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.
Zelenskyy delivered that message to Trudeau in their Tuesday morning telephone call, which came on the eve of a key meeting in Brussels between the 30-country NATO alliance and Russia.
56 per cent of respondents in the poll conducted by Leger and the Association of Canadian Studies agreed governments are making the right decisions to limit the spread of Omicron and keep the health system from being overrun.
Trudeau made the pledge in a statement issued late Monday after he spoke with provincial and territorial leaders, saying Ottawa will do all it can to help them cope with the fifth wave of the pandemic.
The latest atmospheric river to wash over British Columbia was expected to soak parts of the south coast with as much as 150 millimetres of rain in a series of waves that won't relent until Thursday, Environment Canada said. Rainfall warnings covered the west coast of Vancouver Island and the inner south coast, including Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
Last night, January 10, just after 10:00 p.m., Burnaby RCMP received a report of a possible shooting incident in the area of Randolph Avenue and Kingsway. Frontline officers located a 43-year-old man with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. The man was transported to the hospital.
There has been a surge of COVID-19 infections in health-care and long-term care facilities in British Columbia with seven more outbreaks reported in the last few days. A statement from the Health Ministry says 43 facilities were listed as having outbreaks on Monday, including several hospitals in the province.
