Canada

Canadians are looking on aghast at the events unfolding in Minneapolis, Minnesota—a northern city of bridges and rivers that loves hockey, values higher education, upholds diversity, and as home to the Mayo Clinic, is globally recognized for its excellence in health care research. It’s a place not unlike Edmonton or Winnipeg, which isn’t much more than a five-hour drive away.

But unlike Edmonton or Winnipeg, Minneapolis is under siege, its people targeted because they are Democrats. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs Border Protection (CBP) have become the president’s private militia, which he is using to send a message to a blue state that has refused to vote for him. Under the guise of what the Trump administration is calling “law enforcement,” a radical movement toward totalitarianism in America is playing out before our eyes.

The descent of Trump’s troops upon the city—Operation Metro Surge, as the White House calls it—began on December 1, 2025. As of Saturday, after fifty-five days of occupation and the execution of another civilian at the hands of ICE, on January 24, in that city, tensions have boiled over. There are over 3,000 ICE and CBP masked and heavily armed agents terrorizing the citizens of Minneapolis. They are led by the ghoulish Greg Bovino, who relishes being the visual representation of a totalitarian federal occupation of Minneapolis. His press conference following his men’s execution of another Minnesotan was designed to further psychologically assault the population by, once again, painting the victim as a terrorist wanting to inflict maximum harm to “Federal Law Enforcement”—a phrase he repeats with perverse pleasure.

America is tracking toward a version of mass civil unrest, which won’t look like the Civil War of 1861 (which killed 600,000 Americans) but will nevertheless bring widespread instability to that country. They are already there. The people have begun to wake up to the reality that the Trump administration has no interest in leaving them alone. If they want their freedom back, they are going to have to fight for it.

“This is tyranny,” Minnesota’s attorney general told New York Times reporter Lydia Polgreen. “There’s no other way to put it. We’re all shocked by it. Nobody ever thought America would look like this. We now don’t have to speculate as to what American fascism looks like. It’s right outside our door.”

With appearances on Fox & Friends and many mostly far-right U.S. and Canadian podcasts, larger-than-life lawyer Jeffrey Rath has emerged as the cowboy-hatted figurehead for the Alberta Prosperity Project, or APP.

Rath is also legal counsel to the APP, a loosely organized group of far-right separatists trading on decades of western alienation and grievance as part of a campaign to form a sovereign country, allegedly with the support and encouragement of the Donald Trump regime.

Since early January, thousands of Albertans have been flocking to APP events across the province to sign a petition in support of a referendum on the province’s separation from Canada.

But a few weeks earlier on Nov. 27, Rath definitely was not in a secure facility. It was the eve of the United Conservative Party annual general meeting in Edmonton and Rath was perched on a stool at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald’s horseshoe-shaped bar in downtown Edmonton, profanely disparaging Alberta Premier Danielle Smith while spouting wild, unproven allegations and opinions to some strangers.

“I have this from a pretty impeccable source,” Rath said. “Jason Kenney, Marshall Smith and the other three or four senior high-powered gay deputy ministers within the Alberta government all flew down to Puerto Vallarta together in advance of the last election.”

Rath alleged they “conspired” there “to plot what they were going to do and how they were going to position themselves when Rachel Notley won the election.”

No one wants to imagine their home could threaten their health, but when radon seeps in, that’s exactly what happens.

This naturally occurring gas is released from the ground as the uranium in soil and rock breaks down. It isn’t a health concern when it’s diluted in the air, or if someone’s home has a radon mitigation system to safely funnel the gas outside.

Radon-induced lung cancer kills an estimated 3,200 Canadians each year, and lung cancer, in general, remains the deadliest type of cancer in Canada, even as smoking rates have dropped dramatically in recent decades.

Yet radon isn’t included in cancer screening criteria since — as Blake says — there’s no existing test to prove that someone has had dangerous, long-term exposure.

A group of cross-Canada scientists are now hoping to change that, by developing innovative ways to test for radon exposure using something most of us throw away: toenail clippings.

U.S. President Donald Trump's ambassador to Canada is warning of consequences to the continental defence pact if Canada does not move forward with the purchase of 88 F-35 fighter jets.

"NORAD would have to be altered," U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra told CBC News in an exclusive interview at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

He says the United States would likely need to purchase more of the advanced fighter aircraft for its own air force, and would fly them more often into Canadian airspace to address threats approaching the U.S.

"If Canada is no longer going to provide that [capability], then we have to fill those gaps," said Hoekstra.

Luckily there's a lot more than the grocery rebate.

That said I hope these investments don't go to the existing monopolies:

To help bring down the cost of groceries, which have been rising faster than inflation, Carney said he will direct $500 million from the government's Strategic Response Fund to help food suppliers "expand capacity and increase productivity."

Hi, I'm in Brampton ON. The snow isn't that bad compared to other places (there was a really bad one like 2 or 3 weeks ago tho), but I'm the only one that does the shoveling.

I can't afford a 1000 CAD blower from Canadian Tire or Home Depot. And I don't think I need anything super heavy duty.

Just want something reliable preferably under 400 CAD. Or is that not possible?

Archived link

As thawing bilateral relations between Canada and China produce new trading partnerships on electric-vehicles and agricultural products, it would “not be wise” for Prime Minister Mark Carney to revisit the government’s 5G ban on the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, according to former Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Ward Elcock.

“There’s an important security rationale behind keeping them off the 5G network,” Elcock, who led CSIS from 1994 to 2004, told The Hill Times. “If you allow a foreign communications network into your system, then you’re creating holes and gaps.”

“I don’t think it should be on the table … and I’d be very surprised if it is.”

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Carney’s (Nepean, Ont.) trip to China last week marked the first time a Canadian prime minister had visited the nation in more than eight years. Following then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s state visit in 2017, Canada-China relations deteriorated after the 2018 arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, B.C., which was followed by China’s imprisonment of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

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China was also identified by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue as one of the largest perpetrators of foreign interference in Canadian democratic processes, following a recent public inquiry into the subject.

“The Chinese would never have bought [now-defunct Canadian telecoms firm] Nortel, even though Nortel tried in vain to sell stuff to them,” said Elcock, also a former deputy minister of national defence. “So, I think it’s highly improbable, and the government would face a lot of criticism, if they allowed Huawei into our network.”

“It just makes no sense because of Canada’s security interests.”

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However, some stakeholders suggested the 5G ban on Huawei may not be the most effective policy approach for Canada.

Ali Dehghantanha, a professor at Guelph University and Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity and Threat, ... explained that the ban was “easy” to bypass, as many Canadian firms continue to use Chinese materials and products in their offerings.

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“Restricting access just because a vendor is headquartered in a certain place is meaningless,” Dehghantanha said ... “[Ottawa] needs to specify proper guidelines or mandates that, if a device wants to be deployed on the network, show what security criteria it has to pass,” he said. “That is something that is completely missing.”

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Archive: [ https://archive.is/hPZl4 ]

An organization working to build a deep water port in Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut, has secured support from community leaders.

The port is intended to help with marine safety, search and rescue, and serve as a base for defence and security operations. The project received letters of support from the local hunters and trappers organization and the local hamlet this month.

“Having a port in Qikiqtarjuaq will mean that the federal government is serious about the sovereignty and the security of the North,” said Harry Flaherty, the chair of the Qikiqtaaluk Corporation, which is leading the project.

The company says the first phase of the project is expected to cost $350 million and it's calling on the federal government to invest $150 million to accelerate the development. The organization says that the project is shovel-ready, and the hope is to have construction begin this year.

Canada’s biggest grocery giants — including Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro — are using property law to control how other grocery stores, dollar stores, pharmacies and gas stations can compete with them, an investigation by CBC’s Marketplace has found.

Property controls are deals made between a land owner and retailer that restrict what kinds of businesses can operate nearby, and what the competitors are able to sell. The terms are negotiated to incentivize the business to open their store on the land.

Known in legal terms as restrictive covenants or exclusivity clauses, property controls are common across industries. In a plaza, for example, they could limit the number of veterinary offices or dental practices. While they aren’t unusual, there is criticism about their use in the grocery sector.

For example, the property control attached to a Sobeys in Winnipeg states no one can sell food on the adjacent land unless Sobeys says so, and that permission can be withheld “unreasonably and arbitrarily.”

Meanwhile, a Metro property control in Waterloo, Ont., restricts what food products a Shoppers Drug Mart can sell in the same plaza and prohibits restaurants with a 50-seat capacity or more from opening within 61 metres of Metro’s store.

Metro and Sobeys have both denied that property controls are a barrier to competition, while Loblaws acknowledged last year that property controls restrict competition, but wouldn’t agree to eliminate all of them unless other major grocery retailers do the same.

A secret list of hundreds of alleged Nazi war criminals welcomed by Canada after the Second World War, drawn up 40 years ago, should remain secret, the information watchdog ruled Friday.

The list of more than 700 suspected Nazi war criminals who settled in Canada has remained unpublished since it was drawn up as part of an official inquiry in 1986.

• Globe and Mail

Avoid paywall link: https://archive.ph/yt1KT

'We won't put all our eggs in one basket,' foreign affairs minister says

Archived link

Following Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement in Beijing that Canada will allow a limited annual quota of Chinese electric vehicles (EV) into the domestic market at reduced tariffs, the federal government has framed the agreement as a pragmatic response to rising vehicle costs and slowing EV adoption in Canada.

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While the agreement may ease immediate price pressures, it introduces longer-term risks that deserve closer scrutiny. In particular, it raises questions about Canada’s industrial resilience, environmental accountability and strategic autonomy at a time of growing global economic fragmentation.

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There is little dispute that affordability has become a binding constraint on EV adoption in Canada. Recent policy shifts, including the removal of consumer incentives and a pause on the EV availability standard, a regulation intended to require automakers to ensure a minimum supply of electric vehicles in the Canadian market, have coincided with a measurable slowdown in EV uptake.

Allowing a quota of lower-cost imports could help temporarily bridge this gap. In that sense, the agreement responds to a real political and economic challenge. However, the concern is not whether prices fall in the near term, but whether trade policy aimed primarily at correcting short-term market failures creates structural vulnerabilities if it is not paired with a broader industrial strategy.

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Chinese EV manufacturers operate within a political economy that differs fundamentally from that of Canada and most OECD countries. Their cost competitiveness reflects not only technological efficiency, but also extensive state support, preferential financing, controlled energy prices, and regulatory frameworks that do not fully internalize environmental and labour costs.

Allowing a limited number of these vehicles into the Canadian market falls short of neutral competition in the conventional sense. It introduces a degree of dependence on an external industrial system over which Canada has limited regulatory influence and little leverage in the event of trade disruption or geopolitical tension.

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Lower vehicle prices are often presented as an unequivocal benefit to consumers. Industrial economics suggests a more complex reality. Sustained exposure to heavily subsidized imports compresses margins for domestic manufacturers and suppliers, discourages investment, and erodes production capacity over time.

This dynamic can reduce competition rather than enhance it, leaving consumers more vulnerable to supply concentration and price volatility in the future. Similar patterns have been observed in sectors such as solar manufacturing and consumer electronics, where early affordability gains were followed by industrial hollowing out.

From a policy perspective, the relevant question is not whether prices fall over the next year or two, but whether Canada retains the capacity to participate meaningfully in the value chains that underpin its transportation system.

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Reliance on external suppliers for critical transportation technologies may reduce costs in the short term, but it also constrains future policy options. Once domestic capacity erodes, rebuilding it becomes costly and politically difficult. Strategic exposure accumulates gradually and is often recognized only after options have narrowed.

From this perspective, the EV quota agreement should be evaluated not only in terms of consumer prices and adoption rates, but also in terms of its implications for Canada’s long-term autonomy in mobility and manufacturing.

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Alternative approaches exist. These include conditional imports tied to Canadian job creation, local manufacturing, or supply chain participation, binding technology transfer requirements, stronger recycling and materials recovery mandates, and a greater emphasis on smaller, less mineral-intensive vehicles. These measures are more complex to design, but they better align affordability goals with long-term capacity building.

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In an era defined by uncertainty, durable policy frameworks matter more than quick fixes. The challenge for Canada is not simply to accelerate the EV transition, but to ensure that the transition strengthens rather than weakens the foundations on which it depends.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42135952

There are a few Canada specific Social Media platforms coming up as well. EH Social and Monnett.Social are topping the list.

I hope this can help you or others make the switch to support a local business 💪

Intense cold weather across Canada on Saturday has prompted utility companies to issue warnings to customers and airlines to delay or cancel flights.

From the Atlantic provinces through to the Prairies, residents have been hunkered down to wait out a bone-chilling cold snap, with parts of the Prairies expected to reach lows of –55 C with the wind chill.

In Ontario, wind chill temperatures in Toronto and Ottawa fell below -30 C, and warming centres in Hamilton were forced to extend hours or open new spaces due to high demand.

An official in Montreal said the occupancy rate at warming centres exceeded 90 per cent.

Calgary police said more than 140 collisions were reported across the city, with a spokesperson attributing the high number to snowy conditions.