Author: Jeremiah Bradley

OTTAWA – The federal government plans to level out the number of new permanent residents to Canada in 2026 in reaction to crunch on housing and other services, the immigration minister announced Wednesday.Immigration Minister Marc Miller tabled new targets for the next three years in Parliament, which call for the number of new permanent residents to hold steady at 500,000 in 2026. The plans show that the targets for 2024 and 2025 will increase as planned to 485,000 and 500,000, respectively. The Liberals have aggressively increased their targets over the past several years, and surpassed records for the number of…

The Bank of Canada has urged banks to reconsider offering variable rate mortgages with fixed payments, concerned about the number of borrowers faced with negative amortization of their loans. “I think that product needs a close look and I think it’ll get a close look,” Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Friday. “I think you’ll see the industry reflect on how much they want to offer that product,” she added Many variable rate mortgages in Canada require borrowers to make regular payments in fixed amounts. So when interest rates rise, a greater share…

Prominent scholar and former judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond has been dropped from the Order of Canada. In a notice in Saturday’s Canada Gazette, Rideau Hall announced that, in response to Turpel-Lafond’s own request, her membership in the Order of Canada has been terminated. That request was subsequently approved by Governor General Mary Simon through an ordinance signed on Sept. 26, 2023. The termination takes effect Saturday. Turpel-Lafond was plunged into controversy in October 2022 after an investigation by CBC News raised questions about her claims to indigenous ancestry. Responding by text to CBC News, Turpel-Lafond said she returned the Order…

A foreign tourist traveling in California’s Death Valley National Park has been injured in an accident caused by an unlikely culprit: a tarantula. According to the National Park Service, a traveling Swiss couple in a rented camper van hit their brakes to avoid hitting the spider. The van was in turn rear-ended by a 24-year-old Canadian motorcyclist, who was injured in the incident. The spider survived the pile-up, escaping into the desert unharmed. In a statement posted on Facebook, the park said that the incident took place on a state highway east of Towne Pass, a remote and arid section…

A national housing advocacy group delivered about 400 stories of renters’ difficulties in dealing with large corporate landlords to federal offices in 10 Canadian cities on Monday.The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, held rallies in cities including Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver and Ottawa as they provided the testimonials to Liberal MPs and to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. The testimonials describe how tenants faced higher rents and — in some cases — poor maintenance after their rental units were taken over by real estate investment trusts. The group made the deliveries as their national spokesperson, Tanya…

Palestinian, Israeli advocates in Ottawa reject temporary pauses in Gaza fight A temporary respite from Israel-Hamas hostilities should not be Canada’s focus, Israeli and Palestinian advocates argued separately on Parliament Hill Monday, even as the Canadian government continued to push for “humanitarian pauses.” Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said in a Monday speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto that a humanitarian agreement is urgently needed to help people in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which is home to more than two million Palestinians. Israel declared war against Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks, in which more than 1,400…

Some companies are making weighted sleep products for babies, but there’s concern they could be unsafe for your child. Even though weighted blankets and other weighted baby sleep products are currently for sale, health professionals say they’re dangerous and urge against using them. Health Canada advises against(opens in a new tab) “weighted swaddles, sleep sacks and blankets, as they are not safe” for babies.”One of the risks is suffocation as babies can get trapped under the weight of the blanket and not be able to breathe or get enough air,” Dr. Wanda Abreu, a pediatrician, told CTV News Toronto. A…

The decrease comes after a late summer coronavirus wave, but experts warn more could be ahead. New COVID-19 hospitalizations have declined for the third week in a row following the late summer increase of coronavirus in the U.S. Last week saw more than 18,100 new COVID-19 hospital admissions – a 6% decrease from the week prior – according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While it’s clear that the late summer increase of COVID-19 has passed its peak, health officials warn that the months ahead are likely to bring another wave. According to CDC’s respiratory disease outlook, the agency expects a “moderate” COVID-19…

Labor negotiations continued this week between union negotiators and representatives of the Detroit Three automakers days into a strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Below are comments from some of the 10 Republican presidential candidates seeking their party’s 2024 nomination to take on Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who has backed the United Auto Workers. DONALD TRUMP The former U.S. president, in a post on his social media website on Sunday: “The United Autoworkers are being sold down the “drain” with this all Electric Car SCAM. They’ll be made in China, under Crooked Joe’s CHINA FIRST POLICY. AUTOWORKERS, VOTE…

Anchorage, Alaska (KINY) – Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor filed a lawsuit today against A and S Systems LLC, a Maryland company doing business as “FirstChoice Auditors.” The lawsuit alleges that during the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, FirstChoice Auditors sent letters into Alaska that were designed to convince Alaskans that they were being offered financial assistance by a government relief program. In fact, the letters were advertisements for FirstChoice Auditors’ debt relief services intended to fool Alaskans into calling FirstChoice Auditors’ sales line. “Some companies seem to believe that they need to trick consumers to get their attention,” said…