Donation from local sports team will help transform QEII gym
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Post
18 minutes ago
- National Post
Why food recalls have increased so drastically in the last decade in Canada
Last year, it was plant-based refrigerated beverages. This summer, it's Dubai chocolate, which went from viral fame to plain old virulent, with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) recalling several brands due to Salmonella contamination. Article content It's not your imagination — there are more food recalls today than a decade ago, though the number has stayed relatively stable over the past five years. Experts say the reason why comes down to a couple of key factors: improved detection methods and regulations that modernized Canada's food safety system. Article content When Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab (AAL), posted a graph of the number of food recalls in Canada since 2011 on social media last week, some of his followers expressed surprise and concern. The graph showed a dramatic jump from 45 recalls in 2018 to 259 in 2019, remaining well above 100 ever since (with two years surpassing 250). Article content Number of food recalls in Canada, since 2011 (Class, 1, 2 and 3). — The Food Professor (@FoodProfessor) August 15, 2025 Article content Our food safety culture is 'very strong,' says Charlebois, pointing to Canadians' reluctance to eat perfectly edible products past their best-before dates. Food recalls don't necessarily mean that our food system is unsafe — he sees them as a sign that it's maturing in a positive way. Article content 'People tend to become quite nervous as soon as they see a metric that would suggest, perhaps, that things aren't going in the right direction, but they are in terms of food recalls.' Article content Some recalls, such as the recent outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to various brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, such as Dubai chocolate, cause illnesses and hospitalizations, but many others are preventative. Though recalls due to microbiological hazards were the most prevalent from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2025, they can also result from allergens, extraneous material, chemicals and other reasons. Article content 'Even in a modern, effective food safety system such as Canada's, risks cannot be completely eliminated. When unsafe food enters the marketplace, the CFIA works with the company to ensure that the public is informed and that the recall was effective at removing products from the market,' the CFIA said in an email to National Post. Article content 'Consumers can help protect themselves and their families by following safe food handling practices at home and staying informed about food recalls by signing up for food recall notifications.' Article content Article content Keith Warriner, a professor at the University of Guelph's Department of Food Science, highlights that the means of detecting outbreaks are much better than they were 10 years ago, 'if not five years ago.' Sophisticated surveillance systems and advanced techniques, such as whole genome sequencing, have made it easier to identify risks. Article content Companies are also doing more testing, which increases the likelihood of finding something warranting a recall, says Warriner. 'Even though no outbreaks are involved, they'll do it as a precaution. And you'll see microgreen producers, for example, they've had quite a few recalls of Listeria. Even though there's been no real outbreaks of Listeria with microgreens, they preempt it because they do a lot of testing.'
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Police ask court to find Winnipeg care home in contempt over failure to provide info on woman's fall, death
Police are asking a court to find a Winnipeg personal care home in contempt, because the home refused to hand over information from a critical incident report conducted after a 90-year-old woman died there following a fall out of bed last October. The Winnipeg Police Service filed a notice of application earlier this month in Manitoba's Court of King's Bench, asking the court to find Concordia Place guilty of common law contempt for failing to comply with a production order. The dispute began after the Winnipeg Police Service got the production order in February, asking Concordia Place to disclose a list of information, including reports related to the woman and communications, including emails, during the home's investigation into her injury and death. The care home — which is operated by Concordia Hospital under an agreement with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority — responded the following month, providing some of the information police asked for. However, it said in a letter later submitted as a court exhibit that provincial legislation prevented it from sharing other documents investigators requested, including reports prepared for the critical incident committee, as well as communication during the care home's investigation into the woman's injury and death. Manitoba Health investigates all critical incidents, which it defines as "an unintended event that occurs when health services are provided to an individual and results in a consequence to him or her that is serious and undesired." Police asked the court in the contempt application to impose a penalty on the care home "which the court deems fit," including an order forcing it to comply with the production order. The update comes after Concordia Place filed a notice of application last month asking the court to quash the production order, arguing in part that the judge who granted it failed to impose adequate conditions to minimize the risk of disclosing the privileged information, and that the order was overly broad. It pointed to sections of the Manitoba Evidence Act and the Health System Governance and Accountability Act as reasons it was barred from disclosing the information. "Because of these statutory provisions against disclosure, Concordia Place staff are assured confidentiality in the critical incident process," the notice of application said. "They are told that this process is strictly confidential and based on provincial laws, critical incident documents are not compellable in court. This is designed to create a culture of safety, and to encourage reporting and participation in the investigation and review of critical incidents." The critical incident in question was reported at the care home on Oct. 9, 2024, when a woman with dementia fell out of bed and was lifted back in by a health-care aide, the care home's July filing said. The woman was said to have been experiencing an overall general decline in health in the year preceding the fall. The morning after the incident, skin changes and swelling were observed on the woman, and an X-ray confirmed she had a fractured leg, but due to her age and other existing medical conditions, she was not considered for surgery to repair the fracture, the court filing said. The application said the woman died a week after the fall, but there is no evidence the fall caused her death. The matter appeared in a Winnipeg courtroom last week and was adjourned without setting a next date.
CBC
3 hours ago
- CBC
Number of Mounties on long-term sick leave poses 'significant operational challenges': report
The proportion of Mounties on long-term, off-duty sick leave has reached an all-time high and become a critical issue for the national police force, according to a new outside report. The Management Advisory Board (MAB), an oversight body that advises the RCMP commissioner, is warning that the existing model of unlimited sick leave at full pay is unsustainable and in need of a rethink in order to get more officers back on patrol — recommendations that are already garnering vehement disagreement from the RCMP union. "The rapid increase over the past fifteen years in the number of RCMP employees on [leave] presents an area of well-being concern at the individual level and poses significant operational challenges at the organizational level," said the report from the board's well-being task force. "It also has the potential to impact public safety writ large," the report continued. "This increase also comes with significant associated financial costs." Long-term, off-duty sick status is used for absences due to illness, injury or disability that exceed 30 consecutive days. According to the task force's figures, the number of RCMP regular members on leave has increased by 184 per cent over a 14-year period. As of Dec. 31, 2024, about seven per cent of the regular members were on long-term, off-duty leave at an approximate cost of $58 million, the task force estimated in its report. It also raised concerns about the number of Mounties on extended leave for more than a year. As it stands, the task force — which said it talked to regular members, supervisors and senior leadership — found the model "offers no incentive to return to work." The task force said it recognizes Mounties put their lives on the line and many will face injury and trauma during their careers. "These injuries, whether mental, physical, or otherwise, need appropriate recovery time," said the report. However, it also recommends the RCMP rethink its unlimited sick leave regime at full pay, and consider incorporating a reduction in pay after a pre-established period on leave. "The task force heard repeatedly that the current unlimited sick leave at full pay model used by the RCMP is unsustainable in its current state, places undue pressure on the organization and has an adverse impact on the RCMP's human, financial and technical resources," it said. RCMP says it's reviewing recommendations The union representing thousands of RCMP officers vehemently disagrees with the report's findings. Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation, said the issues don't lie with the sick leave pay model, but with how it's managed. He believes the report missed the union's warnings that the RCMP's disability management accommodation program is not properly funded. "They never looked at the fact that there's a shared responsibility here, and half that responsibility rests with management," Sauvé said in an interview. "Members fall through the cracks, are not contacted by their employer — sometimes for six months or longer — for return-to-work programs or disability management accommodation programs." The MAB report pointed to models used by other police forces to reduce pay for members on leave. For example, it said the Edmonton Police Service reduces pay to 90 per cent or 75 per cent, at the chief's discretion, after 85 days of sick leave. Sauvé countered that RCMP members are in a unique position as they fall outside of any provincial or territorial worker compensation scheme. He also said sick leave is something that must be decided through collective bargaining, and any proposal to modify it must be brought to the union. "So you can provide advice all you want to the RCMP commissioner. If they want to bring it to the bargaining table, they can." The RCMP said the board's report "is currently under comprehensive review," and it will deliver a more substantive response to the advisory body shortly. "The RCMP welcomes the MAB's engagement on this important issue, as the need to improve how the RCMP manages long term off-duty sick cases has been identified as a key area of concern by employees and by management at the RCMP," said spokesperson Camille Boily-Lavoie
