Free Republic

When kids put pen to paper, chances are they are printing. But Toronto’s Catholic board, hand-wringing over the handwriting skills of its students, is now looking to make sure all of them learn cursive. Parents have told her their children can’t sign their name, “or they have been handed a handwritten note and can’t read it,” said Trustee Ann Andrachuk. She proposed a recent motion—unanimously approved—asking board staff how to reintroduce cursive in all schools, and how early children should start learning it. […] Across Canada and the United States, concerns have been raised that cursive is becoming a lost...

If a 9.0 earthquake were to strike along California's sparsely populated North Coast, it would have a catastrophic ripple effect. A giant tsunami created by the quake would wash away coastal towns, destroy U.S. 101 and cause $70 billion in damage over a large swath of the Pacific coast. More than 100 bridges would be lost, power lines toppled and coastal towns isolated. Residents would have as few as 15 minutes notice to flee to higher ground, and as many as 10,000 would perish. For years, scientists believed the largest earthquake the area could produce was magnitude 7.5. But scientists...

During a hearing on the State Department’s 2015 budget, Ms. Landrieu, a Democrat who has been a strong pipeline proponent and faces a tough re-election fight this year, pressed Mr. Kerry to approve the project, which would carry crude from Canada’s oil sands and from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale Formation to Gulf Coast refineries. Ms. Landrieu, the new chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee, said, “Canada is our closest, strongest trading partner,” and “a majority of American people” support Keystone. “It is hard for me to understand why there are still questions about whether building this pipeline is in our...

Thanks to Fracking, U.S. Will Pass Saudi Arabia In Oil Production 12 March 2014 Thanks to fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a process used to extract oil from shale, the United States will soon pass Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer....

On Wednesday, a Nebraska judge struck down a state law that would have allowed TransCanada to use the power of eminent domain to seize private land to help construct a short 300-mile segment of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline between Cushing and Steele City, Nebraska. The law in question, LB 1161, allows Nebraska Governor David Heineman and TransCanada to avoid regulators in siting a crucial portion of the pipeline. Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie Stacy sided with three landowners who challenged the law, finding that regulatory power over industrial companies such as TransCanada must remain with agencies such as the...

Being a believer in all -isms can get hairy at times. Take as an illustration a case reported in the Toronto Sun by Ezra Levant: So a lesbian walks into a Muslim barbershop, and asks for a “businessmen’s haircut”.It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it really happened, and now a government agency called the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario will hear her complaint.Faith McGregor is the lesbian who doesn’t like the girly cuts that they do at a salon. She wants the boy’s hairdo.Omar Mahrouk is the owner of the Terminal Barber Shop in Toronto. He follows...

The MacDonald-Laurier Institute and the Globe and Mail held a public conference recently on the phenomenon of Muslim immigration to the West, which debated whether or not the influx is bringing a culture of violence to Canada and other Western countries. The debate was conducted between Doug Saunders, journalist for Foreign Affairs for the Globe and Mail, and Salim Mansur, a Political Science professor at the University of Western Ontario, reports Shalom Toronto. The two addressed the following questions: Are immigrants from Muslim countries bringing violence and values ​​that are inconsistent with Western values​​? Are Muslim immigrants integrating into Western...

A Canadian designer is defending a satirical ad featuring a fictional, semi-nude Quebec terrorist group after a national sporting goods retailer pulled his outerwear brand from its shelves over the “incredibly offensive” video. “I regret losing those sales, but I don’t regret what I did,” Moose Knuckles founder Will Poho said. “I do not want to be stifled by a very small minority.” The ad shows a made-up paramilitary army called the Fédération unilatérale du Québec (FUQ) — a parody of the separatist group Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).

Nine Russian soldiers who were participating in military exercises in Canada have been expelled from the country, as Ottawa continues to denounce Russia’s military intervention in Crimea, CTV News has learned. A government source confirmed that the soldiers were informed Thursday afternoon that they had 24 hours to leave Canada. Six of the soldiers were in Saint-Jean, Que., where they were learning English and French. Another two soldiers were participating in a training program at CFB Gagetown, and the ninth soldier was teaching Canadian soldiers Russian in Gatineau, Que.The move comes days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that all...

It turns out that some still aren't ready for women to fly planes, as a sexist note left by a passenger for the female pilot of his flight revealed. “The cockpit of an airliner is no place for a woman,” began the note scrawled on a napkin and left behind by a passenger on a recent WestJet flight from Calgary to Victoria, B.C. “Were (sic) short mothers, not pilots” continued the note, signed by "David," and also referenced a biblical verse. The passenger wrote he wished the airline would tell him when “a fair lady is at the helm” so...

The Canadian Labour Congress is asking Statistics Canada to change the way it reports on unemployment, saying a more fulsome analysis of the data it collects would paint a very different picture of the country’s labour market. ... The biggest omission, says the CLC, is the category economists call “underemployment,” which captures part-time workers who want to be full time, along with the involuntary self-employed and other underutilized workers. ... The most telling number is that the employment rate — the number working as a percentage of the total in the age group — is down to 54.5% from about...

For failing to broadcast sufficient levels of Canadian-made pornography — and failing to close-caption said pornography properly — a trio of Toronto-based erotica channels has earned a reprimand from the Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission. Wednesday, the CRTC issued a broadcast notice saying AOV Adult Movie Channel, XXX Action Clips and the gay-oriented Maleflixxx were all failing to reach the required 35% threshold for Canadian content. Based on a 24-hour broadcast schedule, that translates to about 8.5 hours of Canadian erotica a day. The notice was issued as a result of Channel Zero’s efforts to renew licences for all three...

Russian troop presence in Crimea compared to what Germans did in Sudetenland in 1938 Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has compared Russia's troop presence in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula to Hitler's invasion of Sudetenland, a part of the former Czechoslovakia, in 1938. Baird, speaking to host Evan Solomon on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, accused Russia of invading and occupying Crimea, a part of Ukraine. "If it's not war, it's akin to war," he said. At first, Baird said the situation was "right out of the Cold War." When Solomon pointed out Putin claims he is protecting Russian rights in...

Chinese millionaires on Tuesday pleaded for the Canadian government not to throw away the immigration applications of thousands of Chinese nationals as part of its plans to end a backlogged investor program. At a news conference, 10 investor applicants delivered their crestfallen message—that their faith in Canada as a “trustworthy country,” with its attractive rule of law, environment and welfare system, was wavering. Last month, Canada announced its intention to terminate its immigrant investor program and eliminate the longstanding backlog of applications—amounting to more than 65,000 people, most of whom are Chinese. It said immigrant investors pay less in taxes...

Midway through the segment, Mr. Kimmel then ushered Mr. Ford to a television screen where the late night host exhibited a series of now-famous videos showing the mayor drunkenly threatening to kill someone, speaking in Jamaican patois at an Etobicoke diner or knocking over a councilmember in city hall chambers.... As revealed on the Monday night segment, the mayor had agreed to do the show after he was personally contacted by Mr. Kimmel on his cell phone. The Toronto mayor is well known for widely distributing his cell phone number to constituents. “When you say ‘jump’ I say ‘how high?’”...

So a lesbian walks into a Muslim barbershop, and asks for a “businessmen’s haircut”. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it really happened, and now a government agency called the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario will hear her complaint. Faith McGregor is the lesbian who doesn’t like the girly cuts that they do at a salon. She wants the boy’s hairdo. Omar Mahrouk is the owner of the Terminal Barber Shop in Toronto. He follows Shariah law, so he thinks women have cooties. As Mahrouk and the other barbers there say, they don’t believe in touching women...

*Canada recalls Russian ambassador, pulls out of G8 process *Obama tells Putin to withdraw forces from Ukraine *Ukraine asks UN council to stop Russian 'aggression' *Pro-Russia demonstrations break out in Ukrainian cities *Canadians advised to leave Crimea 'while it is safe to do so' Ominous developments in Ukraine have prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to strongly condemn Russian military intervention in the country while urging President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops immediately. In a statement issued following a cabinet meeting held Saturday afternoon, Harper said Canada is recalling its ambassador from Moscow and pulling out of the G8 process...

VANCOUVER — A Canadian navy ship with more than 300 people on board is adrift in the Pacific Ocean in heavy seas after a fire in the engine room. HMCS Protecteur was returning to its home port of Esquimalt, British Columbia when the blaze broke out Thursday night. Several crew members aboard the 44-year-old supply ship suffered minor injuries from the fire. Sailors put out the flames, the Department of National Defence said Friday morning. HMCS Protecteur is currently 630 kilometres northeast of Pearl Harbor and has limited power.

Actor and comedian Seth Rogen has called out senators for not sticking around during his testimony in a hearing on Alzheimer’s disease research, saying it sent a poor message on how seriously they view the issue. Mr. Rogen’s mother-in-law suffers from early-onset Alzheimer’s, and he set up an Alzheimer’s disease charity. He was in town to testify in front of a Senate Appropriation subcommittee on the disease and and give an emotional appeal for more funding for research — while also featuring some lighter material. “Yes, I am aware that this has nothing to do with the legalization of marijuana,”...

Biden Tries to Sign Canadian Woman Up for Obamacare Daniel Halper March 1, 2014 2:32 PM Vice President Joe Biden tried to convince a young Canadian woman to sign up for Obamacare: "Vice President Biden moving in close to sell the Affordable Care Act to a young woman outside Butterfield's Pancake House in Scottsdale," says the local reporter. Biden told the young Canadian: "We gotta make sure everybody young person signs up for health care. It's affordable. You can get subsidies to do it. And it's in your interest. And if you don't even want to do it for yourself....