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 Surrey RCMP Special Victims Unit (SVU) was advised of the social media post and has reached out to the individual who posted it in order to seek more information. To date, SVU have not received any reported incidents of women being followed by men in a white van.
On March 21, 2022 at approximately 2:30 p.m., two suspects broke into two residential complexes in the 7200-block of Collier Street and proceeded to pry the main panel of the mailboxes open and steal all the mail.
The hotel, built in 1907, had been the home to dozens of low-income residents. The fire department said at the time of the blaze that when crews arrived, it was too dangerous to try to enter the building, and they couldn’t determine if anyone else was still inside.
Anand also says she's in the process of working on the "unwritten chapter" of Canada's defence strategy: modernizing the outdated continental defence system it shares with the U.S.
Environment Canada posted wind warnings on Wednesday for much of Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast and the southern Gulf Islands. The forecast called for very strong southwesterly winds of 70 kilometres per hour, gusting to 90 km/h, but easing by afternoon.
The changes would allow the Canada Border Services Agency to deny entry to, and remove, people who have been sanctioned, and would enable Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada officials to deny visas.
