CANADA NEWSROLL

July 2020  This is a newsroll page on A Socialist In Canada, commencing September 2017. It consists of headlines with weblinks to published news articles and political analysis. Occasional commentary by the website publisher, Roger Annis, appears in square brackets [ ] ). For months preceding July 2020, go to ‘News pages archives’ on the home page of A Socialist In Canada and use the drop-down menu. To find past stories on this and other news pages on this website, use the ‘find’ (word search) function on your web browser. Headlines in red denote items published on the main news page of A Socialist In Canada.

Canada news headlines on A Socialist In Canada, July 2020

Covid-19 pandemic  News and analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide is published daily on the World news page of ‘A Socialist In Canada’ in the form of headlines, charts and weblinks. Detailed charts on the pandemic in Canada are published on the website of the Dalla Lama School of Public Health (Toronto) here. As of July 11, the daily rolling average of new Covid-19 cases in Ontario is 130, compared to 91 in Quebec, 48 in Alberta and 15 in British Columbia. Per capita cases in the four provinces, respectively, are 261, 661, 196 and 60 per 100,000 population; the Canadian average is 288. There have been 8,801 deaths in Canada, of which 2,752 have been in Ontario and 5,612 in Quebec. app. 80 per cent of those deaths have occurred in long-term care homes for the elderly, double the average of the wealthy countries that make up the OECD.] 

Legal expert says threat of Hong Kong’s new security law is overblown, Globe and Mail, July 10, 2020  [The hysteria being whipped up by Western editorialists and government leaders over China’s new national security law is evidently on shaky grounds, if this news article is any indication. The article appears, surprisingly, in the anti-China Globe and Mail, authored by the newspaper’s lead anti-China writer, no less.]

The RCMP is broken, feature article by Stephen Maher, published online on Maclean’s Magazine (print monthly) July 9, 2020  The iconic force is fraying under the strain of its rural policing model, tragic mistakes, an ugly past and a controversial present
Related:  Groups that campaign against violence against women are ‘shocked’ by Nova Scotia minister’s approach to inquiry into April 2020 mass murder, The Canadian Press, July 8, 2020  …Last week, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey said the provincial and federal governments were ironing out details of how the inquiry would work, but he said there were delays because of “technicalities and legalities”…

Accused in July 2 Rideau Hall gun incident has long history of being drawn to conspiracy websites, Toronto Star, July 11, 2020  …Corey Hurren is a former artillery soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces turned committed ‘Ranger’. That’s the army reserve unit that helps patrol Canada’s vast northern and remote regions. Hurren was drawing an equivalent salary of a Canadian Armed Forces member, a military source confirmed…
Related:
*  Attacker’s explicit threat against Trudeau and arsenal of loaded guns make his July 2 attack in Ottawa look like an assassination attempt, National Post, July 6, 2020
*  RCMP is disappointed by talk that race was a factor in the peaceful, not violent, arrest of Rideau Hall attacker on July 2, CBC News, July 10, 2020

Are politicians scared to discuss Canada’s very bad COVID-19 numbers?, letter to the Toronto Star, July 11, 2020

I note that India is now third in the world with COVID-19 deaths and infections. India has 700,000 infections and 20,000 deaths. Meanwhile, Canada has 100,000 infections and 8,500 deaths. But no one has mentioned the relative populations. India has 1.3 billion, while Canada has 37 million. India has seven times our infection and 2.5 times our mortality numbers, but India has 35 times our population. It looks to me like Canada is doing far worse, per capita.

Russia has four times our population, but only 1.1 times our death rate. The U.S., one of the few countries in the world worse than Canada, has nine times our population, but 28 times our infection and 16 times our death rate. Why has no one compared the relative rates? Not politically advantageous?

Grocery executives defend decision to cut $2 per hour COVID-19 pay premiums for workers, Globe and Mail, July 10, 2020  see also: report by CTV News, July 10, 2020

Six dead, 16 patients and 16 staff ill from Covid-19 at Edmonton’s Misericordia Catholic hospital, Global News, July 9, 2020

Police chiefs in Canada call for decriminalization of personal drug use, Canadian Press, July 9, 2020
Previously reported:  Overdose deaths increase by 93 per cent among B.C.’s First Nations in first five months of 2020, The Canadian Press, July 6, 2020
[There have been 15,393 apparent opioid-related deaths in Canada between January 2016 and December 2019, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (source). Oblivious to the human tragedy, successive Canadian governments have stood their ground in perpetrating their murderous–and racist–‘war on drugs’. Nary one provincial government sought to change the policy. Now, a few of those cowardly outfits, such as BC’s NDP government, are saying they agree with the police chiefs’ call for decriminalization measures. That’s political ‘leadership’ Canadian-style.]

Justin Trudeau’s mother and brother Alexandre were paid to speak at events hosted by ‘WE Charity’ events, the outfit to be paid millions to adminster a $900 million gov’t program, CBC News, July 9, 2020
Related:  Crime and fraud at ‘WE Charity’ operations in Kenya, by Jesse Brown, editor, Canadaland, July 3, 2020
[The We Charity and its predecessor ‘Free The Children’ have been important props in supporting Canadian foreign policy, including Canada’s leading role in the violent, paramilitary coup in Haiti in February 2004 that overthrew the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Revelations of the corruption and patronism of the charity outfit show how well it is following its patron’s model, for example the long efforts by successive Canadian governments to shield and promote the corrupt, Quebec-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.]

By many calculations, the ambitions of the British Columbia gov’t to foster development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a failure, by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee,  July 9, 2020

Inmates go on hunger strike over lockdowns, poor conditions at provincial jail in Milton,Ontario, Toronto Star, July 8, 2020  …The hunger strike comes after similar protests by prisoners at two other jails in the province, the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre and the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, both citing similar issues. Last month, Ontario’s ombudsman said he was left “shaken” by conditions in some provincial facilities as a record 6,000 complaints from inmates were received last year. More than 800 complaints were received in March specifically related to the COVID-19 pandemic…

Scientists study, debate the science and dangers of airborne COVID-19 infection, by Carly Weeks, health reporter, Globe and Mail, July 8, 2020
Previously reported:
*  Controversy over airborne transmission of COVID-19 ‘a tempest in a teapot’, says chief medical officer of British Columbia, CBC News, July 6, 2020  [Dr. Bonnie Henry is treated as a heroine in mainstream media, but her dismissal of the danger of airborne transmission of Covid-19 parallels her downplaying the importance of mask wearing (‘wear one if you need to’) and her earlier downplaying and even dismissal at the outset of the pandemic of the importance of testing. The chief medical health officer of Vancouver Coastal Health outright dismissed the benefits of mandatory wearing of masks to protect against Covid-19 in an interview on CBC Radio One Vancouver‘s ‘Early Edition’ program on July 7.].
*  Airborne transmission of COVID-19 a ‘real risk’, 239 scientists tell WHO in open letter, Canadian Press, July 6, 2020
*  239 experts with one big claim: The coronavirus is airborne and can transmit that way, New York Times, July 4, 2020  read also: report by Reuters, July 5, 2020

Teck Resources’ Greenhills mine in British Columbia’s Elk Valley.

Alberta gov’t and elite stretch their gaze from their tar sands disaster, rescind decades-old policy banning coal strip mining in Rocky Mountains and Foothills. Report by CBC News, May 22, 2020
Related:
*  Bringing coal back, feature report by CBC News, June 1, 2020  [Fossil fuel death cult ideologues in Alberta look longingly at southeast British Columbia, where successive conservative and NDP governments have laid out the welcome mat for coal companies for more than a century. The product is shipped from the port of ‘Green’ Vancouver, North America’s largest coal export port. ‘Teck Resources is the major player in the [Elk River] valley, employing thousands of people at its five [open pit] mines dotting the Elk and Fording rivers. For years, the mines have been leaching selenium into those rivers, setting off disputes with U.S. officials and decimating rare fish populations…] * From Canadian coal strip mines, toxic pollution that knows no borders, report in Yale Environment 360, April 1, 2019
* For decades B.C. failed to address selenium pollution in the Elk Valley. Now no one knows how to stop it, feature report by Carol Linnitt, in The Narwhal, Dec 4, 2018  There are no viable solutions to stop the tide of selenium leaching into Canadian and U.S. waters from a 100-kilometre stretch of open pit coal mines owned and operated by mining giant Teck Resources.

Court ruling ends BC gov’t pretense of opposition to Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline, benefits its approval of ‘Site C’ hydroelectric dam and Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline over First Nations opposition. Column by Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver sun, July 6, 2020
Background:  Supreme Court of Canada dismisses the last of the Indigenous-based appeals against Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline approval, signalling the end of the years-long strategy by the liberal environmental movement of appealing to the non-existing conscience of Canada’s fossil fuel death cult. Report by Canadian Press, July 2, 2020

Canada’s slavery secret: The whitewashing of 200 years of enslavement, part one of a two-part broadcast, on CBC Radio One‘s ‘Ideas’ program, June 2020  (54 minutes, originally broadcast in 2018)
Related:  Slavery’s long shadow: The impact of 200 years of enslavement in Canada, part two of a two-part broadcast, on CBC Radio One’s ‘Ideas’ program, June 2020 (54 minutes, originally broadcast in 2018)  ‘Slavery in Canada has a long and brutal history, yet school textbooks in the country ignore it.’

Migrant workers in Canada stage multi-city protest, call for more COVID-19 protections, Canadian Press, July 4, 2020
Recent related reports:
*  Confusion reigns in Covid-19 rules governing farm/greenhouse operations in Ontario as health unit effectively shuts down one farm operation, report in Globe and Mail, July 2, 2020  Farmers, workers and health officials are struggling to contain COVID-19 outbreaks in the agricultural region of southwest Ontario amid mass confusion over isolation protocols after one farm, Nature Fresh Farms, has effectively been shut down despite a new provincial guideline designed to prevent such work stoppages. The June 24 guidelinee from the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams, allows some asymptomatic workers who test positive to continue doing their jobs, so long as they are kept separate from those who test negative… More than 750 health-care professionals signed a letter sent Thursday to Dr. Williams, imploring him to abandon the guideline…
*  Thousands of undocumented migrant workers on farms are slipping through Ontario’s flimsy COVID-19 safety net. Report in CBC News, July 2, 2020  …None of the safety measures by the Ontario government target undocumented workers. They are unlikely to present themselves for testing and they don’t qualify for free provincial health care, let alone any sort of government employment assistance…
*  Ontario is repeating the mistakes on farms that it made with long-term care, by Robyn Urback, columnist, Globe and Mail, July 1, 2020  [The columnist uses the term ‘disaster’ to describe the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on long-term care homes for the elderly in Ontario. But she also uses the term ‘mistake’, as does the Globe and Mail headline writer. There have been 8,639 deaths in Canada caused by Covid-19, of which 81 per cent were residents of care homes for the elderly, the highest death rate among OECD countries. These were not caused by ‘mistakes’. They were caused by criminal negligence and decades of cuts and privatizations of long-term care for the elderly.].
*  Ontario tops Canadian provinces for new Covid-19 cases with agricultural areas leading the numbers, Toronto Star, June 29, 2020
*  Public health officer for Ontario’s Windsor-Essex county won’t allow the new Ontario gov’t policy that allows for ‘asymptomatic’ carriers of Covid-19 to continue working at farms and greenhouses, Globe and Mail, June 30, 2020  …Ontario has more than 940 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among migrant farm workers, with more than half in the Windsor area, according to a Globe and Mail count…

Some Canadian businesses want to let Americans back in. Most Canadians don’t, Washington Post, July 3, 2020
Related:  Mexican border states raise new concerns about Americans bringing coronavirus south, Washington Post, July 3, 2020

Sorting out Canada’s patchwork of face mask rules, New York Times, July 3, 2020 Without general directives from federal and provincial governments, local leaders have been left setting mask directives.
Related: Patients, even staff, unmasked at British Columbia Cancer Agency clinic, says patient, Vancouver Sun, July 3, 2020 …Andrea Visscher, a spokeswoman for the BC Cancer Agency, said the clinic follows “recommendations and directions issued by our provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, and our health minister, Adrian Dix.” Wearing a mask if you are healthy “remains a matter of personal choice as recommended” by Dr. Henry…

In the name of anti-Trumpism, media elevate lying warmonger John Bolton, by Bryce Greene, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR.org), July 3, 2020  [True to form, Canada’s state broadcaster the CBC broadcast an interview with war criminal John Bolton on June 26 on its weekday newsmagazine program ‘The Current’.]

Alberta hospital did nothing in 2016 after South African-born white doctor placed a noose in workplace to threaten Nigerian-born surgical assistant, CBC News, July 3, 2020
Related:  Toronto police investigate after two nooses found at hospital construction site, Toronto City News, June 23, 2020

Airlines end social distancing measures on flights; health experts say that’s ‘wildly inappropriate’ and could lead to second wave, Toronto Star, July 2, 2020  and read: Experts concerned about increased risk of COVID-19 transmission on flights as airlines abandon social distancing, Globe and Mail, July 2, 2020

Canada alone cannot stop China, nor save our ‘two Michaels’ with a prisoner swap, by Martin Regg Cohen, columnist, Toronto Star, July 1, 2020  [This column by an otherwise liberal and often thoughtful columnist in the liberal Toronto Star highlights just how crazed and dangerous the anti-China rhetoric and threats by government and media in Canada are becoming. The rhetoric in Canada now encompasses the entirety of the media spectrum, highlighting the hypocrisy of those editors, writers and columnistswho posture as opposed to the Trump regime but who ape its policies and ideology on matters of war and peace if not global warming and social inequity. As with the existing new cold war against Russia, the new cold war against China sees the world’s leading imperialist countries joined closely with the Trump regime, notably through the NATO military alliance and the ‘Five Eyes’ spying alliance.].
Related:  Brian Mulroney urges ‘immediate and urgent rethink’ of relations with China, report in Globe and Mail, June 30, 2020. [This article is authored by two of the leading anti-China writers at the Globe and Mail. It  is crafted to push back against the prominent liberals in Canada who are urging the Canadian government to end its subservience to Washington over the Trump regime’s  determination to throw Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou into the U.S. prison gulag. The political left in Canada has been cowed and silenced by the ruling class’ anti-China drive, just as it has kept a studied silence over the new cold war launched against Russia beginning in 2014.]

No cause for celebration on this Canada Day, commentary by Alvin Fiddler, Toronto Star, June 30, 2020  (Alvin Fiddler is Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, representing 49 First Nation communities across Northern Ontario.)  …On this Canada Day, I stand firmly with the family of Dafonte Miller and all victims of police violence and echo their call to the federal government to hold a public inquiry into police brutality against Indigenous and racialized people. Anything less amounts to being complicit in this violence…

Highlight from Canada news headlines, June 2020:

Canada’s lost months: When COVID-19’s first wave hit, governments and health officials were scattered and slow to act, feature report by Robyn Doolittle, Michelle Carbert and Daniel Leblanc, Globe and Mail, June 26, 2020 Read the report here in pdf format: Canada’s lost months with Covid-19 ‘With the news on January 25 that Canada’s first Covid-19 case had arrived, public health officials across the country held news conferences to reassure the public that things were under control and that the risk of an outbreak in Canada was low.’
[This Globe and Mail report is the first, lengthy report in Canadian media (corporate and ‘alternative’ alike) to document the criminal negligence of Canada’s official response to the Covid-19 pandemic.]