Snide spat between Alberta premier, Calgary mayor escalates into Stampede standoff

CALGARY - A dispute that began with snarky social media posts between Alberta's premier and Calgary's mayor escalated Tuesday into a full on government-to-government standoff.

Calgary city councillors voted to reject proposed changes to noise rules ahead of the upcoming Calgary Stampede festival despite a warning letter from Premier Danielle Smith that if changes weren't made by June 30, the province would intervene.

The city has reduced hours and decibel levels for mid-week Stampede events out of respect for residents who must live within earshot.

Smith's government wanted those hours and decibel maximums eased, citing a concern it could affect the fun and profitability of the Stampede and the businesses that rely on it.

Nova Scotia failing to properly oversee addictions, mental health care, says auditor

HALIFAX - Nova Scotia's auditor general says the Office of Addictions and Mental Health has failed to provide effective oversight of mental health and addiction services and its staff were not aware of all provincially funded centres offering care.

In response to a rise in mental health needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government created the office with a dedicated minister in 2021. Five years later, auditor general Kim Adair said the office has insufficient oversight and responsibility for mental health and addiction services — despite its role in setting policy direction and care standards.

"We're concerned that five years in, some of these fundamental aspects which we would expect to be in place by now are not there," Adair told reporters Tuesday.

The audit found the province has spent close to $1 billion on mental health addiction services over the past three years; however, Adair found that the office did not set up standards for access to services to ensure consistent and equitable mental health and addictions care.

Supreme Court kills suit claiming Cisco’s technology helped China persecute Falun Gong members

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted tech giant Cisco’s bid to shut down a lawsuit claiming that the company’s technology was used to persecute members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China.

The justices ruled that American courts are the wrong forum for the suits, rejecting arguments made by the plaintiffs that the suits should go forward under the 18th-century Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), first enacted in 1991.

The decision was the latest to rule against plaintiffs seeking to use U.S. courts as a venue to seek justice over the acts of foreign governments, especially those that took place abroad.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in her majority opinion that the justices “close the door” that the court slightly opened in 2004 when it suggested that some human-rights claims might be viable under the ATS. “In truth, this class is a null set,” Barrett wrote, while acknowledging such cases “frequently involve heinous and inhumane acts.”

As Native American boarding schools project ends, survivors describe feeling honored and restored

Hundreds of Indigenous people have testified. They’ve sobbed, cursed and laughed in spite of it all. Many told stories about their time in boarding schools that they’ve kept inside for decades, finally able to begin recovering from childhood trauma.

An oral history project led by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is wrapping up in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Friday. To date, the nonprofit’s historians have collected video testimony from more than 360 Indigenous survivors in 19 states — stories set to be preserved in the Library of Congress for years to come.

Iona Mad Plume, who is Blackfeet and grew up on her tribe’s reservation in Montana, said she “can’t emphasize enough” how healing her experience was. She testified in front of a video camera last month in Billings about her time in the Pierre Indian School in South Dakota, where she was sent at age 14.

Mad Plume, now 74, said since her interview she’s been more grounded and has been able to let go of some of the haunting memories: a dusty blue Greyhound bus driving her away from her parents’ red pickup truck. School staff beating her with a wooden dowel as she cowered on a bunk bed in her dorm room. Eating corn meal or cereal littered with weevil bugs.

40 mayors worldwide endorse a pact to shape data center development

Forty mayors from around the world have signed onto a pact announced Tuesday to try to shape how urban data centers are built and operated.

It's their vision for how urban data center development can be done sustainably — and not at the expense of their cities' natural resources, energy prices or climate targets. C40 Cities, an alliance of nearly 100 cities seeking to impact climate change, launched it during London Climate Action Week.

Many new data centers are coming to rural areas for cheap land. Experts at C40 say metropolitan areas are under tremendous pressure too, with about 1,700 data centers located in their network of cities so far. Development of data centers is expected to grow by over 40% in 50 of those cities.

C40 got involved because the mayors of Phoenix and Melbourne, Australia, came together over worries about data centers using a lot of their cities' electricity and water, and competing with housing developers for available land.

AI companies should release environmental impact, commit to clean energy, says UN chief

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday called on artificial intelligence companies to release information about the carbon pollution they create, along with the water and land used to power their operations.

While urging action in an address at London Climate Action Week, Guterres proposed the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative, arguing AI companies should measure and disclose the impact of their increasingly in-demand technology — impact which has been cited by opponents as reasons to curb the rapid growth of data centers. These companies have faced mounting pressure, both from governments and locally in areas with data centers that support AI, for increased transparency and more standardized reporting across the industry.

Guterres said AI companies should also commit to powering their facilities with electricity produced with renewable technologies, such as wind and solar, by 2030.

“No more hidden costs,” Guterres said at Europe’s largest independent climate conference. “No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean.”

Several First Nations sign deal with Ottawa, Ontario to own part of a nuclear reactor

Several Ontario First Nations are set to become owners of a new nuclear reactor after striking a commercial partnership with the federal and provincial governments.

Ottawa tabs $21.6M for Sayisi Dene energy projects

A remote northern Manitoba community has solar panels stocked — and now, it’s creating the province’s first integrated renewable energy microgrid led by a First Nation.

MMF suing governments over hunting, fishing rights

The Manitoba Métis Federation has filed two lawsuits against the provincial and federal governments over where in the province its citizens have the right to hunt and fish.

In separate statements of claim filed in the Court of King’s Bench earlier this month, the federation seeks declarations from a judge that the Métis have harvesting rights in several regions of Manitoba, despite current restrictions there, and that those restrictions on Métis hunting and fishing have unjustifiably infringed on their Aboriginal rights under Section 35 of the Constitution.

“The Métis, the Red River Métis, without a doubt have Section 35 rights … equal, side by side with the First Nations and Inuit,” said MMF president David Chartrand in an interview.

One of the claims is over game hunting areas 5, 7 and 7A around Manigotagan and Grass River, north of The Pas, and areas 17A and 26 on the southeast of Lake Winnipeg.

Manitoba government unveils findings of grocery price study

On Monday, Finance Minister Adrien Sala unveiled a report and three new measures government is taking, including restoring a food basket tool to regularly measure the cost of food per region and introducing legislation to mandate unit pricing in grocery stores.

Competition Bureau broadens probe into Sobeys for property control issue

GATINEAU - The Competition Bureau is widening its probe into Sobeys parent company Empire Co. Ltd. for its use of property controls across Canada.

The bureau previously received an initial court order in 2024 requiring the grocer to provide information focused on property controls in Halifax.

The competition watchdog said on Monday it had received a new Federal Court order to obtain company records, written information and oral testimony related to the probe.

The latest court order grants the bureau access to additional information at a national level, such as how the grocer negotiates property controls and their effects on competition.

Ottawa reverses orders to surrender some ‘lost Canadian’ citizenship certificates

OTTAWA - Just one week after some "lost Canadians" were told to surrender their new citizenship certificates, a few received letters over the weekend confirming their citizenship claims are valid once again.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokesperson said Monday the department is now reviewing the roughly 4,100 citizenship by descent claims made under an amendment to the law that offers a path to citizenship for those with Canadian ancestors.

Citizenship certificates will not be suspended unless the review turns up a problem with a document already issued, the spokesperson said.

A statement the department issued last week said it is temporarily pausing the finalization of citizenship certificates related to the citizenship by descent amendment passed as Bill C-3.

AI safety advocates say bill a good ‘first step’ on regulation, but more needed

The federal government’s proposed online safety legislation is a good start on regulating artificial intelligence chatbots — but more work will be needed to protect Canadians from their potential harms, a pair of advocates say.

Bill C-34, introduced earlier this month in the House of Commons, would regulate the companies behind AI chatbots by imposing on them a duty to act “responsibly.”

It includes measures to lower the risk of chatbots communicating harmful content and would put in place crisis intervention protocols for cases involving self-harm, suicide or violence.

Wyatt Tessari L’Allié, founder of Artificial Intelligence Governance and Safety Canada, said the bill’s effectiveness depends on how the details are worked out.

‘This is nuts’: The hard-fought race to build Canada’s next submarine fleet

From a massive ad blitz featuring Canadian broadcast icon Peter Mansbridge to a cabinet minister calling on shipbuilders to cough up a car plant, the brief race to replace Canada’s aging submarine fleet turned heads in more ways than one.

Rise in female chiefs ‘a beautiful resurgence’

BRANDON — One month after Birdtail Sioux First Nation member Tréchelle Bunn was elected chief of her community, she was described on the Matriarch Movement podcast as a woman “who truly embodies what this movement is all about.”

“At just 25 years old, Tréchelle is making history while balancing law school, community leadership and national advocacy,” wrote podcast host and founder Shayla Oulette Stonechild. “Her journey reminds us that the next generation isn’t just preparing to lead — they are leading.”

Bunn was the first woman and youngest person to be elected chief of the First Nation in western Manitoba. It was a historic moment in her community and part of a larger story of the changing role of women in First Nations today.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak noted earlier this year that a record number of female chiefs — 164 — were leading First Nations across the country.

Stopping AI ‘slop shots’ in modern politics

Welcome to the new frontier of AI campaign advertising. It is real, even if the content it produces is not.

Designated encampments worth second look

Winnipeg city councillor Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) continues to champion the idea of authorized, designated homeless encampments despite getting no support from her colleagues on city council or the provincial government. That’s too bad, because her idea has merit.

Reducing homelessness and all of the collateral problems it represents is a pressing issue for the city and the provincial NDP government. To that end, both levels of government have taken steps to address the problem, with differing results.

The province has taken the lead with Your Way Home, a program to provide permanent housing for the homeless with “wraparound” social and health services. Your Way Home has made some progress but there is evidence the size of Winnipeg’s homeless population is growing faster than the program can house it.

At the same time, the city passed a bylaw to clear homeless encampments. To date, it has forcibly cleared some 60 encampments, containing hundreds of residents.

Greed outshines ‘the Beautiful Game’

Utter greed is at the heart of this World Cup, and it has shown up as utter stupidity on the part of FIFA to think that it could treat the 104 matches of this tournament as “104 Super Bowls.”

How Canada can continue to lead on news policy

As a proud Dane, I have long admired the warm relations and respect between my country and our close, like-minded friends in Canada.

At the end of the Second World War, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to stop the Red Army’s westward advance. The 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was sent to do the job. Canadian troops encountered the Red Army in Wismar, located on Germany’s Baltic coast. The Canadians effectively blocked a Soviet advance into the Kingdom of Denmark — while that was long ago, it will never be forgotten.

We share a 3,000 km border, which has not been without controversy, but the issue has always been based on good humour and friendship. From 1973 to 2022, we “fought” over Hans Island, which is located between Ellesmere Island and Greenland and measures just 1.2 square kilometres. We were, however, able to resolve the dispute not with weapons, but with whiskey.

For many years, I was CEO of JP/Politiken Media Group, one of the largest media companies in the Nordics. As the employer of 3,000 people, I had a responsibility to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Danish news media ecosystem. Now, as CEO of WAN-IFRA (World Association of News Publishers), that responsibility is global, and it is one I take very seriously.

Cuba pushes through sweeping free-market reforms in biggest economic shift since the revolution

HAVANA (AP) — Observers on Friday called Cuba’s new free-market reforms the most sweeping economic overhaul of the island’s communist economy since the Cuban revolution, as the grandson of former President Raúl Castro said in an interview that Cuba must seek to move its economy forward.

The 176 measures aim to further decentralize Cuba’s state-run economy, which has been left gasping by a tightened embargo under President Donald Trump. Under the island’s current economic model, the government largely determines what is produced, who produces it, the prices at which goods are sold and how the country’s resources are allocated.

The plan includes more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad. It even permits fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island.

“Elements that for decades were listed as pillars of the revolutionary economy, such as the state monopoly on foreign trade and the centralization of productive forces, have been dismantled,” said Luis Carlos Battista, a Cuban-American political scientist and lawyer who is a doctoral candidate at the University of Salamanca.

Manitoba appoints Canada’s first judge of reconciliation

The Manitoba government has appointed provincial court Judge Jerilee Ryle as associate chief judge of reconciliation, the first appointment of its kind in Canada.

Ryle perfect choice for Manitoba’s first associate chief judge for reconciliation

Judge Jerilee Ryle is more qualified than the majority of Manitoba judges on the issue of how to best serve Indigenous peoples in Manitoba’s justice system.