In the News

Canada's Department of National Defence is taking steps to "green" defence infrastructure and reduce its carbon footprint while providing military personnel with sustainable and efficient facilities in which to work and train.

A European Union plan to phase out sales of new cars with internal combustion engines by 2035 is facing pushback from France, which wants a more flexible approach and an extension for hybrid vehicles. French President Emmanuel recently met with company and union representatives to discuss an eventual transition to electric vehicles.

Mounting concern about Chinese influence The European Union’s foreign ministers are pressing for more global linkages as a potential counter to China's Belt and Road Initiative to link Asia with Europe. “We must offer alternatives,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass told reporters July 12. “It is important that the European Union . . . coordinates them very closely with the United States.”

North Korea’s foreign ministry is promoting a claim that offers of aid, including coronavirus vaccines, are a part of a plot to influence other governments. It has posted an ostensibly independent commentary that the offer “vividly reveals that the American ulterior intention of linking ‘humanitarian assistance’ with ‘human rights issue’ is to legitimise their pressure on the sovereign states and achieve their sinister political scheme.”

Faced with pushback from some provinces, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government is developing an “internationally accepted proof of vaccination” for international travel, it’s up to the provinces to handle travel within Canada. “Different provinces will be doing different things.”

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has flatly rejected suggestions that his province follow other provinces’ lead on introducing documents showing proof of COVID-19 vaccination. “We will not facilitate or accept vaccine passports,” he said July 12. “I believe they would in principle contravene the Health Information Act and also possibly the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.”

A Manitoba judge hearing a case brought by groups opposed to COVID-19 restrictions was followed by a private investigator looking for potential breaches of those limits by the judge. The lawyer representing several rural churches and individuals, admitted in court July 12 that he had hired the investigator but insisted it was not an attempt to influence the judge’s decision.

Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways have been ordered by the federal government to step up their fire prevention efforts as wildfires continue to scorch British Columbia. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said July 11 that the companies must ensure a 60-minute response time to any fires detected along their rights-of-way.

After another major international ransomware attack by Russian hackers, U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened President Vladimir Putin with unspecified “consequences” if he fails to intervene. “I made it very clear to him that the United States expects when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil, even though it's not, not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information,” Biden said July 9.

Members of a Taliban delegation visiting Moscow said today that the “Islamic emirates” control 85 per cent of Afghanistan’s territory and about 250 of the country’s 398 districts. One also said the government in Kabul controls only the administrative centres.

Five rounds of voting over two days at a virtual meeting of the Assembly of First Nations has given the organization its first female national chief. RoseAnne Archibald, a former Ontario regional chief, eventually prevailed when her main rival conceded. bowed out. A member of the Taykwa Tagamou Nation in northern Ontario, she was the first woman and youngest chief of the TTN in 1990 at the age of 23.

Even if a significant number of Canadian become fully-vaccinated against COVID-19, health officials now are considering the possibility that booster shots will be needed as more aggressive variants emerge. There’s general consensus that the current two-shot regime offers excellent protection but experts have questions about the duration of that protection.

A report that the U.S. is revoking three times as many NEXUS cards as Canada has prompted former deputy prime minister John Manley, who negotiated the trusted traveller program, to call for a review of how they are managed. “It's stunning that the numbers are as great as they are and the exercise of the authority to cancel is being done in a manner that seems somewhat capricious and unjustified,”, he said July 7. “I think it would be only with pressure from Canada that the U.S. would change their procedures.”

Volkswagen and BMW were respectively fined €502 million and €373 million today by the European Commission for colluding to curb the use of emissions-cleaning technology the companies developed a decade ago. “This is a first,” European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. “We have never had a cartel whose purpose was to restrict the use of novel technology.”

Mary Simon, the Quebec Inuk leader and seasoned diplomat nominated as the next Governor General, is vigorously defending herself against predictable criticism that she doesn’t speak French. “Based on my experience growing up in Quebec, I was denied the chance to learn French during my time in the federal government day schools,” she says. Fluent in Inuktituk and English, she is “firmly committed” to learn Canada’s other official language.

Former South African president Jacob Zuma presented himself to police today to begin serving a 15-month jail term for contempt of court. He had defied a court order to testify before a judicial commission investigating widespread allegations of corruption during his time in office.

A business and environmental strategy designed to promote hydrogen as a renewable and low-carbon energy source has been rolled out by the B.C. government. Bruce Ralston, minister of energy, mines and low carbon innovation, said July 6 that short-term goals include regional supply hubs and measures to increase the numbers of medium and heavy-duty vehicles powered by hydrogen. His department estimates the gas could reduce the province’s annual carbon emissions by 7.2 million tonnes by 2050.

The heightened U.S. military presence along the border with Mexico is entering its fourth year with as many as 3,000 troops deployed through September 2022. They comprise mainly National Guard units controlled by U.S. Northern Command.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada suspects that the failure of a critical Bell Helicopter rotor pin caused the death June 28 of a B.C. pilot fighting forest fires in Alberta last week. In an emergency airworthiness directive, the board says failure of the component frees the rotor head and blades to separate from the aircraft.

Trying to deflect international condemnation of its own human rights record, China is urging the UN Human Rights Council to carry out a “thorough and impartial investigation” into Canada’s treatment of indigenous peoples after the remains of hundreds of children were found in former residential schools. “Simply apologizing is not enough,” Jiang Duan, China’s representative on the Geneva-based council, said July 6. “Canada must take actual actions to correct its mistakes,”

A decades-old and periodically revived proposal to upgrade passenger rail service between Toronto and Quebec City was brought back to life again July 5 by the federal government. Costing up to $12 billion and scheduled for completion by 2030, it would include some rights-of-way designated for passenger traffic rather than the current delay-plagued mix which gives goods traffic priority.

As various jurisdictions, including the U.S. and Britain, plan to ease mask and social distancing requirements even as the aggressive COVID-19 Delta variant spreads, the World Health Organization says local conditions must be considered. “That should only be done in the context of considering both the intensity of transmission in the area and the level of vaccine coverage,” says Dr. Mike Ryan, the Irish epidemiologist who heads the WHO Health Emergency Program.

Sixteen members of three indigenous families have filed a constitutional challenge in B.C. Supreme Court over the federal government’s cancellation of their ancestors’ status in the 1800s. The government says the program was voluntary but the plaintiffs argue that their families, trying to keep children out of residential schools, were coerced.

Effective today, Canadians and permanent residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer must quarantine for two weeks, and eligible air travellers are exempt from having to spend their first three days in Canada in a government-approved hotel. All must use the ArriveCAN app or web portal prior to departure to log COVID-19 vaccination details as well as the results of a negative test less than three days old. However, the Canada Border Services Agency says travellers ineligible to travel before today still would not be able to enter the country.

About 200 U.S. companies using the services of a Florida-based IT company, Kaseya, have been hit by a “colossal” ransomware attack. The cybersecurity company, Huntress Labs, says the July 2 hack by a suspected Russia group was spread through corporate networks which used Kasey’s software.

Facing widespread international condemnation of his country’s human rights record, Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed that any attempts by the West to interfere would mean “heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.” The Community Party leader also use the party’s centennnial celebrations last week to claim responsibility for the “great rejuvenation” of his country.

European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager expects a levy on hundreds of digital companies to offset some of the cost of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Commenting on an OECD agreement on a minimum 15 per cent tax, she said the European Union would follow suit but did not say at what rate.

The Turkish government has officially withdrawn from an international treaty to prevent violence against women, a convention signed in Istanbul in 2011. President Tayyip Erdogan had announced the decision in March and this week a court rejected an appeal.

Two former allies of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic were convicted June 29 of having aided and abetted crimes committed by Serb paramilitaries in a Bosnian town in 1992. Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic originally were acquitted in 2013 but that was overturned on appeal in 2015, setting the stage for retrial at the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague.

The federal government’s omnibus budget implementation bill and a couple of key pieces of legislation were approved by the Senate only a few hours before adjourning June 29 for the summer. Other bills that cleared the Upper House included one to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century and another to amend the Broadcasting Act.

The annual cost of dealing with natural disasters attributable to extreme weather now averages $1.9 billion or nearly five times as much as a decade ago, and Natural Resources Canada says current efforts to address the impact on infrastructure are “insufficient in the face of rapidly accumulating social and economic losses” and “the window to reduce increasingly severe impacts is rapidly closing.”

A New Brunswick couple who “purposefully drove around the check stop” on the bridge to Prince Edward Island despite COVID-19 rules have been charged with various offences by PEI police. They were eventually found in Charlottetown where police say they were “uncooperative and would not identify themselves.”

With U.S. plans to withdraw 4,000 troops from Afghanistan well on track, nearly 1,000 are expected to stay, mostly providing diplomatic security but also helping Turkish forces to protect Kabul Airport until its NATO ally sets up a formal security arrangement.

Sending a strong message that Canada will not tolerate hate-based violence, the Government of Canada has placed four new terrorist entities, which includes one individual, on the Criminal Code list.