Good morning, British Columbia. Welcome to your edition of Sunrise. |
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Douglas Todd: Canada's population standstill rattling Vancouver's housing industry
For the first time in 74 years, the population of both B.C. and Ontario dropped by a few thousand people in the first months of 2025.
Sounds dramatic. And in some ways it is.
That’s even though the dip in the total number of people doesn’t make a statistical difference for either province. In the first quarter of this year, B.C. had 2,357 fewer residents than at the end of 2024; Ontario lost 5,644.
But, as Statistics Canada says: “While small compared to the size of each province, these were the largest quarterly losses in population for both Ontario and B.C. since comparable records began in 1951.”
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Response filed to Vancouver mayor's defamation lawsuit
A local businessman has filed a response to Mayor Ken Sim’s defamation lawsuit, alleging Sim has a history of drinking alcohol at events during his time as mayor.
In May, Sim filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court saying he was defamed by comments made by his former chief of staff and campaign manager, Kareem Allam, in two private conversations in 2023 and 2024. The lawsuit also alleged defamation resulting from public posts made on X by local businessman Alex G. Tsakumis.
Sim’s lawsuit alleges that Allam told Tsakumis in November 2023 that Sim had driven his car while drunk and was stopped by Vancouver Police Department officers, who let the mayor go without being booked or cited.
On Monday, Tsakumis filed a response to the lawsuit on behalf of him and Allam, arguing the X posts he made about Sim are not defamatory, and that he was justified in his posts or that they were written to address reasonable matters of public interest concerning an elected official.
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• Two people are dead following a “violent dispute” inside an Abbotsford home on Monday evening. Abbotsford police said they were alerted to the dispute at 7:46 p.m. in a home in the 36000 block of McKee Road. Officers found two adults dead. Police did not release the ages or sex of the individuals.
• With two wildfires burning out of control in the area around Lytton on Tuesday afternoon — four years after the town and surrounding properties were devastated by fire — the community is pulling together to face what has become a perennial threat. This year it’s the Nikaia Creek fire — a fire covering the equivalent of about six soccer fields — that began burning on Monday, about two kilometres from downtown Lytton on the western side of the Fraser River. An evacuation order was issued for two properties in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, while several properties on Lytton First Nation land remained under evacuation alert on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, a second smaller fire was discovered north of Lytton along Highway 12.
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“We are a Canadian family. He might not be technically Canadian yet, but it’s wrong to separate families for low-level charges for climate activism.” |
— Activist Sophia Papp on having her husband Zain Haq, who was deported to Pakistan in January, return to Canada while their spousal sponsorship application is processed
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John Rustad: B.C. NDP stabs workers in the back with Chinese ferry contract
Over the past century, British Columbia has been built by the calloused hands of hardworking loggers, truckers, shipbuilders, welders, electricians, rig workers, farmers and mechanics.
And there have been no shortage of instances when B.C. Premier David Eby references these British Columbians, who are now struggling to make ends meet. Take, for example, his recent appearance at the 2025 CUPE BC Convention, where he waxed poetically about how “we stand on our own two feet with an economy that serves working people,” while describing a Utopian “strong B.C. … where no one gets left behind.”
Yet while his rhetoric about looking after the interests of blue-collar workers throughout the province is continuous, the past few months clearly demonstrate how far the Eby government has strayed from those very workers.
But don’t take my word for it. The New Democratic Party provincial council — comprised of historically strong supporters like the B.C. Federation of Labour, the United Steelworkers and CUPE BC — just condemned the government with a stinging motion in support of B.C.-only procurement rules.
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B.C. makes gains on breaking down interprovincial trade barriers: CFIB
B.C. improved its ranking to a B+ grade on the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ 2025 State of Internal Trade report, up from a B in 2024, but it still has “a lot more work to do,” according to Ryan Mitton, CFIB’s director of legislative affairs for B.C.
Driving the news: The federation released its latest report card on interprovincial trade on Monday and credited B.C.’s gain on legislation that dropped most of its barriers to trade with other provinces as one measure to protect the province from external threats.
• B.C. has lifted its restrictions on direct-to-consumer shipments of wine, Mitton said it has left similar restrictions on direct shipments of craft beer and spirits. And although B.C. has improved on its recognition of professional and trades certifications from other provinces, Mitton added that B.C. still hasn’t set a schedule for the approval of workers certified in other provinces.
You should know: Nova Scotia earned top marks on the Canadian Federation of Independent Business report card with an A grade because it was the first province to implement mutual recognition legislation, followed closely by Ontario, which earned a slightly lower A grade by unilaterally eliminating all of the exemptions to the Canada Free Trade Agreement that it maintained.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD |
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(Brit Savage and Jason Eng) |
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