National News
May 8, 2008OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is brushing off security concerns over the relationship between a top cabinet minister and an ex-girlfriend with past ties to the Hells Angels.
Opposition parties demanded to know Thursday whether security checks were conducted on Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's then-girlfriend and whether he ever shared classified information with her.
OTTAWA - Some security experts are taking issue with the Conservative government's characterization of the Maxime Bernier affair as a private matter, saying questionable personal links could leave the minister - and Canadian interests - vulnerable.
Opposition MPs pilloried the Tories on Thursday over revelations the foreign affairs minister's ex-girlfriend, Julie Couillard, consorted with at least two outlaw bikers as recently as the late 1990s.
VANCOUVER - A Vancouver police officer gets eight hours of training before being issued a Taser and the manual they use makes no distinction between people who are holding a passive protest and those resisting arrest.
Const. Tammy Hammell, the Vancouver Police Department's electronic control device co-ordinator, testified at a public inquiry into the use of Tasers on Thursday that officers are told they are allowed to use the weapon if someone is "actively resisting," such as holding on to a bar and refusing to be handcuffed.
BENY-REVIERS, France - French President Nicolas Sarkozy mused Thursday that he'd like to help bring Quebec closer to the rest of Canada, a suggestion that will be sure to cause sovereigntist forces in the province to bristle.
In a stirring declaration of love toward Canada, Sarkozy said he would like to "bring together" Canada and La Belle Province.
TORONTO - The flap over made-in-China pieces in Canada's Summer Olympic apparel collection doesn't appear so far to have put a wrinkle in the Hudson's Bay Company's bottom line.
One week after hitting shelves, HBC spokeswoman Patricia Pytel says sales of the recently unveiled collection have gone beyond expectations, adding that they have sold out of banner T-shirts in several sizes in many stores. The B-Tube, a multifunctional headgear piece, sold about 300 in the first day, which Pytel said is a "huge number."
VICTORIA - B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal is defending a decision that two Crown lawyers not be called to testify before a coroner's inquest into a multiple murder-suicide in Victoria.
The province's criminal justice branch, which oversees Crown attorneys, says it's an issue that sends chills through Canada's legal system
HALL BEACH, Nunavut - Seven family members lost in the Arctic for a week were found safe Thursday, with the parents towing their children behind them in the sled formerly pulled by their snowmobile.
"There's a helicopter on site and they're being evacuated to Hall Beach," said Bill Kennedy, a search co-ordinator in Repulse Bay, Nunavut, the community the family had set out from on May 1.
EDMONTON - If the United States follows through with import restrictions on "dirty" crude, Alberta will simply sell its massive oil reserves to other countries, says Premier Ed Stelmach.
"I'm not warning them, I'm just being frank," Stelmach said Thursday. "I'm just saying that we have options and will continue to pursue options."
REGINA - Muttering a sexist comment about a member of the Opposition has cost a Saskatchewan government backbencher his post as legislative secretary to the premier.
Mike Chisholm of the Saskatchewan Party quit that position Thursday after referring to NDP member Deb Higgins as "dumb bitch" during debate in committee.
VICTORIA - A Victoria police officer is defending the decision to put an intoxicated 15-year-old girl in a padded cell and keep her leashed to the cell door for four hours with her hands and feet tied behind her back.
Const. Brian Asmussen testified Thursday at a civil trial that police took the action in May 2005 to protect Willow Kinloch from herself and for the protection of others, including officers.
OTTAWA - Three men who claim Canada had a hand in their overseas torture have taken their cases directly to Stephen Harper's doorstep.
Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin concluded a caravan tour by presenting petitions signed by Canadians to the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa's Langevin building.
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A U.S. military judge threatened to suspend the war-crimes trial of a Canadian detainee, scolding the government Thursday for failing to provide records of his confinement at Guantanamo.
Lawyers for Omar Khadr say details of his interrogations and mental health could provide grounds to suppress self-incriminating statements at the U.S. navy base in southeast Cuba. Khadr is accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
TORONTO - Celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the "apartheid state" of Israel are an insult to the millions of Palestinians living in exile or as refugees, a group of Palestinian-Canadians said Thursday.
Israel, they said, is the product of decades of ethnic cleansing. As a result, while Israelis and Jews around the world celebrate Israel's birthday, Palestinians are marking "al Nakba" - the catastrophe - to remind Canadians of their plight.
KAMLOOPS, B.C. - As a public inquiry continues into the use of Tasers by police, the mother of the man who died after being jolted by an RCMP Taser at Vancouver airport says she still suffers months after the incident.
Zofia Cisowski says the death of her son, Robert Dziekanski, last October has drained her but she has no resources to discover for herself what really happened.
OTTAWA - Most Canadians think Stephane Dion is weak, uninspiring and unintelligible, a new poll suggests.
But, for all his flaws, they still find the Liberal leader more likable than Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Canadian Press-Harris-Decima survey explores why Dion's Liberals have not been able to capitalize on lingering reservations about Harper's Conservatives. The Liberals and Conservatives have been locked in a virtual tie in public support for months, with neither within range of the support needed to win a majority.
TORONTO - The federal government worked to redress an era of legislated racism Thursday with the announcement of a $5-million grant to create educational programs commemorating the Chinese head tax and other prejudicial immigration policies.
"Whatever redress we deliver is ultimately symbolic," said Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity.
MONTREAL - The lawyer for a Sudanese-Canadian stranded in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum says Ottawa has created five years of unnecessary obstacles to Abousfian Abdelrazik's return.
Yavar Hameed, Abdelrazik's lawyer, has gone to Federal Court to try to get the 46-year-old man repatriated immediately.
EDMONTON - Testimony from a woman who said a friend was once choked by a man accused of killing two prostitutes will be allowed as evidence in the case.
Justice Sterling Sanderman has ruled that the woman's testimony and that of several other women has a bearing on the second-degree murder trial of Thomas Svekla.
