National

National


What ideas were left on the cutting room floor in passport redesign? We’ll never know

OTTAWA — Garry Keller recalls the first images passport staff brought before the then-Conservative government for consideration during the last major passport overhaul. “We laughed,” Keller recalls. “It looked like a C-minus effort.” The original concepts featured a Canada goose, a beaver and a maple leaf — ideas the government found uninspired and “lowest-common denominator.” […]

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Canadian intelligence flagged Chinese meddling 37 years ago: newly released report

OTTAWA — A newly released document shows intelligence officials have been tracking China’s attempts to meddle in Canadian affairs for more than one-third of a century. The February 1986 intelligence report warned that Beijing was using open political tactics and secret operations to influence and exploit the Chinese diaspora in Canada. It said China was […]

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Who knew what when? A timeline of the Bernardo case and controversial prison transfer

OTTAWA — The Correctional Service of Canada announced Thursday that a review found Paul Bernardo’s transfer to a medium-security prison from a maximum-security penitentiary was sound and followed proper policies and laws. Public backlash had erupted following its decision to move the convicted murderer and serial rapist, engulfing the Liberal government with questions around its […]

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Bernardo to stay in medium security prison as correctional service defends transfer

OTTAWA — The decision to transfer serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison was sound, the Correctional Service of Canada announced Thursday, with its commissioner underlining his new lodgings do not make him any less of a “psychopath.” Anne Kelly faced reporters for the first time since controversy erupted in early June […]

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Nuclear threat from Ukraine war prompts Ottawa to update plans for catastrophe

OTTAWA — Canada is dusting off and updating emergency protocols to deal with fallout from a possible tactical nuclear exchange in Europe or the spread of radiation across the ocean from a Ukrainian power plant explosion. Internal Public Safety Canada notes show the measures include updating a highly secret plan to ensure the federal government […]

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Privacy Act allows disclosure for inmate transfers, Mendicino said it restricts them

OTTAWA — Soon after Canadians were told privacy law was preventing them from learning why notorious serial killer Paul Bernardo was moved to a medium-security prison, the federal privacy watchdog was reminded behind the scenes that there are ways around it. Bernardo had spent nearly 30 years in a maximum-security prison — most recently the […]

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Threads collects so much sensitive information it’s a ‘hacker’s dream,’ experts say

TORONTO — It knows when you’ve been online shopping, the last time you worked out and whether you’ve been lurking on your ex’s profile. Meta’s new social media platform Threads is gobbling up massive amounts of sensitive data on its 100 million users and counting. The specificity and quantity of information the text and multimedia […]

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Feds doing ‘broader review’ of social media after banning TikTok from work devices

OTTAWA — After banishing TikTok from the mobile devices of public servants, the federal government is taking a look at possible threats from other social-media applications. The government said in February that TikTok, a wildly popular app for sharing short videos, posed an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security. Federal officials are conducting […]

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Embattled former national chief lashes out at chiefs who want to find a replacement

HALIFAX — The embattled former leader of the largest First Nations advocacy organization in Canada delivered a searing rebuke of its leadership, as chiefs rejected her pleas and voted in favour of a process to replace her Tuesday. RoseAnne Archibald appeared virtually before hundreds of Indigenous leaders gathered in Halifax for the Assembly of First […]

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Vote to oust RoseAnne Archibald ‘not taken lightly’: AFN interim chief

HALIFAX — The dramatic vote to remove RoseAnne Archibald as the first female leader of the largest First Nations advocacy organization in Canada “was not taken lightly,” its interim chief told a gathering Tuesday, as some continued pushing for her reinstatement. Joanna Bernard, a regional chief from New Brunswick who was tapped to serve in […]

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No way of ‘adjudicating facts’ in deals between corrupt firms and prosecutors: judge

When Philippines businessman Rizalino Espino was named as a participant in a bribery scandal involving a Canadian company, he assumed his day in court meant that a judge would hear him out and weigh his version of the facts. Instead, it didn’t matter what evidence his lawyer presented. A judge in Quebec wrote in May […]

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Searching landfill for remains of Indigenous women too complex for police: RCMP

OTTAWA — The former head of the RCMP said in December that police were not equipped to handle the complexities of searching a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of slain Indigenous women — an effort the Manitoba government also now calls too dangerous. Brenda Lucki, who resigned her post as commissioner in March, was involved […]

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