Canada

When peat is mined for horticulture, forests are removed and carbon-storing peatlands are dug up. Manitobans have until Nov. 18 to submit their feedback on the plan to mine peat from the Sugar Creek bog near Lake Winnipeg

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/26396776

“This is a [board] captured by an incumbent industry,” Drew Yewchuk, a lawyer who works with the University of Calgary’s public interest law clinic, said. “Their board is stacked with people who are in favour of the gas industry and are very familiar with the gas industry, and it has a competing industry in renewables. That is a problem for the fairness of the [operator].”

Experts generally agree it is good to have industry experience on boards since it gives them more insight and background, but not necessarily when that experience is coming from a single corporation.

“It’s not unusual for there to be appointments from the relevant sectors. To have three people from the same company who have a direct interest in the matters dealt by the board, does start to look a little bit funny,” Mark Winfield, a professor of environmental and urban change at York University said in an interview. “The whole thing is just bizarre.”

Radio-Canada contacted the 17 named MPs several times; none of them responded to interview requests. Those whom Radio-Canada tried to approach in person refused to comment.

Canadian homeless encampments have become increasingly visible in recent years, and those residing within them have faced a fair bit of variation in how local governments react to their presence. Today, let's look at a remarkable legal case that may change the game regarding how homeless encampments are considered under Canadian law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Canada Revenue Agency is on a "witch hunt" to find whistleblowers who may have spoken to the media and exposed how it has been repeatedly duped into paying out millions in bogus refunds to scammers, according to sources.

"The consensus is that management is nervous," one source said. "Any media contacts [they're saying]: 'Don't talk to them at all, don't talk to journalists.' I think they're very much trying to control the narrative."

According to multiple sources, the CRA's senior leadership is anxious, looking for ways to silence employees and to limit media coverage.

Last month, an investigation by CBC's The Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada revealed the tax collector has been keeping Canadians largely in the dark about how many hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds it has wrongly paid out, as well as the extent to which taxpayers have had their CRA accounts hacked by fraudsters.

Patsy Smith's husband, Tony Smith, isn't a physiotherapist, but his days are focused on helping his wife regain some movement in the limbs on the left side of her body.

The couple lives in St. Anthony, N.L., a small community on Newfoundland's northern tip. A number of months ago, a physiotherapist visiting the region gave Tony Smith tips to help with his wife's mobility that they've practiced every day since.

It's the only rehabilitation Smith receives, after the family's applications for professional therapy from Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services were repeatedly denied.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21960771