Tag: canada

US tourist shocked when he was asked to sign ‘release form’ after ordering hamburger cooked medium at Toronto Hilton

Is there anything more disconcerting than being asked to sign a waiver before tucking into a hamburger?

An American visitor to Toronto shocked hundreds of Reddit users last week by sharing that he was asked to sign a waiver when he ordered a medium-cooked hamburger at a Hilton hotel restaurant.

“I ordered my burger medium and the waiter took it with no question or comment,” he wrote in a post captioned “Toronto burger came with a release form.”

“She brought it and it looked great! When I had my first bite she brought me a release form and said we always make our burgers well done, but since you wanted it medium … you should sign this.”

The poster said that upon the special “medium” request, the waiter informed the man that the only burger option was well done and requested them to sign the form.

The form stated it would clear the hotel restaurant against any claims for damages related to any foodborne illnesses arising from the medium-cooked burger.

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Canadian man who claimed wildfires were a federal conspiracy admits arson

A Canadian man who claimed forest fires were the result of a government conspiracy has pleaded guilty to lighting more than a dozen blazes during the country’s record-breaking wildfire season, as nearly 100 fires persist in drought-stricken regions.

Brian Paré admitted to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life at the courthouse in central Quebec, an act that drew away key firefighting resources from nearly 700 fires in the province last summer.

Those blazes, which required the aid of international fire crews, charred more than 4.5m hectares of boreal landscape. Virtually all of those fires were caused by lightning strikes, the Quebec’s fire service says.

But at the courthouse in the town of Chibougamau, prosecutor Marie-Philippe Charron said on Monday two of the 14 fires lit by Paré forced the evacuation of 500 homes, the Canadian Press reported. The largest fire lit by Paré consumed nearly 873 hectares of forest.

Fire officials investigated a string of five blazes in June that had no possible natural cause and broke out days after the province had implemented a fire ban. The 38-year-old Paré quickly became a suspect when he was spotted in the location of the fires and “demonstrated a certain interest in fires” after an interview with police, said Charron.

In June police began watching his social media posts, which frequently focused on the province’s wildfires. He shared content suggesting the record-breaking fire season was the result of government intervention, not climate change. The prosecution said police specialists developed a suspect profile based on the fires – and increasingly, Paré’s seemed a match.

Police later obtained a warrant to install a tracking device on Paré’s vehicle and found he travelled to locations where other fires were started.

After he was arrested in September, he admitted to starting nine fires and “claimed he was doing tests to find out whether the forest was really dry or not”, Charron told the court.

Despite a string of conspiratorial theories over the summer, amplified by Alberta’s premier, nearly all of Canada’s fires were caused by lightning striking the tinder-like condition of forests.

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President Of Canadian LGBT Organization Arrested On Child Sex Abuse Charges

Yet another activist advocate for LGBT engagement with children has apparently been caught doing a lot more than community outreach.  Sean Gravells, an outspoken LGBT activist and the president of an LGBT pride organization in Canada called the North Peace Pride Society, has been arrested on multiple charges including sexual exploitation of a child under the age of 16 and the possession and distribution of child pornography.  

The alleged offenses all took place in or near Fort St. John, B.C., northeast of Vancouver. The interference and exploitation charges were initiated on Dec. 29, 2023, while the child pornography charges occurred on Dec. 31.  

The North Peace Pride Society quickly removed Gravells as president upon news of his arrest, and in a statement made to their Facebook Page they asserted that even though the group sponsors youth events, Gravells was never involved directly with children. 

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Toronto Bans Tobogganing on 45 Hills, Puts Up Warning Signs

Talk about a slippery slope. Toronto recently erected warning signs on 45 hills around the city that read: “Tobogganing is not allowed.”

The warning further clarifies that “hazards such as trees, stumps, rocks, rivers or roads make this hill unsafe.” The signs also include a URL for a website where kids can find one of 27 tobogganing-approved hills. (Not even a QR code?)

Ricki Gurwitz, a Toronto mom of two, is exasperated.

“The fear of liability is ruining modern childhood,” she says. “I used to toboggan all the time with friends when I was a kid, and it was one of my favorite parts about winter.”

Bill Steigerwald, a longtime newspaper writer and author of 30 Days a Black Man, agrees.

“There are too many nanny rules aimed at making the world so safe that people, and especially kids, are not allowed to do anything outdoors but sit on a bench,” he says.

Toronto City Councilman Brad Bradford also opposes the ban.

“Frankly, it’s embarrassing,” he told The Toronto Star. “This is part of the Canadian experience, growing up in winter cities, and Toronto shouldn’t be the exception to that.”

Not only do kids lose out when trees become an obstacle to outdoor fun, but so does the city itself. Anti-tobogganing legislation makes Toronto “move in the direction of no-fun city,” says Bradford.

Last year, the city put up bales of hay around the trees on the popular hill in Bradford’s district to avoid crashes. Now, tobogganing is banned on that hill. (Of course, crashing into a solid bale of hay is perhaps not so different from crashing into a tree, in this humble correspondent’s view.)

Maybe it’s just that nobody wanted to bother with the bales this year, mused Philip Howard, an anti-bureaucracy crusader and author of Everyday Freedom.

“Memories of a fun place have been yanked away from families in Toronto,” he says.

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Canadian government lobbies WHO to include climate change in the definition of a pandemic emergency

On Monday, Conservative Member of the Canadian Parliament Leslyn Lewis posted on Twitter a portion of a response to an Access to Information Request from the Canadian government about their input submitted to the World Health Organisation.

“As countries prepare to finalise the WHO Global Pandemic Accord in May, the Liberals have been lobbying the WHO to include climate change in the definition of a pandemic emergency,” she said.

The government responded to Lewis, indicating that “the new instrument should be inclusive and defined by an all-hazards approach in alignment with the [International Health Regulations].”

The response continues: “There are other global health threats that are currently building and/or could result in a global health emergency (e.g., climate change impacts) … which may be scoped out of an instrument with too narrow a focus.”

In other words, the Canadian government admitted it supports broadening the scope of WHO’s Pandemic Accord, or Pandemic Treaty, so WHO directs countries not just on infectious disease outbreaks but also on “health impacts” from climate change.

On 23 October 2023, in response to a written question from Ms. Lewis, Mark Holland, the Minister of Health, on behalf of Trudeau’s Liberal government confirmed the Government’s stance.  He stated that “other global health threats, such as climate change, can impact pandemics, and we incorporate these broader considerations in our domestic pandemic, planning, preparedness, and response activities.”

At the same time, Holland confirmed that, currently, “Climate change and other global health threats are not within the scope of the Pandemic Instrument.” But he did not admit that the Government was lobbying WHO to include it.

Justin Trudeau was elected Leader of the Liberal Party in April 2013. On October 19, 2015, he led his party to victory, winning a majority government. On October 21, 2019, he led the Liberal Party to re-election, earning a second mandate. On September 20, 2021, Justin once again led the party to re-election, earning a third mandate to govern from Canadians.  A Canadian intelligence report released in February 2023 suggests Beijing meddled in the 2019 and 2021 election campaigns, a continuation of a problem that was flagged 37 years ago.

At a “ladies’ night” fundraiser in Toronto in 2013, the then-hopeful politician Trudeau made his allegiances known.  He told the audience: “There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say we need to go green, we need to start, you know, investing in solar.”

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DATA SOLUTIONS PROVIDER TELUS INTERNATIONAL IS PAYING $50 FOR IMAGES OF KIDS TO TRAIN GOOGLE’S AI

In a recent initiative, Google and TELUS International, a subsidiary of the Canadian tech conglomerate TELUS, have collaborated to collect biometric data from children for age verification purposes. This project, running from November 2023 to January 2024, involved parents filming their children’s faces, capturing details such as eyelid shape, skin tone, and facial geometry. Parents who participated were paid $50 per child.

First reported by 404media, the project requested that parents take 11 short videos of their children while wearing things like face masks or hats. Another request was for children’s faces with no coverings at all. Each video must be less than 40 seconds, and participants were expected to spend 30 to 45 minutes on the task.

According to the summary document, which has now been taken down, a TELUS International moderator would be on a call while the parent took these videos of the child.

According to TELUS International, the purpose of this project was to capture a diverse range of biometric data to ensure that their customer’s services and products are representative of various demographics. Google told 404media that the goal was to enhance authentication methods, thus providing more secure tools for users. 

“As part of our commitment to delivering age-appropriate experiences and to comply with laws and regulations around the world, we’re exploring ways to help our users verify their age. Last year, TELUS helped us find volunteers for a project exploring whether this could be done via selfies. From there, Google collected videos and images of faces, clearly explaining how the content would be used, and, as with all research involving minors, we required parental consent for participants under the age of 18. We’ve also put strict privacy protections in place, including limiting the amount of time the data will be retained and providing all participants the option to delete their data at any time,” Google told 404media in a statement.

While this aligns with Google’s broader commitment to developing responsible and ethical facial recognition technology, the project has raised significant concerns regarding children’s privacy and consent.

Parents had to consent to Google and TELUS International collecting their child’s personal and biometric information in order to participate. This included the shape of their eyelids, the color of their skin and their “facial geometry.” According to the TELUS International summary, Google would then keep the data for five years at most, which for some participants, would be into their early adulthood.

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Statistics Canada excludes assisted-dying deaths from annual mortality report

Medically assisted suicide is the sixth-leading cause of death in Canada, according to its federal health agency — a reality Statistics Canada excluded in a recent report.

The Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed that 13,241 Canadians accessed the medical assistance in dying (MAID) procedure last year, accounting for one in 25 deaths (4.1%).

However, a Statistics Canada report showed cancer (24.7%), heart disease (17.2%), COVID-19 (5.90%), accidents (5.50%), cerebrovascular diseases (4.17%), and chronic lower respiratory diseases (3.73%) caused most of the 334,081 reported deaths in Canada for 2022. 

“In the database, the underlying cause of death is defined as the disease or injury that initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death. As such, MAID deaths are coded to the underlying condition for which MAID was requested,” Statistics Canada posted on its X feed.

If a cancer patient accesses MAID to end their life, cancer would be listed as their cause of death.

A StatsCan spokesperson told the Epoch Times they excluded MAID-related deaths over the absence of an official classification by the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Causes of death are coded using the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) 10th revision (ICD-10) […] There is no code for MAID in the ICD,” reads the email statement.

In addition, some provinces do not attribute MAID on medical certificates of death when the procedure is carried out. Provincial and federal vital statistics registries rely on this data, reported True North.

“Therefore, Vital Statistics is not a reliable source for tracking MAID. Stats Can will continue to classify deaths according to the WHO ICD rules,” said Health Canada.

Approximately 31,664 Canadians accessed MAID between 2016 and 2021, with an average year-over-year growth rate of 66%. In the previous data year, the feds recorded 10,029 such deaths — up 34.7% from 7,446 deaths in 2020. 

MAID accounted for 3.3% of all deaths in Canada in 2021, up from 2.4% of all reported deaths in the previous year.

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Outrage as transgender woman Melody Wiseheart, 50, competes against TEENAGERS in Canadian swim meet ‘and shares changing room with terrified girls’

A 50-year-old transgender woman has sparked backlash among parents after she competed in a swim meet against teenage girls in Canada.

Furious parents claim Melody Wiseheart shared a locker room with their young daughters during the Trojan Cup in Barrie, Ontario, which took place between December 1-3 and featured age groups from eight and younger to 16 and older.

Wiseheart, a professor at York university, attended the competition at the East Bayfield Community Centre and participated in several events, including the women’s 1500m freestyle for athletes 16 and older, where she placed second.

The parent of one of the children who participated in the meet told the Toronto Sun ‘the girls were terrified.’ 

They claimed parents used towels to setup a makeshift tent to protect the girls that had to change in front of Wiseheart.

The event was sanctioned by Swimming Canada and Swim Ontario which issued a statement to the Toronto Sun defending Wiseheart’s participation.

They said: ‘In partnership with Swimming Canada, Swim Ontario has a robust system of policies, procedures and rules that support our member clubs in providing a competitive experience that is safe, welcoming and inclusive for all participants,

‘Swimming Canada and Swim Ontario believe swimming is for everyone…  people of all shapes, sizes, genders, beliefs and backgrounds should have the opportunity to swim to the best of their ability… with the expectation that our registrants treat each other with respect and dignity, and keep our sport environment free from harassment and abuse.’

Wiseheart, formerly Nicholas Cepeda, has reportedly been competing against girls since 2019.

Her research at York university focuses on aging, children and youth behavioral science. 

DailyMail.com has reached out to Wiseheart for comment on this story. 

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SECRET INDIAN MEMO ORDERED “CONCRETE MEASURES” AGAINST HARDEEP SINGH NIJJAR TWO MONTHS BEFORE HIS ASSASSINATION IN CANADA

THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT instructed its consulates in North America to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” against Sikh diaspora organizations in Western countries, according to a secret memorandum issued in April 2023 by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The memo, which was obtained by The Intercept, lists several Sikh dissidents under investigation by India’s intelligence agencies, including the Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

“Concrete measures shall be adopted to hold the suspects accountable,” the memo says. Nijjar was murdered in Vancouver in June, two months after being named as a target in the document, a killing the Canadian government said was ordered by Indian intelligence.

The memo addresses India’s growing concerns about its reputation due to activism from Sikh dissident organizations and portrays its political enemies as extremist or even terrorist organizations. Titled “Action Points on Khalistan Extremism,” using the name Sikh activists use for a separatist state, the document lists several Sikh activist organizations it blames for engaging in “anti-India propaganda,” as well as acts of “arson and vandalization” targeting Indian interests in North America.

The document instructs officials at its consulates to cooperate with Indian intelligence agencies to confront the groups Sikhs for Justice, Babbar Khalsa International, Sikh Youth of America, Sikh Coordination Committee East Coast, World Sikh Parliament, and Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar America. It suggests that Nijjar and several other “suspects” are affiliated with one of these groups, Babbar Khalsa International. Babbar Khalsa International is proscribed as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and Canada, but the other organizations named in the document are considered legal in both countries.

A leader of one of another of the listed groups, Sikhs for Justice, was the target of an Indian assassination plot, according to federal prosecutors in the U.S. The indictment, unsealed last week, accused Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, of working with Indian officials to kill Sikhs for Justice general counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen based in New York.

The leaked April memo from India’s Ministry of External Affairs does not explicitly order the killings of Sikh activists. Instead, it calls on Indian consular officials operating in the U.S. and Canada to work in cooperation with India’s Research and Analysis Wing, a foreign intelligence agency; the National Investigation Agency, a counterterror police force; and the Intelligence Bureau, an internal security agency akin to the FBI. Aside from Nijjar, a number of people accused in the document of having ties with BKI are believed to be based in Pakistan or currently incarcerated in India.

The Indian government did not respond to a request for comment. While the U.S. and Canada have both now charged India with orchestrating assassinations against Sikhs in the West, the secret document obtained by The Intercept is the first public evidence showing that the Indian government was targeting these specific Sikh diaspora organizations and dissidents.

Those involved in Sikh diaspora advocacy said that the Indian government frequently characterizes any political activity by Sikh separatist organizations as militant or extremist in nature.

“The Indian government and media consistently aim to manufacture a narrative that describes any type of political advocacy for Khalistan or Sikh sovereignty as ‘Sikh extremism’ as a pretext to justify a repressive security-based response,” said Prabjot Singh, an activist and editor of the Panth-Punjab Project, a digital platform focusing on Sikh politics and sociopolitical issues. “It’s important to recognize that this is a strategy that India employs in Punjab to justify crackdowns on Sikh political organizing, while misusing diplomatic resources abroad to try and enlist other countries as partners in this effort.”

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7000-YEAR-OLD PERISHABLE ARTIFACTS PRESERVED BY ICE ARE REVEALED IN ANCIENT VOLCANIC LANDSCAPE

Archaeologists say an undiscovered trove of ancient, perishable artifacts has been revealed by the thawing of ice in northern British Columbia, Canada, according to new research.

The discovery of the ancient tools, some from as early as 7000 years ago, is unique, given that many are composed of materials that otherwise would not have been preserved in warmer climates.

From crude containers made from tree bark and animal hide to ice picks and hand axes made from bone and obsidian, the discoveries were made near Canada’s Mount Edziza Provincial Park in 2019, based on a study published earlier this year.

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