Canada

Canadian residents who require a visa to visit the United States face the longest wait times in the world.

A CBC News analysis of wait times for appointments to obtain U.S. tourist visas shows that while wait times in countries like India and Mexico have been improving since November 2022, wait times in Canada have been getting worse.

Six of the 10 longest wait times around the world were recorded at the U.S. embassy and consulate offices in Canada that offer visa appointments.

Currently, those who apply for a B1/B2 visitor visa appointment in Ottawa or Quebec City face the longest wait times in the world — 850 days. Halifax is not far behind at 840 days, followed by Calgary at 839 days. Getting a visa appointment in Toronto takes 753 days, while in Vancouver it's 731 days.

So why did the Canadian government ramp up their support for an unelected government that was showing themselves to be increasingly more repressive and undemocratic? Maria Cueva of the Quebec-Peru Solidarity Committee provided North Star with an explanation:

"Currently, [Canada] has mining companies that operate there, and the government also sells arms to Peru. That's the point of interest, because we have lots and lots of minerals. That's why they continued their support. And Pedro Castillo's government didn't want to renew the contracts. With Dina Boluarte, they have been renewed. That's it. And the people don't want the mines because they contaminate the whole environment, their territory."

The teamsters have been fighting for safety provisions regarding fatigue and for CN workers to be able to stay with their families. According to the union’s website, CPKC wants to gut fatigue provisions which would mean crews have to stay awake longer, increasing the risk of derailments and other accidents.

CN is also targeting fatigue provisions. As well, it wants to implement a forced relocation scheme, which would see workers ordered to move across the country for months at a time to fill labour shortages.

The Transportation Safety Board has put fatigue on its watch list since 2016. Crews often work long and irregular schedules which can make it difficult to get restorative sleep, according to the safety board’s website. The board wrote it is concerned about how fatigue can affect the performance of crews and therefore the safety of operations.

Albertan minister, a Chamber of Commerce guy and a CN rail official. No union representation. This is a bit shameful from the CBC. At least the interviewer did ask a few questions on behalf of labor.

Hello Canadians! I'm Emily, and I am participating in a scholarship competition run by Canadian Blood Services. I'm an active blood donor and advocate (currently the club president at my university!). I would love your help. I'm looking to recruit and have current donors join my team through the link. I would be more then happy to explain the process for registering to be a blood donor as well! Your donations save lives across Canada, and even if you aren't interested in joining my team specifically I would still love it if you could look into becoming a blood or plasma donor. It's only a bit of your time and will completely change another's. The donation count on my team is from members across Canada, and currently you have all had over 100 donations completed during the summer which is absolutely incredible! Feel free to remove this as well, absolutely no hard feelings.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27490241

CN and CPKC locked out employees across Canada on Thursday 22 Aug 2024, due to a labour dispute between them and Teamsters Canada Rail Conference.

More than three years have passed since Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) agreed to ease up restrictions on access to mental health services for the families of troubled soldiers, sailors and aircrew — and the country's veterans ombudsperson says very little has changed in that time.

Nishika Jardine released a new retrospective report on Wednesday that presents a snapshot of her office's recommendations in several reports over the years, and evaluates whether they have been implemented or not.

Four years ago, CBC News profiled a handful of veterans' families whose mental health coverage had been denied or restricted, mostly because of policy changes at VAC.

In 2021, the veterans watchdog released a report which called on the federal government to "ensure that family members, including former spouses, survivors and dependent children, have access to federal government funded mental health treatment in their own right," and to ensure their access does not depend on whether the veteran was in treatment.

Advocates in Thunder Bay say the Ontario government's move to close a number of safe consumption sites (SCS) will be detrimental to people living with addictions.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced Tuesday the province is banning the sites within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres, meaning 10 locations in the province, including Path 525 in Thunder Bay, must shut down by March 31, 2025.

Path 525, which is operated by NorWest Community Health Centres (NWCHC), is on the city's south side, around the corner from Ogden Community Public School.

Opened in 2018, the service's clients can bring in drugs from the street to use in the presence of a registered nurse, who can help them if they overdose.

A Calgary pastor on trial for protesting at several library drag storytime events has been found guilty of criminal harassment and breaches of his bail conditions but was acquitted Wednesday on charges of causing a disturbance.

Derek Reimer's trial wrapped up this week after Justice Karen Molle heard closing arguments from prosecutor Matt Dalidowicz and defence lawyer Andrew MacKenzie.

On Wednesday, Molle convicted Reimer on four counts of breaching his bail conditions and one count of harassment. A date for sentencing will be set later this week.

Months after Ottawa police beat a young Black man in a case of mistaken identity, CBC News has obtained internal reports from the force that shed light on the severity of the violence, and what officers say they were thinking as they pursued the wrong suspect and attacked him with a stun gun.

The files identify the suspect officers were actually looking for, reveal that a Starbucks employee had called police with a mistaken report, and provide more detail about the level of force police used — including a closed-fist strike that caused an officer's hand to bleed.

The documents confirm the broad strokes of the account Nyondagara gave of the incident — that he was chased, tackled and struck — but also suggest officers feared for their safety as they confronted and chased the 27-year-old in Orléans on the morning of Feb. 16.

Employees and patrons at the Starbucks on Innes Road had spotted someone they believed to be that suspect several times over the week of Feb. 10, and reported him to police. According to police, three separate members of the public believed that person to be the murder suspect.

Police rushed to the scene and confronted Niyondagara, who they believed was Bakal, after he left the Starbucks. They say he ignored commands and repeatedly moved his hands toward his waist. Some officers said Niyondagara appeared to be scoffing or smirking.

John A. Macdonald once assured the pre-Confederation Legislative Assembly of Canada that an appointed Senate, then under consideration, would "never set itself in opposition against the deliberate and understood wishes of the people."

It's important to note what Macdonald said immediately before those words.

"There would be no use of an Upper House if it did not exercise, when it thought proper, the right of opposing or amending or postponing the legislation of the Lower House," the future first prime minister said.

"It would be of no value whatever were it a mere chamber for registering the decrees of the Lower House. It must be an independent House, having a free action of its own, for it is only valuable as being a regulating body, calmly considering the legislation initiated by the popular branch, and preventing any hasty or ill-considered legislation which may come from that body ..."

Macdonald's words offer a nuanced take on the Senate. They describe an institution that would have no purpose if it didn't periodically exercise its constitutional powers — an institution that's also bound by deference to the elected House of Commons. In that sense, the question is not whether the Senate should be willing to oppose, amend or postpone, but when or how — or to what extent.

Police say no explosives have been found after mass email sent Wednesday morning

Wednesday morning, Indian media outlets reported that an email with seemingly identical wording had been sent to "at least 100" hospitals, companies and government institutions in New Delhi.

Did this happen in any other country or is someone targeting Canada and India specifically?

The city of Thunder Bay is known as the “Gateway to Northwest Ontario” and the 150,000 lakes and rivers in the area. Visitors come to experience rolling mountains, majestic forests, and Lake Superior—North America’s largest freshwater lake and, by many measures, one of the healthiest. Cruise companies are picking up on the region’s natural offerings. One 2025 Viking cruise, marketed as the “Undiscovered Great Lakes” voyage, will take passengers from Thunder Bay to Milwaukee to “hike boreal forests, watch for wildlife and learn about Anishinaabe First Nations heritage.” An eight-day voyage on these floating hotels with swimming pools, buffets, theatres, and spas starts at about $9,000 per person.

Cruise ships have been coming to Thunder Bay since 1996 but paused for some time amid infrastructure issues and changes in popular cruise ship itineraries. Following improvements to the city’s marina and cruise terminal, luxury cruiser fleet operators like Viking returned in 2022 after a decade-long absence. Now, while the global cruise industry battles growing concerns over its emissions, noise, and pollution, 2024 is set to see a record of seventeen cruise ships in the lake port from late spring into fall.

This pattern is expected to boom, creating tension between tourists who want to experience “unexplored” nature and the fact that the very act of arriving on cruise ships is poised to ruin the things drawing them to the region. Lax Canadian cruising regulations allow for luxury cruises to sail through giant loopholes in environmental protections.

In 2022, Transport Canada implemented interim measures for cruise ships to follow, including avoiding grey water and sewage discharge within three nautical miles of the shore and appropriately treating sewage, with filtration and chemical procedures or through biological composting, when possible. Its second interim order, a copy-paste of the first, expired in June this year. Now the agency has further renewed the interim order until 2025—which Stand.earth has called a “lazy” approach, especially given the increased number of cruise ships in new areas.

Over the past year, The Walrus has learned that nearly a dozen people—former students and a parent—have filed multi-million-dollar lawsuits against, or are planning to sue, RLA over a series of alleged abuses that former students experienced from the 1980s to the present. The allegations include physical and emotional violence by staff, racism, withholding of food, sleep deprivation, and sexual assault by fellow students that they say the school overlooked. The Walrus has obtained numerous statements of claim; the academy has not filed statements of defence.

Martin, who requested to go by only his first name, attended RLA starting in 2006, when he was twelve years old, after struggling in school; his parents believed a place with more structure would help. In his statement of claim, Martin states that, while at RLA, an older student who was tasked with overseeing him repeatedly abused him sexually, verbally, and physically. He is suing RLA for $5 million. The school administrators, Martin alleges, failed to document his abuser’s offences, warn teachers and other students about his abuser, and put in place reporting mechanisms and counselling. “They didn’t want me to talk to my parents about it,” he told me. “I always knew I hated it [there], but I just thought I had to kind of eat shit on the whole matter for a long time.”

Staff, he notes in his statement of claim, wilfully did not see the abuse and maintained what he calls “a system . . . designed to cover-up the existence of such behaviour.” Several former students allege in statements of claim as well as in interviews that a culture of fear and abuse was enabled by the school’s founder and former headmaster, Scott Bowman, and by other teachers and administrators. In a statement to The Walrus, Robert Land Academy noted, “The safety and well-being of our students is our top priority and these alleged incidents do not reflect the values of the school, past or present,” and that the school “will not comment on the specific allegations or individuals at this time.” (I reached out to Bowman for comment via LinkedIn. He declined an interview request and told The Walrus to direct questions to RLA.)

The thrust of it is that the federal government would withhold funding to municipalities unless they meet certain home-building targets.

Critics worry that this will accelerate suburban sprawl in order to meet quotas. There are some provisions regarding rental housing and transit infrastructure, but with unrealistic time/budgeting constraints.

Several residents in Toronto's Riverdale neighbourhood say they're furious to learn their homes are being expropriated for construction of the new Ontario Line subway route — after being assured their properties would not be affected.

Peggy Leung's home is one of the 25 properties on Pape Avenue between Langley and Riverdale Avenue required by Metrolinx for the construction. Also among the properties is Riverdale Learning Loft, a brand new daycare.

Leung says the news of losing her home of 14 years has been consuming her. She grew up in Riverdale and runs her business from her home as well.

"I get a knock on the door, they say, 'We're taking your house.' Just like that," she said.