📚Alberta announces $8.6B plan to build new schools amid surging population growth

Premier Danielle Smith has launched an ambitious school construction plan to help relieve pressure created by a population boom.

The School Construction Accelerator Program will cost $8.6 billion over three years. It adds $6.5 billion to the previously announced amount of $2.1 billion.

Smith said the plan aims to create an additional 150,000 student spaces in the four years after the initial three-year push, for a total of 200,000 over seven years.

#Alberta
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📊New poll shows Liberals blasted to fourth place in future House of Commons

A new Abacus Data poll shows the Liberal Party scraping such new lows of unpopularity that they could conceivably be thrown to an unprecedented fourth place in a future House of Commons.

The survey shows just 22 per cent of voters still in the Liberal camp – the lowest ever charted by Abacus since the 2015 election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

But what makes the numbers particularly disastrous for the Liberals is that this new low has coincided with a massive surge in support for the Bloc Québécois.

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Pablo Rodriguez to quit Trudeau cabinet, run for leadership of Quebec Liberals

Federal Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez will announce on Thursday he will seek the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party.

Rodriguez will make the announcement in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa, and will resign from cabinet to concentrate on the provincial leadership bid.

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🔪B.C. calls on Ottawa to restrict sale of machetes in bid to curb street crime

British Columbia’s attorney general is calling on the federal government to regulate and restrict the sale of machetes as a response to street crime.

Niki Sharma has penned a letter to Ottawa, asking her federal counterpart to consider classifying machetes as restricted weapons, as the UK does, which would allow police to seize and destroy them.

The move follows a number of recent machete attacks on people and animals.

#BritishColumbia
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🇺🇸Smugglers are advertising illegal Canada-U.S. border crossings on TikTok

A dozen TikTok accounts promise safe passage into the U.S. from Montreal, Brampton or Surrey, B.C. One of the accounts has more than 360,000 followers on TikTok and seems primarily to target Indian students living in Canada.

Some of the videos posted by these TikTok accounts contain testimonials in Punjabi from supposedly satisfied customers.

One of the accounts asked for $5,000 for helping to cross the border.

#US #India
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❌Sask. won't take asylum seekers if Ottawa attempts to relocate them

The Government of Saskatchewan has said it will not accept asylum seekers under a recent federal proposal to relocate them across Canada.

Saskatchewan's share under the federal proposal would be about 7,000 people. The asylum seekers are primarily from Mexico, India and Nigeria.

I would be concerned. I'm not sure that the public are fully supportive of those who perhaps have claimed asylum on some spurious grounds.

Trade and Economic Development Minister Jeremy Harrison said.

#Saskatchewan
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Bloc to vote against Conservative non-confidence motion next week, avoiding federal election campaign

The Bloc Québécois says it will vote against a Conservative Party non-confidence motion next week, meaning the minority Liberal government will survive its first test since the demise of its parliamentary co-operation deal with the NDP.

Speculation regarding a potential fall election had increased in recent days after the NDP’s announcement to pull its automatic support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, followed by Monday’s by-election results that saw the Liberals lose a Montreal riding that had long been considered a safe seat for the party.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre released the wording of a motion Wednesday morning that his party will put to a vote next week and he strongly urged the Bloc and the NDP to side with him and trigger a fall election campaign.

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Brapton

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📈Sexual assaults, robberies surging in Canada's cities: report

The Macdonald Laurier Institute’s Urban Violent Crime Report sheds new light on the state of Canada’s increasingly unsafe streets, including an alarming rise in the incidence of urban sex crimes.

The spike in sexual violence was especially sharp in the Greater Toronto Area. The sexual assault rate almost doubled in the York Region between 2016 and 2023, going from 28.0 to 55.2 per 100,000. Sexual assaults were up by more than 30 per cent in the neighbouring Peel Region, from 38 to 52 per 100,000.

Sexual assaults topped the 100 per 100,000 mark in two cities: Edmonton and Winnipeg. Vancouver was excluded from the sexual assault rankings because of an issue with local data collection.

The report also found that the post-COVID surge in violent acts of robbery, such as muggings and carjackings, continued in 2023. Robberies were up last year in all major cities except Vancouver.

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🇮🇳🇨🇳India and China use illegal funds and disinformation to sway politicians, CSIS report says

China and India are deeply engaged in attempting to influence diaspora communities and elect MPs sympathetic to their interests through illicit funding and disinformation campaigns, according to a CSIS report tabled at the public inquiry into foreign interference.

#India #China
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Trudeau in his natural habitat.

#Trudeau
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🚶‍♂️Million March for Children to return Friday

Upwards of two million participants are expected to take part in rallies across the country, opposing the proliferation of identity politics in schools and the distribution of 'sexually explicit content and gender ideology' in Canadian classrooms.

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Jagmeet Singh says NDP will back Liberals in non-confidence vote

Days after pulling out of a deal to prop up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Thursday his MPs will vote to support the Liberal government in next week's non-confidence motion vote — which, if adopted, would trigger a federal election.

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They desperately want to be affirmed.

Ok, we can affirm they have a mental illness.

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📊 Most Canadians want fewer new immigrants accepted in 2025: Nanos survey

A majority of Canadians say the country should accept fewer immigrants in 2025 than it did in 2024, with nearly three-quarters saying immigration should be reduced until housing becomes more affordable.

#immigration
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No wonder we're not taken seriously.

#Trudeau
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🔫Federal firearm buyback program has cost $67M, still not collecting guns after 4 years

The federal firearm buyback program has cost taxpayers nearly $67.2 million since it was announced in 2020, but it still hasn't collected a single gun.

The $67.2 million includes $56.1 million spent by Public Safety Canada and almost $11.1 million by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Nearly $11.5 million of that money went to external consultants for software, logistics, communication support and more.

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🎓New limits on international students are causing turmoil among colleges, universities

Universities have become too comfortable profiting from foreign students. If given the chance, they would bring the entire third world here.

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🎓‘Alarming trend’ of more international students claiming asylum: minister

A “growing number” of international students are claiming asylum in order to stay in Canada after being allowed in on student visas, Immigration Minister Marc Miller says, calling it an “alarming trend.”

Miller said those claimants are using the international student program as a “backdoor entry into Canada,” often to lower their tuition fees, and that universities and colleges must improve their screening and monitoring practices to weed out bad actors.

#immigration
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that at a time when the world faces increasing instability, leaders have a choice: bury their heads in the sand or put their differences aside for the sake of future generations.

We can recognize that, collectively, we have a responsibility to set our differences aside, to confront the serious global challenges and to deliver on a pact for the future.

Trudeau said at the Summit of the Future in New York on Sunday, part of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Trudeau faces plummeting ratings at home, yet he believes he can tell the world how things should be.

#Trudeau
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💰Economists question Bloc demand to boost seniors benefits, which carries $16-billion cost

Some economists are questioning the Bloc Québécois demand to enhance seniors benefits in exchange for keeping the minority Liberal government in power this fall, saying the estimated price tag of $16-billion over five years does not clearly target financial need and will worsen generational fairness.

Speaking with reporters last week, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet repeated his call for Ottawa to boost the benefits, saying he’s heard rumours that the government is taking the request seriously.

His party wants the government to support one of its private members bills, C-319, which amends the Old Age Security Act to provide a 10-per-cent boost in benefits for seniors aged 65 to 74. The Liberal government recently implemented such an increase in July, 2022, but limited it to seniors aged 75 and up.

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