Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s office said today that the government has suspended a contract with a Toronto-area company, Sinclair Technologies, to supply the RCMP with communications equipment designed to prevent eavesdropping. The company’s corporate parent in B.C., Norsat International, is owned by a Chinese entity the U.S. considers an “unacceptable” national security risk. [node:read-more:link]
Members of a disparate right-wing German group widely derided for years as “crackpots” evidently were part of an alleged attempt to overthrow the government this week. Twenty-five persons arrested in 150 police operations in 11 states included members of the Reichsbürger group which security services have becoming more radical and more dangerous in recent years. [node:read-more:link]
The U.S. Secret Service says hackers linked to the Chinese government stole at least $20 million on pandemic relief funds destined for more than a dozen states. Based in Chengdu, the APT41 hacker group is the first foreign state-sponsored cybercriminal organization the U.S. has acknowledged publicly. “It would be crazy to think this group didn’t target all 50 states,” said an official coordinating fraud recovery efforts which are part of more than 1,000 ongoing investigations involving domestic as well as foreign actors. [node:read-more:link]
A Public Services and Procurement Canada contract with a Toronto-area company to supply the RCMP with a radio-frequency filtering system is to be investigated after it was found that its parent company in B.C. is owned by a Chinese telecommunications firm. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today that “we’re going to be finding out first of all what needs to be done to ensure that our communications technology is secure . . . and make sure that Canada is not signing contracts with the lowest bidder that then turn around and leave us exposed to security flaws.” [node:read-more:link]
Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek, an Ojibway First Nation in Northern Ontario, is suing the federal government in a bid to increase funding of reserve policing. “It happens more often than not where our officers couldn't execute an arrest because they had no backup,” Chief Wilfred King said December 4 before filing a statement of claim with the Federal Court. [node:read-more:link]
Six persons face a combined 260 criminal charges after a months-long firearms trafficking investigation in Toronto which resulted in the seizure of 62 long guns and handguns, all but five having been brought in from the U.S. “Our youth are dying over this issue,” Interim Toronto Police Chief James Ramer said December 5. “Shootings devastate families and erode the sense of security for entire communities.” [node:read-more:link]
More than 18 months after he was suddenly removed as the face of the federal government’s pandemic vaccine response, Major General Dany Fortin was acquitted today of sexual assault in 1988 while he was at military college in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. The unidentified complainant, a fellow student, said she had not come forward until she had retired from the military for fear of how it might have affected her career. [node:read-more:link]
Unable to deal with widespread gang violence through conventional policing, the government of El Salvador deployed some 10,000 troops to surround the city of Soyapango December 3 as part of a massive crackdown. President Nayib Bukele said “extraction teams from the police and the army are tasked with extricating all the gang members still there one by one.” [node:read-more:link]
Iranian Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri is reported to have suspended operations by morality police after weeks of widespread rioting. There has been no corroboration of his order, whether it is permanent, or any indication that the law mandating women’s dress code would be terminated. [node:read-more:link]
In October 2020, Helen Naslund was sentenced to 18 years for shooting her husband on their Alberta farm in 2011. Her case sparked widespread outrage and exposed serious issues with how the justice system treats abused women. Her sentence for manslaughter was reduced last January to nine years on appeal and now, through letters and multiple interviews at the Edmonton Institution for women, she is opening up for the first time. [node:read-more:link]
Coordinated investigations by 27 Ontario police services have resulted in 428 child exploitation and pornography charges being laid against 109 persons. The Ontario Provincial Police said November 30 that the charges laid in October through Project Maverick, which is ongoing, are a “snapshot” of efforts to protect children from Internet-based sexual abuse and exploitation. “Because the Internet can cross jurisdictional boundaries, this project highlights the collaborative working happening with police services all over,” the OPP said. [node:read-more:link]
Stewart Rhodes, founder and national head of the Oath Keepers militia and a key figure in the January 2021 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, was found guilty by a federal jury in Washington today of seditious conspiracy along with Kelly Meggs leader of the militia’s Florida chapter. Both face up to 20 years in prison. They also were found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, namely congressional certification of the November 2020 presidential election results. Three co-defendants were found guilty of the latter charge only. [node:read-more:link]
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith introduced her draft Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act today, a proposal she says will enable her cabinet to direct cities, police, health authorities, universities and other entities to ignore federal laws her government believes would be unconstitutional or harmful to the province. The bill does not define “harm” and legal scholars have panned the idea as unconstitutional and it has been divisive within Smith’s own party. [node:read-more:link]
The federal government has been accused by Alberta of planning to “ban legal firearm ownership altogether” with a proposed amendment to Bill C-21, a gun-control bill currently before a parliamentary committee. The change would prohibit “a firearm that is a rifle or shotgun, that is capable of discharging centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic manner and that is designed to accept a detachable cartridge magazine with a capacity greater than five cartridges of the type for which the firearm was originally designed.” [node:read-more:link]
The Quebec government will appeal a provincial Superior Court court ruling that police were violating drivers’ constitutional rights by stopping them without cause and that the practice is “a safe conduit for racial profiling.” Public Security François Bonnardel said in announcing the challenge that it is “unjustified to abolish a tool that is so important to police services.” [node:read-more:link]
