Liberal MPs pushed back against a motion calling on the public safety minister to set a date before the Christmas break for the government to announce its long-delayed decision on whether to ban Huawei from Canada’s 5G infrastructure.
The motion was introduced by Tory MP Raquel Dancho during a meeting of the Liberal-dominated Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Dec. 14.
Enbridge seeks federal jurisdiction in U.S. Great Lakes oil pipeline dispute
TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. – Enbridge Energy moved Wednesday to shift to federal court a Michigan lawsuit seeking shutdown of an oil pipeline that runs beneath a channel linking two of the Great Lakes.
The Canadian company argued that a 2019 lawsuit filed in a state court by Attorney General Dana Nessel should be heard by U.S. District Judge Janet Neff, who last month retained jurisdiction over a separate case initiated by Enbridge to keep oil flowing through its Line 5.
But Nessel said the “outrageous maneuver” violates a federal rule that moving cases from one court to another must be done within 30 days of the initial filing.
Canadians are living through two health-care crises: COVID, which dominates the headlines, but also unacceptably long wait times for virtually all medical services. In 2021, Canadians could expect to wait an estimated 25.6 weeks on average — essentially half a year — between referral from a family physician and medically necessary treatment. Though lengthened by COVID, these waits have far more to do with long-standing failures of domestic policy than with the global pandemic.
For former Officer Kim Potter, life boils down to a trial.
As things stand, she’s accused of murdering Daunte Wright when she pulled her firearm instead of her taser. I don’t even want to imagine what a murder trial is like if you’re the one accused of it.
However, most of us have seen what happened. The bodycam footage was out there and Potter did what she’s accused of doing–killing Wright. What’s in question is pretty much everything else.
Nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers have refused the COVID-19 vaccine, the Pentagon said Thursday, potentially setting the stage for thousands of Army personnel to be pushed out of the service in the coming weeks.
A day after its Dec. 15 vaccination deadline, the Army said 468,459 active-duty soldiers have received at least one dose of the vaccine, or about 98%. About 96% of soldiers are fully vaccinated.
Man seeks help from NASA experts over lost bitcoins
A UK programmer has been desperately trying for eight years to recover his old hard drive containing a password to a digital wallet. He is now in talks with a company that helped NASA recover data from an exploded space shuttle.
James Howells from South Wales mined bitcoins at the time when it cost almost nothing and the cryptocurrency was known only in narrow tech circles. He managed to accumulate some 7,500 bitcoins – now worth more than $350 million.
A special cryptographic private key for getting access to bitcoins was kept on a hard drive, which was accidentally thrown into the Docksway landfill site near Newport, Wales, in 2013. The man thought the device from his old computer contained nothing but rubbish.
TORONTO, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Canada’s Supreme Court said on Thursday it will hear an appeal seeking to overturn a pact with the United States under which Canada turns back asylum-seekers at land border crossings coming from the United States.
As a result, refugee advocates will have a chance to make their case against the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement in Canada’s highest court.
Under the agreement, signed in 2002, asylum-seekers presenting at U.S.-Canada border crossings are turned back and told to apply for refugee status in the first country in which they arrived.
A few weeks ago, a Sri Lankan factory worker was lynched by a mob in Sialkot, a city in Pakistan, before his corpse was left to burn in the street. He had been accused of blasphemy for removing posters that bore prayers eulogising Muhammad. Hundreds gathered to participate in the barbarity, while the local authorities stood by. Videos of the man’s body being torched circulated widely on social media.
This was Pakistan’s third blasphemy-related incident in just seven days.
A Lethbridge dad who fed his children “vaccine misinformation” has lost his battle to prevent them from getting shots.
In a written ruling posted Wednesday, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Johnna Kubik sided with the two children’s mother and said she could go ahead and get them inoculated.
OTTAWA — Defence Minister Anita Anand says while the Liberal government’s promise to provide a 200-soldier force to United Nations peacekeeping “is not off the table,” it is being considered alongside Canada’s many other international priorities.
… That is despite the UN having said it needs such forces now, and the U.S. having asked Canada last month to fulfil its commitment.
A thong shortage tops my list of possible reasons for the lack of action.
The Polish government has released more footage of illegal migrants trying to cross the frontier from Belarus, hurling objects and insults at border guards.
Thousands of mostly Middle Eastern and South Asian migrants have been pressing upon the borders of Poland and the neighbouring Baltic States of Lithuania and Latvia — all members of the European Union and NATO — for months, having been allowed into Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus as tourists with the express purpose of having them head west as migrants to destabilise the EU.
Ontario could see intensive care capacity reach unsustainable levels in January without an “immediate circuit breaker” to blunt the spread of Omicron, modelling suggests.
… The experts suggest an “immediate circuit breaker,” where people in Ontario cut their contacts by at least 50 per cent and booster campaigns ramp up to 250,000 shots per day.
Citing unreasonable delays in a national-security case, a judge has stayed the eight-year-long criminal prosecution of a man accused by CSIS and the RCMP of trying to leak state secrets to China.
Justice Michael Dambrot of the Ontario Superior Court said he would release his reasoning in the coming days.
Pending an appeal, the decision Wednesday ends Canada’s marathon prosecution of Qing Quentin Huang, an Ontario shipbuilding engineer. In 2013, he was charged under the Security of Information Act (SOIA) after authorities alleged he was caught on tape trying “to communicate to a foreign entity information that the Government of Canada was taking measures to safeguard.”
Canada’s national vaccine injury compensation program has released new numbers revealing how many Canadians have reported severe adverse reactions from a Health Canada-authorized COVID-19 vaccine and requested compensation.
The Vaccine Injury Support Program was first announced in December 2020 and officially launched in June 2021. While serious reactions to vaccines are extremely rare — less than one in a million, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) — they have happened.
So they’re stickin it to ya twice.
Ontario reports 2,421 new COVID-19 cases; highest daily tally in 7 months
The province logged 2,421 new infections today, up significantly from 1,808 yesterday and the highest single-day case count since May 15 when 2,584 new cases were reported.
Among the latest cases, the Ministry of Health says 1,530 of the cases are among fully vaccinated people, while 686 are unvaccinated, 72 are partially vaccinated and 133 have an unknown vaccination status.
Federal and provincial governments preparing for Omicron variant spread
Governments across Canada are bracing for the possible effects of the Omicron variant as COVID-19 case numbers rise sharply in some provinces and around the world.
As Ontario reported 1,808 new cases Wednesday, Premier Doug Ford announced that starting Monday all adults will be eligible for booster shots, provided it has been at least three months since their second dose.
Omicron: Will tougher measures stop the spread of Omicron?
… Much has been made of suggestions that this variant is causing milder illness. In South Africa, reports are emerging that people are not as seriously ill in this wave as they were in earlier ones.
There is still uncertainty about this. But it is logical. Not because the virus has changed to become less severe, but because reinfections and infections post-vaccination are likely to be milder.
The immune system now recognises this virus and while it may not be able to prevent infection, it knows how to fight it.
Just Vaxxed or Vaxxed and boosted it seems you can still be infected but symptoms may be mild to none for most. The ease of transmission spells trouble for the immune compromised unfortunately. Lets hope the seniors and ill are looked after this Christmas.
