Canada

Canada’s health system gave me a choice: years of disability, or $22k for private surgery

My hip pain started around 2015, when I was in my mid-30s. It began as stiffness, then a pinch or tweak. My wife Barbara and I live on an acreage in Sturgeon County, Alberta, with our three kids, where we raise a handful of cows and some chickens. So our lives are very active, and I’m also a park maintenance supervisor at a nearby provincial park. That’s a physical job too, maintaining buildings, outhouses and campsites. I wasn’t exactly used to sitting still, and at first I pushed through the pain—I figured it was something minor, and I just did some extra stretching.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, WTF?

Tucker Carlson brought controversy to Danielle Smith’s Calgary — then took her somewhere dicier

Back at work in Alberta after two weeks of vacation, Premier Danielle Smith chose as her first public appearance in 2024 a conversation on stage with Tucker Carlson, the U.S. commentator whose views and remarks became too much for his Fox News bosses to tolerate.

On Tuesday night, they enjoyed a private dinner together in Calgary, these two former mainstream broadcasters, one now a government leader and one who’s fielded speculation about becoming Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate.

“And had the best time, thank you,” Carlson told Smith at the start of their 17 minutes together at his sold-out speaking event. “Thank you for letting me, a rank foreigner, ask you questions.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Tucker Carlson", Canada, WTF?

Islamic group calling for Shariah law cancels Canadian event after U.K. declares it a terrorist entity

The day after an Islamic organization was declared a terrorist group in Britain, the group’s Canadian branch cancelled a conference it was hosting this weekend that was calling for the resurrection of the Muslim caliphate and the imposition of Shariah law.

Hizb ut Tahrir Canada was convening its conference on Saturday in Mississauga, just outside Toronto, called the Khilafah Conference 2024. Khilafah is the Arabic word for caliphate, referring to a Muslim community governed under Islamic law.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Canada, Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West

Canada’s trucker ruling is a victory for civil liberties

For those who have watched or, worse, lived through the onslaught on civil liberties in Canada since the pandemic, there was little sign that the tide would turn. But finally, a major and unambiguous win has been delivered. Yesterday, the country’s Federal Court ruled against the government in a case challenging its February 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act. The judge hearing the case brought by civil liberties groups and two individuals declared that the government overstepped constitutional boundaries in annulling foundational rights, including freedom of expression.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Criminalizing Dissent", Canada

Ottawa Police Prosecutor Vanessa Stewart Likens Detective Helen Grus to Serial Rapist-Murderer Russell Williams

Every time we think that the internal hearing against Ottawa Police Detective Helen Grus can’t get any wilder – Prosecutor Vanessa Stewart yells “HOLD MY BEER!” and once again proves us wrong.

Accompanying her outrageous courtroom behaviour with fashion statements and hi-heeled boots that rival anything seen on Ottawa’s Gladstone Strip, Prosecutor Stewart seems to have little sense of decorum and propriety. Every day she makes the hearing into a theatre of the absurd where the audience can’t even guess at her next act.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China eats weird animals disease", "Criminalizing Dissent", Canada

Unprecedented level of secrecy surrounds costs and work on $80B warship project

National Defence has brought in a new and unprecedented shroud of secrecy around a controversial warship project now estimated to cost taxpayers more than $80 billion.

After withholding documents for almost three years, the Department of National Defence has released nearly 1,700 pages of records that were supposed to outline specific costs and work done so far on the Canadian Surface Combatant program.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, WTF?

70 per cent of Canadians worried they won’t get quality medical attention: poll

OTTAWA – Most Canadians don’t think the quality of health care in their province is likely to improve, a new survey suggests, despite new federal health accords with several provinces designed to quell the health-care crisis unfolding across Canada.

The poll by Leger comes nearly a year after the federal government offered a $196-billion health accord to the provinces to increase health funding and address a growing shortage of health-care workers.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada

Canada sending more equipment to Ukraine as full-scale war with Russia nears 2-year mark

Canada is contributing another $35 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine as the embattled Eastern European country’s allies meet to discuss its future needs, and as Russia’s full invasion edges toward the two-year mark.

Defence Minister Bill Blair, who participated in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) meeting via video link, said Canada is providing 10 Multirole Boats from Zodiac Hurricane Technologies, valued at approximately $20 million.

The rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) are a favourite of Canadian Special Forces for commando operations. The Department of National Defence (DND) says they also can be used for search and rescue, troop and cargo transport, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Ukrainian first lady considers Hunka matter ‘resolved’

Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska believes Ukraine and Canada have put the Yaroslav Hunka affair behind them, she said in her first public comments on the matter since her visit to Canada last fall.

In a Canadian exclusive interview, Zelenska said it was unfortunate the vetting process allowed for a standing ovation in the House of Commons for Hunka — a Ukrainian Canadian who fought with a Nazi unit during the Second World War — during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit in September.

Russia says 74 dead, no survivors, in crash of plane carrying Ukrainian PoWs

A military transport plane that Russia said was carrying 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war to be swapped, crashed Wednesday in a border area near Ukraine.

All aboard were killed, according to Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash, which occurred around 11 a.m in Belgorod region. A special military commission was on the way to the crash site, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Canada

Trudeau announces ‘Team Canada’ approach to U.S. election

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Tuesday that he has assigned two cabinet ministers to lead a new “Team Canada” engagement to ensure Canada and his government are prepared for all possible outcomes from this fall’s United States presidential election.

“Canada-U.S. relations are fundamental for the prosperity and well-being of Canadians,” Trudeau told reporters in Montreal, where he is wrapping up two days of meetings with his cabinet.

No one pays serious attention to Trudeau at home or abroad.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, USA

Trudeau admits he’ll spend your money like a drunken Trudeau to buy next election

Justin Trudeau fends off dire warnings, says he won’t slash federal spending

MONTREAL — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he doesn’t believe in slashing federal spending to please business groups or opposition Conservatives, raising questions about how his Liberal government would meet its own goal to cap annual budget deficits in the coming years.

Speaking to reporters on the final day of the Liberal cabinet retreat ahead of the winter sitting of Parliament, Trudeau brushed aside a recent statement from a prominent corporate lobby group that concludes meeting the goal could require $12 billion in annual spending cuts or increased taxes — far more than the reduction of $15.4 billion the Liberals have pledged to make over the next five years.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, WTF?

Tasha Kheiriddin: Liberals put all their bets on campaigning against … Donald Trump

It’s retreat week for two of Canada’s top three political parties. The Liberal cabinet is hunkered down in Montreal, talking housing, cost of living, and Donald Trump. The NDP caucus is assembled in Edmonton, strategizing on how to squeeze their priorities into the Liberals’ upcoming spring budget.

And the Conservatives? They’re just sitting pretty at the top of the polls, to the consternation of their rivals, who are staring down the barrel of a 2025 election with very few options for turning the tide.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, USA

How a Toronto highway bridge became the centre of Middle East tensions in the city

As the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues in the Middle East, one highway overpass in Toronto has become the centre of local tension and conflict.

The Avenue Road bridge over Highway 401, located in North York, has been the site of several pro-Palestinian demonstrations and, more recently, three arrests.

The location of the bridge rallies has been blasted by Toronto Jewish groups, who allege it has been selected because it is in a neighbourhood with a significant local Jewish population.

They spoke to all 3 members of the fictional “Eglinton-Lawrence and Don Valley For Palestine”  Hamas forgivers club.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Oct 7 2023", Canada, WTF?

1 person in Quebec now has an X gender marker on their driver’s licence

X Thing

Arwyn Jordan Regimbal would have celebrated finally having the correct gender marker on their Quebec driver’s licence, had they not been an exception to the rule.

A year and a half after taking steps to have an X gender marker on their documents, the 23-year-old non-binary person finally got their licence in the mail last Wednesday — a first in the province.

h/t Editor

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, WTF?

B.C., Ontario vow to crack down on diploma mill schools exploiting Trudeau’s mass immigration scam

B.C. and Ontario are vowing to crack down on private post-secondary institutions that are accused of exploiting international students, after the federal government announced Monday it will cap the number of student permits issued in the next two years.

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced the government will reduce the number of student visas by 35 per cent for 2024, stating the goal is in part to target private institutions he described as “the diploma equivalent of puppy mills.”

I don’t believe this for a minute.

A very good explanation of the housing crisis and why the Liberals can’t fix it doing what they’re doing.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Homelessness & Affordability Crisis", "Mass Immigration - Follow the money", Canada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

A Border Wall to the North? Republicans Want to Discuss.

Former President Donald J. Trump paved a path to the presidency in 2016 by calling for a “big, beautiful wall” along the United States border with Mexico.

His 2024 rivals in the Republican primary election, scrapping for every advantage against him, looked north.

Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has frequently told voters that it’s not just the southern border that needs stepped-up enforcement — “it’s the northern border, too.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA