Timeline Canada
2001-2008
Return to home
2001 Jan 1, In
Canada new cigarette warning labels became effective. 16 rotating
labels included such warnings as "Cigarettes cause mouth disease" with
a photograph of blackened, bleeding gums.
(SFC, 1/3/01, p.A9)
2001 Jan 1, In Canada a new
federal gun control measure went into effect. It called for the
licensing and registration of all shotguns and hunting rifles.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A16)
2001 Jan 1, In St. Anne de
Beaupre, Quebec, the new Ice Hotel opened. It was scheduled to close
Mar 31.
(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.T10)
2001 Jan 11, Lucien Bouchard,
Quebec Premier, resigned.
(SFC, 1/12/01, p.A16)
2001 Feb 5, Pres. Bush met with
Canadian PM Jean Chretien at the White House for a get-acquainted
session.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.A8)
2001 Feb 5, Engineering students
from the Univ. of British Columbia dangled the body of an old VW from a
railing of the Golden Gate Bridge. It hung for 4 hours before officials
cut and let it fall into the water.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 13, About this time
Canadian police arrested at least 2 people in the Toronto area in a
scheme to distribute $25 billion in counterfeit US bearer bonds.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.R12)
2001 Feb, Canada established the
8,500 square-mile Sirmilik National Park on the northern tip of Baffin
Island, 450 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It included most of Bylot
Island.
(SSFC, 6/18/06,
p.G1)(www.newparksnorth.org/baffin.htm)
2001 Mar 10, The Nuu-chah-nulth
Tribal Council of British Columbia signed a treaty with the federal
government.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.D2)
2001 Apr 19, Thousands of
protesters gathered in Quebec City to oppose the Summit of the Americas
and plans for a hemispheric free trade zone.
(SFC, 4/20/01, p.A14)
2001 Apr 20, President Bush
attended his first international summit as leaders of the Western
Hemisphere's 34 democracies met in Quebec to advance plans to create
the world's largest free-trade zone; police in riot gear clashed with
protesters. Protestors pushed to interrupt the Summit of the Americas
and held that the free trade efforts put corporate interests ahead of
workers, human rights and the environment.
(SFC, 4/21/01, p.A1)(AP, 4/20/02)
2001 Apr 21, Western hemisphere
leaders meeting in Quebec ratified a plan barring undemocratic nations
from a massive free trade zone they hoped would expand prosperity
across their 34 nations. For a second day, protesters clashed with
nightstick-wielding police who fired water cannons and rubber bullets.
(AP, 4/21/02)
2001 Apr 22, In Quebec City 34
Western leaders affirmed the creation of a free trade zone by 2005 and
agreed that only democratic nations could join.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 27, Four students from
Newton, Mass., were killed near Sussex, New Brunswick, when their bus
crashed while enroute to a music festival in Halifax. At least 37
others were injured.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 3, Mordecai Richler,
Canadian social critic and novelist, died at age 70. His work included
the novel "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (1959).
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.D3)
2001 Jul 28, Samir Ait Mohamed
(32) was detained in Vancouver on immigration charges. On Nov 15 he was
arrested on US charges for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport
during millennium festivities. He was held in Canadian prisons until he
was deported to Algeria on January 11, 2006.
(SFC, 11/17/01,
p.A10)(www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/01/13/deported-terrorist060113.html)
2001 Jul 30, In Canada medicinal
use of marijuana became legal. The government grew the drug in an
abandoned salt mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and sold it to authorized
users at C$5 ($4.40) a gram.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A6)(Reuters, 11/13/06)
2001 Dec 7, Statistics Canada
reported a jobless increase to 7.5%, the highest level since mid-1999.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.A16)
2001 Dec 29, In Quebec, Canada,
Magloire Poissant killed his former wife, Colette Harnois, her two sons
Michael MacDonald, 15, and Mathieu MacDonald, 18, and their friend
Francis Mongrain, 17, at Harnois' home in Lavaltrie. In 2004 Poissant
was sentenced to life in prison.
(CP, 5/13/04)
2001 A fish epidemic struck
Atlantic salmon farms. The 2-year epizootic killed most of the young
fish in 36 farms. Canadian scientists developed a vaccine, Apex-IHN,
that protected the fish and in July, 2005, Canada licensed the product
for sale.
(WSJ, 9/23/05, p.B1)
2001-2003 Canadian citizens Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed
Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati were labeled as terrorists and arrested on
separate visits to Syria where they were imprisoned and tortured and
then released without charge. In 2008 a federal inquiry said Canadian
officials indirectly contributed to their torture by wrongly sharing
intelligence information with Syria. The men later sued the Canadian
government demanding apologies, compensation and the removal of their
names from any watch lists.
(SFC, 10/22/08, p.A2)
2002 Jan 5, Canada reported plans
to send 900 troops to assist with peacekeeping in Afghanistan.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.A9)
2002 Jan 7, Canada announced plans
to send 750 soldiers to join US combat operations in Afghanistan.
(SFC, 1/8/02, p.A11)
2002 Feb 5, In Canada a police
raid on the farmstead of Robert and David Pickton in Port Coquitlan,
BC, turned up evidence of 2 missing women. Since 1984 at least 50
prostitutes had vanished from the streets of Vancouver. Robert Pickton
was arrested Feb 22. In 2003 the murder charges against Pickton rose to
22. Pickton’s trial began Jan 22, 2007, with prosecutors saying the he
had confessed to killing 49 women.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A9)(SFC, 12/16/03, p.A14)(WSJ,
1/23/06, p.A1)
2002 Feb 7, The Cree tribe of
northern Quebec under Ted Moses ratified an October deal that ensured
15,000 Crees of receiving no less than $3.5 billion over the next 50
years and a share in benefits derived from their lands.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A9)
2002 Feb 24, The XIX Winter
Olympics in Salt Lake City came to a close. In one of the last events
Canada beat the US hockey team 5-2 for the gold.
(SFC, 2/25/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 20, Steven Harper
(b.1959), an evangelical Christian, was chosen as head of Canada’s
conservative Alliance Party.
(Econ, 10/14/06,
p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Alliance)
2002 Apr 18, A US fighter jet
accidentally dropped a laser-guided bomb on Canadian forces near
Kandahar, Afghanistan, and 4 soldiers were killed. On Sep 12 two U.S.
F-16 fighter pilots were charged with manslaughter and assault in the
"friendly fire" bombing of Canadian troops that killed four soldiers
and injured eight. In 2004 USAF pilot Maj. Harry Schmidt was found
guilty of dereliction of duty. He received a reprimand and was docked a
month’s pay.
(SFC, 4/18/02, p.A10)(SFC, 6/19/02, p.A8)(Reuters,
9/13/02)(SFC, 7/7/04, p.A6)
2002 Apr, The Dr. Peter Centre in
Vancouver, Canada, began running a safe-injection site for
drug-addicted patients with HIV and AIDS. The city estimated 12,000
intravenous drug users among 1.3 million in the greater area.
(WSJ, 4/1/03, p.D8)
2002 May 2, The US Int’l. Trade
Commission upheld a 27% tariff against imported Canadian softwood.
(SFC, 5/3/02, p.B1)
2002 Jun 11, In Canada Inco Ltd.
said on Tuesday it had reached a $1.9 billion, 30-year deal to develop
the huge Voisey's Bay nickel deposit in northern Labrador.
(Reuters, 6/11/02)
2002 Jun 13, In Whistler,
British Columbia, G-8 foreign ministers of the world's leading nations
backed a Middle East peace conference, vowed to keep up pressure on
India and Pakistan to step back from the brink over Kashmir, and
maintained a united front against terrorism as they wrapped up a
two-day.
(Reuters, 6/13/02)
2002 cJun 21, Timothy Findley
(d.2002), Canadian writer, died in France. His novels included "The
Wars" (1977), and "Pilgrim" (1999).
(SFC, 6/22/02, p.A18)
2002 Jun 23, In Canada an
amphibious tour boat sank in Ottawa killing four people. It had also
sunk a year ago.
(AP, 6/24/02)
2002 Jun 25, In Vancouver, Canada,
it was reported that investigators had found the remains of four more
women at a pig farm linked to what is feared to be one of North
America's largest serial killing cases.
(Reuters, 6/26/02)
2002 Jun 26, The 2-day G-8 Summit
opened at Kananaskis, Alberta. The leaders of the world's richest
countries begin a two-day summit on a peace plan for the Middle East,
the fight against terrorism and aid for Africa. They announced that
Russia would be made a full-fledged member of the elite group.
(Reuters, 6/26/02)(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.C2)(AP, 6/26/03)
2002 Jun 26, In Toronto, Canada,
city workers went on strike at midday as last-ditch negotiations with
Toronto officials failed to come up with a new labor contract to
resolve the dispute over wages and job security. Upcoming events
included a Gay Pride parade, next week's Molson Indy car race and a
visit by the Pope.
(Reuters, 6/27/02)(Reuters, 6/28/02)
2002 Jun 27, In Canada G-8 leaders
signed an agreement with African leaders to support development. It was
pointed out that US farm subsidies contradicted African exports. World
leaders broadly backed a controversial plan by George W. Bush to end
the Middle East crisis, although they mostly stopped short of endorsing
his insistence that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat quit. They agreed
to spend $20 billion over the next 10 years to decommission weapons
from the former Soviet republics.
(Reuters, 6/27/02)(SFC, 6/28/02, p.A11)
2002 Jul 1, A Canadian climber who
had scaled Alaska's Mount McKinley alone died after he fell about 1,000
feet (300 meters) while descending from the peak's upper reaches.
(Reuters, 7/1/02)
2002 Jul 11, Lawmakers in Ontario
passed back-to-work legislation to end a two-week strike by Toronto
garbage collectors that covered the country's biggest city in mounds of
rotting waste.
(Reuters, 7/11/02)
2002 Jul 12, In Canada an Ontario
court ruled that refusing legal recognition to gay and lesbian
marriages is unconstitutional.
(SFC, 7/13/02, p.A14)
2002 Jul 18, A Canadian Forces
helicopter crashed in a remote region of Labrador, killing two pilots
and injuring two other helicopter personnel.
(Reuters, 7/18/02)
2002 Jul 23, A frail Pope John
Paul II walked down the steps of his plane instead of using a lift
after arriving in Canada to join thousands of young Catholic pilgrims
for World Youth Day. Tens of thousands of exuberant young Catholics
massed in Toronto to greet the Pope.
(AP, 7/23/02)(Reuters, 7/23/02)
2002 Jul 25, In Canada Pope John
Paul made his first appearance at a Catholic youth festival before as
many as 200,000 young faithful eager to welcome the aging Pontiff with
prayer and song.
(Reuters, 7/25/02)
2002 Jul 28, In Canada Pope John
Paul ended the celebrations of World Youth Day for 800,000 people in
Toronto's massive Downsview Park. Speaking publicly on the church abuse
scandal for the first time, Pope John Paul II told young Catholics that
sexual abuse of children by priests "fills us all with a deep sense of
sadness and shame."
(Reuters, 7/29/02)(AP, 7/28/03)
2002 Jul 29, In Canada at least 23
young Cubans from a group who traveled to see Pope John Paul II decided
not to return to the communist-ruled island.
(Reuters, 7/29/02)
2002 Aug 7, Ford Motor Co. and
Canadian fuel cell developer Ballard Power Systems Inc. jointly
unveiled a hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine-driven generator
they said could help pave the way toward the commercialization of fuel
cell technology.
(Reuters, 8/7/02)
2002 Aug 21, In Canada Pres.
Chretien, amid growing rifts within his Liberal Party, said he will not
seek a 4th term and will resign in Feb 2004.
(SFC, 8/22/02, p.A8)
2002 Aug 23, Canada confirmed
prairie farmers' worst fears in a report that slashed crop production
forecasts after one of worst growing seasons since the dust bowl of the
1930s.
(Reuters, 8/23/02)
2002 Aug 28, Canadian police
arrested a man in the rape and killing of an 11-year-old aboriginal boy
who was found in a basement storage room in Winnipeg.
(Reuters, 8/29/02)
2002 Sep 5, The Canadian
government said it will spend C$105 million ($66.9 million) in the
first stage of a plan to connect the country's rural residents to
high-speed Internet service by 2005.
(Reuters, 9/6/02)
2002 Sep 26, US immigration
officials seized Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, after his name
popped up on a watch list at JFK. US officials refused to allow legal
council or a phone call. The CIA questioned him and then handed him
over to Syrian intelligence where he was held and tortured for 10
months before being released. The case came to be called an instance of
"torture by proxy." In 2006 a Canadian government report said the US
"very likely" sent the software engineer to Syria, where he was
tortured, based on the false accusation by Canadian authorities that he
was suspected of links to al-Qaida.
(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.D1)(AP, 9/19/06)
2002 Oct 3, Canada said it planned
to create 10 huge new national parks and five marine conservation areas
over the next five years to protect unique landscapes and animals.
(Reuters, 10/3/02)
2002 Oct 15, In Canada a man
facing workplace discipline shot and killed two co-workers at a
provincial office in Kamloops, British Columbia, before taking his own
life.
(Reuters, 10/16/02)
2002 Oct 22, Canadian writer Yann
Martel won the Booker Prize for "Life of Pi," his quirky fable about a
boy's survival after a shipwreck.
(Reuters, 10/22/02)
2002 Nov 5, Barbados-born author
Austin Clarke won the 2002 Giller Prize, Canada's most lucrative and
glamorous fiction award, for his novel, "The Polished Hoe".
(Reuters, 11/6/02)
2002 Nov 5, Canadian Prime
Minister Jean Chretien suffered an embarrassing defeat when many
disgruntled legislators from his Liberal Party voted with opposition
members to strip him of the right to appoint the heads of parliamentary
committees.
(Reuters, 11/6/02)
2002 Nov 19, It was reported that
Ken Thomson, billionaire media baron and Canada's richest man, will
donate his C$300 million ($190 million) art collection to the Art
Gallery of Ontario.
(Reuters, 11/19/02)
2002 Nov 20, Francoise Ducros,
aide to PM Chretien of Canada, called Pres. Bush a moron during a
private conversation in Prague. She resigned Nov 26.
(SFC, 11/23/02, p.A1)(AP, 11/26/02)
2002 Nov 22, An epidemic of
tree-killing pine beetles was reported to be spreading through the
forests of British Columbia, Canada's largest lumber exporting
province. The deadly insects had also entered northern Alberta and were
now found in a area nearly three-quarters the size of Sweden. By 2008
the mountain pine beetle had infested and killed over half the
lodgepole pine forest in the center of BC and made inroads into 11
western American states.
(Reuters, 11/22/02)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.47)
2002 Dec 16, Canada ratified the
Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2002 Dec 20, Canada's Supreme
Court ruled that the book "One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads" and
others with gay themes cannot be banned from kindergarten classrooms of
a Canadian school on religious grounds.
(Reuters, 12/20/02)
2002 Dec 20, Climbing energy
prices pushed Canadian inflation to an 11-year high last month, well
above the central bank's target range, but analysts said the steep
inflation rate would not yet trigger higher interest rates.
(Reuters, 12/20/02)
2002 Canada’s Research in Motion
(RIM) lost a patent infringement suit to NTP, a company comprised of
little more than lawyers and the patents of Thomas Campana (d.2004),
the holder of over 50 patents on wireless-data systems.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.76)
2002 The World RPS Society,
promoters of the rock-paper-scissors game, held its 1st int’l.
tournament in Toronto, Canada. Pete Lovering of Toronto won the
competition.
(WSJ, 3/3/06, p.A1)
2003 Jan 1, In Canada a new gun
law came into effect that required the registration of all rifles and
shotguns.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 20, In Canada 7 members
of a ski party were killed in an avalanche near Durrand Glacier outside
of Banff National Park.
(WSJ, 1/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 1, In western
Canada 7 people were killed in the 2nd fatal avalanche to strike in
less than two weeks.
(Reuters, 2/1/03)
2003 Mar 4, The Bank of
Canada raised its key overnight interest rate to 3 percent from 2.75
percent, as it fretted about a steeper inflation rate.
(AP, 3/4/03)
2003 Mar 17, Pen Hadow, 41, began
a 478-mile trek from Ward Hunt Island in northern Canada to the
geographic North Pole. He reached the Pole unsupported on May 19, but a
plane has been unable to retrieve him because of broken ice and thick
clouds.
(AP, 5/27/03)
2003 Apr 1, Air Canada filed for
bankruptcy protection.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R9)
2003 Apr 12, Canada reported 3
more deaths from the deadly SARS virus, lifting the national toll to
13. 274 probable or suspect cases have been reported across Canada, up
from 266. Canadian scientists reported that they had broken the genetic
code of the SARS virus.
(AP, 4/13/03)(SFC, 4/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 13, Mike Weir became the
first Canadian to win the Masters after the first sudden-death playoff
in 13 years.
(AP, 4/13/04)
2003 Apr 15, US and Canadian
officials announced the disruption of a major methamphetamine supply
system. An 18-month investigation netted 67 arrests.
(WSJ, 4/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 23, The WHO added Toronto
to its list of places to avoid due to SARS.
(SFC, 4/24/03, A1)
2003 Apr 29, The World Health
Organization ended its warning that travelers avoid Toronto, Canada.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 Apr, Jean Charest and his
provincial Liberals won elections in Quebec on promises to cut taxes,
improve the services, and eliminate the budget deficit.
(Econ, 2/14/04, p.36)
2003 May 2, A US official warned
that the US is ready to sacrifice the free flow of trade with Canada if
necessary to respond to a planned Canadian decriminalization of
marijuana.
(AP, 5/2/03)
2003 May 11, Anson Carter scored
at 13:49 of overtime to give Canada a 3-2 victory over Sweden and win
its first world ice hockey championship since 1997.
(AP, 5/11/03)
2003 May 12, In Toronto, Canada,
Holly Jones (10) disappeared after she walked a friend home in broad
daylight. Less than 24 hours later, a man found some of the
girl's remains in a gym bag off Ward's Island in Lake Ontario. More
body parts were found some distance away on the mainland. Michael
Briere (35) was arrested for the murder on Jun 20.
(AP, 6/21/03)
2003 May 20, Canadian agriculture
officials said that it took 15 weeks -- from Jan. 31 to May 16 --
before a battery of tests ordered on a sickly, underweight cow that had
been deemed unfit for human consumption proved it had mad cow disease.
In 2004 investigators identified 68 British cattle as the probable
source of Canada's mad cow cases.
(AP, 5/20/03)(WSJ, 3/22/04, p.A1)
2003 May 23, Another travel alert
for Toronto, Canada, was issued following the report of 20 possible new
cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
(AP, 5/24/03)
2003 May 24, Ontario health
officials said they were monitoring 33 people for the deadly SARS virus
with another 500 in quarantine and warned that the number of suspected
cases could grow in coming days.
(Reuters, 5/24/03)
2003 May 25, Canada health
officials reported that SARS had killed three more people in Ontario.
(Reuters, 5/26/03)
2003 May 26, The World Health
Organization (WHO) said it would put Canada's business capital Toronto
back on the list of areas where SARS is spreading.
(Reuters, 5/26/03)
2003 May 28, In Canada SARS killed
two more people in Toronto and concern about the deadly virus shut down
a Toronto-area high school.
(AP, 5/29/03)
2003 May 31, Toronto reported more
cases of SARS and said the disease may have caused the deaths of four
people at a hospital on the edge of the city.
(Reuters, 5/31/03)
2003 Jun 8, Toronto reported two
more SARS deaths, raising the Canadian toll from the deadly respiratory
illness to 33.
(Reuters, 6/8/03)
2003 Jun 10, Toronto, Canada,
issued North America's 1st full marriage licenses to same sex couples
after a judge knocked down Canada's legal definition of marriage, the
union of a man and a woman, as a violation of the country's Charter of
Rights and Freedoms.
(SFC, 6/11/03, p.A7)
2003 Jun 11, The Canadian
government said that gay marriages performed in the central province of
Ontario over the last two days were legal for now but refused to rule
out taking measures later to invalidate them.
(Reuters, 6/11/03)
2003 Jun 23, In Iran Zahra Kazemi
(54), a Montreal-based journalist, was detained after taking pictures
of Tehran's notorious Evin prison. She died Jul 11 of brain hemorrhage
from inflicted blows.
(AP, 7/13/03)(SFC, 7/17/03, p.A7)
2003 Jun 26, The 24th annual
Montreal Jazz Festival opened. By Jul 6 it had drawn some 1.7 million
attendees.
(WSJ, 7/10/03, p.D8)
2003 Jun 26, Canada's health
ministry approved a "safe injection site" for illegal drug users in
Vancouver. After 5 years it was found that only about 500 of the city’s
8,000 addicts used the Insite program on a daily basis and that there
was no decrease in HIV cases.
(SFC, 6/27/03, p.D1)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.37)
2003 Jul 2, Vancouver, Canada, was
awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics.
(AP, 7/2/04)
2003 Jul 2, The WHO said Toronto
was no longer SARS infected, leaving Taiwan as the only place in the
world where the disease was not yet fully under control.
(AP, 7/2/03)
2003 Jul 9, Canada became the 1st
country in the world to start selling marijuana to several hundred
seriously ill people but said the pot project could be halted at any
time.
(Reuters, 7/9/03)
2003 Jul 11, The Canadian
government gave Air Canada the right to operate scheduled passenger
flights to Cuba.
(Reuters, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 11, In Iran Zahra Kazemi
(54), a Montreal-based journalist, died of brain hemorrhage from
inflicted blows. [see Jun 23] Iran later admitted that she was murdered
while under police custody. In 2004 a closed trial was held for a
secret agent charged with the murder. Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi
pleaded innocent on July 17 and the trial was abruptly ended the next
day. The Tehran court acquitted Ahmadi.
(AP, 7/13/03)(SFC, 7/17/03, p.A7)(WSJ, 7/31/03,
p.A1)(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A8)(AP, 7/25/04)
2003 Jul 16, Carol Shields (68),
the Pulitzer-prize winning author who wrote "The Stone Diaries" (1995)
and more than 20 other books, died at her home in Victoria, British
Columbia.
(AP, 7/17/03)(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A29)
2003 Aug 2, Canadian military
personnel joined nearly 2,000 civilian firefighters battling the three
fires -- in Kamloops, Barriere and Falkland, British Columbia. An
estimated 8,500 people had already been evacuated as 16,500 acres
burned.
(Reuters, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 13, Ontario health
officials reported that a family doctor had become the 44th person to
die from SARS in Toronto.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 14, A massive power
blackout hit 8 northeastern US states and southern Canada. It shut down
10 major airports and 9 nuclear power stations. The problem began in
the FirstEnergy plant near Cleveland at 2pm. Cleveland lost power at
4:09pm.
(AP, 8/15/03)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A1)(SFC, 8/16/03,
p.A1)(WSJ, 8/18/03, p.A6)
2003 Aug 19, Royal Bank of Canada
said it would get $195 million plus interest from Enron Corp. and
others in a settlement agreement related to the sale of 11.5 million
common shares of EOG Resources.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 19, In Baghdad a car bomb
exploded in front of the hotel housing the UN headquarters, collapsing
the front of the building. UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de
Mello (55) of Brazil and 22 other people were killed. UNICEF said that
its program co-coordinator for Iraq, Canadian Christopher
Klein-Beekman, was among the dead. In 2008 Samantha Power authored
“Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the
World.”
(SFC, 8/20/03, p.A12)(AP, 8/21/03)(SSFC, 2/10/08,
p.M1)
2003 Aug 22, In Canada a wildfire
has forced up to 10,000 people from their homes in Kelowna, British
Columbia.
(Reuters, 8/22/03)
2003 Aug 25, Canada's Premier
Chretien signed an agreement in the Northwest Territories bestowing
self-government and mineral wealth on the 4,000 Dogrib Indians (Tlicho
First Nation).
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.26)
2003 Sep 3, The Bank of Canada cut
interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.75 percent on because of
lower-than-expected inflation as well as sagging growth.
(Reuters, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 5, Statistics Canada said
the nation's unemployment rate rose to 8.0% in August, an 18-month high.
(AP, 9/5/03)
2003 Sep 7, Goran Markovic's "The
Cordon", a film from Serbia and Montenegro about the behavior of
policemen during the demonstrations against president Slobodan
Milosevic in 1997, won the top prize at the Montreal film festival.
(Reuters, 9/7/03)
2003 Sep 11, In Canada 10 people
were killed in two separate plane crashes in Northern Ontario, police
said on Friday.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 14, Japanese filmmaker
Takeshi Kitano's "Zatoichi," the story of a mythical blind swordsman,
and Denys Arcand's "The Barbarian Invasions" took top awards at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
(Reuters, 9/14/03)
2003 Sep 29, Irshad Manji (34),
Canadian author of the recently published: "The Trouble With Islam: A
Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith," was reported saying: "I leave
my fellow Muslims with a very basic question here: Will we remain
spiritually adolescent, caving to cultural pressures to conform or will
we finally mature to the full fledged citizens that we are allowed to
be in this part of the world?"
(AP, 9/29/03)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D8)
2003 Oct 2, Two Canadian
peacekeepers were killed and three were injured in a land-mine blast in
the Afghan capital Kabul.
(Reuters, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 8, Jarome Iginla of the
Calgary Flames was tabbed to become the first black captain in NHL
history.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2003 Oct 7, Israel "Izzy" Asper
(71), the colorful, controversial, jazz-loving founder of Canada's
largest newspaper publisher, died. He created CanWest Capital, Western
Canada's 1st merchant bank and founded television station CKND. He
bought out Toronto-based Global TV and turned it into a national
network, CanWest Global Comm.
(AP, 10/8/03)(SFC, 10/11/03, p.A19)
2003 Oct 16, Canada's 2
conservative parties agreed to unite to give the governing Liberal
Party a competitive race in 2004 national elections.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 14, Ben Metcalfe, the 1st
chairman of the Greenpeace Foundation (1970), died in BC, Canada.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A31)
2003 Oct 19, Afghan movie "Osama"
by director Siddiq Barmak won the top prize at Montreal's New Movie and
New Media Festival, one of the first features produced in Afghanistan
and nominated since the fall of the Taliban.
(Reuters, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 20, Kirk Jones (40) from
Canton, Michigan, survived a 150-foot plunge over the fast-flowing
Canadian side Niagara Falls, only to face charges of mischief and
unlawfully performing a stunt. Jones said he was driven by depression,
not a desire to become a daredevil. A 7-year-old boy who went over in
1960, unlike Jones, was wearing a lifejacket. Since 1901, 15 daredevils
have taken the plunge in barrels or other devices, including a kayak
and a personal watercraft. Ten survived,
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 20, Flood waters in
southwestern British Columbia left at least two people dead.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 26, Canadian Rob Krueger
defeated 320 competitors who played at the World Rock, Paper, Scissors
Championships at a downtown Toronto nightclub. He netted $3,825. The
World RPS Society sponsored the 2nd int’l. tournament in Toronto,
Canada.
(Reuters, 10/27/03)
2003 Nov 4, Kenyan-born former
physicist M.G. Vassanji was awarded this year's Giller Prize, Canada's
most glamorous and lucrative literary award. He took home C$25,000
prize for his novel, "The In-Between World of Vikram Lall."
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 11, Toronto's Roy
Halladay won the American League Cy Young Award.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2003 Nov 14, Paul Martin completed
his 13-year ascent to the top of Canadian politics, claiming the
leadership of the governing Liberal Party to guarantee he will succeed
Jean Chretien, who is retiring as prime minister.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 19, In Canada Justice
Minister Martin Cauchon has ordered fugitive banker Rakesh Saxena to
surrender to Thailand to face allegations that he looted a Bangkok bank.
(AP, 11/19/03)
2003 Nov 19, A US-Canadian
investigation found that the Aug. 14 blackout should have been
contained by operators at Ohio's FirstEnergy Corporation. Investigators
also faulted Midwest regional monitors.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2003 Nov 20, In Canada Conrad
Black, newspaper magnate, stepped down as CEO of Hollinger Int'l.
following reports that he other top officials received unauthorized
payments of some $32.2 million.
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 1, In Canada a coalition
of energy and forest companies and Indian tribes and environmental
groups announced a framework for forest and wetland conservation to
conserve at least 50% of Canada's sub-Arctic boreal forests.
(SFC, 12/1/03, p.A7)
2003 Dec 11, In Quebec, Canada,
labor protests left hundreds of buses idle at the beginning of a day of
province wide protests against Premier Jean Charest's government.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 12, Paul Martin was sworn
in as Canada's 21st prime minister with a vow to make drastic changes
in the way the country is run.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 13, In Canada Paul
Martin, in one of his first acts as prime minister, cancelled the
scandal-plagued federal advertising sponsorship program. It had begun
in 1996 under PM Chretien to promote federalism in Quebec, but turned
into a slush fund for the Liberal Party.
(AP, 12/13/03)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.42)
2003 Dec 16, In Canada Robert
Lorne Stanfield (89), former leader of the federal Tories, died.
Stanfield led the Progressive Conservatives from 1967 to 1976.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 19, An Ontario court
ruled that the Canadian government discriminated against same-sex
couples by denying pension benefits to survivors whose partners died
before 1998. Benefits were made retro-active to April 17, 1985.
(SSFC, 12/21/03, p.A14)
2003 Dec 23, Canada's Supreme
Court ruled that marijuana possession would remain a criminal offense
even as PM Paul Martin pressed to eliminate jail sentences for people
caught with small amounts.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 23, A cow, slaughtered in
Washington state on Dec 9, was reported to have tested positive for mad
cow disease. The $2.6 billion beef export industry was hit as 7 nations
quickly suspended imports of U.S. beef: Japan, South Korea, Singapore,
Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia. The Holstein infected with
mad cow disease was imported into the United States from Canada about
two years ago.
(AP, 12/24/03)(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Judy Sgro, Canada minister of
immigration, issued permits to some 552 Romanian women to fill a
shortage of labor in the exotic dancing business.
(Econ, 1/22/05, p.37)
2003 Oil insiders began to
consider that some 180 billion barrels of oil, trapped in the tar sands
of Alberta, Canada, were economically viable.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.75)
2003 Paul Hebert of the Univ. of
Guelph, invented DNA barcoding in Ontario, Canada. His idea was to
generate a unique identification tag for each species. He proposed
using part of a gene called cytochrome c oxidase as a reliable marker
and the idea worked.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.98)
2004 Jan 7, Canadian police in
Barrie, Ontario, raided a former Molson plant that was producing 4
crops of hydroponically grown marijuana valued at $102 million.
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.40)
2004 Jan 13, Canada's PM Paul
Martin met U.S. President George W. Bush officially for the 1st time.
Bush announced that Canada will be allowed into a second round of
bidding for contracts to rebuild Iraq.
(AP, 1/13/04)
2004 Jan 14, In Canada a freight
train traveling over a bridge east of Toronto derailed sending massive
containers plummeting onto the road, killing two women in a van who
were driving by.
(AP, 1/15/04)
2004 Jan 16, A Canadian regulator
ruled that a song lauding the joys of an "enormous penis" is not
obscene because the object of the lyric's affection isn't necessarily
sexual.
(AP, 1/16/04)
2004 Jan 17, A Cessna 208 regional
plane carrying hunters went down in Lake Erie about one mile west of
Pelee Island, Canada. All 9 aboard were killed.
(AP, 1/18/04)(WSJ, 1/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 18, London billionaire
twins Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay (69) announced their plan to
buy a controlling interest in Hollinger Inc., the Toronto-based parent
of publisher Hollinger Intl. led by Conrad Black
(ADN, 1/20/04, p.F2)
2004 Feb 19, In Canada bird flu
was detected at a chicken producer in the Fraser Valley near Vancouver.
By the end of April some 19 million birds were culled, But the disease
continued to spread.
(ST, 4/30/04, p.A3)
2004 Feb 26, In Canada about 400
police officers cracked down on the Hells Angels and their affiliates
in the Montreal area, targeting more than 60 people authorities believe
were involved in gangsterism and drug-trafficking.
(AP, 2/26/04)
2004 Mar 11, Canadian officials
said a "very sophisticated criminal scheme" bilked the Defense
Department of tens of millions of dollars in computer contracts over 10
years. Public Works Minister Stephen Owen said the government is going
after computer giant Hewlett Packard, the prime contractor in
$160-million worth of military computer hardware and support services.
(AP, 3/11/04)
2004 Mar 15, Canadian National
Railway reached a tentative agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers
union that could end a 3½-week-old strike by 5,000 employees.
(AP, 3/15/04)
2004 Mar 19, Harrison McCain (76),
a New Brunswick farm boy who became a world-scale industrialist and the
king of the frozen french fry, died in a Boston hospital after a long
period of failing health. McCain Foods (f.1956) is the world's
undisputed french fry king. The company, which is still based in
Florenceville, NB, produces one-third of the planet's frozen french
fries.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Apr 1, In Canada the largest
strike in Newfoundland history began as thousands of upbeat workers
took to picket lines while the premier said he has no plans to end the
walkout with legislation.
(AP, 4/1/04)
2004 Apr 5, A US-Canadian task
force investigating the massive power blackout of Aug 14, 2003, called
for urgent approval of mandatory reliability rules to govern the
electric transmission industry.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2004 May 9, Canada rallied to beat
Sweden for the second straight year in the gold-medal game at the world
hockey championships, 5-3.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2004 Jun 7, In Hockey’s Stanley
Cup Tampa Bay defeated the Calgary Flames in game 7.
(WSJ, 6/8/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun 28, In Canada the Liberal
Party suffered heavy losses forcing PM Paul Martin to establish the 1st
minority government since 1979.
(WSJ, 6/29/04, p.A1)(SFC, 6/30/04, p.A7)
2004 Jul 1, Statistics Canada
counted 31,946,316 Canadians.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Jul 14, Canada pulled its
ambassador from Iran, which refused to admit observers to the trial of
a policeman over a Canadian journalist’s fatal beating.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 22, Adolph Coors and
Molson confirmed that they planned to merge their family-controlled
breweries.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C2)
2004 Aug 31, A report was filed
with the SEC that said Conrad Black and associates systematically
looted Hollinger Int’l. of more than $400 million from 1997-2003. In
2007 Black (62) was convicted in Illinois U.S. District Court. He was
sentenced to serve 78 months in federal prison, pay Hollinger $6.1
million and a fine of $125,000. Black was guilty of diverting funds for
personal benefit from money due Hollinger International when the
company sold certain publishing assets and he obstructed justice by
taking possession of documents to which he was not entitled. Black's
three co-defendants, former Hollinger International vice presidents
John Boultbee (64) of Vancouver and Peter Y. Atkinson (60) of Toronto
and attorney Mark Kipnis (59) of Chicago were all found guilty of three
counts of mail fraud.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.C3)(WSJ, 9/1/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black)
2004 Sep 10, Canada said it was
donating one million dollars (770,000 US) to United Nations efforts to
pacify strife-torn Darfur in western Sudan.
(AFP, 9/11/04)
2004 Sep 24, Nova Scotia became
the sixth Canadian province or territory to allow gay marriages when
the provincial Supreme Court ruled that banning such unions was
unconstitutional.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2004 Oct 2, In Ontario, Canada, a
record 1,446 pound pumpkin was unveiled.
(SFC, 10/12/04, p.B1)
2004 Oct 5, The Canadian submarine
HMCS Chicoutimi went adrift in the Atlantic off the northwestern coast
of Ireland since a blaze onboard caused a loss of power. Lieutenant
Chris Saunders, one of nine crew members hurt in the fire, died after a
British helicopter flew him to a hospital in Ireland.
(AP, 10/7/04)
2004 Oct 10, PM Paul Martin of
Canada arrived in Russia for two days of talks with Russian leaders.
(AP, 10/11/04)
2004 Oct 12, In Canada tens of
thousands of public servants were on strike across the country as
negotiators for the federal government and their union continued
marathon talks.
(AP, 10/12/04)
2004 Oct 13, The Canadian federal
government confirmed that its tax intake massively outweighed spending
in the past fiscal year - producing a budget surplus of $9.1 billion.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2004 Oct 14, A Boeing 747-200
cargo jet owned by British-based MK Airlines crashed upon take off at
the Halifax International Airport. The Ghanaian-registered Boeing,
which was taking off for Spain with a cargo of seafood, crashed and
burned killing all seven crew on board.
(http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20041014-0)
2004 Oct 15, Canada’s Bombardier
Transportation and two joint-venture partners won a $424-million order
to supply 20 high-speed trains to China's Ministry of Railways.
(AP, 10/15/04)
2004 Oct 19, Canada raised its
interest rates .025% from 2.25 to 2.50%.
(WSJ, 10/20/04, p.A15)
2004 Oct 25, Alberta’s Premier
Ralph Klein called for a provincial election on Nov 22. His
Conservative government held 73 of 83 legislature seats. Oil income
stood to make it Canada’s 1st debt-free province.
(Econ, 10/30/04, p.46)
2004 Nov 5, In Canada Saskatchewan
became the country’s 7th jurisdiction to allow homosexuals to wed.
(SFC, 11/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Nov 24, Canada’s PM Paul
Martin visited Burkina Faso. Canada is investing about $20 million in a
Basic Education Plan to pump $140 million into building schools across
the country.
(AP, 11/24/04)
2004 Nov 30, US Pres. George W.
Bush flew to Ottawa, Canada, for a whirlwind visit designed to begin
mending international fences in the wake of the Iraq war.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2004 Dec 1, US President George W.
Bush arrived in Halifax to thank Atlantic Canadians for helping
thousands of stranded Americans three years ago and to deliver a speech
expected to outline his foreign policy goals for the next four years.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2004 Dec 1, Andrea Labbe (26), a
Toronto woman, stabbed her husband and three-year-old daughter to death
before fatally cutting her own throat in one of the most terrible
tragedies ever encountered by the city's emergency workers.
(AP, 12/3/04)
2004 Dec 9, Canada's highest court
said the government can redefine marriage to include same-sex couples,
but it added that religious officials cannot be forced to perform
unions against their beliefs.
(AP, 12/9/04)
2004 Dec 19, Canada’s PM Paul
Martin met Moammar Gadhafi, the latest in a string of world leaders to
visit Tripoli following the Libyan strongman's renunciation of
terrorism. Martin said Canadian construction company SNC-Lavalin has
won a $1 billion contract to help build a major water distribution
system in Libya.
(AP, 12/19/04)(Reuters, 12/19/04)
2004 Dec 30, Officials said Canada
has found what may be a second case of mad cow disease, just a day
after the US said it planned to reopen its border to Canadian beef.
(AP, 12/30/04)
2004 Dec 30, King Mohammed VI of
Morocco met with Canadian PM Paul Martin and ambassador Carmen Sylvain
for talks about cooperation between their two countries.
(AFP, 12/30/04)
2004 Canadian filmmakers Mark
Achbar, Joel Bakan, and Jennifer Abbot produced the documentary film
“The Corporation,” which asked the question: If the corporation is
treated as a person under law, what kind of person is it? Conclusions
indicated a psychopath.
(Econ, 5/8/04, p.64)
2004 Canada’s mint produced nearly
30 million poppy quarters commemorating 117,000 war dead. The "poppy
coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious US Army contractors traveling in
Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2004-2005 In Canada Mike Lazaridis, co-founder of
Research In Motion (RIM), founded the Institute for Quantum Computing
(IQC) at Ontario’s Univ. of Waterloo. He linked the institute to the
university’s nanotechnology program and provided donations totaling
C$50 million.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.68)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.36)
2005 Jan 1, Canada was forecast
for 2.9% annual GDP growth with a population at 32.2 million and GDP
per head at $31,780.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.92)
2005 Jan 2, Canada confirmed that
a 2nd case of mad cow disease has been discovered, just days after the
United States said it planned to reopen its border to Canadian beef.
(AP, 1/3/05)
2005 Jan 10, Canada and Nigeria
agreed to terms under which the Canadian International Development
Agency is to provide 24.9 million Canadian dollars (20.4 million US)
for health projects in the west African country.
(AP, 1/11/05)
2005 Jan 11, Canadian officials
found a 3rd case of mad cow disease. They said the 7-year-old beef cow
was probably infected from use of banned contaminated feed.
(SFC, 1/12/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 14, Judy Sgro, minister
of immigration, was fired following damaging allegations.
(Econ, 1/22/05, p.37)
2005 Jan 19, In Canada 2 houses in
Vancouver, BC, were completely destroyed and at least three people were
missing after a mudslide caused by heavy rains swept down a hillside.
(CP, 1/19/05)
2005 Jan 23, Travel was slowed to
a crawl at best across wide areas of the Northeast US and Canada as a
huge snowstorm whipped up blizzard conditions with wind gusting to 60
mph, making highways treacherous, canceling hundreds of airline flights
and slowing trains.
(AP, 1/23/05)(WSJ, 1/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 31, Canada announced
steps to maintain a year-round human presence on Sable Island, Nova
Scotia. In 2005 Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle authored “Sable
Island: The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the
Atlantic.”
(www.greenhorsesociety.com/)(NH, 3/05, p.66)
2005 Feb 1, The Canadian
government introduced its contentious same-sex marriage bill in
Parliament, seeking to legalize gay marriage nationwide over the
objections of the Roman Catholic Church and other conservative clergy.
(AP, 2/2/05)
2005 Feb 9, Wal-Mart said it
planned to close its store in Jonquiere, Quebec, where workers were
seeking to become the 1st ever to win a union contract with Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart began operations in Canada in 1994 and currently operated 254
stores there. Doors were shut May 6.
(WSJ, 2/10/05, p.A2)(SFC, 4/15/05, p.A12)
2005 Feb 10, Vancouver, Canada,
began a trial program giving addicts free heroin on condition that they
accept treatment.
(Econ, 2/12/05, p.36)
2005 Feb 10, California sued
Canadian energy firm Powerex Corp. a 2nd time for overcharges during
the electricity crises of 2000-2001.
(SFC, 2/11/05, p.C1)
2005 Feb 14, Newfoundland Premier
Danny Williams and Canada’s PM Paul Martin presided over the signing of
a multibillion-dollar deal that sets out new revenue-sharing rules for
the province's offshore energy industry.
(AP, 2/14/05)
2005 Feb 16, The Kyoto global
warming pact went into force, 7 years after it was negotiated, imposing
limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases scientists blame
for increasing world temperatures, melting glaciers and rising oceans.
Canada’s pledge to cut emissions 6% below its 1990 level by 2012 faced
the problem of an average annual increase of 1.5%.
(AP, 2/16/05)(WSJ, 2/15/05, p.A16)
2005 Feb 24, PM Paul Martin said
that Canada would not join the contentious US ballistic missile defense
(BMD) program.
(AP, 2/24/05)(Econ, 3/5/05, p.38)
2005 Mar 3, In western Canada 4
Mounties were killed while they were investigating an illegal marijuana
farm. Suspect James Roszko (46) killed himself after shooting the
officers.
(AP, 3/4/05)
2005 Mar 11, Canada’s Jetsgo
announced in the dead of night that it was going out of business and
grounding all flights immediately as thousands of passengers prepared
to jet away for March break, one of the busiest travel periods of the
year.
(AP, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 23, Pres. Bush, Pres.
Fox, and PM Paul Martin at a one-day summit in Texas signed a deal that
provides for sweeping co-operation between Canada, Mexico and the US on
security, economic and health issues. There was no sign of progress on
touchy trade disputes. They agreed to boost border security and forge
common approaches on everything from cargo inspection to maritime and
aviation safety.
(AP, 3/24/05)
2005 Mar 24, Canada denied a US
deserter’s bid for asylum.
(WSJ, 3/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 30, In Toronto, Canada, a
massive blaze ravaged a plastics factory in the city's west-end,
closing a section of a major highway and keeping firefighters on the
scene for hours as they struggled to contain the six-alarm blaze.
(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Mar 31, Alberta repaid the
last of its debt and became Canada’s only borrowing-free province.
(www.gov.ab.ca/home/index.cfm?Page=852)(www.td.com/economics/budgets/ab05.jsp)
2005 Apr 4, In Canada Edward
Bronfman, Canadian businessman, died. Bronfman and his brother, Peter,
built Edper Investments Ltd. into a business with interests ranging
from forestry and mining to banking, beer and hockey to form the core
of what is today Brascan Corp.
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.B7)(http://tinyurl.com/6jsag)
2005 Apr 5, Peter Jennings
(b.1938), Canada-born ABC News anchorman revealed, he had lung cancer.
He died in August 2005.
(AP,
4/5/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jennings)
2005 Apr 14, Canada cut its
economic growth forecast as the Canadian dollar’s strength put a drag
on exports. Canadian currency had risen 25% against the US dollar since
2003.
(WSJ, 4/15/05, p.A8)
2005 Apr 19, Canada released a
federal policy statement that said it will use more soldiers, more
foreign aid and more diplomats to carve its own niche in a
fast-changing world.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 19, Britain's GW
Pharmaceuticals announced its multiple sclerosis (MS) pain relief drug
Sativex, the world's first containing cannabis, has been approved for
use in Canada.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Apr 21, Canada’s PM Paul
Martin apologized to the nation for a corruption scandal that has
shaken his Liberal Party, delivering a rare televised address aimed at
rescuing his minority government.
(AP, 4/21/05)
2005 Apr 29, In Canada oil
companies stopped all engineering work on a natural gas pipeline from
the Arctic ocean to the oil sands of Alberta, due to high compensation
demands by the Deh Cho First Nation native Indian tribe in Fort
Simpson, Northwest Territories. The Deh Cho also sought a new
autonomous government and complete ownership of subsurface rights
within their 81,000 square mile claim, an area about the size of
Nebraska.
(SFC, 5/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr, Canada, backed by
Minnesota and other states, provinces, environmental groups and Indian
leaders, asked for a year-long expedited review by the International
Joint Commission on a $25 million plan by North Dakota to take water
from land-locked Devils Lake to the nearby Sheyenne River with the goal
of stabilizing the lake at current levels. The water would ultimately
drain into Manitoba's Lake Winnipeg, the world's 10th largest
freshwater lake.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 7, Canadian Press
reported that Canada will send up to 150 military personnel to Sudan to
help the African Union and a UN mission keep the peace.
(CP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 8, Canada’s new C$136
million War Museum opened at LeBreton Flats, upriver from Ottawa’s
Parliament.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.42)
2005 May 13, Canada said it would
go ahead with plans to send military advisors to Sudan's Darfur region
despite Khartoum's insistence that it did not want the troops to enter
the country.
(Reuters, 5/13/05)
2005 May 17, In Canada British
Columbians re-elected Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government, but
voters resoundingly signaled they wanted to end the government's free
ride, electing more than 30 New Democrats.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 19, The Canada House of
Commons split 152-152 on a confidence motion and it took a vote by the
parliament speaker to give Martin's minority government its one-vote
victory.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 20, A bus crash north of
Edmonton killed 6 people. RCMP later charged truck driver Inderjit
Singh Virk (32), of Brampton, Ontario, with dangerous driving.
(CP, 11/28/05)
2005 May 30, Miss Canada, Natalie
Glebova, was crowned Miss Universe in the 54th annual pageant held in
the Thai capital of Bangkok.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May, In Edmonton, Canada, the
body of Ellie May Meyer, a 33-year-old brunette, was found by a farmer
plowing his field northeast of the city. Over 16 years, 12 prostitutes
have been found dead around Edmonton. No one has been arrested.
(CP, 5/14/05)
2005 Jun 4, In Canada Bernard
Landry resigned as leader of the Parti Quebecois.
(CP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 9, Canada’s high court
struck down a Quebec ban on private health insurance that pays for
foster care.
(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A6)
2005 Jun 15, Canada's minority
government survived a series of confidence votes, boosting Prime
Minister Paul Martin and greatly reducing the risk his scandal-battered
Liberal Party government could fall.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 18, Calgary, Canada,
declared an unprecedented state of emergency as flood fears prompted by
heavy rain forced 2,000 residents to be ordered out of their homes.
(CP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 24, Statistics Canada
said that if you divided the national net worth by the population each
Canadian would have a share equal to $134,400.
(CP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 26, Toronto, Canada,
celebrated its 25th annual Pride Parade, one of the world's largest gay
and lesbian festivals under a blistering sun. NYC and SF also hosted
large parades as did other cities around the world.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 28, Canada's House
of Commons passed legislation, drafted by PM Paul Martin, to legalize
gay marriage in spite of fierce opposition from Conservatives and
religious leaders. It would become only the third country in the world
to legalize gay marriage.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 28, Canada’s Supreme
Court said there is well-founded evidence that Rwandan exile Leon
Mugesera helped to incite the massacre of ethnic rivals in his homeland
and should be kicked out of Canada.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jul 1, Canadians celebrated
Canada Day, the 60th anniversary of V-E Day and Canada's role in
liberating the Netherlands, as well as the 100th anniversary of Alberta
and Saskatchewan joining Confederation were all marked with music and
tributes.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 1, In North Dakota a
14-mile, $28 million drainage channel, from Devil’s Lake to the
Sheyenne River, was scheduled to open, but it was held up by heavy
rains. Canada protested that polluted water would end up in Lake
Winnipeg.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.34)
2005 Jul 6, Canada asked
Washington to persuade a US court to dismiss a lawsuit against Talisman
Energy Inc. that alleges the Calgary-based oil company aided genocide
in southern Sudan. The suit was filed in a New York district court in
2001 by the Presbyterian Church of Sudan. Talisman sold its 25%
interest in Sudan's main oil project for $771 million in 2003.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 10, In Canada 2 small
biplanes simulating a World War I dogfight collided at an air show in
Saskatchewan, killing both pilots instantly.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 11, The Deh Cho First
Nations of the Northwest Territories agreed to a deal with the Canadian
government to get meaningful participation in the environmental
assessment and regulatory review of the $5.7 billion Mackenzie Valley
Pipeline for gas project.
(WSJ, 7/12/05, p.A15)
2005 Jul 14, A US appeals court
overturned the 2003 “mad cow” ban on beef imports from Canada. The USDA
said it would lift restrictions within days.
(WSJ, 7/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 20, Canada legalized gay
marriage, becoming the world's 4th nation to grant full legal rights to
same-sex couples.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 21, US and Canadian
authorities reported the shutdown of a newly completed 100-yard border
crossing tunnel outside Lynden, Wa., intended for smuggling marijuana.
(SFC, 7/22/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 28, The main body of
Canadian soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan has begun arriving in
the treacherous Kandahar region. They're part of what will be a
250-strong provincial reconstruction team, the first such team Canada
has sent to Afghanistan.
(CP, 7/28/05)
2005 Aug 2, An Air France jet
skidded off a Toronto runway and burst into flames, prompting 309
passengers and crew to slide down escape chutes.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, In Canada 43 of 140
train cars left the tracks at Wabamun, Alberta. Some of the cars
contained bunker fuel oil, used in liquid asphalt and to power barges
and ships. 15 of those cars, as well as a car full of lubricating oil,
began to leak into Wabamun lake.
(CP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, A CN Rail freight
trail derailed about 30 kilometers north of Squamish, BC, sending 9
cars plunging into the Cheakamus River canyon and causing a toxic
spill. One of the derailed cars was loaded with about 51,000 liters of
sodium hydroxide, a highly corrosive liquid.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 7, Peter Jennings (67),
Canadian-born ABC broadcaster, died of cancer. He had delivered the
news to Americans each night in five separate decades.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 10, Canada won a ruling
against the US under NAFTA ordering the US to drop punitive
duties on Canadian softwood and refund $4 billion already collected.
The US refused to comply and won support from the WTO.
(www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2005/2005-08-12-04.asp)(Econ, 9/10/05,
p.38)
2005 Aug 13, A chunk of ice bigger
than the area of Manhattan broke from the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere
Island in Canada's far north. Scientists later said that it could wreak
havoc if it starts to float westward toward oil-drilling regions and
shipping lanes in 2007.
(AP, 12/29/06)
2005 Aug 15, Canada’s CBC locked
out 5,300 of its 9,000 employees following 15 months of unsuccessful
talks with the Canadian Media Guild, a merger of 3 unions.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.37)
2005 Aug 15, In Egypt’s the Sinai
Peninsula a crude roadside bomb blasted a vehicle belonging to
international peacekeepers, lightly wounding two Canadians.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 29, Ontario became the
1st province in Canada to ban the pit bull dog. The pit bull was
already banned in several cities across Canada. In the US it was
already banned in Denver, Miami and Cincinnati.
(SFC, 8/30/05, p.A2)
2005 Sep 8, Chinese President Hu
Jintao arrived in Canada for his first state visit, celebrating 35
years of diplomatic ties and rapidly expanding trade and energy
agreements with Canada.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 10, Chinese President Hu
Jintao urged Canada to expand its investment in the Asian giant and
pledged to improve living standards in the world's most populous
country.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 19, The World Wildlife
Federation said severely depleted cod stocks in the Grand Banks off
Canada's east coast face being totally wiped out by illegal fishing.
(Reuters, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 20, Canada’s Federal
Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan said Canada is trying to build
international momentum to combat overfishing.
(CP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 21, A court convicted
Rev. Denis Vadeboncoeur (65), a Canadian priest, of raping a teenage
member of his Normandy parish and sentenced him to 12 years in prison,
the second conviction for the clergyman who went to jail for similar
crimes in Quebec.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 29, Canada’s Supreme
Court cleared the way for the government of British Columbia to sue
cigarette companies for the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses
and to seek damages dating back 50 years as well as costs for future
smoking-related maladies.
(SFC, 9/30/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep, In Canada Dalton
McGuinty, premier of Ontario, decided to prohibit all settlement of
family matters based on religious principles under the 1991 Arbitration
Act.
(Econ, 2/16/08, p.66)
2005 Oct 1, It was reported that
Louis Michaud, a Canadian engineer, had developed an “atmospheric
vortex engine” to harness energy from an artificial tornado.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.76)
2005 Oct 4-2005 Oct 5, In Canada
Toronto's chief medical officer said 4 more residents of a nursing home
for the elderly have died of an unknown respiratory illness, bringing
the number fatally infected by the disease to 10. Officials said
Legionnaires’ disease was the likely cause as the deaths rose to 16.
(AP, 10/5/05)(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 5, Daniel Alfredsson
scored twice in the final six minutes of regulation and once during the
first shootout in NHL history, leading Ottawa to a 3-2 win over Toronto.
(AP, 10/5/06)
2005 Oct 19, Canadian police
arrested a Rwandan man who is living in Toronto, charging him with
crimes against humanity during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
(Reuters, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 25, A Canadian court
approved a $4.2 billion takeover of PetroKazakhstan by China's largest
oil company, China National Petroleum Corp., clearing the final
potential obstacle to China's biggest foreign acquisition yet.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Nov 9, In Canada Vancouver
Mayor Philip Owen added his name to the list of those who believe that
marijuana should be decriminalized.
(Econ, 11/12/05,
p.39)(www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread11310.shtml)
2005 Nov 15, Andre Boisclair (39)
defeated Pauline Marois, the former Quebec deputy premier, to lead
Parti Quebecois 54% to 31%.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.42)
2005 Nov 18, US officials said
that US and Canadian police have arrested 291 people in a major drug
bust that was given unprecedented cooperation by Vietnamese agents. The
2-year operation covered ecstasy, which was shipped into Canada in
powder form, turned into pills and then smuggled across the border
along with massive amounts of marijuana.
(AFP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Canada officials
said a strain of H5 bird flu was found in a duck on a commercial farm
in British Columbia's Fraser Valley. Tests soon confirmed that the
strain was nonlethal.
(AP, 11/19/05)(WSJ, 11/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 22, The US Commerce Dept.
said it will comply with a Nafta panel’s order to drastically cut US
duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber. In December the Commerce
Dept. Said it will cut import duties in half to 10.81%. Canada
continued to press for duties to be dropped entirely.
(WSJ, 11/23/05, p.A14)(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Nov 24, In Canada opposition
parties introduced a no-confidence motion that is expected to topple PM
Paul Martin's government and force a parliamentary election campaign
during the Christmas holidays.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 25, Canada pledged $4.3
billion in a landmark deal with Indian and northern Inuit communities
to help lift them from the poverty and disease that has plagued their
neglected reserves for more than a century.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 28, In Canada opposition
parties seized upon a corruption scandal to bring down the minority
government of PM Paul Martin in a vote of no confidence. The
Conservative Party teamed up with the New Democratic and Bloc Quebecois
parties to bring down the government, claiming the ruling Liberal Party
had lost its moral authority.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 28, Thousands of
environmentalists and government officials from around the world
gathered in Montreal for a UN conference to brainstorm on how to slow
the effects of greenhouses gases and global warming. The US defended
its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol, saying during the opening
of a global summit on climate change that it is doing more than most
countries to protect the earth's atmosphere.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Dec 3, In Canada tens of
thousands of people demonstrated in Montreal, host of the UN Climate
Change Conference, to demand that governments worldwide take concrete
measures against global warming.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 6, Canada’s central bank
raised interest rates for the 3rd time in a row by a quarter point to
3.25%, its highest point in nearly 2½ years.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 7, The EU and host Canada
piled pressure on the US to join an international pact to curb
greenhouse gas emissions and limit the predicted chaos from global
warming.
(Reuters, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, Scientists said as
wetlands disappear and shorelines are degraded, the Great Lakes are
losing their ability to cope with environmental stress and ward off a
catastrophic breakdown.
(CP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 9, Former US Pres.
Clinton called Bush’s global warming stance “flat wrong” while speaking
at the climate conference in Montreal.
(WSJ, 12/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 10, In Canada more than
150 nations agreed to launch formal talks on mandatory post-2012
reductions in greenhouse gases, talks that will exclude an unwilling
US.
(AP, 12/10/05)(Econ, 12/17/05, p.77)
2005 Dec 14, In Canada at least
one shot fired through a door at police responding to a routine call in
Laval, Quebec, left Valerie Gignac, a 25-year-old woman officer, dead
and led to an eight-hour armed standoff that ended with the arrest of a
paroled convict.
(CP, 12/14/05)
2005 Dec 20, A Canadian police
officer serving as a UN peacekeeper in Haiti was shot to death near a
volatile slum on the outskirts of the capital.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 21, The Supreme Court of
Canada lifted a ban on swingers' clubs, ruling that group sex among
consenting adults is neither prostitution nor a threat to society.
(Reuters, 12/26/05)
2005 Dec 26, In Canada gunfire
erupted on a busy Toronto street filled with holiday shoppers, killing
a young woman (15) and wounding six other people. There have been 78
murders in Toronto this year, including a record 52 by gunfire, twice
as many as last year. On June 13, 2006, 8 people were arrested in
connection with the shootings.
(AP, 12/27/05)(Reuters, 6/13/06)
2005 Dec 28, Australian investment
bank Macquarie Bank Ltd. said it had bought an 81 percent interest in
two Canadian healthcare projects, nine months after acquiring a
Canadian aged care housing provider.
(Reuters, 12/28/05)
2006 Jan 1, Toronto wrapped up
2005 with 78 homicides, 52 of them gun-related.
(CP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 11, Samir Ait Mohamed, an
Algerian-born man accused of helping in the plot to bomb the Los
Angeles airport on the millennium, was quietly deported from Canada to
an unknown destination after years fighting for refugee status there.
(AP, 1/13/06)(WSJ, 1/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 15, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide car bomb hit a Canadian military convoy, killing
three civilians, including a Canadian diplomat.
(AP, 1/15/06)
2006 Jan 23, Canadians began
voting on whether to send their Liberal Party packing after 13 years.
Conservatives won and Stephen Harper pledged to quickly carry out his
campaign promises to cut taxes, get tough on crime and repair strained
ties with Washington.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, Canadian officials
said a cow from Alberta had tested positive for mad cow disease.
(SFC, 1/24/06, p.A5)
2006 Jan 30, Fairmont Hotels &
Resorts announced that a group of investors including Saudi Prince
Alwaleed bin Talal has agreed to buy the luxury hotel chain for about
$3.3 billion in cash and some $600 million in assumed debt. A new
Canadian company will take over outstanding shares from the
Toronto-based sellers.
(SFC, 1/31/06, p.E3)
2006 Jan, In Alberta, Canada,
Premier Ralph Klein disbursed prosperity checks of C$400 to every adult
in his province.
(Econ, 4/8/06,
p.39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_Bonus)
2006 Feb 6, In Canada Stephen
Harper, dismissed less than two years ago as unelectable, was sworn in
as the country's 22nd PM.
(CP, 2/6/06)
2006 Feb 7, Officials in Canada
announced an agreement to close 5 million acres in British Columbia’s
Great Bear Rain Forest to logging. Loggers will be guaranteed a right
to selectively cut in 10 million acres of the forest.
(SFC, 2/7/06, p.A6)
2006 Feb 11, Nova Scotia's
Conservative party chose Cape Bretoner Rodney MacDonald, a professional
fiddler and former gym teacher, as their leader and the province's new
premier following a dramatic convention in Halifax.
(CP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 17, William Cowsill (58),
lead singer of the family band The Cowsills, died in Calgary, Alberta.
The pop family band was the inspiration for “The Partridge Family” TV
series (1970-1974).
(SFC, 2/21/06, p.B4)(AP, 2/17/07)
2006 Feb 21, In Cancun, Mexico,
Domenico Ianiero, 59, and his wife, Annunziata, 55, of Woodbridge,
Ont., were found in their hotel rooms at the all-inclusive five-star
resort on the Mayan Riviera in the early morning. Their throats had
been slashed. The crime apparently took place after a rehearsal dinner
ahead of a wedding in which the Lily, one of the Ianieros' twin girls,
was to be married at the resort. Prosecutors in Cancun said two
Canadian women were suspected in the killing and had fled to Canada.
(CP, 2/22/06)
2006 Feb 24, Rodney MacDonald
(34), Canada's youngest premier, was sworn into office in Nova Scotia.
(AP, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 24, In Afghanistan
Canadian troops officially took over the fight on the front lines of
Kandahar province from their American allies.
(CP, 2/24/06)
2006 Feb 25, Canada's Clara Hughes
celebrated her Olympic Games 5000m speedskating gold medal by revealing
that she was going to donate every penny she has in her bank account to
charity. Hughes will donate 10,000 dollars to the Right to Play
organization which aims to encourage disadvantaged youngsters to
improve themselves through sport.
(AFP, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 26, In Canada, 19
Catholic priests singed an open letter in Montreal’s La Presse
newspaper denouncing Vatican opposition to gay marriage and having
homosexuals into the priesthood.
(AP, 3/1/06)
2006 Mar 17, Statistics Canada
reported that the nation's net worth hit $4.5 trillion, or $137,000 a
head, at the end of 2005.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 21, Royal Dutch Shell
said it paid $465 million Canadian dollars for the rights to explore
219,000 acres in Alberta’s oil sands.
(WSJ, 3/22/06, p.A14)
2006 Mar 22, In Canada a BC
Ferries sank in the middle of the night after hitting Gil Island near
the village of Hartley Bay, on its scheduled route down the rugged
British Columbia coast. 99 passengers and crew made it to lifeboats,
but 2 passengers failed to escape.
(Reuters, 3/12/08)
2006 Mar 23, Stephane Lambiel of
Switzerland won his second straight World Figure Skating Championships
title, in Calgary, Alberta.
(AP, 3/23/07)
2006 Mar 24, The $24 million
musical production of "Lord of the Rings" at Toronto's Princess of
Wales Theatre met mixed reviews as critics applauded its leaping orcs
and menacing dark riders, but got lost in the tangled plots of Middle
Earth.
(Reuters, 3/27/06)
2006 Mar 24, Wendy’s Int’l. spun
off Tim Hortons, a coffee-and-doughnut chain dominant in Canada. It was
co-founded in 1964 by hockey player Tim Horton. Wendy’s, which acquired
it in 1995, retained an 82.7% stake.
(Econ, 4/1/06, p.56)
2006 Mar 25, Canadian hunters
started shooting and clubbing harp seal pups at the start of an annual
hunt that is the focus of a tech-savvy protest by animal rights groups.
(Reuters, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 30, Pres. Bush arrived in
Cancun, Mexico, for 2 days of North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) talks with Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Mexico’s Pres. Fox.
(Reuters, 3/30/06)(WSJ, 3/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 31, President Bush,
closing a three-nation NAFTA summit, defended requiring secure
documents from border-crossing Canadians and pushed Mexico to prevent
more of its people from illegally entering America.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Apr 3, Constellation Brands
and Vincor Int’l., Canada’s largest wine company announced plans for a
$1.3 billion merger.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.F2)
2006 Apr 4, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper delivered his “throne speech” to the new session of parliament
and concentrated on the same 5 promises upon which he had campaigned.
These included an anti-sleaze law, a cut in sales tax, a reduction in
waiting times for health care, cash for child care and tougher
sentences for gun crime.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.38)
2006 Apr 4, Venezuelan authorities
found the bullet-ridden bodies of three Canadian boys who had been
kidnapped more than a month ago. John Faddoul (17), along with his
brothers Kevin (13) and Jason (12) were abducted Feb. 23 when
unidentified men dressed as police stopped their car at a checkpoint in
Caracas as the boys were on their way to school.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 7, The US Court of
International Law ruled that US Customs violated a provision of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in applying a law known as
the Byrd amendment to antidumping and countervailing duties on goods
from Canada and Mexico.
(Reuters, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 8, In Canada 8 men were
found dead inside abandoned vehicles in a remote wooded area of a
farmer's property. All were all from greater Toronto and all knew each
other.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 10, In Canada 5 men were
charged in the slayings of 8 people who were found on an isolated farm
in Ontario in what police called an "internal cleansing" of a
motorcycle gang. Most of the victims were either full or associate
members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 12, Officials said
Canadian and US police have broken up a criminal ring that smuggled
dozens of Indian and Pakistani nationals into the US at a cost of up to
$35,000 each.
(Reuters, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, The final leg of
Canada's contentious seal hunt moved to the ice floes off northeastern
Newfoundland and Labrador, with sealers expected to harvest another
234,000 harp seal pups.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 16, Stephen Marshall, a
Canadian man suspected of murdering two registered sex offenders in
their Maine homes, took his own life with a gun on a crowded bus in
Boston.
(Reuters, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 16, Canada confirmed a
new case of mad cow disease. Canadian cattle ranchers were still
recovering from a two-year ban on their beef in the US.
(AP, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 20, China denied it is
engaged in industrial espionage in Canada, calling accusations by
Ottawa's foreign minister baseless and irresponsible.
(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 21, Canada said 2 RCMP
members are heading to Sudan to assist the UN mission there in training
and supporting Sudanese police and, where possible, advising them on
policing methods.
(CP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 22, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb exploded as a Canadian armored vehicle drove by, killing
four soldiers.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 23, In Canada the bodies
of Marc Richardson (42), his wife Debra (48), and son Jacob (8) were
discovered stabbed to death in their family home in Medicine Hat,
Alberta. Their daughter Jasmine (12) and her boyfriend Jeremy Steinke
(23) were arrested the next day in Saskatchewan. With them were a bag
of bloodstained clothing, knives and a purse belonging to the preteen's
mother. In 2007 a jury found Jasmine guilty of first-degree murder for
helping her adult boyfriend stab her parents and little brother to
death. Jasmine was sentenced to serve four years in custody and another
4-1/2 years under community supervision.
(Reuters,
7/6/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_family_murders)(AP,
11/9/07)
2006 Apr 25, Canada’s central bank
raised its overnight interest rate a 6th straight time, a quarter point
to 4%.
(WSJ, 4/26/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 25, Jane Jacobs (89),
American-born Canadian writer and activist, died. Her books included
“The Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1961).
(WSJ, 4/26/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 26, Negotiators in Canada
reached an agreement to compensate some 80,000 Canadian Indians who
attended government-financed schools where many suffered physical and
sexual abuse. Nearly $2 billion would be paid out as damages to
survivors of the schools.
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.A12)
2006 Apr 27, The Bush
administration announced that it had reached a tentative agreement with
Canada to settle the long-running trade battle over softwood lumber.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 27, Canadian and US
scientists reported success with an experimental vaccine against the
Marburg virus in monkeys, even if the shot is given after infection.
(SFC, 4/27/06, p.A7)
2006 Apr 28, Canadian currency
topped out at C$1.1162 to the US dollar, or 89.59 US cents, its highest
level since June 1978, rising for the sixth straight session.
(Reuters, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 29, John Kenneth
Galbraith (97), an influential liberal Canadian-born economist and
author, died in Massachusetts. His more than 40 works included
“American Capitalism” (1952), "The Affluent Society" (1958), in which
he argued that the US had become rich in consumer goods but poor in
social services and “The New Industrial State” (1967).
(Reuters, 4/30/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.86)
2006 May 2, Canada's new
government released its first federal budget, offering broad tax cuts
and pledging to shore up the country's security with spending increases
for the military, border security and policing.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 2, The Canadian dollar
cracked 90 US cents, setting a new 28-year high and helping Canadians
to realize cheaper US imports of everything from vegetables and
clothing to computers.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 5, In Windsor, Canada,
Const. John Atkinson (37) was shot to death as he approached two men
involved in a drug transaction in a parking lot outside a convenience
store. Nikkolas Brennan and Cody Defausses, both 18, were charged with
first-degree murder. Atkinson, a father of two, was the first officer
slain in the force's history of more than 120 years.
(AP, 5/7/06)
2006 May 9, The Canadian dollar
hit a 28-year high against the US dollar, as the greenback came under
broad selling pressure.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 17, In Canada 4 people
were reported killed at a mine being decommissioned in the British
Columbia. One of the victims may have gone undiscovered for two days.
Kimberley area media said the victims may have been overcome by
hydrogen sulfide gas, a highly toxic and explosive gas that is slightly
heavier than air and tends to concentrate at the bottom of poorly
ventilated areas.
(Reuters, 5/17/06)
2006 May 18, More than 600 Toronto
police officers swooped down in coordinated pre-dawn raids across the
city, arresting more than 78 people and seizing guns, drugs and large
amounts of cash.
(Reuters, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, A Canadian citizen
and two US navy sailors were handed lengthy prison sentences for
attempting to smuggle methamphetamine into Australia stashed in the
radar dome of a visiting warship.
(AP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, Australian PM John
Howard, during his first official visit to Ottawa, urged Canada to work
with his country on climate change, much to the horror of
environmentalists. Australia did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
(AFP, 5/18/06)
2006 May 18, In western
Afghanistan a suicide car bomber rammed into two vehicles carrying
foreigners, killing an American working on a counter-narcotics project
and wounding two other people. More than 100 people, most of them
Taliban, were killed in one of the bloodiest days since the fall of the
Taliban. A female Canadian soldier, army Captain Nichola Goddard, was
killed in Kandahar.
(AP, 5/18/06)(AFP, 5/19/06)(WSJ, 5/19/06, p.A1)
2006 May 24, The Bank of Canada
raised its key overnight interest rate by a quarter percentage point to
4.25 percent, as expected, and signaled that it would not hike rates
further at least for now.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 26, In Naples, Italy, the
body of a man was found in a manhole with a knife in his abdomen. He
was soon identified as Lewis Brooks Miskell (49), a Canadian diplomat
missing since March.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Canada hundreds of
thousands of frustrated commuters were forced to find alternate ways to
work as subway stations across Toronto were shut down and buses and
streetcars halted due to a labor dispute. Toronto transit workers were
ordered back to work, ending a wildcat strike that stranded some
700,000 commuters and filled the streets of Canada's biggest city with
extra cars, bicycles and pedestrians as commuters scrambled to get to
work.
(AP, 5/29/06)(Reuters, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Afghanistan 5
Canadian soldiers were hurt and up to six militants killed in a
gunbattle west of Kandahar, while US-led coalition aircraft bombed
Taliban militants meeting in remote Helmand province, reportedly
killing dozens.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 31, Smokers were required
to light up outside across much of eastern Canada, as one of North
America's most restrictive bans went into effect.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 May 31, The Canadian dollar
hit its strongest level in 28 years against the dollar, piercing
through a key chart level.
(Reuters, 5/31/06)
2006 Jun 2, In Toronto, Canada, 17
people were arrested on "terrorism-related" charges including plotting
attacks with fertilizer bombs on Canadian targets. The adult suspects
from Toronto were Chand, alias Abdul Shakur, 25; Fahim Ahmad, 21;
Jahmaal James, 23; and Asin Mohamed Durrani, 19. Those from Mississauga
are Ghany; Abdelhaleen; Zakaria Amara, 20; Asad Ansari, 21; Saad
Khalid, 19; and Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43. Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasim
Abdi Mohamed, 24, were from Kingston.
(AP, 6/4/06)(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 2, Teck Cominco Ltd., a
Canadian mining company, agreed to pay millions to assess whether
pollution it dumped into the Columbia River damaged wildlife and public
health in Washington state.
(SFC, 6/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 5, Brookfield Properties
Corp. said it will acquire Trizec Properties and its Canadian arm for
$4.8 billion. The deal would create one of North America’s largest
landlords.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.C3)
2006 Jun 12, Ken Thomson (82),
Canadian newspaper tycoon, died. He helped transform his father's print
empire into one of the world's biggest electronic publishers.
(Reuters, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 14, Husky Energy, Cnooc’s
Canadian partner, announced a large gas discovery under the South China
Sea. In 2009 Husky confirmed the discovery saying the Liwan field could
ultimately produce over 150 million cubic feet per day.
(WSJ, 7/19/06,
p.A8)(http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060614/to279.html?.v=30)(WSJ,
2/25/09, p.B3)
2006 Jun 16, Canada said it has
detected a case of H5 avian flu in the eastern province of Prince
Edward Island and plans further testing over the weekend to determine
whether it is the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain. On June 21 officials
said it was not the pathogenic H5N1.
(Reuters, 6/17/06)(Reuters, 6/21/06)
2006 Jun 17, The Edmonton Oilers
shut out the Carolina Hurricanes 4-0 to take the Stanley Cup finals to
a seventh and deciding game.
(Reuters, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 17, In Haiti kidnappers
seized Ed Hughes, a Canadian missionary, from his residence and
demanded $45,000 in ransom. After 5 days the ransom was lowered to
$10,000. Hughes lost an arm in December 2005 trying to stop the
abduction of Haitian-American missionary Daniel Phelusmar. Hughes was
shot and badly wounded in the arm. Phelusmar was held hostage for four
days.
(AP, 6/22/06)
2006 Jun 19, In Raleigh, NC, the
Carolina Hurricanes blunted an historic comeback bid by the Edmonton
Oilers with a 3-1 Game Seven win to lift their first Stanley Cup.
(Reuters, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 26, Phelps Dodge Corp.
said it would acquire Canada's Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Ltd. for
about $40 billion in a blockbuster deal to create the world's largest
nickel miner and second-largest copper producer.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2006 Jun 28, Canadian scientists
said they have created the first device able to re-grow teeth and
bones. Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton filed
patents earlier this month in the US for the tool based on
low-intensity pulsed ultrasound technology after testing it on a dozen
dental patients in Canada.
(AFP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 29, Canadian and US
authorities said they have cracked a smuggling network that used
aircraft and delivery spots in remote western parks to ship tons of
drugs over the border.
(Reuters, 6/29/06)
2006 Jun 29, The new UN Human
Rights Council overrode Canadian and Russian objections and passed a
declaration to protect the rights of indigenous peoples around the
world. The declaration asserted that indigenous peoples may have a
right to restitution of land and resources taken from them. The Council
also unanimously approved an international treaty that would ban states
from abducting perceived enemies and hiding them in secret prisons or
killing them.
(AP, 6/29/06)(Reuters, 6/30/06)
2006 Jul 7, In Canada 2 Mounties
were wounded near the Saskatchewan community of Spiritwood as they
investigated what appeared to be a family dispute. Constables Robin
Cameron (29) and Marc Bourdages (26) died from their wounds on July 15
and 16.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Jul 11, The Bank of Canada
held its key overnight interest rate steady, as expected, and gave no
sign it was considering further hikes.
(Reuters, 7/11/06)
2006 Jul 13, Three Canadian
military personnel were killed and four others injured on after their
helicopter crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a search and rescue
training exercise off Canada's east coast.
(Reuters, 7/13/06)
2006 Jul 13, Canada confirmed its
second case of mad cow disease in as many weeks, and the 7th since 2003.
(AP, 7/13/06)
2006 Jul 16, Seven Canadians from
the same Montreal family, including four young children, were killed in
Lebanon when Israeli aircraft bombed a house in the southern village of
Aitaroun. 4 other relatives died soon thereafter from wounds in the
same attack.
(AP, 7/17/06)(Reuters, 7/18/06)
2006 Jul 19, In Canada teamsters
railway workers said they initiated a strike against Canadian National
Railway in an effort to resolve a long-standing contract dispute.
(AP, 7/19/06)
2006 Jul 25, Canada said it
planned to pay a total of C$1.1 billion ($965 million) to around 5,500
people who had contracted hepatitis C from transfusions.
(Reuters, 7/25/06)
2006 Jul 26, An unhappy China said
that Canada's decision to bestow honorary citizenship on the Dalai Lama
could hurt commercial relations between the two countries.
(Reuters, 7/26/06)
2006 Jul 27, Canadian police said
they had busted two cross-country drug smuggling schemes, seizing 110
kilograms (243 pounds) of cocaine worth C$8.8 million ($7.8 million)
and charging six people.
(Reuters, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 31, The Canadian Food
Inspection Agency said two separate anthrax outbreaks in the Canadian
Prairies have killed about 500 animals on an estimated 100 farms.
(Reuters, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 31, A lesbian couple lost
a legal battle to have their Canadian marriage legally recognized in
Britain.
(Reuters, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul, Canada’s Montreal
Exchange announced plans to start trading credits for carbon-dioxide
emissions, a scheme modeled on the Amsterdam-based European Climate
Exchange set up in 2005.
(Econ, 7/22/06, p.39)
2006 Aug 3, More than 230,000
customers in Ontario and Quebec were without power following a series
of violent thunderstorms over the past couple of days.
(AP, 8/3/06)
2006 Aug 3, Afghanistan's
government ordered around 1,500 South Korean Christians who came to the
Islamic republic for a "peace festival" to leave the country. In
southern Afghanistan a suicide car bomb in a crowded market killed 21
civilians and two roadside bombs in the same province killed a Canadian
soldier and wounded four others.
(AP, 8/3/06)(AFP, 8/3/06)
2006 Aug 6, Cambodian customs over
the weekend seized 12 luxury vehicles stolen in Canada, including a
Hummer and a Cadillac popular with hip-hop music stars, giving an
intriguing insight into the world of international car smuggling.
(Reuters, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 13, The 16th
International AIDS conference opened in Toronto with some 24,000 people
in attendance.
(SSFC, 8/13/06, p.A15)(Econ, 8/19/06, p.65)
2006 Aug 18, Raymond Payne, a
former HSBC Bank USA vice president, pleaded guilty in Manhattan
federal court to a conspiracy charge over his role in a $30 million
telemarketing fraud targeting low-income people with poor credit
histories. Prosecutors said First Choice, run by Canadian co-defendants
Stephen Clark and Leslie Pinsky, extracted $30 million from people, and
transferred the money to the HSBC account. In 2007 Clark was sentenced
just over 11 years in prison.
(Reuters, 8/18/06)(Reuters, 6/15/07)
2006 Aug 18, In Canada the 16th
International AIDS Conference ended in a firestorm with vitriol hurled
at G8 countries and South Africa over lapses in the battle against the
disease that has claimed 25 million lives.
(Reuters, 8/18/06)
2006 Aug 20, In India a Canadian
was arrested with illegal drugs worth five million dollars in New Delhi
in what was billed as a major effort to stop narcotics being shipped to
the West. About 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of ephedrine, hashish and
other illegal drugs were seized overnight from Girdish Singh Toor while
he was leading a convoy of vehicles.
(AFP, 8/20/06)
2006 Aug 23, The Canadian Food
Inspection Agency confirmed that a mature beef cow in the Prairie
province Alberta tested positive for mad cow case. It was the 8th case
since 2003.
(Reuters, 8/23/06)
2006 Aug 30, Canadian miner
Uranium One said it had approved Australia's fourth uranium mine, the
Honeymoon project in the South Australian outback.
(AP, 8/30/06)
2006 Aug 30, Iran released Ramin
Jahanbegloo, a Canadian-Iranian writer, who was accused of working with
the US to overthrow the government.
(Reuters, 8/30/06)
2006 Sep 3, NATO and Afghan forces
hit the Taliban with air strikes and artillery in Operation Medusa in
southern Afghanistan. Four NATO soldiers, including 3 Canadians, and
more than 200 insurgents were killed in the first two days of a major
anti-Taliban operation under way in the Panjwayi district, about 10
miles from the city of Kandahar.
(AFP, 9/3/06)
2006 Sep 8, The Toronto
International Film Festival got off to a multi-cultural start night
with the premiere of "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen," a drama about
Canada's Inuit people being stripped of their traditions by
Christianity.
(Reuters, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 12, Canada and the United
States formally signed an agreement to end a protracted dispute over
Canadian softwood lumber.
(Reuters, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 13, A man in a black
trench coat opened fire at a downtown Montreal college, slaying a young
woman, Anastasia De Sousa (18), a student at Dawson College, and
wounding at least 19 other people before police shot and killed him.
Officials soon identified the killer as Kimveer Gill (25), resident of
a Montreal suburb.
(AP, 9/13/06)(Reuters, 9/14/06)
2006 Sep 14, The hedge fund
Amaranth Advisors, led by Nick Maounis, announced a loss of some $560
million. The name was taken from the Greek word for “unfading.” Brian
Hunter (32), a Canadian energy trader, got caught on the wrong side of
falling natural gas futures.
(WSJ, 9/23/06, p.B5)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.83)
2006 Sep 15, The US joined with
the EU and Canada charging that China has erected illegal barriers to
the sale of U.S. and other foreign-made auto parts there.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 18, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed four Canadian troops
handing out candy to children and wounded 27 civilians.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2006 Sep 20, In Australia arrested
5 Canadian men after cocaine worth A$35 million ($26 million) was found
hidden inside computer monitors. This was believed to be Australia's
fifth-largest illegal drugs seizure.
(Reuters, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 24, Inco, one of Canada’s
two largest mining companies, agreed to be acquired by Companhia Vale
do Rio Doce of Brazil for $17.8 billion.
(www.secinfo.com/dRY7g.v113.d.htm)(WSJ, 4/25/08,
p.A1)
2006 Sep 29, The Nature
Conservancy of Canada announced that Roberta Langtry (1916-2005), a
Canadian teacher who lived a frugal life but gave large, anonymous
donations to people in need, has left a C$4.3 million ($3.8 million)
fortune to the environmental charity.
(Reuters, 9/30/06)
2006 Sep 30, In Canada at least
five people were crushed to death in their cars after the collapse of
an overpass near Montreal.
(AP, 10/1/06)
2006 Oct 3, The X Prize
Foundation, founded by aerospace entrepreneur Paul Diamandis, said it
would team with Canadian geologist Stewart Blussom to offer $10 million
to any team that can completely decode the genes of 100 people in 10
days.
(WSJ, 10/4/06, p.B1)
2006 Oct 19, A court struck down
sections of a Canadian anti-terrorism law, in a ruling that threw out
warrants used to search the home of a reporter covering U.S. efforts to
secretly send a Canadian terror suspect to Syria for interrogation.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 24, Mohammed Momin
Khawaja (27), the first person charged under Canada's anti-terrorism
act won a partial victory when a judge struck down a key portion of the
law, ruling that the clause dealing with the definition of the law
violates the country's bill of rights.
(AP, 10/24/06)
2006 Oct 26, An American sex
offender who was sentenced by a US judge to three years "exile" in
Canada was arrested by Canadian border guards and faces deportation. A
New York state judge allowed former teacher Malcolm Watson, convicted
of having sex with a 15-year-old girl, to live in Canada on probation
rather than spending time in a US jail.
(Reuters, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Canada Finance
Minister Jim Flaherty shocked markets when he announced plans to tax
income trusts. Flaherty signaled concern that the flow of conversions
to income trusts could become an uncontrollable torrent that would
damage the economy and erode government revenues. Income trusts were
first set up in the mid-1980s by property and energy companies who
chose to pass profits to investors and thus avoid corporate income tax.
(AP, 10/31/06)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.86)
2006 Oct 31, In St. Thomas,
Canada, a man (34) who was sexually abusing a young girl in his home
was arrested after he transmitted images of the assault via the
Internet to an undercover detective.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 3, US and Canadian
researchers reported that the world's fish and seafood could disappear
by 2048 as overfishing and pollution destroy ocean ecosystems at an
accelerating pace.
(AFP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 5, In Canada Damon Crooks
(28) of Jacksonville, Fla., was stabbed in the early morning outside a
downtown club in Halifax after a fight that began inside spilled onto
the street. The American sailor killed during the bar brawl was a "Good
Samaritan" trying to break up a fight he wasn't even involved in.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 6, Canada’s Heritage Oil
reported an oil find on the Ugandan side of Lake Albert.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/36dnbm)
2006 Nov 8, Canada's homicide rate
rose for the second straight year in 2005, fueled in part by an
increase in gang-related violence, according to new government
statistics.
(AP, 11/8/06)
2006 Nov 16, Canada said it had
arrested a foreign man who it branded a threat to national security and
who one national newspaper identified as a possible Russian spy. On Nov
21 the government released a document saying: "The Canadian Security
Intelligence Service has reasonable grounds to believe that the foreign
national alleging to be Paul William Hampel is a member of the Sluzhba
Vneshney Razvedki (SVR), the foreign intelligence service of the
Russian intelligence services."
(AP, 11/16/06)(Reuters, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 22, Canadian police
arrested 90 people in a series of raids targeting what officials said
was traditional Italian organized crime in the Montreal area. The raids
stemmed from an investigation dubbed Project Colisee that began in 2004.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 23, Canada's opposition
Liberal party announced support for Conservative PM Stephen Harper's
motion recognizing French-speaking Quebec as a nation within Canada,
adding political weight to an attempt to pre-empt similar efforts by
Quebec separatists.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 24, Canadian police found
22 apartments in a 13-story Toronto building rigged up to grow
marijuana with a value of $5 million.
(WSJ, 11/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 28, Canada’s Parliament
formally recognized the French-speaking people of Quebec as a nation
within Canada, a seemingly symbolic gesture that has led to a Cabinet
resignation and ignited concerns over a renewed push for the province's
sovereignty.
(AP, 11/28/06)
2006 Dec 2, Stephane Dion (51), a
former environment minister who criticized PM Harper for modeling
himself after President Bush, won leadership of Canada's Liberal Party.
(AP, 12/2/06)
2006 Dec 3, Members of Alberta's
ruling Conservative party picked Ed Stelmach (55), a moderate farmer,
as premier of the western Canadian province.
(Reuters, 12/3/06)
2006 Dec 26, Canada deported a man
who posed as a Canadian for years, describing him as a Russian spy who
used a fake birth certificate to create a false identity and accumulate
three Canadian passports. The man, who acquired passports in the name
of Paul William Hampel, left Canada for Russia.
(Reuters, 12/26/06)
2006 Dec, America’s first tidal
project became operational after 2 underwater turbines were installed
in New York’s East River by Verdant Power, a Canadian-American company.
14 other countries already operated tidal or wave-power stations, but
most were tiny, experimental and expensive.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.71)
2007 Jan 11, The US government
said Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden
inside were found planted on US contractors with classified security
clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005
and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 12, Canada unveiled plans
to spend more than $368 million over the next five years to protect its
border from terrorist, economic and environmental threats.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 13, In Canada
groundbreaking took place in Calgary on the 58-story Encana tower, The
Bow. In Dec 2008 construction was halted due to falling oil prices.
(Econ, 1/17/09,
p.40)(http://highriseconstruction.wordpress.com/2008/07/)
2007 Jan 16, Canadian Trade
Minister David Emerson signed a technology deal with China, on a visit
aimed at reinvigorating relations with the Asian superpower that have
been dented by Canada's blunt talk on human rights.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 19, Denny Doherty (66),
one-quarter of the 1960s folk-rock group the Mamas and the Papas, died
at his home in Ontario, Canada. The group was known for their soaring
harmony on hits like "California Dreamin’" (1966) and "Monday, Monday."
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 21, Canada announced it
will spend $25 million to protect, the Great Bear Rainforest, a
16-million-acre preserve that stretches 250 miles along British
Columbia's rugged Pacific coastline, one of the largest intact
temperate rainforests left in the world.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 26, Canada apologized to
software engineer Maher Arar, who was deported to Syria by US agents
after Canadian police mistakenly labeled him an Islamic extremist, and
paid him C$10.5 million ($8.9 million) in compensation.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 31, Canada's former
Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and human
rights lawyer David Matas released a report saying China's military is
harvesting organs from prison inmates, mostly Falungong practitioners,
for large scale transplants including for foreign recipients.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Chinese President Hu
Jintao arrived in Cameroon to begin his second African tour to boost
ties with a continent that has many of the oil and commodity reserves
the Asian giant needs for its ballooning economy.
(Reuters, 1/31/07)
2007 Feb 7, Canada’s Nortel
Networks Corp. said it will slash 2,900 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its
workforce, over the next two years and shift another 1,000 employees to
lower-cost locations like China, India and Mexico as North America's
biggest maker of telephone equipment struggles to shore up its profits.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 10, Canadian National
Railway Co. said that 2,800 of its conductors and yard-service workers
at its operations in Canada began a strike, a work stoppage that could
affect the country's key shipments of grain, timber and other
commodities.
(Reuters, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Canada D-Wave
Systems, based in Burnaby near Vancouver, announced the existence of
the world’s first practical quantum computer.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.81)
2007 Feb 14, German-US auto giant
DaimlerChrysler said it planned to axe 13,000 jobs at its loss-making
Chrysler subsidiary as part of a broad restructuring plan aimed at
returning the US unit to profitability by 2009. The bulk of the job
losses will affect union workers, with 9,000 hourly jobs eliminated in
the United States and 2,000 in Canada.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 19, Canada unexpectedly
granted permanent resident status to Amir Kazemian (41), an Iranian,
man who spent nearly three years in sanctuary in a Vancouver church
before being arrested over the weekend. The Citizenship and Immigration
officials granted him residency on humanitarian and compassionate
grounds.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 20, The Canadian
government and Bill Gates announced an initiative to establish a
research institute to develop an AIDS vaccine, committing a total of
$119 million to the project.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, Three men from
Canada, Taiwan and the United States completed a 4,000 mile run across
the Sahara Desert over 111 days to draw attention to the lack of access
to water in many countries they crossed.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Ottawa took the first
step to end a strike by Canadian National Railway workers that has
spurred demands for government intervention by a chorus of shippers as
well as an internecine union battle.
(Reuters, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 23, Canada's Supreme
Court struck down the government's right to detain foreign terrorism
suspects indefinitely and without trial, ruling that the system
violates the country's bill of rights.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 24, A tentative deal was
reached to end a two-week-old strike by about 2,800 Canadian National
Railway Co. employees that had provoked a threat of government
intervention.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Bolivia police
said the body of Simon Matthew Boily (23), a Canadian cyclist, has been
found in a mountain ravine more than a month after he set out on the
"Highway of Death" from the La Paz on Jan 21.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 27, The Canadian
parliament voted to end two anti-terror measures adopted in the wake of
the Sept. 11 terror attacks, one that allowed for preventive arrests
and another that permitted forced testimony.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, An Egyptian with
Canadian citizenship on trial for spying for Israel shouted from his
courtroom cage that a confession had been extracted under torture.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 13, Canada said it had
the highest population growth rate among G-8 industrialized nations
between 2001 and 2006, thanks to the arrival of 1.2 million immigrants.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 19, Jim Flaherty,
Canada’s finance minister, announced the 10th successive annual fiscal
surplus.
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.44)
2007 Apr 1, In Canada the Trade,
Investment and Labor Mobility Agreement went into effect between
British Columbia and Alberta.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.35)
2007 Mar 21, The World Trade
Organization (WTO) said Canada should dismantle "significant" trade
barriers it uses to protect its wheat, dairy and other agricultural
producers.
(Reuters, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 29, Fisheries Minister
Loyola Hearn said Canada will cut back the number of harp seals that
hunters can kill this year to 270,000 from 335,000 in 2006 because of
bad ice conditions off its East Coast.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Canada Menu Foods
Income Fund, maker of the tainted pet foods at the center of this
month's massive recall, said it is no longer using a Chinese supplier
of wheat gluten after US officials found the chemical melamine in some
of the recalled products.
(Reuters, 3/31/07)
2007 Apr 1, In Canada Nelly
Furtado stole the show at the Junos, playing the roles of both host and
big winner at the 2007 edition of the nation's top music awards.
(Reuters, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 2, Canada's controversial
annual seal hunt opened in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the
worst ice conditions in more than two decades have nearly wiped out the
herd there.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 8, A purported spokesman
for the Taliban said the kidnapped translator for an Italian journalist
was killed in southern Afghanistan. In the eastern Paktika province,
two Afghan guards were killed and five wounded during a four-hour
firefight with Taliban militants. In eastern Khost province, a gunman
riding on the back of a motorcycle opened fire on Afghans working for
NATO's International Security Assistance Force, killing two of the men
and wounding another. In eastern Nangarhar province, a suicide car
bomber blew himself up next to a US-led coalition convoy. 2 roadside
bombs in southern Afghanistan left seven NATO soldiers dead. 6
Canadians died in one of the 2 blasts.
(AP, 4/8/07)(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 11, Canadian National
Railway faced picket lines, but the union said it does not plan this
new job action to be as disruptive as the strike that hamstrung
Canada's largest railway in February.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy, wounding seven
civilians, while a US-led coalition airstrike killed 13 suspected
militants. Another bomb blast in the south killed two Canadian soldiers
and wounded three others.
(AP, 4/11/07)(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 14, June Callwood (82),
often described as Canada's social conscience, died.
(Reuters, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 17, Canada’s Parliament
passed a law that will force striking workers at Canadian National
Railway to return to the job.
(Reuters, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 19, China jailed Huseyin
Celil (37), a Uighur-Canadian, for life for separatism and terrorism
and warned Canada not to get involved even as Ottawa announced it would
send its foreign minister to discuss the case. Celil was detained in
Uzbekistan in March 2006 when he was visiting relatives and sent to
China last June.
(Reuters, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 21, In Cairo an
Egyptian-Canadian man was convicted of spying for Israel and sentenced
to 15 years in prison by a special security court.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 22, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were announced on Earth Day. The winners included
Julio Cusurichi of Peru for his work to fight illegal logging; Willie
Corduff of Ireland for his work to halt an energy project that
disregarded local and environmental concerns; Sophia Rabliauskas of
Canada for her work to help protect the boreal forest in Manitoba; Orri
Vigfussen of Iceland for his work on the North Atlantic Salmon Fund;
Ts. Munkhbayar for his work against unregulated mining in Mongolia; and
Hammerskjoeld Simwinga for his work in organizing microloan programs in
Zambia.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.E1)
2007 Apr 24, The US military
formally charged Omar Khadr (20), a young Canadian prisoner, with
murder and other crimes, clearing the way for his trial before the war
crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. Khadr was captured
during a gunfight at an alleged al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan when
he was 15 and sent to Guantanamo shortly after turning 16. Khadr's
family was close to Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian-born father, Ahmed
Said Khadr, was an alleged al Qaeda financier killed in a battle with
Pakistani soldiers in 2003. His family had lived in Pakistan but
returned to Canada after the elder Khadr's death.
(Reuters, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 26, Canada promised curbs
on air pollution and a new approach to greenhouse gas emissions in a
plan the government says will slow, then reverse the rise in output of
pollutants blamed for global warming.
(Reuters, 4/26/07)
2007 May 2, The Canadian Food
Inspection Agency said another case of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, has been confirmed in a mature
dairy cow in the province of British Columbia.
(Reuters, 5/2/07)
2007 May 3, Seven of Canada's
biggest investment dealers said they plan to launch a new Alternative
Trading System in 2008 to boost the efficiency of equity trading and
make Canada more globally competitive. The Royal Canadian Mint unveiled
a monster gold coin with a face value of C$1 million (455,000 pounds)
that it says is the world's biggest, purest and highest denomination
coin.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 4, Reuters Group PLC said
that it had received a preliminary takeover approach. The bidder was
identified as Thomson Corp., a financial data and information provider
based in Stamford, Conn., owned by the Thomson family of Canada.
(AP, 5/4/07)(http://tinyurl.com/2m8qt5)
2007 May 7, Alcoa, the world's
largest aluminum company, said it would make a hostile bid for Canada's
Alcan Inc., estimated at $27 billion, after talks between the rivals
failed to lead to a deal.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 8, News and information
company Reuters Group PLC and financial data provider Thomson Corp.
confirmed that they are discussing a combination of their businesses
that values Reuters at more than $17 billion.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 13, Canada won hockey's
world championship with a 4-2 victory over Finland.
(AP, 5/13/08)
2007 May 15, Reuters agreed to a
$17.2 billion takeover by the Thomson family of Canada that would vault
the combined entity ahead of Bloomberg to become the world's largest
financial data and news provider.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 16, In Canada some 3,200
track workers at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. began a national strike
over failed talks on wages and other issues.
(Reuters, 5/16/07)
2007 May 17, Greyhound Canada
suspended passenger and parcel service in Western Canada because of a
labor disruption.
(Reuters, 5/18/07)
2007 May 25, In southern
Afghanistan a NATO soldier from Canada was killed and two other NATO
soldiers were wounded in overnight attacks by Taliban fighters.
(AFP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 30, Ontario and
California leaders said they will work together to develop new stem
cell therapies to help conquer cancer, and will cooperate on curbing
greenhouse gas emission.
(Reuters, 5/31/07)
2007 Jun 11, Cuba's largest
foreign investor, Canada’s Sherritt International Corp., saw business
running smoothly under acting President Raul Castro and will push ahead
with a $1.2 billion expansion in nickel mining, and oil and electricity
production.
(Reuters, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 12, Shahid Jamil Qureshi,
Pakistan’s minister of state for communications, resigned after police
named him as a suspect in the death of Kafila Siddiqui, a Canadian
citizen of Pakistani origin, at their shared home in Islamabad.
(AP, 6/12/07)
2007 Jun 13, Canadian police
arrested more than 60 suspected members of a criminal gang in a series
of dawn raids in and around Toronto, in a crackdown on smuggling drugs
and illegal firearms.
(Reuters, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 14, Canada said it had
approved the idea of burying nuclear waste from its power plants deep
in the ground at a single location, a proposal that green activists
immediately condemned as too risky.
(Reuters, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 15, In Quebec, Canada,
Premier Jean Charest said his province plans to ban firearms in
educational institutions and on public transport as part of a clampdown
in the wake of a college shooting last year.
(Reuters, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 18, Canada introduced a
no-fly list to ground potential air passengers "who may pose an
immediate threat to aviation security" and tried to play down concerns
that the list could be abused.
(AP, 6/18/07)
2007 Jun 19, In Dubai a Canadian
UN official, who advised the Afghan government on eradicating opium
poppy crops, was sentenced to four years in prison for smuggling and
drug possession. Bert Tatham (35) of Vancouver, British Columbia, was
arrested April 23 during a one-hour stopover at the Dubai International
Airport, after being caught with a half a gram of hashish, and two
poppy bulbs.
(AP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jun 25, Chris Benoit (40), a
professional wrestling superstar, was found dead alongside the bodies
of his wife and retarded son (7) in Fayetteville, Georgia. Police
treated the case as a possible murder-suicide. Anabolic steroids
thought to be a contributing factor. The Canadian-born wrestler won the
world heavyweight championship in 2004. Doctors later reported that
Chris Benoit had injected steroids not long before he died.
(Reuters, 6/26/07)(SFC, 6/28/07, p.A4)(Reuters,
7/17/07)
2007 Jun 27, Canada’s government
said it will ban all smoking in federal prisons next year to improve
the health of prisoners, staff and visitors.
(Reuters, 6/28/07)
2007 Jun 28, In Toronto the CN
Tower, the world's tallest free-standing structure, showed off its
high-efficiency LED lighting, giving a brief preview of some of the
millions of color combinations that will flow up and down the 553-meter
(1,815-foot) tower during holidays and special events.
(Reuters, 6/29/07)
2007 Jun 29, Police closed a
stretch of Canada's busiest highway and officials closed the country's
main east-west rail line on fears that a native day of action could
turn violent and disruptive.
(AP, 6/29/07)
2007 Jun 30, BCE Inc, Canada's
largest telecommunications group, agreed to a C$51.7 billion ($48.5
billion) offer from a group including the Ontario Teachers Pension
Plan, in what the purchasers said was the largest buyout in Canadian
corporate history.
(Reuters, 6/30/07)
2007 Jul 2, Researchers said the
first test-tube baby created from an egg matured in the laboratory and
then frozen has been born in Canada, in a breakthrough offering hope to
women with cancer and others unsuited to normal IVF treatment.
(Reuters, 7/2/07)
2007 Jul 4, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb hit a NATO vehicle, killing six Canadian
soldiers and their Afghan interpreter.
(Reuters, 7/5/07)
2007 Jul 6, Canada named a former
government security adviser to head the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
the first time a civilian has held the post.
(AP, 7/7/07)
2007 Jul 9, Canada announced plans
to increase its Arctic military presence in an effort to assert
sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, a potentially oil-rich region
the United States claims is international territory.
(AP, 7/9/07)
2007 Jul 10, The Bank of Canada
raised its key interest rate, by one-quarter point to 4.50%, for the
first time in over a year and kept the door open to further hikes,
saying inflation has been persistently higher than it expected.
(Reuters, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 10, Activists said that a
recent UN report showing Canadians use more marijuana than people in
any other industrialized country is more evidence that the drug should
be legalized. The 2007 World Drug Report found that 16.8% of Canadians
between 15 and 64 used marijuana, at least once in the past year.
(Reuters, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 11, In Canada "Honest Ed"
Mirvish (92), a colorful Toronto character who restored theaters,
produced musicals, and ran a brash and cavernous discount store, died.
(Reuters, 7/11/07)
2007 Jul 12, Anglo-Australian
miner Rio Tinto launched a 38.1-billion-dollar offer for Canada's
Alcan, trumping US rival Alcoa in a mammoth bid to create the world's
largest aluminium company.
(AP, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 12, A coalition of US and
Canadian cities along the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River, including
Toronto and Chicago, vowed to cut water consumption 15% by 2015.
(Reuters, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 16, The Canadian
government agreed to disburse C$1.4 billion ($1.3 billion) in aid over
20 years to Quebec's 15,000 Cree to improve health, security and other
services for the native Indians.
(Reuters, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 20, The WTO said Rwanda
plans to import a generic HIV/AIDS medicine made in Canada, making it
the first country to test a World Trade Organization waiver on drug
patents.
(Reuters, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 23, Foreign Minister
Peter MacKay said Canada will give the new Palestinian government C$8
million ($7.6 million) in direct aid and more could follow now that
Hamas is no longer in the government.
(Reuters, 7/23/07)
2007 Jul 23, John Gilman (65),
developer of FieldTurf, an artificial grass that replaced AstroTurf,
died at his home in Montreal. The FieldTurf technology was based on
patents filed by golfer Freddie Haas Jr.
(WSJ, 1/28/07, p.A6)
2007 Jul 24, In Canada a pipeline
in a Vancouver suburb was ruptured, sending a geyser of oil shooting 12
meters (40 feet) into the air, coating neighborhood streets and
spilling crude into an ocean inlet.
(Reuters, 7/24/07)
2007 Jul 26, Canada nixed a
decade-old policy that required prospective Sikh immigrants to change
their last names to avoid confusion with other Sikhs.
(Reuters, 7/26/07)
2007 Jul 31, In Canada John
Felderhof, the lone remaining key figure in the multibillion-dollar
Bre-X gold fraud, was found not guilty. It took almost seven years to
reach the not guilty verdict in the trial of the only person to be
prosecuted in the massive Bre-X gold fraud, leading Canadians to ask
once again if the country isn't too soft on corporate crime.
(Reuters, 7/31/07)
2007 Aug 2, Canada dismissed
Russia's claim to a large chunk of the resource-rich Arctic, saying the
tactic was more suited to the 15th century than the real world.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 7, Britain's GW
Pharmaceuticals Plc said that Health Canada had approved its
cannabis-based medicine Sativex for treatment of cancer patients.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 9, Newly declassified
documents said Canadian intelligence officials suspected that Maher
Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen detained by the US in 2002 as a
terror suspect and deported, had been sent to a third country for
torture as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program. Arar
was detained in September 2002 by US authorities during a flight
stopover in New York while returning home to Canada from a vacation in
Tunisia.
(AP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 9, In Canada 2 people
were killed and six people wounded in an early-morning shooting in a
Vancouver restaurant.
(Reuters, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 10, Canada's prime
minister announced plans for an army training center and a deepwater
port on the third day of an Arctic trip meant to assert sovereignty
over a region.
(AP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 12, A Canadian woman (35)
gave birth to rare identical quadruplets. Karen Jepp of Calgary,
Alberta, delivered Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia by Caesarian
section at Benefis Healthcare in Great Falls, Montana.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 17, The Criminal
Intelligence Service Canada annual report estimated that there are 950
organized crime groups operating in the country.
(Reuters, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 19, In southern
Afghanistan, dozens of Taliban insurgents attacked an Afghan army
compound, and the ensuing gunbattle left 10 suspected militants dead
and 4 others wounded. A Canadian soldier was killed when his vehicle
struck a roadside bomb near Kandahar.
(AP, 8/19/07)(AP, 8/20/07)
2007 Aug 20, In Canada Mexican
President Felipe Calderon, Canadian PM Stephen Harper and President
Bush worked to craft a plan to secure their borders in the event of a
terrorist strike or other emergency without creating traffic tie-ups
that slowed commerce at crossings after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Protesters and riot police clashed outside the posh Canadian resort
where the leaders were meeting.
(AP, 8/20/07)(Reuters, 8/21/07)
2007 Aug 22, Western US states and
Canadian provinces agreed to cut greenhouse emissions 15% by 2020 in
the latest regional pact to regulate the gases, an approach opposed by
US President George W. Bush.
(Reuters, 8/22/07)
2007 Aug 22, Taliban militants
wearing Afghan army uniforms attacked a remote NATO base in eastern
Afghanistan, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding 11 alliance
soldiers. In southern Afghanistan 2 Canadian soldiers and an
interpreter were killed and two journalists injured during an attack.
(AP, 8/22/07)(Reuters, 8/22/07)
2007 Aug 23, The Montreal World
Film Festival, which endured a near-death experience two years ago when
key government subsidies were suspended, kicked off its 31st edition
with a new lease on life.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Canada 11 people
were hurt and two killed after a hot air balloon caught fire as it left
for a sunset flight in British Columbia. A pickup truck driven by an
elderly man struck a pre-wedding party near Vancouver, killing six
people and injuring 17.
(Reuters, 8/26/07)
2007 Aug 30, Canadian police
arrested Adel Arnaout (37), with three home-made bombs in the trunk of
his car. The arrest was connected to an investigation into letter bombs
delivered recently to three homes in and around Toronto.
(Reuters, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 4, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper suspended Parliament and reconvened a new session on October 16,
setting up a vote of confidence in his minority Conservative government
that could trigger an election.
(Reuters, 9/5/07)
2007 Sep 5, Canada’s ambassador to
Zimbabwe said the number of people facing serious food shortages there
is expected to grow to 4.1 million over the first quarter of next year.
(AP, 9/5/07)
2007 Sep 10, Canada's top election
official stuck to his controversial ruling allowing Muslim women to
stay veiled when voting, despite protests from Prime Minister Stephen
Harper.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 12, Canada’s defense
minister said Canada will give a one-time payment of $19,200 to people
who say their health was harmed by US military Agent Orange spray
programs at a base in eastern Canada 40 years ago. The US military
tested Agent Orange, Agent Purple and several other powerful defoliants
on a small section of the base in Gagetown, New Brunswick, over seven
days in 1966 and 1967. Roughly 4,500 people were expected to be
eligible for the payment, at a total cost of $92 million.
(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 12, The US SEC said it
had filed civil fraud charges against Douglas Hamilton, Craig Johnson,
James Kinney and Kenneth Taylor, the former vice presidents of finance
for Toronto-based Nortel's optical, wireline, wireless and enterprise
business units.
(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 17, A new report said
voracious beetles, that have ravaged more than 9 million hectares
(35,000 square miles) of British Columbia's forests, have wiped out
about 40 percent of the infested region's marketable pine trees.
(Reuters, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 20, The Canadian dollar
rose above parity with the US dollar for the first time in 31 years.
The Canadian currency's commodity-fueled rise was helped by a sharply
falling dollar.
(Reuters, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 21, In Canada, delegates
from almost 200 countries agreed to eliminate ozone-depleting
substances faster than originally planned. The agreement was reached at
a conference in Montreal to mark the 20th anniversary of the Montreal
protocol, which was designed to cut chemicals found to harm the ozone
layer.
(Reuters, 9/22/07)
2007 Sep 24, In western
Afghanistan Italian special forces rescued two captive Italian
intelligence agents from a militant convoy, killing at least eight
kidnappers. Both kidnapped Italians were wounded in the raid, but one
died from his wounds in Rome on Oct 4. In southern Afghanistan a
Canadian soldier was killed and four were wounded during a military
operation.
(AP, 9/24/07)(Reuters, 9/25/07)(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Sep 26, Canadian police
charged the two co-founders of now-defunct Portus Alternative Asset
Management Inc with 12 counts of fraud, money laundering, and
possession of property obtained by crime, the result of a lengthy
international investigation.
(Reuters, 9/26/07)
2007 Sep 28, Japan suspended
poultry imports from Canada after the H7N3 strain of avian influenza
was found on a Saskatchewan chicken farm.
(Reuters, 9/28/07)
2007 Oct 1, A Canadian judge
acquitted three doctors, a New Jersey company and a former Red Cross
official of criminal charges in a tainted-blood scandal that infected
thousands of Canadians with HIV or hepatitis and resulted in more than
3,000 deaths.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 2, Canada’s Justice
Minister Rob Nicholson said the government plans to criminalize
identity theft to give police the ability to stop such activity before
any fraud has actually been carried out.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 4, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper vowed to crack down on illegal drugs, saying the Conservative
government would propose mandatory prison time for serious drug
offenses.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Health Canada said
that it has stopped the sale of Novartis Pharmaceuticals
anti-inflammatory drug Prexige and will cancel its market authorization
due to the risk for serious liver-related effects including hepatitis.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Canada became the
first country to notify the World Trade Organization that it has agreed
to allow a Canadian company to make generic medicines for export to
Rwanda.
(AFP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 9, Brewers SABMiller and
Molson Coors Brewing said they have agreed to combine their US
operations to create a business that will have annual sales of $6.6
billion and be the second-biggest market player behind Anheuser-Busch.
(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 9, In Canada the
Conservatives swept to an easy victory in Newfoundland and Labrador,
with voters giving a thumbs up to the province-first policies of
populist Premier Danny Williams.
(Reuters, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, Ontario's Liberal
Party won a second term heading Canada's most populous province.
(Reuters, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 11, The Canadian dollar
hit a three-decade high versus the US dollar as the greenback remained
under broad selling pressure due to expectations of more Federal
Reserve interest rate cuts.
(Reuters, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 18, US lawmakers offered
apologies to Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, who was deported in
2002 by US counterterrorism officials to Syria, where he says he was
imprisoned and tortured.
(Reuters, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 19,
A twin-engine plane crashed into the ninth floor of a suburban
Vancouver apartment building, killing the pilot and injuring at least
two people in the building. Six people were found dead in what police
described as a graphic murder scene in an apartment building in a
Vancouver suburb. Police later said the killings, which took place on
the 15th floor of a suburban Vancouver apartment building, were related
to gang activity. They said that two of the dead were murdered because
they chanced upon the crime scene.
(AP, 10/20/07)(Reuters, 10/20/07)(Reuters, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 19, Christopher Paul Neil
(32), a Canadian schoolteacher suspected of sexually abusing boys, was
arrested in rural Thailand and charged after a 3-year international
manhunt that relied on digitally unscrambled photos and tips from the
public. Neil later pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy
and was sentenced to three years and three months in jail; he faces
other charges involving the victim's younger brother.
(AP, 10/19/07)(AP, 10/19/08)
2007 Oct 23,
The Canadian dollar roared to a 33-year high against the US
dollar after domestic retail sales data for August beat expectations.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 23,
Police broke up an Italian-Canadian mafia clan that ran drug
trafficking and money laundering operations, arresting 12 people and
seizing millions of dollars in assets. The clan was led from Canada by
Nick and Vito Rizzuto, a father and son, who were jailed for previous
crimes respectively in 2006 and 2005.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 24, Anglo-Australian
mining giant Rio Tinto said all conditions on its $38.1 billion
takeover of Alcan Inc had been satisfied and most shareholders had
accepted its offer.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 25, The Canadian dollar
shot to a 33-year high against a broadly weaker US dollar, as oil and
gold prices firmed, giving the commodities-based currency a boost.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 29,
Canada’s PM Harper received Tibet's exiled spiritual leader in
his office in Parliament. He presented the 1989 Nobel laureate with a
maple-leaf scarf. The next day China condemned Harper for "disgusting
conduct" for playing host to the Dalai Lama.
(Reuters, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30,
Canada's Conservative government vowed to slash corporate and
personal taxes and still pay down C$10 billion in debt this year.
(Reuters, 10/30/07)
2007 Nov 3, Je Yell Kim, a
Canadian Christian aid worker who provided dental care for North
Koreans in the northeast part of the country, was taken into custody by
authorities on charges of violating national security. Kim was released
in late Jan 2008.
(Reuters, 1/28/08)
2007 Nov 7, A novel by a former
radio broadcaster in Canada's north won the 2007 Scotiabank Giller
Prize, Canada's most lucrative and prestigious prize for fiction.
Elizabeth Hay's "Late Nights on Air" details the loves and rivalries of
a cast of eccentric characters at a small radio station in Yellowknife,
near Canada's Arctic.
(Reuters, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 7, The US dollar fell
sharply after a Chinese parliamentarian called for his country to
diversify its reserves out of weak currencies. The Canadian dollar
hitched a ride on surging commodities prices to rise against a
beleaguered US dollar, passing US$1.10.
(Reuters, 11/7/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.93)
2007 Nov 13, In a letter to the UN
Security Council, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nominated Canadian
prosecutor Daniel Bellemare to lead the UN investigation into the 2005
killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik al-Hariri.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 15, Two Americans who
deserted the US Army to protest against the war in Iraq lost their bid
for refugee status in Canada, and the Canadian government made it clear
they were no longer welcome.
(Reuters, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 21, Canada’s government
set aside 25 million acres of wilderness in the Northwest Territories
for conservation.
(SFC, 11/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 22, The Explorer, a
Canadian cruise ship, struck ice late at night off Antarctica and began
taking on water. All 154 passengers and crew took to lifeboats and were
rescued safely the following morning by the Nordnorge, a passing
Norwegian liner.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 24, Robert
Knipstrom (36) of British Columbia man died four days after police used
a Taser stun-gun on him because he reportedly was acting erratically in
a store. He was the third person to die in recent weeks in Canada after
being shocked by the hand-held weapon.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 27, Jane Rule,
American-born Canadian writer, died at her home on Galiano Island in
British Columbia. Her 1964 novel, “Desert of the Heart,” is considered
a landmark work of lesbian fiction.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.C5)
2007 Nov 28, In Minnesota a fire
at a pipeline from Canada that feeds oil to the US killed 2 people. The
pipeline that leaked and four others were shut down, though it wasn't
clear for how long, sending oil prices up the next day.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Dec 4, New census data said
one in five people in Canada last year was born in another country, the
highest proportion since the 1930s. The Bank of Canada cut its key
overnight interest rate by one-quarter point to 4.25 percent, saying it
expects US subprime mortgage woes and financial market fallout to last
longer than anticipated.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 7, Canada's TV watchdog
blessed the launch of Vanessa, a national pay TV porn channel.
(Reuters, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 9, A Canadian jury in
British Columbia convicted Robert 'Willie' Pickton (58), a pig
farmer, of murdering six women, handing him an automatic life sentence
but finding that the killings were not planned. Pickton still faced 20
more murder charges for the deaths of women, most of them prostitutes
and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver neighborhood. On Dec 11 Pickton
was sentenced to life in prison with no hope of parole for 25 years.
(AP, 12/9/07)(Reuters, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 10, Petro-Canada,
Canada's third largest oil and gas company, signed a $7 billion deal
with Libya's state-run National Oil Corp. to invest in exploration in
the North African nation.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 10, A US judge sentenced
former media mogul Conrad Black (63) to 6-1/2 years in prison for
obstructing justice and defrauding shareholders in one-time newspaper
publishing empire Hollinger International Inc., and ordered him to
report to prison in 12 weeks. The Canadian-born member of Britain's
House of Lords was found guilty in July of one count of obstructing
justice and three counts of fraud. Co-defendants Jack Boultbee (64),
former Hollinger chief financial officer, got 27 months and former vice
president and general counsel Peter Atkinson (60) got 2 years for fraud.
(Reuters, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, In Mississauga,
Canada, Aqsa Parvez (16), who was said to have clashed with her father
about whether she should wear a traditional Muslim head scarf, died of
injuries, and her father told police he had killed her.
(Reuters, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 13, Former Canadian PM
Brian Mulroney apologized publicly for accepting hundreds of thousands
of dollars in cash from a German arms dealer, but he bluntly rejected
suggestions he had taken kickbacks.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 14, Canada's national
police force, criticized for excessive use of Tasers, said that, from
now on, officers would only fire the electric stun guns at suspects who
are combative or resisting arrest.
(Reuters, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 17, US trade officials
said the US has reached a deal with the EU, Japan and Canada to keep
its Internet gambling market closed to foreign companies, but is
continuing talks with India, Antigua and Barbuda, Macau and Costa Rica.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, The World Trade
Organization (WTO) launched an investigation into Washington's
multi-billion-dollar farm subsidies that Brazil and Canada say break
international trading rules.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Much of eastern and
central Canada was digging out after a massive storm dumped up to 50 cm
(20 inches) of snow in places, shocking Canadians who had become
accustomed to milder winters.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Dubai ruling Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum pardoned 377 inmates of Dubai prisons
this week on the eve of Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic holiday. The
pardon included Bert Tatham, a Canadian UN official who advised the
Afghan government on eradicating opium poppy crops. Tatham (35) was
granted amnesty, six months after being sentenced to four years in
prison on a drug smuggling conviction. Tatham was arrested April 23
during a one-hour stopover at the Dubai International Airport, after
being caught with a half a gram of hashish, and two poppy bulbs.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 18, Canada confirmed a
new case of mad cow disease, the 11th since 2003, and said the animal
in question was a 13-year-old beef cow from Alberta.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 21, Ian Thow, a former
mutual fund salesman in British Columbia, was fined C$6 million ($6.1
million) and banned from working in the West Coast province's capital
markets for life. In October a commission panel found that Thow
defrauded hundreds of clients between January 2003 and May 2005,
convincing some to sell their mutual funds and mortgage their homes to
raise money to invest in non-existing construction loans and Jamaican
bank.
(Reuters, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 23, Oscar Peterson
(b.1925), jazz pianist, died at his home in Mississauga, Canada. His
flying fingers, hard-driving swing and melodic improvisations made him
one of the world's most famous and influential jazz pianists in a
career that spanned seven decades.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 31, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper said a one percentage-point cut to the country's consumption tax
will be effective January 1, 2008.
(AP, 12/31/07)
2007 In Canada the towers of the
Toronto Dominion Center incorporated hydrothermal cooling using cold
water from Lake Ontario.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.4)
2007 In Canada the $8.4 billion
hydroelectric project on Labrador’s Churchill River was expected to
begin power production.
(WSJ, 3/10/98, p.A19)
2007 In Canada Bombardier
Recreational Products developed the Can-Am Spyder Roadster. The
3-wheeled vehicle was planned to sell for $15,000.
(Econ, 3/10/07, TQ p.12)
2008 Jan 11, Canada confirmed it
would hold a formal inquiry into why former PM Brian Mulroney accepted
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from a business lobbyist.
(Reuters, 1/11/08)
2008 Jan 15, The Canadian
government fired the country's top nuclear watchdog, criticizing her
for how she handled the closure of a key reactor which makes medical
radioisotopes.
(Reuters, 1/16/08)
2008 Jan 18, Mohammed Mansour
Jabarah (25), a Canadian citizen of Iraqi descent, who admitted
plotting to bomb US embassies in Singapore and the Philippines in 2002
was sentenced to life in prison after telling the court he had been
"brainwashed" by al Qaeda.
(Reuters, 1/18/08)
2008 Jan 22, The Bank of Canada
held back in the face of an aggressive interest rate cut by the US
Federal Reserve, shaving just a quarter-point off its own key rate, but
it signaled more cuts to come as US recession worries spiral.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 23, Canada bowed out of
the 2009 UN conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, saying it
would likely "degenerate into ... expressions of intolerance and
anti-Semitism."
(AFP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Afghanistan a
Canadian soldier was killed and two others were injured when a military
convoy struck an improvised mine near the southern city of Kandahar.
(Reuters, 1/24/08)
2008 Feb 7, NATO defense ministers
held talks on Afghanistan in Lithuania. France agreed to help Canada in
fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 8, Canada said it planned
to keep its 2,500-strong military mission in Afghanistan until some
time in 2011, two years longer than initially scheduled.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 12, In Canada at least 22
people, including a minor, have been charged in what police said was
one of Central Canada's biggest investigations of Internet child
pornography.
(AP, 2/13/08)
2008 Feb 15, A group of Canadian
sex trade workers hoping to set up a legal "co-op" brothel in time for
the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver said they have won approval to
incorporate themselves.
(Reuters, 2/15/08)
2008 Feb 9, It was reported that
drug trade in British Columbia, Canada, generated an estimated $7
billion a year. Undermanned police were only able to monitor fewer than
a third of some 129 gangs in the province.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.41)
2008 Feb 20, Quebec provincial
police conducted raids, breaking up a hacking ring that police said was
responsible for an estimated CDN$45 million (US$44.3 million) in damage
to computer systems.
(www.pcworld.com/article/id,142711-c,hackers/article.html)
2008 Feb 22, Canadian Foreign
Minister Maxime Bernier pledged $555 million in fresh aid to Haiti, as
he wrapped up a three-day visit to the impoverished Caribbean nation.
(Reuters, 2/23/08)
2008 Feb 26, Canada confirmed a
new case of mad cow disease, the 12th since 2003, and said the animal
in question was a six-year-old dairy cow from Alberta that had most
probably eaten infected feed.
(Reuters, 2/26/08)
2008 Mar 2, Blind jazz guitarist
Jeff Healey (41), known for his blues-based rock and his distinctive
playing style, died in a Toronto hospital after a life-long battle with
cancer.
(Reuters, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 3, The film "Away from
Her" was the big winner at Canada's Genie Awards, winning seven
statuettes, including best picture, best actor, best actress and best
director for first-time filmmaker Sarah Polley.
(Reuters, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 4, The Bank of Canada
slashed its overnight interest rate by 50 basis points for the first
time since November 2001, lowering it to 3.5% and signaling further
cuts to shield the economy from the damaging effects of the US slowdown.
(Reuters, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 10, Canada’s government
said hunters will be allowed to kill 275,000 young harp seals on the
ice floes off eastern Canada this year, a number that animal rights
activists said was totally unsustainable.
(Reuters, 3/10/08)
2008 Mar 11, The US space shuttle
Endeavour blasted off from a seaside Florida launch pad to deliver part
of a long-awaited Japanese space laboratory and a Canadian-built
robotic system to the International Space Station.
(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 13, Canada’s Parliament
voted to extend its mission in Afghanistan to 2011, provided NATO
supplies more troops and equipment to back up its forces in the
volatile south.
(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 18, Canada formally
recognized the breakaway republic of Kosovo, a decision Serbia said was
a major mistake that could encourage separatists in the province of
Quebec.
(Reuters, 3/18/08)
2008 Mar 26, Trinidad’s RBTT, the
largest regionally owned bank, agreed to accept a takeover by the Royal
Bank of Canada.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.50)
2008 Mar 29, Three seal hunters
died after a fishing vessel capsized in the icy waters of the Gulf of
St. Lawrence, marking the first accident of Canada's 2008 seal hunt
season.
(Reuters, 3/29/08)
2008 Apr 6, In Merritt, British
Columbia, a girl and two boys aged 10, 8 and 5, were found dead by
their mother in her trailer home. Allan Schoenborn (40), their father,
was arrested April 16 in connection with the murders after local
residents discovered him hiding in rugged bush.
(Reuters, 4/16/08)
2008 Apr 12, A unit of Canada’s
national police boarded and seized the Farley Mowat, a Dutch registered
yacht belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The ship was
used to protest Canada’s annual seal hunt.
(Econ, 4/19/08, p.48)
2008 Apr 12, Jerry Zucker (58),
Israeli-born American businessman and chief executive of Hudson's Bay
Co., died of cancer. Zucker's wife Anita Zucker became governor of HBC,
Canada’s largest retailer, making her the first woman to hold that
position in the company's 338-year history.
(Reuters, 4/13/08)(WSJ, 4/19/08, p.A9)
2008 Apr 18, The Royal Canadian
Mounted Police arrested Benoit Corbeil, a former senior Liberal
official, on fraud charges in connection with an advertising scandal
that helped topple the Liberal government in 2006.
(Reuters, 4/18/08)
2008 Apr 22, The Bank of Canada
cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point to 3
percent, as expected, but suggested it might pause a little before
cutting rates again.
(Reuters, 4/22/08)
2008 Apr 22, In New Orleans Pres.
Bush ended a 2-day meeting with PM Harper of Canada and Pres. Calderon
of Mexico as all three defended NAFTA. Bush denied the US is in
recession calling the current economic situation a slowdown.
(SFC, 4/23/08, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 24, Canada’s British
Columbia province shut the door on exploring for radioactive minerals,
saying companies cannot claim rights to them even if the discovery is
by accident.
(Reuters, 4/24/08)
2008 Apr 26, In Canada transit
workers in Toronto went on strike after rejecting a tentative contract
deal, shutting down bus, streetcar and subway service in Canada's most
populous city.
(Reuters, 4/26/08)
2008 Apr 30, Canada pledged an
extra C$50 million ($49.5 million) for international food aid and said
it would also allow its money to be used to buy food abroad and not tie
it to purchases of Canadian produce.
(AP, 4/30/08)
2008 Apr 30, Syncrude Canada's
operations were under investigation by environmental regulators after
as many as 500 birds landed in the waste water in the oil sands region
of northern Alberta.
(Reuters, 5/1/08)
2008 May 1, A speeding tourist bus
carrying dozens of Europeans and Canadians overturned, rolled off an
embankment and burst into flames on a desert highway in Egypt's Sinai
peninsula. At least nine passengers were killed and about 30 wounded.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 May 3, Thousands of marijuana
enthusiasts marched in downtown Toronto, many openly smoking the drug
as part of a globally coordinated rally meant to celebrate cannabis
culture and push for the drug's legalization.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 5, Canada banned all
smoking in federal prisons because a partial ban was largely ignored.
The full effect of the ban would not be felt until hidden stockpiles of
cigarettes are depleted.
(Reuters, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, Canadian researchers
reported that suicide victims who were abused as children have clear
genetic changes in their brains in a finding they said shows neglect
can cause biological effects.
(Reuters, 5/6/08)
2008 May 6, In Afghanistan a
Canadian soldier was killed and another was wounded in a gun battle
with insurgents near Kandahar city.
(AFP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 12, The Canadian Federal
Court said that Pakistan appears to have received a $500,000 bounty
from the United States for the capture of Abdullah Khadr, a Canadian
wanted on charges of working with al Qaeda against US forces in
Afghanistan. Khadr was arrested in Pakistan in 2004 and sent back to
Canada in 2005.
(Reuters, 5/13/08)
2008 May 13, In Canada a
helicopter with three people on board appeared to hover as if looking
for a landing spot before it crashed onto a street and burst into
flames in Cranbrook, British Columbia. A pedestrian Kenyan exchange
student, was killed along with the 3 in the helicopter.
(Reuters, 5/14/08)
2008 May 16, In Canada Nancy
Michaud (37), a political aide in Quebec, was disappeared from her home
in Riviere-Ouelle. Her body was found the next day in an abandoned
home. Francis Proulx was charged with her murder.
(www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/427352)(SSFC,
4/19/09, p.A4)
2008 May 22, In Canada a shoe-clad
foot was discovered on a small uninhabited island south of Vancouver in
the Strait of Georgia, and is the fourth discovered in the region in
the past 10 months. Police did not know where they are coming from.
(Reuters, 5/23/08)
2008 May 22, Several companies
agreed to pay a combined $24 million to pet owners to resolve lawsuits
over contaminated pet food linked to the illness and death of animals.
The settlement involving Canada-based Menu Foods Income Fund and other
pet food manufacturers and suppliers was outlined in documents filed in
the US District Court in New Jersey.
(Reuters, 5/23/08)
2008 May 26, Canadian Foreign
Minister Maxime Bernier resigned after it emerged he had left
classified documents in the apartment of a former girlfriend who was
once linked to organized crime figures.
(Reuters, 5/26/08)
2008 May 28, In Canada police
found the dead bodies of five adults and children in a suburban Calgary
home. Media outlets reported they were Joshua Lall (34) an intern at an
architectural firm, his wife Alison Lall (35), and daughters Kristen
(5), Rochelle (3) and a tenant reported to be Amber Bowerman, who
worked for a college newspaper. Police later said Joshua Lall committed
the murders sparing only his one-year-old child.
(AP, 5/30/08)(Reuters, 5/31/08)
2008 May 29, In Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan, Canada, Chief Albert Mercredi spoke at the “national day
of action” and denounced the premiers of the 4 western provinces for
allowing mining development to pollute aboriginal air, land and water.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.50)
2008 Jun 3, General Motors said it
is closing four truck and SUV plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico as
surging fuel prices hasten a dramatic shift to smaller vehicles.
(AP, 6/3/08)
2008 Jun 3, In Afghanistan US
General David McKiernan took over the 52,000-strong International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) at a ceremony in Kabul attended by
President Hamid Karzai and a host of dignitaries. 2 Afghan security
guards were killed when militants ambushed their convoy in the southern
province of Zabul. In eastern Khost province unknown gunmen shot dead a
district intelligence chief. A suicide car bomber targeting Canadian
troops in Kandahar province killed one Afghan child. A Canadian officer
was killed in Kandahar province when his foot patrol came under enemy
fire. In southern Afghanistan US-led coalition forces killed more than
a dozen insurgents.
(AFP, 6/3/08)(Reuters, 6/4/08)(AP, 6/4/08)
2008 Jun 4, In Canada angry
autoworkers blockaded the entrance to General Motors of Canada
headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario, one day after GM said it would shut
its Oshawa truck plant as well as 2 plants in the US and one in Mexico.
(Reuters, 6/4/08)
2008 Jun 7, Canada said it had
wrapped up free trade negotiations with Colombia and reached agreement
on related labor and environmental issues.
(Reuters, 6/7/08)
2008 Jun 7, In Afghanistan a
Canadian soldier died after tumbling down a well while on night patrol.
Capt. Jonathan Sutherland Snyder (26) was the 85th Canadian soldier,
the third in a month, to die in Afghanistan since 2002.
(http://tinyurl.com/6bu2q9)(Reuters, 6/8/08)
2008 Jun 11, Canada, addressing
one of the darkest chapters in its history, formally apologized for
forcing 150,000 aboriginal children into grim residential schools,
where many said they were sexually and physically abused.
(Reuters, 6/12/08)
2008 Jun 16, The Canadian
government added the World Tamil Movement to its list of terrorist
groups, describing it as a front organization that raised funds for the
rebel Tamil Tigers fighting against the government in Sri Lanka.
(Reuters, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 16, The Canadian Auto
Workers union ended its blockade of General Motors of Canada's
headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario, allowing about 900 employees to return
to work after nearly 13 days of protest, but it vowed to fight on.
(AP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 19, Canada's national
police laid criminal charges against former Nortel Networks Corp chief
executive Frank Dunn and other onetime executives, claiming the men
fraudulently misstated the telecom equipment maker's results.
(Reuters, 6/19/08)
2008 Jun 23, Canada confirmed a
new case of mad cow disease, its 13th since 2003, but said the case in
British Columbia did not pose a health threat.
(Reuters, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 27, Canada's highest
court allowed a native Indian-only fisheries on a key Pacific coast
salmon river, rejecting a complaint the policy fostered racial
discrimination.
(Reuters, 6/27/08)
2008 Jul 7, In China Diana O'Brien
(22), a Canadian model, was found murdered in her Shanghai apartment.
On Jul 11 police arrested Chen Jun (18), who confessed to killing the
woman during a robbery.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 8, Boeing announced a
deal with SkyHook Int’l., a private Canadian firm, to develop a heavy
lift rotorcraft capable of carrying 4o tons.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.76)
2008 Jul 15, Robin Long (25), a US
Army deserter who had fled to Canada in 2005, was deported from British
Columbia back to the US.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 30, In Canada Tim McLean
(22), sleeping on a Greyhound bus was killed and decapitated by his
seatmate, Vince Weiguang Li (40), as the bus rolled across the Canadian
Prairies in Manitoba. On march 5, 2009, a judge ruled that Li would not
be judged criminally responsible due to mental illness.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 3/5/09)
2008 Jul, Fifty-five thousand jobs
were lost in Canada this month, the biggest number since February 1991,
principally the result of a struggling private sector in the country's
central provinces.
(Reuters, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 2, Geoff Ballard
(b.1932), founder of Ballard Power and advocate for fuel cells, died in
Vancouver, Canada. In 1999 he had started General Hydrogen to explore
ways to manufacture and market hydrogen as a fuel. Plug Power bought
General Hydrogen in 2007 for $10 million.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 3, In Canada a small
plane crashed on Vancouver Island. Two survivors were pulled from the
wreckage but five other people on the aircraft died.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 7, It was reported that
two subsidiaries of government-owned Dubai World have acquired a 20%
stake in Canada’s circus operator Cirque du Soleil. In May the circus
had agreed to perform on Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island, for 15 years
starting in 2011.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Aug 10, In Canada explosions
at a propane facility in Toronto forced thousands to evacuate. One
firefighter died at the scene. A riot broke out and an officer was shot
in the leg in a north Montreal neighborhood where a Honduran teenager
(18) was shot and killed by police a day earlier.
(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A3)(AP, 8/11/08)(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 15, In Canada employees
at a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlet won an arbitrator-imposed contract,
becoming the giant retailer's only location in North America with a
collective agreement in place.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 16, Carol Huynh, whose
parents fled communist Vietnam in the 1970s, won Canada's first gold of
the Olympics in the women's 48 kg freestyle wrestling. Usain Bolt of
Jamaica was crowned the world's fastest man when he raced to victory in
the Olympic men's 100 meters final in a world record time of 9.69 sec.
(AP, 8/16/08)(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 22, Canadian health
officials said 3 people in Ontario have died in a food poisoning
outbreak that may be linked to listeria bacteria in sandwich meat from
one of the country's largest meat processors.
(Reuters, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 23, Public health
officials in Canada said they have linked a deadly bacterial outbreak
to recalled meat products from Maple Leaf Foods. At least 12 people
died out of 26 confirmed cases of food poisoning.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Sep 1, Thomas Bata (93), the
Czech-born industrialist who headed the global shoe empire bearing his
family's name from the 1940s to the 1980s, died in Toronto. The
company's headquarters were moved to Toronto under Bata's leadership
when the family's Czech factories were nationalized by the communists.
The company returned to the Czech Republic in 1989 after the end of
communist rule.
(Reuters, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 5, Canada joined the US
and EU in imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe's authoritarian regime headed
by President Robert Mugabe.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 7, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper called an election for October 14 in a bid to strengthen his
grip on power after 2-1/2 years in charge of a minority Conservative
Party government.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In Afghanistan 2
suicide attackers detonated bombs inside the police headquarters in
Kandahar city, killing six policemen. In southern Afghanistan a
Canadian soldier was killed and seven wounded when their armored
vehicle struck an explosive device while on patrol.
(AP, 9/7/08)(Reuters, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 17, Philip Morris
International said that it succeeded in its tender offer to acquire
Canada's No. 2 cigarette maker Rothmans Inc.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Oct 7, The Toronto stock
exchange fell 401 points making a cumulative drop of 3942 points since
Sep 1. As PM Harper spoke to reassure business people, Canadian
autoworkers held a funeral march to mark the loss of some 67,000 jobs
over the past year.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.51)
2008 Oct 8, Six central banks
jolted markets by cutting interest rates together in an attempt to
shore up confidence in the world's crisis-stricken financial system.
The US Fed reduced its key rate from 2% to 1.5%. The Bank of England
unexpectedly slashed its key lending rate by a half-point to 4.5%. The
Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 2.5%.
China also cut its key interest rates for a second time in less than
one month to 6.9%. The European Central Bank sliced its rate by half a
point to 3.75%. Sweden, and Switzerland also cut rates. Earlier in a
day Japan's Nikkei showed its biggest drop since the October, 1987
stock market crash. The IMF said the world economy is entering a major
downturn.
(AP, 10/8/08)(AFP, 10/8/08)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.100)
2008 Oct 10, Canada’s Finance
Minister Jim Flaherty said Canada plans to buy up to C$25 billion in
insured mortgages to help cushion banks from the global financial
crisis and address a "scarcity" of private-sector lending.
(Reuters, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 12, In Afghanistan 62
militants, part of a group of 150 that had been seen massing outside
of Lashkar Gah for several days, were killed overnight in NATO
air strikes that stopped them from entering the Helmand provincial
capital. Taliban commander Mullah Qadratullah was among the dead. The
US-led coalition killed five Taliban rebels in Ghazni. Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reporter Mellissa Fung (35) was
kidnapped in Kabul. She was freed on Nov 8.
(AP, 10/12/08)(AFP, 10/13/08)(SFC, 10/13/08,
p.A11)(AFP, 11/9/08)
2008 Oct 14, Canadians voted in an
election. Conservative PM Stephen Harper, the first Western leader to
face the electorate since the start of the international economic
meltdown, won reelection with a bolstered minority government. Some
59.1% of eligible Canadian voters went to the polls, breaking the
previous record low turnout of just under 61% in 2004. The Liberal
share of the popular vote fell to 26%.
(AP, 10/14/08)(Reuters, 10/15/08)(Econ, 10/18/08,
p.47)
2008 Oct 16, Canadian police said
a bomb damaged a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia, describing
the overnight attack as the second of its kind in the same area in a
week.
(Reuters, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 17, Some 30 leaders of
French-speaking nations attended a 3-day summit of French-speaking
nations in Quebec City, Canada. The focus was dominated by the world's
financial woes.
(AFP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 19, Taliban militants
stopped a bus traveling on Afghanistan's main highway in the Maiwand
district of Kandahar province, captured some 50 people on board and
killed 26 of them with at least 6 beheaded. International and Afghan
forces killed 34 Taliban fighters south of the Helmand provincial
capital of Lashkar Gah. In early 2009 Canadian military police
charged Captain Robert Semrau of shooting and killing a man, described
by the military police, as a "presumed insurgent," on or about October
19, 2008.
(AP, 10/19/08)(AP, 10/20/08)(AP, 10/24/08)(Reuters,
1/2/09)
2008 Oct 21, The Bank of Canada
cut its key interest rate by a quarter point, less than expected, to
2.25 percent but said it would likely have to ease further to combat
the effects of the global financial crisis.
(Reuters, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 22, The Canadian dollar
tumbled to its lowest level versus the US dollar in more than three
years as lower oil prices and a stronger greenback combined to knock
the currency below 80 US cents.
(AP, 10/22/08)
2008 Oct 23, Canada’s Finance
Minister Jim Flaherty said the government would guarantee borrowing by
the nation's banks to ease a lending crunch and keep them on equal
footing with foreign competitors. The Bank of Canada said the global
financial crisis, a US recession and falling commodity prices will
bring Canada to the brink of a recession in late 2008 and early 2009.
(Reuters, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 29, Software engineer
Momin Khawaja, a Canadian man who was the first to be charged under a
tough new anti-terror law, was found guilty in a trial linked to a plot
to carry out bomb attacks in Britain. On march 12, 2009, Khawaja was
sentenced to 10-1/2 years in jail for his involvement in plans to bomb
nightclubs, trains and a shopping center in Britain.
(Reuters, 10/29/08)(AP, 3/12/09)
2008 Oct 31, In Canada an
explosion damaged a natural gas wellhead in the same area of northeast
British Columbia where two pipelines have been bombed this month.
(Reuters, 10/31/08)
2008 Nov 10, In Japan a
California-based computer scientist, a Canadian philosophy professor
and a Canadian molecular biologist each received US$500,000 at an
awards ceremony for this year's Kyoto Prizes for achievement in the
arts and sciences.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2008 Nov 12, The Canadian
government announced a series of steps to improve the
availability of long-term credit including the purchase of C$50 billion
($40 billion) more in insured mortgages from banks.
(Reuters, 11/12/08)
2008 Nov 13, China signed an
agreement in Geneva to loosen controls on financial news providers in
an out-of-court settlement of a dispute with the US, the EU and Canada.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2008 Nov 16, On Canada's Pacific
coast 7 people were killed and one was injured when the charter plane
they were flying in crashed on Thormanby Island.
(AP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 20, A meteor streaked
across the sky of the Canadian Prairies producing a fire ball that
shone brightly enough to be seen over an area 700 km (435 miles) wide.
Searchers soon found the remains of the 10-ton meteor.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Nov 21, Canada and Colombia
signed a free trade agreement, hoping to boost investment and trade
flows at a time of global economic instability.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 30, In Canada three
opposition parties reached a tentative deal to defeat the minority
Conservative government and then put together a coalition.
(Reuters, 12/1/08)
2008 Dec 1, A 12-day UN climate
conference opened in Poznan, Poland. During the conference Chief Bill
Erasmus of the Dene nation in northern Canada brought a stark warning
about the climate crisis: The once abundant herds of caribou are
dwindling, rivers are running lower and the ice is too thin to hunt on.
(www.environmentalleader.com/2008/12/01/un-climate-talks-kicks-off-in-poznan/)
2008 Dec 2, Canadian
governor-general Michaelle Jean, the acting head of state, said she
would cut short a foreign trip to help resolve one of the worst
political crises in Canada's history.
(AP, 12/2/08)
2008 Dec 2, Ted Rogers (75),
founder of Rogers Communications, died in Toronto. He transformed a
single FM radio station into a North American broadcasting, publishing
and wireless telecommunications conglomerate.
(AP, 12/2/08)
2008 Dec 4, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper won a rare suspension of Parliament, managing to avoid being
ousted by opposition parties angry over the minority Conservative
government's economic plans and an attempt to cut off party financing.
(Reuters, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 5, In Afghanistan 3
Canadian soldiers were killed by a massive bomb, bringing to 100 the
number who have lost their lives since the country's military mission
there started in 2002.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 8, Quebec's ruling
Liberals strengthened their grip on power in a provincial election,
winning a parliamentary majority and defeating separatists who want
independence for the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province.
(Reuters, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 9, The Bank of Canada
unexpectedly cut its key interest rate by three-quarters of a
percentage point to a 50-year low of 1.50 percent and declared the
Canadian economy to be in a recession.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 9, The European Union and
Canada reached a deal to open their aviation markets to each other by
removing restrictions on direct flights and foreign ownership in
airlines.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 13, Britain’s PM Gordon
Brown paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan, where he spoke to troops
battling the Taliban and held talks with President Hamid Karzai. 3
Canadian soldiers were killed and one wounded in southern Afghanistan
when an explosive device detonated near the armored car in which they
were riding.
(AFP, 12/13/08)(Reuters, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 14, On the Niger-Mali
border Tuareg rebels of the Front for the Forces of Redress (FFR)
kidnapped Robert Fowler, a Canadian UN special envoy, and Louis Guay, a
Canadian diplomat, along with their local driver. Days later the FFR
made contradictory statements both claiming and condemning
responsibility. On March, 2009, rebels released the driver. The
Canadian diplomats were released in April, 2009.
(AP, 12/16/08)(http://tinyurl.com/djsmd7)(AP,
4/23/09)
2008 Dec 18, Canada’s PM Harper
said Canada will break a 12-year string of budget surpluses and run a
deficit of as much as $30 billion next year to kick-start the economy.
(Reuters, 12/19/08)
2008 Dec 20, The Canadian and
Ontario governments announced they would follow the US in providing C$4
billion ($3.3 billion) in emergency loans to the Canadian arms of
Detroit's ailing automakers to keep them operating while they
restructure their businesses.
(Reuters, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 28, In Canada eight
snowmobilers were killed as they were hit by a pair of avalanches in
southeast British Columbia. 3 men survived.
(AP, 12/30/08)(AP, 12/31/08)
2009 Jan 5, The Vatican said that
Bishop Allen H. Vigneron will replace Cardinal Adam Joseph Maida at the
head of the Detroit archdiocese. The pope also named the auxiliary
bishop of Halifax, Claude Champagne, as the new bishop of Edmundston in
Canada. Benedict appointed the Rev. Cirilo Flores as new auxiliary
bishop of Orange, California.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 10, Australian police
said a Canadian man has been charged with trying to smuggle more than
two million dollars (1.4 million US) worth of cocaine inside forklift
battery cells into Australia from Mexico.
(AFP, 1/11/09)
2009 Jan 14, Canada’s Nortel
Networks Corp, North America's biggest telephone equipment maker, filed
for bankruptcy, hoping to save a once high-flying business whose
decade-long decline has accelerated with the global economic crisis.
(Reuters, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 20, The Bank of Canada
cut its key interest rate by a half-point to a fresh 50-year low of 1
percent, as expected, and predicted a period of falling prices this
year as an economic recession takes hold.
(AP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan 21, President Barack
Obama's first public act in office was to institute new limits on
lobbyists in his White House and to freeze the salaries of high-paid
aides, in a nod to the country's economic turmoil. A judge quickly
granted President Barack Obama's request to suspend the war crimes
trial at Guantanamo of a young Canadian in what may be the beginning of
the end for the Bush administration's system of trying alleged
terrorists. Obama took the oath of office again with Chief Justice John
Roberts to correct the previous day’s initial flub in wording.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 27, Canada's Conservative
government unveiled a two-year C$40 billion ($32 billion) stimulus
package to help pull the economy out of recession, laying out plans for
a budget deficit for the first time after 11 straight years of surplus.
(Reuters, 1/27/09)
2009 Feb 6, It was reported that
Canada has granted Lai Changxing a work permit. Chinese authorities
have accused Lai Changxing of masterminding a network that smuggled as
much as $10 billion of goods with the protection of corrupt government
officials. Before fleeing to Canada in 1999, Lai lived a life of luxury
in China complete with a mansion and a bulletproof Mercedes.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 9, In Montreal, Canada,
researchers said that an Indevus Pharmaceuticals gel formulated to
protect women from the virus that causes AIDS appeared to protect about
a third of them from infection, the first time a so-called microbicide
has been shown to work.
(AP, 2/9/09)
2009 Feb 12, Canada said its
federal police will no longer use stun guns against suspects merely
resisting arrest or refusing to cooperate because the guns can cause
death. At least 20 Canadians have died after being zapped by stun guns.
(SFC, 2/13/09, p.A4)
2009 Feb 12, In Canada Timothy
Scott (22), a US Marine wanted for abandoning his unit, shot himself to
death outside his mother’s home in Nova Scotia after police tried to
talk him out of firing a gun. Scott had already served 2 terms in Iraq.
(SSFC, 2/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 19, Barack Obama made his
first foreign trip as president to Canada where he sought to quell
Canadian concerns about US protectionism.
(AP, 2/19/09)
2009 Feb 20, The Canadian units of
General Motors Corp and Chrysler sought as much as C$10 billion ($8
billion) in aid from the Canadian and Ontario governments as they
fought to survive an industry wide crisis.
(AP, 2/21/09)
2009 Feb 25, Attorney General Eric
Holder said US and Mexican authorities have arrested 750 people over 21
months in an anti-drug sweep that included 52 members of Mexico's
Sinaloa drug cartel. The crackdown culminated 50 overnight raids. It
investigated crimes in the United States, Mexico and Canada, netted
some 59 million dollars in cash, 12,000 kilos (12 tons) of cocaine, 544
kilos (1,200 pounds) of methamphetamine and 1.3 million Ecstasy pills.
(AFP, 2/25/09)(WSJ, 2/26/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 26, In Canada PM Harper
announced a new law to crack down on a wave of gang-related muders in
Vancouver, which was preparing to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
(SFC, 2/27/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 3, Canadian banks cut
their prime lending rates after the Bank of Canada, the country's
central bank, cut its key interest rate by a half-point to a record low
of 0.5 percent.
(Reuters, 3/3/09)
2009 Mar 3, In southern
Afghanistan 3 Canadian soldiers were killed and two wounded in a bomb
blast in Arghandab, northwest of Kandahar.
(AFP, 3/4/09)
2009 Mar 12, In Canada 17 people
died in the frigid waters off Canada's Atlantic coast after a Sikorsky
S-92 helicopter crashed while ferrying workers to an offshore oil
platform. It went down about 47 nautical miles southeast of the
Newfoundland and Labrador capital of St. John's. One person was rescued.
(Reuters, 3/12/09)(Reuters, 3/13/09)
2009 Mar 16, In northern Mexico a
tractor-trailer slammed into a bus carrying Canadian and US tourists,
killing 11. The bus was carrying a group of Texas retirees from
McAllen, Texas, to the northern Mexican state of Zacatecas when a
drunken driver lost control of his tractor-trailer outside the city of
Saltillo.
(AP, 3/17/09)(WSJ, 3/18/09, p.A10)
2009 Mar 17, In Canada more than
100 protesters chanted "war criminal" and flung shoes in Calgary, angry
that former US President George W. Bush was in the city to give his
first speech since leaving the White House.
(Reuters, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 18, Natasha Richardson
(45). British actress, died in NYC from a severe brain injury in a
skiing accident in Canada earlier this week.
(Reuters, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 20, Afghanistan's top
Muslim clerics urged President Hamid Karzai to push ahead with a
proposal for talks with the Taliban that would be mediated by Saudi
Arabia's King Abdullah. In northern Afghanistan 9 policemen and a
district chief were killed in heavy fighting with Taliban insurgents. 4
Canadian troops and a local interpreter were killed in two separate
explosions. Another NATO soldier was killed in a "hostile incident" in
the south.
(AP, 3/20/09)(AFP, 3/20/09)(Reuters, 3/21/09)
2009 Mar 23, Canadian officials
declared the nation’s annual seal hunt open, despite a potential EU ban
on the import of seal products.
(SFC, 3/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 23, Suncor Energy Inc,
Canada's No.2 oil company, agreed to buy rival Petro-Canada for about
C$18.43 billion ($14.86 billion) to expand its oil sand reserves and
create the country's biggest energy group.
(Reuters, 3/23/09)
2009 Mar 25, Garth Drabinsky and
Myron Gottlieb, Canadian theater impresarios from a company called
Livent, were convicted of fraud. They had been indicted in the US in
1999 and fled to Canada, where they were charged in 2002. Six former
Livent accountants testified in the trial, saying they were ordered to
inflate income and profit documentation.
(Econ, 4/4/09,
p.44)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/playbill/20090325/en_playbill/127701)
2009 Mar 29, Canadian researchers
said a shadowy cyber-espionage network based mostly in China has
infiltrated secret government and private computers around the world,
including those of the Dalai Lama. They said the network, known as
GhostNet, had infected 1,295 computers in 103 countries and penetrated
systems containing sensitive information in top political, economic and
media offices.
(AP, 3/29/09)
2009 Apr 2, The annual Canadian
harp seal hunt opened. Up to 280,000 baby seals were expected to be
slaughtered in Quebec and Newfoundland.
(http://network.bestfriends.org/canada/news/13925.html)(SFC, 4/18/09,
p.D12)
2009 Apr 4, In Sudan armed men in
the Darfur kidnapped two aid workers Claire Dubois of France and
Canadian Stephanie Jodoin, of Aid Medicale International (AMI). They
were seized from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el
Fursan. Both women were released on April 29.
(AFP, 4/5/09)(Reuters, 4/12/09)(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 16, In northern Nigeria a
Canadian woman was seized in the city of Kaduna where she had been
attending an international conference. Julie Mulligan (45) was freed
unharmed in the northern city of Kaduna on April 29.
(AP, 4/18/09)(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 17, Canadian police,
acting on a tip-off from the United States, charged a Toronto man with
trying to illegally export nuclear technology to Iran. The Royal
Canadian Mounted Police said Mahmoud Yadegari had attempted to obtain
pressure transducers, devices that are used to make enriched uranium
but can also have military applications.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 21, The Bank of Canada
cut its benchmark interest rate to an historic low of 0.25% and made no
explicit commitment on taking nonconventional measures to spur the
economy even as it predicted a deeper-than-expected recession.
(Reuters, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 24, The Canadian Auto
Workers union and Chrysler Canada reached a tentative concession deal
that would cut about C$19 ($15.70) an hour from labor costs in a bid to
keep the struggling automaker from bankruptcy.
(Reuters, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 26, Canada reported its
first confirmed cases of swine flu at opposite ends of the country,
with two cases in the western province of British Columbia and four in
the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia.
(Reuters, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 30, Chrysler filed for
bankruptcy protection after overnight talks broke down with a small
group of the company's creditors. Canada's government said it will take
an ownership stake in Chrysler in exchange for more than $2 billion in
loans, under a sweeping North American rescue plan. Ottawa and
Washington demanded the Detroit company partner with Fiat as a
condition for funding.
(AP, 4/30/09)(Reuters, 5/1/09)
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