Canada

The new CTO stood out to me. Based on his LinkedIn posts, he sounds like a business guy who’s going to shove AI into everything. Not exactly a reassuring change for a bank.

Last week, the United Kingdom did something all too rare: it chose leadership by backing science and prioritizing public safety. The Labour government announced it would ban new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, strengthen a windfall tax and accelerate phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies.

A TABLE OUTLINING AN internal Royal Canadian Air Force 2021 study on the F-35 fighter jet versus Sweden’s Gripen has magically shown up in the press at just the very moment it might most influence the choice about to be made. The confidential internal document lands as Ottawa continues to review its deal of purchasing the full contingent of eighty-eight American-built F-35s following United States president Donald Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty—a process now bogged down by concerns inside the RCAF that the purchase is becoming harder to justify.

Joshua Wright says a yellow cedar tree he photographed last year was “incredible,” the largest he’d ever seen in a decade of hiking around Vancouver Island.

Mississauga city councillors are questioning the future of the program, citing safety risks, enforcement struggles and the rising cost of managing the devices.

“Hidden in the federal government’s 634-page omnibus bill C-15, the Budget Implementation Act, is a measure that has so far escaped scrutiny. Under the pretext of regulatory efficiency, Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to grant cabinet ministers the power to exempt any individual or company from any federal law on the books — except for the Criminal Code — for up to six years.”

A federal judge has sided with two First Nations in Manitoba and one in Ontario that sued the Canadian government over its duty to provide them with safe housing and clean drinking water, in separate rulings delivered Friday.

Within five years, the construction of new homes in the country’s hottest markets is projected to slow to near-zero. Less construction, fewer homes, and fewer jobs – all at a time when the country needs more housing than ever.

The growing technical complexity of the Income Tax Act, which makes it harder for taxpayers to understand the rules and for the agency to apply them correctly, is likely one reason behind the rise in objections, Mr. O’Riordan said.

An Alberta judge says a referendum proposal on Alberta separating from Canada goes against Charter and Treaty rights, in a decision given less than 24 hours after the provincial government introduced legislation that would have ended the court proceeding.

It’s been hard to keep track of how many legal challenges and active court proceedings the United Conservative government has tried to quash or pre-emptively block in the last six weeks, but let’s try to tally:

Axon Enterprise Inc. is working with a Canadian police department to test the addition of face recognition technology (FRT) to its body-worn cameras (BWCs). This is an alarming development in government surveillance that should put communities everywhere on alert.

Right-wing premiers are using the notwithstanding clause to target trans kids, workers, Muslims, and drug users. Saskatchewan shows how a united front could stop them

Ontario’s Auditor-General says the province isn’t auditing doctors whose billings raise obvious red flags, including 82 doctors who claimed to have worked 24 hours or more in a single day, a diagnostic radiologist who billed for an average of 461 patients daily and an ophthalmologist who billed $6.7-million in one year, more than twice as much as the next highest biller in the specialty.

Archived version

Archived version

I hate posting stuff from Instagram but this is pretty relevant.

China is not the only source of weapons that likely reach the RSF through the UAE however. Raymond notes that arms produced by Canadian companies, including Sterling Cross and the Streit Group, have also made their way onto the battlefield and into the hands of the RSF.

During a June 9 speech, Prime Minister Mark Carney repeated an earlier promise that Canada would be cutting back on using its defence dollars to purchase U.S. military equipment. The U.S. has become increasingly hostile to Canada, with President Donald Trump continuing with economic efforts to punish Canada and to push for this country to become the 51st state.

A leaked briefing document gives the full picture behind the government’s talking points.

Canada’s proposed Bill S-209, which addresses online age verification, is currently making its way through the Senate, and its passage would be yet another mistake in tech policy.

On Monday, Canada’s oil and gas drillers gathered at the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Calgary, coming off what’s been a down year. But the mood was cautiously optimistic.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, the Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights have called on Canadian authorities to arrest former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for war crimes ahead of a planned visit to Toronto, Canada.

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The latest efforts to strengthen state secularism, dubbed “secularism 2.0”, are part of a new bill introduced by the governing Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) on Thursday, expanding on a 2019 religious symbols law that has fuelled fierce debate throughout the country.

The Edmonton Police Service announced Tuesday it will become the first police force in the world to use an artificial intelligence (AI) product from Axon Enterprise to trial facial-recognition-enabled bodycams.

As the number of birds culled in an avian flu outbreak on turkey farms near Strathroy, Ont., approaches 100,000, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says it won’t let its staff do media interviews for fear they will be subject to harassment or even death threats.

A new database exploring GTA institutions associated with Canadians who served in Israel’s military

Archived link

Eh … now you don’t know what to think huh? 🤔🤪😆

Roughly 350 people will be out of work as forestry company Domtar announces the permanent closure of its mill in Crofton, B.C.

This weekend’s actions drew attention to Amazon’s negative impact on workers the world over.

(From Dog of Death, s03e19)

Web archive link

An Ontario woman says she was detained for 24 hours and refused entry to Costa Rica because her passport was damaged.

The government of Canada is adamant — with certain, shifting caveats — that it has not allowed arms shipments to Israel since January 2024, and yet Israeli import data and publicly available shipping records appear to contradict that claim.

Drug User Liberation Front founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum are back in court arguing their compassion club members’ constitutional rights were violated by part of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is limiting the use of its 973 Chinese-made drones to non-sensitive operations, stating the devices present “high security risks, primarily due to their country of origin.”

Members of Unifor Local 200 met Sunday to ratify the company’s final offer. That means the plant closure plan is irreversible, says John D’Agnolo, Local 200 president. The roughly 160 unionized workers there have the option to leave now, or stay until the plant closes.

Algoma Steel says it has issued 1,000 layoff notices to workers at its plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

The article has more in depth discussion than the excerpts that I’ve pulled here, please give it a read if you are curious

The search for the remains of Ashlee Shingoose has officially begun at Brady Road landfill in Winnipeg, Premier Wab Kinew says.

Carney is a @#$%ing disgrace. ‘Elbows up?!’ More like jerk off capital and #$% over everyone else

“I hope people today feel a lot more confident that Canada works than they did a couple of days ago,” Smith told her convention Friday. Boos rang out from the Edmonton Expo Centre seats — the kind that partisans normally direct at mention of the other guys, not their own leader and the notion that this country can work.