One of Ontario’s largest hospital corporations is taking the unusual step of suing its former chief executive and two senior administrators, alleging they failed to act properly when they were presented with evidence of a procurement fraud.

London Health Sciences Centre, which manages three hospitals and more than 15,000 employees, announced two lawsuits this week stemming from an investigation into an alleged $50-million fraud scheme. The hospital network alleges inflated contracts were steered to companies with ties to a former vice-president of London Health Sciences.

Canada’s spy agency is warning that a small but militant group of Sikhs are using the country as a base for promoting, fundraising and planning violence in India in support of an independent homeland in Punjab, a caution some see as a sign of shifting policies toward New Delhi.

In its annual report to Parliament in June, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said these homegrown extremists represent only a small group among Sikhs who are otherwise pursuing non-violent advocacy for a state they call Khalistan.

Nova Scotia’s child protection agency investigated the living conditions of Jack and Lilly Sullivan months before their mysterious disappearance from a rural part of the province in early May – a case file that has been reviewed by the minister responsible for child welfare.

Scott Armstrong, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Opportunities and Social Development, confirmed in an interview that the agency had a file on the children prior to their disappearance, but said it would be inappropriate for him to discuss the agency’s findings.

The Nova Scotia government is offering a reward of as much as $150,000 for information about the disappearance of siblings Lilly and Jack Sullivan, who have been missing for nearly seven weeks.

The children, aged six and four, were reported missing May 2 from their mobile home in Lansdowne Station, in rural Pictou County. The case prompted one of the largest ground searches in Nova Scotia’s history, with hundreds of volunteers, aided by drones, helicopters and rescue dogs, scouring a densely wooded area marked by old mine shafts and lakes.