British Columbia is creating a provincial police unit to crack down on the wide-scale extortion of South Asian businesspeople, including a wave of shootings in recent months that echoes similar violence seen across Alberta and Ontario.
Assistant Commissioner John Brewer, with the British Columbia RCMP, and provincial Solicitor-General Nina Krieger announced the new 40-member team at a news conference Wednesday flanked by police leaders from around Metro Vancouver. They said this unit will lead new investigations as well as help local RCMP detachments and other municipal forces with their open cases.
Saskatchewan Mounties have charged three more people in their investigation of the Kingdom of Canada, a group likened to a cult that has been clashing with area residents.
RCMP said in a news release Wednesday three women face charges of obstruction of a peace officer in Richmound, a village west of Regina.
Quebec has become the second Canadian province after Alberta that will no longer provide free vaccination against COVID-19 for all its population.
Instead, only certain categories of people will still receive the shot at no cost: seniors, health care workers, residents of remote regions and medically vulnerable patients.
A Minnesota court requested the arrest of a Canadian resident this month so he can stand trial in the U.S. after he allegedly helped with the 2022 cross-border smuggling of an Indian family of four who froze to death in Manitoba.
U.S. authorities were concerned that Fenil Patel, 37, who also goes by the name Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel, would flee Canada – possibly to India – according to new court documents filed in Ontario and Minnesota, verified by The Globe and Mail.
Ottawa is calling on the Supreme Court of Canada to clarify the law around governments’ use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause, arguing that courts should have a bigger role in such cases than previously granted by legal precedent.
If the Supreme Court accepts Ottawa’s arguments, it will mark the first substantive limits on governments’ use of the notwithstanding clause to override the rights of Canadians since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982.
The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point, bringing it down to 2.5 per cent after three straight holds. Governor Tiff Macklem says the central bank has shifted to worrying more about a slowing economy than high inflation, which provided the rationale for the interest rate move.
British Columbia Premier David Eby is off to Ottawa to lobby the federal government for more investment in major infrastructure projects in the province.
The Premier’s Office says in a statement that Eby is leading a mission to Ottawa that will last until Thursday, and the itinerary includes a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney on priorities for B.C.’s economic growth.
Polaris Music Prize winner Yves Jarvis says getting the $30,000 award is 'the greatest sign' he could get to keep making music. The Montreal rock musician won the $30,000 cash prize for his fifth full-length record, All Cylinders.
The Nova Scotia RCMP have laid dozens of sexual-abuse charges against a former swim instructor who worked at a provincially run youth detention centre for nearly three decades.
Donald Williams, 75, was arrested at his home last week in Dartmouth and faces 66 charges of sexual assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm, sexual exploitation, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and assault. The charges relate to 30 victims − all boys but one.
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