A timeline of how BC United unravelled, less than two months before election

TORONTO – A teen girl who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the alleged swarming of a homeless Toronto man is seeking to have her sentence reduced after she was repeatedly made to strip naked during searches while in custody.

The teen was one of eight girls – all between the ages of 13 and 16 –arrested in the death of Kenneth Lee, who police allege was attacked by a group of girls in December 2022.

An agreed statement of facts related to the strip searches was read in court Wednesday as part of the teen’s sentencing hearing, which is scheduled to continue next month.

It says the girl, who was 13 at the time, was forced to strip naked on four occasions while in custody at a Kingston, Ont., facility in the weeks following her arrest.

The document says she was also made to strip naked twice at a facility in London, Ont., earlier this year while in custody on an unrelated assault charge. She has since pleaded guilty to that charge, court heard.

The statement of facts says the searches were routine procedures after the girl arrived at a facility or returned from a family visit or court appearance.

A written policy that was in place at the Kingston facility from 2006 until January of this year required youth to strip naked for searches, according to the agreed statement of facts. The London facility’s written policy had no such requirement but two staff members “misunderstood,” the document said.

A Ministry of Children and Youth Services policy on in-custody searches states that while routine strip searches are permitted, “the young person must not be completely undressed for any period of time.”

Testifying on Wednesday, the girl said she didn’t realize for a long time that what happened to her was wrong.

The teen said she still feels shame surrounding the searches.

“I still get that feeling” of feeling dirty, she said, adding she is speaking to a counsellor about it.

“It was humiliating, to be honest . . . It made me feel really bad about myself,” she told the court.

The girl teared up as she told the court she has struggled with body image issues since she was a child and feels uncomfortable when people look at her.

At least two other girls who have pleaded guilty in the case are expected to make submissions related to strip searches.

In total, four girls have pleaded guilty in the case – three to manslaughter and one to assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.

The remaining four girls are set to be tried in Superior Court next year, three of them on a charge of second-degree murder and one on a charge of manslaughter.

None of the girls can be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Planet-warming emissions released by Canada’s record-breaking 2023 wildfires were quadruple the country’s fossil fuel emissions for the previous year, and were surpassed only by the three most high-emitting countries, a new NASA study has found.

The study published Wednesday in the journal Nature says only China, India and the United States release more carbon per year than Canada’s 2023 wildfires did from May to September.

Lead author Brendan Byrne called the results “pretty shocking,” and said they raised concerns about whether Canada’s boreal forest can be relied on in the future to absorb more carbon than it emits.

“There’s a concern that the more frequent fires could really limit the ability of the forest to take up carbon,” said Byrne, a carbon cycle scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

The study says extreme hot and dry conditions helped drive wildfires that burned through four per cent of Canada’s forest area and led to the evacuation of 232,000 people.

Climate models project that those conditions may become normal by mid-century and lead to increased fire activity.

That raises questions about one of humanity’s important allies in the fight to slow climate change.

Canada’s forests have long absorbed more carbon than they release and forests around the world are thought to absorb about 25 per cent of human-caused emissions. Increased fire activity, however, “will reduce the capacity of these Canadian forests to continue to act as a carbon sink,” the study says.

Any reduction will then have to be reflected in global climate targets to limit global warming, Byrne said.

“If those ecosystems start releasing carbon, that’s not something you really account for and it’s not something that gets picked up in the Paris Agreement’s commitments to reduce emissions,” Byrne said.

How Canada accounts for wildfire emissions has drawn the ire of environmental groups in recent years.

The study notes Canada does not count wildfire emissions toward its national greenhouse gas emissions, a decision that differs from United Nations guidelines. Those guidelines suggest countries should treat all carbon emissions on managed lands as human caused.

Instead, Canada treats wildfires as natural disturbances.

Environmental groups have argued that accounting obfuscates the forestry industry’s climate impact. It is not charged with wildfire emissions but gets credited for emissions absorbed by forests once they are old enough to be harvested, even if they grew back after wildfires, the groups have argued.

Natural Resources Canada has said its forest sector reporting is backed by continuous scientific consultation and review.

In a shift this year, Canada’s greenhouse gas inventory report to the United Nations did for the first time report that the forestry sector had been emitting more carbon than it absorbs. The government said the revised number was based off new estimates that showed the logging industry had harvested a smaller area than assumed before 1990.

Nature Canada, an environmental charity, has called the shift “meaningful,” but said it still underreported emissions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

WINNIPEG – They were loving daughters, mothers and friends whose ambition and potential were snuffed out by a “monster.”

Serial killer Jeremy Skibicki was sentenced Wednesday to four concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years in the 2022 slayings of four Indigenous women in Winnipeg.

Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal told a sentencing hearing he was bound by law to impose the automatic sentence after convicting Skibicki, 37, last month of four counts of first-degree murder.

Relatives and supporters of Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran, Rebecca Contois and an unidentified woman Indigenous community members have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, packed the courtroom as multiple victim impact statements were read.

Some wore sweatshirts bearing the smiling faces of Myran and Contois. A large painted portrait of Myran with a red handprint across her mouth was on display.

Elle Harris told court she can’t condense the loss of her mother into words on a piece of paper.

“Do you know how many times I had to listen to how my mother was murdered, in horrific detail?” the daughter of Morgan Harris asked.

“I am left with my confusion and my anger. I am left without closure. I am left with trauma … I am left feeling numb and hurt. And, finally, I am left without my mother to help me get through it all.”

Skibicki showed no emotion during the roughly 3 1/2-hour hearing. He sat in the prisoner’s box flanked by sheriffs and stared straight ahead without acknowledging the family members who shared statements.

Cambria Harris, Morgan Harris’s eldest daughter, stood with her partner and looked directly at Skibicki as she spoke.

“Every moment (Skibicki) spends in this courtroom breathing, free even in shackles, is another moment my mother is not,” she said.

“While (Skibicki) gets to stay there, surrounded and protected, my mother continues to lay in a landfill — the very place (Skibicki) put her.”

Cambria Harris said her mother, who had five children, was robbed of the opportunity to spend time with her youngest child and granddaughter.

Court heard Morgan Harris was also loved by many who called the streets home, as the 39-year-old did at various points in her life.

Cambria Harris said her mother struggled with mental health issues, and Skibicki stole any chance she had of getting the help she deserved.

She ended her statement by swearing at Skibicki in a calm, raised voice, after which the gallery erupted into cheers and applause.

Grand Chief Cathy Merrick of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs told court the killings have left deep scars and will be felt for generations.

“The actions of this convicted murderer have underscored the need for justice and accountability,” Merrick said, fighting back tears.

The trial heard Skibicki targeted the women at homeless shelters, then strangled or drowned them before disposing of their remains in garbage bins in the spring of 2022.

The killings came to light when a man looking for scrap metal found the partial remains of 24-year-old Contois in a dumpster in Skibicki’s neighbourhood. More of her remains were discovered at a city-run landfill.

Jeremy Contois read a statement on behalf of his sister Stephanie, as she stood by.

In it, she described the moment police arrived at her home to tell her they had found the body of her sister, leaving her in the most agonizing shock she’s ever felt.

“I can’t look at a garbage bin … it makes me sick to my stomach,” she wrote.

During a police interrogation, Skibicki admitted to killing Rebecca Contois and the three other women.

Skibicki told police the killings were racially motivated and cited white supremacist beliefs.

At trial, a defence lawyer said Skibicki admitted to the killings but was too mentally ill to be held criminally responsible.

The judge said he agreed with a psychiatrist who testified for the Crown that Skibicki didn’t have a mental disorder that affected his ability to know the killings were morally wrong.

During the sentencing hearing, Joyal asked if Skibicki had anything to say.

“Nope,” he replied.

In 2022, police said they believed the remains of Harris and Myran were taken to another landfill outside the city but there would be no search. Police said too much time had passed and it would be too complex and dangerous.

There were countrywide protests demanding a search of the Prairie Green landfill. The federal and Manitoba governments recently committed a combined $40 million for a search, which is expected to start later this year.

Joyal acknowledged the “profound grief” each of the families have had to endure. He thanked them for their bravery and honesty.

The women’s families “deserved more than what can be accomplished in a courtroom,” he added.

Outside the courthouse, Myran’s sister said she appreciated Joyal’s words, but added the sentence will never be enough.

“What (Skibicki) did to those women, he deserves a lot more than what was put on him today,” said Jorden Myran.

Her grandmother, Donna Bartlett, called Skibicki an “evil monster.”

“He has hurt this family, tore it apart, ripped our souls to pieces. That’s going to be there forever.”

The federal government has a support line for those affected by the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls: 1-844-413-6649. The Hope for Wellness Helpline, with support in Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut, is also available to all Indigenous people in Canada: 1-855-242-3310.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2024.