In the News

The case against Ottawa terror suspect Awso Peshdary depends on the testimony of a paid RCMP informant. Peshdary's lawyers only learned the informant also worked for CSIS several days ago and say they cannot make an adequate defence without records from that agency.

Const. Paul Laforest of the Ottawa police service has been demoted for six weeks after issuing false traffic warnings. The paperwork was created to inflate individual activity statistics.

A manager in charge of investigating hacking attacks at Russia’s biggest cybersecurity firm has been arrested along with a senior Russian FSB intelligence officer and that they both face charges of treason.

A new study suggests nearly a third of cigarettes sold in Ontario are purchased illegally. The study found 32% of respondents purchased contraband cigarettes – the highest level in the country.

The Mounties are changing the way missing persons cases are investigated, with mandatory steps for each case, including family communication. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is mandated to report by the end of 2018.

National-security agencies counselled Ottawa against allowing a Chinese firm to take over a Montreal high-tech company, warning it would undermine a technological edge that Western militaries have over China, The Globe and Mail has learned.

The failure of a core computer network device prevented Mounties and other police agencies including the Toronto Police Service from accessing the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) database.

A new report from the Transportation Safety Board details the frantic, fruitless attempt to rescue a deckhand pulled overboard just hours into the lobster season – one of a series of deaths on both coasts that demonstrate the remarkable danger of commercial fishing.

A high-rise building in Tehran engulfed by a fire collapsed on Thursday, killing at least 30 firefighters and injuring some 75 people, state media reported. The disaster struck the Plasco building, an iconic structure in central Tehran just north of the capital’s sprawling bazaar.

Internal reports detailing critical IT failures at the RCMP suggest gaffes and poor service from Shared Services Canada continue to jeopardize police work and the safety of officers and the public.

Former RCMP member Jeffrey Ray Gillis, 43, has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for assault by a court in Prince Edward Island. The defence cited his disagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder but the judge noted he had not sought recommended treatment until after being criminally charged.

A series of three strong earthquakes hit central Italy in the space of an hour Wednesday, shaking the same region that suffered a series of deadly quakes last year and has been buried under more than a metre of snow in recent days.

A Federal Court judge has allowed two sexual harassment lawsuits by women against the RCMP to go ahead as a class action. As many as 20,000 women employed by the force after 1974 could participate. In October 2016 the Mounties issued an apology to women and a settlement that could address up to $100 million in claims.

A gunman killed at least five people and wounded more than a dozen others Monday at a nightclub in the Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen, police said. The shooting occurred in the early morning hours outside the Blue Parrot nightclub, which was hosting an event that was part of the BPM electronic music festival.

The public and Parliament were never informed that Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent and three senior ministers signed Privy Council order 3486 in 1951 forcing telephone companies to wiretap any suspects deemed "likely" to communicate "for purposes that may be prejudicial to the security or defence of Canada."

A Turkish cargo plane crashed Monday in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, killing 37 people on the ground and in the plane, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The Boeing 747 crashed on approach to the Manas airport, south of the capital, Bishkek.

Richard Fadden, who served as head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service under both the Harper and Trudeau governments believes President-elect Trump needs to develop a better relationship with his country's security services, but dismissed speculation that Mr. Trump had made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail attempts.

BeGrainSafe, a safety program for grain handlers and first responders, will debut in Manitoba January 17. The Canadian Agricultural Safety Association organized the program, with assistance from a number of sponsors.

The Pentagon has deployed high-tech radar to keep watch for a potential North Korean long-range-missile launch in the coming months, according to a US defense official. It is the first US military response to Pyongyang's claim it could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Black people made up 41 percent of people checked on the street by RCMP in Halifax during the first ten months of 2016. The activity appears to have taken place when a number of gang shootings happened in the city.

The Canadian government is "simply not up to the overall challenge" of fending off cyberthreats on its own and must partner with the private sector and the United States to tackle the problem, warns a federally commissioned report.

As International Trade Minister, Chrystia Freeland closed the Canada-EU free trade deal. She now replaces Liberal veteran Stéphane Dion as the Minister of Global Affairs Canada. Ahmed Hussen, the first Somali-Canadian elected to the House of Commons, will replace John McCallum as minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

A big effort is ongoing at Ottawa City Hall to eliminate bugs from the new radio system before first responders join the network. 

With a key Arctic research project set to close in 2018, Trudeau's science minister considers next steps.

Helicopter giant Sikorsky has grounded all its S92 aircraft worldwide for safety checks following an incident last month on an oil platform in the North Sea, the BBC is reporting. Sikorsky S92-A helicopters are used by Cougar Helicopters to service the Newfoundland offshore oil industry.

When communications convey a hateful message without becoming a criminal act, US authorities are now using the category of 'hate incident' to initiate action. Identifying the sender allows police to assess potential risk and possibly prevent criminal activity.

A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers on a popular promenade in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four of them in an attack that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said is likely to have been inspired by Islamic State.

As Russian cyber activities in the United States and military intervention in Syria dominate headlines, the Russian bear has pursued a steady march forward much closer to Canada, in the Arctic.

Esteban Santiago, a 26 year olf Iraq war vet, appears to have followed the rules concerning firearms in checked baggage until he allegedlt shot and killed five people in the Fort Lauderdale airport baggage claim area. Current regulations about the declaration and packaging of checked firearms are being reviewed.

Brushing aside Donald Trump’s dismissiveness, the nation’s intelligence chief insisted Thursday that U.S. agencies are more confident than ever that Russia interfered in America’s recent presidential election. And he called the former Cold War foe an “existential threat” to the nation.

More than 100 suspected Muslim rebels stormed a jail in the southern Philippines before dawn Wednesday, allowing 158 inmates to escape in what officials said was the biggest jailbreak in the country.

Former Canadian Security Intelligence Services director Ward Elcock says the spy agency needs expanded surveillance powers to address the risk of terror attacks on the scale of recent violence in Europe and Turkey. Elcock said modern technology has surpassed the legal framework for surveilling and foiling the threat of an attack.

Hydro One, the Ontario electrical distributor says it is working with law enforcement to investigate a possible electronic intrusion of its systems. A company security officer said the target appeared to have been an older, inactive computer system.

Canada is due to legalize cannabis next year. Observers are concerned that excessive tax will create the same contraband situation as tobacco, involving the same or more players.