streetfestival

July 21, 2025 – Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada

The Foreign Ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the European Union Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, today issued the following statement:

“We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.

“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.

“The hostages cruelly held captive by Hamas since 7 October 2023 continue to suffer terribly. We condemn their continued detention and call for their immediate and unconditional release. A negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home and ending the agony of their families.

“We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life-saving work safely and effectively.

“We call on all parties to protect civilians and uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law. Proposals to remove the Palestinian population into a ‘humanitarian city’ are completely unacceptable. Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law.

“We strongly oppose any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The E1 settlement plan announced by Israel’s Civil Administration, if implemented, would divide a future Palestinian state in two, marking a flagrant breach of international law, and critically undermine the two-state solution. Meanwhile, settlement building across the West Bank and East Jerusalem has accelerated while settler violence against Palestinians has soared. This must stop.

“We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Further bloodshed serves no purpose. We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to achieve this.

“We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.”

This statement has been signed by:

• The Foreign Ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK
• The EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management

It’s been two decades since the government of Canada passed the Civil Marriage Act — an official nod to approve same-sex marriage in the country.

The act passed July 20, 2005, following the Supreme Court of Canada upholding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 2003.

Not too many news outlets carrying this story. I can't say I'd heard of Simcoe.com before - but good on them for covering it. Given the surging rise in bigotry around the globe these days, Canada becoming the 4th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage 20 years ago yesterday is something I'm proud of

But Paramount’s future aside, the end of Colbert signals a dark new chapter in Trump’s authoritarian slide. Though his second term has already produced a string of stunning capitulations by some of the most powerful forces in the country, one could argue that Trump’s attacks had yet to take down our actual culture. I’m talking about the literal content we consume—the television, art, movies, literature, music—no matter how much Trump complained. That it remained protected and free-willed, a rare area of control for a public that otherwise feels powerless to take action. Clearly, that was magical thinking. If this can happen to Colbert and a storied franchise, this can happen to anyone.

The only upside is that Colbert will soon be free to go scorched earth against a president he detests. Every other network stands to gain enormously right now. Here’s to hoping a spine emerges.

Attendees at the first stop of Premier Danielle Smith’s travelling “Alberta Next” roadshow in Red Deer were overwhelmingly supportive of her series of proposals to enhance Alberta’s autonomy.

This is likely due to the fact that free tickets for the event were released to UCP members before the general public, a source who holds a UCP membership confirmed to the Progress Report.

In June, Premier Smith announced a 14-person panel that would solicit Albertans’ input on six policy areas—equalization, a provincial pension plan, a provincial police force, withholding social services from some immigrants, constitutional reform and forgoing the Canada Revenue Agency. In the following days, the panel was expanded by two members, bringing the total to 16.

The town halls are divided into each policy area, with attendees shown a five-minute video before they were given the opportunity to line up and provide feedback on each issue. These videos, which have been criticized as “heavily biased,” are the same ones participants in the province’s online survey have to view before answering questions, which are themselves leading.

Nine months after the Pharmacare Act (C-64) received Royal Assent on October 10, 2024 , just four provinces and territories have signed bilateral agreements with the federal government. Those agreements are valued at $928 million over four years starting in 2026.

The Pharmacare Act is meant to provide universal access to Diabetes medication and contraceptives, making those pharmaceuticals free at the point of access for people covered by public health insurance. In order to implement that vision, the federal government needs to sign funding agreements with the provinces, who are responsible for administering health plans.

With so few jurisdictions enrolled in pharmacare, four out of five Canadians are not benefiting from the program. The gap is leaving a patchwork of coverage across the country.

Trump-aligned congresspeople aren’t spreading wildfire disinformation in a vacuum; American social media giants are enabling a haze of conspiracy theories and misinformation about the wildfires ravaging Canadian forests, and are disguising the fossil fuel industry's role in the crisis, researchers have found.

Link above is to CAAD's (Climate Action Against Disinformation) - Briefing: Canadian Wildfire Disinformation June 2025

ALT text: There's a figure in the post body taken from the Angus Reid poll link. It's a clustered bar graph outlining Canadians' preference for the government to take a "soft" versus "hard" approach in trade negotiations with Trump, given their vote in the 2025 federal election. Amongst Liberal, NDP, and Bloc voters 76-78% favour a "hard" approach with Trump, compared to only 46% of Conservative voters

Week 7 schedule

• Thurs, July 17^th^ - 7:30 PM ET - Argonauts (1-4) @ Allouettes (3-2)
• Fri, July 18^th^ - 8:30 PM ET - Stampeders (4-1) @ Blue Bombers (3-1)
• Sat, July 19^th^ - 7:00 PM ET - Roughriders (4-1) @ Lions (3-3)
• Sun, July 20^th^ - 7:00 PM ET - Tiger-Cats (3-2) @ Redblacks (1-5)

Other notes

• Off-week: Elks (1-4)

Feel free to use this thread to discuss this week’s games or anything else going on in Canadian Football!

The world crossed the threshold into a dangerous new epoch on May 23, 2001, with the Chisolm wildfire in Alberta. The conflagration released such ferocious power in such a short amount of time that its intensity was picked up by American military monitoring. They were convinced that Canada had just detonated a nuclear warhead.

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The phrase we've heard again and again about the Texas disaster is that "no one saw it coming." But even if they had, they would not have believed it.

The Guadalupe River was swamped by a staggering 1.8 trillion gallons of rain. This forced water levels to rise 26 feet in just 45 minutes.

There was no outrunning the flood. There was no climbing onto a second-story roof.

And despite the hopeful but false story that some young girls found sanctuary in a tree, the campers never had a chance. Twenty-six feet of water is the equivalent of an inland tsunami.

This is the new face of climate floods.

“We’re going to create space for our animals, we’re going to create space for our winged creatures, our plant life and everything else that flows,” [Westbank First Nation Councillor Jordan Coble] said. “We’re committing to that, right here, right now.”

On Wednesday, the B.C. and federal governments announced $8.3 million to support stewardship of ecological corridors in the province, including a long-standing effort to protect a key wildlife corridor in the Okanagan.

For several years, the B.C. and federal governments have been working with Indigenous Nations and conservation groups towards protecting at least 30 per cent of land and waters by 2030 — a commitment Canada made alongside 196 other countries at the global biodiversity conference in Montreal in 2022.