Canada

What THE FUCK do they actually admire about Texas?

The ban on abortions?

The mass-shootings in schools, restaurants, supermarkets?

The fact it's much harder for employees to join a labor union ?

Prescription drug prices that are among the highest in the world?

The mandatory bible 10 commandments in public schools?

This crap is making me angry. Sorry I needed to rent.

The link has interactive graphs for 'Transit-related violent crime rates per 100,000 people in Canada's cities'

An excerpt:

A number of factors could be contributing to violent crime rates both on and off transit systems, said public transportation consultant David Cooper.

"The environmental circumstances that we've seen on transit have changed so much since the pandemic. We've had this opioid crisis. We have a mental health crisis. We have an affordability crisis. We've seen a difference in what's occurring in our public spaces — and transit is not immune to this," he said.

Cooper explained that during his ride-alongs with police, he observed much of the violence is committed by a relatively small number of people who have repeated encounters with officers and are often not homeless.

"An individual who is homeless is not committing crime on the transit system," he said. "Typically a lot of violence that we're seeing is very much around individuals who prey on vulnerable individuals."

In 2023, Cooper wrote a series of recommendations for the Canadian Urban Transit Association, designed to address safety concerns. It includes calls for better housing and mental health support, and funding for more security and enforcement positions.

Just this month, the TTC announced a new safety plan that includes hiring additional staff to be present at stations, improved crisis response training and better security monitoring. The TTC is also implementing a crisis worker program for some portions of the subway system.

Winnipeg launched its own plan in September to address violence on transit, increasing police patrols on transit routes and in facilities.

Calgary has invested $15 million annually into its strategy, which includes dozens of new transit peace officers and connections with social services, while Edmonton is expanding its specialized transit safety police teams.

The agreement stresses that this pipeline will be privately constructed and financed — unlike the publicly owned Trans Mountain — and the intention is to have some Indigenous co-ownership.

That ["project of 'national interest'"] designation means the pipeline — and possibly the tankers associated with transporting the oil — could be exempted from some federal laws. Those include the Fisheries Act, the Species At Risk Act and the Impact Assessment Act, among others.

Canada is committing to "collaborate with Alberta to provide a clear and efficient approval process for the Alberta bitumen pipeline."

Importantly, Alberta is promising to "collaborate with B.C. to ensure British Columbians share substantial economic and financial benefits of the proposed pipeline."

Ottawa will also suspend the proposed federal oil and gas emissions cap and Alberta's requirements under the Clean Electricity Regulations (CER).

But the two sides are committed to increasing the industrial carbon price in the province — moving it from $95 a tonne now to a minimum of $130 a tonne. The federal government had previously demanded that price rise to $170 a tonne by 2030.

Both sides say they are committed to net-zero by 2050, despite the MOU that has the potential to turbocharge conventional energy production.

To help achieve that goal, both Canada and Alberta are moving ahead with Pathways Plus, an Alberta-based carbon capture, utilization and storage project, which could reduce the emissions intensity of exports from the province's oilsands.

The two sides are also agreeing to dramatically lower methane emissions associated with the oil patch — a 75 per cent reduction target relative to 2014 emissions levels by 2035.

Archived link

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Politics are colliding with the Air Force’s wishes as Industry Minister Mélanie Joly (Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Que.) has indicated interest in a Gripen purchase, and the domestic economic benefits that will accompany it, while the F-35 is widely believed to be the air force’s preferred choice.

“The instability of the Americans is locked in for the foreseeable future. It may or may not go away with [U.S. President Donald] Trump. But we need to make a decision now,” said former Liberal MP John McKay, who served as the chair of the House Defence Committee in the last Parliament and co-led the Canadian section of the Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board on Defence, which serves as the main strategic advisory body for bilateral defence co-operation.

...

McKay said that Trump isn’t a reliable defence partner. “Canadians should take the measure of the man,” he said.

He said that Canada can assert its own industrial and military sovereignty through having the ability to build an airplane that is not dependent upon the whims of an American president or anyone else.

...

McKay said that he would advise Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.) to proceed with the Swedish proposal as a new partner.

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McKay said that picking the Gripen could lead to some sort of American trade action given Trump’s penchant for retaliatory threats.

“We are in a new environment, and we can no longer depend on the United States for a rules-based trading environment,” he said.

He called the Gripen offer a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to develop an aerospace industry in Canada.

...

“It’s [the Gripen purchase] a huge opportunity that overwhelms whatever the military considerations are,” he said, remarking that those who consider the F-35 superior to Gripen “may well be right,” but added that Canada can choose something that is “almost best in class” over the best-in-class jet.

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Newfoundland and Labrador’s New Democratic Party is calling on the provincial government to implement “strict regulations” around the use of artificial intelligence.

“Not only is the use of AI on government reports disgusting, but it’s undermining the confidence in our government to do the work necessary to address the issues in our healthcare system, and truly throughout the province” NDP Leader Jim Dinn said in a news release Monday, in response to The Independent’s Nov. 22 story that revealed the province’s $1.6-million Health Human Resources Plan, commissioned from global consulting firm Deloitte, contained fabricated research citations likely generated by AI.

Influenza A virus (IAV) can infect a wide range of hosts, including wild and domestic pigs. Swine play an important role in influenza evolution and epidemiology due to their ability to get infected with both avian and human influenza viruses, potentially leading to reassorted virus variants. Interactions at the wild-domestic swine interface have been documented on multiple occasions, raising concern about pathogen transmission and the emergence of novel influenza strains. This study investigates the occurrence and subtypes of IAV infecting invasive wild pigs in Alberta, Canada. A total of 267 wild pigs were captured between 2021–2024. Exposure to IAV was initially detected by cELISA, with further confirmation of exposure to the H5Nx virus by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) and virus neutralization (VN) assays. Although no IAV genetic material was detected by qPCR, the seropositive samples by cELISA (4.17%; 5/120) coincided with the 2022–2024 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) H5N1 epizootic in Alberta, which involved outbreaks in wild species and domestic birds. These findings, combined with the epidemiological context, suggest interspecies transmission of HPAI H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b to wild pigs. These results highlight the potential role of wild pigs as a new host in Canada and emphasize the need for continued surveillance of IAV in wild pig populations to assess the risk of spillover events at the wildlife, livestock, and human interfaces.