Stellantis is discussing options for building electric vehicles in Canada in partnership with China’s Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology, according to people familiar with the matter. It’s a signal of how quickly the auto industry is being reshaped by US protectionism. Tariffs were the trigger that caused Canada to open the door to companies from China, the world’s largest car market.

The talks with the Canadian government are at an early stage. If the companies proceed, it would be the first major Chinese auto investment in Canada since Prime Minister Mark Carney reached an agreement with President Xi Jinping in January to reduce tariffs on Chinese-made EVs.
For Carney and Industry Minister Melanie Joly, it’s tricky. They want to see the factory humming again. But just as important, they want a supply chain and business for auto suppliers in Ontario — not large-scale parts imports from China.

Flavio Volpe, the auto parts manufacturers’ representative, had a warning for the government soon after we published our story. “A ‘complete knock-down’ operation with all parts and systems brought in from China is an import quota cheat. Allowing this will kill Canadian industry,” he said on social media.

As her alter ego Marg Delahunty, comedian Mary Walsh spent years fearlessly ambushing Canadian politicians, skewering them with barbs and insults phrased as friendly advice.

But for Walsh, every ambush was always “deeply, deeply terrifying.”

“You only had one shot. It wasn't like you could do it again,” said Walsh, who played the fictional Delahunty on CBC satirical news show This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Walsh would turn up to press briefings sporting large glasses and often violent shades of blush and eye shadow. She wore a breastplate and mini skirt — inspired by the hit 90s TV show Xena: Warrior Princess — and waited to pounce as politicians took questions from journalists.

“Everybody else was dressed appropriately. And I was there in a few bits of red felt with gold glue around my breasts, brandishing a plastic sword from Toys “R” Us," she told The Current’s Matt Galloway.

“I would just feel so embarrassed and ashamed. I would think, 'Well, shag it. I've got nothing to lose, certainly not any shred of human dignity.’ And you know, I'd just go for it.”

Greatest hits of the fearless Marg Delahunty, Princess Warrior -- https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.4320213

I didn’t want to write this essay.

I was born in Alberta. I graduated from St. Francis High School in Calgary, then earned two degrees down the street at the University of Calgary. I wrestled for the Dinos, the university’s wrestling team, and for Team Alberta at the Canada Summer Games, where I lost the gold medal match in overtime to a kid from Newfoundland. The memory still haunts me. I got married in Cochrane, Alberta, to a woman from Fairview, Alberta. We had a son and, eventually, a divorce in Calgary. Alberta has always been my home.

So, when I’ve been asked in the past to write about the Alberta independence movement, I’ve said no. As a lifelong Albertan, I’ve grown weary of the rest of Canada’s fixation on my province’s conservative excesses, and I didn’t feel the current separatist tantrum warranted the nation’s attention. Or maybe I was just embarrassed. In any case, I thought Canadians were hearing enough about this already.

I changed my mind when I realized what people outside of Alberta — or even those within the province — weren’t hearing. The economic and political grievances expressed by the movement’s leaders obfuscate what’s really going on. I wanted Canadians to understand that Alberta separatism, at its heart, isn’t motivated by equalization policies, Senate seats, carbon taxes or oil. These tired complaints may ride shotgun on independence, but bigotry drives the truck.

Sextortion cases involving both adults and youth have soared in Winnipeg, say police, who are using April, the nationally recognized Sexual Assault Awareness Month, to shed light on the crime.

The Winnipeg Police Service had 19 extortion reports in 2020. In 2025, the number was 223. Although the cases are recorded as extortion, most, if not all, involve sextortion, said Const. Stephen Spencer.

"These numbers are quite concerning," he said, noting the number of reports received has grown annually from 31 in 2021, climbing to 56 in 2022, 165 and 2023 and 213 in 2024.

As the search continues for a baby girl who vanished months ago when her mother was killed, Alberta RCMP have released new, heartbreaking details on the case.

The Alberta RCMP Major Crimes Unit say they remain committed to their investigation into the killing of Ayla Egotik-Learn, and the presumed death of her daughter Braylee Beasley. Police also say they hope public tips help narrow their search for the infant's remains.

In late January, RCMP recovered the body of Egotik-Learn, a 23-year-old Inuk mother from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, inside her apartment in St. Albert, a city northwest of Edmonton.

Her baby daughter has never been found — and is presumed dead by police.

A new study from southwestern Manitoba paints a stark picture of rural residents experiencing gender-based violence, where the nearest help might be hours away, and finding safety and anonymity often means leaving the community.

Barriers pile up fast for survivors outside city limits, Jamie Brown of the Western Manitoba Women's Centre in Brandon says. There's a lack of transportation, child care and housing, and the fear of encountering abusers at the community's only grocery store, gas station or hospital.

The centre's report, Advancing the Rights of Women Experiencing Gender-Based Violence in Southwestern Manitoba, was funded by Women and Gender Equality Canada and publicly released Thursday. It highlights a rural-urban divide in access and equity in terms of gender-based violence support and resources, Brown says.

Manitoba has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the country, with 568 reported incidents of family violence and 607 of intimate partner violence per 100,000 people, per Statistics Canada.

Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard has filed a lawsuit against a long list of defendants — including a woman who accused him of sexual assault and Manitoba's former attorney general — alleging he was defamed and suffered as a result of what he describes as an abuse of process surrounding his prosecution in Winnipeg.

Nygard filed the statement of claim in Manitoba's Court of King's Bench on Friday, naming as defendants the City of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Police Service, police Chief Gene Bowers, the Province of Manitoba and former Manitoba attorney general Kelvin Goertzen.

The lawsuit also names as defendants the Province of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Crown attorney Rob Parker, Toronto therapist and advocate Shannon Moroney, and April Telek, who alleged Nygard sexually assaulted her at his Winnipeg warehouse in 1993.

The court filing comes after a judge in October stayed the charges in Nygard's Winnipeg prosecution involving Telek, finding his right to a fair trial was breached by police failing to retain records related to her allegations.

Archived link

Prime Minister Mark Carney would not say when asked whether China’s treatment of the Uyghurs amounted to genocide – as the House of Commons declared several years ago – but acknowledged the Asian country was “rightly called out” for its conduct toward this minority in the past.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday at an unrelated news conference in Quebec, Mr. Carney was asked whether he agreed with the [Canada's] 2021 House of Commons motion on genocide.

He declined to say but noted “there are fundamental issues in terms of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs in the past, and they’ve been rightly called out.”

Mr. Carney is still navigating the fallout from comments from new Liberal MP Michael Ma who last week cast doubt on reports of forced labour in China. Mr. Ma, who defected from the opposition Conservatives in December, has since apologized for his statements.

...

Mr. Ma sparked a backlash last Thursday after he challenged the existence of forced labour in China during a meeting of the Commons industry committee, which is examining Mr. Carney’s deal to allow 49,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles into Canada at a low tariff rate.

...

Last week, Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, had told the Commons industry committee Thursday that electric vehicles (EV) are being built with Chinese aluminum products made by slave labourers in Xinjiang. A 2024 Human Rights Watch report also said major automakers including Tesla, BYD, GM, Toyota and Volkswagen are drawing aluminum from supply chains linked to Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang.

...

Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, a region some call East Turkestan, have faced years of repression, forced internment and coerced labour under Beijing, according to rights groups. A 2022 report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said China has committed “serious human rights violations” there that may amount to “crimes against humanity.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53062409

Archived

Prime Minister Mark Carney told a closed-door fundraiser crowd Monday night that floor-crossing MP Michael Ma represents “Liberal values,” after the former Conservative politician drew controversy over comments about forced labour in China.

In video obtained by Global News, Carney told the crowd at the GTA fundraiser that the Liberals were “glad” to welcome Ma to their ranks after the MP crossed from Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in December.

“(Ma) joined, he said, because he was guided by the values of building up others, delivering results — he’s a results-oriented individual — and choosing the path that creates opportunities for Canadians,” Carney said.

“These are fundamental Liberal values, fundamental Canadian values and that’s why Michael Ma has found a home in our party.”

[...]

The $1,775 per ticket fundraiser was closed to the media and the public, but Global News obtained video from a source who was in the room. The material reviewed by Global includes extended speeches from both Carney and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson.

Ma was forced to apologize publicly last week after grilling a witness about forced labour in China at a House of Commons committee meeting on electric vehicles. The witness was suggesting that Chinese-made electric vehicles include parts produced by slave labour.

[...]

Ma demanded to know if Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, had witnessed the practice with her own eyes.

“Have you witnessed forced labour in (the Chinese province of) Shenzhen? Have you witnessed forced labour? Just a short answer — have you witnessed forced labour in Shenzhen, yes or no?” Ma asked, suggesting the alternative was “hearsay.”

Ma’s brusque remarks were initially misinterpreted by media outlets as referring to the western province of Xinjiang, which had been a major topic during the meeting. Human rights abuses against Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslim population have been well-documented by international monitoring groups.

Several hours after his questions, Ma issued an apology and indicated he “inadvertently came across as dismissive of the serious issue of forced labour.”

[...]

Carney has put an emphasis on diversifying Canadian trade away from the United States [...] That includes thawing relations with China and other economically important but dubiously reliable partners. Canada-China affairs have been frosty in recent years, after Beijing detained Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor on national security grounds — largely perceived as retaliation after Ottawa arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. warrant.

[...]