Canada

A corrections officer charged in the 2021 death of an inmate who was shown on video repeating the words "I can't breathe" while officers swarmed and restrained him in a Manitoba jail has been acquitted in the man's death.

Robert Jeffrey Morden pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide the necessaries of life, following a February 2021 altercation that began as a prolonged standoff between inmate William Walter Ahmo and corrections officers in a common room of the Headingley Correctional Centre, west of Winnipeg.

Judge Cellitti said in his decision Ahmo's death "represents a terrible tragedy" that "has no doubt had and will continue to have an immeasurable and lasting impact" on his loved ones, but that the video of Ahmo saying he couldn't breathe does "not tell the whole story."

"In my view, the fact that Mr. Ahmo said that he could not breathe on numerous occasions and that seemingly there was no medical assistance offered to him standing alone is not determinative of this case," Cellitti said.

The far-right media outlet at the centre of a US Department of Justice indictment over an alleged foreign influence campaign involving covert funding from Russia also produced dozens and dozens of videos this year focused on Canada.

. . .

Tenet Media’s YouTube channel, which counted 316,000 subscribers, went offline Thursday afternoon, nearly a day after the indictment was announced.

However, an analysis of Tenet Media YouTube content preserved by PressProgress prior to its takedown has identified at least 51 videos focused on topics relating to Canada, including videos focused on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other hot button right-wing culture war topics.

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A Toronto-area man is facing terror charges in both Canada and the United States, authorities say, for allegedly attempting to illegally enter the U.S. to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish Centre in New York City.

The conservative party of Canada is broken. They have essentially become the Canadian trump party. #Canada #SquintyMcProudBoy #HarperMinion #WorstCPCleaderYet #NoPlan #AntiChoice #FreedumbClownvoy #BaseOfRacists

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A 15-year-old Indigenous boy killed by RCMP in Wetaskiwin, Alta., last week handed a machete and a knife over to police and had run into a field before officers opened fire, Alberta's policing watchdog said Thursday.

In a statement, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) provided new details on the final moments leading to the death of Hoss Lightning from Samson Cree Nation.

Lightning died last Friday. According to RCMP, the teen called 911 and told a dispatcher he was being followed by people trying to kill him.

A B.C. man who was bitten by a police service dog four-and-a-half years ago has been awarded $60,000.

In a decision last week, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Thomas said an RCMP officer and dog handler's "intentions were good," but he made an error when he released the dog too quickly.

Police were called to the man's house for a domestic dispute. He was charged with assault causing bodily harm, mischief and threatening to harm an animal — his partner's cat, according to the B.C. Prosecution Service (BCPS).

But "after receiving new information," Crown counsel concluded that the charge approval standard was no longer met and entered a stay of proceedings.

The Ottawa police secretly wiretapped five of its Somali officers and their family members for months, never laid any charges, and refuses to tell them why, alleges a $2.5-million lawsuit filed by the officers.

In the suit against the Ottawa Police Services Board, filed last year and reported now for the first time exclusively by CBC, the officers allege they were subjected to racial discrimination.

The officers, some of whom have loose family connections to alleged criminals, say their relationships led to the illegal search and seizure of their most private communications. The officers allege the investigation left a lingering target on their backs, keeping them under a veil of suspicion by other officers.

Tenants of a Toronto apartment complex are fighting an application for an above-guideline increase to their rent, because nearly half of it is covering an environmental assessment that's typically used to help the landlord sell or redevelop the property.

The application was filed during the 2021 pandemic rent freeze for a 3.81 per cent AGI to cover roughly $647,000 in expenses from replacing a boiler, roof, paving and for "site remediation."

But according to records submitted in support of the application, it appears only about $26,800 of the $295,373.72 claimed for "site remediation" was spent on disposing contaminated soil found under the parking lot. That was in spite of an assessment finding that the soil wouldn't pose a health concern to residents, unless the property were redeveloped.

The remainder of expenses claimed as site remediation went toward the costs of a geo-environmental investigation and assessment of the site, according to engineering reports and invoices submitted with the application.

The man who oversaw the creation of thousands of forged artworks in Thunder Bay, Ont., falsely attributed to Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau faces a five-year penitentiary sentence.

David John Voss pleaded guilty on June 4 to counts of forgery and uttering forged documents for operating an art fraud ring out of Thunder Bay between 1996 and 2019.

Investigators have called the case Canada's largest art fraud investigation, resulting in more than 1,000 paintings seized.

No one should be surprised by what Singh has done and how he chose to do it. NDP labour critic Mathew Green telegraphed publicly that his party had to have “tough conversations” about the deal with the Liberals — including the possibility of opting out of it.

Towards the end of a dull summer of barbecue politics, Singh’s decision to scuttle the agreement to support the Liberals caught many people off guard. But the reality is that this decision was inevitable, and, from a political point of view, well-advised.

. . .

But the deal was a flop at the political box office for the NDP. Instead of getting credit for pushing the Trudeau government on key, progressive issues, the party saw its popularity decline.

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Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad’s distrust of accepted climate science was on full display during an almost two-hour interview with Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychology professor who rocketed to fame several years ago with his YouTube discussions of right-wing culture war topics.

In the interview, Rustad and Peterson delve into their shared skepticism of climate science and talk about the idea that accumulated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually good for the planet. It’s the opposite conclusion from accepted climate science that finds human-caused CO2 emissions are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise, leading to consequences including increases in the frequency and severity of droughts, wildfires, flooding and storms.

“It’s a sad reality, but how is it that we’ve convinced carbon-based beings that carbon is a problem?” Rustad says at one point.

She said she pulled over on the side of the road on the weekend after seeing six black bear cubs and their mom hanging around an oak tree on the property.

"It's quite amazing," she said.

Seeing black bears is pretty common for Matchizen, but not this many at once, noting she sees around six to eight bears a year.