Canada

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32234220

They said waste, containing cyanide, arsenic, mercury, would be stored there for 30 years while new methods were developed to clean it. Now, it's clear it's here to stay, in a crumbling mine, beneath an aquifer - drinking water source for millions of people.

30 years of broken promises now poisoning future generations.

Recently, Canadian politicians in a province called Alberta have complained loudly about environmental laws. Another Canadian province called Ontario passed a law allowing mining companies to bypass environmental rules. My message to Canadians is simple. Don't make the same mistake.

I’m a political scientist, and I found that Americans were far less likely to publicly voice their opinions than even during the height of the McCarthy-era Red Scare.

According to a 2022 book written by political scientists Taylor Carlson and Jaime E. Settle, fears about speaking out are grounded in concerns about social sanctions for expressing unwelcome views.

And this withholding of views extends across a broad range of social circumstances. In 2022, for instance, I conducted a survey of a representative sample of about 1,500 residents of the U.S. I found that while 45% of the respondents were worried about expressing their views to members of their immediate family, this percentage ballooned to 62% when it came to speaking out publicly in one’s community. Nearly half of those surveyed said they felt less free to speak their minds than they used to.

About three to four times more Americans said they did not feel free to express themselves, compared with the number of those who said so during the McCarthy era.

No better example of this can be found than in the absence of debate in the contemporary U.S. about the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis, whatever outcome such vigorous discussion might produce. Fearful of consequences, many people are withholding their views on Israel – whether Israel has committed war crimes, for instance, or whether Israeli members of government should be sanctioned – because they fear being branded as antisemitic.

Many Americans are also biting their tongues when it comes to DEI, affirmative action and even whether political tolerance is essential for democracy.

Apparently we have these along the Great Lakes (but not exclusively) already according to reports on etick.ca. Here's a pic:

Since not everyone reports tick bites, the numbers are probably a lot higher than what's on etick.ca.

Mere weeks after the CPPIB [Canada Pension Plan Investment Board] walked back its net-zero target, the country’s next-largest public pension fund, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), published its climate action plan and related transition financing framework which doubled down on climate action — effectively blowing a hole through the rationale the CPPIB put forward.

“This website I’m quoting from, I don’t know a whole lot about… but I just thought their words were better than mine.”— Alberta councillor, citing a website with an AI chatbot pushing towns to quit net-zero programs

If you're a Star Wars fan in the Sudbury, Ont., area, these might be the droids you're looking for.

Since 2019, software engineer Patrick Ryan has embraced the art of building droids, the robot characters from Star Wars.

His creations have grown in complexity, and now he brings them to multiple conventions each year, letting fans interact with real-life versions of their favourite fictional characters.

But his signature piece is a BB-8 droid, a much more complex creation from 2015's The Force Awakens.

Before taking their latest chance to weigh in on the wisdom of exiting the Canada Pension Plan, Albertans must first watch a five-minute video, most of which tries to persuade them how great an idea it is.

The promise of lower premiums and higher benefits hasn't sold well in the past. We recently learned that only 10 per cent of respondents favoured the idea in the 2023 round of government consultations on an Alberta pension plan.

But with her Alberta Next feedback project, Premier Danielle Smith is treating this as a new day, full of fresh possibilities to alter the province's place within Canada on finances, constitutional powers, immigration and more.

Everyone knows guns used by Canadian criminals are often smuggled from the U.S. Not everyone knows how — not like Naomi Haynes does. That's because she did the smuggling.

A native Montrealer who's been living in the U.S. for decades, she helped traffic dozens of weapons into Canada, some linked directly to drug gangs.

"I wasn't thinking about the havoc I was causing in my birth land," she told CBC News last week.

"I've got my kids, I've got bills. The only thing I [was] thinking about is monetary gains. I wasn't thinking about the people who are going to be affected."

Archived

The Canadian government has ordered Chinese surveillance camera manufacturer Hikvision to cease operations in Canada over national security concerns, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said late on Friday.

[...]

"The government has determined that Hikvision Canada Inc's continued operations in Canada would be injurious to Canada's national security," Joly said on X, adding that the decision was taken after a multi-step review of information provided by Canada's security and intelligence community.

[...]

Canada said last year it was reviewing an application to impose sanctions against Chinese surveillance equipment companies, including Hikvision, after rights advocates alleged the firms were aiding repression and high-tech surveillance in Xinjiang.

Joly said Canada was also banning the purchase of Hikvison's products in government departments and agencies, and reviewing existing properties to ensure that legacy Hikvision products were not used in the future.

She said the order does not extend to the company's affiliate operations outside Canada but "strongly" encouraged Canadians "to take note of this decision and make their own decisions accordingly."