Canada

• Sunil Johal | Professor in Public Policy and Society, University of Toronto

Oh, we're going to do this again? We're going to try to pass the same unconditional laws that Stephen Harper tried to pass then spent years and tens of millions of dollars defending all the way to the Supreme Court only to lose because everyone, including Harper, knew from the very beginning that they were unconstitutional?

Just fucking great. Can we not? Can you just roll your neo-fascist lack-of-virtue signalling into a cylinder and shove it up your fucking at instead?

The bankruptcy of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) is often framed as the fall of “Canada’s oldest company.” Media narratives typically treat HBC as if it were a straightforward retail firm, albeit one with an exceptionally long history.

But HBC was always more than a hinterland mercantile fur trader in earlier centuries, just as it was more than a department store anchoring downtown shopping in the 20th century.

Like the beaver it nearly wiped out, HBC made Canada into its home by fundamentally transforming its environment, and no bankruptcy court will liquidate that legacy. Still, that legacy is more complex than many might assume.

• Heather Whiteside | Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo

A Canadian legal association under fire for cancelling a Syrian Canadian entrepreneur's upcoming speech over his stance on Gaza says it will cancel the event altogether.

The move comes after mounting calls for the organization to cancel its upcoming event in June, where Tareq Hadhad was set to speak, with many members ending their memberships over what they saw as an encroachment on diverse thought and freedom of speech. Past TAS president Marie Henein, Danielle Robitaille, Arleen Huggins and Megan Savard were among those who withdrew from the organization in the wake of the move.

At least two high-ranking members of the organization also resigned from the group's executive and board of directors over the decision: Sheree Conlon, who was set to be the group's incoming president, and Sheila Gibb, its treasurer.

Both said Hadhad was unfairly being held to a standard that others were not after complaints were filed to TAS over his characterization online of Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide, without apparent condemnation of Hamas or postings on hostages taken after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Actual head counts differ greatly from the claims of the parties. Conservatives claimed 15 000 at Edmonton but it was actually 1558. Liberals claimed 2 000 in Richmond but it was actually 800.

Bar organizations are warning Ottawa that a new penalty regime to be applied to legal professionals — featuring penalties of up to $1.5 million for immigration and refugee lawyers determined by federal officials to have participated in clients’ misrepresentations — will be constitutionally challenged if lawyers are not exempted from the proposed regulations, which are expected to come into force later this year.

The proposed regulations prohibit a legal professional, who represents or advises someone for payment, from misrepresenting or withholding information, advising them to misrepresent or withhold information, or communicating misleading information.

The new administrative penalties regime would apply to the country’s approximately 12,000 immigration consultants and to all immigration lawyers.

The Canadian Bar Association, the law societies of Ontario, B.C. and Newfoundland and Labrador, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA), and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL) wrote to Immigration Canada objecting to applying the proposed penalty regime to legal professionals.

The Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association says “the proposed regulations would be unconstitutional and illegal in their application to lawyers.”.

The baseline penalties for the two types of violations are significant: $15,000 for misrepresentation and $5,000 for representation or advice without authorization.

Consequences for those found to have violated the regulations would include Immigration Canada publishing on its website their names and business information, as well as the nature of the violation(s) and the penalties imposed

https://www.law360.ca/ca/articles/2322169/constitutional-clash-brewing-as-ottawa-targets-immigration-bar-with-up-to-1-5-million-in-admin-penalties

A vial of insulin costs far more in the U.S. than it does in Canada.

Drug prices are set by Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board which sets price caps by comparing drug prices across a group of 11 countries. The US used to be included in the formula, but was removed from the group in 2022 — because US drug prices are an insane global outlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patented_Medicine_Prices_Review_Board

A group of Pharma companies including Pfizer and Merck have asked the Trump administration to put pressure on Canada. They are accusing the country of unfair trade practices.

Chinese billionaire living in B.C. has announced on social media her plans to buy the chain. She says she wants to restore it to its former glory.