There seems to be a rash of cop shootings lately:
The shooting happened as officers were conducting an investigation linked to several other incidents involving firearms around the Greater Toronto Area, Toronto police Chief Demkiw said, including one that took place at the U.S. consulate in March.
Const. Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was "a hero in life, not death," Demkiw said at a news conference outside Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Pinizzotto was an 18-year veteran of the force who spent the last five years on the emergency task force (ETF), he said.
"There's a very heavy sorrow in our community right now," Demkiw told reporters through tears.
Special Investigations Unit spokesperson Monica Hudon said an "exchange of gunfire" broke out while police were carrying out a search warrant at a residential building near Tretheway Drive and Black Creek Drive around 5:40 a.m.
The police watchdog is investigating the circumstances that led to the shooting and officer's death.
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Richard Goebel says he saw the fight Sunday night in Melville, a city of about 4,500 northeast of Regina.
He says the accused gunman had painted his neighbour's shed without permission, which angered the neighbour.
"The neighbour was like, 'Why are you painting my bloody shed,'" Goebel said in a phone interview Monday. "There was pushing, shoving and arguing."
Goebel said the accused, who was wearing a mask, then walked back to his home and grabbed what looked like an "upside down" broom. The man went into his backyard, and Goebel said he heard gunshots.
The neighbour ran back into his house when the shots went off, Goebel added.
"(My wife and I) seen like eight big flashes," he said. "We heard the whistle after the bang, so we knew it was gun."
RCMP said the two Mounties were in stable condition in a Regina hospital but with serious and potentially life-altering injuries.
Police charged a 55-year-old man with 11 offences, including two counts of attempted murder. Markus Dodge of Melville was set to appear Tuesday in court in Yorkton, Sask.
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On Monday, in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, 25-year-old Seth Hatfield of Lethbridge, Alta., is alleged to have carried out a shooting that resulted in the deaths of an officer and a civilian before he was fatally shot by police. Initial media reports described Hatfield as an “incel” who sought to target women. Yet his 104-page manifesto is unarguably pro-communist, anti-western and anti-Zionist. It blames what he sees as the displacement of monogamy not on women, but on capitalism and consumer culture.
(Sidebar: see the manifesto here. Tell me which might be more shocking.)
The obvious violence that dare not speak its name:
The Rape Gang Inquiry Report, chaired by British MP Rupert Lowe and led by survivor Sammy Woodhouse, exposes the systematic grooming and sexual exploitation of vulnerable, overwhelmingly white British girls by predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs in towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom.
But will political parties have the courage to act on the report’s findings, despite possible political ramifications?
The independent, 219-page report was released on June 16. A crowdfunding campaign raised 794,677 pounds from over 20,000 concerned Britons in order to produce it.
The report recounts the stories of girls who were systematically groomed by gangs when they were as young as 11. The testimonies are not for the faint of heart.
Young girls were befriended, plied with alcohol and drugs, often taken from schools and care homes and subjected to repeated rape, gang rape, trafficking and torture.
Some were filmed so they could be blackmailed, and told they were “white trash.” Those who became pregnant due to the rapes endured miscarriages, forced abortions or gave birth to children who were taken by the state. Some, the report says, were taken to the Middle East and forced into arranged marriages.
Before Woodhouse became a whistleblower who helped expose the abuse of over 1,400 girls in Rotherham, England, through an anonymous interview with the Times in 2013, she was groomed at age 14 by Arshid Hussain, then 24, the ringleader of a Pakistani-heritage child exploitation gang.
The report details the failure of numerous institutions to protect these girls, including the police, social services, the National Health Service and schools.
Perhaps worse, it suggests that whistleblowers who tried to report these rapists were sometimes accused of racism and Islamophobia.
The report lays the ultimate blame on the state for allowing these gangs to operate with impunity.
It suggests that British and Scottish political parties were afraid of being accused of racism or losing political support from certain demographics, and that these fears took “precedence over the protection of British children.”
It points to a lack of political will as the cause of the decades-long failure of the state and its institutions to deal with these grooming gangs, noting that the Labour party first flat-out refused to launch a public inquiry and only later conceded under “considerable pressure.”
The report also acknowledges that an official government inquiry into grooming gangs has recently been launched, but suggests it will take too long and expresses concern that there is “no guarantee that it will adequately address the politically sensitive ethnoreligious nature of the phenomenon.”
The government’s official Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs report has a budget of 65-million pounds and must be submitted no later than March 31, 2029 .
A research briefing on the inquiry says it’s required to “consider how the ethnicity, religion and culture of both perpetrators and victims may have influenced offending patterns, as well as institutional responses to abuse.”
It also acknowledges that “men of Asian ethnicity are over-represented as perpetrators in group-based child sexual exploitation.”
However, it does not provide more specifics about their ethnicity, nor does it mention any particular religion, despite the fact that it has been largely recognized that the men in these gangs have been disproportionately Pakistani and Muslim.
Birds of a feather and so on:
Prime Minister Mark Carney is saying goodbye to his British counterpart after the two met repeatedly to discuss a shared vision for western countries.
Conceding that he had lost the support of the party membership, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday he will resign once his Labour Party chooses a new leader.
"Throughout, and in the face of exceptional challenges, Keir has acted with principle, determination, and collaboration," Carney wrote on the platform X. "The world is safer and allies are more united because of his efforts."
Carney noted Starmer's work to support Ukraine by convening the Coalition of the Willing, a group of nations which has offered to safeguard a future ceasefire.
Carney also praised Starmer's work to "strengthen NATO, improve Arctic co-operation, and deepen the historic partnership between Canada and the United Kingdom."
"I am grateful for your friendship," he added.
Carney and Starmer both came into office with high popularity on a centre-left platform that included some fiscally conservative measures. The two have had several bilateral meetings in both London and Ottawa over the 15 months since Carney became prime minister.
Starmer struggled with economic promises and faced criticism for appointing scandal-linked figures. His position was undermined by dismal poll numbers and substantial losses in May elections at the local level.
One of Starmer's possible successors is former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who easily won a seat in the House of Commons in a recent byelection.
Burnham has promised not to raise taxes but it is not clear how he would position the U.K. in numerous areas, including foreign policy.
Starmer's resignation came the day before Britain marks the 10th anniversary of its vote to leave the European Union — a decision that continues to roil the country’s economy and politics.
It's just (your) money:
Cabinet’s $393,000-a year Chief Science Advisor billed taxpayers for 12 business-class flights to Paris, records show. Nemer earlier told MPs she couldn’t recall flying business class while running up more than $400,000 in expenses: “What exactly are Canadian taxpayers paying you to do?”
The Liberals take their marching orders from China.
Foreign Minister Anita Anand yesterday could not say how cabinet’s approval for 278,989 imported Chinese battery electric cars will comply with a federal ban on slave-made goods. “I cannot confirm what will be on the list,” she said.
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Canadian statistics show very few shipments suspected of containing goods made from forced labour have been detained and denied entry since 2020. The CBSA previously told The Epoch Times that, of the 48 shipments it detained from 2020 to late 2025, only two were prohibited entry, including a shipment of textile products in 2024 and a shipment of frozen seafood in 2025—both from China.
Comparatively, U.S. customs denied entry to nearly 23,000 shipments suspected of containing goods made from forced labour over a similar time span under its Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
The USTR also found Canada “has not taken action to restrict the importation” of goods with a “known risk” of forced labour in regions of concern.
The CBSA said that while the country or region of origin “may serve as a risk indicator,” Canadian legislation does not allow goods to be prohibited solely on that basis.
The USTR pointed to a 2021 report by Above Ground, a Canadian human rights organization, indicating there is a “high risk” that Canadian companies are profiting from forced labour abroad.
The report notes research documenting widespread forced labour in the production of certain goods made in particular regions that are in the Canadian market, such as seafood from Thailand, coffee from Brazil, cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and clothing and other products made from cotton.
Greed moves the Liberals in certain directions.
Nature doesn’t care about your performance virtue:
A resolution adopted by Terrasse-Vaudreuil city council on June 9 declares that trees are worthy of protection, "including the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity and to regeneration."
Mayor Michel Bourdeau says Quebec filmmaker André Desrochers inspired the community to take action.
He said Desrochers' film, called "Des arbes et des arts" convinced citizens that trees are living entities that live, breathe and communicate with each other through their root systems.
"A tree is like a human being," Bourdeau said. "It breathes, it lives, it takes in water. It protects us from all sorts of things."
How it's going:
According to Environment Canada, some parts of Montreal's West Island and South Shore received between 100 and 150 millimetres of rain in just a few hours on Saturday.
"The situation is extremely serious," said Jim Beis, mayor of the Montreal borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro.
He said his community saw numbers higher than Environment Canada's report, estimating 150 to 170 mm fell in about two hours. The mayor added "several hundred" homes were severely flooded, and roads were closed in both Pierrefonds and Dollard-Des Ormeaux.
Communities in Pointe-Claire and Dorval have also been affected to certain extents, he said, according to his counterparts in those boroughs.
Hydro-Quebec said as of Sunday morning, about 4,500 addresses were still impacted by service interruptions.
At a B.C. town hall last week, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said there are too many federally recognized heritage months, and that it’s “kind of getting hard to keep track of which month is for what cause or for what group.”
The spur for the question appears to have been a Liberal MP’s recent attempt to have July declared as Somali Heritage Month.
In reply, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani sponsored a petition for Canada to never declare another heritage month ever again.
“End the tokenism practice of recognizing a day or month in commemoration of any ethnic or heritage group; and celebrate Canadians for the sake of being Canadian not based on ethnicity or ancestry,” reads the text.
According to the Department of Canadian Heritage, there are 17 “heritage months” that are officially observed by the Government of Canada.
This is obviously more than there are months in the calendar, meaning that some months are concurrently recognized as multiple heritage months at the same time.
The busiest single month for this happens to be the current month. Right now, Canada is officially recognizing National Indigenous History Month, Italian Heritage Month, Filipino Heritage Month and Portuguese Heritage Month.
June also used to be Pride Month, until the Department of Canadian Heritage upgraded it to the four-month-long “Pride Season,” meaning that one third of the Canadian year is now under pride observation.
In addition, the Government of Canada also recognizes five commemorative weeks, and 48 “important and commemorate days.”
This includes the traditional entries of Remembrance Day, Victoria Day, National Flag of Canada Day and Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day.
But particularly over the last decade, special days have been added to virtually every week in the Canadian calendar, ranging from Human Rights Day (December 10), to National Day of Observance for COVID-19 (March 11) to Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval (July 28), which marks the forced 1750s removal of Acadians from the Maritimes.
As to which group gets the most days, Indigenous Canadians get six. There’s National Ribbon Skirt Day, National Indigenous Languages Day, National Indigenous Peoples Day, Indigenous Veterans Day, Red Dress Day, and National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
In second place, it’s a tie between the military and transgender people, with four each.
The military has the Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Canadian Armed Forces Day, Remembrance Day and the aforementioned Indigenous Veterans Day.
While for transgendered Canadians, there is International Transgender Day of Visibility, Transgender Day of Remembrance and International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia and. There’s also the International Day of Pink, which an official Government of Canada write-up describes as a day of action against “transphobia and transmisogyny.”
Canada is proud to be home to one of the largest Tamil diasporas in the world. This January, we celebrate the richness of Tamil language & culture, honour the incredible contributions of Tamil communities, and recognize their courage and resilience. #TamilHeritageMonth
Transgender Day of Remembrance is not only held shortly after conventional Remembrance Day, but it’s also the only day in the calendar to share billing with another calendar day, as November 20 was already National Child Day.
Altogether, there are now just 20 days, all of them in December, in which the Government of Canada isn’t officially commemorating something.
On December 10, the federally recognized 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence comes to an end, and Tamil Heritage Month doesn’t begin until January 1.
In the interim there is only the Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster, which is marked on December 11.
The
proponents of the fake state of Khalistan have gotten the last laugh:
Tears streamed down Nisha Thampi’s face Tuesday as she hugged and thanked local residents here who rushed to help after Air India Flight 182 exploded over the Atlantic 41 years ago.
She met fishermen who headed out to sea hoping to aid the rescue mission. She met police officers involved in identifying the 131 victims recovered and helping families who arrived from overseas.
Thampi, an Ottawa physician, was almost six when her mother Vijaya was killed along with 328 others after a B.C.-built bomb brought the plane down 135 kilometres from here.
Despite the devastating loss, Thampi said she felt nothing but gratitude Tuesday after a moving memorial service paid tribute to the victims and the Irish impacted by the disaster.
“It’s incredibly healing to be surrounded by community,” Thampi said. “There’s a learning here, which is about seeing humanity in others and caring for others in their deepest, darkest hours.”
She now has a better understanding of what the local people, as well as first responders, went through at the time.
“This affected way more than the families of 329 people. It affected a community, multiple communities, generations of those communities.”
Thampi and representatives of two other victims’ families stood around a sundial monument on the stunning rocky shore for a minute of silence at 8:12 a.m. — the moment the flight exploded on June 23, 1985.
Canadian investigators said B.C.’s Babbar Khalsa separatist group targeted Air India to hit the Indian government, which owned the airline at the time. Another B.C. suitcase bomb exploded the same day at Japan’s Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers.
Two B.C. men were eventually charged in the bombings, which remain Canada’s deadliest terrorist attack. But they were acquitted in 2005. A third pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
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