Feds provide funds for gender based violence in BC
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 17 May, 2023 12:12 PM
The B-C government says new federal funding will improve critical services for survivors of gender-based violence in the province.
The Ministry of Public Safety says Ottawa's funding will enhance 24-hour crisis hotlines run by the Salal Sexual Violence Support Centre and the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.
It says the province-wide crisis lines provide risk-assessment and safety planning services to those experiencing gender-based violence.
The organizations are set to receive 2 point 7-5 million dollars over four years to expand their services, with the ministry noting that groups operating crisis lines in B-C reported a large uptick in calls during the pandemic.
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.
Richard Gauthier was on trial on three charges in connection with crimes he committed in the 1980s involving a teenage male skater whom he trained. Gauthier, 61, was found guilty on two charges, in a ruling rendered in Montreal by Quebec court Judge Josée Bélanger. He was acquitted of a third count of indecent assault against the victim, whose identity is covered by a publication ban.
