Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 01 Aug, 2024 04:50 PM
A man convicted in the notorious double murder of two women in Tsawwassen in 1990 has been granted full parole.
The decision was made following a parole board hearing for Derik Lord, who was 17 at the time of the murders and has always maintained his innocence.
Lord and David Muir were hired by their friend Darren Heunemann to murder his mother and grandmother so he could gain a four-million-dollar inheritance.
Lord has been on day parole for more than four years without incident.
Israel advocates are asking the Federal Court to reverse Ottawa's decision to continue funding the main United Nations agency supporting Palestinians. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is joining Canadians whose relatives were killed in the Hamas attack last October in asking Ottawa to stop funding UNRWA.
Global Affairs Canada and Taiwan's top diplomat in Ottawa say a Canadian is missing in Taiwan after the powerful earthquake that hit the island this week. Global Affairs spokesman Pierre Cuguen says consular officials are providing assistance to the family and are in contact with local authorities.
RCMP commissioner Mike Duheme says the police force has several open investigations into possible foreign interference in the last two general elections — probes that began only after the votes were counted. Duheme declined to elaborate Thursday on the number or nature of the probes, citing the integrity of the investigations, privacy concerns and public safety.
The Canada Border Services Agency says a man who got caught smuggling more than 70 kilograms of cocaine into Canada through the Pacific Highway border crossing has been sentenced to nine years in prison. Gerry Crawley, a commercial driver from New Brunswick, came through the Surrey crossing in March 2021 with a tractor-trailer of products from California.
The province has announced changes to the Police Act that it says would strengthen oversight of local police forces and improve their governance. The legislative changes would allow B-C’s police complaints commissioner to call a public hearing earlier into misconduct investigations, and give the commissioner the authority to conduct systemic reviews into causes or contributors of police complaints.
A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were "entirely" to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses. The study released by researchers at the University of Maryland on the Global Forest Watch website says tree cover loss in 2023 reached 28.3 million hectares globally, a 24 per cent jump driven by Canada's loss of 8.6 million hectares last year.