Ottawa, June 24 (IANS) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has denied meddling in an investigation into the 2020 mass shooting, the worst the country's history.
Brenda Lucki, head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), has been accused of pressuring local officers to help advance Trudeau's gun control plans, the BBC quoted the Halifax Examiner as saying, which was the first to report on the development.
According to the Halifax Examiner, the accusation stemmed from notes made by a local RCMP officer, released as part of a public investigation into the mass shooting on April 18-19, 2020, during which a gunman posing as a police officer killed 22 people in Nova Scotia.
The suspect died in a stand-off with police.
Addressing reporters on Thursday, Trudeau said that his government "did not put any undo influence or pressure" on police.
"It is extremely important to highlight that it is only the RCMP, it is only police that determine what and when to release information," the BBC quoted the Prime Minister as saying.
Denying the accusations, Commissioner Lucki said in a statement released on Tuesday that information sharing between the federal government and police is normal during a high-profile event such as a mass shooting.
The RCMP chief however acknowledged that she "should have been more sensitive" in her approach.
Canada's opposition Conservative Party has called for a debate in the House of Commons, and a parliamentary committee voted on Thursday to hold a hearing into the matter.
In the wake of the deadliest rampage in Canadian history, Prime Minister Trudeau in May 2020 announced an immediate ban on the sale, transportation, importation, or use of some 1,500 makes and models of "military-grade assault-style" weapons.
Officials say the number of people in hospitals due to COVID-19 declined again with 549 patients in hospital as of yesterday, a drop from 599 on Friday.
The 31-year-old male was taken to hospital and sadly succumbed to his injury. Surrey RCMP’s General Investigation Unit has assumed conduct of the investigation and initial indications are that it was a self-inflicted injury.
The bill modernizing the Official Languages Act would ensure that federally regulated companies, including banks, airlines, and trains and buses crossing provincial lines, would have to serve Canadians in French as well as English.
The increase of 15.4 per cent for the year was second only to the 17.4 per cent gain recorded in 1983 as the country came out of a recession the previous year.
Joly announced Canada's intent in Geneva Tuesday after she and other Western officials walked out in the middle of the address by their Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
In a Twitter post Sunday night, the department said Aeroflot flight 111 violated the prohibition that was imposed earlier in the day in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
