Calgary marks two weeks of water restrictions; pipe pieces arrive from San Die
CALGARY (CP) – It has been two weeks since a massive pipe ruptured in Calgary, leaving residents under water restrictions.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek says it’s also the fourth day in a row Calgarians have used less water than the city produces, avoiding the risk of the taps going dry.
She says two new pieces of pipe trucked in from San Diego have arrived and engineers are to begin work to replace defective ones.
It could take until mid-July to make the repairs and get water flowing through the pipe again.
Calgary, a city of 1.6 million people, and surrounding municipalities have been under a combination of mandatory and voluntary water restrictions since the water main burst in the city’s northwest.
All outdoor watering is banned and people have been urged to reduce toilet flushes, take shorter showers and do fewer loads of laundry and dishes.
The City of Calgary says a panel will review why a massive water main ruptured two weeks ago, while experts say the extended water conservation crisis should be a nationwide wake-up call.
David Duckworth, Calgary’s chief administrative officer, says the panel of academics and industry experts will study the water main break and suggest changes to prevent future disruptions.
Canada’s population grew to top 41 million in the first quarter: StatCan
OTTAWA (CP) – Statistics Canada says the country’s population topped 41 million people in the first quarter of this year as it grew by 0.6 per cent.
The agency says the population reached 41,012,563 on April 1, a gain of 242,673 people in the first three months of the year.
Statistics Canada said the increase came as the country welcomed 121,758 immigrants in the first quarter.
Net emigration amounted to 12,613 people for the quarter.
Canada also added 131,810 non-permanent residents to the population.
Statistics Canada noted that for temporary immigration, most of the growth happened before an announcement that caps would be placed on the number of permits issued to non-permanent residents in 2024.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to meet with prime minister in Ottawa
OTTAWA (CP) – The head of the NATO alliance is set to meet with the prime minister in Ottawa today.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is also slated to give a speech at an event hosted by the NATO Association of Canada this evening.
His last visit to Canada was in August 2022, when he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent time in the Arctic.
That region is the highlight of Canada’s new defence strategy, released earlier this spring, and it’s seen as being of increasing importance to NATO since Sweden and Finland joined the alliance.
NATO leaders are set to meet in Washington, D.C., next month for an annual summit and mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary.
Last year’s summit was heavily focused on Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, a topic that is also expected to dominate talks this year.
Former Saskatchewan Mountie sentenced to 11 years for shooting death of lover
PRINCE ALBERT, SASK. (CP) – A former Mountie convicted of killing his former lover in a park was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in prison.
“In one sense, this case is as near to murder as it can get, but on the other it was also near to self-defence,” Justice Gary Meschishnick said in his sentencing decision for Bernie Herman.
The judge said Bernie Herman was scared his romantic relationship with Braden Herman would be exposed and left his “moral compass in his pocket,” resulting in the needless death.
“This offender’s conduct ended up both exposing the nature of the relationship and tragically ending it,” said Meschishnick.
Bernie Herman, 55, was convicted in January of manslaughter in the death of 26-year-old Braden Herman. The two men aren’t related.
The Crown had asked the judge to impose a life sentence, while the defence argued for a term of four to six years.
Sikh activists burn Modi effigy on anniversary of B.C. temple leader Nijjar’s murder
SURREY, B.C. (CP) – Sikh activists marked the anniversary of the killing of British Columbia temple leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar by holding a mock murder trial for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday outside the Indian consulate in downtown Vancouver.
On a block of Howe Street cordoned off by police, the mock trial included a jury made up of actors and a judge in a curly white wig, who invited the “prosecutor” to present evidence of Modi’s involvement in the killing in Surrey, B.C., last year.
An effigy of Modi, dressed in prison stripes, was paraded down the street in a makeshift cage before the mock trial began on Tuesday.
Jatinder Singh, a lawyer and director with activist group Sikhs for Justice, told the crowd that Nijjar was “executed,” and quoted Martin Luther King.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Singh said. “This crime was against a Canadian citizen and it was perpetrated on Canadian soil, however the conspiracy and ultimate responsibility was hatched thousands and thousands of kilometres away in India.”
Nijjar, a key organizer for an overseas referendum on an independent Sikh state in India, was gunned down in the parking lot of the Surrey temple where he was president on June 18 last year.
