Free Republic

Canada on Friday imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia, including restrictions on exports of energy technology, as part of its effort to put pressure on President Vladimir Putin for Moscow’s involvement in a continuing conflict in neighboring Ukraine.

The London-based Globe and Mail reports that Jordan has asked Canada to seize Israel's 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls that are currently on display in Toronto. The scrolls are on display until until Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum. Jordan claims that the scrolls were found in "disputed territory" that Israel captured from Jordanian control in 1967, and asks Canada to hold them until the question of their ownership is settled. Jordan's control of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley - which it called the "West Bank" - from 1948 until 1967, was recognized internationally by only two countries: Great Britain...

The CEO of TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) says he doesn't see the oil industry's appetite for new pipelines faltering even though crude prices have skidded to the lowest point in more than five-years. In an interview in his downtown Calgary office, Russ Girling said he's seen ups and downs far more drastic over his career and expects the oilpatch will come out of the latest downturn in reasonably good shape. "There's a tremendous need to build irrespective of the price of the commodity right now," Girling said. "We're being pressed to get these facilities online as quickly as we possibly can."...

A Hamilton writer is recruiting people to buy tickets to comedian Bill Cosby's upcoming performance in the city so they can disrupt the show inside the theatre. Anne Bokma said "the numbers are growing every day" of people planning to join her for a non-violent protest during Cosby's Jan. 9 show at Hamilton Place Theatre. Bokma said she's been contacted through her website by both people who want to join her by buying $90 tickets, and people who have tickets to the show who don't want to go anymore and are unable to get refunds. They're giving Bokma their tickets...

OTTAWA - A slickly produced video released on Sunday urged Muslims to launch indiscriminate attacks against Canadians, similar to those carried out in October in Ottawa and Montreal. The SITE Intelligence Group, an American based company that monitors trends within the global jihadist movement, said the video was produced by the Islamic State and the Levant. It was also been distributed on Twitter and jihadi forums. On the video a man, who says he is a Canadian and identifies himself as "Abu Anwar al-Canadi," urges his Muslim countrymen to follow the example of Martin Couture-Rouleau. The National Post identified the...

Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Canada-based Suncor Energy Inc. The parcel is in the Flemish Pass offshore Newfoundland in northeast Canada. That's where Norway-based Statoil ASA (NYSE: STO) last year made a major oil discovery, its third in the Flemish Pass Basin. The record-breaking bid comes as oil prices have fallen to their lowest levels in years, though production is still going strong, Houston Business Journal previously reported. The news helped boost ConocoPhillips' stock on Dec. 16, when it reached $64.94 per share, up nearly 6 percent, before closing at $63.24, up 2.5 percent. Similarly, Exxon's stock jumped to $89.14...

A group of male fourth-year Dalhousie University dentistry students who posted misogynistic comments about their female colleagues on a Facebook page, including crude jokes about sedating them for rough sex, are at risk of expulsion. University president Richard Florizone has launched an investigation into the incident, and immediately postponed exams for the 47 fourth-year students – 26 men and 21 women – until January, not wanting any targets of the offensive posts to be sitting next to a perpetrator until he knows more. .... The social media group was called the Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen. According to the CBC,...

Brian Casey told Nova Scotia Supreme Court that the provincial regulator overstepped its bounds when it decided in April it would ban graduates from Trinity Western University from the province's bar admission program unless the school dropped a requirement that students abstain from sex outside heterosexual marriage. The requirement, spelled out in a pledge that all students sign, has been criticized as discriminatory against gays and lesbians. Casey said the court should overturn the law society's regulation on the grounds that it infringes on the future students' charter rights of freedom of religion, freedom of expression and freedom of association...

What if domestic animals — pets such as dogs and cats as well livestock like cows and chickens — were granted citizenship rights? That may sound like a crazy question, but Canadian philosopher Will Kymlicka thinks it's a critically important one. Kymlicka, a professor at Queen's University, is a well-regarded figure in modern political philosophy. He's also the author, along with writer Sue Donaldson, of Zoopolis, a book making the case for animal citizenship. Their basic premise is simple: animals are already part of our society, as pets and work animals, therefore we should formally recognize them as such. That's...

October’s terror attack in Canada, in which a lone attacker tragically took the life of a Canadian soldier outside of the Parliament building in Ottawa, prompted a series of hand-wringing reports over the rise of “lone wolf” terrorists. This attack was preceded by a radicalized man striking two members of Canada’s military with a car, killing one. The Ottawa attack was followed by another radicalized Islamist attacking New York City Police officers with a hatchet. Yesterday, a self-styled Islamic cleric took two lives and wounded may others after taking a group in Sydney hostage. The rise of the “lone...

The dramatic decline in oil prices will cost Ottawa about $5 billion in lost revenue and provincial economies a little more than that, one of Canada's biggest banks suggested today. That's one of the main takeaways from a CIBC report that attempts to quantify the impact of plunging oil prices on many aspects of Canada's economy. "The recent dive in crude oil prices is an unprecedented development for the Canadian economy," the report by CIBC economists Avery Shenfeld, Peter Buchanan and Warren Lovely says. There's a broad consensus that the declining price of oil is bad economic news for Canada,...

Richmond, Va. (1140wrva.com) Look for gas prices in the area to fall below $2 in the near future. Local gas industry analyst John Zehler, President of wholesaler Virginia Fuels, is predicting under $2 pump prices as the free fall in crude prices continues. Zehler says the price plunge has been going on for 6 months and it's going to be hard to turn it around until demand catches up with production. He says some folks think, with the current trend, we could see gas fall to $1.60 by the summer but admits it wild speculation.

Fareed speaks with Naftali Bennett, the economic minister in Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, about Iran's nuclear program. Watch the full interview on GPS this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN. Iran - you have said that you thought a bad deal would lead to war, but a good deal could lead to peace. So the question is, do you regard the deal that is under discussion as a good deal or a bad deal? From what we can tell, the area where they seem to be at right now is that Iran would go from about 19,000...

We all know that the American energy revolution, led by the new technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, has created a flood of new shale-oil and natural-gas production that has overwhelmed world markets and driven prices down by roughly 40 percent. End-of-week crude oil closed near $57 a barrel, and the national average gasoline price finished at $2.60. No matter what the naysayers are trying to sell, the new energy reality is unambiguously good for the U.S. and global economies. There may be some dislocations among countries, sectors, or companies, but the overwhelming impact is positive. In fact, the...

OTTAWA, Dec 12 (Reuters) – The Royal Canadian Navy on Friday imposed an almost total ban on sailors drinking at sea, after a warship had to be recalled from an international exercise because inebriated crew members got into trouble. Sailors had hitherto been allowed to drink off duty. Now, they will only be able to sample alcohol on special occasions such as Christmas, if the captain gives permission.

B.C.'s Minister of Advanced Education has revoked his consent for the proposed law school at Trinity Western University. . . .The school, which would be built at the university's Langley campus, had become a lightning rod for controversy because of a line in the university’s covenant that requires all students, administrators and faculty to abstain from "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman."A legal challenged launched against Mr. Virk and TWU by two Canadian law firms said the minister had "created a two-tiered system of legal education" when he granted consent. After some deliberation, the law...

KITCHENER — A Kitchener anesthetist specializing in pain management has been charged with two counts of fraud after he billed the Ontario government for services he didn't provide. The Ontario Provincial Police Anti-Rackets branch arrested and charged Dr. Kulbir Singh Billing, 63, on Monday night. He will appear in Ontario Court in January. He faces two counts of fraud over $5,000. OPP Sgt. Peter Leon said the charges stem from billings to the Ontario government from 2010 to 2013. Leon said billings were made to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board for services that...

Boundary dam, a power plant in Estevan, Saskatchewan, is the first commercial coal-fired plant to capture carbon dioxide from its emissions, compress the gas, and bury it underground. The plant demonstrates that so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) can work at a large scale—a crucial achievement given that CCS could play a significant role worldwide in reducing the greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Right now only two other CCS power-plant projects are under construction, both of them in the United States. That’s because CCS carries a hefty price tag: SaskPower invested $1 billion to equip one of the...

America is a mess and the world can barely tear its eyes away from the unfolding train wreck.

Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons has tentatively approved a policy forcing doctors in some circumstances to provide abortions, contraceptives, and vasectomies.If doctors fail to comply with the proposed regulations, they could face disciplinary action, Marc Gabel, a former president of the college, told the Globe and Mail.The College Council has approved the draft policy for “external consultation,” and it will continue to accept public input until February 20, 2015.The policy would force doctors who are “unwilling to provide certain elements of care due to their moral or religious beliefs” — such as abortion — to refer the patient “in...