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Canada's wish to buy the latest version of the Advanced Medium Range Air-To-Air Missile (AMRAAM), the AIM-120D, has been granted by the US State Department. The only problem is that their current fleet of aging CF-18 Hornets would realize little from the missile's most preeminent feature, its greatly enhanced range. The cost of Canada's AIM-120D buy is no chump change. Set at $140M, it buys just 32 AIM-120Ds plus support equipment, captive training rounds, spares, training and so on. The DoD's press release reads: "The Government of Canada has requested a Letter of Offer and Acceptance for the procurement of...

An Ontario doctor says health-care wait times have reached “insane” lengths in the province, as one of her patients faces a 4.5-year wait to see a neurologist. When Dr. Joy Hataley, a family practice anesthetist in Kingston, Ont., recently tried to send a patient to a neurologist at the Kingston General Hospital, she received a letter from the specialist’s office telling her that the current wait time for new patient referrals is 4.5 years. The letter said that, if the delay is “unacceptable” to Dr. Hataley, she should instead refer the patient to a neurologist in Ottawa or Toronto.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna pounced on a Rebel Media reporter at the closing news conference of the environment ministers' meeting in Vancouver on Friday demanding his organization stop calling her a "climate Barbie." The exchange began when Rebel Media's B.C. bureau chief Christopher Wilson asked the minister what she thought the role was for hydro electricity in the province. "So you're the Rebel Media that happens to call me climate Barbie, I certainly hope that you will no longer use that hashtag," McKenna said. Wilson responded saying that he did not use that term personally, adding that he did not...

A new United Nations report says the Trudeau government is so far behind meeting the greenhouse gas reduction targets it agreed to in the Paris climate accord, it will likely have to buy billions of dollars worth of carbon offsets to meet its international commitments. The problem, as even the report concedes, is that global carbon offset markets are riddled with fraud, meaning that buying them may not actually lower emissions. The UN’s Emissions Gap Report 2017, identifies Canada as one of several countries, “likely to require further action and/or to have to purchase offsets in order to meet their...

The Canadian dollar, or loonie, is trading at its lowest level since early July, down 0.46% at 1.2893 per US dollar, after Canada's GDP unexpectedly shrank in August. Tuesday's GDP report showed the Canadian economy contracted 0.1% month-over-month, making for its first negative print in a year. Wall Street economists were expecting 0.1% MoM growth. Additionally, the economy grew at a 3.5% year-over-year clip, missing the 3.6% growth economists were anticipating. The loonie has been under pressure, falling about 7%, since shortly after the Bank of Canada surprised markets with a rate hike at its September meeting. At the time,...

Colleen Cardinal often wondered why her parents turned bright red in the sun but she grew dark along with her sisters. The puzzle was solved when she was a young teen, and the woman she had thought of as her mother disclosed that she had been picked out of a catalog of native children available for adoption. Cardinal was one of thousands of indigenous children taken from their birth families from the 1960s to mid-1980s and sent to live with white families, who officials at the time insisted could give them better care. Many lost touch with their original culture...

The Royal Canadian Mint is investigating how a sealed, "pure gold" wafer with proper mint stampings may in fact be a fake. The one-ounce gold piece, which was supposed to be 99.99 per cent pure, was purchased by an Ottawa jeweller on Oct. 18 at a Royal Bank of Canada branch. Yet tests of the bar show it may contain no gold at all.

According to the National Post, performer Lido Pimienta, who won the 2017 Polaris Prize, frequently asks all white members of her audience to move to the back and give up their seats to non-white audience members. They must do so regardless of whether they pay more for their seating.The Halifax Pop Explosion music festival is apologizing for the actions of a (white) photographer who refused to acquiesce to Pimienta’s request during her October 19 show. Her refusal to do so was considered an “interruption” and deemed an act of “overt racism,” according to the festival’s board of directors, who are...

Company pleaded guilty to 34 counts under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act Irving Oil has been ordered to pay $4 million for offences under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, including failure to comply with safety requirements and inadequate training of staff, after an investigation related to the Lac Mégantic, Que., disaster. About $400,000 of the penalty is a fine. Almost $3.6 million will be used to implement research programs on federal safety standards and regulations under the federal act, according to a news release Thursdsay from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Irving Oil pleaded guilty earlier to...

The Alberta government says it is “unacceptable” for Catholic schools to uphold Church teaching on sexuality in school curriculum. Media in Alberta reported this week that the Council of Catholic School Superintendents of Alberta had said curriculum promoting the homosexual “lifestyle,” masturbation, anal and oral sex, or transgenderism would be problematic if required by the impending K-12 health and wellness curriculum. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has criticized the Catholic schools and insisted their proposed program will never be taught if its final form is as it has been advertised. “Under no circumstances will we enforce or condone a sexual health...

A Canadian man was found not guilty of rape because he believed he could have sex with his wife whenever he wanted. Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith ruled the prosecution failed to prove the accused man knew his behavior was criminal. The judge did not dispute that non-consensual sex had taken place multiple times, the Ottawa Citizen reported. The man, from Gaza, was part of an arranged marriage with his wife, a Palestinian who grew up in Kuwait. “Marriage is not a shield for sexual assault,” Judge Smith wrote in his decision, according to the newspaper. “However, the issue...

Official says incident shows need for open talks about policies to support freedom of expression Dalhousie University is withdrawing disciplinary action against a student over a post she made to Facebook in the summer about Canada 150 celebrations. A complaint was made against student union vice-president Masuma Khan, who posted "white fragility can kiss my ass. Your white tears aren't sacred, this land is." Over the summer, the student union voted 'not' to participate in Canada 150 celebrations. When the motion passed, Khan faced a backlash. That's when she posted her comments on Facebook. The university received a complaint about...

PARIS -- Last week, the francophone-majority Canadian province of Quebec passed into law North America's first ban on face coverings. The right says that the law is too statist; the left claims that it's discriminatory. The bottom line is that it's exactly the kind of thing you get when systemic cultural insecurity becomes unbearable as a result of leftist social engineering. Bill 62, intended to promote Canada's religious neutrality, prohibits face coverings from being worn by providers and recipients of public services, including those using public transportation. Critics say that it will ban balaclavas and ski masks on buses. If...

An Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate. (Odense Maritime Technology) Ken Hansen, who retired from the Royal Canadian Navy in 2009 at the rank of Commander, is an independent defence analyst and owner of Hansen Maritime Horizons. He is a member of the Science Advisory Committee for Atlantic Oceans Research Enterprise, and a contributor to the Security Affairs Committee for the Royal United Services Institute. When it was first announced in 2011, Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy immediately became the most expensive capital procurement in the history of the country. Initially estimated to cost $38.6 billion, the 25-year plan more than doubles the amount...

HALIFAX—The skies have been brilliant blue in Nova Scotia wine country this October, the vines heavy with grapes, and winemakers such as Sean Sears are seeing crops they could only vaguely hope for in the past. Amid the havoc wrought elsewhere by global warming, Annapolis Valley vineyards have flourished as temperatures have moderated. “If this trend continues we’ll be sitting in one of the great wine regions,” Sears says in an interview. Sears says his Petite Riviere vineyard has already clipped fruit with sucrose counts higher than anything his plants have produced in his memory, while the skin, seeds and...

HMCS Chicoutimi crossed the Pacific Ocean and arrived in Yokosuka, Japan on Tuesday evening. Major Travis Smyth confirmed the sub's arrival. The sub's presence "underscores the commitment of the Canadian Armed Forces to the Asia-Pacific region," he said in an emailed statement. This also marks the first time that any of Canada's four Victoria-class submarines have ever entered the Asia-Pacific region. The overseas mission is scheduled to last until March 2018

Quebec has passed a law banning public service workers, and also those who receive services, from wearing face coverings. This means that everyone who uses public transit and government services must now unveil.Quebec’s Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée stated that “having your face uncovered is a legitimate question of communication, identification and security”; but the Quebec National Assembly’s adoption of Bill 62 to ban the burqa is not sitting well with everyone. Some insist that it is a violation of human rights.For example: Nicole Filion, coordinator of the Ligue des droits et libertés, a human-rights defence group, warned that the law...

Canada's plan to shop for used Australian fighter jets rather than buy new Boeing Super Hornets may backfire, according to defence experts, because the U.S. government will ultimately have a say on whether a deal proceeds. Even though the FA-18 Hornets are nearly three decades old, require regular corrosion maintenance and are nearing obsolescence, their proposed resale would still require Washington's approval because they are advanced warplanes, originally manufactured in the U.S., a former Royal Australian Air Force officer told CBC News. "I imagine all of it is going for a fair bargain price," said Peter Layton, a fellow at...

Wherever you stand on the issue, it’s impossible to ignore the cultural shift in attitude towards euthanasia and assisted suicide. What was once considered murder under the law is now being accepted as medical ‘treatment’ in many countries. However, even the most ardent promoters of these laws are now saying the ‘genie is out of the bottle’ and are severely questioning where these laws have taken society. We’ve all heard the tragic and much publicized stories of people who died by an assisted death. Tragic indeed. However, this film will focus on stories seldom heard in mainstream media: testimonies from...

One of the strangest sagas in defense procurement over the last decade has been Canada's meandering road to a new fighter aircraft to replace, or even augment, the country's relatively small fleet of aging CF-18 Hornets. We have talked in great depth about this issue, and although the Super Hornet is clearly the right jet for Canada, a recent trade spat has made it politically unsavory for the Trudeau Administration to order even a handful of the strike fighters as a interim measure before selecting a fighter to replace the entire CF-18 fleet sometime in the future. In the meantime,...