A look at news events in July 2023:
1 — Scores of forest fires burn in Ontario and Quebec, and the smoke drifts hundreds of kilometres into the southern reaches of the provinces and into the central and northeastern U.S. Environment Canada issues smog warnings for northern and western Quebec, and parts of eastern and southern Ontario.
1 — Port workers across British Columbia go on strike. Negotiations supported by federal mediators fail to come up with a deal throughout the night to keep more than 7,000 employees on the job. The union says contracting out, port automation and cost of living are key issues in the dispute.
5 — Canada, the U.K., Sweden and Ukraine ask the United Nations’ highest court to rule that Iran illegally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet in January 2020, killing all 176 people aboard. They want the International Court of Justice to order Tehran to apologize and pay compensation to the families of the victims.
5 — The federal government announces it is stopping advertising on Facebook and Instagram after parent company Meta promised to block Canadian news content there. Meta’s decision to block Canadian news was in response to Canadian legislation that will require tech giants to pay media outlets for content they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms.
5 — Stellantis and LG Energy Solution announce that their electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor is back on track after reaching a “binding” financing deal with the governments of Canada and Ontario.
8 — The City of Winnipeg orders protesters who are blocking access to a landfill in support of a search for the remains of two Indigenous women to leave. The city says it issued an order to vacate in accordance with the Emergency Management Bylaw, demanding the protesters restore full access to the Brady Road landfill.
9 — In a legal decision described as the first of its kind in Canada, a Halifax sex worker successfully sues a client for nonpayment of services.
9 — Hundreds of people gather for a rally in support of striking British Columbia port workers in Vancouver as their job action stretches into its second week. Representatives from labour groups as far away as Australia and New Zealand speak in support of the strikers at the rally.
10 — Gordon Reid, the Canadian businessman who founded discount store chain Giant Tiger, dies at age 89. Reid opened the first Giant Tiger store in 1961 in Ottawa’s ByWard Market. The chain now has more than 265 locations across Canada and employs more than 10,000 people.
10 — Canada’s premiers kick off their annual conference in Winnipeg by meeting with Indigenous leaders.
12 — Olivia Chow officially takes office as mayor of Toronto. She becomes the first person of colour to lead Canada’s most populous city. She beat out more than 100 other candidates in a June byelection to replace John Tory.
12 — The Bank of Canada raises its key interest rate by a quarter point to five per cent. The central bank says it is raising the rate because of elevated demand in the economy and strong underlying inflation pressures.
12 — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other NATO leaders wrap up a two-day summit in Lithuania.
14 — Hydro-Quebec crews work to restore power to about 170,000 customers after severe thunderstorms, and at least one tornado, hit the province the day before. An entire month’s worth of rain fell in just two hours, flooding underpasses and more than 130 homes, while winds gusting to almost 100 kilometres an hour knocked down trees and power lines.
15 — The entire province of Alberta, parts of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories are covered in air quality alerts due to wildfire smoke.
15 — The North American Indigenous Games get underway in Nova Scotia.
16 — Smoke from Canadian wildfires creates unhealthy conditions south of the border and prompts the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to post air quality alerts for several states from Montana to Ohio.
18 — The BC Wildfire Service reports the province set a record for the total area burned in a year. Fires have scorched almost 14,000 square kilometres since April 1, surpassing the previous record of 13,543 square kilometres set in 2018.
18 — Port workers in British Columbia resume their strike at about 30 B.C. ports. Their union leaders announce they rejected the tentative contract terms drawn up by a federal mediator in a bid to end the labour dispute with the B.C. Maritime Employers Association.
19 — A Quebec Superior Court judge approves a $14.8-million sex abuse class-action settlement involving the Montreal archdiocese. It’s the first time a diocese in Quebec has settled a class action.
19 — The B.C. government directs the City of Surrey to move forward with an independent police service and not the RCMP.
20 — Correctional Service Canada Commissioner Anne Kelly says serial killer Paul Bernardo will remain in the Quebec medium-security prison he was transferred to earlier this year. Kelly tells an Ottawa news conference that Canada’s correction system is based on the rehabilitation of offenders, even if they are to be incarcerated for the rest of their lives.
23 — Warner Brothers’ movie “Barbie” breaks this year’s opening weekend record, and also shatters the first-weekend record for a film directed by a woman, Greta Gerwig. Studio totals show the film made $162 million in North American ticket sales.
24 — Elon Musk posts on Twitter that he will change the site’s logo from the famous blue bird to the letter “X” in the latest shakeup since he bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year.
24 — The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan encourages crop farmers to help neighbouring cattle producers by converting crops to livestock feed. The association says it will be a solution as some farmers write off drought-afflicted crops and cattle producers complain of feed shortages.
24 — The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health gets $156 million from the federal government over three years to launch and operate a new three-digit suicide-prevention hotline. Anyone in crisis will be able to dial 988 anywhere in the country to be connected with trained responders beginning at the end of November. The 24-hour service is free and will be offered in English and French.
26 — Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor dies at age 56. O’Connor, who was known for her fierce, expressive voice, became an international sensation with her cover of Prince’s ballad “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Rolling Stone magazine named her Artist of the Year in 1991.
26 — A partial settlement is reached in a lawsuit against the Calgary Stampede over the sexual abuse of young boys. The class-action suit alleged the organization allowed Phillip Heerema to abuse six boys dating back to the 1990s when he was a staffer with The Young Canadians, which performs each year in the Stampede’s grandstand show.
26 — The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal approves a $23.4-billion First Nations child welfare settlement that revolved around allegations that Ottawa’s underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services amounted to discrimination and that First Nations children were denied equal access to various supports.
31 — Actor and comedian Paul Reubens, who starred as Pee-wee Herman on TV and in movies, dies after a six-year battle with cancer.
When police turned up at Melanie Hatton’s home in Kelowna, B.C., in November 2021, she says they found her in the bathroom covered in blood, her then-husband Jeffrey Maclean was standing over her “in an aggressive manner.”
She describes a gruesome scene in a court filing, with blood from her head wound allegedly smeared on Maclean’s mouth from his whispering in her ear. The filing in a civil lawsuit against Maclean says he tolda 911 operator his wife was “bleeding like a pig.”
Hatton said police and prosecutors told her that the criminal case against Maclean in B.C. Supreme Court would be a “slam dunk,” and he was charged with assault causing bodily harm and resisting arrest.
But the case was thrown out in August 2023 — not for a lack of evidence, but because the Crown took too long to bring it to trial under a set of strict timelines that have reshaped the way criminal cases are handled since a landmark 2016 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Supporters say the so-called Jordan ruling has sped up proceedings and strengthened Charter rights for prompt justice.
But the legacy of Jordan is mixed, and some victims say the time limits work in criminals’ favour. Eight years into the rules, cases continue to collapse because the time limits are breached, although these represent a small fraction of all cases.
A review of statistics provided by provinces and territories shows that since the beginning of last year, more than 400 criminal cases countrywide have been dismissed, stayed or withdrawn as a result of Jordan challenges.
Among the defendants were some accused of sexual assault, child exploitation, fraud and drug trafficking; murder cases have also been thrown out in previous years.
The case against Maclean was among those dropped.
Hatton said she was thrown into “an absolute pit of despair and shame” after the case was thrown out.
Prosecutors blamed factors including COVID-19 and the availability of Maclean’s lawyer for the delays and the failure of the case.
Hatton thought otherwise, and sent a one-line email to the Crown prosecutor.
“I said ‘this is on you,'” said Hatton, who now lives in Ontario with the couple’s two children.
None of the allegations in Hatton’s civil suit against Maclean have been proven or tested in court, and in his response, Maclean “denies each and every allegation.”
A ‘REVOLUTIONARY’ RULING
The Jordan ruling imposed “a presumptive ceiling” of 18 months between charge and the actual or anticipated end of a trial in provincial court, and 30 months in superior courts.
Barring “exceptional circumstances,” exceeding those limits was deemed by the country’s top court to breach the Canadian Charter, which requires that criminal defendants “be tried within a reasonable time.”
Exactly how long “reasonable” meant was unclear until the high court’s ruling in R. V. Jordan.
The case would upend criminal law practice countrywide, but B.C. lawyer Tony Paisana, who was involved in the trial, didn’t know just how significant it would be at the time.
“Looking back, it’s certainly difficult to say that we, any of us, really expected this to come out the way that it did and how revolutionary it was going to be,” he said in an interview.
The case started modestly enough in December 2008 with the arrest of an alleged drug dealer named Barrett Jordan in Langley, B.C., along with a number of others who police accused of running a “dial-a-dope” operation.
It took more than four years from Jordan being charged to the end of his original trial.
He unsuccessfully argued that his Charter rights to a timely trial had been breached in both the B.C. Supreme Court and Court of Appeal before it ended up in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Paisana and colleagues Eric Gottardi and Richard Peck argued that the right to a timely trial went back hundreds of years, quoting the 1215 Magna Carta in their submissions.
Paisana said the high court’s decision in Jordan “completely achieved its intended objective, which was to speed up criminal trials.”
“And to have various judicial participants, that being the judge, the Crown, the defence, the accused, everyone start paying attention to the timeliness of trials,” he said.
“It was a chronic problem that existed in our system and Jordan was what we call in the law a ‘clarion call’ to change the culture that surrounded criminal trials.”
He said cases were stayed for unreasonable delays before this case, but Jordan established new thresholds.
“There’s just a greater confidence in the justice system when things are resolved more quickly,” he said. “I think it’s a net positive effect that the judgments had. It’s not without its controversy, but nothing that we do is without its controversy, frankly.”
The debate over Jordan was reignited in B.C. this summer, after a case was dismissed against a man accused of molesting a six-year-old.
Premier David Eby said at the time it was due to a “perfect storm” of delays, and that “not one case should be dismissed this way.”
The Jordan deadlines, he said, had been “very restrictive” and “devastating in other provinces.”
Among at least 409 Jordan challenges that ended cases across Canada since the start of last year were 26 in B.C., involving allegations ranging from fraud, to theft, drug and weapons offences, and sexual assault.
“Every case that is judicially stayed due to delay is a concern. Victims and the public expect to see cases determined on their merits and not dismissed because of unreasonable delay,” the B.C. Ministry of Attorney General said in a statement.
“We have taken this issue seriously and invested in transforming processes and increasing resources to prevent judicial stays,” the statement said.
In Maclean’s case, the B.C. Supreme Court found in August 2023 that his trial had been set “well beyond the Jordan limits,” through no fault of the defence, nor any delay caused by COVID-19 interruptions of court operations.
“If the Crown had not failed in its disclosure obligations,” the judge wrote, “the matter would have likely concluded within the Jordan limits.”
‘A HUGE NEGATIVE IMPACT’
Stacey Purser, a criminal defence lawyer in Edmonton, said Jordan had not resulted in the “culture of urgency that I think the Supreme Court was trying to create.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think that much really has changed since Jordan other than to say that, you know, once you get past those presumptive deadlines, people seem to be in quite a panic to get things done,” she said.
Vancouver defence lawyer Kyla Lee, who specializes in impaired driving cases, said Jordan has had a “huge negative impact on not just my practice, but the practice of law generally for criminal lawyers.”
“The problem is that now every time you go to court, no matter what the purpose of the appearance is, there is always a discussion about Jordan,” she said. “It comes up at every single appearance and it’s gotten to the point where the ceilings in Jordan are effectively being weaponized against accused individuals.”
With a busy schedule, finding court dates that work for both her and prosecutors is challenging, and the inability to agree results in arguments over who’s to blame. Judges have to conduct “microscopic analysis” to determine the length and cause of trial delays, Lee said.
“It has made everything far more complex, far more contentious, and it’s really done a disservice to the timely administration of justice because more court time is being taken up simply to address these issues,” she said.
Former Toronto resident Cait Alexander, a Canadian model and actress now living in Los Angeles, founded the group End Violence Everywhere after an abusive relationship nearly ended her life, alleging her ex-partner brutally beat her with a wooden rolling pin in July 2021.
Multiple charges were stayed due to delays, and Alexander said she felt “disgusting” after having received assurances from prosecutors that the case would go ahead.
She said the only consequence against her ex-boyfriend — who was originally charged with assault causing bodily harm, uttering threats, obstruction and other offences — was a peace bond, and she left the country in fear of her safety.
“That’s all they could offer me because they didn’t have time to prosecute my case,” she said.
Alexander testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women this past July, recounting stories of survivors including Hatton, whose experience she called “harrowingly similar” to her own.
In her testimony, Alexander told members of the committee that the “government doesn’t care” about survivors and victims of intimate partner violence.
“We, as Canadians, have Charter rights that are essentially a ‘get out of jail free’ card for criminals, but what about survivors’ rights? Why are our Charter rights never accounted for?,” she testified.
Like Hatton, she’s suing her ex-boyfriend because it’s “the only form of legal justice I have left,” she told the committee.
Alexander testified to the committee again last week, telling members that Jordan timelines shouldn’t apply in cases of sexual assault or intimate partner violence.
“There should be no time limit or stay permitted with human-on-human crimes,” she testified, later tearfully describing the Jordan rules as “sickening” and “terrifying.”
Paisana said it was important to keep in mind the “bigger picture” of Jordan, the importance of timely trials and the rights of accused persons who are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
“It benefits society as a whole in a very dramatic way, as opposed to one or two individual cases in a given a year, in a given jurisdiction, that might be stayed as a result of it,” he said.
For Hatton, the collapse of the case against her ex-husband was devastating, and continues to influence her life. She now has multiple security systems in her new home after fleeing her old life in B.C.
In October 2023, Hatton filed her civil lawsuit against Maclean in B.C. Supreme Court, alleging a “history of abuse” throughout their relationship, seeking damages for assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation.
She said getting a relocation order allowing her to move out of B.C. with her children is a “slight bit of justice.”
But she now lives in a state of hyper vigilance.
“I sleep with a golf club beside my bed,” she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
Vancouver immigration lawyer Ryan Rosenberg says he’s been getting so many inquiries from disaffected U.S. voters that he set up a website to address their concerns.
It’s called “Trumpugees.ca” and asks visitors on the home page: “Tired of Trump? Thinking about Canada? We can help.”
Rosenberg – a managing partner at Larlee Rosenberg, Barristers & Solicitors – says he and his colleagues are sensing a spike in immigration interest from a broad swath of U.S. residents disappointed by Donald Trump’s election win Tuesday.
Immigration lawyer Meghan Felt says she’s hearing the same thing from her office in Newfoundland. In Toronto, Royal LePage president Phil Soper says online searches of Canadian properties spiked in the months leading up to the vote.
Maryland geologist Jackson Speary says he’s felt disillusioned with politics for “a very long time,” and is considering job or educational opportunities in Canada.
The 22-year-old says he’s worried Trump’s environmental and economic policies will hinder his work, much of which involves ensuring compliance to federal environmental rules. He wonders if his career would be more stable in Canada.
“It’s a very scary time to be my age and try to continue my career. Especially when you know political turmoil is so topsy-turvy,” Speary says from Stevensville, Md., where he works.
“I feel as though there’s a lot more job security for me in Canada, and potentially a lot more job security for me anywhere else,” he says, noting he’s also considering a move to New Zealand, where he has professional contacts.
Grand proclamations to move to Canada are nothing new, says Rosenberg, who recalls similar promises after George W. Bush’s second election from “mostly blue state Americans who wanted out.” Rosenberg dubbed those would-be Canadians “Bushugees.”
But this time, he says the demographics of the disaffected seem broader in scope, encompassing wealthy Americans, ethnic minorities and Democrats disappointed by the loss of Kamala Harris.
Felt doesn’t have a targeted website like Rosenberg nor is she doing focused promotion, but she says word-of-mouth chatter led five Americans to reach out in the past few days. That’s a jump from maybe one a week.
One client who had mused on moving to Canada two months ago emailed after the vote.
“They’re moving forward, like, immediately,” Felt says from St. John’s, N.L.
More often than not, Americans are curious about Canada’s urban centres and don’t ask about political differences between provinces or countries, she says.
“Canada is Canada. I’ve heard of Americans refer to Canada as like a really large Massachusetts.”
Speary says he’s heard Canada has capped the number of foreign students permitted but that likely won’t dissuade him from pursuing grad school north of the border.
“It is going to be harder, but I think I would be willing to try.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
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Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…
N.S. votes: Tories to release platform today
The Progressive Conservatives are set to release their party platform today ahead of Nova Scotia’s Nov. 26 provincial election.
They will be the second of the three major parties to release a platform this week after the Liberals presented a plan containing $2.3 billion in election promises over four years.
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill, meanwhile, has an announcement planned in Halifax where he is expected to discuss improving health care for women.
NDP Leader Claudia Chender is in Cape Breton where she is scheduled to spend much of the day campaigning.
Tory Leader Tim Houston pledged to remove parking fees at all provincial hospitals, while Churchill promised to reduce immigration levels to align them with provincial Labour Department targets he says have been exceeded by the government.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
StatCan to release October jobs report today
Statistics Canada is set to release its October labour force survey this morning, shedding light on employment trends and wage growth last month.
RBC is forecasting the economy added a modest 15,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to have ticked back up to 6.6 per cent.
The jobless rate declined slightly to 6.5 per cent in September.
The Canadian job market has loosened significantly as high interest rates have restrained economic growth.
The Bank of Canada, which lowered its policy interest rate by 1.25 percentage points since June, now says it wants to see the economy rebound.
RBC says it expects the unemployment rate to reach seven per cent next year, before trending lower again.
What Trump’s election could mean for rates
Experts say Donald Trump’s election victory could shift interest rate policy in the U.S. as his promised policies risk higher inflation, which could ultimately have implications for Canadian rates and the loonie.
Markets rallied Wednesday and into Thursday in the wake of his victory as investors prepared for what his proposals might bring.
Among those promises are large tariffs on imported goods, especially from China, as well as lower tax rates and lighter regulation.
Economist Sheila Block says the large tariffs proposed by Trump would likely put upward pressure on inflation in the U.S.
Higher inflation would mean the U.S. Federal Reserve could be slower to cut interest rates, and markets are already shifting their bets on how low the central bank is likely to go on rates.
B.C. election judicial recounts expected to finish
Judicial recounts in British Columbia’s provincial election should wrap up today, confirming whether Premier David Eby’s New Democrats hang onto their one-seat majority almost three weeks after the vote.
Most attention will be on the closest race of Surrey-Guildford, where the NDP were ahead by a mere 27 votes, a margin narrow enough to trigger a hand recount of more than 19,000 ballots that’s being overseen by a B.C. Supreme Court judge.
Elections BC spokesman Andrew Watson says the recounts are expected to conclude today, but certification won’t happen until next week following an appeal period.
The Election Act says the deadline to appeal the results must be filed with the court within two days after they are declared, but Watson says that due to Remembrance Day on Monday, that period would end at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
When an appeal is filed, it must be heard no later than 10 days after the registrar receives the notice of appeal.
Another full recount is also taking place in Kelowna Centre, narrowly won by the B.C. Conservatives, while a partial recount will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie to tally votes from an uncounted ballot box that contained about 861 votes.
The Prince George-Mackenzie recount won’t change the outcome because the B.C. Conservative candidate there won by more than 5,000 votes.
If neither Surrey-Guildford nor Kelowna Centre change hands, the NDP will have 47 seats and the Conservatives 44, while the Greens have two seats in the 93-riding legislature.
Another beluga whale dies at Marineland
Three weeks after the death of another beluga whale at Marineland, the Ontario government is speaking publicly about its ongoing investigation of the park, saying water troubles are under control after a recent investment.
The province’s chief animal welfare inspector told The Canadian Press that to her understanding, marine mammal deaths at the tourist destination in Niagara Falls, Ont., have not been related to water quality.
Five belugas have died at the park in the last year and 17 have died since late 2019, government records show. Three other belugas sold to a Connecticut aquarium in 2021 have since died.
Kiska, the country’s last remaining killer whale in captivity, died in April 2023. One dolphin, one harbour seal, one grey seal, two sea lions and two Magellanic penguins have also died at the park in the past five years.
Marineland did not answer questions about the animal deaths, and instead twice responded to recent queries with accusations that journalism published by The Canadian Press was driven by its reporter’s “personal animal rights beliefs and activism.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024
Alberta forestry minister says wolverine, lynx trapping limits lifted to gather data
Court order will compel release of records in Dye & Durham competition probe
Quebec man’s acquittal in 1978 double murder ‘historic and exceptional,’ lawyer says
Health minister wants all Quebecers to have access to a health professional by 2026
Expert says silence in B.C. port lockout unusual while retailers call for urgency
Nova Scotia election: Liberals say province’s immigration levels are too high
NDP calls on federal government to allow open work permits for temporary workers
NDP asks Speaker to examine social media influencer Lauren Chen’s refusal to testify
