Canadians scramble to get away from powerful hurricane heading toward Jamaica
MONTREAL (CP) – Canadians in the Caribbean are scrambling to get out of harm’s way as a major hurricane bears down on Jamaica.
Hurricane Beryl, a Category 4 storm, has already killed at least six people and caused significant damage in the southeast Caribbean.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said on X the government is monitoring the situation and urging Canadians to avoid non-essential travel to the region.
Joly thanked Air Transat for helping to fly home Canadians on Tuesday from Jamaica.
The United States National Hurricane Center says Beryl is forecast to be at or near major hurricane strength when it passes near or over Jamaica today, near the Cayman Islands on Thursday and into Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula on Friday.
The Canadian Red Cross says it is raising money to provide relief to people affected by the powerful storm.
Trudeau won’t commit to national caucus meeting, says he’s having calls with MPs
MONTREAL (CP) – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s been taking calls from different members of his Liberal caucus following the party’s historic byelection loss in a downtown Toronto riding last week.
But he won’t say whether or not he will hold a national caucus meeting to discuss the fallout, which continues to reverberate through the party.
Some Liberal MPs have privately demanded such a meeting and others also want a cabinet shuffle.
At his first press conference since the byelection, Trudeau said he met with his caucus executive yesterday, and is continuing to engage with MPs across the country on how the party can improve.
Trudeau says he’s had direct and frank conversations with MPs that take into account the challenges the party is facing following their loss, but that they remain focused on supporting Canadians.
The Liberals held Toronto-St. Paul’s for more than 30 years before it flipped to the Conservatives last week in a stunning loss that the Tories say proves Canadians are tired of Trudeau and want an election now.
Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan named Canada’s newest chief of the defence staff
By: Sarah Ritchie
OTTAWA (CP) – The federal government has named Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan as defence chief, making her the first woman to hold the Canadian Armed Forces’ top job.
Carignan is currently the military’s chief of professional conduct and culture, a position created following the sexual misconduct crisis.
Several high-ranking leaders were forced to step down from their posts after they were accused of sexual misconduct in 2021.
The resulting scandal prompted a damning external report by former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour that made a series of recommendations to change the toxic culture within the Armed Forces. Carignan has been the face of the efforts to reform that culture, providing updates to the public about efforts to implement those recommendations.
Carignan joined the military in 1986, and has commanded combat engineer regiments and led troops responding to floods in Quebec.
In 2008, she became the first woman to lead a combat force in the Canadian military.
She received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Governor General’s Order of Military Merit, and her deployments included Afghanistan, Bosnia and Syria. She led a yearlong NATO mission in Iraq that ended in late 2020.
Jewish teachers file antisemitism complaint against B.C. Teachers’ Federation
VANCOUVER (CP) – A group of British Columbia teachers has launched a human rights complaint against their union, accusing the BC Teachers’ Federation of having “engaged in and enabled antisemitism.”
Vancouver labour lawyer Paul Pulver, who represents BC Teachers Against Antisemitism, filed the complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal over what he called the “erasure of Jewish and Zionist voices and opinions” within the union and members’ workplaces.
Pulver said in an interview Tuesday that he didn’t want to share the complaint materials publicly to not run afoul of the tribunal’s process. He said the complainants “want to stay in the background.”
“They’re concerned about people retaliating against them. They’re concerned about what they’ve experienced already and the potential for that to get ratcheted up,” he said. “In the circumstances, these teachers are extremely upset. They’re fearful.”
In a written statement Tuesday, the BC Teachers Federation said it “values the critical role of the Human Rights Tribunal in upholding the BC Human Rights Code and in respect for this process, as well as any members that may be involved, will not comment before the tribunal has reviewed the matter.”
Liberal MP Ken McDonald says he won’t run again
OTTAWA (CP) – Liberal MP Ken McDonald, who opposed his party over the federal carbon price, says he won’t run in the next federal election.
McDonald has represented the riding of Avalon in Newfoundland and Labrador since 2015, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority government.
He told local radio station VOCM he made the decision because the job requires him to be away from home and his grandchildren.
McDonald said he informed Trudeau he wouldn’t be running again in mid-June.
That would be prior to a byelection that saw the Liberals lose a Toronto stronghold to the Conservatives, leading to increased speculation about whether Trudeau should step down.
McDonald publicly called for a leadership review in January, but later walked those comments back.
Sajjan’s office cites privacy, won’t say if he intervened for other Afghan groups
OTTAWA (CP) – The federal Liberals won’t say whether former defence minister Harjit Sajjan intervened on behalf of any other groups trying to flee Afghanistan when Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021.
Sajjan has said he used “appropriate” channels to relay information to the Canadian Armed Forces about the whereabouts of a group of more than 200 Afghan Sikhs who were trapped.
A spokeswoman for Sajjan, who is now emergency preparedness minister, says it is standard practice to protect the privacy and security of vulnerable groups.
She says that means she cannot provide details about the evacuation attempts, including whether Sajjan intervened on their behalf.
But Sajjan’s office does say that at the time of Canada’s evacuation efforts, the minister, his staff and department officials were receiving many requests for assistance.
Sajjan says he relayed information he was given about the Sikh group, which had been unable to connect directly with the military, and that at no time did he instruct the forces to prioritize their rescue over anyone else’s.
In addition to facilitating the departure of Canadians and Afghan citizens who had aided Canada, western countries tried to help other groups determined to be at risk of persecution by the Taliban, including women leaders, human-rights defenders, journalists and religious minorities.
