Four MPs plan run for Speaker after Rota's resignation

Four MPs have declared they want to be selected to replace Speaker Anthony Rota when MPs vote on his replacement next week.

Rota is the first Speaker to resign under pressure from MPs, after he welcomed as his guest in the House and led a standing ovation for a Ukrainian veteran of a Nazi unit during a visit by the Ukrainian president.

🔹Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont, currently the deputy speaker, has declared his interest in running for the position, although he acknowledged it was rare for an opposition MP to be named Speaker.

🔹Liberal MP Greg Fergus said he would be putting his name forward as well.

🔹Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès, who is currently one of two assistant deputy Speakers, has also indicated that she plans to run for the top job.

🔹NDP MP Carol Hughes, who is the other assistant deputy Speaker, has said she also intends to stand for the position.

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Ontario prepares to go big on nuclear, with demand for electricity poised to soar

Demand for electricity across Canada is forecast to double in the next 25 years, and all the signs from Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government indicate that nuclear energy will supply the biggest portion of the province's additional power needs.

Among the recent moves by the Ford government:

🔹The province announced it wants to nearly double production at Bruce Power, already the largest nuclear generating station in the world.

🔹The province unveiled plans to add three more small modular reactors (SMRs) to the one already in the works at Darlington, which would together provide enough electricity to power 1.2 million homes.

🔹Ontario Power Generation submitted a feasibility study to the energy minister on refurbishing Pickering, the oldest operating nuclear power plant in Canada.

Nuclear plants currently supply slightly more than half of Ontario's electricity needs. Hydro dams provide one-quarter of the supply, with gas-fired power plants and wind farms combining for all but a fraction of the remainder.

#energy #Ontario

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Canada sees fastest population growth since 1957 on influx of immigrants

Canada’s population grew by the highest rate in a single year since 1957 as the number of temporary workers, foreign students and immigrants surged.

The country’s population rose 2.9% in the 12-month period ending July 1, one of the world’s fastest growth rates, bringing the number of residents to 40.1 million. The jump was driven by the largest recorded increase in temporary residents in data going back to 1971.

The government’s immigration strategy aims to stave off economic decline amid falling birth rates and a wave of retiring older workers. Fertility reached a record low last year with 1.33 children per woman, compared with 1.44 in 2021.

The data show the country added about 700,000 non-permanent residents in 12 months, bringing the number to 2.2 million as of July 1 — a 46% jump from a year earlier. They now outnumber the 1.8 million Indigenous people counted during the 2021 census.

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🇨🇦🇺🇦 Chrystia Freeland contributed to encyclopedia that downplayed Ukrainian SS unit’s Nazi ties

When Chrystia Freeland was a young student, she contributed to an encyclopedia that played down the 1st Galician Division’s Nazi connections.

In 1986, when she was 18, Freeland worked on the second volume of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.

The encyclopedia covers a range of subjects through a Ukrainian lens, including the Second World War. It frequently references the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a volunteer Nazi-commanded army established in 1943 to aid the Germans’ efforts against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.

While the main entry for the unit lies in the encyclopedia’s first volume, it is referenced several times in the second volume, for which Freeland wrote.

The 14th SS unit, which was later rebranded as the First Ukrainian Division, has been subject to renewed attention this week after one of its veterans, 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, was recognized on the floor of the House of Commons.

If there is one MP who would know this chapter of history, however, it is Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Freeland, whose mother is Ukrainian, lived and studied in Ukraine and has been researching the country since her youth.

“…a Ukrainian volunteer formation, the Division Galizien, was created as part of the German armed forces on the Soviet front; it was supported by the Ukrainians not as a German unit, but as the core of the armed forces in a future independent Ukraine,” one passage from the encyclopedia reads.

Freeland’s contributions to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine came through a summer research placement she did with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

#Ukraine

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Coastal GasLink pipeline project 98% complete, TC Energy says

TC Energy Corp. says its Coastal GasLink pipeline project is 98 per cent complete.

Coastal GasLink is a 670-kilometre pipeline spanning northern British Columbia that will carry natural gas across the province to the LNG Canada processing and export facility in Kitimat, B.C.

TC Energy says the pipeline will be mechanically complete before the end of the year.

Earlier this year, the company raised the estimated project price tag for Coastal GasLink to $14.5-billion, up significantly from a previous estimate of $11.2-billion and more than double the initial cost estimate of $6.2-billion.

#BritishColumbia #enegry

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✈️ Air Canada pilots picket at Toronto’s Pearson airport as talks continue

Air Canada pilots staged a demonstration at Toronto’s Pearson airport Friday, calling for better wages and working conditions as talks with the country’s biggest carrier continue.

Representing more than 5,000 Air Canada aviators, the Air Line Pilots Association kick-started the bargaining process in June. In late May, the union invoked a clause to end its 10-year collective agreement a year early and launch negotiations for a new one.

The union’s move came after 1,800 pilots with WestJet and budget subsidiary Swoop ratified a new agreement that brings them onto a level pay scale, giving flight crews a 24 per cent wage bump over four years and resulting in Swoop’s shutdown at the end of October.

#Ontario

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Federal government looking to cut $1 billion from National Defence budget

The Liberal government is looking to cut almost $1 billion from the annual budget of the Department of National Defence (DND) — a demand the country's top military commander says is prompting some "difficult" conversations within the military.

DND's main estimates for 2023-24 say the department's budget for this year is expected to be $26.5 billion

Word of the planned cuts, which have not been specified, comes just weeks after the Liberal government agreed with other NATO allies on a pledge to make the alliance's defence spending benchmark of two per cent of gross domestic product an "enduring commitment."

Living up to that pledge would require a substantial increase in the defence appropriation.

Treasury Board President Anita Anand, the former defence minister, told other federal cabinet ministers in August they will be required to cut $15.4 billion in government spending and that they had until Oct. 2 to present their ideas.

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Cyberattacks hit military, Parliament websites

The federal government is coping with cyberattacks this week, as a hacker group in India claims it has sowed chaos in Ottawa - but Canada's signals-intelligence agency says the "nuisance" attacks likely haven't put private information at risk.

The attacks seem to have hit institutions controlled by the government, but not the core infrastructure from which federal departments and agencies operate.

🔹The Canadian Armed Forces says its website became unavailable to mobile users midday Wednesday, but was fixed within a few hours. Meanwhile, various pages on the House of Commons website continued to load slowly or incompletely on Thursday due to an ongoing DDoS attack that officials say started Monday morning.

Elections Canada also experienced roughly an hour-long denial-of-service attack starting around midnight early Wednesday, Ottawa time.

🔹A hacking group named Indian Cyber Force claimed responsibility for the incidents involving the military, the hospital and Elections Canada, and it appeared to have managed to infiltrate a handful of websites owned by small businesses in Canada.

The group made reference to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telling Parliament on Sept. 18 that there were "credible allegations" of Indian involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

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🎓University of Alberta closes endowment fund named after Nazi veteran recognized in the House of Commons

The University of Alberta is apologizing for having an endowment fund provided by Yaroslav Hunka, the Nazi veteran recognized in Parliament last week.

The Hunka family gave $30,000 to the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the school in 2019 for the Yaroslav and Margaret Hunka Ukrainian Research Endowment Fund.

U of A said it had decided to close the endowment.

The Centre for Holocaust Studies says this isn't the only endowment fund or tie the university has with people previously involved with Nazis. The centre claims former U of A chancellor Peter Savaryn was a member of the Waffen-SS.

Savaryn was U of A chancellor from 1982 to 1986 and helped found the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the university.

#Alberta

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💉Addictions doctors urge feds to supervise hydropmorpone or stop handing out free drugs

More than a dozen addictions doctors have written to the federal government, calling on the Liberals to ensure that safe-supply drugs are provided in a supervised fashion or not at all.

In recent months, debate has exploded over Canada’s use of pharmaceutical-grade hydromorphone as an alternative for street drugs such as heroin or fentanyl, with the hope of reducing opioid overdose deaths. In 2020, the federal government funded 10 pilot projects that distributed hydropmorphone to opioid addicts in British Columbia, Ontario and New Brunswick.

The authors of the open letter, addressed to Ya’ara Saks, the minister of addictions and mental health, argue the research on safer supply is “methodologically weak” and that the program should be reformed, or cancelled altogether.

In the letter, the 17 signatories refer to the program as “Unsupervised Free Government Funded Hydromorphone,” and argue that it is “causing further harm to our communities by increasing the total amount of opioids on the streets and providing essentially unlimited amounts of opioids to vulnerable people with addiction.”

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Alberta ad campaign warns about federal electricity regulations

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Environment Rebecca Schulz wrote a joint press release, calling for Canadians to reject the federal government’s plan to have a net-zero electrical grid in the next 12 years.

“Alberta will incur the highest costs of any province in Canada as a result of the federal electricity regulations. Alberta’s government believes these additional dollars should be coming from the federal government, not the pockets of Alberta’s ratepayers,” reads the statement.

The provincial government will launch a national advertising campaign to inform Canadians about the negative consequences of adopting the federal net-zero emissions goal through the means of print, radio, television and social media.

“Canadians need to know the risks they face if Ottawa’s proposed electricity regulations move forward without any amendments. The federal government is choosing to ignore the facts about their transition, but we are not. All Canadians need to be able to rely on reliable and affordable electricity and we will continue to fight for that,” wrote Smith in the release.

#Alberta #energy

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🇨🇦Canada's greenhouse gas emissions up 2.1% in 2022 due to oil and gas production and cold winter

New data from the Canadian Climate Institute reveals that Canada's total emissions increased by 2.1% (14.2 megatonnes) in 2022 compared to the previous year, primarily due to emissions from the oil and gas industry and buildings. Despite this increase, Canada's overall emissions were still 6.3% below 2005 levels, falling short of the country's 2030 emission reduction target of 40 to 45% below 2005 levels.

The report highlights that emissions from the oil and gas sector and buildings caused 72% of the total increase in 2022. While other sectors, like electricity, witnessed a 56% decrease in emissions, carbon emissions from oil and gas and buildings have been rising since 2005. The Canadian Climate Institute calls for swift action at the federal and provincial levels, including implementing emissions caps for the oil and gas sector, methane regulations, and clean energy initiatives to combat rising emissions.

#Canada

@songofoil

📈Minimum wage rises in six provinces

The minimum wage in Ontario rose to $16.55 an hour, Manitoba to $15.30. In Nova Scotia, P.E.I and Newfoundland and Labrador the minimum wage rose to $15.

Saskatchewan’s minimum wage also rose to $14, but is still the lowest in the country, trailing New Brunswick by 75 cents.

In Canada, the highest minimum wage is in the Yukon, where workers receive $16.77 per hour, followed closely by B.C.’s $16.75 per hour minimum wage.

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🩺 Estimated 11,000 Ontarians died waiting for surgeries, scans in past year

An estimated 11,000 Ontarians have died while waiting for surgeries, MRIs and CT scans in the past year.

Only 56 per cent of patients who need CT scans and 35 per cent of patients who need MRIs receive them within their target time.

The surgical waitlist in Ontario surpasses 200,000 people.

This comes off the back of a 21-page report from CUPE’S Ontario Council of Hospital Unions that found hospital staff vacancies have grown dramatically, increasing 19 per cent over the last year, and currently 37,00 positions remain unfilled.

Their new research report shares the stark consequences of the long waits, as more than 2,000 people died on waiting lists for surgeries last year, up almost 50 per cent from the year before.

Another 9,400 patients died waiting for MRIs and CT scans.

#Ontario #healthcare

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B.C. construction companies offered cash incentive for hiring non-white males

A cash incentive available to British Columbia construction companies for hiring new workers doubles if a worker “self-identifies” as anything other than an able-bodied, heterosexual, white male.

On Wednesday, the British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA) announced a new $10 million Apprenticeship Services Program that will give cash incentives to small and medium scale construction companies that hire and register first year apprentices for 39 Red Seal Trades.

The per-employee incentive is $5,000, but if an applicant self-identifies as a person of colour, woman, sexual minority, or person with a disability, it doubles to $10,000, according to the Western Investor.

Funding for the BCCA’s new program will come from the federal government’s Canadian Apprenticeship Strategy, launched by the federal government in September 2022.

#BritishColumbia

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🏳️‍⚧️602 transgender minors have had breasts surgically removed in Canada

A shocking new report reveals that hundreds of underaged Canadian girls have had their breasts surgically removed as part of so-called “gender affirming care” to accommodate their preferred gender identities.

The numbers were crunched by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

As of 2018, healthcare statistics show that 602 patients under the age of 18 were recorded as receiving a double-mastectomy. Nearly half, (303) were kids under the age of 17 with the lowest recorded age being 14-years-old.

The actual number of minors who have undergone life-changing surgeries to accommodate their gender identities is likely larger as private clinics that cater to transgender clients were not included. Additionally, Quebec hospital data were unavailable.

#healthcare

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🇨🇦🇮🇳 As the spat between Canada and India continues to progress, Indian politicians are resorting to the most serious accusation available to them: Why are you gay? (Who says I'm gay?)

India is speculating that the assassinated Sikh separatist was gay and that Trudeau "used to like him," but was rejected.

I did not have the Trudeau is gay and killed a Sikh separatist leader over unrequited love on my bingo card for 2023.

#India #Trudeau

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🇵🇭🇬🇧🇨🇦🇯🇵🇺🇸 Philippines, allies kick off naval drills amid Asia-Pacific tension

Forces from Manila, Britain, Canada, Japan and the United States kicked off two weeks of joint naval exercises in Philippine waters as a "show of force", amid flaring regional tension.

This year's "Sama Sama" drills are being held in the southern part of the island of Luzon, featuring naval exercises in areas such as anti-submarine warfare, air defense and search and rescue, the Philippine navy said.

Five vessels, two from the United States, and one each from Britain, Canada and Japan, joined the Philippine-hosted drills that will run until October 13.

#ThePhilippines #UK #Canada #Japan #USA

@asianomics

🇨🇦🇮🇳 Trudeau says he's 'not looking to escalate' tensions as India tells 41 Canadian diplomats to leave

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government is "not looking to escalate" a diplomatic row with New Delhi, but declined to say whether Canada would match India's decision to ask for the removal 41 Canadian diplomats.

Trudeau made the comments on his way into the Liberal caucus meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday, hours after India told Canada that it must repatriate 41 diplomats by Oct. 10. India has allegedly threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of those diplomats told to leave who remained after Oct. 10.

Asked if his government would retaliate by asking India to remove diplomats based in Canada, Trudeau insisted his government would try to keep working with New Delhi.

"We're not looking to escalate, as I've said, we're going to be doing the work that matters in continuing to have constructive relations with India through this extremely difficult time," Trudeau said.

#India #Trudeau

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