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Timing was everything for Bruce Pieroway when he suffered a heart attack in late October in the rural farming community of Chesley, Ont., about two hours north of Kitchener.

It happened early on a Monday afternoon when the town’s only emergency room was still open.

“The worst thing about the hospital here is you don’t know whether it’s open or closed,” said Pieroway, referring to Chesley’s ER, which has faced chronic closures since 2022 and now only operates between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday to Friday.

For Pieroway, who is 70, the next closest emergency department is a 25-minute drive away.

But fortunately, at 2 p.m. that October day, the Chesley ER was open and hospital staff were able to get him stabilized.

Over the past three years, at least 38 Ontario hospitals with emergency rooms or urgent care centres (UCCs) have experienced closures — about one in five of 176 publicly funded facilities. 

Most are in rural areas. And Chesley’s ER tops the list with the highest number of hours closed.

That’s according to CBC’s new compilation of all temporary closures and service interruptions announced by ER and UCC departments between Jan. 1, 2022, and Nov. 30, 2024.

CBC’s analysis tracked the hours they were closed and the number of days with a partial closure.

Even though 2024 isn’t over, the data shows this will be the province’s worst year for ER closures, a phenomenon that was “very rare” before 2019-20, according to a report by the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario.

“What it’s meant here is a lot of anxiety from people in the community [and] frustration sometimes boiling over into anger,” said Brenda Scott, co-chair of the Save the Chesley Hospital Committee.

“I’ve always said, you love to be number one, but not in this contest,” she said. “You can feel that tension in the community.” 

Since hospital emergency departments are considered 24-hour operations, any disruptions or changes to those hours, either temporary or permanent, were counted as closures in CBC’s analysis. 

“What an emergency department is, it’s an access point for 24/7 care for patients of any acuity,” said Dr. David Savage, an ER physician in Thunder Bay. “I think it’s challenging to call a centre an ER if it’s closing during certain parts of the day.”

If a patient shows up to an ER and they’re still waiting at closing time, medical staff tell CBC that they will attend to their care even after locking the doors for the night. 

According to CBC’s analysis, unscheduled ER closures have significantly decreased over the past few years — from amounting to nearly 4,200 hours in 2022 to about 939 hours this year. 

But some emergency departments, including Chesley’s, have shifted to daytime, office-like hours.

These so-called “scheduled closures” represent more than 93 percent of all service interruptions for ERs in the province so far this year, more than offsetting any improvements in “unscheduled closures.”

“A closure is a closure, whether it’s scheduled or not”, said Savage. “That does limit people’s access to care.” 

Savage is one of two emergency doctors, along with a health-care advocate and a nurse association executive, to have gone over CBC’s methodology and findings. 

“This really is the worst that it’s ever been. This is not normal, and it should never become a new normal,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. 

That organization has kept its own tally of closures, while a grassroots group called Ghost Gurney maintains a map detailing closures.

For Mehra, formally reducing hours of ER service can’t be the answer.

“That is completely unacceptable and it has to stop. That takes leadership. Literally the minister of health could do that,” Mehra said.

Reduced hours at 6 urgent care centres

2024 also appears to be a record year for closures at UCCs, medical clinics that provide same-day urgent treatment for injuries such as sprains and broken bones and illnesses like fevers. 

Several ER physicians tell CBC that while UCCs don’t serve the same functions as ERs, these departments have become a critical access point for many patients in a province where 2.5 million people are without a family doctor.

“I see my colleagues in urgent care doing very emergency medicine-style work,” said Dr. Andrew Park, former president of the Ontario Medical Association and ER physician in St. Thomas, Ont. 

“Whether they’re going to emergency departments or urgent care … they’re trying to find access to care that they just simply don’t have.”

CBC data shows that six urgent care departments have reduced regular hours and have been closed for more than 10,000 hours so far this year. Scheduled night-time closures at a handful of centres make up the vast majority, the same trend found with emergency rooms.

The Fort Erie and Port Colborne Urgent Care Centres near Hamilton account for a significant portion of these hours.

CBC also shared its key findings with the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA), including a list of the 10 ERs and UCCs that had the most days with a closure since 2022.

The OHA, which calls itself the voice of Ontario’s public hospitals, stated that CBC had “erroneously included urgent care centres in its analysis of emergency departments”.

“Urgent care centres provide services for those with unexpected but non-life-threatening health concerns that require same-day treatment,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “In 2023/24 there were more than 350,000 visits to urgent care centres in the province of Ontario.”

‘Great progress’: OHA

OHA president Anthony Dale initially agreed to an interview to discuss the findings but then cancelled, citing “serious concerns” over some of CBC’s methodology, including using the “number of days with a closure” as a unit of measurement.

The OHA said hospitals across the province have made “great progress” when it comes to addressing staffing challenges.

In recent years, the Ontario government has “implemented a range of programs designed to recruit and retain health care workers to encourage practice in rural and remote communities,” reads the OHA statement.

In September, CBC News asked Ontario’s Ministry of Health for ER closure data, but was directed to file a freedom of information request. 

Last week, the ministry said in an email that over the last year it had seen “the number of emergency department reduced hours” drop by 84 per cent. They also said there were “a total of 90 reduced hours across the province” from June to August 2023, dropping to “a total of 13” during the same months in 2024.

In an attempt to deal with closures, the province introduced a temporary locum program, essentially providing fill-in doctors from other regions, to staff emergency rooms in rural and northern hospitals.

In July 2023, the Ford government pledged $44 million – in addition to the $90 million invested yearly – specifically to reduce ER wait times, address staffing challenges, and prevent closures.

Nurse shortage top reason for closures

CBC’s data also shows the primary cause of ER closures has been a shortage of nurses, accounting for more than 85 per cent of all closure hours. 

“Nurses are leaving the profession. Nurses aren’t entering the profession. They’re not staying in the profession, and I don’t think anyone can blame them when there’s not much to keep us here,” said Erin Arris, an ER nurse and the president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association.

According to Arris, rural hospitals have been chronically understaffed for years. As ER wait times grow, staff are too often subjected to violent behaviour, Arris said, and the resulting stress has led to widespread burnout.

While some hospital CEOs report improvements in nursing recruitment, the reliance on agency nurses — temporary staff contracted through private agencies — is helping keep ERs open at a high cost. 

For example, one northeastern Ontario hospital has spent nearly a million dollars on agency nurses this year to maintain emergency services.

“They charge hospitals three or four times the amount of money that it would cost to provide the same unionized nurse,” said Arris. “You can’t blame the nurse. This is a systems issue.”

On Nov. 20, the province pledged more than $500 million to educate new nurses and provide specialized training to current ones. 

Meanwhile, a lack of physicians was the most common factor for service interruptions in UCCs, representing over 69 per cent of all centre closure hours, CBC’s data shows.

Most closures in rural hospitals 

The ten ERs closed for the most hours since 2022 are all in rural communities with populations under 8,000, and each facility has fewer than 50 beds.

“You’re impacting people that are already marginalized … making their access to health care more difficult,” said Park.

In fact, the bulk of the ER closures tracked in 2024 are connected to rural hospitals in Chesley, Clinton and Durham, all in southwestern Ontario and all currently closed at night.

At recent public meetings, residents in that region made it clear to Nancy Shaw, CEO of the South Bruce Grey Health Centre, that they want 24/7 emergency services. 

Shaw said the dearth of nurses prevents the hospital authority from operating all its ERs full-time.

“We know we can’t provide that right now,” said Shaw. “We have to use agency staff or agency nurses to fill those gaps in our nursing requirements.”  

‘Worsening across the country’

This trend of frequent ER closures is not limited to Ontario, with rural hospitals from Nova Scotia to Quebec to British Columbia grappling with the issue. 

“The situation is worsening across the country. We are seeing more closures year by year,” said Dr. Aimee Kernick, president of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians.

Kernick practices at the Saanich Peninsula Hospital on Vancouver Island. It’s been closed overnight for a year.

Patients have told her they’ve endured chest pain at home because the ER was closed, Kernick said, choosing to wait until it reopened in the morning rather than traveling further to another hospital. 

“Without a doubt there will be poor patient outcomes across the country with closures and inaccessibility to care,” said Kernick.

Back in Chesley, Bruce Pieroway had heart surgery in late October and is now recovering well. He hopes he won’t need to visit his local ER again, but if he does, it can still only be during daytime hours. 

Mehra, with the Ontario Health Coalition, has travelled the province, talking to residents. She’s also concerned about the potential consequences of closed emergency departments.

“When you’re having a heart attack, are you supposed to be looking up on the internet or phoning around to figure out what emergency department is open? That’s ridiculous,” said Mehra. 

Meanwhile, ER physicians like Park wonder what happens to those who don’t seek emergency help because of long waits or closures.

“A lot of times we don’t even hear about the ones that couldn’t get care, because they die at home or they have really bad outcomes,” said Park. 

“My hope is that we’re not waiting till people die, till we make these really structural and foundational changes.”

METHODOLOGY: How did CBC track ER and UCC closures? This dataset documents every closure of an emergency room and urgent care centre (UCC) reported by one of 176 publicly funded hospital facilities with an ER or a UCC department in Ontario between Jan. 1, 2022 and Nov. 30, 2024. It was compiled and verified by CBC using hospital news releases and documented media reports. CBC defined a closure as any interruption to an ER’s 24-hour service or a UCC’s previously posted hours at any time for any amount of time on a given date. If a facility was closed for several hours twice in a day – for example, in the morning and later at night – the hours were summed up, but it was counted as one day with a partial closure. CBC categorized all closures as scheduled or unscheduled. Scheduled closures are instances where a hospital or health authority has changed its policy to permanently or semi-permanently reduce the hours of an ER or UCC. Unscheduled closures are unplanned, sporadic and occur outside regular or reduced hours. Each entry includes the hospital name and geographical location, the type of closure (scheduled/unscheduled), the start/end date, time, length (in hours) of each closure, and the reason given (when specified). Entries also include the population in the region the hospital serves and the number of inpatient beds. To bolster accuracy, CBC compared its dataset against similar closure data compiled by Dr. David Savage, professor at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and grassroots organizations Ghost Gurney and the Ontario Hospital Coalition. Any discrepancy or new information collected through these sources was independently verified by CBC.  Note that a multi-day closure of 137 hours at The Ottawa Hospital General Campus due to a fire in November 2023 is also included in the dataset. Data compiled and fact-checked by Kimberly Ivany and Julie Ireton (Sept.-Oct. 2024) Data verification completed by senior data journalist Valerie Ouellet (Nov. 2024)

 

U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday night pardoned his son, Hunter, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family.

The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son nor commute his sentence after his convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California.

The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges, and less than two months before president-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House.

It caps a long-running legal saga for the president’s son, who publicly disclosed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 — a month after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory — and casts a pall over the elder Biden’s legacy.

Biden, who time and again pledged to Americans that he would restore norms and respect for the rule of law after Trump’s first term in office, ultimately used his position to help his son, breaking his public pledge to Americans that he would do no such thing.

In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

The president’s sweeping pardon covers not just those offences, but also any other “offences against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”

In June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”

As recently as Nov. 8, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”

‘Hunter was singled out,’ president says

The elder Biden has publicly stood by his only living son as Hunter descended into serious drug addiction and threw his family life into turmoil before getting back on track in recent years. The president’s political rivals have long used Hunter Biden’s myriad mistakes as a political cudgel against his father: In one hearing, lawmakers displayed photos of the drug-addled president’s son half-naked in a seedy hotel.

House Republicans also sought to use the younger Biden’s years of questionable overseas business ventures in a since-abandoned attempt to impeach his father, who has long denied involvement in his son’s dealings or benefiting from them in any way.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son.”

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden added, saying he made the decision this weekend.

The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Mass., with Hunter and his family, and was set to depart for Angola later Sunday on what may be his last foreign trip as president before leaving office on Jan. 20, 2025.

Legal troubles

Hunter was convicted in June in federal court in Delaware of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

He was set to stand trial in September in the California case accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million US in taxes. But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanour and felony charges in a surprise move hours after jury selection was set to begin.

David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware who negotiated the plea deal, was subsequently named a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to have more autonomy over the prosecution of the president’s son.

Hunter Biden said he was pleading guilty in that case to spare his family more pain and embarrassment after the gun trial aired salacious details about his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction.

The tax charges carry up to 17 years behind bars, and the gun charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison — though federal sentencing guidelines were expected to call for far less time, and it was possible he would avoid prison time entirely.

Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced this month in the two federal cases, which the special counsel brought after a plea deal with prosecutors that likely would have spared him prison time fell apart under scrutiny by a judge. Under the original deal, he was supposed to plead guilty to misdemeanour tax offences and would have avoided prosecution in the gun case as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years.

But the plea hearing quickly unravelled last year when the judge raised concerns about unusual aspects of the deal. The younger Biden was subsequently indicted in the two cases.

Hunter Biden’s legal team this weekend released a 52-page white paper titled, The Political Prosecutions of Hunter Biden, describing the president’s son as a “surrogate to attack and injure his father, both as a candidate in 2020 and later as president.”

The younger Biden’s lawyers have long argued that prosecutors bowed to political pressure to indict the president’s son amid heavy criticism by Trump and other Republicans of what they called the “sweetheart” plea deal.

Trump criticizes pardon

Rep. James Comer, one of the Republican chairs leading congressional investigations into Biden’s family, blasted the president’s pardon, saying that the evidence against Hunter was “just the tip of the iceberg.”

“It’s unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability,” Comer said on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Biden is hardly the first president to deploy his pardon powers to benefit those close to him.

In his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in law, Jared Kushner, as well as multiple allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump this week announced plans to nominate the elder Kushner to be the U.S. envoy to France in his next administration.

Trump, who has pledged to dramatically overhaul and install loyalists across the Justice Department after he was prosecuted for his role in trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election, said in a social media post on Sunday that Hunter Biden’s pardon was “such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice.” 

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump asked, referring to those convicted in the violent Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. 

‘Mistakes during the darkest days’

Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he will never take for granted the relief granted to him and vowed to devote the life he has rebuilt “to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”

“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” the younger Biden said.

Hunter Biden’s legal team filed Sunday night in both Los Angeles and Delaware asking the judges handling his gun and tax cases to immediately dismiss them, citing the pardon.

A spokesperson for Weiss, the special counsel who brought the cases, did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday night.

A woman from northern Manitoba with no criminal charges spent a month in jail after public health officials ordered her detained to treat her tuberculosis, even though she wasn’t infectious at the time.

Geraldine Mason, 36, was arrested under the Public Health Act on Oct. 27 and initially ordered to spend three months at the Winnipeg Remand Centre or Women’s Correctional Centre.

Mason, who has no criminal record, was taken to the remand centre, strip searched and forced to spend the night sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

“I was scared,” she said of stepping into a jail for the first time in her life. “I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t know what to do.”

Mason, who lives in God’s Lake First Nation, spent a week at the remand centre before being transferred to the women’s correctional centre. She missed her son’s 13th birthday and her grandson’s first Halloween.

“I was upset. I was lonely,” she said. 

WATCH | Ordered to jail for missing tuberculosis medication:

Under provincial legislation, a medical officer of health is allowed to apply to a court to apprehend anyone they believe is a threat to public health. 

In this case, a medical officer said Mason wasn’t consistently taking the medication needed to cure her tuberculosis, an infectious disease that can be fatal if not treated, according to the apprehension order obtained by CBC News. 

Consistently missing the doses can make tuberculosis drug-resistant, the officer wrote.

Mason said a nurse told her they weren’t going to treat her like a criminal, but that’s what ended up happening when she was housed with several other cellmates in the general population at the Women’s Correctional Centre. 

She was only allowed out of her cell for four hours a day, and could only make three 15-minute phone calls a day for free. 

At one point she was taken to the hospital in handcuffs and shackles for an X-ray. 

“It was so embarrassing,” Mason said.

‘No justifiable reason’ for jail time: lawyer

It’s not clear how often these types of detention orders are made in Manitoba. A provincial spokesperson said they are rare, but couldn’t provide annual figures because they are not centrally tracked.

Media reports dating back to 2008 show this has happened before in Manitoba. That year, a woman with tuberculosis was incarcerated in Winnipeg after she repeatedly ran away from hospital treatment. 

In 2011, another tuberculosis patient was jailed. A medical officer told the media at the time there had been five to 10 such cases over the preceding few years.   

Mason says she never refused her medication, but admits she sometimes missed doses.

Originally, she was supposed to go to the nursing station in God’s Lake — a fly-in community about 550 kilometres north of Winnipeg — to take her medication in front of a health-care worker. The pills made her nauseous and she would sometimes put off taking them to get housework done, she said — by which point the nursing station would be closed. 

Mason said she would take her pills anyway, but unless a health official saw her do it, they assumed she did not.

Some in the legal community are denouncing Mason’s detention, calling it an overreach by public health and a violation of Charter rights.

“They locked her in her room for 24 hours a day in order to have someone watch her take a pill for 10 seconds a day,” said Leif Jensen, a Legal Aid lawyer who took on Mason’s case after she was detained.  

“That’s what happened here. And that was wildly excessive.”

Canadians value individual freedom and civil rights, he said.

“If we start chipping away at them and if we start putting people in jail, which is the most serious thing we can do to someone for these sorts of reasons, then we’re setting incredibly dangerous precedents.”

Mason’s release date was supposed to be Jan. 27.

But Jensen, who works at the University of Manitoba’s prison law clinic, filed an application in Court of King’s Bench on Nov. 18, arguing she should be released as her detention violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

Following that, and CBC’s subsequent request to interview Mason, she was released on Nov. 28.

Her case is being monitored by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a national non-profit human rights organization.

“There is no justifiable reason for someone to be detained in a prison for purely public health reasons,” said Harini Sivalingam, a lawyer and director of equality with the association. 

She described the detention as “deeply alarming” and questioned why Mason wasn’t sent to a hospital.

“The best place for someone who is ill is to be is a health-care setting, not a prison,” said Sivalingam.

The Public Health Act doesn’t specify a detention location. The officer can order a person quarantined at a specific location or sent to a health facility for treatment. 

“I don’t understand why they just didn’t take me to a hospital instead of being in jail,” Mason said.

Didn’t take medication consistently: order

While the rate of tuberculosis cases has significantly dropped in the last four decades, factors such as overcrowding, poor ventilation in homes and poorer health are all associated with greater transmission of the disease on First Nations.

In Manitoba, 175 cases had been reported so far this year as of Nov. 27. There were 183 cases last year and 198 in 2022, according to a provincial spokesperson.

Mason was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2022 — the third time she had contracted the infectious disease, which is spread through droplets and causes infection in the lungs. 

Tuberculosis is treated with multiple antibiotics over a period of six to nine months. Mason was hospitalized and successfully went through a round of treatment.

However, she had to restart the treatment a few months later because the disease was still active. That was not a result of Mason’s behaviour, according to the apprehension order.

But over the next two years, health officials argued she was not consistently taking her medication, causing the tuberculosis to remain active, according to her apprehension order.

They believe she infected others with tuberculosis during this period.

Regular treatment ensures the disease remains non-infectious. A one-on-one treatment plan was created for Mason and showed signs of success, but the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch didn’t have the resources to maintain it, according to the apprehension order. 

One of the conditions of her release is that she connect by FaceTime every day at 1:30 p.m. with a health-care worker, who watches her take her medication.

God’s Lake First Nation Chief Gilbert Andrews, who wrote an affidavit supporting Mason’s release, said no one from public health told him they were arresting Mason, and if they had, the community could have figured out a plan to take care of her.

Arresting her was an extreme reaction, he wrote in the affidavit sworn Nov. 26.

Mason told CBC she is grateful for the work her lawyer and Chief Andrews did to help her get released and return home.

Mason flew back to God’s Lake First Nation on Sunday, ecstatic to be reunited with her children and grateful she’ll be able to spend Christmas at home — something she thought might be impossible for the past month.

“I felt like I wasn’t ever going to get out.”

Agents of the Indian government allegedly attempted to derail Patrick Brown’s campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2022, according to sources who spoke to Radio-Canada.

Brown’s national campaign co-chair, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, allegedly was pressured to withdraw her support for Brown in the 2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, confidential sources told Radio-Canada.

Rempel Garner categorically denies the allegation.

Radio-Canada has no evidence indicating that Pierre Poilievre, now the Conservative leader, was aware of the alleged actions of India’s agents. He handily won the 2022 leadership race on the first ballot with 68 per cent of the available points.

Radio-Canada spoke separately with five people who were closely involved in Brown’s leadership campaign. Brown is mayor of Brampton, Ont. and a former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

The sources provided specific examples of what they said was pressure exerted by Indian consular agents in Canada to harm Brown’s candidacy.

Sources said campaign workers were told by representatives of the government of India to stop supporting Brown, not to sell membership cards for him and not to invite him to certain events.

Radio-Canada granted the sources confidentiality because they say they fear for their safety.

The RCMP announced in October they have evidence that agents of the Indian government were involved in serious criminal activity in Canada, including murders and extortion.

Brown has been summoned to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security looking into “electoral interference and criminal activities in Canada by agents of the Government of India.”

Indian officials contacted Rempel Garner: sources

Allegations of interference in the Conservative Party leadership race involving a Conservative member of Parliament were first reported on last year by the Baaz News Organization, a media outlet for the Sikh community in Canada.

“At least one Member of Parliament was visited by representatives of an Indian Consulate in Canada [who] urged the MP to pull their support for Patrick Brown during the 2022 Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership race,” the outlet reported in December 2023. The report did not identify the MP.

According to Radio-Canada’s sources, the Conservative MP in question is Michelle Rempel Garner of Calgary Nose Hill.

“Indian consulate representatives had approached Michelle, strongly suggesting that it was not in her best interest to continue working alongside Patrick,” said a highly-placed source in Brown’s campaign.

The MP shared this information with several other members of the team, sources said.

“It was a topic of discussion in one of our campaign conference calls with her about it,” said one source.

“These Indian diplomats … approached her and told her, ‘You need to retract your support for Patrick,'” said another person who took part in the campaign conference call.

Some time later, on June 16, 2022 — in the middle of the leadership race — Rempel Garner quit her position as co-chair of Brown’s campaign. She said she was seriously considering a bid to replace Jason Kenney as leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP).

She publicly abandoned the idea a week later, citing concerns about the “present internal UCP caucus dynamic.” She did not return to her position in Brown’s campaign.

Brown declined Radio-Canada’s request for an interview. Rempel Garner sent a written statement.

“I left Mr. Brown’s campaign completely of my own volition,” she said in that statement.

“In no instance was I coerced in any manner, by anyone, at any time. I am an experienced parliamentarian, seasoned communicator, and former cabinet minister who has proven more than capable of developing senior grade positions entirely based on my own read of a situation … to suggest that I’m not is ridiculous.”

She added that she has always worked to prevent discord among diaspora groups.

“Preventing that division is why I’ve always taken into account the perspectives of many different Canadian interest groups and stakeholders before addressing issues that pertain to diaspora communities,” she said.

Poilievre’s office says it has ‘no knowledge’ of interference

In response to Radio-Canada’s questions, Poilievre’s office said it has “no knowledge” of any attempts by Indian government representatives to undermine Brown’s campaign.

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians cited “India’s alleged interference in a Conservative Party of Canada leadership race” in its explosive report on foreign interference. A redacted version of that report was made public in June 2024.

“CSIS did not advise the Conservative Party of Canada of any intelligence suggesting there was foreign interference in the leadership contest,” Sarah Fischer, director of communications for the Conservative Party, said at the time. “This is the first time we have heard about it.”

Poilievre is the only party leader in Parliament who still refuses to obtain the necessary security clearance to access classified documents on foreign governments’ political interference activities in Canada.

Brown ‘disinvited’ to Indian event: sources

Pressure from Indian consular officials was not limited to the directors of Brown’s campaign during the Conservative Party leadership race, said Radio-Canada’s sources.

Campaign workers on the ground also were allegedly targeted, they said.

“Supporters from the Hindu community were being told that they were not allowed to sign up members for Patrick Brown by officials of the Indian consulates,” said a source close to the campaign.

“It was also made clear to organizers of events that Indian consulates had told them you can’t invite Patrick Brown to these diaspora kind of events where the consulate is going to be involved.”

Sources said the pressure came from Indian consular officials themselves or from their “proxies” — Canadian organizations linked to the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

They said the Indian agents were not explicitly directing their supporters to any candidate’s camp.

This spring, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director David Vigneault was questioned before the commission investigating foreign interference about whether India interferes in high-priority individual races.

“I think it is absolutely fair to say the purpose of foreign interference is to maximize the interests of the foreign party. And so this is absolutely a tactic that has been used, to undermine candidates or individuals who may not be in favour of your position and promote people who might be in favour of your position,” he responded.

Sources told Radio-Canada that agents of the Indian government made Brown persona non grata at a community event when it was widely known that he was planning to run for the Conservative leadership.

“There was a Panorama India event hosted by the Indian community and they directly told Patrick that, ‘You are no longer welcome because of your ties with the Sikh community,'” said one of the sources.

“They told him, ‘You have upset our friends at the Indian consulate and they would prefer that you not attend.'”

Every year, Panorama India, an association based in Mississauga, Ont., celebrates Republic Day, an Indian national holiday.

Brown had participated in the festivities in the past and has attended since. He did not attend in 2022, the year of the leadership race.

The event was scheduled for Feb. 27, two weeks before the official launch of Brown’s campaign.

His team, which already had been hard at work for months, saw it as a great opportunity for their candidate to solicit support from the Hindu community.

But Brown was reportedly “disinvited” at the request of Indian consular officials, one source said.

As mayor of Brampton, the Canadian city with the largest Sikh population, Brown had developed close ties with the Sikh community, members of his campaign said.

Brown had posted messages on Twitter in support of farmers during the massive demonstrations in India against the Modi government’s agricultural reform. Many of these farmers came from Punjab, a Sikh-majority state.

When one of the movement’s supporters, actor and activist Deep Sidhu, died in a car accident in India, Brown participated in a vigil organized by the Sikh community outside Brampton City Hall and posted a photo of the event on his Twitter account in February 2022.

Indian media reported at the time that the Modi government had “serious concerns” about Brown’s attendance at the vigil and made them known to the federal government.

Panorama India’s chairperson at the time did not respond to Radio-Canada’s request for comment. The current chairperson said she was shocked by the allegations and insisted the organization is not political.

On its website, Panorama India says it’s a not-for-profit umbrella organization for various Indian cultural associations.

It was established with support from the Consulate General of India in Toronto and the Indian consul is the honorary patron of Panorama India, according to the organization’s website.

The High Commission of India in Ottawa and the Indian consulates general in Toronto and Vancouver did not respond to requests for comment.

From friend to foe

Prime Minister Modi’s government fiercely opposes the creation of an independent Sikh state, which it describes as a threat to national security.

That issue is at the heart of current tensions between Canada and India.

In September 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shocked the world when he announced “credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar” — a Sikh activist.

Nijjar, 45, was shot dead in what appeared to be a highly coordinated attack as he left the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., on June 18, 2023. A Canadian citizen, Nijjar was a prominent local leader in the Khalistan movement pushing for the creation of an independent Sikh state in India.

India flatly rejected these allegations and called Canada a safe haven for terrorists and extremists.

The following month, U.S. authorities charged an Indian intelligence officer in what they said was a foiled plot to kill another leader of the Sikh separatist movement in New York.

Sources told Radio-Canada that India — led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party — did not want a candidate in the Conservative leadership race who was close to the Sikh community.

“India wants friends, not foes. And they view right now the Muslim and Sikh communities in Canada as inconsistent with their national agenda,” one source said.

Brown and Modi actually used to be friends.

The relationship between the two men developed in the early 2000s, when Modi was chief minister of the State of Gujarat.

At the time, Brown was a federal backbencher in Stephen Harper’s government and president of the Canada-India Parliamentary Association.

In his autobiography, Brown talks about his numerous trips to India and the royal treatment he received through his connection with Modi.

He even describes the Indian politician as “one of my inspirations in politics,” citing his economic achievements.

But Brown has since expressed concerns about the religious-nationalist character of the Modi government.

“I have been tremendously disappointed with what’s happened in India,” Brown said in a 2022 campaign video, accusing the country of “discrimination” against Muslim, Sikh and Christian communities.

In his message, he invited diaspora members to join the Conservative Party of Canada so they could vote for him. But Brown never did finish the race.

In July 2022, he was disqualified by Conservative Party authorities following allegations of “serious wrongdoing” linked to election financing.

At the time, Brown accused the “party establishment” of “wanting to make sure Poilievre did not lose.”

In September 2022, Poilievre easily won the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race.

In February 2024, the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections dismissed the allegations that had been made against Brown’s campaign. The commissioner concluded, after “a thorough review of the information” provided by the Conservative Party, that it was “not in the public interest” to pursue an investigation. The commissioner declared the file “closed.”

In response to Radio-Canada’s questions, the Conservative Party of Canada said it “was not then nor today aware” of Indian foreign interference meant to compromise Brown’s campaign.

Elton John says he struggled to watch his new musical because he has lost his eyesight after contracting an infection.

The music superstar attended the opening night of The Devil Wears Prada in London on Sunday and told the audience that “I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews because, as you know, I have lost my eyesight.”

“So it’s hard for me to see it, but I love to hear it and, boy, it sounded good tonight,” he said.

John, 77, disclosed in September that an infection had left him “with only limited vision in one eye.” He wrote on Instagram that “I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye.”

John wrote the score for the stage musical based on the 2006 movie about a young journalist navigating the glamour and egos of a glossy fashion magazine.

During his comments, John thanked his husband, Toronto native David Furnish, for being his “rock.” He and Furnish have two sons, Zachary, 13, and Elijah, 11.

Completed EGOT this year

John’s year has included a Gershwin Prize for Popular Song along with longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, as well as an Emmy win in September for Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium. The latter accolade put him in select company as a member of the “EGOT” club, a performer who has won at least one Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award.

Also in September, he was in Toronto for the premiere of the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late, which looks back on a decades-long career marked by dozens of hits including Your Song, Daniel, Rocket Man and Candle in the Wind, as well as battles with addiction and the tabloids.

He said his condition was keeping him out of the studio where he had been working on a new album.

“It’s been a while since I’ve done anything,” he said. “There’s hope and encouragement that it will be OK, but it’s, I’m kind of stuck at the moment.”

The production at London’s Dominion Theatre stars Vanessa Williams as the fearsome editor Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep in the film.

Sunday’s gala, a fundraiser for the Elton John AIDS Foundation, was attended by celebrities and fashion-industry figures including designer Donatella Versace and former Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the rumoured inspiration for the Priestly character.

Wintour described the musical as “entertaining.”

Hundreds of fighters from Iran-backed Iraqi militias crossed into Syria overnight to help the government fight rebels who seized Aleppo last week, Syrian and Iraqi sources said on Monday, and Tehran pledged to aid the Damascus government.

Iran’s constellation of allied regional militia groups has long been integral to the success of pro-government forces in subduing rebels who rose up against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, and they have long maintained bases in Syria. At least 300 fighters crossed late on Sunday using a dirt road to avoid the official border crossing, two Iraqi security sources said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who visited Damascus, said on Monday Syria’s military was capable of confronting the rebels but, referring to the regional militia groups Tehran backs, he added that “resistance groups will help and Iran will provide any support needed.”

Syrian government and Russian warplanes intensified attacks on Monday in areas held by rebels in the northwest, residents and rescue workers said, including a strike on a displaced people’s camp that killed seven.

The Syrian government said Syrian and Russian air forces were striking rebel-held positions in the countryside east of Aleppo city.

The White Helmets rescue organization and residents of rebel-held areas in the north said warplanes had hit residential areas of Aleppo city and a displaced people’s camp in Idlib province where seven people were killed, including five children.

The government said the military was working to secure towns it recaptured from rebels on Sunday that run along the front line north of Hama, a city lying between Aleppo and the capital Damascus.

Rebels seek political dialogue

The lightning rebel assault last week caught many in the region unaware, dealing Assad his biggest blow in years and reigniting a conflict that had appeared frozen for years after civil war front lines stabilized in 2020.

Although Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022, it retains an airbase in northern Syria. The main Iran-backed group, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has been focused on its own war with Israel since the Gaza conflict began last year.

Syria’s conflict erupted in a rebellion against Assad’s rule in 2011 and the rebels held much of Aleppo from 2012 until 2016, when government forces retook it with help from Russia and Iran-backed militia in a major turning point of the war. Any prolonged escalation in Syria risks further destabilizing a region already roiled by the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, with millions of Syrians already displaced and with regional and global powers backing rival forces in the country.

The rebels include mainstream groups backed by Turkey, as well as the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda. Turkey also has a military presence in a strip of Syrian territory along its border.

Kurdish-led forces that Ankara calls terrorists, but which fought Islamic State militants with U.S. help, hold territory in the northeast.

The Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers met on Monday and discussed the fighting in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said rebel advances could not be explained by foreign intervention and urged the Syrian opposition to compromise.

Russia, whose 2015 entry into the conflict turned the military balance decisively in Assad’s favour continues to support the Syrian president and is analyzing the situation on the ground, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. On Sunday, Moscow dismissed the general in charge of its forces in Syria, Russian war bloggers reported.

In Turkey, Syrian opposition leader Hadi al-Bahra said the rebels sought to force the Syrian government to accept a political transition.

“We are ready to start negotiating tomorrow,” Bahra told a news conference.

Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency said the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army had taken the town of Tel Rifaat from the Kurdish YPG militia and was continuing to advance in outer areas of the district.

Rebel sources and an Aleppo resident said the Kurdish YPG group was pulling out of the city’s Sheikh Maqsoud district under a deal with rebel forces. The YPG had long held the Kurdish-majority neighbourhood in Aleppo.

Montreal police are carrying out an operation to dismantle sections of a homeless encampment on Notre-Dame Street East near the city’s downtown core.

Last month, Quebec’s Transport Ministry issued eviction notices to the people who had been living in tents near Morgan Park in the Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough. The Quebec government owns that stretch of land. 

Initially, the people living there were given until Nov. 21 to leave.

The province has cited fire hazards and unsanitary conditions as the reasons to dismantle the encampment.

That deadline was then extended to today. 

In an interview with CBC, Montreal police chief Fady Dagher said the operation has been going smoothly so far.

“There’s some resistance, but there’s no violence,” Dagher told CBC Montreal Daybreak host Sean Henry. 

“When a person is staying exactly where they are for so many months and so many weeks and you ask them to move … for sure, they’re not going to be happy.”

‘A survival situation in an urban environment’

Rhys Buhl, an organizer with Refus Local, a group that has advocated for unhoused campers, spoke to Daybreak while standing at the encampment and watching the operation unfold.

At around 7:40 a.m., she said there were about 50 police officers on site who formed a perimeter around the camp and there was at least one loader truck and a garbage truck.

“I am currently watching the residents’ tents and their personal effects being thrown into the garbage and being cleared away,” she said. 

Later during the interview, she said she saw officers holding their batons and described their approach as violent.

As for the concerns about fire hazards and unsanitary conditions, Buhl said she and her group have been at the site regularly in the last few weeks and said the campers were doing the best they could with what they had.

“These are people that are in a survival situation in an urban environment,” she said, adding the city should’ve provided resources to mitigate those risks. 

“The campers, they all know each other and they help each other out. These are extremely organized people that are able to put themselves into a situation where they have the resources in this encampment that they need to survive.”

Her group is expected to hold a news conference later this morning at Morgan Park to denounce the City of Montreal and the Quebec government’s actions.

Rent supplements to tackle homelessness

When it comes to finding a solution for the homeless people at the encampment site, Welcome Hall Mission CEO Sam Watts says it’s important to avoid “the two extremes.” On one hand, he doesn’t believe that outdoor encampments should be given the resources to become safer and sustainable.

But he also doesn’t like seeing heavy machinery being brought in to dismantle the living space of vulnerable people.

“I think that as a people here in Montreal, we are much more compassionate than that, and we need to seek out and finding those solutions,” said Watts, adding that the City of Montreal and provincial health authorities shouldn’t have been surprised by what was happening at the encampment site.

Watts said with shelter space being a “temporary pit stop” and social housing taking years to build, he says there needs to be creative solutions to help people find permanent housing and protect those at risk of becoming homeless.

He said rent supplements to help people afford rising rents are part of that solution.

“We’ve got to keep people who are housed currently, but precariously housed, in their place. Because if they are falling into homelessness, than the entries become more than the exits,” he said.

“Our goal is to help people get back in housing as quickly as possible. It’s not to run big emergency facilities.”

Fifty-six people were killed and several injured in a stampede at a soccer stadium in southern Guinea, following clashes between fans, Guinea’s government said Monday.

Authorities are conducting an investigation to establish those responsible for the stampede on Sunday, Communications Minister Fana Soumah said in a statement read on national television.

Among the victims are several children according to local media and a coalition of political parties.

The stampede broke out on Sunday afternoon at the stadium in the city of Nzerekore during the final of a local tournament between the Labe and Nzerekore teams in honour of Guinea’s military leader, Mamadi Doumbouya, Guinea’s Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah said on the X platform.

The regional authorities are working to restore calm in the area, he added.

Local media reported that security forces tried to use tear gas to restore calm after the chaos that followed a disputed penalty.

“This [the disputed penalty] angered supporters who threw stones. This is how the security services used tear gas,” Media Guinea, a local news website, reported.

Political instability

Videos that appeared to be from the scene showed fans in a section of the stadium shouting and protesting the refereeing before clashes broke out as people poured onto the field. People were running as they tried to escape from the stadium, many of them jumping over a high fence.

Videos also showed many people lying on the floor in what looked like a hospital as a crowd gathered nearby, some assisting the wounded.

The National Alliance for Alternation and Democracy opposition coalition called for an investigation. It said the tournament was organized to drum up support for the “illegal and inappropriate” political ambitions of the military leader.

Guinea has been led by the military since soldiers ousted President Alpha Conde in 2021. It is one of a growing number of West African countries, including Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, where the military has taken power and delayed a return to civilian rule.

Doumbouya, who ousted the president three years ago, said he was preventing the country from slipping into chaos and chastised the previous government for broken promises. He has, however, been criticized for not meeting the expectations that he raised.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is stepping down after nearly four years in the top spot of the automaker, which owns car brands like Jeep, Citroen and Ram, amid an ongoing struggle with slumping sales.

The world’s fourth-largest carmaker announced that its board accepted Tavares’ resignation Sunday, effective immediately.

Stellantis noted Sunday that the process of finding a new, permanent CEO is “well under way.” In the meantime, the company says a new interim executive committee, led by chairman John Elkann, will be established.

As head of PSA Peugeot, Tavares took control of the Netherlands-based company in January 2021 — when it merged with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, creating an automotive giant that is the parent to several well-known brands today.

Beyond Jeep, Citroen and Ram, the company portfolio includes Dodge, Chrysler, Fiat, Peugeot, Maserati and Opel.

Stellantis’ North American operations had been the company’s main source of profits for some time, but struggles piled up this year, with the company citing rising competition and larger market changes. As a result of lofty sticker prices and fewer affordable options, many high-priced vehicles have been left unsold on dealers’ lots.

Third-quarter revenues down 27 per cent 

For its third quarter, Stellantis posted a 27 per cent plunge in net revenues, as gaps in launching new products and action to reduce inventories also slashed global shipments of new vehicles by 20 per cent.

The carmaker reported net revenues of 33 billion euros (nearly $49 billion CAD) in the three-month period ending Sept. 30, down from 45 billion euros in the same period last year. All regions except South America reported double-digit dips in revenues — led by North America, which plunged 42 per cent to 12.4 billion euros ($13.1 billion).

In recent months, Tavares had come under fire from U.S. dealers and the United Auto Workers union after the release of dismal financial performance reports. He also oversaw cost-cutting efforts that included delaying factory openings and laying off union workers — further straining the company’s relations with the UAW, which filed several grievances against Stellantis and threatened to strike in recent months.

The UAW welcomed Tavares’ resignation with president Shawn Fain calling the move “a major step in the right direction for a company that has been mismanaged and a workforce that has been mistreated for too long.” He noted that thousands of UAW members had been calling for Tavares’ firing for weeks for what Fain called the CEO’s “reckless mismanagement of the company.”

“Tavares is leaving behind a mess of painful layoffs and overpriced vehicles sitting on dealership lots,” Fain said in a statement. He added that the union looks forward to sitting down with Stellantis’ new chief executive and “will keep using all means available” to hold the company accountable.

Beyond the U.S., Stellantis has faced pressure in Italy — where lawmakers questioned the former chief executive over the company’s production plans in October, with the far-right government accusing the company of relocating assembly plants to low-cost countries.

Tens of thousands of autoworkers in the country also held a one-day walkout, calling for more employment certainty and protections.

In efforts to revive sales, Stellantis previously made a number of leadership changes in October, which included naming new heads of operations in North America and Europe. At the time, the company expected Tavares to step down in early 2026, closer to the end of his five-year contract.

The company confirmed in September that it was searching for a CEO to eventually succeed Tavares, but it maintained those efforts were part of standard leadership transition plans.

In a statement Sunday, Stellantis’ senior independent director Henri de Castries said that Stellantis’ success is “rooted in a perfect alignment” between shareholders, the company’s board and the CEO — but noted “different views” had  emerged in recent weeks, resulting in the decision to approve Tavares’ resignation.

Elkann, the chairperson of Stellantis’ board, thanked Tavares for “his years of dedicated service and the role he has played in the creation of Stellantis” in an additional statement. He added that he looks forward to appointing a new CEO.

Stellantis did not comment further beyond Sunday’s release. The announcement arrived shortly after Bloomberg reported Tavares’ plans to step down, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
 

At least two people were killed on Monday in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, Lebanese authorities said, as a ceasefire ending more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah appeared increasingly fragile.

The truce, which came into effect early on Nov. 27, stipulates that Israel will not carry out offensive military operations against civilian, military or other state targets in Lebanon, while Lebanon will prevent any armed groups, including Hezbollah, from carrying out operations against Israel.

Lebanon and Israel have already traded accusations of breaches, and on Monday, Lebanon said the violations had turned deadly.

One person was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, about 10 kilometres from the border with Israel, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

Lebanon’s state security said an Israeli drone strike had killed a member of its force while he was on duty in Nabatieh, 12 km from the border. State security called it a “flagrant violation” of the truce.

The Lebanese army said an Israeli drone hit an army bulldozer in northeast Lebanon near the border with Syria, wounding one soldier.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters about the incidents in Marjayoun and Nabatieh. It issued a statement saying it had attacked military vehicles operating near Hezbollah military infrastructure in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and military vehicles near the border with Syria.

The Israeli military acknowledged that a Lebanese soldier was wounded in one of its attacks and said the incident was under review.

At least 54 Israeli truce violations so far: Lebanon

Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah and Beirut’s main interlocutor in the ceasefire talks, said Lebanon had logged at least 54 Israeli violations so far.

In a statement issued by his office, Berri urged the committee tasked with monitoring the ceasefire to “urgently” begin work and to “oblige” Israel to halt its violations and withdraw troops from Lebanese land.

The ceasefire deal stipulates that a monitoring mechanism hosted by the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and chaired by the United States would “monitor, verify and assist in ensuring enforcement” of the ceasefire.

“The aggressive actions carried out by the Israeli occupation forces constitute a flagrant violation of the terms of the ceasefire agreement,” Berri said.

Public broadcaster Kan and other Israeli media outlets reported on Monday that U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, who brokered the ceasefire after weeks of shuttle diplomacy, had warned Israel against alleged violations.

The Israeli government did not immediately comment on the reports.