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OTTAWA – Former vice-admiral Haydn Edmundson has been found not guilty of sexual assault and committing an indecent act, concluding a trial that began in February.

Edmundson was head of the military’s personnel in 2021 when he was accused of assaulting another member of the navy during a 1991 deployment.

The complainant, Stephanie Viau, testified during the trial that she was 19 years old and in the navy’s lowest rank at the time of the alleged assault, while Edmundson was an older officer.

Edmundson pleaded not guilty and testified that he never had sexual contact with Viau.

In court on Monday, a small group of his supporters gasped when the verdict was read, and Edmundson shook his lawyer’s hand.

Outside court, lawyer Brian Greenspan said his client was gratified by the “clear, decisive vindication of his steadfast position that he was not guilty of these false accusations.”

Justice Matthew Webber read his entire decision to the court Monday, concluding that the Crown did not meet the standard of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

He cited concerns with the complainant’s memory of what happened more than 30 years ago, and a lack of evidence to corroborate her account.

“There are just too many problems, and I’m not in the business of … declaring what happened. That’s not my job, you know, my job is to just decide whether or not guilt has been proven to the requisite standard, and it hasn’t,” Webber said.

During the trial, Viau testified that one of her responsibilities on board the ship was to wake officers for night watch and other overnight duties, and that she woke Edmundson regularly during that 1991 deployment.

The court has heard conflicting evidence about the wake-up calls.

Viau estimated that she woke Edmundson every second or third night, and she told the court that his behaviour became progressively worse during the deployment.

She testified that he started sleeping naked and that one night she found him completely exposed on top of the sheets.

Viau said she “went berserk,” yelling at him and turning on the lights to wake the other officer sleeping in the top bunk.

That incident was the basis for the indecent act charge.

Webber said he did not believe that Viau could have caused such a disruption on board a navy ship at night without notice from others.

“I conclude that (Viau’s) overall evidence on the allegation that Mr. Edmundson did progressively expose himself to her as being far too compromised to approach proof of those allegations that she has made,” he said in his decision.

Viau alleged that the sexual assault happened a couple of days after her yelling at Edmundson.

She testified at trial that he stopped her in the corridor and called her into his sleeping quarters to talk. Viau said Edmundson kept her from leaving the room, and he sexually assaulted her.

When Edmundson took the stand in his own defence he denied having physical or sexual contact with Viau.

During his testimony, Edmundson also said Viau did not wake him regularly during that deployment because his role as the ship’s navigator kept him on mostly day shifts.

Defence lawyer Brian Greenspan took aim at the Crown’s corroborating witness during cross-examination. The woman, whose name is protected by a court-ordered publication ban, was a friend of Viau’s on the ship.

She testified that she remembered the evening of the assault because she and Viau had been getting ready for a night out during a port visit, and she misplaced her reading glasses. She said Viau offered to go fetch them from another part of the ship but never came back, and that she went looking for her friend.

On cross-examination, the woman explained that she had told all of this to a CBC reporter in early 2021.

Greenspan produced a transcript of that interview that he said suggests the reporter told her key details of Viau’s story before asking her any questions.

Greenspan argued the reporter provided information to the witness and she wouldn’t have been able to corroborate the story otherwise.

In his decision, Webber said the woman’s evidence “cannot be relied upon in any respect to corroborate that evidence of the complainant, because it’s it’s clearly a tainted recollection, doesn’t represent a real memory.”

Edmundson was one of several senior military leaders accused of sexual misconduct in early 2021.

He stepped down from his position as head of military personnel after the accusation against him was made public in 2021. The charges were laid months later, in December 2021.

Edmundson testified that in February 2022, he was directed by the chief of the defence staff to retire from the Armed Forces.

The crisis led to an external review by former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour in May 2022, whose report called for sweeping changes to reform the toxic culture of the Armed Forces.

The military’s new defence chief, Gen. Jennie Carignan, was promoted to the newly created role of chief of professional conduct and culture in an effort to enact the reforms in the Arbour report.

Outside court, Edmundson declined to comment on whether he was considering legal action against the government or the military.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

OTTAWA – Liberal House leader Karina Gould lambasted Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as a “fraudster” Monday morning after he said the federal carbon price is going to cause a “nuclear winter.”

Gould was speaking just before the House of Commons is set to reopen following the summer break. Monday is the first sitting since the end of an agreement that had the NDP insulate the Liberals from the possibility of a snap election, one the Conservatives are eager to trigger.

With the prospect of a confidence vote that could send Canadians to the polls, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet cast doubt on how long MPs will be sitting in the House of Commons.

“We are playing chicken with four cars. Eventually, one will eat another one, and there will be a wreckage. So, I’m not certain that this session will last a very long time,” Blanchet told reporters on Monday.

On Sunday Poilievre said increasing the carbon price will cause a “nuclear winter,” painting a dystopian picture of people starving and freezing because they can’t afford food or heat due the carbon price.

He said the Liberals’ obsession with carbon pricing is “an existential threat to our economy and our way of life.”

The carbon price currently adds about 17.6 cents to every litre of gasoline, but that cost is offset by carbon rebates mailed to Canadians every three months.

The Parliamentary Budget Office provided analysis that showed eight in 10 households receive more from the rebates than they pay in carbon pricing, though the office also warned that long-term economic effects could harm jobs and wage growth.

Gould accused Poilievre of ignoring the rebates, and refusing to tell Canadians how he would make life more affordable while battling climate change.

“What I heard yesterday from Mr. Poilievre was so over the top, so irresponsible, so immature, and something that only a fraudster would do,” Gould said from Parliament Hill.

The Liberals have also accused the Conservatives of dismissing the expertise of more than 200 economists who wrote a letter earlier this year describing the carbon price as the least expensive, most efficient way to lower emissions.

Poilievre is pushing for the other opposition parties to vote the government down and trigger what he calls a “carbon tax election.”

Despite previously supporting the consumer carbon price, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been distancing himself from the policy.

Singh wouldn’t say last week whether an NDP government would keep the consumer carbon price. On Monday, he told reporters Canadians were already “doing their part” to fight climate change, but that big polluters are getting a “free ride.”

He said the New Democrats will focus this fall on affordability issues like housing and grocery costs, arguing the Liberals and Conservatives are beholden to big business.

“Their governments have been in it for CEOs and big corporations,” he told reporters Monday on Parliament Hill.

Poilievre intends to bring a non-confidence motion against the government as early as this week but would likely need both the Bloc and NDP to support it. Neither have indicated an appetite for triggering an election.

Gould said she has no “crystal ball” over when or how often Poilievre might try to bring down the government.

“I know that the end of the supply and confidence agreement makes things a bit different, but really all it does is returns us to a normal minority parliament,” she said.

“That means that we will work case-by-case, legislation-by-legislation with whichever party wants to work with us,” she said, adding she’s already been in touch with colleagues in other parties to “make Parliament work for Canadians.”

The Liberals said at their caucus retreat last week that they would be sharpening their attacks on Poilievre this fall, seeking to reverse his months-long rise in the polls.

Freeland suggested she had no qualms with criticizing Poilievre’s rhetoric while having a colleague call him a fraudster.

She said Monday that the Liberals must “be really clear with Canadians about what the Conservative Party is saying, about what it is standing for — and about the veracity, or not, of the statements of the Conservative leader.”

Meanwhile, Gould insisted the government has listened to the concerns raised by Canadians, and received the message when the Liberals were defeated in a Toronto byelection in June, losing a seat the party had held since 1997.

“We certainly got the message from Toronto-St. Paul’s and have spent the summer reflecting on what that means and are coming back to Parliament, I think, very clearly focused on ensuring that Canadians are at the centre of everything that we do moving forward,” she said.

The Liberals are bracing, however, for the possibility of another blow Monday night, in a tight race to hold a Montreal seat in a byelection there. Voters in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun are casting ballots today to replace former justice minister David Lametti, who was removed from cabinet in 2023 and resigned as an MP in January.

The Conservatives and NDP are also in a tight race in Elmwood-Transcona, a Winnipeg seat that has mostly been held by the NDP over the last several decades.

There are several key bills making their way through the legislative process, including the online harms act and the NDP-endorsed pharmacare bill, which is currently in the Senate.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

VICTORIA – British Columbia Premier David Eby has announced his government has committed to earlier and enhanced pensions for wildland firefighters, saying the province owes them a “deep debt of gratitude” for their efforts in battling recent fire seasons.

Eby says in a statement the province and the BC General Employees’ Union have reached an agreement-in-principle to “enhance” pensions for firefighting personnel employed directly by the BC Wildfire Service.

It says the change will give wildland firefighters provisions like those in other public-safety careers such as ambulance paramedics and corrections workers.

The statement says wildfire personnel could receive their earliest pensions up to five years before regular members of the public service pension plan.

The province and the union are aiming to finalize the agreement early next year with changes taking effect in 2026, and while eligibility requirements are yet to be confirmed, the statement says the “majority” of workers at the BC Wildfire Service would qualify.

Union president Paul Finch says wildfire fighters “take immense risks and deserve fair compensation,” and the pension announcement marks a “major victory.”

“This change will help retain a stable, experienced workforce, ready to protect our communities when we need them most,” Finch says in the statement.

About 1,300 firefighters were employed directly by the wildfire service this year. B.C. has increased the service’s permanent full-time staff by 55 per cent since 2022.

About 350 firefighting personnel continue to battle more than 200 active blazes across the province, with 60 per cent of them now classified as under control.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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