Disclaimer: This post is not an argument for nor against the separation of Quebec from Canada ^[1]^, nor the upholding of bilingualism in Canada ^[2]^.

For context, approximately 88% of French speaking Canadians are located in Quebec ^[3]^. Of the approximately 12% of French speaking Canadians who are not located in Quebec ^[6]^, 85% of them are bilingual ^[4.2]^. Approximately 1.8% of French speaking Canadians outside of Quebec don't also speak English ^[7]^.

Eh … now you don’t know what to think huh? 🤔🤪😆

Roughly 350 people will be out of work as forestry company Domtar announces the permanent closure of its mill in Crofton, B.C.

(From Dog of Death, s03e19)

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42897886

Web archive link

Canada has joined a major European Union defense fund, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said Monday, as the country looks to diversify its military spending away from the United States.

The plan allows Canadian defense companies access to a 150 billion euro ($170 billion) EU loan program, known as Security Action for Europe, or SAFE. That would allow Canadians firms to secure cheap, EU-backed loans to procure military equipment.

“Canada’s participation in SAFE will fill key capability gaps, expand markets for Canadian suppliers, and attract European defense investment into Canada,” Carney said in a statement.

Canada is the first non-EU country to gain access.

Carney has said he intends to diversify Canada’s procurement and enhance the country’s relationship with the EU. He has previously said that no more will over 70 cents of every dollar of Canadian military capital spending go to the U.S.

...

An Ontario woman says she was detained for 24 hours and refused entry to Costa Rica because her passport was damaged.

Hello, i was wondering if anyone in montcon area knows where i can find artisan cheese that is lactose free . Willing to drive max of 3 hours from Moncton . In Quebec I usually have perron or st guilliume or riveria so bonus points if you know where to get that in NB . Thanks

Some early NDP leadership polling.

The government of Canada is adamant — with certain, shifting caveats — that it has not allowed arms shipments to Israel since January 2024, and yet Israeli import data and publicly available shipping records appear to contradict that claim.

The data was uncovered by a group of researchers from four NGOs: World Beyond War, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East and Independent Jewish Voices.

They found entries in the database of the Israel Tax Authority that show Canadian goods continuing to enter Israel, described by the Israeli government as military weapon parts and ammunition.

"This report lays bare, without a doubt, the true extent of Canada's ongoing material support for Israel amidst this genocide," said Yara Shoufani of the Palestinian Youth Movement at a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday morning.

Drug User Liberation Front founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum are back in court arguing their compassion club members’ constitutional rights were violated by part of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The pair were arrested in October 2023 after running a compassion club for about a year. During that year they bought heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine off the dark web, worked with Vancouver Coastal Health to rigorously test the drugs for purity and potency, accurately labelled the drugs and sold them at cost to their 47 compassion club members.

The idea was that if a person knew the purity and potency of the drugs they were putting into their body, they could accurately dose themselves without taking too much and overdosing, even if they wanted to get really high, Nyx said on Thursday in court.

In Canada, anyone who is charged with a criminal offence has the opportunity to challenge the law they’re accused of breaking as unconstitutional, in what’s known as a constitutional challenge. The challenge is being heard by the provincial court of B.C.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is limiting the use of its 973 Chinese-made drones to non-sensitive operations, stating the devices present "high security risks, primarily due to their country of origin."

Chinese drones make up about 80 per cent of the federal police force's fleet of 1,230 remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), which are used to monitor the Canada-U.S. border and in various police operations.

In a written response to the national security committee of the Senate, the RCMP said replacing the drones would cost over $30 million, approximately $35,000 per device. The high cost is related to the fact that non-Chinese drones are nearly twice as expensive, the RCMP said.

The search for the remains of Ashlee Shingoose has officially begun at Brady Road landfill in Winnipeg, Premier Wab Kinew says.

"I hope we will be able to bring ... her home soon," Kinew told reporters at an unrelated news conference on Monday, after taking part in a ceremony with Shingoose's parents and her sister at the landfill to mark the start of the search.

Shingoose, originally from St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, was identified in March as the previously unknown victim of a serial killer also convicted in the deaths of Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26 — both originally from Long Plain First Nation — and Rebecca Contois, 24, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation.

Members of Unifor Local 200 met Sunday to ratify the company’s final offer. That means the plant closure plan is irreversible, says John D’Agnolo, Local 200 president. The roughly 160 unionized workers there have the option to leave now, or stay until the plant closes.

He says that workers voted 89 per cent in favour of the deal on Sunday.

Premier Doug Ford has said the provincial government will protest the closure by pulling Crown Royal off its shelves at the LCBO next year. The union urged the province to "fight like hell" to keep the plant open.

But D’Agnolo says he believes the closure was always a done deal.

Algoma Steel says it has issued 1,000 layoff notices to workers at its plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

"As part of the closure of its blast furnace and coke making operations, Algoma has made the difficult decision to issue approximately 1,000 layoff notices today, effective in 16 weeks on March 23, 2026," reads an emailed statement from the company.

"This transition is necessary to protect Algoma’s future in the face of these extraordinary and external market forces, and we will continue to advocate for a competitive and fair trading environment for Canadian steel."

The article has more in depth discussion than the excerpts that I've pulled here, please give it a read if you are curious

VANCOUVER - Maya Cassady was just two months away from graduating high school with honours when she obtained her mental health records through a freedom of information request.

Just hours after reading the contents, which included doctors' ponderings about a diagnosis, the 17-year-old took her own life.

It was March 30, 2023. Since Maya's death, her mother, Hilary Cassady, has become an advocate for youth mental health, raising flags about young people using FOIs to access their charts — and risking misinterpreting the contents.

Cassady said she believes Maya concluded her mental health condition was untreatable, after reading terminology about her case that was never discussed with either of them.

And while the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C. said the head of a health authority could block the release of documents deemed potentially harmful to a recipient, it said it would "not be possible" to screen all requests.

Cassady said the emergency room psychiatrist who saw Maya on the visit that was the subject of her request did not even know she had sought the records.

In most of B.C.'s health authorities, including Vancouver Coastal Health where Maya was treated, people can request their medical records without the consent of a legal guardian starting at age 12.

Cassady said she was unsure when her daughter made the FOI request, but believes she collected it from the family mailbox the same day she died.

The request, Cassady said, focused on a four-day stay at Lions Gate Hospital in February 2023 after an acetaminophen overdose that a doctor believed was an "impulsive" suicide attempt by Maya.

Cassady said her daughter's friends reported seeing her reading the FOI documents and Googling terms on her ferry commute to school from Bowen Island, off West Vancouver, and again during her spare period later that morning. She died later that day.

"She had given up hope when she felt that her diagnosis was untreatable — that was the response when she Google searched some of the terminology in the report," Hilary said of her daughter.

She said she drew that conclusion after looking at her daughter's phone in the days after her death, trying to piece together her state of mind. She said one of the last search results that showed up in the teen's phone browser was that her symptoms were "untreatable."

"That is etched in my brain," she said of the word, sure of what she saw but noting that she has not been able to duplicate the search results since.

Cassady said her daughter searched, "Is persistent depressive disorder lifelong?" She also looked up terms, including "axis II traits" and "bd-ii," which most commonly refers to bipolar II, her mother said.

The chart also classified the girl's "admitting diagnoses" as "chronic dysthymia vs unspecified depressive disorder," and said the teen was "not acutely suicidal."

Cassady said Maya had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder but neither of them had been informed of most of the other terms included in her chart, including the working theory she may have undiagnosed borderline personality disorder.