Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
The federal government is forecasting that high wildfire activity will continue across much of Canada this month, with the potential for the fire season to extend into September for southern B.C., the Prairies, Northwest Territories and western Ontario.
Officials say Canada is experiencing an “unprecedented” fire season, charring 134,000 square kilometres to date, more than six times the 10-year average. Data released at the briefing show that as of Aug. 10 there have been 5,595 wildfires across Canada, releasing the equivalent of more than one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
“This summer has turned into a challenging marathon,” Michael Norton, a director general of Natural Resources Canada, said Friday at a national wildfire briefing. “Unfortunately, bottom line: fire season is not over.”
The Osoyoos, B.C. fire is seen burning across the lake on July 29.Walter Wells/The Canadian Press
Doug Ford refuses to back away from plans to build on protected Greenbelt
Ontario will not reverse course from plans to build on the protected Greenbelt, Premier Doug Ford said Friday, despite a damning Auditor-General report and experts saying provincial housing targets can be met by building elsewhere.
“We need to make sure they build those homes and that’s a message to the people, the landowners that have these properties: You don’t get shovels in the ground, we don’t see progression rapidly, that land’s going back in the Greenbelt,” he said at a news conference about additional provincial funding for supportive housing in Mississauga, Ont.
- Campbell Clark: The buck stops nowhere as Doug Ford dispenses with ministerial responsibility
- Tony Keller: Doug Ford is trying to gaslight voters about what he did in the Greenbelt
Rent hit a new high in July as students prepped for school, buyers sidelined, report shows
Canadian renters have long lamented the increasing prices they see landlords request of tenants, but in July, those totals hit a level unseen in the country’s history.
Data from Rentals.ca and research firm Urbanation released this week show July’s average asking rent hit $2,078, just shy of 9 per cent above the same month last year. The organizations said July’s numbers also constitute the fastest pace of growth over the past three months and add that the average asking rent rose 1.8 per cent between June and July, the most rapid month-over-month increase in the last eight months.
Ontario first jurisdiction in North America to require naloxone kits in thousands of workplaces
Advocates have long promoted naloxone as a last line of defence against an epidemic of toxic street drugs that has claimed thousands of lives throughout Canada. And now the kits are growing more widespread in Ontario, because the province recently became the first jurisdiction in North America to require them at many job sites.
The Ontario government announced in June that employers in the industries where opioid use is believed to be most common must carry naloxone kits and train staff members on how to use them. The affected workplaces include those in retail, health care, accommodation, food services and arts and entertainment.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Foreign interference: An organization representing retired Canadian spies says a public inquiry into Beijing foreign-interference operations must be given access to all cabinet documents and transcripts of discussions to determine whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was ever informed of China’s attempts to meddle in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
Niger: Tensions are escalating between Niger’s new military regime and the West African regional bloc that has ordered the deployment of troops to restore Niger’s flailing democracy.
Maui wildfires: Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran for their lives from wildfires on Maui that killed at least 55 people and wiped out a historic town.
Former South African president freed: Less than 90 minutes after returning to jail for contempt of court, Jacob Zuma was granted freedom under a newly announced government program to reduce overcrowding in prisons.
Hunter Biden: U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland said the federal prosecutor who has filed criminal charges against President Joe Biden’s son would get additional authority to investigate whether the son engaged in improper business dealings.
Telesat’s Lightspeed satellite: The satellite operator said its Lightspeed constellation is back on track with a switch to MDA Ltd. as its key supplier, allowing it to shave US$2-billion from its planned capital expenditures and sending its stock price soaring.
Cybersecurity: An Alberta government service provider says the records of more than 1.4 million residents were the target of a cyberattack last month.
MARKET WATCH
A choppy day of trading on Wall Street ended Friday with an uneven finish for the major stock indexes, as hotter-than-expected U.S. producer prices data pushed Treasury yields higher and sank rate-sensitive megacap growth stocks. It was also the first time this year that the Nasdaq notched two weekly losses in a row. Meanwhile, Canada’s main stock market index ticked higher on Friday to cap a week of gains.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX Composite Index closed up 64.76 points at 20,407.64. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 105.25 points to 35,281.40, the S&P 500 lost 4.78 points to 4,464.05 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 93.14 points to 13,644.85.
The Canadian dollar traded for 74.39 US cents.
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TALKING POINTS
Why the Québécois accent is a joy to behold
“The debate has never really been resolved. But the linguistic inferiority complex that once haunted francophone Quebeckers vis-à-vis their cousins in France is largely a thing of the past, thanks in part to the generation of Quebeckers who, like Michel Tremblay, made joual cool.” - Konrad Yakabuski
The Trump trials risk becoming political
“As legal proceedings draw out, the very existence of multiple trials burdening one of two candidates for the presidency will appear to interfere with the greater objective of a free and fair election.” - Eric Posner
The part of our housing conundrum politicians don’t want to talk about
“One thing few people talk about is the costs various levels of government impose on the construction of new housing that are helping, in part, to create the ridiculous prices we see in almost every part of the country, but particularly in centres such as Toronto and Vancouver.” - Gary Mason
LIVING BETTER
Building your retirement nest egg, piece by piece
Writer Paul Brent walks you through what should be the pillars of your investment portfolio, some lesser-known options and long-term approaches to wealth building in general.
TODAY’S LONG READ
Ana Cruz is director of a women's shelter in Tegucigalpa, Asociacion Calidad de Vida.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
Women of Honduras find little refuge and even less justice
Femicide rates in Honduras are higher than anywhere else in Latin America, and shelters say it’s getting worse as police leave abusers unpunished for increasingly vicious intimate-partner violence.
Ana Cruz is the director of the Asociacion Calidad de Vida, one of the few sanctuaries in Honduras for women fleeing violence, and she opened the shelter 27 years ago. Back then, she was hearing about women trying to report domestic violence to authorities, only to be turned away – facing harsher abuse when they returned home. She wanted to give them a place to go instead.
Since then, she’s seen the violence become more severe, and that need has only grown. Last year, five women have showed up to her shelter missing a hand owing to a machete wound inflicted by a man. A United Nations report found that among 11 Latin American countries, in 2021, Honduras had the highest rate of femicide – murders of women that are gender-motivated – with 4.6 cases per 100,000 women.
Meanwhile, women’s organizations estimate that 90 per cent of Honduran femicides go unpunished. Read the full story by Janice Dickson.
Evening Update is written by Mahdis Habibinia. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.