Canada

Roughly one in five residential buildings in Canada has high radon levels — a figure that’s more than doubled since the late 2000s — while radon-induced lung cancer kills an estimated 3,200 people each year, federal figures show.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford dipped his toe into Quebec provincial politics Wednesday, suggesting that the election of a separatist party in Quebec would be a 'disaster' for Canada.

Ford was speaking at a joint news conference with New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt before a meeting of provincial premiers.

That will likely be current Quebec Premier François Legault's final first ministers' meeting, as Legault announced earlier this month he would be resigning as premier once his party selects a new leader.

With the Parti Québécois (PQ)'s Paul St-Pierre Plamondon leading handily in opinion polls ahead of the fall provincial election, Ford and Holt were asked what it might be like to sit around the first ministers' table with a separatist premier.

A lawyer says she was left bloody and swollen after multiple Durham Regional police officers allegedly slammed her head on a desk without provocation, ripped off her head scarf and dragged her to the basement cells of the Oshawa courthouse last week.

According to a statement issued by her lawyer, Neha Chugh, defence lawyer Sudine Riley finished a trial late on Friday and was catching up on legal work in an interview room when uniformed officers “challenged her presence” in that room.

In her statement, Chugh said police, who were working as security, slammed Riley's head on the desk and put their knees on her back and neck, and spoke to her with “rage, disrespect, and contempt.”

She said officers then forcibly “dragged” Riley from the room in handcuffs and took her to the basement cells of the courthouse.

“Her head scarf was ripped off, her skirt was raised when she was handled by officers, and her head was bleeding and her eye swollen from being slammed into the desk,” Chugh's statement reads.

No charges will be laid against a Victoria Police Department officer who shot and killed a man in September 2021, according to the B.C. Prosecution Service.

On Sept. 12, 2021, VicPD officers responded to calls about a man in a mental health crisis who was holding a knife to his throat and threatening to kill himself.

Police fired beanbag rounds at the man while trying to keep him around the then-closed Island Savings Credit Union at Tolmie Avenue and Douglas Street, but he moved into nearby bushes.

“A trained crisis negotiator came and tried to calm him down, asking him to drop the knife,” said the B.C. Prosecution Service statement.

The man came out of the bushes with the knife and an unnamed police officer shot him once in the stomach.

The fiancée of a man found dead in the snow after a crash last week in Ottawa is remembering him as a devoted father who worked long hours and came so near to seeing his family again.

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Ontario's police watchdog, said Ottawa police responded at 11:30 p.m. that night to reports of a vehicle rollover.

Officers did not locate anyone in or around the vehicle, the SIU said, and subsequently left the scene.

But the next morning, a police officer returned to the scene and found a dead man nearby, beneath the snow.

A seniors advocate is calling for improved security measures at nursing homes across New Brunswick, as Saint John police investigate "offences of a sexual nature" at Loch Lomond Villa’s The Village involving at least 12 victims, some into their 90s.

"It's frightening to even think that this is happening in our homes," she said. "We're talking about vulnerable people here that can't defend themselves.”

The Saint John Police Force announced the investigation Jan. 23 after being alerted by staff at the 100-bed nursing home on the city's east side two days earlier.

Staff Sgt. Shawna Fowler said the family protection unit has identified "over a dozen" victims so far.

Although no one has been arrested yet, police do have a suspect, said Fowler.

It's not an employee or a resident, she said, but someone who is "affiliated" with the home.

Excerpt:

For many years, co-operation between Canada and Sweden was often viewed through a narrow lens — defence procurement. Discussions about fighter aircraft, technical specifications and military benefits tended to dominate attention.

Yet focusing only on defence equipment obscures a deeper shift now under way. What began as a technical defence relationship has gradually evolved into broader strategic convergence rooted in shared geopolitical interests, mutual economic benefits and a common understanding of the North.

As a researcher in Canadian studies, I am particularly interested in Swedish–Canadian relations as both countries seek to to strengthen the resilience of their political and economic systems.

This evolution in the relationship hasn’t happened overnight. It’s developed incrementally through political dialogue, institutional trust and shared security concerns.

It also comes after Canada signed a contract in January 2023 to acquire 88 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighters from the United States and has committed funds for 16 of them.

The Canadian government is reconsidering the remaining portion of the planned purchase amid ongoing tensions with the U.S., but American officials have warned that cancelling the deal could require changes in bilateral air defence co-operation and lead the U.S. to assume a greater operational role.

But at the same time, Ottawa is examining a Swedish offer of 72 Saab Gripen jets and six GlobalEye aircraft.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/news/p/484228/ice-is-at-the-border-of-new-brunswick-and-maine-premier-says

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt on Wednesday criticized the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the U.S. that has now spread to neighbouring Maine, saying it’s making people in her province “very, very uncomfortable” to have them at the border.

Holt told reporters in Ottawa that the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at the New Brunswick-Maine border was affecting people with cross-border family and business ties that have already been struggling under strained relations due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and attacks on Canada.

“We see what’s happening in the country,” she told reporters. “We see it in New Brunswick right now with ICE agents on the border of New Brunswick and Maine, in Calais. And it makes us all very, very uncomfortable.

“There’s nothing that we recognize in our neighbours right now, with the leadership that they have. We’re eager to support them in a return to the long-standing and strong partnership that Canada and the U.S. have had for generations.”

https://archive.is/RF71l

Some excerpts:

Aziz is not alone. Doctors in Canada each spend, on average, nine hours per week on administrative tasks, totaling 42.7 million hours annually across the country, according to a new report from the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which surveyed 1,924 physicians.

The paperwork that fills Aziz’s mornings goes far beyond requisitioning tests and looking over lab work, the kind of things she says any doctor would expect to do.

It’s tracking down patient information that’s spread out over multiple systems. It’s resubmitting the exact same information multiple times because each pharmacy or clinic has its own specific forms.

Digitization isn't necessarily helping either, she said, because, oftentimes, the software that should be making things easier just isn't up to par.

"Sometimes it's one step forward, two steps back," she said. “You have to click a dozen boxes and then the patient's history won't populate because it has a dash, which is not an allowed character, you know?”

These generous donations from people across the country demonstrate the widespread faith in our Conservative message of hope for a safer, more affordable Canada

Yeah I’m pretty sure they’re from the same family, the Kosch one

On November 15th, two Open Food Facts ambassadors: Marius in Denmark and Louis in Quebec, Canada organised local DigiEduHack events, each with its own flavour, community, and insights.

DigiEduHack is a global initiative supported by the European Commission to encourage communities, students, and innovators to rethink digital education through hands-on hackathons. Every year, organisations around the world host local events where participants learn, collaborate, and build creative solutions to societal challenges.

Both events shared the same spirit: the excitement to learn and lots of creativity. Some students in Canada even expressed interest in pursuing their prototypes beyond the hackathon.

DigiEduHack will announce a global winner in February, selected through a public vote.

Establishment media is making the case for mandatory service, quietly cultivating public consent for a more heavily-armed society

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/54286372

Canada’s hold on its Arctic territories depends on Inuit and can be bolstered by strengthening their communities, a leading expert says.

University of British Columbia global affairs professor Michael Byers, who has spent much of his career studying power and international politics in the North, says the legal system that underpins sovereignty questions in the Arctic remains “robust,” despite recent rhetoric from Donald Trump about Greenland.

Byers says it still makes sense for Canada to improve military capabilities. But he says investing in infrastructure and support for Arctic communities would also help strengthen Canada’s sovereignty in the North.

Health Canada’s witness in the Drug User Liberation Front’s (DULF) judicial review trial frustrated the judge and highlighted how opaque and frustrating Canadian drug policy can be.

On Monday Eric Costen, who was associate deputy minister for Health Canada from June 2023 to September 2025, was questioned by DULF’s lawyers, Tim Dickson and Stephanie Dickson. Costen had worked for Health Canada since 2002 and had worked as an executive since 2006.

He told the court his role as associate deputy minister made him “No. 2” at Health Canada on the public service side.

Despite his role and tenure at Health Canada, Costen replied to almost every one of Tim Dickson’s questions with a hedging response, such as “I’m not sure I remember” or “That was outside of my department.”

Justice Catherine Murray chastised Costen several times while he was on the stand.

When asked how pharmaceutical-grade heroin could have been approved for non-medical safer supply programs, Costen said he wasn’t familiar with the process for changing regulations because he wasn’t involved in the regulatory side of Health Canada.

Murray spoke up. “You were one of the head people in the country dealing with drug regulations and the toxic drug crisis,” she said. “So if an issue goes strictly outside of your box into another bureaucrat’s, you just stop paying attention?”

“Is the whole time you are being asked about vague, or just the questions you’ve been asked so far?” Murray said, referring to Costen’s responses. “Did you refresh your memory in order to testify meaningfully today?”

Murray also said he seemed to be “seeing [evidence] for the first time and guessing” in his responses, and provided responses of “very little value” despite being asked to talk about emails he had sent and meetings he had been in during his time at Health Canada.

The federal government says its willingness to speak with Meta about the possibility of seeing online news return to Facebook is part of an ongoing conversation Canada is having with the United States as the review of CUSMA nears.

"The door has always been open on our government's side to discuss these issues. We've been having regular discussions with platforms since the Online News Act was developed. This is nothing new," said Hermine Landry, press secretary to Culture Minister Mark Miller.

The Online News Act, which became law in 2023, requires tech giants like Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms.

The Trump administration is once again ramping up its rhetorical pressure on Canada, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issuing a fresh warning to Prime Minister Mark Carney over looming trade negotiations.

Bessent was at an event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to launch what U.S. President Donald Trump has dubbed "Trump Accounts," an investment vehicle for children.

In an interview with CNBC's Sara Eisen, Bessent was asked about the rift between Trump and Carney over the prime minister's headline-grabbing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"I would just encourage Prime Minister Carney to do what he thinks is best for the Canadian people, not his own virtue signaling, because we do have a USMCA negotiation coming up," Bessent said, using the American acronym for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

"I would not pick a fight going into USMCA to score some cheap political points," he added.

A handful of Canadian FinTech firms are now in line to reap the benefits of the country’s incoming real-time rail (RTR) payments infrastructure system.

Float, Wise, Koho, Paramount, and Brim are now members of Payments Canada, the organization that underpins the Canadian financial system announced on Tuesday. With their membership, the companies can now apply to participate in payments infrastructure projects and rely less on third-party intermediaries to handle their transactions.