Canada

Saskatoon optometrist Rachael Berger has seen an increase in the number of patients concerned about their vision when driving at night.

“I'm seeing an alarming number of perfectly young, healthy individuals coming in and saying, ‘I'm having a hard time seeing at night, what's going on,’” she told The Current guest host Peter Armstrong.

She tells patients it’s not them — it’s the LED headlights increasingly used on vehicles.

When it’s dark, Berger explains, the rods in our eyes turn on to help us see better.

“When you're driving at night and your rods are activated, and all of a sudden this blast of light comes, it can be very jarring, because our night system isn't prepared or necessarily expecting that,” she said.

Advocates are calling on the federal government and car manufacturers to adjust their regulations and industry standards around bright headlights because there needs to be a better balance between solutions to help drivers see while not compromising other’s safety.

Archived link

Canada can’t import its way to net-zero, or to a better trading model. It needs to build here at home.

...

For Canadian autoworkers already reeling from U.S. trade aggression, idled plants, and stalled EV investment, [the recent Canada-China EV trade] deal creates new vulnerabilities at precisely the wrong moment.

...

China ... is not a normal trading partner. Its auto industry is the product of deliberate state controls, deplorable labour conditions and structural overcapacity. Electric vehicles and their key components (e.g. battery cells) have been a strategic priority for government since at least 2013.

Chinese automakers are encouraged to produce far more vehicles than their domestic market can absorb, then export the excess.

This isn’t competition, it’s market distortion. Canadian regulators are working constantly to control the flow of low-cost Chinese imports on a range of products, like steel, guarding domestic industries against unfair practices and injury. China is among the world’s worst offenders of dumping.

...

Ottawa has tried to minimize the political blowback of this China deal, claiming the quota represents just three per cent of annual vehicle sales. That figure is misleading. It compares Chinese EV imports to total vehicle sales in Canada, including gas-powered trucks and SUVs. Measured against the EV market alone, 49,000 vehicles represent roughly 20 per cent of new EV and hybrid sales, based on 2025 sales data.

...

With EV demand weakened by a temporary rollback of consumer purchasing incentives and gaps in charging infrastructure (only recently reinstated as part of the feds’ new auto strategy), Chinese imports could soon account for as much as 30 per cent of the EV market. This ratio far exceeds other automaking regions, like Europe, where Chinese automakers have wreaked havoc on auto supply chains and local jobs, albeit accounting for only 16.5 per cent of the EV sales market. In Mexico, a Chinese vehicle import surge (that started as a trickle) forced government to safeguard its domestic auto industry by raising import tariffs to 50 per cent.

The concerns for autoworkers are even more acute. Once Chinese automakers have set in place Canadian retail and afterparts networks, they will be given clearance to supply unlimited quantities of vehicles from numerous factories outside China, at standard or even zero tariffs, sidestepping the quota altogether. Canada must establish rigorous monitoring and authentication protocols to avoid import surges, and trans-shipment of Chinese vehicles through other countries.

...

Canadian officials would be wise to contain the unintended spread of cheap Chinese EVs, or risk undoing its own auto industry strategy. If one thing is clear, its that Canada cannot import its way to a net-zero future. It must build it here at home.

...

[Edit typo.]

I understand we need to wait and see about pricing and warranties and the availability of service centres here in Canada, not to mention better understanding of quality issues and of course environmental and human rights issues, but...

Which potential Chinese cars interest you the most to drive here in Canada? Personally I'm tired of soulless cookie-cutter SUV/CUVs and am far more interested in the 4 door coupes and smaller city-cars. Think downtown Montreal cars with personality rather than suburban Alberta parking lots in places like Sherwood Park outside big-box stores.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/60523725

LONDON — Two of the world’s biggest trading blocs are cautiously eyeing closer ties to short-circuit Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The European Union and a 12-nation Indo-Pacific bloc are opening talks to explore proposals to form one of the largest global economic alliances, multiple people with knowledge of the talks told POLITICO.

Canada is spearheading the discussions after Prime Minister Mark Carney called on middle powers to buck trade war coercion last month, days after Trump threatened to raise tariffs on Denmark’s European allies if it didn’t cede Greenland.

Ottawa is “championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership [CPTPP] and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people,” Carney told world leaders and the global business elite in Davos.

But hey let's commit economic seppuku

Canada’s defence minister has signed an agreement at an international security forum to strengthen co-operation with Denmark on defence matters.

A news release from the Department of National Defence says David McGuinty, along with defence ministers for Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have signed a memorandum of understanding for Canada-Denmark defence cooperation.

The release says the MOU covers areas including defence innovation, industrial cooperation, mutual logistics support, as well as personnel, training, exercises and education.

...

Canada opened a consulate in Greenland’s capital Nuuk earlier this month, and while the consulate was planned before Trump’s return to the White House, it has since become a show of solidarity with Denmark.

...

“Today, we send a clear message: the Arctic is secure, and we will keep it that way,” McGuinty said in the news release.

The release notes Canada shares a 3,000-kilometre maritime border with Denmark, as well as historic and cultural ties between its Inuit populations.

It says Denmark also joined Canada’s Maritime Security Partnership at the NATO summit in June.

‘Buy Canadian’ strategy will raise military spending to 5 per cent of GDP and boost economy, new plan says.

Archived

Canada aims to create 125,000 jobs by increasing military spending to 5 per cent of GDP over the next decade and shifting away from US arms manufacturers, according to a new strategy paper.

The paper, which is to be published on Tuesday, will set out Ottawa’s plan to bring production onshore in the latest step in the country’s “Buy Canadian” campaign.

Ottawa’s biggest military push since the second world war will aim to award Canadian firms 70 per cent of the country’s defence spending, up from about 50 per cent, boosting revenues for local businesses by more than C$5.1bn (US$3,7bn) annually.

[...]

Canada and the US have long co-operated on the procurement of military goods and services. But the latest strategy states that Ottawa will be able to make “use of the national security exception to direct work to Canadian firms” instead.

Ottawa is already reviewing a 2023 contract to buy 88 F-35 fighter jets from the US. It is also seeking to buy 12 submarines capable of operating in Arctic conditions with competing South Korean and German bids due to be submitted next month.

[...]

“Prioritising Canadian-owned and controlled firms and using procurement to deliberately scale them is needed,” says Eliot Pence, founder of Ottawa-based Dominion Dynamics, which develops high-tech military equipment that works in inhospitable environments like the Arctic.

[...]

There are a lot of buzzword sounding bits in this article, but this is still a cool (incremental) step from what I understand. This seems to be the key bit:

Similar quantum teleportation was achieved by researchers at Northwestern University in 2024, when they found a way to guide particles of light through 30 kilometres of fibre optic cable. However, Photonic says it has taken this a step further by successfully transferring information to a “remote processing node.”

Think of sending a letter by mail. Previous demonstrations of quantum teleportation were like successfully delivering a letter written in disappearing ink: if delivery was successful, its content couldn’t be used, a Photonic spokesperson explained. Photonic’s transmission would be the equivalent of successfully sending a letter written in permanent ink, so the information is permanently available on the other end.

The start of the article:

One of Canada’s top quantum companies is claiming a breakthrough in transmitting information over a fibre optic network, in a step towards using quantum tech in everyday communications.

Vancouver-based Photonic announced today that it had successfully transmitted quantum information—encoded as qubits, which can exist in two states at once—across 30 kilometres of telecom giant Telus’s commercial fibre network. The company is levelling up its partnership with Telus, who is also an investor, to pursue quantum-safe networking projects together.

“This is just the beginning of real-world impacts we will jointly deliver,” Photonic CEO Paul Terry said in a statement.

Founded in 2016, Photonic has now raised $375 million CAD in its pursuit to develop a useful quantum computer and sell its services at scale. Terry previously told BetaKit that the company is “commercializing a new branch of physics,” by using a property of quantum physics called entanglement to network quantum computers together.

Eddie Carvery, the activist who crusaded for reparations for the former residents of Africville, N.S., has died of cancer.

Carvery was born in 1946 in Africville, a Black community that stood on the shores of the Bedford Basin.

The town was bulldozed in the 1960s after decades of mistreatment and neglect from the City of Halifax to make way for industrial developments, including the MacKay Bridge.

Carvery, 79, lived in a trailer on the grounds of Africville Park for more than 50 years in protest of the destruction of the community.

Residents who had deeds to their property were compensated according to the market value of their homes, but those who didn't, which was much of the town's population, were given $500.

Despite multiple eviction orders, most recently in July of 2025, and the destruction of his trailers in 2019, Carvery maintained his protest. He did reduce his time at the Africville site in recent years due to health concerns, living part-time in an apartment.

Archived link

As Ottawa looks to use military spending to build up infrastructure in the Far North, Inuit say they want Canada to take tips from Greenland — where a Nordic social model adapted to local needs has built health, housing and education services deemed superior to anything in Canada’s Arctic.

“There is a lot that we can learn from them,” said Lukasi Whiteley-Tukkiapik, who leads Saqijuq, an Inuit wellness organization in Kujjuaq, Que.

Speaking last week on a charter flight from Montreal to Greenland’s capital Nuuk, where he attended the official opening of Canada’s new consulate, Whiteley-Tukkiapik said services in his community — a hub for northern Quebec — are inferior to those available in Iqaluit.

Nuuk, meanwhile, is “generations ahead of us” in providing Inuit-led social services in well-maintained buildings, he said.

...

“They [the Greenlanders] have the same social issues (but) there’s more of an importance and it’s more on the front burner for them,” he said.

“Their health network, the social programs, the way that they tackle suicide prevention as well — they have a lot of good programs in place and they are working on them.”

...

“We look to Greenland and see more indicators of equity — especially social equity — and the hallmarks of sustainable communities in a way that we have yet to materialize completely here in Canada,” [Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan] Obed said.

Andrea Charron, director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, said Ottawa will need to improve infrastructure in Arctic communities if it wants to expand its military footprint — because military bases and airfields only function well in areas with adequate housing and services.

...

Archived link

• Canada will spend more of its growing military budget with domestic firms under a defense-industrial strategy that’s meant to unleash more than C$500 billion in investment over a decade.
• The government wants to more than triple Canadian defense industry revenue, boost defense exports by 50% and create 125,000 jobs over a 10-year period.
• The strategy aims to reduce reliance on the US for security and boost the share of defense acquisitions awarded to Canadian firms to 70%.

...

Canada is embarking on its largest military buildup in decades, driven by an aggressive US administration and mounting concern about Russian activity in the Arctic. After years as a NATO spending laggard, the country is racing to increase its military outlays. NATO members have agreed to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense and security by the middle of the next decade.

...

Meanwhile, a CSIS officials say that China is more of a concern in Canada’s Arctic than Russia.

While Russia remains a military threat in the Arctic, Canada’s security officials told a House of Commons committee this week that they remain primarily focused on China’s threats to economic security in the North.

“Russia has a tremendous interest and focus in the Arctic,” Paul Lynd, assistant director at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told the foreign affairs committee on Thursday. “However, they are of less concern than, say, the activities of China and other hostile state actors at this time.”

....

The declaration builds on the Canada–Germany Digital Alliance announced in December and sets out a framework for expanded co-operation on AI development, infrastructure and talent.

Both countries also announced the launch of a new Sovereign Technology Alliance aimed at strengthening collaboration among trusted partners on advanced technologies and reducing strategic technology dependencies.

...

Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canada has now officially joined the European Union’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, which offers loans to member states to invest in defence capabilities.

"The agreement strengthens our collective security, supports the development of key defence capabilities, and gives Canadian industry access to European defence markets while contributing to European and Ukrainian security," McGuinty said in a statement sent to CBC News.

The official joining comes less than a year after Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a strategic defence and security partnership with the European Union, which included joining SAFE.

...

The SAFE program allows partner countries to access low-interest loans for the joint procurement of military gear and weapons. It also allows Canadian companies to bid on those joint projects.

...

The federal government’s most recent cuts to the CIFA will eliminate close to one million hours of inspection, laboratory, and surveillance work every year.

The organization has sent demand letters to Ontario law enforcement and global payment processors.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said the Carney government is not serious about climate change. May, who supported Carney's budget in December, has since questioned the prime minister's word after accusing him of a climate policy flip-flop.

"If we're serious about emissions reduction, then we have to actually revisit some of the measures that have been eliminated since (Carney) took over," May told The Canadian Press.

"They're miles from hitting any of the Paris Agreement targets, and the prime minister did recommit to me on the floor of the House on Nov. 17 that this government is committed to the Paris Agreement and achieving its targets. So the emissions reduction update, the so-called climate competitiveness strategy — there's lots of highfalutin titles for what boils down to...(no) climate plan.""