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Canadian cities, towns forced to adapt, or abandon outdoor skating trails and rinks

In 2023, it wasn't cold enough in Ottawa to skate on the Rideau Canal. In 2024, it was only cold enough in Winnipeg to allow skating on its rivers for nine days.

What used to be taken for granted in Canada — winter weather cold enough to allow skating on rivers and ponds — has become a meteorological throw of the dice, thanks to the long-term effects of climate change coupled with the natural variability of weather from year to year.

David Phillips, a climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said winters have warmed in Canada by an average of 4 C over the past 77 years. Over the past decade alone, he said, Canada has lost an average of two to three weeks of sub-zero temperatures.

"The result of that is that you can't grow ice," Phillips said in an interview on Monday from his home in Barrie, Ont. "That's why people are seeing things they haven't seen when they were youths, when it would be automatic by a certain date that you'd go skating on the Rideau Canal or on the Red River."

The three-time Grand Slam doubles champion shared her story on social media, disclosing that she played through her diagnosis in a year she won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics.

"I know this will come as a shock to many, but I am OK and I will be OK," Dabrowski wrote in an Instagram post. "Early detection saves lives. I can wholeheartedly agree with this."

Food bank use across Ontario has reached record highs, with Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank reporting its largest increase in the 41 years since it opened.

According to the Who’s Hungry 2024 report, there were 3.49 million client visits to Toronto food banks like the Daily Bread and North York Harvest — a 32 per cent increase from the 2.6 million visits recorded the previous year.

According to the report, one in 10 Torontonians are using food banks to make ends meet and more than 120,000 people accessed food banks for the first time this year. Over half of these new clients come from households with at least one working member.

In Toronto, food bank visits have increased every year since 2019, with 935,000 visits recorded that year. Numbers have almost tripled since then, a trend the report describes as “a grim harsh reality.”

Theo Moudakis: Bring on 2025!

The latest public opinion data from independent research organization Angus Reid Institute yielded staggering results, demonstrating a major decrease in Liberal leaning voters. The online survey was conducted between Dec. 27 to 30, 2024 and sampled more than 2,200 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum.

If an election were held today, Angus Reid reports that 45 per cent of voters say they would support the Conservatives, 21 per cent the NDP and 16 per cent the Liberals.

Along with his own caucus, nearly half (46 per cent) of Canadians and three-in-five (59 per cent) current Liberal supporters say it’s time for him to step aside. Another two-in-five (38 per cent) Canadians believe Trudeau should call for a general election himself when he returns from his holiday break once Parliament resumes on Jan. 27, the polls read.

Trudeau’s popularity has also massively declined amongst those who voted for him in 2021, according to Angus Reid. Fifty-one per cent of Liberal voters in the last federal election say they disapprove of Trudeau’s performance as prime minister.

While impressions of Trudeau have grown negative over time, there has not been much increase in positivity towards rival Conservative (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre. In assessments from Angus Reid Institute’s earlier polling data from this month, 37 per cent of Canadians said they had a favourable view of Poilievre. The number now stands at 38 per cent – or statistically unchanged.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s trajectory of public opinion has been on a steady decline since the 2021 election, the data says, and three-in-five (58%) Canadians say they have an unfavourable view of the NDP leader.

Despite much of New Brunswick getting a white Christmas, hopes are starting to fade for a snowy winter.

Just as the province's winter activities usually get started, the outlook is bleak — for snowmobiling in particular.

As of New Year's Eve, all of the province's 8,000 kilometres of trails are completely shut down.

The mild end of December is not only disappointing, it's record-setting.

McBride, who's been snowmobiling since the 1980s, said he hasn't seen a winter as poor as this one since the 1990s.

With events planned for February and March, and tourism outfitters dependent on snowmobilers, McBride said everyone's in a tough spot.

In 2022, the latest year for which full data are available, the world spent just short of US$10 trillion on health care. The United States was by far the largest single spender, representing 43% of the total. At the other end, around 75 of the poorest countries spent less than 4% of the global total, and many are not allowed to increase this. That’s because they owe huge sums to richer countries — and the lending agreements say that paying off debts has to be prioritized ahead of public spending.

This is just one example of how inequity is baked into the world’s financial system — creditors can dictate lending terms to some of the most vulnerable countries without any oversight. However, in June and July 2025, the international community will have an opportunity to ensure that this situation can be consigned to history.

And here's the disinformation headline that the American hedge fund-owned NatPo ran: Jewish leaders condemn 'hate-filled' anti-Israel protest outside Indigo at Toronto's Eaton Centre

The carbon tax is a so-called steering tax. Its goal is to change people’s behaviour, not to raise revenue for the government. However, the current version of the carbon tax in place in Canada and many other countries does not change people’s behaviour as effectively as it could and should. To see why, we consider two frequently ignored facts.

First, rich people emit considerably more than the average person. Studies on socioenvironmental inequality estimate that the top 10 per cent of emitters are responsible for about 50 per cent of individual carbon emissions. Think of private jets, which emit up to 4.5 tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) per hour. That is three times as much as the average human on the planet can emit per year if we want to meet our climate targets.

Second, someone in the top 10 per cent of incomes in Canada, that is someone who in 2022 made more than $106,300 after tax, will not even bat an eye at the current carbon price of $80 per tCO2e, let alone change their consumption habits. For context, $80 per tCO2e translates into under 18 cents per litre of gasoline at the pump.

Put simply, by its very nature a flat carbon tax that ignores socioenvironmental inequality and charges everyone the same is both unequal and ineffective climate policy. A progressive carbon tax would change that.

When communities have a common goal, it matters for members of the community to feel that everyone is pulling their weight to achieve that goal. Today’s carbon tax fails this test. The burden of adjustment in terms of reducing emissions falls squarely on low-income Canadians, whereas the wealthy just shrug it off and pay the tax. Moreover, the fact that some portion of today’s income and wealth inequalities are perceived as unjust to begin with adds insult to injury.

The recent decision to move a Nova Scotia lighthouse inland to prevent it from falling into the Bay of Fundy is highlighting the impact of climate change on the province's coastline. For more than 150 years, the Walton Harbour lighthouse stood watch from a cliff overlooking the bay -- but in recent years, coastal erosion had left the wooden tower perilously close to the edge. John Ogilvie, vice-president of the Walton Area Development Association, says the rate of erosion has increased in the past 10 years. In November, the municipality spent about $100,000 to drag the lighthouse to a safer location about 45 metres inland.

The Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation in PEI has determined that 17 of the Island's 61 lighthouses and range lights are threatened by coastal erosion.