Good morning,
Grieving family, friends, community members and politicians attended a vigil in Laval Thursday night, a day after two children were killed and six more injured when a bus rammed into a daycare in the city just north of Montreal.
Hundreds of people, including law-enforcement personnel and first responders, gathered outside nearby Sainte-Rose-de-Lima Catholic Church, under heavy snow turning to hail, for the candlelight vigil in honour of the young victims. Many of those who attended added a stuffed animal or flowers to the spontaneous memorials inside the church and at its doorstep.
Two of the six children who were injured in the crash have been released from hospital, while two more are in “favourable” condition, Montreal health officials said on Thursday.
This is the daily Morning Update newsletter. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for Morning Update and more than 20 other Globe newsletters on our newsletter signup page.
Afghan family’s long nightmare ends with freedom flight to Canada
Wahid Ibrahimi, right, and his wife, Sheikiba Muhammad Zahir, pose for a photo with their family in the hotel room after arriving from Pakistan Feb. 8.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
Just a few months ago, the Ibrahimi family’s spirits were at their lowest. Fearing the Taliban regime would target him and his family because of his work as a security guard at Canada’s Kabul embassy, Wahid Ibrahimi had fled with his family to the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. They had been stranded there for six months when The GloCourt filing alleges Senator’s office sent 640 travel documents to Afghansbe and Mail first met them, in November.
Prior to The Globe’s visit, they were in limbo. Soon after, the advocacy group Operation Abraham, which had already been pressing the Canadian government on the family’s behalf, redoubled its efforts. Before long, they were moved to a hotel in Islamabad. They were no longer in a dangerous neighbourhood, and they had warm beds and regular meals. Just over two months later, they were on their way to Canada.
The covert shop where Ukrainians rebuild captured Russian tanks
In a sprawling array of interconnected warehouses in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military is overhauling captured pieces of Russian equipment – mostly tanks and infantry fighting vehicles – so they can be used to fight the country that built them.
There’s a rush to repair as many pieces of armour as possible while Ukraine awaits the arrival of NATO-standard main battle tanks from Germany, Britain, the United States, Canada and elsewhere, which may not arrive in time for the military to beat back an anticipated Russian offensive.
Read more:
- Russian missiles pound energy infrastructure across Ukraine
- Zelensky makes emotional appeal for EU membership
- Finland to discuss NATO ratification that may leave Sweden behind
A hospital’s mistake left two men estranged from their heritages. Now, they fight for answers
In 1955, a Manitoba hospital sent Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose home with the wrong families. The shocking truth only began to reveal itself after a string of DNA tests.
The case is now the third known switched-at-birth mistake in Manitoba, and the fifth in Canada after recent reports of two mix-ups in Newfoundland and Labrador.
This mistake has layers of complexity, even without the added component of the cultural and ethnic differences between the two men. The questions raised are not just practical, such as finding out their biological family’s medical history, but existential. What is owed to a man who, because of a health care mistake, wrongly lived an Indigenous identity? What is owed to someone whose Indigenous identity was lost as a result of being switched at birth?
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop
Also on our radar
Crisis in Syria, Turkey deepens after devastating quake: Hundreds of thousands across Syria and Turkey have been left homeless in the middle of winter, with many forced to camp out in makeshift shelters in mosques, roadsides or amid the ruins. The mounting death toll, meanwhile, passed 20,000.
- Marsha Lederman: The catastrophe in Turkey and Syria should be a wake-up call for B.C.
- Adnan R. Khan: In Turkey’s devastating earthquake, it’s the poor paying the price again
Trudeau’s health care plan won’t have big impact on Ottawa’s bottom line, economists say: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 10-year, $196-billion health proposal is much smaller than expected and won’t throw federal finances off track, say economists who have reviewed the plan.
Canopy Growth announces plan to lay off 800 workers: The cannabis producer, which once boasted a larger stock-market capitalization than Canadian Tire, said it will cut more than one-third of its staff as it closes and consolidates some of its manufacturing sites in a bid to reduce costs.
Morning markets
Rate concerns hit European markets: European stocks fell in early trading on Friday as investors fretted about the impact of rapid interest rate hikes on growth, while the yen surged on reports that academic Kazuo Ueda was likely to be appointed Japan’s next central bank governor. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.40 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 fell 1.16 per cent and 0.82 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.31 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.01 per cent. New York futures were weaker. The Canadian dollar was relatively steady at 74.38 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
With Alberta’s surging economy, Danielle Smith’s blame-Ottawa strategy is in question
“For all of the economic good news and an election less than four months away, you’d think the governing UCPs would be celebrating. But this time around, the economy is creating an interesting plot twist. The UCP would love to both take credit for the economic renaissance, and at the same time blame Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the economic catastrophe. But the two assertions cannot both logically hold true.” - Todd Hirsch
The Chinese spy balloon is the latest chapter in the history of high-altitude espionage and surveillance
“... The question remains why, just before an important meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chinese President Xi Jinping would mount a surveillance offensive sure to be discovered even by Montana ranchers and Kentucky farmhands. The dispatch of the balloon seemed out of character for a Chinese leader who, facing domestic challenges, has moderated his approach to the West.” - David Shribman
Today’s editorial cartoon
Illustration by Brian Gable
Living better
Five things to stream this weekend: Alison Brie subverts the romcom, plus Babylon burns Hollywood down
From Somebody I Used to Know, a rom-com featuring Alison Brie as a reality-TV producer, to Bodies Bodies Bodies, an Agatha Christie mystery drenched in TikTok neon, here are Barry Hertz’s five picks for the weekend.
Moment in time: Feb. 10, 1878
Jennie Smillie Robertson, first female surgeon in Canada, born
Jennie Smillie Robertson was the first Canadian female surgeon.Supplied
As bad as today’s national shortage of doctors is, it would be much worse if only half the country’s population were considered worthy of advanced medical training. And yet that was precisely the situation when Jennie Smillie, as a child in rural Ontario during the late 19th century, began contemplating her career options. “I asked my mother if women could be doctors,” Ms. Smillie told an interviewer years later. “She told me they could and from then on I knew that is what I would do.” The idea of a female surgeon was outlandish at the time. Still, Ms. Smillie saved money for medical school by working as a teacher and graduated in 1909 from the University of Toronto. When no Toronto surgeons would agree to train her, she went to Philadelphia and learned from a woman there. Unable to get hospital privileges in Toronto, Ms. Smillie, born this day in 1878, performed her first operation in Canada – the first operation known to have been performed by a woman in this country – atop a patient’s kitchen table. (In-home surgery was considered an acceptable medical practice.) In 1911, she helped found Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital. She took the surname Robertson when she married, in her 70s. Steve Kupferman
Read today's horoscopes. Enjoy today's puzzles.
If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday morning, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.