⚠️🇺🇦 Ottawa to give Ukraine $4 million to fund gender-inclusive demining

The press release that went out Saturday makes mention of $3.02 billion in financial and military support to Ukraine in 2024, but it also outlines a number of smaller, targeted initiatives.

One of these, listed as “Gender-inclusive demining for sustainable futures in Ukraine,” has a funding budget of $4 million.

This project from the HALO Trust aims to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of Ukrainians, including women and internally displaced persons, by addressing the threat of explosive ordnance present across vast areas of the country.

Project activities include conducting non-technical surveys and subsequent manual clearance in targeted communities; providing capacity building to key national stakeholders; and establishing a gender and diversity working group to promote gender-transformative mine action in Ukraine.

the item reads.

#Ukraine
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Eby ‘profoundly worried’ about upcoming fire season, as billions earmarked for contingency

The Premier of British Columbia says he is “profoundly worried” about the upcoming wildfire season, saying it is one of the major reasons why the province has set aside $10.6 billion in contingency funds over the next three years.

David Eby says parts of British Columbia, such as the Peace River, East Kootenay, and Upper Fraser regions, remain severely dry and about 100 wildfires are still burning this winter from last year’s record-breaking season.

He says the province is leasing aircraft and expanding firefighting infrastructure to allow for crews to conduct operations such as aerial attack missions at night, enhancing B.C.’s capacity to fight wildfires around the clock.

#BritishColumbia #wildfire
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Canadians struggling with inflation are fundraising to cover everyday expenses, GoFundMe says

Canadians created more than 200,000 fundraising campaigns to cover everyday expenses over the course of three years, raising more than $480 million combined, according to new data released by the global crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.

The donation platform says they recorded a 274 per cent increase in Canadian campaigns that mention “cost-of-living” since 2020. The two most common reasons for these fundraisers were listed as food and housing.

Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver were the cities with the most cost-of-living campaigns during this period.

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🇨🇦🇺🇸🪖U.S. ambassador says 'world is watching' Canada's military spending

The U.S. ambassador to Canada says the world is closely watching Canada's defence spending commitments, as the NATO alliance scrambles to shore up Ukraine's supply of military goods.

David Cohen praised Canada's "very significant" military contributions on a variety of fronts, including purchases of new equipment and its activity around Ukraine, the Arctic, NORAD and more. But he also applied some pressure when it comes to military spending.

By the same token, I have been quite clear — and the United States has been quite clear — that NATO and the world is watching what Canada is doing with respect to its commitment.... It's not something we've imposed on Canada. But the world is watching.

Cohen said.

#US #NATO
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Canada is facing ‘irrelevance’ on world stage, ex-defence chief warns

Retired general Rick Hillier, Canada’s former chief of defence staff, says he believes the country risks facing “irrelevance” in an unstable geopolitical world.

In an interview on The West Block, host Mercedes Stephenson asked Hillier what he thought Canada’s biggest national security risk is amid the war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East.

Our irrelevance. The fact that nobody even bothers to phone us if they’re talking about doing something as a group of Three Eyes or a group of Five Eyes or things of that nature.

All those things you described are very real geopolitical and strategic threats and they can destabilize the world even more than it is now. And when the world is destabilized, it’s bad for Canada.

Hillier said.

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💰Trans Mountain pipeline project increases cost estimate by $3.1 billion

The expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline will cost about $3.1 billion more than the Canadian government-owned company running the project projected in May, another financial setback for a project beset by spiralling expenses and years of delays.

Costs for the expansion — which involves twinning a pipeline stretching from Edmonton to Vancouver — will be 10 per cent more than the most recent estimate of $30.9 billion, the company said in a filing with the Canada Energy Regulator on Monday.

That brings the total cost to about $34 billion, more than six times the original estimate of $5.4 billion in 2013.

The latest cost increase — this time due to construction challenges that are delaying the new line’s startup into the second quarter — marks another setback for a project that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expended significant political capital on.

#BritishColumbia #Alberta #Trudeau #energy
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🌱🔌Alberta to ban renewables on prime land, declare no-build zones for wind turbines

Swaths of land in Alberta will be barred from hosting renewable power projects under sweeping new rules that will govern the industry.

The changes, set to be announced Wednesday by Premier Danielle Smith and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, are the culmination of a ban on renewable approvals that lasted almost seven months.

The province announced the pause in August last year. It ordered the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) to halt approvals for all renewable projects and launch an inquiry into various issues including where projects can be built.

Wednesday’s announcement deals only with the first set of issues, which includes land use, reclamation and viewscapes.

Alberta will ban renewable electricity projects from private property deemed to have excellent or good irrigation capability according to the province’s land classification system, and land deemed “fair” if it can host specific specialty crops.

#Alberta #energy
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🎓Ottawa will shut down shady post-secondary institutions if provinces don't: Miller

Ottawa is ready to step in and shut down shady schools that are abusing the international student program if provinces don't crack down, Immigration Minister Marc Miller warned Tuesday.

Miller said there are problems across the college sector, but some of the worst offenders are private institutions — and those schools need to go.

There's responsibility to go around. I just think that some of the really, really bad actors are in the private sphere and those need to be shut down.

Miller said on Parliament Hill ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting.

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RCMP never tried to interview Justin Trudeau as part of SNC-Lavalin scandal probe, ethics committee told

The RCMP did not interview Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before concluding that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate a criminal offence in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, top officials confirmed in a House of Commons committee hearing on Tuesday.

In fact, the federal police interviewed only four individuals, one of whom was former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, and they did not even attempt to get Trudeau’s testimony.

When the SNC-Lavalin affair erupted in 2019, the RCMP investigated whether Trudeau had breached any criminal laws in pressuring Wilson-Raybould to let the Montreal construction firm benefit from a deferred prosecution agreement to avoid a criminal prosecution.

The offences the RCMP was looking into were obstruction of justice and the intimidation of a justice system participant.

#Trudeau
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🏠💰Most Canadian mortgage owners concerned about payments, survey finds

A new survey found the majority of homeowners share concerns about making their mortgage payments due to increased interest rates.

67 per cent are worried about paying their mortgage once their next renewal comes up, while 69 per cent of homeowner respondents reported that their mortgage has been generally more challenging to pay in the last two years.

The data found that 24 per cent of surveyed homeowners considered downsizing their home, while 29 per cent considered refinancing their mortgage. Other major decisions included tightening other areas of their budget (54 per cent) or considering a switch to an alternative lender to help cover costs (17 per cent).

#housing
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House passes motion calling on Trudeau to recoup ArriveCan funds

Opposition parties teamed up Wednesday to pass a motion calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to collect and recoup, within 100 days, all funds paid to ArriveCan contractors and subcontractors that did no work.

The non-binding motion from Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre passed by a vote of 170 to 149, with only the Liberals voting against it.

The motion also calls on the federal government to table in the House by March 18 a report that details all direct and associated costs related to ArriveCan.

Among the line items the opposition parties want to see, but have yet to be revealed, are any bonuses given to public servants who worked on the app, any legal or research costs, and any adverting or public relations expenses.

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💰Close to $1 billion drop in direct foreign investment in Greater Montreal in 2023

Montréal International, the organization responsible for attracting foreign investment to Greater Montreal, revealed that in 2023 there was $2.7 billion in direct foreign investment in Greater Montreal coming from 87 projects.

These projects, according to Montréal International led to the creation of close to six thousand jobs with an average salary of $97,500.

These investments of $2.7 billion, however, are down from $3.6 billion in 2022 and $3.8 billion in 2021.

Stéphane Paquet, the president and CEO of Montréal International, said this drop in investment is due to the current global economic context, notably a slow down in money invested in the information technology (IT) sector.

#Quebec
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🇨🇦🇨🇳 Censored documents about Winnipeg scientists reveal threat to Canada’s security

Two scientists at Canada’s high-security infectious disease laboratory – Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng – provided confidential scientific information to China and were fired after a probe concluded she posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” and it was discovered they engaged in clandestine meetings with Chinese officials, documents tabled in the House of Commons reveal.

The two infectious-disease scientists were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July, 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January, 2021. Their whereabouts are not known.

On Wednesday, the government released records of the investigation into the two scientists that had been previously censored from public view. Opposition parties had united to demand the release of the documents after the government in 2021 released heavily redacted Public Health Agency of Canada documents that obscured the full story.

#China
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🇨🇦🇲🇽 Canada bringing back visa requirements for Mexican nationals to curb asylum seekers

The federal government is reimposing some visa requirements on Mexican nationals visiting Canada. The new rules take effect on 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.

The U.S. government also has been asking Ottawa to bring back the visa requirement to curb a sharp increase in illegal crossings from Canada into the United States.

The new visa requirement is expected to affect roughly 40 per cent of all Mexican travellers to Canada.

#Mexico #US
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Brian Mulroney, former prime minister, is dead at 84

Brian Mulroney — who, as Canada's 18th prime minister, steered the country through a tumultuous period in national and world affairs — has died. He was 84.

On behalf of my mother and our family, it is with great sadness we announce the passing of my father, The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Canada's 18th Prime Minister. He died peacefully, surrounded by family.

his daughter Caroline Mulroney shared on X.

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🇨🇦🇺🇦Canada open to non-combat military training mission in Ukraine: Defence Minister

Defence Minster Bill Blair says Canada is open to sending Canadian troops on a non-combat mission to train Ukrainian troops within Ukraine.

The move would only occur away from the war’s front lines and in a clearly defined non-combat role, Mr. Blair said in an interview. He stressed the delicate nature of such a mission.

It has to be done in a fairly careful and limited way, the possibility of delivering training.

he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, when asked by reporters Feb. 27 about Canada sending troops to Ukraine, did not mention the possibility of training taking place directly in Ukraine.

I have to emphasize the fact that our soldiers are there in Poland, and they’re directly working with Ukrainian soldiers.

Freeland said.

#Ukraine
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Ottawa adds funding to CBC; broadcaster will get $1.4B budget

Canada's public broadcaster is getting an increase in funding, despite executives insisting that a request to cut CBC/Radio-Canada's budget for the next fiscal year was one reason they announced layoffs for 10 per cent of staff.

Documents Canadian Heritage released on Thursday show CBC will get a $1.4-billion budget in 2024-25, an increase from the $1.3 billion it spent in the previous fiscal year. It's about a $90-million increase, documents say.

The broadcaster announced in December it would cut 800 jobs and $40 million from its production budget because of a $125-million projected shortfall for the coming fiscal year, which begins on April 1.

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💰Lawsuit over massive Veterans Affairs accounting error to cost Ottawa almost $1 billion

An embarrassing multi-million-dollar accounting error that was covered up for years at Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) will end up costing taxpayers almost $1 billion, now that a Federal Court judge has signed off on a combined class-action settlement.

More than 272,000 former soldiers, sailors and aircrew — most of them elderly — were short-changed on pension and disability payments for almost eight years, starting in 2002.

VAC staff made the mistake by not factoring provincial tax credits for individuals into their calculations. The department discovered the error in 2010.

The oversight was fixed but officials decided at the time not to notify the affected veterans and not to offer reimbursement for the missed payments.

The affected veterans — who include some former members of the RCMP — sued and have now been awarded an additional $817 million on top of $165 million in compensation earmarked by the federal government.

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🌱🔌Canada to expedite approval of new nuclear projects, energy minister says

Canada will expedite the approval process for new nuclear projects, but will not exclude them from the federal environmental review as requested by the province of Ontario, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said.

All new major projects in Canada, including nuclear reactors, have to be reviewed under the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), which the government has promised to revise this spring after the Supreme Court last year ruled it overstepped into provincial jurisdiction.

Canada is the world's second-largest uranium producer, but the long regulatory process has resulted in miners like NexGen Energy having to wait seven years and counting to build the world's largest uranium mine in Saskatchewan.

#energy
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🇨🇦🇨🇳 Poilievre claims Trudeau is covering up lapses at high-security lab

During a Thursday news conference Trudeau was asked how scientists working on high-security viruses at the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Lab were able to collaborate with the People's Republic of China.

After a years-long fight for access, the federal government dumped hundreds of pages of documents about the dismissal of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng. The two were marched out of the facility in July 2019 and were stripped of their security clearances. Their dismissals were announced in January 2021.

The documents show Canada's intelligence agency conducted multiple security screenings and determined Qiu "intentionally" shared scientific information with China, potentially putting people's health in jeopardy.

Earlier Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre held a press conference, accusing Trudeau of allowing China to "infiltrate" Canada and covering it up by delaying the release of the documents.

#Poilievre #Trudeau #China
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Ottawa says it will bypass Quebec's immigration cap to speed up family reunification

After several months of asking the Quebec government to increase its family reunification capacity, Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller says it's time for his government to pull rank.

Miller says his ministry will begin issuing permanent residence permits to those looking to unite with their loved ones in Quebec, regardless of the province's self-imposed cap on applicants, which he describes as "artificially low."

We're talking about people who are husbands, wives, parents, grandparents, who are waiting unsuccessfully to be reunited with their families in Quebec.

Miller said.

Quebec's family reunification envelope is capped at around 10,000 applicants per year.

#Quebec
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