Passengers travelling through Terminal 3 at Toronto Pearson International Airport are reporting serious baggage delays as the airport struggles to catch up from a broken luggage belt.
Images from the terminal show a sea of unclaimed bags sitting in the baggage area.
One viewer who sent CP24 video of the bags said workers described the situation as “beyond disaster.”
Pearson airport is having a flea market! pic.twitter.com/ihmIHiBAuf
— stephen.patrick (@stephen_kr) December 26, 2022
Nearly half of Canadians want there to be a federal election in 2023, according to a new poll from Ipsos.
While the deadline for the federal election is 2025, the NDP has agreed to keep the Liberal minority government in power until then as long as it abides by the terms of the governance deal struck between the two parties earlier this year.
OTTAWA – Canada’s international development minister is calling on the Taliban to reverse its decision to bar women from working at non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan.
Harjit Sajjan’s comments come as several major international aid groups announce plans to suspend operations in the country taken over by the Taliban, a listed terrorist entity, in August 2021.
Millions have been thrown into poverty since then and and are now facing hunger, with the United Nations estimating as many as six million Afghans are currently at risk of famine. The International Committee of the Red Cross has also reported an increase in malnutrition and pneumonia among children, with concerns only mounting given the onset of winter.
A new law in the province of Alberta radically circumscribes federal authority, advancing the agenda of the province’s far-right secessionist movement.
OTTAWA — In the heavily conservative western prairie province of Alberta, Canada, many residents, especially those on the far right, chafed at the Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the Liberal federal government in Ottawa, the country’s capital.
The widespread resentment helped fuel the enormous truck blockade this year that disrupted trade with the United States and paralyzed Ottawa for a month.
Now, oil-rich Alberta has ratcheted up the long-running schism between western and eastern Canada by approving a bill allowing the province to ignore any federal laws and regulations it opposes, a move some critics described as an unconstitutional threat to the basic fabric of the country’s government.
Danielle Smith told Albertans regarding a mandate for all-electric new car sales by 2035 that ‘I will make sure you have a choice when it comes to the vehicle you drive — the NDP and Liberals can butt out.’
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said heck “no” to a new federal mandate that will require all new cars sold after 2035 to be “zero emission” electric (EVs) vehicles and promised that Albertans will always have the choice to buy gasoline-powered cars.
“The Liberal-NDP plan to outlaw non-electric vehicles will drive up vehicle costs and take away your freedom to choose what vehicle makes sense for you and your family,” Smith said in a statement posted Thursday on social media.
Foreign Powers Using ‘High Profile’ Individuals to Influence Federal Officials: Government Document
High-profile Canadians may be receiving payment from foreign countries in exchange for advancing their political interests, according to a question period briefing note from the Department of Public Safety. The document has been made public amidst increased scrutiny on China’s interference efforts in Canada.
The note, titled “Foreign Interference” and dated Jan. 19, says foreign governments and entities “regularly seek to influence Government of Canada’s policies, officials or democratic processes” using lawful means, such as through diplomacy.
It adds, however, that some foreign efforts to influence Canadian institutions and officials are done covertly.
… Some may respond, “If Americans won’t work, let’s bring in immigrants who will.” But consider the implications of this argument. It’s well established that the decline in labor-force participation is associated with a host of undesirable outcomes: substance abuse, welfare dependency, poor mental health, crime, lack of family formation, and early death. The fiscal costs associated with all these problems are paid for by taxpayers. Furthermore, the social disorder that plagues communities where many men do not work isn’t confined to those areas. To be sure, a significant share of the millions of the less-educated Americans who have dropped out of the labor force have made poor choices in life. But they are our fellow Americans, and we have a greater responsibility for them than for prospective immigrants overseas who want to come here.
As critics push Trudeau on China interference, Liberal MP says he has become ‘target’
OTTAWA – Politicians including a Liberal MP and a senator say they fear allegations of Chinese interference in the 2019 federal election will lead to anti-Asian racism.
But opposition critics, including some who say they have borne the brunt of such racism themselves, are accusing them of deflecting legitimate questions that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must answer.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Liberal MP Han Dong suggested that claims of Beijing’s interference have been light on detail.
After a year that saw the highest number of COVID-19 deaths and a massive increase in infections, Canada’s top doctor says more investments are needed to combat misinformation about vaccines and pandemic measures to ensure Canada is ready for possible new variants of concern.
“This is the pandemic that is occurring in (a) full-on social media age, and all of us had to learn how to deal with that as the pandemic evolved. And it’s not easy,” Dr. Theresa Tam said in a year-end interview with Global News.
David Staples: Dr. Theresa Tam is the last person who should complain about COVID-19 misinformation
Canadian paper spreads Holocaust distortion, human rights NGO demands response
A prominent Jewish human rights center criticized Wednesday a Canadian paper’s decision to publish an op-ed by a Ukrainian professor that distorts the Holocaust by demanding equal recognition at the nation’s Holocaust memorial of Slavic people’s suffering at the hands of the Nazis.
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) denounced the Monday article in the Ottawa Citizen by Royal Military College of Canada Prof. Lubomyr Luciuk, in which he called the emphasis on Jewish suffering “discriminatory messaging” and “perpetuating a prejudice.”
From the Citizen article in question – “Luciuk: Ottawa’s National Holocaust Monument must include Ukrainians” … “This becomes even less comprehensible as you discover who is remembered. For example, several hundred Afro-Germans are — yet few, if any, ever ended up here. “
… These women left Canada sometime in the 2010s of their own free will to join ISIS and become part of that Islamist terrorist group’s hellish control over parts of Iraq and Syria. They were witnesses to, if not active participants in, mass murders of the most gruesome kind (ISIS drowned and burned people alive), and mass rape/sexual enslavement (especially of Yazidi girls and women whom ISIS saw as apostates and hence without rights).
After all this it turns out that the Canadian women who thought becoming part of ISIS was a good idea now think that THEY are the victims.
This is like claiming Paul Bernardo is misunderstood.
In Toronto – Etobicoke about 11 AM.
Snow is sticking but not especially heavy, wind is gusting making it suck to be on foot, traffic is light, visibility is fine. Cat is great and feeding his face.
I predict TO will experience much less discombobulation relative to just about everywhere else in the province.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government is not looking at bringing back a federal mask mandate.
The federal government ended mandatory masking for federally regulated industries, such as air and train transportation, in October 2022 — but it still encourages masking in public indoor settings.
Some health experts have been calling for a return to mandatory masking as hospital emergency rooms deal with a surge of viral infections, including COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
On December 23, hundreds will gather at a convention center in Toronto to hear from two dozen “distinguished scholars & presenters” from the Muslim world, as part of the 2022 Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference.
In contrast to the ideological divisions hampering Western Islamist activists this past year, this clerical gathering appears to have avoided the same fate. The Toronto conference contains an impressive array of radicals from a variety of different, competing strains of Sunni Islam and Sunni Islamism.
OTTAWA – Canada is planning to spend $1.8 billion to upgrade its fleet of military search-and-rescue helicopters — nearly double what was originally budgeted.
Defence Minister Anita Anand and Procurement Minister Helena Jaczek announced the sole-sourced deal to upgrade the military’s Cormorant helicopters late this afternoon.
The federal government has been planning to upgrade the Cormorant fleet for years, which will include modernizing its 13 existing helicopters and buying three new ones.
