In the news today: Ontario MPP wants paid holiday for TRC day

VICTORIA – British Columbia’s election campaign is entering its second week with each party’s team of candidates in place and the leaders looking ahead to the upcoming televised debate.

The Oct. 9 debate will be one of the few occasions B.C. voters will see the leaders of the New Democrats, B.C. Conservatives and the Greens face each other during the campaign.

NDP Leader David Eby and B.C. Conservatives Leader John Rustad spent the first week of the campaign taking verbal personal swings at each other and criticizing their policies.

Eby says Rustad’s conspiracy-supporting anti-vaccine position could end up hurting people and the health care system, while Rustad says the NDP leader’s weak leadership and left wing viewpoints are damaging the province.

Elections BC says its final list of nominated candidates for the Oct. 19 vote includes 93 from the NDP, 93 from the B.C. Conservatives, 69 from the Greens and 40 Independents.

The list from Elections BC does not contain any official Opposition BC United candidates but does include five Freedom Party of B.C. hopefuls, four Libertarians, three representing the Communist Party of B.C. and two candidates from the Christian Heritage Party of B.C.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

CONCEPTION BAY SOUTH, N.L. – He may not have logged the fastest time or even gone the full distance, but residents of a Newfoundland town agree the goat who unexpectedly joined the local weekend half marathon was the event’s undisputed champion.

Partway through Sunday’s T’Railway Trek half marathon in Conception Bay South, N.L., an eager 68-kilogram (150 pound) goat named Joshua broke free from his collar and joined the runners on the route.

He kept pace for nearly a quarter of the race before being rounded up by his owners and now even has a medal to show for his efforts.

Joshua’s half-marathon debut surprised no one more than Heidi Taylor, who woke up Sunday morning to find social media awash in photos of her goat mingling with fellow runners.

“We take Joshua for walks, he listens very well and will follow you,” she said in an interview Sunday.

“So when he’s seeing all the people running, he must have thought: ‘I’m going to go too.’”

Joshua lives at Taylor’s Pumpkin Patch, the business Heidi Taylor co-owns. Taylor doesn’t know what time he managed to ditch his collar but estimates he ran about five kilometres of the 21-kilometre race.

She got wind of his unexpected participation at around 9:30 when she opened her Facebook and recognized him from the photos filling her feed.

Taylor and her fiancé used the Facebook posts to figure out Joshua’s whereabouts along the race route, and they “took another collar and leash along with a bag of cheezies” —his favourite snack — and went off to find him.

Joshua stuck close with the crowd of runners, Taylor said, and managed to avoid roads and stay on a trail. The runners “kept him going, he would follow whoever he was running after.”

“At one point he was leading the race,” Taylor said with a laugh.

Once she managed to collect Joshua, Taylor brought him down to the finish line so he could celebrate with his new running friends.

That’s where Joshua was awarded his half marathon medal. Jeanine Scott, a race volunteer, was the one who placed it around Joshua’s neck.

“I figured you know what, you don’t always see a goat at the finish line of a half marathon, so Joshua got the medal and he was sporting it quite well,” Scott said.

While Joshua’s escape came as a bit of a shock, Taylor said she’s not surprised her people-loving goat wanted to join in the fun. She said he loves to be with people and can often be found sneaking popcorn and snuggles from visitors at the pumpkin patch.

“When we close the farm to the public in October, we encourage people to keep coming back just to see him for a visit with their kids because he’s just such a loveable animal,” she said.

The town of Conception Bay South posted about the “un-baa-lievable” moment when Joshua joined in the race, bringing smiles and giggles to runners and race volunteers. The post garnered over a thousand likes and shares with dozens of comments in just a few hours.

“That would make my day to run with a goat! I wouldn’t even be upset if he was faster than me, which he would be,” one commenter wrote.

“Well deserved medal for the GOAT,” wrote another.

The 10-year-old goat is now happily resting, exhausted from his big run, Taylor said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2024.

— By Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

TORONTO – Ontario’s only First Nation representative at Queen’s Park plans to soon table proposed legislation, in his own Indigenous language, to have the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation declared a paid provincial holiday.

The day is a federal statutory holiday, but not a provincial one in Ontario.

New Democrat deputy leader Sol Mamakwa, who represents the northwestern riding of Kiiwetinoong, wants Ontario to follow the federal government’s lead and said he hopes Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives will support the idea.

“It’s always First Nations who take the day off and do their thing and go reconcile, but I think it’s important for other Ontarians to have that day off to acknowledge, to reflect, to mourn, to learn of the real history of residential school,” Mamakwa said in an interview.

The day recognizes the abuse suffered by Inuit, First Nations and Metis people at hundreds of state- and church-run residential schools across the country.

It is a statutory holiday for federally regulated workers and employees in some other provinces such as British Columbia.

The day is an evolution of Orange Shirt Day, an initiative started in 2013 and inspired by Phyllis Webstad’s story of having the orange shirt her grandmother gave her taken away when she arrived at a residential school in 1973 at the age of six.

Mamakwa, who was forced into a residential school himself, said he’s seen the horrors of those institutions first-hand.

He plans to introduce a private member’s bill in November to push for a provincial holiday.

“There’s no wrong in it, it’s the only right thing to do,” said Mamakwa, who is from Kingfisher Lake First Nation.

“Rather than just a day of reflection, rather than just a day of mourning, it should be more than that, where all Ontarians have a day off and they can learn about the that day, what Orange Shirt Day is, what truth and reconciliation is.”

Greg Rickford, Ontario’s minister of Indigenous affairs, said he was “not entirely persuaded” by Mamakwa’s idea but did not dismiss it.

“We have not reviewed the proposed legislation so we don’t want to presuppose anything,” he said in a written statement. “I am not entirely persuaded that designating the day a holiday will do it justice.”

The minister said some First Nations leaders have said a statutory holiday is currently not the appropriate approach and would rather focus on education about the legacy of residential schools and efforts to bring home children who did not return.

“Further consultation with First Nations communities, survivors, and leaders is crucial to ensure that any paths forward align with priorities for meaningful recognition,” Rickford said.

Some 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were forced to attend residential schools, the last of which closed in 1996.

An estimated 6,000 Indigenous children died at the institutions, but many experts believe the number to be higher. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has recorded the names of more than 4,000 who died.

Many schools across Ontario currently mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation by encouraging students to wear orange shirts and to learn about residential schools. Many schools also learn about Indigeneity throughout the week and the year.

Mamakwa said he plans to first discuss his proposed billin the legislature in Anishininiimowin, known in English as Oji-Cree – which will mark only the second time the language is spoken inside the legislative chamber.

The first was when Mamakwa made history in the spring by becoming the first person to speak in a language other than English and French in the legislature.

Ontario’s legislature had not previously allowed interpreting and transcribing a language other than English and French. Mamakwa had worked with then-government house leader Paul Calandra to change the rules to include any Indigenous language spoken in Canada.

A statutory holiday for Ontarians would be another form of reconciliation, Mamakwa said.

“When we talk about this legislature, when we talk about this government, that would be reconciliation,” he said. “That’s the path, that’s the route to reconciliation and we’ve got to walk that path.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2024.