According to a new study by Ekos, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is projected to lose his seat in Parliament in Canada’s next federal election. Poilievre currently represents the Ottawa riding of Carleton.

The study finds the Liberals polling at 50%, followed by the Conservatives at 35% and the NDP at 7%. The Liberals are projected to win 251 seats, followed by the Conservatives with 90 seats.

According to 338Canada, the odds of a Liberal victory in the coming election are 97%.

Liberal Party leader Mark Carney now leads Pierre Poilievre in net favourability by 43 points.

For our latest in news, please visit the News section.

The post New Canadian election poll projects that Pierre Poilievre will lose his seat appeared first on Cult MTL.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on Thursday targeting law firm WilmerHale, one of a handful of major firms the president has taken aim at that have connections to his legal or political adversaries.

A man has died of his injuries after a vehicle rolled over into a ditch north of Steinbach, Man. 

By Craig Westcott

The Town of CBS is continuing with its experiment of leasing instead of buying garbage trucks by placing an order for another vehicle.
The Town will pay $13,800 per month plus HST to lease the truck from a company called Canada’s Big Truck Rental.
“This was approved in our budget previously to try renting waste collection trucks,” said Deputy Mayor Andrea Gosse. “We already have a couple and it’s been working out fabulously. There is a super maintenance agreement with the company. It was just something that (we thought) we would try and it’s working out and now we’re going to get another one under another lease agreement. It’s created a consistent service with no breakdowns, and staff are totally thrilled with these trucks and the level of service they’re able to provide.”
Mayor Darrin Bent suggested the Town contact local schools and ask students to suggest a “cool name” for the vehicle.
In related news, council also approved the purchase of a 4 x 4 rubber tire backhoe at a cost of $223,850 plus HST. The Town is buying the tractor from Madsen Construction Equipment.
“This is just equipment that was approved previously under the budget and now is available, and we’re just putting (forward) an approval for it,” said Gosse.
It is also buying a 4 x 4 regular cab pickup from Hickman Chevrolet Cadillac at a cost of $72,098 plus HST.
“This is to replace another truck in the fleet,” Gosse said.

The post CBS leases another garbage truck appeared first on The Shoreline News.

By Craig Westcott

CBS council is changing its Town Plan and development regulations to make it easier for personal use businesses such as hair salons and spas to serve alcohol on premises, if they are located in Residential Medium Density zones.
The move was announced at the March 4 meeting of council by way of councillor-at-large Rex Hillier putting forward a motion to amend the Urban and Rural Planning Act.
In most cases such changes come at the request of a specific business that is applying for an amendment in order to allow liquor to be served on premises, but in this instance the Town itself is seeking the change and will pay the associated application fee. The amendment has to be approved by the Province.
“We’ve found ourselves in a couple of instances where we’ve had businesses in a nonconforming use situation looking to serve alcohol at special events and activities within those operations and rather than taking each one and working through the process, we’re suggesting that we would allow these things to take place as ancillary activities associated with these businesses,” said Hillier. “We’re going to deal with the broad picture rather than picking each one individually.”
Mayor Darrin Bent said council is trying to clear up the application process “kind of once and for all and see how it goes.”

The post This round is on us, says CBS council appeared first on The Shoreline News.

Ontario expects the U.S. administration to significantly ease the impact of auto tariffs on Canada, following a phone call from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to Premier Doug Ford on Wednesday, according to a source.

Mr. Lutnick called Mr. Ford on Wednesday evening, according to a senior Ontario government source, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced auto tariffs during a news conference. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source as they are not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions.

By Olivia Bradbury / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Many people in this province can probably recall a certain story that made headlines last fall. In Conception Bay South, during the T’Railway Trek Half Marathon, runners were joined by an unexpected participant: Joshua the goat from Taylor’s Pumpkin Patch. While this initially made Joshua a local and provincial celebrity, he soon became known not just outside the province but outside Canada as well. Now, the homegrown star’s adventure has been captured in a book written and illustrated by children’s author Courtney Wicks.
Originally from Winterton, Wicks lives in Victoria, Newfoundland, with her husband and two children. She is currently pregnant with her third child. Wicks said she was always interested in writing children’s books, and when she found herself with a lot of time on her hands after having her second baby, it seemed like a good time to try.
The result was her first children’s book, Kate’s Magical Playdates.
“It kind of just took off from there,” said Wicks. “I hired an illustrator and within a year I had the book in hand.”
Eventually, Wicks began to illustrate her own books. The first book she both wrote and illustrated was Beckham’s Bedtime Book, a collection of children’s affirmations.
“I did really simple illustrations, large print, easy to read, because these were things I was doing with my son, Beckham, when I put him to bed,” she said. “I was trying to help him read and I wanted to make it very easy.”
Her next book, Bobby Bunny, was more intricate. It ranked number three on Amazon for Easter books, and Wicks won the 2023 Author of the Year Award from the Newfoundland Business Network.
“I also like to travel to the different schools throughout Newfoundland and Labrador,” said Wicks. “I do either in-person and online, and it’s so much fun just getting to see the kids and inspire some other children who may like to write stories or like to draw pictures and just show them the possibilities. And that’s basically why I do it.”
Heidi Reid and Jeremy Taylor of Taylor’s Pumpkin Patch, Joshua’s owners, reached out to Wicks to ask if she was interested in writing a book about their goat and his story. Wicks agreed. Reid provided Wicks with details and photographs.
“I tried to make the story as close to what actually happened as possible and included some of the humour that I found funny in the actual story,” said Wicks. “And then I based many of the illustrations on photos that were shared on social media and in the news so that people may recognize some familiar scenes and settings.”
Joshua ran 4.9 kilometres in the T’Railway Trek Half Marathon. His owners were not aware he had broken off his leash until they saw photos on social media of him running alongside the other racers. News of Joshua’s exciting day out spread quickly. His story was covered by publications like The Washington Post and Latin Times. He made a guest appearance at a CBS council meeting, dropped a puck at a hockey game, and was even on an Australian game show. “These are all things that are incorporated in the children’s story,” said Wicks.
The book is called Joshua the G.O.A.T. In addition to spelling the word “goat,” the letters “G.O.A.T” is an acronym that stands for “Greatest of All Time.” It will be Wicks’ fifth children’s book, and the third she has both written and illustrated herself. It was released on Amazon on March 7, independently published through Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing.
Wicks does her own formatting and marketing. “I like that I’ve got that independence that, when I’m ready to release a story, I can do that on my own,” said Wicks. “And it kind of gives me a bit of freedom.”
Joshua the G.O.A.T. will next be distributed by Downhome and available on its racks.
“All my books are proudly printed in Canada,” Wicks said.
The book will also be carried at some retail stores, such as Piper’s, certain grocery stores, and Cole’s and Chapters bookstores in St. John’s.
“Joshua the G.O.A.T. is kind of a story of inspiration,” said Wicks. “It’s perfect for both kids and adults, and especially animal lovers. It celebrates courage, friendship, and an unforgettable race, and it just proves that anyone or anything can become the greatest of all time.”

The post CBS celebrity Joshua the Goat stars in new children’s book appeared first on The Shoreline News.

The announcement that 23andMe is filing for bankruptcy and has put its genetic genealogy database up for sale has sent its customers into a bit of a privacy tizzy. On March 21, California Attorney General Bob Bonta issued a consumer alert with detailed instructions about how to delete one’s data.

23andMe and its databases are located in California; regardless of where customers live, privacy is then governed by California law and some weak U.S. federal laws. Canadian privacy laws have no sway in this case.

Rise of consumer genetic testing

It’s worth backing up a bit to see how 23andMe built its brand, what makes the database valuable and who might be in the market to buy the database if Anne Wojcicki, its founder, is unsuccessful in her bid to buy back the company herself.

I have been studying the development of the industry of family history for the last 20 years. Genetic genealogy rose to prominence in the early 2000s, with the development of the science and early databases by committed genealogists and the market demand for locating ancestors.

Read more: The mythical quest for our ancestors is big business

23andMe’s innovation was to use this burgeoning lust for ancestors as a way to build a new kind of direct-to-consumer database, one that looked at inherited markers for diseases afforded by the potent combination of genetic and genealogical information.

They weren’t the first to hit on this idea. deCODE Genetics in Iceland had already built a national database of braided genealogical and genetic information for the same purpose. Within 10 years, it too went bankrupt and sold its database.

Ahead of government

23andMe was the first to market the idea in North America when Wojcicki founded the company in 2006.

Wojcicki claimed a high mission: to liberate health information from the hands of the medical industry and put it directly into the hands of consumers. Her business model made it clear that the direct-to-consumer genetics industry was always in the business of doing an end run around government and university databases that were governed by much stricter privacy laws.

23andMe ran into trouble with the FDA in 2013 for providing medical information without any medical supervision, a wrinkle that took two years for the company to iron out. But the more lucrative end of the business was always the sale of the accumulated data to the pharmaceutical industry.

23andMe pitched its research arm as the greater good, and 80 per cent of its consumers opted in to share their information for research purposes. The database has always been monetized for secondary uses. In its profile of 23andMe in 2017, Nature quoted cardiologist Euan Ashley at Stanford University, California: “They have quietly become the largest genetic study the world has ever known.”

A rapid unravelling

Five years ago, the company and the genetic genealogy industry as a whole started to unravel almost as quickly and precipitously as it had risen. Sales of direct-to-consumer genetic genealogy kits plummeted, given a combination of privacy concerns and market saturation.

The advent of law enforcement incursions into genetic genealogy databases gave consumers a fright, and woke them up to the possible unanticipated third-party uses of commercial databases.

Almost a decade later, governments are still trying to figure out how to set up guardrails on the use of genealogy databases for law enforcement, a practice that has become widespread across the U.S. and Canada.

Currently, the Information and Privacy Office of Ontario is actively working to develop regulations that are acceptable to all stakeholders since, once again, the greater good argument of catching cold-case killers holds considerable sway over the right to privacy of consumers.

Nonetheless, the issue of third-party uses has had a marked effect on the popularity of what seemed like a benign pastime, the search for ever-more-distant relations.

Industry expansion

Over the years, 23andMe expanded by buying health services and pharmaceutical holding companies. But in 2023, a massive data breach exposed the vulnerabilities of the company, particularly its genealogical information.

Read more: 23andMe’s struggles are a sign that direct-to-consumer DNA testing needs stronger oversight

In addition to the 1.5 million users whose profiles were breached, hackers accessed the personal information of about 5.5 million people who opted in to 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature.

Stolen data included customers’ names, birth years, relationship labels, percentage of DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports and self-reported locations.

Fully a third of 23andMe’s users’ genealogical information had been scraped by the hackers. And here we see the real vulnerability in the entire industry: Anyone who has submitted a DNA sample and built family connections has exposed everyone in their family line.

This seems to be a classic case of closing the barn door after the horses have already bolted.

Like 23andMe, deCODE was a high flier in the genetics space having built a genealogical database that included almost all Icelanders, who invested heavily in the company. The company went bankrupt during the financial crisis of 2008, and it sold its database to American pharmaceutical company Amgen. Amgen in turn sold part of it to a Chinese company.

Corporate dealings

So who are the likely buyers for 23andMe?

Wojcicki herself, if she can somehow raise the capital, which seems unlikely. Any big pharmaceutical company, including international buyers (in 2018, 23andMe signed a US$300 million deal with GlaxoSmithKline). Chinese biotechnology company BGI might well bid on the company, as China is seemingly on a mission to collect DNA from around the globe.

Other potential buyers include: Google, who were early investors and thus already part owners; Ancestry.com, which, with its own genetic genealogy testing arm, would make it one of the of the largest privately held genetic genealogy databases in the world; and an outlier, Dutch life sciences firm Qiagen.

Qiagen acquired California-based forensic genomics company Verogen in 2023. Verogen had previously acquired the geneaology database GEDmatch (one of the earliest grassroots ancestor DNA matching sites) for the purposes of creating a one-stop forensics genealogy shop for law enforcement.

Changing privacy

Each time a database is sold, privacy provisions are subject to change. Even though Wojcicki is promising to protect the privacy of costumers currently in the database, she might not have much control in the long run.

So what should 23andMe’s customers do? Should they delete what data they can? Absolutely. Will it make much difference in the end? Probably not.

What is now manifestly apparent is that the industry of direct-to-consumer genetics has far outpaced the ability of governments to regulate the information, so consumers are suddenly nervous.

We should have paid attention at the very beginning of this dubious exercise in the privatization of personal data. Now we have to live with all that relatedness as a valuable commodity over which we have little say.

Julia Creet receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada and previously from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

The regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations chief says the new mining consultation framework “does not come close” to the collaborative approach outlined in the province’s Indigenous rights law.

In an op-ed published by the Vancouver Sun, Terry Teegee says B.C.’s law adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples reflects a “duty to consent,” going beyond the duty to consult First Nations on issues affecting their lands, and the new mineral framework represents “a step backward.”

A statement from B.C.’s Mining Ministry says the changes to the mineral tenure system were required to align with a 2023 B.C. Supreme Court ruling, which established that First Nations must be consulted at the time of claim staking.

It marks a shift from the previous practice, when consultation began later, during the permitting phase for exploration.

Teegee says the framework means companies can no longer register large swaths of land for mineral exploration and must now notify First Nations and request they respond.

He says the shift will result in an influx of mineral applications, overwhelming First Nations offices that often face staffing and other capacity challenges, while providing “limited opportunities” for nations to stop or modify mineral permits.

“The framework risks perpetuating business-as-usual practices that exclude First Nations from critical decision-making processes,” he says in the op-ed.

Under the new Mineral Claims Consultation Framework, the province says individuals with a Free Miner Certificate can apply for a mineral or placer claim by filing out an online application in the Mineral Titles Online system.

It says the province will then consult with First Nations, then the chief gold commissioner will determine whether the duty to consult has been met and if the claim should be registered, denied, or registered with accommodations.

All pre-existing claims will remain valid, and decisions will be published on the Mineral Titles Online website to ensure transparency, the province says.

“Through the (new framework), we are ensuring we address our constitutional obligations, and (are) bringing certainty to the earliest stages of the mineral exploration process,” Mining Minister Jagrup Brar says in the news release.

“We will continue to monitor and improve the framework to ensure that it is straightforward, fair and results in timely decisions.”

The case that led to the new framework began in 2021, when the Gitxaala Nation filed a petition challenging the province’s online mineral tenure registry, which automatically granted mineral rights on its territory without consultation.

The Ehattesaht First Nation filed a similar petition in June 2022, and the B.C. Supreme Court heard the cases together the following year.

The court suspended its ruling for 18 months, allowing the province time to make changes to the mineral tenure system.

Teegee says in his op-ed that while the province has recognized challenges in the referral process, it has recommitted to a “flawed system … circumventing the substantive changes necessitated by years of legal battles and the provincial government’s spending (of) millions fighting First Nations in court.”

Story by Brenna Owen

The post B.C. Assembly of First Nations balks at new mining consultation plan appeared first on APTN News.

While many celebrated the federal government's renewal of the Inuit Child First Initiative, some still worry that a vital program for kids in Nunavut is at risk of shutting down. 

A pot of money worth $9.2 million will help Saint John build hundreds of urgently needed housing units, a city official says. 

The audience listens as Cowboy Junkies perform at the 49th annual Winnipeg Folk Festival on Sunday, June 14, 2024 in Birds Hill Provincial Park. (COLIN CORNEAU / CHRISD.CA FILE)

The Winnipeg Folk Festival has added six additional acts who will perform at this year’s event, scheduled for July 10-13.

The new artists are Peach Pit, The Lone Bellow, Jeffrey Martin, Dengue Fever, The Black Sea Station, SAND, and VÍÍK.

“We believe this year’s lineup truly embodies what the festival has always been about—discovering diverse indie artists from home and around the world,” said Chris Frayer, artistic director, in a release.

“We always add a few bands after the initial lineup announcement to round out the music and bring in as many diverse genres and artists as possible. We’re excited about these new additions and the overall lineup. We can’t wait for our folkies to enjoy them in July.”

Organizers announced the full festival lineup for the 50th annual edition of Folk Fest earlier this month.

Stratford residents will see another tax increase this year as part of the town's budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney has paused his campaign and is back in Ottawa today to deal with the fallout from U.S. Donald Trump's proposed auto tariffs, which would wallop the industry in Canada.

A man has died in hospital following a two-vehicle collision in Waterdown late Thursday evening. On Tuesday, shortly after 11:00 p.m., Hamilton Police received 911 calls reporting a collision on Dundas Street in Waterdown near Avonsyde Boulevard involving a black Dodge Ram and a white Toyota Corolla.

Police say the driver of the Dodge Ram, a 42-year-old male from Tottenham, was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased. Two individuals from the Toyota Corolla were transported to the hospital with minor injuries.

After an investigation, Police have determined that the Dodge Ram was travelling eastbound on Dundas Street and crossed into the westbound lanes, striking the Toyota Corolla. The Dodge Ram then collided with a light standard on the north shoulder of Dundas Street before coming to a rest.

The Hamilton Police Collision Reconstruction Unit has concluded that no charges will be laid as this incident was caused by a medical situation.

To provide information anonymously call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or submit anonymous tips online at http://www.crimestoppershamilton.com

Southwest residents and local businesses are preparing for the removal of the provincial sales tax exemption on vapour products, coming up in just a couple of months.

The Government of Saskatchewan announced the amendment to The Provincial Sales Tax Act, 2025, on Tuesday, which is set to come into effect on Sunday, June 1. 

Navin NS, a manager at Cloud9 in Swift Current, highlighted that he believes these taxes will send people back to more traditional tobacco products.

"We're starting our rollback on April 1, and the tax is going to come into effect in June," he shared. "Our sales will definitely go down, some customers are already saying that they will switch to tobacco instead of vaping,

"These taxes are not helping people to quit tobacco, we feel it's sending people back to tobacco."

NS noted that the taxation will impact small businesses like theirs and may lead to the establishment shifting to sell tobacco products as well to meet demand. 

"The prices will be higher, which will be closer to the price of what cigarettes and other tobacco products are," he said. 

According to the provincial government, this tax addition will not only increase prices for consumers but also increase provincial sales tax revenues by as much as $3 million annually.

Additionally, the Government of Saskatchewan hopes to dissuade young people from using nicotine. 

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A homeless man accused of robbing a woman last month was deemed fit to stand trial after a short psychiatric assessment this week, but a court heard of ongoing concerns about his mental state.

Abas Suleiman Mohamed, 33, of no fixed address, appeared in Fredericton provincial court remotely from the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre on Wednesday for a fitness hearing.

He faces charges of robbing Elizabeth Namit, of a pair of JBL earbuds, breaching a police undertaking requiring him to stay away from the Atlantic Superstore on Smythe Street, and trespassing on the premises of Kings Place in downtown Fredericton, all on Feb. 14.

A judge ordered a five-day psychiatric assessment last week to determine if Mohamed was fit to stand trial after he was incoherent during his court appearance.

Read more

Manitoba RCMP Headquarters in Winnipeg, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Lipnowski)

Steinbach RCMP are investigating a fatal single-vehicle rollover after discovering an overturned vehicle in the southbound ditch of Highway 12 early Tuesday morning.

At approximately 6:20 a.m., an RCMP officer travelling on the highway came across the wreckage. A passerby stopped and informed the officer that he had seen someone attempting to remove a person from the vehicle before fleeing on foot.

A 27-year-old male passenger was found inside the vehicle with life-threatening injuries. He was airlifted to the hospital by STARS Air Ambulance but later succumbed to his injuries.

Officers, the canine unit and a drone tracked the suspected driver, a 31-year-old man from the RM of Taché, hiding nearby. He was arrested without incident and remains in custody.

RCMP continue to investigate.

BERLIN (AP) — Jacob Elordi is gearing up for another busy year.

He’ll soon be seen in Guillermo del Toro’s much-anticipated “Frankenstein” and is currently filming Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights.” But during a recent interview in Berlin, Elordi, complete with wild curly Heathcliff hair and sideburns, had his upcoming Australian TV series “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” on the mind.

Fellow Australian Justin Kurzel directs the adaptation of Richard Flanagan ’s Man-Booker prize-winning novel of the same name, which tells the story of medical officer Dorrigo Evans (Elordi). Evans was forced to work on the Thai-Burma railway in the jungle of a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II.

Kurzel and Flanagan are friends from Tasmania, where they both live, and celebrated in London together when Flanagan won the esteemed literary award. But in true Australian style, the idea for the TV series came from a chat back home at a barbeque, Kurzel says with a chuckle.

Fittingly, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” is showing in Australia on Prime Video starting on April 18 before reaching Sky and WOW in Germany this summer. (Additional territories have yet to be announced.)

The story spans three different timelines — pre-, during and post-war — and three different points of view, which start to merge and overlap as the story unfolds.

Although the series is about the courage and horrors of war, a love story is at its heart. Through his ordeal, the married Dorrigo is both sustained and tormented by memories of a love affair he had with his uncle’s wife Amy, his one true love, played by Odessa Young.

While Kurzel describes the romance as “the absolute spirit of the whole series,” Elordi admits he was initially “pretty frightened” about bringing it to the screen.

“I was worried that it would kind of overtake the elements of the novel that kind of interested me, which was the war parts,” says Elordi.

But the way Kurzel shot and directed those scenes prompted a change of heart.

“He allowed us this space for it to be incredibly raw and real and gentle and it ended up becoming my sort of favorite part of the filmmaking process because we shot it in halves.”

Kurzel says he had never done a love story and was ”extremely careful and cautious and fiercely curious about what that would be with Jacob and Odessa.”

With the love story shot first, Elordi, who had a major year in 2023 after starring as Elvis Presley in “Priscilla” and Fennell’s “Saltburn,” adds he was better able to shape his portrayal of the haunted Dorrigo, when it came time to film the Japanese POW scenes.

“Being able to have those memories while we were shooting the camps, of shooting with Dess (Odessa Young) and Olivia (DeJonge), was a core part of the performance, which goes back to Richard’s book. The two just inform each other, like it’s a whole life.”

Casting Elordi was easy for Kurzel who said he “knew right away” that he was right for the role but adds that a special dedication and focus was needed from all the actors cast as soldiers, as they underwent dramatic weight loss to play prisoners of war.

“The crew looking at them coming on set … there’s a ‘Wow, we’d better be on today because we can see kind of what these boys have done for it.’ So that was really, really powerful,” Kurzel says.

Their dedication allowed him to shoot these brutal scenes in a very grounded and truthful way.

“These boys are incredible, but they’re incredibly tired. They’re kind of wasted away, you know, the level of sort of focus, you can’t have it for the whole day. So you’ve got to be really kind of precise about that.”

Elordi says that the six-week weight loss journey was a cumulative effort that also included the background actors. “Seeing that many, especially young people put that effort into something. It was genuinely amazing to see that when we came back from that break, it was like, oh, my God.”

This series marks the second time Elordi has co-starred with an older version of himself in the same movie.

Last year Elordi played a young version of Richard Gere in Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” and in this series Irish actor Ciarán Hinds plays him in his later years, looking back on his time in the war. Asked who he would like to see play an older version of himself next, Elordi laughed and suggested “Meryl Streep.”

And while fans wait for that collaboration, Elordi says he will not be letting the inevitable rise in fame phase him.

“I get to make movies a lot, and that is my dream so I am probably the luckiest man alive.”

Louise Dixon, The Associated Press

Future playgrounds in Regina will use rubber surfaces instead of wood chips and have wider pathways for children using mobility devices.

A 17-year-old boy reported missing in Iqaluit on Tuesday by his family has been found safe.

RCMP confirmed the update Thursday morning in an email to Nunatsiaq News.