The Wednesday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories

QUEBEC CITY MOSQUE SAYS PRESIDENT’S CAR TORCHED: A car belonging to the president of a Quebec City mosque where six men were shot dead in January was set on fire earlier this month, police confirmed Wednesday. In a statement, the mosque said the incident occurred on Aug. 6 at about 1:30 a.m. in the driveway of Mohamed Labidi’s home. It said the car was a total loss and that the fire also spread to the hedge of the home. “We remain on the lookout for any progress in the investigation and we hope charges will be brought against these criminals once they are identified,” the statement read. “This hateful crime toward (Labidi) and his family are the latest in a long series of hateful acts against our organization.” The mosque also said excrement was thrown at its doors several days after the car was destroyed. A Quebec City police spokesman, Lt. Jean-Francois Vezina, described the fire as criminal but said authorities haven’t yet determined whether it was a hate crime. The incident occurred just days after Labeaume announced an agreement with the mosque on the creation of a new Muslim cemetery in the city.

———

FLOODWATERS DROP IN HOUSTON AS HARVEY TAKES SECOND SWIPE: Harvey’s floodwaters started dropping across much of the Houston area and the sun peeked through thinning clouds Wednesday in the first glimmer of hope in days for the besieged city. But the crisis was far from over, with the storm doubling back toward land and battering communities near the Texas-Louisiana line. The storm, meanwhile, began to give up some of its dead. The confirmed death toll from the hurricane climbed to 21 after a woman’s body was discovered afloat in Beaumont. Also, the bodies of six family members, including four children, were pulled from a van that had been swept off a Houston bridge into a bayou, and authorities were investigating 17 more deaths to determine whether they were storm-related. While conditions in Houston appeared to improve, the disaster took a turn for the worse east of the city, close to the Louisiana line. Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, struggled with rising floodwaters and worked to evacuate residents after Harvey completed a U-turn and rolled ashore early Wednesday for the second time in six days, hitting southwestern Louisiana as a tropical storm with heavy rain and winds of 72 km/h.

———

SCHEER REVEALS CONSERVATIVE FRONT BENCH: Conservative leader Andrew Scheer unveiled Wednesday the list of those will sit on the Opposition front benches when the House of Commons returns next month. Scheer wasn’t just drawing from a list of the other 96 Conservative MPs to decide who to put in his shadow cabinet; he was also navigating the aftermath of a leadership race he won only by a slim margin and ensuring his main competitors — and their supporters — felt they had a place and a voice at the table. Scheer’s main competitor, Maxime Bernier, will keep tabs on the Liberals’ marquee innovation agenda, while third-place finisher Erin O’Toole nabs the Foreign Affairs portfolio. Scheer had already given the deputy leader position to Lisa Raitt. Steven Blaney becomes Veterans Affairs critic after once being the minister for that position, Tony Clement will watch over public services and procurement matters and Michael Chong will take on oversight of the Liberals’ infrastructure plans. Three of the sitting MPs who challenged Scheer for the leadership, Deepak Obhrai, Kellie Leitch and Brad Trost, were left off the critics list.

———

PQ LEADER DOUBLES DOWN ON REFUGEE COMMENTS: The leader of the Parti Quebecois doubled down Wednesday on his claim Justin Trudeau’s famous tweet welcoming the world’s persecuted people into Canada is responsible for the influx of asylum seekers into Quebec. Jean-Francois Lisee said Monday the federal government should pay for the costs of taking care of thousands of would-be refugees he claimed were “invited by (prime minister) Justin Trudeau.” Lisee reiterated the comments two days later despite criticism from within his own party. Lisee said the thousands of asylum seekers — mostly Haitians — who have arrived in Quebec from the United States since June are “victims” of what he called the false hopes given to them by the federal government. He suggested Trudeau’s tweet from last January is to blame and that Ottawa should therefore pay the bill. Lisee said Quebecers are asking, “Where is the money going to come from?’ And I say, ‘it should come from who invited them.”’ Former interim PQ leader Louise Harel tweeted Tuesday she was “profoundly disappointed” by Lisee’s choice of words.

———

RADAR UPGRADES EXPECTED TO COST BILLIONS: The Trudeau government’s new defence policy could end up costing billions more than advertised because it doesn’t include one big-ticket item: modernizing North America’s early warning systems. That sets up a potentially difficult decision: to spend even more on defence than already promised, or to cut back on some of the other promises made to the military. The current network of long-range radars used by Canada and the U.S. to monitor airborne threats was built in the Arctic in the 1980s but is quickly nearing the end of its useful life. The Liberals promised in their recent defence policy that the North Warning System, as it is called, would be upgraded following talks with the U.S. about ways to improve continental security. But while the policy promised an extra $62 billion for the military over the next 20 years, none of that money has been earmarked for replacing the radar system or any new capabilities. National Defence’s top financial officer, Claude Rochette, says the department could not account for the cost because Canada and the U.S. have not decided what they actually need.

———

B.C. CHIEF TO FACE SEXUAL INTERFERENCE CHARGE: British Columbia’s prosecution service says a charge of sexual interference of a person under the age of 16 has been laid against a First Nations chief in Williams Lake. The prosecution service says Roger William of the Xeni Gwet’in is alleged to have committed the offence in the city on or about May 12 and was expected to make his first court appearance on Wednesday. It says special prosecutor Brock Martland approved the charge after he was appointed on Monday because the assistant deputy attorney general considered the matter in the public interest. The prosecution service says such appointments are also intended to avoid any potential for real or perceived improper influence in the administration of justice. Martland is a Vancouver lawyer in private practice and the prosecution service says his mandate was to provide legal advice to RCMP investigators as necessary, and conduct any related charge assessment as well as the prosecution if charges were approved. The prosecution service says it postponed announcing his appointment pending completion of the investigation and approval of charges.

———

COURT HEARS FROM FAMILY OF CALGARY GAS-AND-DASH VICTIM: The brother of a woman killed in a gas and dash says he’s haunted by thoughts of his sister’s final moments when she was lying on the ground “like a rag doll.” Mohamad Rashidi wrote in a victim impact statement read in court Wednesday as his mother wept quietly. Maryam Rashidi, who was 35, died two years ago while trying to stop Cody Mitchell from driving off without paying for $113 in fuel he had taken from the gas station where she worked. Another statement was written by the victim’s husband before he died in a traffic accident in June. “Some things that you lose you recover over time. Other losses are immeasurable and can never be retrieved. For instance, the loss of innocence of a child whose mother was taken from him,” Ahmad Nourani Shallo wrote before his death. The Crown is calling for a sentence of 10 years for manslaughter and an additional two years for hit and run. It also wants Mitchell prohibited from driving for the rest of his life. The defence suggested a total sentence of seven to eight years and a ban on driving for five to seven years.

———

NO BAIL FOR TORONTO DOCTOR ACCUSED OF MURDER: A Toronto neurosurgeon charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife has been denied bail. Dr. Mohammed Shamji, 41, showed little emotion as he sat in a Toronto courtroom on Wednesday. Shamji worked at Toronto Western Hospital and was a faculty member at the University of Toronto. He was charged in December 2016 in the death of his wife, Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji. The 40-year-old woman, a family physician at Scarborough Hospital, was last seen on Nov. 30. Her strangled and beaten body was later found in a suitcase by a roadside north of Toronto. Police have said the couple, who were married for 12 years, had three young children.

———

NEW MEASURES TO PROTECT GULF WHALES, LEBLANC SAYS: As Canadian officials scramble to determine whether an endangered whale caught in fishing rope off Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula may have freed itself, federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Dominic LeBlanc is promising a new set of rules around commercial fishing gear to protect the large marine mammals. A North Atlantic right whale was spotted entangled in ropes during a fly-over of the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Monday, but LeBlanc said aerial and water patrols were unable to locate it Tuesday. Officials are investigating whether the fishing gear rope that entangled the whale was in the area legally or had been lost or abandoned, which LeBlanc said has been the case with other entanglements this summer. He said the rope may have been fishing gear for the herring fisheries or abandoned crab traps, and that the department is investigating and may press charges. Ten right whales have died since June in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, an unprecedented number of deaths for the endangered marine mammal.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

The Wednesday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories

What's Trending