Access to Information

Topic: Access to Information


Climate change threatens Canadian security, prosperity, warns stark spy agency brief

OTTAWA — Canada’s spy service warns that climate change poses a profound, ongoing threat to national security and prosperity, including the possible loss of parts of British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces to rising sea levels. A newly released analysis by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service also foresees an increase in ideologically motivated violent extremism […]

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Fisheries Department scrambled to claw back ‘ill timed’ lobster tweet

OTTAWA — Some people can’t see the forest for the trees. Others can’t see the hurricane for the lobsters. On Sept. 24, around 9 a.m. Atlantic time, a few hours after Hurricane Fiona had slowed slightly into a post-tropical cyclone and slammed into Nova Scotia, the federal Fisheries Department issued two preplanned posts on Twitter […]

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Black activist who became PM of Dominica was target of RCMP dirty tricks: documents

OTTAWA — It has long been known that the RCMP Security Service took a keen interest in Roosevelt “Rosie” Douglas, a Black rights activist who attended school in Canada and would go on to be prime minister of Dominica. But recently released records reveal just how far the Mounties would go in the early 1970s […]

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School boards urge Ontario to lift moratorium on closures

TORONTO — Ontario’s public school boards are calling on the province to lift a moratorium on school closures and to finally complete a review — started six years ago — of how those closure decisions get made. The previous Liberal government first promised the review and enacted the moratorium in 2017, when it was under […]

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Feds fail to disclose Coastal GasLink data on salmon eggs, habitat

Shannon McPhail said she felt like the “world’s biggest schmuck” after reading an email from a senior official at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The official told her it was “impossible to confirm” how many living salmon eggs were in the path of the Coastal GasLink pipeline at a major river crossing. With wild salmon populations […]

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No foreign interference report more than one year after Liberal government re elected

OTTAWA — Canadians still do not have access to an assessment of the work done by a panel tasked with flagging incidents of foreign interference during the last election in 2021. The Critical Election Incident Public Protocol was created to monitor and report on threats to the 2019 election with a mandate to continue its […]

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Gaps in province’s literacy education probed

MANITOBA — Education’s response to a scathing report that concludes the way Ontario schools teach students how to read — a popular approach in local classrooms — is failing children with learning disabilities is being met with skepticism. Internal documents shed light on government officials’ limited analysis of Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read […]

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Political spin on election interference helps China undermine democracies: Trudeau

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says members of Parliament who put a political spin on foreign election interference are helping China undermine Canadians’ confidence in their democracy. He says playing “political games” to get a partisan advantage will undermine people’s trust in their institutions, and will only assist the efforts of countries like Russia […]

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UNESCO chief urges tougher regulation of social media

PARIS (AP) — The United Nations’ educational, scientific and cultural agency chief on Wednesday called for a global dialogue to find ways to regulate social media companies and limit their role in the spreading of misinformation around the world. Audrey Azoulay, the director general of UNESCO, addressed a gathering of lawmakers, journalists and civil societies […]

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China, Russia targeting Canada’s artificial intelligence know how, CSIS warns

OTTAWA — Canada’s spy service warns that adversaries will turn to espionage and foreign interference tactics to target the country’s increasingly important artificial-intelligence sector. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says in a newly released analytical brief that countries including China and Russia can be expected to “pursue Canada’s AI through all available vectors” — from state-sponsored investment […]

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Trudeau government mum on Japan’s invitation to rejoin global timber treaty

OTTAWA — The federal Liberal government has yet to respond to a months-old invitation from Tokyo to have Canada rejoin a global environmental organization that regulates the timber trade. A July 2022 briefing note obtained through an access-to-information request shows that Japan has asked Ottawa to be part of the International Tropical Timber Organization. The group […]

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Wildly swinging oil prices will continue, and provinces like N.L. can gain

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — As the COVID-19 pandemic sent oil prices plummeting to historic lows, emails obtained by The Canadian Press show Newfoundland and Labrador was quietly bracing for two of its offshore oilfields to be abandoned by their owners. And as the province watches those same companies this year report staggering profits, experts say fossil fuel-producing […]

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