[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.

[ISL] Five #islands links: Malaga, Greenland, Vancouver Island, Menorca, Palau

• Atlas Obscura takes a look at Malaga Island in Maine, an island brutally depopulated by state authorities a century ago because of its non-white population.
• Gizmodo notes the discovery of some of the oldest soil ever found, paleosoil, 3.7 billion years old, in Greenland.
• A fringe political candidate in British Columbia wants his Vancouver Island to become a separate province. The Province reports.
• The Gibraltar Chronicle has a feature on a journalist with a book exploring the historical connection between Gibraltar and the Balearic island of Menorca, at one time a British possession.
• The Guardian reports on how Palau dealt with a freeze on tourism from China over its continued recognition of Taiwan.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Niagara Falls, Brantford, Regina, Tofino, Port Moody

• Why are the falls at Niagara Falls so famously compelling, even lethally seductive for some? Some human brains might be confused by the immensity. The National Post reports.
• The extent of the flooding in Brantford, inland from Hamilton on the Grand River, is shocking. The Toronto Star reports.
• The Saskatchewan capital city of Regina turns out to be the McDonald’s breakfast capital of Canada. Global News reports.
• This essay in The Globe and Mail by Greg Blanchette looking at the rental housing crunch in the small Vancouver Island town of Tofino describes what’s frankly a terrifying situation.
• If not for the fact that the CP Railway owned no property locally, the Vancouver suburb of Port Moody could well have become Canada’s biggest west coast metropolis. Global News reports.

[ISL] Six islands links: Singapore, Amherst Island, Newfoundland, James Island, Sardinia, Shetlands

• For well-off Chinese, Singapore has overtaken Hong Kong as their preferred offshore destination. Bloomberg reports.
• Residents on Amherst Island, near Kingston, complain about the effects of windfarm construction. Global News reports.
• This depressing Vice opinion piece argues that Newfoundland is on the verge of complete economic collapse and radical depopulation.
• The private island of James Island, off Vancouver Island in British Columbia, is subject to a First Nations land claim. Global News reports.
• An Italian island community, desperate to avert depopulation, is offering houses for sale at ridiculously low prices. Will there be takers? (And will they stay?) The National Post reports.
• Towleroad reports on the plight of a young gay man in a Shetlands community who finds himself the only out person there.

[ISL] Five islands links: Toronto Islands, Vancouver Island, Newfoundland, Louisiana, Jersey

• The idea of making the Toronto Islands an officially designated bird sanctuary makes sense on a lot of levels. The Toronto Star reports.
• The community of Saanich, on Vancouver Island, is expected to host the biggest marijuana farm in Canada come legalization, making many there unhappy. Global News reports.
• Trump tariffs may doom a pulp and paper mills in the western Newfoundland city of Corner Brook. CBC reports.
• Wired features this heartbreaking choices facing the inhabitants of the Louisiana town of Isle de Jean Charles as their island submerges beneath rising waters. What will they do? Where will they go? Can the community survive?
• CityMetric tells the story about how people on the Channel Island of Jersey wanted to build a bridge to France, why this didn’t happen, and how this relates to Brexit.

[ISL] “Whale watchers spot battle between orcas, humpbacks near Vancouver Island”

The Globe and Mail carried this intriguing Canadian Press article.

A whale watching association says a battle between some of the largest creatures in the seas off the coast of British Columbia appeared to end with the human equivalent of fist waving and name-calling, although they can’t be sure of the outcome.

Several whale-watching boats at the western edge of the Salish Sea, off Jordan River on Vancouver Island, spotted a group of transient orcas surrounding two adult humpback whales and a calf on Sunday.

Mark Malleson, a whale-watching captain and marine researcher, witnessed the fight.

He says in a news release issued by the Pacific Whale Watch Association that encounters between humpbacks and transient orcas, also known as Bigg’s killer whales, rarely result in a kill.

Transient orcas eat marine mammals but Mr. Malleson says it seems as if the species “just likes bugging” the much bigger humpbacks.