Restriction of Movement/Activity
A federal labour board has agreed to hear the case of a government employee denied a waiver from the vaccine mandate on religious grounds. Data show the overwhelming majority of requests for religious exemptions were denied, often with no reason given.
“The grievance is neither trivial nor vexatious,” wrote Marie-Claude Perrault, an adjudicator with the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board. No date for the hearing was set.
Jennifer Squires, a senior financial services advisor with Parks Canada, sought a religious exemption under the agency’s 2021 Policy On Covid-19 Vaccination. Squires was denied and suspended without pay.
Squires’ union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, formally requested a hearing on whether cursory dismissal of her request was unfair. “The remedies she seeks relate to a grave injustice to her,” the Board was told.
Cabinet on November 15, 2021 ordered that federal employees show proof of vaccination under threat of suspension or prove valid reasons for an exemption. At least 2,560 were suspended without pay, by official estimate.
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Read MoreParliament must change federal law to permit police, postal inspectors or First Nations constables to open letters in transit, says one of the nation’s largest Indigenous groups. Letter mail is a leading source of narcotics, says the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
“The Assembly is aware opioids and other forms of contraband can be transported through the postal service due to a legislative gap that prevents police from lawfully obtaining judicial authorization to search and seize packages sent through Canada Post,” the Assembly wrote in a submission to the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee.
“Organized criminal groups can exploit this gap with high profitability and relatively low risk and effort especially in northern communities where postal shipments have become the most common method of distribution for illegal substances,” said the Assembly.
The group represents First Nations who comprise more than a tenth of Manitoba’s population, some 151,000 people, it said. Drugs by mail have had “devastating effects” in remote hamlets, wrote the Assembly.
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Read MoreThe House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Bank of America (BoA) CEO Brian Moynihan requiring documents and communications surrounding the bank’s decision to provide the FBI with their customers’ private banking information “voluntarily and without any legal process.”
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Chairman Thomas Massie (R-KY) sent a letter to Bank of America after FBI whistleblowers testified that the bank provided a list of anyone who used their services in the Washington, DC, area regardless of whether or not they participated in the January 6 protests.
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Read MoreMedicine Hat, AB, resident Jeremy Williamson said he’s happy to be with his wife, Joicy, after she was able to get out of the conflict zone in Churachandpur, Manipur.
“It’s been the strangest year of my life I would say,” said Williamson in a Wednesday interview.
“I wouldn’t want to have to go through it again, and I can’t imagine what other families are going through knowing they have family in Manipur.”
Jeremy said on May 5 he was attempting to bring Joicy and her mother out of Churachandpur amid violence taking place in the area.
He expressed disappointment in Global Affairs Canada. At first, it was nice, but officials offered dangerous advice.
Global Affairs encouraged her to contact police, but it was corrupt and was not acting in people’s best interests. He said he “had US senators that were willing to send in a team to rescue my wife, but my own government didn’t care.”
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Read MoreEarlier this week, the WHO warned that a new pandemic is imminent, though COVID still remains a deadly threat. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made his fear-mongering comments during a speech on Thursday at the 76th World Health Assembly.
On Monday, Ghebreyesus spoke just before Dr. Abdullah Assiri from Saudi Arabia. Assiri is the Co-chair on the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (WGIHR).
“The world however requires a different level of legal mandates such as the Pandemic Treaty, to navigate through a particular pandemic, should one occur, and it will,” said Assiri.
“Prioritizing actions that may restrict individual liberties; mandating and sharing of information; knowledge and resources; and most importantly, providing funds for pandemic control efforts, are all necessary during a pandemic.”
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Read MoreThe German Advisory Council on the Environment is a body of experts convened by the Federal Republic of Germany to advise the state on matters of environmental policy. I’m grateful to @tomdabassman on Twitter for drawing attention to its recent and deeply creepy 200-page report on ‘The obligation of policymakers: facilitating environmentally friendly behaviour‘. It abounds in remarkable and revealing statement, and I’ve spent a good part of the day studying it for a longer post that I hope to write in the coming weeks.
For now, I want to draw your attention to the introduction, which is bad enough. Its authors depart from the premise that the state currently lacks “policy measures… targeting environmentally relevant behaviour”, and join others in affirming that it is the job of the state to nudge individual decisions in the right direction. Tellingly, both the pandemic and the sanctions-induced European energy crisis play a very large role in their thinking:
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Read MoreThe carbon footprint of private jets in the UK is on a par with 200,000 people taking a return flight to Hong Kong, according to a government-commissioned report calling for the number of flights to be halved.
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Read MoreSadiq Khan admitted some low-traffic neighbourhoods in London ‘aren’t perfect’ and may need removing today amid a backlash against the controversial schemes.
The London mayor conceded councils might need to ‘tweak’ LTNs or scrap them – but he defended efforts to reduce congestion and pollution.
The Government pursued a growth of LTNs in the wake of the Covid pandemic in 2020 as it sought to encourage more people to walk or cycle in towns and cities.
But they have proved unpopular with drivers and residents, with many instances of road bollards being vandalised, for forcing them away from their usual routes.
There are concerns that LTNs have merely moved congestion and pollution to other roads.
Ministers have also been accused of ‘greenwashing’ by campaigners after it was revealed the Department for Transport (DfT) could give no evidence that LTNs reduce the number of miles driven.
Sadiq Khan admitted some low-traffic neighbourhoods in London ‘aren’t perfect’ and may need removing amid a backlash against the controversial schemes
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Sadiq Khan admitted some low-traffic neighbourhoods in London ‘aren’t perfect’ and may need removing amid a backlash against the controversial schemes
The Government pursued a growth of LTNs in the wake of the Covid pandemic in 2020 as it sought to encourage more people to walk or cycle in towns and cities
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View gallery
The Government pursued a growth of LTNs in the wake of the Covid pandemic in 2020 as it sought to encourage more people to walk or cycle in towns and cities
But LTNs have proved unpopular with drivers and local residents. There are concerns they have merely moved congestion from some parts of towns and cities to other roads
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View gallery
But LTNs have proved unpopular with drivers and local residents. There are concerns they have merely moved congestion from some parts of towns and cities to other roads
More than a quarter of LTNs in Britain have already been scrapped
More than a quarter of LTNs have been scrapped since being installed after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, an analysis has shown.
The i newspaper reported it had asked regional transport authorities and local councils in Britain’s main urban areas to provide data on the number of experimental LTNs installed – and scrapped – since March 2020.
The responses, received last year, covered 105 local authorities and showed that in these areas 189 LTNs were installed since March 2020 and 52 (28 per cent) have since been removed.
An official told The Times that no studies on the effect on distance travelled had been requested because ‘LTNs don’t exist to reduce miles driven’.
Clair Battaglino of Social and Environmental Justice, which campaigns against LTNs, said: ‘Until we see better evidence, claims that LTNs are good for the planet are just greenwashing.’
Mr Khan offered a staunch defence of local councils’ action to introduce congestion and pollution-cutting measures as he was quizzed about claims LTNs aren’t beneficial for the environment.
But the London mayor admitted the establishment of LTNs in London had not been entirely successful.
‘This is an issue of the environment and also health and also the economy,’ Mr Khan told Sky News.
‘Congestion is bad for the economy, carbon emissions are bad for the climate and particulate matter and nitrogen oxide is bad for health.
‘By councils – not me, not civil servants in Whitehall, not Rishi Sunak – by councils deciding where the LTNs are, you have successful LTNs.
‘Some LTNs aren’t perfect, some LTNs need amending, some may need taking out.
‘So what I’m saying is, councils should be in charge of what happens in their communities.
‘If an LTN isn’t perfect, they’ll tweak it, they’ll amend it, they’ll remove it. Because, obviously, they want to make sure an LTN is successful.
‘This about devolving powers and resources to local decision makers who will make the right choice in relation to the environment, in relation to health, and in relation to the economy.’
READ MORE: Labour-run Southwark council scraps plan for SIXTH low traffic neighbourhood after being bombarded with furious backlash
Mr Khan pointed to evidence that LTNs in areas such as Lambeth,
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Read MoreSomething has changed.
With Uber’s announcement this week that it is now permitting teenagers to open Uber accounts, we have to guess that either teenagers have changed in the decade since Uber launched, or Uber has changed. I am guessing it’s Uber.
At its May 17th “Go-Get Family Style” launch event, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stressed the company’s safety features which include dialling 911 in case of emergency (although, Uber’s Terms explain “In the event that you need to place a 911 emergency call on behalf of your teen, the dispatcher you’re connected with will see your location, not your teen’s.” How would that help?)
As a parent and a consumer, the sheer number of sexual assaults by Uber drivers in Canada and around the globe set alarm bells ringing.
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Read MoreFree to Fly Canada has filed a proposed class action lawsuit on behalf of aviation employees harmed by the federal government’s vaccine mandates. According to the lawsuit, Transport Canada’s vaccine mandate harmed unvaccinated employees through termination, suspension, and “coerced early retirement.” Greg Hill of Free to Fly Canada, one of the representative plaintiffs in the lawsuits, joins True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss.
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