OPEN LETTER: Urgent request to facilitate the entry of Egyptian journalist and human rights advocate Hossam el-Hamalawy

TOWN HALL MEETING: Surveillance Pricing

How your data determines what you pay!
What if the price you pay at the store is different than the person standing next to you?

Corporations can use personal data such as location, device type, browsing history, purchase behavior, login status, and loyalty cards/programs to profile consumers and determine what different people are charged for the same goods and services.

How can we stop this from happening in Canada?

Join MP Jenny Kwan, Patrick Johnson - President of UFCW 1518, Jim Stanford - Economist and Director of Centre for Future Work, and other experts, for a public forum and community conversation about what surveillance pricing means for consumers and workers, how technology and personal data are changing the way prices are set, and what everyday people can do to fight back.

*Scan QR code, click the image or this link to register your attendance - https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/your-data-their-price-a-town-hall-on-surveillance-pricing-tickets-1998495899032

Toronto Star: Contract cancelled for RCMP’s grounded Black Hawk helicopter

OTTAWA — A $7.5-million contract for one of the RCMP’s Black Hawk helicopters has been cancelled, months after the Star revealed the U.S.-made aircraft was grounded for being ineligible to use for border patrols in Canada.

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) said in a written statement to the Star on Tuesday that the government and Ottawa-based Helicopter Transport Services (HTS) “have agreed to terminate the agreement by mutual consent.”

The statement did not say if an ongoing probe into the contract had found wrongdoing by the RCMP or HTS, which won the contract despite questions about whether the helicopter met the licensing requirements to be used for border patrols in Canada.

It also did not say how much money, if any, the RCMP had paid HTS under the contract before it was cancelled.

NDP Public Safety critic Jenny Kwan told the Star she supports the contract’s cancellation but questioned why it was authorized in the first place.

“It is a serious failure of procurement oversight,” Kwan wrote in a statement.

“Canadians deserve to know who approved this contract, how much public dollars were on the hook with this debacle, and what steps will be taken to ensure this kind of procurement failure does not happen again.”

Anandasangaree has defended the use of the Black Hawks as an “off-the-shelf fix” that was implemented quickly to get around procurement challenges, and said their long-term use will be assessed.

*Click image or link to read the full story - https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/contract-cancelled-for-rcmp-s-grounded-black-hawk-helicopter/article_26c08516-3d6a-41ed-9e31-b09bff83ba4f.html

CBC News: Canadian citizenship certificate applications now facing nearly 3-year delays

Less than nine months after Parliament allowed those with Canadian ancestors to be recognized as Canadian citizens, the backlog of applications has soared to a new high.

More than 136,000 applications for citizenship certificates are now waiting for a decision — many of them from Americans. Those who apply today face an estimated wait of 33 months, according to figures posted on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)'s website.

That is a 32 per cent jump in wait time and an 11 per cent rise in the number of applications since the previous update on Aug. 10.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said Prime Minister Mark Carney's government needs to ensure that IRCC has the resources to address the "growing crisis," pointing out that the government's last budget called for 3,300 positions to be cut by 2028-29.

"It is completely unacceptable that people who have a legitimate claim to Canadian citizenship, passed in legislation by Parliament, are being left in limbo," she said in a statement.

"Families [are] facing enormous disruption to their ability to travel, work, study, access services and plan their lives."

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/billc-3-citizenship-by-descent-9.7337738