The eagle holds a sacred place in the traditions of many aboriginal cultures but a flourishing trade in eagle feathers and parts has caused a clash between First Nations tradition and conservation laws.

One of the flash points has been the case of B.C. aboriginal carver James Carl Joseph, who was fined $11,000 this week after being convicted of several counts of illegally possessing eagle parts and one of trafficking in dead wildlife. The Crown had asked for a jail term and a $20,000 fine.

Despite reservations about how the eagle parts are obtained, First Nations leaders have supported Joseph's contention that he had an aboriginal right to them.

“We’re troubled when we see people nailed just for practising their aboriginal rights by maybe [taking] an eagle or hawk for cultural and spiritual ceremonies,” Grand Chief Doug Kelly of the Fraser Valley’s Sto:lo Nation told the Globe and Mail.

[ Related: eBay ad leads to wildlife fines of $40,000 ]

But the judge who heard the case in Surrey

Read More »from B.C. native carver fined $11,000 for trafficking in dead, illicit wildlife

A former Canadian resident has been charged in New York by state authorities on Thursday in connection to a plot to derail a passenger train outside of Toronto.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that Ahmed Abassi, a Tunisian citizen, has been charged with fraudulently applying for a U.S. work visa in order to remain in the country to facilitate an act of terror.

The alleged act of terror in question was a plot to derail a VIA Rail passenger train as it travelled between Toronto and New York.

The RCMP arrested two men, Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, on April 22 and charged them in the alleged plot. The RCMP said the suspects had scouted railroads in the Toronto area as part of their preparations.

The pair had been under investigation for an extended period of time before their arrests. According to the FBI, it was Abassi who originally radicalized Esseghaier before he was arrested in Montreal.

During his first court appearance Esseghaier dismissed the charges against him and

Read More »from Third arrested in VIA Rail terror plot 'radicalized' Canadian suspect: FBI

The incident was first reported last year but the full story came out this week in the Jamaican media.Fresh details are emerging about a couple of incidents near Jamaica last year that left the Royal Canadian Navy looking foolish.

Former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has confirmed he was the unnamed prominent retired politician whose fishing boat was stopped by a Canadian navy vessel in March 2012.

The incident was first reported last year by Postmedia News, but the full story came out this week in the Jamaican media.

Golding's boat was off the coast of his island nation in international waters when the Canadian coastal patrol ships HMCS Goose Bay and HMCS Kingston appeared. A Zodiac-type inflatable boat from one of the vessels then headed for the former Jamaican leader's boat, Postmedia News reported this week.

Golding, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2011, told a Jamaican radio station the inflatable carried 10 men.

[ Related: HMCS Toronto makes 2nd major drug bust ]

“It came directly alongside me, at which time I discovered that they appeared to be foreigners, they were all

Read More »from Canadian navy embarrassed after stopping former Jamaican PM

Vancouver police launched a search for Greg Cyr after he went missing in 2003.Another person identified in a massive offshore secret bank account leak has been named and it is now time to shame him. If we can find him, anyway.

CBC News released the identity of another Canadian caught up in an international investigation into the questionable use of offshore bank accounts – he’s a B.C. drywaller who disappeared under suspicious circumstances shortly after setting up the accounts.

And his ex-wife in none too pleased about what the new revelation could suggest.

The information is the second announcement to come out of a cache of information obtained in an international investigation into secret, but not illegal, accounts in known tax havens such as the Cook Islands. The details were obtained by Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with the CBC.

CBC News reported that 450 Canadians were identified as part of the investigation. In April, the network announced that Tony Merchant, a high-profile lawyer married to Saskatchewan

Read More »from Missing B.C. man the latest identified in CBC’s tax haven investigation

Turns out Gilles Vaillancourt may not have been entirely truthful when he said he was simply leaving politics to preserve his reputation.

Vaillancourt, the former Laval mayor who stepped down amid a Quebec corruption investigation last year, was arrested Thursday morning in a massive sweep in the Montreal-area city.

According to CBC News, Vaillancourt was among 30 people picked up on allegations related to corruption and collusion – the focus of an ongoing Quebec corruption commission.

Vaillancourt said when he stepped down in November that he had been unfairly painted by corruption allegations and would be retiring from politics.

[ Related: Ex-Laval mayor Vaillancourt arrested by anti-corruption unit ]

“We’re facing allegations that, even without proof, are altering the reputations of those in whom you have placed your trust,” he said in November, according to CBC News. "I am one of these people, and I have been deeply hurt. Regardless of what I do or say, it is clear that the damage has

Read More »from Retirement will have to wait for arrested ex-Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt

The manager of Statistics Canada's National Household Survey explains why some data might be skewed. The Harper government sparked controversy when they replaced the long-form census with a voluntary survey.If you accessed the Internet in Canada on Wednesday, you probably noticed a news story or two about the 2011 National Household Survey, the “spam email” replacement to Canada’s long-form census.

Results released on Wednesday were the first batch to come after the death of the mandatory long-form census, which was killed by the Conservative government ostensibly because we shouldn’t be forced to share our personal information with anyone, even if it is used anonymously by your government to form appropriate public policy or, y'know, understand stuff.

Most, if not all, of the reports on the voluntary survey came with caveats about the quality and usefulness of its results. At the least, they would include cautions that this year’s results shouldn’t be compared to census numbers of the past.

[ Related: One in five Canadian residents were born elsewhere: survey ]

In short, the National Household Survey is the government-issued equivalent of those Facebook messages you have to forward to 10

Read More »from Canada's suspect survey leads to calls for return of long-form census

The young pharmacy assistant who discovered chemotherapy drugs given to hundreds of cancer patients in Ontario and New Brunswick were diluted says he is no hero.

And he's right.

Craig Woudsma testified before an Ontario legislative committee looking into the blunder. He said he was just doing his job, The Canadian Press reported.

“It’s just part of the process, it’s part of our job, and it just happens that this check that we made had a broader impact than we certainly would have anticipated,” Woudsma, 28, who works at a small hospital in Peterborough, said on Tuesday. “But definitely not a hero, no.

“We’re not looking for glory or anything like that. What we do is kind of the same thing day in and day out, and we’re there for the patients.”

Absolutely correct.

[ Related: Watered down chemo drugs given to 1,200 cancer patients ]

We tend to pin the hero label on people a little liberally these days, I think, to the point we may be devaluing the currency of heroism.

The Oxford Dictionary defines

Read More »from Worker who spotted bad chemo drugs is no hero – he just did his job

The material, a poster and brochures, was part of an AIDS awareness campaign.There's no question sexually explicit posters intended to caution adults in gay bars and bath houses about safe sex don't belong on the bulletin board of a junior high school classroom.

But the amount of puffed up indignation and partisan political bashing over the incident at a Toronto school seems over the top.

A teacher at Delta Alternative School in Toronto's Little Italy district has been suspended for posting the materials in classrooms used by Grade 7 and 8 students, the National Post reported.

The material, a poster and brochures, was part of an awareness campaign by the AIDS Committee of Toronto. The poster had an eye-grabbing phrase "If you like to f—" and included tips on how gay and bisexual men can practise safe sex, the Post said. The material included a picture of a man's partly exposed rear and advice on how to "use your head when giving it."

Principal Marc Mullan sent a letter home to parents of the school's 63 students on Tuesday saying he was made aware of the poster

Read More »from Toronto teacher suspended over explicit safe-sex poster, brochures featured in classroom