Based on what the Globe has been telling me.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: A Bad Idea For Canada
And it shows:
"Political scandals: Oh, Canada" June 24, 2013
Canada, by reputation, has a clean and upright culture, but lately a number of its prominent officials seem bent on changing that image. In Montreal, Mayor Michael Applebaum resigned last week after being arrested by the Quebec Police Department’s anticorruption unit and charged with, among other things, defrauding the government. This comes a mere seven months after Montreal’s previous mayor, Gerald Tremblay, resigned his post after allegations surfaced that his campaign solicited illegal donations.
Applebaum joins a surprisingly long list of Canadian politicos who are under investigation by the authorities — Nigel Wright, the former chief of staff of Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who’s been accused of appearing in a cellphone video smoking crack cocaine; and other mayors of major Canadian cities suspected of various misdeeds.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Canada's Crack-Smoking Mayor
Political scandals exist in every culture, even ones known for their innocuousness. Still, the land of maple leaves, Justin Bieber, and poutine is undergoing some unusual changes.
Related:
Justin Beiber's Tour Bus Bombed in Sweden
Bieber will have to pay for German monkey business
Justin Bieber, please stop wearing terrible drop-crotch pants
Justin Bieber hits a pedestrian while driving
Justin Bieber’s Twitter train wreck
As it bucked global trends during the recession, Canada attracted a flood of real estate investment. High prices for oil and other commodities have heated up the resource-rich country’s economy. In January, there was even a bizarre heist of maple syrup, as the price of that product soared. None of which quite explains the uptick in scandals, but it’s possible boom times carry their own risks as well as rewards.
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"3 dead in floods as rivers recede from Calgary; City allowing some evacuees to return home" Associated Press, June 23, 2013
CALGARY, Alberta — The two rivers that converge on the Canadian city of Calgary were receding Saturday after floods devastated much of southern Alberta province, causing at least three deaths and forcing thousands to evacuate.
The flooding forced authorities to evacuate Calgary’s entire downtown and hit some of the city’s landmark structures hard. The Saddledome, home to the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames, was flooded up to the 10th row, leaving the dressing rooms submerged.
Water lapped at the roof of the chuckwagon barns at the grounds of the Calgary Stampede, which is scheduled to start in two weeks. Calgary’s mayor, Naheed Nenshi, has said the city will do everything it can to make sure the world-renowned party goes ahead....
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Related:
"About 65,000 residents of Calgary were being allowed to return to their homes Sunday to assess the damage from flooding that has left Alberta’s largest city awash in debris and dirty water."
Also see: Canadian "CIA-Duh" Overflows
Pieces of s***:
"Tunisian man is held in terror plot" by Larry Neumeister | Associated Press, May 10, 2013
NEW YORK — A Tunisian man accused of radicalizing a Canadian resident charged in a plot to derail a train has been charged with trying to stay in the United States illegally to build a terrorism cell for international acts such as poisoning a water system with bacteria, authorities said Thursday.
Law enforcement authorities had watched Ahmed Abassi since he arrived in the United States from Canada in mid-March and arrested him on April 22 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, authorities said. Abassi met regularly with an undercover FBI agent and met with another Tunisian citizen who later was arrested in Canada in the plot to derail the train, they said.
Prosecutors, in a letter submitted to a US District Court judge in Manhattan, said Abassi had radicalized Chiheb Esseghaier, who is charged in Toronto with conspiring with Al Qaeda members in Iran to derail a train that runs between New York City and Montreal. Esseghaier appeared briefly in court on April 24 and made a statement suggesting he did not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
Prosecutors said Abassi told an undercover FBI agent Esseghaier’s plans were good but the time was not right.
‘‘The defendant noted that he had suggested an alternative plot — contaminating the air or water with bacteria in order to kill up to 100,000 people — but that Esseghaier was dismissive of that plan,’’ the government said.
Related(?): Questions About Quabbin Bust
I guess not(?).
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Related:
"A massive explosion at a fireworks warehouse killed two workers Thursday, police said, leaving a huge plume of smoke blanketing an area west of Montreal. A series of explosions spread from the charred building after the initial blast at B.E.M. Fireworks near Valleyfield, Quebec. Images from the scene showed a building near a major highway completely destroyed."
And the terrorists got away!
"2 caught after fleeing jail in helicopter" Associated Press, March 19, 2013
MONTREAL — Two Quebec inmates grabbed a rope attached to a hijacked helicopter to make a daring daylight escape from a prison outside Montreal, then led police in a car chase and exchanged gunfire at a rural cabin before they were finally recaptured, authorities said Monday.
Dorner!
Police said the helicopter pilot was held hostage in the Sunday jail-break and was not a suspect. He was treated for shock in hospital.
Yves Le Roux, president of the helicopter rental company, Passport-Hélico, said Monday that two men posed as tourists who wanted to take a flight over Mount-Tremblant before they pulled a gun on the pilot and told him to fly to the prison and land on one of the buildings.
‘‘They had some rope and the two prisoners climbed onto the rope,’’ Le Roux said. ‘‘Then they ordered him to take off to a field nearby and they landed into a field and while they were there, the two guys hopped into the helicopter.’’
Le Roux said the pilot switched on an emergency signal during the flight. He said when they eventually landed near a hotel the suspects pulled a T-shirt over the pilot’s head and told him not to look where they were running.
A Quebec provincial police spokesman, Benoit Richard, said Monday that they had arrested four people about 30 miles north of the Saint-Jerome prison from which the inmates escaped. Police said they followed the helicopter until it landed and then chased a car until it reached a rural cabin.
‘‘When they got out of their vehicle, they started shooting at police officers,’’ Richard said.
Two of the suspects then broke into the cabin and the residents fled unharmed.
Two of those arrested Sunday were inmates Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 36, and Danny Provencal, 33.
Hudon-Barbeau was arrested first and police cornered Provencal later in the evening.
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Also see:
Canada threatens U.S. with tariffs over meat-labelling rules
Canada opens tech accelerator in Kendall Square
"Kendall Square is fast becoming a victim of its own success. Increasingly the small, cutting-edge start-ups that give the neighborhood its vibe and cachet are being forced out by skyrocketing rents as more big technology and drug companies claim the little available office space there."
UPDATE: Former Canadian ambassador says ‘Argo’ includes a lot of fiction
No surprise Hollywood is churning out crap.
