Canada

Multiple contractors allege they haven’t been paid for millions of dollars worth of work

If you lived in a neighbourhood where people were dying from poisoned drugs, and over 2,000 were homeless, what would you say the solution is? At the Carnegie Housing Project we asked residents at various Downtown Eastside groups like the Aboriginal Front Door Society, Carnegie Community Centre, Our Streets and the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society.

They said things like: housing people can afford, places to be, safer drugs, more garbage cans on the streets, jobs and job training, more greenery, more washrooms, access to detox and treatment — not a wait-list — and keeping essential service organizations funded. Aboriginal Front Door’s funding has not been renewed and is set to expire in September, bringing an end to this well-loved Downtown Eastside service that stores belongings for hundreds of homeless people, as well as providing food, rest, cultural programs, advocacy and dozens of emergency shelter beds.

No one said the Downtown Eastside, or DTES, needs 32-storey market-rental housing towers with only a tiny percentage affordable to low-income residents. But that’s what the city is about to propose in a report to council this fall.

When it comes to Canada's often tense debate around gun laws, most Canadians likely will not have heard of an RCMP database called the Firearms Reference Table, or FRT.

The FRT is a database used by the RCMP to help classify firearms. That classification determines whether a gun is non-restricted, restricted or prohibited.

Technically, the FRT isn't a legal instrument, but instead just an internal RCMP tool based on definitions set out in the Criminal Code and Firearms Act. But in practice?

"It's both the law and not the law," said A.J. Somerset, the author of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun.

Clutching a teddy bear and trembling through her story in the witness box, a female former Afghan interpreter who worked for Canada in Afghanistan detailed the harrowing sexual abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of a Canadian government employee.

For four days this week, the woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, recounted to an Ottawa courtroom how the alleged abuse started when she was 17, shortly after moving to Canada in October 2011, and went on until 2013.

"He called me his sex toy, a whore and a bitch," the woman said of her alleged attacker, whose family she was living with during some of the alleged abuse.

Isolated, thousands of miles away from her family in Kandahar, she said she couldn't draw on support from her mother, father, siblings or friends. Coming from an honour culture, she said, meant that if word of the alleged abuse reached her father there would be dire consequences.

With the emergence of drug-resistant nits, lice removal has become a booming business, catering to harried, itchy parents willing to pay for relief.

Archived

Op-ed by Marcus Kolga, founder of DisinfoWatch and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Almost every night since May, Russian missiles and drones – powered by Iranian designs and packed with Chinese components – have torn through Ukrainian schools, hospitals and homes, killing or maiming thousands in a ruthless campaign of terror. Those drones are now reaching further into Ukraine, striking apartment buildings in Lviv over the weekend.

In June alone, 5,429 Russian drones and ballistic missiles struck Ukrainian targets. According to the UN, they have caused more than 3,000 civilian casualties since the start of the war, with 232 civilians killed in June. Analysts warn that Russia could soon develop the capacity to launch up to 1,000 drones in a single night against Ukrainian civilian targets.

Russia’s weapon of choice in its war of terror is the Iranian-designed Shahed drone – now mass-produced in Russia and rebranded as the “Geran.” Day after day, waves of these drones hover over Ukrainian cities, with their operators safe inside Russia, actively targeting civilian infrastructure and hunting civilians.

[...]

What is less known, but deeply disturbing, is the extent to which China is supplying components and technology to enable Russia’s growing ability to build these drones. The collaboration of Chinese companies and the Chinese regime in building these weapons makes them directly complicit in facilitating and enabling the war crimes being committed against the Ukrainian people.

The evidence of Chinese involvement is clear. Ukrainian security services have identified Chinese-origin components in Russian drones recovered after attacks on Kyiv. A recent Bloomberg investigation revealed a direct partnership between Russian firm Aero-HIT and Chinese suppliers and engineers to help Russia mass-produce drones. A growing list of Chinese companies have been exposed for supplying critical components: engines, carbon fibre airframes, electronics, navigation systems and antennas – all essential parts integrated into drones now rolling off Russian assembly lines.

[...]

While Canada was among the first to sanction Iranian drone manufacturers in 2022, Ottawa added just 20 Chinese entities to our sanctions list last February, far fewer than our allies and nowhere near sufficient given the growing scale of China’s support for Russia’s drone program.

Even here in Canada, there is disturbing evidence of complicity. In June, the RCMP charged Anton Trofimov – a Russian national living in Canada – for allegedly exporting restricted technologies to Russia via Hong Kong for the purpose of manufacturing weapons, underscoring how Canada itself has been exploited as a platform for Russian sanctions evasion.

[...]

Canada should designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism under the State Immunity Act – an action that would allow victims to pursue civil cases in Canadian courts, including against Chinese entities that enable Russia’s war.

The need to act is dire and undeniable: thousands of lives are at stake. As innocent Ukrainian civilians endure relentless nightly bombardments from Russian drones powered by Chinese-made components, we cannot afford to hesitate. Disrupting the supply lines that fuel Russia’s campaign of terror and holding the Chinese private and government entities enabling this deadly collaboration to account will help save innocent Ukrainian lives.

Imagine this - high quality, locally-grown leafy greens - without pesticides - ALL year round, AND grown on a large scale. Our Audra Brown travels to King City, Ontario to peek into Canada's first fully automated, hands-free greenhouse.

Quick Facts:

• The changes to the bylaws follow similar changes recently adopted in Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
• Between May and June 2025, B.C. has received nearly 780 job applications spanning all health regions: 181 for Interior Health, 154 for Fraser Health, 121 for Vancouver Coastal Health, 112 for Island Health, 70 for Providence Health Care, 66 for Provincial Health Services Authority and 63 for Northern Health (some applicants may have applied to more than one health authority).
• The Province is taking a Team B.C. approach to recruiting health-care workers from the U.S., and is working in collaboration with health authorities, regulatory colleges and other partners.
• The Province launched a targeted U.S. marketing campaign on June 2, 2025, in Washington, Oregon and select cities in California.

To further improve recruitment, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. (CPSBC) implemented bylaw changes on July 7, 2025, that benefit doctors trained outside of Canada. Since then, CPSBC has received 29 registration applications from U.S. doctors.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alta-jasper-fire-1.7588534

👉 The report

New record ! Keep it up

Get wrecked PP

Not posted here was a Carney-Sheibaum meeting this week that had general headlines on this theme.

Significant US economic activity was generated from Canada-Mexico trade and NAFTA/USMCA from fuel and transit taxes.

I can't confirm how solid these plans are, but this is an obvious step that Canadian politicians could highlight to disprove incompetence and slave gaslighting.

Canadians do not need visa!

So far!

Avoid Paywall

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/autos/article/open-the-door-to-cheaper-electric-vehicles-from-europe-advocates-urge/?taid=687a2b954df348000174b95d

Let me very clear. If you don't use a car, you are not part of society. You refuse to support the oil industry. You should be shamed, endangered and attacked.

Avoid Paywall

Attendees at the first stop of Premier Danielle Smith’s travelling “Alberta Next” roadshow in Red Deer were overwhelmingly supportive of her series of proposals to enhance Alberta’s autonomy.

This is likely due to the fact that free tickets for the event were released to UCP members before the general public, a source who holds a UCP membership confirmed to the Progress Report.

In June, Premier Smith announced a 14-person panel that would solicit Albertans’ input on six policy areas—equalization, a provincial pension plan, a provincial police force, withholding social services from some immigrants, constitutional reform and forgoing the Canada Revenue Agency. In the following days, the panel was expanded by two members, bringing the total to 16.

The town halls are divided into each policy area, with attendees shown a five-minute video before they were given the opportunity to line up and provide feedback on each issue. These videos, which have been criticized as “heavily biased,” are the same ones participants in the province’s online survey have to view before answering questions, which are themselves leading.

Nine months after the Pharmacare Act (C-64) received Royal Assent on October 10, 2024 , just four provinces and territories have signed bilateral agreements with the federal government. Those agreements are valued at $928 million over four years starting in 2026.

The Pharmacare Act is meant to provide universal access to Diabetes medication and contraceptives, making those pharmaceuticals free at the point of access for people covered by public health insurance. In order to implement that vision, the federal government needs to sign funding agreements with the provinces, who are responsible for administering health plans.

With so few jurisdictions enrolled in pharmacare, four out of five Canadians are not benefiting from the program. The gap is leaving a patchwork of coverage across the country.