News roundup, 26 Sept 2024

- A recent poll gives Kamala Harris a 5 point lead over Donald Trump, which is promising news. Trump has a 52-40 lead over Harris among male voters, while Harris has a 58-37 lead among female voters. Lawrence Martin thinks this will tip the balance in favour of Harris; we'll have to see.

- A vertical farm that just opened in Richmond, Virginia is expected to produce almost 2 million kilograms of strawberries in a year, while using less than an acre of land. Meanwhile a startup in Singapore hopes to produce milk and derivatives from altered yeast cells. Hopefully this is the way of the future, though rural folks will probably not take their increasing irrelevance gently.

- Documents from the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) provided to the CBC under an access to information request indicate that "public scrutiny" was a major factor in the federal government's decision to force civil servants who were working from home back to the office. The documents indicate that there was little or no indication that productivity was a factor; it seems it's just an attempt to placate voters who can't work from home, and perhaps also to placate business interests such as the owners of private parking lots.

- CTV has apologized after editing a clip of Pierre Poilievre from a policy scrum with reporters. Apparently they spliced together audio in such a way as to make it appear that the dental plan was Poilievre's motivation for a non-confidence motion; definitely not a good look, and moreover it adds fuel to Poilievre's rage that is so uncannily popular with the masses.

- Despite misgivings, the federal NDP has reactivated its TikTok account, saying that they have consulted security experts and accordingly have installed the app only on a dedicated phone that isn't taken anywhere. The fact that they went to such efforts suggests that they've concluded that there's a sizeable chunk of the electorate that can't be reached without it. Which I find quite believable, unfortunately.

- A proposed homeless shelter at the former Saskatchewan Transportation Company facility in Saskatoon is drawing fire from the chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council, due to the plan to surround it with a chain-link fence that the chief says will make it "look like a jail". He is also not happy that the new shelter, which will be run by a faith-based organization, is getting more resources than the tribal council's own facility. It's certainly not clear how the fence will actually enhance safety, though granted it will probably enhance the perception of safety. Meanwhile in Victoria, the perception of safety is a huge driver of opposition to a facility to help the homeless access treatment and long-term housing; perhaps someone should ask those people whether they'd prefer the homeless to just camp out in their neighbourhood parks instead.

- You might recall from a few months ago how the Mountain View School Division in western Manitoba fired its superintendent a few months ago, triggering the resignations of three of its nine trustees. Well, an advisory panel appointed by the province has now walked away from talks with the division, saying that they are unable to do their jobs under the terms the division has set. Following this, four of the trustees held a meeting in which some policy decisions were made despite not having quorum. The votes included a ban on all flags other than the Canadian or Manitoban flag and the flags of the individual schools; I'm pretty sure we can all guess some of the flags they're primarily concerned with.

News roundup, 21 Aug 2024

- The Conservative Party of Canada posted a video to their Twitter/X feed which was supposed to promote their support of Canadian values. Funny thing is, the jet fighters in the video that were supposedly "defending our home and native land" turned out to actually be Russian; the party has deleted the video but not before someone found it and made a copy. You have to wonder - were they actually so sloppy as to not pay attention to what stock footage they were using, or was this meant as a dog whistle to far-right elements that actually like Putin? Hard to say, but it's not a good look either way.

- The Kinew government will allow municipalities to withdraw from the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region and the associated Plan 20-50. Not sure what the benefit for the government is; perhaps they're hoping to win Selkirk back in the next election, but I don't know if it will work.

- People in the AI industry have paid lip service to the need for caution with the technology. Now that a new bill before California's legislature seeks to actually regulate it, Silicon Valley is having a conniption.

- A Winnipeg police officer who allegedly threatened an employee of a convenience store is denying the accusations against him. Now of course you'd expect him to do that; however this isn't the first time this particular cop has been accused of abusive and threatening behaviour.

- Researchers at the University of Manitoba are working with Opaskwayak Cree Nation on a vertical farm project in the community. The crops are being tailored to improve their nutritional value, potentially reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.

- The federal Liberal Party has withdrawn from Ottawa's Pride parade following a pledge of solidarity with Palestinians by the parade's organizers.

- A man who was the subject of a protection order related to his ex forced his way into her home in McCreary, Manitoba. When she escaped, he proceeded to go to her parents' house and kill them and her brother, then himself.

News roundup, 27 May 2024

- The University of Toronto is warning faculty and staff participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus that they may face dismissal if they do not leave the encampment by Monday morning, the deadline given for the camp to be removed. Meanwhile in Germany, protesters at the Free University of Berlin have faced an aggressive crackdown from the police.

- Donald Trump is doing dangerously well in the polls in several key swing states. Clearly something needs to be done about this, and fast. Bill McKibben thinks Biden and the Democrats need to pull out all the stops to make climate change the key issue. Seems reasonable to me; if nothing else it offers something on which the two major parties fundamentally differ, compared to things like the Israel-Palestine conflict where they're too similar to motivate many younger voters. Plus nature keeps sending Americans reminders that this really is an important issue; some of them might even listen under the right circumstances. And with such a high stakes election, Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock are proposing that Canada take the lead in sending election observers to the US this fall. Not a bad idea to be sure.

- Members of the German environmental group Letzte Generation have been charged with "forming a criminal organization", a move some fear could criminalize even public declarations of support for the group.

- A startup in the UAE claims that they will be able to use vertical farming techniques to grow several crops not generally amenable to this, including not only hydroponic standards like greens and tomatoes but also things like wheat, rice, and potatoes. Many are skeptical, however, especially since the UAE has not been above a bit of hype in the past.

- The US military is investing nearly $15 million in mines in northern Quebec and the Northwest Territories on national security grounds, apparently to limit China's ability to corner the market in critical minerals.

- The Competition Bureau is investigating two of Canada's largest grocery store chains for possible anti-competitive behaviour. Strangely, there's no comment from Sylvain Charlebois in the article; perhaps the media are starting to see through him.