cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/24393660

https://youtu.be/mFaz4LocyK0?si=lkSWFYACOieBWyce

A Canadian prime minister who has outstayed his welcome, persistent inflation, a government bumped and bruised by scandal and a fired-up opposition leader itching for a public showdown.

It was against this backdrop, four decades ago, that Pierre Trudeau took his apocryphal “walk in the snow” and decided not to contest the next federal election.

After a shocking upset in a “safe” electoral district and with a looming possibility of a blowout in the next federal election, Justin Trudeau’s predicament closely mirrors that of his father.

But the incumbent prime minister says he has no intention of stepping down, despite mounting evidence the public is growing increasingly weary of both his tenure – and of his Liberal party.

In late June, Trudeau’s party lost a by-election for a seat the party had held for nearly three decades, foreshadowing what pundits say could portend the collapse of the party’s stronghold in Canada’s most populous city.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/24368090

The seat make up would look more like the left if we had a more fair and accountable proportional representation over the obsolete first past the post.

https://youtu.be/iFh-kT6EMaU?si=xx0HyalM7Gn2bqfj

When Robert Laboucan pictured his son taking his first steps he imagined it would be at home, maybe even in front of a camera in their living room. Instead, the one-year-old first walked in the hallway of the Flamingo Inn in High Level, the tiny Alberta town where the family have been living for more than a year after escaping the massive wildfires that devastated the Indigenous-owned Fox Lake Reserve.

“It was really hard,” said Laboucan, a member of the Little Red River Cree Nation.

Laboucan, his partner Jennifer, and their five children, aged one-16, are among dozens of fire evacuees still living at the hotel. While they will not get an exact replacement of the home they lost, Laboucan has been told that a new home will be ready for the family by July – approximately 14 months after the 2023 Paskwa fire tore through the Little Red River Cree Nation.

And a year later, as Canada braces for another hot summer, many Indigenous communities in the northern parts of the western provinces are still displaced.

The publicly funded society that provides independent legal aid for low-income Albertans says its contract with the government has expired, and the provincial government has decided not to renew it.

In a release, Legal Aid Alberta (LAA), says it has been negotiating a new governance agreement with the Ministry of Justice and the Law Society of Alberta for several months, but the ministry suddenly halted negotiations and terminated the agreement.

The society's current governance agreement expired on June 30.

LAA says the agreement is necessary to deliver its services to Albertans, and that without it, the society will no longer be able to issue certificates — the process used to assign defence lawyers to cases — past July 9.

"Without a governance agreement in place, our ability to conduct business is compromised," reads the release.

The video shows an old, low-ceilinged basement, the dirt floor flooded with black and brown sludge. A broken cast-iron pipe is visible — the source of a leak spewing raw sewage into the basement of a home in New Glasgow, N.S., for about a year.

Tricia Gallant, 38, was living upstairs in one of the three rental units, experiencing nausea, dizzy spells, sinus infections and brain fog.

She had an inkling there was a problem, but didn't realize her home was dangerous.

"When I moved into that place, I was living in my car," Gallant said in an interview. "So I thought it was going to save me, when in reality it just made me sick."

Gallant's living conditions are an extreme example of how low-income tenants stuck in unfit housing can suffer physically and psychologically as they struggle to get repairs and keep a roof over their head. A recent CBC News investigation found renters living in dangerous, dilapidated housing are up against unresponsive landlords and a lack of protective bylaws.

Among those criticizing the new law are the BC and Canadian Civil Liberties Associations, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, Amnesty International, the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council and Independent Jewish Voices Canada.

In a joint statement, they say C-70 “will likely have significant impacts — both directly and in the form of a chilling effect — on freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and on privacy, and it could well be used to profile people on political, racial, religious, or nationality grounds. The law will allow the undermining of academic freedom, freedom of the press, the right to protest and engage in dissent, and efforts at international cooperation and solidarity.”

CSIS has parroted US intelligence agencies allegations regarding China for the past five years, refusing to heed warnings about threat exaggeration from US senator Bernie Sanders, economist Jeffrey Sachs, or Congresswoman Judy Chu.

Mainstream media unfortunately have been hammering the theme of foreign interference. For example, the Globe and Mail has been campaigning for a foreign influence registry for over a year. Likewise, its reporters have unabashedly used CSIS leaks to engage in sensationalist reporting, failing to verify CSIS information. This has created a political maelstrom to the benefit of CSIS.

Hundreds of pages of documents written by experts for two class-action lawsuits paint a picture of Ontario's corrections system as inhumane and poorly managed.

The two class actions against the province take aim at the use of lockdowns in Ontario correctional facilities as a way to deal with staffing shortages from 2009 to 2017. One lawsuit seeks damages for inmates during that time, while the other asks for damages for immigration detainees, who are sometimes held in such facilities. The attorney general of Canada is also named as a defendant in that lawsuit.

Data obtained by CBC Toronto through a freedom of information request reveals there were an average of 440 full facility staffing-related lockdowns reported across the province each year between 2010 and 2017. That's on top of hundreds more "partial" lockdowns, where only certain sections of a facility were affected. The reporting requirements were different for 2009.

The lawsuits are seeking a combined $1.5 billion in damages for negligence.

While Canada lags behind in solar adoption, many places including Germany, China, Japan and even the United States are moving quickly.

In fact, on certain days, some places are generating so much energy, the price to purchase it is dropping below zero, prompting concerns about storage capacity for the abundant power source.

A lesbian couple in Halifax, Canada was assaulted by a group of men who were shouting homophobic slurs at them.

Emma MacLean and her girlfriend, Tori, were walking down the street celebrating one of their birthdays when a group of men made a rude comment at MacLean, CTV News reports.

“A group of men walking in the other direction and they made a comment to me,” said Emma MacLean. “My girlfriend, Tori, said, ‘Hey that’s my girlfriend.’”

This response led to the men making explicitly homophobic remarks at the two, taunting them both.

“They continued walking and then Tori followed them to basically verbally be like, ‘That is not okay,’” MacLean said.

That’s when the men started attacking Tori.

“I see Tori being pushed on the stairs right in front of the BMO Centre and they are cement stairs and she’s on her back, that’s when all the men started punching and kicking her,” she continued.

MacLean said that she yelled for them to stop before she got involved in the fight to protect her girlfriend.

“The fight or flight came in. Basically jumped on one of their backs and put them in a chokehold, trying to restrain them.”

A bystander alerted police shortly after the fight ended. They spoke with one of the men involved in the incident, and he told them that it was the two women who had initiated the fight. The rest of the men refused to cooperate and give IDs, however.

There are currently no charges as police are investigating the situation.

Both MacLean and Tori suffered injuries. Tori had bruises covering her body, while MacLean had a chipped tooth, a broken nose, and many bruises as well.

MacLean said, “I felt punches and kicks and then I felt it on my nose and there was blood. I just thought this needs to stop now. I went to emerge the night of and they basically said it was too swollen for surgery.”

“I’m terrified to go downtown again in Halifax. I just feel like it’s so out of your control on what could happen. It’s overwhelming. I didn’t expect something like this to happen, especially with it happening during Pride Month as well.”

I didn't see it posted so I thought I should.

I'm Indigenous, full blooded Ojibway/Cree from northern Ontario. Both my parents survived the residential school system in the 50s and I attended the last vestiges of Christianized schooling when I was growing up. We saw a lot of discrimination against us in my family and we were always made to feel less than every other Canadian we ever knew.

Even with all that ..... my dad always enjoyed celebrating this holiday because he just thought it was fun and a good time to celebrate with family and friends. Maybe he just didn't know but whenever this time of year comes around, all I can think of is how much he enjoyed just having a bit of fun today in the middle of summer.

In my own experience, I've travelled the world to 34 countries so I got see and compare how our country compares to the rest of the world. With all its shortcomings and blemishes .... this is still a great country and a prime example of decent democracy. It isn't perfect and it is very problematic and unequal in many ways ... but its on the top of the pile of mostly or more democratic places on the planet. I may be wrong on that but that is just my opinion.

So with all that said .... to all my Native, non-Native, nation born, immigrant, brown, white, black, and every shade in between ....

Happy Canada Day to all of you.

https://thewalrus.ca/who-is-the-real-pierre-poilievre/

Greg Fertuck was the type of man who solved his problems through "intimidation, threats and violence."

Evidence at his murder trial showed he had to have his way — or else.

"When [his wife Sheree] would not comply by his own admission he went to his truck, got his rifle, shot her in the shoulder, then coldly shot her in the head. He killed her in cold blood," wrote Justice Richard Danyliuk in his trial decision.

Danyliuk found Greg guilty of first-degree murder on June 14, 2024, after a lengthy and complicated trial at Saskatoon's Court of King's Bench.

Greg was also found guilty of indecently interfering with Sheree's remains because he hid her body in a secluded area near some poplar trees after the murder. Her remains have never been found.

"It's no secret that Saskatchewan has the highest rate of police-reported intimate partner violence among the provinces in Canada," Dusel said. "Saskatchewan also has the highest per capita rate of intimate partner homicides."

A man in St. John's rents office space, but he doesn't have an office job.

He's an electrician, driving from gig to gig all day. The office is where he sleeps at night, secretly, because he couldn't afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the city. For two months during the frigid Newfoundland and Labrador winter, he lived in his truck. Then, in February, he found an office listed for $450 per month.

"I'm 100 per cent doing this clandestinely," the 37-year-old told CBC News. "I basically have given up on finding anything else."

The average asking price for rent in Canada hit an all-time high of $2,202 per month in May, according to a June report from listing website Rentals.ca.