Canadian navy struggling with personnel ‘crisis’: commander

MONTREAL – Advanced voting kicked off on Friday in Montreal’s LaSalle-Émard-Verdun riding, and party leaders are helping get out the vote as the federal byelection on Sept. 16. draws nearer.

Polls show a three-way battle emerging between the Liberal Party of Canada, the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party and although LaSalle-Émard-Verdun is considered a Liberal stronghold, the NDP candidate in the race, Craig Sauvé, says he is fired up.

“I’m feeling the vibe of an election we can win. I’ve had that feeling in the past,” said Sauvé, who is also a city councillor in Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante’s administration.

“Among the three main parties, we have the biggest army of volunteers. There are hundreds of them,” said the 43-year-old as he went door-to-door with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

As they passed in front of Lévis-Sauvé elementary school, teacher Céline-Audrey Beauregard recognized Sauvé and called him by his first name.

“I know you’re busy, but we’d like to invite you to our class,” said Beauregard, catching her breath.

“I was talking to my students about the byelections, so I took off running when I saw you pass by the window,” Beauregard said, adding that a fellow teacher was watching her students.

“When we go door-to-door, there’s always someone who says, ‘thank you for helping me with this or that, or for solving this problem,’” Singh responded when asked why he thought his party had a chance of coming out on top. “People love Craig.”

“The Liberals have abandoned you. People are having trouble paying for groceries and they’re having trouble paying the rent,” Singh continued, arguing the NDP was bringing back hope.

Standing outside an advanced polling station, a man named George, who described himself as a “senior citizen looking for housing,” declined to say who he voted for.

“All of the parties spoke well on the issue during the campaign,” he said.

However, Paola Castro, who also voted early, was not shy about revealing who got her vote.

“I don’t want to go into details because sometimes we get judged because of our ideas, but I made a decision based on my principles, and I’m voting for (Conservative Leader) Pierre Poilievre,” said Castro.

For her part, Diane Kipling voted in advance to help the NDP team of volunteers.

“It helps the party know who voted in the riding, so it’s less work for them when it’s time to get out the vote on election day,” she said.

Another candidate also bearing the surname Sauvé, Louis-Philippe Sauvé, was canvassing in front of a local Metro station.

“My candidacy is based on the conviction that I can win, and I will win,” said Sauvé, who is running for the Bloc Québécois.

He says the issues voters are raising vary depending on which part of the riding they live in.

“In Ville-Émard, they talk to me a lot about public safety, while in Verdun, they’re going to talk to me about the environment, climate change (and) housing because the housing crisis is particularly acute there.”

The Bloc Québécois is planning to send a delegation to the riding to help their candidate out on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party is backing its candidate, Laura Palestini, after it suffered a surprise defeat by the Conservatives in the Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection back in June. The Liberals have taken to X, posting pictures of senior cabinet ministers like François-Philippe Champagne, Steven Guilbeault, Mélanie Joly, Pablo Rodriguez and Marc Miller campaigning alongside Palestini.

The riding was previously held by former Liberal MP and cabinet minister David Lametti until his resignation in January.

Palestini did not tell The Canadian Press where she was campaigning on Friday, and her team did not respond to requests for comment.

As for the Conservatives, Louis Ialenti is running as the party’s candidate in the race, but like the Liberals, Poilievre’s party did not respond to requests to meet the candidate in the field.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2024.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s government said Saturday that Brazil can no longer represent Argentina’s diplomatic interests in the country, putting at risk several anti-government opponents who have holed up for months in the Argentine ambassador’s residence seeking asylum.

Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement it had notified Brazil of its decision, which will take effect immediately. It said it was forced to take action based on what it called evidence — which it hasn’t shared — that those who sought refuge in Argentina’s diplomatic mission were conspiring to carry out “terrorist” acts including the assassination of President Nicolas Maduro and his vice president.

Magalli Meda, the former campaign chief of opposition leader María Corina Machado, was among a half dozen government opponents who fled to the Argentina ambassador’s residence after Maduro’s chief prosecutor in March issued an order for her arrest for allegedly propagating destabilizing, political violence.

In retaliation, Maduro broke off diplomatic relations with Argentine President Javier Milei’s right-wing government, which tapped neighbor Brazil to represent its interests and safeguard the asylum seekers.

Brazil’s foreign ministry, in a statement, said it was “surprised” by Venezuela’s decision. Under the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations, Argentina must now name a substitute custodian acceptable to Venezuela’s government, the foreign ministry said. Meanwhile, Brazil will remain responsible for the diplomatic mission, whose physical integrity cannot be violated, the statement said.

Since Friday, armored vehicles from the SEBIN political police have been parked outside the Argentina ambassador’s residence in a leafy Caracas neighborhood. Electricity to the diplomatic mission was also cut, according to Meda, who has taken to social media to denounce what she fears is an impending raid to arrest her and the other government opponents.

Argentina’s president has been among those leading the charge against Maduro over alleged attempts to steal July’s presidential election. Electoral authorities pronounced Maduro the winner despite strong evidence collected at the ballot boxes by the opposition that it prevailed by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

On Saturday, Milei’s government blasted Venezuela’s “unilateral action.” It also expressed gratitude for Brazil’s continued representation of its interests, indicating it wasn’t in any rush to find a replacement.

In a statement, the foreign ministry said any attempt to raid its ambassadorial residence, and “kidnap” its asylees, would be condemned by the international community.

“Actions like these reinforce the conviction that in Maduro’s Venezuela the fundamental rights of human beings are not respected,” the foreign ministry said.

Brazil has also refused to recognize Maduro as the victor, demanding instead that authorities release a breakdown of results, as is customary in Venezuelan elections.

But unlike Milei, a strident conservative ideologue, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has gingerly tried to avoid antagonizing Maduro to give space for a regional reconciliation effort led by him and fellow leftist leaders from Colombia and Mexico.

That diplomatic effort has so far yielded few results, prompting observers to question its utility. Meanwhile, police have arrested more than 2,400 people in a brutal crackdown on protests and dissent.

This past week, Human Rights Watch issued a report connecting security forces and pro-government armed groups to the killing of several of the 23 protesters who died during the protests. The report was based on forensic analysis of videos shared on social media as well as interviews with witnesses.

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Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman contributed to this report from Miami.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

University of Southern California law student Elizabeth Howell-Egan isn’t allowed on campus because of her role in last spring’s anti-war protests, but she is keeping up her activism.

She and like-minded students are holding online sessions on the Israel-Hamas war and passing out fliers outside the campus, which is now fortified with checkpoints at entrances and security officers who require students to scan IDs.

“Change is never comfortable. You always have to risk something to create change and to create a future that we want to live in,” said Howell-Egan, a member of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which is calling on USC to divest from companies profiting off the war.

The stakes have gone up this fall for students protesting the war in Gaza, as U.S. colleges roll out new security measures and protest guidelines — all intended to avoid disruptions like last spring’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protect students from hate speech. Activism has put their degrees and careers at risk, not to mention tuition payments, but many say they feel a moral responsibility to continue the movement.

Tent encampments — now forbidden on many campuses — so far have not returned. And some of the more involved students from last spring have graduated or are still facing disciplinary measures. Still, activist students are finding other ways to protest, emboldened by the rising death toll in Gaza and massive protests this month in Israel to demand a cease-fire.

Tensions over the conflict have been high on American campuses since the war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 hostage. The war in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 people, according to Gaza health officials.

As the pro-Palestinian demonstrations took off nationally, Jewish students on many campuses have faced hostility, including antisemitic language and signs. Some colleges have faced U.S. civil rights investigations and settled lawsuits alleging they have not done enough to address antisemitism.

A desire ‘to be part of something’

Temple University senior Alia Amanpour Trapp started the school year on probation after being arrested twice last semester during pro-Palestinian protests. Within days, she was back on the university’s radar for another demonstration.

As she reflects on the fallout from her activism, she thinks of her grandfather, a political prisoner killed in 1988 massacres orchestrated by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.

“He paid the ultimate price for what he believed in. And so I feel like the least I can do is stand my ground and face it,” she said.

Trapp, a political science major, devotes much of her time outside classes to Students for Justice in Palestine, which led her to the back-to-school protest on Aug. 29. The group of a few dozen protesters made several stops, including outside the Rosen Center, a hub of Jewish life that is home to Temple’s Hillel Chapter.

Some Jewish students inside said they were shaken by the demonstration. Protesters used megaphones to direct chats toward people inside, Temple President Richard Englert said. The university called it intimidation and opened an investigation.

“Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated,” Englert said.

Trapp said they were not out to intimidate anyone, but to condemn Hillel for what she called its support of Zionism. “To the students inside that felt threatened or harmed, I’m sorry,” she said.

Trapp is appealing a Temple panel’s ruling that she violated the college’s conduct code last spring. As she reflects on the discipline, she recalls a Temple billboard she saw on Interstate 95 after her first visit to campus.

“Because the world won’t change itself,” the ad beckoned. It reassured her that Temple was the right fit. “I so badly wanted to be part of something, you know, meaningful,” she said, “a community committed to change.”

A renewed push for divestment

At Brown University, some students who were arrested last spring are taking another tack to pressure the Ivy League school to divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel.

Last spring, the university committed to an October vote by its governing board on a divestment proposal, after an advisory committee weighs in on the issue. In exchange, student protesters packed up their tents.

Now students including Niyanta Nepal, the student body president who was voted in on a pro-divestment platform, say they intend to apply pressure for a vote in favor of divestment. They are rallying students to attend a series of forums and encouraging incoming students to join the movement.

Colleges have long rebuffed calls to divest from Israel, which opponents say veers into antisemitism. Brown already is facing heat for even considering the vote, including a blistering letter from two dozen state attorneys general, all Republicans.

Rafi Ash, a member of the Brown University Jews For Ceasefire Now and Brown Divest Coalition, declined to say what activism might look like if the divestment push fails. A Jewish student who was among 20 students arrested during a November sit-in at an administrative building, Ash dismisses critics who see the anti-war protests as antisemitic.

“The Judaism I was taught promotes peace. It promotes justice. It promotes ‘tikkun olam’ — repairing the world,” said Ash, who is on disciplinary probation. “This is the most Jewish act I can do, to stand up for justice, for everyone.”

Barred from campus, but strategizing on protests

For Howell-Egan, the crackdown at USC and her suspension only deepened her desire to speak out.

“Even with this threat of USC imposing sanctions and disciplinary measures, I am at peace with it because I am standing up for something that is important,” Howell-Egan said. “There are no more universities in Gaza. We are in an incredibly privileged position for this to be our risk.”

She is not allowed to attend in-person classes because she was suspended in May for joining protests at the private school in Los Angeles.

There has been a trend of heavier punishments for students engaging in activism than in the past, including banishment from campus and suspensions that keep students “in limbo for months,” said Tori Porell, an attorney with the nonprofit Palestine Legal, which has supported student protesters facing disciplinary measures. Howell-Egan sees it as part of a strategy to stifle free speech.

In a memo this month, USC President Carol Folt said the campus has seen peaceful protests and marches for years. “However, the spring semester brought incidents that tested our values, disregarded our policies, sparked fears, and required unprecedented safety measures,” she said.

For now the focus of the USC Divest Coalition, which includes several student organizations, has moved off campus, to incorporate the wider community and take a cautious approach as students get a handle on the university’s new rules, Howell-Egan said.

In addition to the community outreach, students have been holding teach-ins.

“The idea is to raise our skill set and our understanding of where we stand in this moment, and where we are in this fight,” Howell-Egan said, “especially as we continue with it.”

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