The Green Party acknowledges several candidates withdrew from today’s election to avoid vote splitting that could benefit Conservatives. The admission came in a Federal Court application protesting the Party’s disqualification from televised debates for failing to field a minimum number of candidates: "A small number of candidates, no more than 15, decided to withdraw their candidacy to avoid splitting the progressive vote." READ MORE
The Conservative Party if elected today will bring Parliament into session all summer if necessary to pass tax cuts and reform bills, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters. “Change cannot wait,” he said: "The bad news for politicians is your summer vacation is cancelled.” READ MORE
A British Columbia First Nation was deemed “a priority client” for federal funding after claiming to find 215 children’s graves at an Indian Residential School, records show. The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation prior to its announcement was repeatedly told by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government it did not qualify for grants: "It was with a heavy heart that Tk’emlups te Secwepemc confirmed an unthinkable loss." READ MORE
Compensation for victims of Covid vaccines is expected to go over budget, says a Department of Health memo. The document is dated only days after new figures showed more than $16 million was paid to date to families of patients medically certified to have suffered death or injury after taking a government-approved shot: "The overall cost of the program is dependent on the volume of claims." READ MORE
Liberals if re-elected will improve disclosure of public records, says Prime Minister Mark Carney. Canadians deserve access to information regardless of who runs the government, he said: "I’m happy to commit to having a review." READ MORE
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: "Electricity in Ontario, costlier than ever. Some must choose between hydro and buying food, paying rent..." READ MORE
Ask oldtimers what pre-industrial life was like in Yukon and Northwest Territories and they recall the sound of sled dogs galloping through the snow, the blue gleam of moonlight in winter and smell of fresh caribou steaks drying on spruce boughs. Anthropologist Leslie McCartney asked twenty-three Gwich’in elders as old as 99. Their stories are chronicled in Our Whole Gwich’in Way Of Life Has Changed, a big, beautiful volume, 848 pages. It is warm and human. There is a blank space in all history books dotted here and there with guesswork and anecdotes. Missing are accounts of daily working lives prior to the 18th century. There are no written descriptions by workaday Norwegian sailors or Hessian miners or Mongolian herders since ordinary people had no means of writing it down. READ MORE
There was a movie, God’s Little Acre. It caused all sorts of commotion. We had a censorship board right here in Alberta, and they decided the movie was not fit to be seen. I remember as an MLA going down to the censorship office with a number of colleagues to see this movie for ourselves. You said to yourself afterwards, “What was so shocking?” There were suggestive scenes. I recall some older MLAs saying, “We have to stop this.” There was a debate. Do we have censorship or not? There was a sense we were protecting people from the evils of this movie. I didn’t buy that. People should make up their own minds.
