Bank of Canada trying to figure out how AI might affect inflation, Macklem says

OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says retail sales rose 0.9 per cent to $66.4 billion in July, helped by stronger new car sales.

The agency says sales were higher in seven of the nine subsectors it tracks with sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers up 2.2 per cent, boosted by a 2.3 per cent increase in sales at new car dealers.

Sales at gasoline stations and fuel vendors fell 0.6 per cent for the month as sales for the subsector in volume terms fell 1.7 per cent.

Core retail sales — which exclude gasoline stations and fuel vendors and motor vehicle and parts dealers — rose 0.6 per cent in July.

In volume terms, Statistics Canada says retail sales increased 1.0 per cent in July.

Looking forward, the agency says its preliminary estimate for retail sales in August pointed to a gain of 0.5 per cent for the month, thought it cautioned the figure will be revised.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2024.

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HALIFAX – A Nova Scotia woman has applied for a medically assisted death, saying after years of battling to receive out-of-country surgery for an illness that causes “indescribable” pain, she struggles to maintain the will to live.

Jennifer Brady completed her MAID application in June. She has lymphedema in her legs, a condition in which tissues swell from the accumulation of fluids normally drained through the body’s lymphatic system.

In an interview Thursday, the 46-year-old mother of two said she has intense daily pain, skin infections that resemble a sunburn intensified “1,000 times,” and blood infections that exhaust her to the point “you feel like you’re dying.”

However, Brady said that after she received treatment in Japan in 2022 — at her own expense — her swelling decreased, particularly in her right leg, and some symptoms were relieved. She said she believes that if she can receive the funds to pay for more surgery, her condition can improve — as will her desire to remain alive.

The possibility that her health can improve is what led to her MAID request being denied.

In a letter sent to Health Minister Michelle Thompson on July 7, Dr. Gord Gubitz, the clinical lead of Nova Scotia’s MAID program, said his team is rejecting Brady’s application because her condition is not considered “irremediable.”

“It seems reasonable to me that if an assessment (and surgery, if clinically indicated) … could help to reduce Brady’s suffering and obviate the need to consider MAID, this option should be explored. Your office can make this happen,” Gubitz wrote to Thompson.

After telling her story to CBC this week, Brady said she has received online support from people offering encouragement and financial help. However, she said she still needs the health minister to authorize funding for treatment she cannot get in the province.

On Wednesday, Thompson told reporters, “I will not make a commitment to do that,” and then added, “If that individual will work with the department and reach out, perhaps there is another path forward.” The minister refused detailed comment, citing an ongoing court case and privacy law.

In Brady’s case before the Nova Scotia Supreme Court launched over two years ago, she took issue with the province’s decision to deny her funding for out-of-country care, arguing it was unreasonable and unfair.

In legal briefs, government lawyers argued Brady failed to receive a referral for the treatment. The lawyers said she was on a wait-list to see a Nova Scotia plastic surgeon and became “frustrated.”

Brady’s January 2024 affidavit responding to the lawyers said that given her physical deterioration, the plastic surgeon’s years-long waiting time and his lack of expertise in her illness, “the department created standards that were functionally impossible to meet.”

On Thursday, Brady said she found the minister’s latest comments frustrating and “somewhat disingenuous,” adding that they left her wondering whether Thompson had personally reviewed her case.

She said that even if she wins in court and is awarded about $60,000 in costs related to her 2022 treatment in Japan, the years of legal battles, the continuing pain and her deteriorating mental health have led to her decision that MAID is the best option. “It was after a winter where I could barely get out of bed and when I did, I just didn’t want to be here.”

Brady spends at least five hours daily in a full body massage machine that helps move fluid in her legs to reduce swelling. “I mean, what’s the point honestly? I’m in that machine and the machine itself is so uncomfortable.”

Applying for MAID “definitely isn’t a strategic move,” she said. “That’s not my plan A. I want to live. I want to be here for my kids. I love my job.”

“I want the option (of MAID) to be there. But if I were given the treatment today (for lymphedema) I would definitely take it,” she said.

Brady, a dietitian and professor at Acadia University’s faculty of nutrition, said she is also suffering from depression, a condition for which she’s been unable to take medicines as they tend to increase the swelling in her legs.

Her lymphedema developed after a hysterectomy to treat her cervical cancer in 2019. She said she was informed in 2021 that local surgical options weren’t available to her, which led her to Dr. Joshua Vortenbosch, an expert in lymphedema at McGill University. However, she was denied funding for the surgery in Montreal. The rejection led her to do research, and to her 2022 trip for surgery in Japan.

In Japan, she received lymphovenous anastomosis, a procedure in which a surgeon connects lymph vessels in the limbs to nearby veins to bypass damaged areas and restore the flow of lymph fluids.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2024.

— With files from Keith Doucette in Halifax.

VANCOUVER – A day before the official start, British Columbia’s election campaign sees B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad and Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau speaking to municipal leaders, while NDP Leader David Eby is gearing up to get his campaign bus rolling.

Eby spoke to local politicians yesterday at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, as they presented a laundry list of concerns for the provincial government at the meeting, from homelessness to the overdose crisis and more support funding.

Eby’s speech to the municipal leaders focused on his recent announcement to implement plans to introduce involuntary care of people struggling with mental health and addiction issues.

He says several city governments have already indicated they are on board with having a “secure site” to house and treat severely mentally ill and drug addicted people.

The decriminalization of possession of small quantities of hard drugs and open drug use in public areas is expected to be a major issue in the Oct. 19 election, which officially starts Saturday.

Rustad, who has been highly critical of safe supply and decriminalization initiatives, says he supports involuntary care, including for children.

Of the three party leaders, only Furstenau has run in a provincial election for the premier’s job.

Eby took over the job from former premier John Horgan almost two years ago, while Rustad was acclaimed as the leader of the B.C. Conservatives last year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2024.

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