The Northern Gateway debacle: a national conversation turned sour

At the World Economic Forum last week, Prime Minister Harper said that it is a “national priority” for Canada to begin diversifying our trade relationships, i.e. begin exporting oil to thirsty Asian markets. Along with chastising Europe for their egregious financial management and evangelizing about free trade, the underlying message of his bravado was synopsized [...]

More questions than answers surround new biometric passports

New biometric Canadian passports are expected to arrive in 2011, but at this point, there remain more questions than answers surrounding the new high-tech travel documents. During the Speech from the Throne on March 3, the Conservative government repeated its intent to revive the development of . The new passports will include a microchip implanted [...]

Crossing the border 101

Known as the longest undefended border in the world, the frontier between Canada and U.S. is becoming more of a headache to get across these days. Many Canadians spend time on both sides of the border, and for many of them, getting back and forth isn’t what it used to be. Brynne Morrice is one [...]

Afghan detainee scandal could strain Canada-U.S. military ties

An Ottawa law professor claims to have discovered unredacted documents pointing towards Canadian military wrongdoing. While digging deeper into the Afghan detainee controversy, Amir Attaran says that he found government documents that revealed that Canadian officials had requested that their former prisoners be tortured by their Afghan handlers. If what Attaran is claiming turns out [...]

Fewer day trippers crossing the Canada-U.S. border

Canadians and Americans are spending less time — and less money — in each other’s countries. David Jacobson, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, recently said that cross-border travel is now faster than it was before 9/11. Despite the decreased wait times it seems that people are staying closer to home. In 1999, more than 9.6 million [...]

Tightened security closes door on airport employment

You know the drill. Place your carry-on luggage and jacket in the bin to be scanned. Take any metal objects out of your pockets and walk through the detector. Arms out to your sides. And security wants to look through your laptop bag. You’ve repeated it every time you’ve boarded a flight for as long [...]

A predator's playground

After recently falling behind Facebook in terms of users and page views, MySpace‘s reputation has taken another hit. This week they released the names of over 90,000 registered sex offenders who had profiles on their website.  Ouch. They were subpoenaed to disclose this information after a report put out in January by the Internet Safety [...]

Civic parties pressed on police funding

Vancouver’s main civic parties agree more police are needed in the city, but just days away from Saturday’s election, it’s not clear either will find funds in the city budget for the additional officers the Vancouver Police Department says they require for the 2010 Oympics. Non-Partisan Association (NPA) mayoral candidate Peter Ladner stated in early [...]

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