Latest news with #StephanKinach
CBC
13-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Sault city council says no to hanging portrait of King Charles in council chambers
Social Sharing A portrait of King Charles will not be hung in the council chambers in Sault Ste. Marie. A motion to have the portrait put up was defeated at a council meeting on Monday night. "This year, there's been two elections. With these elections came a lot of fear mongering, partisanship, threats of annexation and talk of separation," said Coun. Stephan Kinach, who put forward the motion. "With the conclusions of the federal election and another minority governments, we must embrace Canadian symbols, tradition, culture and heritage to unite the country." Kinach said he thought it was a "brilliant idea" for Prime Minister Mark Carney to invite King Charles to deliver the speech from the throne later this month. "This is a classy, elbows up move by showing sovereignty," he said. "Now, it's our turn of city council to do our part in our confederation by displaying a portrait of King Charles." 'Significant role in our local history' But not all councillors agreed with the idea. Coun. Angela Caputo said while it's important to recognize the significance of Canada's relationship with the monarchy, it's also a priority to recognize that Indigenous people have requested an apology from the British monarch for the Crown's role in the residential school system. "Until the monarchy properly apologies to Indigenous people in Canada, I will not support the hanging of the royal portrait." Mayor Matthew Shoemaker said since elected, he's taken steps to include Indigenous practices at city hall, including being led in at his 2022 inauguration by an Indigenous drummer instead of a bagpiper. He also said he removed Queen Elizabeth's portrait and instead, replaced it with Chief Shingwauk, an Anishnaabe chief. "[He] represents a much more significant role in our local history then the Crown does," he said. "And for two and a half years, nobody noticed until I mentioned it on Twitter. It's astonishing that we were able to get all this governance done without the king's picture up. And yet now, it is a necessary symbol for us to properly conduct ourselves. So I don't think that it has the impact that it is conveyed to be having." The motion was defeated by a vote of 5-4.
CBC
23-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
Sault Ste. Marie city council to consider banning Chinese AI chatbot
Social Sharing Sault Ste. Marie city council will consider a motion at its Monday meeting to look into blocking the Chinese AI chatbot, DeepSeek, from city devices and networks. The motion asks staff to create a plan for blocking the service and report back to council. Councillors would then vote on proceeding with the plan. Councillor. Stephan Kinach is moving the motion after successfully passing a similar one last year to ban the Chinese-owned social media app, TikTok, from city devices. Kinach said he's read articles warning of security concerns with DeepSeek, and noted that Shared Services Canada has blocked the service on federal government networks and devices it oversees. "Cybersecurity should be top of mind for most levels of governments," he said. "Even this week in northern Ontario, they had a compromise in the Rainbow District School Board, and it was more serious than they let on [at] the beginning." Robust cybersecurity policies will help the city maintain its insurance and possibly reduce its premiums, Kinach added. Kinach is concerned about DeepSeek because of its ties to Communist Party-run China, he said, and because of concerns he's read in security articles about possible unauthorized access to names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, text or audio inputs, prompts, uploaded files, and chat histories. Australia and South Korea have both banned the service on government networks. "It's better to be on top of these policies and not be reacting to them once we get hacked or something is compromised," Kinach said. "It's just good housekeeping to have policies like this to protect us from possible future events … because we don't want to be put in a position where we have to call all our … residents and say 'Your information has been compromised because our system has been hacked.'" Kinach's fellow councillor, Marchy Bruni has seconded the motion.
