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Spouse witnessed N.S. gunman torching their cottage, court documents say – CBC.ca

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The man responsible for April’s mass shootings in Nova Scotia took a leisurely drive around a community close to his rural cottage, stopped to chat with a fellow denturist and oversaw work being done on his property in the hours before the massacre began.

The details of a seemingly mundane day leading up to the shootings are contained in sections of court records that a provincial court judge ordered released Monday following a court hearing.

The documents also say that on the evening of April 18, the gunman’s spouse was present inside as he doused the floor of the cottage they shared with gasoline — before grabbing guns and igniting the log building he’d prized. The woman, whose name is redacted from the records, later told police he said, “I’m done, I’m done. It’s too late [redacted], I’m done.”

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On April 18 and 19, Gabriel Wortman killed 22 neighbours, acquaintances and strangers in several communities in rural Nova Scotia. He torched his own cottage and garage, and three other homes over a 13-hour period before being shot dead by police at a gas station in Enfield, N.S. after a lengthy search.

The faces of the 22 victims. The rampage that left 22 people dead unfolded over about 13 hours, before police shot and killed the gunman. (CBC)

A judge on Monday approved the release of six more of the approximately 23 judicial authorizations RCMP have obtained since the massacre — to search gunman’s properties in Portapique and Dartmouth, and for his financial records. Redacted copies of seven were previously released. 

Though the new documents are heavily redacted, each is about 90 pages long and includes information about how the gunman procured decommissioned RCMP cruisers and police equipment and about his financial transactions months prior to the attacks. All information related to the type of firearms used remains blacked out. 

Expected to head to Dartmouth

It’s unclear why the gunman “snapped,” as his spouse described it to police. The documents also offer little information about why Wortman targeted his victims, some of whom he knew. His partner told police she did not know their neighbours well. 

She also told police that, that night, she believed he was going to take her to Dartmouth, where they had another home and a clinic, to kill people or burn buildings, according to the documents. The specifics are blacked out. The woman has never spoken publicly about what she saw on April 18. Her lawyer has declined requests for comment from CBC News. 

A search warrant document says police recovered cash on the shooter’s property that he had stashed in an ammunition box. (Andrew Vaughan/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

At some point after Wortman loaded guns and ammunition into his mock cruiser, the woman escaped. She told investigators she initially hid in a truck before spending hours in a wooded area in Portapique. Though she heard someone announcing they were police on a loudspeaker, she said she feared it was her partner. Around dawn she went to the home of a neighbour who called 911.

Large cash withdrawal

RCMP have previously said Wortman liquidated his assets and stockpiled gas and food due to COVID-19 fears. A warrant that the court released in May revealed people told the investigators the gunman was paranoid and had a history of abuse.

According to the new documents, his spouse also told police in the weeks prior to the attacks he was “consumed” by the pandemic, talking about it constantly and saying he “knew he was going to die.”

She also said he feared that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would find a way to control money and that prompted him to withdraw nearly half a million dollars from his own accounts. The RCMP interviewed officials from CIBC and Brinks about a March 30 withdrawal in Dartmouth.

The gunman’s cottage in Portapique was destroyed in a fire he set, but a large deck along the shore was mostly intact. Pictured is the area under the structure. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)

Officials from the bank told police that Wortman asked to liquidate investments and then transferred the money to his business accounts. On March 25 at a branch in Dartmouth, he asked the bank’s director that his $475,000 be paid out in $100 bills, according to the court documents. 

The records state the bank worked with Brinks to set up a pick-up on March 30. 

RCMP have not said how much cash police have recovered. The search warrant documents show that on April 22, investigators found cash folded in tinfoil packets inside an ammunition box discovered at the Portapique property. 

Suspicious transactions flagged 

Canada’s money-laundering watchdog, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (Fintrac), reported on Wortman’s personal and professional financial activities after the massacre, according to the newly released documents.

The records say Wortman’s PayPal account was used to buy vehicle accessories labelled as being for police use on eBay. The court documents describe the purchases as “for items utilized in the facilitation of domestic terrorist activities.”

Police searched the Atlantic Denture Clinic in downtown Dartmouth on April 20. (Craig Paisley/CBC)

According to the court documents, the Fintrac review found that PayPal flagged suspicious transactions between March 22 and Dec. 5, 2019 — though it’s not clear from the records if that’s when they were reported as suspicious or if that’s when they occurred.

Those purchases included accessories for police vehicles such as:

  • A centre console for a 2013 Ford Taurus.
  • A ram for the front bumper of a Taurus sedan.
  • Siren lights. 
  • A dashcam.
  • Thin blue line vinyl decal.
  • Hubcaps.
  • A gun rack.

Other transactions listed as suspicious include $15,045 worth of items — including decommissioned cars — purchased with credit cards from GCSurplus in Ottawa. The site is run by Public Services and Procurement Canada.

There’s also reference to cash deposits payable to Wortman from Northumberland Investments, one of his companies. The Fintrac review found three questionable transactions: two cash deposits in 2010 totalling $200,000 and another for $246,000. The transactions happened in Fredericton and Dartmouth, but the documents don’t elaborate on the circumstances.

Border crossings

What is clear is that over the years, people around the gunman knew he had a penchant for acquiring car parts and collecting motorcycles. Some also knew he had guns and one car that he’d outfitted to resemble an actual cruiser.

The documents reference interviews with two people who responded to a Kijiji ad about an off-road vehicle in the weeks prior to April’s attacks. In both cases, Wortman showed off his replica cruiser inside the large garage he had in Portapique.

Using one of his companies, he purchased the 2017 Ford Taurus used in the attacks on July 3, 2019, from the RCMP, according to the search warrant records. 

A friend of Aaron Tuck, who was one of Wortman’s victims, told police that in August 2019, Tuck told him that Wortman’s mock cruiser was indistinguishable from an actual police vehicle and that he kept a holster for a gun in the back of it. Tuck was killed alongside his wife, Jolene Oliver, and his daughter, Emily, at their home in Portapique.

Gabriel Wortman carried out his rampage using a vehicle made to look like an RCMP cruiser in every way, with the exception of the numbers police circled in this photo. (Nova Scotia RCMP)

Peter Griffon, a neighbour who was on parole and who printed the decals for the cruiser, initially lied to police about his involvement but later showed investigators images of the vehicle he kept on his phone. He did odd jobs for Wortman and on April 18 had been splitting wood for him. He last saw him around noon that day, before Wortman headed out for a drive.

Wortman also stopped and talked with a fellow denturist, who is not identified, about work and COVID-19.  

The gunman’s spouse said Wortman was constantly scouring sites for police gear which he bought in both Canada and the U.S.

Records the RCMP obtained from Canada Border Services Agency showed that Wortman crossed the U.S.-Canada border in Woodstock, N.B., 15 times over a two-year period, with his last return to Canada on March 6. He did not have permits to import supplies for his denturist business, but the CBSA said he was personally importing car parts.

Wortman appears to have had a long history of threats and violence. A former neighbour has spoken out about being harassed by Wortman after reporting to RCMP that Wortman abused his spouse. The spouse and another relative relayed to police an account of Wortman’s vicious attack on his father during a trip to the Caribbean. In 2011, someone reported to Truro police that the denturist threatened to “kill a cop.”

The documents released Monday are the second batch of search warrant documents the court has agreed to release. CBC applied in April for access to the records and seven other media outlets joined the application.

David Coles, the lawyer representing the media organizations, has filed a request for a judicial review of decisions Judge Laurel Halfpenny MacQuarrie had made in the case. Halfpenny MacQuarrie will consider that request Oct. 2 in Halifax provincial court.

If you are seeking mental health support during this time, here are resources available to Nova Scotians. 

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Child care in Canada: Trudeau unveils new help for providers – CTV News

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The federal government is launching a new loan program to help child-care providers in Canada expand their spaces, and will be extending further student loan forgiveness and training options for early childhood educators, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday.

The prime minister unveiled a trio of child-care-centric commitments that will be included in the upcoming federal budget, with the aim of opening up more $10-a-day child-care spaces across the country, as the Liberals continue to work towards creating 250,000 new spaces by March 2026.

Specifically, the Liberals are vowing to offer $1 billion in low-cost loans and $60 million in non-repayable grants to public and not-for-profit child-care providers, so they can build or renovate their care centres. 

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This funding will be administered through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMCH), which Trudeau called “a common sense approach that will help child care be developed alongside housing.”

An additional $48 million is being earmarked for the next four years to extend student loan forgiveness — similar to the program offered to rural doctors and nurses — to early childhood educators, in an effort to incentivize more teachers to work in smaller communities. 

The federal government is also promising $10 million over the next two years to train more early childhood educators.

The prime minister, speaking in Surrey, B.C., alongside the minister currently leading the file, Jenna Sudds, touted the bilateral child-care agreements in effect across the country for seeing thousands of children placed in affordable spaces.

However, in recent months Canadian parents and care providers have sounded alarms about increasingly long daycare waitlists. And, operators in some provinces have threatened to withdraw from the lower-cost program because they’re struggling to make ends meet. 

Trudeau said while the government has funded 100,000 spaces so far and is aware of the challenges in rolling out this new national program, not enough families have access and not all provinces are moving as fast as they should. 

“I want to take a moment to talk to young moms, many of you millennials. You’ve grown up with so many pressures in this economy, the 2008 recession, COVID, climate change … and we want to make sure that everyone — especially moms raising kids — has the best chance to succeed and thrive,” Trudeau said.

“As Canada grows, as families grow, we want to make sure more kids can access high-quality child care… That’s what fairness for every generation is all about.”

The prime minister also got political, accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of opposing the program, despite the Official Opposition voting in support of a recently passed Liberal piece of legislation meant to enshrine in law a commitment to the Canada-wide early learning and child-care system, and the long-term funding needed to maintain it. 

Reacting to the news, NDP MP and critic for children, families, and social development Leah Gazan said the announcement was a “direct result of advocacy” by her party, care workers, unions, and women’s organizations.

She also pointed the finger at the Conservatives, accusing them of trying to stall the program and push for a “for-profit private system that parents can’t afford.” 

Liberal pre-budget strategy

Similar to how Wednesday’s rollout of renter-fairness-focused pre-budget news went, cabinet ministers are making echo announcements of the new child-care affordability measures across the country Thursday afternoon. 

This is all part of a new communications strategy the Liberals are employing in the lead up to the release of the April 16 federal budget.

Practically every day between now and when Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland releases the massive economic document, the Liberals are expected to tease out bits and pieces of the budget.

In an effort to stretch out their ability to market the measures within it, Trudeau as well as members of his cabinet will unveil new initiatives over the next two weeks, to the point that the vast majority of the budget will be public prior to budget day.

Traditionally, governments have held budget news — save for some pre-tabling leaks — for the day the document is tabled in the House of Commons post-daylong reporter and stakeholder lockup.

Kicking off this strategy on Wednesday, Trudeau issued a video across social media platforms indicating the overall theme for the 2024 budget will be “generational fairness,” a message meant to speak to millennials and Generation Z.

“When I first decided to run for office, one of my biggest motivations was working to create a Canada that young people saw themselves… As prime minister, I’ve never lost sight of that,” Trudeau said in the clip.

“You as a young Canadian are the heartbeat of our economy. You power our growth and you deserve an economy that gives you a fair shot at success. But, this moment we’re all living in is throwing big challenges your way… So we’re going to roll up our sleeves and work like hell. And we’re going to tell you about what we’re doing to fix it, over the next two weeks.”

While Trudeau’s 2015 election victory was credited in part to a historic surge in young people turning up at the polls, Poilievre has been chipping away at that Liberal voting bloc of those aged 43 and under, seeking to appeal to their current struggles to get ahead with his “powerful paycheques” and housing affordability arguments.

In November 2023, Trudeau tapped Max Valiquette, a marketing guru with self-described expertise in understanding younger generations, as his new executive director of communications.

“We’re witnessing a different communication strategy from the government. They’re implementing something they’ve not tried before. We’re not going to have a budget day on April 16. We’re going to have budget days between now and April 16,” said political commentator Scott Reid in an interview on CTV News Channel.

“Frankly, this government knows that it needs to break through, it knows that it needs to connect with Canadians… Is it going to turn around the polls overnight? No. Might they get a little bit more of a hearing than they otherwise would have been? Probably.” 

With files from CTV News’ Vassy Kapelos and Annie Bergeron-Oliver

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Ontario releases 2023 Sunshine List, top earner made $1.9M – CBC.ca

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Five employees at Ontario Power Generation are in the top 10 earners on the province’s so-called sunshine list for 2023, with the province’s highest salary nearing $2 million.

The annual sunshine list documents public sector employees with salaries over $100,000. In this year’s edition, there are 300,570 names, more than 30,000 higher than last year.

Kenneth Hartwick, CEO of the electricity Crown corporation, is in the top spot again with a salary of $1.93 million.

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Two other executives at the organization — chief strategy officer Dominique Miniere and chief projects officer Michael Martelli — made nearly $1.2 million and nearly $1 million, respectively.

You can find a list of the top 100 earners below.

The presidents and CEOs of the Hospital for Sick Children and the University Health Network are also in the top 10, earning around $850,000 each. So is Phil Verster, who is president and CEO of the provincial transit agency, Metrolinx, with a $838,097 salary.

Caroline Mulroney, president of the Treasury Board, highlighted other high growth areas in a release.

“The largest year-over-year increases were in the hospitals, municipalities and services, and post-secondary sectors, which together represented approximately 80 per cent of the growth of the list,” she said.

The list shows 17 professors or associate professors at the University of Toronto had earnings of $500,000 or more.

A statement from a University of Toronto spokesperson said the school competes with top universities and private-sector employers around the world for faculty members.

“This occasionally results in salaries above the usual range for a small number of faculty members.”

An Ontario Power Generation building.
Five employees at Ontario Power Generation are among the top 10 spots of the annual sunshine list for 2023. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)

Premier Doug Ford earned $208,974 last year. His chief of staff, Patrick Sackville, earned $324,675.

Matthew Anderson, CEO of Ontario Health, a provincial agency the Ford government created in 2019, earned $821,000. Meanwhile the public servant leading the Ministry of Health, deputy minister Catherine Zahn, earned $477,360, and Health Minister Sylvia Jones, $165,851.

There are more than 25,000 registered nurses on the list, including seven who earned more than $300,000 last year.

Chief Justice Sharon Nicklas, who was appointed to the top post in the province’s judiciary last May, earned $388,960.

The police chiefs of Thunder Bay, Daniel Taddeo, ($376,428) and Hamilton, Francis Bergen, ($374,492) were paid more last year than OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique ($373,472). Taddeo retired in April 2023. 

Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw, who took over the post in late 2022, earned $353,411. 

Organizations that receive provincial government funding are also required to disclose salaries for the sunshine list, so it includes top earners at some registered charities.

The chief executive of the True Patriot Love Foundation, Nicholas Booth, earned $421,149. The foundation funds support programs for veterans and military families. 

The president and CEO of the Canadian Red Cross Society, Conrad Sauve, earned $412,970, while the YMCA of Greater Toronto’s chief executive, Medhat Mahdy, earned $394,057.

Salaries of other key Ontario public figures include:

  • $826,539 for Ontario Pension Board CEO Mark Fuller.
  • $709,581 for Ontario Lottery and Gaming Association president & CEO Alfred Hannay.
  • $601,376 for Registered Nurses Association of Ontario CEO Doris Grinspun.
  • $596,392 for Dean of Ivey Business School, Western University, Sharon Hodgson.
  • $563,291 for LCBO president & CEO George Soleas.
  • $546,053 for Dean of the Faculty of Health Science, Queen’s University, Jane Philpott.
  • $533,112 for Royal Ontario Museum president & CEO Joshua Basseches.
  • $486,192 for University of Toronto president Meric Gertler.
  • $464,148 for Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore.
  • $455,091 for Chief Coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer.
  • $404,003 Art Gallery of Ontario director and CEO Stephan Jost.
  • $395,974 for former auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.

Adjusting sunshine list threshold

The sunshine list has been around for almost 30 years, always set at six figures and up. 

At Queen’s Park on Thursday, some members of provincial Parliament faced questions on whether the $100,000 starting point should be adjusted.

Green Party of Ontario Leader Mike Schreiner said it should be pegged to the rate of inflation, but others disagreed.

“I think that people think that $100,000 is still a lot of money, especially in an affordability crisis,” said NDP MPP Catherine Fife, who’s also the finance critic.

Government House Leader Paul Calandra said the government has no plans at this time to change the threshold on the sunshine list.

“I think it’s an important document that serves the people well in highlighting the salaries of our public employees.”

The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, enacted by former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris in 1996, compels organizations that receive public funding from the province to report the names, positions and pay of people who make more than $100,000.

The interactive chart below shows the top 100 earners on the list, based on both salary and benefits.

Search the complete Sunshine List for yourself here.

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1 dead, 2 critically injured after car crash in Montreal

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Montreal

Three people are in hospital with critical injuries after their vehicle crashed into a tree. Police believe they might be connected to two drive-by shootings that took place early Thursday morning.

2 drive-by shootings also took place overnight

an SPVM car near a taped-off crime scene
Montreal police are investigating a car crash possibly linked to two drive-by shootings. (Mathieu Wagner/Radio-Canada)

Urgences-santé say one person died and two others were critically injured after their vehicle hit a tree in the Rosemont neighbourhood.

Montreal police believe the crash may be linked to two drive-by shootings early Thursday morning.

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The first happened around 5 a.m. on Pie-IX Boulevard. Police say a car was shot at repeatedly and the driver, a 41-year-old man, was injured in the upper body. He was transported to hospital, but his life is not in danger, say police.

Shortly afterward, shots were reported in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough, near the intersection of Saint-Joseph Boulevard and Henri-Julien Avenue. No one was injured.

Police say they are investigating to determine if there is a connection between the collision and the shootings. Montreal police spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant says it’s possible those in the vehicle were involved in the shootings.

The province’s independent police watchdog is now involved.

with files from Chloë Ranaldi

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