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HMCS William Hall contributes to significant seizure of illegal narcotics on Operation CARIBBE

Canada Standard05-06-2025
Canada News Centre
05 Jun 2025, 02:20 GMT+10
June 4, 2025 - Ottawa, Ontario - National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces
On May 29 and 31, while deployed in support of Operation CARIBBE, His Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) William Hall and an embarked United States Coast Guard (USCG) Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) successfully conducted seizures of more than 1300 kilograms of cocaine in the Caribbean Sea.
During two separate maritime patrols, multi-role rescue boats were deployed from HMCS William Hall to intercept vessels of interest in the Caribbean Sea, resulting in the seizures. These successful interdictions underscore the enduring collaboration and interoperability between the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and USCG and support- international efforts to prevent the flow of illicit substances into Canada and North America.
Canada's contribution to United States-led Enhanced Counternarcotics Operations under Joint Interagency Task Force South represents an important dimension of our relationship with our ally, the United States, and partners in the region. This collective effort enables us to achieve greater success in making the continent more secure from the threats posed by illicit trafficking and supports broader efforts to enhance regional and continental security.
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HUNTER: Dear Judges, 'cruel and unusual' is a young boy killed by stray bullet
HUNTER: Dear Judges, 'cruel and unusual' is a young boy killed by stray bullet

Toronto Sun

time9 hours ago

  • Toronto Sun

HUNTER: Dear Judges, 'cruel and unusual' is a young boy killed by stray bullet

Get the latest from Brad Hunter straight to your inbox MR CRUEL AND UNUSUAL: Canada's Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner has moaned that Canadians just understand the other worldly wisdom of the the court. Photo by Chris Helgren / REUTERS Canadian judges love to toss out the old 'cruel and unusual' chestnut when it suits their ideological whims. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The violent illegal immigrant whose deportation is iced because it might be 'cruel and unusual.' Mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes? 'Cruel and unusual.' A killer who ONLY murdered one person has to do the full 25? Again, cruel and unusual. He should get a discount for only murdering one luckless individual. Violent youthful offenders should not feel the full weight of the law; again, because that would be 'cruel and unusual.' Tough to get bail and conditions? 'Cruel and unusual.' GIVE 'EM A BREAK: The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa is pictured on Friday, March 29, 2024. Photo by Ashley Fraser / Postmedia Network But the phrase 'cruel and unusual' is never, ever used when we are discussing murder victims or crime victims of any stripe. Victims like eight-year-old boy JahVai Roy, murdered by a stray bullet early Saturday morning in North York. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. And we have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Richard Wagner, moaning and sobbing that his fellow Canadians just don't understand. How wise they are, how just, how exquisitely fair. How absolutely goddamn fantastic our robed great and good truly are. JahVai Roy, 8, was struck and killed by a stray bullet while sleeping in his North York home. HANDOUT Why the Chief Justice is so infallible that some generous soul sprang for a bust of this God-like figure. The shameless ego of this so-called man of law is breathtaking. But that little boy who won't see his ninth birthday? Who will never play another game of baseball, soccer or hockey? Who will never marry, have children or grow old with a lifetime of wonderful memories? Abdoul Aziz Sarr, 14, of Toronto, was stabbed to death at a McDonald's in the Beaches on Saturday, July 5, 2025. Photo by Handout / Toronto Police A few eggs sometimes need to be broken in pursuit of woke Nirvana, the Supreme Court will tell us. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. That little boy in the morgue was sleeping in his bed, a place of sanctuary, when terror struck. A stray bullet hit the little guy in the head, killing him at his apartment building at Martha Eaton Way and Trethewey Dr. near Black Creek Dr. in the city's north end. Despite heroic efforts by cops and paramedics, the boy was later pronounced dead in the hospital. 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Photo by JACK BOLAND / TORONTO SUN Read More Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said he was 'heartbroken by the tragic loss' and that 'no family should endure this.' The chief said every resource the cops have is committed to nabbing the killers. Believe it. In homicide parlance, this is a red ball. The killers will be in handcuffs inside a week or two, too hot even for others in the criminal milieu. And when these monsters are busted? We will likely find the answers as we suspect. It will be a combination of horrors. Soft gun laws, easy bail, hug a thug for teen terrors, easy prison time with a small army of social workers and judges to kiss it better. That eight-year-old citizen of this city, so coldly murdered, had every right to feel safe in his bed and look forward to the promise of a rich life. The killer who took his life may have squeezed the trigger, but a Canadian justice system that doesn't give a whit for murder victims, young, old, rich or poor? 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Digging for the truth
Digging for the truth

Winnipeg Free Press

time21 hours ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Digging for the truth

For eight hours after home-care nurse Heather O'Brien was shot in the head by Nova Scotia mass murderer Gabriel Wortman, her Fitbit continued to send a signal to her home computer showing heart activity. The RCMP officer at the scene felt her pulse, then covered her with a sheet and treated her as dead. Senior Mounties had ruled out sending an ambulance, fearing the paramedics would become targets. O'Brien's family knew she would not have lived, even if she had received treatment. But they wanted the screenshot of her heart activity included in the evidence of the Mass Casualty Commission (MCC), established by the province ostensibly to find the truth and give a voice to the families of the 22 victims of the 2020 shootings. Andrew Vaughan / The Canadian Press files In this April 2020 photo, the medical examiner's office team remove Gabriel Wortman's body from a gas bar in Enfield, N.S. after he was shot dead by police. The commission refused to include the evidence, so the family released the screenshot and their statements on Facebook to let the public know the commission was not providing the full story. Author Paul Palango calls the O'Brien family's experience a perfect example of how the MCC 'favoured the RCMP's official narrative despite contradictory evidence.' The veteran Canadian journalist disassembles that narrative on every page of this exposé, from its confrontational title to its final words: 'The story as told by the RCMP, the Mass Casualty Commission and politicians is full of holes.' Palango won awards for investigative journalism during his tenure as national editor at the Globe and Mail. He is the author of four books about the RCMP, including 22 Murders, also about Wortman's killings, from which he quotes frequently and extensively. If the Mounties had simply admitted they had been caught off-guard, short-handed and ill-prepared by Wortman's murderous rampage on April 18 and 19, 2020, most Canadians would have forgiven them. Instead, Palango documents how institutional rot in the RCMP caused the Mounties to make crucial errors in responding to the gunman, who was wearing an RCMP uniform and driving what looked like an RCMP car. Then, instead of coming clean, Palango says Mounties destroyed and suppressed evidence and lied about what really happened to cover up their own incompetence. They were aided and abetted by the MCC, the author says, which adopted procedural rules that made it almost impossible to get to the truth. Was Gabriel Wortman, a Dartmouth denturist by day, a paid police informant? RCMP handout / Canadian Press files Gabriel Wortman After digging through old search warrants and interviewing those closest to Wortman, Palango speculates that Wortman smuggled drugs and weapons across the U.S. border and sold them to the Hells Angels, along with pill presses for the drugs, something denturists have. These ones were bugged, giving the RCMP a direct line on gang activities. After one too many police raids followed the same pattern, the Hells Angels were likely thinking Wortman was a 'rat' and planning to kill him, Palango speculates. That would explain Wortman's sudden urge to get out of town. He was selling his real estate and dissolving his business. Wortman collected $475,000 in cash from Brink's a mere 18 days before he started killing people. Was the money Wortman received a payout from the police? No, the commission replied, there was 'no evidence' he was a paid informant. But the same document concedes that even if he had been, no one would admit it, even after his death. Palango believes key facts about other aspects of the official narrative were altered or suppressed, including how Wortman was killed, his girlfriend Lisa Banfield's alibi and how two Mounties shot at and almost killed another Mountie, thinking he was Wortman. Accepting the book's premises requires the reader to take Palango's side against all of officialdom. But his over-sized ego keeps getting in the way. Anatomy of a Cover-Up He repeatedly interrupts the narrative to crow about what an outstanding journalist he is, and more importantly, how dull and slow-witted all the other journalists are. When he finally makes a mistake — and it's a doozy — he owns up to it and apologizes to his print and podcast audiences. But in the next breath, he absolves himself: 'Another positive was that our wrong assumption didn't get anyone killed.' Cringe. For readers who can get over tone-deaf passages along those lines, Palango delivers a mother lode of facts and well-informed speculation about the biggest mass shooting in Canadian history. Palango concedes that he can't be absolutely sure he has all the right answers, but he has done a great service to the victims' families and all Canadians by tirelessly asking the right questions. Donald Benham is a freelance writer living near Beausejour.

From hotels, to wine and candy: Canada spent $170K to bring back women who joined Islamic State
From hotels, to wine and candy: Canada spent $170K to bring back women who joined Islamic State

Vancouver Sun

timea day ago

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From hotels, to wine and candy: Canada spent $170K to bring back women who joined Islamic State

The federal government spent more than $170,000 to bring Canadian women and their children back to the country after they went overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, documents show. As first reported by Global News , the documents, which were released under access to information legislation, contain details of the costs incurred when eight women, along with their children, were brought home from Syria. They include costs for business class air travel and hotel bills in Montreal that include wine, candy and chocolates. A number of the women have since been charged with terrorism offences. On Friday, the Conservatives called for an investigation into the expenditures in a letter addressed to Jean-Yves Duclos, the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Global News reported. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'With Canadians lining up in food banks in record numbers and struggling with housing costs, the Liberal government must answer for why they spent $170,000 on lavish costs to repatriate reported ISIS criminals,' the letter reportedly says. The Conservative party did not respond by press time to National Post's request for comment. The first round of repatriations, completed in October 2022, cost $10,863, according to the documents from Global Affairs Canada. Canadians Kimberly Polman and Oumaima Chouay were returned to the country in that operation. Polman is facing terrorism charges and Chouay pleaded guilty last month to one charge of participating in the activities of a terrorist group . The second operation, which occurred in April 2023, cost $132,746 in expenses for government staff and those returned to Canada. Not all the expenses are detailed in the documents, but the total cost includes $20,331 for 23 hotel rooms at the Marriott hotel at the Montreal Airport, including room-service bills and a catering tab of nearly $3,000. At the time, four Canadian women — three of whom were arrested upon arrival — and their 10 children were returned to Canada, The Canadian Press reported . Among that group was Edmontonian Aimee Lucia Vasconez, who was married to two different ISIS fighters, according to an affidavit filed in court by an RCMP officer. Another, Ammara Amjad, was also arrested and faces a terrorism charge . Individual bills show that one room cost nearly $1,100, driven up from the original room cost of $638 by purchases of $95 worth of wine, a $105 room-service meal and $87 worth of items from the hotel gift store, including chocolate, chips and drugs such as Benadryl and Reactine. That same room tipped $7 on an $8 coffee. Another room ordered $15 worth of children's ice cream, and a third ordered white, red and sparkling wine at $25 apiece. One room's food bill included two $24 smoked meat dishes. The third repatriation operation, done in early July 2023, cost more than $27,500 and saw a government of Canada employee purchase snacks, including goldfish and granola bars, from Costco, and Timbits from Tim Hortons, for the operation. Hotel rooms in Montreal cost a bit more than $2,300. Two Edmonton women, Dina Kalouti and Helena Carson, were among that group. Both have been sentenced to six-month peace bonds and they are required to continue counselling with the Edmonton-based Organization for the Prevention of Violence (OPV), which provides programming for people seeking to leave extremist groups. The documents redact a number of details, and 50 pages were not released, as they are under consultation. The documents do not appear to account for the costs of actually flying to Syria to get the women from detention camps; they include only the costs of transferring them within Canada. Global Affairs Canada did not respond to National Post's requests for comment by press time. A number of Canadian women travelled to the Middle East when the Islamic State seized territory in Iraq and Syria more than a decade ago. However, the terrorist group lost much of its territory, and Canadians who had been living and fighting with the Islamic State were held in detention camps. This led to a major push, particularly from the United States, to have nations repatriate their citizens who were held in Syria. In 2023 alone, the U.S. state department reported under then U.S. president Joe Biden, 14 countries — Canada among them — repatriated 3,500 citizens from where they were detained. Overall, the administration reported that nearly 7,000 family members of foreign fighters had been repatriated by 30 countries. The U.S. bureau of counterterrorism warned in December 2023 that more than half of those held in camps were under the age of 12 and if they remained, they would become vulnerable to ISIS recruitment, perhaps fuelling a resurgence of the terrorist group. — With addition reporting by the Edmonton Journal and The Canadian Press Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .

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