June Chua

  • New counter-radicalization office aims to catch potentially violent extremists

    The office of Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, seen here on Feb. 3 in the House of Commons, says they are planning to open a counter-radicalization centre in the coming months to deal with extremism. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says his department’s forthcoming outreach office will help identify lone wolf terror threats to hopefully prevent attacks like the one that left six Muslim men dead at the mosque where they were praying in Quebec City on Jan. 29. In an interview with Global News, Goodale said his government is planning to set up a centre for community outreach and counter-radicalization. The goal would be to “find a way to detect this behaviour better … and then to identify the right ways, with the right people at the right time to intervene in that behaviour, before it leads to tragedy,” Goodale told Global News.

  • Wait it out, say immigration lawyers to Canadian dual citizens, travellers

    Canadian immigration lawyers are urging patience in the wake of Trump’s travel ban. Immigration experts are warning caution and patience for confused Canadians hoping to cross the U.S. border since Donald Trump imposed a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. “Is it vital that you have to be in the U.S. for business or, say, family reasons?” says Canadian immigration lawyer Zool Suleman.

  • N.S. village's wee Women's March captures worldwide attention

    The town of Sandy Cove, N.S., population 65, has been getting attention from around the world after holding one of the smallest women’s marches on Jan. 21. “We just couldn’t sit by and passively observe it,” said co-organizer Gwen Quigley Wilson, who created the march on Facebook along with fellow resident Melissa Merritt. “It’s the availability of this technology that allows use to have this major impact, all the way from this little corner of our province.” said co-organizer Gwen Quigley Wilson about their Jan. 21 march.

  • Why would you leave Canada? Expats hounded by same question

    Marjorie and Peter Murphy moved back to Paris in 2015 after 9 years in Toronto. Germans often mention How I Met Your Mother  when asked what they know about Canada. The show, which ran from 2005 to 2014, featured Canadian actor Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky, who had a brief pop career in Canada as “Robin Sparkles.” In the series, Canadians are revealed to be avid hunters, hockey-and-whisky loving people who are afraid of the dark and love to BBQ in the winter.

  • Police and pride: how Black Lives Matter changed the conversation across Canada

    Months after Black Lives Matter stopped Toronto’s Pride parade to demand changes to the annual festival, Pride Toronto organizers have officially signed off on the demands, including a ban on police floats. “After what happened in Toronto, we had discussions.

  • Life after the White House for Michelle Obama and U.S. first ladies before her

    Michelle Obama is waving goodbye to eight years as U.S. first lady. You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody. What happens when Michelle hands over the keys to incoming first lady Melania Trump?

  • Calgary granny gets 'Don't euthanize me' tattooed as sign of faith

    Christine Nagel had a small problem when she walked into a Calgary tattoo parlour — she wanted a tattoo on her chest, but the artist said it was so close to her bones it would hurt too much.  The 81-year-old grandmother wanted it on her chest so doctors could see it. “I’m a Catholic and I wanted ‘Don’t euthanize me’ to be a permanent [declaration],” Nagel told Yahoo Canada News.  She settled on a spot on her shoulder and let the tattoo artist do his thing. (“It didn’t hurt at all,” she said. ...

  • One birthday party or 20 royal visits? What else the $500M earmarked for Canada 150 can buy

    Fireworks light up the sky behind the Peace Tower during a New Year’s Eve celebration on Parliament Hill, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016 in Ottawa. Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017. 2017 marks 150 years since Canada’s colonies joined together as one nation, a birthday the federal government is sparing no expense to honour, shelling out $500 million for celebrations and commemorations, according to the Globe and Mail.

  • Manitoba premier defends plan to work from Costa Rica for 6-8 weeks every year

    Brian Pallister, the Manitoba premier, has revealed he will spend six to eight weeks a year at his vacation home in Costa Rica. This is marks yet another time Costa Rica has figured large in headlines concerning the premier. Back in the spring a CBC investigation uncovered that he has spent about one in five days travelling to and from the Central American country since becoming the PC leader in 2012. “I typically work 60-hour weeks,” Pallister told the Canadian Press about the time he spends in Manitoba.

  • 'People have to be confronted with it in daily life': What Truth and Reconciliation can learn from Germany's Holocaust remembrance

    It tells the story of Chanie Wenjack, who died trying to escape a residential school. It took a 12-year-old Ojibwe boy and a rock star, but Canada might be ready to take the path to reconciliation. In October, the short life and death of Chanie Wenjack was immortalized in “The Secret Path,” a multi-platform project including a film, graphic novel, and album by The Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie.

  • Ranked: provincial premier popularity poll puts Wynne at the bottom and Wall on Top — again

    Ontario's Kathleen Wynne can't catch a break according to the latest Angus Reid Institute poll on performance approval. “Historically, when you see job approval numbers that low, it can spell the end of the line for that premier,” Shachi Kurl, director of the Angus Reid Institute, told Yahoo Canada News.

  • PHOTOS: How gender neutrality looks across Canada

    The fight for gender rights is strengthening in Canada as more municipalities incorporate gender neutrality in their communications and offer inclusive public spaces. This week, the City of Winnipeg considered re-writing its websites, signs, programs and other city services to be more gender-neutral. Last week, the Union of B.C. Municipalities voted to lobby the province to require gender-neutral language across all local governments.

  • Massive call for asbestos ban in Canada as new data show it's still No. 1 killer of workers

    With new data showing 367 deaths last year tied to the substance, the government continues to vow a ban is in the works — but doesn't offer specifics.

  • Doctors frustrated by Liberals on tax change eyeing a move to the U.S., says radiologist group

    Specialists across the country are furious over a plan by the Liberals to include them in a change to the small business tax laws, saying the anger could kick off another brain drain to the U.S.

  • Presumed consent in organ donation: pros and cons

    To boost organ donation rates in Saskatchewan, premier Brad Wall wants to push for “presumed consent.” Photo from . Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall has announced he wants to push for “presumed consent” for organ donations in his province — which would make it the first Canadian province to do so if Wall decides on it. There is one other thing the province “leads” in — it has the lowest organ donation rate in the country. Saskatchewan’s donation rate is less than one per cent compared to the Canadian average of 20 per cent.

  • Guelph reconsiders goats, sheep as pets

    The City of Guelph to reconsider proposal to have sheep, goats as domestic pet. The City of Guelph, in southwestern Ontario, has a proposal that would allow sheep and goats to be kept as pets in homes — harkening back to an earlier time, when it was actually permitted. The latest recommendations come in light of public consultations in 2015 and a suggestion by city staff to merge four existing animal control bylaws into one. Intriguingly, the addition to permit sheep and goats in urban residential areas was made legal in a 1988 Exotic Animals Bylaw, but was altered and updated in 2013 to prohibit these animals in domestic situations.

  • Canadian wins 'significant' UN ruling against Sri Lankan government

    Tamil Canadian Roy Samathanam in 2013, when he filed a complaint against the Sri Lankan government before the UN Human Rights Committee for torture. Roy Samathanam, a Tamil Canadian who was thrown into prison and then tortured over a period of three years while in Sri Lanka, has triumphed in a decision by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The committee concluded last week that the government of Sri Lanka violated the rights of Samathanam.

  • Q & A: Vanessa Vakharia, one of 'Canada's Smartest' people, is a math guru who also rock n' rolls

    Vanessa Vakharia has run The Math Guru for five years and employs 22 tutors who help about 100 students every week. Talking to Vanessa Vakharia is a lot like speaking with a 15-year-old girl, and she wouldn’t dispute that description. “Look, that’s who I spend my time with, like I use a lot of ‘likes’, ” laughed Vakharia, who runs a popular tutoring service in Toronto called The Math Guru.

  • PHOTOS: For Inuit women, face tattoos come out from the past and ink to the present

    It was nine years ago that Hovak Johnston got her first Inuit tattoo and it stuck with her, far beyond skin-deep. Johnston could not find any Inuit women to do the old tattoos that had been done by their ancestors — it was done traditionally with sinew soaked in black soot mixed with seal oil and stitched into the skin with a bone needle, leaving the ink behind. From that, she was able to get funding for the Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project.

  • Americans in Europe 'terrified' to wake up to Trump win

    The official fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany was 27 years ago today  — signalling the end of the Cold War and a divided country. On Nov. 9, 1989, a spokesman for East German’s Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR were free to cross into the West. Checkpoint Charlie — the key crossing point guarded by American soldiers in Berlin — opened up.