Politics

By Staff The Canadian Press Posted December 12, 2024 7:36 am Updated December 12, 2024 7:39 am 1 min read Descrease article font size Increase article font size The union representing Canada Post workers says an unfair labour practice complaint over the company’s layoffs has been resolved. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers filed the complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board on Nov. 29 after hundreds of striking postal workers received temporary layoff notices while on strike.The union said in a st...

President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It’s the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. The commutations announced Thursday are for people who have served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released. Prisons were uniquely bad for spreading the virus and some inmates were released in part to stop the spread. At one point, 1 in 5 prisoners had COVID-19, according to a tally kept by The Associated Press.Biden said he would be taking more steps in the weeks ahead and would continue to review clemency petitions. The second largest single-day act of clemency was by...

Vancouver city council has voted to explore ways to make the municipality a “Bitcoin-friendly city.” The motion approved Wednesday won’t mean the city is investing or accepting payment in cryptocurrency any time soon, but will instead direct staff to look into those possibilities.The proposal passed along party lines with Mayor Ken Sim, who proposed the initiative, and his ABC Vancouver councillors in support, and two Green councillors opposed.Thirty-four people signed up to speak to the motion, many of them enthusiastic supporters of the technology. 1:55 Vancouver mayor’s ‘bitcoin-friendly’ city motion In an interview with Global News before ...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shared an “overview” of the federal government’s plan to strengthen border security with Canada’s premiers and discussed potential responses to tariffs threatened by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting Wednesday, federal officials said. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters in Ottawa that the border plan was still being finalized, and would incorporate suggestions from the premiers during the meeting, the second one held since Trump’s threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports. He said details would be shared with the incoming Trump administration and Canadians “in the coming days.”“We shared the details of the border plan with premiers, and received positive feedback,” he said following the meeting.LeBlanc said sev...

FBI Director Christopher Wray told the bureau workforce Wednesday that he plans to resign at the end of President Joe Biden’s term in January, an announcement that came a week and a half after President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate loyalist Kash Patel for the job. Wray said at a town hall meeting that he would be stepping down “after weeks of careful thought,” three years short of the completion of a 10-year term marked by high-profile and politically charged investigations, including that led to two separate indictments of Trump last year.Wray’s intended resignation is not unexpected considering that Trump had settled on Patel to be director and had repeatedly aired his ire at Wray, including in a television interview broadcast Sunday.Trump called Wray’s resignation “a great ...

Canada Post says the latest offer from the union representing its striking workers is “unaffordable and unsustainable” as a nationwide postal disruption nears the one-month mark. In a statement on Wednesday, Canada Post said that upon a careful review of the most recent proposals from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), meeting the union’s demands would cost the company more than $3 billion over four years.The Crown corporation added that CUPW’s latest offer is “far from where we need to be” and is “widening the gap in negotiations.”On Tuesday, the union refuted Canada Post’s claims that the union’s latest offer “takes major steps backwards” in the labour dispute.“In our most recent proposals to Canada Post, the Union addressed many issues the Employer had first brought to the bar...

TikTok is challenging the federal government’s order to shut down its operations in Canada, claiming it will eliminate hundreds of jobs and potentially terminate a quarter of a million contracts that it has with Canadian advertising clients. The company filed documents in Federal Court in Vancouver on Dec. 5, seeking to set aside the order to wind-up and cease business in Canada.The government ordered the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business in November after a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform.That means TikTok must close its operations in Canada, though the app will continue to be available to Canadians.TikTok wants the court to pause the order while it argues its case on why the government’s decision should be overturned.It claims the ...

As Donald Trump’s inauguration looms, Canada’s agriculture industry is waiting with bated breath to see whether the sweeping tariffs he’s threatened will come to pass. If they do, producers would have to plug the gaps left by restricted access to the country’s largest trading partner and consumers could be left paying higher prices.“When you have a new administration coming into your No. 1 market and they’re talking about their interest or intention to impose tariffs, that’s certainly not something to be ignored,” said Chris Davison, president and CEO of the Canola Council of Canada.“At the same time … we don’t want to overreact.”President-elect Trump recently threatened Canada and Mexico with 25 per cent tariffs.Canada has responded swiftly, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touting the ...

The ordered closure of TikTok’s Canadian operations over national security concerns will make it more difficult to force the company to cooperate with privacy investigations, Canada’s privacy commissioner said Tuesday. Philippe Dufresne testified to MPs on the House of Commons ethics committee who are scrutinizing the federal government’s order last month that TikTok Canada wind up its operations following a national security review.The government hasn’t shared the specific national security risks that led to the windup order, but has said it won’t prevent Canadians from using the app.The company filed documents in Federal Court in Vancouver last Thursday to challenge the government’s order.Dufresne — whose office and provincial counterparts are currently investigating whether TikTok unlaw...

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday would not say whether the Liberals kept a pledge to cap the budget deficit at $40.1 billion in the previous fiscal year, but said the upcoming fall economic statement will show Ottawa’s balance sheet remains on a “sustainable” track. When Freeland tabled the 2024 federal budget in the House of Commons in April, she highlighted “three very specific fiscal guideposts” that were underpinning “a responsible economic plan.”Those guideposts were capping the federal deficit at $40.1 billion and maintaining both a declining debt-to-GDP ratio and a deficit-to-GDP ratio. 2:04 What to expect from Ottawa’s fall fiscal update ...