🩺 Alberta intends to opt out of national pharmacare plan

The NDP has reached a deal with the Liberal government to introduce the first piece of a national pharmacare program that includes coverage for birth control and diabetes medication but it appears Alberta does not intend to be part of the agreement.

Alberta’s health minister said that if the federal government pursues a national pharmacare program, Alberta intends to opt out, and instead intends to obtain a full per capita share of the funding.

A spokesperson from Adrianna LaGrange’s office said Alberta was not consulted on the national pharmacare plan “and there are limitations in the initial analysis and assumptions, including start-up investment and administrative costs to implement a cost-sharing model, that were not taken into consideration that add costs for the provinces.”

#Alberta #healthcare
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Temporary immigration to Quebec surged nearly 50% in 2023, report says

Authorities in Canada and Quebec underestimated the effect temporary immigration would have on housing and public services over the past decade, a new study suggests.

Quebec’s temporary resident population soared 46 per cent last year to 528,034, according to a report published Monday by the Institut du Québec non-profit think tank. Quebec had 167,435 temporary work permit holders in 2023, almost four times as many as in 2015, as well as 117,745 foreign students — most of whom have the right to work here — and asylum seekers.

The surge in temporary immigration over the past year has coincided with an economic slowdown. Quebec’s unemployment rate rose from four per cent to 4.5 per cent in the year ended in January.

#Quebec #immigration
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🇨🇦🇺🇦🇷🇺PM Justin Trudeau:

We know that Russia must win this war – uh sorry - That Ukraine must win this war against Russia.

#Trudeau #Ukraine #Russia
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Ottawa to create regulator to hold online platforms accountable for harmful content

The Online Harms Act, expected to be introduced by the federal government on Monday, will include the creation of a new regulator that would hold online platforms accountable for harmful content they host, CBC News has confirmed.

The new regulatory body is expected to oversee a digital safety office with the mandate of reducing online harm and will be separate from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, sources say.

It's not clear whether the regulator will have power only over online platforms hosted in Canada or over all websites accessible by Canadians.

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‘Freedom Convoy’ organizer Chris Barber suing Ottawa for freezing accounts

A main organizer of the “Freedom Convoy” is suing the federal government for using the Emergencies Act to freeze his bank accounts, arguing it breached his Charter rights to protest COVID-19 mandates.

Chris Barber, who owns a trucking company in southwestern Saskatchewan, filed last week a statement of claim in Court of King’s Bench in Saskatoon, claiming the federal government’s unprecedented move to invoke the act constituted an abuse of power.

Barber’s lawsuit comes weeks after Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley ruled it was unreasonable for the federal government to use the Emergencies Act to quell the protests.

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🏠 Brampton will outpace Ottawa to become Ontario’s 2nd-largest city, premier says

Premier Doug Ford says Brampton is on track to become Ontario’s second-largest city and is making significant progress on meeting provincial housing targets, leading to a $25.5 million funding boost.

This is my prediction here, and I think it’s going to happen…they’re going to grow even larger than Ottawa.

the premier said at a press conference in Brampton on Friday.

The premier made the claim while in Brampton to present the city with $25.5 million in infrastructure funding as a reward for hitting more than 80 per cent of its provincially set housing targets last year, breaking ground on some 7,028 housing units in 2023.

#Ontario #housing
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⚠️🇺🇦 Ottawa to give Ukraine $4 million to fund gender-inclusive demining

The press release that went out Saturday makes mention of $3.02 billion in financial and military support to Ukraine in 2024, but it also outlines a number of smaller, targeted initiatives.

One of these, listed as “Gender-inclusive demining for sustainable futures in Ukraine,” has a funding budget of $4 million.

This project from the HALO Trust aims to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of Ukrainians, including women and internally displaced persons, by addressing the threat of explosive ordnance present across vast areas of the country.

Project activities include conducting non-technical surveys and subsequent manual clearance in targeted communities; providing capacity building to key national stakeholders; and establishing a gender and diversity working group to promote gender-transformative mine action in Ukraine.

the item reads.

#Ukraine
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Eby ‘profoundly worried’ about upcoming fire season, as billions earmarked for contingency

The Premier of British Columbia says he is “profoundly worried” about the upcoming wildfire season, saying it is one of the major reasons why the province has set aside $10.6 billion in contingency funds over the next three years.

David Eby says parts of British Columbia, such as the Peace River, East Kootenay, and Upper Fraser regions, remain severely dry and about 100 wildfires are still burning this winter from last year’s record-breaking season.

He says the province is leasing aircraft and expanding firefighting infrastructure to allow for crews to conduct operations such as aerial attack missions at night, enhancing B.C.’s capacity to fight wildfires around the clock.

#BritishColumbia #wildfire
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Canadians struggling with inflation are fundraising to cover everyday expenses, GoFundMe says

Canadians created more than 200,000 fundraising campaigns to cover everyday expenses over the course of three years, raising more than $480 million combined, according to new data released by the global crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.

The donation platform says they recorded a 274 per cent increase in Canadian campaigns that mention “cost-of-living” since 2020. The two most common reasons for these fundraisers were listed as food and housing.

Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver were the cities with the most cost-of-living campaigns during this period.

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🇨🇦🇺🇸🪖U.S. ambassador says 'world is watching' Canada's military spending

The U.S. ambassador to Canada says the world is closely watching Canada's defence spending commitments, as the NATO alliance scrambles to shore up Ukraine's supply of military goods.

David Cohen praised Canada's "very significant" military contributions on a variety of fronts, including purchases of new equipment and its activity around Ukraine, the Arctic, NORAD and more. But he also applied some pressure when it comes to military spending.

By the same token, I have been quite clear — and the United States has been quite clear — that NATO and the world is watching what Canada is doing with respect to its commitment.... It's not something we've imposed on Canada. But the world is watching.

Cohen said.

#US #NATO
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Canada is facing ‘irrelevance’ on world stage, ex-defence chief warns

Retired general Rick Hillier, Canada’s former chief of defence staff, says he believes the country risks facing “irrelevance” in an unstable geopolitical world.

In an interview on The West Block, host Mercedes Stephenson asked Hillier what he thought Canada’s biggest national security risk is amid the war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East.

Our irrelevance. The fact that nobody even bothers to phone us if they’re talking about doing something as a group of Three Eyes or a group of Five Eyes or things of that nature.

All those things you described are very real geopolitical and strategic threats and they can destabilize the world even more than it is now. And when the world is destabilized, it’s bad for Canada.

Hillier said.

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💰Trans Mountain pipeline project increases cost estimate by $3.1 billion

The expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline will cost about $3.1 billion more than the Canadian government-owned company running the project projected in May, another financial setback for a project beset by spiralling expenses and years of delays.

Costs for the expansion — which involves twinning a pipeline stretching from Edmonton to Vancouver — will be 10 per cent more than the most recent estimate of $30.9 billion, the company said in a filing with the Canada Energy Regulator on Monday.

That brings the total cost to about $34 billion, more than six times the original estimate of $5.4 billion in 2013.

The latest cost increase — this time due to construction challenges that are delaying the new line’s startup into the second quarter — marks another setback for a project that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expended significant political capital on.

#BritishColumbia #Alberta #Trudeau #energy
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🌱🔌Alberta to ban renewables on prime land, declare no-build zones for wind turbines

Swaths of land in Alberta will be barred from hosting renewable power projects under sweeping new rules that will govern the industry.

The changes, set to be announced Wednesday by Premier Danielle Smith and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, are the culmination of a ban on renewable approvals that lasted almost seven months.

The province announced the pause in August last year. It ordered the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) to halt approvals for all renewable projects and launch an inquiry into various issues including where projects can be built.

Wednesday’s announcement deals only with the first set of issues, which includes land use, reclamation and viewscapes.

Alberta will ban renewable electricity projects from private property deemed to have excellent or good irrigation capability according to the province’s land classification system, and land deemed “fair” if it can host specific specialty crops.

#Alberta #energy
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🎓Ottawa will shut down shady post-secondary institutions if provinces don't: Miller

Ottawa is ready to step in and shut down shady schools that are abusing the international student program if provinces don't crack down, Immigration Minister Marc Miller warned Tuesday.

Miller said there are problems across the college sector, but some of the worst offenders are private institutions — and those schools need to go.

There's responsibility to go around. I just think that some of the really, really bad actors are in the private sphere and those need to be shut down.

Miller said on Parliament Hill ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting.

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RCMP never tried to interview Justin Trudeau as part of SNC-Lavalin scandal probe, ethics committee told

The RCMP did not interview Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before concluding that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate a criminal offence in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, top officials confirmed in a House of Commons committee hearing on Tuesday.

In fact, the federal police interviewed only four individuals, one of whom was former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, and they did not even attempt to get Trudeau’s testimony.

When the SNC-Lavalin affair erupted in 2019, the RCMP investigated whether Trudeau had breached any criminal laws in pressuring Wilson-Raybould to let the Montreal construction firm benefit from a deferred prosecution agreement to avoid a criminal prosecution.

The offences the RCMP was looking into were obstruction of justice and the intimidation of a justice system participant.

#Trudeau
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🏠💰Most Canadian mortgage owners concerned about payments, survey finds

A new survey found the majority of homeowners share concerns about making their mortgage payments due to increased interest rates.

67 per cent are worried about paying their mortgage once their next renewal comes up, while 69 per cent of homeowner respondents reported that their mortgage has been generally more challenging to pay in the last two years.

The data found that 24 per cent of surveyed homeowners considered downsizing their home, while 29 per cent considered refinancing their mortgage. Other major decisions included tightening other areas of their budget (54 per cent) or considering a switch to an alternative lender to help cover costs (17 per cent).

#housing
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House passes motion calling on Trudeau to recoup ArriveCan funds

Opposition parties teamed up Wednesday to pass a motion calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to collect and recoup, within 100 days, all funds paid to ArriveCan contractors and subcontractors that did no work.

The non-binding motion from Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre passed by a vote of 170 to 149, with only the Liberals voting against it.

The motion also calls on the federal government to table in the House by March 18 a report that details all direct and associated costs related to ArriveCan.

Among the line items the opposition parties want to see, but have yet to be revealed, are any bonuses given to public servants who worked on the app, any legal or research costs, and any adverting or public relations expenses.

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💰Close to $1 billion drop in direct foreign investment in Greater Montreal in 2023

Montréal International, the organization responsible for attracting foreign investment to Greater Montreal, revealed that in 2023 there was $2.7 billion in direct foreign investment in Greater Montreal coming from 87 projects.

These projects, according to Montréal International led to the creation of close to six thousand jobs with an average salary of $97,500.

These investments of $2.7 billion, however, are down from $3.6 billion in 2022 and $3.8 billion in 2021.

Stéphane Paquet, the president and CEO of Montréal International, said this drop in investment is due to the current global economic context, notably a slow down in money invested in the information technology (IT) sector.

#Quebec
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🇨🇦🇨🇳 Censored documents about Winnipeg scientists reveal threat to Canada’s security

Two scientists at Canada’s high-security infectious disease laboratory – Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng – provided confidential scientific information to China and were fired after a probe concluded she posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” and it was discovered they engaged in clandestine meetings with Chinese officials, documents tabled in the House of Commons reveal.

The two infectious-disease scientists were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July, 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January, 2021. Their whereabouts are not known.

On Wednesday, the government released records of the investigation into the two scientists that had been previously censored from public view. Opposition parties had united to demand the release of the documents after the government in 2021 released heavily redacted Public Health Agency of Canada documents that obscured the full story.

#China
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🇨🇦🇲🇽 Canada bringing back visa requirements for Mexican nationals to curb asylum seekers

The federal government is reimposing some visa requirements on Mexican nationals visiting Canada. The new rules take effect on 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.

The U.S. government also has been asking Ottawa to bring back the visa requirement to curb a sharp increase in illegal crossings from Canada into the United States.

The new visa requirement is expected to affect roughly 40 per cent of all Mexican travellers to Canada.

#Mexico #US
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Brian Mulroney, former prime minister, is dead at 84

Brian Mulroney — who, as Canada's 18th prime minister, steered the country through a tumultuous period in national and world affairs — has died. He was 84.

On behalf of my mother and our family, it is with great sadness we announce the passing of my father, The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Canada's 18th Prime Minister. He died peacefully, surrounded by family.

his daughter Caroline Mulroney shared on X.

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