Canada

Unions representing Conestoga College’s faculty and support staff are speaking out about the impact of the school’s rapid growth on those who work there.

In a suit filed in federal court on April 3, RCMP officer and vice-president of the National Police Federation Peter Merrifield and retired Vancouver police detective Paul MacNamara allege the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) “pursued a politically motivated agenda designed to show that it was taking a hard line on foreign interference from China.”

“Rather than examining and verifying actual information, CSIS simply made incomplete, inaccurate, misleading and false assertions about the Plaintiffs, and provided them to the Plaintiffs’ employers, knowing full well the harm that would follow,” the suit claims.

Despite his current challenge, if you take the long view of McNamara’s career, his achievements are nothing short of extraordinary.

“Homicides, ‘Mr. Bigs,’ drug cases, stock market files,” he said of the various file types he handled in his policing career.

McNamara’s reputation got him a job running security at us consulates in Canada, and his post-policing life appeared secure until a routine security clearance came back denied. He claims Canada’s spy agency, CSIS was responsible.

McNamara believes his friendship with former RCMP officer Bill Majcher compelled CSIS to tank his career. While Majcher has been charged with foreign interference related to his work in China, McNamara has never been accused of anything, let alone a plot by Beijing to interfere in Canada. Now he is suing the federal government.

“Twenty-six years of being a protector for Canadians results in a knife in my back from the very agencies that are supposed to protect us,” he said.

Sick notes place an unnecessary burden on doctors and patients, physicians' organizations say

Family doctors frustrated with writing sick notes have created a template letter for patients to give to their employers, explaining that the notes place an unnecessary burden on physicians during an ongoing primary-care crisis.

They are also calling on the province to restrict when and how employers can ask for sick notes.

Many family doctors spend between 20 and 30 per cent of their day doing paperwork, Ali says, and filling out sick notes only adds to that.

Also, having to leave the house to get a note does not allow the sick person to rest, Ali said, and the task is made even more difficult for those who don't have a family doctor and have to wait in walk-in clinics. "A person who feels under the weather — the last thing they want to do is possibly get on a bus, or into their vehicle, or ask someone for a ride to go to their doctors office," said Ali.

As of 2023, employers in Nova Scotia are only allowed to request a sick note if the absence is more than five consecutive work days.

New legislation in Ontario, meanwhile, will force employers to scrap sick notes for the three days of provincially mandated annual sick leave. The Ontario government is moving to ban sick notes for short-term illness, in an effort to cut down on paperwork for family doctors.

In a statement sent to CBC News, B.C.'s Ministry of Labour said employers are able to request "reasonably sufficient proof" of illness, but are encouraged to be thoughtful about when they request sick notes.

It did not respond to questions about whether it is considering legislation to ban or restrict asking for sick notes.

The drive west along the 401 into Mississauga is lined with factories, box stores, furniture outlets and timber suppliers. It’s an industrial area, but also a commuters’ hub, where people from across the Greater Toronto Area come to gather at mosques, temples and weddings in splashed-out convention centres.

Residents seem unaware of a facility in an inconspicuous office building at the intersection of Ambassador Drive and Kennedy Road South, one that uses an invisible and odourless carcinogenic gas.

The plant is owned by Sterigenics, which sterilizes medical supplies, like respirators, using ethylene oxide — an effective sterilant of heat-sensitive devices used by many of North America’s doctors, hospitals and health centres. Ethylene oxide emissions are toxic to humans when high amounts are breathed in and the chemical has been considered to have “a probability of harm at any level of exposure” by Environment Canada and Health Canada since 1999. (PDF link)

Sotera Health, the Ohio-based company that owns Sterigenics, has been named in a series of American lawsuits brought by claimants who say they developed illnesses, particularly cancers including leukemia, myeloma, lymphoma and breast cancer, because of ethylene oxide exposure. In 2023, the company agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit in Illinois, paying claimants US$408 million. It’s also paying out US$35 million in Georgia. In both instances, Sterigenics said the settlements should not be considered an “admission of liability.” A New Mexico case is pending.

Archive: [ https://archive.is/gWcHN ]

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) discharged toxic sewage at the Chalk River site along the Ottawa River during peak fish spawning season earlier this year, CBC Indigenous has learned.

Environment Canada confirms its enforcement officers in late April issued CNL a compliance direction, a tool used to correct violations of Fisheries Act regulations.

It said Chalk River's sanitary sewage plant had an "acute lethality failure," meaning testing found the sewage effluent, or treated wastewater discharge, was toxic to fish.

Effluent is considered acutely lethal when, at 100 per cent concentration, or undiluted, it kills more than half the rainbow trout subjected to it during a 96-hour period, regulations say.

Neither CNL nor Environment Canada said what pollutants were in the effluent, how much toxic wastewater was discharged or where, sparking fears it may have landed in the Ottawa River.

The report said 59 per cent of retirees report helping their non-student adult children with both day-to-day expenses and big-ticket items like home purchases.

The study found the number of Canadians living abroad relative to the national population was five times higher than the U.S.

Owner of Loblaws, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore and Shoppers Drug Mart recorded net earnings of $459-million or $1.47 per share in first quarter

A Quebec Superior Court judge has rejected a provisional injunction request that would have forced protesters at the pro-Palestinian encampment on McGill University's downtown campus to leave.

Protesters have been on campus since Saturday afternoon, saying they are determined to stay put until the university divests from companies with business interests in Israel.

Two McGill students, Raihaana Adira and Gabriel Medvedovsky, filed the request on Tuesday to have a judge forbid protests within 100 metres of McGill's buildings.

The request named five pro-Palestinian groups: Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights Concordia, Montréal4Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement Montréal and Alliance4Palestine.QC

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Wednesday's question period was notably more subdued a day after the House of Commons erupted in a nasty war of words between Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and the prime minister that ultimately resulted in Poilievre's removal.

Poilievre spoke in a softer tone throughout the 50-minute session and largely ignored Justin Trudeau's claims that the Conservative leader was fraternizing with far-right elements and white nationalists when he visited an anti-carbon tax convoy in the Maritimes last week.

"The leader of the opposition refuses to say a simple thing — he condemns Diagolon, white nationalists and violent organizations. These are things that are concerning Canadians that he should answer for," Trudeau said.

It's that line of questioning that prompted Poilievre to call Trudeau a "wacko" yesterday.

On a cold, damp morning, police began their search of the Saskatoon landfill Wednesday as part of their investigation into the 2020 disappearance of Mackenzie Lee Trottier.

The search is scheduled to last as long as 33 days.

With a large white tent where police will be working visible behind him, Mackenzie Trottier's father Paul Trottier said it's a place "nobody wants to be."

"I think anyone who would be standing in my position can understand the emotions that are involved," he said. "The enormous amount of work that's going on behind us is staggering."

Loblaw Companies reported $13.58 billion in first-quarter revenue — a 4.5 per cent increase from a year earlier — on Wednesday morning, the same day that a group of frustrated shoppers said they would begin a month-long boycott of the grocery retailer.

The company said that its retail segment sales rose 4.4 per cent to $13.29 billion. Food retail sales were up by 3.4 per cent, while its drug retail sales under the Shoppers Drug Mart banner increased by four per cent.

A group of shoppers who say they are fed up with the company's grocery prices said that as of Wednesday they would start boycotting the retailer's flagship Loblaws stores and its offshoot brands, including No Frills, Provigo and City Market.

A Quebec Superior Court judge has rejected a provisional injunction request that would have forced protesters at the pro-Palestinian encampment on McGill University's downtown campus to leave.

Protesters have said they are determined to stay put until the university divests from companies with business interests in Israel.

Two McGill students filed the request on Tuesday to have a judge forbid protests within 100 metres of McGill's buildings. The court filing named five pro-Palestinian groups.

In Wednesday's ruling, Justice Chantal Massé wrote the plaintiffs failed to show that the protests were causing irreparable harm, nor was there any indication at this point that the protesters intended to block access to exams or McGill's buildings.

Ottawa offered up at least $18.6 billion in support of the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries in 2023.

$8 billion in loan guarantees for the Trans Mountain pipeline. $7.4 billion in public financing through the Crown corporation Export Development Canada. $1.3 billion for carbon capture and storage projects.

Including their brandname chains:

• Atlantic Cash & Carry
• Atlantic Superstore
• Axep
• Bloor Street Market
• Dominion
• Les Entrepôts Presto
• Extra Foods
• Fortinos
• Freshmart
• L'Intermarché
• Loblaws / Loblaw GreatFood / Loblaws CityMarket
• Lucky Dollar Foods
• Maxi / Maxi & Cie
• NG Cash & Carry
• No Frills
• Provigo
• Real Canadian Superstore
• Shop Easy Foods
• Shoppers Drug Mart / Pharmaprix
• SuperValu
• T & T Supermarket
• Valu-mart
• Wholesale Club / Club Entrepôt
• Your Independent Grocer / Independent CityMarket
• Zehrs Markets

Yes there are other big oligopoly chains like metro, Sobeys/Safeway, Pattison, but I think it's best to start with one major chain to see how much coordinated action can affect them.

Canada’s economy started the year strong, but things are changing fast. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) real gross domestic (GDP) growth came in slower-than-expected in February. Today’s data also included a downward revision for January, and a preliminary estimate of flat growth for the rest of the quarter. Any signs of life the economy showed at […]

The Liberal government is proposing to make changes to Canada's asylum claim system including measures which could pave the way for faster deportations.