Federal minister reacts to Alberta’s new gender identity policies
Local:
CBC: A low-rise building in Sandy Hill was on fire Thursday morning, with flames lasting for hours. One person was rescued from the building in the 100 block of Osgoode Street.
One firefighter was injured from falling through the floor of the low rise, according to the Ottawa Fire Services. However, a paramedic spokesperson said no firefighters were taken to the hospital.
Another adult was taken to the hospital to be treated for minor smoke inhalation.
The Ottawa Police and firefighters asked people to avoid the area and closed Sweetland and Osgoode around the fire.
Hundreds of people in the area were out of power, however, Hydro Ottawa’s outage map said those outages were because of a different fire.
National:
National Post: The federal health minister, Mark Holland, says he is bothered by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s video posted to X revealing new transgender rules.
Alberta policies would ban gender reassignment surgery and limit access to hormone therapy for children who are under 16 years old. The changes also include new pronoun-related rules for minors.
“The decision that was made by Alberta places kids at risk,” Holland said. “I think it’s extremely dangerous to engage in this kind of thing, which is, I think playing politics when you’re talking about children’s lives.”
Smith posted a seven-minute video to X on Wednesday explaining the new rules. These include the changes in access to gender-affirming care for minors, requiring parents’ consent for children to attend sexual education in school and creating biological female-only sports leagues.
International:
CBC: Farmers are angry at European leaders for change in agriculture rules. The farmers threw eggs and stones and set off fireworks and fires near European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday.
The farmers are reacting to a loosening of the rules that govern agricultural policies, indicating that they are not paid enough.
They are having trouble with environmental restrictions and are seeing issues come from competition with cheap imports from Ukraine.
“Those farmers, they would like to get some form of exemption from that, some form of compensation,” said to Renaud Foucart, senior economics lecturer at Lancaster University in England.
