Canada

Dr. Michael Antil moved from North Carolina to Toronto in July 2023, seeking a more diverse and broad-minded environment for his family and a universal health-care system in which to practice. But three years later, despite Canada's well-documented doctor shortage and so many theoretical routes to citizenship for skilled workers like himself, he still doesn't have permanent residency.

Antil came to Canada with over two decades' experience in the States — and he is now adeptly managing an above-average load of over 2,000 patients at a Toronto clinic. Yet he and his wife (an ESL teacher) are still living by dint of temporary work permits, their children are facing international student fees for post-secondary education, and he had to cough up an additional 25 per cent foreign buyers' tax on his house.

Rifling through an inches-tall stack of paperwork, the 50-year-old told White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman about all the hoops, hurdles and red tape he’s come up against since first applying for permanent residency in 2023.

He has been rejected three times on various technicalities even though, he says with a rueful laugh, "Ontario needs doctors.”

Over 2.5 million Ontarians are without a family doctor, according to the Ontario Medical Association. Across Canada that number sits at around 5.9 million.

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Michael Ma has recently attended events with Chinese consulate officials, leaders of a group called CTCCO, and the Toronto “Hongmen,” where diaspora community leaders and Chinese diplomats advocated Beijing’s push to subordinate Taiwan. These same entities have also appeared alongside Canadian politicians at a “Nanjing” memorial in Toronto.

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Michael Ma’s crossover to the Liberal Party may be completely legitimate, although numerous observers have noted oddities in the timing, messaging, and execution surrounding Ma’s move, which brings Mark Carney within one seat of majority rule.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing.

But from a law enforcement and national security perspective, that is beside the point. Counterintelligence is not about proving guilt after the fact; it is about identifying vulnerabilities before damage is done — and about recognizing when a situation creates avoidable exposure in a known threat environment.

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Open-source records also show that the same Toronto Chinese Freemasons and leaders Ma has met from a group called CTCCO sponsored and supported Ontario’s “Nanjing Massacre Commemorative Day” initiative (Bill 79) — a campaign celebrated in Chinese state and Party-aligned media, alongside public praise from PRC consular officials in Canada.

[The Chinese state-controlled propaganda outlet] China Daily reported in 2018 that the Nanjing memorial was jointly sponsored by CTCCO and the Chinese Freemasons of Canada (Toronto), supported by more than $180,000 in community donations.

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Canada’s intelligence community has been clear.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has repeatedly identified the People’s Republic of China as the most active and persistent foreign interference threat facing Canada. These warnings are not abstract. They are rooted in investigations, human intelligence, and allied reporting shared across the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

At the center of Beijing’s approach is the United Front Work Department — a Chinese Communist Party entity tasked with influencing foreign political systems, cultivating elites, and shaping narratives abroad. In policing terms, it functions as an influence and access network: operating legally where possible, covertly where necessary, and always in service of the Party’s strategic objectives.

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Under China’s National Intelligence Law, Chinese citizens and organizations can be compelled to support state intelligence work and to keep that cooperation secret. In practical terms, that creates an inherent vulnerability for democratic societies: coercive leverage — applied through family, travel, business interests, community pressure, and fear.

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That is why transparency matters. When political figures engage with representatives of an authoritarian state known for interference operations, the burden is not on the public to “prove” concern is justified. The burden is on officials to explain why there is none — and to demonstrate that basic safeguards are in place.

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Canada’s hesitation to address United Front networks is not due to lack of information. It is due to lack of resolve.

From a law enforcement perspective, this is troubling. You do not wait for a successful compromise before tightening security. You act when the indicators are present — especially when your own intelligence agencies are sounding the alarm.

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Wiarton Willie, along with most of his Canadian counterparts, has predicted an early spring after he did not see his shadow on Monday morning on Groundhog Day.

Groundhog Day is a long-held tradition of watching animals coming out of hibernation to predict whether there'll be an early spring or six more weeks of winter.

Every Feb. 2, groundhogs and even a crustacean emerge from their shelters to see if they see their shadows.

Valerie Robinson has been a CIBC customer for almost 30 years. Now, that’s coming to an end.

She lives and does her banking in the Crownest Pass town of Blairmore, Alta..

The bank notified the community of 1,500 in September that the local branch will close on Feb. 5. The nearest other CIBC branch is about 40 kilometres away in Pincher Creek.

CIBC will remove its ATM in Blairmore too.

Robinson is worried about locals’ reduced access to cash: the currency of the small transactions that fund the life of the town.

“All of our fundraising, like with the service groups, curling, sports activities for kids — you're not going to have a kid going around with a debit machine to sell their raffle tickets, you know.”

Indias government is literally telling us that Canada brings in Indian criminals

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/indias-foreign-minister-reacts-to-murder-charges-claims-canada-welcomes-criminals/

CBC reporting that we do not do background checks on international students

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/international-students-security-checks-crime-1.7340434

Here is a Canadian senator stating we do not background check international students

https://sencanada.ca/en/sencaplus/opinion/canada-should-run-security-checks-on-all-international-students-senator-downe/

Its gotten so bad it's making front page news in India

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/we-will-kill-your-family-indian-man-says-hes-leaving-brampton-after-goons-target-his-house-no-idea-why/articleshow/126467468.cms

Party adopting a 'stand your ground'-style policy, demands crackdown on criminal immigrants

If only the title could have ended partway through

Imperial Oil says it will end more than a century of oil production in Norman Wells later this year.

The closure has been in the works since 2022, but until now, there has been no solid timeline for the shutdown.

In a news release Friday, the company said the move is needed because of declining production at the site.

It said production is slated to end in the third quarter of 2026 "as the facility comes to the end of its lifespan."

Imperial Oil said it's working on a final closure and reclamation plan for the site. Reclamation work is not expected to start until after 2030.

Dennis Browne has been replaced as consumer advocate, but the usually soft-spoken and tactful St. John's lawyer is not going away quietly.

Browne was a guest on CBC Radio's The Signal on Thursday, and was heavily critical of Premier Tony Wakeham and the new PC government's handling of the Churchill Falls MOU, which was announced in late 2024 by a former Liberal government led by Andrew Furey.

Browne said Wakeham and his team have turned the issue into a "political football," are risking a deal between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec that has the potential to stabilize the province's finances, and described those appointed to review the MOU, specifically the chair, as "not much of a panel."

He also blasted the government for appointing lawyer Adrienne Ding, who has links to the PC Party, as the interim consumer advocate. Browne said his successor should have been selected by the Independent Appointments Commission, which was established by legislation a decade ago by another former Liberal premier, Dwight Ball.

A former New Brunswick RCMP officer is facing seven more sex-related criminal charges involving youths, an independent police watchdog agency announced Friday.

Former corporal Jeremy Bastarache, 38, from Shediac River, was charged in 2024 with communicating for a sexual purpose with someone he believed was under 16.

He is now accused of two more counts of that offence, making an arrangement with a person, for the purpose of facilitating a sexual offence towards a person. One count involves someone he believed to be under 16 and another he believed was under 18, according to the Serious Incident Response Team.

The other five charges include communicating for obtaining sexual services for consideration from a person under 18 years, procuring a person under 18 for the purpose of facilitating an offence, trafficking a person under 18, as well as making and possessing child pornography.

The federal government is considering a proposal to establish a new hunting season for tundra swans in the Prairie provinces — a move that one hunter says could endanger trumpeter swans, a similar-looking, sensitive species.

Proposed changes to Canada's migratory bird regulations would create a new tundra swan hunting season in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Tundra swans are hunted in a handful of U.S. states, but in Canada they're currently a protected species at the federal level.

David Duncan, a hunter and retired biologist, says such a hunt could lead to people mistakenly shooting trumpeter swans, a sensitive species that can't be hunted anywhere in North America.

Gaza’s health ministry has recorded more than 500 Palestinians deaths by Israeli fire since the start of the ceasefire on 10 October.

Despite Israel’s frequent killing of Palestinians in violation of the ceasefire, the deal has moved to a crucial second phase. Some of the thorniest issues are contained in this phase, which requires Hamas to disarm and hand over power to a Board of Peace organisation staffed by appointees of the US president, Donald Trump.

A recent presentation in Davos by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also involved in Trump’s Gaza project, showed the Trump administration’s plan for “developing Gaza”, complete with futuristic skyscrapers overlooking the Mediterranean.

Most of Gaza has been levelled and basic infrastructure remains inoperable as a result of Israeli bombing over the past two years, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians. Last year, a UN commission of inquiry found that Israel had committed a genocide in Gaza.

Lyme disease is a medically recognized infection that can cause pain, fatigue and muscle aches. But many celebrities — including Hadid, American singer Justin Timberlake and Canadian singer Justin Bieber — who claim they have Lyme appear, on a closer look, to be describing chronic Lyme disease, a condition that isn’t recognized by conventional medicine.

It's a controversial term used by some alternative practitioners to describe pain, fatigue and neurological symptoms they attribute to a persistent Lyme infection. Often, patients have never tested positive through a regulator-approved Lyme disease test.

Despite the shaky validity, identifying otherwise-unexplainable symptoms as chronic Lyme can seem like a path toward getting better, Dr. Paul Auwaerter, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told CBC News.

“They are looking for answers to something that many times they get short shrift from their regular physicians or from consultants.”

The disease is on the rise globally, including in Canada. There were 5,809 reported cases of Lyme disease in this country in 2024, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. It has been trending upward nationally since 2009, according to Health Canada — in part due to climate change and a greater awareness among the public and doctors.

Alternate link: https://archive.is/20260131002226/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-arlene-dickinson-amber-mac-cut-ties-canadian-startup-gander-social/#selection-2359.0-2359.88

Some excerpts:

Canadian media personalities Arlene Dickinson and Amber MacArthur were drawn last year to back an Ottawa startup called Gander Social Inc. that had a unique mission: To create a social network by and for Canadians.

At a time when social media platforms were being accused of aiding the spread of misinformation and hate, and selling user data without consent, Gander chief executive Ben Waldman promised something different. Built on the same open-source protocol as Bluesky, Gander, which is registered as a public benefit company in British Columbia, would ensure its moderation rules adhered to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, give users control over their experience, and keep their data in Canada.

Last June, Ms. Dickinson, a venture capitalist who stars on Dragons’ Den, told The Globe and Mail she was “both an investor and adviser,” drawn to a “timely, smart opportunity” that “has the value of Canadians.” Ms. MacArthur, host of The AmberMac Show on SiriusXM, wanted to support a company committed to online safety that was “better for Canadians.” She told The Globe she was “in the middle of getting the information and signing the documents” to invest. “Some of the details are still getting figured out.”

They never were. On Thursday, the pair announced on social media they were cutting all ties to Gander. Not only did they never sign advisory agreements, they also never invested, despite what Ms. Dickinson had said. In one post Thursday, Ms. Dickinson said she had been “in late stage discussions about an advisory role and a potential investment, which is why I spoke about it publicly. It became clear that my involvement was being treated as an endorsement more than a substantive advisory role.”

Ms. MacArthur interviewed Mr. Waldman on her show in January, telling listeners she’d been an adviser for months. On Thursday, she posted on Facebook: “We’ve had some disagreements on how things are being managed,” adding in a LinkedIn post: “I am pretty devastated that I’ve been left with no option but to leave” the advisory role. “I won’t back something that isn’t capable of meeting this need with total integrity and excellence.” Both wished Gander well.

Ms. Dickinson, Ms. MacArthur and Mr. Waldman told The Globe that after agreeing to invest in an earlier financing – called a “simple agreement for future equity, or SAFE – and join as advisers, delays ensued in formalizing both arrangements due to back-and-forth changes to the advisory deal’s terms and language. “It was dragging out, Ms. Dickinson said. “It was more busy-ness on both sides. I was late, he was late” but both intended to conclude the deal.

Ms. MacArthur and Ms. Dickinson had another concern. As advisers, they expected to view a prototype of the platform as it was being developed and to be involved in shaping how it would function and what protocols would govern it. “We kept asking for that,” Ms. Dickinson said, but to no avail.

Ms. MacArthur added: “Over the past few weeks it’s been pretty clear I wasn’t necessarily advising on anything because there was no product to look at. From my perspective, they have not been actively in touch with advisers along the way. That begs the question why you need advisers if you’re not getting them to advise.”

Without seeing the product, “it’s really hard to tell people they should continue to support and invest in this,” Ms. MacArthur said.

Séoul et Ottawa s’entendent pour améliorer « la prospérité économique et la résilience des chaînes d’approvisionnement ».

Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab proudly announced earlier this month that the federal government had exceeded last year’s “ambitious” immigration target for francophones outside of Quebec. What she didn’t say, however, is that this strategy of passing over better-qualified applicants who don’t speak French will likely harm Canada’s economic growth.

It’s one in a series of policies that has upended Canada’s successful economic immigration program by watering it down to meet other objectives.

Francophones are now the highest priority group of skilled workers, with their numbers surpassing those with Canadian work experience, or expertise in health care, education or trades.

The cut-off scores for francophone immigrants, based on factors such as age, education and work experience, are substantially lower than those for other skilled workers offered permanent residence. The lowest cut-off score for French speakers last year was 379; it was 462 for health care workers and 515 for applicants with Canadian experience. According to research from C.D. Howe’s Christopher Worswick and other economists, lower-scoring workers are more likely to struggle economically and make less money. Bringing them in over more highly skilled workers hurts productivity and reduces tax revenue.

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The government’s rationale, according to last year’s policy paper from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, is the “urgent need” to address the decline of francophone and Acadian communities. The government aims to restore their demographic weight to 1971 levels, when it was 6.1 per cent of the population outside Quebec, from 3.5 per cent in 2021.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-canada-has-gutted-its-economic-migration-program/

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/46558811

Like Xi Jinping’s appearance in Davos in 2017, Mark Carney’s speech in 2026 ultimately stood out less for its undeniable eloquence than for the distance between words and reality.

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Just think back to January 2017, shortly after Donald Trump’s first inauguration, when Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos. Speaking in his secondary role as president of the People’s Republic of China, Xi presented China as a defender of globalization, free trade, and the international order. The speech was a sensation. An audience still unsettled by Trump’s election greeted Xi’s remarks with enthusiasm. Media outlets around the world highlighted his warning that protectionism was like “locking oneself in a dark room without fresh air or sunlight.”

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Later that same month, Xi told a closed-door meeting of China’s Central State Security Commission that China should assume what he called “dual leadership” (liang ge yindao): leadership of a “more just and rational new world order” and of a “new international security architecture.”

The State Security Commission, created in 2014 shortly after Xi consolidated power, reflects his governing instincts. It embodies an emphasis on comprehensive political and social control, enforced primarily through the Ministry of State Security (MSS) — China’s sprawling intelligence and internal security apparatus. In historical terms, the MSS resembles the KGB or East Germany’s Stasi, but with far greater technological reach and institutional capacity. Under Xi’s so-called “New Era,” this focus on security and control has steadily narrowed the space for Chinese citizens. If any society has locked itself into a dark room without light or fresh air, it is Xi’s China, rather than the United States under Trump’s first term.

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Any hopes Davos elites may have harbored in 2017 about China as a defender of free trade soon looked grotesquely naïve. Since the 1990s, Beijing’s trade and industrial policy has been built on a thoroughly mercantilist model: maximizing exports and domestic production through heavy state intervention while suppressing imports and domestic consumption. Such approach does not promote free trade; it slowly kills it.

That contradiction became impossible to ignore during the COVID-19 pandemic and is now evident in China’s massive industrial overcapacity and chronic supply–demand imbalances, both at home and abroad. Enthusiasm for Beijing as a guarantor of free trade in Davos and elsewhere quickly cooled.

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Nearly a decade later, history may not be repeating itself, but it certainly rhymes. Davos found a new hero to offset the shock of Trump. This time, the standing ovation was for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

In his address, Carney warned that the international order was coming apart and called on small states and middle powers to work together against the arrogance of great powers. Donald Trump, correctly inferring that he was the implied target, responded with characteristic bluster.

Carney’s call for collective action by smaller states against predatory great powers is, in principle, persuasive. In a world where rules are weakening, Europe in particular cannot rely on soft power alone. Greater internal cohesion and credible hard power matter too — a point driven home in Davos by Finnish President Alexander Stubb, among others.

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As with Xi Jinping’s speech in 2017, however, Carney’s address — polished and articulate as it was — would have rung more true had it been matched by actual policy. In his actions, Carney has not tried to counter great-power arrogance by building a common front of smaller states. Instead, he has leaned toward one great power against another — and toward the consistently more problematic of the two.

Just a week before his appearance in Davos, Carney traveled to Beijing with considerable fanfare. There, he announced a “strategic partnership” with China and spoke of opening a “new era” in bilateral relations. Those relations had previously been strained by China’s arbitrary detention of two Canadian citizens in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, as well as by revelations of Chinese interference in Canadian democratic processes.

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In Davos, Carney opened his speech with a quotation from Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless. Havel’s work continues to resonate for good reason. But the context suggested a deep misunderstanding of what Havel was arguing.

Equating the systematic repression of communist Czechoslovakia after 1968 with the postwar liberal order in the West is simply bizarre. Invoking Havel a week after accommodating a regime built on repression, coercion, and systematic untruth is hard to reconcile with the very idea of “living in truth.” It instead echoes the condition of “living a lie” that Havel set out to describe.

Like Xi Jinping’s appearance in Davos in 2017, Carney’s speech in 2026 ultimately stood out less for its undeniable eloquence than for the distance between words and reality. We will see how long the enthusiasm lasts in Davos this time.

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