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The trial of Yuesheng Wang — a former Hydro-Québec employee who in 2022 became the first person ever charged with economic espionage in Canada.

Wang is accused of spying on behalf of China, using his position as a battery materials researcher at Québec’s public utility to pass on information to Chinese institutions as well as publish scientific articles and file patents in China rather than through his employer.

First few paragraphs from the article:

John Candy met talent agent Catherine McCartney by accident. Striking up an awkward conversation after nearly knocking her over in line at the Eaton’s cafeteria, he discovered that her talent office just happened to be across the street, next to Fran’s Restaurant where he sometimes dined. McCartney later saw him at Fran’s and invited him up to her office, where he shyly confessed to her that he had been taking acting classes with an eye toward becoming a professional actor. Charmed by Candy’s baby face and disarming wit, McCartney was eager to help him get a foot in the door. In 1970, she happened to be casting for a television commercial in which a high school football player would expound on the virtues of Colgate toothpaste. She knew just who to send out on the audition.

Candy had played this character in real life, and after passing the audition, he found himself walking across a studio floor in full football padding to a locker room set where he joined Canadian-born icon of American television Art Linkletter, whom Candy recognized from his 1950s television program People Are Funny. “My one big line was ‘Oh sure, Casanova!’” Candy later told David Letterman on his Late Night talk show. “[We did] about a hundred takes of that.”

Candy immediately felt at home on set and discovered an instant and easy rapport with the film crew, breaking up a long day with well-placed laughs between takes. The Colgate spot gave him confidence to ask McCartney to send him out for more commercials, and he booked a few. One was for Molson Golden Ale, and Candy was thrilled to see it running constantly during the CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, where all of his old Neil McNeil High School pals were sure to see it.

Our Thanksgiving in October makes more sense, am I right?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/50739392

A Canadian amusement park is threatening to euthanise 30 beluga whales after the government blocked its request to send them to China.

The park is said to have told ministers that it was in a "critical financial state" and unable to provide adequate care for the whales

There’s plenty to be alarmed about. Born in the heat of US president Donald Trump’s trade war, and out of the scramble to assert some measure of economic independence in an uncertain world, Bill C-5 is dressed in the language of efficiency. Should a mine or pipeline be judged vital to Canada, the nation won’t wait. That speed comes, in part, from creating a single, expedited regulatory process.

However, critics warn rushing those shovels into the ground means skipping early assessment phases, awarding broad powers to the cabinet to ignore existing environmental protections, and shrinking First Nations consultation. In practice, the new law views hard-won safeguards for Indigenous communities and their land as little more than red tape.

Organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society have called out the way the law's vague wording could allow provincial standards to override federal ones, raising alarms that weaker rules could reintroduce banned products such as asbestos. "Federally, it's illegal to use asbestos, but that's not true in some provinces," says Gazan.

The full text of section 107 says that the federal minister responsible for labour may “do such things as to the Minister seem likely to maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of industrial disputes or differences and to those ends the Minister may refer any question to the Board or direct the Board to do such things as the Minister deems necessary.”

Since June 2024, section 107 has been invoked eight times to interfere with bargaining or end strikes, including those by postal workers, flight attendants and railway workers.

“When big corporations complain, the government caves,” Gazan said while tabling the bill on Monday. “This is a direct violation of workers’ rights, the right to strike and the right to free collective bargaining. These rights were won through generations of struggle and sacrifice, yet government after government violates the rights of workers whenever it is politically convenient.”

“When they talk about the supposed authority of the IHRA definition, what they mean is Israel and its allies.”

Here is an Invidious link for a video (34min) and the original YT link.

Beijing is seeking to court Canadians with trade deals. But it is simultaneously punishing Canada for adopting anti-Chinese trade laws, which – as the Chinese are quick to point out – were implemented by Canada in response to American pressure to crack down on unfair Chinese trade practices.

Now, we’re seeing growing numbers of Canadians twisting the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” They’re taking this to mean that the enemy of Canada is the United States, and by that logic, the People’s Republic of China must be Canada's friend.

To offer his perspective on how Canadians should view these developments, Dr. Stephen Nagy joins Inside Policy Talks. Nagy is a professor at Tokyo’s International Christian University, and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He’s studied and written extensively about China and its influence operations in the West.

On the podcast, he tells Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security (CNAPS), that the Chinese government has "invested very heavily" in a strategy of "elite capture" focused on political and business leaders, "giving them preferred access to the Chinese market."

"This is to lock them into a kind of dependent relationship," says Nagy. "And I think that this has made Canada have tremendous challenges in terms of confronting a country that really wants to change the global order in a way that is contrary to Canadian interests."

Among Dr. Nagy's analyses is, As US-Canada ties unravel, Beijing pulls the threads:

While current Canada-US tensions create immediate policy challenges, the documented pattern of Chinese influence operations reveals a systematic effort to exploit these frictions for long-term strategic advantage.

An expert on Canadian mammals says the beaver has leucism — a genetic condition that causes a loss of pigmentation. Leucistic beavers are so rare the Canadian Museum of Nature has a pelt in its collection that's more than a century old.

A Quebec court judge has rejected a bid by the province's hydro utility to pre-emptively redact some information at an economic espionage trial.

Yuesheng Wang, 38, a former Hydro-Québec worker, was charged in 2022 for allegedly spying on behalf of China.

The utility asked the trial judge this week to impose orders to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information about its partners and its projects.

But in a lengthy oral ruling today, Quebec court Judge Jean-Philippe Marcoux says Hydro-Québec's lawyers failed to establish that the publication of the information in question would pose a serious and real risk for a commercial interest.

[...]

Wang, 38, [...] was arrested in 2022 and authorities say he is the first person to be charged with economic espionage under Canada's Security of Information Act.

He was also charged under the Criminal Code for fraudulent use of a computer, fraudulently obtaining a trade secret and breach of trust.

In April 2024, Wang was arraigned on two additional charges of committing preparatory acts on behalf of a foreign entity and informing that entity — the People's Republic of China — of his intentions.

The trial is expected to last about four weeks.

Hello I am testing how this works. Please delete if this is dumb.

Thanks.

I know cops aren’t considered smart but how do they decide to announce this then misspell neighbouring.

The Canadian Cancer Society says drinking about three drinks a day could double the risk of developing cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and esophagus, and increase the risk of colorectal and breast cancer by one-and-a-half times.

Brandon Purcell, the Canadian Cancer Society's advocacy manager of prevention and early detection, said research shows more than half of Canadians are unaware of alcohol's link to cancer.

"It's about the right of Canadians to know," he said.