| Toronto in turmoil, but no way to oust mayor Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:11 PM PDT  TORONTO - The country's largest city descended into embarrassing new political turmoil Thursday with police essentially confirming the existence of an alleged video appearing to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. The surprise announcement by Chief Bill Blair, which followed the morning arrest of Ford's friend on extortion charges related to the alleged video, prompted immediate calls for the mayor to resign.
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| Senate scandal: Let’s change the Red Chamber Posted: 31 Oct 2013 01:00 PM PDT  The Senate expense scandal continues to resonate across the country. For some, Senators Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau represent scapegoats for a lifestyle of entitlement and abuse practiced for decades in the unloved upper house. For others, they represent a national … Continue reading →
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| New environmental review offers critical view of Taseko mine proposal Posted: 31 Oct 2013 10:41 PM PDT VANCOUVER - A new environmental study into Taseko Mines Ltd. billion-dollar New Prosperity mine proposal in British Columbia is offering a critical assessment of the project. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency report released Thursday details what it deems ''several significant adverse environmental effects'' related to the project. Taseko then submitted a new plan it said would save Fish Lake, but area aboriginal bands remain opposed because they say the lake will still end up contaminated. In its report, the agency said Taseko has underestimated the volume of water that would leave a tailings storage facility and the impact on water quality within the Fish Lake and Upper Fish Creek system.  |
| Bike helmet laws across Canada Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:05 PM PDT Laws regarding the use of bicycle helmets vary throughout the country. Here are the rules in each province and territory:  |
| Ottawa booting wounded vets before they qualify for pensions Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:05 PM PDT  The Conservative government, so obsessed with micromanaging its message, is having a public relations meltdown. The Senate-expenses scandal keeps oozing political poison like a cracked bitumen pipeline, defying attempts to patch it up. And now Canadians yet again get to … Continue reading →
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| Trains kills man, woman in Alberta as one tried to help the other Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:54 PM PDT  WETASKIWIN, Alta. - An elderly man and woman are dead after one tried to save the other from the path of a freight train at a crossing in a community south of Edmonton. RCMP say the man, who was in his 80s, tripped and fell on the tracks at a major railway crossing in downtown Wetaskiwin. Scott Tod said the woman, who was in her 70s, was pushing an empty wheelchair ahead of him. Carla Werner manages a paint store near the crossing.
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| Toronto Mayor Rob Ford scandal spreads globally, condemned locally Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:09 PM PDT  The BBC reported on it, so did Time Magazine. And you know Gawker wasn't going to ignore this most recent chapter in the slow, uncomfortable fall of Mayor Rob Ford. Continue reading →
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| Contested judge already has office at court, despite challenge Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:48 PM PDT  OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada's newest nominee already has an office amongst his colleagues despite the fact that his appointment is being contested in court. Two sources tell The Canadian Press that Marc Nadon has an office at the Supreme Court building in Ottawa, even as his new office neighbours are preparing to judge his case. The appointment also faces a legal challenge from a Toronto lawyer who argues that the Ottawa-dwelling Federal Court judge does not meet the residency requirements, and the Quebec government has also contested the appointment. The challenge, which is unusual in the naming of a Canadian Supreme Court justice, has already sidelined Nadon from hearing cases and left the high court short one judge.
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| Mayor Ford has 'no reason to resign' after police confirm video Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:45 AM PDT  Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says he has "no reason to resign" after Police Chief Bill Blair confirmed investigators have recovered a video of the mayor that has been widely reported in the press and charged Ford's personal friend Alexander Lisi with extortion. … Continue reading →
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| Vancouver woman stabbed to death in suspected robbery in Belize Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:05 PM PDT VANCOUVER - Police in the Central American country of Belize are investigating the bloody stabbing death of a Vancouver woman. Officers were called to the ocean-front community of Consejo Shores on Tuesday night after neighbours reported a woman screaming. Assistant Supt. Daniel Arzu of the Corozal Police Department said police had to use a ladder to access the two story home because the home was locked up tight. "Upon the police entering the building they saw this Caucasian lady lying face down on the floor in the living room in what appeared to be a pool of blood, with several multiple stab wounds to her neck and body," Arzu said in a telephone interview Thursday.  |
| Alleged human trafficking victim made up story to stay in Canada: defence Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:59 PM PDT  VANCOUVER - A young woman whose life in her native Tanzania was marked by poverty and hardship was so desperate to stay in Canada that she fabricated allegations she was tricked into leaving her home and forced into domestic servitude, a defence lawyer told a human trafficking trial Thursday. Mumtaz Ladha, 60, is accused of illegally bringing the woman, who can't be named, to Canada in August 2008. The Crown alleges Ladha forced the woman to work long hours as an unpaid housekeeper in her home in West Vancouver. Defence lawyer Eric Gottardi said Ladha brought the woman to Canada for what was supposed to be a brief visit as a travel companion and to help in case Ladha fell ill.
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| Tory MP calls Ford a 'great mayor,' opposition members beg to differ Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:36 PM PDT  "Rob Ford is a great mayor," said Gill, parliamentary secretary to Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino, as reporters and cameras briefly trailed him through the Commons corridors. I think he's doing a wonderful job, and I know the people of Toronto are very happy with the way he's running the city and look forward to working with him." Fantino, a former Toronto police chief, was keeping his distance from the Ford saga. It's a matter that's before the courts, there's issues there, that I don't know anything about, I never made it my business to inform myself, so I have no way of infusing myself into this," said Fantino, who had left the Toronto police service before Ford became mayor.
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| Senate scandal: Reforming the upper house an unlikely proposition Posted: 31 Oct 2013 01:00 PM PDT  The ongoing imbroglio over the Canadian Senate has more facets than a kaleidoscope. With every twist a new pattern appears to emerge — only to disappear into dissonance with the next turn of events. One hesitates to put a (premature) … Continue reading →
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| Video: Rob Ford breaks silence Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:49 AM PDT  Toronto mayor says he won't comment on video, won't resign
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| CSIS info sharing concerns spy watchdog Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:21 PM PDT  OTTAWA - Sensitive information gathered by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service could be abused by Canada's allies due to lax sharing policies, says a federal review agency. In its annual report, the watchdog that keeps an eye on CSIS flags concerns about what happens to intelligence the spy service passes to the national eavesdropping agency, which in turn shares the details with foreign allies. The report underscores the fact CSIS is collaborating ever more closely with Communications Security Establishment Canada, which has come under scrutiny lately due to its participation in the international Five Eyes alliance. In its report, presented to Parliament on Thursday, the Security Intelligence Review Committee recommends CSIS develop "clearer and more robust" principles of co-operation with CSEC to ensure appropriate information sharing.
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| B.C. issues Canada-wide warrant for high risk sex offender Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:23 AM PDT  VANCOUVER - A Canada-wide warrant has been issued after the disappearance of a man considered by Vancouver police to be a high risk sex offender. Brian Montague says 41-year-old Dale Alexander failed to return to his halfway house in Vancouver as required under the conditions of his long term supervision order. Montague says Alexander has a lengthy and violent criminal history and officers believe he poses a high risk to reoffend sexually.
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| Alberta couple sentenced for abusing mentally handicapped relative Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:12 PM PDT  It was just one of the wretched enclosures police found on a rural Alberta property where 48-year-old Betty Anne Gagnon had been kept before she died in 2009. Gagnon's younger sister, Denise Scriven 47, and brother-in-law, Michael Scriven, 33, must serve 20 months each. Justice Sterling Sanderman said the couple failed to give Gagnon proper housing, hygiene, medical care and nutrition. The judge added that some of the cages Gagnon was forced to live in "did not meet the standards some pet owners demand for their dogs."
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| Halloween surprise: Arrest at airport over pumpkins stuffed with cocaine Posted: 31 Oct 2013 10:10 AM PDT  MONTREAL - Border officials have stumbled upon a different kind of Halloween surprise inside some pumpkins this year. The pumpkins were in a passenger's luggage at the Montreal airport. The Canada Border Services Agency says a woman was arrested today with three pumpkins in her luggage at Montreal's Trudeau International Airport. Scanning equipment had detected masses inside the pumpkins.
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| Police have video of Toronto mayor, won't detail contents Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:12 PM PDT By Cameron French TORONTO (Reuters) - Police said Thursday they have obtained a video "consistent" with media accounts that it shows Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, but they would not confirm the contents of the video. Ford, who has denied he smokes crack, said he could not comment on the matter because the video is evidence in a separate case before the courts. In the first official link between Ford and a high-profile Toronto drugs investigation, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair on Thursday identified the mayor as a subject in a video recovered during the probe. "I can tell you that the digital video file that we have recovered depicts images which are consistent with those that had previously been reported in the press," Blair said.  |
| Canada economy grows 0.3 percent in August, outlook modest Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:27 AM PDT  By Louise Egan OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's thriving oil and gas industry helped the economy grow by 0.3 percent in August from July, confirming modest growth that is expected to keep the Bank of Canada's key interest rate on hold for more than a year. The monthly gross domestic product data, released by Statistics Canada on Thursday, showed the economy continues to bounce back from a downturn in June caused by severe flooding in the nation's oil capital Calgary and a strike by construction workers in Quebec. The economy contracted 0.5 percent in June and then unexpectedly surged by 0.6 percent in July. Despite evidence the economy is regaining some lost momentum, Mazen Issa, macro strategist at TD Securities in Toronto, said the outlook remains pretty tame.
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