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Federal Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard says the Trudeau government has cut her budget by 5 per cent, a move that will make it even more difficult to press Ottawa for information that Canadians request or to take the government to court.
Maynard on Thursday told the House of Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics that the Treasury Board department cut her budget by $700,000. She also testified that the country’s access-to-information laws have been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as “quasi-constitutional” in nature, meaning they are almost as important as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Canada’s Information Commissioner, Caroline Maynard, appears as a witness at a Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples at the Senate of Canada Building in Ottawa on Feb. 27, 2024.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
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Ontario warns Toronto to drop drug decriminalization request
City Councillor Chris Moise, the chair of Toronto’s board of health, says his request for a British Columbia-style exemption from federal drug laws for his city will not be moving ahead, given the Prime Minister’s recent assertion that provincial governments must support any such proposal before it would be considered.
But Moise would not commit to formally rescinding the proposal, despite a demand from Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones to scrap it. He told reporters he stands by the application he and his board approved to ask the federal government to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs in the city, as part of a strategy to address an overdose crisis that claimed more than 500 lives in Toronto alone in 2022.
Jones warned Toronto’s medical officer of health to drop her request, saying if she fails to do so, the province will be forced to act.
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones stands next to a hospital bed as she attends an announcement at Seneca College, in King City, Ont., Feb. 9, 2024.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
A story by The New Yorker that Britons can’t read has sparked a debate over press freedom
A fierce debate over press freedom, open justice and judicial fairness is under way in Britain, spurred by a New Yorker magazine article that British readers can’t even access online.
The 13,000-word investigation, which appeared in this week’s edition of The New Yorker, raises questions about the case of Lucy Letby, a former nurse who was convicted last August for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of six more while working at a hospital in Chester, about 40 kilometres south of Liverpool. Letby, 34, was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole; she has appealed her conviction.
Letby is about to be retried on another charge in June and a court order has banned virtually any reporting that raises new issues about the case. As a result, the New Yorker article is banned in Britain, and the British Medical Journal has also had to take down editorials that questioned the verdict. The case has already raised questions about other reporting restrictions including lifetime anonymity for some witnesses.
A TV crew member sets up outside of the Manchester Crown Court, ahead of the sentencing of the hospital nurse Lucy Letby, in Manchester, Britain, Aug. 21, 2023.PHIL NOBLE/Reuters
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Also on our radar
Analysis: After decades of support, Israel now finds itself with few allies: In the Gaza Strip, Israel clearly has the upper hand in its military campaign against Hamas. But in the wider arena of international opinion, that putative victory is increasingly starting to resemble a defeat.
Families of missing Ukrainian civilians fight for any news of where their loved ones went: Ukrainian officials say that more than 30,000 people have been reported missing since the beginning of the full-scale war. This number includes soldiers who went off to fight and haven’t been heard from since – but also a significant number of civilians, some of whom were dragged away from their homes by Russian soldiers who occupied their villages, while others are being held captive in regions of Ukraine that Russia continues to occupy.
Ottawa, Washington join forces to fund junior Canadian critical-minerals companies in face of trade war with China: Ottawa and Washington have teamed up for the first time to invest in two Canadian mining exploration companies, as both governments attempt to bolster the North American critical-minerals supply chain in the face of an escalating trade war with China.
Loblaw agrees to support grocery code of conduct after years of industry negotiations: After years of fractious negotiations over a grocery industry code of conduct, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. has dropped its earlier opposition and agreed to sign on to the new rules aimed at smoothing relations between retailers and their suppliers.
Bank of Canada warns of systemic risk, as hedge funds ramp up borrowing to profit from falling rates: Canadian asset managers have increased their repo market borrowing – otherwise known as leverage – by 30 per cent over the past year, according to Bank of Canada data. For hedge funds, repo leverage is up 75 per cent.
Former wife of Winnipeg serial killer testifies in court on abusive relationship: The former wife of a man who admitted to killing four First Nations women testified in a Winnipeg superior court on Thursday, recalling the lurid details of their abusive relationship, including how he violently attacked and sexually assaulted her on numerous occasions.
Morning markets
Global stocks eased today after Federal Reserve officials hinted U.S. interest rates may not fall any time soon, while commodities rallied on the back of optimism over a series of measures in China to stabilize its beleaguered property sector.
The MSCI All-World index was last down 0.1 per cent, while in Europe, the STOXX 600 was down 0.4 per cent.
In early trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.29 per cent, Germany’s DAX gave up 0.45 per cent and France’s CAC 40 dropped 0.55 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index hit its highest since August, 2022, up 0.9 per cent at 19,553.61. Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.34 per cent lower at 38,787.38.
The Canadian dollar traded at 73.32 U.S. cents.
What everyone’s talking about
“Useless and overpaid” lobbyists sure are keeping Pierre Poilievre’s calendar busy
“Yes, the dozens of lobbyists who have met with Mr. Poilievre over the last 12 months must have been told exactly that: there’s no point in lobbying Mr. Poilievre. And I guess he will continue meeting with lobbyists to, uh, remind them of their worthlessness, and maybe to offer them signed copies of his op-ed.” – Robyn Urback
Beneath the bloodshed, a new path to Mideast peace emerges
“If Israel were to regain something resembling the more-moderate coalition government it had in 2021 and 2022 (which, for the first time since the 1990s, included parties representing Israel’s one-fifth Arab population) and some manifestation of the Palestinian Authority were to achieve legitimacy in Gaza, then, as Jonathan Rynhold of Bar-Ilan University recently wrote, it likely ‘would be able to provide a political horizon for Palestinian statehood.’” – Doug Saunders
Today’s editorial cartoon
David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
Living better
Hidden Canada 2024: Ten corners of the country to explore this summer
For the seventh edition, Canadian travel writers reveal 10 corners of the country you may not have been to before. Spend a night in a Quebec lighthouse, search for fossils on a Nova Scotia beach or stroll a riverbank neighbourhood in Saskatchewan, find four seasons of fun in a New Brunswick national park, explore a Yukon village that’s set up for adventure, bring your passport and curiosity to an Ontario reserve, and learn the best time to visit this artsy Newfoundland town, discover big-city vibes in small-town British Columbia, tee off in Alberta’s hoodoos (if you dare) or settle into the hot seat of a vintage locomotive in Manitoba – each story will fuel your wanderlust and sense of adventure.
Moment in time: May 17, 1990
WHO stops classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder
Gay marchers carry the mile long rainbow colored gay flag up First avenue in Manhattan in New-York on June 26, 1994.HENNY RAY ABRAMS/Getty Images
When the World Health Organization introduced mental disorders in its diagnostic manual in 1948, homosexuality made the list: a deviation reflective of a personality disorder. It was an unscientific, discriminatory position that would fuel stigma, breach human rights and contribute to unethical medical treatment of LGBTQ people. But it would take the WHO until 1990 to declassify sexual orientation as a mental disorder, with the 10th iteration of the International Classification of Diseases. Still, the WHO continued pathologizing sexual orientation through its listing of other bogus disorders, such as uncertainty and distress over one’s sexual orientation and dissolving a heterosexual relationship after realizing that one is gay. Both remained on the books until the manual was revised again – three decades later. Pushing to banish these homophobic classifications from the WHO’s diagnostic bible, a working group argued these scenarios amount to “private behaviour without appreciable public-health impact for which treatment is neither indicated nor sought.” As the thinking advanced in medicine and psychiatry, the focus shifted to serving LGBTQ patients and their actual health needs. Zosia Bielski.
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