A cuppa plastic and talking to strangers; In-The-News for Sept. 26

Scheer is hitting what have historically been among the safest Liberal ridings in Montreal: Mount Royal and Saint-Leonard-Saint-Michel.

Mount Royal has gone for the Liberals in every election since 1940; it was the seat of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s father Pierre for nearly 20 years.

Trudeau starts his day in Sudbury, Ont., expected to continue a string of environment-related announcements at a conservation area, before whistlestopping his way southeast to a rally in Peterborough.

The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh is spending a third day in a row in British Columbia, talking mainly about housing in events on Vancouver Island.

And Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party continues his own trip to the West, spreading his populist message in Calgary after spending Wednesday in Vancouver.

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Also this …

A new finding from federal researchers says Indigenous people are spending fewer nights in homeless shelters than non-Indigenous users.

Researchers warn that this points to more problematic — or even insidious — issues in the country’s housing system.

The study found that no matter the community, Indigenous people were over-represented in emergency shelters.

They make up about 30 per cent of users despite only being about five per cent of the national population.

They stayed more often, but for fewer nights — almost five fewer nights per year, on average — which federal researchers say isn’t “necessarily a positive outcome.”

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ICYMI (In case you missed it) …

WINNIPEG — Manitoba politician who was investigated for showing an assistant a picture of naked women and making inappropriate remarks says he has undergone sensitivity training, has learned his lesson and hopes to move on.

Shortly before the Sept. 10 provincial election, CBC News reported that Wowchuk’s former constituency assistant, who was not named, said the politician made a joke leading her to believe there were animal photos on his cellphone before he showed her a picture of naked women holding chainsaws.

The CBC report said Wowchuk was the subject of an internal investigation that found he violated the legislature’s respectful workplace police on five occasions, including one in which he phoned his assistant while in the bathtub and another where he made comments about her wearing a bikini.

Wowchuk was allowed to remain in the Tory caucus and was re-elected in his Swan River constituency with 68 per cent of votes cast when the Tories won a second consecutive majority mandate.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

Developments in Washington seem to be breathless.

Here’s the latest.

President Donald Trump’s repeated prodding of the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son could amount to an illegal request for a campaign contribution from a foreign citizen.

Trump’s request to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was not for campaign cash, but what’s referred to as an “in kind” contribution that would arguably be of more value — damaging information that could be weaponized against Biden, a potential 2020 rival.

“Is it legal for the president of the United States to ask a foreign country to intervene in our election to help him and investigate his potential opponent? And I think it is clearly illegal,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel to the Federal Election Commission who is a Trump critic.

That’s likely to be among the issues House Democrats focus on as they pursue an impeachment inquiry into efforts by Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Trump has said he did nothing wrong.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

“Have you no shame, prime minister?” said Ian Blackford, the Scottish National Party’s leader in Parliament.

An unrepentant Prime Minister Boris Johnson brushed off cries of “Resign!” and dared his foes to try to topple him at a raucous session of Parliament on Wednesday, a day after Britain’s highest court ruled he acted illegally in suspending the body ahead of the Brexit deadline.

Amid shouts, angry gestures and repeated cries of “Order!” in the House of Commons, Johnson emphatically defended his effort to withdraw Britain from the European Union on Oct. 31, with or without a separation agreement with the EU.

Johnson was greeted with applause from his own Conservative lawmakers and jeers from the opposition side as he faced the Commons, hours after cutting short a trip to the United Nations in New York.

The leader of the main opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said the prime minister is not fit to govern and “should have done the honourable thing and resigned” after the ruling.

He said Johnson “thinks he is above the law” and has shown “no shred of remorse or humility.”

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On this day in 1990 …

The Oka crisis ended when Mohawk Warriors laid down their weapons after a 78-day standoff with Quebec police and Canadian soldiers.

The standoff began July 11 when police raided a barricade set up to protest the expansion of a golf course on land claimed by the Mohawks. By the end, army officials had taken 34 men, 16 women and six children into custody. One police officer was killed.

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Weird and wild …

MONTREAL — A McGill University professor says tea lovers may be swallowing billions of tiny plastic particles along with their favourite brew.

Nathalie Tufenkji published a study Wednesday in the U.S. journal Environmental Science & Technology that examined the amount of microplastics and nanoplastics released when four unnamed brands of tea bags were steeped in hot water.

Researchers at the Montreal university focused their analysis on premium brands that come in voluminous, silk-like bags, instead of the more common paper variety.

“We were expecting to see some particles — obviously, just naturally from putting this material in hot water — but we were shocked when we saw that it’s actually releasing billions of particles from a single tea bag,” Tufenkji said.

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New in books …

From the deceptions of New York Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff to the wrongful murder conviction of American student Amanda Knox in Italy, Malcolm Gladwell posits that some of the most polarizing controversies of our time boil down to a misunderstanding between strangers.

In his new book, “Talking to Strangers,” proudly Canadian, New York-based journalist cites these highly charged headlines as examples of what he believes to be the defining problem of the modern age: We’re more connected than ever before with people we know less about, multiplying the potential for encounters to go awry.

Gladwell’s knack for making abstruse ideas accessible to a mass audience has earned him a reputation as an intellectual forefather of the modern pop-science genre, and in some circles, made him the target of criticism surrounding its divisive appeal.

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The games we play …

FREDERICTON — A global relay aimed at making the streets more welcoming to female motorcycle riders has completed it’s Canadian leg and passed the baton off to the United States.

Thirty women in New Brunswick drove their bikes through the rain Tuesday before meeting up with a group of Americans at the border crossing to Calais, Maine.

“It was a great day, and the rain seemed to stop every time we stopped to do something,” New Brunswick organizer Catherine Lawrence said Wednesday.

The Women Riders World Relay was launched by Hayley Bell, a 27-year-old from the United Kingdom.

The relay will spend 14 days crossing the U.S. before moving on to Mexico. It’s expected to end in the United Arab Emirates early next year.

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The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

A cuppa plastic and talking to strangers; In-The-News for Sept. 26

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