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Ontario Provincial Police intelligence reports warned local police that the convoys en route to Ottawa were ideologically and financially invested and planned to “gridlock” areas around Parliament Hill, according to intelligence reports and evidence presented to the Emergencies Act inquiry yesterday.
Provincial police also believed that the convoy protests represented a potential national-security threat but ultimately that risk never materialized, the inquiry was told.
Included in a raft of more than 40 documents tabled at the inquiry were several OPP intelligence reports written before and during the more-than-three-week protest in the capital. They include warnings before the convoy arrived on Jan. 28 that protesters would “almost certainly” disrupt vehicle travel and the movement of goods and “strain capacity of law enforcement in the province.”
A person walks among trucks on Wellington Street on the 18th day of a protest against COVID-19 measures in Ottawa, on Monday, Feb. 14, 2022.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
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Imports, weak Canadian dollar contribute to driving food prices higher
Food prices continue to skyrocket across Canada, driven in large part by higher import and input costs, as well as challenges posed by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Statistics Canada reported yesterday a 10.3-per-cent year-over-year increase in the price of food in September. That includes a 7.5-per-cent jump in the cost of restaurant meals and 11.4 per cent for groceries – the biggest surge since 1981.
The news comes despite three consecutive months of decreases in the general inflation rate.
- Explainer: Inflation slowed to 6.9% in September. Here’s what that means for the cost of living in Canada
- David Parkinson: Inflation dips, but Tiff Macklem’s tune remains the same – even if we can’t hear it quite yet
- Business Council of Canada urges Chrystia Freeland to focus on energy, deficit, immigration in fall fiscal update
Stay or go? Newfoundland town divided over prospect of resettlement
Doug Skinner knows where he will go when it’s all over. Up to the cemetery on the hill where his late wife waits for him. His name is already on the tombstone.
For others in this Newfoundland outport, the decision isn’t as easy. For centuries, people have lived in Gaultois, a crack in the rock that surrounds the province’s south coast, and have built a life around the bounty of the sea. But it’s been years since the last boat unloaded its catch at the old fish plant. The school that used to have hundreds of children has just four students now. In a village where everyone seems to be in their 70s, the nurse visits by boat only once a month.
Gaultois, whose population has dwindled from more than 700 in the early 1990s to just over 70, has long been a holdout in Newfoundland and Labrador’s efforts to phase out its most remote communities.
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Also on our radar
David Eby set to become B.C. premier after NDP disqualifies rival: The NDP’s executive council met Wednesday night to vote on the leadership bid of Mr. Eby’s only competitor, Anjali Appadurai, and ultimately rejected her as a candidate. An internal report by the party’s chief electoral officer concluded that Ms. Appadurai “engaged in serious improper conduct” by co-ordinating with non-profit organizations to conduct membership drives, which she denied.
Canadian military probes whether former pilots training Chinese air force: The Department of National Defence said it’s investigating whether former Canadian fighter pilots are helping the Chinese military after reports in Britain and Australia that Beijing was recruiting Westerners to train its own air force. British and Australian media outlets reported that former military pilots from those countries had gone to train members of China’s People’s Liberation Army and that Canadians were also being recruited.
Ukrainians prepare for winter as Putin imposes martial law: Russia’s ramped-up campaign to destroy power, water and heating services across Ukraine has forced Ukrainians to start preparing for what could be a long, dark winter. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin moved to consolidate control over captured territory by imposing martial law in four Ukrainian regions Moscow claims to have annexed.
- The Decibel podcast: How to fight drones in Ukraine
- Opinion: With its future at stake, it’s time for Ukraine to join NATO
Suspect charged in fatal stabbing of RCMP officer: A man has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the fatal stabbing of RCMP Constable Shaelyn Yang in Burnaby, B.C. Jongwon Ham made a first appearance in court yesterday and was remanded in custody to Nov. 2, according to the BC Prosecution Service. Under the Criminal Code, the killing of a police officer is automatically considered first-degree murder, regardless of premeditation.
Why selling HSBC Canada is unusually challenging: The dream scenario Big Six bank chiefs used to salivate over has come true: HSBC Bank Canada, the country’s seventh-largest lender, is up for sale. Yet with the auction already in motion, pulling off the country’s most expensive bank deal in decades is shaping up to be a challenging exercise.
New guidelines outline how to diagnose anxiety in children: The Canadian Paediatric Society released new guidelines today for diagnosing and managing anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. However, the demand for mental health services among children and adolescents in the country far outstrips the care that physicians and other professionals can provide.
How the Black Death left its mark on our genes: When the Black Death swept across the world almost 700 years ago, it wiped out an estimated one-third to one-half of the population – the worst pandemic in history. The sheer magnitude of the loss upended society and changed the course of world events. Now scientists have discovered that it rattled the human genome as well.
Morning markets
World stocks sag: Stocks sagged and bond yields firmed on Thursday as looming central bank rate meetings cast a shadow over largely resilient corporate earnings which so far have failed to dispel downbeat investor sentiment. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.14 per cent. Germany’s DAX slid 0.71 per cent while France’s CAC 40 edged up 0.11 per cent. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.92 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.4 per cent. New York futures were mixed. The Canadian dollar was trading at 72.78 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Konrad Yakabuski: “... the incongruity of having parliamentarians elsewhere in Canada continuing to swear allegiance to the King, while those in Quebec would not, would further erode the constitutional fabric of the country. It would be better to tackle this question together than apart, but that does not mean we will.”
David Shribman: “Americans have doubted before. They doubted Dwight Eisenhower’s work ethic and Richard Nixon’s ethics, Jimmy Carter’s toughness and Bill Clinton’s personal comportment. They doubted the American adventures in Korea and Vietnam, the economic policies of Ronald Reagan and the health care policies of Barack Obama. But never in modern times have they doubted the fundamental pinions of American democracy. Never, until now.”
Today’s editorial cartoon
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
Living better
Think you can move that stellar mortgage to a new home?
Most lenders let you port your mortgage to a new property and keep your stellar fixed rate. But there are some catches that can make porting a challenge for some.
Moment in time: Oct. 20, 1873
Nellie McClung (1873-1951), c. 1936.Charles Aylett
Nellie McClung is born
“Never retreat, never explain, never apologize – get the thing done and let them howl,” Nellie McClung once said. Born Nellie Mooney in Chatsworth, Ont., she eventually moved to Manitoba for work as a teacher, where she boarded with the McClung family. Their suffragist matriarch, Annie McClung, soon became a feminist influence and her mother-in-law, when she married Robert McClung in 1896. Nellie McClung published her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, in 1908. The bestseller (and her 15 other books) may have made the mother of five a household name, but perhaps what she’s most remembered for is the Persons Case. A group of five women, known as the Famous Five, challenged the British North America Act in 1927 because it did not recognize women as “persons,” preventing them from being appointed to the Senate (although women could run federally – McClung was elected to the Alberta legislature as a Liberal in 1921). The group appealed the Supreme Court’s initial unfavourable verdict, and saw it overturned in 1929. Eighty years later, and 58 years after her death in 1951, the Senate named McClung and her co-conspirators Canada’s first “honorary senators.” But McClung’s legacy – including for her support for eugenics and the Alberta Sterilization Act of 1928 – is not without criticism. Rasha Mourtada
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