Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 11 Jan, 2024 05:55 PM
Premier David Eby says five new Indigenous Justice Centres set up in B-C over the past year will help make the legal system work better for Indigenous people.
Eby says a total of nine centres across the province will connect more people with culturally safe legal supports and services.
He says the province is working with the First Nations Justice Council to build safer communities and help change lives.
Eby says B-C must do things differently to break a cycle in which Indigenous people comprise five per cent of the population but about 30 per cent of people who are incarcerated.
Kay Matthews doesn't mince words when asked about the state of businesses fighting to survive in downtown cores across Ontario. The experiences in Ontario's cities are echoed across Canada, as downtowns grapple with high vacancy rates, the post-pandemic work culture and the prospect that crowds of office workers may never return in full.
The end of the fall legislative session comes less than a year away from B.C.'s expected election, and about three months before the New Democrat government's tabling of its February budget. Finance Minister Katrine Conroy signalled this week it will post a multibillion-dollar deficit and projects economic growth below one per cent.
The B.C. Supreme Court first-degree murder trial of Ibrahim Ali fell silent for two full minutes as Crown attorney Daniel Porte neared the end of his closing arguments. Porte was illustrating how long it would have taken Ali to strangle the 13-year-old girl he's accused of killing in a Burnaby, B.C., park six years ago, saying Ali would have had to apply "consistent and sustained" pressure.
A statement from the coroners' service says in October alone 189 people died from overdoses, which is more than six deaths a day. It is also the 37th consecutive month where at least 150 people died from illicit overdoses.
Mounties in Surrey are advising the public after an investigation led to sex offence charges against a 24-year-old man. Police say the man was a lifeguard at the City of Surrey Recreation Centre and has been charged with sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and luring a child.
British Columbia's solicitor general says the government has filed the first-ever application to secure an unexplained wealth order in Canada. Mike Farnworth says the notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court is the start of a series of similar applications, which are powerful tools that "put those engaging in illegal activity on notice."
