Suspected tornado damages homes and barns in Quebec, but no injuries reported
RIGAUD, QUEBEC (CP) – A suspected tornado that touched down in southwestern Quebec late Monday afternoon has damaged homes and farm buildings, but a local fire official said no injuries have been reported.
Rigaud Fire Department acting chief Guillaume Roy said four homes were damaged, including one whose roof was ripped off, and a number of barns and grain silos were damaged, too.
“One garage disappeared and all the chickens in it — we don’t know where it went,” Roy said in a phone interview Monday night
He said it was lucky no one was hurt.
Julie Lemieux, the mayor of Très-Saint-Rédempteur, about eight kilometres southwest of Rigaud, said in a Facebook post that an apparent tornado had toppled trees and knocked out power in the area and Hydro-Québec crews were working to restore it.
The mayor advised residents to remain careful as another storm cell was expected to pass through the region later Monday night.
Environment Canada meteorologist Jean-Philippe Begin said a severe thunderstorm was passing through the Rigaud area at the time. He said the weather agency has received photo and video submissions from the public that show damage as well as what appears to be a tornado moving across a field, but he said they won’t be confirming it was actually a tornado until a further investigation is complete.
“I would say it’s likely a tornado — very likely a tornado — because we recognize the landscape on some pictures, so those images have been taken in Rigaud,” Begin said.
The investigation, Begin said, would be carried out in conjunction with the University of Western Ontario’s Northern Tornadoes Project, which late Monday night concluded that based on witness video and pictures, a tornado had occurred near Rigaud.
The post also noted that there are reports of damage extending to the southwest of Rigaud approaching the Ontario boundary.
House set to vote to oust Speaker, but latest attempt by Tories is likely to fail
OTTAWA (CP) – MPs will vote tonight on a motion calling for House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus to resign but it is not expected to succeed.
The Conservatives say Fergus is too partisan for the role and want him out of his chair by Monday.
This is the third time in less than eight months that the Conservatives have called on Fergus to resign.
The latest accusation stems from a post that the Liberal party uploaded to its website last week that promoted a summer barbecue event featuring Fergus that used partisan language without getting Fergus’s consent.
The Liberal party apologized to Fergus for the post after New Democrats demanded it.
The New Democrats are expected to vote against the motion, which along with the votes from the Liberals will be enough to defeat it.
Fergus declined to comment on the vote, saying it is not appropriate to comment on something that’s before the House of Commons.
Israel close to approving Gaza reunification program before Rafah invasion: Miller
By: Dylan Robertson
OTTAWA (CP) – Immigration Minister Marc Miller says Israel seemed to be on the verge of approving a program to get Palestinian relatives of Canadians out of the Gaza Strip before the country’s invasion of the town of Rafah.
“While we have been limited in our success, it is certainly not for lack of trying,” Miller told the House immigration committee Monday.
“We won’t give up on bringing family members to safety.”
His comments come amid mounting criticism over measures introduced months ago that were meant to bring relatives of Canadians from conflict zones in the Gaza Strip and Sudan to safety.
Miller announced Monday an increase in the number of applications that will be processed for those leaving the Gaza Strip through that program, but his department isn’t sure if any Palestinians have actually arrived in Canada through those means.
The Gaza program initially had a cap of 1,000 applications that could be “accepted into processing,” meaning that all paperwork had been completed ahead of an eventual biometric processing in Egypt. But Miller says 2,903 applications had reached that step as of May 24.
Miller has now expanded that to 5,000 applications, each of which can include multiple family members.
The department says it has issued 179 temporary-resident permits through the Gaza program as of April 29, but it isn’t known whether anyone has actually reached Canada.
Liberal MP calls out PBO for error in carbon price analysis, asks for correction
By: Nojoud Al Mallees
OTTAWA (CP) – The parliamentary secretary for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is criticizing the parliamentary budget officer for not issuing a more-public correction to its carbon price analysis after finding an error in it.
The PBO published a note on its website on April 17 admitting its economic analyses of the consumer carbon price, done in both 2022 and 2023, erroneously included the impact of the industrial carbon price, too.
The PBO says it plans to publish an updated analysis in the fall.
Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary Ryan Turnbull said in a letter sent to PBO Yves Giroux on Tuesday that his office should have gone to greater lengths to ensure the public be notified of the error — and explain how it may have skewed the results.
“With great respect, correcting the record on your analysis of the fuel charge is necessary to maintain the integrity of your office,” Turnbull wrote.
Turnbull said the PBO’s mistake raises “significant questions” about the analysis, which he notes has been at the centre of political debates about the impact of carbon pricing.
“At a time when misinformation on carbon pricing is running rampant, this is deeply unfortunate, as your office has a well-earned reputation for non-partisan and rigorous analysis,” he added.
The PBO’s original analyses claimed that while most families would receive more from rebates than they paid in carbon pricing, those benefits would be erased once the impact on job growth and incomes was factored in.
The federal Conservatives have frequently cited the PBO’s work to support their argument that the carbon price is leaving Canadian families financially worse off.
