A 31-year-old Canadian man has been found dead at Mexico’s Zicatela Beach in Puerto Escondido.

Braydon Bretzer was reportedly with American citizen Chris Ankele when the pair were last seen swimming in the water on Sunday, May 25,

according to Mexican publication Ahora Oaxaca Noticias

. Authorities said witnesses saw a current pulling them away and they drifted out to sea before disappearing,

Daily Mail reported

.

Ankele has been missing since Sunday, Mexican publication

Milenio reported

. Search and rescue efforts began

later that evening

.

The beach is a well-known surfing spot, per travel website

Lonely Planet’s review

of the location. “Nonsurfers beware: the waters here have a lethal undertow and are not safe for the boardless, or beginner surfers either,” the site warns. According to authorities, Zicatela is not suitable for swimming, “especially during swells, which cause dangerous currents and waves up to three meters high,” local publication

El Tiempo reported

.

In a statement to National Post, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod said the agency “is aware of the death of a Canadian citizen in Mexico” and “extends its deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.”

“Consular officials are in contact with local authorities and are providing consular assistance,” said MacLeod, adding that no more information can be disclosed at this time due to privacy considerations.

On May 26, Puerto Escondido Lifeguards said there were two people missing at sea in a social media post. They cautioned beach-goers against walking along Zicatela Beach and said to avoid getting into the water. Videos shared by the account on Instagram showed white-capped waves slamming down onto the shore.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SalvavidasLifeguard PuertoEscondido Oax.Oficial (@salvavidas_lifeguard_puertoesc)

The Municipal Government of San Pedro Mixtepec said a search for the tourists was underway in the area, in

a post on Facebook

on May 27 around noon. It urged “tourist service providers to stay informed about the weather conditions.” It also said that locals should “avoid entering the sea” and listen to instructions from lifeguards.

Later on May 27, Mexican publication

El Tiempo reported

that the body of Bretzer was found at the beach. A video circulating online showed the moment his body was located by a search team,

per Daily Mail

.

Local authorities said search efforts for Ankele are ongoing.

Graeme Bouvier organized a

GoFundMe

on behalf of the Bretzer family.

“Braydon’s sudden passing has left a deep hole in the hearts of all who knew and loved him,” says the webpage.

“Braydon lived life to the fullest. He had a contagious energy, and a heart that made space for everyone. He was loved by many — he made people feel seen, valued, and cared for.” Bouvier did not immediately respond to National Post’s request for comment.

Funds are being raised to help support Bretzer’s family, going towards costs such as travel and memorial expenses. On May 30, more than $20,000 had been donated. The family said that excess funds will go to charities that Bretzer loved, such as Street Cat Rescue Program Inc., the webpage says.

A LinkedIn page for a Canadian man from Saskatoon with the same name as Bretzer shows that he was working as a marketing consultant. He attended Athabasca University, earning a bachelor’s of business degree in 2016. In his bio, he said his interests included soccer, basketball, golf and hiking. Another interest he listed was travelling, having been to “25 countries and counting.” He also said he was a “huge cat guy.”

Under a section for water activities, the Canadian federal government’s travel advisory for Mexico states: “Coastal waters can be dangerous. Riptides are common and powerful waves make swimming and water sports dangerous. Several drownings occur each year. Many beaches don’t have warning flags to indicate unsafe conditions and they don’t always have lifeguards on duty.”

There have been other fatalities at the popular Puerto Escondido beach. In April, Miguel Angel Robles, 22, drowned there, Daily Mail and news site

24.Noticias reported

.

In 2019, Brazilian bodyboarder and kitesurfer Rafael Piccoli died while surfing the waves during a large swell,

Surfline reported

. He reportedly hit the bottom of the ocean floor, which knocked him unconscious before he drowned. Similarly, in 2021, Spanish surfer Oscar Serra also died while surfing after reportedly falling from a top wave and hitting the bottom of the sea,

per Duke Surf

. In 2023, 33-year-old Romanian tourist Andra Kitsu drowned,

The U.S. Sun reported

.

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This week’s throne speech had a particulary royal twist with King Charles in Canada to deliver the breakdown of the government’s agenda.

The speech highlighted a number of issues, many relating to Canada’s sovereignty, in the wake of annexation talk from U.S. President Donald Trump.

National Post politics reporter Catherine Levesque joins me to discuss what King Charles brought to the speech in terms of message, what the main priorities of the Mark Carney government will be, and what we can expect from a short spring session of parliament.

Background reading:
‘The True North is indeed strong and free!’: Throne speech read by King Charles III sparks rounds of applause

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OTTAWA — Porter Airlines’ CEO is fighting the CRA over a six-figure tax bill linked to an unsuccessful incursion into “high risk” trading in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic that cost him over $5.7 million.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada in March 2020, Porter’s top executive Michael Deluce saw opportunity. As economies suddenly shuttered and investors scrambled to grapple with the global pandemics, markets experienced some of the

largest one-day swings in nearly four decades

.

According to a document filed to the Tax Court of Canada, Deluce noticed market volatility and decided to liquidate an investment portfolio containing low-risk investments that would generate capital, but only in the long-term.

Instead, Deluce put the funds into a self-managed investing account and swung for the stars.

According to an appeal he filed in court, the airline executive thought he could make significant amounts of money by investing in high-risk exchange-traded funds (ETF).

He tried to short the S&P 500 index because he had a “very pessimistic view” of the market’s reaction to the pandemic and thought he could “profit off a potential fall of the stock market”.

On March 20 — the same day Porter suspended all flights for what would become 18 months — Deluce invested in an ETF focused on the price of futures contracts on crude oil, the document shows. His bet was that oil prices would rise within days after plummeting in early March amid a sharp dip in demand in the U.S. (they did not).

“(Deluce) traded high-risk investment products with the intention of capitalizing on the volatility of the market caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and to realize significant short-term profits,” reads his appeal.

But Deluce’s gamble did not pay off. His appeal states that he incurred “significant losses” in his attempt to bet against the S&P 500, and losses in the four days he bet on oil prices rising starting March 20, 2020, but some gains from purchasing and selling units of a third ETF on March 26, 2020.

After eight months of trading, he had accrued nearly $5.8 million in investment losses as well as interest fees on the loans he took out to fund his trades, according to his filing.

Deluce is the son of Robert Deluce, who founded Porter Airlines in 2006 after a lengthy battle with the City of Toronto about development at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport where the airline is headquartered. Michael Deluce was named CEO of Porter Airlines in 2019 and Robert Deluce assumed the role of executive chairman.

Because he believed he was acting as a trader, Deluce claimed the amount as a business loss on his 2020 income tax filing as well as some retroactive amounts going back to 2017, reads his appeal. The losses generated over $800,000 in retroactive refunds for 2017 to 2019 and contributed towards generating a $13,000 refund for the 2020 tax year.

But years later, CRA reviewed his claim and decided that Deluce was not acting as a trader, so his losses didn’t qualify as business losses but instead as capital losses.

“We are of the view that you did not behave in a commercial manner of conducting a business, like a day trader would do. (limited number of transactions, long period of ownership, etc.),” reads an excerpt of the government’s reassessment notice quoted in Deluce’s appeal.

“If your intention was to earn business income, you should seek daily goals and should have not be expected to track the underlying index over periods longer than one day… Therefore, the loss was capital in nature and not on account of business.”

The different is financially significant. If the losses are considered to be from a business, Deluce could claim them against any revenue he made. But if they are capital losses as CRA says, he could only claim 50 per cent of them and only apply them against income from capital gains.

As part of its reassessment, CRA claimed over $900,000 in additional income tax, arrears interest and refund interest from Deluce.

In his appeal of that decision, Deluce argued that the losses were incurred in the course of an adventure in the nature of trade and that he “acted in the same way as a trader would.”

“The operating motivation of (Deluce) was not to pursue long-term capital appreciation,” reads he document. “Deluce completed a significant number of transactions within a short period of time. He made trading decisions based on research, market trends and his own knowledge and professional experience.”

In a statement, Porter Airlines spokesperson Brad Cicero said the issue was a personal matter for Mr. Deluce and “unrelated to Porter and its business activities.”

In a separate statement, Deluce’s counsel Ed Kroft said the same: “this tax matter is strictly a personal matter and has no relationship to any Porter activities.”

In an interview, veteran tax lawyer David Rotfleisch said Deluce’s battle with CRA is one of the most common types of appeal to be litigated in the tax court.

“The case will come down to, does he have the ability and the fact that will persuade a judge that, yeah, this guy did this as a trading transaction, not with an intention to buy an asset, sit on it and sell it down the road,” Rotfleisch said, noting that courts look at intention, expertise and sources of financing in these cases.

“The guy has got a background in business. He worked for Scotia capital. He was a trader. These were short transactions. He borrowed money, he bought on margins. These are all (indications) of an

adventure in the nature of trade

,” he added.

The CRA declined to comment while the case is in front of the court. The agency has not filed a response to Deluce’s appeal.

cnardi@postmedia.com

National Post

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Any potential link between social media use and kids’ mental health often comes down to a what-came-first conundrum: does more time glued to TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram make youth more depressed, or are distressed kids just more likely to spend more time on social media?
 

A new study suggests it’s the former, not the latter, at play.
 

Researchers who followed nearly 12,000 children found the more time nine- and 10-year-olds spend engaged with social media, the more depressive symptoms they have a year or two years later.
 

Kids’ social media use soared, on average, from seven to 73 minutes per day, over the three years of the study, and their depressive symptoms rose by 35 per cent, according to the paper, published in JAMA Network Open.
 

The study is the first to use a “within-person” approach, meaning researchers tracked changes over time in each child, and not between kids.
 

“There has been ongoing debate about whether social media contributes to depression or simply reflects underlying depressive symptoms,” lead author Dr. Jason Nagata, an associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a background news release.
 

“These findings provide evidence that social media may be contributing to the development of depressive symptoms.”
 

It’s not clear why. However, adolescence can make for a “critical period of vulnerability during which social media exposure may have lasting implications for mental health,” the researchers wrote.
 

“As a father of two young kids, I know that simply telling children to ‘get off your phone’ doesn’t really work,” Nagata said.
 

“Parents can lead by example with open, nonjudgmental questions about screen use,” he said. “Setting screen-free times for the whole family, such as during meals or before bed, can help build healthier habits for everyone, including adults.”
 

The researchers used data from an ongoing study spanning 21 sites, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, the biggest longitudinal study — meaning it’s following young people over multiple time points — of adolescent health, brain and cognitive development in the U.S.
The study recruited children aged nine to 10 from October 2016 to October 2018, and followed them through 2022, when they were 12 to 13.

Kids were asked questions about the number of hours and minutes spent per weekday and weekend day on social media.
 

Depression scores were measured by having parents fill out a widely used questionnaire used to detect behavioural and emotional problems in children and teens.
 

The researchers wanted to explore whether changes in social media use over time preceded shifts in symptoms of depression, or vice versa.
 

“Young people who are depressed might be more likely to spend more time on their phones or social media as a way to cope, or as a way to escape, because they’re looking for feedback loops that reaffirm negative thoughts,” said Canadian co-author Kyle Ganson, an assistant professor in the faculty of social work at the University of Toronto.

The team found that as time on social media increased from one year to year two, and year two to year three, so did depression scores.

However, the reverse wasn’t true — “a rise in depressive symptoms didn’t predict a later increase in social media use,” according to the background release.
 

It’s not the first study to find a dose-response association, meaning more time was associated with higher depression scores.

However, the researchers don’t know what, exactly, the kids were doing online.

“Obviously time is one thing but content is another,” Ganson said. “Texting or DMing (direct messaging) with friends or sharing memes — some of that might actually be very pro-social and very positive and very connecting for young people,” he said.

“Whereas doomscrolling and getting lost in social media rabbit holes might be more isolating and lead to more comparisons, which could lead to more depression,” Ganson said.

“We don’t have a direct answer as to why” more time on phones and screens were associated with more depressive symptoms. “Multiple factors are likely playing into it,” he said. “These young people might be going to social media as a way to escape difficult family conflict or difficult family issues.” They may have lower self-esteem “and so they gravitate towards social media because it feels a bit safer, but it isolates them from their peers” and exposes them to negative content.

According to a recent Macdonald-Laurier Institute report,

Wired for Worry

, while one to two hours a day of social media use has been associated with positive mental health outcomes, “mental health worsens as use increased beyond that,” and that “the preponderance of the evidence indicates that social media is a major contributor to, and likely a leading cause, of declining youth mental health.”

One side note of the latest work is that the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study relied on parental reports of depressive symptoms, “which I think does make sense given the age of some of these young people,” Ganson said. However, “parents only have a perception of their children. They don’t have an internal experience.”

For youth, “We can’t think of social media as benign,” Ganson said. “We’re not going to take it away — it’s impossible to take this away from young people. It’s less about taking it away and more about moderating it, making sure you’re finding ways to socialize with peers in person, through extracurriculars, through sports, through groups, through art, through theatre, music — whatever it might be.

“Finding those activities that take you off of the screen, that make you feel good about yourself.”

Parents can help by encouraging “in-person socialization,” he said, and putting limitations around screen time and social media use, like no phones in the bedroom, “or being aware of what your kids are doing online. Doing regular check-ins with your kids about what they’re doing on social media, what kinds of interests they have. So that it’s not just, ‘Oh, my kid’s in the corner or in their room with the door locked on social media.’

“It’s about being very open with communication and helping them navigate these different areas,” Ganson said.

Parents should also check their own screen time, “because that does obviously influence their kids’ behaviour as well.”

National Post

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OTTAWA — First there was Bill C-216, then C-282, and now C-202. The Bloc Québécois has, once again, introduced a private member’s bill aimed at ensuring “full protection for supply management” in trade agreements.

The text of the bill has not yet been released, but the objective that was underlined in previous bills was to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to prevent the minister from “making a commitment” that would increase the tariff rate quota for dairy, poultry, or eggs in trade negotiations.

It would also prevent tariff reductions on these products when they are imported in excess.

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Bill C-202 was “similar” and believes the House of Commons could agree very quickly to send it back to the Senate, where two influential senators effectively blocked its passage in the last Parliament using parliamentary procedures.

“We can send it to the Senate before summer break. That’s clear. Could the Senate dispose of it before the summer break? My optimism is more cautious,” Blanchet said.

Bill C-282 made headlines last fall when the Bloc threatened to bring down the government if it wasn’t passed alongside another bill. It was ultimately passed by nearly 80 per cent of the House of Commons in June 2023, despite opposition from some Conservative MPs.

However, the Senate never passed it, thanks to Senators Peter Boehm and Peter Harder.

“I don’t think it’s in Canada’s national interest to pass this bill because it divides the agricultural community … and it will impact future trade negotiations,” Sen. Peter Boehm said at the time. Neither senator commented Thursday.

At one point, the Bloc said it was facing

“hostility” in the upper house

.

Supporters of the bill say it would protect farmers and local communities across the country, particularly in Quebec, while opponents argue it would tie the hands of Canadian negotiators in trade talks.

The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance (CAFTA) is among its opponents, saying such a bill “will hurt the 90 per cent of farmers who depend on trade.”

CAFTA’s executive director Michael Harvey told the National Post that “every time (the bill was introduced) it’s been a bad idea” and “it’s still a bad idea.”

Harvey stated that his organization does not oppose supply management and does not claim it should be affected by future trade negotiations.

“What we’re saying is there’s no reason to legislate that negotiators take one sector of the Canadian economy off the table and leave all other sectors on the table,” he said.

Blanchet introduced the bill early in the session because he wants it passed before Canada negotiates a “formal agreement” with the United States. Under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), a review of the agreement is scheduled for 2026.

However, Prime Minister Mark Carney has stated that he wants a new “economic and security deal” with the United States. Blanchet indicated that he would meet with the Prime Minister in the coming days and that the bill would be discussed.

After all, Carney expressed some interest in the bill and did not reject it during the election campaign.

In the speech from the throne read by King Charles III

earlier this week, the government stated that it would “protect supply management.”

On Thursday, in the House of Commons, the prime minister declared that “supply management will never be on the agenda of negotiations with the Americans” and that he “will protect supply management.”

“We will closely consider the Bloc Québécois bill,” he said.

Now, Harvey hopes Carney won’t “handcuff” the government’s negotiators by supporting the bill.

“I think it would be an indication of a lack of confidence in our negotiators to do so,” he said.

National Post

atrepanier@postmedia.com

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