Today in the news: How foreign aid flows, new citizenship bill is introduced in Ottawa

Here’s a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today…

A fifth of foreign aid goes to refugees in Canada

Although Canada is one of the largest contributors to foreign aid among some of the richest countries in the world, a fifth of its spending never leaves Canada’s borders.

About 19 percent of Canadian aid reported to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development last year benefited refugees and Ukrainians in Canada.

“Most Canadians wouldn’t think that matters because when we think about foreign aid, we think about something that’s happening in other countries, not the costs we have here,” said Elise Legault, Canada director of the One Campaign, an advocacy organization against poverty. .

Canada ranks seventh in dollars spent on foreign aid, according to the OECD, a group of mostly wealthy countries.

Last month, the organization published its analysis of aid spending in 2023.

It shows that Canada spent just over $8 billion on aid last year, with $1.5 billion of that going to support refugees, asylum seekers and Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion during their first year in Canada.

Immigration Minister will introduce a citizenship bill

Immigration Secretary Marc Miller is expected to introduce legislation today that would extend citizenship to some children born abroad.

In 2009, the Conservative government changed the law so that Canadian parents born abroad could not pass on their citizenship unless their child was born in Canada.

Changes to the Citizenship Act in 1977 and 2009 also stripped thousands of people born abroad of their Canadian citizenship.

Those who have been denied access to citizenship rights as a result of the changes are known as ‘Lost Canadians’.

Last year, the Ontario Supreme Court ruled that the current system unconstitutionally creates two classes of Canadians, and gave Ottawa until June 19 to resolve the problem.

Grieving families are frustrated by the cemetery backlog

For more than a year, an urn containing Bridget Heffernan’s brother’s ashes has sat in her Montreal-area home, instead of being buried in the cemetery of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, where her relatives have almost to rest for a year. a century.

Following the death of her mother last September, Heffernan now has to bury two sets of remains instead of one.

But months after the end of a lengthy strike that brought operations to a standstill at one of Canada’s largest cemeteries, Heffernan says she still can’t get an answer as to when burials can take place, despite repeated attempts to convince management reaches.

Although she doesn’t mind having the urns in her home, she looks forward to the time when her mother and brother can be buried in the family plot, with some relatives present and a priest present to say a prayer.

A mother’s journey to find help for her autistic son

An Ontario mother has fought for years to get help for her autistic seven-year-old son, and she is surprised he was referred to a deep brain stimulation trial before gaining access to government-funded therapy.

Alexis Wilson’s struggle to access the Ontario Autism Program is shared by thousands of families across the province.

More than 60,000 children are registered as seeking help, but at the end of last year around 14,000 children had access to core therapy through the programme.

Several other services are offered through the program, but the timing of Emmett’s diagnosis has made it difficult for him to access them.

His autism has taken the form of a relatively rare late-stage regression; he developed fairly normally until the age of four, when he lost many skills, including most of his language skills.

Voice actors speak out about AI in video games

A recent dispute over the use of a voice similar to Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson by the creator of ChatGPT is another example of the complexity of generative artificial intelligence and the ethical debate surrounding the technology.

OpenAI has said that Sky’s voice – one of many available for the popular chatbot – is not an imitation of the actor and belongs to another professional who used her natural speaking voice.

Still, the similarities to Johansson were striking, with the Marvel star raising questions about the voice sounding “eerily similar to hers” after turning down an offer to lend her voice to the system.

The company stopped using Sky earlier this week.

The high-profile case has put a spotlight on the topic of AI voices, with several voice actors in video games saying they are particularly vulnerable to unauthorized AI.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 23, 2024

The Canadian Press