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CBC
30-04-2025
- CBC
Manitoba Filipino communities 'unite as 1' at vigil mourning 11 killed in Vancouver festival attack
More than 300 people packed into a Winnipeg auditorium on Tuesday night to honour the 11 people killed and dozens injured during the attack on the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver last weekend. The Philippine flag outside Philippine-Canadian Centre of Manitoba in Winnipeg was flying at half mast as community members arrived for the 7 p.m. event. Radisson MLA Jelynn Dela Cruz, whose office organized the event, said the tragedy is a "shared hurt" for members of the Filipino community across Canada. "There are also people far beyond the walls of this room who share in our grief, nationwide, across the seas," she said. "We're all in this together." A black SUV drove into the street festival crowd as the event was winding down around 8 p.m. PT on Saturday, killing 11 people and injuring dozens. A Vancouver man is now facing multiple second-degree murder charges in relation to the attack. Winnipeg is home to the largest per capita Filipino population in Canada, Dela Cruz said, calling the city a "year-long Filipino festival." She said the hurt caused by the Vancouver attack is deeply felt here. "The entire community feels that harm because we are so integrated in the framework and the fabric of this province," Dela Cruz said. Winnipeggers worried for loved ones in Vancouver At the vigil, community members spoke to the deep connections within the Filipino diaspora across Canada. Bayani Marcelino told CBC news he has family living in Vancouver, calling them to check in as soon as he heard about the attack. He said they had planned to attend the festival, but thankfully didn't go on Saturday. Still, he said he couldn't sleep days after the attack because the people impacted "are all family." "They are all Filipino and we are Filipino, so we have to give our support and our condolences to those families," Marcelino said. Dela Cruz said a family friend, who had recently moved from Winnipeg to Vancouver, was injured in the attack. "The father has stabilized now and the two-year-old son is still in the ICU," Dela Cruz said of her loved ones, adding a GoFundMe campaign has helped cover flights costs for family and friends visiting the boy in hospital. As of Tuesday morning, more than $1.5 million had been raised for the victims and their families across multiple online fundraising platforms. Winnipeg mourners 'unite as one' At the Keewatin Street centre, hundreds of people from across Winnipeg's diverse communities showed up to pay their respects. After Muslim, Sikh, Jewish and Christian religious leaders offered prayers and words of support, mourners were invited to approach a table at the front of the room, lined with candles and framed pictures of those who died in Vancouver. As the procession progressed forward, violinist Paolo Camus repeatedly played Hindi Kita Malilimutan — which means "I will never forget you" in Tagalog — by Basil Valdez. Evo Paguio was standing along the side of the auditorium — every seat in the room was full —- singing along to the song, which he said reminds him of his late mother. "I want to give my support to them, the families that lost their mother, father, kids … I wish I could hug them and give my regards to them," he said. "Every time that tragedy happens, we unite as one," Paguio said.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Canadian election campaign limits government as more tariffs loom
By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's decision to call for a snap election for April 28 could curtail his ability to respond forcefully if the United States carries out a threat to impose additional tariffs. Now that campaigning has started, the government is bound by a so-called caretaker convention, which means it can engage in routine business but should avoid major policy decisions. The election comes at a particularly sensitive time for Canada given the threat it faces from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and remarks about annexing Canada, which Carney on Sunday called "the most significant crisis of our lifetimes." Ministers retain their jobs but virtually all aides were obliged to stop using their work emails and cell phones the second the election was announced on Sunday. This begs the question of what happens if Trump follows through with a plan to slap additional tariffs on Canadian imports on April 2, on top of the 25% tariffs already imposed in March on Canadian imports of steel and aluminum. The caretaker convention allows the government to take care of urgent business, so Canada would be able to announce the countermeasures it has already promised, experts said, though additional retaliation could be more difficult. Asked by CBC news on Wednesday whether Canada could impose already announced counter measures during an election, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly replied: "Yes, of course, because ultimately we are the government ... our job is to defend the national interest." However, talking to Trump, going to Washington or announcing new measures to counter U.S. tariffs, could open Carney to attacks from opposition parties unhappy that he was using his office to bolster his own standing during the campaign. "I anticipate that during the actual election, people will be a bit more circumspect, but it does depend quite significantly on the will of political actors to restrain themselves," said Philippe Lagasse, a professor and constitutional expert at Ottawa's Carleton University. Asked on Sunday why he was calling an election in the middle of a tariff war, Carney said he needed a vote to take place to show he has a strong mandate to manage Canada's economy and negotiate with Trump. During a campaign in October 2015, then Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper called a press conference to announce Canada had joined a transpacific trade pact. Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair complained about the event with reporters, saying "it's inconceivable that Stephen Harper signed a secret deal in the midst of an election campaign." Harper lost the election. During an election campaign in February in the Canadian province of Ontario, premier Doug Ford came under fire for traveling to Washington to campaign against tariffs. But Ford won reelection. "The trick is not to be seen as taking advantage of the situation in a way that people are going to think is unfair," said Andrew McDougall, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto "(Carney) is going to have to be aware that ... that he is technically sort of bound by this convention, and so he doesn't want to be seen to be violating it." In polls conducted just before the campaign started, the Liberals and official opposition Conservatives were effectively tied. The results indicate the Liberals would win the most seats, and potentially form a majority government, since their support is concentrated in the eastern half of the country where there are more seats up for grabs. The Conservatives did not respond to a question on whether they were worried the Liberals might breach the caretaker convention.
CBC
18-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
New Cree-owned airline launches in Chisasibi
A new 9-passenger Beechcraft King Air 350 landing on the runway in Chisasibi, Quebec helped the Cree Nation of Chisasibi mark the launch of its new airline earlier this month. In an email to CBC news, Chisasibi Chief Daisy House said many people got emotional that day. "It was a sight to see when the pilots of SiBi Air did a speedy fly-over Chisasibi," she said. For more than 20 years, community members and officials have discussed the idea of Chisasibi owning its own plane or airline. SiBi Air, owned by the Cree Nation of Chisasibi, will provide medical evacuation and charter flight services, according to a press release. Chisasibi is the only community in Eeyou Istchee with an outpatient hospital – and construction on a bigger $420 million hospital is scheduled to begin this spring. "We put a lot of work into this project, so it is successful," said Barry Bearskin, director general of operations for the Cree Nation of Chisasibi. "We did what the people wanted considering it's been discussed for a long time." SiBi Air celebrated its service launch on March 5. Plans for the airline's future are already taking shape. The community hopes to add a bush plane to cater to land-users who stay out on the land most of the year, as well as helicopter services and a pilot training program. "I am anxious to start the pilot programming school here in Chisasibi, for anyone who wants to follow a pilot program, so they don't have to move down south to take the training to be a pilot," said Bearskin. Bearskin hopes the program will help the airline to have entirely Cree pilots in the future. "We are trying to create more opportunities for people in different fields," said Bearskin. House, meanwhile, said her council has always shown support for the idea of having its own airline. "The day of the service launch of SiBi Air was truly a proud moment for Chisasibi," she said.
