Alberta forestry minister says wolverine, lynx trapping limits lifted to gather data

GATINEAU, Que. – A court order obtained by the Competition Bureau will require legal-software company Dye & Durham Ltd. to release records related to its business practices, the federal watchdog agency said Thursday.

It’s the latest development in an ongoing Competition Bureau probe, which aims to determine if Toronto-based Dye & Durham has engaged in anti-competitive behaviour and abused its dominant position in the market.

The bureau is examining what it calls certain Dye & Durham practices that may prevent competing software firms from supplying products or services to legal practitioners.

While no conclusion of wrongdoing has been made, the Competition Bureau said in a news release Thursday it is seeking information from the public to advance its investigation. It said it welcomes feedback from legal-software users and providers.

Dye & Durham’s stock price immediately sank on the news, and was down more than 17 per cent as of midday trading Thursday.

In a news release, Dye & Durham said it is fully co-operating with the Competition Bureau’s investigation and will “continue to take steps to inform and educate the bureau on its business and industry practices.”

The company went on to say it is concerned the Competition Bureau may be acting on allegations from industry competitors who have “resisted productivity enhancing innovation.”

It said it is also concerned the bureau’s allegations “improperly contextualize” commercial relationships and standard software industry business practices.

At the same time it is being investigated for potential anticompetitive behaviour, Dye & Durham has been trying to defend itself against an aggressive activist investor.

New York-based Engine LLP, which owns approximately 7.1 per cent of the company’s stock, has proposed its own slate of rival candidates for election to Dye & Durham’s board of directors at its upcoming annual general meeting.

Engine said this week that a boardroom overhaul is warranted at Dye & Durham after what it called “years of disappointing shareholder returns, value-destructive M&A, high employee turnover, inappropriate executive compensation and anti-shareholder action.”

Dye & Durham responded by saying that Engine’s attempt at a wholesale replacement of the board and management team puts the company’s “extraordinary track record and future trajectory at risk.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

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MONTREAL – One of the lawyers for a Quebec man who was acquitted Wednesday of a decades-old double murder hopes her client’s case will convince other wrongfully convicted people not to lose hope.

For the first time in more than 40 years, Claude Paquin woke up today as a completely free man after Quebec’s Crown prosecutor’s office declined to try him for a second time for the 1978 murders of Ronald Bourgouin and Sylvie Revah.

Lawyer Julie Harinen describes the result as “historic and exceptional” because so few murder convictions are overturned in Quebec.

Paquin was first convicted of the murders in 1983, his appeal was unsuccessful, and he served 18 years in detention before being granted parole.

Project Innocence Quebec took up his case, and this year federal Justice Minister Arif Virani ordered a new trial after concluding there were reasonable grounds to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.

Harinen says the prosecutor’s decision to drop the case was based on new evidence that emerged, including that the informant who served as the main witness against Paquin changed his story and received money and favours in return for testimony.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

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A resident of British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast says a rare tornado that she saw touch down on Monday was like a scene out of a movie with trees coming down “like dominoes” in the high winds.

Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project, which tracks storm events across Canada, has confirmed that what Lynn Smith captured on video during the windstorms that hit much of the B.C. coast was a tornado, with wind speeds of 115 km/h.

Smith says she turned on the camera hoping to send a tongue-in-cheek clip to a relative about the “beautiful day” outside Sechelt, where she regularly travels from her home in Halfmoon Bay.

Smith says stormy weather in the region isn’t out of the ordinary but when she saw a “big, healthy” tree come down, she knew something wasn’t right.

The footage captured by Smith from her car shows winds whipping up forest debris as a tree falls across the road and she gasps in disbelief.

Smith says she was worried someone was injured and called 911 when she turned around, flashing her lights at oncoming traffic to warn them of the downed trees.

Northern Tornadoes Project executive director David Sills says the team is still awaiting satellite imagery data on the tornado event.

The Sechelt tornado is only the second recorded by the project in B.C. this year, after one that occurred over Mabel Lake in the B.C. Interior in August.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

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