Politics

Egale Canada, Skipping Stone and several families in Alberta have united to initiate litigation against the government of Alberta challenging the constitutionality of Bill 26. The controversial bill, which denies medically necessary care from being provided to gender diverse youth in the province, passed on Dec. 5, 2024. The decision to initiate litigation was announced Saturday morning in a press release.“The actions of the Government of Alberta are unprecedented. Never before in Canada has a government prohibited access to gender affirming health care,” said Kara Smyth, partner at McCarthy Tétrault and co-counsel to lawyers from Egale. The litigating party asserts that Bill 26 violates the Charter rights of gender diverse young people in Alberta; specifically, their section 7 right to ...

The federal government expanded its ban on firearms on Thursday, adding 324 makes and models of guns to the prohibited weapons list, and lawful gun owners in Alberta feel they’re being unnecessarily targeted. The move follows the May 2020 ban of 1,500 makes and models of firearms, including the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14. The number grew to more than 2,000 by November of this year as new variants were identified.The federal government says it is working with provinces, territories and police on a planned buyback of prohibited weapons from individual owners. It has already run a pilot project on collecting banned firearms from businesses.Lethbridge’s Justin Thomson was one of three Canadians who were hand-picked to compete in the World Pistol Caliber Carbine (PCC) Competition in the Czech Repu...

A federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January — and rebuffed the company’s challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the First Amendment.“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court’s opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to ...

Descrease article font size Increase article font size Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she will deliver a fall economic statement sometime this year as the clock ticks down on the remaining days in the House of Commons for 2024. Freeland, who is also the Liberal government’s deputy prime minister, made the pledge in Toronto after announcing funding for the Canadian artificial intelligence firm Cohere.“I will deliver a fall economic statement this year,” Freeland said.The fall fiscal update is typically delivered as a stopgap between federal budgets, providing revised economic updates on Ottawa’s projections and accounting for newly announced items in the government’s spending plans.Delivering a fall economic statement is not a mandated...

Canada will appoint a new Arctic ambassador and set up two new diplomatic missions in Alaska and Greenland to boost its presence in the North as its seeks to increase its security posture against foreign threats and climate change, the government announced Friday. The new Arctic foreign policy also sets out plans for increased engagement with the United States and Nordic nations like Sweden and Finland, strengthening research security, and improved information sharing with local and Indigenous governments on developing security threats, including foreign interference.The policy is part of the government’s renewed focus on Arctic security, as actors like Russia and China further encroach on Canada’s sovereignty, and the North is increasingly identified as a potential security vulnerability....

By Kyle Duggan The Canadian Press Posted December 5, 2024 6:14 pm 1 min read Descrease article font size Increase article font size Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said foreign interference did not tip the scales in the Conservative party’s last leadership race that installed Pierre Poilievre at the helm. Brown, who was a candidate for the leadership at the time, was summoned to a House of Commons committee to answer questions on the 2022 race after a report from a committee on national security cited Indian interference in an unspecified Conservative leadership campaign.“I don’t believe foreign intervention affected the final out...

By Jim Bronskill The Canadian Press Posted December 5, 2024 4:55 pm Updated December 5, 2024 4:56 pm 1 min read Descrease article font size Increase article font size The Liberal government has outlawed another 324 firearm varieties — guns it says belong on the battlefield, not in the hands of hunters or sport shooters. The move follows the May 2020 ban of 1,500 makes and models of firearms, a number that grew to more than 2,000 by November of this year as new variants were identified.The latest prohibition of ...

During an appearance on Fox News, Ontario Premier Doug Ford joked that president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats were belated retribution for the War of 1812 as the province continued a coordinated attempt to appeal to the American public. On Wednesday afternoon, Ford appeared in an interview with Fox News host Neil Cavuto to promote Ontario’s relations with the United States and position the province as a key trading partner.The interview was the latest in a string of appearances — including on BBC and a CNN show — the premier has taken part in.The Fox News sit-down took place after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where the president-elect reportedly joked Canada should become the 51st state.“The president has a good sense of humour — and it’s a funny ...

Canada is set to release a new Arctic foreign policy aimed at boosting its diplomatic and security posture in the North to counter growing threats from foreign actors and climate change, the government announced Thursday. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said the policy set to be released Friday will respond to the growing global threat environment, and Canada’s responsibility to protect its own Arctic sovereignty and the security of other Arctic nations, as well as the United States.“One thing is clear: the world is getting tougher, and conflicts that we are seeing in the world are linked,” she said. “Therefore, we need to be more robust in our response.”She said Friday’s announcement will be made alongside Defence Minister Bill Blair.The growing presence of Russia and China in the Arctic, w...

Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault told a parliamentary committee on Thursday that he came up with the term “non-status adopted Cree,” contradicting previous statements where he said an Indigenous researcher provided him with the identifier. The former cabinet minister’s office claimed in mid-November that the term was “explained to him by an Indigenous researcher” while Boissonnault, who was adopted, researched his family lineage.“It was an explanation of his adoptive family’s Indigenous history as they understood it at the time,” Alice Hansen, Boissonnault’s director of communications, wrote in a statement on Nov. 13.But at a House of Commons committee Thursday morning, Boissonnault said he created the term himself.“I came up with the term ‘non-status adopted Cree’ because I thought i...