✈️ Transport minister to summon airline CEOs as Air Canada set to charge carry-on fees for some passengers

Transport Minister Anita Anand says she will be calling Canadian airline CEOs to a meeting in mid-December after Air Canada says it will charge some passengers for carry-on bags in the new year.

Let's just say I'm not very happy today with what I've heard from Air Canada. I think they need to take a look at the persons that they are targeting with these excess fees. It is not acceptable.

🍁 Maple Chronicles

Poilievre tables non-confidence motion

The Conservatives are attempting to topple Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government once again with their third non-confidence motion of the fall.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre tabled his motion before the House of Commons on Thursday.

I rise today in the spirit of non-partisanship, put our differences aside and take a good idea and a good perspective no matter where it comes from.

Poilievre told MPs on Thursday after tabling the motion.
#Trudeau #Poilievre
🍁 Maple Chronicles

🎓Quebec adopts bill to restrict international student enrolment

The Quebec government has adopted a bill giving the province more power to restrict foreign students' access to higher education institutions.

By amending Quebec's immigration law, Bill 74 provides education and higher education ministers more leeway in restricting international students' entry as of next year.

The government intends to determine international students' ability to enrol at certain colleges and universities based on criteria, including region, programs, language, cohort size, labour needs and what Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge described as "government priorities."
#Quebec
🍁 Maple Chronicles

Liberals' Arctic policy comes at 'a critical moment,' Joly says, but with no new defence spending

The new Arctic foreign policy focuses on cooperation with partners, but offers no new spending.

How far can it really take us?

🍁 Maple Chronicles

🇸🇾Trudeau says fall of Assad 'ends decades of brutal oppression' for Syria

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says a new chapter for Syria can begin that's free of terrorism and suffering for its people.

In a social media post on X on Sunday, Trudeau said the fall of the Assad regime "ends decades of brutal oppression."

Does this look like the beginning of a peaceful life?

#Trudeau
🍁 Maple Chronicles

🇺🇸Quebec Premier talks with Trump and Musk on trade and tariffs

Quebec Premier Francois Legault discussed border control and tariffs with President-elect Donald Trump while in Paris on Saturday for the reopening of the Notre-Dame cathedral.

He also met with Elon Musk, who accompanied Trump in Paris, and said that they discussed international trade and electric vehicles.
#Quebec #US
🍁 Maple Chronicles

🚶‍♂️Trudeau’s immigration plan hinges on 'highly unlikely' departure of 2.4 million people

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to fix immigration in Canada depends on the biggest exodus of people since at least the 1940s — one that many economists doubt is feasible.

Slamming the brakes on record-setting population growth requires 2.4 million non-permanent residents to leave or change status over the next two years, according to the government’s forecasts, which also see 1.5 million new temporary arrivals during that time.
#immigration
🍁 Maple Chronicles

📊 Canadians approve of Trump over Trudeau, think US is heading in ‘right direction’: poll

A new poll from Abacus Data shows that Canadians are more likely to think America is heading in the "right direction" than Canada.

The same poll shows that Donald Trump has a higher approval rating among Canadians than Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
#Trudeau #US
🍁 Maple Chronicles

Liberal government survives third Conservative non-confidence vote

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's latest attempt to topple the minority Liberal government in a non-confidence vote failed on Monday, thanks to the New Democrats.

We're not going to vote in favour of any of their games because that's what (the Conservatives are) doing. They're playing games.

Singh told reporters after the vote was tallied.

Anything for that pension.
#Trudeau #Poilievre #Singh
🍁 Maple Chronicles

💸Chrystia Freeland to present her fall economic update on Dec. 16

The statement, to be tabled in Parliament on Dec. 16, will reveal whether Freeland is keeping her promise to hold the federal deficit for 2023-24 to $40.1 billion or less.
#Freeland
🍁 Maple Chronicles

🍁 Maple Chronicles

Economists say Trudeau's government will break fiscal target

Most economists say they expect Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government will break its self-imposed fiscal constraints as deficits in Canada continue to deepen.

13 of 15 economists said Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will not meet the fiscal pledges she outlined last year, including a promise to cap the 2023-24 shortfall at $40.1 billion. In an update last November, she also promised to keep the ratio of federal debt and deficits to gross domestic product on a declining track.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said that he expects the federal government blew its fiscal anchor by running a $46.8 billion deficit in 2023-24.

🍁 Maple Chronicles

'Governor Justin Trudeau': Trump appears to mock PM in social media post

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump appears to be mocking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, referring to him as "Governor Justin Trudeau" in a post on Truth Social early Tuesday.

It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!

#US
🍁 Maple Chronicles

B.C. records 'significant decline' in toxic drug deaths, but reasons unclear

British Columbia has recorded its lowest monthly number of illicit drug overdose deaths in more than four years. 1,925 people have died in overdoses this year, down nine per cent from the first 10 months of 2023.

The 155 people who died from drug poisoning in October is also a drop from the 183 people who died in September.

People are finally too broke to do drugs.
#BritishColumbia
🍁 Maple Chronicles

💰MPs approve $21.6B in supplementary spending

Parliament has approved $21.6 billion in government spending, in a late Tuesday vote in the House of Commons.

On the final day the money could be voted on, MPs rushed through the supplementary funding to the 2024 budget, including money for various programs such as First Nations child services, dental care and compensation to Quebec for services to asylum seekers.

The Conservative party opposed the additional spending in its entirety, while the Bloc Québécois only opposed one aspect of it — $1.1 million in spending for Canada's special representative on combating Islamophobia.

🍁 Maple Chronicles

🇸🇾Canada continues to review Syrian refugee claims as European nations pause intake

Canada will continue evaluating the asylum claims of people who have fled Syria, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday, even as some European countries are pausing those claims after the fall of the Assad regime.

Miller said Canada’s asylum system isn’t seeing the same pressure as European counterparts such as Germany and Austria.

We don’t face that flow in Canada, I don’t know what rank they occupy in terms of source countries for asylum seekers, but it’s pretty low.

See, it was never about asylum.

🍁 Maple Chronicles

Geoffrey Hinton, AI pioneer and University of Toronto professor, receives Nobel Prize for physics

Scientists Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning within artificial neural networks.

🍁 Maple Chronicles

CBSA lost track of nearly 30,000 people wanted for deportation orders

29,731 people are listed as “wanted” by immigration authorities — described as those who failed to appear for deportation proceedings, including those with immigration warrants issued against them.

The vast majority — 21,325 — went missing from Ontario, the largest cohort of immigration absconders in the country.

But don't worry. Trudeau says these people will leave the country voluntarily.
#immigration
🍁 Maple Chronicles

Natural gas rates to jump 17.5 per cent Jan. 1, says FortisBC

Residential gas customers are going to see a jump in their home energy bills starting in the new year, FortisBC says.

The company says the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) — the government agency responsible for regulating energy utilities in the province — has approved a 17.5 per cent rate increase.
#energy
🍁 Maple Chronicles

🇳🇿Canadian arrested with 10 kg of meth wrapped as Christmas presents at New Zealand airport

A Canadian woman has been arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle drugs into New Zealand — by disguising them as Christmas presents.

New Zealand Customs officials said 10.2 kilograms (22 pounds) of methamphetamine worth up to $2.2 million was discovered in the woman’s carry-on luggage when she arrived at Auckland Airport on a flight from Vancouver on Sunday.

🍁 Maple Chronicles

🇨🇳China criticizes Canada’s new Arctic policy which calls Beijing a potential threat

The Chinese government says it opposes Canada’s new Arctic foreign policy, which identifies Beijing as a potential threat in the region and discusses how China, despite having no territory in the Far North, is gaining a foothold there through Russia.

The Canadian government on Friday released a document detailing this policy, including its plans to talk with allies to protect the Arctic from military and economic challenges posed by Russia and China.

The policy also envisions a major role for the United States and it notably reframes the Far North as the “North American Arctic,” a phrase Ottawa uses 13 times in the document.
#China #US #Russia
🍁 Maple Chronicles