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Canada will continue to support Ukraine’s efforts to restore energy infrastructure damaged by Russian strikes, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said in a recent meeting with the leadership of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

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Commenting on Russia’s strike on UNESCO World Heritage sites in Lviv, the Canadian Foreign Minister stated that it represented “an attempt by Russia to destroy Ukraine’s culture and identity.” She emphasized: “These are clear violations of international law, and those responsible must be held accountable.”

On March 24, Russia carried out a massive drone strike on central Lviv, damaging a building recognized as UNESCO heritage.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has coordinated with UNESCO experts to visit Lviv to document the destruction and assess the damage caused by the Russian attack.

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Canada will pitch plans for a new defence bank to G7 nations, urging ​them to join an initiative to provide critical financing for small and medium‑sized defence firms that struggle to access capital, ‌Foreign Minister Anita Anand [said].

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Foreign ministers from the world's leading Western democracies are meeting in France on March 26-27 against the backdrop of wars in Iran and Ukraine, economic uncertainty, and mounting unease over unpredictable U.S. foreign policy.

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"The capital available is going to depend on the number of countries that ⁠participate, and Canada is certainly advocating for more and more countries to come on board, and I will be presenting such an argument ​here at the G7 foreign ministers' (meeting)," Anand told Reuters at the meeting.

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Major European nations have yet to embrace the Canadian initiative. In December, Germany turned down the idea of a new multilateral defence bank.

And earlier this week, Britain announced it planned to team up with the ​Netherlands and Finland in a separate scheme to drum up more private finance for defence equipment.

Anand said many defence firms were small or ​medium-sized enterprises that do not currently have the necessary capital to meet the surge in demand for weapons and other military kit.

That was not something ‌necessarily taken ⁠into consideration in other initiatives such as the European Union's 150 billion euro ($173 billion) SAFE loans programme, she said.

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Anand said lessons had been learnt from the ​start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.

"We saw that there was a need for interoperability and there ​was a need ⁠for rapid scale-up in procurement and supply of military equipment. That's what the Defence Bank is going to address," she said.

Canada has provided C$25.5 billion ($18.5 billion) in aid to Ukraine.

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Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said she will press at a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers for a reduction in hostilities in the US- and Israel-led war in Iran as countries around the world contend with a surge in energy prices.

Anand told Bloomberg Television on Thursday ahead of the meeting in France that she recently spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the situation in the Middle East.

“We are going to make sure that there’s an exchange of views as well as to hear from Secretary Rubio and then to ensure that hopefully we can work toward deescalation,” Anand said. “Canada wants to play a role in this diplomacy to work toward the preservation of civilian life.”

The war in Iran has dented economic expectations, with the OECD increasing its average inflation forecast for the Group of 20 this year to 4%, up from the 2.8% it predicted in December.

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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/49525919

A new regional network ... is working to enhance understanding of the common security challenges facing the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic.

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The Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic Hub for Shared Security Challenges is a virtual network connecting think tanks and universities from Australia, New Zealand, Republic of Korea and Japan (and in the next phase, also from Allied countries) and NATO countries interested in enhancing understanding of common challenges between the two regions. This public engagement initiative is supported by a grant from NATO Headquarters and it is open to relevant stakeholders from the two regions, according to a statement by the NATO.

The network currently involves:

—Australia: Australian Strategic Policy Institute; National Security College at the Australian National University.

—Japan: Economic Security Intelligence Lab, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo; Japan Institute of International Affairs; Keio Center for Strategy at Keio University.

—New Zealand: Centre for Strategic Studies; New Zealand Institute of International Affairs; Asia New Zealand Foundation.

—Republic of Korea: Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies; Hankuk University of Foreign Studies; The Sejong Institute; East Asia Institute.

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The RCMP's commissioner says he expresses sincere regret for an extensive spying program that targeted hundreds of Indigenous people.

It's the first time Mike Duheme acknowledged reporting by CBC Indigenous concerning RCMP surveillance activities dating back to the late 1960s against Indigenous leaders and organizations.

"We recognize the serious concerns that this history continues to raise for Indigenous Peoples, families and communities across Canada," Duheme wrote in a statement published Wednesday.

"I express sincere regret, and while we cannot change the past, we can and must acknowledge that these actions and their impact continue to be felt today."

McKay filed a complaint with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services, an independent organization that helps customers in Canada resolve complaints related to internet and television services. Rogers replied to that complaint in an email, saying McKay didn't have the authority to dispute the account because it wasn't hers.

"The complainant has expressly confirmed that they are not the account holder and are therefore not authorized to submit a complaint on behalf of the account holder," it said.

McKay said that when she tried to dispute her debt with Equifax, one of Canada's largest credit-rating agencies, Rogers told them the account is legitimate and that the debt is hers.

"So, on one hand … they're telling me I don't have any authority to complain about how this is being handled or about the fact that I'm being held responsible for something," she said.

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For nearly three decades, Iranians have tried to change their country through peaceful means. In 1997, as a teenager, I witnessed the euphoria of people voting for what many described as the “least bad” candidate in a state-supervised election, hoping incremental reform might lead to something better.

Again and again, that hope was shattered.

Every couple of years, there comes a period when I wake up in Canada to the news of protests, deaths and arrests: the demonstrations of 2017 over rising food prices, the countrywide uprising in November 2019 over a spike in gasoline prices, the uproar in 2022 following Mahsa Amini's death in police custody and most recently this January, when in just two days, at least 7,000 civilians lost their lives.

The moment that felt most personal to me was the downing of Ukrainian Flight 752 over Iran in January 2020. Several of the passengers were Iranian Canadians — people like me. It could easily have been me on that flight, had I travelled to visit my family for the new year holidays.

Meanwhile, daily life in Iran has steadily grown more difficult. Pollution chokes major cities. I sometimes have to ask my parents to stay home until rain clears the air. Power outages disrupt ordinary routines. My mother, who has mobility issues, has to remain at home when the elevator stops working. Strict dress codes remain enforced. A worsening water crisis looms. And basic freedoms — from freedom of expression to the rights of women and 2SLGBTQ+ people — remain tightly constrained.

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Like many Iranians, I fear the war. But I also fear what it would mean if it ended and nothing changed.

Living in Canada adds another layer to that conflict. I’m surrounded by well-meaning people for whom the moral lines seem much clearer: war is wrong; violence only brings suffering; surely there must be another way.

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Part of me agrees instinctively — maybe, after all, my parents were better off living in a poor, broken country than under bombs looming overhead. But another part hesitates, because the reality is not a straightforward choice between war and peace. It’s a choice between a political system that has repeatedly resisted meaningful reform and the unpredictable, frightening consequences of its collapse.

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Part of me agrees instinctively — maybe, after all, my parents were better off living in a poor, broken country than under bombs looming overhead. But another part hesitates, because the reality is not a straightforward choice between war and peace. It’s a choice between a political system that has repeatedly resisted meaningful reform and the unpredictable, frightening consequences of its collapse.

Holding those two emotions at once isn’t easy to explain. Which is why, in conversations with well-meaning Canadians, what matters most to me is often the simplest thing: their willingness to listen — to us, contradictions and all.

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After this [Canadian] government insisted that the Indian government was cooperating with the Canadian investigation into the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and other crimes like extortion and arson, the Indian government said there was never anything to investigate in the first place. The Carney government remained silent, directly playing into the false narrative being pushed by India.

Then, prior to leaving for an international trip that included a stop in India, a Privy Council Office (PCO) official told journalists during a technical briefing that India was no longer committing any foreign interference or transnational repression, contradicting recent statements made by CSIS. Within days, the public safety minister, the foreign affairs minister and the prime minister all came out publicly to downplay the PCO official’s comments.

True to form under this government, this past week has only added more confusion. RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme went on CTV’s Question Period and told host Vassy Kapelos that the RCMP had no evidence of any clandestine activity related to foreign interference or transnational repression that can be linked back to a foreign country.

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“I’m saying that based on the totality of the files that we have on foreign interference or transnational repression, what we have in our holdings is we have people that are intimidating people, harassing people — but connecting the dots to a foreign entity, regardless of the country, we don’t have that.”

So, it’s not just India that is no longer committing foreign interference or transnational repression, but all countries that have been known to conduct foreign interference or transnational repression –** India, China, Russia, Iran** – have apparently stopped their activities, according to the RCMP’s top cop.

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Before we take the RCMP commissioner at his word and hang up a giant “mission accomplished” banner to mark the end of foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada, it’s worth noting that his words directly contradict the assessment that CSIS put out on March 1. In an emailed statement to the National Post, the spy agency confirmed that its threat assessment of the main perpetrators of “foreign interference and espionage against Canada” has not changed.

Additionally, Global News reporter Stewart Bell posted on social media on March 20 — after part of Duheme’s interview was teased out by CTV — that he had received a statement from CSIS confirming the agency’s threat assessment had not changed and that transnational repression and foreign interference remain persistent threats in Canada.

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That the RCMP and CSIS would have different assessments is not in and of itself surprising. Trying to build a criminal case that can be prosecuted in Canada is different from collecting intelligence and there are several challenges in presenting intelligence as evidence, which was discussed at length during the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference.

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Canadians deserve to hear directly from their government — ideally, the prime minister himself — as to what is actually happening in Canada when it comes to foreign interference and transnational repression and what the current threat posed to diaspora communities looks like. As Canadians from Iran, China, India and elsewhere face real threats of violence, extortion, intimidation and harassment from state-linked proxies, they deserve to know what the current public safety risk to their communities is.

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Given that there was no parade of government ministers to come forward to downplay the comments made by the RCMP commissioner as they did with the PCO official’s comments, it’s likely that the government is in “wishing this story goes away on its own” mode. All while the Official Opposition chooses to stay silent on this issue for reasons that seem more curious by the day.

The result? Canadians are left in the dark as to what the actual current threat to public safety is and have increasing reason to distrust the government and the RCMP’s assessment of the threat.

It’s a recipe for success — for hostile state actors — while Canada loses.

Premier Danielle Smith says Alberta Health Services (AHS) is trying to get its money back after paying $49 million to an importer and a Turkish drug company for products it didn't receive.

The purchase arrangement for which AHS is trying to recoup money was the second iteration of an initial deal that did see some medication arrive.

The initial purchase agreement for five million bottles of children's painkillers, inked in 2022 amid a nationwide medication shortage, is a part of ongoing probes by the RCMP and the auditor general into provincial health procurement.

At an unrelated news conference on Wednesday, Smith told reporters that AHS is using legal avenues to try to recoup the money, abandoning its backup plan to obtain intravenous painkillers for money it had already paid.

Muslim parents who spoke to The Rover say that when they questioned the EMSB’s apparent support for Israel in conversations with elected commissioners or staff, they were either ignored or told they supported terrorism.

“I wasn’t called antisemitic, but an elected councillor at the EMSB told people I’m a supporter of (deceased Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar,” said one parent and volunteer at the school board. She did not want her name published for fear of reprisals. “Technically, he didn’t attack my character. He could easily say he was joking.”

Councillor Julien Feldman was suspended by the school board's ethics commissioner last month for falsely associating a mother of three EMSB students with antisemitism and derisively referring to her as "Ms. Gaza." Without consulting parents or teachers, the elected council voted to absolve Feldman of wrongdoing last month in a vote that wasn't included on the agenda circulated to the community ahead of the meeting.

“There appears to be, at the very least, some sort of anti-Muslim or anti-Palestinian bias at the EMSB,” said another Muslim parent. “The treatment reserved for people who support Palestine versus those who support Israel, it’s like there are two sets of rules.”

The tentative agreement is for a five-year contract, and includes wage increases of 6.5 per cent and three per cent in the first two years.

“We get a raise that still pays us less than the other major carriers and only some of the rights we were already entitled to under the Canada Labour Code,” said the minority report.

There's a sense of tension that lives inside Kassy Zanjani when she's on the street or at a café — and especially if a stranger approaches with a smile and what seems like a harmless compliment.

She's on alert, asking herself the same question: Is someone filming me?

That feeling is called hypervigilance — essentially, it's your nervous system trying to protect you from an outside threat.

It's common among veterans, soldiers and first responders, but it began for Zanjani in January, after learning a stranger had secretly recorded her using smart glasses and uploaded the video to Instagram and TikTok, where it amassed more than 30,000 views in the span of a week before a friend alerted her.

*** The article offers at least a partial solution ...

In February he launched Nearby Glasses, an app that scans your surroundings, to a range of about 10 to 15 metres, for Bluetooth low-energy signatures, a feature of smart glasses.

Toronto police say they are creating a counter-terrorism unit and a specialized task force that will see officers with semi-automatic rifles stationed at key locations in the city.

The locations include places of worship, tourist attractions, high traffic public spaces and critical infrastructure, police told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.

Police Chief Myron Demkiw said the dedicated counter-terrorism security unit and "task force guardian" are not being set up in response to any one threat but are security measures to "prevent, detect and disrupt" extremism violence and terrorism.

“We know that visible police presence matters when it comes to deterring violence and reassuring our communities,” Demkiw said.