EU Commission: The first Europeans could be vaccinated by the end of the year

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged members states on Wednesday to get ready to roll out vaccination campaigns before the end of the year.

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  • Taiwan air force flexes muscles after latest Chinese incursion

    Armed and ready to go, Taiwan air force jets screamed into the sky on Tuesday in a drill to simulate a war scenario, showing its fleet's battle readiness after dozens of Chinese warplanes flew into the island's air defence zone over the weekend. Taiwan, claimed by China as its territory, has been on edge since the large-scale incursion by Chinese fighters and nuclear-capable bombers into the southwestern part of its air defence identification zone on Saturday and Sunday, which coincided with a U.S. carrier group entering the South China Sea. The base in the southern city of Tainan, home to F-CK-1 Ching-kuo Indigenous Defence Fighters (IDF), frequently scrambles jets to intercept China's air force.

  • Ex-Trump spokeswoman Sanders running for Arkansas governor

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Sarah Sanders, Donald Trump's former chief spokeswoman, announced she's running for Arkansas governor at a time other Republicans are distancing themselves from the former president facing an impeachment charge that he incited the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol. But the former White House press secretary, who left the job in 2019 to return to her home state, ran the other direction with an announcement Monday that embraced Trump as much as his rhetoric. “With the radical left now in control of Washington, your governor is your last line of defence,” Sanders said in a nearly eight-minute video announcing her 2022 bid that prominently featured pictures of the president as well as some of his favourite targets. Trump, who publicly encouraged Sanders to run, wasted no time putting his seal of approval on her bid. The former president on Monday night backed Sanders' candidacy — his first official, public endorsement since leaving office — and called her a “warrior who will always fight for the people of Arkansas and do what is right, not what is politically correct." The daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sanders is the most high-profile Trump official to seek major office and is doing so less than a week after the tumultuous end of his presidency. Her candidacy could showcase just how much of a hold Trump still has on the GOP. “Trump is simply not a liability here,” said Janine Parry, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas. “At least for the time being, we’re in a state where he remains an asset.” That’s even as the Senate is preparing for an impeachment trial over the Jan. 6 insurrection by Trump supporters that was aimed at halting the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell rebuked the president last week, saying he “provoked” the siege. Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson told reporters days before Biden’s inauguration he wanted Trump’s administration to end, though he also opposed the president’s impeachment. Sanders’ announcement makes a brief reference to the Capitol siege that left five dead, equating it with violence that occurred at some protests last year over racial injustice and the 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball practice that injured U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise and four others. “This is not who we are as Americans,” Sanders said in the video, but not mentioning Trump’s role in encouraging his supporters who stormed the Capitol. She joins a Republican primary that already includes two statewide elected leaders, Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. The three are running to succeed Hutchinson, who is unable to run next year due to term limits. No Democrats have announced a bid to run for the seat. Griffin and Rutledge had already spent months positioning themselves ahead of Sanders’ entry by lining up endorsements, raising money and trying to stake their claims as the most conservative candidate. Griffin has called for the outright elimination of the state’s income tax, while Rutledge signed on to Texas’ ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit challenging the result of the presidential election. Following the riot, Griffin and Rutledge issued statements condemning the storming of the Capitol but not addressing Trump’s role in stirring up his backers. Combined, the two have raised more than $2.8 million for the race. Griffin on Monday criticized Sanders for promising in her video to cut off funding to so-called sanctuary cities that violate immigration laws. He noted a 2019 measure Hutchinson signed into law already does just that by cutting off funding to cities that don’t co-operate with immigration authorities. “It sounds like she needs to catch up on what’s been going on in Arkansas,” Griffin said in a statement. Rutledge, meanwhile, said in a statement the race was about “who has a proven record and not merely rhetoric.” The race could also get even more crowded. Republican State Sen. Jim Hendren, a nephew of Hutchinson’s, is considering a run for the seat and said he hoped to make a decision within the next three weeks. “Right now we have three announced candidates but they all do represent the far right part of the Republican Party,” said Hendren, who has been much more willing to criticize Trump and hasn’t ruled out an independent bid. “The question I have to decide is, is there room for a more pragmatic, centrist type of approach?” Sanders was already well known in Arkansas politics, going back to when she appeared in ads for her father’s campaign. She managed Sen. John Boozman’s 2010 election and worked as an adviser to Sen. Tom Cotton’s in 2014. During Sanders’ nearly two-year tenure at the White House, daily televised briefings led by the press secretary ended after Sanders repeatedly sparred with reporters who aggressively questioned her. She faced questions about her credibility, but she also earned reporters’ respect working behind the scenes to develop relationships with the media. She remains an unknown on many issues and wasn’t made available for interviews Monday, though she staked out some positions in her introductory video that include reducing the state’s income tax. Her introductory video indicates she’s leaning more on her time with Trump, with it featuring images of or calling out those who frequently drew his ire including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and CNN. Republicans hold a firm grip on Arkansas, with the GOP holding all statewide and federal seats. They also hold a majority in both chambers of the Legislature. Trump in November won the state by nearly 28 percentage points, one of the biggest margins in his ultimate loss to Biden. State Democratic Party Chairman Michael John Gray on Monday called the GOP primary a “race to the bottom.” But national party leaders indicated Sanders’ candidacy may draw more resources and attention to a long-shot race that will coincide with 2022 congressional midterm elections. “As we close the book on a dark chapter in our history, we must make sure Trump’s brand of politics stays in the past," Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison tweeted. “Now, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is running on his record." Hutchinson, who has remained generally popular since taking office in 2015, said he didn't plan on endorsing anyone at this time in the race. “I am a voter, so I will follow the campaign with interest, but I have a job to do for the next two years, and I will devote my energies to bring Arkansas out of the pandemic and to revitalize our economy," he said in a statement. ___ Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo Andrew Demillo, The Associated Press

  • Senate filibuster fight cools for now, but battles ahead

    WASHINGTON — Easing off a stalemate, the Senate moved forward Tuesday with a power-sharing agreement in the evenly-split chamber after Republican leader Mitch McConnell backed off his demand that Senate Democrats preserve the procedural tool known as the filibuster. The stand-off between McConnell and new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had all but ground the Senate to a halt in the early days of the Democratic majority and threatened President Joe Biden's agenda. Schumer refused to meet McConnell's demands. “I'm glad we're finally able to get the Senate up and running,” Schumer said Tuesday as he opened the chamber. “My only regret is it took so long because we have a great deal we need to accomplish.” While the crisis appeared to have resolved, for now, the debate over the filibuster — the procedural tool that requires a 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation — is far from over. Progressive Democrats see the tool as an outdated relic that can be used by the minority Republican Party under McConnell to derail Biden's agenda, and they want to do away with it. They point to the way the filibuster was wielded during the 20th century to stall civil rights legislation, and warn of a repeat. Democrats control 50 votes in the split chamber, with Vice-President Kamala Harris as a tie-breaking vote, and Biden's allies would typically need Republican senators to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance Democratic priorities on COVID-19 relief, immigration or other issues. Even as he dropped his demand, McConnell warned Tuesday of all the ways the Senate business could still be tied in knots if Democrats try to press on with plans to pursue changes to the filibuster. “They would guarantee themselves immediate chaos,” McConnell warned. “Destroying the filibuster would drain comity and consent from this body to a degree that would be unparalleled in living memory.” Usually a routine matter, the organizing resolution for the chamber became a power play by McConnell once Democrats swept to control after the Jan. 5 special election in Georgia and the new senators took the oath of office after Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20. McConnell had been holding up the organizing agreement, which divides up committee assignments and other resources, as he tried to extract a promise from Schumer of no changes to the filibuster. Schumer would not meet the Republican leader's demands, but McConnell said late Monday he had essentially accomplished his goal after two Democratic senators said they would not agree to end the filibuster. Without their votes, Schumer would be unable to change the rules. “With these assurances, I look forward to moving ahead with a power-sharing agreement modeled on that precedent,” McConnell said in a statement. He was referring to West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema who have expressed reservations about doing away with the tool. Schumer's office said the Republican leader had no choice but to set aside his demands. “We’re glad Sen. McConnell threw in the towel and gave up on his ridiculous demand," said Justin Goodman, a spokesman for the Democratic leader. "We look forward to organizing the Senate under Democratic control and start getting big, bold things done for the American people.” But the debate over the filibuster, which has increasingly become weaponized as a tool to thwart the opposite party’s agenda, is far from over. A decade ago, then-Democratic majority leader Harry Reid ended the 60-vote threshold to confirm some judicial and executive branch nominees during the Obama administration that were being blocked by Republicans. Reid told The Associated Press recently that Biden should waste little time testing Republican’s willingness to work with him before eliminating the filibuster. He gave it three weeks. McConnell during the last administration upped the ante, and did away with the 60-vote threshold to confirm President Donald Trump's three nominees to the Supreme Court. He wanted to prevent Schumer from taking it to the next level and ending the filibuster for legislation. The details of the rest of the organizing resolution are expected to proceed largely as they did the last time the Senate was evenly divided, in 2001, with any immediate changes to the filibuster, at this stage, appearing to be off the table. Lisa Mascaro, The Associated Press

  • 'Stories the numbers tell': Critics ask why Alberta sat on coal contamination data

    EDMONTON — Critics are asking why Alberta Environment has been sitting on years worth of data about pollution from coal mines while the government considers a dramatic expansion of the industry. "It raises some important questions about our ability to trust what's going on," said New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt. "The fact (Alberta Environment) hasn't reported publicly is extremely concerning." On Monday, The Canadian Press reported on analysis of coal mine contamination in the Gregg and McLeod Rivers and Luscar Creek near Jasper, Alta., dating back to the 1990s. It found toxic levels of selenium many times over the amount considered safe for aquatic life. The Gregg and Luscar Creek mines closed in the early 2000s. Selenium levels from both declined, at best, only gradually over more than 15 years of remediation. In the case of the Cheviot mine on the McLeod River, levels gradually grew between 2005 and 2017. The operation closed last June. The data also shows the provincial government knew about the levels for at least 15 years and did not report anything after 2006. The information was available in raw form, but Schmidt said it isn't enough to simply collect information. "There are numbers and then there are the numbers that the stories tell. That's the piece that's missing." The New Democrats were in power for four of those years. Schmidt said sitting on the information is worse now because Alberta is going through a wrenching debate over the present government's plans to expand the industry by opening up the Rocky Mountains to open-pit, mountaintop coal mines -- an option that did not exist under the NDP. "This data's relevance is more important now," he said. Alberta Environment has pointed out that the raw data has always been public. Spokesman John Muir promised the province would soon release its own report on water downstream of coal mines. Lack of action shows that monitoring often promised by industry and government as new projects are considered isn't enough, said Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. "On those rivers we're seeing that monitoring hasn't been enough to actually control selenium. We just continue to promise monitoring. We didn't see action to bring those selenium numbers down." A 2006 provincial report found that selenium was already harming fish. As well, a 2005 published study co-authored by provincial scientists found rainbow trout were suffering facial and skeletal deformities from selenium. The province has recently sold about 1.4 million hectares of coal exploration leases. Hundreds of drill sites and kilometres of new roads have already been permitted on previously unmined mountainsides. One new coal mine, Benga Mining's Grassy Mountain project in the Crowsnest Pass in southwestern Alberta, is before a joint federal-provincial review. The information on the old coal mines shows what's at issue for new ones, said Morrison. "Those stakes are really high. (Selenium release) has been happening other places and they have not been able to get the selenium under control." Benga says a new method should allow the mine to treat 99 per cent of its selenium. As well, the mine has been designed to minimize contact between water and selenium-bearing rocks, the company says. Morrison said that treatment is still unproven. She said if its efficiency falls to even 90 per cent, selenium levels in nearby streams will cross thresholds safe for aquatic life. Morrison said her group produced expert testimony at the Benga hearings suggesting the company doesn't have a convincing long-term plan for controlling selenium long into the future. "We have not seen that technology work at the scale that we'll need it to or with the amount of selenium we're likely to see." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021 -- Follow @row1960 on Twitter Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

  • A look at COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021

    The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Monday Jan. 26, 2021. In Canada, the provinces are reporting 23,498 new vaccinations administered for a total of 839,949 doses given. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 2,216.267 per 100,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 1,122,450 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 74.83 per cent of their available vaccine supply. Please note that Newfoundland, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the territories typically do not report on a daily basis. Newfoundland is reporting 3,258 new vaccinations administered over the past seven days for a total of 8,549 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 16.326 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Newfoundland for a total of 16,500 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 3.2 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 51.81 per cent of its available vaccine supply. P.E.I. is reporting 1,423 new vaccinations administered over the past seven days for a total of 6,525 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 41.134 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to P.E.I. for a total of 9,225 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 5.8 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 70.73 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Nova Scotia is reporting 3,483 new vaccinations administered over the past seven days for a total of 11,083 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 11.357 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Nova Scotia for a total of 28,850 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 3.0 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 38.42 per cent of its available vaccine supply. New Brunswick is reporting 3,821 new vaccinations administered over the past seven days for a total of 14,257 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 18.277 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to New Brunswick for a total of 21,675 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 2.8 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 65.78 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Quebec is reporting 1,960 new vaccinations administered for a total of 220,715 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 25.795 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Quebec for a total of 238,100 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 2.8 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 92.7 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Ontario is reporting 5,537 new vaccinations administered for a total of 286,110 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 19.478 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Ontario for a total of 411,650 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 2.8 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 69.5 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Manitoba is reporting 810 new vaccinations administered for a total of 29,751 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 21.606 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Manitoba for a total of 55,650 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 4.0 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 53.46 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Saskatchewan is reporting 314 new vaccinations administered for a total of 33,353 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 28.286 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Saskatchewan for a total of 32,725 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 2.8 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 101.9 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Alberta is reporting 406 new vaccinations administered for a total of 99,453 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 22.592 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Alberta for a total of 122,725 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 2.8 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 81.04 per cent of its available vaccine supply. British Columbia is reporting 9,284 new vaccinations administered for a total of 119,850 doses given. The province has administered doses at a rate of 23.355 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to British Columbia for a total of 144,550 doses delivered so far. The province has received enough of the vaccine to give 2.8 per cent of its population a single dose. The province has used 82.91 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Yukon is reporting 222 new vaccinations administered for a total of 3,952 doses given. The territory has administered doses at a rate of 94.702 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Yukon for a total of 14,400 doses delivered so far. The territory has received enough of the vaccine to give 35 per cent of its population a single dose. The territory has used 27.44 per cent of its available vaccine supply. The Northwest Territories are reporting zero new vaccinations administered for a total of 1,893 doses given. The territory has administered doses at a rate of 41.956 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to the Northwest Territories for a total of 14,400 doses delivered so far. The territory has received enough of the vaccine to give 32 per cent of its population a single dose. The territory has used 13.15 per cent of its available vaccine supply. Nunavut is reporting 636 new vaccinations administered for a total of 4,458 doses given. The territory has administered doses at a rate of 115.116 per 1,000. There were zero new vaccines delivered to Nunavut for a total of 12,000 doses delivered so far. The territory has received enough of the vaccine to give 31 per cent of its population a single dose. The territory has used 37.15 per cent of its available vaccine supply. *Notes on data: The figures are compiled by the COVID-19 Open Data Working Group based on the latest publicly available data and are subject to change. Note that some provinces report weekly, while others report same-day or figures from the previous day. Vaccine doses administered is not equivalent to the number of people inoculated as the approved vaccines require two doses per person. The vaccines are currently not being administered to children under 18 and those with certain health conditions. This report was automatically generated by The Canadian Press Digital Data Desk and was first published Jan. 26, 2021. The Canadian Press

  • Doctors failed mentally ill Ontario man who killed his mother day after seeing psychiatrist, says family

    Family members of an Ontario man diagnosed with schizophrenia say his doctors didn't do "their due diligence" when they failed to admit him to a hospital after he called a crisis line the day before stabbing his mother and setting her house on fire with her inside. Joel Vassell called the crisis line at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby, Ont., in the early hours of Dec. 10, 2019, and asked to be admitted because he believed he was being poisoned and said he'd been experiencing paranoid thoughts. Vassell had been under the care of the Ontario Review Board (ORB) since he was found not criminally responsible (NCR) in 2015 for an assault on his mother and attempted murder of his grandmother. The ORB oversees individuals who have been found unfit to stand trial or not criminally responsible for an offence because of a mental disorder. At the time of the crisis call, Vassell had community privileges — which meant he was living on his own in a small apartment in Richmond Hill, Ont., where outpatient services followed up with him about once a week. He was also required to return to Ontario Shores once a month to see his psychiatrist. Later that same morning, Vassell was assessed by his psychiatrist, Dr. Derek Pallandi, at Ontario Shores, east of Toronto. Pallandi chose not to admit Vassell to hospital. The next day, Vassell's mother, 61-year-old Yvonne Bachelor, was stabbed, and her townhouse in northwest Toronto was set on fire while she was trapped inside. Vassell, who was charged with first-degree murder and arson, told a crisis worker afterward that he hadn't taken his medication for two days. He was found not criminally responsible for Bachelor's death on Jan. 5. Details of Bachelor's murder and events leading up to that day, including Vassell's interaction with Ontario Shores, are contained in an agreed statement of facts submitted to the judge who heard the case in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice. 'This could have been prevented': family Vassell, who is now 25, is currently being held in a correctional facility awaiting a placement decision and an initial hearing by the ORB on the new NCR finding in the coming weeks. While research into NCR outcomes in Canada has concluded that those found not criminally responsible for a serious violent crime are some of the people least likely to reoffend, that fact is of little comfort to Vassell's extended family. They believe Vassell's doctors "didn't do their jobs," and it cost Bachelor her life. "I really, truly believe that this could have been prevented if they had kept him in custody and did their due diligence with him to see what's going on, to make sure that he's taking his medication," said one of Vassell's relatives. CBC News is not naming the relative because the family fears for its safety given Vassell's three attacks on family members to date. WATCH | Vassell's relative says keeping him in custody would have prevented murder: The relative says Vassell's doctors took a urine sample when he was assessed on Dec. 10, 2019, but he was released before the results came back showing low levels of medication in his system. "The consequence of this was somebody's life," the relative said. "We cannot get her life back. We have to live with that the rest of our lives." Mother's death a 'tragedy,' says review board CBC News reached out to Pallandi, the psychiatrist who assessed Vassell, for this story but did not receive a response. In a statement, a lawyer for the ORB told CBC News that "a tragedy occurred with the death of Mr. Vassell's mother" and that the board can't speak for the hospital or clinicians. "Like the ORB, treatment providers must weigh multiple factors in arriving at any decision to enlarge or restrict liberty," Joe Wright said. "Every individual presents with positive and negative risk factors. The decisions that clinicians and the board make must be made on the evidence, case law and the structured clinical discretion of experts." Ontario Shores said in a statement to CBC News that the hospital can't comment on specific patients because of privacy considerations. "Ontario Shores extends our deepest sympathies to the victim's family," spokesperson Andrea Marshall said. "The treatment of people living with serious mental illness who have come into contact with the law is a complex and often misunderstood area of the province's mental health care system." 'Significant threat' to public safety a key issue In the Criminal Code, anyone found NCR after committing a crime must be discharged absolutely unless they are a "significant threat to the safety of the public." In practical terms, that means a person who is found NCR can be put on a detention order and remain under the care of the ORB if they're a significant threat or they can receive a conditional or absolute discharge into the community. Vassell was still under an ORB detention order when he killed Bachelor in 2019. But the board had been increasing his community privileges incrementally since 2017. In August 2018, Vassell moved out of Ontario Shores and transitioned into an apartment in the community with help from forensic outpatient services. Shortly after, he started attending a college program. The ORB's mandatory annual review order of Vassell's case in 2018, called a disposition, said he'd been fully compliant when it came to taking his medication and hadn't shown any signs of psychosis since he was discharged from the hospital. However, in the ORB's review order in November 2019, the board refused to grant Vassell a conditional discharge because it said he continued to pose too great of a threat to public safety. Part of the reasoning given by the ORB was that Vassell continued to reject his schizophrenia diagnosis and was "ambivalent" to the benefits of his medication. "Without the oversight of a clinical team provided by a disposition, Mr. Vassell is likely to become non-compliant with medication," the ORB said. "In that state, Mr. Vassell would experience personal and paranoid beliefs that relate to individuals close to him in his life, and he would be at real risk of acting on those beliefs for self-protection or retribution." Another factor was that in October 2019, Vassell's psychiatrist had agreed to reduce the dosage of his medication, and the board still wasn't sure how Vassell would respond to the change. Two months after the change in dosage and a month after the review order, Vassell killed his mother. He told a crisis worker that he set the house on fire because he was "tired of the abuse" from Bachelor and that he wanted to "free her soul," according to the agreed statement of facts. More violent cases have low recidivism rates: study Despite the media attention given to cases such as Vassell's, a study on NCR outcomes in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in 2015, shows that cases such as his are outliers. The National Trajectory Project looked at the outcomes of 1,800 people found NCR across Canada's three most populous provinces. "Those who committed more serious forms of violence, which could include sexual crimes or homicide, were actually less likely to reoffend," said Dr. Michael Seto, who worked on the study. That group had the lowest recidivism rates in the study, with just six per cent committing a new offence of any kind within three years. Seto, forensic research director at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, said part of the reason for that is people with more serious offences are typically in the review board system longer and can be kept under conditions even when they start living in the community again. Overall, the study found that Quebec had roughly double the recidivism rate for people found NCR compared with Ontario and B.C., and Ontario kept people in the review board system for the longest amount of time on average. "Ontario is more conservative than Quebec or British Columbia in terms of how people move from detention order, where they're in hospital, to conditional discharge to absolute discharge," Seto told CBC News. Family members are the most common victims of crimes committed by people found NCR, according to the study. Vassell's relative said they are still worried for the safety of Vassell's surviving family members. "He knows where everybody lives in the family," the relative said. "If he ever gets out, then we would have to move to have some type of sanity in our day-to-day lives without looking over our shoulders." Vassell's relative is also calling for a coroner's inquest into Bachelor's death, so that something like this doesn't happen again. For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.

  • 'THIS IS ME': Rioters flaunt involvement in Capitol siege

    WASHINGTON — These suspects weren't exactly in hiding. “THIS IS ME,” one man posted on Instagram with a hand emoji pointing to himself in a picture of the violent mob descending on the U.S. Capitol. “Sooo we’ve stormed Capitol Hill lol,” one woman texted someone while inside the building. “I just wanted to incriminate myself a little lol,” another wrote on Facebook about a selfie he took inside during the Jan. 6 riot. In dozens of cases, supporters of President Donald Trump downright flaunted their activity on social media on the day of the deadly insurrection. Some, apparently realizing they were in trouble with the law, deleted their accounts only to discover their friends and family members had already taken screenshots of their selfies, videos and comments and sent them to the FBI. Their total lack of concern over getting caught and their friends' willingness to turn them in has helped authorities charge about 150 people as of Monday with federal crimes. But even with the help from the rioters themselves, investigators must still work rigorously to link the images to the vandalism and suspects to the acts on Jan. 6 in order to prove their case in court. And because so few were arrested at the scene, the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service have been forced to send agents to track suspects down. “Just because you’ve left the D.C. region, you can still expect a knock on the door if we find out that you were part of criminal activity inside the Capitol,” Steven D’Antuono, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington office, said earlier this month. “Bottom line — the FBI is not sparing any resources in this investigation.” In the last few weeks, the FBI has received over 200,000 photos and video tips related to the riot. Investigators have put up billboards in several states with photos of wanted rioters. Working on tips from co-workers, acquaintances and friends, agents have tracked down driver’s license photos to match their faces with those captured on camera in the building. In some cases, authorities got records from Facebook or Twitter to connect their social media accounts to their email addresses or phone numbers. In others, agents used records from license plate readers to confirm their travels. More than 800 are believed to have made their way into the Capitol, although it's likely not everyone will be tracked down and charged with a crime. Federal prosecutors are focusing on the most critical cases and the most egregious examples of wrongdoing. And they must weigh manpower, cost and evidence when charging rioters. A special group of prosecutors is examining whether to bring sedition charges against the rioters, which carry up to 20 years in prison. One trio was charged with conspiracy; most have been charged with crimes like unlawful entry and disorderly conduct. Many rioters posted selfies inside the Capitol to their social media accounts, gave interviews to news outlets describing their experience and readily admitted when questioned by federal investigators that they were there. One man created a Facebook album titled “Who’s House? OUR HOUSE” filled with photos of himself and others on Capitol grounds, officials said. “They might have thought, like so many people that work with Trump, that if the president tells me to do it, it’s not breaking the law,” said Michael Gerhardt, an expert on impeachment and professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Others made blunders, like a Houston police officer, who denied he went into the Capitol, then agreed to let agents look at the pictures on his phone. Inside his deleted photos folder were pictures and videos, including selfies he took inside the building, authorities said. Another man was wearing a court-ordered GPS monitor after a burglary conviction that tracked his every movement inside the building. A retired firefighter from Long Island, New York, texted a video of himself in the Capitol rotunda to his girlfriend’s brother, saying he was “at the tip of the spear,” officials said. The brother happened to be a federal agent with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, who turned the video over to the FBI. A lawyer for the man, Thomas Fee, said he “was not part of any attempt to take over the U.S. Capitol” and that “the allegation is that he merely walked through an open door into the Capitol — nothing more." Another man who was inside the Capitol was willing to rat out another rioter who stole House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern and emailed the video to an FBI agent, even signing his own name to it. “Hello Nice FBI Lady,” he wrote, “Here are the links to the videos. Looks like Podium Guy is in one of them, less the podium. Let me know if you need anything else.” In another case, a man was on a flight leaving D.C. two days after the riot when he kept shouting “Trump 2020!” and was kicked off. An airport police officer saw the man get off the plane and the man was booked on another flight. Forty-five minutes later, the officer was watching a video on Instagram and recognized the man in a group of rioters. The man, who was wearing the same shirt as the day he stormed the Capitol, was arrested at the airport, authorities said. Even defence attorneys have acknowledged that the evidence poses a problem for them. “I’m not a magician,” said an attorney for the man seen in a photo carrying Pelosi's lectern. “We’ve got a photograph of our client in what appears to be inside a federal building or inside the Capitol with government property,” he told reporters. Police at the Capitol planned only for a free-speech demonstration and were overwhelmed by the mob that broke through and roamed the halls of the Capitol for hours as lawmakers were sent into hiding. Five people died in the melee, including a Capitol police officer who was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher. Trump was impeached after the riot on a charge of “inciting violence against the government of the United States.” Opening arguments will begin the week of Feb. 8. He is the first president to be twice impeached and the first to face a trial after leaving office. Unlike criminal cases, impeachment trials do not have specific evidence rules so anything said and done that day can be used. And several of the people charged have said in interviews with reporters or federal agents that they were simply listening to the president when they marched to the Capitol. ___ Richer reported from Boston. Michael Balsamo, Alanna Durkin Richer And Colleen Long, The Associated Press

  • Nearly 600 tonnes of rubbish and debris removed from Bulgarian river

    A giant mass of rubbish that clogged a dam has finally been cleaned up in Bulgaria. Nearly 600 tonnes of garbage and debris were removed from the Iskar river near the capital Sofia.View on euronews

  • 'Everywhere I am in chains,' says Uganda's Wine after home arrest lifted

    Uganda's opposition leader Bobi Wine accused security forces on Tuesday of humiliating him, his family and staff as he was freed from house arrest in place since a disputed Jan. 14 election that he lost to long-serving President Yoweri Museveni. Having for years denounced corruption and nepotism in his songs, Wine rode a wave of youth disillusionment to challenge Museveni's 34-year rule at the ballot box.

  • Free parking program to start in uptown Saint John as city returns to orange phase

    The city of Saint John is hoping to jump-start its economy by offering an hour of free on-street parking to motivate people to shop local. David Dobbelsteyn, Saint John's manager of population growth, presented the parking subsidy plan to city council Monday evening. Dobbelsteyn said loss of tourism because of COVID-19, and the regular winter pedestrian decline, caused foot traffic to decrease by 50 per cent, which in turn has had a big impact on local businesses. "Think about if you're a restaurant and you're used to having a lot of folks for lunch, and local businesses are having their staff work remotely, which is a safe thing to do, but it means that those businesses are struggling even more," he said. Councillors voted unanimously to approve a proposal to spend up to $35,000 to subsidize the first-hour of parking until the end of March. The approval coincided with the province's decision to return Saint John to the orange phase at midnight Tuesday night. The Saint John has been in the more restrictive red phase for the past week. The pilot will be run through the HotSpot parking app, which will count the first hour for free automatically. Dobbelsteyn said he hopes that more people will use HotSpot, which will help people find parking easier and avoid tickets. "We anticipate approximately $30,000 will be returned to the city as parking revenue," he said. Uptown Saint John is in charge of running and marketing the program. Nancy Tissington, the executive director of Uptown Saint John, said the organization has run a similar program after a hard-hitting snowstorm in 2015, and on Black Friday and Valentine's Day. She said during all those days, the app has shown an uptick in people using it. "There has been quite a struggle here," she said. "And January, February and March is typically a hard time of the year. It's even more so now. We're pretty excited about the fact that orange is coming back." She said uptown Saint John can have this program up and running in five to seven days. The parking program will be financed through the Municipal Economic and Community Recovery Program, which was set up as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Five big lessons experts say Canada should learn from COVID-19

    OTTAWA — In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Canadian Press interviewed a group of leading Canadian experts in disease control and epidemiology and asked them what should be done to reduce the harms the next time a germ with similar destructive potential emerges. Here are the five most important lessons they offered. Socio-economic and health inequities have made some people more vulnerable COVID-19 has exposed fault lines in the Canadian society by showing how long-standing inequities contributed to higher rates of infections and mortality, said Steffanie Strathdee, a Toronto-born epidemiologist at the University of California in San Diego. "The people who are, by and large, getting COVID are people who are poor, or of-colour, or living in poor socio-economic conditions," Strathdee said. In an analysis of COVID-19 deaths between March and July, Statistics Canada found that death rates because of the virus were double in Canadian neighbourhoods where more than 25 per cent of the people are members of visible minorities compared to neighbourhoods where minorities are less than one per cent of the people. Strathdee said people in many areas in Canada have limited health services. "In my sister and mother's region of Stouffville (a suburb of Toronto), it's very, very difficult to get a doctor," she said. "What we need to do is invest in our public health and health care infrastructure, because this isn't going to be the last pandemic we see." University of British Columbia professor Erica Frank, a doctor and population-health expert, said almost all those who have died because of COVID-19 had pre-existing risk factors, including age. "Not paying enough attention to reduction of chronic-disease risk has greatly increased the cohort of susceptible people to COVID," she said. She said there is a need to spend money on public health systems and on social determinants of health, such as housing, to decrease sickness and death. Canada's division of health-care responsibilities is inefficient The disconnect between federal and provincial or territorial actions to fight the pandemic is getting in the way of an effective response, said Donald Sheppard. He's the chair of the department of microbiology and immunology in the faculty of medicine at McGill University and a member of Canada's COVID-19 therapeutics task force. For instance, Sheppard said, after Eli Lilly's COVID-19 antibody treatment was approved by Health Canada, bought by the federal government and greenlit by the federal therapeutics task force, British Columbia health authorities decided to reject the federal approval of the medication. He said there many more examples, including the handling of long-term care homes. "Quebec is screaming they want money but they're refusing to sign on to the minimum standards of long-term care," he said. He said there have been poor communication and a lot of territorialism since the beginning of the pandemic. "There should be a time when it's all hands on deck and we don't play games," he said. "That didn't happen. We saw these fragmentations between the provinces and the feds leading to, frankly, people dying." Centralized decision-making in health care stifles innovation Sheppard said the Canadian health care system can't be nimble because federal and provincial governments have seized control of decisions on how to handle the pandemic. "During a new disease like a pandemic, when we're learning about things, the people on the ground actually are learning a lot faster than the people sitting in Ottawa, Quebec City or Toronto," he said. He said Canadian businesses and universities have been struggling to get approval for testing strategies that use rapid tests to reopen safely. "The way that the ministries of health are set up, they actually make it incredibly difficult to set those type of things up, because they hold on to all the power with a stranglehold." Sheppard said there's no process private entities can use to launch innovative testing programs. "The dogma from the ministries of health are simple: What we're doing is right. There is no other better way to do anything ... therefore we will not help anybody do anything different than what we're doing. And anything other than that is a threat to our authority," he said. "That's the mentality, and it's just killed innovation in the health-care setting." Lack of coordination stymied research The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how crucial research is to inform health decisions, said François Lamontagne, a clinician-scientist at the University of Sherbrooke. He said Canadian scientists have played prominent roles scientifically during the pandemic but recruiting patients to participate in clinical trials has been a challenge due to lack of coordination. "There have been a lot of studies launched. A lot of those studies overlapped," he said. He said having too many studies at the same time has resulted in shortages of suitable patients who are willing to be subjects in clinical trials. "This, essentially, dilutes all of the studies and you end up enrolling very few people in too many studies." Lamontagne said the United Kingdom has been the locomotive of the world in enrolling patients in clinical trials because research is an integral part of the country's national health system. "It's not something that happens in a silo. It's part of the (National Health Service)," he said. "This led them to build the infrastructure ... And then there's an effort to co-ordinate and prioritize studies so they do one study and they do it well and they get the answers very quickly." He said creating better research infrastructure and coordination should be a priority for Canada. "This is a criticism directed at me as well. I am part of 'us' — researchers. We have to get our act together and there has to be an effort of coordination." Lamontagne said health research in Canada is largely funded by the federal government whereas health care is a provincial jurisdiction and both levels need to co-operate. "The stakes are so important for not only how we respond to pandemics now and in the future, but also for the sustainability of a public health-care system," he said. Good messaging and communication matter Strathdee said good science communication with the public is important to address misinformation regarding the novel coronaviruses and its vaccines. "We need for people to understand that science and medicine don't have all the answers all the time, that we're learning just like everybody else," she said. Strathdee said guidelines will be updated as more data become available and that's what happened when more data showed that face masks reduced the risk of COVID-19 transmission. She said government officials should be trained in health literacy. John Brownstein, a Montreal-born Harvard University epidemiologist, said minority communities, including Indigenous communities, tend to have more mistrust in vaccines and for good historical reasons. "We got to figure out how to improve communication and improve confidence," he said. Strathdee said it's critical for politicians and public health officials to be honest with the public by "making people aware that, you know, it could get worse before it gets better, and that they need to stay the course." She also said people need to understand that if segments of the population are left behind in vaccination, like prisoners and homeless people, that will put everyone at risk. She said Canada did a good job in detecting COVID-19 cases because it was hit hard by SARS. "We have to make sure that we don't unlearn those lessons going forward and that we build upon what we've learned from COVID and prepare for the next pandemic." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2020 ——— This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship. Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press

  • Calm returns to Dutch cities after riots, with police out in force

    With shops boarded up and riot police out in force, it was relatively calm in Dutch cities on Tuesday night after three days of violence during which nearly 500 people were detained. In several cities, including the capital Amsterdam, some businesses closed early and emergency ordinances were in place to give law enforcement greater powers to respond to the rioting, which was prompted by a nighttime curfew to curb the spread of the coronavirus. On Tuesday when the 9 p.m. curfew went into effect, rowdy crowds of youths gathered in Amsterdam and Hilversum, but were broken up without incident.

  • The latest numbers on COVID-19 in Canada for Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021

    The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Monday Jan. 26, 2021. There are 753,011 confirmed cases in Canada. _ Canada: 753,011 confirmed cases (62,447 active, 671,326 resolved, 19,238 deaths).*The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers. There were 4,630 new cases Monday from 35,801 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 13 per cent. The rate of active cases is 166.13 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 37,939 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 5,420. There were 144 new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 1,118 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 160. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.42 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 51.18 per 100,000 people. There have been 17,086,340 tests completed. _ Newfoundland and Labrador: 398 confirmed cases (eight active, 386 resolved, four deaths). There were zero new cases Monday from 186 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 0.0 per cent. The rate of active cases is 1.53 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of two new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is zero. There have been no deaths reported over the past week. The overall death rate is 0.77 per 100,000 people. There have been 78,319 tests completed. _ Prince Edward Island: 110 confirmed cases (seven active, 103 resolved, zero deaths). There were zero new cases Monday from 226 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 0.0 per cent. The rate of active cases is 4.46 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of two new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is zero. There have been no deaths reported over the past week. The overall death rate is zero per 100,000 people. There have been 88,633 tests completed. _ Nova Scotia: 1,571 confirmed cases (15 active, 1,491 resolved, 65 deaths). There were zero new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 1.54 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 14 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is two. There have been no deaths reported over the past week. The overall death rate is 6.69 per 100,000 people. There have been 200,424 tests completed. _ New Brunswick: 1,151 confirmed cases (349 active, 788 resolved, 14 deaths). There were 27 new cases Monday from 1,071 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 2.5 per cent. The rate of active cases is 44.93 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 178 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 25. There was one new reported death Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of two new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is zero. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.04 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 1.8 per 100,000 people. There have been 136,180 tests completed. _ Quebec: 254,836 confirmed cases (16,428 active, 228,887 resolved, 9,521 deaths). There were 1,203 new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 193.61 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 10,488 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 1,498. There were 43 new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 434 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 62. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.73 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 112.21 per 100,000 people. There have been 2,695,925 tests completed. _ Ontario: 256,960 confirmed cases (23,620 active, 227,494 resolved, 5,846 deaths). There were 1,958 new cases Monday from 33,192 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 5.9 per cent. The rate of active cases is 162.15 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 16,596 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 2,371. There were 43 new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 413 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 59. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.41 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 40.13 per 100,000 people. There have been 8,978,001 tests completed. _ Manitoba: 28,810 confirmed cases (3,542 active, 24,464 resolved, 804 deaths). There were 113 new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 258.64 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 1,181 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 169. There were five new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 31 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is four. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.32 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 58.71 per 100,000 people. There have been 448,638 tests completed. _ Saskatchewan: 22,416 confirmed cases (3,272 active, 18,890 resolved, 254 deaths). There were 239 new cases Monday from 992 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 24 per cent. The rate of active cases is 278.6 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 1,854 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 265. There was one new reported death Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 35 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is five. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.43 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 21.63 per 100,000 people. There have been 330,694 tests completed. _ Alberta: 121,535 confirmed cases (9,339 active, 110,622 resolved, 1,574 deaths). There were 742 new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 213.64 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 4,224 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 603. There were 25 new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 127 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 18. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.42 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 36.01 per 100,000 people. There have been 3,061,844 tests completed. _ British Columbia: 64,828 confirmed cases (5,843 active, 57,831 resolved, 1,154 deaths). There were 346 new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 115.22 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 3,381 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 483. There were 26 new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 76 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 11. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.21 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 22.76 per 100,000 people. There have been 1,044,931 tests completed. _ Yukon: 70 confirmed cases (zero active, 69 resolved, one deaths). There were zero new cases Monday from 13 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 0.0 per cent. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of zero new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is zero. There have been no deaths reported over the past week. The overall death rate is 2.45 per 100,000 people. There have been 6,229 tests completed. _ Northwest Territories: 31 confirmed cases (seven active, 24 resolved, zero deaths). There were zero new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 15.62 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of three new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is zero. There have been no deaths reported over the past week. The overall death rate is zero per 100,000 people. There have been 9,064 tests completed. _ Nunavut: 282 confirmed cases (17 active, 264 resolved, one deaths). There were two new cases Monday from 121 completed tests, for a positivity rate of 1.7 per cent. The rate of active cases is 43.84 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 16 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is two. There have been no deaths reported over the past week. The overall death rate is 2.58 per 100,000 people. There have been 7,382 tests completed. This report was automatically generated by The Canadian Press Digital Data Desk and was first published Jan. 26, 2021. The Canadian Press

  • Lawmakers say North Korean diplomat defected to South Korea

    SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of — A North Korean diplomat who served as the country’s acting ambassador to Kuwait has defected to South Korea, according to South Korean lawmakers who were briefed by Seoul’s spy agency. Ha Tae-keung, a conservative opposition lawmaker and an executive secretary of the National Assembly’s intelligence committee, said Tuesday he was told by officials from the National Intelligence Service that the diplomat arrived in South Korea in September 2019 with his wife and at least one child. That would make him one of the most senior North Koreans to defect in recent years. North Korea, which touts itself as a socialist paradise, is extremely sensitive about defections, especially among its elite, and has sometimes insisted that they are South Korean or American plots to undermine its government. Ha said he was told that the diplomat, who changed his name to Ryu Hyun-woo after arriving in the South, had escaped through a South Korean diplomatic mission but that spy officials didn’t specify where. Ha said spy officials didn’t provide specific details as to why Ryu decided to defect. The office of Kim Byung-kee, a lawmaker of the ruling liberal party and the intelligence committee's other executive secretary, said he was also told that Ryu was now living in South Korea. Kim's aides didn’t elaborate further. The NIS and South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, didn’t independently confirm Ryu's defection when reached by The Associated Press. Kuwait’s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A mobile phone number once associated with the North Korean Embassy there rang unanswered Tuesday. North Korean state media has yet to comment on Ryu’s situation. The North has been known to maintain silence about such defections — such as the 2018 defection of its former acting ambassador to Italy — in part to avoid highlighting the vulnerabilities of its government. North Korea has long used its diplomats to develop money-making sources abroad and experts have said it’s possible that diplomats who defected may have struggled to meet financial demands from authorities at home. The North’s long-mismanaged economy has been devastated by U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear program, which strengthened significantly in 2016 and 2017 amid a provocative run in nuclear and weapons tests. The North Korean Embassy in Kuwait City serves as its only diplomatic outpost in the Gulf region. Pyongyang once had thousands of labourers working in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates before the United Nations stepped up its sanctions over North Korean labour exports, which had been an important source of foreign income for Pyongyang. In its most-recent letter to the United Nations in March 2020, Kuwait said it had stopped issuing work permits for North Koreans and expelled those working in the country. The UAE said it expelled all North Korean labourers by late December 2019. Oman and Qatar haven’t provided updates since 2019 and 2018 respectively. In September 2017, the Kuwaiti government expelled North Korea's ambassador and four other diplomats following Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests. Ryu reportedly stepped in as acting ambassador after that. It appears Ryu fled months after North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil, vanished with his wife in late 2018. Ha and other lawmakers told reporters last year that they learned Jo was living in South Korea under government protection after arriving in July 2019. Jo was possibly the highest-level North Korean official to defect to the South since the 1997 arrival of a senior ruling Workers’ Party official who once tutored leader Kim Jong Un’s father, late leader Kim Jong Il. Tae Young Ho, formerly a minister at the North Korean Embassy in London who defected to the South in 2016 and was elected as a lawmaker representing Ha’s party last year, said in a Facebook post that Ryu’s defection would shock members of the North Korean ruling elite because he appears to be the son-in-law of Jon Il Chun, who once oversaw a ruling party bureau that handled the Kim family’s secret moneymaking operations. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify Tae’s claim. More than 33,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government records. Many defectors have said they were escaping from harsh political suppression and poverty, while elites like Tae have expressed resentment about the country’s dynastic leadership. Tae has said he decided to flee because he didn’t want his children to live “miserable” lives in North Korea and that he was disappointed with Kim Jong Un, who he said terrorized North Korean elites with executions and purges while consolidating power and aggressively pursued nuclear weapons. North Korea has called Tae “human scum” and accused him of embezzling government money and committing other crimes without presenting specific evidence. __ Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed to this story from Dubai. Kim Tong-Hyung, The Associated Press

  • Nunavut family discovers father's long-lost story on CBC podcast

    A family in Nunavut recently discovered their late father's voice on a CBC North podcast. The podcast, Inuit Unikkaangit, released an episode with an unknown storyteller talking about how to interpret the wind, and the things it can tell you. The host, Mary Powder, has been digitizing decades worth of CBC content in Inuktitut and has discovered many stories. The eight-episode series features storytellers from across the Nunavut and Nunavik — but the identities of three were unknown. After episode three aired, Audrey Qamanirq, who lives in Igloolik, Nunavut, got a message from a friend telling her that the storyteller talking about wind was Audrey's father, Philip Qamanirq. "I was so excited, my late father had so many stories," she told Powder in a bonus episode airing Tuesday. "Stories about Inuit culture and Inuit ways, I was so happy, one of his stories was found." Audrey's brother also heard the episode and contacted Powder to reveal his father's name as the storyteller. Audrey said her father died nearly 20 years ago, but he passed his stories on to her, many of which she videotaped, or recorded. She's never played them for anyone else. "I loved my father, it was kind of hard to try and listen or watch them," she said. "I would like to have all my siblings, family members and my father's family members to listen and/or watch the stories someday." She said his stories were about Inuit traditions, parenting and relationships, sewing, hunting and animals. Philip Qamanirq wrote daily notes, Audrey said, which she has and reads sometimes. She also has Inuit tools that he made — utensils and ulus (traditional Inuit knives), and figurines made of seal bones. Identities of 2 storytellers still unknown Audrey said her father taught himself how to read Inuktitut syllabics through the Bible, which he read daily. He also sat on elders' committees, and helped people any way he knew how. Audrey said her father's knowledge sharing has inspired her. "I try my best to help other fellow Inuit, to pass on the Inuit knowledge," she said. "I teach sewing, go on the land and make other things that Inuit make. He wanted Inuit culture and Inuit ways to be known." Episodes of Inuit Unikkaangit can be found here, including the bonus episode of Audrey Qamanirq. The identities of the two other mystery storytellers are still unknown.

  • Housing and new ministry among what's needed to fix mental health system, say advocates

    Since her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Kristi Allan says, she's been fighting her way through the mental health-care system in Newfoundland and Labrador. During a mental-health panel on CBC's Here & Now on Wednesday, the Petty Harbour-Maddox Cove woman said it's a struggle she's had to face alone. "I feel like I've been on my own, that it's been up to me to fight for myself to get the appointments, just to say what's going on," she said. While politicians are campaigning for votes, she's advocating for long-term solutions — a system that better serves not just mental health emergencies, but chronic, lifelong illnesses like her bipolar disorder. From inside the system, doctors feel there's also room for change. "Like Kristi, I have a wish list that's an arm's length long," said child psychologist Dr. Janine Hubbard. "But there's really three things that I've honed in on that I think could be managed in the fairly short term that could make some real differences in the province." Possible solutions First, Hubbard wants to see a minister of mental health, someone with a primary and exclusive focus on mental health and addictions issues. Since British Columbia created a ministry of mental health in 2017, four other provinces have followed suit, she said. Next, Hubbard wants psychologists to work to their full scope of practice. So if our system is currently drowning, I want you to think about it a year from now. - Dr. Janine Hubbard In the last few years, she said, an emphasis has been put on low-intensity, early entry services, coming at the expense of more chronic, severe and intense cases. "Psychologists are being asked to be case managers. They're being asked to do walk-in clinics as opposed to providing … an evidence-based treatment for something that requires much longer interventions." Finally, she'd like to see an increase of extended health-care benefits for provincial government employees in terms of access to private psychologists. "At the moment, if you're an employee at Starbucks, you get $5,000 a year to see a psychologist," Hubbard said. "If you were an employee of Eastern Health, you receive less than $400." That's a fairly low-cost intervention, Hubbard said, adding that the provincial government could also require companies bidding on large government contracts to have adequate mental health coverage for employees. Housing first For general and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Nazir Ladha, housing is what's most urgently needed. You can't expect anyone to stay well without a decent living situation and other basic necessities, like food, he said. "The Mental Health Commission [of Canada] did a very good study on housing and showed very clearly that if you have proper housing, you decrease chronicity, you decrease the rate of readmissions and you decrease the acute care that's required for people's lives to become more stable." He's seen improvement in the system over the last 12 years, but says more can be done. "Like Kristi said, these are chronic conditions, just like diabetes is, just like hypertension is, and they need long-term care," Ladha said. "We need more organizations that would take care of people within the community, provide supports and provide advocacy for appointments, for treatment support, for access to treatment, for access to housing and so on," Ladha said. A quick fix According to Allan, taking away some of the anticipation with more information is a relatively quick and cost-effective fix. That can be as simple as providing more detailed instructions on the province's mental health websites, she said. According to Allan, for someone with a mental illness, not knowing what to expect each step of the way can be a huge hurdle. It's terrifying to pick up a phone and dial a helpline not knowing what the person on the other end is going to expect from you or what they can ultimately provide you with, she said. "The Bridge the Gapp website has a number, but they don't say you can get counselling. It took me going to a virtual clinic in Toronto to get someone to recommend me for that," she said. "There are little things that we can do for people's mental health that don't cost tons of money." Financial reality Newfoundland and Labrador's debt is estimated at $16.4 billion but, Allan said, the province's workforce is at stake. "We say that the economy is important, which I totally agree, but mental health affects that." So long as there's no definitive commitment to mental illness, mental health will remain the "poor cousin" of medicine, according to Ladha. That's a difficult reality facing the system as Hubbard anticipates and braces for a second wave of mental health concerns resulting from the pandemic. "We have seen an upsurge over the last year, but all of the research is showing that there's a lot of needs that are continuing to develop, and are going to emerge, and needs are being unmet right now. "So if our system is currently drowning, I want you to think about it a year from now." Mental Health research doesn't match well with a four-year election cycle, Hubbard said. Results aren't necessarily immediate, the investment pays off over time. "We have solid research that shows for every dollar spent on psychological interventions, you can save the health-care system five dollars," Hubbard said. "We know that mental illness causes additional physical symptoms that then wind up costing us a fortune in long term health treatment." Where to get help: Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1-833-456-4566 (phone) | 45645 (text, 5:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. NT). | crisisservicescanada.ca In Quebec (French): Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553). Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868 (phone), live chat counselling at www.kidshelpphone.ca. Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

  • "It was nail-biting but we did it": Canadian shows didn't let COVID derail production

    TORONTO — The pandemic has its prints all over Canada's winter TV season. While some shows affected by lockdowns last March were able to resume production in the summer and air in the fall, many were held up by restrictions, a lack of COVID-19 insurance, and the development of expensive health and safety protocols with officials and unions. The result is a January and February slate packed with new programming shot over the past few months with much testing, distancing, sanitization and personal protective equipment. The Canadian Press spoke with talent behind some Canadian shows about production challenges, and how positive cases were dealt with on set. "KIM'S CONVENIENCE" ON SHOOTING UNDER DURESS Star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who plays patriarch Appa on the family sitcom, says the pandemic pushed the start of production on the new season in Toronto from last May to September. Writers modified some storylines and used fewer guest actors, while the whole team was "fastidious" about their COVID protocols. Away from the set, everyone limited their contact to those in their immediate household, realizing that "like dominoes, if one goes, everything sort of goes." "Mission accomplished," Lee says. "We shot season five under duress, the worst circumstances, but we didn't have one case, knock on wood." Simu Liu, who plays Appa's son Jung, was in Australia shooting Marvel's upcoming film "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" when the pandemic hit and couldn't get back to Toronto to shoot "Kim's Convenience" until near the end of production. The protocols made the shooting process "very piecemeal" and put pressure on the cast to "nail a scene and move on" so they could stay on schedule, Lee says. "Otherwise, it's like a big train wreck: one delay at the beginning makes it a mess at the end. So that was really difficult to do." Lee cites a host of other challenges, including the safety risk of acting without a mask, and not being able to communicate as well while wearing PPE during rehearsals. But he was happy to be working and it all made him "appreciate that much more the professionalism and the quality of the crews." "Every step of the way, I felt safe," Lee says. "Personally, I felt safer on set than anywhere else outside of my home." (Fifth season debuted Jan. 19 on CBC) --- "CORONER" ON INTIMATE SCENES Masks are already a common sight on this show about a coroner in Toronto, but even more so in the new season as it's set during the COVID-19 pandemic. Showrunner Morwyn Brebner says when the pandemic hit, they'd already done a month's worth of writing but realized they would have to "reinvent the season" to address the new reality. "A few of us were really concerned: 'Will we not have a problem with COVID by the time we start to air it? Will it feel a little bit like old news?' Ha! Were we wrong," adds lead director/executive producer Adrienne Mitchell. The writing team penned the new scripts together via video conferencing, limiting the amount of stand-ins and background performers on set. Shooting began in the fall with protocols including daily temperature checks and weekly COVID testing. Departments worked different shifts to limit the amount of people in spaces, which made shooting more time-consuming. Filming took place outside where possible. Actors not in the key cast were distanced from the stars when shooting scenes indoors. With so much separation on set, scenes of intimacy "felt really significant," says Brebner. Eye acting and body movement become more important in scenes where the characters wore masks. "You start to shoot a little looser so you can see body language, because body language adds a lot of information," Mitchell says. While the production had "a few issues" with COVID-19 cases, "they weren't on set and they were easily contact-traced," says Mitchell, noting they didn't have to shut down. "We have had no community spread, and what we had was very little." (Third season debuts Feb. 3 on CBC) --- "HEARTLAND" ON CHANGING THE SCRIPT Star Amber Marshall says the storylines for the new season of the Alberta-shot family ranch story were already written depicting spring and summer vistas when the pandemic hit. When filming was pushed from last April to September, writers had to alter scripts to reflect the fall and winter seasons that would be seen onscreen instead. "There were a lot of things that sprung up on us, even throughout shooting, such as we had certain actors written into certain stories and then they weren't able to travel (to set)," Marshall says. "So of course there this mad scramble of, 'How are we going to continue this story without that character here?'" The "Heartland" set inherently allows for distancing, since many scenes are filmed outdoors. For indoor shoots, each department was put into a certain "zone" that would only work with each other. Producer Tom Cox says COVID didn't ever reach the set. (14th season debuted Jan. 10 on CBC) --- "PRETTY HARD CASES" ON WORKING WITH A SKELETON CREW Catherine Lang, COVID supervisor for the new buddy-cop series in Toronto, says she and the producers pored over scripts to try to minimize risky contact between actors. They also checked with the cast on whether they were comfortable in various scenarios, and held daily morning safety meetings with the whole team. The crew and the cast were "very onside" with their COVID protocols, "because nobody wanted to shut down." "We had debriefs with our department heads just last week, and everyone said that they actually felt safer at work than they did out in public," says Lang. "We had no incident of anyone contracting COVID-19 in our workplace," she adds, noting there were two positive cases that were contracted outside production, caught through testing and had no community spread. Stars Adrienne C. Moore and Meredith MacNeill say the hardest thing was not being able to see people's faces while putting together a brand-new show, especially crew members, whom they view as their collaborators. Moore says she tried to have special moments with the crew and express her gratitude to them, while everyone worked as a team. "In those morning meetings, if there was a problem, if somebody was afraid of something or wanted to do something, no one was afraid to talk about it," says MacNeill. (Debuts Feb. 3, on CBC) --- "PRIVATE EYES" ON DEALING WITH POSITIVE CASES Producer Alex Jordan says the pandemic interrupted the prep period for season 4 of the private-detective show in March and they couldn't start production until August. Filming took place in studio for the first couple of weeks to ensure protocols were solid before shooting outside, which was limited to as many single locations as possible and with fewer background performers. Each department was podded together and had their own bathrooms. Town hall meetings took place in a parking lot. "Our COVID team grew from a handful to a small army," Jordan says, rhyming off a long list of team members specifically dedicated to the protocols, including two medics. The stars and crew who worked directly with actors were known as "the red zone" and tested for COVID more frequently. "Through the testing we caught five positives, but we had no community spread and none reached the floor (of production)," Jordan says, noting they suspected two of the positive cases were a result of viral shedding from people who'd had COVID a while ago and had been cleared by government to return to work. Insurance-wise, "Private Eyes" was considered an "at-risk production," meaning if the show had to shut down, all of those costs would have been on production company eOne. "Entertainment One was very nervous, I was stressed out for the entire shoot until the very last day," Jordan says. "It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done." But they "had zero shutdowns" during the whole production, he adds. "It was nail-biting but we did it." (Fourth season airing on Global) This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021. Victoria Ahearn, The Canadian Press

  • Inside Canada's largest COVID-19 outbreak in a federal prison

    During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alex Doyle was doing his best to follow public health orders and keep himself and his young family free of infection. But last November, Doyle ended up back in Manitoba's Stony Mountain Institution north of Winnipeg after violating parole conditions for a drug trafficking and break and enter conviction. And that's where he may have inadvertently become a superspreader in Canada's worst outbreak so far in a federal penitentiary. Doyle's story, and the experiences of other Stony Mountain inmates who became infected, is part of the testimony being gathered in a class-action lawsuit against the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) on behalf of federal prisoners across the country. There have been more than 1,500 cases of COVID-19 in the federal prison system and more than 5,000 in the correctional system overall, according to University of Ottawa criminology professor Justin Piché, who has been tracking COVID-19 cases in Canadian prisons since the beginning of the pandemic. "The whole range, everyone was mad at me like it's my fault and it wasn't my fault," Doyle, 33, said of his experience in a series of telephone interviews with CBC News. Doyle arrived at Stony Mountain on Nov. 6. He was segregated in an isolation cell known by inmates as the hole. He was tested for COVID-19 nearly a week later and when it came back negative, he was moved to another area of the prison where he said one of the inmates had already tested positive for COVID-19. The first inmate at Stony Mountain tested positive on Nov. 10. Four days later, public health officials declared an outbreak. Inmates were locked down. They were allowed only 30 minutes out of their cells each day — just enough time for a quick shower and maybe a call home, if the lineups weren't too long. On Nov. 20, when his 14-day quarantine was up, Doyle said he was moved to yet another medium security unit. Despite having a cough, he wasn't immediately tested for COVID-19, he said. It was a Friday and Doyle said he was told he would have to wait until Monday. During that weekend, Doyle said he socialized with other inmates during the 30 minutes they were allowed outside of their cells. They were all wearing masks, but in close quarters. "I thought I was good because [penitentiary staff] cleared me to come here and, you know, I was talking to my friends and stuff. That's probably how it got passed around," he said. Two days later, Doyle said his test came back positive. But by then, he said, he may have directly infected at least three people, and they, in turn, infected others. Les Bisson is one of the men who claimed to have developed symptoms within days. He started coughing up blood and had problems breathing, he said. His COVID-19 test on Dec. 2 came back positive. "I literally thought I was going to die a month ago. I sat there, looking at pictures, thinking how I'll never be able to be a father to my kids again," Bisson, 40, said with a break in his voice. He is serving eight years for drug trafficking. "We thought that was just on our range. Now, I know that that's happened on at least two of the ranges.… If it was once, it would be an accident. But to do something over and over and over again, you can't say that's an accident." 'I feel like they failed miserably' At its worst, nearly half of the 744 inmates at Stony Mountain had COVID-19, making it the largest outbreak at any federally run correctional facility in Canada. Piché found all of the infections reported by CSC at Stony in December were linked to the medium-security section of the institution, with more than 75 per cent of those prisoners infected. In December, an inmate died of COVID-19 complications, one of four deaths so far in prisons across the country. CBC News spoke with eight inmates over the past several weeks who said they believe the outbreak may have been caused by Stony Mountain relaxing the 14-day quarantine rules for new inmates and not testing frequently enough. "I feel like they failed miserably. Our range was green, which means no COVID, and they moved a COVID-positive inmate to our range," said 30-year-old Grayson Wesley, who is serving an eight-year sentence for unlawful confinement. Wesley said he was infected at the end of November and sent to hospital because he couldn't breathe. He still has trouble with his memory and worries about getting sick again, he said. "There's a new COVID variant out there. If that comes into the jail, it's going to spread like wildfire," he said. Mike Bourget also started feeling symptoms shortly after Doyle arrived on his unit, but said he wasn't tested for three days. When the results came back, he was positive. "My symptoms were not that bad, not compared to my fellow inmates here.... It is more of the mental aspect right now," said Bourget, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. "My emotions and anxiety is like a roller-coaster." No officials at Stony Mountain were available for an interview, but a spokesperson for the CSC said inmates and staff are tested regularly, even those who are asymptomatic. "All inmates at Stony Mountain Institution were tested as they left isolation cells and before they were moved to a different range," Kelly Dae Dash wrote in an email to CBC News. "All inmates that tested positive for COVID-19 were immediately moved to a separate area of the institution which operated under single cell movement and was specifically designated for COVID-19 cases." Throughout the outbreak, inmates have also had wellness checks by health services staff. Oldest prison in Canada Part of the challenge in containing the virus is the age and layout of the institution. Of the four federal prisons built in the 19th century, Stony Mountain is the only one still operating. The minimum and maximum-security units are the newer areas of the institution. Cells have a door with a tiny window that separates an inmate from the hallway. However, in the original and oldest part of the facility, the medium security units have only bars that open onto a long hallway. It makes physical distancing difficult and there is constant air flow between cells. "These essentially operate as three distinct sites within a shared penitentiary reserve, which is why the outbreak was able to be contained to the original, stand-alone Stony Mountain Institution," Piché said. Saskatchewan Penitentiary in Prince Albert is of the same vintage and layout, and has had similar problems with COVID-19. There have been 247 cases and one death, although there are currently only seven active cases. Inmates in SaskPen's medium security units say they were putting blankets on the bars of their cells, but the correctional officers removed them. "They've ripped down all of our curtains and everything that would protect us from the airborne virus from the guys out there ... sick on the unit," Bronson Gordon, 36, said in a phone call several weeks ago with prisoner advocate Sherri Maier, who shared a recording of the conversation with CBC News in Saskatchewan. Gordon is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. He said they asked the guard how long they'd have to live under such conditions, without access to mental health services or elders. "But he was just like, 'All you guys are going to be locked down 23½ hours for a ... long time, because until you guys have no COVID-19 on the unit, this unit is going to be run like this,'" Gordon told Maier. Gordon was recently sent to a maximum security unit after a confrontation with a guard. He said conditions there are significantly better because it's a newer part of the prison and cells have doors with windows instead of bars. The CSC said it is looking into Gordon's allegations. Class-action lawsuit alleges negligence Inmates at federal institutions including Stony Mountain and SaskPen are now preparing written statements for a class-action lawsuit launched initially on behalf of an inmate at Mission Institution east of Vancouver. That lawsuit has since expanded to include the whole country except for Quebec, which operates under a different civil law system. A certification hearing is scheduled in Vancouver for January 2022. "Prisoners who are known to have COVID are put with prisoners who don't have COVID. That's by definition negligent," said Jeffrey Hartman, one of the lawyers involved in the suit. Hartman says there is no question the federal government has failed in its duty to protect inmates despite having adequate time to prepare for the second wave. Those systemic failures resulted in loss of life, widespread illness and unprecedented restrictions of inmates' rights, he said. A similar class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of inmates at Joliette Institution for Women north of Montreal. There are also two lawsuits launched by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society, alleging the federal government violated prisoners' charter rights by locking them down for so long as part of COVID-19 restrictions. None of the allegations in any of the lawsuits has been proven in court. Lockdown lifted Meanwhile, range representatives from Stony Mountain's inmate welfare committee said they were called to a meeting last week with senior prison management. They were told that with no active COVID-19 cases right now, some of the lockdown restrictions are being lifted. "The point of the meeting wasn't to apologize," said Mulata Ibrahim, 35, a unit rep who is serving a seven-year sentence for drug trafficking. "It was that they're trying to move forward and saying, 'What can we do now to make it easier for you guys?'" After the meeting, inmates started receiving food three times a day instead of just two, and many were able to go outside for the first time in months, Ibrahim said. In a statement, the CSC said it has put in place extensive infection prevention and control measures in its 43 institutions. They include: Mandatory mask-wearing for inmates and staff. Physical distancing measures. Active health screening of anyone entering institutions. Increased and enhanced cleaning and disinfection at sites. Training 250 employees to conduct contact tracing. Carrying out significant testing among inmates and staff, including asymptomatic individuals. The CSC has also completed its first phase of 600 COVID-19 vaccinations, which includes an unknown number of older, medically vulnerable inmates at Stony Mountain. The department had no comment on the class-action lawsuits.

  • Should voters elect the premier? Commission faces tricky questions in reforming N.W.T. politics

    The N.W.T. is about to embark on what could become the most significant reform to its democratic process in decades — but many questions about its political system remain unsettled since they were first raised decades ago. The year-long Electoral Boundaries Commission normally rules every eight years on the size of the territory's legislature and the boundaries of its electoral districts. This time around, MLAs opted to expand the commission's mandate to include a review of how the premier is selected and how cabinet is composed. Yellowknife North MLA Rylund Johnson called the commission "step zero" in any broad electoral reform — a wide-ranging consultation on what people like, and do not like, about the system. But history shows the commission is likely to wade into tricky constitutional territory, which could challenge a delicate balance between the capital and dozens of small outlying communities. Will 'pope-like process' to pick premier continue? Currently, the premier and cabinet are selected by secret ballot among sitting MLAs at the beginning of each session. The process, which was tweaked after the past two elections, has been criticized as undemocratic and lacking in transparency. "Every [legislative] body … gets some flack for that kind of pope-like process where everything's secretive," said Johnson. One idea frequently debated in the last election was to begin directly electing the premier. But Johnson cautioned that would present some legal challenges for MLAs and the commission. Direct election of the [premier] would be a very unusual development. - Michael Gallagher, professor of comparative politics, Trinity College Dublin "There needs to be a report that says whether we can even do that," he said. "It would be a significant departure from Westminster democracy." Michael Gallagher, an expert in comparative politics at Trinity College Dublin, agreed that "direct election of the [premier] would be a very unusual development." In fact, he said, only Israel has tried directly electing a parliamentary leader, 30 years ago, and abandoned it some 10 years later. David Brock, the N.W.T.'s chief electoral officer from 2010 to 2014, said debates over how to improve the premier selection process go back at least "a couple of decades." But a 2015 transition report found residents more or less supported the system as-is. "Really, the debate turned on … what should be the effective representation between regions … in cabinet," Brock said. Cabinet's 2-2-2 rule That issue, which has been an emotional one for voters and politicians alike, is also part of the commission's mandate. Since 1999, convention has held that cabinet be composed of two members from the southern N.W.T., two from the North, and two from Yellowknife. But the tradition recently came under fire after Katrina Nokleby, a Yellowknife MLA, was ejected from cabinet in August. Steve Norn, MLA for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh, volunteered to replace her, but was ruled out on the grounds that he did not represent a Yellowknife riding. But Norn's riding includes the communities of Ndilo and Dettah, close neighbours of Yellowknife which, until the last electoral boundary commission reassigned them, were considered part of the city. "I have been stifled by the system," Norn said, at the time. Is Yellowknife underrepresented? The episode with Norn highlighted a simmering debate in N.W.T. politics likely to be reignited by the commission: whether Yellowknife is underrepresented in territorial politics. Twice, Yellowknifers have sued the territory in the aftermath of similar commissions to receive more seats in the assembly. In the first of these cases, in 1999, the judge ruled that the districts proposed by the commission a year earlier amounted to "gross misrepresentation," as Yellowknife districts included 25 per cent more people than average. The decision led to the creation of five new electoral districts — three in Yellowknife and one each in Hay River and Inuvik. By now, that 25 per cent limit has been exceeded in some districts for some time. "So if you were to just take rough population numbers, it seems like Yellowknife is due two seats, and the Tlicho constituency, Monfwi, has gotten too big and should be divided," Johnson explained. Race & representation But there is an important subtext to conversations about whether Yellowknife is underrepresented in the territorial government: Yellowknife is a largely non-Indigenous community. The same cannot be said for almost any other community in the territory. In a 2019 article for Settler Colonial Studies, Aaron Spitzer, a researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway, outlined how that fact has been at the core of past electoral disputes. The city's underrepresentation, Spitzer wrote, is partly by design, with the early territorial assembly making "a habit of apportioning assembly seats such that rural Indigenous districts enjoyed substantial overrepresentation vis-à-vis settler-dominated Yellowknife." Spitzer said previous debates over redistricting were "racially charged," with white settlers arguing for the "individual rights" of voters over the special significance of Indigenous communities. That criticism has been echoed by Stephen Kakfwi, the territory's last premier from a small community, who called the 1999 decision "a bitter pill and … a shift in power." The question of race and representation has only become more significant as the territorial government's workforce grows less and less representative of the population at large, even as it assumes ever greater powers as part of devolution. A new mindset? Ultimately, MLAs will be the ones to decide which reforms to implement. They'll vote on recommendations put forward by the electoral commission at the end of its year-long mandate. It's more than possible that their decision ends up in court. "Court cases related to electoral boundaries are not unusual," said Brock, the former elections officer. "Electoral boundaries … are quite rightly of great interest to citizens, and they should be." But Brock cautioned that the electoral commission's recommendations are "not just about counting. "They're also about weighing." More than just population, electoral boundaries must consider "communities of interest" and their connective tissue, like language, land claims and transportation networks, he said. "It's also about communities, and ultimately about effective representation." There is some suggestion that N.W.T. courts agree, and would rule differently today than they did in 1999. In 2015, the City of Yellowknife sued again for more seats in the legislature. But the judge ruled out the city's challenge — despite the fact that one district, Yellowknife South, was already 28 per cent larger than the mean.

  • Auto tech firm Veoneer inks collaboration deal with Qualcomm, shares rise

    Automotive technology firm Veoneer and U.S. chip giant Qualcomm have signed a collaboration deal to develop a software and chip platform for advanced driver assistance systems, Veoneer said on Tuesday. Veoneer, which also makes radars and vision systems, said it had formed Arriver, a dedicated software unit for the development of the complete perception and drive policy software stack. "Today's agreement with Qualcomm Technologies and the creation of Arriver are key milestones in Veoneer's development," Veoneer CEO Jan Carlson said in a statement.