Weekend Posted: UCP weighs mandatory addictions treatment
Plus, Lord Black becomes Canadian again, AI teaches manners and singleness comes with divine value
Article content
Welcome to your weekend Posted. We’ve got some great reads for you to kick back with and enjoy today. After all, ’tis the season to sit with a coffee on a cool morning and watch spring come to life. Now that’s a romantic vision, isn’t it? Our condolences to everyone who lives somewhere where it’s snowing/sleeting/raining/monsooning because yeah, it’s spring in Canada.
Advertisement 2
Article content
COMEBACK QUEENS
Danielle Smith and Rachel Notley offer very different visions for Alberta, and on May 29, voters will decide which they prefer. Both have been in politics for a long time. Notley was premier from 2015 to 2019; Smith ran for the premier’s office in 2012. Both, too, have had ups and downs. Smith’s career was destroyed after she crossed the floor from the Wildrose party to the Progressive Conservatives in 2014, and Notley lost to Jason Kenney, but stuck around as leader. It’s a tale of two political comebacks, from two powerful women, who came to politics young, who had careers outside elected office. They’re as notable for their similarities as their differences: Both are dog people, both like Game of Thrones, both have a close group of friends who speak highly of them. But their politics … well, they’re quite different. “For years, the line was, you know, would you want to have a beer with this person,” said Sen. Paula Simons. “But the question is, do you want to have a glass of wine with them? Do you want to have a cup of coffee with them? And I think the answer is, probably, yes.”
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
FIT FOR A MONARCH
Amid the pomp and ceremony of Charles’ coronation, there will be an awful lot of food. The signature dish of the ceremony is going to be a coronation quiche. It’s had some mixed reviews, writes National Post food writer Laura Brehaut, but may yet move from the royals’ banquet table to a dining room near you. After all, there’s a history of royal dishes becoming everyday fare for the rest of us. A good example of that is coronation chicken, which was created for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, and remains as a popular dish and sandwich filling. Or, sponge cake, popularized after Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838. The marriage of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips in 1973 is often credited for popularizing mint chocolate chip ice cream. Often, the dishes the royals sample are copied and adapted, and make their way into homes around the commonwealth. “Royal events have long been occasions for new foods to either be created or to be popularized,” says royal historian Carolyn Harris.
Advertisement 4
Article content
NATIONAL POST NEWS QUIZ
Ready to test your mettle against the news of the week? We bring you another edition of the National Post News Quiz. It features Quebec’s pylon drama, so maybe do a quick Google before you start off.
ET CETERA
- Alberta is considering a bold proposal: Forcing addicts into involuntary treatment. The approach is highly controversial, but its supporters say that allowing a judge to mandate a stint in rehab might be the way to help addicts get clean, reports the National Post’s Tristin Hopper. In recent years, Alberta has been pushing a more recovery-oriented model of tackling the drug crisis, led by Marshall Smith, himself a former drug addict, and chief of staff to Premier Danielle Smith (no relation.) “We think that this is the most compassionate way to try to address this problem because we’re watching people slowly killing themselves on the street and we’ve got to draw a line and say we’re just not going to let that happen anymore,” says Premier Smith.
- The founder of the National Post, Conrad Black, has gotten his Canadian citizenship back. Black had to give it up in 2001 when he became a member of the British House of Lords. Incidentally, Lord Black of Crossharbour also plans to get back into politics sometime soon.
- It turns out that artificial intelligence may have a better “bedside manner” than real human doctors. A panel of health-care professionals compared responses to a medical query about a swallowed toothpick from ChatGPT and from a human doctor. Turns out, 79 per cent of the time, the artificial intelligence response was ranked more highly.
- Good news for single people: We have value. That’s according to the Church of England, which pointed out that Jesus was single. The commission that wrote a report on the subject for the church said it “believes strongly that single people must be valued at the heart of our society.”
- On Friday morning, Pascale Fournier, the former CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, said she stepped down after trying to find out details on the Chinese donation, and was met with resistance. This breaking story was updated throughout the day Friday, so you’ll want to check it out for latest on Fourier’s committee appearance.
Advertisement 5
Article content
DEAR DIARY
In the weekly satirical feature Dear Diary, the National Post re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Tristin Hopper takes an imagined journey into the thoughts of the PSAC strike: As we escalate into blockades, there are misinformationists out there who would compare our actions to those of the racist, white supremacist, transphobic Freedom Convoy. But our blockades of public infrastructure come with a distinct difference: While the hate-fuelled trucker protests took their cues from Russia and the American far-right, we carry a clear strike mandate from at least 30 per cent of our membership — that’s 40,000 people.
SNAPSHOT
For more latest Politics News Click Here
Denial of responsibility! FineRadar is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
Comments
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.
Join the Conversation