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.
88.0% (4,078,469) of eligible people 12 and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 81.0% (3,756,363) have received their second dose.
Spokesman Alex Wellstead said Trudeau spent "hours" on the phone Thursday speaking to survivors of the schools, "to hear their stories of trauma and healing, to hear their advice on the path forward."
Alberta is dealing with a COVID-19 crisis that has seen well over 1,000 new cases a day for weeks while filling intensive care wards to almost twice their normal capacity.
The 188,000 square-foot award-winning LEED Gold outpatient facility located at the Green Timbers site near Surrey Memorial Hospital (SMH) was opened in 2011, constructed at a cost of $237 million, to relieve pressure on the health care system by consolidating the services that don’t require an overnight stay at SMH, into one stand-alone facility.
The application was submitted on behalf of several Canadians with relatives, including more than a dozen children, trapped in Syria, and calls on the court to order the government to take "all reasonable steps" to repatriate them.
The Canadian Armed Forces, which has long struggled to boost the number of women in its ranks, hopes to have them represent one-quarter of members by 2026.
