Canada

As always, the Fraser Institute is shitting on ideas that could help the 99%, and saying government should rEmOvE ReD tApE.

I really want this to work. But the announcements I've seen for the building plan only address the supply side and ignore the problems on the demand side: people who own houses are able to pump up the cost of new houses; tax law encourages Canadians to treat their primary residence as an investment; real estate is used for money laundering (at least in some jurisdictions); mortgage fraud is a thing (at least in some jurisdictions); renovictions are used to pump the cost of rentals; and rent caps aren't available in many jurisdictions.

Anyhow, here's hoping the investing in modular housing succeeds, rezoning somehow lowers prices, and the feds are able to push housing starts to the moon.

The University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) has voted to divest from Israel, the association announced on Friday.

This decision stems from Israel’s “illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the UTFA said.

The motion, which passed by 52% of the vote, calls on the Ontario University Pension Plan (UPP) to produce a rapid timeline for complete divestment from all direct and indirect holdings in entities that support or sustain Israel’s “occupation and/or which manufacture” or distribute arms, ammunition, or munitions of war where “there are reasonable grounds to suspect they may have been used by Israel in Palestine.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/43889999

Originally posted at ShopCanadianStuff.ca/blog which has no affiliation to NorthMail.ca

I noticed NorthMail.ca which I had previously only know for being a Canadian hosted and owned free webmail provider was now listing Video Calls and an office suite as features.

Oddly enough Northmail was featured in a recent monologue joke on Late Night with Seth Meyers. You can see the joke on TikTok here or at 7:15 on this YouTube video of the show.

I tried out the video calling and it works pretty well though it is not obvious how to do it.

I made a brief guide on how to use the video calling feature in this blog post at ShopCanadianStuff.ca/blog

NorthMail.ca has many other features, a calendar, file and photo storage, dark mode and other theme customization. Language settings allow for both English and French as well as many other languages.

The paid premium version of NorthMail.ca provides 100 GB of storage (1GB for free version), no ads, and promises a faster smoother experience for $0.99/month.

If you sign up soon you can get a pretty good pick of the available email addresses so you don't have to go with something as long a BuyCanadianElbowsUp_1867@NorthMail.ca unless you want something that long.

If anyone is concerned about if Northmail.ca is actually Canadian, the owners name is listed on their website, I checked their linked in page which lists the same person as their CIRA domain registration.

To find more Canada made products and services check out ShopCanadianStuff.ca

The real threat was the combination of Trump and a simpering sycophant Trump wannabe as prime minister.

The threat is reduced with Carney.

Between 2013 and 2023, the city dumped 115 billion litres of sewage into its river system, according to a Narwhal and Winnipeg Free Press analysis of publicly available sewer monitoring data. That’s enough to fill nearly 46,000 Olympic swimming pools.

Reworking sewer infrastructure is expensive. The city believes it will take until 2095 — 70 years — to stop the leaks. In the meantime, it argues in documents the impact of these combined sewer overflows are relatively minimal: they’re an eyesore, they’re unpleasant, more often than not they breach water quality regulations — but the city says they have little impact on human or aquatic ecosystem health.

In a 1992 letter to the editor published in the Winnipeg Free Press, he wrote:

“Our rivers are putrid and include 10 pathogenic organisms which are responsible for the following diseases: salmonella, dysentery, ear infection, dermatitis, respiratory infections, gastroenteritis and polio.”

What happened to abolishing all domestic trade barriers since Carney cannot get a trade with any country?

Source: https://angusreid.org/referendum-alberta-saskatchewan-smith-moe/

There's been a lot of talk about SMR's over the years, it's nice to see one finally being built.

Even if it comes in over budget, getting the first one done will be a great learning experience and could lead to figuring out how to do future ones cheaper.

Assuming it's on time, completion in 2029, connected to grid in 2030.

Serrano felt this same hope the last time she took this pedestrian walkway across the Rainbow Bridge that spans the Niagara River to Canada. It was March 17, as previously reported by CBC News, and she was crossing with her husband Marcos Guardado and the two girls.

But Canadian border officials on the other side questioned the veracity of documents Serrano presented that she said proved she had an anchor relative — a brother who is a Canadian citizen — one of the exceptions that allow asylum claims under the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) sent the family back to the U.S. where they were held for two weeks inside cells designated for detentions lasting under 72 hours.

The family managed to breathe fresh air once during their detention, in late March, when they were sent across the bridge to the Canadian port of entry only to be rejected again. They were sent back to the U.S. and into a windowless cell where Itzayana would sometimes wake up crying from bad dreams.

After Serrano arrived at the Canadian port of entry (on May 5), she faced renewed questioning from the CBSA as her case was scrutinized again. Neufeld says she began to worry as the process dragged on.

At about 3 p.m. ET, roughly six hours after Serrano first entered the customs office, she received word that she could stay with her daughters in Canada and make her asylum claim.

@7:42

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34120777

Canada has been "over reliant on the US for too long," and wants to forge closer ties with the UK and the EU, Canada's foreign minister Melanie Joly said.

"We are the most European of all non-European countries," she told the BBC on Wednesday. "That's why we want to be closer to Europe."

Her latest remarks come after she and Prime Minister Mark Carney met with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday to talk about a new partnership.

US-Canada relations have been tense in recent months, after Trump imposed tariffs on Canada's auto, aluminium and steel industries, and said Canada would be better off as a US state.

[...]

Trump has imposed general tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico, and sector-specific import taxes on cars, some of which have been suspended pending negotiations.

[...]

Joly said the tariffs caused widespread anxiety in Canada, and became the number one ballot question in the recent Canadian election.

"Some have lost their jobs, and many families are affected," she said. "My job and the prime minister's job is to make sure that we defend them."

[...]

According to Statistics Canada, Canadian exports to the United States decreased 6.6% in March 2025, a second consecutive monthly decline following the strong ramp up in exports to the United States that led to a record in January. Despite the recent decreases, Canadian exports to the United States were 2.5% higher in March 2025 compared with November 2024. Meanwhile, imports from the United States fell 2.9% in March. Canada's merchandise trade surplus with the United States went from $10.8 billion in February to $8.4 billion in March. Meanwhile, exports to countries other than the United States jump

Canadian exports to countries other than the United States rose 24.8% in March, representing the second-largest percentage increase on record. Exports to the United Kingdom (unwrought gold), the Netherlands (crude oil), Hong Kong (crude oil) and Germany (various products) increased the most for the month.

[...]