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Feb 23 2023

Trudeau’s trust. BC’s ‘torture chamber’. Russia soldiers.

Feb 23, 2023
David Akin's Roundup
Clippings of #cdnpoli, #media, and #tech content aimed at those with an interest in Canadian politics. Still in beta ... 
Thank you to the alert reader who reminded me that date at the top of this newsletter had been reading "2022". I have now moved this note into the new year! An update; we are still in beta though I have started making arrangements with this platform operator, Goodbits as well as with a payments facilitator like Patreon (but not necessarily Patreon) to make this a going proposition ... I'll keep you all posted.
Canada
‘Political games’ over foreign interference further erode Canadians’ trust: Trudeau
Trudeau's comments follow months of exclusive reporting by Global News into allegations of attempted Chinese interference.
Trudeau said the only way to “effectively” close the Roxham Road crossing is to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States.

Canadian auto production rose last year to break a five-year streak of decline, and the output boost is expected to continue in 2023.

Steve Saideman: It is the season of false dichotomies as the pushback against culture change in the Canadian Armed Forces has begun.  Whether it is retired ...
Pollster Angus Reid Institute: Support for Canada providing military aid declines from earlier in war – especially among past CPC voters February 22, 2023 – One year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, new data
From the Provinces
MLA Melanie Mark resigns, says BC Legislature like a ‘torture chamber’
Citing a colonial institution that felt like a "torture chamber," BC's first First Nations cabinet minister has resigned her seat. 

Laywers, experts say law societies are being used inappropriately to settle political scores.

Alberta post-secondary institutions are now required to provide annual free speech reports to the government.
Kim Siever compares the Statscan data to a claim Premier Danielle Smith and other UCP MLAs has made -- and can't connect the two.

The Alberta NDP Lacombe-Ponoka Constituency Association has announced Dave Dale as its candidate for the upcoming provincial election.

Data provided to Global News shows that CVSE pulled an estimated 27,800 vehicles over for a closer look in 2022. Just 1,800 of them passed inspection with no infractions.

Elsewhere
'Never saw such hell": Russian soldiers call home
The Associated Press listened in on 2,000 phone calls. The intercepts show that as soldiers realized how much they’d been misled, they grew more and more afraid. Violence that once would have been unthinkable became normal. Looting and drinking offered moments of rare reprieve. Some said they were following orders to kill civilians or prisoners of war.
Joly argued Russia isn't respecting the UN charter, and is abusing the veto it holds as a permanent member of on the UN Security Council.
Relations between Russia and the West are at their lowest point since the Cold War, and ties between China and the U.S. are also under serious strain.

A passerby noticed the nearly 1.5-metre-wide sphere on Enshuhama Beach in the city of Hamamatsu this week and reported the object to police.

Experts say female politicians face 'additional scrutiny and challenges' in their roles compared to their male colleagues, which can take a toll.
Wind and solar supplied more of the EU’s electricity than any other power source for the first time ever in 2022, new analysis finds.
COVID and Vaccines
What the end of COVID trackers means for the future of the pandemic
Experts warn that investments in epidemiological tracking can’t dwindle, especially as respiratory illnesses like influenza and RSV placed a heavy burden on hospitals.
Media
Google to limit some Canadians from viewing news in response to Ottawa’s Bill C-18
The company says it is limiting access to news content online to under four per cent of its Canadian users of its products in response to the proposed Online News Act.
Tech

Scientists found ancient galaxies as big as ours that should not exist, based on current cosmological theory..
Issued This Day ...
Issued this day in 1959: Scott # 383: First Flight in Canada. Design: Harvey Thomas Prosser.
This stamp was issued to mark the 50th anniversary of the first flight in Canada, that being the flight of  J.A. McCurdy’s Silver Dart in Baddeck, NS in 1909. Stamp designer Harvey Prosser — who designed so many iconic stamps in his long career — put a drawing of the Silver Dart this stamp but plane to put behind it to show the progress in Canadian aviation over those 50 years? The obvious answer to a contemporary audience was the Avro Arrow and indeed it would have been impossible for a contemporary audience not to recognize those three silhouettes in the background as the iconic delta-wings the Arrow.

But this stamp appeared at the height of the controversy around the Arrow.

Indeed, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro Arrow program on Feb. 20 and three days later this stamp went on sale in post offices across the country.
.
About six or seven years ago, I had a chance to chat with Prosser who told me that Dief’s cabinet was none too happy to see this stamp published. Canada Post printed nearly 30 million of these!  And he, Canada Post execs and other stamp designers heard about it!
 
In fact Prosser mentioned that his career traversed a time when politicians had no hesitation at all to interfere with a stamp design. It could be relatively trivial matters — a cabinet minister might prefer this design in red rather than green — or it could be seriously political. Prosser spoke of an unwritten rule through the 1960s, for example, that no fleur-de-lis should be shown on a stamp, lest nationalists in Quebec get excited.

Stamp design these days is done by an independent committee and politicians are supposed to be at arm’s-length.

In any event, we would not see the Arrow back on a Canadian stamp until 2019 -- 110 years after the flight of the Silver Dart --  on Sc 3175, when designer Ivan Novotny celebrated Canada’s aviation heritage in a beautiful five-stamp series called “Canadians in Flight.”   - DA

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