A busy night for Canada’s immigration website
Discover more from Twelve Thirty Six
While the U.S. election isn’t over, at least we know which Canadian federal party leader is least willing to work with Donald Trump, while the New Yorker broke out the diaeresis to get Conrad Black’s thoughts on a possible reëlection. And, of course, the night wouldn’t have been complete without a surge in online searches for how to finally move to Canada.
Five new shades of COVID-19
Numbered stages have been retired in favour of a colour-coded control system for Ontario regions, designating their degree of permitted opening. Current red zones will soon switch to a fresh set of orange orders. While that will happen this weekend in Peel, York and Ottawa, the city of Toronto plans to take one additional week to readjust.
Facebook facing questions about attempts to recruit from the public service. An email chain revealed that Facebook Canada public policy head Kevin Chan asked a heritage ministry official if there were “promising senior analysts” who might like to temporarily work with him before returning to public office. The revelation reinforced concerns about Facebook friending Ottawa.
Netflix’s final days of freedom
The first reading of the federal government bill that adds an “online undertakings” category to the Broadcasting Act proposes penalties for streaming giants who fail to invest in Canada. Michael Geist’s critique calls it a solution in search of a problem by creating an entirely new class of regulated broadcaster and risking an end to rewards:
“Wikipedia probe finds illicit editing of We Charity pages.” While the internal editors’ newspaper, The Signpost, alleged Israeli PR firm Percepto was using deceptive tactics to edit entries for We, the charity has denied this involvement to the Globe and Mail.
Finally, a journalist’s new calling
Peter Akman lost his job as a reporter with CTV’s W5 soon after he took heat for a tweet about his Asian barber offering him a mask in the early days of COVID-19. Bell Media wouldn’t comment on the reason why Akman was fired, although he also apologized for causing any offence with the observation. Whatever the case, he’s found a new job:
