Respondents’ feelings about fighting for Ukraine were not as strong as their feelings about fighting for the United States or Israel.

B.C. woman wielded ‘undue influence’ over boss who gave her $5.1 million, court finds

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/bc-woman-wielded-undue-influence-over-boss-who-gave-her-51-million-court-finds/

An Imperial Oil pipeline spilled 843,000 litres of bitumen emulsion northwest of Cold Lake, Alta., last week.

In a statement to CBC News, Imperial Oil spokesperson Lisa Schmidt said teams responded immediately. The release, which occurred April 9, has been stopped and contained, and cleanup and remediation are underway.

“We are sorry this incident occurred," Schmidt wrote.

An Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) spokesperson confirmed the agency sent inspectors to the site of the spill — about 30 kilometres northwest of Cold Lake, a city near the Alberta-Saskatchewan border.

Although, Kevin Timoney, ecologist with Treeline Ecological Research, has studied thousands of spills and believes wildlife and waterbodies could be affected.

“There are always impacts and I know that, in the vast majority of cases, those impacts are not adequately reported,” Timoney said.

The Alberta government was quick to react when an Investigative Journalism Foundation investigation revealed that the amount of overtime worked by paramedics in Edmonton had increased by 81 per cent between 2021 and 2024.

The report was republished by several media outlets across Canada last summer through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Staff from Premier Danielle Smith’s office and the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services immediately began messaging reporters and editors, claiming that data had been omitted and asking that the story be rewritten or deleted. At least one news outlet complied with the government’s request.

But after filing multiple access to information requests, the IJF found that information cited in emails from the premier’s staff doesn’t line up with data from the province’s own health agencies.

That’s a serious problem, said Lorian Hardcastle, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Calgary.

“In many cases, government is the only one with access to particular data,” she said. “And so it’s essential to government accountability to democracy for them to be honest and open and transparent with that data.”

“Where that data is false, or where that data is misleading or is manipulated in a way to make it seem more favourable, all of that is really problematic,” Hardcastle said. “And it takes away the ability of the public to hold the government’s feet to the fire to make improvements.” Inaccurate data also makes it harder for those working in the system to make needed changes, she said.

A former trucker from Florida has been sentenced to more than four years in U.S. prison after smuggling handguns into Canada that were later recovered at 10 crime scenes in Ontario and Quebec, and linked to two killings.

Court documents reviewed by CBC News provide a rare glimpse into a cross-border pipeline for crime guns.

The scheme saw U.S. firearms purchased legally, then transported up to 2,000 kilometres north to be re-sold to a Canadian trafficker for the retail price of the gun, plus a $1,000 fee for each weapon.

One of the weapons was found in Toronto after what police described as a "reckless" shootout in November 2024 that they said highlighted the "real and present danger" posed by illegal firearms.

The Canada Revenue Agency has paid out another $5-million refund to a single taxpayer, this time to a B.C. businesswoman, despite what it now alleges was a bogus return that included "illogical" and "falsified information."

According to court records obtained by CBC's the fifth estate and Radio-Canada, the seven-figure refund was paid out last May to Teresa Wallace. The documents say she typically made $54,000 a year with her hemp and grain processing business in Silverton, 95 kilometres north of Nelson in the West Kootenay region.

Two months after releasing the funds, a CRA affidavit shows the agency believed it had made a huge mistake after realizing it had failed to examine the legitimacy of the requested refund — even though it had been red-flagged for manual review.

"Here we go again. I mean, how many times do you have to learn a lesson?" said a source familiar with the inner workings of the agency who was granted confidentiality because they are not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Years after the virus that causes COVID-19 kicked off a global pandemic, it’s still sending thousands of Canadians into hospital each year alongside other respiratory infections — despite a suite of vaccines that can slash someone’s risk of serious illness.

Striking new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows hospitalization rates for vaccine-preventable respiratory diseases more than doubled in 2024 compared to pre-pandemic levels, all while vaccination rates are backsliding.

There were 142 hospitalizations for every 100,000 Canadians that year, the data shows, up from roughly 66 per 100,000 in 2019.

Yet seasonal vaccination uptake for both COVID and flu shots has dropped.

Federal figures suggest only 26 per cent of Canadian adults were vaccinated for COVID in 2024 — a dramatic drop from when shots were first rolled out mid-pandemic and lineups at vaccination clinics often spanned multiple city blocks.

It looks like Americans own almost three times more of the big four Alberta tarsands companies than Canadians.

Teresa Patry is feeling gaslit by Alberta's oil and gas regulator — and she's not the only one.

The Vermilion, Alta., farmer and rancher has two active oil wells operating on her land, which, according to an independent air quality assessment, are venting a steady stream of methane and potentially dangerous chemicals downwind from where she lives with her family and livestock.

Patry can smell the fumes from her home, and she believes they are negatively impacting her health and that of her family and animals. But every time she calls the province's energy regulator, she says they tell her everything is operating as it should be.

"Our home isn't an industrial site, but it's sort of been turned into one," she told What On Earth host Laura Lynch.

Halifax will not move ahead with a tool that would require affordable housing units in certain new buildings — for now.

On Tuesday, municipal staff brought a report on inclusionary zoning to regional council, nearly three years after a former council voted for the idea in 2023.

The report includes a consultant’s study that examined the local market impacts of requiring a certain percentage of affordable units in new buildings. The group also consulted with private developers and non-profit housing groups.

If you buy an $800,000 condo in British Columbia you will likely pay provincial property transfer tax of about $14,000.

But Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega, founder of the Zara clothing chain, and his private investment company Pontegadea paid no property transfer tax when he bought the Post office-retail development in downtown Vancouver for $1.2 billion last year.

Instead of buying the building, Ortega bought 8384410 Canada Inc., which owned it. As a result he didn’t have to pay the $36 million in property tax that would otherwise have been levied.

It is routine strategy in the B.C. real estate and development business to establish a bare trustee company and register it in the land title office as the owner of a property. The beneficial owner of the property is whoever owns the shares in that company.

When they want to sell, they sell the shares of the company (and the property) with no change of ownership in the land title office and no property transfer tax payable.

That’s the case in B.C. but not in Ontario, which taxes the transfer of a beneficial interest in land in the same way as property sales transfers. It closed the loophole back in 1989.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford defended his government's plan to build many more jails, saying the billions in cost will be worth it.

Ontario's jails are well over capacity and the overcrowding has been worsening for years under Ford's tenure as premier.

The province plans to add upward of 6,000 new jail beds by 2050, government documents obtained by The Canadian Press show.

About 80 per cent of inmates in provincial jails are awaiting trial and presumptively innocent. The provincial institutions hold people who are accused of a crime but not on bail, as well as those serving sentences of two years less a day. Inmates with longer sentences are housed in the federal prison system.

One of the Canada's oldest Black churches faces an uncertain future with the owner applying to repeal the 150-year-old building's heritage designation.

Since 1983 the British Methodist Episcopal Church at 430 Grey St. in London, Ont., has had full heritage designation. Built between 1868 and 1871, the yellow brick church has served as a place of worship and gathering for London's Black community, including many who fled slavery by way of the Underground Railroad.

It was originally known as the African Methodist Church which started in 1856 with a location on Thames Street before the brick building was built on Grey Street in what is now London's SoHo neighbourhood.

“It’s one of the few churches in London associated with the Black community that’s still standing," he said. "It has direct ties to the Underground Railroad and it’s a neighbourhood landmark."

Carney and Co are lowering gas/diesel taxes:

The move means that the cost of gas will drop by 10 cents on a litre of gasoline and four cents per litre of diesel starting on Monday and lasting until Labour Day. The fuel tax holiday, which Carney said would also see the four cent per litre excise tax removed on aviation fuel, is expected to cost an estimated $2.4 billion.

One of the aims is to improve the affordability hit we're taking because of the US/Israel war with Iraq.

Does the tax holiday make sense to you? Could it be done better?