Weekend Newsstand: March 14, 2015

The Raptors pulled out of a four-game losing streak with a win against the Miami Heat last night. Aren't sports great? In the news this morning: RCMP allegations regarding the OPP, a sizeable minority of Canadians think there are too many nonwhite immigrants, and a BuzzFeed office in Toronto.

By Tannara Yelland • Illustration by Matthew Daley

Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers raided the office of the Ontario Provincial Police union last week, and news comes now that the RCMP is investigating three top OPP union heads for fraud, breach of trust, and money laundering. President James Christie has been placed on administrative leave, while vice-president Martin Bain and chief administrative officer Karl Walsh have taken voluntary leaves of absence; all three are OPP officers in addition to the positions they held in the OPP union. The investigation into these three officers began last October, following complaints from union staff.

A recent Ekos poll found that 41 per cent of Canadians think there are “too many” nonwhite immigrants coming into the country. Just over half of Conservative Party supporters are on record agreeing with that statement, as with 35 per cent of NDP supporters. The poll comes at a time when there have been recent debates over the traditional face-covering niqab that some Muslim women wear, and in the wake of Conservative Party rhetoric about “Canadian values,” which many perceive to be a subtle way of distinguishing white families who have been in the country for a few generations from new—especially nonwhite—Canadians.

This spring an editorial office is set to open here for BuzzFeed, one of the most successful media companies of the 21st century (but you didn’t need us to tell you that). Details are still unclear about how many people will be hired or how they’ll attempt to carve “a niche in the Canadian market.” Still, for anyone interested in media diversity, it’s a promising sign: for all the things that make BuzzFeed an easy target for ire, the company has been an active advocate for diverse newsrooms.