In The News for today: No Canadians on Gaza list and Trudeau at APEC

By The Canadian Press on November 16, 2023.

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to
bring you up to speed on what you need to know today…

Canadians absent from Gaza exit list today

There are no Canadians mentioned in an updated list of foreign nationals who are being allowed to leave the Gaza Strip today. The General Authority for Crossings and Borders published the latest document on its Facebook page early this morning.

Global Affairs Canada said Wednesday that a total of 367 Canadian citizens, permanent residents and family members have been able to get out, including nine people who left without the Canadian government’s help.

Two more people were able to travel to Egypt via the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday, and 10 made the trip on Monday.

The Canadian government says it cannot determine when or how many people can cross each day, but 386 more people connected to Canada are looking to leave the besieged Palestinian territory.

Men detained in Syria want Supreme Court hearing

The country’s top court is slated to decide today whether it will hear the case of four Canadian men held in Syria who argue Ottawa has a legal duty to help them return home.

The detained Canadians are among the many foreign nationals in ramshackle detention centres run by Kurdish forces that wrested the war-ravaged region from the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The men are asking the Supreme Court to hear a challenge of a Federal Court of Appeal ruling, handed down in May, that said Ottawa is not obligated under the law to repatriate them.

They had won a battle in their protracted fight in January when Federal Court Justice Henry Brown directed Ottawa to request their repatriation from the squalid conditions as soon as reasonably possible and to supply passports or emergency travel documents.

What we are watching in the U.S. …

With the fireworks and formalities done, it’s time for delegates at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to get down to business.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will sit down today for one-on-one meetings with a coterie of Pacific Rim leaders in between high-level APEC plenary sessions.

The leaders will also talk about how to reinforce and streamline modern-day supply chains, all the while finding workable solutions to the climate crisis.

International Trade Minister Mary Ng says Canada will be especially focused on creating the conditions for economic growth across the Pacific Rim.

Ng says businesses both in Canada and abroad are looking for a level of certainty that will allow them to invest with confidence in growing their international trade.

“They are here looking to grow their business and expand in the Asia-Pacific region and the Indo-Pacific region,” Ng said Wednesday as the summit got underway in earnest.

Precision medicine: cancer patients have their say

More than two dozen cancer patients and survivors from across nine provinces gathered in Halifax recently to discuss with researchers about their experiences with something called precision medicine.

It’s an approach tailoring treatment for individual patients, taking into account the genetic makeup of each tumour and the personal characteristics of each patient.

For 62-year-old Robin McGee, this data-driven approach to cancer research and treatment has been life-changing.

After taking part in a series of discussions organized by the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network she said “My cancer was like a freight train, and this precision medicine slammed on the brakes.”

When the cancer centres network was established in 2019, it brought together Canada’s leading cancer hospitals and research universities for the first time. The organization has been described as the “Team Canada of cancer research.”

Ontario enacting daycare safe arrival rules

New rules are coming into effect next year for Ontario child-care operators aimed at preventing the rare but horrific deaths of children in hot cars.

As of Jan. 1st, 2024, licensed home daycares and child-care centres will need to develop a policy setting out the steps they will take when a child doesn’t arrive as expected.

It’s a policy the parents of Everett Smith support and believe will save lives.

Everett was just three weeks shy of his 2nd birthday when he died in late June 2022 in the back seat of a car in Bancroft, Ontario.

A family emergency changed his family’s morning routine and his mom forgot he hadn’t been dropped off at his daycare when she headed into work.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce says it is an obvious step to take if it has the potential of saving even one life.

Amazon investing in first Canadian wind farm

Tech giant Amazon is investing in its first Canadian wind farm.

The company said it will partner with developer Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners on a 495-megawatt capacity wind farm to be built in Vulcan County in southern Alberta.

The announcement on Thursday marks Amazon’s fourth renewable energy project in Canada and comes on the heels of the recent opening of the company’s Travers Solar Project, which is also located in southern Alberta and is the largest solar farm ever constructed in Canada.

That project, together with the newly announced wind farm, will help power Amazon’s local operations in Alberta, including its fulfilment centers, sortation centers, delivery stations and Amazon Web Services data center.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 16, 2023

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