In the News

One of the protesters arrested after a weeks-long border blockade in southern Alberta faces new charges arising from stemming from an incident in which a police barrier was breached by trucks and tractors. Joanne Person, 62, who already faces weapons and mischief charges, now is charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. Most of the 13 accused who appeared in court March 15 face charges of mischief to property and possession of a weapon but four are charged with conspiracy to murder RCMP officers.

Britain’s high court has refused to allow Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s latest appeal against extradition to the U.S. but the legal challenge isn’t over. A court official said today that the latest appeal did not raise “an arguable point of law,” which means his case reverts to the district court judge who had assessed the extradition request. Home Secretary is then expected to make a final decision.

The senior advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky belives there have been more than a dozen assassination attempts on his leader, not the “two or three” reported by foreign intelligence sources. Mykhailo Podoliak said Zelenskyy is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main target as Russian troops continued their invasion.

Beijing has seemingly adopted a neutral position on Russia’s war on Ukraine, neither condemning Moscow nor ruling out the possibility of mediation. However, China’s state media’s coverage of the invasion has tended to parrot Russian President Vladimir Putin’s characterization of his bloody assault as nothing more than a “special military operation” and largely echoing Russian state media or information from Moscow.

As Ontario prepares to lift its requirement that masks be worn in most public places March 21, it follows the lead of several other provinces in winding down their coronavirus responses. Here’s a look at the current situation across the country today.

Politicians, influential oligarchs and media figures are among the Russians sanctioned by Canada and other countries over President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Poland and essentially wage all-out war. Canada has continued to add to its sanctions list in smaller and more thematically-targeted batches three times since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has announced a presidential decree designed to stem the exodus of western companies over Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Accusing the companies of bowing to “political pressure” from home, the PM said the decree would enable them to make “informed decisions” and that “we expect those who have invested in our country will be able to continue working here.”

Having disclosed that it had purchased a cargo of Russian crude oil last week, Shell apologized today and promised to stop the practice and suspend all refining and retail activities there. “We are acutely aware that our decision . . . was not the right one,” CEO Ben van Beurden said.

Germany, possibly the most pacifist European power as it spends 1.5 per cent of its GDP on defence, has reversed long-standing policy by shipping weapons to Ukraine and promising to meet NATO's two per cent target. Canada currently spends 1.39 per cent and despite sundry promises, continues to fall short. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau possibly signalled a renewed effort March 7, saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed the global “context.”

Tamara Lich, the Alberta woman who became the face of the “freedom convoy” which paralyzed downtown Ottawa for three weeks, has been released from jail and told to get out of town. Arrested Feb. 17 and charged with counselling to commit mischief, she initially was denied bail because a judge was not convinced she would go home. The judge who ordered her release March 7 acknowledged that Lich “does require some supervision.”

Russia today announced yet another ceasefire in its invasion of Ukraine and opened a few humanitarian corridors as a prelude to a third round of talks. However, previous measures have fallen apart as bombardments resumed shortly thereafter; hundreds of thousands of fleeing civilians were forced to shelter March 6 as Russians shelled several cities. Some of the new corridors would funnel Ukrainians toward Russia or Belarus, a prospect rejected by Ukraine.

A lawyer for Cameron Ortis, the former director general of the RCM:’s intelligence coordination centre charged with violating the Security of Information Act, wants at least part of the case against him stayed. Arrested in 2019, Ortis is accused of trying to share sensitive information with a foreign entity or terrorist organization. Federal Court has been looking into whether sensitive and potentially injurious information could be disclosed in open court or should be protected for national security reasons.

The U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted to helping to carry out the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon. The six conservative members of the bench outvoted the three liberals. The March 4 ruling comes as President Joe Biden presses on with his bid to abolish federal executions on which the Justicee Department has imposed a moratorium.

Throughout the Cold War and the decades since, Finland and Sweden remained resolute in their political independence but recent public opinion polls indicate significant support for NATO membership as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has change Europe’s security outlook. The polls indicate indicate unprecedented support of more than 50 per cent among Finns and a similar result in Sweden.

Jerome Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, has indicated that he plans to increase interest rates. He told Congress March 2 that he favours a 0.25-point increase later this month in an effort to contain inflation and is open to further hikes.

A senior Iranian security official said today that broken U.S. promises essentially compel his country to defend its interests by securing a reliable nuclear agreement abandoned by the U.S. in 2018. “Bitter experience with the U.S. breach of promises and European inaction have made it inevitable to meet the requirements for a reliable, balanced and sustainable agreement,” said Ali Shamkhani, a two-star General and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

Police in the New Zealand capital had to resort to pepper spray today as they began clearing hundreds of sometimes violent opponents of mandatory coronavirus vaccination away from in front of the parliament buildings where they have camped for more than three weeks. Invoking memories of the recent “freedom convoy” blockade in Ottawa, the NZ police also began towing some of the protesters’ 300 vehicles.

Switzerland, a favorite financial for oligarchs, announced today that it was departing from its traditional neutrality by freezing Russian assets in the country, joining the EU and a growing list of countries critical of Russia’s “unprecedented” invasion of Ukraine. The measure applies to President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as well as 367 others sanctioned by the EU last week.

As international sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began to affect their economy, ordinary Russians are faced with higher prices for just about everything as the value of the Ruble plunged. The currency fell some 30 per cent against the dollar today and the U.S. Treasury Department announced new measures to freeze Russian central bank assets in the United States or held by Americans.

Following the lead of Britain and several European countries, Canada closed its airspace to Russian airlines Feb. 27. Aeroflot usually operates multiple overflights daily.

The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, points out that rights are interwoven with responsibilities. “Freedom is not absolute,” she writes, commenting on the protests against mandatory coronavirus vaccination. She notes that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes it clear that freedoms are not absolute because “governments, it proclaims, can limit freedoms, provided the limits are ‘reasonable’ and can be ‘justified in a free and democratic society’.”

Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s has suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approach to Ukraine is a “genius” tactic and that Putin’s declaration of two breakaway regions as independent states was “wonderful.” His comments present a huge internal challenge to the Republican Party, which used to be staunchly anti-Soviet, as the U.S. faces mid-term elections tis year.

Explosions could be heard Wednesday in Kyiv, Odessa and several other Ukrainian cities as Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the start of a “special military operation” against Ukraine, the scope of which wasn’t immediately clear. Just before dawn, residents of Kyiv were ordered into bomb shelters amid reports of incoming air attacks.

Some of the “freedom convoy” protesters who paralyzed downtown Ottawa for three weeks have relocated to private properties in surrounding rural areas, prompting concerns that they might gry to mount a fresh blockade in the capital. Police continue to monitor the situation.

Two incidents reported during police clearance of the last of the protesters from the so-called “freedom convoy” which paralyzed the capital’s core for three weeks are being investigated by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit. One incident resulted in a woman’s fractured collar bone and the other involved police use of “non-lethal” Anti-Riot Weapon Enfield baton rounds.

Two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, home to many ethnic Russians and the focus of repeated military confrontations, prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize them as “independent” and to deploy “peacekeeping” troops. The U.S. has derided the deployment as “nonsense” while Ukraine’s president says his country is “not afraid of anything or anyone.”

More than 100 members of the so-called “freedom convoy” were arrested Feb. 18 as police moved in on protesters in what acting police chief Steve Bell said was a “methodical” approach to ending the three-week downtown blockade. There was occasional aggressive pushback and police reported that some protesters tried to grab officers’ firearms.

As much as $20 million in bank and cryptocurrency accounts linked to the “freedom convoy” protest in Ottawa were frozen by judicial order Feb. 18. “It’s the first time in Canadian legal history that bitcoin and cryptocurrency has been subject to a freezing order,” said Paul Champ, the lawyer representing Ottawa residents’ class-action suit. If an appeal fails, it could mean some of the funds could be used to compensate residents affected by the three-week protest that has paralyzed the capital’s downtown core.

London’s city council is being petitioned to ban hate symbols such as the Confederate flag. Members of the city’s black community have been dismayed by the display of the symbol of U.S. slavery and the petition leader, Melissa Ng, said Feb. 18 that she was inspired by a ban imposed last year by Collingwood council last year. “No hate symbol should be on public display,” she said. “Why would you fly a flag that harms others in the community?”

A U.S. grand jury has indicted a Florida resident arrested Jan. 19 near the Manitoba-U.S. border last month and accused of involvement in human smuggling. Steve Anthony Shand was arrested shortly after RCMP found the bodies of a family of four from India who froze to death a few metres north of the border after being separated from others in their party found in a van driven by Shand.

Despite calls for an immigration freeze to allow time for addressing an already problematic backlog of applications, the latest federal plan calls for some 448,000 citizenship applications, 519,030 permanent residency applications and 848,598 temporary residency applications to be processed. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Sean Fraser says the current backlog is due to a surge in applications issues he says are “a direct result of the virus blocking our operations.”

The so-called “freedom convoy” which paralyzed Ottawa’s downtown core for three weeks has elicited “a lot of respect” from Donald Trump, who infamously called Black Lives Matter protesters in his own country “thugs” and anarchists.” The fact that he was supported by his political followers and right-wing news media, prompted accusations of hypocrisy.

An Alberta judge has refused to release a controversial preacher accused of inciting violence during the recent border blockade at the province’s border with Montana. Art Pawlowski of Calgary, charged with public mischief and interrupting essential operations, had encouraged protesters to withdraw, saying that “for freedom to be preserved, people must be willing to sacrifice their lives.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was cautioned by House of Commons Speaker, Ontario Liberal MP Anthony Rota about using “inflammatory” language Feb. 16. Responding to comments by Toronto-area Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, who is Jewish, Trudeau said the Conservatives had aligned themselves with “people who wave swastikas” during the vaccination protests.