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With the new free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia, the flower markets in Ontario and British Columbia are being threatened by imports of Colombian flowers. Capital News talks to professionals in both countries to find out more about the challenges they are facing with Valentine's Day on the horizon.
By Laura Gamez
Producer Komal Minhas
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Proposed amendments to the current Controlled Drugs and Substances Act would mean stricter mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, including sexual assaults using "date-rape drugs." But opposition members say using the same penalties for marijuana and cocaine isn't an effective tactic.
By Safiya Ibrahim
Producer Elyse Skura
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Restaurant owners are optimistic the new Red Tape Reduction Commission will make their lives a little easier.
By Brock Smith
Producer Clara McWatters
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As many as 45,000 Canadians could apply for native status - a right they've been denied since 1985 - when Bill C-3 comes into effect this month. What will this mean for the many strained First Nations communities in Canada?
By Sabrina Jade Doyle
Producer Tanya Springer
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We get to the bottom of carbon capture and storage in Canada. Kayla Tishcoff talks to two CCS experts to figure out if burying the problem is the best solution to reduce Canada's carbon footprint.
By Kayla Tishcoff
Producer Paul Moore
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Governments are turning to the Apple's iPad to cut down on their printing and paper costs.
By Sophall Duch
Producer Andrea Ozretic
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According to the United Nations, Ontario is violating the human rights of its 100,000 agricultural workers by preventing them from unionizing. Family farmers say unions would be a disaster for them. Now it's a countdown until a Supreme Court ruling settles the matter.
By Calli Forbes
Producer Rebecca Ryall
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The Coast Guard wants to remove the last remaining lightkeepers from Canadian lighthouses, but a Senate committee report says that may not be in the best interest of the public.
By Ainslie Cruickshank
Producer Mac Radburn
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What's the best way to interpret complex crime statistics? Canadians of different political stripes just can't agree. Capital News Online offers some insights into the latest spat over crime trends.
By Sol Israel
Producer Sol Israel
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Capital News talks to two farmers as they prepare for the start of maple syrup season. They provide an in-depth look to the sap industry.
By Clara McWatters
Producer Matthew Di Nicolantonio
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A new program through Nunavut Arctic College and the international University of the Arctic allows students in remote Northern communities to take online courses for the first time. But students in these communities still face barriers of access that need to be overcome.
By Elyse Skura
Producer Katie Griffin
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Across the country, school boards are making difficult decisions about how to accommodate religious appeals. Because there is no federal or provincial policy on how schools should accommodate multi-faith students, each decision must be made on an intimate community level. Often the process is time-consuming and creates controversy, but accommodation is part of Canada's unique multicultural identity.
By Tanya Springer
Producer Meghan Sali
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As global warming melts the Arctic ice, tensions around the region are heating up. Canada is just preparing to show its claims on the oil-rich region, but Russia is jumping ahead in its efforts to dominate the Arctic's vast resources.
What do Canada and Russia have in common?
A giant size, cold winters and the Arctic, but of those, according to a recent poll, it is the Arctic that matters most to Canadians. The majority listed military security in the Arctic as a top national priority, according to an EKOS poll released in late January.
What is different between the two giant northern neighbours? Their approach to the Arctic.
While Canada is still contemplating what to do with its chunk of the region, Russia is more aggressive in its northern policy.
The country adopted its official Arctic doctrine, with a year-by-year plan for future development in the region, in 2008.
Militarization takes up a large part of the document, calling for the creation of new border control stations and military units “that would be able to ensure the country’s security in various geopolitical conditions.” DETAILS
These plans have already started to come true on Dixon and Belyi Islands, as well as on Franz Josef Land, where Russia has started to build new border control stations, Russian presidential Arctic envoy Artur Chilingarov said in an interview to the news portal Severny Flot.
The Russian activity in the Arctic is not surprising, says Robert Huebert, University of Calgary political science professor and an Arctic expert. “By virtue of their geography . . . the Arctic is one of their most critical security environments.”
Canada on a “revised schedule.”
The Canadian response to Russia’s militarization in the Arctic hasn’t been sufficient, says Huebert. “It will become an adequate response when we actually turn around and get the instruments we need for the Arctic surveillance and enforcement.”
In 2007, the Canadian government announced it would build several patrol vessels for the Arctic, and two years later it released Canada’s first Northern Strategy. Foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon made an ambitious Canadian Arctic foreign policy statement last summer, but all this is just talk, say analysts.
“Although we say we’ve made a decision, we haven’t taken any action on building the six to eight Arctic patrol vessels or getting the new icebreaker,” says Huebert.
“There’s a lack of follow-up {by the Canadian government} in terms of equipment investment,” says Michael Byers, University of British Columbia political scientist and Arctic expert. “It seems Harper cares more about…prisons than about the Arctic.”
The promised patrol vessels are a part of the Canada Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship project that is now stalled. No shipbuilding contracts are signed, waiting for the government’s approval of a new shipbuilding policy, says Jocelyn Sweet, a public affairs officer with the Department of National Defence. The estimated delivery date of the first vessel is now 2015.
“We are on schedule. . .On a revised schedule,” says Sweet, adding that the delays are caused by the government’s desire to ensure the quality of the vessels.
Another Cold War?
Meanwhile, the competition for the Arctic resources is picking up. Russia and Canada disagree over Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges, located near the North Pole. Each country is trying to find evidence to be presented to the United Nations that the ridges are extensions of its continental shelf, and, therefore, according to the law of sea, belong to it. “The extended continental shelf gives you the right to claim the soil and subsoil, which in fact means oil and gas,” notes Huebert.
A Russian research ship has recently returned from Lomonosov ridge with, as the scientists from the vessel said in interviews with Russian newspapers, evidence that the ridge belongs to their country. Canadian researchers have been quiet about the ridge since 2008. Originally, both countries planned to present their cases to the UN in 2013, but Russia will try to file the claim in 2012, The Barents Observer reports.
The territorial question and the Russian planes flying near Canadian airspace have raised a bit of Cold War rhetoric in Canada, but the Russian embassy states that the Arctic question is not that serious a dispute between the two countries.
Speaking to students at Carleton University in Ottawa in November, Russian Ambassador Georgiy Mamedov said that Russia and Canada have too much in common to get into a real fight over the Arctic. “Let’s leave{the confrontation} to Conan the Barbarian. We are civilized people – we decided to relegate it to the United Nations.”
There won’t be a return of the Cold War, but there will be a “complexity of competition and cooperation,” concludes Huebert. “Of course we don’t want the return to the Cold War, but it doesn’t mean we can’t get into conflict with the Russians at one point or another.”
Byers says there’s no reason to slip back into the Cold War rhetoric, as the Russians so far play by the international rules. “It looks like the Russians mean what they say,” he adds.
By Evgeniya Kulgina
Producer Kayla Tishcoff
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It is easier than you would think for immigrants anxious to stay in Canada to participate in a marriage of convenience to ensure their resident status.
By Qi Zhai
Producer Saadia Hasan
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As many as 45,000 Canadians could apply for native status - a right they've been denied since 1985 - when Bill C-3 comes into effect this month. What will this mean for the many strained First Nations communities in Canada?
By Sabrina Jade Doyle
Producer Tanya Springer
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An experimental program is studying whether to change the way the homeless are served in Canada. Organizers believe housing is a human right and should be offered as an initial step to those needing support.
By Maureen Lawlor
Producer Laura Marrast
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Canada is home to two thirds of the world's polar bears, but is not the only country that wants a say about the iconic animals. The United States proposed an international trade ban on polar bear products that would have killed the commercial hunts led by Inuit outfitters. The proposal was defeated but the debate about the status of polar bears and how best to protect them continues.
By Nicki Thomas
Producer Carly Pender
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All manner of microbes hitch rides on the interior surfaces of subway cars and buses, spreading communicable disease. But from Ottawa to Vancouver, public transit is being treated with a product that kills 'em dead.
By Geneviève Charest
Producer Alyssa O'Dell
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Drug users who frequent Vancouver's supervised injection site could find its doors closed after the Supreme Court hears the case later this year. The major point of contention? The division of powers between provincial and federal jurisdictions.
By Thandi Fletcher
Producer Toni Petter
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By Elizabeth McSheffrey Producer Ari Altstedter For many, Winterlude means three things: snow slides, ice sculptures and skating. But Ottawa's long-term forecasts predict warmer winters might be the new norm. This has some festival enthusiasts worried that future Winterludes will have a lot less 'winter' in them.
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