 Here’s what you need to know to get the day started: | | | Budget Car Rental blames accident on possible tire thieves | | |  | From left, June Burnett, Norm Wylie and his daughter Sammy Wylie want to know why Budget Car Rental would give them a vehicle not fit to drive. (Warren Kay/CBC) | | | A Winnipeg man wants answers after his frightening experience renting a vehicle with Budget Car Rental.
Norm Wylie, his 12-year-old daughter Sammy and a friend were on a road trip from Winnipeg to Minneapolis, Minn., to see Sammy's favourite YouTube stars when it started to rain. "I could feel the vehicle hydroplaning," Wylie told CBC's Go Public. "The next thing you know, we're doing 360s down the highway. The girls are screaming. I'm screaming. And then we flew backwards into the ditch." No one was hurt.
After the accident, a family member pointed out how thin the tire tread on the rental looked. Instead of returning the SUV to Budget, Wylie took it to a tire specialist at Kal Tire, which performed a tire inspection for him as a free service. The back tires had a tread of just 0.8 mm — half the minimum 1.6 mm that's required in most provinces, including Manitoba.
According to one automobile consumer protection expert, it's a sign of the ongoing maintenance and safety issues plaguing some rental companies. George Iny, who heads up the Automobile Protection Association, said safety can take a back seat to keeping vehicles on the road, a situation that was made worse by the pandemic and the vehicle shortage that followed.
"The difference now is the pandemic has required them to be renting older vehicles and keeping vehicles in their fleet longer. And these vehicles are going to need more maintenance and probably a more robust inspection program," Iny said. Go Public asked Avis Budget Group, which oversees Budget Car Rental franchise locations, if that's the case with their vehicles, but they didn't answer the question.
Budget credited Wylie the $105.53 he spent on the rental, but when he asked the company to provide the maintenance records for the SUV, so he could see for himself what safety checks had been done, that request was ignored, he says. When asked, Avis Budget Group didn't send the records to Go Public either.
Instead, the company sent CBC News a short statement that said its franchisees are expected to follow the Motor Vehicle Safety Act and that, "We have instructed this location to follow these policies and are taking preventative steps to avoid this happening in the future."
Wylie complained to the franchise owner by email. In his response, Don Johal apologized, saying that even before the accident, he had already been "reviewing and re-developing" the vehicle inspection and maintenance program at the locations he oversees. Johal also blamed tire thieves, saying at times, good tires have been swapped out for bad ones while the vehicles were rented out or sitting on the Budget rental lot at night. He said he's added security cameras and posted signs to deter theft. | | | | | A moment in bronze | | |  | (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press) | | | | Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier compete in the Ice Dance Final for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final held in Beijing on Saturday. The Toronto duo won bronze. Read about the competition here. | | | | | | | | | In brief | | | The new federal dental insurance plan will be phased in gradually throughout 2024, with the first claims likely to be processed in May, government officials said ahead of a formal announcement scheduled for this morning. Applications are expected to open as early as next week, starting with qualifying seniors over the age of 87, but it will take months before they can start to claim the benefits, officials told The Canadian Press. The insurance plan is a condition of the Liberals' supply-and-confidence deal with the New Democrats to secure the opposition party's support on key votes. The deal calls for a plan that would offer dental benefits directly to low- and middle-income Canadians without private insurance. Eligibility will gradually expand over the course of the year to include all qualifying seniors over the age of 65 by May 2024, then children under the age of 18 and people with disabilities by June. The government aims to make the program available to all qualifying Canadians in 2025. Once the program is fully expanded, it will be available to roughly nine million people, making it the government's largest social program. It is budgeted to cost $13 billion over the first five years. Read The Canadian Press report here.
The minister of sport is expected to announce today the process the government will use to review systemic abuse and human rights violations in sports. Carla Qualtrough told a forum in Geneva last week that she would reveal the details of a "formal, independent mechanism" that would be "trauma-informed." The long-awaited announcement comes after the federal government was accused by elite athletes of failing to act in response to abuse in sports. Athletes and their advocates have called on Ottawa to launch a national public inquiry. Read more about the expected announcement here.
Israeli tanks sought to push farther west in their battle against Hamas in and around Khan Younis, the southern Gaza Strip's main city, as UN officials reiterated calls for a ceasefire to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. The fighting in Khan Younis today comes as Israel refocuses its more than two-month war effort to the south after pounding northern Gaza and driving the majority of the Palestinian enclave's 2.3 million people from their homes. Amid reports of a "catastrophic" health situation in Gaza from the World Health Organization, Palestinian activists called for a global strike on Monday as part of a co-ordinated effort to pressure Israel into a ceasefire. "It is time — World-Wide Total Strike," urged one call. But it was unclear whether the effort would catch on globally or have an impact on Israel's war plans. The 193-member United Nations General Assembly will likely vote tomorrow on a draft resolution demanding a ceasefire, diplomats said. Read more about the war here.
For the first time in Hayao Miyazaki's decades-spanning career, the 82-year-old Japanese anime master is No. 1 at the North American box office. Miyazaki's latest enchantment, The Boy and the Heron, debuted with $12.8 million US, according to studio estimates. The Boy and the Heron, the long-awaited animated fantasy from the director of Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and other cherished anime classics, is only the third anime to ever top the box office in U.S. and Canadian theatres and the first original anime to do so. The film, which is playing in both subtitled and dubbed versions, is also the first fully foreign film to land atop the domestic box office this year. Read more about the film here.
It's time for one of the best meteor showers of the year. In ideal conditions, the Geminids could produce up to 150 meteors an hour. The Geminids, caused as the Earth passes through the trail of an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon, sometimes produces bright fireballs. The shower will be at its peak on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, though you'll likely see some meteors in the nights before and after. Read more about how to watch the shower here.
Now for some good news to start your Monday: All of the Santa, none of the clatter: the Southcentre mall in Calgary hosts quiet Santa photoshoots for neurodiverse kids, part of a series of similar holiday events that Autism Calgary has been putting on for years. Families register for time slots in advance instead of lining up, and the bright lights of the festive forest set-up are dimmed to accommodate children with sensory sensitivities. Sabrina Hyodo brought her six-year-old daughter, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and autism, before the mall opened to the general public. Hyodo said she's thrilled with the photos taken of her daughter's Santa visit, some of which show her feeling his thick, white beard. "It's what every parent wants ... that photo with Santa that they can look back on each year," said Hyodo. Read more about the Santa visits here. | | | FIRST PERSON | Bariatric surgery saved my life. But it wasn't the 'easy' way out of weight loss | | | Mireille Cadet thought getting bariatric surgery was going to be hard physically. But she wasn’t prepared to face backlash from people who thought she was cheating her way through weight loss. Read her first-person piece here. | | | | | | |  | | | Catch up on what you missed this weekend | | | On this episode, we talk about how the small country of Qatar has become a huge influence in the Middle East. Also, health reporter Christine Birak tells us about the groundbreaking way one Toronto hospital is reducing wait times for certain surgeries. Plus, post offices in small towns across Canada are closing — we look at what that means for affected communities. Listen to our capsule episode | | | Today in history: Dec. 11 | | | 1931: The Statute of Westminster is passed by the British Parliament. The statute granted full legal freedom to the former colonies of the British Empire, including Canada.
1948: Newfoundland signs an agreement to enter Confederation as Canada's 10th province. The agreement was to take effect March 31, 1949. After a series of debates between Newfoundland and the federal government, Newfoundlanders held two referendums before deciding to join Confederation.
1961: Lt.-Col. Anatoly Loginov, assistant military attache at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, was expelled from Canada, the government discloses. He had been caught receiving secret Canadian documents. Loginov, his wife and child, left Montreal by air a day earlier — on Dec. 10.
1962: Although Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas had committed separate crimes, they are hanged together at Toronto's Don Jail, the last judicial hanging in Canada. Lucas had been convicted of murdering an acquaintance and Turpin of killing a police officer. | | | (With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and Reuters) | | | | |  | CBC NEWS APP | The most convenient way to get your news
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