Canada

The number of people leaving the emergency department across the country has been on the rise in recent years.

About a half a million Canadians left emergency departments before being seen by a doctor in 2024, according to a data analysis by CBC’s Marketplace.

Because B.C. and Quebec report these figures based on the fiscal calendar (and include parts of 2025), that number is likely a lot higher.

Changes to Canada's anti-greenwashing laws have been welcomed by businesses but prompted concern among environmentalists.

Laws about greenwashing — making a false or misleading statement about the environmental benefits of a product — will remain on the books, but the Liberal government says it will be making changes to give businesses more certainty about what runs afoul of the law.

The proposed amendments are contained in Bill C-15, an omnibus bill that seeks to implement certain parts of the 2025 Budget.

The onus will remain on businesses to substantiate that their products do what they claim, but they will no longer need to do that based on international standards.

The world’s most influential nations gathered in South Africa to work around Washington’s disruptive foreign policy Saturday, reaching consensus on issues like climate change and gender equality while pushing back on a Ukraine deal that western allies deemed insufficient.

For Canada, disruptive geopolitics led to a technology pact with India, a recent foe, along with a cut to Ottawa’s funding for global health and talks with countries grappling with American and Chinese trade coercion.

“It is a great day for multilateralism,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand told reporters in Johannesburg.

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The U.S. faced further pushback over the Trump administration’s proposed peace deal for Ukraine, which has been widely seen as favouring Moscow.

The plan calls for Ukraine to hand over territory, reduce the size of its army and to not join the NATO alliance, with limited security guarantees for Kyiv.

Canada joined European nations and Japan in issuing a statement, saying leaders support American efforts toward peace but feel the plan needs more work.

Anand would not specify exactly what is wrong with Trump’s plan, but says Canada’s long-standing belief is that Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty is key and it’s up to Kyiv to decide on its future.

She added that Ukraine is “top priority” in Canada’s foreign policy, for ensuring a rules-based international order.

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Archived link

Taiwan is urging the Canadian government to reconsider its trade relationship with China to avoid the risks of economic dependency.

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Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Chen Ming-chi (陳明祺) said Canada’s new administration under Prime Minister Mark Carney may face a steep learning curve with China. Chen was in Canada for the Halifax International Security Forum, reported The Globe and Mail.

Chen was discussing Carney’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea in late October. Carney called the meeting a “turning point” for Canada–China relations, and Xi has reportedly invited the prime minister to Beijing for further trade talks in early 2026.

Canada must maintain “a high awareness of the level of risk involved” when dealing with China as a major trade partner, Chen said, arguing that Beijing is known for using economic leverage to punish and pressure other countries. He added that Beijing is actively trying to “drive a wedge” between democracies.

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Chen warned that over-reliance on the Chinese market could carry a serious cost if Canada’s leaders ever displease Beijing. He pointed to ongoing diplomatic tensions between Japan and China and Beijing’s recent ban on Japanese seafood imports.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/55660299

“Write legislation that lays out the rules for an ‘Alberta Whisky Act’ and what might constitute an Alberta whisky.”

While the actual query would surely be more complex than that, an Alberta minister says the government is considering using AI technology to draft a forthcoming piece of legislation.

Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Dale Nally has been asked to lay out the standards for “Alberta whisky," and he said the task represents the right sort of test case for the burgeoning technology.

“It’s important, but there's no hearts or lungs involved,” Nally said. “There's no lives that are going to be lost. And because it is legislation that's going to be laying out a process from the grains to the water and how things are distilled, if a mistake is made, we can course correct.”

HALIFAX — Republican lawmaker Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina says it’s all good and well that Canada is finally meeting its NATO defense spending commitments, but Canada should make up for two decades of back dues — to the tune of $300 billion.

“Can we do a makeup payment for the 20 years of shortfalls as well?” Tillis told a Saturday panel at the Halifax International Security Forum, a international gathering of defense officials and security professionals.

“It’s fine to say you’re about to catch up, but it’s not fun to look past a $300 billion shortfall,” he said.

https://archive.is/4ksTm

Canadian officials are warning the public not to consume recalled ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula because it may be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum tied to infant illnesses in the U.S.

Infant botulism, which can cause paralysis and death, is caused by a type of bacteria that forms spores that germinate in a baby's gut and produce a toxin.

Highlights

• Out of the 25 OECD countries analyzed, the ones with greater for-profit privatization in health care have worse outcomes for seven mortality indicators.
• The relationship between greater for-profit privatization and higher mortality rates is even clearer for the private delivery of health care services than for the private financing of health care services.
• The countries that combine high private financing and high private delivery of health care services have the worst life expectancy and mortality outcomes. Meanwhile, the countries with low private financing and low private delivery of health care services have the best outcomes. Countries with a mixed model place somewhere between those two ends of the spectrum.
• For-profit privatization as a variable seems to play a more significant role in life expectancy and mortality rates than health spending or income inequality.
• Canada, which is in the mixed country group, has rather mediocre life expectancy and mortality outcomes.
• The governments of several provinces, including Quebec, have expressed a desire to further privatize the financing and delivery of health care services, but that may have negative, rather than positive, impacts on population health.

Canada Post and the union representing some 55,000 postal workers have reached a tentative deal to end a strike which has disrupted mail deliveries across the country.

The details of the deal were not released, but the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) said all parties "have agreed on the main points" and strike action had been suspended.

"We need to agree on the contractual language that will form the collective agreements that would be put to a vote by the members," the union said, adding that it will "retain the right to strike".

Violence at a Toronto speaking event has sparked calls for more scrutiny on Israeli soldiers entering Canada, with some saying they should be barred entry or investigated for potential participation in war crimes related to the Israel-Hamas war.

Police arrested and charged six protesters after an event organized by a Toronto Metropolitan University student group Students Supporting Israel (SSI) this month that featured Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers as speakers.

While SSI blamed protesters for a chaotic scene that included screaming and a broken glass door – protesters can be seen on video banging on the venue’s front doors as they are being held off by police — clips shared by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Toronto show one of the IDF soldiers grabbing and shoving protesters.

After alcohol was excluded from a deal this week to drop interprovincial trade barriers, some in the booze industry say they're perplexed and disappointed — and that they've waited long enough for provinces to make the change.

However, food and alcohol were conspicuously left off the list — the latter industry having long advocated for the removal of the barriers, well before U.S. tariffs spurred a national campaign to make free trade between the provinces easier.

"I understand the regulations are complicated, but we haven't been talking about this for weeks. We've been talking about this for years," (Jeff Guignard, the CEO of WineBC) added. "Our industry has been waiting, and it's having a serious impact."

B.C. wine producers have a bone to pick with Alberta, especially. Their neighbouring province added an ad valorem tax on wine products sold to Albertans in April, which has made out-of-province, winery-to-consumer shipments more expensive, according to Guignard.

A new exhibit in Vancouver aims to explore Tibet’s rich cultural heritage alongside its current political context, through the lenses and voices of the local Tibetan-Canadian community.

Starting Thursday night, “Entangled Territories: Tibet Through Images” is open to the public at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology.

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“Originally, I wanted to do an exhibition, not just focusing on the Tibetan-Canadian community, but also on artists in Tibet. But, given the political situation, it was not possible. So, the focus became on Tibetan-Canadians,” Nakamura explained.

The exhibition features historic photographs, letters, objects, and belongings from a pre-occupied Tibet, as well as two short films that imagine its future.

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Nakamura says many of the Tibetan-Canadian students she worked with have never set foot there, due to its decades-long Chinese occupation.

“They were born in places like India or Nepal before they migrated to Canada. So, their homeland is a critical issue for most of them. But they are, I think, engaging with their cultural heritage, and they’re also learning the Tibetan language.”

The exhibit is on display until March 29, 2026. More information can be found on the museum’s website, and tickets are available at the door.

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Shipbuilding and naval-tech firms say they are optimistic about the future as the federal government significantly increases defence spending to satisfy NATO allies who have long said Canada is falling behind on military funding.

Earlier this year, NATO leaders — including Canada — endorsed a plan to increase defence spending across the alliance to five per cent of GDP over the next decade.

According to a NATO report from last year, Canada was estimated to spend roughly 1.37 per cent of its GDP on defence in 2024.

Ottawa’s recent federal budget announced $6.6 billion over five years on spending for its forthcoming defence industrial strategy.

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This is an opinionated piece by Andrew Latham, professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington.

Addition to insert the official statement by the Canadian government: Security and defence partnership between the European Union and Canada

Archived link

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Canada and the European Union have signed a new Security and Defence Partnership focused on cyber defense, maritime security, hybrid threats and industrial resilience. It may sound like bureaucratic routine, but in fact it represents the next step in the evolution of Canada’s grand strategy: a consolidation of its northern vocation as an Arctic and North Atlantic power.

For years, Ottawa’s strategic posture has been scattered — globalist rhetoric masking an absence of focus. That era is ending. With this agreement, Canada is beginning to align its diplomatic and defense priorities with the geography that truly defines its security: the northern approaches.

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The partnership builds on decades of cooperation but carries new strategic weight in a world of revived spheres of influence. As Russia militarizes the High North and China pushes Arctic shipping and data routes, Canada and Europe are binding together their defenses of the North Atlantic and Arctic seas.

The focus on cyber resilience and hybrid threats echoes the growing anxiety about undersea cables, satellite networks and energy infrastructure — the connective tissue of modern power that is increasingly vulnerable to disruption.

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The industrial side of the partnership deserves more attention than it has received. The joint declaration calls for stronger supply-chain integration, cybersecurity cooperation and joint production in key sectors such as munitions and aerospace. This is not just about trade; it is about strategic endurance.

The U.S. is straining to supply both Ukraine and its Indo-Pacific posture. Europe is rearming but remains dependent on fragmented supply lines. Canada’s integration with Europe’s industrial base offers a way to build redundancy into the alliance — to strengthen the defense-industrial fabric that keeps deterrence credible in a protracted contest of attrition.

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Canada’s partnership with the EU is an act of adaptation, not defection — a recognition that the Arctic and the North Atlantic are now central theaters of global power, and that securing them is both Canada’s duty and opportunity.

Seen through this lens, Ottawa’s strategic posture begins to look more coherent. The same logic that drove its focus on undersea cable protection, Arctic over-the-horizon radar and modernized continental defense now extends outward into transatlantic collaboration. Canada is not turning away from the United States but is reinforcing the northern shield that protects both continents.

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I will be signing up if they offer that. New skills are always good. Best case we never have to use them but worst case we are a bit more prepared.

“Those who join the civil defence corps would face less restrictive age limits and meet lower physical and fitness requirements. Their training would be limited to five days per year to ensure accessibility. 

In that short period, volunteers would learn skills such as shooting, moving, communicating, driving a truck and flying a drone, according to the mobilization plan. Canada’s civilian force would get medical coverage during training, but not pensionable benefits.”