‘Tsunami’ of Indigenous identity fraud cases heading to courts, warns B.C. judge

OTTAWA – A British Columbia judge is warning that what he calls a “tsunami” of Indigenous identity fraud cases is coming to Canadian courts.

Provincial Court Judge David Patterson says that’s driven by the “desire” of non-Indigenous people to access what they deem to be benefits of identifying as Indigenous.

He says judges must be “alive to the issue” and require proof that ensures an offender is entitled to be sentenced as an Indigenous person.

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Eric Lombardi: Canada’s zero-sum economy is turning society ugly

Canada finds itself in the throes of a scarcity crisis that threatens the very fabric of our socioeconomic and cultural tapestry. Plunging housing affordability, declining health-care capacity, surging infrastructure costs, and an economy that has stagnated on a per-person basis are not one-off challenges, but alarming indicators of a country teetering on decline. It is stirring a raucous national dialogue about the economy, and the paths ahead for our future.

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Unsung teen hero who helped end the Second World War honoured

A teenage cook whose heroics onboard a warship helped shorten the Second World War has been honoured in his home town after a public vote.

The regenerated centre of North Shields, North Tyneside, has been named after Thomas Brown, who was awarded the George Medal for helping to retrieve codebooks from a sinking German U-boat in October 1942.

The books were later used to crack the Enigma code by experts at Bletchley Park, enabling the British to decipher Nazi messages.

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If the Trudeau Liberals are annihilated in an election, it will be over housing

Luxury accommodation

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the federal Liberal government will be annihilated unless it pauses its carbon price increase in April. That’s not totally correct.

If the Trudeau Liberal government is annihilated in the next election, on an economic matter, it will be on carbon pricing but also broader, continuing inflation worries. And also concern about Canada’s GDP slumping on a per capita basis. But mostly housing.

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Biden Should be Threatening Qatar and the Terrorists, Not Israel

US President Joe Biden will consider conditioning military supplies to Israel if the Israeli army moves forward with a large-scale invasion of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to four US officials.

Biden has also told MSNBC that a Rafah operation would cross a “red line,” although he balanced that statement with a commitment to support Israel’s right to self-defense.

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Rahim Mohamed: Mélanie Joly visits Israel only to trivialize Hamas’s sexual violence

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, in Israel for a three-day visit this week, found time on Tuesday to deeply offend her hosts, announcing during a stopover in the West Bank that Canada would be putting up $1 million toward investigating allegations of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian women.

“We believe Palestinian women,” Joly wrote in a tweet reiterating the funding pledge.

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