Afternoon front page: Despair in downtown Vancouver; Chinese cameras still up despite ban; and more

It’s Thursday, October 8. Here are the top stories we’re following today.

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They are rolling a dying man on a stretcher out of the Maple Hotel. He looks to be about 60 years old, unshaven, wild grey curls, filthy white socks. Electrodes are patched to a hairless chest and a monitor seismographs the agonal beatings of a beaten-down heart. The tattoo on the patient’s right forearm reads KILL TO LIVE. “What have you got here?” I ask one of the EMTs as he sheds his antiviral poncho to reveal a crisp blue uniform beneath. “This is the Downtown Eastside,” he replies. “What do you think we’ve got?” They used to cry “Bring out your dead!” in the Middle Ages, but in plague time at Hastings and Main, the dead and the dying are already in the open air.

While lots of ink has been spilled on the referendum issue, many Quebecers have expressed they just want to get by. And Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime was able to pound that message. As a result, the Quebec Conservatives are making a noticeable comeback in the National Assembly with over 20 per cent of the votes and a whopping 19 seats. They won 15 out of the 18 seats in Quebec City, spilling into central Quebec and the Eastern Townships. Their navy blue seats now form a large blot on a map of Quebec. Duhaime has said he built on the lessons of the past campaign, where his party won no seats despite finishing with 13 per cent of the popular vote. So, he focused his efforts on the Quebec City area, campaigning in surrounding regions as his support grew.

More than one year after Industry Minister Mélanie Joly ordered the government to rip out all Chinese surveillance giant Hikvision gear from its properties, multiple key federal organizations refuse to say if they have done so. In statements provided over the last two months, the Canadian Space Agency, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), Environment and Climate Change Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Parks Canada all declined to say if they continued to use Hikvision cameras at their offices. Furthermore, two government agencies — the National Research Council and the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority — told National Post that they continue to use Hikvision cameras. That’s despite a clear order from Joly over one-and-a-half years ago that she wanted all those devices out of every single federal government office. “The silence actually to me is the story itself,” said Dennis Molinaro, a former federal national security analyst and author of Under Assault: Interference and Espionage in China’s Secret War Against Canada.

The recent slew of hate-motivated incidents in Canada had myriad alleged motivations, from Islamism to white supremacy. The terror groups that promote such ideologies were likely drawn to recruit in Canada because of its multiculturalism, says one academic. “Most Canadians are big fans of multiculturalism. We celebrate it. It’s part of our existence,” says Arne Kislenko, a professor of international relations at Trinity College, University of Toronto and in Toronto Metropolitan University’s history department. But, he said, there’s also that friction that exists. “There are some people always that feel left out, so they tend to engage in crass stereotypes.” There are currently 89 terror groups listed in Canada, including Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Proud Boys and the Bishnoi Gang.

There are moments when a government reveals more by what it does not say than by what it does. For Foreign Minister Anita Anand, that moment came last week after what happened aboard Flydubai Flight 1073. The flight was travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Sept. 30 with 174 passengers onboard. During the flight, the Omani co-pilot allegedly attacked and stabbed the Indian captain, Smit Machchhar. Because people acted, everyone aboard survived. So what did Canada’s foreign minister have to say? Anand expressed concern about the “incident” aboard a Flydubai flight “bound for Israel.” She spoke about the safety of “air passengers,” said she was relieved that everyone was safe and commended the “swift action and courage of those on board.” All true. But something was missing. The word “attack” was missing. So were “stabbing,” “hijacking,” “terrorism,” “Israelis” and, most strikingly, “Jews.”

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