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The federal government on Sunday said it was wrong to have sent a senior representative to a recent Russian embassy party in Ottawa, and vowed officials would not attend festivities with Moscow’s diplomats again.

“No Canadian representative should have attended the event hosted at the Russian embassy and no Canadian representative will attend this kind of event in the future,” Christelle Chartrand, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, said in a statement.

The apology was issued hours after The Globe and Mail published a story on the incident, which drew outcry from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

In the months leading up to the Russia Day party, the federal government had repeatedly talked of the need to politically and diplomatically isolate Russia over its military assault on Ukraine. Russia Day commemorates the adoption of legislation that began Russia’s constitutional reform at the end of the Soviet era. Guests at the embassy event included representatives from Pakistan, as well as Egypt and other African countries.

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A pro-Ukrainian supporter waves the country's flag outside the Russian embassy, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022, in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

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Afghans seeking refuge in Canada say their pleas for Ottawa’s help going unanswered

Afghans who worked for the Canadian government in Afghanistan are still waiting for federal immigration authorities to contact them, a month after Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said those hoping to resettle in Canada would hear from his department within weeks.

One of the would-be refugees is Mohammad Salim Saberi, a former security guard for Canada’s embassy in Kabul. He said he is feeling increasingly disheartened. Usman, the son of a different embassy security guard, is also trying to bring his family to Canada. He said he feels imprisoned in his own home, too fearful of the country’s fundamentalist Taliban rulers to go outside.

Thousands of other Afghans now find themselves in similar situations. Having worked – or had close family members who worked – for Canada before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year, their pleas to Ottawa for help have since been ignored.

In Canada’s biggest cities, vulnerability to rising temperatures may depend on your neighbourhood

During a pleasantly cool September afternoon, it is uncomfortably hot in the Carl Rooms in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In most respects, the 43-unit Carl Rooms is a typical single room occupancy hotel, or SRO. There are dozens throughout the neighbourhood, some built more than a century ago. They weren’t designed for 21st-century heat.

Such temperatures were once unthinkable in this temperate city, but no longer. The mercury went above 40 C during a record-smashing Pacific Northwest heat wave in June, 2021, that killed 619 people in B.C. alone. Projections suggest Vancouver will experience many more scorching summer days as Earth’s climate continues warming.

That’s bad news for the whole city, but particularly for the Downtown Eastside. It’s already among the city’s hottest neighbourhoods, according to a review of satellite-derived land surface temperature data by The Globe and Mail. Yet just blocks away sits Strathcona, one of Vancouver’s oldest residential neighbourhoods. It features million-dollar houses and narrower streets, lined with mature trees and cooler temperatures.

“It’s like two different worlds,” said Janice Abbott, chief executive of Atira Property Management, a non-profit that manages roughly 30 SROs, including the Carl Rooms.

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What is your ‘welcome to Canada’ moment? Share your story with The Globe: For Canada Day, we want to hear from readers who weren’t born in Canada but have embraced the country as their new home. Whether it was buying your first tuque, voting in your first election, camping in a national park or something else entirely, we want to hear about the moment you knew you had found your home in Canada.


Also on our radar

Rogers co-founder was bridge between family members: Loretta Rogers, the longest-standing director of the Toronto-based telecom and media conglomerate that she co-founded alongside her late husband, Ted, died Saturday at the age of 83. She helped to guide decision making at the company during its period of rapid expansion under her husband’s leadership, and served as a bridge between members of the family.

Sports organizations must meet new governance standards to receive funding, government says: Canada’s national sports organizations will have less than a year to meet new standards for governance, accountability and safer sport practices in order to qualify for government funding, Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge said.

Bipartisan U.S. Senate group unveils framework on gun-safety reform: Senate negotiators announced they had reached an agreement on a legislative framework on firearms safety, which includes support for state “red flag” laws to keeps guns from potentially dangerous people.

It’s hip to be bear: Business leaders join chorus of economic doomsayers: With the word “recession” being tossed around by economists, business leaders, politicians and workers alike, those choosing to see the economic bright side these days are a rapidly vanishing breed.

Listen to The Decibel: Shrinking the pay gap: When it comes to the issue of salary gaps, some experts say one solution is to make salaries more transparent. Ottawa’s Pay Equity Act, which requires federally regulated companies to disclose salary data, would do just that. The Globe’s Erica Alini joins the pod to explain how this legislation might affect salaries – even those not covered by the bill.


Morning markets

World stocks fall: World stocks fell towards fresh 2022 lows and the Japanese yen slid to levels not seen in nearly a quarter of a century on Monday as red-hot U.S. inflation fuelled worries about even more aggressive policy tightening in a big week for central banks. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 1.57 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were off 2.15 per cent and 2.22 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed down 3.01 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 3.39 per cent. New York futures were down. The Canadian dollar was trading at 77.86 US cents.


What everyone’s talking about

The Jan. 6 hearings will have to try harder to be consequential TV

The strategy of the committee seemed to be multipronged and leading somewhere eventually, but eventually means weeks away in a culture that craves the instant and the spectacular. What actually happened inside the Capitol was, wisely, offered as a reality check. Testimony and footage showed brutal violence and rage. This counters the narrative presented by Donald Trump and his supporters and acolytes that the Capitol was indeed invaded but it was no big deal, just rambunctious folks anxious about the election results.” – John Doyle

Women’s rights are worth fighting for, even 30 years later

“There have been tremendous advances in women’s rights in that time, large and small. The movement has integrated and centred voices it should have been listening to long ago. There will be no going back now. Tarana Burke, founder of #MeToo, said that the movement would outlast the Depp verdict for good reason: “It means something to millions and millions of folks. It means freedom. It means community. It means safety. It means power. You can’t kill us. We are beyond the hashtag. We are a movement.” – Elizabeth Renzetti

We can plan to beat the next wave of COVID-19, or we can try to wish it away. Take your pick, Canada

“If we want to avoid the overwhelmed hospitals and delayed surgeries of the past few waves, we’ve got to accept that COVID-19 is likely to be a recurring visitor that we must be prepared to meet and minimize, year after year. Like winter, it’s a reality that we can live with. But pretending it isn’t coming back won’t make it so.” – Editorial


Today’s editorial cartoon

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David Parkins/The Globe and Mail


Living better

Your guide to a sustainable kitchen

When it comes to the kitchen, sustainability means making eco-friendly choices on any number of fronts: grocery shopping with reusable totes, cooking with induction (it’s more energy efficient than electric or gas), throwing as little as possible out, growing some of your own food and expanding your cooking repertoire so you know how to make delicious meals out of lowly food scraps.

From adopting a more flexitarian way of eating – incorporating more plants and less meat into your meal – to shaking up your shopping habits, here are a few ways to make your daily diet more sustainable.


Moment in time: Artist Allen Sapp, 1994

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Cree artist Allen Sapp with one of his paintings at the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Nov. 21, 1994.MIKE RAINE/The Globe and Mail

For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month, we’re honouring Indigenous history.

As a child, Kiskayetum, the artist known as Allen Sapp, didn’t learn to read or write. Instead, he developed a powerful language that communicates better than words, according to those close with the Plains Cree painter from Red Pheasant, Sask. Sapp’s acrylics paintings are brushed with sensitive, loving childhood memories of growing up on the reserve, where he was raised by his grandmother after his mother died from tuberculosis. The smell of campfire where the artist’s mother carried him on her back as an infant, permeates from the canvas; the sound of horses’ hooves breaking through the crisp snow can be faintly heard as they pull a family in a sled to the community Christmas concert. Ultimately, the art is a soothing reminder of the intimate connection that Indigenous nations such as the Cree have long held and valued with the land, family and community, despite the hardships and impact of colonization. “Sometimes people say I have painted too many winter scenes, but nobody says the Group of Seven painted too many landscapes,” the acclaimed artist wrote in his book, I Heard the Drums. Willow Fiddler


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