If POLICE KEPT working-class people safe, Winnipeg would be one of the safest cities in Canada, if not the world. The Prairie city of more than 800,000 people now spends more than one quarter of its operating budget on the Winnipeg Police Service—by far the highest share for any major city in the country. The police force is projected to spend more than $330 million in 2024 and $360 million in 2027. Comparatively, the entire Community Services department—which includes all libraries and recreation services such as pools, arenas, and community centres—is budgeted for a measly $110 million by 2027, while the city’s contribution to public transit will reach only $133 million by then.

A vast majority of this police budget goes toward the salaries, benefits, and pensions of a tiny cadre of extremely well-compensated cops. A cop starts making a six-figure salary after only five years on the job. In 2022, about 1,300 WPS employees made more than $100,000 a year, compared to only sixty employees of Winnipeg Transit and twenty-three from Community Services. In total, more than half of the 100 highest-paid city employees belong to the WPS. This situation also means that future wage increases will further inflate already enormous salaries, and that this divide will only widen in the years to come. Meanwhile, life-affirming care goes underfunded, understaffed, and unsupported altogether.

Unsurprisingly, this forcible process of cleansing and containing Indigenous people has frequently ended in killings. There’s been a staggering amount of death and injury caused by the WPS in recent years, from shootings, tasers, beatings, arrests, and in-custody mistreatment and neglect.

The 32 countries that have formally recognized non-human animal sentience include the European Union, Switzerland, Chile, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The people behind a year-old medical school dedicated solely to turning out family doctors say the small program based in Oshawa, Ont., is disrupting traditional medical education in a way that could help solve Canada's shortage of family physicians.

"The big idea here is to preselect a group of students who not only want to become doctors, but they want to become family doctors, and right from the outset to surround them with all the wonders of family medicine," said Dr. Jane Philpott, dean of Queen's University's Faculty of Health Sciences, and former federal health minister.

But critics say, while it's a good initiative, the effort is a drop in the bucket and that solutions to the overwhelming primary care shortage lie elsewhere — from training more nurse practitioners to removing barriers for foreign-trained doctors.

Actually, the item at the top of the Bloc's list of demands is a bill that would benefit millions of seniors across Canada — not just those in Quebec.

Bill C-319 proposes to increase by 10 per cent the amount of full pension for people once they turn 65. It also would boost the employment income exemption used in determining the amount of guaranteed income supplement (GIS), from $5,000 to $6,500.

Blanchet is also using Bill C-282 as a bargaining chip. The legislation would provide new protections to Canada's supply management system.

When members of Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation) and their supporters arrive at Queen’s Park this week, they’ll be calling for the Dryden pulp and paper mill that’s been poisoning their water with neurotoxins for nearly 60 years to permanently close.

Staff at the upstream Reed paper mill in Dryden, Ontario, about 150 kilometres east of Grassy Narrows, dumped nearly 10 metric tonnes of mercury into the English-Wabigoon River system in the 1960s and early 1970s. Mercury poisoned the plants and fish that the people of Grassy Narrows, and neighbouring Wabaseemoong Independent Nation, were consuming.

A half-century later, medical experts are finding that varying nervous and neurological health effects affect up to 90 per cent of Grassy Narrows residents.

In May, scientific researchers released scientific researchers released (archived link) the revelation that sulphate and organic matter in the effluent that the mill is still releasing into the river is making methylmercury in the river system even worse, as opposed to diminishing over time as they were told.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police says that they’re “overwhelmed” and are being increasingly “victimized” by activists as officers struggle to respond to a rising number of protests.

“Through immigration, thousands of people, who may have had an orientation towards violence as a means of expression or activism, continue to arrive in Canada every year,” said Carrique. “Protests are an opportunity for the blending of other activist splinter groups, or simply thugs… with a goal to create disruption, often co-opting the original intent of a lawful assembly.”

When pressed for further details about officers who have been doxxed, CACP spokesperson Natalie Wright did not have concrete answers. She said photos of officers have been posted on social media by activists at protests. “In the line of duty, assaults and injuries and even deaths for police officers have been on the rise, and this is of grave concern to your police leaders,” Carrique added.

After the press conference, this reporter, who is visibly Indigenous, was told to leave the event, and was quickly walked out of the conference centre by volunteers.

Canada’s S-210 is part of a wave of proposals worldwide seeking to gate access to sexual content online. Many of the proposals have similar flaws. Canada’s S-210 is up there with the worst. Both Australia and France have paused the rollout of age verification systems, because both countries found that these systems could not sufficiently protect individuals’ data or address the issues of online harms alone. Canada should take note of these concerns.

The Ontario government is considering bringing forward legislation that could prohibit the installation of bike lanes when lanes for motor vehicles are removed as a result, sources say.

Siemiatycki said "this government has signalled that the car is king," pointing to prior steps the governing Progressive Conservatives (PCs) have taken to ease costs for drivers.

He sees the PCs as making a clear play for the votes of motorists, and believes the policy would also appeal to many drivers frustrated with congestion on the roads.

cross-posted from: /c/britishcolumbia

"For too long, the idea of home ownership has been out of reach for way too many people — people who earn a decent income, who are priced out of the market and do not see any path to home ownership," said Premier David Eby, speaking at the project unveiling on Thursday.

The Southern Chiefs' Organization says it's taking Manitoba Hydro and the provincial government to court in a Charter challenge to have Lake Winnipeg given all the rights and protections of a living entity.

"Today, we are making history," Grand Chief Jerry Daniels said at a news conference Thursday morning.

"We're not saying this is going to solve everything, but we think this is going to be a good start to changing the way people think about the way the lake's governed."

A statement of claim filed Thursday in the Manitoba Court of King's Bench with assistance from the Public Interest Law Centre alleges the way the Manitoba government and Manitoba Hydro have artificially controlled the water levels and outflow of Lake Winnipeg for decades has been "completely negligent" and had "dire" effects on the lake, Daniels said.

According to the article, this is the seventh death of a First Nations person in police custody in the last three weeks.

My family and I moved from the US to Canada in the summer of 2023 and last week was the first time I had to make use my Services Card. I went to the ER in excruciating pain, had blood and urine labs done, a shot of pain killers then waited around (a long time) for a CT scan. The doctor said it might be a new record, but I had been bumped a few times by suspected stroke patients that came in, so totally understandable. Several hours later with a prescription slip in hand I exited the hospital. Easy as pie.

For anyone who has never had the displeasure of experiencing an American hospital you can not understand how much simpler and less stressful and cheap the Canadian system is. I dont know what it would have cost me in the USA, probably whatever my insurance deductible was, but it certainly was not $0. That state of not knowing what all this is going to cost you, and how you will afford it, makes an already awful experience even worse. Not being harassed for money on the way out, never once discussing the cost of something with the DR was truly eye opening.

TL:DR Thanks BC Health. You are not perfect but you are amazing. Anyone promoting American style health care here in Canada has either never experienced that gong show or is independently wealthy enough not to have to think about the costs.

(kidney stone for anyone who is curious. it was horrible)

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Wednesday his party will vote against a Conservative non-confidence motion due to be tabled next week — giving the Liberal government enough votes to stay in power and avoid an imminent election.

"Will the Bloc vote in favour of the Conservative motion next week? The answer is no," Blanchet said in French.

"The motion contains absolutely nothing. It essentially says: Do you want to replace Justin Trudeau with Pierre Poilievre? The answer is no," he said.

Blanchet said the Bloc is "at the service of Quebecers," not Conservatives.

Rising British metal stars Green Lung thrilled a sold-out audience in Toronto Tuesday for the band's first-ever show in the city — but on this night, the crowd's biggest round of applause might not have been for the band at all.

It's not like the quintet disappointed — far from it. Seeing the stoner/doom band live feels a lot like what it must have felt like to see Black Sabbath in the early 1970s, with a vivid, unbridled power coupled with dizzying musicianship and occult themes.

But Buffalo resident Jacob Marsh might have stolen the show when he got on one knee on stage at The Velvet Underground mid-set and proposed to his longtime partner, Jared Pease, causing the crowd to absolutely erupt.

Loblaw is launching a pilot program that will see employees at two Calgary locations don body-worn cameras in an effort to increase safety.

"Violent encounters at retail locations across the country have increased dramatically in recent years," explained Loblaw Companies Ltd. in a statement to CTV News.

"By piloting body cameras, we continue to do what we can to protect our customers and team."

The participating Calgary stores are the Real Canadian Superstore in the East Village on Sixth Avenue S.E., and the Shoppers Drug Mart next door.

Former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole said Wednesday he contemplated expelling a Conservative senator from his party's caucus over concerns that the senator was involved in foreign influence.

Testifying in Ottawa before the inquiry into foreign interference, O'Toole said one of his MPs was told by a local mayor that a Conservative senator was actively working on behalf of a Chinese government-owned company.

"There was a member of our upper chamber caucus that an MP brought to me that he had been directly or indirectly promoting or lobbying an interest of a Chinese state-owned enterprise in a riding in Ontario," O'Toole told the inquiry.

Officer accessed police databases over 100 times in order to further inappropriate relationships with vulnerable women - including showing up at the home of a 19 year old whose father was just murdered.

Archived link -- https://web.archive.org/web/20240918173900/https://thewalrus.ca/if-pierre-poilievre-wins/?vgo_ee=5NfgX2nW1a1biTgJmiiHi59zZm3gV%2FH3Sb%2BWTqXvQeshjakChPvbh0A%3D%3AI4lwyp%2FdzqWTkdyK0bGDMDMhmKHg%2B9ii

Welcome to the Poilievre Conspiracy Theory Vortex

• THIS PAST APRIL, far-right radio host and supplement salesman Alex Jones endorsed Pierre Poilievre, noting that he is the “real deal” and “is saying the same things as me.” And by “the same things,” he mostly means the legitimization of conspiracy theories about “globalist elites” and the World Economic Forum.

Poilievre Won’t Talk about Private Health Care—but He Should

• When asked by The Walrus about his plans vis-à-vis private health care, his team provided a statement that ignored the questions. It mentioned Trudeau and wait times and the difficulties for ­foreign-trained nurses and doctors in having their credentials recognized. The statement vowed to maintain the 2023 deal on health transfers to provinces and territories, in which the federal government committed to investing $198.6 billion in health care over the next decade. But on private care, nada.

Poilievre Has No Economic Platform

• WITH LESS than a year to go before the writ is expected to drop, Pierre Poilievre’s economic proposals are vague and shallow—and appear likely to stay that way. Though populists from both sides of the aisle tend to galvanize support by arguing the economy isn’t working for everyday people, the left tends to propose precise policy solutions. They promise, for instance, to tax the rich and invest in universal public services. They promise to regulate markets to stop profiteering in basic-need sectors such as nutrition, health care, and housing. They also promise to nationalize natural resources so everyone benefits from them. Say what you will of left-wing populists, but their intentions are clear.

In the absence of these important policy proposals, there is evidently some apprehension among Canadians. Half (46%) say they are “fearful” of the CPC forming government, while fewer (35%) anticipate it with hope. A majority (54%) suspect Poilievre and the CPC have a “hidden agenda” that won’t be revealed until after the party wins the elections.

There is also some doubt that a Poilievre-led government can balance the budget and lower income taxes as promised, even if most view them to be “good things”. More than two-in-five (45%) say neither will happen.

The Conservative strategy was clear: attack the New Democrats, whom a significant number of east Winnipeg voters have always liked, by going even harder on the Liberals, who have never enjoyed better than middling support in this corner of the city.

Running against one party by tying them to another was a novel strategy, U of M political studies professor Royce Koop said earlier this month.

"The Liberals are very unpopular. They're certainly not competitive in that seat," and so an attempt to tie the NDP to them "makes some sense," he said.

"But you don't see that all the time."

After what happened on Monday night in Elmwood-Transcona, you may never see it again.