Quebec cancels meeting with Blainville mayor over expansion of toxic waste dump
Social Sharing
The Quebec government is backing out of a meeting it had set for today with the mayor of Blainville, Que., to discuss the expansion of a hazardous waste dump.
In a statement to Radio-Canada, Natural Resources Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina cited the mayor's "change in direction regarding the topics she wanted to address."
Mayor Liza Poulin has resisted the expansion project. She says the land eyed by the government is located in a large peat bog, an ecosystem of high ecological value.
Bill 93, tabled by the province last month, would force Blainville to cede the land to the government so American company Stablex can build a sixth dumping site — something the company says needs to happen before 2027 when it's set to reach full capacity.
Poulin requested an emergency meeting with Premier François Legault last week to discuss the protections of Blainville's peatland and municipal autonomy.
After it was granted, she specified she wanted to see the environmental studies supporting the government's rationale and understand why it was seemingly acting against its own environmental objectives.
She also wanted to know why the government was awarding special privileges to an American company in the current political context.
Blanchette Vézina cancelled the meeting Sunday in a letter obtained by Radio-Canada, saying that instead, she'll gladly hear out Poulin during consultation hearings on the bill.
"You wanted to share Blainville's position. However, you've decided to impose new conditions," said Blanchette-Vézina in her letter.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
31 minutes ago
- CBC
Stony Plain Road, 124th Street intersection set to re-open after 6 weeks
Social Sharing The intersection of Stony Plain Road and 124th Street in Edmonton is expected to re-open to traffic and pedestrians next week, as crews wrap up construction on that section of the Valley Line West LRT, the City of Edmonton and Marigold Infrastructure Projects announced Friday. The intersection shut down completely on April 21 to allow crews to accelerate work on the LRT line. "We were going to be in this zone in a heavy way for about a year-and-a-half, and we've condensed that into seven weeks," Jonathan Cox, construction manager with Marigold Infrastructure Projects, the company building the line, said during a media availability Friday. Cox added that the intersection should open a few days earlier than originally scheduled. "It is huge," he said. "It's just because of the change of the rules about how we can access and which lanes we keep open." Brian Latte, the city's director of the Valley Line West, said the progress reflects well on the contractor. "We're really optimistic that they're just going to continue this effective work through the balance of this year until the end of the project," Latte said at the media availability. The Valley Line West LRT is now about 40 per cent complete, Cox said. It is expected to open in 2028. Businesses frustrated For six weeks, businesses on the corner of Stony Plain and 124th Street could only be accessed by the sidewalk. Some businesses nearby the closed-off area also felt the impact, including the Vetrina Cafe, which opened just south of Stony Plain Road last fall. "It was good. It was many customers," owner Fikra Moese told CBC News Friday. "Now it's very low … because of construction." Gallery and shop owners have noticed the impact, including the owner of the Lando Gallery, Brent Luebke, who says the signage is insufficient for pedestrians and motorists. "When people do come to the area, they just don't know where to go," Luebke told CBC News Friday. From his gallery, he said he has seen a lot of vehicles doing U-turns when they meet the fenced-off area to the north, and pedestrians are equally as lost. Luebke said he wants the city to put up signs farther down the street to give people more advanced notice. More construction Other intersections along the Valley Line West route are still under construction, including the 156th Street interchange and 159th Street/Meadowlark at 89th Avenue, which are set to remain closed until mid-July, the city said. The subsequent phase of work will start next week, moving up the road to 139th Street and Stony Plain Road in a previously unplanned closure for nine weeks. Starting June 10, the intersection at 142nd Street and Stony Plain Road will also be partially closed for nine weeks, the city said. The decision to simultaneously close both intersections will reduce long-term disruption to the neighbourhood, businesses and commuters, the city said in a news release Friday. 'The new normal' Latte, of the City of Edmonton, said municipal officials are discussing a similar approach on other projects that would see roads and intersections completely closed to speed up work. "If there's something that we can do at a location that's similar, that has the same results, absolutely it's something we would consider," Latte said. Cox acknowledged that there may have been some skeptics because of previous city projects that were delayed. The Valley Line Southeast LRT, for example, was nearly three years behind schedule when it opened in November 2023. The Walterdale Bridge replacement was two years behind when it opened in September 2017. But Cox described the accelerated approach as "the new normal." "We can deliver in these time frames," he said.
CBC
44 minutes ago
- CBC
U-pick flower farms blossoming in Chatham-Kent
U-pick flowers are a growing trend in southwestern Ontario as farmers open up their operations to tourists looking for novel experiences and stunning photo opportunities. Farms in Chatham-Kent offer visitors the opportunity to stroll among rows of peonies, sunflowers and tulips, taking photographs and cutting flowers to purchase. "We just thought, 'We don't see the joy that the peonies bring when we sell it wholesale,'" said Valérie Chort, one of the owners of Fleur de Roy near Mitchell's Bay, Ont. Fleur de Roy grows 17 varieties of peonies over 10 acres, making for about 150,000 stems. But until now, it had been shipping them off to market in Toronto. Now, after four years of commercial operations, the owners have partnered with local vendors and florists to display art and offer workshops in an effort to create an annual peony bloom festival, Chort said. The Puddleford Tree Farm in Kent Bridge, meanwhile, will be awash in sunflowers in about five weeks' time, according to co-owner Matthew Whitney. The farm grows about 20,000 of the flowers each year on about two acres of land and raises money for the Alzheimer's Society by charging visitors per car and per cut flower. "We decided to do this because people love to go to see sunflowers," Whitney said. "They're a great thing to take photos of. And we wanted to give people an opportunity to do that and not interfere with the commercial growers who don't want people walking through their fields. … People can come out and have a nice day and take some nice photos and just enjoy the sunshine." The sunflowers at Puddleford are only around two inches high right now, said co-owner Gail Whitney. But tulip season is already at Hat Trick Farms in Blenheim, Ont., and they also offered people a chance to pick their own tulips. The three-year-old operation got into tulip-growing because the three siblings who own it only have a small land-base to work with — so they had to focus on niche crops, said co-owner Lynne Warriner. They started growing winterberries late in the season, then followed up with tulips as a spring crop. "The response from the visitors has been quite rewarding," Warriner said. "They come and visit the field, for taking pictures, the majority of them — but they can also pick their own while they're here." The owners have taken to planting some fields in a multitude of colours, and Warriner said she loves watching the colours change as different varieties bloom at different times. "Usually the orange and pink tulips are the first ones to bloom," she said. "But two to three weeks later, depending on how long our season is, it's more purple and white in colour. So for us … it's different to see how the field changes through the season."
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Chinese hackers and user lapses turn smartphones into a ‘mobile security crisis'
WASHINGTON (AP) — Cybersecurity investigators noticed a highly unusual software crash — it was affecting a small number of smartphones belonging to people who worked in government, politics, tech and journalism. The crashes, which began late last year and carried into 2025, were the tipoff to a sophisticated cyberattack that may have allowed hackers to infiltrate a phone without a single click from the user. The attackers left no clues about their identities, but investigators at the cybersecurity firm iVerify noticed that the victims all had something in common: They worked in fields of interest to China's government and had been targeted by Chinese hackers in the past. Foreign hackers have increasingly identified smartphones, other mobile devices and the apps they use as a weak link in U.S. cyberdefenses. Groups linked to China's military and intelligence service have targeted the smartphones of prominent Americans and burrowed deep into telecommunication networks, according to national security and tech experts. It shows how vulnerable mobile devices and apps are and the risk that security failures could expose sensitive information or leave American interests open to cyberattack, those experts say. 'The world is in a mobile security crisis right now,' said Rocky Cole, a former cybersecurity expert at the National Security Agency and Google and now chief operations officer at iVerify. 'No one is watching the phones.' US zeroes in on China as a threat, and Beijing levels its own accusations U.S. authorities warned in December of a sprawling Chinese hacking campaign designed to gain access to the texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans. 'They were able to listen in on phone calls in real time and able to read text messages,' said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. He is a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the senior Democrat on the Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, created to study the geopolitical threat from China. Chinese hackers also sought access to phones used by Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance during the 2024 campaign. The Chinese government has denied allegations of cyberespionage, and accused the U.S. of mounting its own cyberoperations. It says America cites national security as an excuse to issue sanctions against Chinese organizations and keep Chinese technology companies from the global market. 'The U.S. has long been using all kinds of despicable methods to steal other countries' secrets,' Lin Jian, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said at a recent press conference in response to questions about a CIA push to recruit Chinese informants. U.S. intelligence officials have said China poses a significant, persistent threat to U.S. economic and political interests, and it has harnessed the tools of digital conflict: online propaganda and disinformation, artificial intelligence and cyber surveillance and espionage designed to deliver a significant advantage in any military conflict. Mobile networks are a top concern. The U.S. and many of its closest allies have banned Chinese telecom companies from their networks. Other countries, including Germany, are phasing out Chinese involvement because of security concerns. But Chinese tech firms remain a big part of the systems in many nations, giving state-controlled companies a global footprint they could exploit for cyberattacks, experts say. Chinese telecom firms still maintain some routing and cloud storage systems in the U.S. — a growing concern to lawmakers. 'The American people deserve to know if Beijing is quietly using state-owned firms to infiltrate our critical infrastructure,' U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich. and chairman of the China committee, which in April issued subpoenas to Chinese telecom companies seeking information about their U.S. operations. Mobile devices have become an intel treasure trove Mobile devices can buy stocks, launch drones and run power plants. Their proliferation has often outpaced their security. The phones of top government officials are especially valuable, containing sensitive government information, passwords and an insider's glimpse into policy discussions and decision-making. The White House said last week that someone impersonating Susie Wiles, Trump's chief of staff, reached out to governors, senators and business leaders with texts and phone calls. It's unclear how the person obtained Wiles' connections, but they apparently gained access to the contacts in her personal cellphone, The Wall Street Journal reported. The messages and calls were not coming from Wiles' number, the newspaper reported. While most smartphones and tablets come with robust security, apps and connected devices often lack these protections or the regular software updates needed to stay ahead of new threats. That makes every fitness tracker, baby monitor or smart appliance another potential foothold for hackers looking to penetrate networks, retrieve information or infect systems with malware. Federal officials launched a program this year creating a 'cyber trust mark' for connected devices that meet federal security standards. But consumers and officials shouldn't lower their guard, said Snehal Antani, former chief technology officer for the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. 'They're finding backdoors in Barbie dolls,' said Antani, now CEO of a cybersecurity firm, referring to concerns from researchers who successfully hacked the microphone of a digitally connected version of the toy. Risks emerge when smartphone users don't take precautions It doesn't matter how secure a mobile device is if the user doesn't follow basic security precautions, especially if their device contains classified or sensitive information, experts say. Mike Waltz, who departed as Trump's national security adviser, inadvertently added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a Signal chat used to discuss military plans with other top officials. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon's security protocols set up in his office so he could use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, the AP has reported. Hegseth has rejected assertions that he shared classified information on Signal, a popular encrypted messaging app not approved for the use of communicating classified information. China and other nations will try to take advantage of such lapses, and national security officials must take steps to prevent them from recurring, said Michael Williams, a national security expert at Syracuse University. 'They all have access to a variety of secure communications platforms,' Williams said. 'We just can't share things willy-nilly.'
