In the News

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has been tasked by the Prime Minister with reviewing the RCMP’s contract policing services, which it currently provides to some 150 municipalities and the northern territories as well as in all provinces except Ontario and Quebec. The review is in response to long-standing complaints about racism and use of force in some areas.

Digital assets worth some $400 million were stolen in at least seven North Korean hacks last year, says New York-based Chainalysis Inc. Calling 2021 one of the most successful years on record, the software company said “the value extracted . . . grew by 40 per cent” from 2020 when four hacks were recorded.

Britain’s domestic counterintelligence and security agency, MI5, says an alleged Chinese agent has infiltrated Parliament to interfere in U.K. politics. It said in an official alert this week that Christine Ching Kui Lee had “established links” for the Chinese Communist Party with current and aspiring MPs, including donations linked to China and Hong Kong. Barry Gardner, a former member of the Labour shadow cabinet member reported to have received more than £420,000 over five years, said he had always made security services aware of the funding.

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the administration’s proposal to require companies with more than 100 employees to have them vaccinated against the coronavirus or at least be tested weekly. However, in its Jan. 13 ruling, the court did permit a requirement that workers at federally-supported healthcare works should be vaccinated.

While some jurisdictions are easing pandemic restrictions, other parts of Canada are clamping down, depending on their governments’ perceptions of whether the coronavirus curve is flattening or has yet to peak.

A Vancouver-based health services provider said Jan. 13 that homeless and vulnerable people have offered payment to be vaccinated against the coronavirus by persons trying to fraudulently obtain a vaccine card. “This behaviour is deplorable and we're disappointed that anyone would take advantage of vulnerable people in this way,” Vancouver Coastal health said, warning that “future instances of fraud may be forwarded to local police authorities.”

Contrary to a CBSA spokesperson’s statement the previous day, the government said Jan. 13 that all truckers entering Canada from the U.S. must be fully vaccinated against coronavirus as of Jan. 15. “The information shared yesterday was provided in error,” the health, transport and public ministers said. “Our teams have been in touch with industry representatives to ensure they have the correct information.”

Canada is signing on with Mexico's official request for arbitration to resolve a claim that the U.S. is violating the trilateral 2019 trade agreement by insisting on “all American” electric vehicles. with its stance on automobile parts. “A dispute settlement panel will help ensure a timely resolution,” International Trade and Export Promotion Minister Mary Ng said today.

Anwar Raslan, a former Syrian security officer, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a German court today of crimes against humanity. Having entered Germany on a visa in 2014 and arrested five years later, he was accused of overseeing a detention center in Damascus where prosecutors said thousands of prisons were tortured and dozens killed during the ongoing civil war.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is worried that the alliance’s failure to achieve a breakthrough over Russia’s military buildup along Ukraine’s borders could lead to war. He said Jan. 12 that the talks had come at “a defining moment for European security” because “significant differences between allies and Russia . . . will not be easy to bridge” and “there is a real risk for a new armed conflict in Europe.”

The International Energy Agency said today that Canada needs more electrical generating capacity to meet the government’s stated emissions reduction and climate change targets. “Canada's wealth of clean electricity and its innovative spirit can help drive a secure and affordable transformation of its energy system and help realize its ambitious goals,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said. However, even with 83 per cent of its power coming from non-emitting power, more was needed.

The Bulgarian government’s coronavirus passport initiative resulted in a mass demonstration orchestrated by the ultra-nationalist Revival party outside the parliament in Sofia Jan. 12. They managed to reach the front doors before they were pushed back by police, some of whom were injured.

Federal Court Associate Chief Justice Jocelyne Gagné says RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki failed to fulfill her obligations under the RCMP Act to respond “as soon as feasible” to findings by the Civilian Review and Complaints. “It is in the public interest to have a police oversight institution that functions properly and is unobstructed,” Gagné says. Her ruling flows from the fact that it took the CRCC six years to act on a B.C. Civil Liberties Association complaint that the RCMP was spying on opponents of a pipeline project.

SolarWinds, a Texas-based IT management and software company, reported Jan. 11 that hackers have supplanted insiders as the largest source of security threats to the U.S. public sector. Some 56 per cent of the 400 respondents to a commissioned survey said the hacker community was a key issue for public sector organizations, followed by careless or untrained insiders at 52 per cent and foreign governments at 47 per cent. Concern evidently was higher at the state and local level than federally.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was told by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Jan. 11 that the west must be ready to impose further economic sanctions against Russia for its military buildup on his country's eastern border. The message was delivered during a telephone call on the eve of today’s NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels.

The World Economic Forum said today that cybersecurity and space are emerging risks to the global economy, adding to existing challenges posed by climate change and the coronavirus pandemic. In its latest Global Risks Report, usually released ahead of the annual Davos gathering of corporate and political leaders, the WEC predicts that the global economy will continue to shrink with richer nations faring better than poorer ones.

Results of a peer-reviewed study published today in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences shows that the world’s oceans last year were at their warmest in recorded history as average temperatures rose for the sixth consecutive year. “The ocean heat content is relentlessly increasing globally, and this is a primary indicator of human-induced climate change,” commented report co-author Kevin Trenberth, distinguished scholar at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The U.S. administration today announced an additional $308 million humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan in a bid to prevent a crisis which has evolved since the Taliban takeover last fall. To be managed by aid organizations, it is to fund shelter, health care, winterization assistance, emergency food aid, water, sanitation and hygiene services.

A First Nation in south-central Alberta is accusing the provincial government of ignoring federal legislation which would enable it to control its own child welfare services. The tribe sought an agreement with the two levels of government in October 2020 under the auspices of Bill C-92, passed by Parliament in June 2019, which permits indigenous jurisdiction. The legislation states that if an agreement isn’t in place within a year of the request, indigenous law takes precedence. Darin Keewatin, executive director of child welfare for the Louis Bull Tribe, says Alberta has refused to cooperate.

Dr. Horacio Arruda, Quebec's director of public health for 12 years, abruptly resigned Jan. 10, citing public resistance to medical advice during the coronavirus pandemic. He explained that “recent remarks made on the credibility of our opinions and on our scientific rigour undoubtedly cause a certain erosion in the adhesion of the population.”

Growing coronavirus cases in Canada, notably the Omicron variant, prompted the U.S. Jan. 10 to advise its citizens to forego travel due to a “very high” risk of infection.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told provincial and territorial premiers Jan. 10 that the federal government has enough coronavirus vaccine to enable all eligible Canadians to receive boosters as well as fourth shots where advised. He also confirmed plans to deliver 140 million rapid tests.

The largest astronomical mirror in space, the $10-billion James Webb telescope, was unfolded on the weekend, two weeks after it was launched toward a distant orbit, the latest stage in a 30-year joint effort by U.S., European and Canadian space agencies. In return for access to data, the Canadian Space Agency has contributed a near-infrared imager/spectrograph and a fine guidance sensor.

Twenty-seven passengers aboard a rowdy Sunwing charter flight to Mexico from Montreal faced a Canada Border Services Agency grilling on their return. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos confirmed the “influencers” return after Sunwing had cancelled their flight home and several other carriers refused to take them. Images and videos from the flight showed passengers ignoring public health measures and other inappropriate behaviours which are now being review by the Quebec government for possible legal action.

Three suspected pirates detained for six weeks aboard a Danish warship after an exchange of gunfire in the Gulf of Guinea were released in a small dinghy off Nigeria after Denmark said it had not been able to find a country in the region which would take them. They were given enough food and fuel to get to shore. Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup said his government’s decision would deter other piracy, adding that if the suspects had been taken to Denmark, there was a “risk that they would not subsequently be deported.”

A University of B.C. think-tank which receives some federal funding is proposing a progressive property tax on homes sold for more than $1 million as part of a plan to subsidize “affordable” housing. Average prices across the country in November were at a record $720,000 but even so, sales also continued at record levels.

Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced today to four more years in prison for what the military-run government says was illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions. The 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate was sentenced last month to four years on two other charges and while that was halved, trials on other charges are pending.

New European Union analysis of climate change data indicates that the last seven years have been the seven warmest on record for the planet, and that last year was the fifth-warmest on record. “The really important thing is not get hung up on the ranking of one particular year but rather kind of see the bigger picture.” Freja Vamborg, senior scientist at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said today. “This is quite likely to continue.”

Yet another deadline set by Canada and other countries for talks about a settlement for the families of their citizens killed when Iran shot down Ukrainian Airlines Flight PS752 two years ago has been ignored by Tehran. The International Co-ordination and Response Group said Jan. 6 that “further attempts to negotiate with Iran on reparations for the destruction of Flight PS752 at this time are futile.” That has led to suggestions that the next steps could be working through the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization or eventually the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Federal Health Minister Yves Duclos suggested today that mandatory vaccination is the only practicable way to stop the coronavirus pandemic but Alberta and Saskatchewan said immediately that it is not on their agenda. “Our health care system in Canada is fragile, our people are tired,” Duclos said. “The only way that we know to get through COVID-19, this variant and any future variant, is through vaccination.”

Without naming his predecessor once in a 25-minute speech Jan. 6, U.S. President Joe Biden accused Donald Trump and his supporters of “holding a “dagger at the throat of democracy” with lies that sparked a mob assault on the U.S. Capitol a year earlier. “For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” he said. “The former president . . . has spread a web of lies about the 2020 election.”

The federal government is sending 140 million more coronavirus rapid antigen tests to the provinces and territories as cases of the Omicron variant continue to stress health services across the country. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Jan. 5 that the kits were being allocated per capita by the local governments.

French President Emmanuel Macron is accused of using divisive, vulgar language when he said he wanted to make life difficult for people who refuse coronavirus vaccinations. “I really want to piss them off, and we'll carry on doing this - to the end,” he said. Critics said his language was unworthy of a leader three months ahead of an election and MPs immediately halted debate on proposed law which would bar the unvaccinated from much of public life.

The northern Chinese city of Xi’an, under a tight coronavirus lockdown for the past two weeks, is reported to have seen a reduction in the number of new cases among its 13 million residents. The National Health Commission said Jan. 5 that there had been only 35 new cases compared with 95 the day before and that there has been a steady decline since daily cases topped 100.