management programs and has recklessly tried to pave the Greenbelt, a crucial network of protected waterways and wetlands that help prevent flooding. By prioritizing the interests of his corporate developer buddies and expanding gas power plants when we desperately need to be transitioning to a green grid and investing in proactive resilience measures, Ford is making communities across the province more vulnerable to climate disasters like what I just experienced.

> This isn’t just a Toronto or Ontario problem either. David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, described last week’s massive urban flooding as our new reality. Our governments, at every level, need to do what it takes to better prepare for these escalating climate impacts everywhere.

> We don’t yet know the full extent of the damage from last week’s storms, but Global News' Chief Meteorologist reported that the flooding was likely to be “worse and more widespread than the recent benchmark event in July 2013 and that was a billion-dollar disaster.” A billion dollars that our already strapped municipal government doesn’t have, money that we desperately need for housing, transit, and social services.