Canada

Just after unionisation

In response to a question from CBC News, Leduc-Labelle said the restructuring exercise began "well before the start of the unionization process within the studio in June 2025."

Yeah and my ass is chicken

An expert in free expression feels Ontario’s solicitor general is attempting to pressure Toronto police to change how they handle protests for political reasons.

This comes after Solicitor General Michael Kerzner issued a letter to the Toronto Police Service (TPS) on Dec. 30, calling out what he described as a lack of enforcement for hate, intimidation and harassment-motivated offences at protests in the city.

But James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, is worried about Kerzner’s motivations.

“It seems to me that the solicitor general is trying to intervene in how the police work for political reasons,” he told CBC Toronto.

Three restaurant owners who financially abused their immigrant employees were handed jail terms this week by a Calgary judge.

The offenders — Manikandan Kasinathan, Chandramohan Marjak and Mary Roche — were each sentenced to 90-day jail terms, to be served on weekends, after they were convicted of fraud over $5,000.

Kasinathan, Marjak and Roche, who co-owned Marina Dosa and Tandoori Grill in Calgary, will also be placed on 18-months probation and must pay back the $44,000 they stole from three employees.

The sentences follow a piecemeal trial that began in the summer of 2024 and wrapped up in May 2025 with the conviction decision by Justice Sandra Mah.

People call them the ABC islands: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.

All three are located in the southern Caribbean's leeward Antilles, off the coast of Venezuela. All three are popular tourist destinations, known for their sandy beaches and rich cultures.

But now — days after the U.S. hit Venezuela with what it described as a "large-scale strike" and captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores — the ABC islands have something else in common: trepidation among some travellers.

On Saturday, several hours after U.S. Special Forces swooped into Caracas by helicopter, shattered Maduro's security cordon and dragged him from the threshold of a safe room, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) issued a travel advisory warning Canadians to avoid all travel to Venezuela.

GAC didn't extend its warning to Caribbean islands.

But Air Canada issued its own travel advisory on Saturday for Venezuela and surrounding regions, noting it would allow people to change their itineraries for flights into 17 different airports up to Jan. 6. These include airports in Antigua, Aruba, Barbados, Curaçao, Saint Lucia and the Dominican Republic.

After conducting a preliminary injury inquiry the Canadian International Trade Tribunal announced that it determined that there is a reasonable indication that the dumping and subsidizing of truck bodies from China have caused injury to the domestic industry.

The Tribunal’s inquiry was conducted pursuant to the Special Import Measures Act as a result of the initiation of dumping and subsidizing investigations by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The CBSA will continue its investigations and will issue preliminary determinations by January 22, 2026.

Provisional anti-dumping and countervailing duties could eventually be applicable to imports of the goods under investigation. In such a case the preliminary decisions of the Tribunal and the CBSA will have to be confirmed by final decisions.

The US has a debt crisis that will lead to its collapse. Instead of "elbows up" posture, the bank of Canada and our institutions have taken a face down pig hag approach to helping US sustainability.

Bank of Canada holdings table

Date (2025) 	Total US Dollar Reserves (Millions USD)
January	$63,392
February	$64,811
March	$69,814
April	$65,534
May	$65,534
June	$67,175
July	$67,389
August	$67,485
September	$69,083
October	Data unavailable
November	$70,036

Any purchase of US debt is defacto approval of US policy, and Canadian government definitely has direct control over bank of Canada, but can also pressure/influence Canadian institutions to not support US sustainability if it means that they annex Canada before their collapse.

While the world absorbs the news of the US invading Venezuela, Canada may be concerned that Trump has activated an Emperor/King scenario.

One person’s opinion with the conspiracy cap on, so take it with salt.

Some observers have pointed out that the invasion itself was an attempt of Trump’s to distract from very serious allegations of paedophilia carried out during his relationship with Epstein. And, while I certainly do agree that there is a meaningful motive to explore, I suggest that multiple layers of motives still need to be explored.

Looking further back, the US January 6 insurrection was essentially a play taken straight from history via Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch. Trump’s overtures to white surpremacists is not new, and neither are Musk’s overtures by way of literal Nazi salutes. But, in so doing, they’ve activated extremists around the world, including Canadian groups.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/white-supremacist-conference-vancouver-9.6970604

Now, the Americans have invaded Venezuela, but this too has precedent. From the War of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, the public has learned that strong signals from US military strategists, professionals, diplomats, and other government officials, warned that the US was not going to achieve its objectives in the region. They were aware of this situation from the outset of the conflict, despite the public US position that progress was being made on a near daily basis.

Of course, the world saw the truth for itself as Biden notoriously concluded US operations in the region, only to essentially hand off all equipment and government functions back to the Taliban. But, what also happened was the rise of the Private Military Corporations (which I want to highlight), and the Military Industrial Complex. The American people were basically handing their money over to private mercenaries who were efficient at extracting this money.

Back to Venezuela, President Trump has claimed that American companies can start making money from their oil fields within 18 months. I’d suggest that the same play is active. Trump doesn’t need the oil fields to be at full capacity, he just needs the money they can generate to fund another round of PMCs. At the moment, some parts of the US GOV will quibble about who will pay for this latest invasion. If the US military will not be engaged with the long term security of the area, then surely the task will fall to PMCs.

This time, January 6 won’t be the Putsch with a bunch of clout chasing amateurs. Trump is likely building up a war chest to hold power beyond a second term. Venezuela is just a down payment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4grxzxjjd8o

But, to be clear, Trump has signalled to the world that the free trade rules based order for trade is done. He’s sanctioned the ICC, attacking long standing Rule of Law principles, and finally he’s committing acts of war potentially to position himself as a dictator.

Trump’s camp has already extracted more money from working class Americans, handing it over to billionaire friends. Such friends will not want to personally fund a coup, risking treason. But PMCs have less scruples, and even less loyalty. If they survive, they can spend the rest of their lives elsewhere with their ill-gotten wealth.

Canada should start a program of Disaster Preparedness that includes courses in the many uses of sugar, and how to convince friends and enemies alike of what to do.

Birnam forest is literally moving to Dunsinane.

https://archive.ph/2026.01.06-033405/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-need-to-prepare-for-the-possibility-that-the-us-uses-military/

An international organization that often finds itself at the centre of human rights conflicts in developing countries has turned its attention to a small town in southwest Nova Scotia.

Amnesty International has joined a long-standing community fight to bring clean water to a settlement of African Nova Scotians whose properties have wells and are next to an old garbage dump that operated for 70 years in Shelburne.

There are concerns the dump has contaminated well water and caused high rates of cancer among the approximately 50 Black residents who live close by.

Members of Amnesty’s Canadian office toured the area in late October to hear first-hand stories of historical and ongoing concerns.

“It was eye-opening to see what’s happening, it was also a shock,” David Matsinhe, the group’s director of research, policy and advocacy, said in an interview from Ottawa.