Vancouver police say a man considered a high risk and violent sex offender is missing after he failed to check in to his halfway house yesterday.
They say 36-year-old Johnny Walkus is wanted Canada-wide.
Walkus is serving a sentence for two counts of sexual assault, and one count each of break and enter with intent and uttering threats.
Police say Walkus is five-foot, eight inches tall with a heavy build, short black hair, and the name Johnny Cash tattooed on his right forearm.
It said an incident at Burnaby's Parkland fuel refinery caused the "strong chemical odour" around the region and enforcement officers were sent to the site to make sure Parkland was complying with it's emissions permit. Metro Vancouver is responsible for issuing air emissions permits and environmental regulation.
Mounties in Maple Ridge are investigating a shooting that occurred on Saturday afternoon that sent a man to hospital. Ridge Meadows R-C-M-P say officers responded to a call of shots fired just before 3 p-m in the area around 123 Avenue and 222nd Street.
The cap on new student visas will be implemented for this year and next. The number of new visas handed out this year will be capped at 364,000, a 35 per cent decrease from the nearly 560,000 issued last year. The number for 2025 will be set after an assessment of the situation later this year, he said.
Police in Abbotsford say a 25-year-old man is dead after a shooting in the city on Saturday. Investigators have identified the victim as 25-year old man Amritpal Saran of Abbotsford.
Metro Vancouver has been left without most bus services and SeaBus after weekend talks between transit supervisors and the Coast Mountain Bus Company broke down without a deal. TransLink says bus routes operated by Coast Mountain stopped running at 1 a.m. and SeaBus sailings for the morning have also been cancelled.
Settlement agencies are preparing for the arrival of tens of thousands of Ukrainians before the end-of-March deadline for those fleeing the Russian invasion to enter Canada on emergency visas. The federal government has issued 936,293 temporary emergency visas since March 2022 for Ukrainians who want to work or study in Canada while they wait out the war. A total of 210,178 people had actually made the journey to Canada as of Nov. 28.