Canada news. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Jan. 26 …
What we are watching in Canada …
As the Bank of Canada takes a pause from raising interest rates to assess the effects of higher borrowing costs on the economy, economists will be paying close attention to how the labour market is affected.
On Wednesday, the central bank raised its key interest rate for the eighth consecutive time and said it was taking a conditional pause, keeping the door open to further rate hikes if inflation isn’t tamed.
In its latest monetary policy report, the Bank of Canada said it expects the full effects of rate hikes on the labour market to play out over a longer period.
As businesses and consumers pull back on spending, economists expect unemployment to rise, though by how much is up for debate as the labour market has remained strong despite the central bank’s tightening cycle.
Labour groups have voiced concerns about the Bank of Canada’s rate hikes in recent months, with Unifor president Lana Payne previously accusing the central bank of waging war on the working class.
However, some economists are cautiously optimistic that employment may prove to be somewhat resilient to the slowdown, given that unemployment is currently near historical lows.
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Also this …
Via Rail executives are set to address a federal committee today about the delays that plagued travellers over the holidays.
Earlier this month, the Crown corporation apologized for the widespread delays passengers saw between Dec. 23 and 26 as a winter storm swept across Ontario and Quebec.
The railway has said that the derailment of a CN Rail freight train caused further delays to trains on its east-west corridor between Quebec City and Windsor, Ont.
Some passengers found themselves stranded on trains for upwards of 20 hours.
Via Rail apologized for not being more forthcoming with its customers about the situation and providing timely updates on delays.
Its executives are appearing at the committee as Opposition members of Parliament argue it’s time to extend the country’s air passenger protection regulations to cover travel by train.
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra appeared at the committee earlier this month and vowed to toughen up existing rules, which critics argue lack the teeth to hold companies accountable for compensating air passengers.
But in a statement provided to The Canadian Press, Alghabra’s office did not address whether the minister supports calls to expand the existing passenger protection regime to cover those travelling by rail.
Via Rail’s appearance follows earlier testimony by leaders at Air Canada, WestJet and Sunwing, who faced questions about the hundreds of flights they cancelled or delayed over the holidays.
Sunwing Airlines came under particular scrutiny after hundreds of passengers were left stranded in Mexico, saying they could not get an answer from the company about returning to Canada. They have all since returned to Canada, and the airline has apologized.
Sunwing faced criticism not long after for cancelling all flights out of Saskatchewan until early February. It has also reduced winter flights out of Moncton, N.B., Fredericton and Halifax.
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What we are watching in the U.S. …
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. _ The 72-year-old gunman who sprayed bullets into a Southern California ballroom dance hall, killing 11 people, had no known connection with the victims and investigators were still trying to determine a motive for the massacre, the Los Angeles County sheriff said Wednesday.
Before the shooting Saturday night, Huu Can Tran parked a motorcycle just a block away from the ballroom in Monterey Park, which investigators believe he had planned to use as a backup getaway vehicle, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said during a news conference hours after police seized the motorcycle.
Tran opened fire on a mostly senior crowd of dancers at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, killing 11 people and wounding nine, police said.
The carnage, during what should have been joyful Lunar New Year celebrations, sent ripples of fear through Asian American communities already dealing with increased hatred and violence directed at them.
Some reports had said Tran frequented the dance hall and fancied himself as an instructor, but Luna said he hadn’t been there in at least five years and did not appear to target the victims specifically.
“We have not been able to establish a connection between the suspect and any of the victims thus far,” Luna said.
Luna said it wasn’t clear how long Tran had been planning the attack in the city about 12.8 kilometres from downtown Los Angeles or what prompted him to spray at least 42 bullets, taking time to reload his weapon, a variant of the MAC-10 semi-automatic machine pistol with a 30-round magazine.
Tran’s motive continued to elude detectives days after the tragedy as they searched piles of items and paperwork seized from Tran’s home and a van he used to flee, the sheriff said.
About 20 minutes after the carnage in Monterey Park, Tran entered another dance hall about 5.6 kilometres away in Alhambra, where an employee confronted and disarmed him during a brief struggle. Tran later shot himself in the van where his body was found Sunday morning.
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What we are watching in the rest of the world …
KYIV, Ukraine _ Ukrainian officials said Thursday that Russia has launched a wave of missile and self-exploding drone attacks on the country.
Air raid sirens wailed countrywide, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or of the missiles and drones striking targets.
The head of the Kyiv city administration said that 15 cruise missiles were shot down.
Serhii Popko said the missiles were fired “in the direction of Kyiv” but did not clarify if the capital itself was a target. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions were heard in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi district, on the east side of the river that divides the city.
The attacks came after Germany and the United States announced Wednesday that they will send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine, offering what one expert called an “armoured punching force” to help Kyiv break combat stalemates as the Russian invasion enters its 12th month.
Canada has yet to confirm if it will send tanks.
Speaking at a news conference in Hamilton on Wednesday marking the end of a three-day cabinet retreat, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada has stepped up significantly to support the Ukrainian people and Ukraine itself. But he stressed he would not be making an immediate announcement on supplying tanks.
“We will continue to be there to give whatever support we can to Ukraine,” Trudeau told reporters. “But I can tell you we are looking very, very closely at what more we can do to support Ukraine.”
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On this day in 1976 …
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau became the first Canadian leader to pay an official visit to Cuba. Trudeau and President Fidel Castro developed a close personal relationship and remained friends for years.
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In entertainment …
LOS ANGELES _ Hulu on Wednesday became the second television company to cut ties with “Rick and Morty” creator Justin Roiland after felony domestic abuse charges against him were revealed.
“We have ended our association with Justin Roiland,” 20th TV Animation and Hulu Originals said in a statement.
Roiland co-created and provides voices for the streaming outlet’s animated show “Solar Opposites,” and is also a producer and actor on its animated “Koala Man.” Both shows will continue without him.
On Tuesday, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim division, home to the animated sci-fi sitcom “Rick and Morty,” made the same move, saying in a brief statement that they have ended their association with Roiland.
Squanch Games, a video game developer Roiland co-founded, said on Twitter later Tuesday that he had resigned from the company.
Roiland, 42, was charged in Orange County, California in January 2020 with two counts of felony domestic violence against a former girlfriend that he was living with. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
The charges went unreported until NBC News ran a story on them earlier this month.
Roiland provided the voices of the two title characters, a mad scientist and his grandson, in “Rick and Morty.” He and Dan Harmon created the show that has run for six seasons and has been renewed for a seventh. Adult Swim has said the series will continue without him but has not announced who the new vocal performers will be.<
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Did you see this?
It’s that time of year when gloomy weather and New Year’s resolutions gone by the wayside leave many of us not feeling our best. Even if we know that exercise will help us feel better, getting up and moving can feel like too much of a challenge, especially for those suffering from anxiety or depression.
Some exercise scientists and psychologists say many of the messages we get about fitness don’t help.
“There’s really strong evidence that exercise can be beneficial to help reduce depression and anxiety symptoms,” said Jennifer Heisz, Canada Research Chair in Brain Health and Aging in the department of kinesiology at McMaster University. “(But) I think it’s very off-putting when you look at the exercise guidelines for physical health and you think that you need to achieve those for mental health.”
The World Health Organization recommends that adults between 18 and 64 should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity per week, plus muscle-strengthening activities at least twice a week.
ParticipACTION, an organization promoting physical activity, said it takes much less than that to gain mental-health benefits, but many people don’t know that. It commissioned an online survey of 1,526 adult Canadians conducted by Leger, which found that 36 per cent of respondents thought they needed to exercise for more than half an hour to “feel the mental boost.”
Not true, said Leigh Vanderloo, an exercise scientist with ParticipACTION.
Taking 10 to 15 minutes a day to move your body “is going to have some pretty promising effects from a mental-health impact,” Vanderloo said.
“There’s no such thing as bad movement,” she said. “Think of all the opportunities you have in your day already that you could be moving more.”
That could mean taking a quick walk around the office between meetings, parking a bit further away when you’re picking up the kids from school, running upstairs, raking leaves, housecleaning, gardening or dancing, Vanderloo said.
“Every step counts,” said Heisz.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2023.
Nova Scotia RCMP say their investigation into two suspicious deaths earlier this month has concluded that one man died by homicide and the other by suicide.
The bodies of two men, aged 40 and 73, were found in a home in Windsor, N.S., on Sept. 3.
Police say the province’s medical examiner determined the 40-year-old man was killed and the 73-year-old man killed himself.
They say the two men were members of the same family.
No arrests or charges are anticipated, and the names of the deceased will not be released.
RCMP say they will not be releasing any further details out of respect for the family.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from its original location because members were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
Nemaska’s story illustrates the challenges Legault’s government faces as it looks to build new dams to meet the province’s power needs, which are anticipated to double by 2050. Legault has promised that any new projects will be developed in partnership with Indigenous people and have “social acceptability,” but experts say that’s easier said than done.
François Bouffard, an associate professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, said the earlier era of hydro projects were developed without any consideration for the Indigenous inhabitants living nearby.
“We live in a much different world now,” he said. “Any kind of hydro development, no matter where in Quebec, will require true consent and partnership from Indigenous communities.” Those groups likely want to be treated as stakeholders, he added.
Securing wider social acceptability for projects that significantly change the landscape — as hydro dams often do — is also “a big ask,” he said. The government, Bouchard added, will likely focus on boosting capacity in its existing dams, or building installations that run off river flow and don’t require flooding large swaths of land to create reservoirs.
Louis Beaumier, executive director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said Legault’s visit to Nemaska represents a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous people who were traumatized by the way earlier projects were carried about.
Any new projects will need the consent of local First Nations, Beaumier said, adding that its easier to get their blessing for wind power projects compared to dams, because they’re less destructive to the environment and easier around which to structure a partnership agreement.
Beaumier added that he believes it will be nearly impossible to get the public — Indigenous or not — to agree to “the destruction of a river” for a new dam, noting that in recent decades people have come to recognize rivers as the “unique, irreplaceable riches” that they are.
Legault’s visit to northern Quebec came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
The book, published in 2022 along with Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Nemaska community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault was in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro complex in honour of former premier Bernard Landry. At the event, Legault said he would follow the example of his late predecessor, who oversaw the signing of the historic “Paix des Braves” agreement between the Quebec government and the Cree in 2002.
He said there is “significant potential” in Eeyou Istchee James Bay, both in increasing the capacity of its large dams and in developing wind power projects.
“Obviously, we will do that with the Cree,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
