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Charles And Camilla To Tour Canada

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Last year around this time, a royal couple visited Canada.

Prince William (second in line to the throne of England) had just gotten married to Catherine Middleton and the two spent much of their honeymoon touring Canada.

Next month Canada will get a visit from another royal couple—this time, it’s the father of the groom. Prince Charles is William’s father.

Charles is first in line to the throne. That means that when his mother—Queen Elizabeth—steps down, Charles will become king.

Charles will come to Canada with his second wife, Camilla.

Charles’ first wife was one of the most well-known and popular celebrities in the world, Princess Diana.

(Princess Di, as she was known, was killed in a car crash in 1997. When that happened, millions of people around the world mourned.)

Charles and Camilla will tour New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan from May 20 to 23.

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News Politics

Dramatic PC Win In Alberta Confounds The Pollsters

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“They” had predicted that this election would make history in Alberta.

“They” had predicted that the new Wildrose Party would win, and take over from the Progressive Conservatives (PCs), who have held power there since 1971.

“They” were wrong.

“They,” are the pollsters; the people who take polls. They ask people, prior to an election, how they intend to vote and make an educated guess as to who will win an election.

Most of the polls predicted not just a win for the Wildrose Party, but that the Wildrose Party might get a majority as well.

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News Politics Technology

How Much Did Fighter Jets Really Cost?

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In 2010, new F-35 Fighter Jets were ordered by Canada’s Defence Department (the department that oversees the country’s military).The new jets were supposed to cost around $15-billion.

Now, however, the Auditor General of Canada has said that the 65 planes will actually cost $25-billion, $10-billion more than expected. The Auditor General’s office watches over Government spending.

NDP and Liberal MPs (Members of Parliament) have accused the Defence Department (part of the Conservative government in power) of “hiding” the extra $10-billion in their financial reports when the 2011 election was coming up. Some are saying that the Conservatives wanted to keep it secret so people wouldn’t see the real costs and not vote for them.

Now that it is in the open, some MPs have demanded that Canada’s Defence Minister, Peter MacKay, step down from his job.

The Defence Department has explained their position saying that their original estimate did not include many costs such as operations (day-to-day expenses), people to run the project, or a “contingency fund” (in this case, this refers to money set aside for unknown problems in the project). Some of that money was already recorded in other budgets.

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News Politics

Is This The Next President Of The United States?

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The Republicans in the United States likely have their next presidential nominee: Mitt Romney.

Romney is the Republican who will most likely become the party’s nominee for president.

That’s because his closest rival, Rick Santorum, stepped down this week.

The Republicans have been going through a long and intense process of selecting their new nominee.

Romney—who will still have to be officially elected by the party’s members—would replace former president George W. Bush.

Unless something major happens to upset the apple cart, Romney will become the new nominee.

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Breaking News News Politics

Canada’s Plan To Balance Its Budget By 2015

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Last week Canada’s Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, spent $138.98 on a new pair of black dress shoes.

Why? Because he was announcing a new budget.

Flaherty is in charge of presenting Canada’s budget, which is why he bought the new shoes.

It’s a tradition in Canada that the Finance Minister wears new shoes to present the budget.

According to Wikipedia no one really knows why, but it’s something most Canadian Finance Ministers have done since the 1960s. It’s a tradition.

This year, the federal government structured its budget to reduce Canada’s annual deficit to zero by 2015.

A deficit happens when a government spends more than it collects in a year.

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News Politics

Mulcair Elected As Leader Of NDP, Official Opposition

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Thomas Mulcair is the new leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP).

Mulcair was elected, after a gruelling 12 hours of voting, at the NDP’s convention on the weekend.

The NDP is the political party that is Canada’s “official opposition” to the country’s governing party, the Conservatives.

As leader of the federal NDP, Mulcair will also become the leader of the Official Opposition.

The NDP had to elect a new leader after their last leader, Jack Layton, passed away from cancer in August 2011.

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Breaking News News Politics

The Robo-Call Scandal Continues

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The robo-call scandal is not going away. In fact, it’s getting bigger.

During the last federal election, many Canadian voters said they received automatic voice-mail messages (robo-calls) directing them to the wrong polling station.

CBC News is reporting that they have found voters across Canada who say they got misleading robo-call messages because they were not voting for the Conservative Party.

In other words, according to CBC News, people who weren’t voting Conservative were called and directed to the wrong polling station. (If people can’t find their polling station – the place where they vote – then they may not be able to vote, or they may decide it’s too much of a hassle to find the right polling station.)

This points the finger for the robo-calls at the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

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News Politics

Protests and Accusations – The “Robo-Call” Scandal Continues

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Canadians marched through the streets of Vancouver last Saturday to protest the use of misleading “robo-calls” during the federal election last May.

More than 31,000 people have complained to Elections Canada about the automatic voice-mails they received, directing them to go to the wrong polling station to vote.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that his party had nothing to do with the robo-calls.

Representatives from the Liberals and the NDP have urged the people responsible to come forward.

The Liberals and NDP have also denied having anything to do with the potentially illegal calls.

Many Canadians want to know who placed the calls, and they want the party responsible for them to be held accountable.

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Breaking News News Politics

Two Canadian Political Parties In Hot Water Over Use Of Technology

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During elections, people often get a recorded message on their telephone that reminds them to vote and tells them where to go, to vote.

These messages, which use pre-recorded voices, are known as robo-calls.

Canada’s federal Conservative party is being accused of using robo-calls to mislead the public, during last year’s election.

The RCMP and Elections Canada (the group that makes the rules for elections), are looking into accusations that some robo-calls steered voters to the wrong polling station, or to polling stations that didn’t even exist, which would be illegal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn’t know anything about the illegal robo-calls.

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Breaking News News Politics

Scotland May Hold Independence Referendum

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For the first time in three centuries, the united part of the United Kingdom may be in trouble.

The Scottish National Party (SNP), the party that runs Scotland day-to-day, is urging the Scottish people to support independence from Britain. However it still wants to keep the Queen as official leader.

Last week, British Prime Minister Gordon Cameron went to Scotland to argue that Scotland should not separate from Great Britain.

Scotland and England have been together since 1707 when the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed under the rule of the British. Ireland and Wales were already under British rule at that time.

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