A globally critical chip firm is driving a wedge between the U.S. and Netherlands over China tech policy

Story by Arjun Kharpal • Yesterday 4:24 p.m.

The Netherlands plays an outsized role in the global supply semiconductor supply chain because of its star company, ASML.

The company produces a cutting-edge chipmaking machine that China is keen to have access to.

The U.S. is worried that if ASML ships the machines to China, chipmakers in the country could begin to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors in the world, which have extensive military and advanced artificial intelligence applications.


Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte speaks with U.S. President Joe Biden. The U.S. has been putting pressure on the Netherlands to block exports to China of high-tech semiconductor equipment. The Netherlands is home to ASML, one of the most important companies in the global semiconductor supply chain.© Provided by CNBC

Washington has its eyes on the Netherlands, a small but important European country that could hold the key to China's future in manufacturing cutting-edge semiconductors.

The Netherlands has a population of just more than 17 million people — but is also home to ASML, a star of the global semiconductor supply chain. It produces a high-tech chipmaking machine that China is keen to have access to.

The U.S. appears to have persuaded the Netherlands to prevent shipments to China for now, but relations look rocky as the Dutch weigh up their economic prospects if they're cut off from the world's second-largest economy.

ASML's critical chip role

ASML, headquartered in the town of Veldhoven, does not make chips. Instead, it makes and sells $200 million extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to semiconductor manufacturers like Taiwan's TSMC.

These machines are required to make the most advanced chips in the world, and ASML has a de facto monopoly on them, because it's the only company in the world to make them.

This makes ASML one of the most important chip companies in the world.

ASML has not been able to ship an EUV machine to China since 2019 due to various Dutch export restrictions, according to a company spokesperson. But they said that ASML expects "the direct impact of the new export control measures on ASML's overall 2023 shipment plan to be limited."

There are currently no EUV systems in China. The U.S. is worried that if ASML ships the machines to China, chipmakers in the country could begin to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors in the world, which have extensive military and advanced artificial intelligence applications.
U.S.-Netherlands talks


U.S. pressure on the Netherlands appears to have begun in 2018 under the administration of former President Donald Trump. According to a Reuters report from 2020, the Dutch government withdrew ASML's license to export its EUV machines to China after extensive lobbying from the U.S. government.

Under Trump, the U.S. started a trade war with China that morphed into a battle for tech supremacy, with Washington attempting to cut off critical technology supplies to Chinese companies.

Huawei, China's telecommunications powerhouse, faced export restrictions that starved it of the chips it required to make smartphones and other products, crippling its mobile business. Trump also used an export blacklist to cut off China's largest chipmaker, SMIC, from the U.S. technology sector.

President Joe Biden's administration has taken the assault on China's chip industry one step further.

In October, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security introduced sweeping rules requiring companies to apply for a license if they want to sell certain advanced computing semiconductors or related manufacturing equipment to China.

ASML told its U.S. staff to stop servicing Chinese clients after the introduction of these rules.

Pressure on the Netherlands to fall in line with U.S. rules continues. Alan Estevez, the undersecretary of commerce for industry and security at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Tarun Chhabra, senior director for technology and national security at the U.S. National Security Council, reportedly spoke with Dutch officials this month.

"Now that the U.S. government has put unilateral end-use controls on U.S. companies, these controls would be futile from their perspective if China could get these machines from ASML or Tokyo Electron (Japan)," Pranay Kotasthane, chairperson of the high-tech geopolitics program at the Takshashila Institution, told CNBC.

"Hence the U.S. government would want to convert these unilateral controls into multilateral ones by getting countries such as the Netherlands, South Korea, and Japan on board."

The National Security Council declined to comment when contacted by CNBC, while the Department of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the Netherlands' Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it does not comment on visits by officials. The ministry did not reply to additional questions from CNBC.
Tensions

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed the "growing convergence in the approach to the challenges that China poses," particularly with the European Union.

But the picture from the Netherlands does not appear as rosy.

"Obviously we are weighing our own interests, our national security interest is of utmost importance, obviously we have economic interests as you may understand and the geopolitical factor always plays a role as well," Liesje Schreinemacher, minister for foreign trade and development cooperation of the Netherlands, said last week.

She added that Beijing is "an important trade partner."

— CNBC's Silvia Amaro contributed to this report.

Tim McSorley: Canada's persecution of Muslim charities must stop

Opinion by Special to National Post • 

The ongoing hearings of the Senate’s standing committee on human rights has confirmed years of allegations that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been disproportionately targeting Muslim charities, and has raised troubling questions regarding the government’s own investigation into the issue.


Tim McSorley: Canada's persecution of Muslim charities must stop© Provided by National Post

More than a year ago, multiple reports were released exposing the CRA’s disproportionate auditing of Muslim charities, under the guise of preventing terrorist financing.

In a May 2021 report , the Ottawa-based International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG), which I work for, demonstrated how, for nearly two decades, the CRA has specifically been undertaking audits of Muslim charities, in secret, with no outside review and little accountability.

These controversial audits have been carried out by the CRA’s review and analysis division (RAD), which was established in 2003 , based on prejudiced and unsupported allegations that some charities may be funnelling money to terrorist organizations. The audits have resulted in numerous non-profits losing their charitable status.

RAD’s troubling practices were formalized as official policy in the Canadian government’s 2015 national risk assessment (NRA) for terrorism financing in the charitable sector, which focuses almost exclusively on Muslim charities, and entirely on charities based in racialized communities, with little to no public substantiation of the risk.

Since then, the CRA has used the NRA to further justify surveillance, monitoring and audits of leading Muslim charities on questionable and, as the ICLMG report argues, prejudiced grounds that equate a community’s faith or the faith of its donors and beneficiaries with the risk that they may engage in terrorist financing.

The CRA’s director general of the charities directorate, Sharmila Khare, has finally confirmed the findings. In her recent testimony before the Senate committee on human rights, she explained that, “If you look at the risk actors and the current risk environment in Canada, I think you could reach the conclusion that many of the organizations that are listed in the national inherent risk assessment do come from racialized communities.”

Between 2008 and 2015, the only period for which there is public information, ICLMG research found that 75 per cent (six out of eight) of the organizations that had their charitable status revoked by RAD were Muslim charities. This is despite Muslim charities only making up around 0.47 per cent of all charities in Canada (as of 2015).

The CRA’s assistant commissioner, Geoff Trueman, provided updated statistics during the same recent Senate committee meeting that, to date, RAD has revoked the status of 14 charities, and confirmed that the ICLMG’s findings regarding the number of Muslim charities are correct.

Interestingly, though, none of these revocations have resulted in charges of terror financing or terrorist activities against the organizations or their board members.

RAD is a firmly entrenched player in Canada’s national security landscape. It works directly with CSIS and the RCMP, sharing information and even exchanging staff.

The legislative powers given to RAD have been used to amplify surveillance, monitoring and audits of leading Muslim charities, based on questionable, unjustified and unproven accusations, but unlike the RCMP and CSIS, there is no oversight. RAD is not required to disclose the true reason for an audit to the charity or the public, and has refused to provide this information to the Office of the Taxpayer Ombudsperson.

In fact, in recent stunning testimony before the Senate committee on human rights, the ombudsperson went further , saying that key aspects of his review of this issue — mandated to him to great fanfare by the prime minister and finance minister — are being hindered due to a lack of access to information. He agreed with a senator who noted that he seems to be “working with one hand tied behind his back.”

To overcome these issues of secrecy and systemic discrimination, CRA and RAD must be subject to independent review and accountability. To that end, it is crucial that Parliament acts to ensure that there is oversight of RAD’s work, like any agency with a national security mandate.

The ICLMG and others in the charitable sector have called for an immediate review of the CRA and RAD’s work, ideally by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, accompanied by a moratorium on audits of Muslim charities by RAD.

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stands by his promise to take this matter seriously, it is now up to him to act.

National Post

Tim McSorley is the national co-ordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, a cross-Canada coalition of 45 NGOs, unions, professional associations, faith groups, environmental organizations, human rights and civil liberties advocates.

CRA is unfairly focusing on Muslim charities, civil rights group says

Reyhana Patel: Don’t believe the smears. Here’s what Islamic Relief Canada is really all about

CALL AN ELECTION 

SMITH HAS NO RIGHT TO GOVERN

Demonstrators rally against sovereignty act at Alberta legislature

Story by Matthew Black • Yesterday 

Demonstrators gathered in front of the Alberta legislature building on Sunday afternoon in a show of opposition to the provincial government’s recently introduced sovereignty act.


Protestors gather during an anti sovereignty act rally at the Legislature in Edmonton Alberta, December 4, 2022.© Provided by Edmonton Journal

Premier Danielle Smith introduced the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act as her government’s flagship Bill 1 last Tuesday.

The bill, described as a “constitutional shield” against federal intrusion, drew criticism for also granting cabinet the unusual power to change legislation with an order in council, typically something reserved only for regulatory changes.

Protest organizer Haruun Ali says the act shows the government has the wrong priorities.

“Effectively their first action as government, especially during cost of living crisis, isn’t to act on that, but it’s a fight to Ottawa — a fight that Albertans do not want.”

On Saturday, Smith said on her weekly radio show that the section of the bill granting that power to cabinet would be overhauled.

“I think there’s some confusion on that, so we’re working on some amendments to make it clear,” Smith said to listeners.

Related
Smith introduces flagship Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, giving cabinet new power

Alberta government attempts clarification as NDP calls sovereignty act anti-democratic

She initially had defended the provision as necessary to reset the province’s relationship with Ottawa, “b ecause we’ve been ignored.”

Speaking outside the legislature Sunday, Ali said the bill should not have been introduced in the first place.

“It was a reckless provision that was completely unnecessary and really diverges from the actual intent of the legislation,” he said.

Ahead of Sunday’s protest, Opposition economic development critic Deron Bilous renewed the NDP’s call for Smith to revoke her own legislation.

“This bill is beyond saving,” Bilous said, adding his party would not support amendments to the legislation.

“We will not support undemocratic legislation that is already hurting our province’s economy and reputation.”

The bill passed first reading last week with votes mirroring party lines.

mblack@postmedia.com

Twitter @ByMatthewBlack


Counter protesters chant during an anti sovereignty act rally at the Legislature in Edmonton Alberta, December 4, 2022.© Jason Franson


Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour gets into it with a counter protestor during an anti sovereignty act rally at the Legislature in Edmonton Alberta, December 4, 2022.© Jason Franson

Competing protests in Edmonton show diverging opinions over proposed Sovereignty Act
Story by Emily Pasiuk • Yesterday 5:46 p.m.

Around 90 people gathered at the Alberta Legislature on Sunday to protest Premier Danielle Smith's proposed Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act. A counter-protest of roughly the same size also took to the grounds, in support of the controversial legislation.

The bill, introduced Tuesday by Smith as the signature legislation of her new administration, has faced widespread condemnation for granting her and her cabinet sweeping authority to redress any federal policy, law or program it deems harmful to Alberta.

For days after Smith introduced the bill, she and her cabinet members rejected accusations, including from legal and constitutional scholars, that the bill granted unchecked power to cabinet.

On Saturday, Smith told her Corus radio talk show that her sovereignty bill was never supposed to give cabinet such sweeping authority, adding her government wants to make it clear in law that this is not the case.

"The premier will be will be speaking to her caucus on Monday about potential amendments to ensure this fact is crystal clear in the final legislation when it is ultimately voted on in third reading," a statement from Smith's office reads.

Haruun Ali, an organizer of the protest against the bill, said he was happy to see Smith reviewing this portion of the act.

"However, what we also want to see is a full rollback of this bill because honestly speaking, the government is trying to salvage this bill and salvage their agenda but it's not working," he said in an interview Sunday.

"We really, truly hope and believe that we can get this bill revoked."



Haruun Ali, an organizer of the protest against the bill, said he wants to see a 'full rollback' of the proposed Sovereignty Act.© Caleb Perreaux/CBC

Ali said that he thinks Albertans need help on issues like the cost of living and health care instead of having the government's focus on fighting Ottawa.

Another organizer, Chad Ohman, echoed Ali's hope that the government would hear their demands.


"There are significant problems with the bill as it's presented now. I personally believe the bill really should be revoked," he said Sunday.

"It's an entire attack on our democracy."

ANTI TRUDEAU (SR. & JR.) TORIES 

Counter-protesters say Ottawa is 'overstepping'

Benita Pedersen, with All Fired up for Freedom, turned up as part of the group of counter-protestors and said she's in favour of the bill.

"Ottawa has been overstepping in many ways and the Sovereignty Act is simply about Alberta standing in its own jurisdiction on many issues," she said.

"We don't technically need anything from Ottawa."

The federal government provides money to provinces to help fund a broad variety of things including housing, transportation, legal aid and post-secondary education.


Counter-protesters also gathered in Edmonton on Sunday.© Caleb Perreaux/CBC

Pedersen was a grassroots organizer of COVID-19 public health measure protests and attended the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa earlier this year.

She added that she appreciated seeing protesters with a different opinion than her, and said it's through conversation between people with different viewpoints that problems are solved.

Opposition response

Despite Smith saying she wants to tweak the bill, the NDP said in a statement Sunday that the bill is "beyond saving."

"It must be revoked. It must be stopped," NDP economic development critic Deron Bilous said in a statement.

"I'm here today to make it clear that Alberta's NDP will not support amendments to this legislation. We will not support undemocratic legislation that is already hurting our province's economy and reputation."

The government said in its statement that it's "disappointing" the NDP won't vote for the bill or propose amendments to it.

Opinion: What could stop Alberta's Sovereignty Act if it's passed

AN ELECTION!!!

Author of the article: Richard Mailey
Publishing date:Dec 05, 2022 • 

Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Tyler Shandro share details on the Alberta sovereignty bill on Nov. 29.

 PHOTO BY GREG SOUTHAM /Postmedia

On the eve of its introduction, we could only guess if the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act would be a damp squib or a challenge to the fundaments of our constitutional order. We now know that the answer seems to be the latter, which requires the attention of all Canadians — not just Albertans.


While the proposed Sovereignty Act poses a profound challenge to numerous constitutional principles, its sharpest affront is seemingly to the separation of powers, which accords a distinct function to each of the three main branches of government — the legislature, executive, and judiciary.

The first aspect of this affront lies in the fact that the act would give the Alberta legislature a quintessentially judicial power: the power of deciding when a law should be (effectively) set aside for violating the Constitution.

To explain this point: Under the Canadian Constitution, each level of government has jurisdiction to legislate on specific matters, with the courts stepping in occasionally to ensure that they stay within their respective fields. If a provincial government believes that the feds have overstepped in this regard, it can ask its court of appeal to issue an opinion on the suspect law’s constitutionality. If the provincial government is dissatisfied with the court’s answer, it can then appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada for a final verdict.

If passed, the Sovereignty Act would allow the Alberta legislature to short-circuit this conventional process by letting the government instruct provincial authorities to cease enforcement of a federal law that has not been declared unconstitutional by a court. Perhaps more troublingly, the bill also purports to give the government an even more expansive power to stop the provincial enforcement of federal laws that it regards as fully legal and constitutional, but contrary to Albertans’ interests. In this respect, the Alberta government is seemingly claiming the power to not only resolve jurisdictional disputes on constitutional grounds (again, a quintessentially judicial power), but on pretty much whatever grounds it pleases.

But there’s more. In addition to giving the provincial legislature quintessentially judicial powers, the act initially also included a clause (which the government is thankfully now reconsidering) that would empower the provincial cabinet to amend primary legislation to deal with perceived federal overreach. While the empowerment of the executive to legislate in this way is often defensible during public emergencies, it is an extraordinary step to take outside this context — a step that is impossible to reconcile with our constitutional commitment to the separation of legislative and executive power.

These are just a few of the constitutional issues that have been flagged after the publication of the bill, but such issues don’t necessarily prevent a policy from attaining and maintaining the force of law. What, then, stands in the way of a bill that has so many alleged constitutional defects?

The Constitution offers several answers to this question, all of which involve the empowerment of actors who can hold the government to account. Leaving aside examples of this that are themselves constitutionally problematic (refusal of royal assent, federal disallowance), there are at least two key accountability mechanisms that are available here.

The first is for the federal government to refer the bill to the Supreme Court of Canada, which could issue an advisory opinion on its constitutionality. The second, by contrast, is the upcoming provincial election, which provides an opportunity for an oft-forgotten constitutional actor — the people — to pass direct judgment on the government and indirect judgment on the Sovereignty Act.

While the latter option is particularly important in a democracy, the two paths aren’t mutually exclusive. Indeed, even if the UCP are unsuccessful in the upcoming provincial elections, there would still be value in having some guidance from our highest court on what provinces can and can’t do when they perceive federal overreach.

The processes used to answer such questions say a lot about a society, and the combination of electoral and judicial input would reassert our status, I suggest, as a true democracy, in which ultimate decisions emerge from a diverse chorus of institutional and public voices.

Richard Mailey is director of the Centre for Constitutional Studies, University of Alberta.

FROM THE RIGHT

FIRST READING: The shockingly toothless Alberta Sovereignty Act

Story by Tristin Hopper • National Post


Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shares details of the updated Alberta Sovereignty Act in an announcement at the Alberta Legislature.© Provided by National Post

First Reading is a daily newsletter keeping you posted on the travails of Canadian politicos, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Thursday at 6:30 p.m. ET (and 9 a.m. on Saturdays), sign up here.
TOP STORY

The Alberta Sovereignty Act finally arrived this week. The signature legislative promise of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, it’s a bill designed to let Albertans thumb their nose at any federal decree they deem to be “harmful” to their interests.

If passed as written, Smith could henceforth order conservation officers to ignore poachers, building inspectors to tear up federal standards and police to ignore the Criminal Code.

But here’s the twist: Provinces can already do everything noted above and more. They just generally have the discretion not to encode it into law.

Provinces aren’t allowed to break federal law, but they’ve always been able to pick and choose which parts of it they feel like taking seriously.

In 2014 – after the government of Stephen Harper effectively recriminalized prostitution in defiance of a Supreme Court decision legalizing the selling of sex – Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne openly announced her plans to simply refuse to enforce the new law.

“The provinces can decide to nullify a new enactment simply by refusing to prosecute cases brought under this law,” Alan Young, an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, told Postmedia at the time.

In the final years before Canada legalized recreational cannabis, both Ontario and B.C. explicitly tolerated widespread disobedience of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. When pre-legalization Vancouver was suddenly peppered with dozens of illegal cannabis dispensaries, the Vancouver Police announced they didn’t care.

Provinces have also flirted often with the idea of defying federal gun control measures.

A provincial premier would likely get arrested if they openly violated federal gun laws by, say, mailing every one of their residents an Uzi. But they can decide to be as uncooperative as possible in enforcing a federal firearms ban.

Actually, that’s sort of what Saskatchewan just did. After the Trudeau government announced a series of 11th hour amendments that would effectively criminalize most types of semi-automatic rifles, Saskatchewan responded with the Saskatchewan Firearms Act, a bill asserting provincial jurisdiction over firearms enforcement.

All of this precedent is part of why select constitutional scholars aren’t as shocked by the Sovereignty Act as one might suspect. Jack Major, a retired Supreme Court justice now living in Alberta, told the CBC this week that the act was not “particularly alarming.”

“I think it’s important to say that Alberta can’t ‘ignore’ federal law,” UBC political scientist Geoffrey Sigalet told the National Post, adding that it only allows them to slack off on “enforcing” or “cooperating” with said laws.

Which leads us to the other twist in the Alberta Sovereignty Act: Despite no shortage of pundits claiming that Danielle Smith is a power mad tyrant, Ottawa could easily crush her dreams like a bug if they felt like it.

First and foremost, the federal government maintains the power of disallowance. Every single piece of provincial legislation passed in this country could be quashed within hours by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He wouldn’t even have to put it up for a House of Commons vote.

Naturally, the last time Ottawa ever used this power was against Alberta – although history has generally favoured the feds on that one. After a particularly radical Social Credit government in Alberta tried to ban Hutterites from buying land in 1943, Prime Minister Mackenzie King spiked the bill.

But disallowance aside, Ottawa’s greatest power remains its control of the public purse. As noted by Postmedia columnist Don Braid, there was $68.5 billion worth of federal spending in Alberta in 2020. If the prime minister seriously believed he had a rogue province on his hand, all he’d have to do is choke off the money for a few days.

One of the best examples of Ottawa’s overwhelming financial domination is health care. As Sigalet notes, the Constitution is pretty clear that health care is a provincial domain. “The Canada Health Act cannot bind the provinces in any way because it’s actually intruding on their turf,” he said.

So the feds instead enforce fealty to the Canada Health Act by tying it to funding. Legally, there’s no reason why Alberta Premier Danielle Smith couldn’t immediately rebuild the Alberta health care system in her own image: Two-tier care, institutionalized vaccine skepticism, maybe even some Alberta-only restrictions on abortion and assisted dying.

But financially, it would be a disaster. An angry Health Canada would immediately detonate funding to every Alberta hospital, physician and ambulance it could find until the province reversed course.

And when the federal government really gets angry, they can simply expropriate provincial property. In the 1990s, B.C. Premier Glen Clark tried to block U.S. Navy access to a Vancouver Island torpedo testing range because he was protesting American fishing policy.

Obviously, provincial leaders aren’t allowed to set the terms of how Canada interacts with its foreign military allies, so the government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien took the very rare step of expropriating the testing range from B.C. control.

Ultimately, there’s no telling where the Alberta Sovereignty Act saga will lead: It’s entirely possible the legislation will embolden the Alberta cabinet to pursue a battery of previously undreamt of jurisdictional fights with Ottawa.

But the act doesn’t really change the core fundamentals that have always lain at the heart of Confederation: Provinces retain broad powers to tell the feds to stuff it, the feds retain broad powers to hegemonize the provinces, and the ever-present threat of mutually assured destruction is largely what keeps both parties at bay.

 
Carson Jerema: Surprise, Danielle Smith's sovereignty act is very likely constitutional

Kristopher Kinsinger: The change Alberta’s constitutionally ambiguous sovereignty act needs

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Finally, an Alberta MLA compared the federal NDP’s support for the Liberals as akin to appeasement of Adolf Hitler, and suggested the party change its name to the “National Socialist Party.”

WOULD DARE NOT SAY THAT ABOUT RACHEL NOTLEY'S NDP

From Catholic to Mormon: Why Latinos are joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

By Lauren Gilger


Tim Agne/KJZZ
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple in Salt Lake City.

Traditionally, Latinos have been associated with Catholicism. But for the past several decades, there’s been a trend of Latinos leaving the Catholic Church.

Some become evangelical, some leave religion altogether, and others joined a religion that looks very different from the Catholic Church: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sujey Vega is an assistant professor with the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University, and she researches this phenomenon.

The Show spoke with her to learn what triggers it, and how it intersects with her personal experience as a lapsed Latina Catholic.

Listen to this story

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Mexico willing to go to formal dispute settlement panel over GMO corn ban

By Murphy Woodhouse

Mexico’s president says he’s willing to take a disagreement over his proposed GMO corn-import ban all the way to a trade dispute panel.

On Monday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose proposed phase out of GMO corn imports by 2024 was a key topic of conversation.

In a statement, Vilsack said the import ban would be harmful to Mexican consumers and farmers on both sides of the border, and that — absent a resolution of the conflict — the U.S. would take action as allowed by the USMCA trade deal.

López Obrador said Tuesday that he made clear that no GMO corn imports for human consumption would be permitted under his proposal, though exceptions could be made for animal feed. While he’s hopeful an agreement can be reached, he said his government is willing to defend its position in a USMCA dispute settlement panel.

Remains of last Tasmanian tiger unearthed after being lost for 85 years

Story by Kathryn Mannie • 

For decades, the remains of the last Tasmanian tiger to walk this Earth were believed to be lost. It turns out they were just hiding in plain sight the entire time.

They found the missing specimen in a cupboard in the museum's education department.


Artist's illustration of a thylacine.© Getty Images

The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, played a key role in Tasmania's ecosystem as the only marsupial apex predator of modern times. However, when European settlers arrived on the island in the 1800s, the coyote-sized critter was blamed for killing farmers' livestock. The shy, semi-nocturnal Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction.

The last known thylacine recorded by humans was an old female that died in captivity in the Hobart Zoo on Sept. 7, 1936. Soon after, her remains vanished, and Australian zoologists were left to wonder what ever happened to the last Tasmanian tiger.

Eighty-five years later, two researchers have finally uncovered the answers.
Read More
Scientists plan to revive Tasmanian tiger that has been extinct since 1936

Robert Paddle, a comparative psychologist from the Australian Catholic University, and Kathryn Medlock, honorary curator of vertebrate zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), dove into the museum's archives and managed to track down the remains of the last thylacine, or endling of the species.

What was billed as "one of Tasmania’s most enduring zoological mysteries," by a press release from TMAG was actually just a case of improper cataloguing, according to Paddle and Medlock's research. The museum had possessed the remains the entire time, but it was using them in its education department as a specimen to show to children.

According to Paddle, the thylacine endling had been sold to the Hobart Zoo in May 1936 by a local trapper named Elias Churchill.

"The sale was not recorded or publicized by the zoo because, at the time, ground-based snaring was illegal and Churchill could have been fined," Paddle said.

The last Tasmanian tiger only lived for a few months in the zoo before it died and its body was transferred to TMAG.

"For years, many museum curators and researchers searched for its remains without success, as no thylacine material dating from 1936 had been recorded in the zoological collection, and so it was assumed its body had been discarded," Paddle added.

But the researchers were able to dig up an unpublished museum taxidermist's report from 1936/37 that mentioned a thylacine among the specimens he had worked on that year. This triggered a review of all the thylacine skins and skeletons in the TMAG collection and led to the discovery of the endling.

They found the missing specimen in a cupboard in the museum's education department.

"The thylacine body had been skinned, and the disarticulated skeleton was positioned on a series of five cards to be included in the newly formed education collection overseen by museum science teacher Mr A W G Powell," Medlock said.

“The skin was carefully tanned as a flat skin by the museum’s taxidermist, William Cunningham, which meant it could be easily transported and used as a demonstration specimen for school classes learning about Tasmanian marsupials."

But why had the last specimen of this enigmatic species been relegated to a children's educational tool instead of preserved and displayed? Medlock posits that museum officials at the time didn't know they had the last Tasmanian tiger on their hands.

"At that time they thought there were still animals out in the bush, in fact, I think the fauna board actually issued a permit for someone to collect one," Medlock told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "I know the museum offered 50 pounds for a thylacine if someone could catch one and bring one in, but no one did."

TMAG director Mary Mulcahy said the Tasmanian tiger endling will go on display in the museum's thylacine gallery.

"It is bittersweet that the mystery surrounding the remains of the last thylacine has been solved, and that it has been discovered to be part of TMAG’s collection," Mulcahy said.

"Our thylacine gallery is incredibly popular with visitors and we invite everyone to TMAG to see the remains of the last thylacine, finally on show for all to see."

This is the Winnipeg statue of Queen Victoria that got kicked over by a protest mob in the summer of 2021. 

While demolishing its remnants last month, workers stumbled upon a secret message from 1921 bemoaning Manitoba’s them-regime of prohibition. “On account of the Prohibition, we are unable to adhere to the custom of depositing a bottle of brandy under the stone, for which we are extremely sorry,” read the message, which had been lain under the statue by a stonemason.

© Brian Donogh/Winnipeg Sun

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Winnipeg's Secret Code - YouTube 

Jul 9, 2019 ... The Manitoba Legislative Building has a hidden code. If you look closely, you'll find Egyptian sphinxes, the Ark of the Covenant, ...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-s-da-vinci-code-legislature-a-treasure-trove-of-hidden-symbols-1.2752316

Manitoba's 'Da Vinci Code,' legislature a treasure trove of hidden ... 

Sep 1, 2014 ... The sun rises over the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg. ... the legislature — and one visible kilometres away — is the so-called ...

https://www.destinationsdetoursdreams.com/2015/07/hermetic-secrets-at-the-manitoba-legislative-building

Hermetic Secrets of the Manitoba Legislative Building 

Jul 19, 2015 ... We hear about these secret masonic symbols all over the place. These so called “conspiracy historians” prey upon peoples misunderstanding of the ...

Trudeau, Ford mark opening of Canada's first full-scale electric vehicle plant

INGERSOLL, Ont. — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford marked a Canadian milestone Monday, celebrating the launch of the country's first full-scale electric vehicle manufacturing plant.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Trudeau said electric delivery vans started rolling off the line earlier in the day at the General Motors CAMI production plant in Ingersoll, Ont., retooled to build the company's BrightDrop all-electric vehicles.

He said the plant's transformation happened in "record time" after the company announced the plan in April.

"Every government in the world would love to invest millions of dollars to draw in places like this," Trudeau said during a news conference at the plant in southwestern Ontario.

The provincial and federal governments each invested $259 million toward GM's $2-billion plan for the Ingersoll plant and to overhaul its Oshawa, Ont., plant to make it EV-ready.

The federal government says the Ingersoll plant is expected to manufacture 50,000 electric vehicles by 2025.

Ford called GM's commitment to the plant "a massive vote of confidence" in Ontario but said there was more work to do given the uncertain economy.

"We've brought back the auto sector," he said. "These vehicles are going to be produced with clean steel, clean energy and great people."

Canada intends to bar the sale of new internal-combustion engines in passenger vehicles by 2035.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022.

The Canadian Press