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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
CSIS welcomed energy industry information about alleged threats, documents show
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is supposed to retain only information that is “strictly necessary” to do its job, and the spy agency is now facing questions about whether it collected and hung on to material about groups or people who posed no real threat.
In a February 2014 complaint to the CSIS watchdog, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association alleged the spy service overstepped its legal authority by monitoring environmentalists opposed to Enbridge’s now-abandoned Northern Gateway pipeline proposal. It also accused CSIS of sharing information about the opponents with the National Energy Board and petroleum industry companies, effectively deterring people from voicing their opinions and associating with environmental groups.
Khartoum’s vulnerable tea sellers face deadlier risks in Sudan’s time of turmoil
Every day, the tea sellers search for their missing comrades. They trudge to hospitals, morgues and police stations, hunting for clues to the fate of the six women who disappeared when Sudan’s security forces launched a deadly assault on a pro-democracy protest camp last month.
They are often harassed and punished by police, even though they earn only two or three dollars a day for brewing glasses of sweet, fragrant tea at their tiny stalls on the dusty margins of the streets. For six weeks, the tea sellers had volunteered to run the biggest kitchen at Khartoum’s main protest camp. Every day they prepared meals in 31 huge cooking pots, providing more than 1,000 plates of food and 5,000 pieces of bread for the thousands of protesters.
Health Canada orders halt to unproven stem cell-based injection treatments
Stem cell and Platelet-rich plasma treatments involve getting a concentrated amount of cells or platelets from a patient’s blood and injecting it back into the person — which many claim is supposed to encourage healing — but the services are potentially unsafe for patients. Three dozen clinics are being asked to stop offering the cell-based therapies immediately. They advertised a variety of treatments for numerous conditions, including heart problems, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, hair loss and skin rejuvenation.
The crackdown comes after Health Canada published a position paper in May stating that most cell therapies that use a patient’s own cells have little evidence showing they work and can pose risks, such as cross-contamination between patients or potentially dangerous immune reactions. A growing number of experts have called for regulatory action against clinics offering cell-based therapies in recent years, saying the clinics are peddling misinformation to sell expensive treatments that don’t live up to the marketing hype.
Iran breaches key uranium enrichment limit set in nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from
Iran on Monday began enriching uranium to 4.5 per cent, just surpassing the limit set by its nuclear deal with world powers, while it is still seeking a way for Europe to help it bypass U.S. sanctions amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington. Enriched uranium at the 3.67 per cent level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent. At the 4.5 per cent level, it is enough to help power Iran’s Bushehr reactor, the country’s only nuclear power plant.
But there are fears that a miscalculation of the situation could explode into conflict. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal over a year ago and reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and nearly bombed the country last month after Tehran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone.
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WHAT ELSE IS ON OUR RADAR
Jeffrey Epstein pleads not guilty to sex-trafficking charges: An indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan accused Epstein, 66, of arranging for girls to perform nude “massages” and other sex acts, and paying some girls to recruit others, from at least 2002 to 2005.
CannTrust plunges as company faces shortages after Health Canada says pot producer broke rules: The company violated regulations by allowing production to occur in five grow rooms without proper licensing, which resulted in Health Canada placing a hold on 5,200kg of dried cannabis produced from those rooms.
PEI, Quebec petition to become interveners in Saskatchewan’s carbon tax legal challenge: They are among seven provinces now registered as interveners in the challenge to the Supreme Court of Canada, which has previously failed at the province’s Court of Appeal.
Nick Nurse-helmed Canada men’s basketball team to host Nigeria in August: Basketball Canada announced Monday that the two-game exhibition series will take place Aug. 7 at Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto and Aug. 9 at Winnipeg’s Bell MTS Place.
Nova Scotia to unveil further changes to gender options on identity documents: A spokesperson for the province says the new further changes will “include other identity documents from government," and an announcement will be made on Tuesday.
Andrew Scheer receives warm reception at Calgary Stampede: He also encountered some onlookers who weren’t quite sure who he was – a problem the Conservatives have been trying to address through a combination of ads and public appearances to boost their leader’s profile ahead of the federal election this fall.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index fell on Monday as shares cannabis company CannTrust dragged down health care stocks. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX Composite Index closed down 79.04 points to 16,462.95.
Health care stocks fell 1.8 per cent as CannTrust Holdings Inc. fell 22.6 per cent, the most on the TSX, after Health Canada found the cannabis producer’s greenhouse facility in Ontario to be non-compliant with some regulations.
On Wall Street, The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 115.98 points to 26,806.14, the S&P 500 lost 14.46 points to 2,975.95 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 63.41 points to 8,098.38.
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TALKING POINTS
My daughter’s braless freedom shouldn’t concern you
Lori Lansens: “If my daughter’s breasts – or anyone’s breasts – make a person uncomfortable, that person should first look away.” Lansens’s latest novel, This Little Light, will be released on August 13
When Canada’s legislatures don’t sit, we all lose
Dale Smith: “It matters when legislatures don’t sit because the whole point of a parliament is to hold government to account.” Smith is a journalist in the Parliamentary Press Gallery and author of The Unbroken Machine: Canada’s Democracy in Action (Dundurn, 2017).
Jason Kenney, Doug Ford and the ugliness of conservative governments investigating their opponents
Editorial: “It is nefarious, petty and a waste of taxpayers’ money, but it is catching on like wildfire.”
LIVING BETTER
A new study has found that giving up alcohol may improve your mental well-being. The study adds to research challenging the idea that drinking in small doses is good for one’s health, something Canadians have been told for years. These findings come at a time when health experts, including Canada’s chief public health officer Theresa Tam, have voiced concerns over high rates of alcohol consumption among Canadians. Researchers of the study analyzed survey data from nearly 10,400 participants in Hong Kong and more than 31,000 participants in the U.S. The researchers examined the drinking patterns of adult participants and the changes in their physical and mental well-being between 2009 and 2013 in the Hong Kong cohort, and between 2001 and 2005 in the U.S. cohort. While the researchers said the reasons for these improvements are still unclear, they suggested the neurotoxic effects of alcohol may reverse after quitting.
LONG READ FOR A LONG COMMUTE
A Second World War mystery solved: 75 years later, a transatlantic team retraces two lost Canadians’ final days
In 1944, a Canadian pilot Harold Sherman (Al) Peabody and his navigator, James Harrington (Harry) Doe were shot down in their Lancaster bomber over occupied France – but their bodies were never found, and the answer has finally been figured out. The mystery has long gripped the oldest residents of towns and villages near the crash site, and it spawned research that brought together students from Bishop’s University near Sherbrooke, Que. (Mr. Peabody’s alma mater); relatives of the missing airmen in Quebec, Ontario and California; and historians, who guided the Bishop’s students on their voyage of discovery. Before filing their final, shocking report on L7576 last year, their work took them on a transatlantic adventure that saw them examine a plethora of speculative and sometimes contradictory accounts about the flyers’ fate. Along the way, they encountered stories of horror that still haunt those who lived through the air raids.
Evening Update is written by Sierra Bein. 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.