Canada

“There’s always a risk when corporate interests are negotiating agreements with governments in back rooms,” he said. “They [the Ford government] often point to external pressures — energy demand, housing need, trade tariffs — as reasons to act quickly. But it’s really about removing democratic guardrails and making it easier to cut backroom deals with powerful corporations.”

How to say Marx was right without saying "Marx was right".

Avoid Paywall

link cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/32662355

Here are the contractors who helped build Alligator Alcatraz

The other state contractors include Deployed Resources LLC, the port-a-potty company Doodie Calls, GardaWorld, Garner Environmental Services, Gothams LLC, Granny’s Alliance, Longview International Technological Solutions and SLS-WSP JV.

GardaWorld Cash, one of several companies affiliated with GardaWorld — one of the world’s largest security services companies, according to its website — gave $5,000 to DeSantis’ Empower Parents political action committee in 2018. The political organization, which went by Friends of Ron DeSantis at the time, was created to support DeSantis’ first bid for governor.

GardaWorld has also been eyed for Florida’s immigration agenda before — it was one of the vendors picked by the state to fly migrants out of Florida. A representative from GardaWorld did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.

It wasn't clear to me where Canada comes in or what the ownership is, but clicking over to About GardaWorld it is clarified.

After identifying an opportunity to consolidate the fragmented private security industry, Stephan Crétier founded GardaWorld (then Trans-Quebec Security Inc.) in 1995 with a $25,000 investment derived from a second mortgage on his home. Only a few years later, the company was making $40 million annually in revenue. Over the past 30 years, he has built one of the world’s largest security services companies organically and through strategic M&A.

Mr. Crétier remains a highly-driven and engaged entrepreneur leading a strong bench of exceptionally talented and empowered managers. GardaWorld differentiates itself through a unique performance-based culture with strict accountability for operational performance. The company adheres to a deep ownership mentality with Mr. Crétier and management holding a majority equity ownership stake in the business, which is now valued at C$14 billion.

Scroll down to read their "timeline". Each item has the feeling of being immense crimes.

Author: Mohammed Estaiteyeh | Assistant Professor of Digital Pedagogies and Technology Literacies, Faculty of Education, Brock University

One recent study indicates that 78 per cent of Canadian students have used generative AI to help with assignments or study tasks. In China, authorities have even shut down AI apps during nationwide exams to prevent cheating.

The support structures and policies to guide students’ and educators’ responsible use of AI are often insufficient in Canadian schools. In a recent study, Canada ranked 44th in AI training and literacy out of 47 countries, and 28th among 30 advanced economies. Despite growing reliance on these technologies at homes and in the classrooms, Canada lacks a unified AI literacy strategy in K-12 education.

Without co-ordinated action, this gap threatens to widen existing inequalities and leave both learners and educators vulnerable. Canadian schools need a national AI literacy strategy that provides a framework for teaching students about AI tools and how to use them responsibly.

AI literacy is defined as:

“An individual’s ability to clearly explain how AI technologies work and impact society, as well as to use them in an ethical and responsible manner and to effectively communicate and collaborate with them in any setting.”

"At that time, I was pregnant with my first kid," she said. "I lived in a two-room apartment … it was an OK building, but it was small for us."

[She] went to an online portal, entered her income and requirements, and was ranked alongside thousands of other residents. Soon, she was assigned a new apartment: a three-bedroom unit in a brand-new building, adjacent to Vienna's Central Station.

"I love it. It's in the middle of Vienna," she said. "A lot of young families moved in at the same time…. There's a big campus here, with a kindergarten and primary school. There's dancing classes, and a boulder bar, and a huge park."

[She] wasn't desperate to find housing. She and her partner earned middle-class incomes. But in recent years, Vienna has become renowned among housing experts for its model of social housing, which provides heavily subsidized rental units to more than half of the city's two million residents.

The key is taking profit out of construction (at least 96.5%), and a robust government that isn't afraid to impinge on the private sector.

I would love to see something like this in Canada, but I don't think our politicians (or electorate) have the guts.

Hi peeps, My big trip through Canada is only three weeks away now and I'm starting to feel nervous 😬 So I thought I'd post here to ask y'all a few things, mainly about socialising and meeting folks. - specifics about my travels at the bottom

1.) I'm still looking for couch surfing hosts in Vancouver and Toronto. People on beWelcome aren't really answering. Is there some advice? Or advice on cheap accommodation for 1-3 nights in those towns? Or maybe even some of y'all who'd like to hosts me :)

2.) what are some good ways to meet people on the road? Are there social media apps that are favoured in Canada? Specific places for travellers? (YMCA, hostels, clubs...?)

3.) any other things you'd like to tell me? XD

My trip is: arriving in Vancouver on the 25th of Juli, renting a car on the next day. Plans to travel the west for about 3 weeks. Domestic flight to Toronto on the 16th of August, rental car in Toronto on the 17th, driving around Ontario and the east for two weeks. Departure from Toronto on the first of September.

The Wonder Valley website is making emissions-related claims that O'Leary Ventures' CEO has openly admitted are false. Are they running afoul of Canada's greenwashing legislation?

QUEENSLAND - Swimmers at a busy Nova Scotia beach were forced out of the water for two hours after a fin was spotted offshore.

The director of the Nova Scotia Lifeguard Service says a fin — possibly of a shark — was spotted in the swimmer's area of Queensland beach, about 50 kilometres west of Halifax.

Paul D'Eon says the lifeguard service has no way to confirm there was a shark, but says when a fin is spotted close to the beach the policy is to order swimmers out of the water.

The veteran lifeguard manager says the potential shark sighting was the first this season at any of the province's 21 ocean beaches, where lifeguards have been on duty for the past five days.

D'Eon says that last year there were three or four sightings of fins over the summer.

The director says that in his 51-year career there's never been a shark attack at one of the beaches while lifeguards were on duty.

ON MAY 26, Alberta announced that it was entering the book-banning business. “Multiple books found in some school libraries show extremely graphic and age-inappropriate content,” warned a government press release. To save Alberta’s children from this material, the government promised to act: first, by inviting Albertans to provide feedback on what is “acceptable for school library collections,” and second, by setting province-wide standards that every school board will be required to implement before classes resume in the fall.

When The Tyee pointed out that three of the four targeted books featured LGBTQ+ narratives, Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides shot back: “The fact that our actions of protecting young students from seeing porn, child molestation, self-harm and other sexual material in school libraries are being labelled as anti-LGBTQ is frankly irresponsible.”

Book banners can always be counted upon to deny that label while simultaneously invoking children’s innocence to justify the very censorship they disavow. “This isn’t about banning books,” Premier Danielle Smith posted on X. “It’s about protecting kids from graphic, sexually explicit content that has no place in a classroom.” (None of the books appear to have been part of any classroom curriculum, nor were students compelled to read them.)

We just threw $7 billion onto Trump’s poker table—the expected five-year haul from the DST —simply to keep playing a rigged game with no clear end. What was gained here?

The money these companies earn from online ad revenues—and by selling our personal data (including our search habits)—is virtually untaxed. This is because, like many multinational companies, Google, Meta, Amazon, Airbnb and other online platforms can register their global profits in low-tax jurisdictions.

While U.S. officials in the Democratic and Republican parties accuse the DST of discriminating against U.S. firms—“to stifle American innovation,” according to Commerce Secretary Lutnick today—the tax would have applied to firms of any nationality, and only on revenues above $20 million.

Trade watchers have always suspected Canada was holding on to the DST mainly for negotiating purposes. It was something generally positive for Canada that could nonetheless plausibly be negotiated away for some meaningful purpose, perhaps in the planned six-year review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) that replaced NAFTA under the first Trump presidency. Prime Minister Carney admitted this was the plan in a press scrum today (June 30).

The Canadian government, in playing that card early, has depleted Canada’s digital sovereignty and federal revenues, for no apparent reason other than to keep Trump sweet. In doing so, we will undermine efforts in Europe and elsewhere to develop national digital services taxes in the absence of a viable international alternative.

Worse than that, the Canadian government has legitimated Trump’s pointless and highly destructive trade warfare at a possible turning point.