B.C. tenants evicted for landlord's use after refusing large rent increase to take over neighbouring suite
Ashley Dickey and her mother rented part of the same Coquitlam duplex in three different decades under three different landlords.
Many eyes were on Geneva Friday at the talks between U.S. Secretary of State Andrew Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov as the two nations continue to spar over what U.S. President Joe Biden said could be an imminent invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces amassed along the border.
Back in Canada however, the Russian ambassador had a strong reply to the Western response levelled at his home country, as Canada announced it had sanctioned more than 400 people and entities going back to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“Sanctions never work and sanctions never will be able to work against such countries, such [a] nation as Russia. The attempts to use sanctions as a threat in order to make Russia do certain steps on the international area is just an illusion,” Ambassador Oleg Stepanov said Thursday on CTV’s Power Play. “Actually, in Russia, and the Russian government, and I can tell you frankly, nobody cares about Western sanctions anymore.”
However confident the Russian ambassador appeared, assistant professor in international relations at the University of Waterloo Alexander Lanoszka said Russia does care about western sanctions.
“Well they do care about sanctions because they’ve built up a massive strategic reserve of currency designed to weather a new series of sanctions that western nations could mete out to Russia if it does go about an escalation against Ukraine,” Lanoszka said on CTV’s Your Morning Friday.
However, at this stage in the crisis with 100,000 Russian troops on the border, Lanoszka warned against overconfidence in what sanctions could achieve.
“Of course we should not expect too much from sanctions, sanctions in this case do raise the cost of aggression but they also assert red lines [and] they reinforce norms about territorial integrity,” he said.
While the membership of Ukraine in the NATO alliance is what Russia objects to, Lanoszka says there is much more at play.
“There is a lot more behind it, so yes NATO membership in respect to Ukraine is certainly on the table for Russia and perhaps a core aim of theirs, but really they have emphasized other things including a rollback of all NATO measures put in place virtually since 1997 in eastern and central Europe,” Lanoszka explained. “Basically depriving any country who joined the alliance of any political or military support that they have received, so those are very expansive aims and really non-starters for the organization.”
When asked if sanctions could prevent any further military action on Russia’s part, Lanoszka was non-committal.
“Perhaps not, I would say that sanctions are not very effective at this stage of the crisis because Russia has discounted the cost associated with sanctions, they’ve gone this far into the crisis, they’ve built up military forces, they know that certain actions on their part will trigger a response,” he said. “And they’ve discounted those costs already – that’s not to say we shouldn’t be imposing sanctions… but it goes to show that we are very deep into this crisis.”
Lanoszka theorized that any further incursion or invasion of Ukraine by Russia may not materialize as feared, with a large scale force moving in.
“We really don’t know [what it will look like], but it’s important to emphasize that invasion may not mean permanent occupation,” he said. “It could be the case that Russia launches limited strikes against Ukraine’s military assets, it could hold some territory to force Kyiv to capitulate or submit to certain demands made by Moscow… the range of possibilities is fairly large, I think though the most likely military option Russia would use if it decides to use force would be something in the order of limited military strikes.”
---
With a file from CTVNews.ca’s Ottawa bureau Producer Sarah Turnbull
Ashley Dickey and her mother rented part of the same Coquitlam duplex in three different decades under three different landlords.
A man who fell into a crevasse while leading a backcountry ski group deep in the Canadian Rockies has died.
A new survey by Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab asked Canadians about their food consumption habits amid rising prices.
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment which has been banned at Queen’s Park.
Charlie Woods failed to advance in a U.S. Open local qualifying event Thursday, shooting a 9-over 81 at Legacy Golf & Tennis Club.
As Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, his old friend at the National Enquirer was scooping up potentially damaging stories about the candidate and paying out tens of thousands of dollars to keep them from the public eye.
After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government would still send Canada Carbon Rebate cheques to Saskatchewan residents, despite Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe's decision to stop collecting the carbon tax on natural gas or home heating, questions were raised about whether other provinces would follow suit. CTV News reached out across the country and here's what we found out.
A Montreal actress, who has previously detailed incidents she had with disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, says a New York Court of Appeals decision overturning his 2020 rape conviction is 'discouraging' but not surprising.
Caleb Williams is heading to the Windy City, aiming to become the franchise quarterback Chicago has sought for decades.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.