Climate, food security, Arctic among Canada’s intelligence priorities, Ottawa says

Firefighter admits to conditional sentence breach

A Winnipeg firefighter previously jailed for criminally harassing two different women has been released from custody after admitting to breaching a conditional sentence order.

Christopher Goethals, 59, was arrested July 21 after an alert from his ankle monitor six days earlier showed he had driven within 400 metres of the workplace of a former girlfriend he had been ordered to have no contact with.

Goethals pleaded guilty Wednesday to not being in possession of a copy of his conditional sentence order, a requirement of his sentence.

Crown attorney Amanda Heslop withdrew a breach charge related to Goethals’ electronic monitoring conditions and stayed a third charge of disobeying a court order.

‘Extremely disappointed’: hunters being turned away near Bloodvein First Nation, Manitoba Wildlife Federation says

The Manitoba Wildlife Federation says hunters are again being refused access to land near Bloodvein River First Nation, a year after leadership told court it would let them through.

The senior policy adviser for the Manitoba Wildlife Federation said he’s had five reports of hunters being turned away at a checkstop the First Nation set up last year to stop the flow of drugs and alcohol into the community.

“(Checkstop officers) said they’re not allowing hunters through,” Chris Heald said. “They made that clear, and that was the end of it. This is just a rinse and repeat of last year.”

The wildlife federation took the First Nation to court last year after several hunters were refused access to Crown land during hunting season. The federation argued the checkpoint was unlawful and impedes access to hunters, who have the right to be there under the province’s Wildlife Act.

Manitoba students able to opt out of classes with sensitive lessons on sex, drug use

Manitoba’s premier pledges to continue allowing parents to pull their kids from health class if content — be it related to human sexuality, substance use or otherwise — clashes with personal beliefs.

Wab Kinew said Tuesday the government’s overhaul of phys-ed and health curriculum in Manitoba schools won’t impact the ability for parents to opt-out of a lesson and deliver material as they see fit.

“As a parent, you are your child’s first and most important teacher and that will always be the case,” Kinew said, surrounded by hundreds of teenagers on the football field outside Kelvin High School during an announcement Tuesday.

More than 100 schools are taking part in a voluntary pilot project this fall. It’s the first systematic review of this curriculum in decades. The changes to kindergarten-to-Grade 12 courses will be mandated to all schools in September 2028.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: Caution. Avoid shopping (except food and gas) and important decisions from 3 a.m. until 10:55 p.m. After that, the moon moves from Aquarius into Pisces.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

There’s a moon alert all day so restrict spending to food and gas, and postpone important decisions. However, you are the artisan of the zodiac, and a moon alert is an excellent time for socializing and making art.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Mark Carney’s campaign for middle powers

“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose,” said former New York Governor Mario Cuomo forty years ago. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is now in the poetic phase of his campaign to create an alliance — maybe just a loose alliance — of middle powers who can resist the brutal strength of the great powers.

Carney knows how the world used to work, and how it is changing as the ‘rules-based international order’ fades away under the impact of the three great autocrats, Putin, Trump and Xi. “Middle powers must act together,” he told the Davos conference last January, “because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

“The old order is not coming back,” he told them. That should have been obvious to all of them, but many countries in Europe and beyond still clung to the belief that somehow, one of these days, maybe after Trump relinquishes power or dies, the old order can be resurrected.

In a single speech that catapulted him into the de facto position of leader of the middle powers, he disabused them of that fantasy and offered them a path to resistance instead. They gave him a standing ovation, a very rare thing at Davos — and he managed to convince them without mentioning any of the problematic powers by name. So I will.

Climate, food security, Arctic among Canada’s intelligence priorities, Ottawa says

OTTAWA – The pressing issues of climate change and food security join more familiar ones like violent extremism and espionage on a new list of Canada’s intelligence priorities. The federal government says publishing the list of priorities for the first time is an important step toward greater transparency. The government revises the priorities every two years, based on recommendations from the national security adviser and the intelligence community. Cars are partially submerged in flood waters in the Don Valley following heavy rain in Toronto, on July 16 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey Once the priorities are reviewed and approved by […]