Mounties bust massive B.C. drug ‘supermarket’ lab linked to organized crime

EDMONTON – Alberta has introduced a trio of bills focusing on transgender people and students using preferred pronouns.

Premier Danielle Smith’s government proposed Thursday one bill that would require children under 16 to have parental consent if they want to change their names or pronouns at school.

Moments after the legislation was introduced in the legislature, LGBTQ+ organizations Egale and Skipping Stone Foundation announced they will be taking legal action, calling it discriminatory.

A similar law is on the books in Saskatchewan, where the government invoked the notwithstanding clause, a measure that allows governments to override certain Charter rights for up to five years.

Smith told reporters she believes the Charter allows for limits on rights and that her government’s restrictions are reasonable.

“We have all kinds of restrictions on the ability of minors to make decisions. And we do that because we want to make sure that they are at full capacity to be able to make decisions that are going to be consequential to them,” she said.

The bill would also require parents to opt in for their children to be taught about sexual orientation and sexual and gender identity at school.

Smith said parents need to know what’s going on with their children.

Bennett Jensen, director of legal at Egale – one of two groups that also took the Saskatchewan government to court – told The Canadian Press none of the policies are reasonable or balanced, and run counter to the expert consensus and evidence.

“It violates the Charter rights of Albertans and will cause devastating harm,” he said.

Jensen said the courts have been clear that children and young people have rights, and governments cannot focus on a specific subset of young people and deny them rights.

When asked how the rules would be enforced in schools, Smith said the Alberta Teaching Profession Commission has the ability to discipline teachers if they defy the government’s direction.

The requirements would not apply in First Nations schools, but two-spirit Indigenous students in provincially run schools would be subject to them.

The second bill would prohibit doctors from treating those under 16 seeking transgender treatments, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Currently, national policy restricts bottom surgery across Canada to those 18 and over, and such procedures don’t take place in Alberta.

The bill would also ban regulated health professionals from performing any gender-affirming surgery, including top surgery, on minors.

Jensen said the legislation singles out transgender youth, while still allowing non-transgender youth to get top surgery or to receive hormone therapy and puberty blockers for medical reasons.

“That’s discriminatory, and it’s based in bias,” he said.

Government officials said top surgery is very rare. Smith said the government doesn’t know how many minors are accessing puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

“We just want to make sure that it’s very clear that those are adult decisions to be made by adults,” she said.

Kellie-Lynn Pirie, who underwent a transition before reverting back to her birth sex, is the founder of DeTrans Alliance Canada. She said at a government news conference that she wasn’t ready to make the life-altering decision even as an adult.

“This is simply not a decision we can expect children to make,” she said.

The third bill would ban transgender athletes from competing in female amateur sports and require school and sports organizations to report eligibility complaints.

The government said it’s aiming to protect fairness and safety in sports.

Sport Minister Joseph Schow said sex registration at birth would determine competitive eligibility. Such documentation is accessible through provincial authorities.

Smith said she wants to see sports leagues create mixed-gender divisions to ensure all athletes can compete.

Many organizations have spoken out against the policies, first announced nine months ago, including Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Medical Association and the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

The proposed legislation comes days before members of Smith’s United Conservative Party are set to vote in her leadership review Saturday.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said Smith’s government is “picking on vulnerable people” to pander to her party’s base.

He said he’s heard from some 4,500 Albertans “deeply hurt” by the policies in just the past week.

Asked about the premier’s position that the legislation is in line with the Charter, he said he suspects most courts would disagree. He urged Smith to let the courts decide.

Nenshi said his party wants every Albertan, including those in the LGBTQ+ community, to not have to worry about whether their rights will be stripped.

Janis Irwin, an openly gay NDP MLA, said she’s heard from thousands of people who feel they “don’t have a place” in Alberta.

Marni Panas, a transgender woman, said there is a lot of misinformation and lies about transgender people and gender-affirming care.

“If you get to know us … you would start to understand that we’re nothing to be afraid of,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

— With files from Aaron Sousa

The day before Ripudaman Singh Malik was murdered in July 2022, a pair of hired hit men showed up at his B.C. business, “scoping out the scene” for several minutes before driving away.

The next morning, Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez appeared again at the business park in Surrey, B.C., and fired seven shots into Malik’s Tesla, killing him as he sat in the driver’s seat.

The sped off in a stolen car, which was later found on fire in a nearby laneway.

The details of Malik’s murder are outlined in an agreed statement of facts filed in B.C. Supreme Court as Fox and Lopez await sentencing after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

The statement, provided by the BC Prosecution Service, confirms the men were “hired and paid,” but does not say who ordered the assassination.

In 2005, Malik was acquitted in B.C. Supreme Court along with his co-accused, Ajaib Singh Bagri, of charges related to the bombings aimed at two Air India planes that killed 331 people in June 1985.

One bomb blew up over the ocean off Ireland, killing all 329 on board, while the second device exploded at Narita airport in Japan, killing two baggage handlers.

A 2005 Canadian government report concluded the bombings were carried out by Sikh Khalistani separatists in Canada, including bomb maker Inderjit Singh Reyat, who was convicted of manslaughter.

Members of the Khalistani movement in Canada have recently been targeted by India with crimes including homicide and extortion, according to the RCMP and the federal government, which expelled six Indian diplomats this month.

The Canadian government previously said credible intelligence linked India’s government to the killing last year of Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India has denied the claims.

The statement of facts in Malik’s case makes no mention of the Air India bombing, India, or the Sikh separatist movement.

It says Fox and Jose Lopez acted together to kill Malik, and the gunfire that day sent people working nearby — including some of Malik’s employees — running for cover.

Both men were originally charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty last week to the lesser charge, and a hearing in New Westminster on Thursday was expected to fix a date for their sentencing.

The statement of facts outlines how Fox and Lopez’s movements were “were captured on various surveillance cameras and traffic cameras,'” on the day before and day of the murder.

It says the pair used a stolen vehicle and another car to carry out the hit, a white Honda CRV and a black Infiniti, liaising in the lead-up to the murder at a home in Surrey “owned by a person unrelated to the homicide.”

The pair switched license plates on the vehicles, the statement says, while detailing what they were wearing and setting out a timeline of their movements in the lead-up and aftermath of the targeted shooting.

Fox and Lopez “were hired and paid to commit the murder,” and used two handguns to riddle the driver’s side of Malik’s car that morning when he showed up to work, the statement says.

“The shots struck Mr. Malik from his left side, and he was killed while he was still sitting in the driver’s seat. Other than Mr. Fox and Mr. Lopez there was no one else at the crime scene who was responsible for shooting and killing Mr. Malik,” it says.

They fled in the stolen Honda to a laneway in a residential area where they’d stashed the black Infiniti, and a video captured the Honda “engulfed in flames,” after being set on fire deliberately.

Surrey firefighters put out the blaze, which also set nearby bushes and a fence on fire, the statement says.

Police later seized a cellphone from the tenant of the rental suite where Fox and Lopez went after the murder, and video from a door camera showed Fox with a Puma-brand backpack.

The statement says a search of the bag turned up gloves, masks, two pistols, magazines and bullets.

A pathologist who examined Malik’s body in the days after his murder found that all seven shots hit him, “six of which were on the head and neck area.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

FREDERICTON – Over four days on the water in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Heather Bowlby and her team from Fisheries and Oceans Canada tagged 15 great white sharks.

The animals are listed as endangered on the federal Species at Risk Act, and data from the tags will help Bowlby and her team answer important questions that can help with conservation efforts: where the sharks tend to live, what time of year they arrive in Canadian waters, and how old they are.

The team used seal meat to attract the animals to the boat, where a researcher then harpooned a tag into their dorsal muscles. She said that method is one of the least invasive ways of tagging because it doesn’t involve catching the shark, which causes the animal additional stress.

“They definitely will flinch when the tag anchor goes in,” Bowlby said in a recent interview after her trip, adding that she doesn’t think it bothers the sharks too much because the animals tend to stick around.

“You’d imagine, if they were very hurt or very stressed out by the event, they’d leave the area. But they don’t do that. Some of them stay around for hours. We’ve actually had to change tagging sites to get away from some animals, because they wouldn’t leave the boat.”

The animals were implanted with a mix of acoustic and pop-off satellite-linked archival tags in the waters near Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Que. Pop-off tags are named like that because they come off the animal after about one year, float to the surface of the water and begin emitting signals to a satellite. The tags record depth, temperature and light level, giving researchers an idea of the location of the animal.

Acoustic tags don’t record any data; rather, they send a coded signal allowing researchers to identify the shark associated with a tag when the animal swims within range of one of the 6,900 receivers around the Bay of Fundy, Atlantic coast, Gulf of St. Lawrence and surrounding areas, Bowlby said.

Acoustic tags, which can last up to 10 years, help scientists answer questions on the time of year the animals come to Canada, what parts of the region they prefer, and whether they return year after year.

Bowlby described the animals as shy yet curious. “They have excellent senses, and they tend to investigate things they don’t understand. They’re actually surprisingly cautious as well.”

Most of the great white shark’s senses are concentrated around its mouth. Apart from the five senses it shares with humans — sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste — it also has electromagnetic and pressure sense.

And because they are curious but lack hands to manipulate objects, the animals use their mouths, which can, unfortunately, go badly for people.

Data from tags doesn’t immediately answer questions about what food they like, especially since white sharks are considered a “generalist predator,” meaning they eat a buffet of stuff, but the places they travel to can help researchers understand feeding behaviour based on what prey is found in the surrounding area.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s great white shark tagging program began in 2018, and this year the team tagged 15 in three days at sea, the most number of animals on a single trip.

Last year, scientists found on the beach one of the tags they had implanted in a shark months before. “When that happens, it’s a bit of a gold mine, because the tags themselves record so much more data than they can ever transmit to satellite,” she said.

“The satellite transmissions are limited by the number of messages that the tag can give to the satellite, but when you actually get the tags back, they have information collected at every … 10 seconds through the duration of the deployment.

“It was almost like finding a unicorn.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.