Canada

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/50739392

A Canadian amusement park is threatening to euthanise 30 beluga whales after the government blocked its request to send them to China.

The park is said to have told ministers that it was in a "critical financial state" and unable to provide adequate care for the whales

There’s plenty to be alarmed about. Born in the heat of US president Donald Trump’s trade war, and out of the scramble to assert some measure of economic independence in an uncertain world, Bill C-5 is dressed in the language of efficiency. Should a mine or pipeline be judged vital to Canada, the nation won’t wait. That speed comes, in part, from creating a single, expedited regulatory process.

However, critics warn rushing those shovels into the ground means skipping early assessment phases, awarding broad powers to the cabinet to ignore existing environmental protections, and shrinking First Nations consultation. In practice, the new law views hard-won safeguards for Indigenous communities and their land as little more than red tape.

Organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society have called out the way the law's vague wording could allow provincial standards to override federal ones, raising alarms that weaker rules could reintroduce banned products such as asbestos. "Federally, it's illegal to use asbestos, but that's not true in some provinces," says Gazan.

The full text of section 107 says that the federal minister responsible for labour may “do such things as to the Minister seem likely to maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of industrial disputes or differences and to those ends the Minister may refer any question to the Board or direct the Board to do such things as the Minister deems necessary.”

Since June 2024, section 107 has been invoked eight times to interfere with bargaining or end strikes, including those by postal workers, flight attendants and railway workers.

“When big corporations complain, the government caves,” Gazan said while tabling the bill on Monday. “This is a direct violation of workers’ rights, the right to strike and the right to free collective bargaining. These rights were won through generations of struggle and sacrifice, yet government after government violates the rights of workers whenever it is politically convenient.”

“When they talk about the supposed authority of the IHRA definition, what they mean is Israel and its allies.”

Here is an Invidious link for a video (34min) and the original YT link.

Beijing is seeking to court Canadians with trade deals. But it is simultaneously punishing Canada for adopting anti-Chinese trade laws, which – as the Chinese are quick to point out – were implemented by Canada in response to American pressure to crack down on unfair Chinese trade practices.

Now, we’re seeing growing numbers of Canadians twisting the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” They’re taking this to mean that the enemy of Canada is the United States, and by that logic, the People’s Republic of China must be Canada's friend.

To offer his perspective on how Canadians should view these developments, Dr. Stephen Nagy joins Inside Policy Talks. Nagy is a professor at Tokyo’s International Christian University, and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He’s studied and written extensively about China and its influence operations in the West.

On the podcast, he tells Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security (CNAPS), that the Chinese government has "invested very heavily" in a strategy of "elite capture" focused on political and business leaders, "giving them preferred access to the Chinese market."

"This is to lock them into a kind of dependent relationship," says Nagy. "And I think that this has made Canada have tremendous challenges in terms of confronting a country that really wants to change the global order in a way that is contrary to Canadian interests."

Among Dr. Nagy's analyses is, As US-Canada ties unravel, Beijing pulls the threads:

While current Canada-US tensions create immediate policy challenges, the documented pattern of Chinese influence operations reveals a systematic effort to exploit these frictions for long-term strategic advantage.

An expert on Canadian mammals says the beaver has leucism — a genetic condition that causes a loss of pigmentation. Leucistic beavers are so rare the Canadian Museum of Nature has a pelt in its collection that's more than a century old.

A Quebec court judge has rejected a bid by the province's hydro utility to pre-emptively redact some information at an economic espionage trial.

Yuesheng Wang, 38, a former Hydro-Québec worker, was charged in 2022 for allegedly spying on behalf of China.

The utility asked the trial judge this week to impose orders to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information about its partners and its projects.

But in a lengthy oral ruling today, Quebec court Judge Jean-Philippe Marcoux says Hydro-Québec's lawyers failed to establish that the publication of the information in question would pose a serious and real risk for a commercial interest.

[...]

Wang, 38, [...] was arrested in 2022 and authorities say he is the first person to be charged with economic espionage under Canada's Security of Information Act.

He was also charged under the Criminal Code for fraudulent use of a computer, fraudulently obtaining a trade secret and breach of trust.

In April 2024, Wang was arraigned on two additional charges of committing preparatory acts on behalf of a foreign entity and informing that entity — the People's Republic of China — of his intentions.

The trial is expected to last about four weeks.

Hello I am testing how this works. Please delete if this is dumb.

Thanks.

I know cops aren’t considered smart but how do they decide to announce this then misspell neighbouring.

The Canadian Cancer Society says drinking about three drinks a day could double the risk of developing cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and esophagus, and increase the risk of colorectal and breast cancer by one-and-a-half times.

Brandon Purcell, the Canadian Cancer Society's advocacy manager of prevention and early detection, said research shows more than half of Canadians are unaware of alcohol's link to cancer.

"It's about the right of Canadians to know," he said.

A Nova Scotia man who is one of a few deaf professional wrestlers is working on a new project to make wrestling events more inclusive. Justin Marriott has helped set up a team of ASL interpreters who are now at every wrestling event held by the local company Kaizen Pro Wrestling. Gareth Hampshire has the story.

Archived link

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Last week, Germany's armament secretary and the head of the country's navy were in Ottawa to meet Canadian navy and defence officials and discuss their plans to introduce maritime drones — both surface and subsurface.

"It turns out that this is another area of potential co-operation with great potential," Jens Plötner, the armament secretary, told CBC News.

Remotely piloted underwater vehicles are seen as crucial in protecting the subsurface infrastructure, but how to do it and who is responsible is a matter of active debate.

The Yantar, a Russian research ship that Western intelligence believes is mapping the spiderweb of undersea cables and infrastructure, keeps popping up — sometimes unexpectedly — in several locations.

The ship's habit of loitering near undersea cables — particularly in November and December 2024 — caught the attention of Finnish and Swedish authorities.

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Peter Sandwell, Sweden's state secretary of defence, was also in Ottawa late last week meeting with Canadian defence officials.

He said his country, which is NATO's newest member, has been tracking potential threats in the Baltic Sea.

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A handful of Canadian companies are at the cutting edge of marine drone technology. For example Seamor Marine Ltd. produces drones used for aquaculture, underwater inspection of infrastructure and general underwater exploration.

Plötner said Germany is not building its own drones but "wants to get there."

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Deleted as dupe