Former Malpeque MP Wayne Easter looks back on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s time in office and looks forward to what the next leader might need to make the party — and Canada — successful.

Elections BC says it is looking into a complaint of voting irregularities from a B.C. Conservative candidate in a riding narrowly won by the NDP, giving the government a one-seat majority in October’s provincial election.

It says the complaint was lodged by B.C. Conservative Honveer Singh Randhawa last Friday and it is “under review.”

Ghislain Picard, who headed the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL) for more than 30 years, will not seek another mandate. 

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A strong earthquake drove frightened residents of El Salvador’s capital into the streets Thursday morning, but there was no immediate report of damage or deaths.

The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 5.8. The epicenter was 5 miles (9 kilometers) east of Acajutla at a depth of 59 miles (95 kilometers).

El Salvador’s Environmental Ministry reported preliminarily that the earthquake was centered along the Central American country’s Pacific coast, southwest of Santa Ana.

Videos posted to social media show items falling from shelves in a supermarket and throngs of people gathered in the street, but no immediate signs of major damage.

On Sunday, a 6.2-magnitude temblor shook El Salvador, though there were no deaths reported or serious damage reported.

The Associated Press

Nova Scotia government says a worldwide breach of the widely-used IT system PowerSchool affects staff, current and former students in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education.

NEW YORK (AP) — After his only child was killed on 9/11, Ken Fairben looked for justice in a far-off military courtroom on the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

He traveled there multiple times to observe hearings for accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and co-defendants, and Fairben has watched other proceedings via closed-circuit video at a military facility near his Long Island home.

He has gotten to know other victims’ families on these journeys and taken pained note of the plaque on a wall of a Guantanamo trailer where relatives take court breaks. The sign bears the names of several loved ones who have died while the case has ground on.

And now, after nearly two decades of turns, delays and emotionally exhausting flux, Fairben and his wife, Diane, are waiting to see whether Mohammed pleads guilty as scheduled in the hijacked-plane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, including paramedic Keith Fairben, at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

It’s unclear whether the pleas will happen.

The federal government negotiated but then disavowed the deals and now is asking a court to block them, while defense lawyers want the plan to go forward. So does Ken Fairben, who planned to be at a Long Island military site Friday to watch if the hearing goes forward.

“I honestly felt that there was progress being made. Whether you agree with a plea deal or not, it wasn’t like we were in limbo and no light at the end of the tunnel,” Fairben said, emphasizing that he speaks only for himself.

“There’s never closure,” he added, but he sees some meaning in a guilty plea and life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Among Sept. 11 survivors and victims’ relatives, the potential end to the drawn-out, debated and fraught case stirs a range of feelings: uncertainty, hope, anger, gratification, resignation, and a thirst for more answers about how the attacks were arranged and financed.

Some families are dismayed by the plea agreements. The deals would take death sentences off the table and guilty pleas would short-circuit the possibility of a trial and the information it could bring to light — a prospect that’s particularly upsetting to some relatives.

“Doesn’t the American public, as well as the victims’ families, deserve to hear the evidence we have against these individuals?” asks Gordon Haberman, who has traveled to multiple Guantanamo hearings from his Wisconsin home but finds travel physically difficult now. His daughter, Andrea, was in New York for the first time, on a business trip, when she died in the World Trade Center attack.

Congressional intelligence committees and, later, an independent, bipartisan commission, investigated the attacks and released findings in the early 2000s. In recent years, a secret chapter of the congressional inquiry and some FBI documents have been declassified and released.

Some survivors and victims’ relatives believe a Guantanamo trial could shake loose more information, particularly about whether the Saudi Arabian government backed the hijackers. That’s the question at the heart of a lawsuit some families are pursuing in a federal court in New York. The kingdom denies involvement, and information the U.S. has released doesn’t provide proof that senior Saudi officials were complicit.

Brett Eagleson, a son of Sept. 11 victim John Bruce Eagleson, sees the potential Guantanamo plea deals as a betrayal and part of a “long and epic trail of failure” by the U.S. government to provide evidence to 9/11 families who are pursuing the Saudi claims.

“It’s a sad day for America. It’s a sad day for justice,” said Eagleson, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and the president of a victims’ and survivors’ advocacy group called 9/11 Justice. He was a teenager when his father, a Connecticut mall manager who went by Bruce, was killed while at the World Trade Center on business.

Any potential trial before a military commission at Guantanamo would likely be complicated by the torture of the defendants while in CIA custody in the first years after they were apprehended. The pretrial hearings have focused largely on how the abuse may taint the overall evidence in the case.

To Eagleson, it’s infuriating that the issue has affected the viability of a trial. What happened to the defendants in custody is “not my mom’s fault. It’s not my brother’s fault. It’s not the lives of 3,000 dead Americans’ fault,” he said.

Elizabeth Miller drove 5 1/2 hours in a looming winter storm to catch a military flight to Guantanamo in hopes of seeing Mohammed’s scheduled plea in person.

After several previous journeys to the arid, isolated military base to see him and other aging defendants sit through one pretrial hearing after another, she came to expect dysfunction and disappointment from the military commission. But she was excited to make the trip this time.

“Having KSM say that he’s guilty on record is important for me. And I think it’s important for the American people,” said Miller, who was 6 when her firefighter father, Douglas Miller, was killed at the World Trade Center.

She now leads a group of 9/11 families who support the plea deal and oppose any death penalty for the accused.

Robert Reeg, a now-retired firefighter who was seriously wounded responding to 9/11, went over the years to Guantanamo to watch a pretrial hearing and to Washington to talk to lawmakers about the slow pace of the case. He wanted to see it go to trial and views the prospective plea deals as “surrender.”

“These enemies think we’re weak and irresolute, and this kind of proves it,” he said.

But he won’t be following the news from Guantanamo moment to moment if it goes forward Friday. He will be too busy caring for his toddler granddaughter, and “I’ve had enough salt in my wounds,” he says.

“At a certain point in time, you just have to be resigned,” he said. “All you can do is give your best effort, and I did. And I can live with that.”

___

Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.

Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press

OTTAWA — Newfoundland MP Gudie Hutchings says she’s not planning to run in the next federal election.

Hutchings, who was first elected as a Liberal in 2015, is the minister of rural economic development and minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

In a media statement issued this morning, she thanks her family for their support and says that “if time was no issue, I would serve another 10 years.”

Hutchings also served on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliament, an intelligence watchdog panel made up of MPs and senators who are sworn to secrecy.

She made headlines in late 2023 when the federal government was accused of playing favourites among the regions after it moved to exempt home heating oil, a common source of fuel in Atlantic Canada, from the price on carbon.

In response, Hutchings said the Prairies might have a louder voice in Ottawa if the region elected more Liberals.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 9, 2025.

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press

A fire that broke out Wednesday night has completely destroyed an apartment building in Iqaluit. 

Premier Doug Ford has directed Metrolinx to study expanding GO Transit across the Greater Golden Horseshoe region by diverting freight rails from existing lines. The expansion could increase service along the Kitchener and Milton lines and create new GO lines and stations, Ford said in a letter to Metrolinx on Thursday. 

Pictou County District RCMP are looking for a Westville man wanted on a province-wide arrest warrant.

According to a release, Nathan Timothy Hale is facing six counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, seven counts of failing to comply with a release order, and unauthorized possession of a firearm.

Hale is described as 5’10” and weighs 210 lbs. He also has dark brown hair and brown eyes.

Police believe he may be in Ontario or Alberta.

Anyone with information on Hale’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Pictou County District RCMP at 902-485-4333 or Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-8477.

People are warned not to approach Hale if you see him.

Donations of clean, current styled formal wear for the Halton District School Board’s Fashion Forward are being accepted until the end of the day on Friday, Jan. 24. The HDSB will host several Fashion Forward Open Houses from February to May for students to select, at no cost, donated formal wear for upcoming prom/graduation celebrations.

Students will have the opportunity to view and try on formal wear in a friendly and welcoming environment. Students may select from a variety of new and gently-used attire that has been donated for proms, graduations and other special events. Many different styles, colours and sizes of formal dresses will be available as well as suits, shirts, ties, shoes and accessories.

Donations of clean, current styled formal wear, such as party dresses, formal gowns, formal suits, dress shirts, ties, footwear and accessories can be dropped off at various locations by end of day Friday, Jan. 24.

For a list of schools where donations can be dropped off and a list of dates where students can pick up clothing, click here. https://www.hdsb.ca/our-board/Pages/News/News-Description.aspx?NewsID=1302

Alberta is preparing to send water bombers, night-vision helicopters and incident command team support to help battle wildfires ravaging parts of Los Angeles.

Premier Danielle Smith says on X that neighbours are always there for each other in times of need and the province will assist its American friends in this crisis.

Some of Canada’s largest labour unions and organizations have published their reaction to the announcements of prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation as leader of the Liberal Party and the prorogation of parliament until March 24. The desire for change has grown across the country, with the Angus Reid Institute reporting Justin Trudeau’s approval rating dropped down to 28 per cent just before the end of 2024. 

Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU), an alliance that represents more than half a million skilled trades workers, said their union is grateful for the progress that was made under the Trudeau government. 

“We have seen significant progress for unionized workers across the country,” CBTU executive director Sean Strickland said in a statement. “Today, tens of thousands of new workers from diverse backgrounds have high-quality, unionized skilled trades jobs.” 

Lana Payne, president of Unifor which is Canada’s largest private sector union, also acknowledged that despite the low note Trudeau exits on, there have been gains for workers under that last three terms of Liberal leadership. 

“Prime Minister Trudeau led a minority government that delivered key advances for workers: child care, pay equity, significant investments in the auto industry, a reversal of bad Harper-era policies on retirement and labour laws, ten paid sick days, dental care, the start of a pharmacare program. And of course, the long-awaited anti-scab legislation, to name a few,” Payne said in a statement. 

Payne said it is now a critical time for the labour movement to fight for workers’ rights. 

“This is a time to be firm, to stand on guard for our country and to fight like never before. Smart. Strategically. But fight. Elbows out,” Payne said. “We need serious leadership that will stand up for Canadians, Canadian jobs and this country. Because the moment requires it.”

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Canada’s largest public sector union, has taken this opportunity to voice support for the New Democratic Party led by Jagmeet Singh. In an online statement, CUPE called the NDP the only true party for workers in Canada. 

“There is no question that Canada needs new leadership and, after a decade in power, the Liberals have not earned another chance, no matter who is leading them,” CUPE wrote. “The time for a change in government has come. But we need more than just change for the sake of change – we need a government that will move us forward with purpose, fairness, and a commitment to justice for all. The time has come for a shift that truly prioritizes the well-being of Canadians.”

While many have turned their minds to an upcoming election, Canada’s largest labour organization the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), has said focus should be on the future of workers. 

Bea Bruske, president of the CLC, said there has been too much emphasis on the jobs of a few politicians rather than the jobs of Canadians who will be affected by ongoing issues such as president-elect Donald Trump’s threats of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods. 

“This is a moment that demands an all-hands-on-deck, cross-partisan approach to stand against economic disruption and ensure stability for the working people who drive our economy,” Bruske said. “Workers should be central to this effort.”

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