By Canadian Press

In the news today, Jan. 22

Jan 22, 2019 | 12:30 AM

Four stories in the news for Tuesday, Jan. 22

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CANADA FOOD GUIDE FACELIFT COMING TODAY

Canadians will finally see Health Canada’s modern spin on healthy eating today. Health Minister Ginette Petipas Taylor will unveil an overhauled Canada Food Guide in Montreal this morning. The guide is expected to have a bigger focus on plant-based sources of proteins, a change that has already sparked concern among industry players, including dairy and beef farmers. When the food guide review began several years ago, Health Canada officials said the facelift would be based on input from scientists and health experts as well as feedback from Canadians.

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Looped In

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: December 12, 2024

8h ago

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: North Shore BIA working hard to develop a 'happening place'

13h ago

1000 Ways to Heal

1000 Ways to Heal: Moons

Dec 10, 2024

EXPENSES PART OF RCMP PROBE IN B.C. LEGISLATURE

The Speaker of the British Columbia legislature alleges in a report that the clerk and sergeant-at-arms engaged in flagrant overspending, questionable expenses and inappropriate payouts of cash “totalling in the millions of dollars.” Darryl Plecas’s report was released Monday after it was reviewed by members of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee. The report says that based on what he had seen and heard, Plecas believed there was a real possibility crimes may have been committed and he felt obligated to contact the RCMP. Sergeant-at-arms Gary Lenz and clerk of the house Craig James were suspended and escorted out of the legislature in November without any explanation.

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POLICE SAY B.C. GIRL DIED BY SNAKE VENOM  

The mother of a little girl who North Vancouver police say died when she was poisoned by snake venom says she’ll remember baby Aleka as happy, bubbly and someone who loved to play tricks. Two-year-old Aleka Esa-Bella Scheyk Gonzales died on May 19, 2014, and RCMP say tests confirmed that snake venom was the cause of her death. Henry Thomas, 51, has been arrested and charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life. The girl’s mother, Venessa Gonzales, said the man was a friend, but she refused to say more about him.

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CANADA BORROWS YELLOW-VEST BRAND, NOT MESSAGE

Canada’s ambassador to France says this country’s yellow-vest protest movement bears little resemblance to the “gilets jaunes” who started it all in France. Isabelle Hudon says the movement in Canada appears to have been appropriated by far-right extremists espousing racist, anti-immigrant views and even indulging in death threats against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. By contrast, she says the yellow vests in France started last November with a protest against a fuel tax and mushroomed into a more generalized protest against the heavy tax burden imposed on the middle class. While violent individuals have been involved in the French protests, some of which have devolved into riots, Hudon says she’s never seen the protests there linked to race or immigration.

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ALSO IN THE NEWS:

— Alberta Premier Rachel Notley will provide an update today on a new private-sector energy investment.

— The trial continues today of Brian Kyle Thomas, who is charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Winnipeg transit bus driver Irvine Jubal Fraser in February 2017.

— Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques will launch an interactive web-based activity today using pictures taken from space.

— Statistics Canada will release its wholesale trade figures and its monthly survey of manufacturing for November.

The Canadian Press