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.
The senior officer tasked with changing the Canadian military's culture says while she and her team are already working on initiatives to tackle sexual misconduct and hate in the ranks, victory will look like "irreversible positive changes" within five years.
"What choices we make as Canadians over the next week or two will determine how bad the rest of our winter is — how many people we lose, how overwhelmed our hospitals get, how much we're going to take a hit in our economy," Trudeau said Thursday during a year-end roundtable interview with The Canadian Press.
There have been 135 cases of the Omicron variant of concern identified in B.C. Fraser Health says in a statement 23 COVID-19 cases were identified among staff and students at Khalsa School Old Yale Road.
There are no happy visions of snow-covered slopes on the 2021 list. Just death, destruction and drought. Consider late June's heat dome in Western Canada, the top pick by Phillips for the year.
Taxpayers ombudsperson François Boileau says gaining a larger profile would also help him reach the more than 800,000 people who don't file returns and are often from vulnerable populations that don't usually file complaints.
Trudeau's new mandate letters to the 38 members of cabinet were published online Thursday and they show that ending the fight against COVID-19 remains the top priority across government.
