[NEWS] Six links on journalism in Canada: Québec, Halifax, PEI, Guelph …

• La Presse carries the concern of a Québec journalist that the decline of daily papers could have a catastrophic impact on the province’s culture.
• The Québec government would like financially-stressed newspaper group to form a coop. CTV News reports.
• That the Toronto Star shut down its free Metro affiliates across Canada made the news in Halifax. CBC reports.
• The closure of the Transcontinental Media printing plant in Borden-Carleton means that PEI no longer has a local printer for its media. CBC reports.
• Sabrina Wilkinson writes at The Conversation about the increasingly tenuous nature of journalism in Canada, not least as an employer.
• This Alex Migdal piece looks at how Guelph, Ontario, has fared since the closure of the Guelph Mercury daily.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven city links: Gatineau, Montréal, Halifax, wild turkeys and monk parakeets, Venice, Kamza

• The city of Gatineau is going to take land with constructions devastated by flooding and make it into a buffer zone. CBC reports.
• There is controversy around the idea of naming a REM station in Montréal’s Griffintown neighbourhood after Bernard Landry. Global News reports.
• Halifax has a third heritage district. Global News reports.
• The wild turkey is now thriving in many American cities, in New Jersey’s Toms River and even in Washington D.C. CityLab reports.
• The monk parakeet is thriving in European cities like Madrid and London. CityLab reports.
• The Conversation suggests that Venice may yet benefit from the attention brought to its problems by the recent flooding.
• Guardian Cities looks at the remarkably rapid construction of the city in Albania of Kamza, driven by (among other factors) remittances from emigrants.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven city links: Ottawa, Longueuil, Montréal, Winnipeg, Saint John, Halifax, Lethbridge

• The Ottawa Citizen suggests a recent audit of OC Transpo should have offered warnings of the Confederation Line problems to come.
• A project office has been set up for the extension of the Yellow Line in Longueuil and elsewhere on the south shore. CTV News reports.
• La Presse looks at the concerns of some artists in Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie that they might be forced out by gentrification.
• That the Bay Building in downtown Winnipeg has been evaluated as being of little value offers an opening to Heritage Winnipeg. Global News reports.
• The New Brunswick government is forcing suburbs of Saint John to pay for city facilities that they also used. Global News reports.
• Short-term rentals are having a negative effect on real estate markets in Halifax. Global News reports.
• Downtown Lethbridge faces struggles to attract business. Global News reports.

[NEWS] Eighteen #cdnpoli and #exln43 links

• MacLean’s looks at how Justin Trudeau and the Liberals survived #elxn43, here.
• Ajay Parasram at The Conversation looks at the new complications faced by Justin Trudeau.
• Daily Xtra looks at the record of the Liberals on LGBTQ2 issues, here.
• Daily Xtra looks at the four out LGBTQ2 MPs elected to Parliament, here.
• Philippe Fournier at MacLean’s argues that 338Canada stands vindicated in its predictions, with some 90% of the people it predicted would be elected being elected.
• What will become of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer? The National Post considers.
• Strategic voting and Doug Ford, Mark Gollom notes, kept the Conservatives from making a breakthrough in Ontario.
• Robyn Urback at CBC notes that the narrow conservatism of Scheer kept the Conservatives from victory in a wary Canada.
• Stephen Maher at MacLean’s questions if the Bloc Québécois victory has much to do with separatism, per se.
• Voters in Québec seem to be fine with election results, with a strong Bloc presence to keep the Liberals on notice. CBC has it.
• Talk of separatism has taken off in Alberta following the #elxn43 results. Global News has it.
• The premier of Saskatchewan has also talked of his province’s alienation after #elxn43, here in the National Post.
• CBC’s As It Happens carries an interview with former Conservative MP Jay Hill, now an advocate for western Canadian separatism.
• Atlantic Canada may provide new members for the cabinet of Justin Trudeau. The Toronto Star reports.
• Jaime Battiste, Liberal, has been elected as the first Mi’kmaq MP from Nova Scotia. Global News has it.
• The Green Party did not make its hoped-for breakthrough on Vancouver Island, but it will struggle on. Global News has it.
• Did, as Politico suggested, Canada sleepwalk into the future with #elxn43?
• We should be glad, Scott Gilmore argues in MacLean’s, that given the global challenges to democracy #elxn43 in Canada was relatively boring.

[URBAN NOTE] Ten city links: Montréal, Lac-Mégantic, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton …

• Tracey Lindeman writes at CityLab about how Montréal is trying to keep the redevelopment of the Molson-Coors Brewery site from killing the Centre-Sud.
• In the Montréal neighbourhood of Park-Extension, evictions–renovictions, even–are on the rise. Global News reports.
• Lac-Mégantic now has a train depot that bypasses the heart of this traumatized community. CBC Montreal reports.
• Halifax is now celebrating the Mosaic Festival, celebrating its diversity. Global News reports.
• Jill Croteau reports for Global News about Club Carousel, an underground club in Calgary that played a vital role in that city’s LGBTQ history.
• This business plan, aiming to bypass long lineups at the Edmonton outpost of the Jollibee chain, is ingenious. Global News reports.
• The Iowa town of Pacific Junction, already staggering, may never recover from a recent bout of devastating flooding. VICE reports.
• Avery Gregurich writes for CityLab about the Illinois town of Atlas, a crossroads seemingly on the verge of disappearing from Google Maps.
• The proposal for Metropica, a new sort of suburb in Florida, certainly looks interesting. VICE reports.
• Guardian Cities shares a cartoon looking affectionately at Lisbon.

[NEWS] Five cultural links: Hitler, Internet, Nova Scotia roads, BC gangs, Pontic Greek

• The BBC takes a look at Pontic Greek, a Greek dialect that survives precariously in exile from its homeland in Anatolia.
• Klaus Meyer writes at The Conversation about how Hitler, in his rise to power, became a German citizen.
• Low-income families in the Toronto area face serious challenges in getting affordable Internet access. CBC reports.
• Jeremy Keefe at Global News takes a look at Steve Skafte, an explorer of abandoned roads in Nova Scotia.
• In some communities in British Columbia, middle-class people have joined criminal gangs for social reasons. CBC reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Guelph, Hamilton, Lethbridge, Moncton, Halifax

• blogTO suggests some things people could do on a day trip to Guelph (and commenters come up with more suggestions).
• The lack of explicitly queer spaces in Hamilton is one thing that has come up in a recent study. Global News reports.
• The Alberta city of Lethbridge, third-largest in the province, now has a population of more than one hundred thousand people. Global News reports.
• Will the city of Moncton get rainbow crosswalks? Global News reports.
• Halifax has faced complications in trying to pursue a commuter rail option. Global News reports.

[NEWS] 15 links about Canada and Canadian politics (#cdnpoli)

• Scott Gilmore at MacLean’s notes how, in the United States, Canada as a model is a common idea among Democrats.
• David Camfield argues at The Conversation that the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike offers lessons for Canadians now.
• Le Devoir notes the recent argument of now-Québec premier François Legault that a Québec that was, like Ontario, a relatively wealthy province would be a Québec that would have fewer tensions with the rest of Canada. Is this plausible?
• Éric Grenier notes at CBC that, in Ontario, Andrew Scheer’s federal conservatives will need to draw voters from beyond Ford Nation.
• MacLean’s hosts the arguments of Frank Graves and Michael Valpy that Canadian politicians are not paying nearly the amount of attention to economic inequality that Canadians think they should.
• MacLean’s makes the point that Conrad Black seems to see much to like in Donald Trump.
• Ontario and the Canadian government are fighting over funding for the proposed Ontario Line, the Canadian government insisting it needs more information about the route. The Toronto Star reports.
• Facebook, it turns out, chose not to pay proper attention to sending officials to testify at a Canada government inquiry into fake news. Maclean’s reports.
• Justin Trudeau, speaking recently in Toronto, credited immigration for the success of the tech sector of Canada. CBC reports.
• Foreign workers turn out to play a critical role in staffing the lobster plants in the Acadian fishing village of Meteghan, in Nova Scotia. CBC reports.
• Canada and the United States are again disputing the claims of Canada to sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. Global News reports.
• MacLean’s interviews Northwest Territories premier Bob McLeod, who dreams of a massive development of Arctic Canada, including a goal of a million residents for his territory.
• Enzo DiMatteo suggests at NOW Toronto that the growing unpopularity of Doing Ford in Ontario might hurt the federal Conservatives badly.
• Could the Green Party go mainstream across Canada? The Conversation considers.
• The Conversation reports on what the national fervour over the Toronto Raptors represents, including the growing diversity of the population of Canada and the global spread of basketball.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Halifax, London, Helsinki, Rustavi

• Some new high-rise housing developments in Hamilton are lacking in permits. Global News reports.
• Halifax is currently undergoing public consultations to see what is to be done with a statue of controversial British governor Cornwallis. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities looks at how the ring-tailed parakeet has come to thrive in its adopted home of London.
• Guardian Cities reports on how the city of Helsinki has solved its problem with homelessness by automatically giving people in need housing.
• Open Democracy looks at the Georgian city of Rustavi, during the Soviet era dependent on a single industry like many others and left to cope with the collapse of this economy in the post-Soviet era.

[DM] Some links: immigration, cities, small towns, French Canada, Eurasia, China, Brexit, music

Another links post is up over at Demography Matters!

• Skepticism about immigration in many traditional receiving countries appeared. Frances Woolley at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative took issue with the argument of Andray Domise after an EKOS poll, that Canadians would not know much about the nature of migration flows. The Conversation observed how the rise of Vox in Spain means that country’s language on immigration is set to change towards greater skepticism. Elsewhere, the SCMP called on South Korea, facing pronounced population aging and workforce shrinkages, to become more open to immigrants and minorities.
• Cities facing challenges were a recurring theme. This Irish Examiner article, part of a series, considers how the Republic of Ireland’s second city of Cork can best break free from the dominance of Dublin to develop its own potential. Also on Ireland, the NYR Daily looked at how Brexit and a hardened border will hit the Northern Ireland city of Derry, with its Catholic majority and its location neighbouring the Republic. CityLab reported on black migration patterns in different American cities, noting gains in the South, is fascinating. As for the threat of Donald Trump to send undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities in the United States has widely noted., at least one observer noted that sending undocumented immigrants to cities where they could connect with fellow diasporids and build secure lives might actually be a good solution.
• Declining rural settlements featured, too. The Guardian reported from the Castilian town of Sayatón, a disappearing town that has become a symbol of depopulating rural Spain. Global News, similarly, noted that the loss by the small Nova Scotia community of Blacks Harbour of its only grocery store presaged perhaps a future of decline. VICE, meanwhile, reported on the very relevant story about how resettled refugees helped revive the Italian town of Sutera, on the island of Sicily. (The Guardian, to its credit, mentioned how immigration played a role in keeping up numbers in Sayatón, though the second generation did not stay.)
• The position of Francophone minorities in Canada, meanwhile, also popped up at me.
• This TVO article about the forces facing the École secondaire Confédération in the southern Ontario city of Welland is a fascinating study of minority dynamics. A brief article touches on efforts in the Franco-Manitoban community of Winnipeg to provide temporary shelter for new Francophone immigrants. CBC reported, meanwhile, that Francophones in New Brunswick continue to face pressure, with their numbers despite overall population growth and with Francophones being much more likely to be bilingual than Anglophones. This last fact is a particularly notable issue inasmuch as New Brunswick’s Francophones constitute the second-largest Francophone community outside of Québec, and have traditionally been more resistant to language shift and assimilation than the more numerous Franco-Ontarians.
• The Eurasia-focused links blog Window on Eurasia pointed to some issues. It considered if the new Russian policy of handing out passports to residents of the Donbas republics is related to a policy of trying to bolster the population of Russia, whether fictively or actually. (I’m skeptical there will be much change, myself: There has already been quite a lot of emigration from the Donbas republics to various destinations, and I suspect that more would see the sort of wholesale migration of entire families, even communities, that would add to Russian numbers but not necessarily alter population pyramids.) Migration within Russia was also touched upon, whether on in an attempt to explain the sharp drop in the ethnic Russian population of Tuva in the 1990s or in the argument of one Muslim community leader in the northern boomtown of Norilsk that a quarter of that city’s population is of Muslim background.
• Eurasian concerns also featured. The Russian Demographics Blog observed, correctly, that one reason why Ukrainians are more prone to emigration to Europe and points beyond than Russians is that Ukraine has long been included, in whole or in part, in various European states. As well, Marginal Revolution linked to a paper that examines the positions of Jews in the economies of eastern Europe as a “rural service minority”, and observed the substantial demographic shifts occurring in Kazakhstan since independence, with Kazakh majorities appearing throughout the country.
• JSTOR Daily considered if, between the drop in fertility that developing China was likely to undergo anyway and the continuing resentments of the Chinese, the one-child policy was worth it. I’m inclined to say no, based not least on the evidence of the rapid fall in East Asian fertility outside of China.
• What will Britons living in the EU-27 do, faced with Brexit? Bloomberg noted the challenge of British immigrant workers in Luxembourg faced with Brexit, as Politico Europe did their counterparts living in Brussels.
• Finally, at the Inter Press Service, A.D. Mackenzie wrote about an interesting exhibit at the Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration in Paris on the contributions made by immigrants to popular music in Britain and France from the 1960s to the 1980s.