Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 02 May, 2023 04:14 PM
British Columbia's auditor general has found that 45 per cent of the province's ministries have been affected by fraud.
A new report form Michael Pickup says theft was the most common type of fraud that government ministries dealt with between 2021 and 2022.
Pickup says his results suggest not all ministries are following the same approach to risk management or don't have a full understanding of the government-wide framework for managing fraud.
The figures were obtained via questionnaires sent by Pickup's office to 22 ministries last year.
The study suggests that the belief that COVID-19 was a "hoax or exaggerated" led to 2.35 million people delaying or refusing to get the vaccine between March and November of 2021. The study also didn't include estimated "indirect costs and the ripple costs," he says, such as delayed elective surgeries and treating long-COVID cases.
Mortgage and title fraudsters who impersonate homeowners and tenants have targeted at least 32 properties in Ontario and British Columbia, investigators and official warnings suggest. Insurance investigator Brian King, president and CEO of King International Advisory Group, said his firm had received 30 such claims in Ontario.
A task force should consider whether de-escalation training, harsher penalties, increased mental health funding, better housing supports and greater police presence could help prevent violence on transit. The call for a task force came after a number of violent attacks targeting workers and riders on the Toronto Transit Commission.
The biggest change, to take effect in the spring, will allow U.S. border agents to interview Nexus applicants at select Canadian airports before boarding a U.S.-bound flight. That will happen only after applicants take part in a separate, appointment-only interview with Canadian agents at a Nexus airport enrolment centre.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino directed Commissioner Brenda Lucki to bar Mounties from using the method in a mandate letter last year. The fact that he also asked RCMP to stop using two other tools — tear gas and rubber bullets — has received less public attention.
In addition to the reflections found in a technical survey, she said interviews with survivors and searches through archival records revealed that babies born as a result of child sexual assault at the mission were disposed of by incineration. Spearing said their work found "a minimum" of 28 children died at the mission, many of them buried in unmarked graves around the site.
