Canada

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Australian infrastructure and property developer Goodman Group has teamed up with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) to establish a EUR 8 billion (CAD 12.9bn, AUD 14.1bn) European data center partnership.

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The 50/50 venture ... will comprise four projects totalling 435MW of primary power and 282MW of IT load, including two in Paris (PAR01 and PAR02), one in Frankfurt (FRA02), and one in Amsterdam (AMS01).

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According to the partners, all projects have secured power connections, planning permits, and have substantially progressed site infrastructure works, which they claim will enable construction commencement by 30 June 2026.

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“A portfolio of this size and quality – located in Europe’s FLAP markets [FLAP is acronym of “Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris”] – is rare. These powered locations are highly sought after to meet the rapidly growing requirement for cloud computing and AI adoption, particularly when they offer speed to market and delivery certainty. The quality and scale of this partnership make it ideal for our long-term relationship with CPP Investments. We’re pleased to be investing alongside them for their entry into the European data center market,” said Greg Goodman, CEO of Goodman Group.

The transaction will follow a phased approach with completion expected by March 2026, subject to closing conditions. The two companies have had a relationship since 2009, with investments across Australia, Asia, the Americas, and Europe.

CPP has made several significant investments in the digital infrastructure space. Most recently, in August, it announced an investment of C$225m (US$160m) to facilitate the expansion of a data center in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.

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OTTAWA - The federal government is suspending the planned export ban on single-use plastics due to tariffs and supply chain issues "creating significant pressure on the domestic economy."

The government launched a 70-day consultation about not moving forward with the single-use plastic export ban on Saturday through the Canada Gazette.

https://mstdn.ca/@jeffhorton/115776211836127486

Canada's Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty lays out her government's new plan for the First Nations Child and Family Services Program.

The proposal would provide $35.5 billion in funding between now and 2033-34, with an additional commitment of $4.4 billion annually after that.

Here is the press conference (video, 45 min.)

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China’s Economic Miracle Was Built on Mass Displacement. If you think the CCP will treat foreigners better than its own people, when it extends its power over you, please think again: Dimon Liu's warning to Canadian Parliament, warns Dimon Liu Dimon Liu, a China-born, Washington, D.C.-based democracy advocate who testified in Parliament to the Canada’s House of Commons committee on International Human Rights on December 8, 2025, about the human cost of China’s economic rise.

Liu argues that the Canadian government should tighten scrutiny of high-risk trade and investment, and ensure Canada’s foreign policy does not inadvertently reward coercion.

Liu also warns that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] could gain leverage over Canadians and treat them as it has done to its own subjugated population—an implied message to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has pledged to engage China as a strategic partner without making that position clear to Canadians during his election campaign.

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If you have ever wondered how China managed to grow so fast in such a short time, Charles Li, former CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has the answers for you. He listed 4 reasons: 1) cheapest land, 2) cheapest labor, 3) cheapest capital, and 4) disregard of environmental costs ... “The cheapest land” because the CCP government took the land from the farmers at little to no compensation. “The cheapest labor,” because these farmers, without land to farm, were forced to find work in urban areas at very low wages ...

One well known incident of eviction occurred in November 2017. Cai Qi, now the second most powerful man in China after Xi Jinping, was a municipal official in Beijing. He evicted tens of thousands into Beijing’s harsh winter, with only days, or just moments of notice. Cai Qi made famous a term, “low-end population” (低端人口), and exposed CCP’s contempt of rural migrants it treats as second class citizens.

“The cheapest capital” is acquired through predatory banking practices, and through the stock markets, first to rake in the savings of the Chinese people; and later international investments by listing opaque, and state owned enterprises in leading stock markets around the world.

Chinese Communist officials often laud their system as superior. The essayist Qin Hui has written that the Chinese communist government enjoys a human rights abuse advantage. This is true. By abusing its own people so brutally, the CCP regime has created an image of success, which will prove to be a mirage.

It seems so simple. So basic of an idea that you wonder why it has not been implemented yet.

It is involuntary care.

As communities across the province grapple with street disorder and a sense of insecurity, involuntary care is seen by many as a solution. Politicians of all stripes have offered it up to concerned residents and businesses as a path forward.

The problem is it is unlikely to be what people are expecting. The expectation is that it will be a panacea; the reality will be quite different.

Grassy Mountain is a defunct coal strip mine trying, like a phoenix, to rise from the rubble on the eastern slopes of Alberta’s Rockies.

The mine is owned by Northback Holdings Corp., part of Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart’s business empire.

Rinehart knows well the time-tested technique of “Heads you win, tails we flip again” for keeping her dream of a mine alive.

As you might remember, the “old” proposal, which seems very similar to this one, failed the test of a joint federal-provincial review. The reasons for the panel’s rejection were not trivial.

According to Northback, this new flip is the answer to all the issues of selenium contamination, high water use, impacts to a threatened cutthroat trout population and reclamation of a hole where a mountain once stood. All this with glib promises of economic development. Selenium, released during mining, becomes increasingly concentrated in the tissues of organisms as it moves up the food chain and leads to fish deformities and reproductive failure in exposed fish communities.

As Yukon continues to deal with a prolonged spell of extreme cold, emergency officials are advising people to be prepared in case of a power outage.

On Tuesday, the territory's energy minister issued a statement saying the territory's power grid was under "significant strain," and suggested the potential for rolling blackouts in Whitehorse if the system were to buckle under that strain.

Minister Ted Laking said that the territory reached an all-time record peak demand of 123 megawatts on Monday. He said the territory’s grid can produce about 140 megawatts, "in ideal conditions."

The organization that represents some of America's largest spirits producers is calling for the NSLC to remove a policy that gives preferential markup to Nova Scotian spirit products.

In a recent 77-page report sent to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States outlined trade barriers they face in different countries.

The Canada section covers six pages, where the barriers include the ban on selling American alcohol in most provinces and preferential markups on local spirits in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It's unclear why the council — which did not respond to an interview request — thinks the other provinces have something to do with the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation.

A woman from Maidstone, Sask., has been fined and suspended from hunting after pleading guilty to trafficking and illegally transporting bear parts.

The trafficking involved black bear paws and gall bladders, according a news release from the provincial government. Those items are commonly sold on the black market and are often used in traditional Asian medicine.

The investigation began in March 2022 after the general investigations section of the Ministry of Community Safety (previously called corrections, policing and public safety) received a tip about suspected trafficking of bear gall bladders.

Conservation officers launched their investigation in Maidstone, about 50 kilometres east of Lloydminster, before expanding into British Columbia.

A New Brunswick tenant says he’s being pushed out of his rented bungalow as retribution for complaining about his landlord, but his landlord says she’s the victim of an unfair tenancy tribunal ruling that is preventing her from using the unit to house family.

Jonathan King and his landlord, Ashmin Goolab, have been embroiled in a bitter year-long dispute involving a notice of a 65 per cent rent increase, a failed eviction attempt, and claims that the unit is needed to house Goolab's mother-in-law.

King, who lives in Chipman, said Goolab is trying to force him and his wife out of their affordably priced bungalow in an effort to circumvent New Brunswick's rent cap, and as retribution for a complaint he made about being given improper notice to alter their lease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus

"a Festivus for the rest of us"