'Small but notable' number of Canadians engage in terror abroad - CTV News

CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Friday, August 29, 2014 1:21PM EDT
Last Updated Friday, August 29, 2014 10:59PM EDT

A "small but notable number" of Canadians have travelled abroad to participate in terrorism-related activities, including to Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan, according to a new report issued by the federal government.

As of early 2014, the federal government was aware of more than 130 people with "Canadian connections" who had travelled abroad and are suspected of engaging in terror-related activity, the report says.

"These included involvement in training, fundraising, promoting radical views and even planning terrorist violence," the report says.

Some of these travellers remain abroad, while others have returned to Canada. Some are presumed dead.

The findings are part of the 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada, which Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney released Friday afternoon.

"Terrorism remains the leading threat to Canada's national security," Blaney said in a forward to the report.

"Our Government will continue to take all appropriate action to counter terrorist threats to Canada, its citizens and its interests around the world."

The report outlines terror-related issues that developed throughout 2013 and early 2014 and the federal government's response.

Syria is the 'primary destination'

The report notes that while these "extremist travellers" are not a new phenomenon, "the need to address the threat these extremist travellers pose both to home countries and to the countries to which they travel has become more pressing with their participation in conflicts such as Syria, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan."

Syria has become the "primary destination" for these travellers, the report says.

The report was released amid increasing concerns about North American and European citizens travelling to Syria, Somalia and other countries to engage in terror-related activities. Last month, Mohamed Hersi became the first Canadian to be convicted of attempting to travel abroad to join a terror group, in his case Somalia's al-Shabab. And more recently, a British citizen was identified as the prime suspect in the recent beheading of American journalist James Foley in Syria.

On Friday, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that his country's terror threat level would be raised to "severe," the second-highest of five levels, meaning that a terror attack is considered highly likely.

While officials did not provide any details on specific plots, it is believed officials fear that homegrown fighters who have travelled overseas to join extremists will return home to launch an attack.

On the threat here in Canada, the report notes that in 2013, four people were arrested and charged with planning terror attacks on Canadian soil. Two men were arrested in Ontario, while a man and a woman were arrested in British Columbia.

Both of those cases remain before the courts.

Recent recruits

Other Canadians have been able to join organizations abroad while staying under the radar.

Two brothers from Calgary are the latest Canadians reported to be fighting for the Islamic State. It is believed that Gregory and Collin Gordon, who are converts to Islam, travelled to Syria two years ago.

Back home, Collin was a talented athlete and popular among his classmates, according to a highschool friend.

"Very humble. He was a great athlete," Andrea Bell said of Collin Gordon. "He was one of the star players on our volleyball team."

"Everybody is shocked" by his life today, Bell said.

On social media, Collin Gordon calls himself Abu Ibrahim Canadi. In a recent tweet, he called Foley's beheading the perfection of terrorism.

He follows in the footsteps of other Canadians who have also reportedly joined the Islamic State, including Calgary Damian Clairmont, who was killed in Syria, and Salman Ashrafi, who died in a 2013 suicide mission in Iraq.

Video of another recruit, Farah Mohamed Shirdon, surfaced showing the Calgarian denouncing the West and burning his passport.

"This is a message to Canada and all American tyrants: we are coming and we will destroy you," Shirdon says in the video.

Shirdon was later killed, according to tweets from other Islamic State members.

Clairmont, Ashrafit and the Gordon brothers all lived in a downtown Calgary apartment building for a time, where they attended a mosque next to the apartment building.

'Starts with a grievance'

Mahdi Qasqas, a psychologist who counsels Muslim youth, says one grievance can attract a promising young person to violent extremism.

"It always starts off with a grievance, so you're upset about something, and you feel there's a sense of injustice. It doesn't have to be real," Qasqas says in an interview with CTV News.

A former counterterrorism operative for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says radicalization is a national problem.

"It's not like there's a cell there … it's come to light now, that the guys from the same general group went over and did what they did," said Mubin Shaik.

Meanwhile, the RCMP is developing an intervention program to intervene with those at risk of getting involved in extremist activity before it's too late.

With files from CTV's Janet Dirks

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BC teachers' strike: Vince Ready walks out of talks - CBC.ca

Vince Ready has left talks between the B.C. teachers' union and the provincial government in Richmond, B.C., saying the sides are too far apart to come to a resolution anytime soon.

"I don't see a resolution here before the start of school given the positions of the parties. They are a long, long ways apart," the veteran mediator said. 

He has been working as a facilitator since Thursday, when talks resumed after a summer of stalled negotiations.

Veteran mediator Vince Ready said Friday night that the parties in the teachers' dispute were far from a resolution. On Saturday he walked, saying there was no need for him as the two sides were too far apart. (CBC)

Ready said he was trying to "establish some kind of a meaningful framework for mediation."

But, the two sides' positions on wages, benefits and class composition remained "a long ways apart," he told reporters as he left a building that had housed the talks on Saturday just after 5:30 p.m. PT.

There had not been enough movement between teachers and their employer for him to justify staying involved, he said, adding he couldn't imagine anything would develop over the weekend that would allow classes to start as scheduled on Tuesday.

Ready said the next steps are up to the negotiators working for the B.C. Teachers' Federation and for the B.C. Public School Employers' Association.

Both sides have already responded to his departure.

The BC Teachers' Federation tweeted that they have neither walked away from the bargaining table nor abandoned the idea of returning to the classrooms on Sept. 2.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark said the government remains committed to negotiating a fair deal that is affordable for taxpayers. She stressed the new deal with BCTF will have to "be in line with settlements for other unions."

The government's negotiator, Peter Cameron, said he was disappointed by Ready's decision, but agreed that the two parties were far off on important issues. The wages being sought by BCTF, he said, were higher than what any other union was asking for.

Ready previously negotiated similar dispute

Ready, who is in his early 70s, has been working in mediation for more than 30 years.

He has handled more than 7,000 labour and commercial disputes in the country, according to his website.

In 2005, Ready mediated a deal between B.C. teachers and the government, ending a two-week illegal strike action.

When Ready was asked to resolve this dispute between the two sides, he initially declined the job. At the time, he said he was too busy to commit to the task.

Ready later changed his mind and accepted the mediator position.

Strike started June 17

The B.C. teachers' full strike began on June 17. Prior to that, the government imposed a lockout during a partial strike earlier in the month.

Most teachers in the province consider class size and composition to be the most important issues in the ongoing contract dispute.

Vince Ready left talks between the B.C. teachers' union and the B.C. Public School Employers' Association on Saturday. (Tim Weekes/CBC)

About a quarter of B.C. classes have four or more special needs students. More than half of classes have between one and three special needs students.

The government says it is more efficient to group students with special needs together with an education assistant who provides extra help.

In the event that school does not start as planned, the provincial government is offering parents $40 a day for each of their children that is a public school student under the age of 13.

The money will come from savings made from not having to pay teachers during the strike, said B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong when he announced the plan in late July.

Some of the province's teachers responded by setting up day camps and child-care services, which will begin when school was scheduled to start.

"These disputes all settle at some point," said Ready. "But, certainly there's no basis for a settlement today."

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US military airstrikes in Iraq boost morale of thousands of besieged residents - Washington Post

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military carried out airstrikes on Islamic State militants near the besieged Iraqi town of Amerli on Saturday night, boosting morale for thousands of residents who have been trapped inside for two months, Iraqi officials and the Pentagon said.

The assault, which came alongside a coordinated humanitarian aid drop, marks the second time this month that the United States has intervened militarily in Iraq to prevent an Islamic State attack on thousands of trapped civilians.

On Saturday night, American, Australian, British and French aircraft dropped humanitarian aid to Amerli, a Shiite Turkmen town, at the request of the Iraqi government, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon's press secretary, said in a statement.

"These military operations were conducted under authorization from the Commander-in-Chief to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance and to prevent an ISIL attack on the civilians of Amirli," Kirby said using an acronym for the Sunni militant group, which captured vast swathes of northern Iraq in June and has claimed to have massacred thousands of Shiites and members of Iraq's ethnic minorities.

"The operations will be limited in their scope and duration as necessary to address this emerging humanitarian crisis and protect the civilians trapped in Amirli," Kirby said.

The Iraqi military deliver aid and evacuate vulnerable residents from the town of Amerli in northern Iraq, which has been besieged by Islamic State militants for the past two months. The U.N.'s representative in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, expressed alarm on the situation and warned of a possible massacre should the Islamist militants overrun the town. (Iraqi MOD via YouTube)

The long-suffering residents of Amerli, an impoverished farming town in northern Iraq, were relieved that help had finally arrived.

Militia leaders and government officials said a coordinated offensive to clear the Islamic State-controlled towns around Amerli — and eventually the siege's front line — also began after nightfall in Iraq on Saturday.

Amerli residents and local officials said Friday and Saturday that reports of the offensive, as well as U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State militants and aid drops to residents, have boosted morale in the Shiite town, which has accused Washington and Baghdad of failing to stop the siege.

Earlier this month, the U.S. military carried out limited air strikes and humanitarian aid drops to help Kurdish Pesh Merga forces open a humanitarian corridor to thousands of Iraq's Yazidi religious minority who were trapped by the militants on a mountain range in western Iraq.

Karim al-Nouri, a high-ranking official in the Badr Brigades, a large Shiite militia, said that around 7:30 p.m. Saturday, thousands of the militia's fighters moved toward the nearby Sunni town of Suleiman Beg, thought to be under the Islamic State's control. Nouri said the operation was carried out in collaboration with other armed groups, the Iraqi air force and army.

"We are moving from all sides," he said.

The Iraqi military has delivered aid and evacuated some vulnerable residents from the town over the past two months. But the assistance has had limited impact, residents said.

This video released by U.S. Central Command shows a U.S. airstrike against an Islamic State armed truck near Irbil, Iraq, on Aug. 26. (U.S. Central Command)

Last week, the U.N.'s representative in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, expressed alarm about the situation and warned of a possible massacre should the Islamist militants overrun the town.

More than 20 people have died of hunger and dehydration in the town in the past two months as residents struggled to fight off the attackers, local activists say.

On Saturday, Rafid Moussa, a helicopter co-pilot with the Iraqi air force who said he has flown aid drops and evacuation missions into Amerli, described an isolated population of "simple" farmers desperate to escape.

"We open only one door, and we don't let the stairs down," Moussa said of the rescue missions. His account was borne out by videos he had filmed showing villagers running between mud-brick homes toward the helicopter, frantic to board it.

The helicopter stays on the ground for five minutes, and the crew takes only women and children, Moussa said.

But local residents and fighters in the area on Friday began describing an uptick in airstrikes targeting the militants, raising people's spirits.

"Even though people are hungry, when they see the airstrikes, they know that someone is doing something to help them, and this will end," said Mehdi al-Bayati, a local principal-turned-activist.

But outside experts and members of Iraq's Sunni minority have also warned of the potential for revenge attacks on Sunnis once Amerli is liberated, because Shiite militias with a history of involvement in Iraq's sectarian bloodletting are playing a lead role in the ground offensive.

Last week, two Shiite militias, the Peace Brigades, formerly known as the Mahdi Army, and the Badr Brigades, said separately they had mobilized thousands of fighters to help break the Amerli siege.

Hazim al-Zamili, a Shiite lawmaker who has acted as a "general coordinator" for the Salaam Brigades, formerly known as the Mahdi Army, said Saturday that the militia's fighters were starting to attack Sunni towns ringing Amerli and in the control of Islamic State militants, in coordination with the Iraqi military and Kurdish pesh merga forces.

Erin Cunningham in Irbil, Iraq, Karen DeYoung in Washington and Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Abigail Hauslohner has been The Post's Cairo bureau chief since 2012. She served previously as a Middle East correspondent for Time magazine and has been covering the Middle East since 2007.

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Pakistan Violence: Why are Imran Khan, Qadri protesting against Nawaz Sharif ... - Oneindia

Islamabad, Aug 31: Imran Khan and Tahir-ul Qadri, the two leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) respectively, intensified protest against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday, Aug 31.

Why are Khan, Qadri and their supporters protesting against Sharif?

• All supporters and followers of Khan and Qadri have been demanding resignation from the current Prime Minister of the country -- Nawaz Sharif, the leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
• Nawaz Sharif and his party have been accused of rigging during the election to Parliament in 2013.
• The PTI-led by Khan sought Sharif's ouster for a fair probe into the allegations that the general elections of 2013 were ragged.

Murder Charges against Nawaz Sharif:

• Pakistani police registered a murder case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and 20 others.
• Sharif along with 20 other members have been booked for their alleged involvement in the police shootout on June 17.
• At least 14 civilian protesters were killed during that shootout in Lahore.

Violent protest in Islamabad:

• Agitators loyal to main opposition party leader Imran Khan and cleric Tahirul Qadri have been taking part in a sit-in from Aug 15.
• At least eight people have been killed and more than 300 people were injured, claimed Khan and Qadri. However, government officials overruled reports of any casualty.
• Police informed that more than 100 civilians have been arrested.
• Islamabad police chief Khalid Khattak was quoted as saying, "Many of them (protesters) were armed with axes, hammers and cutters, and I'm sure they also have firearms though we haven't seen one yet."

Army's intervention:

• Both Khan and Qadri accepted the role of the army chief Raheel Sharif as a mediator and guarantor in solving the current political impasse.
• After their meeting with the Army chief, blame game began on Aug 28. While PM Nawaz Sharif claimed that Khan and Qadri had wanted army chief as a mediatator, Qadri denied such statements.

Protesters entered Parliament of Pakistan:

• Reports of clashes have been reported from Islamabad's Constitution Avenue.
• Clashes took place between the police and stone-pelting, baton-wielding protesters, some of whom have broken into part of the parliament and threatened other government buildings in Islamabad's red zone.
• Citing tremendous protest in Islamabad, Nawaz Sharif on Aug 31 left the city and reached Lahore where he has been residing at his residence.
• Roads leading to his residence have been blocked as police feared that protesters may try to enter his house as protest has been scattered in other cities of the country.

OneIndia News

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pakistan, islamabad, nawaz sharif, pmln, imran khan, pti, tahir ul qadri, mqm, protest, violence, oneindia explainer, death, police, army, elections, corruption, murder

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Remaining Filipino peacekeepers escape Golan siege - Haaretz

REUTERS - All the Philippine UN peacekeepers trapped by Islamist militants on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights have been moved to a secure place, the United Nations and the Philippines said.

The United Nations said the 40 peacekeepers left during a ceasefire agreed with "armed elements" in the area shortly after midnight local time and were moved to a safe place.

In Manila, General Gregorio Catapang, the Philippines' armed forces chief, told a news conference that Israel and Syria helped in what was the "greatest escape" of Filipino troops after engaging about 100 Islamist militants surrounding them in a seven-hour firefight. The troops escaped in the middle of the night while the rebels were sleeping, he said.

"This attack prompted UNDOF to reposition our troops to a more secure position within the mission area," Catapang said, referring to the UN peacekeeping force that has monitored the disengagement zone between Israel and Syria since 1974, following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

"Currently, Filipino peacekeepers from both Position 68 and 69 have been successfully repositioned to Camp Ziuoani."

On Saturday, 32 peacekeepers were rescued from Islamists who fired at their post and trapped them for two days, the United Nations said. Catapang said Irish UNDOF troops helped in the rescue. It was not known if any rebels were killed or wounded in the operation.

Late on Saturday, UN diplomatic sources said militants had reinforced their siege of the 40 peacekeepers trapped at Position 68.

Colonel Roberto Ancan, head of the Philippine military's peacekeeping operations center, said Syrian government forces fired artillery at the rebels, weakening their positions surrounding the peacekeepers. None of the peacekeepers were wounded, he said.

The UN press office said in a statement that "shortly after midnight local time on 31 August, during a ceasefire agreed with the armed elements, all the 40 Filipino peacekeepers from UN Position 68 left the position. The 40 peacekeepers arrived in a safe location one hour later."

Another UN statement issued in New York on Saturday said UNDOF had evacuated two observation posts after one of them came under fire and moved 11 staff to a safe location.

Earlier on Saturday, a Reuters cameraman spotted 11 U.N. armored vehicles returning to their base in Israeli-controlled territory about 12 hours after the peacekeepers came under fire at around 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).

"All 32 Filipino personnel from this position have been extricated and are now safe," the UN press office said in a statement issued in New York. "The UN peacekeepers returned fire and prevented the attackers from entering the position."
Separately, 44 UNDOF peacekeepers from Fiji were detained by militants 8 km (5 miles) away from the Philippine troops on Thursday and remain missing.

A senior UN official told Reuters that it appears at least one rebel was killed in fighting during the course of Thursday and Friday, though the details and exact timing remained unclear.

Rebels say Fijians in good health

A commander with the Islamist Nusra Front, a group linked to al Qaeda, told Reuters the Fijian peacekeepers had been detained because UNDOF was aiding the government of President Bashar al-Assad and had ignored the suffering of the Syrian people.

UNDOF has been deployed "since 1974 to ensure the safety and protection of the borders with (Israel), the usurper of the lands of the Muslims, at the same time it completely ignored the daily shedding of the Muslims' blood on the other side of the border," part of a Nusra Twitter message said.

It added that the men were being treated well and were in good health.

A UN official said a number of UNDOF contingents participated in the rescue on Saturday, assisted by Israeli and Syrian forces.

UNDOF has 1,223 peacekeepers in the zone from six countries: Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, the Netherlands and the Philippines.

The United Nations said this week the Philippines had decided to pull out of UNDOF and from a UN force in Liberia, which is struggling with an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.

Blue-helmeted UN troops were seized on the Golan Heights by militants in March and May 2013. In both cases they were released safely.

Austria, Japan and Croatia have all pulled their troops out of UNDOF due to the deteriorating security situation and spillover from the Syrian war.

The Golan is a strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War, and Syria and Israel technically remain at war. UNDOF monitors the area of separation, a narrow strip of land running about 70 km (45 miles) from Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border to the Yarmouk River frontier with Jordan.

Rebels of the Nusra Front have been battling the Syrian army in the area and have wrested control of the border crossing at Quneitra, which is operated by the United Nations.

Israel prepared

Asked how Israel intends to meet the new challenge in the Golan area, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview recorded on Friday and aired on Saturday that Israel was prepared to face the threats.

"We have already taken steps. We did not wait, we built and renovated the security fence. Al Nusra has been present there for about the past five months. We are prepared for various possibilities," he told Channel 10 television.

"We live in a tough Middle East, in a tough area, and compared with other countries, we are taking care of our security and economy better than everyone. But we face challenges on a number of fronts," Netanyahu said.

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Why Toronto is still a streetcar city - The Globe and Mail

Toronto has its own version of the two solitudes, and it revolves around streetcars.

Depending on whom you ask, the transit vehicles can be "sexy" or "ugly." To some they're "obsolete technology," others call them "forward-thinking." They're a "tourism gimmick" or a "remarkably efficient way of moving people."

Globe and Mail Update Aug. 29 2014, 11:32 AM EDT

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But no matter if you love them or hate them, streetcars are here to stay. Toronto retained its network when other North American cities were tearing them out and relies on them to carry huge numbers of transit passengers every day. The city is on the verge of rolling out its next generation of the vehicles, a $1.2-billion vote of confidence in streetcars.

The promise is that the 30-metre Bombardier vehicles will be more spacious, quieter, faster and more comfortable.

"Some time from now kids will only know this streetcar as the streetcar of Toronto and I think we're very proud of this," said Claire Patrigeon, manager of light rail vehicle engineering at the Toronto Transit Commission.

"A city without streetcars is not as friendly," she added. "I personally think that transit is the future of the city."

That future – the Fordian nightmare – comes as numerous other cities that once shunned streetcars are moving ahead with new projects. And it cements Toronto as the North American exemplar of a streetcar city.

"When done well it can efficiently move a lot of people for costs that are far less than a subway," argues Brandon G. Donnelly, who blogs at Architect This City.

In 1966, Metro Toronto chairman William Allen called streetcars "as obsolete as the horse and buggy." Critics of this type of transit have seen little since to change that view.

A vehement opponent is Mayor Rob Ford. He once slammed them in a radio promo, saying they make traffic worse. Earlier this year, he said "I know one thing: I won't get on a streetcar."

Mr. Ford is not alone. Some drivers argue that streetcars block traffic. Other people call them loud and slow. But does the antipathy go beyond that? One possibility is that the permanence of a streetcar line annoys opponents – by its nature, a route cannot be easily adjusted or killed. Although that permanence can attract developers and encourage transit supporters, critics argue that buses are a better option. Streetcars that share lanes with cars, as most of Toronto's do, can be stalled by car accidents or other delays.

Bus routes can be adjusted to fit changing demand and the vehicles can fit more flexibly into the traffic mix. A single turning car or broken-down streetcar need not delay a long line of other vehicles. But to the TTC, switching to buses would raise other issues.

Chris Upfold, deputy CEO of the transit agency, points out that it would take roughly three times as many buses to carry the passengers who ride streetcars. These would have their own traffic-clogging effect and their stops would reduce the amount of space available for parking. It would also triple the operator cost, a major part of transit budgets.

"People that are in their private cars aren't making the comparison between what would this be like if it was buses instead of streetcars," he argued. "People are comparing what the ideal would be if there was no transit. And they are comparing that, if we just took the streetcars away things would be way easier, they aren't thinking of what you would have to add back in."

Transit advocate Steve Munro, who was part of the group that helped save Toronto's streetcars in the early 1970s, said that people can be justifiably annoyed at years of streetcar-related construction, much of which he attributed to short-sighted decisions in the past. But he also said that critics can be unreasonable, looking at buses on wide suburban roads and assuming they would work the same way in the narrow streets downtown.

And Mr. Upfold said that the very downtown character would be impacted if the streetcars were replaced, noting that buses on Queen could be arriving as often as every 45 seconds.

"Queen partly is the way Queen is because historically the tracks were there. That's what led to that particular style of development, you know those three– and four-storey buildings that you see on Queen, that higher density," he said. "You would have all of that feel – that ephemeral, I don't know, café culture, whatever it happens to be, pedestrians, people walking along – you would have that affected by a 40-foot diesel bus roaring beside them. And the streets around the world that have that kind of [bus] service do not have the kind of businesses and restaurants that King and Queen and College have."

Starting Sunday, the first two new streetcars will begin service on Spadina. This is the big unveiling, after more than a year in which citizens could see them only as they rolled past on testing and training runs. Ms. Patrigeon, the streetcar manager who has spent untold hours on them, revealed an emotional response when she spots one on the streets.

"I'm very proud to see it out there without me," she said. "It's like, I think, kids walking for the first time without their parents."

The two modern streetcars will initially operate among the aging vehicles on the Spadina route but new will gradually replace the old ones. The new vehicles are expected to be on all routes within five years.

The promise is that they will be quieter, faster and, a blessing for a few months each year, feature air-conditioning. They are low-floor and there is a ramp that can be deployed for people in wheelchairs. People will be able to board at all four doors, which should reduce the amount of time at stops and perhaps also spread the passengers more evenly throughout the vehicle. They are much bigger and, even though there won't be as many vehicles, the TTC says people will notice the extra space.

"This is a remarkably efficient way of moving people," Mr. Upfold said. "This is 40 per cent extra capacity. When Spadina is entirely converted … people are going to have a so much greater chance of getting on, a so much greater chance of getting a seat, a so much greater chance of not being crammed in."

Other obvious differences are the area for bicycles and the faster acceleration. Lionel Jordan, one of the lead trainers on the new streetcar, said that they don't have the "sluggishness" of the current fleet. They did hit 70 kilometres in testing, but that was on a closed road and regular passengers are unlikely to experience that.

Mr. Jordan has spent close to 1,000 hours driving them. He's probably been photographed at the controls at least as many times.

A curious aspect of the streetcar's long testing and training period is that it allowed a fan base to grow. The TTC encouraged this and Mr. Upfold tried to ramp up the excitement with a slightly theatrical presentation at the last board meeting in which he called them "crimson beauties."

The enthusiasm can be understood in the context of Toronto's glacial pace toward new transit. The arrival of the streetcars represents one of the few bright spots, alongside the Eglinton Crosstown and recent hints of progress toward an LRT on the waterfront.

And the hyperbole is not without a receptive audience. People eagerly watched for the new streetcar and tracked its movement on social media. One of the new vehicles passing a patio this summer provoked a round of applause. And a recent excursion on a streetcar prompted a number of passersby to grab their camera-phones and one man to call out "nice ride."

"People enjoy it. At every traffic light we have people coming in front of the car, taking pictures and video," Ms. Patrigeon said. "I hope that Toronto will identified by these new streetcars."

Follow Oliver Moore on Twitter: @moore_oliver

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Rob Ford delivers pep talk to Jr. Economic Club - Toronto Sun

TORONTO - 

Mayor Rob Ford told high school kids taking part in the Bay Street Bootcamp to "never give up" before then fleeing reporters and ignoring questions about his behaviour as a high school football coach.

The mayor — who is running for re-election — has been ignoring questions from the media since Wednesday when the Toronto Catholic District School Board documents chronicling his tumultuous time as coach of the Don Bosco Eagles football team were released.

Ford kept ignoring questions about the documents after delivering a speech at an event hosted by the Jr. Economic Club event on Friday.

The speech to high school students from across Ontario was billed as Ford speaking about "financial literacy" but the roughly 10-minute talk was mostly a motivational pep talk that provided some insight into the embattled mayor's view of the world as a perpetual fight.

"The only thing that can take you out of the race or out of business, I truly believe, is the person upstairs," Ford told the students. "As long as you can get up in the morning, you got 90%, 95% of life beaten. The rest is a fight — day in and day out. Keep fighting, keep swinging cause you will succeed … and don't listen to all the naysayers, stay focused as best you can.

"Anything worth something is hard. And the easy part is getting to the top. The hardest part is staying on top … 'cause once you're on top, everyone wants to take a shot."

Ford — who brought his young son Doug with him to the event — has spent more than a year embroiled in scandal and refusing to resign despite calls for him to quit.

While he didn't mention any of his own political battles, the ongoing police investigation focused on him or his admitted alcohol and drug addictions, the speech did hint at Ford's own refusal to throw in the towel.

"Never, ever, ever give up no matter what is thrown at you," he told the youth. "You keep soldiering on."

"You're going to have a lot of people coming at you, be it in business, be it in your own personal life, in education, wherever you go there is going to be people that are going to want to come after you, for whatever reason."

He encouraged the kids to "stay the course."

"Every single business, every single family, every single person has problems," he added.

"Just get up and keep going."

The mayor told the students: "You could tell me, Rob, go jump in the lake.

"A lot of people told me that, the problem is I keep swimming back to shore," Ford said. "Never give up, no matter what the world throws at you." 

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Second woman granted bail for alleged airplane antics 0 - Belleville Intelligencer

MILTON - 

One of two women accused of forcing a Cuban-bound plane back to Canada for unruly antics was granted bail on Friday.

Milana Muzikante, 26, appeared teary-eyed in a Brampton court when she was granted release on $2,500 bail.

Her co-accused, Lilia Ratmanski was released on $2,500 bail on Thursday.

The pair are accused of excessively drinking duty-free liquor and smoking on the aircraft, fighting and making threats against the aircraft on a Sungwing flight to Cuba.

Muzikante was kept in custody until Friday because she couldn't produce a surety to satisfy bail conditions on Thursday.

She was transferred from Brampton court to Vanier Centre for Women in Milton while her surety dealt with her release papers with the help of a translator.

Upon her release Friday afternoon she retreated back into the correctional centre to avoid the media, who were told by corrections officials that she has a right to her privacy.

Halton Regional Police were called by jail staff to have the media removed but an officer at the site said there were no trespassing violations.

Muzikante's lawyer, Donald Bitter, denied his client was given special treatment by the jail guards.

"I was just asking that you not interfere," Bitter said at the jail's discharge gate.

The charges against Muzikante and Ratmanski include endangering the safety of an aircraft and mischief endangering life and uttering threats.

The Criminal Code of Canada says such offences can be punished by a sentence of up to life in prison.

The two women could also be forced to pay the financial costs of their antics.

The pair's bail conditions include abstaining from drinking, not having contact with each other and they aren't allowed to enter any airports. 

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Review vindicates Edmonton teacher who refused to enforce no-zero policy for ... - St. Catharines Standard

David beats Goliath.

Usually David gets squashed like a bug. Not this time.

Remember Lynden Dorval.

He's the Edmonton physics teacher who was suspended and fired for giving zeros when students didn't do their work and daring to question the idiocy of a policy where he wasn't supposed to give any zeros.

A tribunal dealing with teacher suspensions and firings now says the Edmonton public school board wasn't fair when they suspended and then bounced Dorval.

Dorval will get a cheque for lost wages of almost two years and a top-up to his pension but not be put back in the classroom since he's retired.

The teacher who became a national story was suspended back in 2012.

In a letter giving Dorval the pink slip, Edmonton public school superintendent Edgar Schmidt talks of wanting the teacher to "reform" his behaviour and say sorry to his school's principal.

Instead, the teacher wouldn't say uncle and the school bigshot then speaks of "ample evidence to warrant termination" in Dorval's "repeated acts of insubordination, unprofessional conduct and refusal to obey lawful orders."

Superintendent Schmidt just couldn't figure out why the teacher "intentionally chose to be fired and has chosen to do so very publicly."

The tribunal now finds no evidence of deliberate misconduct by Dorval nor any evidence of deliberate repeated misconduct.

There is no evidence of any deliberate refusal to carry out lawful orders or any evidence of insolence by Dorval deserving a penalty.

In fact, Dorval has a "long, unblemished record" as a teacher.

It finds Dorval was not permitted a full opportunity to defend himself against allegations.

It says his suspension appeared to be based on the principal seeing any naysaying as "insubordination which was not to be tolerated."

The tribunal's judgment finds bringing in the no-zero policy had several problems.

The ruling points out the obvious to everybody but the numbskulls calling the shots.

With no penalty for missing work, there was "little incentive for a student to actually complete the assignment."

They go further and say Dorval's zero grades were successful in getting students to finish their assignments.

Bingo.

The school was also not consistent in dealing with teachers who would not toe the no-zero line.

Dorval says he had to stand up. It was easier because he could retire though he wanted to stay in the classroom a while longer.

But there was the whole bonkers brainwave of not being able to give a zero for work not completed.

"It was just such a stupid idea. I simply couldn't follow it," says the teacher.

"This was the stupidest thing I'd ever been asked to do in my entire career. Nothing has ever even come close to it.

"It was a pissing contest, to be very blunt about it. I'm quite sure that's what it was. I think the superintendent wasn't pleased I wasn't intimidated by him. His nose was out of joint.

"They couldn't tolerate somebody standing up to them."

Dorval will be at a school board meeting next week.

The new school superintendent is pushing a plan where teachers have to jump through five hoops, complete with all the paperwork, before they can assign a zero grade.

"It's not over. That's the sad part of it. Now they're punishing the teachers for the students not doing the work," says Dorval, who will remind the board of his case.

"This now really might leave the door open for other teachers to step forward and say no."

We can hope.

Edmonton public school board isn't happy and will appeal the decision.

The Alberta Teachers' Association isn't commenting until they speak to Dorval.

Schmidt the superintendent is gone.

The provincial Progressive Conservative government could have stepped in with a policy protecting teachers who gave zeros.

They passed the buck.

Not one PC politician backed Wildroser Bruce McAllister in his bid to support the right of teachers to give a zero grade where it is warranted.

At the time, McAllister called the PCs — Pathetically Cowardly.

"We could've avoided this whole mess if the minister of education and his edubabbling educrats would have had the courage to do what every sensible Albertan knew needed to be done," says McAllister.

"It's the government deserving the zero."

Here it is.

0.

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Ukraine seeks to join NATO; defiant Putin compares Kiev to Nazis - Reuters

By Alexei Anishchuk and Richard Balmforth

LAKE SELIGER Russia/KIEV Sat Aug 30, 2014 4:55am EDT

1 of 5. Pro-Russian separatists walk at a destroyed war memorial on Savur-Mohyla, a hill east of the city of Donetsk, August 28, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov

LAKE SELIGER Russia/KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine called on Friday for full membership in NATO, its strongest plea yet for Western military help, after accusing Russia of sending in armored columns that have driven back its forces on behalf of pro-Moscow rebels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, defiant as ever, compared Kiev's drive to regain control of its rebellious eastern cities to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in World War Two. He announced that rebels had succeeded in halting it, and proposed that they now permit surrounded Ukrainian troops to retreat.

Speaking to young people at a summer camp, Putin told his countrymen they must be "ready to repel any aggression towards Russia." He described Ukrainians and Russians as "practically one people," language that Ukrainians say dismisses the very existence of their thousand-year-old nation.

The past 72 hours have seen pro-Russian rebels suddenly open a new front and push Ukrainian troops out of a key town in strategic coastal territory along the Sea of Azov. Kiev and Western countries say the reversal was the result of the arrival of armored columns of Russian troops, sent by Putin to prop up a rebellion that would otherwise have been near collapse.

Rebels said they would accept Putin's proposal to allow Kiev forces, who they say are surrounded, to retreat, provided the government forces turn over weapons and armor. Kiev said that only proved that the fighters were doing Moscow's bidding.

Russia drew a fresh rebuke from French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who told French television station France 24 that Russia could face more sanctions from the European Union.

"When one country sends military forces into another country without the agreement and against the will of another country, that is called an intervention and is clearly unacceptable," he said.

In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after speaking with his Ukrainian counterpart: "The border violations we are seeing – yesterday and even more so the day before yesterday – make us fear that the situation is increasingly getting out of control."

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Russia's footprint was undeniable in Ukraine.

"We have regularly marshalled evidence to indicate what exactly is happening, despite the protestations of the Russian government that for some reason would have us all believe otherwise," he said. "The fact is, those denials are completely without any credibility, and, you know, we've been pretty candid about that."

Full Ukrainian membership of NATO, complete with the protection of a mutual defense pact with the United States, is still an unlikely prospect. But by announcing it is now seeking to join the alliance, Kiev has put more pressure on the West to find ways to protect it. NATO holds a summit next week in Wales.

In 2008 NATO denied Ukraine and Georgia a fast track towards membership. Russia invaded Georgia a few months later.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he respected Ukraine's right to seek alliances.

"Despite Moscow's hollow denials, it is now clear that Russian troops and equipment have illegally crossed the border into eastern and southeastern Ukraine," Rasmussen said. "This is not an isolated action, but part of a dangerous pattern over many months to destabilize Ukraine as a sovereign nation."

In Donetsk, one of the main separatists strongholds, several shells exploded in the area of the railway station on Friday, one hitting the station building and another striking a trolleybus.

Rebel fighters quoted medics as saying emergency services had taken away four wounded people, and an unknown number had been ferried away in private cars.

Powerful explosions could be heard again in the center of town. A trolleybus was on fire on the square outside the station. Thick smoke filled the area.

The station has not been working for several days because damaged tracks are preventing trains from running.

Kiev said it was rallying to defend the port of Mariupol, the next big city in the path of the pro-Russian advance in the southeast.

"Fortifications are being built. Local people are coming out to help our troops, to stop the city being taken. We are ready to repel any offensive on Mariupol," military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

So far, the West had made clear it is not prepared to fight to protect Ukraine but is instead relying on economic sanctions, first imposed after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March and tightened several times since.

Those sanctions seem to have done little to deter Putin, leaving Western politicians to seek tougher measures without crippling their own economies, particularly in Europe which relies on Russian energy exports.

European foreign ministers met in Milan on Friday ahead of a weekend EU summit. They made clear the bloc will discuss further economic sanctions against Moscow. Some said that was no longer sufficient, and other measures to help Kiev should be discussed.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said countries that had tried so far to mediate now needed to explain "what their ideas (are) to stop President Putin and save Ukraine as she is". Sweden's Carl Bildt said: "Sanctions alone are not enough: he (Putin) is prepared to sacrifice his own people."

Poland denied permission for Russia's defense minister to fly over its air space after a trip to Slovakia, forcing him to return to Bratislava. Warsaw said he could fly if he reported the status of his plane as civilian rather than military.

'BEST NOT TO MESS WITH US'

Moscow still publicly denies its forces are fighting to support pro-Russian rebels who have declared independence in two provinces of eastern Ukraine. But the rebels themselves have all but confirmed it, saying thousands of Russian troops have fought on their behalf while "on leave".

NATO has issued satellite photos of what it says is artillery fielded by more than 1,000 Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. Kiev has released interviews with captured Russian troops.

Reuters has seen an armored column of Russian troops on the Russian side of the frontier, showing signs of having recently returned from battle with no insignia on their uniforms. Members of an official Russian human rights body say as many as 100 Russian soldiers died in a single battle in Ukraine in August.

Encouraged by state media, Russians have so far strongly backed Putin's hard line, despite Western sanctions that have hurt the economy, the Kremlin's own ban on imports of most Western food, and now reports of Russian troops dying in battle.

In a statement released by the Kremlin overnight, Putin pointed to the rebels' gains of recent days on the battlefield: "It is clear that the rebellion has achieved some serious successes in stopping the armed operation by Kiev."

"I call on the militia forces to open a humanitarian corridor for encircled Ukraine servicemen in order to avoid pointless victims, to allow them to leave the fighting area without impediment, join their families," he said.

Putin's lengthy public appearance on Friday and his overnight statement on the conflict appear to be an acknowledgment that the war has reached a turning point, potentially requiring greater Russian sacrifice.

Putin answered questions from young supporters, some of whom waved banners bearing his face, at a pro-Kremlin youth camp on the shores of a lake. Wearing a grey sweater and light blue jeans, he looked relaxed but his tone grew intense while he spoke about Russia's military might, reminding the crowd that Russia was a strong nuclear power.

"Russia's partners ... should understand it's best not to mess with us," Putin said.

Putin compared Kiev's assault on the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk to the 900-day Nazi siege of Leningrad in which 1 million civilians died, perhaps the most powerful historical analogy it is possible to invoke in Russia.

"Small villages and large cities surrounded by the Ukrainian army which is directly hitting residential areas with the aim of destroying the infrastructure," he said. "It sadly reminds me the events of the Second World War, when German fascist ... occupiers surrounded our cities."

He said the only solution to the conflict was for Kiev to negotiate directly with the rebels. Kiev has long refused to do so, arguing that the rebels are not a legitimate force on their own but proxies for Moscow, which must agree to rein them in.

RADICALLY DETERIORATING

Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the main rebel group, told a Russian television station his forces were ready to let the encircled Ukrainian troops pull out, provided they leave behind their heavy armored vehicles and ammunition.

In Kiev, President Petro Poroshenko held an urgent meeting with security advisers overnight, after cancelling a trip to Turkey due to the "radically deteriorating situation".Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk told a government meeting on Friday the cabinet would "bring before parliament a law to scrap the non-aligned status of the Ukrainian state and establish a course towards membership of NATO".

Were NATO to extend its mutual defense pact to Ukraine, it would be the biggest change in the security architecture of Europe since the 1990s. After the Cold War, NATO defied Russian objections and granted its security guarantee to ex-Communist countries like Poland, Hungary and Romania. But it largely stopped at the border of the former Soviet Union, admitting only the three Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

This year, after Putin annexed Crimea, NATO countries including the United States have repeatedly said they would be prepared to go to war to protect any member, but not to defend non-member Ukraine.

Kiev hopes to get its message across to Russians that their government is waging war without telling them. Ukrainian Defence Minister Valery Heletey said many Russian soldiers had been captured and killed: "Unfortunately, they have been buried simply under building rubble. We are trying to find their bodies to return them to their mothers for burial."

Russia's Defence Ministry again denied the presence of its soldiers in Ukraine: "We have noticed the launch of this informational 'canard' and are obliged to disappoint its overseas authors and their few apologists in Russia," a ministry official told Interfax news agency.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Jucca, Francesca Landini, Maria Tsvetkova,; Anton Zverev, Gabriela Baczynska, Polina Devitt, Vladimir Soldatkin, Thomas; Grove, Adrian Croft, Andreas Rinke, Steve Holland and Pavel Polityuk; Writing by; Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood, Bill Trott, Sandra Maler and Andrew Hay)

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Calgary brothers confirmed to have joined ISIS - CANOE

Damien Wood, QMI Agency

Aug 29, 2014

, Last Updated: 1:35 AM ET

CALGARY -- The mother of a young Calgary man killed fighting alongside Islamic extremists had heard rumours of a pair of Calgary brothers who'd gone over about the same time.

Christianne Boudreau doesn't know if that pair are Collin and Gregory Gordon -- first reported by CBC Thursday as being the latest two confirmed to have joined ranks with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) -- but the timing fits.

"I'd heard months ago that there were two brothers that were gone," she said. "I've just heard rumours. There were stories going around (then) that there were two brothers that went about a month apart."

CBC broke the story Thursday, identifying the Gordon brothers as having once lived in the same downtown Calgary highrise as Boudreau's son, 22-year-old Damian Clairmont.

And like Clairmont and others, Collin and Gregory Gordon reportedly disappeared sometime late 2012.

Collin is active on social media, under both his given name on Facebook and, reportedly, the monicker Abu Ibrahim Canadi on Twitter where one post refers to the recent slaying of an American journalist.

"10/10. The video of James Foley losing his neck is the perfection of 'Terrorism'." the post reads.

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UN peacekeepers seized by Syrian militants on the Golan Heights - Sydney Morning Herald

Irish members of the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Photo: AFP

New York: Militants fighting the Syrian army have seized 43 UN peacekeepers in a demilitarised section of the Golan Heights and trapped another 81 in the region. The world body is working to secure their release, the United Nations said. And the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that the Syrian crisis has become "the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era", with 3 million Syrians now forced outside the country.

The affected peacekeepers are from the Philippines and Fiji, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. 

"During a period of increased fighting between armed elements and Syrian armed forces within the area of separation in the Golan Heights, 43 peacekeepers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) were detained early [Thursday] morning by an armed group in the vicinity of al-Quneitra," the UN press office said.

Smoke rises following an explosion in Syria's Quneitra province as rebels clashed with President Bashar al-Assad's forces, seen from the Golan Heights, on Thursday. Photo: AP

It added that another 81 UN peacekeepers were being restricted to their positions in the vicinity of Ar Ruwayhinah and Burayqah. Mr Dujarric said the 81 trapped troops were from the Philippines and the 43 seized ones from Fiji.

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The UN has also said that there are now  3 million registered Syrian refugees outside the country. There are a further 6.5 million displaced within Syria, meaning that "almost half of all Syrians have now been forced to abandon their homes and flee for their lives", the UN said.

"The Syrian crisis has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them," Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said.

An Islamic State fighter waves its flag at the Tabqa air base, Raqqa. Photo: AP

With its peacekeepers seized, the UN said it was "making every effort to secure the release of the detained peacekeepers and to restore the full freedom of movement of the force throughout its area of operation".

Britain's UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, the president of the Security Council, told reporters the trapped peacekeepers were surrounded by Islamist militants. It was not clear to which faction the militants belong.

On the other side of Syria, near Iraq, fighters from the Islamic State have killed more than 150 captured soldiers in the past two days, a monitoring group said. Video images posted online appeared to show the men being marched through the desert in their underwear by the extremists and then lying dead in the sand.

Stills from video by the Islamic State show captured government soldiers near Tabqa, Syria. Photo: AP

The mass killing marked a dark end to the battle for control of the Tabqa air base in Raqqa province. The insurgents seized the base on Sunday after the deadliest fighting so far between the Islamic State and government forces.

It has also emerged that at least four Western hostages held by the Islamic State in Syria, including murdered American journalist James Foley, were waterboarded in the early part of their captivity, The Washington Post says.

Foley, whose recent execution at the hands of the extremists provoked revulsion, and the other kidnapped Westerners were waterboarded "several times", the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with their treatment.

Sources involved in trying to free the hostages have confirmed that waterboarding was used on at least one hostage.

Waterboarding, which was used by the CIA during interrogations of suspected terrorists after the September 11, 2001 attacks, is a widely condemned form of torture that simulates drowning.

While the UN continues to seek the release of its peacekeepers on the Golan Heights, the Philippine army said in a statement that militants had surrounded the Philippine contingent's encampments with Fijian hostages in tow and demanded that the Filipino troops surrender their firearms.

"The Philippine peacekeepers held their ground and demonstrated their resolve to defend their positions," it said. "They did not surrender their firearms as they may in turn be held hostage themselves."

The Security Council issued a statement strongly condemning the seizure of the peacekeepers and calling for their immediate release. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon echoed the council word's in his own statement of condemnation.

Reuters, Agence France-Presse

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Putin Keeps Pushing West Over Ukraine - Wall Street Journal

MOSCOW—Steadily ratcheting up Moscow's intervention in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin seems to be betting that keeping that former Soviet republic in Russia's sphere of influence is much more important to Moscow than pulling Kiev westward is to the U.S. and its European allies.

But while the U.S. and Europe have ruled out any direct military intervention to defend Ukraine, Moscow's moves this week to send hundreds of its own troops there to...

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Israel-Gaza conflict: No victory for Israel despite weeks of devastation - Times of India

'Twas not a famous victory - but that's what the Palestinians of Gaza are celebrating. There was much shaking of heads in the international media when the fireworks burst over that shattered land on Tuesday night. After more than 2,100 dead - about 1,700 of them civilians - and 100,000 wounded, what did they have to crow about? An end to the killing? Peace?

Well, no. In fact, Hamas - the vicious, horrible, terrorist Hamas with whom "we" (as in "the West", Tony Blair, Israel, the US and all honourable men and women) cannot talk - has indeed won a victory.

Israel said it must be disarmed. It has not been disarmed. Israel said it must be smashed/destroyed/rooted out. It hasn't been smashed/destroyed/rooted out. The tunnels must all be destroyed, Israel proclaimed. But they haven't been. All the rockets must be seized. But they haven't been. So 65 Israeli soldiers died - for what? And from under the ground, quite literally, clambered on Tuesday the political leadership of Hamas (and Islamic Jihad) whose brothers were participating - much against the wishes of Israel, the US and Egypt - in the Cairo "peace" talks.

In Israel, significantly, there were no celebrations. The ever-so-right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu had once more over-egged its victory demands and ended up with another ceasefire as strong and as weak as the equally febrile truce that followed the 2009 Gaza war and the 2012 Gaza war. Physically, the Israelis had won; all those broken lives and all those smashed buildings and all that destroyed infrastructure do not suggest that the Palestinians have "prevailed" (to use a "Bushite" word). But strategically, the Palestinians have won. They are still in Gaza, Hamas is still in Gaza, and the coalition government of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas appears still to be a reality.

Many times has it been said that the founders of the Israeli state faced a problem: a land called Palestine. They dealt with that problem coldly, ruthlessly and efficiently. But now their problem is the Palestinians. Their land may have been taken for Israel, their surviving land may be eaten up by Israeli colonies; but the wretched Palestinians simply won't go away. And killing them in large numbers - especially in front of the world's television cameras - is getting to be a bit much, even for those who still shake in their boots at the mere whisper of the calumny "anti-Semitism". Israeli spokesmen even ended up comparing their actions to bloody Second World War RAF air raids, hardly a propaganda strike in the 21st century.

But the world will reflect unhappily on other things. The Hamas spokesmen, for example, raving about the destruction of Israel and Zionism, their exaggerations as preposterous as the Israeli excuses. The greatest victory the world has ever seen, indeed! Hamas has achieved "more than any Arab army has ever achieved against Israel". Indeed! Hezbollah drove the entire Israeli army out of Lebanon after an 18-year guerrilla war - with far more casualties on both sides than Hamas could ever imagine.

And then how quickly we have forgotten the Hamas killer squads who dispatched at least 21 "spies", two of them women, in cold blood against the walls of Gaza over the past seven days. I notice that they do not appear in the total list of Palestinian dead. And I wonder why not. Were they to be treated by the Palestinians as even less human than the Israelis? Of course, they were. In a week in which Isis returned to its execution pit, Hamas showed that its old killer touch is also still intact. After three of its top military leaders were liquidated by the Israelis, what did we expect? But it's interesting that not one Palestinian protested at this no-court-no-jury-no-human-rights "justice". Nor did they protest at the execution of 17 "spies" in 2008-9 - forgotten today - and another six "spies" (also forgotten) in 2012.

And then we have the "military" casualties. Around 500 were Hamas fighters; back in the 2008-9 Gaza war, perhaps 200 fighters were killed. But in that earlier war, only six Israeli soldiers were killed. In this operation, however, 10 times as many Israeli soldiers died. In other words, Hamas - and, I suppose, Islamic Jihad - have learned how to fight. Hezbollah, the most efficient guerrilla army in the Middle East, certainly noticed this. And the Gaza rockets stretched across thousands of square miles of Israel, notwithstanding the "Iron Dome". Once you had to live in Sderot to be in danger. Now you can find your flight cancelled at Ben Gurion airport.

Mahmoud Abbas, needless to say, is grovelling to the Egyptians and Americans in thankfulness for the truce. But in the new "joint" Palestinian government, Hamas is going to be telling Abbas how many "concessions" he can make. Far from isolating the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and sidelining Hamas by producing his own made-in-Cairo peace agreement for the Israelis and Americans - swiftly rejected by Hamas during the conflict - President Field Marshal al-Sisi of Egypt has been forced to acknowledge Hamas as the major Arab participant in the truce agreement.

An odd thing, though. Right now, Egypt is bombing the Islamists of Libya, and the US is preparing to bomb the Islamists of Syria after bombing the Islamists of Iraq. But in Gaza, the Islamists have just won. This surely cannot last.

Israel and the Palestinians agreed to an Egyptian-brokered plan to end the fighting in Gaza after 50 days of combat. The following are the broad parameters of the agreement, provided by Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Some of the immediate steps

* Hamas and other militant groups agree to halt all rocket and mortar fire into Israel.

* Israel will stop all military action including air strikes and ground operations.

* Israel agrees to open more of its border crossings with Gaza to allow the easier flow of goods, including humanitarian aid and reconstruction equipment, into the enclave.

* In a separate, bilateral agreement, Egypt will agree to open its 14km border with Gaza at Rafah.

* The Palestinian Authority to coordinate the reconstruction effort in Gaza with international donors, including the EU, Norway, Qatar and Turkey.

* Israel will extend the fishing limit off Gaza's coast to six miles from three miles, with the possibility of widening it gradually if the truce holds. Ultimately, the Palestinians want to return to a full 12-mile international allowance.

Some longer-term issues

* Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners rounded up in the occupied West Bank after the abduction and killing of three Jewish students in June.

* President Abbas, who heads the Fatah party, wants freedom for long-serving Palestinian prisoners.

* Israel wants Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza to hand over all body parts and personal effects of Israeli soldiers killed during the war.

* Hamas wants a sea port built in Gaza. Israel has long rejected the plan, but it is possible that progress towards it could be made if there are security guarantees.

* Hamas wants the unfreezing of funds to allow it to pay 40,000 police, government workers and administrative staff who have largely been without salaries since late last year. The funds were frozen by the Palestinian Authority.

* The Palestinians also want the airport in Gaza to be rebuilt.

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Toronto must stop rise in child poverty: Editorial - Toronto Star

Toronto is failing more than a quarter of its children.

A new study concludes that child poverty has reached "epidemic" levels, with 29 per cent of children — almost 149,000 — living in low-income families. Even more disturbing: that figure has actually been on the rise for the last two years.

That's right. After gradually declining to 27 per cent in 2010 from a high of 32 per cent in 2004, the city's child poverty rate has increased once again.

In some areas it's much worse: 15 of Toronto's 140 neighbourhoods have child poverty rates of 40 per cent or more, while 40 have poverty rates of 30 per cent or more.

In fact, among Canada's 13 major cities, Toronto tied with Saint John, N.B., as having the highest poverty rate, according to the analysis of new Statistics Canada data by a coalition of social agencies.

Sadly, while the figures shine a spotlight on the issue and detail the extent of poverty in the city, they aren't telling us anything we don't already know — in general — from earlier studies.

Which is this: despite years of government rhetoric, Canada has a shameful record when it comes to ending child poverty, and Toronto's statistics highlight that failure.

In 1989, the House of Commons unanimously voted to end child poverty by the year 2000. How successful was that? By 2013, the number of low-income kids had actually risen — to 967,000 from 912,000.

Meanwhile, a Conference Board of Canada study in 2013 surveying 17 industrial nations gave Canada a grade of C on eliminating child poverty. As the board said then: "Not only is it socially reprehensible; it also risks being a drag on the economy for years to come."

Many studies have clearly told governments who needs help. For example, 38.2 per cent of Ontario children cared for by single mothers are raised in a low-income environment. And they have laid out clear directions for ending child poverty — provide low-income housing, better child care and targeted (rather than universal) child tax credits.

But as the new statistics for Toronto indicate, that message isn't getting through.

For example, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says increasing child-care spaces eases child poverty by enabling mothers to get a job. But in 2006, the Harper government killed a national child-care program that would have provided 625,000 subsidized daycare spaces and replaced it with a taxable $100 per month child tax credit that actually benefits the well-off more than the poor.

In 2012, Campaign 2000, a national anti-poverty coalition, recommended cancelling the $100 monthly payment, along with two other tax credits beyond the reach of the poor. Directing the money that would be saved to poor people, it said, would put almost $2,000 a year more into their pockets. Of course, Ottawa did no such thing.

To be fair, some action has been taken. One bright light is the Ontario Child Benefit for low-income families, launched at $250 a year in 2007 and which has increased each year to $1,310 now. It has helped to raise thousands out of poverty.

Still, there are almost 149,000 children in Toronto whose families are living on less than half the median household income (after taxes). They don't need more statistics. They need action.

The groups behind the study have invited the mayoralty candidates to address the issue Thursday morning. It's the least they can do to starting dealing with this sad inequity.

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Trudeaumania? No, just Canucks set for change - Wiarton Echo

We won't know if Justin Trudeau is for real until he's been subjected to a national election campaign, but it seems support for him is firming up.

Can he do any wrong? Is it true his is simply a cult of personality that can't be touched?

Are the 18 Conservatives MPs who have already said they won't run in next year's election escaping Trudeaumania 2? In reality, not too much should be read into those deserting MPs, it's one way for a party to renew itself. Not that it's a definitive sign a party is in a free fall. Half a dozen incumbent Ontario Liberals didn't run in the last election, yet Kathleen Wynne recovered to win a majority.

If, as expected, New Brunswick Liberals under Brian Gallant win Sept. 22, the Grits will have won five straight provincial elections. Resuscitation of the Liberal brand at both levels is not a Trudeau phenomenon -- which lends credence that the apparent success -- both in popularity and in fundraising -- at the federal level is not simply the cult of Trudeau.

He has stumbled, but it hasn't hurt him. He inexplicably banned party MPs from the right to oppose abortion in votes in the House, he smoked marijuana while in office, he "admired" China's dictatorial approach to government because the country can get things done in the environment, he sometimes gives rambling responses about social issues to questions on terrorist activities and he has banned people from running for his party despite making promises to be open about the nomination process.

And he has offered contradictory policies on the oil sands, supporting their development but opposing the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which is the most practical way to see their successful development, while supporting the Keystone pipeline to the southern U.S.

Yet the polls show a potential massacre of the governing Tories if an election were held today. Threehundredeight.com, which aggregates polls, has the Liberals at 39%, the Conservatives at 30% -- down nine points from the last election -- and the NDP at 20%, down 10 points from the last election. The Liberals could win most seats in Atlantic Canada, and come out in front in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

Both the other major federal parties are hemorrhaging support to Trudeau's Liberals. This despite attack ads by the Conservatives that were so effective against former leaders Michael Ignatieff and Stephane Dion. Perhaps it's because the ads used against Trudeau are silly, childish and sometimes just outright misleading and the public is tired of such tactics.

In B.C., where some observers feel the battle over a majority will be won, the Liberals look to be in the lead. The party is even hoping for a handful of seats in Alberta. In Ontario, where the Conservatives won 73 seats in the last election with 44% support, Harper's Tories have consistently ranked in the mid-to-low thirties.

Trudeau has the highest approval ratings of party leaders.

So, are Canadians merely succumbing to his pedigree and nice hair? To believe that is to underestimate voters.

Trudeau, so far, has had the luck to have good timing. His personal popularity is melding with changing times. The days of one party holding power for decades are gone (though a decade is still possible). People tire of governments more easily, and the Conservatives' hyper-partisan way of governing are no longer what Canadians want.

Trudeau is offering nothing but the classic Liberalism to which Canadians are accustomed. Other Liberals leaders have won on such a basis.

If the times are changing, it will be a hard battle for the Conservatives to win, whether Trudeau is at the helm or not.

brian.macleod@sunmedia.ca

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Two in custody after Sunwing flight disrupted - Surrey Leader

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Two women are in custody after a disturbance on a Sunwing flight bound for Cuba was forced to return to Toronto's Pearson International Airport under a military escort on Wednesday evening.

The airline said the flight had left Toronto at 4:30 p.m. en route to Cuba when it was disrupted by "two unruly female passengers."

Sunwing vice-president Janine Chapman said the passengers had consumed a "significant quantity of their duty free alcohol purchase in the lavatory."

She said they lit a cigarette, triggering the smoke alarm, and "proceeded to get into a physical altercation with each other and made a threat against the aircraft."

Chapman added in an email to The Canadian Press that the threat was considered non-credible given the condition of the passengers.

NORAD said it scrambled two CF-18 fighter jets based out of Bagotville, Que., to escort Flight 656 back to Toronto.

Major Julie Roberge, a spokeswoman for NORAD based in Colorado Springs, Colo., said the CF-18s met the aircraft at the Canadian border and did not venture into American airspace.

She said the pilot had decided to turn the plane around over South Carolina and ''that's when NORAD got involved,'' adding there was no escort in U.S. airspace.

Roberge said the aircraft landed at Pearson at about 8:30 p.m. and that the CF-18 escort lasted just four minutes. She called the military escort a precautionary measure and a standard procedure in such incidents.

NORAD also used two American F-16 fighter jets based out of Toledo, Ohio in late July as a precautionary to escort another Sunwing flight as it returned to Toronto.

Peel Region police took the two unidentified women into custody once the aircraft arrived at Pearson.

There was no word on what charges might be laid against them. Peel police said they would provide an update later Thursday morning.

Sunwing said the flight was scheduled to resume its flight to Cuba at about 11 p.m. with a new flight crew.

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Sister of Boston bombing suspects arrested on suspicion of making bomb threat - Telegraph.co.uk

A sister of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was arrested on Wednesday in New York on suspicion of making a bomb threat, police said.

Ailina Tsarnaeva, 24 and a resident of North Bergen, New Jersey, "was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment," a NYPD spokesman told AFP.

She is a sister of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, suspected of having carried out the April 2013 bombing which killed three and injured 264 people near the marathon's finish line.

Police said Tsarnaeva threatened a woman in Manhattan by telephone, saying: "I know people who can put a bomb on you," CBS television reported.

Tsarnaeva was taken into a police station in Manhattan's Harlem district, where she received a hearing date of September 30 and was released, police said.

Authorities say ethnic Chechen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, carried out the bombing with his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed last year during a police manhunt while the pair were on the run.

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Ukraine crisis: 'Thousands of Russians' fighting in east - BBC News

28 August 2014 Last updated at 10:06

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Pro-Russian rebels enter the strategically-vital port of Novoazovsk on Wednesday

A pro-Russian rebel leader in eastern Ukraine has said 3-4,000 Russian citizens are fighting in their ranks.

Alexander Zakharchenko told Russian TV many of the Russians were former servicepeople or current personnel on leave.

He was speaking as rebels threatened to take the key port of Mariupol, after opening a new front in the south-east.

Reports say they have captured the town of Novoazovsk and are advancing on the port.

Ukraine says Russian forces have crossed the border and are supporting the rebel attack, but Moscow has repeatedly denied arming or covertly supporting the rebels.

There are suspicions that Russia wants to divert Ukrainian forces from the besieged cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, further north.

Government forces have made significant advances against the separatists in recent weeks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded an explanation from Russia's President Vladimir Putin amid the reports of an incursion.

And French President Francois Hollande said it would be "intolerable" if Russian troops were in Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces 'leaving'

Mr Zakharchenko, who is prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, said Russian citizens were coming to Ukraine to fight because they felt it was their duty.

"There have been around 3,000-4,000 of them in our ranks," he said, adding that the rebels' struggle would have been much harder without them.

But he insisted that any Russians fighting on the rebel side were doing so voluntarily.

"Many former high-ranking military officers have volunteered to join us. They are fighting with us, considering that to be their duty," he said.

"There are also many in the current Russian military that prefer to spend their leave among us, brothers who are fighting for their freedom, rather than on a beach."

Reports from journalists and military on the ground say that Novoazovsk has been captured by the rebels.

"The guys from the east shot the positions of the Ukrainian army and the army left Novoazovsk," freelance journalist Petr Shelomovsky told the BBC.

"Since the morning, they've been leaving the town and we've probably seen the last armoured personnel carrier leaving the place."

A Ukrainian company commander, Vladimir Shilov, told Ukrainian TV that he had heard from sources inside the town that it was blocked by tanks and no-one was allowed to leave. Local officials had already fled to Mariupol, he added.

A spokesman for the rebels told Interfax news agency that Novoazovsk was under their control and they would soon "liberate" Mariupol.

Reports on Twitter suggested the rebels were already advancing towards Mariupol, and rebels said they had captured checkpoints to the west of the city.

The port has until now been peaceful and cut off from rebel positions.

Rebels have been trying for weeks to break out of an area further north in the Donetsk region where they are almost encircled.

Analysts say the separatists could also be seeking a land link between Russia and Crimea, which also would give them control over the entire Sea of Azov.

Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in March.

In a phone call with the Russian president on Wednesday, Mrs Merkel said reports of a Russian military incursion into Ukrainian territory had to be cleared up, her spokesman said.

"The latest reports of the presence of Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory must be explained," said Steffen Seibert.

And in a foreign policy speech on Thursday, Mr Hollande demanded that Russia stop sending aid to the rebels.

"If it is verified that Russian troops are present on Ukrainian soil, this would be intolerable," he said.

War in eastern Ukraine: The human cost

• At least 2,119 people had been killed and 5,043 wounded since mid-April, a UN report on 7 August said
• 951 civilians have been killed in Donetsk region alone, the official regional authorities said on 20 August
• Official casualty counts only record certified deaths while in some particularly dangerous parts of the war zone, such as Luhansk region, victims are said to have been buried informally, for instance in gardens
• Rebels (and some military sources) accuse the government of concealing the true numbers of soldiers killed
• 155,800 people have fled elsewhere in Ukraine while at least 188,000 have gone to Russia

The US also expressed its "deep concern" at the latest developments.

"These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counter-offensive is likely under way in Donetsk and Lugansk [Luhansk]," state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday.

"An increasing number of Russian troops are intervening directly in fighting on Ukrainian territory," the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, wrote on Twitter.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promised a roadmap for peace in the east on Tuesday after holding his first direct talks on the crisis since June with Mr Putin.

Mr Putin said Russia would assist any ceasefire talks, but that stopping the fighting was a matter for Ukraine alone.

Are you in south-east Ukraine? Have you been affected by recent events in the area? You can send us your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

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Marathon of motions fills Toronto council's final meeting before election - MetroNews Canada

Toronto's final council meeting before the fall election lurched along Tuesday with a marathon of member motions and a lengthy debate on what should happen when a councillor breaches the city's code of conduct.

Council pushed to the back burner a request to the federal government to make "O Canada" gender neutral, and refused to debate a motion on ways to prevent children from buying energy drinks.

What council is doing this week is approving a staggering $21-billion of development, though that isn't receiving a lot of attention, Councillor Joe Mihevc said.

"If ever there was a meeting that signified the Manhattanization of downtown (Toronto) it was the approval of 750 storeys of new development, mostly concentrated in the downtown area," he said during a break from voting on motions.

That's 7,000 new condo units in addition to the 70,000 already approved and in the pipeline, he said. "We're not at the end of the cranes in downtown Toronto."

Tuesday's meeting was also dominated with discussion about accountability.

Council voted to receive Integrity Commissioner Janet Leiper's annual — and final report to council, in addition to receiving ombudsman Fiona Crean's report. It came with a warning — and a request for $800,000 to hire more staff.

Unless council funds her office properly, resident complaints will get put onto a waiting list, Crean told council.

Councillors spent more than two hours debating whether to pay the legal fees of Councillor Maria Augimeri's political rival after she was found to have breached the city's code of conduct.

Council decided that Augimeri had properly apologized to Gus Cusimano, who ran against her in 2010, for comments she made last year and that in accordance with city policy the fees should be reimbursed by the city.

In February, Augimeri was quoted calling Cusimano a criminal in the Italian-language newspaper Corriere Canadese. Leiper found those comments breached the code of conduct for council members.

According to a city rule, any complainant who is successful is entitled to have related legal costs, up to $5,000, paid by the city. Where those funds come from is at council's discretion, and Leiper recommended the sum be paid out of council's general expense budget.

On Tuesday, Mayor Rob Ford, a close ally of Cusimano, put forward a motion arguing that Augimeri should pay the legal fees herself.

"I don't see why the taxpayer should have to pay for it," Ford told reporters ahead of the council meeting. "She made an accusation; she was wrong."

After a two-hour debate over the city's policy and whether council has the power to impose such a sanction, Ford's motion was defeated 33-2. Council voted 30-4 to adopt Leiper's recommendations.

Leiper wrote in her report that after a full apology, no further sanctions should be imposed.

The integrity commissioner said this was the first time someone had requested their legal fees be covered under the policy. Leiper said it is now up to the city solicitor to determine what legal costs are reasonable.

Augimeri said she doesn't think the city should be paying Cusimano's legal fees.

"Council's not a libel court and I think taxpayers should not be on the hook for his bill. I think councillors were surprised when they saw that there was a bill to begin with," Augimeri told Torstar News Service.

The city policy is the problem, some councillors argued, and should be changed.

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Harper wraps up tour of North with stop in Baffin Island - CANOE

Giuseppe Valiante, National Bureau

Aug 26, 2014

, Last Updated: 6:48 PM ET

BAFFIN ISLAND, Nunavut — Jamie Panipak, an Arctic Ranger, sat overlooking the frigid water off Baffin Island on Tuesday, keeping watch for two polar bears spotted earlier in the nearby mountains.

His Second World War-era .303 Lee Enfield Ranger bolt-action rifle rested against his chair.

"They told us we would be getting new rifles this year, but then they said we'll get them next year," he said.

Panipak is part of the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1CRPG), and one of 1,850 northerners who patrol the Arctic to reinforce Canada's northern sovereignty.

The 60-year-old rifle is representative of the gulf between the government's rhetoric and the realities of Canada's actual ability to defend and lay claim to the land.

While the rifles work well in winter, new parts don't exist and the Rangers "need to cannibalize one to fix another," said 1CRPG Major M.C. Craig Volstad.

"The guns are amazing, but do they need replacing? Yes they do," he said.

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Canada pulling Ebola lab team from Sierra Leone - Jakarta Post

Canada is evacuating a three-member mobile laboratory team from Sierra Leone after people in their hotel were diagnosed with Ebola. The World Health Organization earlier announced it is pulling a team out of the country.

The Public Agency of Canada said in a statement late Tuesday none of the team members had any direct contact with the sick individuals and they are not showing any signs of illness. They will remain in voluntary isolation and be monitored closely.

The laboratory team was helping to control the outbreak there by helping health care workers diagnose and rule out infections. The agency did not say what city the team was in.

Canada said it will send in another team once it is deemed safe. Canada has been rotating three teams of scientists in out and out of West Africa.

The World Health Organization said earlier Tuesday is pulling out its team from the eastern Sierra Leonean city of Kailahun, where an epidemiologist working with the organization was recently infected. Daniel Kertesz, the organization's representative in the country, said that the team was exhausted and that the added stress of a colleague getting sick could increase the risk of mistakes.

The disease has overwhelmed the already shaky health systems in some of the world's poorest countries.

The outbreak has killed more than 1,400 people in West Africa. There is no proven treatment for Ebola, so health workers primarily focus on isolating the sick. According to WHO, the Ebola outbreak has killed more than half of the more than 2,600 people sickened. The U.N. agency said an unprecedented 240 health care workers have been infected. (**)

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Israel, Gaza Quiet as Cease-fire Takes Hold - Voice of America

Israel and the Gaza Strip were calm Wednesday on the first full day of a new "open-ended" cease-fire.

The Israeli military reported no rocket attacks from Gaza and no airstrikes by its forces on the Palestinian territory.

The truce took effect Tuesday evening, 50 days after tensions between the two sides erupted into a war that has killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Sixty-nine Israelis have died, all but five of them soldiers.

Egypt brokered the agreement, just as it has several short-term cease-fires that failed to hold. 

Under this deal, Israel will ease its blockade of Gaza to allow in shipments of humanitarian aid and construction materials. 

The two sides also pledged to begin talks within a month to discuss long-standing issues, including Israel's demand that Hamas disarm, as well as a more extensive end to the blockade and the opening of an airport and seaport in Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon each welcomed the cease-fire, and expressed hope that Israel and the Palestinians can move toward making progress on a wider peace effort.

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Ontario man declared dead in 1986 found alive in US with second family - Toronto Star

Through his entire life, Jeff Walton Jr. had no idea his father was keeping a secret.

The 35-year-old learned from police earlier this month that his father, who he knew as Jeff Walton the first — a 69-year-old New Orleans Saints fan living in small-town Oklahoma — is not who his son thought him to be.

The senior Walton was born Ronald Stan, a Canadian living in the former Township of East Williams, Middlesex County until September 29, 1977, when he was reported missing after a mysterious early-morning barn fire.

"I'm still trying to put all the puzzle pieces together myself," said the younger Walton reached on the phone. He and the rest of Stan's American family, which includes Walton's stepmom and at least three grandchildren, only found out about his Canadian past this month.

Provincial police in Ontario pieced together the story of Stan in July, when they reopened the file on his disappearance as part of a routine audit of the case file. Const. Laurie Houghton with the Middlesex County OPP attributed the resolution of the case to modern investigative techniques not available in 1977.

"I can't speak to his motives," said Houghton. "We were able to connect the dots."

Stan, who was 32 years old when he disappeared, is considered legally dead in Canada. He was declared deceased by a court in 1986, nearly a decade after his disappearance amid circumstances that still remain murky. Police responded to a fire at a barn near a piece of farmland property owned by Ronald Stan. A witness saw Stan in the area of the barn before the fire and he couldn't be found afterwards.

At least one neighbour recalls the serious blaze in 1977. Bert Toonen said his brother Peter was out with Stan the night of the fire. A young man at the time, Toonen was one of many neighbours who helped investigators search the debris.

"They were my father's pigs in that barn. We were out the next day combing through the wreckage with the police looking for human remains," Toonen said. No human remains were found.

Decades later, Toonen now owns Stan's former property, land which changed hands several times over the years. He lives down the street from Stan's uncle Edward Stan, who moved in down the road with his family shortly after the fire.

Both Toonen and Edward say Stan left behind a wife. Edward says the couple had two children, but that he had little contact with his nephew's family after Ronald Stan's disappearance. The Star attempted to reach people believed to be the wife and children of Stan but was unable to verify whether they were his relatives.

It's not clear how Stan came to be declared deceased. In Ontario at that time, a family member would have had to make the request through court, but Stan's legal status was unclear to at least one family member — his uncle Edward did not know he was legally declared dead. In fact he said he knew Stan was alive, because he saw his nephew in 1997:

"We knew because he came up when his dad died. We saw him then."

Edward said he refused to talk to Stan at his father Henry's funeral, evading the happy-go-lucky nephew he once knew. He knows nothing about Stan's new life in the United States, except for information gathered from provincial police after they contacted him early this month with Stan's whereabouts.

In 2002 the province enacted stricter measures to make it harder to declare someone dead. Prior to the Declarations of Death Act, the court could declare a missing person dead incidentally to another sort of application, said Joshua Eisen, an associate at Toronto law firm Hull and Hull LLP, who deals with wills and estate litigation.

"(A person) would have to start litigation to get their life insurance . . . or something like that," Eisen said. "The court could say that this person is dead for the purposes of a life insurance application or maybe to distribute the money in the will. There had to be some reason for it."

Today, a spouse, next of kin or any person affected by an order declaring that an individual is dead can apply to the courts to have somebody declared dead under only two circumstances: the person has been missing for seven years or they disappeared in circumstance of peril.

The consequences of declaring a person dead are very severe, Eisen said; a person declared dead loses all right to their own property. An applicant has to show nobody has heard from the missing, they've made reasonable inquiries into the person's location, they have no reason to believe the missing person is alive and there has to be enough evidence to find that the person's dead.

Courts, he said, were always reluctant to grant this sort of release.

"You really have to go off the map to be declared dead," said Eisen.

Jeff Walton Jr. doesn't blame his father for what happened but is still dealing with the shock of the new information. He declined to discuss the specifics of his father's flight or any potential motivation.

Stan, now 69 years old, suffers from vascular dementia and heart disease, his son says. He was in a nursing home when the police made the connection. Stan's American wife, Debra Proctor, filed for divorce upon hearing the news, said Walton.

"It's been tough on me, but he's still my father. It doesn't change the man I knew for 35 years," said Walton. "Hopefully one day he can sit down and write a book and remember all the stuff he's been through in his life. It'd be a damn good book I'll tell you that, just from what I've heard."

The Ontario Provincial Police said there are no charges being laid and the case is now closed.

With files from The Canadian Press

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