Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 28 Feb, 2022 01:15 PM
An Ontario court has extended to March 9 a freezing order on funds donated to the recent Ottawa convoy protest, as a class-action civil suit against protest organizers continues.
Parties in the case have agreed to move some donated funds and cryptocurrency into escrow, which could be redistributed to affected Ottawa residents and business owners should the class action succeed.
Norman Groot, a lawyer representing some convoy protest leaders, says ChristopherGarrah, Benjamin Dichter and Nicholas St. Louis have agreed in principle to moving donated funds within their control to an escrow account.
Groot notes the funds that Garrah, Dichter and St. Louis have agreed to move to escrow might not account for all the cryptocurrency that was donated, and he proposed parties meet next week to take stock of what has been transferred.
An escrow agent will oversee the transferred funds, and will be permitted to change the passwords for cryptocurrency.
The class-action lawsuit seeks a total of $306 million in damages related to the three-week anti-government convoy protest near Parliament Hill that snarled traffic, shut businesses and plagued residents with near-constant honking.
Sean Fraser, Canada's minister responsible for refugees, says the latest arrivals are among a total of 7,000 refugees that have now been airlifted to various parts of Canada.
On January 19, 2022 shortly after 3:00 a.m. Surrey RCMP responded to the report of shots fired inside a warming center in the 10600-block of King George Boulevard. Two people were located with injuries believed to be gunshot wounds. Both victims were transported to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and have since been released.
Environment and Climate Change Canada says in a news release that Hang Hing Herbal Medicine Ltd. was fined $75,000 for importing an endangered species without a permit.
There are 37,167 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 258,417 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 854 COVID-positive individuals are in hospital and 112 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.
Pronounced PAX-luh-vid, it is an oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19, consisting of a combination of two medications that must be taken together. The first drug, nirmatrelvir, blocks an enzyme that the SARS-CoV-2 virus needs to reproduce.
Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says the latest evidence does not support the hope the Omicron variant is contagious for less time than previous versions of the virus that causes COVID-19.
