In April, with the threat of a transit strike looming over City Hall, Mayor Patrick Brown and his fellow members of council had other priorities.  Just as the head of the transit union was accusing the City and Brown of bargaining in bad faith, the mayor and his supporters on council, secretly approved a $10.9 […]

Faraday Township council heard from Kate Harris, the head librarian and CEO of the North Hastings Public Library at their meeting on Nov. 5, who presented the library’s draft budget for 2026. Harris and CAO Bernice Crocker comment to The Bancroft Times about Harris’ library budget presentation. Harris presented her draft budget for the NHPL […]

The Kinew government is drafting legislative changes to better track schoolchildren and ensure more of them attend classes regularly. Premier Wab Kinew revealed the “Reach Out, Reach Up” initiative is a priority for this session, but few details were included in the Nov. 18 throne speech. The program will address chronic absenteeism in kindergarten-to-Grade 12 […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A number of Democratic lawmakers are questioning the legality of a U.S. Border Patrol predictive intelligence program that singles out and detains drivers for suspicious travel inside the country. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts sent a letter Monday to Border Patrol’s parent agency calling the license plate reader program an “invasive surveillance […]

The RCMP says a man’s body was recovered from the St. Croix River after he tried to swim away from police officers in St. Stephen. Officers say they approached the man, who had been wanted for an alleged breach of a community sentence order, last Saturday and he fled, later seen struggling in the river, […]

A review into a police chase through Hay River that resulted in a bystander’s vehicle being hit has found an officer broke RCMP policy on pursuits. Nicolinea Minakis was driving her daughter to school at around 8 a.m. on January 21 when another vehicle crashed into the side of her pickup truck in the Northwest […]

The demand for support continues to rise across Halton and Hamilton as families face high living costs, food insecurity, and growing pressure on social services. These stresses can feel especially acute at this time of year, which is why programs like United Way Halton and Hamilton’s (UWHH) Holiday Helping Hand play a critical role in […]

Union leaders from sectors across the province gathered in Quebec City on Sunday to decry a new bill they say could severely limit how unions are allowed to use dues collected from their members.  Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet tabled the bill, which proposes dividing union dues into mandatory and optional ones. Under the proposed […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — What began as a campaign-trail promise to release the Jeffrey Epstein files has become one of the most fraught tests of President Donald Trump’s second term — opening a rift in his political coalition and raising the stakes for an administration now under intense pressure to produce documents that may fall far […]

Most Quebecers have only to twist a tap to get a seemingly endless source of clean water. The reality is completely different in the northern region of Nunavik, where the water supply system faces a host of problems, from bad weather to outdated equipment and labour shortages.  Some would be inclined to blame a lack […]

In the wake of a scandal involving fabricated sources found in the province’s Education Accord, The Independent has confirmed another major government-commissioned policy report contains false citations like generated by artificial intelligence, calling into question the credibility of policy papers involving the use of AI. Authored by global consulting firm Deloitte and published by the […]

This is your Access and Privacy News Summary for Saturday, November 22nd.   There’s a lot of action on the access and privacy front across Canada at local levels  We lead with two reports that shed light on Artificial intelligence policies and threats. With another example of a local council passing an AI policy, and another report highlighting […]