“He is a fake, a phony and a fraud. How can anyone ever believe what this sellout NDP leader says in the future?” Poilievre said to Singh during question period, posing questions to Singh, rather than to any member of the government.

As he did, heckling could be heard from NDP MPs, including complaints that this question wasn’t related to government business.

In response, Singh, who sits further down on the same side of the chamber as Poilievre, yelled over to the Official Opposition leader, leading to an eruption of jeers and cheers from all sides of the House.

House Speaker Greg Fergus then paused proceedings for a few minutes in an attempt to bring order to the chamber.

Microphones were muted on the live feed from the floor of the House of Commons and cameras did not cut away from the Speaker’s chair. But, as those in the viewing galleries above the chamber could see, Singh got out of his seat and continued to address Poilievre, pointing at him from the floor.

“I would suspect, although the chair didn't hear, that there might have been some strong words which were exchanged between members,” Fergus said after the tense moment, reminding all MPs that question period is meant to hold the government accountable, not opposition parties.

“I ask members to please remember that Canadians are looking at us and let us conduct ourselves in a way really befitting of each of our constituencies and a country as a whole.”

Both leaders left the chamber soon after the exchange.

The boiling over of simmering tensions between the two leaders came shortly after Singh announced the NDP will vote to support the Liberal government in next week’s non-confidence motion vote.

The motion was already set to fail after the Bloc Québecois announced Wednesday that they will be voting against the Conservative’s attempt to force an early election.

Singh said his party’s decision to support the Liberals is about pushing back against potential Conservative cuts to programs like dental care and pharmacare.

“The decision moving forward is far too important for Canadians and for the middle class,” Singh said. “That's why we're not going to let Pierre Poilievre tell us what to do. We're not going to listen to someone who wants to cut the things that people need.”

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Singh was repeatedly asked how he could support the Trudeau government just weeks after pulling out of his party’s supply-and-confidence deal.

“I stand by my words… Trudeau has let you down, and does not deserve another chance,” Singh said.

When asked if the NDP’s support means the party is giving Trudeau another chance, Singh said “not at all.”

“Canadians will have that decision to make when the election comes. And when that election comes, we want to make it very clear, I do not believe that Justin deserves a second chance.”

As he came out of question period, Poilievre marched to the microphone stationed in the House of Commons foyer and accused Singh of taping up his pact with Trudeau after the byelections had passed, repeating the line of attack he used in the House.

With files from �鶹Ӱ��' Rachel Hanes 

Health Canada and the World Health Organization recommend getting a flu shot every year, as flu viruses learn to evolve and the effectiveness of a shot decreases over time. But following the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines have also been created to fight against the infectious disease, with new variants of the novel coronavirus requiring updated shots through the years.

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Earlier this month, Health Canada ordered the remaining COVID-19 vaccines to be destroyed in favour of the new Moderna vaccine, which should become available sometime this week.

And just this week, and also announced a newly approved respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) shot would be available for newborns, young children, pregnant women and those over 65 years of age, which is expected to reduce the amount of infants and elderly people in hospitals.

With all these shots, some Canadians may have questions about the benefit of each vaccine, whether they should get every shot and how often to get them, and if it's safe to get them all at once or if they should space them out. CTVNews.ca spoke with an infectious disease specialist to see what they suggest as we officially enter flu season.

Getting your shots

Jeffrey Pernica is an associate professor with McMaster University's department of pediatrics, specializing in infectious diseases for children. Part of his research includes seeing children who are hospitalized with disease, their diagnoses and the managing of those infections.

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"Many of these respiratory viruses tend to have stereotyped circulation patterns, and a lot of them come up in the winter," Pernica said. "The issues with the kind of influenza vaccines that we have is that they do not lead to long-term protection in these specific strains of influenza."

He adds that for the most at-risk populations, especially elderly Canadians, the protection from a single vaccine doesn't last very long, so he expects the COVID-19 shot to be a yearly thing.

As for RSV, Pernica says it likely won't be an annual shot, but the Canadian National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommends everyone 75 years or older get it, preferably in the fall before cases start to rise. In addition to seniors, RSV takes a toll on infants and young children.

"RSV is the worst respiratory pathogen affecting children," Pernica said, adding that one strategy for medical professionals is immunizing pregnant adults late in their pregnancy with the RSV vaccine so the baby an immune response and develops antibodies, similar to how the whooping cough vaccine is sometimes used.

Multiple vaccines at once

Despite claims about how it's unsafe or less effective to get multiple vaccines at once, Pernica says this is untrue, and sometimes there are compelling reasons to get multiple shots on the same day.

"More often than not, there are lots of people who need an influenza vaccine in the fall. There are lots of people who need a COVID-19 vaccine in the fall, and now there's even more people who need an RSV vaccine in the fall," he said. "At a practical level, it's often much better to get them all simultaneously."

Both and the , a division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), say it's perfectly fine to get all your vaccines at once.

Vaccine hesitancy

Since the rollout of vaccines through the COVID-19 pandemic, hesitancy towards getting shots has grown rapidly in Canada.

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Because of this, doctors like Pernica can have a difficult time explaining to patients and parents of younger patients why it's critical for them to get their updated shots when due.

"Vaccine hesitancy is a real issue because vaccines are the cheapest, yet most effective medical interventions that exist," he said. "The bedrock of trying to deal with this is really just talking to people, listening to what they have to say."

Pernica adds that the key to people getting their shots is making sure they have all the information they need to make a decision, especially when it comes to the RSV vaccine.

"While COVID-19 is devastatingly bad for older people, RSV is that for children. I would emphasize to all physicians, all families, all health-care stakeholders that RSV is bad to get in early infancy, and we now have a therapy that is very, very effective."

The technology entrepreneur from Utah spent around 15 years painstakingly restoring the 293-foot vessel, which contains 85 cabins, a swimming pool and a theatre, and even moved on board with his long-term partner Jin Li.

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Willson says he poured his life savings into the passion project, and his extraordinary story was picked up by CNN and subsequently many other international publications.

Ship of dreams

His ultimate goal was to transform the neglected ship into a museum, but things didn't quite go to plan.

In October 2023, Willson made the painful decision to sell the vessel, which began sinking around seven months later. Now its future looks bleak.

"We absolutely loved our time with that ship," Willson tells CNN Travel. "It (selling) was probably the hardest thing I've done in my life.

"It haunts me and I lose sleep over it. I'm not happy about it."

So where did it all go wrong?

Willson's longstanding connection to the retired "pocket" cruise ship, built in Germany, began when he came across a sale listing on the Craigslist classified advertisements website and decided to investigate.

Feeling inspired, Willson decided to purchase his own slice of history. He won't disclose how much he spent, but says he was able to "work out a really good deal with the owner."

After doing some digging, he discovered that the vessel, originally named Wappen von Hamburg, was constructed by the Blohm and Voss shipyard in 1955 and had been the first significant passenger liner built by Germany after World War II.

Once he took the ship on, Willson arranged for it to be moved to the California river city of Rio Vista, where it stayed for a year, and renamed it the Aurora after spending his first night on board.

"I woke up to one of the most brilliant sunrises I had ever seen," Willson told CNN back in 2022.

"It was forming an Aurora type effect with the clouds and water. I remember thinking at that time 'Aurora' was a fitting name."

Willson was later offered a berth in San Francisco's Pier 38, an arrangement that came to an end after around three years.

In 2012, he had the ship transferred back to the California Delta, California's largest estuary, mooring the Aurora at Herman & Helen's Marina in Little Potato Slough, located around 24 kilometres from the city of Stockton in California's Central Valley.

"We wanted it in fresh water and we wanted it in shallow water," he explains. "So it was absolutely the best possible location that we could have put it."

Herman & Helen's Marina closed down a few years later, but the ship remained at the site.

Although he had no prior experience working on ships, Willson dedicated himself to breathing new life into the Aurora, devoting countless hours to renovating it, with the help of volunteers.

"I'd gotten quite a ways," he says. "I think we had 10 areas solidly restored and refurnished meticulously. These were kind of major areas. So we were pretty proud of that.

"So we were doing a pretty good job. We had marine engineers involved. (There was) no lack of people coming out to loan a hand."

Costly project

"We were working on the swimming pool and the forward decks, and replating all of the steel.

Aside from a few small donations, Willson says he funded the bulk of the renovation work himself.

Although he's unsure of the exact amount he spent on maintaining the ship and "moving it forward" over the years, he estimates the figure to be well over $1 million.

"We were making terrific progress with the Aurora," he says. "We had a successful YouTube channel. Everything was looking great."

However, Willson says he faced much resistance from locals, who weren't thrilled about having such a huge decommissioned ship moored nearby.

The fact that another large vessel, Canadian MineSweeper HMCS Chaleur, which was moored in the same area, sank in 2021 certainly didn't help matters.

According to Willson, he received a "three-day notice to quit" on "several occasions," but local authorities never "followed through with an eviction."

He goes on to explain that things came to a head when 1940s military tugboat Mazapeta, stationed next to the Aurora, also sank in January, creating a "pollution issue."

"Everything kind of changed from that point on," he says, explaining that various local agencies became involved, and it became clear that "there was really no future for the Aurora" at that location.

Although Willson did consider moving the ship, he says he learned that the waterway would've likely needed a "million dollars worth of dredging for us to get out."

"So we were kind of stuck there," he adds.

While they were desperate to finish what they started, Li says that the situation began to take a huge toll, and the couple felt that they had no other option but to "move on to the next chapter."

"Maybe Aurora wasn't in the right place," she reflects. "Maybe if Aurora was in a different state, or a different country it would have been different."

When an interested buyer showed up who seemed equally as passionate about saving the ship, they decided to sell it.

Willson stresses that he had every confidence that the unnamed individual was the right person to keep the Aurora going, and spent time talking them through how to maintain the ship.

Over the years, he'd received furniture from other historic ships for the Aurora, which he left on board, along with various pieces of artwork.

When asked about the general condition of the ship at the time, Willson says that while "there were some holes" when he first purchased it, they were "patched professionally" and he never had "any problems" afterwards.

Sinking feeling

However, in May, the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office announced that the Aurora was sinking.

"It has been determined the ship has suffered a hole and is taking on water and is currently leaking diesel fuel and oil into the Delta Waterway," reads a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on May 22.

The ship was refloated by contractors hired by a Unified Command, according to the US Coast Guard, which confirmed that it had "recently changed ownership."

"Over the last several weeks, response contractors, Global Diving and Salvage and subcontractors, successfully refloated the vessel and removed an estimated 21,675 gallons of oily water, 3,193 gallons of hazardous waste, and five 25-yard bins of debris was removed from the vessel," said a statement shared by California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Office of Spill Prevention and Response on June 28.

"There were no observations of oiled wildlife throughout the response."

The City of Stockton has since taken over the operation.

According to Connie Cochran, community relations officer for the City of Stockton, there was "was no clear ownership" for the Aurora when the situation occurred and the city is currently "figuring out how to dispose of the vessel."

"We're hoping to be getting it out of there in the coming weeks," Cochran told CNN, pointing out that the size of the ship, along with its location, in an area that isn't actually within the city limits, has made things even more difficult.

Cochran says the next stage will be determining whether the ship, which she described as a "public hazard" and "danger to the environment," is "structurally stable" enough for a "dead ship tow" to a location where it can be salvaged.

Although Cochran was unable to provide an estimate of the costs for the ongoing operation, which has seen contractors with specialist knowledge brought in, she says the city is hoping to "recoup" some of it.

Willson, who maintains that he filed the change of ownership for the Aurora with the Coast Guard Vessel documentation center, says he was surprised when he learned that the ship had partially sunk.

"I didn't see it sinking," he says. "We had it for 15 years, and we had no problem with it."

CNN has been unable to independently confirm the current registered owner of the ship.

"I meticulously maintained that ship," adds Willson. "I checked everything on it multiple times every day. We were on it all of the time… It just saddens me like nothing else."

Willson has faced heavy criticism for seemingly abandoning the Aurora, with local residents expressing concern about the costs to the City of Stockton.

He admits that he's found some of the commentary "tough," but hasn't given up on the ship, and plans to do everything he can to help the buyer he handed it over to reclaim it, with the aim of preventing it from being scrapped.

"I don't really want to let it go," he adds. "But it's no longer my vessel."

Willson looks back on his time with the ship fondly, recounting how he discovered its original name after removing "six or seven coats of paint" from the vessel when he first began working on it.

He later learned that the 2,496 gross ton ship had been the inspiration for popular TV series "The Love Boat," as well as a serving as filming location for the Spectre criminal organization headquarters in the 1963 Bond movie "From Russia with Love."

The vessel served as a cruise ship for around two years, says Willson, going through several different owners, as well as names, before it was moored in Vancouver.

It was towed to Alameda, California in 2005 after even more changes in both ownership and name. The ship was set to be turned into a luxury yacht at one stage, but this never came to fruition.

It subsequently remained at Alameda for several years, before being purchased by a businessman, who went on to list the ship on Craigslist.

Historic ship

Willson says the ship was in bad condition and "slowly succumbing to the encroaching water" before he spotted that advertisement in 2008.

"Nobody knew what the history of the vessel was," he says. "And over time, we exposed so much of its history.

"We turned it from just a big ship floating out on the Delta that was rusting away, to probably one of the most famous vintage cruise ships in the world.

"And I've got to be proud of that."

Willson says it pains him to see so many historic ships being scrapped, and he remains hopeful that things will turn out differently for the Aurora, even if he has to watch it play out from a distance.

"There's only three historic liners left in the United States, and another one of them is about to see its fate as well," he says, referring to retired ocean liner SS United States, which has been ordered to leave Philadelphia's Delaware River.

"So then there's only going to be the Queen Mary (a retired ocean liner moored at Long Beach that's now a popular tourist attraction) that's left.

"So it is very sad to see such famous ships eventually just dismantled, especially for no good reason."

Willson received a huge amount of support from well wishers while he was restoring the ship, with some even traveling to the site in California to see it.

He also built a huge community, with other 12,000 followers on the Aurora Restoration Project's Facebook page, and more than 80,000 subscribers to the YouTube channel for the project.

"It was such a well known vessel," he says. "And it had everybody's hearts.

"To this day, it keeps me awake at night time thinking about it. Thinking, 'What can I do in order to help the situation out?'

"And at the same time, I don't want to, you know, step over my bounds."

Willson and Li, who have since left California, are currently searching for a new project, stressing that they're looking for something on land, possibly an old church or mansion, this time around.

"We haven't found the right one," Willson says, adding that they've "almost landed a deal a couple of times."

Learning experience

Although things definitely haven't turned out the way he'd hoped, Willson has absolutely no regrets about buying the ship, and says he would do it all over again if he had the choice.

In fact, he describes his memories with the ship and the "efforts poured into her preservation" as some of the best of his life.

"I've never had a single regret about saving something like that," adds Willson, who says he hasn't visited the Aurora since the beginning of the year. "Was it a success?

"Keeping it on this Earth for an extra 15 years when it would have probably sank and then (been) scrapped out…

"I don't have any regrets on what I've done. It's been a great learning experience and showed a lot of people my abilities.

"I couldn't ask for anything more."

Li is also positive about the future of the Aurora despite the precariousness of its current position, pointing to the countless setbacks the ships has faced in the many years since it was built.

"Aurora is a fighter," says Li. "I mean, she always fights. There's so many times she changed hands. Got abandoned. Got almost scrapped.

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"But she still is floating today.  I told Chris, 'Maybe it's a sad story for us. We couldn't move Aurora more forward.

"But at least Aurora is fighting her own fight. She doesn't want to get scrapped… Wappen von Hamburg doesn't want to die.'"

In a matter of months, 62-year-old Ernie Kiss lost $185,000 in what experts describe as a cryptocurrency romance scam.

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The incident has forced Kiss, a retired pilot and airplane mechanic, back into the workforce.

“You know, it starts off innocent,” Kiss told �鶹Ӱ�� Wednesday. “It starts off with a little bit of money here and there, and it’s all good – and it’s not.”

In April, Kiss said he received an Instagram message from a woman named Angela, who said she was a plastic surgeon in California with a keen interest in learning how to fly.

“We seemed to hit off back and forth. We made some phone calls and videos – the whole bit,” Kiss explained. “I was going to go down to see her.”

When Angela started telling him about investing in artificial intelligence, Kiss said he saw it as an opportunity to earn some passive income.

“At first, I put a couple thousand dollars and everything was fine. According to the little thing they have [on the app], it was making money, and I could withdraw money.”

Angela encouraged him to invest more money to boost his profits. So, in went his life savings along with money borrowed from his sons. However, it was all too good to be true.

Kiss said Angela came up with excuses when he booked trips to visit her in California. In one instance, she had to fly to London to care for her sister.

“I had bought my ticket and hotel and everything, so I cancelled that,” he said. “And she sent me pictures from London, or at least I thought they were from London.”

A short time later, he booked a second trip, but Angela came up with another excuse last second.

“That’s when I started realizing this could be a farce. We seemed to be getting along fine, but I was always a little skeptical,” Kiss said. “A friend of mine sat me down and said, ‘You know, this is a scam.’”

Kiss said he confronted Angela about it, and he never heard from her again.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) said these types of cyber crimes are common. The scammer gains the victim’s trust, convinces them to invest in fake online platforms, and then disappears with their money.

As of Aug. 31, 167 crypto-romance scams totalling $5.4 million have been reported to the CAFC.

"I know this sounds ridiculous, but we always tell our children not to talk to strangers. Well, I think, you know, just be vigilant and be very careful who you're speaking to and verify that they are truly that person,” CAFC’s Nancy Cahill told �鶹Ӱ��.

The CFAC said warning signs include:

• Profiles that seem too perfect;
• Someone you haven’t met in person professes their love to you;
• A suspect that tries to move communication to a more private or different method of communication (email, text, social media platform, etc.);
• Any attempts to meet in person get cancelled or there’s always an excuse to not meet up;
• A person who discourages you from talking about them to friends and family;
• A suspect acting distressed or angry to force you into sending more money; and
• Poorly written messages or messages addressed to the wrong name.

The organization said to avoid sharing personal information online, delete friend requests from strangers, and never invest money through unfamiliar platforms.

“As soon as somebody asks you for money or to invest in something, that's a huge red flag and caution should be taken steps should be taken to, you know, check the validity of those types of things,” Sgt. Trevor Thompson, the financial crimes unit supervisor with the Winnipeg Police Service, told �鶹Ӱ��. "You know, 99 per cent of the time, you’re going to find yourself in a situation where you're potentially going to be victimized.”

The head of the WPS financial crimes unit said it’s imperative to report cyber crimes like crypto-romance scams.

“If we don't know about it, we can't action it,” Thompson said.

Kiss said he plans to file reports with the RCMP and CAFC. However, he doesn’t expect his money to be returned. He wants other people to be aware these scams can happen to anyone.

“It’s hard. I trust people too easily – I always have. And now, I got bit,” Kiss said.

Crypto-romance scams and other types of fraud can be reported through the CAFC.  

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) announced Wednesday morning that one of the two winning tickets was sold in Grey County, west of Barrie, while the other was sold somewhere in Quebec.

Each ticket is worth a whopping $40 million.

Twenty-four Maxmillions prizes were also up for grabs last night, with four winning tickets sold in Ontario.

Tuesday’s record-breaking grand prize grew to $80 million after Friday’s first-ever $75-million jackpot was not won.

Earlier this month, the OLG increased the size of its jackpot cap from $70 million. The cap has now grown by $10-million increments three times since it was first introduced in 2009.

The winning numbers for Tuesday's jackpot are 02, 04, 11,16, 25, 29, and 47. Bonus 34.

A video of the verbal altercation is gaining considerable traction online. The original video, along with copies and shares, has racked up several hundred thousand views in just a few hours.

In the video posted to YouTube, a protestor can be heard insulting Singh, before the NDP leader approaches and challenges him, and asks if he “has something to say.”

“You’re a coward if you’re not going to say it to my face,” Singh tells the protestor.

Two protestors, who were also filming Singh at the time, deny throwing the insult his way, despite it being audible in the video.

After one protestor insists he would “admit it” if he were the one who “said something like that,” Singh says “alright,” and walks away.

Singh’s office confirmed to �鶹Ӱ�� the incident happened on Tuesday, MPs’ second day back in Ottawa since June.

“A large group gathered at Ottawa’s Parliament Building has been intimidating, filming and harassing staff, pedestrians, journalists and even visitors—some of whom are here because they have survived terrible trauma and have come to share their story with lawmakers,” said an NDP spokesperson in a statement emailed to �鶹Ӱ��. “Jagmeet Singh does not tolerate bullies and does not condone violence.”

Several MPs commented on the incident raising concerns about safety for politicians and public figures, after clips started circulating on social media.

“We have the leaders of a national party stepping out in a parking lot on Parliament Hill and facing a confrontation, and having to be there by himself while security stands and watches him,” said NDP MP Charlie Angus. “We're dealing right now with an increasingly dangerous and toxic mix for politicians of all stripes.”

Angus goes on to call it an “absolute disgrace” that Parliament Hill security can be seen standing by in the video without intervening. �鶹Ӱ�� has asked the Parliamentary Protective Service for comment.

“I've been at this over 20 years, I've seen crowds that have been angry about an issue, but I've seen a general respect for the political process,” Angus also says. “The kind of threats that I've received in the last two years are something I never would have imagined people in Canada would even think to say, and the fact that it's getting closer and closer all the time, someone is going to get hurt.”

Liberal MP Pam Damoff, who announced last May she won’t run again in the next federal election because of the level of toxicity in politics, said she’s “not overly comfortable crossing the street” considering how close protestors are able to get to MPs.

“Mr. Singh is a bit of a lightning rod because he's recognizable, and there's so much rhetoric about the Liberals and the NDP, I find it really scary, and I worry that something is going to happen to people, to a politician here in Canada,” Damoff said, after referencing the two previous assassination attempts on former U.S. president Donald Trump.

There has been an increase in protesters demonstrating outside Parliament Hill coinciding with the kick-off to the fall sitting of Parliament, many donning F*ck Trudeau flags and other signs echoing messages that were front and centre during the Freedom Convoy.

Tuesday’s incident is not the first time Singh has been insulted by hecklers and protestors, or the first time he’s confronted them.

Last August, he was quick to clap back at a drive-by heckler, inviting the man to "have a conversation" with him instead of shouting expletives out his car window.

Singh had been speaking about high food prices outside a grocery store in Newfoundland when a man in a black car pulled up next to him in the parking lot and shouted an expletive of a sexual nature about Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

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And a year before that, in May, Singh received a barrage of insults as he exited a campaign rally for a provincial election candidate, who was running in the Peterborough – Kawartha riding, in Ontario.

Several protesters yelled expletives at the NDP leader and called him a “traitor” as he made his way to his car. 

With files from �鶹Ӱ�� National Correspondent Rachel Aiello and CTV’s Question Period Senior Producer Brennan MacDonald 

A 71-year-old French man admitted in court Tuesday that for nearly a decade, he repeatedly drugged his unwitting wife and invited dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious in their bed.

His wife of 50 years, who has divorced him since his arrest, also got to speak, telling the court that she feels completely betrayed.

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In a trial that has gripped France and raised awareness about sexual violence in the home and beyond, Dominique Pelicot told the court that he also raped his wife, Gisele Pelicot, and that the 50 men standing trial alongside him understood exactly what they were doing.

"Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist," Dominique Pelicot testified. "They knew everything. They can't say otherwise."

Pelicot's testimony marked the most important moment yet in a trial that has shocked the world. Although he previously confessed to investigators, his court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of his co-defendants, who range in age from 26 to 74. Many of them deny having raped Gisele Pelicot, saying her then-husband had manipulated them or that they believed she was consenting.

Many following the case also hope his testimony might help explain why Dominique Pelicot would subject the mother of his three children to such unconscionable abuse.

Gisele Pelicot has become a hero to many rape victims and a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public and appearing openly in front of the media. She shows up every day, passing through the courthouse security line behind men accused of raping her. As she left court during a break Tuesday, supporters brought her flowers.

After days of delay due to what his lawyers said was a kidney stone and urinary tract infection, Dominique Pelicot, seated in a wheelchair, testified that the charges against him are true. With his ex-wife looking on from the packed gallery and his voice trembling and barely audible at times, he started a long day of testimony trying to explain childhood traumas that he said scarred and molded him into the person he became.

"One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert," Pelicot told the judges after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male hospital nurse at age 9 and being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14.

Pelicot also said that for years, his father sexually abused a young girl his family had taken in, and that his brother later said their father had invited other men to do the same.

He regretted that his parents didn't let him continue his studies after he turned 14. He said that around that time, he tried to persuade his mother to leave the house with him, but "she never wanted to."

"I don't really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn't do any better," said Pelicot, who faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

After he spoke about his difficult upbringing, Gisele Pelicot was given the opportunity to address the court.

"It is hard for me to hear this. For 50 years, I lived with a man. I couldn't imagine even one second that he could have committed acts of rape," she said. "I trusted this man entirely."

The two looked at each other, him from behind the dock’s glass window and her from the witness stand.

“I am guilty,” he told her. “I regret everything I did. I ask you for forgiveness, even if it is unpardonable.”

Asked if she wanted to respond, Gisèle Pélicot turn and left the stand.

When asked about his feelings toward his ex-wife, Dominique Pélicot said she didn't deserve what he did.

“From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her,” he said in tears.

At that moment, Gisèle Pélicot put on her sunglasses.

Later, Dominique Pélicot said, “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”

A supermarket security guard caught Pelicot in 2020 secretly shooting video up women's skirts, according to court documents. During a search of his house and electronic devices, police found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Gisele Pelicot while she appeared to be unconscious in bed.

With the recordings, police were able to track down most of the 72 suspects they were seeking, but not all.

In addition to the photos and videos of Gisèle Pélicot, investigators found photos of the Pelicots' daughter, Caroline Darian, and two daughters-in-law that were surreptitiously taken while they were in their underwear, getting undressed or taking showers, according to authorities.

While her mother has stayed remarkably calm throughout the trial's harrowing testimony, Darian walked out of the courtroom Tuesday as her father was being asked about photos of her that were found on his laptop.

"Excuse me, I’m going to vomit," she said angrily before rushing out. She has written a book about what happened to her family, called "And I Stopped Calling you Daddy."

After retiring, the Pelicots moved from the Paris region to a house in Mazan, a small town in the Provence region.

When police officers called Gisèle Pélicot in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy," according to legal documents. They then showed her some photos. She left and later divorced her husband.

Since Dominique Pélicot’s arrest, other cases have surfaced. He was fined after being caught shooting video of a women’s crotch in 2010 and required to see a psychologist. Gisèle Pélicot has said she never knew about this incident.

Under French law, the proceedings inside the courtroom cannot be filmed or photographed. Dominique Pélicot has been brought into the court through a special entrance that's inaccessible for the media, because he and some other defendants are being held in custody during the trial and can't be filmed. Defendants who are not in custody have been arriving at the courthouse wearing surgical masks or hoods to avoid having their faces filmed or photographed.

Among those hoping to secure a seat to watch the Tuesday's proceedings was Bernadette Tessonière, a 69-year-old retiree who lives a half-hour drive from Avignon, where the trial is taking place.

“How is it possible that in 50 years of communal life, one can live next to someone who hides his life so well? This is scary,” she said. 

The session with the National Association of Black Journalists was one of the few extensive sit-down interviews Harris has done since replacing President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket in July. She repeatedly criticized Trump on issues including his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and opposition to abortion access, but was careful to refer to him as the former president and in other ways that avoided naming him directly.

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Trump was ramping up his campaigning, too, after the presidential race was roiled by Sunday's second apparent assassination attempt against him.

The former president was holding an evening town hall in Flint, Michigan, and has appearances later in the week in New York, Washington and North Carolina. Trump re-upped his past retaliation threats against election workers, donors and others as he tries to stoke fears about the integrity of the upcoming 2024 election.

He posted Tuesday on his social media site, "Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before."

Harris has her own stops in Washington, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin in coming days, with the two candidates overlapping in concentrating on the industrial Midwest and Pennsylvania and North Carolina -- all swing areas that could decide an election expected to be exceedingly close.

Harris answered questions from three association journalists at a small, relatively quiet venue at the Philadelphia studios of public radio station WHYY. That was very different from Trump's addressing the NABJ conference in Chicago in July, when he was antagonistic to the moderators and sparked an uproar by questioning the vice-president's racial identity.

Her manner was a departure from her campaign rallies, where Harris often receives some of her loudest applause by declaring that her professional background as a prosecutor means, "I know Donald Trump's type."

Pressed about reports of eroding support among Black male voters, Harris said she wasn't "assuming I'm gonna have it because I'm Black." She ducked a question about whether she'd support efforts by some congressional Democrats for reparations from the government to compensate descendants of slaves for years of unpaid labour by their ancestors.

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Biden has backed the idea of at least studying reparations.

As for Sunday's incident at Trump's Florida golf course, she said she reached the former president by phone, checking in "to see if he's OK."

"I told him what I have said publicly, there's no place for political violence in our country," the vice-president said. The White House described the conversation as cordial and brief.

In an earlier interview released Tuesday, the vice-president told Spanish-language radio host Chiquibaby, "Like all Americans, I'm grateful" Trump was unharmed.

The former president has claimed, without evidence, that months of criticism against him by Harris and Biden, who call him a threat to American democracy, inspired the latest attack. That's despite Trump's own long history of inflammatory campaign rhetoric and advocacy for jailing or prosecuting his political enemies.

"I really believe that the rhetoric from the Democrats" is "making the bullets fly. And it's very dangerous. Dangerous for them. It's dangerous for both sides," Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post.

So far, Biden and Harris have tried to avoid politics in their responses to Sunday's incident, instead condemning political violence of all kinds. The president also urged Congress to increase funding to the Secret Service.

Authorities say Ryan Wesley Routh camped outside the golf course in West Palm Beach, where Trump was playing on Sunday, for nearly 12 hours with food and a rifle but fled without firing shots when a Secret Service agent spotted and shot at him.

Subsequently arrested as he drove on the highway, Routh's past online posts suggest he has not been consistent about his politics in terms of supporting Democrats or Republicans. The attack came barely two months after Trump was wounded during a rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump also met on Tuesday with sheriff's office deputies who activated the highway traffic stop that took Routh into custody

Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said at a Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition event that "it's popular on a lot of corners of the left to say that we have a both sides problem." But "no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her briefing with reporters Tuesday that there should be zero tolerance for violence-inciting rhetoric. She bristled at the suggestion that Biden and Harris have stoked division by calling Trump a threat to democracy, saying that there were concrete examples of the former president being that -- such as when he helped incite an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In response to Vance's comments, Jean-Pierre said, "When you have that type of language out there it's dangerous. It's dangerous because people look up to that particular national leader, and they listen to you." She said such comments open the door for "people to take you very seriously."

------

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Philadelphia, Matt Brown in Washington and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

"'I'm not getting in it,"' Tony Nissen said he told Stockton Rush, co-founder of the OceanGate company that owned the Titan submersible.

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Nissen, OceanGate's former engineering director, was the first witness to testify at what is expected to be a two-week U.S. Coast Guard hearing. The Titan imploded on June 18, 2023, killing Rush and four others on board and setting off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.

Nissen said Rush could be difficult to work for and was often very concerned with costs and project schedules, among other issues. He said Rush would fight for what he wanted, which often changed day to day. He added that he tried to keep the clashes between the two of them behind closed doors so that others in the company wouldn't be aware.

"Most people would eventually just back down to Stockton," he said at the hearing in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Nissen also noted that the Titan was struck by lightning during a test mission in 2018, and that might have compromised its hull.

When asked if there was pressure to get the Titan into the water, he responded, "100 per cent."

He said that he refused to pilot the Titan years ago because he didn't trust the operations staff, and that he stopped the submersible from going to the Titanic in 2019, telling Rush that the Titan was "not working like we thought it would." He was fired that year. The Titan did undergo additional testing before it made later dives to the Titanic, Nissen added.

Asked if he felt the pressure from Rush compromised safety decisions and testing, Nissen paused, then replied, "No. And that's a difficult question to answer, because given infinite time and infinite budget, you could do infinite testing."

The submersible was left exposed to the elements while in storage for seven months in 2022 and 2023, and the hull was also never reviewed by any third parties as is standard procedure, Coast Guard representatives said in their initial remarks. The absence of an independent review and the submersible's unconventional design subjected the Titan to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.

One of the last messages from the Titan's crew to the support ship Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, "all good here," according to a visual re-creation presented earlier in the hearing.

The crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the submersible's depth and weight as it descended. The Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended operations after the implosion. The company's former finance and human resources director, Bonnie Carl, testified Monday that she was aware of safety concerns about the Titan, and that the company's operations director, David Lochridge, had characterized it as "unsafe." Lochridge is scheduled to testify on Tuesday.

Among those not on the witness list is Rush's widow, Wendy Rush, the company's communications director. Asked about her absence, spokesperson Melissa Leake said the Coast Guard would have no comment. She said it's common for a Marine Board of Investigation to "hold multiple hearing sessions or conduct additional witness depositions for complex cases."

Also scheduled to appear later in the hearing are OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein and former scientific director, Steven Ross, according to a list compiled by the Coast Guard. Numerous guard officials, scientists, and government and industry officials are also expected to testify. The U.S. Coast Guard subpoenaed witnesses who were not government employees, Leake said.

OceanGate has no full-time employees at this time but will be represented by an attorney during the hearing, the company said in a statement. The company has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began, the statement said. The Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.

Last year, the submersible lost contact with its support vessel about two hours after it made its final dive. When it was reported overdue, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometres) south of St. John's, Newfoundland.

The search for the submersible attracted worldwide attention, as it became increasingly unlikely that anyone could have survived the implosion. Wreckage of the Titan was subsequently found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 metres) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said.

The time frame for the investigation was initially a year, but the inquiry has taken longer. The ongoing Marine Board of Investigation is the highest level of marine casualty investigation conducted by the Coast Guard. When the hearing concludes, recommendations will be submitted to the Coast Guard's commandant. The National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting an investigation.

"There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this tragic incident," said Jason Neubauer of the Coast Guard Office of Investigations, who led the hearing. "But we hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again."

Canada's economy is intricately tied to the U.S., with nearly 80 per cent of all exports going to its neighbour. While Donald Trump's first presidency upended trade relations, U.S. President Joe Biden has overseen a return to relative stability. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, however, was once a vocal critic of North American free trade pacts like the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and its predecessor, the  (NAFTA).

"No matter who is the U.S. president in 2025, Canada's economy would be affected by a trade protectionism, just to different degrees," Carleton University political scientist Aaron Ettinger told CTVNews.ca. "Either way, Canadians will need to be alert."

• America Votes: Canadian perspectives, analysis and latest polls

With the current USMCA trade agreement up for review in 2026, the next U.S. president will have the power to press for changes or preserve the status quo. Here's how a Trump or Harris presidency could impact cross-border trade and Canada's economy:

Trade disrupted under Trump

Donald Trump's 2016 to 2020 presidency was a rollercoaster for Canada-U.S. relations. The countries' typically stable trade partnership was shaken by Trump's push to replace the NAFTA continental free trade agreement, and the imposition of hefty tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel during negotiations.

"Trump's attitude towards protectionism and tariffs goes back decades so it came as no surprise that he waged economic war with enthusiasm during his presidency," Ettinger said. "I would expect a 2025 Trump presidency to return to that pattern with greater aggression."

The new USMCA agreement that went into effect in 2020 also contains a unique review clause, and by its sixth anniversary on July 1, 2026, the U.S., Mexico and Canada will have to confirm in writing if they wish to extend the pact. If any country wants to tweak the trade agreement, it will spark a lengthy review process.

"That would be 2026, right in the middle of the next presidential term, and in a mid-term election year where many candidates for Congress – left and right – will be eager to show their commitment to the American worker," Ettinger said. "Should Trump win, I would expect him to reopen or threaten to reopen USMCA at that time."

Trump has not directly said if he will revisit the agreement, which was trumpeted as a better deal for the U.S. and a victory for his administration. But on the campaign trail, he has vowed to impose 10 per cent tariffs on all imports into the U.S., and 60 per cent tariffs on goods from China, without mentioning any exceptions.

"Trump can do quite a bit as president through executive orders," Ettinger said. "Canada could be excluded but it will take heroic diplomatic efforts on Canada's part to find the carve outs."

• America Votes: Latest U.S. election news and analysis from a Canadian perspective

In the lead-up to the November U.S. election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has been actively courting American politicians and business leaders to tout the mutual benefits of free trade.

"The best argument as to why Canada shouldn't be hit with tariffs or punitive protectionist measures is that it would hurt American jobs as well," Trudeau told reporters in the U.S. in May.

That stance is supported by a , which said 10 per cent tariffs and equivalent retaliation could aggravate inflation and lead to a 3.6 per cent decline in economic activity in Canada, and a 2.2 per cent decline in the U.S.

"Were Trump to implement the more controversial elements of his platform, namely the imposition of tariffs on all U.S. imports and the effective launch of a trade war… we would also expect substantial economic impacts in the United States and its trading partners," the report warned.

Harris opposed NAFTA and replacement

Relations and trade between Canada and the U.S. have been comparatively stable under Biden.

"Joe Biden also has protectionist leanings, though his are less explicitly hostile to Canada," Ettinger explained, citing U.S. electric vehicle rules and subsidies as an example. "Biden's purpose is not punitive though. His purpose is to use U.S. regulatory power to raise labour and environmental standards."

Harris opposed many Trump tariffs when she was a senator from California between 2017 and 2021, but she was also one of only 10 U.S. senators to vote against the new USMCA agreement, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Jan. 2020.

Joining the likes of Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, Harris argued the agreement didn't do enough to tackle environmental issues.

"I have concluded that the USMCA's environmental provisions are insufficient – and by not addressing climate change, the USMCA fails to meet the crises of this moment," Harris said at the time.

In a , Harris said she would have also opposed the original NAFTA agreement, which Biden voted for as a senator in 1993.

"I would not have voted for NAFTA, and because I believe that we can do a better job to protect American workers," Harris told CNN. "I also believe that we need to do a better job in terms of thinking about… issues like the climate crisis and what we need to do to build [them] into these trade agreements."

Harris has not said if she would reopen USMCA as president, but has been known to shift and soften her positions.

"The Harris-Walz campaign is still vague on trade policy details, but I doubt it will be different from Biden’s in relation to the green economy, energy policy and more," University of Ottawa political scientist Srdjan Vucetic told CTVNews.ca.

Having in Montreal, Harris has direct ties to Canada. So does her running mate for vice president, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, whose state shares an 885-km border with Ontario and Manitoba. Canada is also Minnesota's largest customer, buying approximately US.

In a 2020 , Walz said Minnesota's relationship with its northern neighbour encompasses everything from trade to tourism.

"It is true that Canada and Minnesota share a border, and are therefore inherently bonded, but our friendship extends much deeper than that," Walz said in a video posted online by the Consulate General of Canada in Minneapolis. "Our relationship extends from private sector investments by Canadian companies that employ thousands of Minnesotans, to Minnesota-based companies that have invested across Canada."

Who's better for Canada?

“Between Walz and Harris's background in Canada, these are two people that will have a good understanding of the relationship between the two countries," Western University U.S. politics specialist Matthew Lebo told The Canadian Press.

Former U.S. ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman says a Harris and Walz win would also be a victory for Canada.

"You've got the best team for U.S.-Canada relations, in the Harris-Walz team, and maybe the best team that has existed, maybe, since Obama-Biden, where I worked as the U.S. ambassador," Hyman recently told �鶹Ӱ��. "This is clearly significantly better than the Trump team."

Vucetic, a professor in the University of Ottawa's graduate school of public and international affairs, says that while Canada can expect protectionist agendas from both the Republican and Democratic nominees, a Harris presidency would ultimately be better for Canada.

"Today, Democrats make promises to protect jobs and wages on a daily basis, and Kamala Harris cannot be an exception," Vucetic said. "Whoever gets to sit at the Resolute Desk in 2025 will seek to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing and cement Buy American practices, and the challenge for Canadian policymakers will be to seek and secure various exceptions and exemptions for Canada."

Garick and Ramesh Ramsook arrived in the capital with hopes that a temporary job offer could lay the groundwork for a future in Canada. Instead, they are now homeless, desperately looking for work to stave off the guilt they feel for not being able to support their families.

The two brothers were enticed by a job offer from Polat Construction.

According to its , the company has worked on projects for the federal, provincial and municipal governments. The company installed ceiling tiles for the city of Ottawa’s LRT stations and helped developers such as Minto and the CLV group renovate its apartments.

Polat markets itself as being driven “to deliver high-quality construction solutions at an exceptional price.”

According to documents seen by �鶹Ӱ��, the two brothers signed a two-year contract with Polat Construction for a rate of $26.06 per hour.

The company committed to finding the brothers an apartment before their arrival and offered to pay first and last month’s rent.

“It was a good offer - a good opportunity to make a better life for my family,” said Garick, 39. He told CTV National News that he wanted to earn extra money to send his teenage daughter to college. After talking to a Polat representative, Garick persuaded his younger brother to come along. Garick packed his bags, said good-bye to his twin seven-year-old sons and promised his common-law wife that he would send money back so she could finish nursing school.

Unpaid work

When the Ramsook brothers arrived in July 2023, they put their carpentry skills to work renovating a Turkish restaurant and building cabinets at the company’s headquarters in a west end industrial park. There were delays in getting paid from the start and Ramesh says he felt “threatened” after he confronted his boss about paycheques that didn’t materialize.

“He said if anyone would try to take down his company, he would get rid of them and fight them ten times harder,” recalls Ramesh, 33.

The brothers say they were laid off after managers found out that they were joining a group of employees who were trying to unionize.

After six months of work, they had only been paid for six weeks.

The Ramsook brothers along with two other Jamaican workers filed complaints with the Ontario Ministry of Labour in January 2024 to recoup their salaries.

Six months after they filed their complaints, provincial labour investigators found that Polat Construction had violated the Ontario Employment Standards Act which defines minimum wage and working conditions. In July, MOL ordered Polat Construction to pay the four men a total of more than $145,000 in lost wages.

The MOL determined that the brothers were owed $26,000 each. That ruling took place three months ago. It’s been more than nine months since Garick and Ramesh lost their jobs and nearly a year since they last collected a paycheque for Polat.

�鶹Ӱ�� visited the head office of Polat Construction to ask the owner, Canpolat Sahin, about his treatment of the Jamaican temporary workers. At the office on Caesar avenue, reporters found a notice posted on the main door by the landlord indicating that Sahin had not paid nearly $12,000 in rent and that locks had been changed. The company also did not respond to multiple calls and emails from �鶹Ӱ��.

“These workers did everything correctly and the entire system failed them,” says Chris Ramsaroop of Justice for Migrants, an advocacy group that is helping the brothers sue Polat Construction for “wage theft.”

“They’ve been basically left destitute…the employer has yet to pay them. So provincial laws have failed workers and federal laws meant to protect workers have failed,” Ramsaroop said.

In just two weeks, in regions where unemployment is at six per cent or higher.

But the construction, health care and agriculture sectors are exempt from the revised policy.

The new immigration measures are meant to relieve pressure on housing and social services, but Ramsaroop says the discourse surrounding the policies has vilified migrants at a time when they are in need of protection.

A recent United Nations report called Canada’s temporary foreign workers program a “breeding ground for contemporary slavery.”

Mounting violations

According to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada there are approximately 69,500 companies that employ temporary foreign workers (TFW) in Canada.

The latest statistics show that inspectors are unable to address a large portion of complaints.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the federal government received more than 7,590 complaints and inspected 2,122 job sites.

Of the employers inspected, six per cent were deemed to have violated the rules of the TFW program.

Alice Hansen, the director of communications for the federal minister of employment, Randy Boissonault, says businesses that fail to compensate temporary foreign workers will face financial penalties. If they don’t pay, they will be banned from the program. She notes that 12 employers were banned the last fiscal year that ended on March 31.

Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada does post a list of on its website, but it only captures the cases investigated by federal officials. There is also a question of how much information of abuse is shared between the provinces and the federal government. The case of Polat Construction is not listed on the IRCC site.

Ramsaroop says the federal government’s monitoring efforts aren’t enough to stop the abuse.

“You cannot have a system where employers are given an announced inspection - they’re given a heads up.” Ramsaroop says foreign workers have been interviewed with their bosses nearby and fired for talking to inspectors.

He points out that IRCC’s financial penalties go into federal funds, but don’t necessarily help struggling workers.  

Both cases underscore how tensions between residents can boil over and lead to a trial or charges.

If you have beef with your neighbour and you feel it's gone too far, what should you do? A personal injury lawyer has some advice.

Let cooler heads prevail

There are different types of neighbour disputes, including noise complaints, issues with a dog, overgrowth of trees, drainage causing damage to property and fencing issues.

If you have serious disputes with your neighbour, you can review local bylaws and rights concerning property and personal privacy, or contact municipal officials, lawyers, police or other authorities, says Rajiv Haté, senior lawyer at Kotak Personal Injury Law in Mississauga, Ont.

"You know, however, whether that's necessary is always the question," Haté said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca on Thursday.

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Haté recommends residents avoid fights from escalating by communicating with each other first and letting cooler heads prevail.

"I always say the first step is to try to work it out amicably," Haté said. "At the end of the day, this is your neighbour and the relationship is going to be ongoing."

Try to compromise, understand one another's perspective and, if necessary, get a third party like another neighbour involved, he suggests.

"But ultimately if there's threats or assault or damages that result, then your rights would be to get either municipalities involved, police involved, or you could pursue a legal action," Haté said.

Legal actions

There are several types of legal actions. The tort of nuisance is a "substantial or unreasonable interference" with the use or enjoyment of your property, Haté said.

The second is a claim for negligence if there's damage to your property.

The third is the tort of intrusion upon seclusion, which is intentional or reckless invasion of a person's private affairs, without lawful justification, and which a reasonable person would find to be highly offensive causing distress, humiliation or anguish, Haté said.

In serious cases, damages could be awarded, such as the cost to remedy the nuisance, he said.

Damages could also result from a neighbour causing mental distress, or they could be punitive if the conduct was "malicious or intentional," he added.

"The more substantial the nuisance, damage to your property, or intrusion upon seclusion, the more substantial the damages may be that the person who's at fault may have to pay."

When it comes to neighbours complaining incessantly, sometimes the best action is just no action, as long as nothing illegal or inappropriate is happening, he said.

If it becomes unbearable for you, you could consider legal action.

"I always say getting involved in legal battles that are going to be costly may not always be the best approach," Haté said. "It's something that you should strongly consider before taking that step. ... But getting legal advice is often a good way to go if you're not sure about your rights or options."

If you decide to take legal action, he recommends documenting what's happening and your efforts to resolve it.

Recording things in public is allowed, but privacy rights may be an issue if you make private recordings without telling the person, he said.

To avoid disputes with neighbours in the first place, Haté says to remember this rule.

"Try to avoid participating in activities that are causing damage to your neighbour's property or causing them to be unable to enjoy their own property," he said.

Iga was 16, Vlad was 18. He was laughing with friends. Then pushed his long hair out of his eyes, met Iga’s eye, and smiled.

“I remember feeling very excited about him,” Iga tells today.

Iga first saw Vlad in the summer of 2005. She was on vacation from Poland, at a summer camp in Greece. Vlad visited Skotina every summer from his home in what is now North Macedonia. The beach, in the foothills of Mount Olympus, was a home away from home for Vlad and he was always surrounded by a gang of friends.

While Iga was intrigued by Vlad, she was “also kind of reserved.” For the first few days, they circled each other, but didn’t talk.

Then, one evening Iga was sitting on the beach in a circle with her camp friends, while Vlad was sitting close by, in a separate circle, with his group.

“At some point we all started sitting together,” recalls Iga. “Then Vlad came up to me so he could talk to me, and we sat next to each other on the beach, chatting, having a conversation. And it went from there.”

Vlad noticed Iga right away, too. He had “so many good memories” of summers relaxing at Skotina beach. He knew all the regulars, and Iga stood out. He remembers the way she walked down the beach, recalls noticing her immediately, wanting to talk to her.

Once they did speak, Iga and Vlad quickly became inseparable.

“Every day we spent time together,” Iga recalls. “On the beach, or going hiking, chatting…”

The two communicated in English – a little tricky as Iga wasn’t as confident in the language as Vlad.

“But Vlad was helping me with certain words so we could communicate better,” says Iga.

Iga and Vlad spent the next two weeks in each other’s company. Looking back, Iga’s overwhelming memory of their time together was “feeling very safe.” She found Vlad to be kind, respectful, funny. She wasn’t exactly in love – they were technically just friends – but she had a pretty heady crush.

Vlad felt the same way. He describes their connection as “a friendship, but also a willingness to be together.” He felt like they were drawn to each other.

But both Vlad and Iga were realistic that this connection might not last.

“We had a really great time,” says Iga. “But I was still in high school. We lived very different lives in terms of being in different countries. There was no way for us to have a future. So that’s also what I remember feeling – feeling like it was exciting, but also knowing there was an end to it.”

This end rolled around all too quickly. Iga and Vlad said their goodbyes when the camp came to an end. Social media was still in its early days in 2005, but the two exchanged email addresses.

Back home in Poland, Iga classified Vlad in her head as “just a friend.”

“But even my mom remembers how excited I was when I got his first email,” says Iga. “We kept that conversation going for the next two years.”

Over that period, Iga and Vlad wrote back and forth about their thoughts on family, friends, travel, their studies, their hopes and dreams.

“Both of us were having our own lives, but we just felt connected,” says Iga. “We exchanged probably over 100 emails.”

“I couldn’t wait to receive an email from her,” says Vlad. “They meant a lot to me.”

The two found other ways to stay connected, including chatting via instant messenger.

“We’d download songs and listen to the album at the same time,” recalls Vlad. “Then we’d sit all night, talking about the songs for hours.”

In time, Vlad realized he was talking more to Iga than any of his other summer friends – really more than anyone in his day-to-day life.

Iga had a similar realization.

“We spent a lot of time chatting and writing emails. We sent each other pictures of what’s going on in our lives,” recalls Iga, who found herself often looking back at photos they’d taken together that summer, posing together.

Occasionally, Iga and Vlad would float the idea of meeting up again, but no concrete plans ever materialized.

And in time both Iga and Vlad entered relationships with other people.

“After that, I felt like, ‘I cannot really meet up with you, because I have a boyfriend,’” recalls Iga. “It felt like a great friendship, and I really wanted to meet him again – but I felt stuck in that I couldn’t do it, really.”

As their respective romances got more serious, the emails gradually died off.

“At some point, we just stopped having contact,” says Iga.

But Vlad never deleted his emails from Iga. He often thought of her fondly.

Meanwhile, Iga always felt grateful for her friendship with Vlad, and sad that it had dwindled.

When Facebook became omnipresent, the two connected there. They communicated sporadically – one time when they realized they just missed each other in Germany, another time Vlad posted a throwback photo to the summer in Greece – but it was intermittent and surface level.

“Losing touch was natural,” Vlad reflects today. “It comes with the distance.”

10 years later

Time moved on. Iga went to college, graduated and relocated from Poland to Germany. She got married, and then divorced within a year. It was a tough period.

Meanwhile Vlad’s work took him to the U.S., and he moved there permanently in 2015. Vlad saw the move as a new start following a recent break-up.

“I promised myself, when I go to the U.S., I won’t get into a relationship for at least a year,” he recalls.

Vlad had only been living and working in Chicago for a month or so, when, out of the blue, a message popped up on his phone. It was from Iga.

She was transiting through the Republic of Macedonia (which changed its name to North Macedonia after a 2019 referendum) and had a layover in the airport, not far from Vlad’s hometown. She’d dropped him a message, on the off chance he might be around and interested in a catchup, 10 years on.

But Vlad was on the other side of the world, in the U.S. When he saw Iga’s message he went from excitement to disappointment in the space of a few minutes, surprising himself by how sad he felt to miss Iga.

Vlad’s reply – explaining he’d moved to the U.S., saying how he wished he could have seen Iga – started a back and forth between the old friends on Facebook messenger.

The messages – just like their teenage emails – went deep quickly. Iga and Vlad started talking every day, catching each other up on their lives, filling in the blanks over the past decade.

“It got really intense quickly,” says Iga. “I felt like I was reconnecting with my best friend, with someone very dear to me.”

“It was so nice and refreshing to talk to Iga,” says Vlad.

Iga talked about her divorce, and Vlad mentioned he was also single. They felt connected to each other – just like they had when they were young, although neither necessarily assumed their connection had romantic potential.

But when, in early 2016, Vlad mentioned he was planning a trip back to Europe, to visit family, the idea he might stop by to see Iga in Germany almost went without saying.

“The day that he was coming to see me, it was very, very, very exciting,” says Iga. “I remember making banana pancakes for him. I woke up at five. I wanted to make him breakfast because he traveled overnight.”

Pancakes prepared, Iga drove to the airport to meet Vlad.

“The moment I saw him again was probably the best day of my life,” says Iga. “The emotion was really, really intense. It was even better than I imagined.”

Vlad recalls being overwhelmed by how surreal it was – and yet it also just felt right.

“She looked amazing,” he recalls. He knew what Iga looked like, he’d seen photos, but he realized he’d forgotten what it was actually like to be in her presence.

Plus, they’d both grown up. They were in their late 20s. They both were – and weren’t – the same people they’d been a decade before.

Iga showed Vlad around her city, Bielefeld, in northwest Germany.

“It was a lot of talking,” says Vlad. “We had a great time. You could see there was something going on. It was a short period of time to understand if we’re meant for each other, or if we want to build a relationship. But it felt good.”

Next steps

While Vlad and Iga were together in Germany, they talked about the potential of Iga visiting Vlad in the U.S.

A few weeks later, they connected on a video call to talk about this plan, and discuss where things stood between them.

Iga initiated the conversation.

“I knew I’d fallen in love with Vlad,” she says. “I knew I wanted to be with him, but he was more reserved. So I just felt like I needed to know, ‘Where do we stand?’”

As someone who’d gone through a divorce, good communication was important to Iga.

“I felt a lot of shame about what had happened to me,” she says.

She’d opened up to Vlad about her previous relationship, and he’d been understanding and supportive.

“He created that space for me where it felt really good and I finally felt okay to say the truth,” she says.

It was one of the many reasons Iga had fallen in love with him. The thought he might not feel the same way was heartbreaking. But Vlad assured her that wasn’t the case – not remotely.

“I was just really scared to get hurt,” says Vlad today. He was concerned about the realities of maintaining a long-distance relationship.

“I wanted to be with Iga. But I was trying to live in the moment,” Vlad explains. He was worried labeling things, moving too quickly, could derail matters. But when Iga voiced her concerns, Vlad assured Iga he loved her too, and said he also wanted to try to make their connection work.

So Iga booked her plane ticket to visit Vlad in Chicago a couple of months later.

That visit was a turning point.

“At that point, we were very serious,” Iga says.

In May 2016, Iga took the plunge and moved to the U.S. on a more permanent basis. She told herself that if it didn’t work out, she could always go back to Europe.

But she and Vlad wanted to give their romance a proper try, so Iga applied for a work visa that would allow her to live in the U.S. full time.

Iga’s parents were encouraging. Her mother remembered how happy teenage Iga was whenever she received Vlad’s emails.

​”I had full support from my parents, and they were very excited for me,” says Iga. “But my brother was very anxious, like, ‘Oh my god, you met him on the internet.’”

Iga told her brother that wasn’t strictly true – she’d known Vlad since she was 16. But she appreciated moving to the other side of the world to be with him was a big step.

“The first six months we were just kind of learning how it feels to be together and to have that life together,” says Iga. “It was definitely a tricky position. We are both from different countries, and left our countries to live in a separate country.”

“And I’d never lived with anybody in my life other than my family,” adds Vlad. “I’d never had roommates, never lived with a girlfriend in a shared flat. I’d always lived on my own. It was definitely an adjustment.”

Developing a stable relationship

Iga and Vlad only grew more sure they were meant to be as the months rolled on.

“We developed a great, stable and strong relationship,” says Iga. “We needed to depend on each other. We just had each other in our lives in the U.S. We didn’t have any family there, neither me nor Vlad, so we created that little spot together.”

Iga started building the foundations for a life coaching business. The couple relocated from Chicago to Florida, then regretted the decision and returned to the familiarity and comfort of Chicago.

Somewhere in between, Iga discovered she was pregnant.

Children were something both Iga and Vlad had hoped for and talked about early on, but Iga’s pregnancy was unexpected. It was a surprise – but a good one.

Midway through Iga’s pregnancy, Vlad’s beloved grandmother passed away, and he had to fly back to North Macedonia.

As he waited for his flight, Vlad sat at the airport reflecting on life, loss and love. His grandparents had shared a great romance, one he always hoped to emulate.

“They were an example of true love to me,” says Vlad.

Vlad knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Iga. He thought about their first meeting on the beach in Greece. An idea started to develop.

“I wanted to propose in Greece,” he says. He called a friend and asked to borrow their car, explaining he had a plan brewing. The friend offered to drive Vlad to Skotina beach.

“So me, my friend, his girlfriend and my brother, we drove over there,” says Vlad. “It was September, out of season. I went to the spot where Iga and I met, and I recorded a video.”

In the video, Vlad spoke directly to the camera, recounting meeting Iga when they were teenagers. How it felt to reunite a decade later. How much she meant to him. His excitement at their upcoming child. His hopes for their future.

“Then I wrote, on the sand, the words: ‘Will you marry me?’” recalls Vlad.

Later on, back in the U.S., Vlad took Iga for dinner, requesting a private table at the restaurant. Then, he took out his phone, loaded up the Greece video and pressed play.

Iga was moved to see the beach again, touched by Vlad’s words on the screen, but she had no idea where it was going.

“Then, at the end, I see the beach, where he’s written: ‘Will you marry me?’” recalls Iga. “I just started crying. Then he gave me the ring.’”

Vlad had also written Iga a letter – he’d been inspired by his time at home, and recollections of his grandfather “who always wrote letters and notes about how he felt.”

In Vlad’s letter to Iga, he described how important she was to him and how it felt to visit the beach where they met, all these years later.

Some of the things he wrote down he’d never really said to her before – how he’d felt the moment he first saw her. The way he remembered her walking along the sand. How he’d saved all their emails.

“It was so beautiful and romantic,” says Iga. “And then this beautiful video on the beach, when Greece is so symbolic to us…”

Iga and Vlad welcomed their son, Luca, in 2018. The couple got married a month later – a small ceremony, with only their close family in attendance – and welcomed a second child, daughter Klara, a year later.

A recreated photo

Today, Iga and Vlad still live in the U.S., where they’re raising their kids with an international outlook. Iga runs a and works as a project manager for a tech company, while Vlad’s now the director of operations for a freight brokerage.

The couple are pretty established in Chicago, but they still regularly visit Europe.

“It’s very important for us as a family to maintain those relationships with our family,” says Iga. “Even though we are so far away, we still want our kids to know what Poland is, to know what Macedonia is, to know Europe.”

This past summer, Iga and Vlad returned to Greece together, taking the kids to the beach where they met for the first time.

The couple have a favourite photo from summer 2005, of the two of them standing by a blue door. Iga’s joking around, pouting, while Vlad’s gazing at her.

“It’s an important photo,” says Iga.

This summer, the couple recreated the picture, 19 years later – with the help of one of Vlad’s longtime friends, who was there when they met. The group found themselves all reminiscing on that summer.

“You cried when she left,” said the friend to Vlad. Iga raised her eyebrows at her husband – he’d never admitted that before.

Then, Iga and Vlad posed in the same spot, by the blue door, with their two kids in tow.

“It was really special,” says Iga.

Iga and Vlad also marked the moment by getting matching tattoos to symbolize their meeting, depicting the ocean waves and nearby Mount Olympus. Iga’s tattoo is on her left arm, Vlad’s on his right. They might lose their wedding rings, or forget to wear them, but the couple figured these tattoos would last forever, always symbolizing their love.

Iga says the summer in Greece was very meaningful.

“I saw the mountain, and right away I just felt very emotional, because this is the spot where I met Vlad,” she says.

She enjoyed being there with their friends, treasured the time with their kids, but she tells Vlad today she also had the urge “just to lay down on the beach with you, and have you only for me.”

It was strange, Iga says, to reflect that she wasn’t a teenager anymore, enjoying a summer crush. Life had moved on, turned into something she could never have anticipated, yet is so grateful for.

“I think my younger self would be very proud and happy,” Iga reflects. “I had a different life in between. I had another marriage. And sometimes I would kind of regret things. But you cannot regret anything, it had to happen for you then to find yourself in this situation. Everything in my life brought me to this moment.”

Today, Iga and Vlad both feel like everything happened the way it was supposed to, in the end.

“I’m not usually a believer in those things,” says Vlad. “But with everything we’ve been through, and then everything leading back to each other – I cannot believe it was not meant to be.”

“Our story is, for us, a foundation,” says Iga. “I believe that even if we get into crazy fights or misunderstandings or whatever is going to happen in our life, we are always going to remember where we came from, what we have built, and why it’s so important.”

Wendy Washik was at a neighbourhood barbecue on Sept. 1 when she joined a playful water gun fight with one of her neighbour’s children. As the 58-year-old educational assistant was chasing the child to the front of the home, she said she accidentally sprayed another neighbour with water.

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“I just kept apologizing and apologizing,” she told �鶹Ӱ�� Toronto in an interview on Wednesday, adding that the neighbour began “screaming” at her following the incident.

Washik said the neighbour called police and officers arrived at the scene a short time later and charged her with assault with a weapon. She claims police spoke to the neighbour who made the call but asked no one else questions about the incident.

“I was in shock. I just couldn't believe it. I kept saying to the police officer, 'It was a water gun. I didn't do it intentionally. I was having a water gun fight!' I just couldn't believe it,” Washik, who says she does not have a criminal record, recalled.

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According to an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) news release issued on Sept. 3, a Norfolk County officer was called to the Woodway Trail home for a report of a neighbour dispute which resulted in the victim being physically assaulted. No injuries were reported.

Washik’s full name, age and area of residence were included in the news release announcing the assault with a weapon charge against her but a description of the type of weapon used was not.

Washik said her school board has placed her on leave pending the resolution of the court proceedings.

“I've been very stressed, mentally and financially stressed. My family has been through a lot too,” she said.

'Anything can qualify as a weapon': Toronto criminal defence lawyer

Although Washik says she still can’t believe she is facing an assault with a weapon charge, one Toronto criminal defence lawyer said “anything” can qualify as a weapon.

“Frankly, a pencil, a knife, picture frame…it depends upon how the object is utilized that determines whether or not it's a weapon. So, the water gun can be qualified as a weapon as a result,” Monte MacGregor, who is not involved in the case, told �鶹Ӱ�� Toronto in an interview. “And assault is where you touch someone or threaten to touch them in a manner without their consent, right?”

MacGregor said police do have a certain discretion to determine whether or not a charge should be laid and whether or not they have reasonable and probable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed.

“Am I surprised that the charge has been laid? No. But do I recognize that it's an unfortunate and almost meaningless waste of resources? Yes, because they didn't interview her, right?” he said.

�鶹Ӱ�� Kitchener reached out to Norfolk County OPP for comment on the investigation. In a statement, the OPP declined to comment on the specifics of the incident but said that details about the weapon involved are considered part of the investigation and not “generally” shared with the public.

How could things play out in court?

Washik is due in court on Sept. 24 to answer for the charge and MacGregor said her lawyer will likely have a chance to speak with the Crown attorney before then.

He said the Crown attorney may use their discretion and offer Washik a resolution, however, it may require her taking responsibility for the incident.

“[The Crown] is not supposed to adjudicate the situation either, right? And at this point they have one aggrieved person, the guy who said, ‘Well, she hit me intentionally with a gun.’ She's got a defence, but it still may warrant a trial. It’s an unfortunate waste of resources, but you know, the justice system is to serve everyone,” MacGregor explained.

�鶹Ӱ�� Kitchener attempted to speak with the neighbour who reported the incident to the police but he did not appear to be home at the time.

For the OPP’s part, it said it is committed to maintaining high standards in their investigative work, “regardless of how the public may perceive the allocation of resources.”

Washik said she hopes the matter is resolved before Sept. 24. Her daughter has since started a to cover her legal expenses.

“I am hoping and praying that it goes my way,” she said. 

With files from �鶹Ӱ�� Kitchener's Jeff Pickel

Eighty years later, Germany's Arolsen Archives returned Wasilewska's jewelry to her grandson and great-granddaughter at an emotional ceremony in Warsaw during which families of 12 Polish inmates of Nazi concentration camps were given back their confiscated belongings.

Some relatives had tears in their eyes as they received the mementoes of their long-gone, often unknown family members. More such ceremonies are planned.

Wasilewska's family were given back her two amber crucifixes, part of a golden bracelet and a gold wristwatch engraved with the initials KW and the date 7-3-1938, probably marking her wedding to Konstanty Wasilewski.

“This is an important moment in our lives, because this is a story that we did not fully know about and it came to light,” Wasilewska's great-granddaughter, Malgorzata Koryś, 35, told The Associated Press.

When Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945, Wasilewska was taken by the Red Cross from Neuengamme to Sweden, but later returned to Poland. She is buried in her native Grodzisk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw.

From another family, Adam Wierzbicki, 29, was given two rings that belonged to Zofia Strusińska and a golden chain and tooth filling of Józefa Skórka, two married sisters of his great-grandfather Stanislaw Wierzbicki. Captured together on Aug. 4, like Wasilewska ,the sisters also went through Ravensbrück and Neuengamme before the Red Cross took them to Sweden.

A family story has it that a Swedish man fell in love with one of the sisters and wanted them both to stay, promising to take care of them, but they decided to go back to Poland, Wierzbicki said.

The return of their jewelry is “important for sentimental reasons but also for historical reasons,” Wierzbicki told the AP.

The items were returned by the Arolsen Archives, the international center on Nazi persecution, which holds information on about 17.5 million people. It stores some 2,000 items that were seized by the Nazis from concentration camp inmates from more than 30 countries, and are intended to be returned to their relatives.

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When the prisoners were sent to concentration camps, their valuables — wedding rings, watches, gold chains, earrings and other items — were confiscated and put in envelopes marked with their owners’ names. That allowed for the items’ return to the families, decades later.

It was an uplifting moment when the archives volunteers contacted him, Wierzbicki said, but there was also this thought that “history will catch up with you. It was like my aunts were looking at me from the past."

The archives launched its restitution campaign, “Warsaw Uprising: 100 Untold Stories,” to mark 80 years since the city rose up against the Nazi invaders on Aug. 1, 1944, with the goal of reaching the families of 100 victims and reviving the memory of them through their belongings.

Archive director Floriane Azoulay said they were only custodians of the belongings, which should be returned to the families.

“Every object that we return is personal,” Azoulay said. "And it’s the last personal thing a person had on them before they became a prisoner, before they became a number. So it is a very important object for a family.”

Volunteer Manuela Golc has found more than 100 Polish families and each time it's an emotional moment.

“It is often the case that we pass on information that the family was not aware of at all," Golc said. "So this conversation on the phone ... is also very difficult. But in the end we are very happy that the memento is returning to the family.”

If she was unable to trace a family online or through official records, she travelled to cemeteries, leaving notes waterproofed against the rain for the families on the graves of people whose data matched those in the archives, asking them to get in touch. Sometimes they do.

The Warsaw Uprising was launched by the underground resistance Home Army with the goal of taking control of the capital city ahead of the advancing Soviet troops. It fell after 63 days of heroic struggle that cost the lives of some 200,000 fighters and civilians. In revenge, the Germans expelled the surviving residents and reduced Warsaw to ruins.

During German occupation in 1939-45, Poland lost some six million residents, half of them Jewish, and suffered huge material losses.

“I had no role whatsoever in either deciding to sell the former residence or buying the new one. That was completely undertaken by the property bureau in Ottawa,” Clark testified to a House of Commons committee on Thursday. “I was not involved in the selection of the new property, its amenities or its location.”

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This is the first time Canadians are hearing from Clark after reports emerged in July that the federal government had bought a new piece of luxury real estate for him to live in. The condo is at Steinway Tower, known as the world's thinnest skyscraper and located on "Billionaire's Row" in Manhattan.

The federal government has said Canada's former Manhattan residence was last renovated in 1982 and required significant upgrades that were estimated to cost $2.6 million. Officials have also contended that buying the new residence will save Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars and reduce maintenance costs.

But the Conservatives have argued that the new condo is another example of the Liberal government putting its elite friends before Canadians. On Thursday, testimony between Clark and Conservative members of the committee got heated at times.

“Did you ever take a moment, as someone who spent a career in journalism, to question the prime minister or anyone on the opulence of this location amid the backdrop of the cost of living crisis that we're facing here in Canada?” Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett asked Clark on Thursday.

“I am well aware of the challenges being faced by both Canadians and Americans when it comes to housing,” Clark responded. “In this case, I was not involved in any way shape or form in the decision to buy this new residence or sell the old residence.”

Barrett later told Clark to “keep your bags packed in that new place. Conservatives are going to fire you.”

MPs also repeatedly pushed Clark on his potential involvement in the purchase.

Conservative MP Larry Brock referred to an internal email between Global Affairs Canada officials dated on June 17 that said Clark was “instrumental throughout this process” and gave “the greenlight for the selection of the new residence.”

“It is in writing by the department. Tom Clark, you sir, were instrumental in the condo purchase on billionaire’s row,” Brock said.

In response, Clark said the email was wrong and was written by someone who was not involved in the process.

“I only became aware of this email less than 48 hours ago. I too was taken aback by what was in it because it was simply wrong,” Clark said. 

The opposition also pushed Clark on a visit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made to New York City in April 2023.

“When did you first bring (the residence) up with the Prime Minister?” Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie asked Clark. “The chronological timeline would definitely indicate that you had conversations with the Prime Minister about the residence.”

Clark responded to the accusation, saying “unequivocally, no.”

“It's completely wrong. I never spoke with the prime minister about the old residence or the new residence or any residence.”

Kusie then fought back, saying “why don’t we just stop the lying.”

“When we get to the point of accusing people of lying, I think that we are in very, very dangerous territory here,” Clark responded.

In his testimony, Clark also described the role and importance of the official residence of the consul general of New York, saying he has hosted 38 events there since he was appointed in February 2023.

“I think that we have to understand that while our friends are our friends in the G20 and the G7, they're also our competitors here in places like New York,” Clark said. “They're after the same pie that I'm after.”

In August, a senior Global Affairs Canada official told MPs that Clark had on the government’s decision to buy the new property.

"There was no influence from Mr. Clark. He was not involved in the consultation or decision process," senior assistant deputy minister at Global Affairs Canada Stéphane Cousineau told the committee on Aug. 22.

Clark was invited to appear on Aug. 26, but Global Affairs Canada told �鶹Ӱ�� then that he was “unavailable on the date initially proposed.”

On Thursday, Clark clarified that he was not able to testify in August because he was on leave to spend time with his family.

The committee also passed a motion on Thursday to call upon Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly to testify on the matter before Thanksgiving.

The former official residence is currently .

Clark was appointed Canada’s consul general in New York in 2023. He previously worked for more than forty years as a broadcast journalist for several organizations, including �鶹Ӱ�� and Global News.

With files from �鶹Ӱ��' Rachel Aiello 

The Democratic U.S. Vice-President and Republican former U.S. president traded remarks in a presidential debate Tuesday night about America's economy, immigration and reproductive rights, as well as their respective records in the White House.

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Here's what experts who analyzed the exchange had to say:

Control and confidence

Early in the debate, one expert noted that while Harris may have looked "under stress" at first, she quickly regained her composure and projected a confident presence.

"She gave strong and very symmetrical gestures right down the camera," said Tracey Thomson, a body language expert at TruthPlane, in an interview with CTVNews.ca Wednesday.

"She was really appealing to public with good eye contact."

Thomson highlighted Harris' ability to seamlessly transition between addressing Trump and turning to the camera to connect with the audience directly.

"She felt at ease and conversational, but strong," she added.

Harris' body language appeared to be "congruent with her message of hope," Thomson said. A symmetrical, energized and confident demeanor reinforced the forward-looking vision she sought to present to the American people.

To Nate French, a debate expert from Wake Forest University in North Carolina, Harris's approach to the debate displayed a clear advantage over her opponent's. She came out with an aggressive stance, approaching Trump for a handshake moments before the debate began — a move which seemed to throw him off balance, French told CTVNews.ca Wednesday

"For an individual who had to deal with criticisms [claiming] that she was not prepared; [comments like] 'she was stupid', 'she was incompetent;' she clearly showed her competence [in] the way she responded," French said.

Thomson said Trump did not perform his characteristic handshake — pulling people in and off balance — nor did it look like a full handshake.

Aggression and frustration

In contrast to Harris, Thomson observed that Trump appeared to grow increasingly frustrated and angry as the debate progressed, displayed in his body language.

"I think she ran circles around him. His head got lower; he was angry. He was showing his bottom teeth, quite a lot; contempt in his face. He lost energy, while she gained energy in her performance," she said.

Thomson noted that Trump's energy seemed to wane as Harris continued to "bait him a little bit", and that the former U.S. president ultimately looked "tired" and "angry" by the end of the debate.

"Every time she looked at him, she gave him an asymmetrical gesture with one hand," she pointed out, adding that meanwhile, Trump did not look at Harris directly, and most of the time, kept his head pointed forward.

Wake Forest University's French said Trump overplayed his aggression in some areas, taking arguments to a space well beyond their logical scope and reason.

"She's mastered a pitiful look towards him," Thomson said of Harris, referencing moments where she undermined Trump's attacks with smiling amusement and narrowed, skeptical eyes.

That amusement was particularly visible, French said, when she brought up Trump's "crowd sizes" at rallies, and Thomson pointed out that her eyes widened visibly when the January 6 Capitol riot was mentioned,

She looked "very earnest," Thomson said.

Fact-checking

The role of the debate's moderators was also a topic of discussion, with French noting their increased involvement in fact-checking claims from candidates, compared to presidential debates past.

During the debate, Trump referenced recent, uncorroborated claims about immigrants in an Ohio town, saying that, "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people who came in, they're eating the cats… They're eating the pets of the people who live there."

David Muir, debate moderator and ABC News journalist, was quick to respond to Trump's statement with comment from Springfield, Ohio's city manager stating there had been "no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community."

French explained that the moderators had to intervene more frequently with Trump, calling out both the migrant claims and those regarding abortion rights; in particular, what Trump described as the "execution" of newborns.

"There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born," debate co-moderator Linsey Davis said following Trump's claims.

Harris also faced some fact-checking, French said, but it was both less intense and made for a smaller impact.

A clear winner

To hear French tell it, people watching the debate objectively would say that Harris won.

"You saw Trump really fumble and him not looking presidential," he said.

French said people like former Fox News host Chris Wallace and former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie claimed the debate did not end in favour of Trump.

"I would cosign on that. I think it was clearly win for her, any way that we measured her stance," French said.

In Trump’s post-debate comments in the media room at the debate venue, where he showed up alone, he claimed the debate was his best ever. French said this will come as a shock to viewers of the 90-minute broadcast.

French said many Americans can say who looked more presidential, which will matter as Americans go to the ballot box in November.

"I think for a lot of Americans in the debate, it is certainly the substance of what people say, but it's also the image of what you see and the things that you're left with," French said.

Poilievre is calling on both the NDP and Bloc Quebecois to support the motion.

“It's put up or shut up time for the NDP,” Poilievre said to reporters on Wednesday.

Poilievre’s announcement on Wednesday comes after the NDP pulled out of its supply-and-confidence agreement with the minority Liberal government one week ago. The deal, which was inked back in 2022, meant the NDP would support the federal government on non-confidence votes in exchange for progress on shared priorities. Now the NDP says it will determine its support on a case-by-case basis.

Before the NDP ended the deal, Poilievre issued a public letter to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at the end of August, urging him to do so and force an election this fall. The next fixed election date is scheduled in October 2025. 

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday, Poilievre doubled down on that call to Singh and asked the NDP to commit “unequivocally” to vote non-confidence before two federal byelections on Monday.

“Will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.

After the NDP pulled out of the agreement, Singh did acknowledge that an early election is “more likely.” But so far, the NDP is giving no sign that the party wants to imminently send Canadians to the polls.

When asked about Poilievre’s statements Wednesday, Singh said he will “never” listen to the Conservative leader.

“I'm not going to say our decision ahead of time,” Singh told reporters. “We will look at the votes and we'll make a determination of what's the best interest of Canadians. Unlike Pierre Poilievre, who wants to play games, we actually want to get things done for Canadians.”

The NDP continues to hold its caucus retreat in Montreal. NDP House Leader Peter Julian said Wednesday that discussions with MPs are more focused on “what we are looking to do and accomplish in the next election.”

Government House Leader Karina Gould also responded to Poilievre’s comments on Wednesday, telling reporters at the Liberal caucus retreat in Nanaimo, B.C. that her focus is on the return to the House of Commons in Ottawa on next week.

“When it comes to Mr. Poilievre, he is a stunt man,” Gould said. “His announcement today is a political stunt.”

“I think what Canadians want to see all of us as political parties doing is working for them, governing effectively, and not pulling these political games that Mr. Poilievre pulls,” she added. “And I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues next week in the House of Commons.”

It would take more than the Conservatives caucus of 119 and the New Democrats caucus of 24 to gather the majority support needed to topple Trudeau’s Liberal government and its 154 MPs on a non-confidence vote.

The Bloc Quebecois caucus of 32 MPs essentially holds the balance of power.

The House of Commons resumes next week on Sept. 16. 

Lauder is home to just six residents depending on the time of year.

"People you know definitely work at trying to stay as long as possible, but there becomes a time when those things have to change," said Bonnie Clarke, one of the last few remaining residents in the area.

For more than 76 years, Clarke has lived around Lauder and has watched it change from a quaint country farm town to what she describes now as a ghost town.

"It definitely has become inevitable that it cannot survive," she said.

Lauder was established as a railway town more than 130 years ago in 1891. While never a large town, it boasted a modest main street with a hotel, a variety of stores, and four grain elevators that kept the community bustling.

"It was quite a busy place," Clarke said, recalling her childhood in Lauder. "Lots of people at that time, I would say at least 100 or more during my growing up years."

When the major rail lines abandoned Lauder, the closure of its grain elevators, stores and the school weren't far behind. Lauder residents say the last grain elevator burned in a fire years ago.

Researcher says Lauder's story all too common in prairies

Gordon Goldsborough, head researcher with the Manitoba Historical Society, has visited and documented thousands of abandoned places in Manitoba.

He said Lauder's story is all too common.

"I have seen towns that I knew to be much more prosperous in the past, and I have seen them even in my short lifetime degrade into something that is, well, frankly almost gone," he said.

Goldsborough said the vast majority of Manitoba's southern prairie towns are a product of the railways – their economic and social driver was anchored around the trains and grain elevators.

For many of these communities, the loss of the railway launched a domino effect.

"All of these things happen in a series of declining changes," he said. "The grain elevator closes, the grocery store closes, the school closes… before long, all there's left are maybe a few houses."

He said with few resources left in town – like health care or groceries – the aging population is forced to leave for larger urban centres. And no one is left to replace them.

It's a pattern he fears will continue to repeat itself.

"I think it's going to continue, and many communities that say are still thriving today will be gone in the foreseeable future," he said.

‘Where there's a will, there's a way’: ladies group a lifeline for Lauder

Despite all this, a community is still thriving in Lauder. That's thanks to the Lauder Ladies Group – a group of residents past and present that have become the town's lifeline.

"People I don't think would actually believe what possibly can go on here with so few people," said Clarke, who has been a member of the group for the past 50 years. "Where there's a will, there's a way."

And there is definitely a will in Lauder. The close-knit group of friends not only keeps the town alive, but they also keep it busy with rummage sales at the community hall, church services inside the Lauder United Church, fundraisers, and even parades.

"We persevere and we try to make things happen," said June Timms, a member of the group. "We're just not quite ready to give up yet."

The group has brought a glimmer of hope for the community, bringing back former residents to the area like Clarke's youngest sister Lana Minary.

"It feels like time stands still," she said. "I come back and I still feel like the little girl that I was."

Minary left Lauder when she graduated from high school in the 80s and only recently moved back to the area with her family.

"I think there's a lot of pride in Lauder and I think that's what keeps this community thriving," she said. "You reminisce, you laugh, you cry. They're here for us when we've lost family and we're there for them. That's what a community is and should be."

It's thanks to this community spirit that Clarke said she will continue to call Lauder her home.

"I think that's why people such as myself continue to strongly hold on to what you have left." 

As the COVID threat has receded from its pandemic peak, life has largely returned to normal around the world, including in Canada.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is one of the many employers that are moving towards getting staff to spend more time in the office.

After the global accounting giant recently announced plans to enforce its back-to-office policy by tracking employees in the U.K., one employment lawyer explains the situation with electronic monitoring in Canada.

The practice has been legal in Canada for many years and has expanded with the evolution of technology and post-pandemic workplace practices, said Stephen Gillman, an employment lawyer and partner with Levitt LLP in Toronto.

"It's never been illegal to track employees, especially in the workplace," Gillman said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca on Tuesday. "I think what's changed since ... is the scope and the way in which employees are now being tracked in the workplace."

Electronic monitoring is common in logistics industries such as trucking, and customer service, and today the practice is expanding to more workplaces, he said.

"The law does permit tracking so long as it's reasonably connected to the job being done."

Some parts of the country have laws around , he said. For instance, Ontario updated its in 2022 to allow the practice for companies with at least 25 employees, with some caveats.

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Employers have to be transparent and inform workers how, when and why they're being monitored, Gillman said.

"So if an employee is working from home, it wouldn't be fair to monitor them as they do their laundry, but you may monitor how many keystrokes they're making, who they're calling, when they're logging in and out for breaks," he said. "You can't simply just say we're going to put an ankle bracelet on all our employees. There's obviously laws that protect employee privacy and balance that against the interests of an employer."

Electronic tracking, if it exists, also must be done during the workday.

"You couldn't install a tracking device on an employee's phone and expect that that would be fine outside of working hours," Gillman added. "However, within working hours, these sorts of things are permitted so long as they're rationally connected to the purpose of why it's being done. You can't just do it because you want to know where your employees are at all times, it's got to be connected to the job function."

Enforcing return-to-work policy

While electronic monitoring of employees is useful for tracking remote workers and productivity, another employment lawyer questions whether it’s the best way to enforce return-to-work policies.

“I think PricewaterhouseCoopers trying to enforce a return-to-work policy ... is like a school monitoring attendance using surveillance cameras,” Alex Lucifero, partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP in Ottawa, said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca. “I think it's simply the wrong tool for the job. A return-to-work policy is one thing: electronic monitoring of employees is another. Those should be two clearly separate policies.”

Lucifero says he believes mixing the two issues in one policy would be “inefficient.”

“I think the answer is somehow incentivizing these employees to return back to the office, and to a degree, simply enforcing those rules and forcing the return-to-office policy through other disciplinary measures,” he said.

Samfiru Tumarkin has seen a rise in cases involving employee monitoring, which are often settled out of court, Lucifero said.

“That kind of data collection by employers have been used against employees to their detriment,” he said. “The most common example would be in terminating an employee's employment because of what they might have done on their personal time or during lunch hour or break time. These issues are becoming more and more prevalent as the technology advances and as employers become more emboldened to use that kind of data in judging performance and measuring performance.”

In cases of privacy breach, employees can obtain compensation in addition to severance and other damages if they are fired, he said.

PwC's new policy

Some like Lucifero may question the effectiveness of tracking employees to enforce the return to work, but PwC justified the move by saying in a memo that it was necessary to formalize and emphasize its "approach to working together in person.”

PwC informed its 26,000 U.K. staff in early September that it will start tracking their location while working starting Jan. 1.

The measure was announced as PwC will also require staff to spend at least three days a week, or 60 per cent of their time, in the office or with clients. The previous guidance was two or three days each week.

PwC said it will start sharing individual working location data with employees each month just like it does with hours worked and other data. "This will help to ensure that the new policy is being fairly and consistently applied across our business," it said.

With files from CNN