'We are protecting Canadians against new threats': Carney on NATO spending
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PM Mark Carney speaks about evolving threats facing Canada and the government's role to combat it by boosting NATO spending.
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CBC
28 minutes ago
- CBC
N.S. government mulling larger role for RCMP as it restructures policing
Social Sharing The Nova Scotia government says it is considering a larger role for the RCMP as the province restructures and modernizes policing services. Justice Minister Becky Druhan has announced six changes aimed at improving policing, resulting from a review launched in September 2023. The review was announced about six months after the Mass Casualty Commission released its final report on the shooting rampage in central and northern Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead in April 2020. Druhan says municipalities will be allowed to keep their local police as long as the force meets provincial standards; otherwise they will need to switch to the RCMP. As well, the minister says the province will introduce a new billing system for municipal police services, and establish a single police records database to replace the three existing systems. Other changes including creating community safety boards, recruiting more officers, and adding more resources for police in the field.
Globe and Mail
29 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Author wins defamation case against Regina professor over ‘racist garbage' comment
A university professor who called a book 'racist garbage' on social media and was part of a campaign to cancel the author's bookstore events has been found liable for defamation, in part because she didn't read the whole book. Michelle Stewart, a professor in gender, religion and critical studies at the University of Regina, who is also an associate dean for academic integrity and equity, was sued over a Facebook post in 2016 that was critical of When Police Become Prey: the Cold Hard Facts of Neil Stonechild's Freezing Death. Mr. Stonechild, a Saulteaux First Nation teenager, was found dead of exposure in a field in 1990 and his death was the subject of a public inquiry. The book, written by Alberta-based journalist Candis McLean, argues that two Saskatoon police officers who were fired after the public inquiry were treated unjustly. Saskatchewan Court of King's Bench Justice Neil Robertson ruled that by calling the book 'racist garbage' Dr. Stewart had defamed Ms. McLean. While the word 'garbage' could be defended as fair comment, he wrote that being called 'racist' is defamatory. 'Many Canadians will shun and decline to listen to a racist,' he wrote. Judge Robertson concluded that the book is not racist, however, and that Dr. Stewart's statement is 'objectively false.' He wrote that the defendant did not point to anything in the book that would support her accusation. He described commentary such as 'racist garbage' as part of a 'cancel culture,' which seeks to curtail debate and suppress books rather than debate their merits. Dr. Stewart did not respond to an interview request. In court, Dr. Stewart's lawyer had argued that as an expert in policing and colonialism it was not only her right but her responsibility to comment on the book, according to the ruling. However the judge found that Dr. Stewart had not read the book before making her comment, or at least not all of the book, and therefore could not rely on the defence of responsible communication. Responsible communication is one of the common defences to a charge of defamation and was established by a 2009 Supreme Court decision related to publications on matters of public interest. Dr. Stewart had argued that she had reviewed parts of the book and understood its premise, and that her life's work is anti-racism. The judge, however, found that there was no 'diligence in verification' and her communication was therefore not responsible. The comment that prompted the lawsuit was made in 2016 on a Facebook page connected to a group called the Saskatchewan Coalition Against Racism, which undertook a campaign to persuade venues to cancel Ms. McLean's book signing events. Dr. Stewart and others called the venues to complain about the book, and the venues responded by cancelling Ms. McLean's events. The judge ruled that Dr. Stewart's actions induced a breach of contract and therefore Ms. McLean was entitled to compensation. Ms. McLean had been seeking more than $160,000 in damages, however the ruling awarded just slightly more than $6,450. An apology was never published, although the two parties disagreed over whether one was offered, the judge wrote. Ms. McLean said the eight-year court battle was worth it, even if the amount she will receive is far less than the approximately $40,000 she spent on legal fees. 'It was really the principle of the thing,' Ms. McLean said. Tavengwa Runyowa, Ms. McLean's lawyer, said his client 'has laid her own brick in the wall of justice.' He said the amount awarded by the judge may reflect that the Facebook post was likely seen by a relatively limited group. Ms. McLean said what troubled her is that Dr. Stewart did not carefully read the book before attacking it. 'In all of Dr. Stewart's high-flown, virtue-signalling verbiage, such as her claim it was her obligation as an expert to speak out, not once did I find her mention the word truth. Truth is discovered by doing the hard work of following the dictates of the evidence, wherever that may lead,' Ms. McLean said. 'I find it both disappointing and alarming that an academic criticized me and my book without first doing a close textual exegesis.' Ms. McLean said she has written to University of Regina president Jeff Keshen to say the incident has caused her to lose confidence in the university. 'Academics should not react blindly. They have a duty to gather all the facts before taking action that could harm someone or create a false narrative,' Ms. McLean wrote in her e-mail. Mindy Ellis, a spokesperson for the University of Regina, said the university has been apprised of the court's judgment and has no comment.
Globe and Mail
37 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Wildfires have posed largest economic risk to Manitoba of all provinces, Statscan says
An aggressive start to the wildfire season this year has jeopardized Manitoba's economy more than any other province in the country, according to new research from Statistics Canada. The federal agency released reports on Wednesday that use experimental estimates of economic activity affected by wildfires, representing those values as a percentage of gross domestic product. Statscan said that as of mid-June this year, Manitoba had the largest proportion of its gross domestic product at risk among all of the provinces, amounting to 2.4 per cent. While the figure shouldn't be interpreted as a decline in the province's economy, it offers an estimate of the percentage of Manitoba's economic activity that was concentrated in regions covered by wildfires. Thousands of Manitobans were set to return to the northern city of Flin Flon on Wednesday, after a wildfire forced them to evacuate a month ago. About 21,000 residents across the province have fled their communities this year due to the fires. Meanwhile, the economic impact of wildfires nationally – as reflected in Statscan's experimental estimates – is much smaller, with just 0.125 per cent of Canada's GDP jeopardized by the fires. The federal agency noted that while wildfires appear to have had limited effect on economic activity at the provincial levels, the disruption caused to local communities has been significant. 'In north Manitoba, where some of the largest fires are concentrated, economic activity in wildfire-affected areas amounts to over one-quarter (26.3%) of the region's GDP,' Statscan said, adding that northern Saskatchewan has faced a similar level of disruption to its economy. Thousands of Flin Flon, Man., residents return home after wildfires forced them to flee The statistics agency cautioned that these estimates shouldn't be taken as comprehensive measures of the actual economic impact of wildfires, noting it will take time for those effects to be fully realized. The estimates also don't account for economic activity lost in resource extraction and utilities, because the dataset only included businesses in industries where their production and operations are in the same location. (Natural resources companies typically have their corporate offices in a different location than their production sites.) However, Statscan said that the relevance of these industries to local communities could be significant. Several oil and gas companies shuttered their operations this year due to wildfires, evacuating their workers from sites in Northern Alberta. There have been more than 2,000 wildfires this year across the country that have affected nearly four million hectares of land, which is four times the 10-year average, according to data from Natural Resources Canada. Opinion: The world is burning. Should we tell our kids? Statscan also looked at the economic disruption caused by wildfires in the previous two years, showing strong regional disparities. The federal agency singled out Yellowknife and Kelowna, B.C., in 2023, as well as Jasper, Alta., in 2024, for the duration of evacuations that led to a sizeable loss in working days. In Kelowna alone, nearly 30,000 residents were evacuated for about a month, which meant 10 per cent of their working days were lost due to the fires. Nearly three-quarters of the Northwest Territories' GDP was also exposed to wildfires in 2023, which was Canada's most destructive season ever recorded, burning an area larger than England. With a report from The Canadian Press
