The province is seeking expressions of interest from not-for-profit organizations to develop, coordinate and implement pre-kindergarten programs.

There are currently 35 Pre-Kindergarten Program locations operating, representing more than 600 early learning and child care spaces across the province.

 There are an additional 29 sites currently in development.

The Pre-Kindergarten Program runs full-time, including during the summer months and during traditional after school hours. Participating families pay $10 per day. Additionally, the Child Care Subsidy Program is available to assist families with the cost of child care fees at regulated child care services.

The deadline to submit a licensing package is February 14.

Credit monitoring services for people impacted by the PowerSchool cybersecurity breach are now available.

Last week, the province revealed that some 271,000 Students and 14,000 teachers had their data compromised in the attack.

Government says high school students that have been in the system since 1995, and teachers who have been in the system since 2010 are eligible the free service.

As well, a company known as Experian, acting on behalf of PowerSchool, will be sending out direct email notifications to students or their parents, and teachers who are affected by the breach.

Those emails will include further information about the information of theirs involved and the resources available.

More information about how to activate credit monitoring can be found online.

A man didn’t manage to get very far after making off with stolen goods from a business in downtown St. John’s yesterday afternoon.

RNC were called to a theft in progress at the store just before 4 p.m.

By the time officers arrived, the suspect had taken off on foot.

The 30-year-old was found not too far from the store and was taken into custody on charges of theft, breach of probation, and breach of release order.

While businesses continue to watch for news from Washington, consumers are paying close attention, too. While some are feeling relief about the tariff pause, others don't feel confident it will last.

Three MUN students were arrested and charged with trespassing in July after occupying the university's Arts and Administration building during a protest. Now they're preparing for a five-day trial where they say their Charter rights are at stake.

AMRITSAR, India (AP) — A U.S. military plane carrying 104 deported Indian migrants arrived in a northern Indian city on Wednesday, the first such flight to the country as part of a crackdown ordered by the Trump administration, airport officials said.

The Indians who returned home had illegally entered the United States over the years and came from various Indian states.

The move came ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, which is expected next week. U.S. President Donald Trump and Modi discussed immigration in a phone call last week and Trump stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and fair bilateral trade.

India has cooperated with the U.S. and said it is ready to accept the deported Indians after verification.

New Delhi says it is against illegal immigration, mainly because it is linked to several forms of organized crime, and it has not objected to the U.S. deporting its citizens.

“For Indians, not just in the United States but anywhere in the world, if they are Indian nationals, and they are overstaying or they are in a particular country without proper documentation, we will take them back, provided documents are shared with us so that we can verify their nationality that they are indeed Indians,” India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said last month.

“If that happens to be the case, then we will take things forward. We will facilitate the return to India,” Jaiswal said.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week the deportation flights were an effective way to stem the flow of illegal migration, which he said is destructive and destabilizing.

The State Department said such deportations send a message of deterrence to other people considering migrating illegally.

India’s junior External Affairs Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh told India’s Parliament that 519 Indian nationals were deported to India between November 2023 and October 2024, citing U.S. government data.

The U.S. government carries out deportations through commercial and chartered flights, he added.

Media reports say there are about 7,25,000 undocumented Indians in the U.S., mainly from Punjab and Gujarat states, and that Indians comprised about 3% of all illegal border crossings in the U.S. in 2024.

The Indian Express newspaper said there were 20,407 undocumented Indians as of November last year who are either facing final removal orders or are currently in detention centers of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Prabhjot Gill, The Associated Press

Wednesday marked the beginning of work on HRM’s 2025-26 budget.

The proposed budget, before deliberations begin, shows an annual spending increase of 69.7 million dollars and a 2.7 percent increase in municipal tax.

Factoring that increase in tax with an average increase in property assessment of 4.7 percent, the total increase would land at 7.6 percent

For the average single-family home in HRM, that increase amounts to 189 dollars per year.

According to the staff report on the budget, this year’s increase is driven by compensation increases, inflation, capital funding needs, and growing population demands.

The city’s budget committee will begin the first of a series of meeting to deliberate the 1.3-billion-dollar budget today.

You can read the budget documents here

Political financing reports show that the collapsed BC United party collected more than $223,000 in donations after it suspended campaigning in last year’s provincial election, including tens of thousands received after the Oct. 19 vote.

Financial reports filed with Elections BC show almost all of the donations appear to be automatic bank transfers, occurring on the 20th of each month.

BC United was the official Opposition heading into the election but leader Kevin Falcon suspended its campaign on Aug. 28 and urged supporters to switch their votes to the B.C. Conservative Party, which came close to defeating the NDP government.

The Elections BC report shows BC United received more than $86,000 after the election.

While BC United did not run any candidates, it does not appear to have been deregistered, and its online donations portal has been updated to reflect donation limits that came into effect in 2025.

The party’s financial agent, Aaron Fedora, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, and phone numbers listed on the party’s financial reports and website are not connected.

The Elections BC reports show that in the last three months of 2024, the Conservatives raked in about $1.5 million, the NDP $1.79 million and the BC Green Party collected more than $558,000 in donations.

After Falcon’s party bowed out of the election, the NDP and Conservatives were nearly tied dollar for dollar in donations.

Between Aug. 29 and Dec. 31, the BC Conservatives took in just under $3.93 million from 4,534 contributions, while the NDP received just over $3.93 million from 7,439 contributions.

Provincial political contributions in B.C. are capped at about $1,484 in 2025, up from just over $1,450 last year.

Former BC United candidate Kevin Acton, who ran in the election as an independent, sued the party in small claims court for reimbursement of election expenses last month.

The party appealed for donations after suspending its campaign, warning that without support it would “be very difficult to continue as a registered political party.”

“There is no alternative. Either we raise the funds required to meet our commitments, or BC United will be unable to continue,” the party’s online donation portal said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

The number of video game companies operating in Canada dropped nine per cent in the wake of a pandemic-fuelled gaming boom, most of them smaller independent shops with fewer than 25 employees, according to an economic report on the industry.

The report for the Entertainment Software Association of Canada says 821 video game companies operated in 2023-24, which is 78 fewer than the peak in 2020-21.

Association president Paul Fogolin said a post-pandemic dip was expected, since gameplay surged during COVID-19 lockdowns, leading game studios and developers to scale up.

Fogolin said the number of people who played games didn’t increase that much during the pandemic, but people who played did so more than ever.

“Coming off of that, we knew there was going to be a slight dip in engagement with games, and that was also at the same time as new macroeconomic conditions, inflationary pressures, lower consumer spending,” Fogolin said in an interview.

There were 573 video game companies in 2017, and 692 in 2019, according to previous economic reports for the association. Fogolin said the latest numbers show the Canadian industry “remains strong and stable.”

That’s despite a 3.5 per cent decline in jobs since 2021, when there were the equivalent of 35,260 full-time positions, including programmers, writers and artists. The report says there were 1,250 fewer full-time jobs in 2023-24, with work largely based in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

At the same time, the report says the ratio of full-time work increased — to 86 per cent from 81 per cent — suggesting that was due to companies scaling back on temporary hires and focusing on longer-term projects. In addition, average salary increased 21 per cent to $102,000 per year.

The report, released Jan. 28 and based on an online survey between May and June 2024, credits those gains with three per cent growth in the sector’s economic impact, which it says resulted in $5.1 billion contributed to total gross domestic product.

The report also noted disparity between local and foreign-owned companies who took part in the survey: while 76 per cent of respondent companies were Canadian-owned, foreign companies employed 88 per cent of the workforce.

It also found most of the companies that folded or downsized had fewer than 25 employees.

The global video game industry has seen thousands of layoffs in recent years, mirroring trends in the wider tech sector.

In Canada, Edmonton-based BioWare laid off about 50 people in August 2023 and an undisclosed number this January, saying in both instances that it wanted to become a “more agile and more focused studio.”

Behaviour Interactive cut 95 jobs in June 2024, most of them at its Montreal base, amid what it called “unprecedented competition.”

But much of the sector is driven by big players with Canadian outposts. Ubisoft developed most of the “Assassin’s Creed” titles in Quebec, while Electronic Arts produced “NHL 24” and “EA Sports FC 24,” a successor to the FIFA series, in Burnaby, B.C.

There are homegrown hits, too. The indie darling “Balatro,” a poker-themed game developed by an anonymous Canadian, has sold more than five million copies since it launched in February 2024.

But Michael Iantorno, a PhD candidate in Concordia University’s communications program, said it’s becoming more and more difficult for game developers and workers alike.

“If you’re a small developer … you’re kind of fighting over scraps in terms of funding,” said Iantorno, who studies video game history, industry labour and intellectual property law.

There are several funding sources including the Canada Media Fund and provincial organizations like Ontario Creates, but there’s more demand than money, he said.

“We need to fund arts and small businesses more, especially in the games sector,” he said. “That’s an uphill battle. Those organizations have often stagnated or had their funding decreased over successive governments.”

Remy Siu, the Vancouver developer behind the critically acclaimed video game “1000xResist,” which came out in May 2024, said the game would not exist without help from the Canada Media Fund.

Siu, founder of Sunset Visitor, said “there’s a degree of really having to stand out” as an indie developer as he credited the fund with allowing certain kinds of artistic risks.

The studio received just under $490,000, according to the fund’s website.

Siu said studios can also seek bank loans or an advance from a publisher but his sci-fi narrative game was a “hard pitch” because of its niche subject matter.

Siu said a weak Canadian dollar could pose a future challenge if his studio wanted to hire U.S. talent. The loonie recently dipped to its lowest levels in more than 20 years. But layoffs at bigger companies mean there’s no problem finding workers.

“I actually don’t think there’s a talent acquisition issue,” he said.

“We see a lot of really talented people looking for work right now in the game industry, which is unfortunate.”

One way to support and encourage smaller or newer developers is to create new funding paths, said Iantorno, the game scholar from Concordia University.

An example is a games incubator known as Baby Ghosts, he said, which provides grants and education to emerging studios in Canada.

“If we can distribute funding in ways where we can get it to people who don’t typically receive game funding in areas where they don’t typically receive game funding, we can both foster the indie industry and tell stories from all across the country,” Iantorno said.

Fogolin, from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, said he’s seeing more and more critically acclaimed games being produced in the country, even amid ongoing inflationary pressures and less discretionary spending.

He said that just as Ontario is known for its automotive and film and television sectors, the country should be recognized for video games.

“We are really, really good at making video games in Canada,” he said. “And I think a lot of people don’t know that.”

The study, conducted for the industry association by Nordicity Group, collected data based on responses from 150 video game companies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.

Curtis Ng, The Canadian Press

FREDERICTON — McGill University undergrad Daniel Miksha made a significant decision over the weekend.

After hearing the news that U.S. President Donald Trump planned to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian exports, Miksha shelved his plans to apply to Boston University, Yale and Harvard for graduate studies.

“I feel like the social and political climate in Canada is far better than what I’m seeing in the United States,” the fourth-year philosophy student said in an interview Tuesday. “If I can make a choice about where I’m going to spend probably many years of my life in grad school and afterwards, I would prefer to stay here.”

His gesture was one example of what observers say has been a growing wave of patriotic sentiment among Canadians since Trump took office and ratcheted up his anti-Canadian rhetoric, repeatedly saying the nation should become the 51st American state. Online, people are sharing lists of products made in Canada and posting about cancelling trips to the United States. Pro-Canadian, anti-Trump memes are flooding social media. And at professional hockey and basketball games on the weekend, the American national anthem was booed.

“If you look at people booing the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events, circulating information about how to boycott American-made products, generally, voicing their frustration at the Trump administration, it’s pretty unmistakable that there’s been a rise in patriotic sentiment,” said Edward Schatz, political science professor at the University of Toronto. And although Trump agreed Monday to a month-long tariff reprieve after discussions with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Schatz does not expect the patriotic flame to die away.

The Calgary-born Miksha celebrates Canada Day and marks Remembrance Day. Although he has always felt a “quiet pride” in being Canadian, he said he has never been given to overt displays of patriotism. But after hearing Trump’s attacks, he has decided not only to forego American universities but also to buy Canadian whenever possible.

“With the 51st state statement, I find that profoundly insulting,” Miksha said. “Canada has a unique cultural history and a unique heritage … we have things like universal health care, which I think is a great triumph of Canadian society.”

A Leger online poll that surveyed 1,520 Canadians between Dec. 6 and 9, found just 13 per cent wanted Canada to become part of the United States, compared with 82 per cent who rejected the notion.

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said Monday that Trump’s threats have brought a “beautiful” Maple Leaf surge, with people actively looking for ways they can celebrate Canadian producers and products. “I think that comes alongside a bit of an anti-American sentiment,” she said, “a frustration that our closest neighbour and trading partner has decided to treat us this way.”

Bradley Miller, associate professor of history at the University of British Columbia, said the “stew of things” that Canadians have had to deal with in recent weeks has brought patriotic feelings, tinged with anger at the Trump administration, to the forefront.

Rightly or wrongly, he said, Canadians feel like they’ve held up their end of the bargain reached when the countries signed their 1988 free trade agreement. Now they feel taken advantage of.

“Things that we thought that we could count on are being thrown into question, and we’re left trying to anticipate where President Trump’s moods and his sense of political advantage will take us next,” Miller said. “There’s madness in the air.”

In a speech Saturday night after Trump had signed an executive order saying tariffs would take effect Tuesday, Trudeau invoked the resilience of “Team Canada,” called on Canadians to stand united and asked everyone to do their bit.

“It’s rally around the leader time,” said Stewart Prest, political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia. “There is a saying that politics ends at the water’s edge — that there’s a sense of a need to pull together and represent the country with the united front .… We have seen any number of examples of that now.”

He noted that patriotic sentiment is not uniform, and there are pockets of the country where strong undercurrents of right-wing populism make a politician like Trump appealing. “Some of this is economic, but some of it is undoubtedly a function of political culture and ideological affinity,” Prest said.

Trump’s threats of tariffs or annexation play out differently depending on whether someone is working in the oil sector, fisheries or finances, said the University of Toronto’s Schatz. And being Canadian means something different to those living in Ontario, Quebec, B.C. or Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Maybe it’s less to do with different provinces and more to do with different kinds of livelihoods,” he said. “But everywhere, what you’ve seen is a shift in that direction of ‘Aha! We’re all Canadians. We’re going to disagree, even loudly sometimes, over the best way to counter these kinds of threats. But we’re all in this together.'”

Carmen Celestini, religious studies lecturer at the University of Waterloo, said Trump’s on-again, off-again threats are likely to leave emotional scars on Canadians.

“His sort of carpet bombing of executive orders, and it’s almost like he’s tried to economically annex a NATO country, and that is problematic. People are on edge. I don’t think that fear will go away easily,” she said.

“It’s like this dark cloud looming over us, because where does one threat end and when does another one begin with this 51st state situation?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press

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The flags of Canada and the United States fly outside a hotel in downtown Ottawa, on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

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OTTAWA — A new independent commission tasked by the federal government with reviewing miscarriages of justice could discover that more people than expected are serving prison sentences for crimes they didn’t commit.

Other countries that launched similar commissions have found that “the degree of wrongful convictions certainly was much more significant than they knew,” said Sen. Kim Pate, a prominent advocate for the wrongfully convicted.

“I suspect we will see much the same.”

Former justice minister David Lametti introduced the legislation to set up the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission. His successor, Justice Minister Arif Virani, is now in the process of implementing that legislation.

The commission won’t be able to overturn a conviction but will have the power to order a new trial or appeal.

Lametti said we don’t know how common wrongful convictions are in Canada.

“It simply stands to reason statistically that there have to be more wrongful convictions out there,” he said. “We’re hoping that by creating a more accessible commission, a less costly commission and a more efficient commission, that we will get to some of those cases as well.”

But some warn the long-awaited, long-recommended review body won’t be prepared for the influx of applications it’s expected to receive.

Former judge Harry LaForme, who was appointed by the government to co-lead federal consultations on setting up the new commission, predicted the number of applications for conviction reviews could be “far more than they think it is.”

“That has proven to be the case in virtually every commission that started around the world,” he said, citing the commissions in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Scotland and Norway.

LaForme said the government failed to ensure the new review body has enough commissioners to do the work. He’s calling for at least eight to 11 commissioners, while the law provides for five to nine in total.

He predicted the commission will see “hundreds” of cases from across the country.

Currently, the process for reviewing a possible wrongful conviction goes through the federal justice minister’s office, where a criminal conviction review group investigates applications and makes recommendations to the minister.

Lawyer Tony Paisana, who teaches a course on wrongful convictions at the University of British Columbia, said it takes “far too long for these cases to make their way through the (current) system. Years and years and years.”

Paisana said that if the new commission is “not adequately resourced, the obvious and likely outcome is that we’re going to revert right back to what we were trying to avoid.”

He said the new commission is still long overdue and people who work in this field are “heartened by the change that’s coming.”

“I think there’s a sense of optimism,” he said. “Like anything else, there’s also a sense of unpredictability at this transition phase.”

Lametti said that, under the current process, there “are many wrongful conviction reviews that will never see the light of day, because for whatever reason it moves very slowly in the current process … I saw roughly seven cases, I believe, over four and a half years.”

The United Kingdom’s commission reviews hundreds of cases each year.

The bill setting up the commission was one of the last pieces of legislation to make it through the House of Commons before Parliament rose for the holiday break — and could be one of the last ahead of what’s likely to be a spring election. Funding was already outlined in the 2023 federal budget, which set aside $83.9 million over five years and $18.7 million in ongoing funding.

Getting the legislation passed was a personal goal for Lametti, who introduced the bill in 2023.

“When I was named minister of justice, this was nowhere on anyone’s radar screen and I saw an opportunity to put this on the radar screen,” he said.

The late David Milgaard, who served 23 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit, advocated for the wrongfully convicted and supported the bill. Lametti said he promised Milgaard he would “get it done.”

Lametti said that since there already had been a number of reports calling for a commission, he tasked LaForme and former judge Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré with looking at the “architecture” of such a review body. A number of jurisdictions, including the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, show the commission model works, he said.

Lametti acknowledged the new commission will face a backlog at first, but said the hope is that the numbers will stabilize.

Justice Minister Virani’s office said “work is already underway to establish the commission promptly, beginning with the appointment of commissioners,” and the minister is “focused on ensuring the commission is operational as soon as possible.”

With an election expected this spring, the task of establishing the review body could fall to a Conservative government. Asked whether he has any concerns about a party that has pledged a tough-on-crime approach being in charge of implementing the review body, Lametti responded, “God, I hope not.”

“Tough on crime is not stupid on crime, and this isn’t crime. These are wrongful convictions,” he said. “There isn’t any benefit to the system to convicting innocent people.”

The Conservative party did not respond to multiple requests for comment about how a Conservative government might approach setting up a commission.

LaForme agreed the issue isn’t crime but innocent people “languishing in prison.”

“I don’t think that this Conservative government will think that way,” he added.

The Liberal government has said the new system will help racialized and Indigenous Peoples, who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

Over the past 20 years, there have been 200 applications arguing wrongful conviction and 30 cases were eventually overturned, Virani said in December.

Speaking at a recent annual general meeting of the Canadian Bar Association, Virani noted that only seven of those cases involved racialized people and called those numbers “fundamentally unfair.”

“We all know, as lawyers, what systemic overrepresentation in the criminal justice system looks like. It is frankly a national shame,” he said.

None of those 30 overturned cases included women. Virani said “the notion that there isn’t a single female person who is an offender in a correctional facility in this country who’s been wrongfully convicted is just statistically improbable.”

Sen. Kim Pate was one of the senators behind a 2022 report arguing for the group review and exoneration of 12 Indigenous women it said suffered miscarriages of justice. The report noted that Indigenous women make up less than four per cent of women in Canada, but account for half of all women in federal prisons.

The report said Indigenous women “disproportionately experience miscarriages of justice: they are charged, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned following systemic and discriminatory failures of the criminal legal and prison systems to adequately recognize, contextualize or address the inequities, racism, sexism, violence and ongoing trauma of their lives.”

Pate said a lot remains to be seen when it comes to the makeup of the new commission.

“If the same sort of folks are hired who have been involved in these processes up until now, then it’s not evident that we would see a very different reality,” she said.

LaForme said the chair of the commission needs to be an Indigenous or Black individual, to reflect the overrepresentation of those populations in prisons. He also said that if the commission isn’t independent of government, Indigenous individuals won’t want to apply to serve on it.

Sen. Pate said the new commission could “result in a massive change and… a vital movement within the current criminal legal system to rectify and remedy wrongful convictions and other kinds of injustices.”

It “remains to be seen” whether that will happen, she added.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2024.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press

Ontario’s main party leaders are mostly campaigning in the Greater Toronto area today as the focus of the snap election shifts to provincial issues.

The threat of U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods dominated the campaign trail at the start of the week, but with the hefty duties on hold until at least early March, the NDP and the Liberals say it’s time to put issues such as health care and education in the spotlight.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie is set to make an announcement on health and poverty in Hamilton this morning, while NDP Leader Marit Stiles is expected to make another stop in Toronto.

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford, who has continued to reiterate his tariff warnings, is set to make an announcement in Pickering, Ont., this afternoon, before an event with an international electrical workers’ union in Oshawa, Ont.

West of Toronto, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner will be making an announcement in Guelph, Ont., before canvassing in the area.

Ontarians head to the polls on Feb. 27.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.

The Canadian Press

They’re booing the American national anthem, canceling holidays in the United States, and boycotting American products: Canadians are responding to US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats with anger and patriotic spending.

“What Donald Trump is doing to Canada, I find it completely disgusting,” says Huguette Beaudoin.

Wandering the aisles of a Montreal supermarket, the 80-year-old stops to look closely at the label on a box of onion soup to determine whether it was made in the United States.

For her, like many others, buying American products is now out of the question — even if it means going without certain items.

“We have to react,” she says.

Trump, who roared back into the White House this month, had announced sweeping tariffs of 25 per cent on Canadian imports to begin Tuesday, accusing Ottawa of not doing enough on illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said the US levies would be paused for 30 days after he promised Trump he would tighten the border with the United States, appoint a “Fentanyl Czar” and crack down on money laundering.

But he had initially announced retaliatory tariffs, urged Canadians to buy local and consider vacationing within Canada instead of the United States.

His comments appear to have been taken to heart, with several people in multiple cities who spoke to AFP before the pause was announced saying they would do just that.

Pamela Tennant, who lives in Ontario, had been planning a trip to South Carolina in March but changed her mind, annoyed by the American president’s attacks — including his oft-repeated threat to make Canada the 51st US state.

“I’m afraid that Americans will end up believing what Trump says,” she said. “He considers us a bad neighbour. He tells the whole world that we are bad people and that we have taken advantage of them,” but it is “all lies.”

Boos

On social media, lists of American products to boycott began circulating widely.

Several provinces — including Ontario, which sells almost Can$1 billion worth of US booze annually through its government-run retail stores and to 18,000 local restaurants and bars — said they would immediately stop selling American beer, wine and spirits in protest.

“We didn’t start this fight, but we’re going to win this fight,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Monday.

The boycott will have an effect on American producers and companies, but Canada remains “a relatively small market” for them, and so it will be “above all symbolic,” commented Julien Frederic Martin, an economics professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal [UQAM].

On the other hand, Canadian tourists choosing to go elsewhere “could have a significant economic effect” for American states such as Maine, Florida, California and Arizona, according to Lorn Sheehan, a professor who specializes in tourism at Dalhousie University.

The United States is the top vacation destination for Canadians and, in 2023, more than 25 million trips were made to the United States for work, leisure or shopping.

Canadian sports fans have also expressed their anger, booing the US national anthem at a Toronto Raptors’ home NBA game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday.

Boos were also heard during “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a National Hockey League game on Saturday between the Minnesota Wild and the Ottawa Senators.

“There has always been a latent antisemitic sentiment in Canada but, with Trump, it has soared,” said Guy Lachapelle, a professor at Concordia University.

The current boycott, he added, is directed “not so much against the United States, but more towards the American president.”

The post With boos and boycotts, Canadians voice displeasure with Trump appeared first on CANADIAN AFFAIRS.

The trade war may be on hold, but in a Canadian border city where the unhindered flow of auto parts across the bridge to Detroit supports thousands of jobs, the future remains uncertain.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that punishing US import tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump had been delayed a month, the line of cars waiting to enter Windsor, Ontario was stacked dozens deep.

The build up was heavy for a Monday but not extraordinary, underscoring how lives and the economies in Windsor and Detroit have grown intertwined.

Among those who had just driven across the suspension bridge connecting the cities was Ryan Martin, a 33-year-old automotive engineer, who lives in Canada but crosses daily to work in Michigan.

“I’m relieved for now,” he said through the rolled down window of his black pick-up truck, as he waited to clear Canadian customs.

But, he added, “I think the damage is already done.”

The relationship between the United States and Canada — a close alliance for well over a century that currently involves billions of dollars in daily cross-border trade — “is not in a good spot,” said Martin.

“Not as good as it should be.”

‘Freaking out’

Trump’s pledge to impose a blanket 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian imports, which may resurface in a month, pushed national anxiety in Canada to rare heights.

Canada announced retaliatory measures and economists warned the US levies could trigger a recession by mid-year.

Trump has said tariffs were aimed at forcing Canada to counter the cross-border flow of migrants and the powerful and dangerous drug fentanyl.

That argument provoked bewilderment among some Canadians, as Ottawa maintained that less than one per cent of fentanyl and undocumented migrants in the United States cross through the northern border.

In Windsor, Trump’s motivation for tariffs likely matters less than their potentially existential impact on the auto industry, which drives the local economy.

“It’s massive,” said John D’Agnolo, who heads a local union representing Ford plant workers.

Ford has been employing people in Windsor for more than 100 years and without auto jobs, the city would be plunged into a “huge recession,” he said.

When Trump signed the order on Saturday signalling tariffs would go into force, people believed “cross-border trade, especially for the automotive sector, was heading to a dark place,” D’Agnolo said.

Members of his union “were, quite frankly, freaking out.”

D’Agnolo estimated that there are 30,000 individual parts in an average vehicle, some of which cross the US-Canada border multiple times through a manufacturing process that has developed over years to maximize efficiency.

Workers at his plant, for example, make engines for Ford trucks assembled in the United States.

A 25 per cent tariff each time Canadian cargo headed into Michigan would cause car companies “a lot of pain,” he said.

“It would be impossible.”

For D’Agnolo, the 30-day pause was obviously welcome but has hardly settled minds in Windsor.

“For now it’s relief, but it gives workers an eye opener,” he said.

His message to union members is “you’re going to have to start saving some money, because we don’t know yet.”

‘Four years of not knowing’

Krysten Lawton, a health and safety trainer at the Ford plant, is a fourth generation auto worker and her children just joined the industry.

“It’s kind of our bloodline,” the 52-year-old said.

Lawton said she exhaled deeply in relief when news of the tariff pause broke Monday but she was steeling herself for uncertainty which she expects to last throughout Trump’s second term.

“I don’t think we’re going to feel safe for some time. I think it’s going to be four years of not knowing,” she said.

Earlier in her career, she dealt more closely with Ford colleagues in Detroit — relations that were always cordial — and she voiced hope that US-Canada bonds could transcend any fraying caused by the tariff standoff.

“This is just chaos … this is a drive to divide people and I hope that people are smarter than that,” she said.

“We would love for North America to flourish … as a whole.”

The post Despite tariff reprieve Canadians worry ‘damage already done’ to US ties appeared first on CANADIAN AFFAIRS.

Around 10 people were killed on Tuesday in a shooting at an education centre in Sweden, including the suspected gunman, with the Swedish prime minister branding it the “worst mass shooting” in the country’s history.

Authorities had initially said that several people were wounded in the violence at Campus Risbergska, a secondary school for young adults in the town of Orebro, but had not reported any fatalities.

School attacks are relatively rare in Sweden, but the country has suffered shootings and bombings linked to gang violence that kill dozens of people each year.

“Around 10 people have been killed today,” Orebro police chief Roberto Eid Forest said to reporters, adding that police could “not be more specific about the number due to the large number of wounded.”

He provided no details about the number of wounded.

“This is the worst mass shooting in Swedish history,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a press conference.

Forest said police were not aware of a motive yet, but believed the gunman had acted alone.

Police did not disclose any information about the identity or ages of the dead, nor whether they were students or teachers at the school.

Several media reported the suspected gunman turned his gun on himself, but police would not confirm those reports.

Kristersson noted a lot of “questions were still unanswered.”

“There will come a time when we will know what happened, how it could happen and what motives may have been behind it,” Kristersson said, urging people not to “speculate.”

‘Shooting in the hallway’

Forest said police received the first reports of a school shooting at 12:33 pm (1133 GMT), but could not specify how it unfolded.

The attacker is also believed to have carried some form of equipment to create smoke inside the school, he added.

Two Campus Risbergska teachers, Miriam Jarlevall and Patrik Soderman, said to newspaper Dagens Nyheter they heard gunfire in a hallway.

“Students came and said someone was shooting. Then we heard more shooting in the hallway. We didn’t go out, we hid in our offices,” they said.

“There were a lot of gunshots at first and then it was quiet for a half-hour and then it started again. We were lying under our desks, cowering.”

Some witnesses said to Swedish media they heard what they believed to be automatic gunfire.

Swedish television channel TV4 meanwhile reported that police had raided the suspect’s home in Orebro late on Tuesday afternoon.

It said the suspect was around 35 years old and had a license to carry a weapon and no criminal record, but did not provide any details about his identity.

Police have not confirmed that information.

‘Bodies on the ground’

“I was standing there, watching what was happening, and I was just around here when I saw some bodies lying on the ground. I don’t know if they were dead or injured,” 16-year-old Linn, who goes to school near the site of the massacre, said to an AFP correspondent at the scene.

“There was blood everywhere, people were panicking and crying, parents were worried … it was chaos,” she added, her voice trembling.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf said in a statement that he had received the news of the shooting with “sadness and dismay.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen described the event as “truly horrifying.”

“Such violence and terror have no place in our societies — least of all in schools. In this dark hour, we stand with the people of Sweden,” she said in a post to X.

Students in several nearby schools as well as the one in question had been locked in for several hours “for safety reasons” before gradually being released, police said.

A mother whose son was kept indoors at his nearby school for several hours during the police operation said to AFP she was “shocked” and “angry.”

“My son is at this school behind us, they’re locked in too. They have to hide, so I’m waiting for them to evacuate,” Cia Sandell, 42, said on Tuesday afternoon.

“This is crazy, totally crazy. I’m angry, I’m shocked. This shouldn’t happen,” she said.

Though such shootings are rare, several other violent incidents have struck Swedish schools in recent years.

In March 2022, an 18-year-old student stabbed two teachers to death at a secondary school in the southern city of Malmo.

Two months earlier, a 16-year-old was arrested after wounding another student and a teacher with a knife at a school in the small town of Kristianstad.

In October 2015, three people were killed in a racially motivated attack at a school in the western town of Trollhattan by a sword-wielding assailant who was later killed by police.

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Two US biotech companies say the Food and Drug Administration has cleared them to conduct clinical trials of their gene-edited pig kidneys for human transplants.

United Therapeutics along with another company, eGenesis, have been working since 2021 on experiments implanting pig kidneys into humans: initially brain-dead patients and more recently living recipients.

Advocates hope the approach will help address the severe organ shortage. More than 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting transplants, including over 90,000 in need of kidneys.

United Therapeutics’s approval, announced Monday, allows the company to advance its technology toward a licensed product if the trial succeeds.

The study authorization was hailed as a “significant step forward in our relentless mission to expand the availability of transplantable organs,” by Leigh Peterson, the company’s executive vice president.

The trial will initially enroll six patients with end-stage renal disease before expanding to as many as 50, United Therapeutics said in a statement. The first transplant is expected in mid-2025.

Meanwhile, rival eGenesis said it had received FDA approval in December for a separate three-patient kidney study.

“The study will evaluate patients with kidney failure who are listed for a transplant but who face a low probability of receiving a deceased donor offer within a five-year timeframe,” the company said.

Xenotransplantation — transplanting organs from one species to another — has been a tantalizing yet elusive goal for science.

Early experiments in primates faltered, but advances in gene editing and immune system management have brought the field closer to reality.

Pigs have emerged as ideal donors: they grow quickly, produce large litters, and are already part of the human food supply.

United Therapeutics said trial patients would be monitored for life, assessing survival rates, kidney function, and the risk of zoonotic infections — diseases that jump from animals to humans.

Currently, there is only one living human recipient of a pig organ: Towana Looney, a 53-year-old from Alabama who received a United Therapeutics kidney on Nov. 25, 2024.

She is also the longest-surviving recipient, having lived with a pig kidney for 71 days as of Tuesday. David Bennett of Maryland received a pig heart in 2022 and survived 60 days.

The post US greenlights pig kidney transplant trials appeared first on CANADIAN AFFAIRS.

Pristine samples of the asteroid Bennu transported to Earth contain the “basic building blocks” for life, shedding new light on the perennial question of how life began on our planet.

The revelation, in two studies published Wednesday, is the result of work on just 120 grams of material — about the weight of a banana — collected from Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in 2020.

The samples from Bennu, then around 300 million kilometres (186 million miles) from Earth, were returned in a capsule that OSIRIS-REx dropped off during a pass-by in 2023.

Initial analysis had already revealed evidence of high-carbon content and water.

But the new research found that evaporated water on Bennu’s parent asteroid left behind “the raw ingredients of life,” said Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and co-lead author of one of the studies.

“We have discovered that next step on a pathway to life,” he said in a press release issued by the museum.

Bennu appears to have formed around 65 million years ago from the debris of a parent asteroid dating back some 4.5 billion years.

The findings suggest Bennu’s parent was once home to pockets of liquid water. When these evaporated, they left behind a “briny broth” of salts and minerals.

Some of the minerals include compounds that have never been seen in samples from outer space, the museum said.

And analysis of the samples strongly suggests a “non-terrestrial origin,” adds one of the studies.

That could lend support to the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space.

The samples “give unprecedented insight into the processes that drove the formation of the Solar System,” according to Yasuhito Sekine, a professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo.

“This discovery was only possible by analysing samples that were collected directly from the asteroid then carefully preserved back on Earth,” he added.

“The salts would otherwise have rapidly absorbed moisture in the Earth’s humid atmosphere.”

‘Huge progress’

The researchers believe similar salty brines may exist on other extraterrestrial bodies, including the dwarf planet Ceres and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as well as other asteroids.

They plan to reexamine specimens already on Earth for traces of compounds that previous research might have missed.

“Even though asteroid Bennu has no life, the question is could other icy bodies harbour life?” said Nick Timms, an associate professor at Curtin University’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences also involved in the research.

Much about life’s origin remains unclear despite the secrets revealed from Bennu, McCoy cautioned.

“We now know we have the basic building blocks to move along this pathway towards life, but we don’t know how far along that pathway this environment could allow things to progress,” he said.

Still, Sara Russell, co-lead author with McCoy and a cosmic mineralogist at the museum, said the research had made “huge progress in understanding how asteroids like Bennu evolved, and how they may have helped make the Earth habitable.”

OSIRIS-REx wasn’t the first probe to rendezvous with an asteroid and bring back samples for study — Japan succeeded in the feat twice, returning celestial dust in 2010 and 2020.

In addition to scientific insights, better understanding of Bennu’s composition could prove useful if humanity ever needs to steer it away.

Space agencies are constantly monitoring asteroids over potential impact risks.

A recently discovered asteroid dubbed 2024 YR4, estimated to be between 40 and 100 metres (130 and 330 feet) wide, has a 1.2 per cent chance of impacting Earth on Dec. 22, 2032, the European Space Agency said Wednesday.

That is only considered a level-3 risk on the 10-level Torino Impact Hazard Scale, the ESA said, adding that an asteroid’s chances of impact often drop after additional observations.

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Annual weekend event offers curling, prizes, entertainment and support for the River Valley Cancer Support Group

The Florenceville Curling Club will host one of the community’s winter highlights this weekend, Feb. 7 and 8, supporting the region’s cancer patients. 

The annual Curl for the River Valley Cancer Support Group features curling fun, community socializing, scores of prizes, and entertainment provided by several talented local artists. 

River Valley Cancer Support Group secretary expects the usual packed house on Friday evening and all day Saturday as the community enjoys the fun event and shows its ongoing support for the group. 

“Local musicians will be performing, tickets being sold on local beef, a firepit donated by Craig Manufacturing and a 50/50 draw,” she said, detailing only part of the full event schedule.  

She said the event encourages experienced curlers and first-timers to join the on-ice fun. 

The event will hand out curling prizes for top individual fundraiser, top team fundraiser and first-place curling team. 

While listening to performances by some of the area’s top singers and musicians, attendees can purchase tickets on a fire pit manufactured and donated by Craig Manufacturing of Hartland. They can also buy tickets for a chance to win local beef or take home some cash courtesy of a winning 50-50 ticket. 

The annual event draws a large crowd and raises thousands of dollars in donations to support the River Valley Cancer Support Group. 

Last year’s event, which featured 16 teams and a packed house on Friday evening and all day Saturday, raised more than $33,000. 

The River Valley Cancer Support Group helps Carleton County cancer patients cover travel, medical bills, and other expenses during their battle to return to good health. The organization estimates it helps more than 10 people monthly.

The post Curl for Cancer support event returns to Florenceville-Bristol this weekend first appeared on River Valley Sun.

It could get more complicated — and potentially more expensive — for Canadians to cross the border or send packages to the United States, if President Donald Trump's executive order on tariffs goes into effect.

Ontario Shipyards president and CEO Shaun Padulo, the Hamilton Police Service Board's newest member, joins at a time when city council is set to approve the police-presented budget in the coming weeks.

Hamilton's Levity Comedy Club has cancelled this weekend's two shows by Danger Cats, prompting the controversial comedy troupe to book at a bar in the Ontario city. Levity is the latest Canadian venue to back out of hosting the Alberta-based comics.

For years, celebrity contractor Mike Holmes has endorsed AGM Renovations in slick ads. After a CBC News investigation into AGM found the company is being investigated by Ontario's electrical safety regulator following safety violations, those ads have disappeared.

Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford is trying his utmost to make the threat of tariffs the entire focus of the election campaign. The other party leaders are trying their utmost to shift the narrative away from tariffs to other big things at stake for Ontario voters.