TORONTO — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Speaking Saturday at a Sikh Foundation of Canada gala at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Trudeau said Canadians have a fundamental right to live safely, free from discrimination and threats of violence.  Nijjar was shot last June in Surrey, and his death set off a wave of protests and rallies from local communities against diplomats from India.  Three Indian nationals were charged in the 2023 killing, which threw Ottawa’s relation ..read more

MONTREAL — Cruise ship Staff Capt. Rakesh Prasad can’t forget the traumatized expressions on the faces of hundreds of Ukrainians who boarded Holland America’s Volendam in April 2022. The 1,500 refugees, who had fled their homeland two months earlier after Russia’s invasion triggered an ongoing war there, boarded the ship with their scant possessions largely packed in plastic bags. The ship they boarded at the Port of Rotterdam would be their home for the next six months. “You looked at the kids, you could feel how afraid they were, there was no happiness,” said Prasad, standing by the Volendam ..read more

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s NDP leader announced a program aimed at easing the cost of housing during a rousing campaign-style speech before the party’s annual convention in Halifax today. Claudia Chender later told reporters her proposal could be considered a major plank in her party’s platform ahead of a provincial election, which can be held no later than July 15 of next year. The NDPs proposal would prioritize the use of prefabricated housing to expand stock, increase home downpayment help under an existing provincial program and establish rent control while also providing a tax credit for ren ..read more

India says it’s waiting for details from the government of Canada before it responds to the arrest of three men in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The post India waits for details on arrests in Canada over Sikh separatist’s murder appeared first on Loonie Politics ..read more

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The student protest movement disrupting university campuses, classes and graduation ceremonies over the war in Gaza is also roiling Senate contests across the nation as Democrats tread cautiously over an internal divide and Republicans play up their rivals’ disagreements. The political impact of the protests on the White House campaign has drawn considerable attention, with opposition to President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war reverberating from Columbia to UCLA. The fast-evolving landscape of the demonstrations is shaping pivotal Senate races, too. Tent e ..read more

MONTREAL — A Quebec court judge will decide whether the province’s new language reform is constitutional because a section of the law systematically delays the delivery of verdicts handed down in English. Judge Dennis Galiatsatos raised the question on his own initiative while overseeing a case involving a woman charged with criminal negligence causing the death of a cyclist.  In a May 1 decision, Galiatsatos said he will rule on the validity of a section of Quebec’s language law that requires court verdicts in English to be translated into French “immediately and without delay.” He invit ..read more

ATLANTA (AP) — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia’s top election officials saw that reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online. So Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 election in Georgia amid an onslaught of threats, posted a message to his nearly 71,000 followers on the social platform X explaining what had happened and saying that all votes would be counted correctly. He faced immediate criticism from one commenter about why he was weighing in on another state’s election while other responses reit ..read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president. Jurors heard a potentially pivotal piece of evidence — a 2016 recording of Trump discussing a plan to buy a Playboy model’s silence — as well as testimony about the wrestler Hulk Hogan and hurricanes, literal and figurative. Outside the jury’s presence, Trump was fined for running afoul of a judge’s gag order. Additional sanctions could await the presump ..read more

The right to free speech does not give people the right to take over private university property The post NP View: Universities must take a stand against hate-filled radicals taking over campuses appeared first on Loonie Politics ..read more

As I watch demonstrators in Canada shouting hatred, I hope that the voice of sanity will prevail The post Anna Porter: Remembering the slain Jewish children of France appeared first on Loonie Politics ..read more