Group has close encounter with shore-skimming orca pod in B.C.

Friday


QUADRA ISLAND — A pod of orcas surprised a group of friends visiting Quadra Island, British Columbia, last weekend, appearing metres from where they stood on the waterline of Moulds Bay.

.© Provided by The Canadian Press

The shore-skimming encounter prompted one marine mammal expert to warn that observers should not to get too close to such behaviour.

"They're on the hunt. We can observe it, we just can't be a part of it," said Andrew Trites, professor and director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, on Friday.

Erika van Sittert, who captured a video of the encounter, said she and her four friends were excited when they first spotted the pod in the distance.

She said they were then shocked when the whales appeared about 20 minutes later, coming within three metres of her friend Callum MacNab, standing ankle-deep in the water.

Van Sittert, who had been seated on a rock above, said she was initially worried for MacNab's safety because of the whales' high-speed approach, but describes the encounter as "easily one of the most exciting moments" of her life.

"I was mostly in awe. I didn't expect that to happen. I used to work in whale watching and I've had some encounters, but nothing quite like that," she said in an interview Friday. "It was just incredible."

She said the group is now considering getting matching orca tattoos to commemorate the experience.

Jared Towers, a killer whale researcher with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, identified the pod as the T-090 family, which includes a mother, her adult son and two daughters.

"The two daughters, aged five and 12, were the two whales that came closest to the shore and rolled over on their sides to check out Callum on the shore," he said in an interview Friday.

Towers said he doesn't believe the whales had malicious intent and were likely either hunting and initially mistook the humans for prey, or were "just curious."

"They love hunting in that area (because) there's a lot of harbour seals, and that's really what makes up the bulk of their diet, and they hang out near shore," he said.

Towers said there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.

"They're certainly masters of their own environment and if there's anything swimming around out there, they want to check it out, see what it looks like and see if it is prey," he said.

Trites, of the Marine Mammal Research Unit, predicted these types of encounters will happen more frequently in B.C.

"Everybody now has a high-definition video camera in their pockets and so we're seeing these encounters, but it's also evidence that the whales are here far more frequently now than they used to be," he said.

"All of us want to have these amazing close encounters, but not at the expense of injuring the animals, harming them, or causing them to avoid coming here."

Trites said killer whales are comfortable hunting near shore at this time of year and people should aim to keep a distance.

"It is about us developing this new relationship, because things have changed. The oceans have changed very dramatically and we're seeing that play out in front of us," he said.

"Just as you wouldn't wander into the Serengeti and take part in a lion hunt, you also need to respect and stand back as killer whales are going about their lives because they're hunting."

— By Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Eight in hospital, some seriously injured, after Newfoundland refinery explosion


ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Eight people were sent to hospital Friday after an explosion at a refinery in Come By Chance, N.L., about 150 kilometres west of St. John's, police said.

RCMP said some were seriously injured in the blast and had to be airlifted to St. John's, though Cpl. Jolene Garland could not confirm how many.

"The fire caused by the explosion has been contained leaving no further danger at the worksite and all employees have been accounted for," the Mounties said in a news release Friday night. Both police and the province's Occupational Health and Safety division have launched an investigation into the incident, the release said.

Refinery owner Braya Renewable Fuels said in a statement earlier Friday evening that the company will cooperate fully with investigations by authorities.

"We will do everything we can to support (those injured) and their families during this time," the statement said.

The refinery is a main source of employment in the town of Come By Chance and its neighbouring community of Arnold's Cove. Together, the two municipalities are home to about 1,200 people.

The refinery produced oil before it was sold in November, though it had been idled for over a year amid crashing global oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic. Texas-based private equity firm Cresta Fund Management bought a controlling stake in the refinery and announced it would be converted to produce renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel. The facility and its operator was then renamed Braya Renewable Fuels.

As of Friday, that conversion from an oil-producing plant to a biofuel operation was still in process, said a company spokesperson.

Local police asked people to stay away from the refinery so as not to interrupt emergency crews or investigators. Later Friday, the local RCMP in Clarenville, N.L., closed a Sobeys grocery store parking lot to traffic so emergency aircraft could land and pick up injured people.

Garland said several aircraft, including a Cormorant helicopter, were called in to transport injured people from the small hospital in Clarenville to the provincial capital for care.

Premier Andrew Furey tweeted his concern Friday for those who had been hurt in the explosion.

"I have been speaking with representatives of the company and union to share concern and good wishes for the injured workers, their families, friends, and coworkers," Furey wrote. "Thank you to all responding to this incident."

Federal Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan also tweeted about the incident. He represents the Newfoundland district of St. John's South-Mount Pearl.

"We’re all thinking of the injured workers at the Come By Chance refinery and their families," O'Regan wrote.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2022.

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press

Quebec election: CAQ proposes two private medical centres to ease hospital strain

MONTREAL — The Coalition Avenir Québec promised Saturday to build a pair of private medical centres that would provide services that would be free to Quebecers and reimbursed by medicare in an attempt to ease overflowing public emergency rooms.



CAQ Leader François Legault made the announcement on Day 7 of the Quebec election campaign in the eastern Montreal riding of Anjou-Louis-Riel, a region where the party is hoping to increase its presence on the Island of Montreal where it currently only holds two seats.

Legault said the first two clinics would be up and running by 2025 in Montreal's east-end and Quebec City, with plans to eventually build up to a dozen in the province.

“If we want to change the health network, well, we have to change the recipe, we have to innovate,” Legault said.

Legault described the proposed centres, built privately for $35 million, as falling somewhere between a family clinic and a large hospital. They would aim to ease the strain on Quebec's health network, he added.

The medical centres would include a family medicine clinic, other basic health services and an emergency room for minor or lower priority cases and day surgeries.

Legault said using the word "private" when it comes to health care is "delicate," but noted that 20 per cent of services in the province are already provided by the private sector.

More than 21,000 Quebec residents are awaiting a surgical procedure in the province. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Quebec sent some patients to be treated privately to reduce some of the wait times.

"The private sector can be complementary to what we do," said Christian Dubé, the province's most recent health minister, who is seeking re-election. "The more we will settle (minor cases), the more it leaves room for surgeons in major hospitals … to attack the waiting list."

The CAQ promise was denounced by political rivals, with Quebec solidaire's co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois saying if private involvement really worked in health care, there would already be plenty of examples.

“François Legault persists with solutions that do not work," said Nadeau-Dubois, whose party has proposed upgrading community clinics and turning the province's 811 health line into a proper triage service. "The reality is that he has a dogmatic love for the private sector and that he persists with proposals that weaken our system."

Liberal Leader Dominique Anglade said the private system should be used to deal with surgical backlogs only.

The Conservative Party of Quebec has also promised to make more room for private health care as part of its plan. But Legault said Saturday's promise had "nothing to do with what is happening in the other parties" and the CAQ believes the emergency room is too often the main point of entry for patients.

On Day 7 of the provincial election campaign, Quebec solidaire pledged 37,000 new subsidized daycare spaces if they are elected during a stop in Rimouski, Que., in the lower St-Lawrence region.

For its part, the Parti Québécois promised to bring private daycares under the public system, converting 119,000 spaces over five years at a cost of $543 million per year. PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said home daycares would not be part of the conversion plan.

"If we know that more than 50,000 children are on the waiting list, we can assume that tens of thousands of parents right now … are not participating in the labour market due to a lack of child care spaces," St-Pierre Plamondon said in Quebec City, adding he had personally dealt with the lack of child care spaces during the pandemic.

Speaking in Senneterre, Que., in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, Anglade announced a $500 million plan to encourage seniors to return to work to deal with the province's labour shortage through a number of measures, including raising basic income tax exemptions to ensure they aren't penalized if continuing to work while earning a pension.

The Liberals say there are no fewer than 270,000 vacant jobs in Quebec.

Also Saturday, Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime visited a winery in the Mauricie region where he pledged to end the monopoly of the Quebec Liquor Corporation and loosen rules regarding competition and where alcohol can be sold.

"The sale of alcohol must certainly be supervised, but not in the form of a state monopoly," Duhaime said in a statement. "Currently, we are in an extremely complex and over-regulated system."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2022.

— with files from Caroline Plante, Patrice Bergeron, Stéphane Rolland and Frédéric Lacroix-Couture.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press

Quebec election: CAQ admits that family doctor for all Quebecers 'not possible'

Friday

MONTREAL — The Coalition Avenir Québec is no longer promising all Quebecers access to a family doctor, recognizing Friday that a key promise the party made four years ago is simply not achievable.



CAQ Leader François Legault during the 2018 election campaign promised everyone a family doctor but failed to follow through after he was elected premier.

On Day 6 of the election campaign, outgoing Health Minister Christian Dubé said the party won't promise something that is "not possible." Instead, he said, what Quebecers really need is access to medical care from qualified health workers — such as nurses or pharmacists.

"I think what Quebecers want is access to a health professional," Dubé said just south of Quebec City alongside Legault. "In the best circumstances, that should be a doctor, but I think what Quebecers have realized, especially during the pandemic, is they can be served by health professionals who are not necessarily doctors."

The Liberals, meanwhile, have promised that if they are elected, the hundreds of thousands of Quebecers waiting for a family physician would get one.

Legault and Dubé promised Friday that the CAQ would gradually launch a digital health platform to serve as an entry point into the health system and direct people to the right health-care professional. The objective would be to offer someone with a medical need — that isn't an emergency — an appointment with a health-care worker within 36 hours.

Meanwhile, in Lachute, Que., northwest of Montreal, Conservative Party of Quebec Leader Éric Duhaime discussed his party's health plan, which includes a substantial contribution from the private sector

Duhaime said private companies should be permitted to manage the operations of some hospitals and doctors should be encouraged to practise in the public and private health systems. Quebecers, he added, would be allowed under a Conservative government to buy supplemental insurance for treatment in private clinics. The party also promised to train 1,000 more physicians and to hire as many more nurse practitioners.

In Gatineau, Que., Liberal Leader Dominique Anglade promised access to subsidized daycare spaces for all Quebec children. Anglade told reporters at a local daycare that no fewer than 52,000 kids are waiting for a spot. She said her party would create 67,000 extra places at $1.1 billion per year, with financing coming from a recently signed daycare agreement with the federal government.

Québec solidaire promised to introduce an allowance for caregivers worth up to $15,000 per year and to double home-care services offered by the province. The two measures would cost $1.1 billion annually.

“I walk on the campaign trail and I hear comments like, 'I would rather die than end up in a (long-term care home),'” Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois told reporters while visiting the Gaspé Peninsula. "I hear that almost every week on the ground. It's not normal; I don't accept that."

On Friday, the Parti Québécois promised to triple the amount of home-care services by investing an additional $3 billion a year into the health system. Campaigning in Gatineau, Que., leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon proposed abandoning the Legault government's model of new, smaller seniors homes — a key 2018 promise by the CAQ. St-Pierre Plamondon said he would only complete the homes under construction.

Legault, however, insisted that both long-term care and home care are needed. Currently, 43 of the promised 46 seniors homes are under construction.

“We have invested $2 billion in the last four years for home care and services, except that there are people who at some point no longer have their autonomy and need continuous service — to go in a (long-term care home) or a seniors home," Legault said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2022.

— With files from Stéphane Rolland, Frédéric Lacroix-Couture, Patrice Bergeron, and Pierre Saint-Arnaud.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press

RAND PAUL GOT SURGERY THERE

It's a world-renowned, for-profit Ontario hospital. Could Shouldice be a model for private health care?

Mark Gollom - Yesterday 

When Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently mused about potential reforms to the provincial health-care system, he referenced Shouldice Hospital as an example of the positive role privatization could play.

His praise of the world-renowned private hernia clinic, one of only a few Ontario hospitals allowed to operate for profit, also raised the question of whether it's a model that could be replicated or would lead to the erosion of medicare and the creation of a two-tier system.

The hospital, in Thornhill, just north of Toronto, is on a 20-acre country estate, complete with gardens and walking paths — making it look more like a spa — 89 licensed beds and five surgical theatres. The menu includes entrées such as rainbow trout with hollandaise sauce, roasted potatoes and french beans or coconut curry chicken with Singapore noodles.

One former patient recently quipped on Facebook that he keeps checking for "another hernia so I can have another mini vacation."

However, the hospital's main claim to fame is the number of hernia surgeries it performs, about 7,000 a year.

That means, according to the hospital, its surgeons repair more hernias in a year than most others do over a lifetime.

"Our surgeons and surgical team are second to none," John Hughes, managing director of Shouldice Hospital, said in an email to CBC News. "Since our surgeons only do hernia repairs … they are simply excellent at what they do — what you do more you get better at."

Shouldice also claims that its model allows it to perform at a lower cost per case than public hospitals, and that wait times are a fraction of those in the public system.

The hospital also says its rate of infection, complications and recurrence is less than 0.5 per cent for primary inguinal hernia repairs, the lowest recorded in the world.

The surgeries themselves are covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan.

Outside of that "we charge for a semi-private room at a rate in line with the rest of [Toronto-area] hospitals," Hughes said. "There is no extra billing for any other services — for example medical, food, medication."

But because of the hospital's policy that most patients must stay at least three days or more after surgery, those room expenses generate significant revenue, critics say.

"A lot of people who go there, go there because they have very good private insurance," said Ontario MPP France Gélinas, the NDP's health critic, in a statement.

Founded in 1945

The hospital was founded in 1945 by Dr. Edward Earle Shouldice, who performed hernia surgeries for servicemen during World War II, according to his grandson Daryl Urquhart.

At the end of the war, there was this line up of people willing and wanting to get their hernia repaired. And there was a shortage of beds in the hospitals. And so my grandfather decided that the best way to handle this was to open a hospital," said Urquhart, who is also a former co-owner and former director of business development for Shouldice.

Its first location was in downtown Toronto, but as it became more popular, it moved to Thornhill, to the estate of George McCullagh, a millionaire miner and newspaper publisher, who purchased the Globe newspaper and the Mail and Empire, merging them to create the Globe and Mail.

The estate's main residence was converted into a hospital. In 1971, the province's Private Hospitals Act was amended to ban any new private hospitals, but those already in operation were grandfathered in. There are only three private, for-profit hospitals left in Ontario, and one is Shouldice.

Its patients have included noted politicians and figures including former prime minister Joe Clark, U.S. consumer advocate Ralph Nader and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.

In 2006, it stirred up controversy for NDP leader Jack Layton, a critic of private health care, who was accused of hypocrisy after he admitted he'd been a patient there in the mid 1990s. (Layton said he wasn't aware it was a private hospital.)

Urquhart says Shouldice's model of specialization has produced an efficiency and a skill set unavailable anywhere else.

"You simply can't achieve higher level efficiencies in a general factory that you can achieve in a focused factory," he said.

Model can be replicated

He says the model could be replicated, but would require a focused initiative of specialized medical professionals.

"It has to be a concerted effort between professionals and administrative people and bureaucratic people. And that type of action typically happens in the private sector, not in the public sector," he said.

But Dr. Hasan Sheikh, vice chair of Canadian Doctors For Medicare, said there are "wonderful examples" of not-for-profit surgical centres that do high volume operations for specific ailments.



NDP MPP health critic France Gélinas says public hospitals can perform hernia operations just as well without any charges to patients.

© Mathieu Gregoire/CBC

"And without that profit motive, are able to provide extremely efficient and high-quality care," he said, citing the Kensington Institute in Toronto, which specializes in eye surgery, as a "great example."

"There's a comfort in sending people to a place that does one thing and one thing only. And I think that, you know, there's no reason why that has to happen in a for-profit delivery model."

Patient stay questioned

Sheikh also questions whether hernia patients really need to stay at Shouldice for a few days after an operation.

"One of the big concerns I have is the fact that for a hernia repair — which is a fairly simple operation and in most public hospitals is a day procedure — at Shouldice, those patients are staying for three nights.

"Keeping people for longer to do the same procedure doesn't sound particularly innovative to me," he said. "And I think that when you have this profit motive … it begs this question of if these decisions are being made based on what's best for patients."

Gélinas, the NDP health critic, says thousands of hernia operations are done in hospitals across the province by hundreds of general surgeons.

"And everybody recoups and everybody is satisfied."

Gélinas also says that, with only a limited supply of general surgeons in the system, the more who go to private clinics means fewer "are available for the rest of us."

"Private for-profit clinics will cost us all dearly," she said. "It's deeply worrying that Mr. Ford mentioned Shouldice as a model to look to."

However Urquhart defends the hospital's three-day policy, saying it lessens patient anxiety and leads to fewer potential complications.

"You will get people who say 'They don't need to stay. Shouldice only needs to make money and so on.' And that's not true. If Shouldice sent home the patients the same day or the next day, they would just be putting through more patients through the system."

"It makes no difference. The most important thing about the model has always been what is the best thing for the patient."

POT CALLING  KETTLE BLACK

Kenney defends Alberta lieutenant-governor, attacks 'cockamamie' sovereignty bill

Friday


EDMONTON — Premier Jason Kenney is defending Alberta’s lieutenant-governor after she suggested she may not automatically pass a sovereignty act bill proposed by a candidate vying to replace him as United Conservative leader.


Kenney, speaking on a radio show Friday morning, also renewed his criticism of Danielle Smith's signature proposal.

He characterized it as “cockamamie,” illegal and a recipe for business and investment to flee a province no longer committed to the rule of law.

Smith, should she win the UCP leadership race on Oct. 6, has promised to immediately introduce a bill allowing her government to ignore federal laws and court rulings deemed not to be in Alberta’s best interests.

Legal scholars and politicians, including Kenney and government house leader Jason Nixon, have sharply criticized the plan and questioned whether it would even pass in the legislature.

Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani, when asked by reporters Thursday whether she would pass Smith’s proposal, said she would not prejudge it but that she has a duty to ensure any bill she signs into law follows the Constitution.

“(Lakhani) was asked unprompted questions by media and I think she gave general answers about her duties as lieutenant-governor: that if she faces something problematic, she would take on expert advice and consider all the constitutional principles,” Kenney told Edmonton radio station CHED.

Kenney said the proposal has put Lakhani, and the entire province, in a potentially chaotic and dangerous bind.

“It’s really the anarchy act or, as one conservative constitutional scholar puts it, the Alberta suicide act,” said Kenney.

“It would put the lieutenant-governor in a very awkward position for the legislature to pass a law saying that it will not enforce the laws. That is without precedent, at least in Canadian and perhaps in British parliamentary history.

“It would also send a devastating message about investor confidence,” he added.

“If the government proposes (a law) saying that we will rip up contracts, we won’t enforce court orders, we’ll ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court, we’ll choose which laws we enforce, we’ll ignore the Constitution, well, what investor in their right mind would put money at risk in Alberta?”

Smith responded in a statement, urging Lakhani to retract her comments.

“The lieutenant-governor is an unelected figurehead, appointed by the prime minister, that plays a wholly ceremonial role in our system of government,” Smith said.

“She does not have authority to refuse assent to bills democratically passed in the provincial legislature.”

Smith also renewed her criticism of Kenney for abandoning his promise of impartiality in the leadership race to speak out against her.

“Never in our province’s history has an outgoing leader of a party so brazenly and inappropriately inserted himself into the election of his successor,” she wrote.

"I urge him to do a better job of acting like a responsible statesman.”

Two weeks ago, Kenney labelled Smith’s sovereignty plan “nuts.”

He has repeatedly defended his comments by saying he is not speaking on Smith’s proposal but on the underlying policy paper on which it is based.

That policy paper — titled the Free Alberta Strategy — was introduced a year ago by former Wildrose Party member Rob Anderson, University of Calgary political science professor Barry Cooper and lawyer Derek From.

In the paper, they call for radical action like refusing to implement federal laws and court rulings in order to combat decisions that are mortally wounding Alberta's development.

Cooper himself, in a June newspaper op-ed, said the unconstitutionality of such a proposal is not a bug in the program but its primary feature.

Smith grabbed headlines with the proposal in June as the campaign heated up, calling it necessary to administer a shock to a "lawless'" federal government undermining Alberta's economy.

However, as criticism of such a bill mounted in recent weeks, Smith began downplaying the original proposal.

She has recently been characterizing it as a lawful recitation of how Alberta views the separation of powers under the Constitution, prompting confusion over what it is she is really proposing.

Smith said she will answer that after the Labour Day weekend.

“The entire objective of the sovereignty act is to uphold and defend the constitutional rights of Alberta and the Charter freedoms of our people from continued unconstitutional attacks by Ottawa,” Smith wrote.

“I will be announcing further details of the proposed particulars and mechanics of the bill next week, with the actual language of the bill to be drafted.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

World Economic Forum official says Canada has bigger issues to discuss than conspiracy theories

Peter Zimonjic - Yesterday 

A senior official with the World Economic Forum says Canada should be talking about more important things than conspiracy theories targeting his organization.

Adrian Monck, managing director of the WEF, also argues that politicians espousing those theories should ask themselves whether they're spreading disinformation coming from bad actors.

"Canada should be talking about a lot of things right now. It shouldn't really be talking about the World Economic Forum based here in Geneva," Monck told CBC Radio's The House in an interview airing Saturday. "You know, there are bigger issues, really, for it to be thinking about."

In the course of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the WEF has become a popular target for conspiracy theorists.

It began when an opinion article published in 2016 on the WEF's website — entitled "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better" and intended, its author says, as "a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development" — started getting attention in 2020, after WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab wrote his own opinion piece arguing for something he called "the great reset."

These opinion pieces represent two of a number of diverse viewpoints the WEF commissions and publishes, Monck said.

The "great reset" has since morphed into a conspiracy theory claiming that a cabal of global elites is planning to remake society to eliminate private property and impose an authoritarian global government.

Monck said the "great reset" is really just an idea that grew out of the pandemic, when world governments were pouring billions of dollars into keeping the economy afloat.

"The idea was that we should also try and suggest to people that they think about spending it on the kind of long-term things that would aid climate change combating, that would help jobs re-skilling and all the kinds of bigger, long-term challenges," he told Catherine Cullen, host of CBC Radio's The House.

"One of the things our organization tries to do is say to people, 'Look beyond the one week, three months and think about maybe some of the longer term things you could be doing.' That was what the great reset was aimed to do back in the summer of 2020."

Some Conservative MPs have been accused of spreading anti-WEF conspiracy theories. After Conservative MP Colin Carrie told the House of Commons in February that the WEF had "penetrated more than half of Canada's cabinet," he was accused of spreading disinformation by the NDP's Charlie Angus.


Conservative member of Parliament Michelle Rempel Garner rises 

during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill

 in Ottawa on Friday, Oct. 2, 2020.

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Other Conservatives take a different view. Michelle Rempel Garner, MP for Calgary Nose Hill, earlier this year wrote an opinion piece entitled, 'I went to Davos. The World Economic Forum is not running Canada.'

"Concerns about 'the great reset,' the World Economic Forum and the apparent plan to turn Canada into a communist state is one of the underlying conspiracy theories that motivated some of the protesters who have participated in the truckers protest recently disbanded in Ottawa," she wrote. "It is an increasingly mainstream assumption in Conservative circles."

Monck said that, during the pandemic, the WEF became aware that it was being targeted by state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. He said the false conspiracy theory about the WEF pursuing a 'new world order' borrows its structure from old antisemitic claims about a Jewish plan for global domination.

"It really was something that was picked up by some state-sponsored disinformation actors and it took on a life of its own in some geographies," Monck said.

"Sadly, Canada was one of those places where ... there's a vulnerability to disinformation. It's an open society. And ... that particular strand of disinformation went into the mainstream."

Monck said conspiracy theories about the "great reset" and the WEF are being driven by disinformation agents and politicians should consider where these theories are coming from before espousing them.

"I admire anyone who makes the decision to devote their lives to public life," he said. "It's not an easy road, but I do think politicians of every single stamp need to look very hard at the language that they use and where some of this stuff comes from, and if it's coming from a space of ... disinformation and in particular antisemitism.

"I think they need to have a very hard look at themselves and a very hard look in the mirror."

We do not prescribe policy: Monck

Monck said the WEF does not prescribe policy but rather acts as a forum for exchanging ideas.

Still, the forum has drawn some strong political criticism.

Last week, Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre told a crowd of applauding supporters that, as prime minister, he would ban cabinet ministers from attending "that big fancy conference of billionaires with the World Economic Forum" and vowed to remove them from cabinet should they attend.

The WEF hosts a conference in Davos, Switzerland, every January where business leaders and politicians from around the world gather to exchange ideas. Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former prime minister Stephen Harper — who endorsed Poilievre for the Conservative leadership — have attended the conference twice.

When Harper attended the conference in 2012, he gave a speech describing the WEF as "an indispensable part of the global conversation among leaders in politics, business and civil society" and said that "in the face of continuing global economic instability, the opportunity this gathering provides is now more valuable than ever."

Monck said Poilievre's decision to paint the WEF as he has is confusing.

"I don't know where he differs in his analysis from, say, Stephen Harper," he said. "We're not an advocate on behalf of any particular political viewpoint. We try and remain impartial and neutral.

"We don't stand for big, small, middle-sized governments. We deal with governments of every single stripe ... so I don't really understand where that particular analysis is coming from."

In a statement issued to CBC News, Poilievre said the annual WEF meeting in Davos "is a hypocritical gathering of billionaires, multinationals and powerful politicians" who "lecture working class people to stop buying gasoline."

"There is no apparent benefit to Canadians in being involved in it. Canadian taxpayers should not need to pay to send government leaders to attend such a meeting," Poilievre said in the statement. "Rather, ministers should put their full attention to serving everyday people in Canadian communities."

Danielle Smith, a leading candidate to replace outgoing Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in the United Conservative Party leadership, has also criticized the WEF. She described it as a group of "anti-democratic elites" who have been attacking Alberta for years and want Canadians to "own nothing and be happy."

White House adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks on MAGA 'hate-filled' agenda


Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defended President Joe Biden's prime-time address on Thursday, warning of the threat "MAGA" Republicans pose to American democracy on "This Week," saying Biden spoke "optimistically" about the country, but also said that the nation needs to "call out hatred."

MAGA agenda has 'no place in our democracy': White House senior adviser
View on Watch    Duration 6:16

"This 'MAGA' Republican agenda, this hate-filled agenda ... we saw incite violence on our nation's Capitol, has no place in a democracy. And if we are not ... calling it out, which is what the president did, then our country, everything that our country is built upon is in danger," Bottoms, now a senior adviser for public engagement for the White House told co-anchor Martha Raddatz Sunday morning.

In his remarks, Biden used some of his harshest language to date to criticize former President Donald Trump, and his supporters, saying they "represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic" -- a notable shift for Biden, who ran on a message of uniting the country after Trump's four years in office.

The speech, delivered just months before the midterm elections, was seen by many as an effort to help frame the November elections as a referendum on Trump, and was heavily criticized by Republicans as divisive, saying it disparaged the 70-plus million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020.



Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and members of the Atlanta Braves team speak following the World Series Parade at Truist Park, Nov. 5, 2021 in Atlanta.© Megan Varner/Getty

A new analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks hate speech, said after the Biden speech, there was a surge online in conversations that said Biden's remarks singling "MAGA" Republicans were interpreted as a declaration of war against conservatives and Trump voters.

Bottoms stressed that Biden was not speaking about all Republicans, but those who supported the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"The president has not called out all Republicans. He's been very specific about this 'MAGA' agenda," she said. "I'll just remind you of the words of Martin Luther King Jr. when he said that, 'it's not the words of our enemies that we will remember. It's the silence of our friends' and what the president has said, is that mainstream Republicans, Independents, Democrats, can all come together, we've seen us come together, to do what's right on behalf of the American people," Bottoms said to Raddatz.

While Biden criticized "MAGA" Republicans for supporting candidates who deny the outcome of the 2020 election, there has also been criticism of Democrat groups who have been accused of bolstering far-right Republican candidates in races, in hopes of increasing Democratic odds in November.

Raddatz asked Bottoms about those claims and whether Biden should address them.MORE: Not every Trump supporter threat to nation, Biden says

"I think what the president will continue to do is encourage people to go out and vote their conscience, whatever their conscience may be, and what the president will continue to do, which what we saw him do just this week, is to remind people who we are as a country, who we are as a nation," Bottoms said.

"So does he support that? Does he support supporting those extreme candidates?" Raddatz pressed.

"I cannot speak to what the president supports. I can speak to what he has said publicly and what he has said publicly is that we are a nation that values the rule of law, that we are a nation of peace, that we are a nation that values that peaceful transition of power, and this MAGA agenda has no place in our democracy," Bottoms said.

Accidental cannabis poisoning is on the rise among Canadian kids. What can be done?

Heidi Lee - Yesterday 

With some Canadian provinces seeing an increase in accidental cannabis poisoning among children, experts are stressing the need to make edibles look less appealing to kids.


A variety of cannabis edibles are displayed at the Ontario Cannabis Store in Toronto on Friday, January 3, 2020.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin

A recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine on Aug. 25 found that there has been a 6.3-fold increase in hospitalizations for unintentional cannabis poisoning among the under-10 age group in Canada since the legalization of recreational cannabis in October 2018.

Dr. Daniel Myran, the lead author of the study, said the average age of poisoning in kids is three and a half years old.

“These are busy preschoolers who are getting into places that, ideally, they shouldn't be (at). They're finding something that looks very appealing to eat with no understanding of the fact that it contains cannabis,” said Myran.

Myran said edibles in the form of gummies, chocolates, or even cookies can seem very tempting to children because they look similar to their everyday snacks and candy.

He said these edibles should always be kept “out of reach of children, locked up.” Legal products which are originally sold in child-resistant packaging should be retained in their kits until the time that they're going to be consumed.

Video: Increased hospitalizations for unintentional cannabis poisoning for children under 10 since legalization, study finds

“There's a variety of different ways that (adult consumers) can consume cannabis,” said Myran. “For people who are looking to consume higher quantities of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), there are potentially other ways that they could ingest that THC. It doesn't need to be in the form of a sugar-coated gummy.”

According to Health Canada, legal edible cannabis has a limit of a maximum of 10 mg of THC per container.

THC is responsible for the way an individual's brain and body responds to cannabis, including the high and intoxication, Health Canada states on its website.

Although THC has some therapeutic effects, it also has harmful effects which may be greater when the strength of THC is higher.

Video: More British Columbia residents using cannabis products: survey

To further reduce the risk, Myran said markets can design and reformulate edibles to make them less appealing to children in an effort to avoid such accidents..

“There are just certain products that no matter how you package them, no matter how you present them, (they will look appealing). Candy is candy, and kids will be interested in that,” said Myran. “And we don't think this is a good idea to sell.”

However, Myran noted that events of accidental cannabis poisonings among children in Canada are “still relatively rare.”

Canada has had 581 hospitalizations from cannabis poisoning in children over a seven-year period, which represents a wider base of less severe poisonings, said Myran.

The New England Journal report, titled "Edible Cannabis Legalization and Unintentional Poisonings in Children," compared three provinces in Canada — Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta -- against a fourth province, Quebec, which had a ban on edibles at the time when the study was conducted.

Before legalization in 2018, hospitalization rates were similar across provinces. However, hospitalization rates in Ontario, B.C., Alberta and Quebec jumped 2.6 times during the first period of legalization between October 2018 to December 2019.

During the second period of legalization between January 2020 to September 2021, the hospitalization rates in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta were 7.5 times higher than before. Whereas, the hospitalization rate in Quebec was three times higher — largely due to the fact that edibles were not legalized at the time in the province, according to the study.

Myran said it can be argued that more parental education is needed but the responsibility doesn’t solely fall on parents or caregivers.

“I don't think that you ever want to look at a problem like this and say the only response here is for more parental education and responsibility,” he said.

Current government policies are “doing a fairly good job at making this problem not worse,” said Myran.

Read more:
B.C. cannabis use increases ‘responsibly’ three years after legalization: survey

According to Health Canada, Cannabis products must be packaged in a child-resistant container and the label should contain the standardized cannabis symbol, the mandatory health warning message and include specific product information— such as the brand name, class of cannabis, (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) information.

“These measures aim to reduce the risks of accidental consumption and overconsumption as well as reduce the appeal of cannabis products to young persons while providing consumers with the information they need to make informed decisions before using cannabis,” the advisory on Health Canada's website says.

Zach Walsh, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, said besides securely storing cannabis products away from children, parents should also have clear communication with their kids about cannabis consumption when they are old enough.

He said keeping an open and honest line of communication with children about cannabis and drug use throughout their life could prevent adolescent substance abuse in the future.

Although the overall percentage of people in Canada reporting cannabis use decreased from 2020 to 2021, more youth than adults who use cannabis reported changing their patterns of use during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addition's (CCSA) Cannabis Legalization Observations 2021–2022 report.

CCSA's report stated that there is also an increase in youth and young adults using cannabis vaporizers.

Video: Parents should keep an open and honest line of communication with children on drug use, expert recommends

Walsh said parents often hide their cannabis use from children, but "the kids still know they're using it," and this "secrecy further stigmatizes the use of cannabis."

“That's not where we need to be when we're dealing with ... adolescents and substance use, particularly at this time when the stakes are so high with some of the white powder drugs and opioids,” said Walsh.

Walsh also warned of the over-regulation of cannabis, which could lead to “far worse consequences than the direct effects of cannabis.”

“One thing that we want to be cautious of, given the history of cannabis, is that it doesn't turn into a sort of drug hysteria,” said Walsh. “Because as we've seen in the past with criminalization, promoting panic and overregulation haven't protected children or anyone from cannabis.”

Myran said young children who have ingested cannabis would be uncoordinated and have trouble sleeping in severe cases.

He said people should seek prompt care at the emergency room or by calling a regional poison control center.

“Because when young children ingest large quantities of cannabis, they can actually stop breathing,” said Myran. “And these are kids who need to be supported in their breathing with breathing tubes and ventilators while the cannabis is metabolized or processed out of their system.”

He added that parents or caregivers should disclose the situation to health-care providers if they suspect their kids may have ingested cannabis.

A cannabis poisoning event can look like a variety of other serious medical conditions and health-care workers need to “do other types of invasive procedures to rule them out,” cautioned Myran.

Is Ukraine’s nuclear plant safe? UN inspector worried as fighting intensifies

Eric Stober - Friday

Fighting is intensifying in the region that hosts Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a trend that has the UN's chief nuclear inspector worried about possible collateral damage.


In this handout photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Friday Sept. 2, 2022, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Rafael Grossi, the mission leader, left, and other members of the IAEA, inspect the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar, southeastern Ukraine Thursday Sept. 1, 2022.© Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) completed an initial inspection of the nuclear plant on Friday, in which the inspectors said they witnessed "impact holes" and markings on buildings from shelling related to the war in Ukraine waged by Russia.

2 UN inspectors to stay at Ukraine nuclear plant as fighting goes on

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told reporters Friday after leaving the war zone that it was clear the physical integrity of some buildings had been "violated" several times.

Recommended video: UN inspectors head to Ukraine nuclear plant despite fighting

Duration 3:00  View on Watch

"The kinetic power of what you're throwing at the plant is unacceptable," he said.

Then, there is the off-site power supply that helps keep the reactors cool to avoid a Chernobyl-esque meltdown, units that Grossi said are an area of enormous concern.

The inspection was meant to gauge the impact of the war on the nuclear power plant after a fire broke out in its vicinity in March when it was seized by the Russians.

However, Grossi said shelling in the area is actually a more recent trend that began in August.

"Military operations are increasing in that region," he said. "This worries me a lot."

Video: IAEA inspectors arrive in Zaporizhzhia to inspect nuclear plant, chief says mission is ‘technical’

Both Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations that each other are shelling the plant, with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu saying it raises the risk of a nuclear catastrophe.

One of the plant’s reactors was forced to shut down on Thursday due to shelling.

In an effort to promote stability at the plant, two UN nuclear specialists will stay there permanently to keep eye on the present dangers, and a report should be available early next week, according to Grossi.

He said that during the tour, no details were obscured to sway the final assessment, although Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom argued otherwise.

The company said the UN watchdog had not been allowed to enter the plant's crisis centre where Russian troops are allegedly stationed, and said that a partial look at the plant does not allow for an impartial assessment.

Grossi, though, was satisfied with the level of inspection.

"We saw everything," he said.

Fifty years after major Montreal art theft, trail has gone cold and nobody's talking

MONTREAL — Fifty years after what has been described as the biggest art heist in Canadian history, the thieves’ identity remains a mystery, and nobody is keen to talk about it.



From the Montreal police to the art museum that was burgled, from Canadian Heritage to the Quebec Culture Department, mum’s the word on the Skylight Caper.

It was in the early morning hours of Sept. 4, 1972 that three men rappelled from a skylight down a nylon rope into the second floor of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. They had selected the one skylight for which the alarm hadn’t been set, and once inside, the armed trio quickly overpowered the museum’s few overnight guards.

Blindfolded, gagged and bound in a first-floor lecture hall, the guards could only provide the most basic of descriptions—the two men they actually saw were of average height and build, wore ski masks and had long hair. Two of the thieves spoke French and one spoke English. A fair chunk of the city’s male population could fit the description.

It is not altogether surprising the case faded quickly from memory, as the 1972 Labour Day weekend was particularly eventful. On Friday, Sept. 1, three men who were refused entry to Montreal’s Wagon Wheel, a country and western bar, set fire to a rear staircase. The blaze ultimately consumed the entire building, killing 37 people.

The next day Canada lost the opening game of the 1972 Summit Series to the Soviet Union at the Montreal Forum.

And by the time news of the Skylight Caper began hitting national newswires, international attention had been drawn to the unfolding Munich Olympics hostage crisis, soon to degenerate into one of the most appalling acts of terrorism the world had seen.

To this day, the Montreal theft – which the journal Canadian Art in 2019 called the largest in the country’s history — remains remarkably obscure.

For about half an hour the trio went about selecting the paintings, small objects and pieces of jewelry they intended to steal. Evidence from the scene suggested to investigators that the thieves attempted to rig a pulley system to haul themselves, and the precious art and artifacts they had stolen, back through the skylight. Later reports on the theft indicated the thieves abandoned their initial pulley scheme and opted to use the museum’s panel van instead.

One of the thieves inadvertently tripped the alarm on a side door leading out to the street, in the process eliminating the suspicion it had been an inside job.

Investigators later determined that the thieves panicked, grabbed what they could carry -- 18 paintings and 39 small objects -- and took off on foot. Among the stolen items were paintings by Delacroix, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Millet, Rubens and Rembrandt.

What had been left behind was even more surprising: masterpieces by Goya, El Greco, Picasso, a Renoir and another Rembrandt.

Police later concluded that what connected the stolen pieces was their size -- all were small enough to be easily stacked together.

At the time, the museum estimated it had lost $2 million in stolen property -- nearly $14 million in today’s dollars. Later estimates indicated the Rembrandt alone may have been worth that much.

Only two of the stolen items have ever been recovered -- a pendant and a painting attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder -- both during ultimately failed ransom efforts.

As the 50th anniversary approached, the Montreal police department was asked for comment about the unsolved mystery. Spokesperson Anik de Repentigny said the case is still considered open and offered no further comment.

But long-time art crime investigator and retired Montreal police detective Alain Lacoursière — a man whose talent for solving art crimes earned him the nickname the Columbo of art — doesn’t believe Montreal police are actively investigating the theft because no one is familiar with the file.

Lacoursière has also previously told both the Journal of Art Crime and Canadian Art that he believes the investigation was flawed from the beginning, alleging files were mishandled and investigators gave up too soon.

Though the museum’s media relations department put together a collection of files about the case, they were reluctant to discuss it in any depth. The theft is for all intents and purposes a cold case, the paintings and objects are now the stolen property of the insurer and the affair dealt an embarrassing blow to the museum’s prestige and collection.

“Any artwork's theft is a tragedy, as it deprives society of the benefits of art and knowledge,” Maude Béland, media relations officer for the museum, said in an email. “Of course, we would love to have them back! Unfortunately, we do not have any new information.”

When contacted by The Canadian Press for comment on the anniversary of the theft, spokespeople for representatives at three levels of government declined all comment.

The Skylight Caper is unique among high-profile art thefts, as the paintings have both increased and decreased in value. After the Brueghel was returned unscathed in a show of good faith during ransom negotiations, it was re-assessed by a prominent art historian and determined unlikely to have been painted by the great master.

Subsequent review of the museum’s files on the stolen paintings, as reported in the Journal of Art Crime in 2011, revealed that doubts had been cast on the authenticity and/or attribution of about seven paintings, in some cases dating to six years before the heist. Adding insult to injury, a Rubens purchased by the museum with the insurance payout was also later determined to be misattributed.

What seemed like the biggest break in the case came about 30 years after the theft at a small art gallery in Montreal’s east end. Lacoursière struck up a conversation with a man he would subsequently nickname Smith who seemed to know everything about the case, including details that weren’t commonly known to the public.

The man was an avid art collector, independently wealthy and had been an art student in Montreal in 1972. “Smith” indicated he might have been part of a group of art students Montreal police suspected in the weeks after the theft.

Lacoursière at one point showed up at the man’s home and asked him — perhaps hoping to throw him off — where in his backyard they should start digging. “Smith” just laughed it off.

Lacoursière says the man he dubbed Smith died in 2017 or 2018.

“He was certainly well versed in the details of the theft," Lacoursière said in an email exchange, "but I think this was either from newspapers or from friends.”

The retired detective spent a good part of his career investigating the case but still has no clear idea of what happened to the paintings aside from a hope that they still exist somewhere.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2022.

Taylor Noakes, The Canadian Press