Canada
Crown must settle with First Nations for breaching Robinson treaties: Supreme Court
The Crown dishonourably breached the Robinson Treaties and must negotiate a settlement with First Nations within six months, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. The two treaties were signed in 1850, ceding a large swath of land in Ontario to the Crown in return for annual payments to the Anishinaabe of lakes Huron and Superior. The treaties said the payments should increase over time, so long as the Crown did not incur a loss, but they have been frozen at $4 per person since 1875.
Government chatbots? It’s one possibility under Ottawa’s new AI strategy
Soon Canadians who need to reach out to the federal government could also find themselves talking to an employee who’s been helped by non-human assistants.
Jewish London member evicted from Jewish Community Centre
Darlene Zaifman-Guslits was denied entry to an event for Pierre Poilievre at the London Jewish Community Centre.
Pierre Poilievre makes stop in Cambridge as federal race heats up
Getting hard drugs off the street is a main focus of the Conservative Party leader. Poilievre also visited the trucking company, Challenger Freight. His office subsequently published this picture on its social feeds. Honk. Honk.
Le Parti libéral du Canada peut-il remporter l’élection partielle dans LaSalle–Émard–Verdun?
Selon le coup de sonde réalisé par la firme Mainstreet Research il y a deux semaines, le Parti libéral du Canada se voit créditer de 26,2 % des intentions de vote — une baisse de 16,7 points par rapport à la dernière élection. Le Bloc québécois en recueille 23,7 %, le Nouveau Parti démocratique 23,3 % et le Parti conservateur du Canada 11,9 %. Près de 8,7 % des répondants se disent indécis.
By-election call coming?
The typical practice of this PM and the last one is to announce by-elections on a Sunday so, keep an eye out this Sunday morning for PM Trudeau to announce by-elections in two of the three ridings that are currently vacant.
I think the timing for a call this Sunday makes sense as the governing Liberals just announced Thursday that they had their candidate for Elmwood Transcona (a teacher, Ian McIntyre who ran, unsuccessfully, for the provincial Liberals in Kildonan-River East in the last provincial elections) and the Liberals also recently announced their candidate in another vacant riding — Lasalle—Émard—Verdun in Montreal, a riding previously held by former justice minister David Lametti and (as Lasalle—Emard) former PM Paul Martin.
Like Toronto St Paul’s, neither of these races should be worth watching and yet — they will be! Incumbents could be upset!
The Tories have chosen a card-carrying union electrician in Elmwood—Transcona and believe they can knock off the NDP. This is where a Blaikie has been the MP for most of the last 35 years. The Conservatives did win it in 2011 when Harper won his majority. My hunch: The NDP holds for now but, in the next general election, Elmwood-Transcona gets new boundaries which will bring in voters who live outside Winnipeg’s perimeter highway who are more conservative. So then E-T becomes a better bet for the Tories. Liberals are non-starters here.
In LEV, watch out for the New Democrat Craig Sauvé to throw yet another gut punch to the Liberals and stealing this riding to give the NDP its second Quebec MP! In the last provincial election, the Quebec Solidaire (whose voters might roughly map to the NDP) won a surprise but narrow victory in the provincial riding of Verdun in a three-way race where the Liberals finished less than one percentage point back. By law, PM must call the byelection there by July 30.
NDP Leader Jagmeet SIngh is in the riding Monday to campaign with Sauvé.
The BC riding of Cloverdale-Langley is also vacant. The former Liberal MP there, John Aldag, just accepted the nomination to be the BC NDP candidate in the next provincial election there. There will be fierce fight for the Conservative nomination there as that seat will almost certainly flip to the Tories. I haven’t heard of any movement to name a Liberal candidate there but the PM can leave that one vacant until Nov 30.
So I would expect this Sunday, we get byelections underway for ET and LEV but we wait a while for the Langley byelection. - DA
The Provinces
Nova Scotia generated $144M surplus last fiscal year; budget predicted $279M deficit
Nova Scotia's public accounts, released Friday, showed that for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, the province generated $422.5 million more in revenue compared to what was originally estimated in the budget. Nova Scotia ended the year with a surplus of $143.6 million, when government had predicted the year would end in a deficit of $278.9 million.
Media
Postmedia to buy Atlantic Canada’s insolvent SaltWire newspaper chain
Postmedia Network Inc. announced Friday plans to buy certain businesses belonging to SaltWire Network Inc. and The Halifax Herald Ltd., the two insolvent companies.
Reader Notes
This newsletter is curated by David Akin, chief political correspondent at Global News. The headlines, excerpts, and photos are generated by the publishers of the clipping. The publisher is at the bottom left of the clipping. If I've got a comment, you''ll see that in italics. But if I've generated the headline and the excerpt, you'll see me taking attribution by finishing with -DA in bold.
A note to those who use a Cogeco.ca e-mail account: For some reason, the Internet service provider Cogeco.ca blocks this newsletter as “spam”. I’m trying to to figure out how to resolve that but, if you are a cogeco.ca user and have an alternate e-mail address, perhaps you could use that to subscribe to this newsletter as we try to resolve this problem.
Science and tech
Vancouver doctor 1st in Canada to use new internal suturing device
A doctor at Vancouver General Hospital is the first in Canada to use an endoscopic overstitch as a successful suturing technique. Eighty-one-year-old Tom Collins was suffering from esophageal cancer, not able to swallow or eat properly, and lost 75 pounds. A special endoscope allows doctors to suture internally, including in the stomach, esophagus, and colon — with no incisions and a quicker recovery.
