Canada’s mission to scare off Russia

We have too many people living in the streets; we have Native reservations with no clean water, and we are spending these amounts of money? For what? Appeasing our Southern bloody doofus neighbors? Bring them troops back Justin and don’t do this again. Ever. We are not a military country.

Source: Canada’s mission to scare off Russia – Macleans.ca

http://www.macleans.ca

Paul Wells

June 19, 2017

Paul Wells visits Camp Adazi, Latvia, where a Canadian-led battlegroup marked its first official day on the job 

(Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

If you’re going to get into a mess with no idea when you’ll ever get out, there are worse places to do it. On Monday more than 400 Canadian soldiers stood in the midday sun on the parade square at Camp Adazi, a Latvian army base tucked into a pine forest northeast of Riga, the tiny Baltic nation’s capital. To the right of the Canadians stood about as many Latvian troops. On either side were smaller groups of Spanish, Italian, Polish, Slovenian and Albanian soldiers.

This is the Canadian-led battlegroup, 1,138 troops in full from the six visitor nations, plus their Latvian hosts, and Monday was the newcomers’ first official day on the job. On hand for a welcoming ceremony were Latvia’s president Raimonds Vējonis, NATO’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, Canada’s defence minister Harjit Sajjan, and the top soldier in every participating country’s armed forces, including Canada’s chief of defence staff, Gen. Jonathan Vance.

Their mission is to scare off the Russians. Probably it will work. Everybody’s pretty sure it will work. If it didn’t work, things would get very nasty here.

But this was a day for looking on the bright side. “Many of you have travelled over 7,000 km, all the way from Alberta, Canada, to serve here in the Eastern part of the alliance,” Stoltenberg told the troops. And indeed it’s so, because the first Canadians to serve a six-month rotation here are from the 1st Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, stationed in Edmonton. “You embody the unique spirit and solidarity of NATO,” Stoltenberg told them.

There was much talk of solidarity. “Our alliance stands as one,” Stoltenberg said. “An attack on one ally will be regarded as an attack on all.”

That’s what NATO was designed for, back in the middle of the 20th century, during a cold war everyone here insists they don’t want to see returning. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty says that an attack on any member state will meet a response from them all. NATO didn’t have Georgia’s back when Vladimir Putin invaded that country in 2008, nor did it really have Ukraine’s when Russia annexed Crimea and made trouble in other regions of Eastern Ukraine in 2014. They weren’t NATO member states. Latvia, Lithuanian and Estonia are, which is why there is a NATO battlegroup in each of those Baltic countries and in Poland, starting today: To make it crystal-clear that invading a NATO member state would not be fun.now begun to patrol.

Continue:

Canada’s mission to scare off Russia – Macleans.ca

Alcohol responsible for more hospital admissions than heart attacks last year: report

There were more hospital admissions in Canada last year for alcohol-related conditions than for heart attacks.

Source: Alcohol responsible for more hospital admissions than heart attacks last year: report – Health – CBC News

CC News

By Sherry Noik

Jun 22, 2017

Measurement could be ‘an important indicator for monitoring public health’

There were more hospital admissions in Canada last year for alcohol-related conditions than for heart attacks, the Canadian Institute for Health Information said. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Taking into account law enforcement, lost productivity as well as prevention and research initiatives, the estimated total cost of alcohol-related harm in Canada was more than $14 billion in 2002, the most recent year for which this data is available, CIHI said. About $3.3 billion of that was directly related to health care.

There were more hospital admissions in Canada last year for alcohol-related conditions than for heart attacks.

Alcohol poisoning, alcohol withdrawal, liver disease, chronic alcohol abuse and other conditions that are “100 per cent caused by the harmful consumption of alcohol” accounted for about 77,000 admissions, according to a report released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

That’s 212 each day, on average, not including those who were treated in emergency departments and released.

The 2015–2016 year was the first time CIHI has looked at this specific number, so there is no data from previous years to compare. To put the number in context, the number of admissions for heart attacks in the same period was 75,000.

“Our expectation is that this will be an important indicator for monitoring public health,” said Geoff Hynes, manager of the Canadian Population Health Initiative for CIHI. “We can look at patterns, which could inform what governments and the health system can do to address these high numbers.”

(Canadian Institute for Health Information)

The majority of alcohol-related hospitalizations were linked to mental health and addictions.

On average, there were more alcohol-related hospitalizations in the territories than in the provinces, and more in the west than in the east, with the exception of Nova Scotia.

Leading cause of injury and death

Excessive drinking carries a number of known health risks, including illnesses such as pancreatitis, liver cirrhosis, diabetes and cardiovascular disease — not to mention the risk of death.

In 2015, there were 5,082 alcohol-attributable deaths in Canada, according to a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation cited by CIHI.

In fact, the Public Health Agency of Canada says alcohol is a leading cause of injury and death in Canada, including those resulting from impaired driving and from illnesses with known links to alcohol, like certain types of cancer.

Costs to the health care system, to society

Alcohol abuse doesn’t harm just the abuser; there are measurable societal costs, too.

For instance, in 2014–2015, the average cost for hospitalization that was entirely caused by alcohol was estimated at $8,100, compared to the average hospital stay for other causes at $5,800. That’s mostly because of longer stays (11 days on average compared to seven days, respectively).

There are also broader social implications, the report said, such as unemployment, crime and the “substantial” impacts on people other than the drinker. These include injuries related to assault, workplace accidents, motor vehicle collisions, family disruption, violence and lost income.The toll on families, coworkers and communities is impossible to tally because the relationships between consumption and harm are complex, Hynes said. These are influenced by things like individual, cultural and social factors, as well as how government regulates consumption and accessibility.

CIHI found wide variations in the “alcohol policy landscapes” across Canada that showed no one factor can account for the differences in hospitalization rates.

(Canadian Institute for Health Information)

For instance, in Quebec, where beer and wine have been available in corner stores for years, there were fewer alcohol-related hospitalizations.

“So we know there is something else playing out,” Hynes said. 

Pricing controls are another area that varies from region to region: some have minimum prices for items at retail, others have minimum prices set at bars and restaurants, and others still index the price of liquor to inflation or to alcohol content.

And pricing, Hynes said, is “one of the most effective and cost-effective ways to reduce alcohol harm, population-wide.”

Basically, making liquor more expensive should curb consumption, as it did with cigarettes.

“For us, those differences represent opportunities for potential improvement,” Hynes said. “Measuring this, and monitoring these rates can help us identify whether the policies and approaches are effective in reducing alcohol harm.”

It will take “a strategy that brings together multiple effective policies” to reduce the harm caused by alcohol, Hynes said.

Propaganda and Lies, Canadian Sytle

Wow, $300 million would get you approximately 350 houses in Canada:

“With a $300 US million total budget for a country of eight million, the Haitian government had limited means to explain their perspective to the world either directly or through international journalists.”

Post-quake Haitians of Cité L’Eternel Live in Tents

Source: Propaganda and Lies, Canadian Sytle

With permission

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Yves Engler

June 16, 2017

Lies, distortions and self-serving obfuscations are to be expected when political and business leaders discuss far away places.

In a recent Toronto Star column Rick Salutin observed that “foreign policy is a truth-free, fact-free zone. When leaders speak on domestic issues, citizens at least have points of reference to check them against. On foreign affairs they blather freely.”

Salutin vividly captures an important dynamic of political life. What do most Canadians know about our government’s actions in Afghanistan or Haiti? Most of us have never been to those countries and don’t know anyone living there, from there or even who’ve been there. We are heavily dependent on media and politicians’ portrayals. But, as I detail in A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation, international correspondents generally take their cue from the foreign policy establishment or diplomats in the field.

Journalists are prepared to criticize governments and corporations to a certain extent on “domestic” issues, but the spirit of “challenging power” largely disappears regarding foreign policy. One reason is that nationalism remains an important media frame and the dominant media often promotes an “our team” worldview.

Another explanation is the web of state and corporate generated ideas institutes, which I review in A Propaganda System, that shape the international discussion. In a forthcoming second volume I look at the Canadian Left’s contribution to confusing the public about international policies.

The state/corporate nexus operates largely unchallenged in the Global South because there is little in terms of a countervailing force. Instead of criticizing the geo-strategic and corporate interests overwhelmingly driving foreign policy decisions, the social democratic NDP has often supported them and contributed to Canadians’ confusion about this country’s international affairs. The NDP endorsed bombing Serbia and Libya and in recent years they’ve supported military spending, Western policy in the Ukraine and the dispossession of Palestinians. The NDP has largely aligned with the foreign policy establishment or those, as long time NDP MP Libby Davies put it, who believe a “Time Magazine version” of international affairs.

Closely tied to the NDP, labour unions’ relative indifference to challenging foreign policy is another reason why politicians can “blather freely” on international affairs. On many domestic issues organized labour represents a countervailing force to the corporate agenda or state policies. While dwarfed by corporate Canada, unions have significant capacities. They generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual dues and fund or participate in a wide range of socially progressive initiatives such as the Canadian Health Coalition, Canadian Council for Refugees and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. But, unions rarely extend their broader (class) vision of society to international affairs. In fact, sometimes they endorse unjust international policies.

To the extent that politicians’ “blathering” is restrained it is largely by other countries. The recent political conflict in the Ukraine provides an example. Canadian politicians have aggressively promoted a simplistic, self-serving, narrative that has dominated the media-sphere. But, there is a source of power countering this perspective. Moscow financed/controlled media such as RT, Sputnik and others have offered a corrective to the Western line. A comparatively wealthy and powerful state, Russia’s diplomats have also publicly challenged the Canadian media’s one-sided portrayal.

An important, if rarely mentioned, rule of foreign policy is the more impoverished a nation, the greater the gap is likely to be between what Canadian officials say and do. The primary explanation for the gap between what’s said and done is that power generally defines what is considered reality. So, the bigger the power imbalance between Canada and another country the greater Ottawa’s ability to distort their activities.

Haiti provides a stark example. In 2004 Ottawa helped overthrow Haiti’s elected government and then supported an installed regime that killed thousands. Officially, however, Ottawa was “helping” the beleaguered country as part of the “Friends of Haiti” group. And the bill for undermining Haitian democracy, including the salaries of top coup government officials and the training of repressive cops, was largely paid out of Canada’s “aid” to the country.

A stark power imbalance between Ottawa and Port-au-Prince helps explain the gulf between Canadian government claims and reality in Haiti. Describing the country at the time of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s ouster, former Globe and Mail foreign editor Paul Knox observed, “obviously, in the poorest country of the Americas, the government is going to have fewer resources at its disposal to mount a PR exercise or offensive if it feels itself besieged.”

With a $300 US million total budget for a country of eight million, the Haitian government had limited means to explain their perspective to the world either directly or through international journalists. On the other hand, the Washington–Paris–Ottawa coup triumvirate had great capacity to propagate their perspective (at the time the Canadian International Development Agency and Foreign Affairs each spent 10 times the entire Haitian budget and the Department of National Defence 60 times). The large Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince worked to influence Canadian reporters in the country and their efforts were supplanted by the Haiti desks at CIDA and Foreign Affairs as well as the two ministries’ communications departments and Canadian military officials.

While an imbalance in communications resources partly explains the coverage, there is also a powerful ideological component. The media’s biased coverage of Haiti cannot be divorced from ‘righteous Canada’ assumptions widely held among the intelligentsia. As quoted in an MA thesis titled “Covering the coup: Canadian news reporting, journalists, and sources in the 2004 Haiti crisis”, CBC reporter Neil McDonald told researcher Isabel McDonald the Canadian government was “one of the most authoritative sources on conflict resolution in the world.” According to Isabel McDonald’s summary, the prominent correspondent also said, “it was crazy to imagine Canada would be involved in a coup” and that “Canadian values were incompatible with extreme inequality or race-based hegemony”, which Ottawa’s policies clearly exacerbated in Haiti. (Neil Macdonald also said his most trusted sources for background information in Haiti came from Canadian diplomatic circles, notably CIDA where his cousins worked. The CBC reporter also said he consulted the Canadian ambassador in Port-au-Prince to determine the most credible human rights advocate in Haiti. Ambassador Kenneth Cook directed him to Pierre Espérance, a coup backer who fabricated a “massacre” used to justify imprisoning the constitutional prime minister and interior minister. When pressed for physical evidence Espérance actually said the 50 bodies “might have been eaten by wild dogs.”)

The Canadian Council on Africa provides another example of the rhetoric that results from vast power imbalances and paternalist assumptions. Run by Canadian corporations operating on the continent, the council said it “focuses on the future of the African economy and the positive role that Canada can play meeting some of the challenges in Africa.”

Similar to the Canadian Council on Africa, the Canadian American Business Council, Canada China Business Council and Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce also seek to advance members’ profit-making potential. But, the other lobby groups don’t claim humanitarian objectives. The primary difference between the Canadian Council on Africa and the other regional lobby organizations is the power imbalance between Canada/the West and African countries, as well as the anti-African paternalism that dominates Canadian political culture. A group of Canadian corporations claiming their aim was to meet the social challenges of the US or UK would sound bizarre and if they said as much about China they would be considered seditious. (Ironically the US-, Britain- and China-focused lobby groups can better claim the aid mantle since foreign investment generally has greater social spinoffs in more independent/better regulated countries.) But, paternalist assumptions are so strong — and Africans’ capacity to assert themselves within Canadian political culture so limited — that a lobby group largely representing corporations that displace impoverished communities to extract natural resources is, according to the Canadian Council on Africa’s previous mission statement, “committed to the economic development of a modern and competitive Africa.”

To counter the “fact free zone” individuals need to educate themselves on international issues, by seeking alternative sources of information. More important, we should strengthen internationalist social movements and left media consciously seeking to restrict politicians’ ability to “blather freely”.

More articles by:Yves Engler

Yves Engler’s latest book is ‪Canada in Africa: 300 years of Aid and Exploitation.

Rise of the machines: Canadian retailers on ‘cusp’ of using more robotics

A small number of Canadian retailers have already embraced robotics technology. Others have been reluctant to follow suit, experts say, due to a lack of investment, a lack of access to the technology and for a long time, a lack of competition.

Source: Rise of the machines: Canadian retailers on ‘cusp’ of using more robotics – Business – CBC News

cbc.ca

By Linda Nguyen

The Canadian Press Posted: Jun 15, 2017

One robot does the work of four employees at a Sobeys distribution warehouse in Ontario, says executive

A computer is seen at the Vaughan Retail Support Centre, equipped with robotics for automation in Vaughan, Ontario on Monday June 12, 2017. (Mark Blinch/Canadian Press)

 Back in 2009, Sobeys found itself at a crossroads.

Labour costs were rising, employee productivity was waning and the grocer knew that it had to keep building bigger distribution centres to accommodate the growing number of items being sold in its supermarkets.

So instead of building out and hiring more workers, the national grocery chain built up and replaced many employees with robots.

“The combination of labour costs going up and SKUs (stock keeping units) being on the rise kind of forced us to start thinking outside the box and try to find a technology to help us resolve those issues,” said Eric Seguin, senior vice-president of distribution and logistics for Sobeys, during a tour this week at the company’s largest warehouse in Vaughan, Ont.

Eric Seguin, Senior Vice President of Distribution and Logistics, watches products go by at the Sobeys Vaughan Retail Support Centre, equipped with robotics for automation in Vaughan, Ontario on Monday June 12, 2017. (Mark Blinch/Canadian Press)

Sobeys is one of a small number of Canadian retailers that have embraced robotics technology. Others have been reluctant to follow suit, experts say, due to a lack of investment, a lack of access to the technology and for a long time, a lack of competition.

Today, Sobeys operates four robotics distribution centres: two facilities north of Toronto spanning 750,000 square feet, another in Montreal and one in Calgary that opened earlier this month.

Unlike its 21 traditional warehouses, the mostly-automated centres rely on robotics instead of workers to pull items off the shelves and pack them onto pallets to ship to its 1,500-plus grocery stores.

The robots, which whiz up and down rows of stacked products piled up to 75 feet high for 20 hours a day, have resulted in reduced employee costs and quicker and more accurate deliveries, Sobeys says. It’s also allowed the Stellarton, N.S.-based grocer to double the amount of items that can be stored.

One robot does the work of four employees, according to Seguin.

Products go by at the Sobeys Vaughan Retail Support Centre, equipped with robotics for automation in Vaughan, Ontario on Monday June 12, 2017. (Mark Blinch/Canadian Press)

“The robots don’t get tired,” Seguin said.

“They always show up the morning after the Stanley Cup final. They are always there the morning after the Super Bowl. It doesn’t matter if it’s 35 (Celsius) and a beautiful weekend.”

The company has spent between $100 million to $150 million on each of its robotics facilities. Seguin says retailers, especially those in the grocery industry, have been slow to adapt due to the high upfront investment costs.

But that attitude is changing — and fast, says retail consultant Doug Stephens.

“Retail in this country has enjoyed for many decades a bit of a dearth of competition, which is coming to an end now,” said Stephens, who recently wrote a book called Re-Engineering Retail.

“With the influx of U.S. players in the last decade and certainly with the presence and impact of Amazon, Canadian retailers are really having to awaken to the idea that if we don’t adapt and change and compete — we’re going to be in big trouble.”

Behemoth multinational corporations like Amazon and Walmart have raised the stakes for Canadian retailers, offering lower prices, as well as quick and often free delivery or pickup services.

A tray crane is seen in operation at the Sobeys Vaughan Retail Support Centre, equipped with robotics for automation in Vaughan, Ontario on Monday June 12, 2017. (Mark Blinch/Canadian Press)

Last year, Canada’s oldest retailer, Hudson’s Bay Company, said it was spending more than $60 million in robotic upgrades to its 725,000-square foot Toronto distribution centre. Online orders that would’ve taken up to 2 1/2 hours to locate and pack manually are being shipped out of the warehouse and onto a truck within 15 minutes.

“We’re really just on the cusp of the capabilities of these technologies,” said Stephens.

While manual labour jobs are being lost in retail, the types of positions that survive the wave of automation will evolve and likely be more focused on loyalty and analytics, says Marty Weintraub, a partner in retail at consulting firm Deloitte.

“Robots can be much cheaper to implement and execute, and they don’t come with some of the challenges that humans would face such as making errors or having poor judgment,” he said.

“But technology cannot replace certain skills that computers can’t do today, like jobs that require problem solving, intuition, the art of persuasion and creativity.”

A man operates a forklift at the Sobeys Vaughan Retail Support Centre equipped with robotics for automation in Vaughan, Ontario on Monday June 12, 2017. (Mark Blinch/Canadian Press)

According to documents obtained by The Canadian Press in March, federal government officials were warned that the Canadian economy could lose between 1.5 million and 7.5 million jobs in the next 10 to 15 years due to automation.

In a report, Sunil Johal of the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto estimates that the retail sector employs about two million people and between 92 per cent to 97 per cent of those who work in sales or as cashiers are at risk of losing their jobs.

“We’re just scratching the surface of how technology can affect the retail sector,” said Johal. “That’s a cause of concern.”

Canada to increase defense spending by 73% over next decade

Source: Canada to increase defense spending by 73% over next decade — RT News

RT News

7 Jun, 2017

FILE PHOTO: Troops from Canada’s 3rd Division, participate at a NATO-led exercise “Orzel Alert”, south Poland May 5, 2014 © Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Canada has announced it will increase its defense budget by 73 percent over the next decade, raising its budget to US$24.2 billion. It comes after US President Donald Trump challenged NATO countries to meet the bloc’s defense spending target.

Details of the plan were announced by defense minister Harjit Sajjan and transport minister Marc Garneau during a Wednesday news conference in Ottawa.

According to Sajjan, Canada’s overall defense budget will jump by almost three-quarters over the next 10 years, reaching $24.2 billion in 2026/27 – a significant increase from $13.9 billion in 2016/2017.

He said the boost will bring total defense spending to 1.4 percent of GDP by 2024/25, up from 1.2 percent currently.

“If we are serious about Canada’s role in the world, then we have to be serious about funding our military,” Sajjan said, as quoted by CBC. “And we are.”

He said Canada will hold an open competition to buy 88 advanced fighter jets to replace its aging fleet of 77 CF-18 planes.

The government also intends to fund the construction of 15 advanced warships which will eventually replace existing vessels.

In addition, the air force will receive new armed drones for surveillance and combat, as well as replacements for its CP-140 Aurora surveillance planes which are nearly four decades old.

The military will also get more cyber operators who, under government supervision, will have the authority to conduct online disruption operations against potential threats.

The plan also envisages a small increase in the size of the military, both regular and reserve forces. There will also be a slight increase in the size of the special forces.

However, the country’s navy will not be receiving a new submarine fleet. The new defense policy recommends modernizing the existing fleet and using them until 2040 instead of purchasing new ones.

Read more

NATO allies must pay more to tackle terrorism, immigration & Russia – Trump

The announcement follows pressure on Canada and other NATO states to meet the military alliance’s spending benchmark of two percent of GDP.

However, according to the numbers provided by Sajjan, Canada will still not be meeting the NATO requirements in 2024/25.

NATO welcomed Canada’s announcement on Wednesday, regardless.

“This new policy affirms Canada’s unwavering commitment to NATO and will ensure Canada has the armed forces and key capabilities that the alliance needs,” NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

“…In these challenging times, Canada’s commitment to the alliance is important as we work to keep our nations safe and NATO strong.”

Only five countries of the 29-nation NATO alliance – the US, Britain, Greece, Poland, and Estonia – currently meet the spending target of two percent of GDP.

The latest US figures put America’s defense spending at 3.2 percent of GDP.

‘I’m the victim and I’m in shackles’: Edmonton woman jailed while testifying against her attacker

An Alberta judge jailed a sexual assault victim for five nights in the Edmonton Remand Centre while she testified at the preliminary hearing of the man who attacked her. Alerted to the case by CBC News, Alberta’s justice minister has apologized to the victim’s family and has formed a review committee.

Source: ‘I’m the victim and I’m in shackles’: Edmonton woman jailed while testifying against her attacker – Edmonton – CBC News

CBC News

By Janice Johnston

 Jun 05, 2017

Alberta justice minister apologizes for ‘appalling’ treatment of sexual assault victim

This photograph shows some of the injuries Angela Cardinal suffered when she was attacked by Lance Blanchard. The 28-year-old spent five nights in jail in June 2015 while testifying in a preliminary hearing. (Edmonton Police Service)

 On a Monday afternoon in June 2015, Angela Cardinal was led into an Edmonton courtroom handcuffed and in leg shackles. Metallic rattling echoed as a sheriff escorted the 28-year-old to the witness stand.

Angela Cardinal is not the woman’s real name. A publication ban prohibits CBC from identifying her.

She was not the accused, but rather a victim — called to testify at a preliminary hearing after she was savagely attacked and sexually assaulted by a notorious sexual predator.

Cardinal was angry about being locked up.

‘You’re going back to remand tonight so that we can get you back here tomorrow.’ – Provincial court Judge Raymond Bodnarek

“I’m the victim and look at me, I’m in shackles,” she told provincial court Judge Raymond Bodnarek.

“You’re going to go back to remand tonight,” he replied, “so that we can get you back here tomorrow.”

Cardinal’s fury increased.

“Shackles,” she spat. “Aren’t you supposed to commit a crime to go to jail?”

Cardinal was forced to spend a total of five nights in the Edmonton Remand Centre during her testimony.

‘Didn’t deserve to be locked up’

Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley was appalled when CBC News told her of Cardinal’s treatment.

“I’ve never seen a case like this,” she said. “I mean, how many people did she come into contact with and nobody stood up and said, ‘Guys I think this is wrong. I think we’ve made a mistake.’

Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley said she was shocked and appalled by the justice system’s treatment of Angela Cardinal. (Trevor Wilson/CBC)

“I was very surprised that our system would have allowed something like this to happen … I think that anyone would be shocked by it.”

Ganley said she has already formed a special committee to look at the case to review policies, with an eye to making what she calls “aggressive changes.” As well, criminal lawyer Roberta Campbell, outgoing president of the Law Society of Manitoba, will head an independent investigation into the Cardinal incident.

‘She was the victim. We should have treated her as the victim.’ – Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley

“She was the victim. We should have treated her as the victim. And I think it definitely speaks to a series of wrong decisions and a series of systemic failures that would have allowed us to do something like this to this young woman.”

Aggravated sexual assault

Cardinal, a Cree woman from Maskwacis, about 100 kilometres south of Edmonton, moved to the city when she was 14.

On a June afternoon in 2014, she was tired and hungry, with nowhere to call home. She convinced a tenant to let her inside a central Edmonton apartment building. She had no idea that Lance Blanchard, a career criminal, lived on the second floor.

Convicted sexual predator Lance Blanchard, shown hours after he attacked Angela Cardinal in June 2014. (Edmonton Police Service)

Curled up in the stairwell next to a baseboard heater, Cardinal sang herself to sleep with This Little Light of Mine. But she awoke to a knife at her throat. Holding it was a six-foot-seven-inch, 260-pound convicted sexual predator.

At just over five feet tall, weighing only 109 pounds, Cardinal was at a clear disadvantage.

“Blanchard came out of nowhere, bat out of hell, grabbing me,” Cardinal testified.

She said he dragged her by the hair, up the stairs, to his dirty, cluttered apartment.

Once they were inside, she said, all hell broke loose.

‘I was praying I would die’

“He started stabbing me,” Cardinal said. “He said he was going to make me ugly and stick me in a closet and keep me. He started banging my head off the ground.”

Angela Cardinal’s shoes and socks were removed by Blanchard and left behind on a blood-stained couch in his apartment. (Edmonton Police Service)

Exhibit photos show Cardinal’s jacket and shoes on a blood-soaked couch. Blanchard held her at knifepoint, removed her clothing and fondled her.

“I felt disgusting,” Cardinal told court. “I wanted to get away as fast as possible, but I couldn’t. I was praying I would die before anything else happened.”

Blanchard grabbed electrical cords to tie up her legs. Court transcripts show he tried to stab her in the chest, but Cardinal put up her left hand to protect herself. Blood poured from a deep cut to her palm.

She made a run for the door, but couldn’t turn the knob with her slippery, bloody hands.

Help finally arrived

Blanchard was on top of Cardinal’s back when she pulled out a hidden phone, dialed 911, put it on speaker and threw it across the room.

 

 

The six-minute phone call to police was chaotic. On a recording, Cardinal can be heard screaming frantically in the background, “Help me. Somebody, help me. I’ve been stabbed.”

It took 27 stitches to repair the wound to her hand. Her body was covered with cuts. One eye was black and blue. Her neck was bruised from where Blanchard tried to choke her.

It took 27 stitches to close the wound on Cardinal’s hand after she was attacked by a knife-wielding Lance Blanchard. (Edmonton Police Service )

Ordered into custody

One year later, on June 5, 2015, Cardinal had to face her attacker again, at his preliminary hearing.

On the first day she was called to testify, she kept falling asleep. She had trouble focusing and answering questions.

At the request of Crown prosecutor Patricia Innes, Bodnarek ordered that Cardinal spend the weekend at the Edmonton Remand Centre. Both were concerned about her physical and mental state.

Innes suggested Cardinal had “presented in a condition unsuitable for testifying, and we don’t know what the reason is.”

‘You sit in the back of those cells. It feels like an hour went by but really it’s only 20 minutes.’ – Angela Cardinal, in court testimony

Bodnarek determined he had authority to detain Cardinal under Section 545(1)(b) of the Criminal Code, which applies to witnesses who refuse to answer questions.

When Cardinal returned to court after a weekend in custody, she pleaded with the judge to be “unremanded.”

“It’s not a pleasant scene I’m living,” she said. “Like, I’m the fricking victim here and I mean, like, come on. You sit in the back of those cells. It feels like an hour went by but really it’s only 20 minutes.”

Cardinal asked to be released to stay with her mother. She promised she would return to court to continue her testimony.

Bodnarek refused, but told her: “We’re going to make sure that all efforts will be made to keep you separate from Mr. Blanchard.”

On two occasions, Angela Cardinal was confined to the back of a prisoner transport van with Lance Blanchard, the man who sexually assaulted her. (Sam Martin/CBC)

But both Blanchard and Cardinal were detained at the same facility. It was later revealed that at least twice, Cardinal had to travel in the same cramped prisoner transport van as her attacker. The remand centre and Edmonton’s courthouse are 15 kilometres apart.

During court breaks, Cardinal was usually placed in a cell close to Blanchard.

Ganley called that yet another failure of the justice system.

“None of us will ever really understand what it was like for her to sit there and stare at the man who did this to her,” Ganley said. “While she’s trapped, essentially.”

‘Taken advantage of’

Deb Tomlinson has spent decades working with sex assault survivors. She is currently the CEO of the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services.

Deb Tomlinson, CEO of Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services, says sex assault victims require specialized support throughout the judicial process. (CBC)

“I just felt really, really sad. And certainly angry as well,” Tomlinson said after learning about the case. “First of all, that this young woman was taken advantage of and sexually assaulted. And then was — in many ways — taken advantage of and retraumatized by the system that she sought to seek justice through.”

Sex assault victims require specialized support throughout the entire process, including testifying, Tomlinson said.

“And this was the farthest thing from victim support that I’ve ever seen.”

​Tragedy after preliminary hearing

Seven months after Cardinal testified at the preliminary hearing, she became a victim once again, gunned down in an unrelated, accidental shooting. The man who shot her pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

While alive, Cardinal never told her mother about the assault or about her experience testifying.

“She didn’t say anything to us,” Cardinal’s mother said tearfully, when CBC News shared the details with her in April. “She said she had to go to court. That’s all she told me.”

She is outraged by the way her daughter was treated. “It’s not right. And after all what he did to her, it’s not fair.”

‘Her treatment by the justice system was appalling.’ – Justice Eric Macklin

Blanchard was ultimately committed to stand trial. When the case was heard in Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench, Cardinal’s testimony from the preliminary hearing was allowed in as evidence, as she was no longer alive to testify.

Last December, Justice Eric Macklin found Blanchard guilty of aggravated assault, kidnapping, unlawful confinement, aggravated sexual assault, possession of a weapon and threatening to cause death or bodily harm.

Blanchard remains behind bars. The Crown will be asking to have him designated as a dangerous offender.  

The judge was blunt in his criticism of the lower court.

“I was troubled by the treatment of the complainant,” Macklin wrote in his 49-page decision.

“Her treatment by the justice system was appalling. She is owed an apology.”

​Ganley apologizes to victim’s mother

After CBC News alerted Ganley to the details of the case, she read Macklin’s decision herself.

Last month, the justice minister took it upon herself to call Cardinal’s mother to apologize. She described the conversation as “emotional” and “difficult.”

Ganley said she regrets not being able to apologize directly to the victim.

“I know there’s nothing that can ever be done to make it up,” she said. “But I certainly hope we can find a way to never let this happen again.”

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Janice Johnston can be reached at janice.johnston@cbc.ca. Or you can follow her on Twitter @cbcjanjohnston.

With all my love, from Canada: Island in the Sun