Jun 8 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — A leader of the fight to secure freedom for a Canadian human-rights activist detained in China for 17 years is taking the latest diplomatic deep-freeze between Ottawa and Beijing in stride. Wilf Ruland, a volunteer fieldworker with Amnesty Int...
Jun 5 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — Newly released documents say the intelligence community's relationship with its key watchdog has been particularly strained over the last year due to a "level of resistance" to scrutiny. The assessment appears in briefing materials prepared fo...
May 22 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — As the RCMP marks its 150th anniversary, a familiar, nagging question about the storied national police force is resurfacing: Should the Mounties withdraw from small communities across Canada to fully concentrate on big-ticket federal files su...
May 18 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — Canada's financial intelligence agency is warning that Russians subject to economic sanctions due to Moscow's attack on Ukraine could try to evade them using shell companies, cryptocurrency and real-estate transactions. The Financial Transacti...
May 13 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — A culture within Canada's cyberspy service of "resisting and impeding" independent review has frustrated efforts to ensure it is obeying the law, say newly released documents from the federal intelligence watchdog. The unusually candid Nationa...
Apr 25 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — The federal government is eyeing a "clear, consistent" definition of assault-style firearms to be prohibited through legislation, as recently suggested by the Nova Scotia mass shooting commission, says Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. T...
Apr 23 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — RCMP Cpl. Kate Walaszczyk honed her policing skills as a homicide investigator, painstakingly reconstructing crime scenes and gathering evidence. She is turning that hard-earned know-how to the global stage, working with other countries to doc...
Apr 22 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — A Russian race-car driver is taking Canada to court, saying sanctions imposed against him following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine are unfairly hurting his career. Nikita Mazepin, a former Formula One driver, wants the Federal Court to direct Fo...
Apr 18 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — The CBC's fight to see mandate letters for Ontario cabinet ministers goes to "the very core" of what freedom-of-information regimes are designed to foster, a lawyer for the public broadcaster told the country's top court Tuesday. These element...
Apr 3 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — A grassroots Muslim charity is pointing to internal Canada Revenue Agency documents in a bid to persuade an Ontario court that a long-running federal audit is fundamentally tainted by systemic bias and Islamophobia. The Muslim Association of C...
Apr 3 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — A national civil liberties group told a federal judge Monday the federal government has not clearly spelled out proper legal justification for its use of the Emergencies Act early last year in response to protests in the national capital and a...
Apr 2 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — Six Canadian children are set to leave a Syrian prison camp and fly to Canada without their mother who cannot come with them because federal officials have not completed her security assessment, advocates for the family say. The federal govern...
Mar 27 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — The federal taxpayers' ombudsperson is recommending better unconscious bias training for employees of the Canada Revenue Agency's charities directorate. In a report Monday on the fairness of the audit process for registered charities, François...
Mar 27 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — A judge's erroneous direction that Canadian officials should secure the release of four men from detention in northeastern Syria amounts to a "wholesale expansion" of the law, a federal lawyer told an appeal hearing Monday. Lawyer Anne Turley ...
Mar 25 2023 — Jim Bronskill — The Canadian Press — OTTAWA — Frederick Lea Hardy died fighting for Canada at Vimy Ridge in the First World War. Shortly before being killed in action, the teenager spent time in prison doing hard labour as a military punishment for his sexuality. Hardy was one of at least...