Canada

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Conditions quickly deteriorated when Alberta transitioned to provincewide service with the company, he wrote.

Waiting times for community lab tests increased from a few days to five weeks in some areas. There were also unusually high numbers of errors in pathology results. In the last three weeks of July, 2023, the report says, more than 600 patients had to retake tests because of a logistics issue AHS had discovered.

Mr. Wylie wrote there were “persistent issues” in governance and oversight throughout the procurement process. Neither AHS nor Alberta’s health department followed their processes to prepare a business case for outsourcing lab services, he wrote, and AHS continued with procurement “despite knowing that the main objective of cost savings was likely unattainable.”

A transcript of a testimony given by The Maple’s news editor at a “people’s tribunal” on Canadian complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Robyn Sarah’s memoir, Music, Late and Soon, appeared in 2021. Her collection My Shoes Are Killing Me won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2015. She lives in Montreal.

The poem:

Winter is here once more.
(What were we expecting?)
Winter has crept up on us.

The leaves came down on schedule
when we weren’t watching
(weren’t watching the leaves, that is)—
we were watching the news
instead of the leaves,
and one day we woke
to bare trees and frozen puddles,
wondering how we missed the colours.

As for summer—was there a summer?
Why don’t we remember?

Look outside:
it’s a day without brine,
sky bland as the white
of a hard-boiled egg,
no flakes in the air today,
no frost ferns on the window,
gaiety in abeyance

only another winter day,
only the cold, and the early dark,
and a growing desire to mend fences

maybe a wish or two, quiet ones:
to get a few things done
while we still can,
a few things, slowly,
one by one,

and to see, and to see, and to see

The Globe and Mail first reported that, according to documents it had obtained, Alberta is considering legislative changes that would permit doctors to work under the public and private health systems as they see fit.

The excerpt below is not an accurate summary of this article, but what I felt was important:

The advocacy group Friends of Medicare called on the province to scrap its plans, and put its time and effort into supporting the public health-care system.

Chris Gallaway, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement Tuesday that the government’s plan paves a path toward “two-tiered” health care that “if allowed to pass, would unequivocally bulldoze a path for American-style health care in Alberta.”

Canadians will have to live with the idea that humanity has failed to avoid a 1.5 C increase in temperature. We're on course for more violent storms and other climate related challenges. Sadly, we cannot avoid the worst that Climate Change has in store for us, but we can at least start to either incentivize or impose stronger standards to building practices.

These can include neighbourhoods with more robust water engineering/control, resilient roofs, doors, windows, fences against wind or fire, and a re-evaluation of how appropriate it is building 6+ storey condominiums out of wood.

She considered selling, but found herself in a dilemma. As insurance costs have risen, area home values have fallen, dropping by 38 percent since 2020. The roadsides around her house are dotted with for-sale signs.

“They won’t insure you,” Ms. Rojas said. “No one will buy from you. You’re kind of stuck where you are.”

...

“Homeowners don’t appreciate or don’t understand that we are living in a much riskier world than we were 25 years ago,” Dr. Keys said. “And that risk? They have to pay for it.”

After analyzing 74 million home payments — which included mortgage, taxes and insurance and were made between 2014 and 2024 — the researchers found that a rapid repricing of disaster risk had been responsible for about a fifth of overall home insurance increases since 2017. Another third could be explained by rising construction costs.

Canada's got a serious problem - the US is not doing enough to control bird flu.

According to ProPublica's Nat Lash:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture typically attributes bird flu outbreaks to failures of biosecurity — meaning farmers have not done enough to protect flocks from contamination by wild birds.

But my genomic analysis shows wild birds had little to do with this particular cluster of infections. Although the USDA said it tested nearly 1,000 virus samples in wild animals from December to April in Ohio and Indiana, no nearby wild birds were found infected with this outbreak’s strain.

I did find a strong predictor of infection during the first few weeks of this outbreak: whether a farm was downwind from that first contaminated facility. That pattern reinforced the suspicions of egg producers and some local officials that the virus may be spreading on the wind.

...

The USDA insisted that this particular outbreak was “unique” and “not representative” of the entire wave of bird flu that started in 2022, and that the “overwhelming majority” of infections stem from wild birds. The agency said its biosecurity strategy “remains rooted in real-time data, internationally recognized best practices and a commitment to transparency and continuous improvement,” and that it is “proactively assessing” the possibility of vaccinating poultry for bird flu.

Experts told me that understanding what drove this massive outbreak was important, and it didn’t seem like USDA was doing that work. The agency did not evaluate airborne transmission in this outbreak. It also doesn’t make it easy for others to do so, withholding key information that would allow journalists and researchers to evaluate the spread of the virus.

As infections surge again this fall, the USDA continues to urge farmers to improve biosecurity while it dismisses a significant way the virus could be spreading.

The proposal follows years of criticism that Canada's pesticide regulator is too cozy with pesticide producers. As far back as 2000, the parliamentary committee on the environment's inaugural report slammed the agency for being "captive of the pesticide industry."

The trend has continued, for instance with an investigation last year by_Canada's National Observer_ finding the agency is predisposed to working with producers to keep pesticides in use, despite evidence the chemicals are causing harm.

An emergency response team is on site after a loaded U.S. freight barge began taking on water near the coastal B.C. community of Bella Bella.

The Canadian Coast Guard said the ingress was reported by tug vessel Malolo, owned by Dunlap Towing, on Monday afternoon

Alternate source:

https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/11/19/loaded-barge-bound-for-seattle-sinking-off-central-b-c-coast/

At least here in vancouver, if you go to east hastings almost every single homeless person is either white or indigenous, despite the official data saying something different. I know why indigenous face these issues, but why so many white people? Is it because most of them originated in a rural area and moved here? The homeless demographic looks completely different than the demographic of the city itself.

Hop the border to seattle and it seems like homeless people are usually black or latino, which makes a lot more logical sense to me.

Here is the official release by the Canadian government.

Canada, seeking tighter ties with the European Union, will boost its investment in European Space Agency programs by C$528.5 million (EUR326.1 million), a tenfold increase compared to previous contributions, a top cabinet member said on Tuesday.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who won an April election on the back of a promise to diversify the economy in the face of U.S. tariffs, is pressing for tighter defense and security relations with the EU.

...

The money will be spent over a three to five year period. In a statement, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said the investment would advance research and development of Canadian-made space technologies for both civilian and defense purposes.

These include satellite communications, Earth observation, space exploration, positioning, navigation and timing, and space situational awareness, she said.

Archived version

Canada and Sweden announced a strategic partnership to deepen cooperation on defense and trade, as the North American nation looks to reduce its dependence on the US for military equipment and as an export market.

The countries made the announcement Tuesday during a rare visit of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia to Ottawa. The agreement pledges to increase cooperation in five main areas: economic development, security, the Arctic, science and technology, and the environment.

“We are like-minded Arctic nations with shared interests in the North Atlantic and the Arctic region,” the countries said in a joint statement.

The partnership comes as Sweden’s Saab AB is in talks with Quebec-based Bombardier Inc. about building its Gripen fighter jets in Canada.

The companies already work together on GlobalEye early warning surveillance aircraft, which are assembled in Canada before being shipped to Sweden for installation of radar and sensors.

...

'If TikTok is a security risk, then a moving vehicle that can be controlled outside of Canada is clearly one as well,' says Brian Kingston, chief executive at Canadian Vehicle Manufacturer’s Association

He talks about why China’s electric vehicle imports are dangerous to Canada in a video (8 min).