Hello, it's Tamara Baluja. 

The case of a human smuggler who was issued a new passport — after the government ordered him to surrender his travel documents — exposes the weakness in Canada's passport screening process. That's based on reporting from my colleagues Jorge Barrera and Albert Leung.

Also, do you feel like Christmas cards have become intense as of late? As my colleague Natalie Stechyson reports, some families are opting out as the mental load piles up. 

A human smuggler was ordered to surrender his passport. Then the federal government gave him a new one 

Thesingarasan Rasiah was issued this passport in April 2023 shortly after two families and a boatman drowned in the St. Lawrence River in a failed human smuggling run allegedly linked to Rasiah's organization. (Ontario Court of Justice)

The story: The federal government issued a new passport to an admitted human smuggler after he was ordered to surrender the travel document as part of court-imposed release conditions, CBC News has learned. 

Why it matters: The new passport was discovered in June 2023 by RCMP investigators executing a search warrant at the Montreal home of Thesingarasan Rasiah during a probe targeting an international human smuggling network that Rasiah allegedly headed, according to court records.

Rasiah's organization was linked to the deaths of nine people on the St. Lawrence River in late March 2023. Two families — one from India, the other from Romania — drowned with a boatman in rough river waters trying to get into the U.S. 

The new passport seized by RCMP during the search of Rasiah's home in 2023 was issued by Service Canada on April 11, 2023, less than two weeks after eight bodies were pulled from the river, according to a copy of the document filed with the Ontario Court of Justice.  

In Canada's universal health system, mental health care is not so universal: report

About 2.5 million people — nearly the populations of Manitoba and Saskatchewan combined — aren't getting adequate care for their mental health, according to a new report from the Canadian Mental Heath Association. 

The bad news: 

• On average, provinces and territories spend about 6.3 per cent of their overall health-care budgets on mental health. 
• That's roughly half the 12 per cent that CMHA recommends. Compare that to a country like France, which also has a universal system and spends 15 per cent on mental health care.

• Universal, publicly funded mental health care in Nova Scotia.
• Significant investments in mental health promotion in B.C.
• Addictions treatment in Alberta.
• Inuit paraprofessionals providing culturally appropriate care in Nunavut.

How holiday cards went from time saver to time suck and why many are opting out

The modern tradition of family photo Christmas cards can be an intense chore — which is ironic since it was meant to save time. (Getty Images)

Do you find holiday cards to be a cherished custom that brings you joy, or an unnecessary burden during a time of year when the mental load is already heavy?

The history: The first Christmas card was commissioned in 1843, according to the Smithsonian magazine, when prominent British educator and arts patron Sir Henry Cole was fretting over his stack of unanswered Christmas letters. So he asked an artist friend to design a card with a generic greeting where all he had to do was fill in the receiver's name. 

What the polls say about the tradition: 

• While some polls in the U.S. and U.K. have declared Christmas cards are a dying tradition, others (though they're commissioned by photo card companies) have said people still prefer sending physical cards to connect with loved ones.
• An Ipsos poll from 2021 conducted for photo company Shutterfly, found that women were more likely to send out holiday cards than men. Meanwhile, another 2021 poll of just over 2,000 U.S. parents found that one in six of them reported high stress levels during the holidays — and among those, twice as many moms as dads reported high levels of stress.

In case you missed it

• The Alberta government will announce this week it's going to let auto insurers raise premiums by substantially more than the 3.7 per cent rate cap it imposed this year, CBC News has learned. Premier Danielle Smith's cabinet has endorsed moving Alberta to a predominantly "no-fault" insurance system — meaning accident victims do not have the right to sue at-fault drivers; instead, their own insurers pay out injury benefits based on predetermined guidelines. This would mark the biggest reform in decades for the way Alberta car insurance benefits work. 

• Dozens of people who thought they would be seeing Taylor Swift perform in Toronto this month have reportedly fallen victim to a ticket scam totalling over $70,000, say police in the Greater Toronto Area. Halton Regional Police's financial crimes unit is investigating and no arrests have been made. Swift's string of six sold-out Toronto concerts run between Nov. 14 and 23. Her last three in the tour will be in Vancouver. 

• Hospital officials in the Gaza Strip say they're dealing with a growing number of malnutrition cases among children in the enclave as little aid is making it through the crossings and the aid that does enter is violently looted. Last week, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly expressed deep concern about "catastrophic" humanitarian conditions across Gaza and warned about "the life-threatening levels of acute malnutrition."

And, in today's good news...

A Saskatchewan artist got a Royal stamp of approval for his coronation song

King Charles sent a message of thanks to Regina musician Jeffery Straker, pictured, via Saskatchewan's lieutenant-governor. (Jeffery Straker/X)

Jeffery Straker has had many career highlights, but a recent thank you from King Charles may be at the top of his list.

Straker, a Saskatchewan singer-songwriter, was in the midst of a three-week tour of the United Kingdom earlier this month when he received an email from Saskatchewan's Lt.-Gov. Russell Mirasty.

Mirasty informed Straker that his most recent album, Great Big Sky, had made its way to Buckingham Palace and King Charles had given it a listen.