Canada

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.

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.

The chief of a northern Manitoba First Nation that has been under a boil water advisory since 2018 says he's frustrated by a lack of action from the federal government on funding upgrades to its water treatment plant — an issue the First Nation is taking to Federal Court next month.

Shamattawa First Nation's boil water advisory stems from an issue that peaks during the spring, when the ice clogs the treatment plant's intake line, resulting in brown, contaminated water pouring from people's taps.

Chief Jordna Hill said an end to the boil water advisory is "nowhere in sight," and it has significant effects on the well-being of people in the community of nearly 1,500.

Hopefully this doesn't get lost in the mix of other scandals (ex. ArriveCan, foreign interference) like it did last time.

A protest at Portage and Main turned into panic on Wednesday afternoon after a man drove a car through the downtown Winnipeg intersection during the demonstration, held in response to the death of a woman who was hit by a police cruiser earlier this week.

The man drove toward the intersection and protesters less than half an hour into the event, which started at noon and blocked the Portage Avenue and Main Street intersection.

At least two people attempted to block the vehicle's path with their bicycles, but the driver continued to move forward before others jumped on the car's hood, a video posted to Instagram by the cyclist group Critical Mass Winnipeg shows.

Archive: [ https://archive.is/wgFMS ]

The Globe requested records and communications used to produce the statement and its conclusion on the day of its publication. Under the federal Access to Information Act, institutions have 30 days to respond to requests, which can be extended. Defence did not respond to the request nor did it give notice of an extension.

Last year, The Globe published Secret Canada, an investigation into the country's faltering access to information system. Among other findings, Secret Canada showed that government departments, at all levels, routinely flout their legal obligations without consequences and fail to respond to requesters within the required time limits.

In its latest annual report, Defence said it responded to access to information requests within legal time limits 61.7 per cent of the time in 2022-23, a decrease from the previous year. Overall, Ottawa said federal institutions responded within legal time limits to 72.3 per cent of requests that year.

Buildings in B.C. that are under six storeys will no longer be required to have more than one egress staircase, a change that has firefighters concerned about safety.

B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon announced the change to the provincial building code last week.

He says the change will help with the province’s housing crisis.

Requiring only a single staircase leaves more space for housing units, and makes six-storey buildings viable on smaller lots.

Earlier this year, B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon admitted that vacancy control protects vulnerable renters from British Columbia’s exploitive rental market.

It was a low-key about-face from an NDP government that has repeatedly disappointed over 100,000 B.C. households at risk of homelessness by insisting that vacancy control measures are not in its housing policy tool box.

Furthermore, without vacancy control, landlords are incentivized to make bad-faith evictions in the pursuit of higher rent, according to Kahlon himself, just this year.

Nevertheless, the NDP government repeatedly rebuffed vacancy control because it was excluded from the recommendations of a Rental Housing Task Force report produced six years ago. Meanwhile, the average rent for a newly listed one-bedroom unit in Vancouver increased $706 per month, or about 37 per cent, from 2019 to 2024.

In his written representation, Abdelrazik's lawyer Paul Champ argues the witnesses are "very experienced dealing with highly confidential matters" and calls the suggestion that they might blurt out classified information "speculative at best."

"The open court principle is especially important in this case because it involves allegations of malfeasance and complicity in serious human rights abuses by senior government officials," he writes.

"There is a strong public interest in the public hearing government witnesses defend their actions in this case."

CBC News is seeking to intervene in the case, arguing the Crown's motion "would unjustifiably limit the open court principle and infringe upon the freedoms of expression and of the press."

A pair of Toronto lawyers accused of embezzling nearly $7 million from real estate clients has been found in contempt of court for failing to hand over financial records and answer questions about where the money went.

Singa Bui and her husband Nicholas Cartel face penalties that could include fines or even imprisonment, and will likely also draw misconduct charges from Ontario's professional regulatory body for lawyers, two experts in professional legal discipline said.

"Although they must know what happened to the funds, they have refused to provide this information," Ontario Superior Court Justice William Chalmers ruled in late August.

"Instead of attempting to comply with the orders to the best of their ability, I find that the defendants have taken active steps to hide their finances and to frustrate the court's efforts to determine what happened."

Carbon emissions from logging would be the third highest emitting sector of Canada's economy, if the federal government reported them out separately, according to a new report from groups including Nature Canada.

A hazardous waste processing facility owned by the Alberta government was granted permission by the same government to operate without mercury monitoring equipment for years, despite such monitoring being a condition of its operating permit.

She's now seeking an apology from Nova Scotia Health and the Colchester East Hants Health Centre after Paxton was sent home by two doctors in Truro, only to end up in emergency brain surgery at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.

"For them to basically tell us to leave with a child that can't even walk or say more than a couple of words and is hallucinating … that's not normal, in my opinion," said Weatherbie.

She said on top of the fact Paxton could barely walk or talk, he was vomiting, his forehead was protruding and his tongue was black and swollen. He also had a seizure seven hours earlier, which had never happened to him before.

"I carried him back out to the car, called the IWK and they said bring him straight down. He was in a CT scan under five minutes of being [there]," said Weatherbie.

The Alberta government says it's moving ahead this fall with legislation that would require parents to proactively sign up to have their children opt-in, rather than the usual practice of opting out, for sex education.

It's a move that has teachers wondering what problem the province is looking to solve.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, in a statement, said school boards, teachers, superintendents and parents are being consulted.

"We intend to propose legislation this fall and will continue to consult with stakeholders throughout the implementation of these policies," Nicolaides said.

It's not clear what the legislation might look like, but Premier Danielle Smith said in February it would involve parents opting-in their children to each formal lesson on sexual health.