Prime minister faces mounting pressure to step aside from inside caucus
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face mounting pressure from his caucus this week to step down from the leadership of the Liberal party.
The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected appeals from four men convicted of child sex offences, all of whom cited police entrapment as grounds to dismiss their cases.
Temitope Dare, Erhard Haniffa, Muhammad Jaffer and Cory Ramelson were among more than 100 individuals arrested by the York Regional Police in 2017, as part of a multi-year investigation into child sex trafficking.
The investigation, titled "Project Raphael," began in 2014 and targeted individuals searching online to have sex with children. Undercover police officers posed as sex workers on backpage.com and, after agreeing to provide sexual services, revealed themselves to be underage. The investigation was the first of its kind in Ontario.
In order for an investigation to be considered bona fide, the police must demonstrate they had 鈥渞easonable suspicion that criminal activity was occurring in space defined with sufficient precision.鈥
Ramelson argued he was induced to commit a crime by the police and the 鈥渂ait and switch鈥 of announcing the age late in the interaction raised 鈥渃lear entrapment concerns.鈥 Ramelson also argued the website was too broad a space to support reasonable suspicion.
鈥淪ome of the most pernicious crimes are the hardest to investigate,鈥 said Justice Andromache Karakatsanis of the Supreme Court of Canada Thursday. 鈥淭o draw those crimes into the open, the police, acting undercover, sometimes create occasions for people to commit the very crimes they seek to prevent. Done properly, such techniques may cast new light on covert offending, unveiling harms that would otherwise go unpunished.鈥
Privacy concerns were also acknowledged in the ruling, with consideration of the need to protect privacy interests from state overreach, but balancing that with 鈥渢he state鈥檚 legitimate interest in investigating and prosecuting crime.鈥
All four men appealed their cases to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2021, and to the Supreme Court of Canada in spring of 2022. Thursday's judgment to reject the appeals was unanimous by all nine judges.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face mounting pressure from his caucus this week to step down from the leadership of the Liberal party.
Liberal cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault says the Liberals will not be 'held hostage' by the Bloc Quebecois' demand to expand Old Age Security to more seniors.
Amid escalating violence in the Middle East, a majority of surveyed Canadians say they don't believe the costs associated with Canadians fleeing the region should be funded solely by the government.
Small clinical trials have shown that one or two doses of psilocybin, given in a therapeutic setting, can make dramatic and long-lasting changes in people suffering from treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, which typically does not respond to traditional antidepressants.
The Orient Express' opulent passenger experience was later immortalized in popular culture by authors like Graham Greene and Agatha Christie. But dining on the move was very much a triumph of logistics and engineering.
Toronto police have identified the woman who was allegedly killed by a suspected serial killer earlier this month.
A New Zealand man who disappeared with his three children in 2021 was spotted on a farm along the country's northwest coast, police say.
A man who stabbed a senior to death in Vancouver's Biltmore Hotel building in 2020 has been given a conditional sentence for the killing, meaning he will not serve any jail time if he remains on good behaviour in the community.
British Columbia billionaire Chip Wilson has put up yet another billboard message to voters, his third post outside his multimillion-dollar mansion in NDP Leader David Eby's own riding.
James Taylor never expected to be walking home with a bag full of groceries he didn't buy.
This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of a large blizzard that paralyzed Manitoba.
There was an eye-catching mix of rainbows and lightning over Vancouver following a brief downpour this week.
Jeff Warner from Aidie Creek Gardens in the northern Ontario community of Englehart has a passion for growing big pumpkins and his effort is paying off in more ways than one.
Saskatchewan鈥檚 Jessica Campbell has made hockey history, becoming the first ever female assistant coach in the National Hockey League (NHL).
Have you ever seen videos of hovercrafts online or on TV and thought, 'Wow, I wish I could ride one of those.' One Alberta man did, and then built his own.
A B.C. couple is getting desperate 鈥 and creative 鈥 in their search for their missing dog.
Videos of a meteor streaking across the skies of southern Ontario have surfaced and small bits of the outer space rock may have made it to land, one astronomy professor says.
A unique form of clouds made an appearance over the skies of Ottawa on Sunday evening.