Opposition front benchers and feces thrower gets a crowd; In-The-News Nov. 28

He made the announcement while speaking to a group of city mayors meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday, where he revealed the rest of his critic list will be unveiled today.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer will also announce this morning who will sit on his front bench to face off against the Trudeau Liberals in the Commons.

Scheer has put together his so-called “shadow cabinet” just days after firing two of his top advisers — and at a time when he faces challenges to his own leadership from across the Conservative movement.

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Also this …

HALIFAX — An inquiry into decades of abuse at a Nova Scotia orphanage for black children is expected to submit its final report today.

For the past four years, the unusual restorative inquiry has been exploring what happened at the infamous Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children in Halifax.

Its report will recount the grim experiences of former residents and recommend ways to deal with systemic racism throughout the province.

Opened in 1921 and closed in the 1980s, the institution has become a symbol of the province’s ongoing struggle with institutional racism and discrimination.

An RCMP investigation was dropped in December 2012 after police said they had difficulties corroborating abuse allegations from 40 complainants in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and Alberta.

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ICYMI (In case you missed it) …

ASBESTOS, Que. — Tired of having his town associated with a cancer-causing mineral responsible for killing tens of thousands of people globally, the mayor of Asbestos, Que., says it’s time for a name change.

Hugues Grimard said Wednesday the name carries an unfortunate connotation and it’s preventing the town from developing foreign business ties.

“If we want to go further in terms of economic development, then we don’t have the choice,” Grimard said in an interview. “The media attention of our past stays with us any time we do anything.”

Grimard said he knows of at least four businesses that wanted to move to the area, but backed out after investors learned the town’s name.

Founded in the late 19th century around the now-closed Jeffrey mine, the town 170 kilometres east of Montreal helped make Canada one of the world’s leading asbestos exporters.

For centuries, the fibrous mineral has been used in building materials such as ceiling tiles and cement, but it’s now banned in many jurisdictions across the globe.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

WASHINGTON — China reacted furiously to President Donald Trump’s signing of two bills on Hong Kong human rights and said the U.S. will bear the unspecified consequences.

A foreign ministry statement Thursday repeated heated condemnations of the laws and said China will counteract. It said all the people of Hong Kong and China oppose the move.

It’s still unclear, however, how China will respond exactly.

Trump signed the bills, which were approved by near unanimous consent in the House and Senate, even as he expressed some concerns about complicating the effort to work out a trade deal with China’s President Xi Jinping.

“I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China and the people of Hong Kong,” Trump said in a statement. “They are being enacted in the hope that Leaders and Representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences leading to long term peace and prosperity for all.”

Congress approved the bills last week following months of unrest in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. Before Wednesday’s signing announcement, Trump would only commit to giving the measures a “hard look.”

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

HONG KONG — Police teams began today clearing a Hong Kong university that was a flashpoint for clashes with anti-government demonstrators, as the government slammed a U.S. move to sign into law bills supporting human rights in the Chinese territory.

The move into the Polytechnic University came after its administration said they believed no one else remained inside after a two-day search ended Wednesday. Faculty teams found only a young woman in weak condition and a stockpile of dangerous items including gasoline bombs and corrosive liquid.

Hours before the police operation, a masked protester came out from hiding and told reporters there were fewer than 20 others holed up inside.

“The remaining protesters never trust the police. It explains why for the past few days when the university management searches for us, we keep hiding,” said the protester, who identified himself as Ah Bong.

He warned they’ll “definitely protest” if police enter the campus.

The university has been ringed by police for 11 days as protesters retreated into the campus after blocking a major tunnel and set toll booths on fire during clashes with police. Some 1,100 protesters have left or have been arrested.

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Weird and wild …

TORONTO — Dozens of university students crowded a Toronto courthouse Wednesday as a man accused of dumping liquefied feces on strangers at two campus libraries and a downtown sidewalk had his bail hearing adjourned until next week.

Samuel Opoku, 23, made a brief appearance to face five counts each of assault with a weapon and mischief related to three alleged attacks, spending much of the time hunched in the prisoner’s box and looking straight down.

The case had to be moved to a larger courtroom to accommodate throngs of onlookers — many of them students — who blocked a courthouse hallway as they vied for one of the few seats in the room where bail hearings usually take place.

“There were students from Ryerson, from U of T, York. It was interesting how we kind of united on this,” said Ruth Masuka, a second-year U of T student who waited upward of four hours for Opoku to appear.

The students bonded over the fear that they might have been the next victim, she said, noting that tensions were already high due to impending exams.

Toronto police allege a man wearing a yellow construction hat threw liquefied fecal matter on a woman and a young person on Friday at U of T’s John P. Robarts Research Library.

The same suspect is believed to have attacked a man and a woman at York University’s Scott Library on Sunday, and a woman at a downtown intersection near U of T on Monday night.

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On this day in 1822 …

John McLeod of the Hudson’s Bay Company began his journey through the Rockies and descended the Fraser River to the Strait of Georgia.

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Your health …

New research finds that for women with very dense breasts, having an MRI scan in addition to a mammogram can led to fewer missed cancers but also to a lot of false alarms and treatments that might not have been needed.

About half of women over 40 have dense breasts and about 10 per cent have very dense ones.

That raises their risk of developing cancer and makes it harder to spot on mammograms if they do. It’s not known if more or different types of screening can help.

The study published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine involved 40,000 Dutch women.

The results give a clearer picture of the tradeoffs involved in adding MRI, but doesn’t answer the biggest question — whether the test saves lives.

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Sports news …

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Calgary Flames head coach Bill Peters apologized to his team’s general manager in a letter Wednesday night, a day after a former player alleged that Peters directed racist comments at him when they were both in the minors 10 years ago.

Peters was not with the Flames in Buffalo for their game against the Sabres on Wednesday as the team investigated the allegations.

In a letter to Flames GM Brad Treliving that was released to multiple news outlets, Peters said he used “offensive language … in a professional setting a decade ago.”

Peters called it an “isolated and immediately regrettable incident.”

“The statement was made in a moment of frustration and does not reflect my personal values,” Peters wrote.

Former NHLer, Akim Aliu, tweeted Tuesday that Peters had directed racial slurs towards him when both were with the Rockford IceHogs of the American Hockey League in 2009-10.

Born in Nigeria and raised in Ukraine and Canada, Aliu never referred to Peters by name, but used Calgary’s airport code “YYC” when writing about the alleged coach who “dropped the N bomb several times towards me in the dressing room in my rookie year because he didn’t like my choice of music.”

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2019.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Opposition front benchers and feces thrower gets a crowd; In-The-News Nov. 28

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