News roundup, 29 July 2026

- BC Conservative Party leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay has directed the party's MLAs to stop using the term "First Nations". The terms "indigenous" and "aboriginal" are still considered OK, along with the antiquated and widely deprecated term "Indian". I suspect that part of the motivation is to avoid giving any legitimacy to the idea of them as sovereign nations, but even so she could have avoided suggesting "Indian" as an alternative. I suspect the latter is motivated as much by desire to appeal to the more openly racist voters as anything. Some folks in this Reddit thread suggest another factor - Findlay herself ended up declaring bankruptcy following a legal fight with Musqueam First Nation in 2001 and may carry some residual animus (not that the bankruptcy stopped her from serving as Minister of National Revenue in the Harper government). What's especially worrisome is the fact that Premier David Eby is tanking in the polls, and when average voters get into a "throw the bums out" mood, they stop caring about who they're voting in (if indeed they ever did).

- The Ford government is considering withdrawing support for the Alto high speed rail project in revenge for the federal government's rejection of the expansion of Billy Bishop Airport. This is pure spite, of course; if you're actually concerned about making it easier to get around the country, trying to stop high speed rail isn't going to make things better.

- At least 13 people are dead and numerous others missing after an earthquake struck the Japanese city of Kumamoto.

- Atlanta activist Samuel Tunick, upon returning from overseas, was pulled aside by Customs and Border Protection last year and ordered to provide access to the data on his smartphone. The phone was running GrapheneOS, which allows you to set up a "duress code" that wipes the contents of the phone when entered; he allegedly gave this code to CBP officers when they demanded access. Following this they let him go, but he was subsequently charged with a felony for destruction of evidence. Tunick had been involved in protests against the construction of a police training facility called "Cop City" by critics, and suspects that this was a fishing operation.

- Around 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians who had been given "temporary protected status" in the US due to the conditions in their homelands have had their status cancelled. Their chances of admission to Canada are minimal due to changes to the Safe Third Country agreement. The changes are definitely unfortunate, but were probably inevitable in this political climate; it's unrealistic to expect the federal government to simply accept an influx of people comparable to a medium-sized city, no matter how deserving they are of refuge. This is something that's only going to become more common in the coming years as climate change displaces vast numbers of people.

- A volunteer with the animal rescue organization K9 Advocacy Manitoba was killed by dogs earlier this month in Sandy Bay First Nation. She had apparently visited a home to pick up some puppies, but the owner wasn't home and their own dogs, described as "protective and aggressive", attacked and killed her.

News roundup, 3 June 2026

- Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen has finally managed to put together a functional coalition government after drawn-out negotiations since the election in March. Frederiksen's Social Democrats won the largest share of seats in the country's parliament, but this was still their poorest showing in over a century. Besides her party, the coalition will include the leftwing Socialist People’s Party, the centre-left Radikale Venstre (Social Liberals), and the centrist Moderates; this means that the coalition will still be a minority government with a total of 82 seats in the 179 seat parliament and will be dependent on the Green Left and other parties to maintain confidence of the house.

- The war (or, as it's officially known, "special military operation") in Ukraine is apparently starting to sow seeds of doubt among Russia's establishment. Putin, of course, is unwavering, but things are starting to slip out in the country's press such as an article in a pro-Kremlin newspaper which quoted a political commentator saying that "the worst-case scenario is not even defeat, it's an endless special operation" as well as quoting someone else saying that, from a historical perspective, "major geopolitical losses were sometimes more useful than brilliant victories". The article was subsequently removed from the paper's website, though, and I'd say those quoted in the article should keep a safe distance from windows for the foreseeable future.

- The family of a nine year old girl from O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, Manitoba who died after apparently being turned away twice from the hospital in Dauphin without adequate treatment for a broken arm is still looking for answers. According to the family they asked about getting a cast (which would seem to be the most basic thing imaginable) but nothing was done, and the child was sent home with nothng but a note saying she would need to be away from school for two weeks. The death is still under investigation from the province's chief medical examiner, but it sounds like staff at that hospital are going to have a lot of explaining to do.

- A proposed wind farm development in St. Leon, Manitoba is triggering some local residents who worry that it could somehow mess with their "rural way of life". The location would be developed by Swan Lake First Nation in cooperation with Quebec-based Innergex Renewable Energy. It's not clear exactly how it would affect their way of life, other than vague bleatings about "flickering" and sounds from the turbines. The thing is, there is an existing wind farm nearby and the sky hasn't fallen. I'm pretty sure that if you pressed these people about exactly what's wrong with the proposal they'd either come up with some "crabs in a bucket" complaint about the farmers who lease land to the wind farm getting an unfair advantage over their neighbours due to getting a steady income, that green energy is "woke", or, if you got them drunk enough, they'd start ranting about the involvement of the First Nation.

An mystery organization?

In today's Free Press there appears this article about First Nations medicine. It does raise some worthwhile issues, and I noted with interest that its author, Don Sandberg, is described as the president of the Nistanan Centre for Public Policy, described as "Canada's first aboriginal think-tank". Curiously, this organization has essentially no presence on the web; the only thing that came up in a Google search was the aforementioned article. A search for Mr. Sandberg's name, though, brought up a bunch of things he'd written for the better-known Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a notoriously right-wing organization that is given far too much ink in the media. This leads me to think that the Nistanan Centre is an organization that should be viewed with suspicion. Too bad.

An interesting twist in the story of the racist ad

No doubt you've heard about the appallingly racist "joke" ad someone posted on an online classified site the other day. Now it's understandable that the website's owners didn't notice the ad until the complaints started pouring in. It seems, though, that there are limits to the parent company's sympathy with First Nations issues:

This isn't the first time Black Press has been caught up in a controversy involving aboriginal people.

In 1998, company owner David Black prohibited his papers from publishing editorials in favour of the Nisga'a treaty, which was the first modern treaty in B.C. history.

Black also ordered his editors to publish eight columns opposing the treaty, which were all written by Mel Smith.

Smith, a former assistant deputy attorney general, was perhaps B.C.'s most outspoken critic of the Nisga'a treaty at the time.

From the Georgia Straight. I'm not saying the company was responsible for the ad (I'm sure they weren't) but it sure looks bad on them...