Canada

Emergency physicians at St. Boniface Hospital said it's demoralizing to see long wait times at Manitoba's second-largest hospital, and elsewhere in the health-care system, having become increasingly normalized over the years.

Dr. Aaron Guinn says 57 people were waiting for care at the Winnipeg emergency department as of his last shift Wednesday evening. The doctor said those numbers would have once been "unheard of," but it wasn't even the worst day the department has had this week.

About 70 people were stuck in the waiting room Monday, Dr. Noam Katz — who also works at the emergency department — told CBC News. Some were waiting for care for 20 hours or more without seeing any movement, he said.

Guinn said there were 75 people waiting for care that evening, which he said would be an all-time record for the hospital. The previous record of 74 was set shortly after the new emergency department opened last fall, Guinn said.

Note about what "First Person" columns are:

First Person columns are personal stories and experiences of Canadians, in their own words. This is intended to showcase a more intimate storytelling perspective, and allow people from across the country to share what they have lived through.

A good piece will spur conversation. It could be a slice of life or a transformative moment that changed your life. Perhaps your personal story will inform how the reader thinks about the world.

Intro:

I knew I was a goner as soon as the sheriff walked into the room. He looked like everyone’s genial Uncle Bob except for the police vest and the walkie-talkie that hung from his belt.

“Juror 322, gather your things. We have to go see the judge,” he said.

A young blond woman picked up her bag and followed Bob out the door.

I knew that exchange meant she wouldn’t be back. And, as the alternate juror for a 12-member jury, I would take her place.

I have never met anyone who wanted to be on a jury. I certainly didn’t.

However, over the course of a three-week trial, we evolved from a gaggle of annoyed people crabbing about how this was going to take time away from watching The Pitt or on the pickleball court to a group that worked hard to figure out whether the accused committed the crime.

In true Canadian fashion, there wasn’t one moment when the piano started playing O Canada or we recited Jeff Douglas’s "I Am Canadian" speech. Instead, it was a collective shoulder shrug that basically said, "We’re stuck here. We might as well figure out the correct answer."

Canadian AI styles itself as ethical but is slowly reorienting towards dual-use and military technology.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/61413638

A few weekends ago, his Vancouver Island map won first place in the reference category at the CaGIS Map Design Competition, an international contest. In 2024, his Sea-to-Sky map won the same award as well as "best of show."

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For the fourth year in a row, the Canadian per capita consumption of alcohol has fallen, hitting a 20-year low of an average of 6.8 litres of alcohol per person according to newly released Statistics Canada data for 2024-25. That’s a drop of 1.5 litres from a peak of 8.3 litres of alcohol consumed per person, back at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Alcohol historian and Carleton University professor Rod Phillips believes there are several factors influencing Canadians to hit the bottle much more infrequently.

“Drinking has declined among younger cohorts in particular, and studies suggest that one reason is an acceptance that alcohol is unhealthy,” said Phillips. “There’s a vigorous debate about how much is unhealthy, but it’s fair to say that there are no health benefits from drinking alcohol. To this extent, abstaining is the healthiest option, and that message seems to have taken hold among younger age-groups more than older drinkers.”

In 2023, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) released a study and guidance report that found no amount of alcohol is completely safe for health. The buzzkill report found that even three to six drinks per week presented a moderate health risk and increased cancer risk (especially breast and colon cancers).

“Health is not just a matter of the cancers and cardiac diseases linked to alcohol consumption, but also a sense of wellbeing—avoiding hangovers and the feeling of tiredness that often follow drinking,” Phillips added.

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The alcohol historian has also noticed a cultural shift where many gatherings no longer include tippling, but instead more and more teetotaler attendees.

“I think a non-alcoholic culture has developed. Many people no longer think of alcohol as a precondition of socializing and having fun,” Phillips told The Hub. “Look at the early morning dance parties, without any alcohol, becoming popular in Europe.”

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Phillips believes another explanation for reduced alcohol consumption is affordability.

“People are spending less on alcohol and treating it as an unnecessary expense within the universe of commodities and services competing for purchase. At the same time, sales of non-alcoholic beverages are robust and growing…” he added.

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The Royal Canadian Navy will step up joint exercises with Japanese warships and Tokyo is looking at conducting military training with Canada in the Arctic under a new strategic partnership signed by Mark Carney.

The Prime Minister arrived Friday in Japan, arguably Canada’s most important ally in Asia, as part of his drive to boost non-U.S. trade in the face of increased protectionism in the United States under President Donald Trump. It’s the final stop in a 10-day trip that started in India and continued to Australia and Japan.

In Tokyo, Mr. Carney met with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, fresh from a landslide election victory that secured her immediate political future.

The leaders emerged from the Kantei, or prime minister’s office, to announce the partnership that will forge deeper co-operation in defence, energy, critical minerals and advanced technology such as artificial intelligence.

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Ms. Takaichi, who repeatedly referred to the Prime Minister as “Mark” in remarks to journalists, said the strategic partnership takes Japan and Canada to a new level.

Mr. Carney was the guest at an official dinner with Ms. Takaichi on Friday evening, where the Prime Minister presented her with a Canadian-themed cake to mark her birthday, which falls on Saturday.

The two leaders signed three memorandums of co-operation on defence and security for joint Coast Guard exercises, international emergency response and action against illegal fishing in the North Pacific. Both Canada and Japan are significantly boosting military spending, which, in Tokyo’s case, is to deter future aggression from China, among other countries.

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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/48461568

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Trade ministers from Canada and the European Union are set to sign on to a series of improvements to their bilateral trade agreement.

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CETA was signed in 2016 and everything but its investment chapter took effect provisionally in 2017. Even though some EU member countries have yet to ratify the treaty in their respective legislatures, the two partners agreed to implement the deal's economic benefits, such as its tariff cuts, without waiting for its complete ratification.

CETA's current text was negotiated between 2009 and 2016, and requires modernization to address emerging issues in this rapidly evolving sector. Negotiations will officially launch Thursday to add a digital trade agreement to the existing treaty.

Other recently approved enhancements include:

• A mutual recognition agreement for architects, something the Carney government hopes will open up access to Europe's $1.1-trillion construction market to Canadian professionals.
• Expanded protocols for the manufacturing of pharmaceutical ingredients, which the two countries hope will reduce duplicative inspections and costs for that sector.
• Revisions to strengthen CETA's investment protections for small and medium-sized businesses.

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THE UPHEAVAL IN the international order prompts Canadians to think thoughts that would have seemed preposterous a short time ago. We hear our Department of National Defence is “modelling” what a US invasion might look like. A former Canadian chief of defence staff says we should keep our “options open” with respect to building our own nuclear deterrent one day.

Anyone who had been asleep for a few years and suddenly woke up would think the world had gone mad. They would be right.

One of the key developments of the last year is the loss of confidence that the United States will honour its Article V commitment under the NATO Treaty, particularly in the light of a Russia that is seen to pose a greater threat than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Article V is the promise to come to the aid of any ally under attack. A strike against one member, in other words, would automatically widen into a war with the entire alliance. If adversaries believe that promise is now conditional, negotiable, or politically fragile, then the deterrent logic collapses. Indeed, there is now a fear—apparently put aside for the moment as far as Greenland is concerned—that the US might itself attack (or at least coerce) its allies.

This raises monumental questions for the rest of NATO. One of these is whether the US nuclear guarantee, the ultimate expression of its willingness to fulfill Article V, is still worth anything. In a major study prepared for the Munich Security Conference, European security experts explored possible responses, including the creation of an independent deterrent for the continent.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that the RCMP discriminated against First Nations former students when it investigated claims of historical abuse at two northern B.C. schools.

The decision comes 12 years after the RCMP concluded its investigation into a “well-known Canadian” accused of sexually, physically and mentally abusing children at two schools where he worked as a physical education teacher in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The man’s identity is protected by a confidentiality order issued by the tribunal in 2022. He is referred to by the tribunal as “A.B.”

The ruling, which was released Monday, had been more than a year overdue.

Harrington found that officers failed to fully inform witnesses of their legal options and improperly asked for one to take a lie detector test. She ruled that Indigenous identity was likely “at least a factor” in the discrimination and that police actions further eroded First Nations’ trust in police.

“The evidence shows that, as a result of these negative interactions and beliefs about the RCMP, the Indigenous witnesses did not expect that the RCMP would take them or their complaints seriously,” she wrote.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is set to brief Liberal MPs on Friday morning about the government's position on the war that has now engulfed Iran and surrounding countries in the Middle East, after some both privately and publicly raised concerns about Prime Minister Mark Carney's initial statement regarding the U.S.-Israeli strikes, CBC News has learned.

Four sources with knowledge of the event told CBC News about the briefing, which will take place virtually as the House of Commons is not sitting this week.

One source said the briefing will provide MPs a chance to learn about the situation in Iran and consular services provided by Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

The source also said MPs will have a chance to ask questions about Canada's position and the government's messaging, given Carney's multiple statements on the matter.

“What we’re hearing right now, at a time when it really matters, is … that we’re giving in,” Neve said. “We’re not prepared to be that bold leader in that ‘middle power’ space. Instead, we are capitulating to the ‘might is right’ world that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are intent on forging.”