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Assisted living grant seeks to leverage community-level innovation
The first $50 million in grants will support projects that improve care across Alberta.
A pioneering way to deliver assisted living services could be percolating this minute in an Alberta outpost, the cabinet minister touting a new grant believes.
And a jolt of cash may be all that lies between that vision and better lives for more people in more places, said Nathan Neudorf, the minister of assisted living and social services.
"You never know where a great idea can come up," Neudorf said, as he explained the reasoning behind the $200-million Assisted Living Innovation Grant Program.
An approach developed in a small community could be “a really great idea and it’s working really well,” he said. “Can we replicate that across the province? That’s what we’re looking to do.”
Eligible businesses or groups need to gather their thoughts and materials soon to apply.
The deadline is 4 p.m. on Nov. 6 for proposals under an initial tranche of $50 million. Single-year projects will be considered for between $50,000 and $2 million, multi-year ones of up to three years for between $250,000 and $5 million.
Explained Neudorf: “What we need is a really good idea with some applicable information. Where is it going to be applied? How is it going to be applied? Why are you asking for the amount of money you're asking for?”
But he noted that proposals “can't be completely out of left field” and must be channeled through eligible organizations.
“Show us you can do it. We will evaluate it,” said Neudorf, who represents Lethbridge-East under the UCP banner. ”We think there are a lot of ideas out there.”
An information webinar happens this coming Tuesday, Oct. 27, from 2 to 3 p.m. And questions will be taken until 4 p.m. on Nov. 4.
Eligible projects might use technology like virtual and remote support services to help Albertans stay independent within their homes, the province suggests.
Novel approaches for supporting continuing care workers are fair game. So are community-based services that help support those receiving and giving care.
The program will also fund research into new approaches to improve care in ways that will work elsewhere, the government said in announcing the grant earlier this month.
A successful proposal “can look like a number of things, but at the end of the day, it's about Albertans having a better life for longer, wherever that might be for them,” said the minister.
Eligible organizations include non-profit, community and in certain cases for-profit groups involved in continuing, home and community care. Indigenous communities and organizations in Alberta, along with Alberta municipalities, are eligible.
Post-secondary and research institutions can make proposals that tap into the grant, too.
For-profit groups need to demonstrate innovation, education, system improvement or evidence generation in their proposals. Proposed spending must go beyond routine business.
Even if the province doesn’t get its money back in eventual savings, the program could prove successful, Neudorf said. The win would be that more Albertans who need care — many of them in the province’s ballooning contingent of senior citizens — receive it where and when it’s needed.
For rural and remote Alberta, that often means keeping older generations close or within their home communities for longer. Everyone benefits when seniors are nearby, the minister said.
“If kids just have to go down the road to see their grandparents, that’s great. They might stop in literally every day after school instead of only on certain weekends when they can make the trek to the big city,” Neudorf said.
Seniors connect communities and young people to a shared past, he said, and often put their experience and knowledge to work as volunteers.
Assisted living keeps jobs and care in rural Alberta, and “keeps the heartbeat alive, which is families and organizations."
For more information, visit alberta.ca and search for the Assisted Living Innovation Grant Program.
Copyright 2026, The Macleod Gazette. All rights reserved.
George Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Macleod Gazette.
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Ottawa 'disappointed' after union announces strike votes for 120,000 workers
Ottawa 'disappointed' as union calls strike votes
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
The federal government says it's "disappointed" after Canada's largest federal public service union announced 120,000 workers will take part in nationwide strike votes starting next month.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada says voting will take place from Nov. 16 to Jan. 22.
The union and Treasury Board have been in contract negotiations for a year and a half and PSAC in May called a government wage offer of less than one per cent per year "insulting."
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says it's "disappointed" the union has chosen to proceed with a strike vote while the groups are still working through the mediation process.
The government says that for the past year and a half, it has engaged with the union on all of its proposals and several days of mediation recently led to progress on certain points.
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says it respects the right to strike but the best deals are reached at the bargaining table.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.
By Catherine Morrison | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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Israeli companies misled Canadians about West Bank real estate, complaint alleges
Israeli real estate events prompt complaint
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Home In Israel (Mandatory Credit)
A group of lawyers and civil society members have filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau over Israeli real estate events in Toronto and Montreal, alleging that illegal properties were marketed to Canadians under false pretences.
The complaint alleges at least four Israeli real estate companies and one Canadian marketing firm promoted properties in occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank while misleading consumers to believe they were in Israel.
The Competition Bureau says it will review the complaint filed by Global Echo Litigation Center and the Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights and determine if an investigation into the companies is warranted.
James Yap, president of the lawyers' association and a Windsor university law professor, said Canadians who may have purchased West Bank properties could be opening themselves up to serious legal consequences under international law, such as complicity in war crimes.
Canada and much of the international community have long held that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and an obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
The territory has been occupied by Israel since 1967, but settlement activity has significantly increased since the onset of the latest war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced most of Gaza's two million residents.
Ottawa advised Canadian businesses in August to avoid engaging with Israeli settlements, warning that failing to do so could open them up to legal and financial risk.
“The Canadian government talks a lot about upholding international law,” Yap said. “We have our prime minister bemoaning the deterioration of the international rules-based order. They condemn the settlements as illegal. They talk about taking steps, taking action. This is a chance for the Canadian government to actually take action.”
The complaint, filed on behalf of six Canadians, compiles photos, social media posts and promotional materials of condo projects in the occupied West Bank being marketed at various real estate events from 2024 to 2026.
One photo of an Israeli real estate company’s booth at the 2024 Great Israeli Real Estate Event in Montreal suggests the company promoted condo projects in Ma'ale Adumim and Adam, two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, alongside Israeli real estate.
The company’s booth advertised the developments with the message of finding one’s “dream home in Israel.”
Another company’s booth at the same 2024 event advertised it as “your real estate agency in Jerusalem” while listing the locations of four Israeli settlements in the West Bank and two Israeli cities. The company is more explicit on its website, stating that its homes in West Bank settlements in Efrat, Mitzpe Yericho and Ma’ale Adumim are in Israel.
A Canadian marketing firm that helps North Americans buy Israeli real estate similarly lists a West Bank condo development as being in Israel on its website but it used more ambiguous language at a real estate event in Toronto.
The firm promoted a condo project in the Givat HaMatos settlement, located in East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, at the 2026 Israel Real Estate Briefing in Toronto with the tagline “own a piece of Jerusalem.”
The lawyers behind the complaint to the Competition Bureau argue the ambiguity isn’t enough to absolve the companies.
Under Canadian law, courts use a “general impression” test to determine if an advertisement is false or misleading. If an ad is literally true but omits essential information that would influence a consumer’s behaviour, it could violate the Competition Act.
The lawyers argue that by promoting these properties at events titled the Great Israeli Real Estate Event and the Israeli Real Estate Briefing, and omitting mention of their true location in internationally-contested territories, the real estate companies misled Canadians.
Ariel Katz, a competition law expert who reviewed the complaint but was not involved in its filing, said he finds the evidence compelling, but couldn’t say if the Competition Bureau would be likely to launch an inquiry.
“This is a highly politically charged topic, right? So whatever decision they make, they might be under enormous pressure,” Katz said.
Israel contends that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not illegal because of Jewish people’s historic connection to the land.
While the complaint deals with allegations of false advertising, Katz said the West Bank properties that were allegedly promoted at the events are considered illegal under international law, and Ottawa could ban the marketing of such properties altogether.
The lawyers behind the complaint say they’re leaving the door open for future legal action that could target the illegality of the properties themselves.
The Canadian Press asked Global Affairs Canada if the sale of West Bank property is illegal in Canada and whether Canadians could be legally liable if they purchased such property but did not receive an answer before publication.
Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, founder of Global Echo Litigation Center, said her law firm has been monitoring a “circuit” of Israeli real estate events in the United States, United Kingdom, France and other countries.
She said the complaint before the Competition Bureau gives Canada a chance to “pave the way” for other countries to follow suit in cracking down on these kinds of sales.
Marlee Wasser, one of the complainants, said she’s a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and sees the sale of Israeli settlement property in Canada as normalizing genocide in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have attacked and displaced Palestinians.
She added that protests outside Israeli real estate events have been used to justify restricting peoples’ right to protest in Canada.
The mayor of Vaughan, Ont., proposed a bubble zone bylaw – which ultimately passed – restricting protests near places of worship, schools and hospitals shortly after protesters demonstrated outside a local synagogue where an Israeli real estate event was being held in 2024.
For Basel Adra, an Oscar award-winning documentarian and community engagement manager at Global Echo Litigation Center, the complaint before the Competition Bureau is a chance for Canada to do “what’s right.”
The Palestinian filmmaker of “No Other Land,” a documentary about the destruction of a West Bank community, says there’s daily construction in the West Bank, building homes and roads for Israeli settlers.
While he’s never personally seen a Canadian settler in the West Bank, Adra said there are settlers from all over the world, especially America, in Israeli communities in the region.
Adra said he’s been attacked by settlers several times, and last week a group of settlers invaded his family’s land and cut down olive trees.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in June there was an average of six settler attacks on Palestinian communities in the West Bank each day of 2026 thus far that caused casualties or property damage, higher than any other year on record.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.
By Kathryn Mannie | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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G7 Leaders Joked About Taking Their Clothes Off For A Pic & Trudeau Suggested 'Bare-Chested Horseback'
"We’ve got to show them our pecs!”
Things took an unexpected turn during the G7 summit in Germany, when several world leaders joked about taking their clothes off for a photo in order to show they are tougher than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking on Sunday, during the 48th G7 summit, Putin became the butt of a joke between Justin Trudeau, British PM Boris Johnson, U.S. President Joe Biden and others.
As they prepared to discuss the Russian leader and the invasion of Ukraine, a video shows Johnson questioning if the group should remove their jackets before lunch, asking "shall we take our clothes off?"
According to The Washington Post, he went on to add, "We all have to show that we're tougher than Putin!"
Trudeau then quipped, "We're going to get the bare-chested horseback riding display.”
The Canadian PM's joke is in reference to a series of infamous photos of Putin, including pics of him shirtless holding fish, shirtless basking in the sun and shirtless — yep, you guess it — on horseback.
The joke didn't die there, with Johnson adding, "There you go! There you go! We’ve got to show them our pecs!”
It was European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who eventually shifted the conversation away from the Russian leader, simply saying that horseback riding "is the best, though!”
The same day, Johnson and Trudeau laughed (sort of) with one another as they compared the size of each other's private jets.
As always, the event so far has also inspired a number of ridiculously awkward photos of the leaders, including the classic "family photo" which appeared as stiff and uncomfortable as ever.
While there have been moments of humour during the summit until now, it hasn't all been jokes and smiles.
Among the key objectives of the summit is to continue to find ways to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the subsequent impact on food and energy supplies, prices and inflation worldwide.