Breakenridge: Premier in lockstep with U.S. 'failure of policy and science'
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As parts of the U.S. — much like Alberta — continue to grapple with measles outbreaks, the American Health and Human Services secretary has been making some unfortunate statements about the measles vaccine.
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Although Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tepidly endorsed the vaccine earlier this year, he more recently claimed that vaccine-induced immunity is short-lived and that the vaccine hadn't been 'safety-tested' — both of which are untrue. This is the same man who previously falsely claimed that the polio vaccine had killed more people than polio itself.
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The same man, now the agency's secretary, has fostered chaos and uncertainty around vaccines by abruptly firing the entire vaccine advisory panel at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
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It is dismaying to see what is unfolding south of the border, but it is alarming to see Alberta's government taking its cue on these matters from this administration. I don't think the premier has jumped on the 51st state bandwagon, but it's unclear why we're deferring to the Americans on any issue.
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In a late Friday afternoon news dump last week, the Alberta government abruptly announced a massive overhaul of the administration of COVID-19 vaccines.
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Essentially, it means that Albertans who are not immunocompromised or who do not receive certain provincial social benefits will have to pay out-of-pocket for the vaccine. Accessing the vaccine will be more difficult, as it will only be offered in public health clinics.
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The government claims it is 'committed to ensuring Albertans who are at highest risk' still have access to vaccines. However, that does not include pregnant women nor does it include those who work in health-care settings. It should be noted that the standing guidance from Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommends a vaccine for at-risk groups, including both pregnant women and health-care workers.
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But apparently, Alberta's government is more interested in RFK's guidance than NACI's. Friday's news release notes that 'recently, the Federal Drug Administration in the United States stopped recommending routine COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children.' There is no mention of any standing recommendations from any Canadian bodies or officials.
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It could be a coincidence, but it's interesting to note that the executive director of the premier's office has previously praised Kennedy, saying it's 'hard not to cheer for this man' and that he 'seems to possess great character.'
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Vancouver Sun
an hour ago
- Vancouver Sun
Security and defence high on the agenda as Mark Carney attends EU and NATO summits
Prime Minister Mark Carney departed for Europe on Sunday for back-to-back summits where he is expected to make major commitments for Canada on security and defence. Carney will be joined by Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, Defence Minister David McGuinty and secretary of state for defence procurement Stephen Fuhr at the EU and NATO summits, where military procurement and diversifying supply chains will top the agendas. The international meetings come as Canada looks to reduce its defence procurement reliance on the United States due to strained relations over tariffs and President Donald Trump's repeated talk about Canada becoming a U.S. state. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Carney will fly first to Brussels, Belgium, starting the trip with a visit to the Antwerp Schoonselhof Military Cemetery where 348 Canadian soldiers are buried. He will also meet with Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. At the EU-Canada summit, Anand and McGuinty are expected to sign a security and defence agreement with the EU in what one European official described Friday as one of the most ambitious deals Europe has ever signed with a third country. The agreement will open the door to Canada's participation in the ReArm Europe initiative, allowing Canada to access a 150-billion-euro loan program for defence procurement, called Security Action for Europe. An EU official briefing reporters on Friday said once the procurement deal is in place, Canada will have to negotiate a bilateral agreement with the European Commission to begin discussions with member states about procurement opportunities. A Canadian official briefing reporters on the summit Saturday said the initial agreement will allow for Canada's participation in some joint procurement projects. However, a second agreement will be needed to allow Canadian companies to bid. At the EU-Canada summit, leaders are also expected to issue a joint statement to underscore a willingness for continued pressure on Russia, including through further sanctions, and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. After Brussels, Carney heads to The Hague in the Netherlands for the NATO leaders' summit on Tuesday and Wednesday. There, Carney will meet with the King of the Netherlands and later with leaders of Nordic nations to discuss Arctic and transatlantic security. At the NATO summit, Carney will take part in bilateral meetings with other leaders. The summit agenda includes a social dinner hosted by the king and queen of the Netherlands and a two-and-a-half-hour meeting of the North Atlantic Council. NATO allies are expected to debate a plan to hike alliance members' defence spending target to five per cent of national GDP. NATO data shows that in 2024, none of its 32 members spent that much. The Canadian government official who briefed reporters on background says the spending target and its timeline are still up for discussion, though some allies have indicated they would prefer a seven-year timeline while others favour a decade. Canada hasn't hit a five-per-cent defence spending threshold since the 1950s and hasn't reached the two per cent mark since the late 1980s. NATO says that, based on its estimate of which expenditures count toward the target, Canada spent $41 billion in 2024 on defence, or 1.37 per cent of GDP. That's more than twice what it spent in 2014, when the two per cent target was first set; that year, Canada spent $20.1 billion, or 1.01 per cent of GDP, on defence. In 2014, only three NATO members achieved the two per cent target — the U.S., the U.K., and Greece. In 2025, all members are expected to hit it. Any agreement to adopt a new spending benchmark must be ratified by all 32 NATO member states. Former Canadian ambassador to NATO Kerry Buck told The Canadian Press the condensed agenda is likely meant to 'avoid public rifts among allies,' describing Trump as an 'uncertainty engine.' 'The national security environment has really, really shifted,' Buck said, adding allies next door to Russia face the greatest threats. 'There is a high risk that the U.S. would undercut NATO at a time where all allies are increasingly vulnerable.' Trump has suggested the U.S. might abandon its mutual defence commitment to the alliance if member countries don't ramp up defence spending. 'Whatever we can do to get through this NATO summit with few public rifts between the U.S. and other allies on anything, and satisfy a very long-standing U.S. demand to rebalance defence spending, that will be good for Canada because NATO's good for Canada,' Buck said. Carney has already made two trips to Europe this year — the first to London and Paris to meet with European allies and the second to Rome to attend the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .
Global News
an hour ago
- Global News
Undocumented students push for right to education, but Alberta noncommittal
Ariana Zapata's favourite subject in school is social studies. For the 13-year-old in Edmonton, this means lessons on historical societies, colonialism, how worldviews are developed and so on. The eighth grader's own worldview is still being built, but she has pillars in place: family, fight for what you believe in, don't be too trusting and, critically, education is a right. That's why, when Zapata gets home from school every day, she passes on what she learned to her three younger siblings. 'That way when they go back to school, they won't feel behind,' she said in a recent interview. School bells haven't applied to her brother and sisters in two years. They were kicked out of school when officials realized they were undocumented. Story continues below advertisement Zapata is undocumented, too, but said her school hasn't figured that out yet. Alberta isn't unique in denying children without legal residency status from attending public school. 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'It's not a privilege, it's a right,' said Vaux, with the Islamic Family and Social Services Association. 'The more those children are kept out of school, the more harmful it is not only to them, (but) to their family, the community, even our society.' Story continues below advertisement There's no dependable estimate for how many undocumented people live in Canada. A briefing note prepared for former federal immigration minister Marc Miller last year said there could be as many as 500,000. Zapata's family came to Canada from Mexico a few years ago and applied for refugee status. All four Zapata children attended school for two years while the family's application was being processed. But when it was denied, so too was their right to attend publicly funded schools. The family decided it wasn't safe to return to Mexico and has stayed in Canada without documentation. Zapata said she feels the need to watch her back on the way to school, given the precariousness of her situation. 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Canada News.Net
an hour ago
- Canada News.Net
4 reasons to be concerned about Bill C-4's threats to Canadian privacy and sovereignty
In Canada, federal political parties are not governed by basic standards of federal privacy law. If passed, Bill C-4, also known as the Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act, would also make provincial and territorial privacy laws inapplicable to federal political parties, with no adequate federal law in place. Federal legislation in the form of the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act sets out privacy standards for government and business, based on the fair information principles that provide for the collection, use and disclosure of Canadians' personal information. At the moment, these laws don't apply to political parties. Some provinces - especially British Columbia - have implemented laws that do. In May 2024, the B.C. Supreme Court upheld the provincial Information Commissioner's ruling that B.C.'s privacy legislation applies to federal political parties. That decision is currently under appeal. Bill C-4 would undermine those B.C. rights. It would make inapplicable to federal parties the standard privacy rights that apply in other business and government contexts- such as the right to consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information - and to access and correct personal information held by organizations. Why should we be concerned about Bill C-4's erasure of these privacy protections for Canadians? There are four reasons: In light of threats to Canadian sovereignty by United States President Donald Trump, the Canadian government and Canadian politicians must rethink their approach to digital sovereignty. Until now, Canadian parties and governments have been content to use American platforms, data companies and datified campaign tactics. Bill C-4 would leave federal parties free to do more of the same. This is the opposite of what's needed. The politics that resulted in Trump being elected twice to the Oval Office was spurred in part by the datafied campaigning of Cambridge Analytica in 2016 and Elon Musk in 2024. These politics are driven by micro-targeted and arguably manipulative political campaigns. Do Canadians want Canada to go in the same direction? Bill C-4 would undermine one of the mechanisms that makes Canada a society: collective political decisions. Datified campaigning and the collection of personal information by political parties change the nature of democracy. Rather than appealing to political values or visions of what voters may want in the future or as a society - critically important at this historical and troubling moment in history - datified campaigning operates by experimenting on unwitting individual citizens who are alone on their phones and computers. It operates by testing their isolated opinions and unvarnished behaviours. For example, a political campaign might do what's known as A/B testing of ads, which explores whether ad A or ad B is more successful by issuing two different versions of an ad to determine which one gets more clicks, shares, petition signatures, donations or other measurable behaviour. With this knowledge, a campaign or party can manipulate the ads through multiple versions to get the desired behaviour and result. They also learn about ad audiences for future targeting. In other words, political parties engaging in this tactic aren't engaging with Canadians - they're experimenting on them to see what type of messages, or even what colour schemes or visuals, appeal most. This can be used to shape the campaign or just the determine the style of follow-up messaging to particular users. University researchers, to name just one example, are bound by strict ethical protocols and approvals, including the principle that participants should consent to the collection of personal information, and to participation in experiments and studies. Political parties have no such standards, despite the high stakes - the very future of democracy and society. Most citizens think of elections as being about deliberation and collectively deciding what kind of society they want to live in and what kind of future they want to have together as they decide how to cast their ballots. But with datified campaigning, citizens may not be aware of the political significance of their online actions. Their data trail might cause them to be included, or excluded, from a party's future campaigning and door-knocking, for example. The process isn't deliberative, thoughtful or collective. Political parties collect highly personal data about Canadians without their knowledge or consent. Most Canadians are not aware of the extent of the collection by political parties and the range of data they collect, which can include political views, ethnicity, income, religion or online activities, social media IDs, observations of door-knockers and more. If asked, most Canadians would not consent to the range of data collection by parties. Some governments can and do use data to punish individuals politically and criminally, sometimes without the protection of the rule of law. Breaches and misuses of data, cybersecurity experts say, are no longer a question of "if," but "when." Worse, what would happen if the wall between political parties and politicians or government broke down and the personal information collected by parties became available to governments? What if the data were used for political purposes, such as for vetting people for political appointments or government benefits? What if it were used against civil servants? What if it were to be used at the border, or passed to other governments? What if it were passed to and used by authoritarian governments to harass and punish citizens? What if it was passed to tech companies and further to data brokers? OpenMedia recently revealed that Canadians' data is being passed to the many different data companies political parties use. That data is not necessarily housed in Canada or by Canadian companies. If provincial law is undermined, there are few protections against any of these problems. Bill C-4 would erase the possibility of provincial and territorial privacy laws being applied to federal political parties, with virtually nothing remaining. Privacy protection promotes confidence and engagement with democratic processes - particularly online. Erasing privacy protections threatens this confidence and engagement. The current approach of federal political parties in terms of datified campaigning and privacy law is entirely wrong for this political moment, dangerous to Canadians and dangerous to democracy. Reforms should instead ensure federal political parties must adhere to the same standards as businesses and all levels of government. Data privacy is important everywhere, but particularly so for political parties, campaigns and democratic engagement. It is important at all times - particularly now.
