Closing arguments begin in ex-Hedley singer Jacob Hoggard’s sexual assault trial

HALIFAX – Federal fisheries officers in Nova Scotia say they’re refusing some enforcement duties because of threats to their safety, as they await Ottawa’s response to their complaints.

The union representing the officers says its members have been shot at, that people have tried to steal their firearms, and that officers — and their families — have been threatened for trying to stop illegal fishing.

“They’ve been exposed to firearms such as automatic weapons (against) which their current body armour does not protect them,” Shimen Fayad, president of the Union of Health and Environment Workers, said in an email Wednesday.

She said a federal labour investigator is reviewing documents from the Fisheries Department and from officers who have refused some enforcement duties on the water and on wharfs in the province.

We expect to hear something next week,” Fayad said regarding the process authorized under the Canada Labour Code to refuse dangerous work.

Commercial fishers, meanwhile, are calling for increased enforcement, saying that illegal and unregulated fishing is becoming more frequent across the province.

“We want real, tangible enforcement activity placed upon the illegal, black market lobster activity that’s ongoing throughout the Maritimes,” said Dan Fleck, executive director of the Brazil Rock 33/34 Lobster Association, in a recent telephone interview.

Under provisions of the Canada Labour Code, the fisheries minister is empowered to decide after an investigation whether “danger exists,” and issue mandatory directions for safety changes.

But if Steven MacKinnon’s office finds that there isn’t any danger on the water, then department employees aren’t entitled to refuse work, according to the law. That decision can be appealed, however.

Fayad said that when her members first brought their concerns to the government, the Fisheries Department found there was “no danger” to the workers, which led to the labour minister’s review.

Doug Wentzell, the federal Fisheries Department’s regional manager for the Maritimes, said in a recent interview, “we do have a number of officers that have refused field work …. and we’re working through that process with the (federal) ministry of labour.”

The civil service manager said that despite the refusals “the majority of our officers are in the field in the region and we’re also supplementing those resources with officers from other DFO regions.” He estimated there are about 100 field officers in the Maritimes.

A government source with knowledge of the refusal to work applications said that about half of field officers in southwestern Nova Scotia — home to the region’s most lucrative lobster fishery — are not carrying out enforcement duties in the field due to the safety concerns.

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the risk of employment reprisals, said the work has become more violent as fishers are increasingly unwilling to accept officers’ authority. He also said tensions with some Indigenous fishers are rising.

“We’ve raised our problems with management. Management has chosen to ignore the issues,” he said.

“As we go through this problem, officers have found themselves in dangerous situations. There have been three officers hit by vehicles. We’ve had a struggle where a person tried to take an officer’s firearm. There’s been very serious altercations,” he said.

Efforts to enforce fisheries regulations in the lucrative fishing of baby eels, known as elvers, in East Coast rivers over the spring were also a source of tension with First Nations, he said.

However, the chief of a First Nation whose members fish lobster off southwestern Nova Scotia said Indigenous fishers are not aggressors, but rather are continuing to fish to support and feed their families.

“Our Mi’kmaq fishers have been through enough. DFO Officers are not the victims, and we will not accept this narrative,” wrote Chief Michelle Glasgow, the leader of Sipekne’katik First Nation, in an email.

She said the lobster fishers from her community are exercising their treaty rights and will continue to do so. “All they (federal fisheries officers) need to do is respect this. They cannot continue to harass our people and tell us how much we can eat and how much we can feed our people. If they are afraid, it is not by our actions.”

Chief Wilbert Marshall, co-lead of fisheries for the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, said in an emailed statement that “violence on the water is unacceptable. No one should have to be concerned about their safety when going to work — whether they work for (DFO) conservation and protection, or if they are fishing.”

“We have seen these types of conflicts for over 20 years and things need to change. We have been working to build bridges with DFO and conservation and protection officers on the treaty rights protected fishery to help create a more coherent environment for everyone. We want a future where these types of safety issues can be avoided, but we need true collaboration to get there,” said the statement.

In 2020, the tensions flared in southwestern Nova Scotia to the point where Indigenous traps were cut, one boat was destroyed and a lobster pound that handled Mi’kmaq catch was burned to the ground.

RCMP Supt. Jason Popik, the recently appointed senior officer for Southwest Nova district, said in an interview that DFO officers continue to be “out on the water” off Meteghan, N.S., and that there were two significant enforcement efforts in recent weeks in southern Nova Scotia.

“It’s showing the community that they’re working, they’re trying … I’m not seeing a big (work) stoppage down there.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.

QUEBEC – NHL hockey is back in Quebec City this week, but the Los Angeles Kings aren’t the team that fans of the long-departed Quebec Nordiques have longed to see.

In his Quebec City basement, surrounded by Nordiques memorabilia, Yan Marcil says the departure of the city’s former NHL team to Colorado in 1995 has left a “scar” whose pain has faded over time.

“I was 16,” he said, “and I still cried.” For the next five years, he refused to watch hockey at all. “I renounced everything,” he said.

Decades later, Marcil and many other Nordiques fans will be filling the stands this week as the L.A. Kings play two pre-season games in Quebec City, beginning Thursday night against the Boston Bruins.

Subsidized by up to $7 million in public money, the Kings’ trip has been billed by the Quebec government as an opportunity to showcase the city — and the arena built in the hopes of attracting a franchise — as a suitable host for a new team.

“I thought it’s the right step in the process to bring a team back in Quebec City — it’s a step — there will be other steps,” Finance Minister Eric Girard said last year.

But while Marcil is looking forward to the games, he and other Nordiques fans are skeptical the Kings’ trip could lead to their team’s return.

Jean-François Leclerc, a self-described Nordiques superfan, still gets choked up when he remembers watching with a close childhood friend as his idol Peter Stastny scored the winning goal in overtime to eliminate the archrival Montreal Canadiens in the 1985 playoffs.

Leclerc said that unlike the big-city Canadiens, the speedy Nordiques were always small-market underdogs who proudly displayed their francophone heritage with the fleur-de-lis symbols on their jerseys. Unlike the Canadiens, they never won a Stanley Cup — which somehow seemed to only inspire more loyalty. “It was us against the world,” he said.

While he’d love to see a team return, he doesn’t believe the NHL wants to support new franchises in Canada, and knows the cost of one — often estimated at around $1 billion — is out of reach. “I’m a finance guy, so I understand the reality,” Leclerc said.

Both he and Marcil have instead done something they would have never considered in Nordiques days: they’ve become Montreal Canadiens fans.

Moshe Lander, a sports economist with Concordia University, puts Quebec City’s chances of getting a team back as less than 10 per cent. He says the lack of a pool of billionaires makes it unlikely the NHL will expand to another Canadian city. Quebec City, he added, would be a tough sell to players because of its size, relative geographic isolation, as well as the province’s tough language laws and high taxes.

Lander says the city’s name is “dangled” by the league as a possible expansion site as a way of creating a sense of competition and pressuring other cities to pony up more money.

“Quebec City is being used as a patsy in a very strategic game by very shrewd billionaires and (Premier François Legault) has bought into that fantasy that somehow Quebec City will get a team,” he said in a phone interview.

Leclerc, who lives in Gatineau, Que., won’t be travelling to Quebec City for the games. He opposes the public subsidy, believing it makes Quebecers look like “hillbillies” who need to pay millions of dollars to get a team to come play.

But for some Nordiques fans, the NHL’s return to Quebec City is enough to lure them back from afar.

Christian Loyer, 51, will be flying all the way from Coventry, England, to watch Saturday’s Kings-Panthers matchup. Once he realized the visit came just a month before his brother’s 50th birthday, he immediately bought them both tickets, he said in a phone interview from the U.K.

“It’s a like a return to childhood,” said Loyer, who grew up in Quebec City. “I’m excited, I’m eager, I really have butterflies in my stomach.”

Unlike other fans who spoke to The Canadian Press, Loyer expressed hope that the Kings’ visit could potentially help build a case for an NHL team’s return. “I hope it will be sold out so we can prove there’s a place for the NHL in Quebec,” he said, promising to fly back for games if it ever happens.

On Wednesday, several of the spectators who showed up to watch the Kings practise at the Videotron Centre described themselves as Nordiques fans. None expressed much hope for the team’s return.

Unbeknownst to most of them, however, there was at least one Nordique in the building.

Eighty-year-old Jean-Claude Garneau, a member of the 1974-1975 Nordiques team, said he was there to compare the modern game to the one he played. “It’s faster, but not as rough as in my days,” observed Garneau, who wore a sports coat and Nordiques ring.

Garneau said he, too, would like to see his former team return, but has the same doubts as other fans. “They’d rather create jobs in the states than create them in Quebec,” he said of the NHL.

He said he plans to be in the audience to watch the Kings play both the Bruins on Thursday and the Florida Panthers on Saturday — his presence perhaps the closest thing fans will get to the team’s return, for now.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.

New Democrat Leader David Eby has released his party’s British Columbia election campaign platform promising to find solutions to “today’s tough challenges” in the province.

The 65-page platform lists about $2.9 billion in what it calls new investments until 2027, while mentioning rival B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad by name 56 times, compared with 29 times for Eby.

Among what the party says are new pledges are a $1,000-per-household grocery rebate, allowing pets in purpose-built rentals and free off-peak transit for seniors, while pledges that have already been unveiled include a middle-class tax cut.

The platform also forecasts reductions in revenue of more than $1.5 billion by 2027, mostly due to the tax-cut pledge.

Eby released the campaign platform, “An Action Plan For You,” on Thursday in Surrey.

It pledges to make life better for families, youth and older people.

“I hear you, and I see you,” says Eby in the platform document. “The challenges we are facing together are what drive me. And working to solve them is what gets me out of bed each morning.”

Other platform commitments include building 300,000 affordable homes, finding a family doctor for everybody in B.C., building more hospitals, ensuring safer streets by giving police more powers to fight gangs and creating good jobs by expanding training programs.

Eby also promised to ensure every public school has a mental health counsellor and to end bias against pet owners by getting rid of ‘no-pet’ clauses in purpose-built rental apartment buildings.

Rustad features heavily in the document, with breakout sections titled “What’s the Rustad risk?”

The B.C. Conservative leader has announced several economic initiatives in recent days, and on Wednesday announced a plan to end the provincial insurance corporation’s monopoly on basic vehicle insurance.

He said Thursday that this would bring in competition, drive down costs and improve services.

“Any time you’ve got competition, you’re going to get the best prices,” he said.

Rustad said ICBC has “lost its edge,” but he still believed it could be competitive.

“(That’s) why we want to build … competition and let ICBC be able to structure itself as competitively as possible so that we are seeing the best rates we can.”

The Conservatives had already pledged to exempt people who suffer life-altering injuries in crashes from ICBC’s no-fault insurance model, saying it’s unfair to accident victims to curtail opportunities to sue for damages.

An equivalent to no-fault would remain in place for minor injuries, Rustad said.

“For major injuries, we will allow … an individual to have somebody to represent them and to fight for what they need to be able to recover fully,” he said.

The Conservatives have also released a series of pledges related to infrastructure, transit and boosting the economy, including Rustad’s promise to reintroduce a minister responsible for “red tape reduction.”

“The key is we need to get to better management in this province. We need to be able to make sure that we unleash our potential,” he told reporters on Thursday.

A statement from the Conservatives says they would eliminate B.C.’s nearly $9-billion deficit within two terms of government and require voter approval of any new taxes, through referendum or an election.

“There are times when government does need to go back to the taxpayer and ask for resources for specific things, but when that time comes, they should actually ask the taxpayer, the people in this province, for permission to be able to do that.”

Rustad said the Conservatives would be rolling out announcements over the coming days and the party’s complete platform would follow.

“If anybody could give me an accurate number of … what the NDP’s deficit (is), I think that would be a great help in terms of how we could actually make sure it was fully and properly costed in terms of what we’re doing,” he added.

B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau was expected to make an announcement related to the cost of living and support for working parents in West Vancouver on Thursday.

— With files from Brenna Owen in Vancouver

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.