🏥 Alberta to dismantle current patient-care model, create new health delivery system

The Alberta government will restructure the delivery of health care in the province in a sweeping overhaul that Premier Danielle Smith promises will help solve capacity issues caused by a flawed system.

The changes will dismantle the single service provider model and spread the responsibilities of Alberta's health provider, Alberta Health Services, among a handful of new organizations.

In a news conference Wednesday, Smith announced a myriad of structural changes that will alter how health services are delivered to Albertans.

Four new organizations will deliver health services in primary care, acute care, continuing care and mental health and addiction care. Under the new structure, the primary focus of AHS will be acute care and continuing care.

#Alberta #healthcare

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📈💰CRA penalty rate on overdue taxes will rise to 10 per cent, causing tax advisers to shift strategy

The Canada Revenue Agency’s interest rate on overdue taxes will soon rise to 10 per cent, tax experts say, making paying back the agency more expensive and a greater priority for many individuals and already-stretched small business owners.

Until last year, the interest rate on unpaid taxes was low enough that it was not always a top financial priority. Since 2007, the rate has remained stable at five per cent or six per cent.

But that has changed in recent months. In the second quarter of 2022, the interest rate on unpaid taxes started a steep incline, since then rising to nine per cent.

In the first quarter of 2024, barring any special CRA measures, the rate will climb from nine per cent to 10 per cent, double what it has been for most of the past decade.

#tax

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre spoke out against gender ideology at an event in Richmond Hill.

"Justin Trudeau does not have a right to impose his radical gender ideology on our kids"

#Poilievre #Trudeau

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🏠Feds to convert government-owned properties in Ottawa into 1,600 new homes

The federal government announced it will be converting federal properties in Ottawa into over 1,600 new homes across the city.

Federal properties in the city will be repurposed to 307 homes at Wateridge Village on former CFB Rockcliffe.

Another 600 homes on Carling Avenue and 710 homes on Booth Street will be built, which will include 221 affordable homes.

Six surplus federal properties across Canada will be developed into over 2,800 new homes in Calgary, Edmonton, St. John's and Ottawa.

Freeland said the homes will be developed by the Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corporation specializing in real estate development and attractions management.

#housing #Ontario

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🇨🇦🇺🇸Republican presidential candidate proposes border wall with Canada

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy raised the idea of building a wall with Canada during the Republican presidential debate.

Ramaswamy said building a wall along the southern border of the U.S. is not enough to fight drug cartels. He said the northern border is not discussed as often as it should be.

"I'm the only candidate on this stage, as far as I'm aware, who has actually visited the northern border"

Ramaswamy said, on the tail end of remarks about border security.

Ramaswamy also said the U.S. should use its military to seal any tunnels constructed by trafficking gangs.

For context, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that two pounds of fentanyl have been seized in the northern border region this year. That represents approximately 0.0074 per cent of the 27,000 pounds seized overall, according to the agency's figures.

#US

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🎁 Canadians plan to scale back on holiday spending amid high living costs

While inflation has slowed in Canada in recent months, Canadians are still paying more for their necessities than they were this time last year.

This is why 78 per cent of consumers said they plan on buying fewer gifts this December, according to data from the BMO index that tracks how consumers feel about their personal finances by sampling adults 18 and over in Canada.

Forty per cent of survey respondents also said they planned to buy less expensive gifts for friends and family.

A little over half of surveyed Canadians reported feeling financial anxiety about the holidays, with 29 per cent saying they feel less financially secure than they did a year ago.

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Trudeau: Canadians are afraid of climate change

What do you think Canadians are actually more afraid of: climate change or not being able to pay their bills?

#Trudeau

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🛢Canada and other fossil fuel producers set to scale up production: report

Canada is among a group of top fossil fuel-producing countries on pace to extract more oil and gas than would be consistent with agreed-upon international targets designed to limit global warming, according to a new analysis.

The report, released on Wednesday by the United Nations in collaboration with a team of international scientists, found that countries still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be required to limit warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.

The report, citing figures from the Canada Energy Regulator, shows Canada — the fourth-largest oil producer in the world — is set to increase production through 2030 if there is no further action to reduce emissions, and by 25 per cent above 2022 levels by 2035.

#energy

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💰Trudeau government unveils plans to cut $500 million in spending

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government unveiled details of its plan to cut $500 million from government spending Thursday.

While some agencies like the Canadian Space Agency and the Invest in Canada Hub will see more than one per cent of their spending frozen and returned to government coffers, 61 departments and agencies don't appear on the list of government bodies taking cuts.

The government said the cost-cutting initiative excluded agents of Parliament and small organizations with budgets under $25 million a year. But many of those not included on the list of organizations affected — such as the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the National Capital Commission — have budgets much higher than $25 million.

Of the government departments that do appear on the list, the Department of Finance is taking the smallest hit, with only $827,000 of its $118 billion budget cut — about 0.0007 percent of its estimates.

the Department of National Defence (DND) is losing the most money — $211.1 million of the total $500 million cut. That works out to roughly 0.76 per cent of its $27.5 billion spending estimate.

The government's supplementary estimates, meanwhile, give DND an additional one-time transfer of $1.5 billion — $500 million of it for military aid to Ukraine.

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Two Jewish schools hit by gunfire in Montreal overnight

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante says “every violent and hateful event” will be investigated by police after two Jewish schools were struck by bullets overnight.

Police say staff members discovered bullet holes on the outside of the two schools located on St-Kevin Avenue and Deacon Road when they arrived in the morning.

No injuries were reported and that both incidents took place at night when the buildings were empty.

No arrests have been made but security perimeters were set up at the two schools. The perimeters were lifted in the afternoon, but officers remained at the scene for the end of the school day.

#Quebec

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🇨🇦🇮🇳 Canadian authorities confirm investigation into possible Air India terror threat

Five days after a video began circulating online warning people not to travel on Air India on Nov. 19, the Canadian government has confirmed it is investigating a possible terror threat.

“Our government takes any threat to aviation extremely seriously. We are investigating recent threats circulating online closely and with our security partners. We will do everything necessary to keep Canadians safe,” said Laura Scaffidi, press secretary to Canada’s transport minister, on Thursday.

The RCMP also confirmed early Thursday that it is investigating but refused to comment further.

#India

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Ontario to ban employers from asking for Canadian work experience

Ontario is hoping to ban employers from asking for Canadian work experience and relax the provincial immigration eligibility so that international graduates from one-year college programs can qualify for permanent residence.

The proposed changes are expected to take effect next year and will be part of legislation the provincial government plans to introduce early next week.

Starting Dec. 1, more than 30 occupational and professional licensing bodies will be prohibited from using Canadian work experience requirements in licensing.

Officials said helping internationally trained newcomers work in the professions they studied for could increase the province’s GDP by as much as $100 billion over the next five years.

#Ontario

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🏦 Canadians should be ready for rates to stay higher in the long run, Bank of Canada senior deputy governor says

Canadians need to be prepared for the growing likelihood that interest rates won’t return to the low levels seen over the past 15 years, Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers warned Thursday.

In a speech in Vancouver, the central bank’s second-in-command said that many of the economic forces that pulled down interest rates in recent decades are going into reverse. That “new normal” creates risks for indebted households, businesses and the broader financial system, which need to be managed proactively, she said.

“It may be tempting to believe the low rates that we all got used to will eventually come back. But there are reasons to think they may not,” Ms. Rogers said.

She pointed to tectonic shifts in the global economy, including a retirement wave among baby boomers and changing patterns of global trade and investment.

The Bank of Canada has raised interest rates 10 times over the past year and a half to fight runaway inflation. That’s brought the bank’s benchmark policy rate to 5 per cent, the highest level since 2001.

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🍞A food bank in Ontario is turning away international students looking for free food

The board president of a food bank in Brampton, Ont., says her facility has become so overrun with international students seeking free food that she has had to put up a sign telling them to stay away.

“Do not enter food bank / No international students!! (Government regulations),” the whiteboard outside the food bank reads.

The “Government regulations” notice on that white board refers to government of Canada rules, which require international students to provide a statement of financial support before they are issued a study permit. Student must have $10,000 per year (not including tuition)for themselves plus $4,000 for an accompanying family member.

What started as one to two students a day in September soon escalated to three or four, board president added. “And now we’re literally seeing five to 10 in groups coming every day. And it’s happening with a lot of the other food banks. And I’m getting calls now not only from food banks, but churches in Brampton, saying that they’re running out of supplies, because they have this influx of students coming.”

#Ontario

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Indigenous groups argue at the Supreme Court of Canada they are owed billions in historical redress

The Supreme Court of Canada is being asked to order financial redress worth as much as $126-billion to First Nations in Northern Ontario over broken treaty promises more than a century old.

On Tuesday, the country’s top court heard a case brought by 21 First Nations that ceded lands roughly the size of France in an 1850 treaty. In return, among other things, their members received an annuity, which was to have been augmented as economic conditions allowed – but which has been stuck at $4 a person per year since 1875.

Two lower courts have said thousands of Anishinaabe people on the northern shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron are owed compensation. They said the Indigenous communities were left impoverished by the failure of government to increase the annuity, in breach of the 1850 promise.

Last month, the Supreme Court heard a separate case from Southern Alberta about a broken promise from the federal Crown in the 1870s to turn over a certain amount of land based on the population of the Blood Tribe.

In both cases, the governments involved told the Supreme Court that they admit they reneged on their promises. Yet in both, those governments said the court’s role is not to order financial damages, but to issue a declaration guiding the parties in negotiations over the appropriate amount.

#Ontario #Alberta

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💰Top 1% of tax filers saw incomes rise by almost 10% in 2021: Statistics Canada

Statistics Canada says the country's top one per cent of tax filers saw their incomes rise by almost 10 per cent in 2021, while those in the bottom half saw their average income decline.

🔹The agency says the incomes of the top earnings group, excluding capital gains, jumped 9.4 per cent higher to $579,000.

Meanwhile, filers in the top 0.1 per cent saw their average income increase 17.4 per cent to almost $2.1 million and those in the top 0.01 per cent experienced an average income increase of 25.7 per cent, bringing their earnings to about $7.7 million.

🔹At the same time, filers in the bottom half saw their average income fall by $1,400 to $21,100 in 2021 as the government ended many of its pandemic benefit programs.

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Female powerlifter issued 2-year ban for advocacy against trans-women in competitions

A Canadian female powerlifter was hit with a two-year ban by the Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) for advocating that womens’ sports remain single-sex and prohibit transgender male-to-female competitors who have a natural biological advantage from competing.

The CPU’s discipline panel suspended the Team Canada powerlifter April Hutchinson for violating the organization’s code of conduct social media policy based on a complaint submitted by Anne Andres, a transgender powerlifter.

Hutchinson has been criticizing Andres’ participation in female powerlifting competitions, as Andres had broken several records held by biological women and has taunted fellow competitors as weak and having “tiny little T-Rex arms.”

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Video of Mississauga Diwali fight goes viral

A video showing a brawl between scores of Sikhs and Hindus on Diwali in Mississauga has gone viral.

Hundreds of people gathered outside Westwood Square Mall in Malton on Sunday to celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Light.

Peel Regional Police have confirmed that officers were called to the mall shortly before 9 p.m. for reports of a “disturbance.” Police said they received multiple calls related to the plaza, but did not say whether any charges were laid.

#Ontario

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Poilievre works to ratchet up pressure on Liberals to pass farming carbon tax carve-out

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for a "massive pressure campaign" to push the governing Liberals to help pass a piece of legislation that would remove the carbon tax from fuels used in some agricultural activities.

"My message to Canadians is: Call your Liberal MP, tell them to get Justin Trudeau out of the way,"

Poilievre said about the prime minister, during a news conference in Vancouver on Monday.

Poilievre was speaking in favour of a private member's Bill C-234 put forward by Conservative MP Ben Lobb.

The bill would remove the carbon tax on natural gas and propane used in such activities as irrigation, grain drying, feed preparation, and heating and cooling barns and greenhouses.

#Poilievre

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Ontario to ban unpaid restaurant trial shifts; part of new labour law coming today

Ontario is planning to explicitly ban unpaid trial shifts for restaurant and hospitality workers, while also strengthening rules against deducting employee wages in the event of customer theft.

The latest proposed changes are set to be announced today by Labour Minister David Piccini ahead of legislation expected to be tabled this afternoon that contains a host of new labour laws.

Piccini says that while it is already the law that employees must be paid for all hours worked, unpaid trial shifts are still happening as part of the interview process in some restaurants, so the practice will be specifically prohibited.

#Ontario

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A video of Minister Chrystia Freeland behaving unhinged has gone viral.

#Freeland

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