The vote comes 2½ years into the current council’s four-year mandate and is seen as a citywide referendum on the party with a majority on council.

The provincial government has extended the Crown lands reserve to Aug. 31 and the overall wind energy land reserve has been reduced by 132,733 hectares to 381,676 hectares. It was anticipated that as the companies continued work on proposed projects, the amount of Crown lands required would likely change.

Two companies have had Crown lands reserves reduced, upon their request – EverWind NL Company (EverWind), and Toqlukuti’k Wind and Hydrogen Ltd. (TQK). Everwind has had its Crown land reserve reduced by 79,923 hectares to 188,396 hectares. TQK has had its Crown land reserve reduced by 52,810 hectares to 54,777 hectares.

Adjusting the Crown lands reserve allows the province and proponents to be more responsive to changing markets. Crown lands no longer being reserved for wind-hydrogen projects will be available for other potential land users.

Extending the Crown lands reserve also allows proponents more time to secure agreements with investors and continue with pre-development work.

Six companies are pursuing wind-hydrogen projects in the province: EverWind NL Company, Exploits Valley Renewable Energy Corporation, Toqlukuti’k Wind and Hydrogen, World Energy GH2 Ltd., Argentia Renewables LP, and North Atlantic Refining Limited

“We continue to work with companies as they finalize project plans and land area. Enabling a new provincial green hydrogen production industry has the potential to increase jobs and provide clean, renewable energy the world needs,” says Andrew Parsons, Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology.

Adults 65 years of age and older, residents of long-term care homes and other congregate living settings for seniors, and individuals six months of age and older who are moderately to severely immunocompromised due to an underlying condition or treatment can now get COVID-19 vaccines.

From April 1 to June 1, the province is offering COVID-19 vaccine as a spring booster dose to specific populations.

Individuals are encouraged to contact their local pharmacy or primary care provider for vaccine availability. The vaccine is also available through local public health offices.

Three of the most famous ships in the dying days of Arctic whaling were the Active, the Scotia, and the Morning.

All had operated out of Dundee, Scotland. All had been managed by Robert Kinnes, the influential Scotsman whose company controlled whaling in its last days in Baffin Island, Hudson Bay and Davis Strait. And all three ships were lost in the span of less than a month in the mid-1910s.

A crowd of onlookers witnesses the departure of the Active from Dundee, Scotland. It was leaving for a whaling voyage to the Arctic. (Photo from “The Arctic Whalers,” by Basil Lubbock, 1937)

The Active was a whaling ship well known to Inuit in southern Baffin Island. It features prominently in Inuit reminiscences recorded by Dorothy Eber in her wonderful book, When the Whalers were up North. 

Built in 1852 in Peterhead, Scotland, as a sailing vessel, she later had engines installed around 1870.

At 117 feet long, she was smaller than the average whaling ship. Described as a “tough and durable vessel,” the Active was able to sail well through broken ice, but also to act as an icebreaker when necessary.

She was often called “the smartest ship in the fleet.” A square-sterned barque, she was part of the Dundee whaling fleet from 1874 until 1916.   

Inuit remembered the Active as being captained for some time by Alexander Murray. In 1912, while wintering the vessel in the Ottawa Islands, a group of islands in Hudson Bay northwest of Inukjuak, Alexander Murray died. His official cause of death was an “internal tumour” but Inuit said that he died of drink. 

The vessel’s last voyage to the Arctic was in 1914. It was said that “no ship afloat has taken more whales from the Arctic region than the Active.” 

But the 1914 voyage, under Alexander Murray’s brother, John Murray, known to Inuit as Nakungajuq — the cross-eyed one — was not a success. It took no bowhead whales and returned with only 15 polar bear skins and the oil from two beluga whales. This, in the words of a disgruntled sailor, was “not enough to pay for a good breakfast for the lot of us.”  

In 1915, the Active and her sister ship the Morning were taken over by the government and placed under the management of the Hudson’s Bay Co. to assist in the war effort. They were to take munitions to Archangel in northern Russia — Russia being an ally of Great Britain in the fight against Germany.

Both ships were retrofitted in late 1915. But these ships were never meant to carry heavy cargoes. Old whalemen in Dundee warned of the dangers of taking out the blubber tanks to make the ships suitable for their wartime cargo. This increased the cargo capacity but reduced the ships’ stability and the strength of the hulls. Unfortunately, no-one heeded the veteran whalemen’s warnings.

Many of the crew who had initially signed, refused to sail on the Active, feeling her unsafe. For their protests they were tried and sentenced to 90 days in jail. But by doing so they saved their own lives. 

Capt. William Leask and a new crew sailed from Scotland on Dec. 21, 1915. Four days later — on Christmas Day — the Active sank off Orkney, north of Scotland. There were no survivors. 

A message in a bottle, saying — erroneously — that the Active was to the northeast of Lerwick and was sinking, was washed ashore at Stronsay in Orkney. The bottle included a farewell message to his family from second mate James Scott Jamieson.

It was also his will. It read in part, “Dear family, this will be my last letter to you.… God bless you all as he has given me strength to die; my soul is resting on the finished work of Jesus … the water is at my knees in the cabin … don’t mourn  for me; meet me in Heaven.”

He then named a list of relatives and wrote, “I leave everything among you.”

***

The Active’s sister ship, the Morning, was built in Norway in 1871 and given the name Morgenen. She was a steamship, 140 feet long. She also made her last Arctic voyage in 1914, travelling to Hudson Bay under Capt. James Fairweather to bring back produce from Robert Kinnes’s shore stations.

In 1915, also bound for Archangel, the Morning got a little farther north than the Active had. But she too was overtaken by a gale and went down off the Faroe Islands on Dec. 29, only four days after the loss of the Active. Only the captain and the second mate survived.

 ***

The Scotia was a steamer of 357 tons and measured 139 feet in length. Built in Norway in 1872 as the Hecla, she came to Dundee in 1902, and was away in the Antarctic for 21 months with the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. On her return she joined the whaling fleet and served until 1913. 

The Scotia had success as a whaler, taking four bowhead whales in 1907, and six the following year. 1909 was a record year, with eight bowheads. But whaling was an unpredictable business, and the following year only one was taken. The year 1912 was worse; she returned “clean,” the whaling term indicating no whales were taken. 

Then, in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster, Scotia was assigned to ice patrol duty in the North Atlantic. But she was unsuccessful at this because she was too slow and had insufficient engine power. Back in Dundee she too went to the Hudson’s Bay Co. for war duties. 

She sailed from Dundee on Oct. 7, 1915, bound for Cardiff, Wales, to take on a load of coal destined for Bordeaux, France. Her captain, Robert Bannerman, left her on Jan. 14 to return home to Scotland, after receiving the sad news of the death of his father James Bannerman who perished in the sinking of the Morning.

A new captain was in charge a few days later when the ship caught fire in Bristol Channel. He successfully beached the ship, but she burned, becoming a total wreck on Jan. 18, 1916. Fortunately, no lives were lost.

In the short span of a little over three weeks, three of Dundee’s most successful whaling ships had been lost. This spelled the end of any hope, slim though it was, that Scottish bowhead whaling in the Arctic could be revived after the war. 

Taissumani is an occasional column that recalls events of historical interest. Kenn Harper is a historian and writer who lived in the Arctic for over 50 years. He is the author of Give Me Winter, Give Me Dogs: Knud Rasmussen and the Fifth Thule Expedition, and Thou Shalt Do No Murder, among other books. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to [email protected].

P.E.I. woke up to lower gas prices for the second time this week following an unscheduled price adjustment by the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission.

Police are investigating a robbery in downtown St. John’s.

It happened at a business last night, but the perpetrator had fled by the time police arrived.

No other information is available at this time.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh makes an announcement in St. John’s

Wang Yan vividly recalls the last time she heard her husband’s voice, more than five years ago.

It was Dec. 13, 2019, and Canadian citizen Li Yonghui had gone to a public square in Shijiazhuang, in China’s Hebei province, to exercise as he spoke to his wife in Canada by mobile phone.

“Suddenly, the call ended, like someone was grabbing his phone. And I called other family (in China) and no one knew what happened,” Wang recalled.

Li had been seized by city police, who accused him in a social media post of “allegedly gathering public funds illegally” through his company Qingyidai, a platform for person-to-person lending.

Li has been in detention ever since, without ever being tried or sentenced. 

Now, his family is taking the rare step of speaking out publicly to seek a resolution to his case.

Global Affairs Canada says it’s aware of about 100 Canadians incarcerated in China.

However, it’s uncommon for their families to speak out in Canada or to press for decisions on their situations.

Chinese authorities began a crackdown in 2019 on online lenders, but Wang maintains her husband’s innocence in operating Qingyidai, which Chinese media had described as the largest such platform in Hebei.

“Of course, we believe he’s innocent, but if he did violate some laws or rules, please put him on trial and sentence him,” Wang said in an interview with The Canadian Press in Vancouver where Li’s family lives.

“We have no qualms about that … but it’s been years where nothing has happened.”

Wang said Li has had no visits in the Hebei detention centre from anyone besides his lawyer and staff from the Canadian Embassy.

Li’s daughter, Wandi Li, was 21 when her father was arrested. She regrets that she “basically grew up a little bit in my adult life without him.”

“My dad, he has this habit of not really talking about himself,” Wandi Li said, recalling their last conversation before his arrest.

“He just asked me about what’s going on in my life,” she said.

“I’m the youngest of my family, so there’s always this tendency to shield me a little bit from what’s going on.”

In an email response to questions, Global Affairs Canada said it was aware of Li’s detention and was providing consular assistance, but no additional details were being released due to privacy considerations.

The comments by Li’s family come after Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said last month that four Canadians were executed by Chinese authorities recently, all with dual citizenship and all accused of drug-related crimes.

Former Chinese detainee Michael Kovrig said by email that he would advise relatives of detainees to “get a good Chinese lawyer.”

He said he would also press the Canadian government to advocate for the detainee as well as contact human rights organizations — but that could antagonize Chinese authorities.

“Understand there’s a risk that if you press for a decision, the court may give a relatively harsh sentence,” he said. “What they want is repentance and confession, and they may be willing to offer a lighter sentence in return for that. 

“It would be up to the lawyer to negotiate that.”

Kovrig and fellow Canadian Michael Spavor were detained by China in 2018 and held for more than 1,000 days, accused of spying in a case the Canadian government said was as a bogus effort to pressure Canada to release Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

Wang said she was unable to comment on the recent executions in China as she is not familiar with the circumstances surrounding those cases.

But she said their family is increasingly concerned as Li’s detention lingers and health issues have emerged. She said her husband had high blood pressure and his guards were refusing to allow him to see a dentist.

Kovrig said that Wang not being allowed to speak to her husband is consistent with what he had seen of others in Chinese custody.

He said that while conditions may vary between different detention centres, Chinese facilities typically “don’t meet the basic standards of the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules,” referring to the United Nations’ minimum standards for prisoners’ treatment.

“Detainees are typically confined to a cell with only limited access to an outdoor area to move around,” he said. “Very limited access to books to read. No media. No writing materials. Maybe some television in the evening. Sleep on a hard … bunk in a crowded cell with multiple cellmates.

Detention also likely means constant surveillance, limited bathroom facilities and “zero privacy,” Kovrig said.

Wandi Li said she is holding out hope for her father’s safe return to Canada.

“Our hope is just that the word does get around, and that hopefully because if more people know about it, maybe the government in China will be a little more swayed to make a decision on the case and free my dad,” she said.

Wang Yan said she was aware of possible risks in speaking out, but all she wants is movement and certainty in her husband’s case.

“We don’t have a choice,” she said.

The post Five years without answers for family of Canadian businessman held in Chinese jail appeared first on CityNews Winnipeg.

After nearly a decade of construction, delays and rising costs, the St. Lawrence Market complex’s north building has finally opened, giving the Saturday market a new, permanent home.

Lake Cowichan leaders worry chemicals in some sunscreen products end up in the water and harm marine ecosystems.

U.S. President Donald Trump called Wednesday 'liberation day' as he announced a litany of new tariffs. CBC's Morning Edition's political panel discussed the effects on Saskatchewan, the government response and what happens next. Meanwhile, Saskatchewan has still not adopted the $10-a-day federal child care program. This week's panel featured Regina Leader-Post columnist Murray Mandryk, Canadian Press reporter Jeremy Simes and Morning Edition host Adam Hunter.

Housing NWT has begun accepting applications from people who own their home and are seeking cash to help with repairs. Here's how to apply.

A man spent the night at the lockup after a domestic incident in metro last night.

The 29-year-old has been charged with uttering threats and three counts of assault following the disturbance, which happened in Paradise.

He will appear in court today.

People of all political stripes are weighing the stakes of the upcoming federal election as they make their choice for who Canada should have at the helm in the midst of the U.S. trade war. CBC asked Albertan voters, experts, and businesses if this election feels different.

On Wednesday morning, as Pierre Poilievre wrapped up the press conference portion of a Bay Street breakfast event, a clamour erupted at the back of the room. To those watching on TV, it sounded as if protesters had begun heckling the Conservative Leader. In fact, it was a handful of reporters, apparently frustrated by the campaign’s tight control of access, shouting questions they hoped Mr. Poilievre might answer.

The incident marked the second time tensions flared on the trail this week, after some campaign handlers attempted to physically restrain reporters trying to ask questions of Mr. Poilievre at a Tuesday morning event on a public wharf in St. John’s.