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Who ‘discovered Canada’? Quebec says French explorer over Indigenous people: survey

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OTTAWA, W.Va. — Quebecers are more inclined to say Jacques Cartier — or even Christopher Columbus — “discovered Canada,” compared to the rest of the country, which points to Indigenous people, a new survey suggests.

The results are based on a web study the polling firm Leger did for the Association for Canadian Studies from July 8 to 10, in which it asked a series of questions around historical narratives in the country.

The survey found that when asked the open-ended question of “who discovered Canada,” 21 per cent of overall respondents named Indigenous people. Some 16 per cent offered up the name of Jacques Cartier, the French explorer who made several voyages to the country’s shores and waterways beginning in 1534.

The survey reports another 15 per cent of respondents said they didn’t know.

It says a remainder named a mix of the Vikings, Christopher Columbus and Samuel de Champlain, another explorer credited for the founding of Quebec and helping colonize the region for France.

The survey polled 1,764 Canadians and cannot be assigned a margin of error because online polls are not considered truly random samples.

When the results were broken down by age, those 18 to 54 tended to say Indigenous Peoples in higher numbers than those 55 and older.

The concept of “discovery” is one that has been challenged as of late, most recently during Pope Francis’ visit to Canada.

The 85-year-old pontiff faced repeated calls last month to denounce a series of edicts, known as papal bulls, dating back to the 15th century, which countries used to justify colonizing lands thought to be uninhabited when in fact they were home to Indigenous people.

The survey suggests a divide between how residents in Quebec and the rest of the country approach the question of “who discovered Canada.”

It reports 46 per cent of Quebecers credit Cartier for Canada’s discovery, compared to 11 per cent in the province who picked Indigenous people.

By contrast, results show 20 per cent or higher of respondents across British Columbia, Altanic Canada, the Prairies, Alberta and Ontario chose Indigenous people, while less than 10 per cent from each picked Cartier.

Association president Jack Jedwab says inside Quebec there appears to be a greater tendency to see the country through the lens of French and English nations.

“Whereas in the rest of Canada now, there’s this movement to see the country more from the lens of three founders,” including Indigenous people, he says.

“There’s more exposure to that perspective than there is in Quebec,” he adds.

When it comes to Columbus, the survey reports 20 per cent of Quebec respondents saw him as discovering Canada, compared to less than 15 per cent of all respondents from other regions polled.

Jedwab says the fact Columbus was picked at all is “worrisome.”

“I don’t know what they’re reading, but clearly that’s not something you’d find in any Canadian history text.”

The survey also asked Canadians whether they believe they live on unceded territory — lands Indigenous people never legally surrendered to government authorities.

Of all respondents, it says 66 per cent answered “no,” compared to 34 per cent who said “yes.”

According to its regional breakdown, the survey found nearly 60 per cent of respondents in B.C. — the highest of any area — said they lived on unceded Indigenous territory, compared to almost 44 per cent who said they didn’t.

Survey results show the lowest was in Quebec, where only around 20 per cent of residents said they lived on unceded territory compared to 79 per cent who didn’t.

Unlike other provinces, most of B.C. is considered to be unceded Indigenous territory. When the province joined Confederation in 1871, its government didn’t recognize Indigenous title and did not see a need for treaties.

Jedwab believes the findings suggest varying levels of awareness residents in different provinces have around Indigenous land issues.

For example, he points out that political leaders in Quebec rarely do Indigenous land acknowledgments.

“When people are doing the land acknowledgment, there’s a reminder, a built-in reminder, about the founding of the country … and what it was founded upon.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 25, 2022.

 

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

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Third deer infected with chronic wasting disease in B.C.

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VICTORIA – A new case of chronic wasting disease, an incurable illness that has the potential to decimate deer populations, has been identified in British Columbia. 

The B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship says the discovery of the infection in a white-tailed deer hunted in the Kootenay region last month brings the total number of confirmed cases in the province to three, after two cases were confirmed in February. 

It says testing by a Canadian Food Inspection Agency lab confirmed the latest infection on Wednesday.

The ministry says the new case occurred within two kilometres of one of the earlier infections in a white-tailed deer near Cranbrook.

Wasting disease affects deer, elk, moose and caribou. It attacks their central nervous system and causes cell death in the brain.

The ministry says there is no treatment or vaccine and the disease is always fatal.

The ministry says there is no direct evidence the disease can be transmitted to humans, but Health Canada recommends people do not eat meat from an infected animal, since cooking is not able to destroy the abnormal protein that causes the illness. 

In July, the B.C. government introduced mandatory testing for the disease in deer, elk and moose killed in certain zones in the Kootenay region.

The first two cases identified in B.C. were a male mule deer killed by a hunter and a female white-tailed deer killed in a road accident.

Other steps included removing urban deer from Cranbrook and Kimberley.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024. 

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Northvolt says Quebec battery plant will proceed despite bankruptcy filing

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MONTREAL – Northvolt AB has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, but said the move will not jeopardize the manufacturer’s planned electric vehicle battery plant in Quebec — though hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars invested in the parent company could be lost.

Amid a sputtering global market for EVs, the Sweden-based outfit and several subsidiaries filed for a court-supervised reorganization of its debt and assets under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code.

However, Northvolt said its Canadian subsidiary is financed separately and “will continue to operate as usual outside of the Chapter 11 process.”

The Northvolt plant, dubbed Northvolt Six and slated for construction about 25 kilometres east of Montreal, amounts to a $7-billion undertaking that aims to churn out battery cells and cathode active material for electric vehicles.

“I see no reason today to think that we won’t do it as planned,” said Paolo Cerruti, Northvolt co-founder and CEO of Northvolt North America, which oversees the project, in an interview.

“Activity on the site is daily and very intense, and there are trucks every day and around 150 people working.”

Nonetheless, concerns around Northvolt’s financial solvency have raised questions about a project to which Quebec and Ottawa have pledged $2.4 billion in funding.

“This was not the desired scenario, no one is hiding it, we would have liked it to proceed differently,” said Quebec Economy Minister Christine Fréchette at a news conference Thursday.

The province granted Northvolt a $240-million secured loan to help buy the land for the plant in Quebec’s Montérégie region.

The government also invested $270 million in parent company Northvolt AB.

“If there’s an amount at risk, it’s this one,” Fréchette said. She noted that “we’ll have an idea of the future of this amount” only when the restructuring process wraps up.

The province has no intention of investing more money in Northvolt, the minister added.

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the province’s pension fund manager, has also poured $200 million into the Swedish company.

In September, Northvolt announced it would shrink its operations in Europe and lay off 1,600 employees in Sweden, or about one-fifth of its workforce.

The company recently sold its site in Borlänge, Sweden, where it was poised to build a factory for cathode materials — metal oxides that comprise a key component of the lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars.

Last month, Cerruti suggested the company may have been overly ambitious, but said it had no intention of asking the provincial or federal governments for more money for its planned battery plant in southwest Quebec.

“Northvolt Six is an essential component of the company’s future and we remain fully committed to seeing it through,” he said in a statement Thursday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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S&P/TSX composite index gains more than 350 points, U.S. stock markets also rise

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TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index gained more than 350 points Thursday in a broad rally led by energy and technology stocks, while U.S. markets also rose, led by a one-per-cent gain on the Dow. 

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 354.22 points at 25,390.68.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 461.88 points at 43,870.35. The S&P 500 index was up 31.60 points at 5,948.71, while the Nasdaq composite was up 6.28 points at 18,972.42.

The Nasdaq lagged an otherwise decent day for Wall St., rising just 0.03 per cent as it was dragged down by Google parent Alphabet and some of its tech giant peers. 

The tech company’s stock fell 4.6 per cent after U.S. regulators asked a judge to break it up by forcing a sale of the Chrome web browser. 

Amazon shares traded down 2.2 per cent while Meta and Apple both moved lower as well. 

After a substantial run for major tech stocks this year, that kind of news “shakes people a bit,” said John Zechner, chairman and lead equity manager at J. Zechner Associates.

Meanwhile, semiconductor giant Nvidia saw its stock tick up modestly by 0.5 per cent after it reported earnings Wednesday evening.

The company yet again beat expectations for profit and revenue, and gave a better revenue forecast for the current quarter than expected. 

But expectations for Nvidia have been so high amid the optimism over artificial intelligence that even beating forecasts wasn’t enough to send its stock flying the way it has in previous quarters, said Zechner. 

Nvidia essentially caps earnings season in the U.S., with companies largely beating expectations, said Zechner — though those expectations weren’t exactly lofty for companies outside the tech and AI sphere, he added. 

The Dow led major U.S. markets as the post-election hopes for economic growth continued to fuel a broadening of market strength, said Zechner. 

There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, said Zechner, and there’s no guarantee he will do what he’s promised.

“There’s a lot of unknowns, but for now the markets seem to be assuming that whatever comes of this, the U.S. will continue to lead global growth,” he said. 

However, some of Trump’s promises — chief among them widespread tariffs on imports — have sparked bets that inflation may rear its head again.

The market has pared back its expectations for interest rate cuts as a result, said Zechner. 

“Nobody’s talking about a half-point cut, that’s for sure,” he said. 

The Canadian dollar traded for 71.63 cents US compared with 71.46 cents US on Wednesday.

The January crude oil contract was up US$1.35 at US$70.10 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was up nine cents at US$3.48 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$23.20 at US$2,674.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was down three cents at US$4.13 a pound.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD) 

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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