Russell Tessier guilty of 1st-degree murder in 2007 death of Allan Gerald Berdahl The Supreme Court of Canada has restored a Calgary man’s first-degree murder conviction, ruling his statements to police were admissible as evidence against him at trial. Russell Tessier was originally found guilty by a jury in 2018, 11 years after the body of his friend Allan Gerald Berdahl, 36, was discovered in a ditch north of Calgary, on March 16, 2007. The conviction came after the trial judge allowed the panel to hear evidence of what Tessier disclosed to police before investigators told him of his right toRead more

Methamphetamine back in spotlight after stabbing massacre in James Smith Cree Nation Elaine Fox knows everyone in Onion Lake Cree Nation. That means the elder knows how methamphetamine is altering the fabric of her community like never before. “It’s broken family relationships,” she said. The 66-year-old said meth and gangs control the lives of many young people in Onion Lake, a First Nation that straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. “Most of them come from dysfunctional families — families that have never dealt with residential school traumas,” said Fox. “I know theRead more

Dutch man tormented B.C. teen online for more than two years The 44-year-old Dutch man convicted of sexually extorting a B.C. teenager who died by suicide a decade ago was sentenced to 13 years in prison Friday. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Martha Devlin asked Aydin Coban to stand as she read out her final decision, after detailing the arguments presented by the Crown and the defence and explaining her deliberation process. The sentence is longer than the 12 years suggested by the Crown, but Devlin said Coban’s conduct and the pleasure he took inRead more

Excellence in education is an ‘important part of advancing society,’ prof says When it comes to the coming school board trustee elections, Kate Belair of Wellesley, Ont., hopes people do their homework on the candidates. “We have somebody running for school board trustee who doesn’t seem to be very inclusive,” she said in an interview in the village ahead of Ontario’s Monday, Oct. 24, municipal election. “He’s going to be in a situation where he could impact our children’s education, and that’s scary because we want our community to be inclusiveRead more

The Public Order Emergency Commission is meeting for its second day in Ottawa Two Ottawa city councillors have told the public inquiry probing the federal government’s use of emergency powers to end last winter’s protest convoy occupation of downtown Ottawa that they struggled to convince city police to deploy resources to residential neighbourhoods. “It was a general sense of fear, terror and dismay, that they felt abandoned by their city and by their police,” Catherine McKenney, a councillor for a core downtown ward, told the inquiry on Friday. The Public Order Emergency Commission isRead more