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Aug 20 2023

BC restrictions. Smoke travels. Nuclear prairie.

Aug 20, 2023
David Akin's Roundup
Clippings of #cdnpoli, #media, and #tech content aimed at those with an interest in Canadian politics and policy. And sometimes Canadian postage stamps.
Good Sunday morning. Thinking of adding a new section to the newsletter. Read on for more details. 
From the provinces
Travel to B.C.’s southeast, Central Interior restricted, provincial government says
The order restricts non-essential travellers and tourists from booking motels, hotels and campgrounds in Kelowna, Kamloops, Oliver, Osoyoos, Penticton and Vernon. [Global]
Officials say more than 19,000 people complied with the evacuation, leaving in streams of vehicles south down the highway or by air on evacuation flights. [Global]
Hydro-Québec says the public utility evacuated about 100 workers from the La Grande-3 dam in the James Bay region over concerns that roads or airports could get cut off. [Global]
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says while she wasn’t responsible for a 25-year UCP deal to deliver medical lab services cut short after just over a year, it should have raised red flags from the start. [Edmonton Journal]
Dan Lett: Why would Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government pay more than a million dollars to one of North America’s top energy consultants and then ignore the recommendations? Right now, it appears election politics have trumped energy policy and climate concerns. [Wpg Free Press]
Canada
As wildfires grip western and northern regions of Canada, the smoke is projected to spread across the Prairie provinces into the weekend, and potentially further east. [Global]
Canada's Heritage Minister redoubled her calls for Meta to end its ban on Canadian news content on Facebook and Instagram on Saturday as thousands of Canadians continued their rush to escape wildfires. [CP]
Elizabeth May and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh have both received top-secret security clearance, and May was the first to attend a confidential briefing on Wednesday. [Global]
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Elsewhere
U.S., Japan, South Korea form historic defence pact to counter China
U.S. President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed at Camp David to deepen military and economic ties. [Global]
Doyle McManus: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has launched a program to lure skilled immigrants worldwide. Canada's conservatives seem to think it's a good idea. [LA Times]
Sci/Tech
Ottawa announces up to $74M for small modular nuclear reactor development in Sask.
While a conventional nuclear reactor generates about 1,000 megawatts of energy, small modular nuclear reactors generate between 200 and 300 megawatts — enough to power about 300,000 homes. [CBC]

Ulises Ali Mejias: The free data we generated by spending thousands of hours on Big Tech’s platforms has been appropriated and converted into training data for AI models. To add insult to injury, the corporations that carried out this appropriation are now pretending to be as concerned as we are about AI’s disruptive power, and are even theatrically begging us to regulate their industry as they rake in the profits. [Al Jazeera]
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Media
The Calendar
As you may have noticed from the Tweet (I'm sorry but they will forever be Tweets to me) of mine above, I'm going to experiment with a new section, below, called The Calendar.

This will be the successor to what I called my #NewsNOW tweets, tweets I created from any media advisory I received about a member of Parliament's activities or about activities on the Parliamentary precinct.

You can search the current archive of #NewsNOW tweets here. And, using Twitter's Advanced Search function, you could narrow it down to events in a certain city (My hometown is Guelph: Been a lot of MPs through there with official events? ) or for a certain politician (What has Anita Anand been up to? )

But that database is now frozen because Elon Musk wants me to pay him for creating content for his platform. I was giving it to him for free but, well, like most social media CEOs, they just don't get how it is that those of us in the MSM actually help make their platform 'stickier', more interesting. Even if it was in this small way.

Musk has apparently shut down what we all knew as TweetDeck which was the absolutely vital tool for power tweeters (like me) doing timed #NewsNow tweets.

That's Musk's business. It's unfortunate. So, in adding "The Calendar" to this newsletter, I hope it becomes a bit more valuable to you. I hope, as well, you'll consider becoming a financial supporter -- $3 a month is too much? -- to help defray some of the costs associated with this publishing platform.

One final note: Many MPs and Parliament Hill staff subscribe to this newsletter -- thank you! -- and they know that if you want me and every other member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery to get your media advisory, you need only send one copy to the Gallery staff and Gallery staff will distribute to every journalist and news organization accredited to the Gallery. Instructions right here.   And that's how most items will end up in this section of the newsletter.

I'll be tinkering with formats here over the next few days - All times local OR All times Eastern (Your preference?) --  so please reply and let me know what you think., e.g.:
  • 1245 ET: Scotchfort PE - ACOA Min Gudie Hutchings meets leaders from Abegweit First Nation .
  • 1930 ET: Saskatoon - Jagmeet Singh meets with supporters.
Issued this day ...
Issued this day in 1955: Scott # 356: Boy Scouts. Design: Laurence Hyde. 
The 1955 World Jamboree for the Boy Scouts was held at Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON and this stamp commemorates that event.

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