Canada

If there's anything people can agree on these days, it's that flying sucks.

And between the delays and cancellations, extreme turbulence, and jets literally falling apart in the sky, it seems that some people have had about enough of flying experiences getting ostensibly worse instead of better.

Which may partially explain the online roasting of WestJet's new UltraBasic fare, where you can board the plane and that's about it.

Announced Tuesday, the new "no-frills fare option" doesn't permit carry-on baggage (unless you're flying overseas), has pre-assigned seats at the back of the plane, and those who select the fare will be the last to board the plane. They also can't collect WestJet Rewards.

Even then, an UltraBasic round trip from Toronto to Calgary at the end of June costs about $650.

Stronach was arrested Friday and charged with 5 criminal offences, police say

You should boycott Bell, Telus, and Rogers by switching to smaller providers/resellers.

After a major feeder water main break plunged Calgary's water supply into a critical state, city officials are now asking Calgarians to use 25 per cent less than they did yesterday, sounding the alarm that the city is at risk of running out.

The Bearspaw south water main — which is 11 kilometres long and as wide as two metres in parts — suffered a break Wednesday night that left hundreds of homes and businesses in the city's northwest without water.

Just before 7 p.m. Wednesday, the break caused streets to suddenly flood in the Montgomery area around Home Road, forcing the closure of several roads and intersections, including 16th Avenue in both directions.

It’s been almost two months since the federal budget, and anguished cries about the horror of capital gains tax changes are still coming.

Other measures in the $535-billion budget are forgotten. But a change that would increase taxes on a small number of mostly very well-off people is still in the news.

The capital gains tax debate is the latest front in the battle to keep taxes low — especially taxes on the wealthy, who have the greatest ability to wage public and political campaigns to protect their interests.

This demonstrates, again, one of the reasons we can’t have nice things such as a comprehensive health-care system or an effective climate response.

And how decades of anti-tax rhetoric — from politicians, interest groups and lobbyists, often amplified by media — have made it almost impossible to have a rational debate on a topic that’s critical to society.

The budget failed to do much to increase tax fairness. But it took one notable step by increasing capital gains taxes. Those are paid when someone — or some company — sells assets that have increased in value since they bought them.

If your childhood collection of hockey cards happens to include a mint Gretzky rookie card, valued at some $3 million, and you sell it, you’ll pay more tax on the profits. If you’re lucky enough to have a cottage and you decide it’s time to sell, you’ll be taxed on more of the gain.

The change is significant, and long overdue. Formerly, individuals had to include 50 per cent of capital gains over $250,000 on their tax returns. The budget increased that to 66.7 per cent. (The capital gains tax does not apply to the sale of your principal residence.)

So if you bought $500,000 worth of shares in the Misplaced Trust Company and sold them for $1 million, before the change you would have declared $125,000 in income and paid tax on that amount. Now you’ll declare $166,750.

That change does not seem punitive — especially as most of us do not make $250,000 in capital gains in a year.

The federal budget documents say about one in 1,000 individual tax filers will be affected by the change, and the average income of those tax filers is $1.4 million.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/22703488

Help make a breakthrough for proportional representation in the Yukon

https://www.fairvote.ca/04/06/2024/help-make-a-breakthrough-for-proportional-representation-in-the-yukon/

Rania Hamza calls it “a coincidence” that an engineer, a biologist and a lawyer at the same Toronto university were independently worrying about the harmful substances and chemicals being flushed down Ontario’s toilets. Three years ago, after figuring out they were all interested in the same thing, the unlikely trio came together to highlight a major gap in policy.

The release of everyday wastewater from our homes and businesses into the environment is Canada’s largest source of water pollution. This dirty water is full of toxic substances that can harm our lakes and rivers. Some is removed or treated, like the phosphorus in sewage that creates harmful algae blooms in water. But many more unmonitored and invisible substances — or “contaminants of emerging concern” — in wastewater end up being dumped into the Great Lakes, which hold around 20 per cent of the world’s surface freshwater and about 85 per cent of North America’s.

In Canada, no rule or law to prevent emerging contaminants from entering our water — something Hamza and her colleagues want to change.

Led by the Simgigyet’m Gitanyow (Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs), the plan to bring cultural fire back to the land is guided by Gwelx ye’enst — the rights and responsibilities to sustainably pass on the land from one generation to the next — and part of the nation’s work to protect the territory. Vegh says she’s been waiting more than 30 years to see fire returned to Gitanyow lax’yip — and the land has been waiting far longer. She talks about depleted huckleberry patches, like a nearby spot that used to be one of her go-to locations for harvesting.

“That place has become non-productive, because of lack of fire,” she says. “The berries are still there but they’re small and sour. Some water and ash, that’s what they really need right now.”

In the burn site, it’s easy to see the effects of drought and decades of fire suppression. The few huckleberry bushes tucked in amongst the stands of trees are dry and scraggly and the land feels parched after a winter of little snow. The air is dusty and the forest floor crunches under the boots of the firefighters as they prepare for the fire.

As said in the Water Main Break Update/livestream, only the Bowness has been issued the boil water advisory.

HOWEVER;
As of [June 6, 2024 @6:36am MDT (UTC-6)],
Calgary has enacted a citywide fire and level/stage 4 water restriction.

• the citywide fire ban includes any outdoor use of fire such as BBQ, fire pits, etc.

The City of Calgary is requesting all Calgarians to reduce all noncritical/recreational water usage as the Feeder Main (which is responsible for moving water across the city) has been severely damaged and it is currently unknown when the supply issue will be resolved.

[UPDATE: June 7, 2024]

Calgary Newsroom Update #4

The City of Calgary continues to repair a large water main break in the Bowness and Montgomery area and this afternoon crews succeeded in uncovering the damaged pipe.

• the break has been found, however it will still take time for the repairs to happen,
  • as such the city is requesting all Calgarians to continue reducing water usage for the next couple of days

I will try to update this post as frequently as I can as more information is shared!

Additional Sources of Information:

• [Alberta.ca] - Active Emergency Updates
• [newsroom.calgary.ca] - Water Main Break Investigation
• [newsroom.calgary.ca] - Boil Water Advisory for Bowness and City Wide Stage 4 Outdoor Watering Restriction
• [albertahealthservices.ca] - Boil Water Plans and Guides

Late last year, Emily Johnson took to Reddit to share her frustration with how expensive food in Canada has become.

She fixated on one grocer in particular: Loblaw, the dominant food retailer in Canada, boasting nearly 2,500 stores.

Her Reddit group - named LoblawsIsOutofControl - was filled with photos of grocery items for sale at seemingly egregious prices, like C$40 ($29.36; £23.06) for 1.4 kilograms of chicken.

Soon after, Ms Johnson and others banded together to launch a nation-wide boycott against Loblaw, saying they were fed up with the disparity between rising food prices and record profits.

A B.C. mother is recounting the harrowing story of hiding from a bear that invaded her home in Rossland, B.C., about 380 kilometres east of Vancouver, while she and her 9-year-old daughter were hosting a friend for a sleepover.

Katherine Rice said she never actually saw the bear that entered her home through the front door, but she heard noises that alerted her to the unwelcome visitor as she was getting ready to go to bed late Saturday.

"I thought it was possibly the kids or a bear outside [the house], but then I heard some really loud noises and I realized that a bear was in the house," Rice told CBC Radio West host Sarah Penton.

Accounts bearing the name United Citizens for Canada posted content on social media portraying Canadian Muslims as threatening Western values, and suggesting pro-Palestinian protesters in Canada were seeking to implement Shariah law.

The Digital Forensic Research Lab, a project run by the Atlantic Council, a prominent Washington think tank, first called out the posts in a March analysis.

It noted that the campaign employed artificial intelligence to change words being said by a man with a beard and Muslim skullcap at a rally. It also noted a photo of Muslims holding a banner was digitally altered, making the poster read “Shariah for Canada.”

“The network, which included at least 50 accounts on Facebook, 18 on Instagram and more than one hundred on X, boosted anti-Muslim and Islamophobic narratives directed at Canadian audiences,” the March analysis reads.

The accounts used AI-generated profile pictures and repeatedly posted similar messages, often seeking to garner press coverage directly from individual Canadian journalists and media outlets. One post on Instagram warns people to be wary “if anti-Liberal Islam wants to enter your hockey team.”

A mother in Winnipeg says a confrontation with police has left her and her family shaken.

Charity Tom, who is Sayisi Dene, says on May 21 at around 4:00 a.m., she awoke to the sound of banging on her door. It was the Winnipeg police.

An officer told her they received a call about an unsupervised child roaming outside. Tom told officers they had the wrong house and that her children were sleeping inside.

Tom said a few minutes later, police officers knocked again and then entered the house.

Now multiple police are entering the house. One is struggling with Tom.

Charity: What’s the badge number?

Police: Get up. What’s your name?

Charity: Charity

Police: You wanna get the cuffs?

Charity: No, I just told you

Police: So then stop acting like a c*nt

A foreign multinational company can export Canadian blood plasma products for profit abroad, The Breach has learned. That flies in the face of what’s been pledged by Canadian Blood Services and Grifols, the Spanish multinational corporation that is trying to open private plasma collection centres across Ontario and already operates in some other provinces. But the revelation that they can export products for sale overseas is the first window into a secret contract the company signed with Canada’s blood authority in 2022 to allow them to pay for blood plasma.

Grifols hit a roadblock on Monday, as Hamilton’s Public Health Committee unanimously backed a resolution from Mayor Andrea Horwath to reject a planned Grifols collection centre and declare the city a “paid-plasma-free zone.” Horwath said that “anything that preys upon the most vulnerable is hideous and doesn’t belong in Hamilton.”

That deal between Grifols and Canada’s blood authority has accelerated an assault on the voluntarism that has been at the core of blood and plasma collection in Canada for decades, and quickened the country’s shift toward a for-profit system.

Critics have often invoked the example of the United States, where private centres operate in low-income neighbourhoods, paying poor people to sell their plasma so multinational companies can manufacture expensive drugs for large profits.

The privatization of blood and plasma collection goes against the founding principles of Canadian Blood Services, a national charity that manages blood supply outside of Quebec. It was created to keep donations voluntary after the “tainted blood” scandal of the 1980s, which resulted in 8,000 Canadians dying from improperly screened, infected blood from paid donors through a for-profit donation system.

Paying for blood donations remains banned in British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario. But Doug Ford’s Conservative government quietly gave a green light to Grifols earlier this year, appearing to accept the Canadian blood authority’s argument that the Spanish company is acting as an “agent” of Canadian Blood Services.

First, policing practices. Close to midnight on Canada Day, TPS detective-constable Jeffrey Northrup and his partner, then detective-constable Lisa Forbes, were responding to reports of a stabbing in the vicinity. They were in plain clothes. Police officers assigned to work out of uniform do not generally respond to emergency calls. Their main purpose is to blend in for surveillance and undercover purposes.

The officers had a description of the suspect: Brown, heavy set, with a long beard and big hair. Of these identifiers, Zameer presented only one: he was Brown. Nevertheless, the plain-clothes officers approached Zameer’s vehicle in an underground parking garage, indicating he turn off the engine and exit. His pregnant wife and toddler were inside with him.

The police should never have impeded Zameer from driving away that evening. Over the course of the trial, Forbes admitted that there had been no legal basis for an arrest or detention: Zameer did not closely match the description of the suspect and, without any such reasonable suspicion or cause, was not compelled to stay on the scene to answer any police questions. Beyond arguments regarding civil liberties, there is a high risk that a citizen would fail to recognize an advancing, shouting figure in ordinary clothes as a police officer. In the circumstances, it would have been far safer to rely on underground video surveillance records and note Zameer’s licence plate and then follow up for any potential investigation.