Calls for justice system reform follow release of man who killed two Indigenous women.

Shawn Lamb pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2012 deaths of two Indigenous women — Carolyn Sinclair and Lorna Blacksmith — and was sentenced to 20 years the following year.

Lamb received statutory release earlier this month after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Offenders serving life or indeterminate sentences are not eligible for statutory release.

Melissa Robinson’s cousin, Morgan Harris, was killed by someone else in 2022, and Robinson says she would like to see consecutive life sentences in any case where someone is charged with multiple counts of homicide.

She says the families of victims must be at the centre of the justice system and killers like Lamb should not be able to return home while the families are left to deal with the fallout.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2025

With files from Brittany Hobson in Winnipeg

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press

B.C.’s NDP vote against leadership review for Premier David Eby,

Of the 740 delegates who cast ballots, 609 opted against calling for a review of Eby’s leadership.

The announcement of the vote comes after Eby used his appearance at the convention to highlight several resource projects, while saying that the federal ban on tankers off B.C.’s northern coast is here to stay.

Eby says B.C. will turn its natural resources into the wealth needed to “sustain strong public services for generations to come,” citing several natural resource projects which his government is pursuing.

They include the North Coast Transmission Line set to power mining and LNG projects in northwestern B.C., with Eby calling the line “one of the biggest, most transformational opportunities” in a century.

But Eby also says that lifting the tanker ban would threaten the “coalition of support” among First Nations and northern communities for various resources projects in the area.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2025.

Former #immigration minister says Canada’s reputation on welcoming refugees is at risk.

Those shifts, he said, include the Carney government’s new border security bill, C-12, which would limit the ability of individuals who have been in Canada for more than a year to claim asylum.

It also would give the government new authority to cancel or suspend some immigration documents, including permanent resident visas and immigration applications, in what the legislation calls the “public interest.”

“We’re basically regressing into a kind of a bubble. And unfortunately, it’s been pressured by a lot of the right-wing politics against immigration,” Axworthy told The Canadian Press.

“When I was a minister in the government, we pushed back. We said, ‘Here’s what refugees can do. Here’s how we’re going to manage the system effectively.’ We have a basic human rights commitment, and I think we’ve lost that human rights commitment in terms of what we’re doing.”

Axworthy announced his retirement as the chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council on Thursday. It’s a position he’s held since the group’s inception in 2017.

He said while Canada likes to talk about being a welcoming place for newcomers in friendly venues like the United Nations, Ottawa needs to offer more than lip service to the plight of refugees.

Axworthy pointed to a proposal in the federal budget to charge refugees and asylum claimants what Ottawa calls a “modest co-pay” for dental work and prescription drugs provided through the Interim Federal Health Program.

“All you’re saying is, ‘We don’t want you to come, and we’re going to make it hard for you to get here.’ I mean, refugees don’t come with a bank account at Chase Morgan,” Axworthy said, adding that migrants are being driven from their homes by “conflicts, natural disasters, corruption.”

Axworthy said it “disturbs” him that Canada is “maybe not so slowly” backtracking on promises it made under the UN Refugee Convention. Among other things, Canada committed to not return refugees to countries where they may face serious threats to their lives or freedom.

To stand by that principle, Axworthy said, Canada needs to terminate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States.

Under that agreement — which assumes that both the U.S. and Canada are “safe countries” for refugees — people must claim asylum in whichever country they get to first, meaning they can’t leave the U.S. to seek refugee status in Canada.

“The United States no longer has the values we do,” Axworthy said. “We always assume that we would have a similar kind of view of the basic rights of people. Well, with (U.S. President Donald) Trump and company, we’ve seen mass deportations and no appeals and their refugee programs are reduced.”

Axworthy cited a Sept. 30 memo Trump issued saying the U.S. would only accept 7,500 refugees — down from the previous cap of 125,000 under President Joe Biden — and would prioritize white South Africans claiming racial discrimination.

Trump has repeatedly cited widely discredited claims of “white genocide” and persecution of South African farmers and announced he would boycott the G20 summit in South Africa later this month in response.

The South African government says the claims of racial persecution are baseless.

“I think as Canadians, we have so little in common in what (Trump is) doing that we should just simply say, ‘Thanks very much. We’re going to look after our own refugee system,’” Axworthy said.

Axworthy spent more than five years of his long political career as immigration minister — first in the government of prime minister Pierre Trudeau in the 1980s and then under prime minister Jean Chrétien in the 1990s.

The government is seeking to reduce the number of permanent residents it admits from annual highs of half a million people in recent years. Axworthy said its current approach is too reactive.

“We’ve been kind of going whack-a-mole on immigration. There hasn’t been a coherent set (of policies) based upon serious participation and parliamentary involvement. And it’s such a crucial part of what the world is going through right now,” he said.

“I think (Prime Minister Mark) Carney wants to build better. You build better in part by making sure that your fundamental rights of people, and immigration itself, is an effective, fair policy and isn’t simply being pushed and pulled by different interest groups.”

Axworthy said the government should get back to explaining to Canadians how immigration benefits the country and ensuring the rules governing the system are fair and understandable.

“You shouldn’t try to fix an airplane when it’s flying, and I think we’re tinkering. There’s been so many changes over the last three or four years that the system is not really connected or integrated,” he said.

“Justin Trudeau’s government made a big mistake buying into the kind of business-oriented view that we just needed more and more people. But nobody talked about the fact that was going to impact housing and health and education. And so, as a result, we found ourselves with backlogs.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2025.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press

Canadian births would have declined faster since 2010 without foreign-born mothers: StatCan.

A new study released on Thursday found that in 2024, more than 40 per cent of babies were born to a mother who themselves was not born in Canada. That’s compared to just 22.5 per cent in 1997, according to StatCan.

The study also found that in 2024, 57 per cent of new mothers over the age of 40 were foreign born.

“The annual number of births to foreign-born mothers generally increased from 1997 (78,785) to 2024 (154,687),” study author Claudine Provencher wrote.

“The biggest exception to this trend was the period from 2019 (126,516) to 2020 (123,594), when this number decreased 2.3 per cent. This decline coincided with the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a year marked by the lowest population growth (in number) since 1945.”

From 2022 to 2024, however, Canada saw an influx of newcomers and the number of births to foreign-born mothers increased considerably, according to StatCan, growing 3.4 per cent in 2022, 8.9 per cent in 2023, and 11.7 per cent in 2024.

The study also noted that during the period examined, “births to Canadian-born mothers followed a different trajectory than births to foreign-born mothers.”

“Following almost constant annual declines in the number of births until 2002 (247,792), a period of growth followed until 2009 (281,309),” wrote Provencher.

“This period was marked by the federal government enhancing parental leave, adding 25 weeks of parental benefits to the existing 10 weeks, for a total of 50 weeks including maternity leave.”

There was then a subsequent decline in births to Canadian-born mothers in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, which accelerated further in 2020 at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After a rebound in 2021, which saw births to Canadian-born mothers increase by 4.8 per cent, the downward trend continued in 2022, when such births fell by 8.6 per cent, followed by a decrease of six per cent in 2023 and 1.4 per cent in 2024.

“In fact, the temporary increase in births in Canada in 2021 was driven by the contribution of Canadian-born mothers, while foreign-born women gave birth to slightly fewer babies in 2021 compared to 2020,” Provencher wrote.

“In short, given the decline in births among Canadian-born mothers, and without the contribution of foreign-born mothers, births in Canada would have declined sharply as of 2010.”

#Religious symbols ban: #Quebec passes law to prevent students, staff from covering their faces.

The Quebec government has passed a law extending the province’s ban on religious symbols to everyone who interacts with students in schools.

The law also prohibits students from wearing face coverings in a bid to strengthen secularism in schools.

The new legislation expands on a secularism law from 2019 that banned religious symbols for public employees deemed to be in positions of authority, including teachers, judges and police officers.

The new legislation extends that ban to all school staff, including #psychologists, janitors and cafeteria workers, as well as to people who offer services to students but who are not employees, such as library volunteers.

The bill was tabled following a government investigation of a Montreal elementary school last year, which found that a group of teachers, many of North #African descent, had imposed autocratic rule at the school.

The #government has also promised to extend the religious symbols ban to daycare workers.

Shocking video shows fatal Abbotsford, B.C. shooting; police identify victim. Video captured on CCTV and provided to CTV News shows Sahsi getting into his pickup truck. Seconds later, a masked man dressed all in black exits a silver sedan parked across the street and runs to the driver’s side window of Sahsi’s vehicle.

The gunman fires at least nine rounds through the closed window, shattering the glass, before running back to the parked car and driving away — the fatal shooting unfolding in fewer than 15 seconds.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/victim-of-targeted-daylight-slaying-in-abbotsford-identified-by-police/?cid=sm%3Atrueanthem%3Actvnews%3Atwittermanualpost&taid=690137da1ed01800010b6d8e&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+New+Content+%28Feed%29&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Manitoba man’s agricultural invention makes Time Magazine’s best of 2025 list. Jeremy Matuszewski was looking for a way to make combining more efficient for farmers.

He was completely surprised when a product he created made Time Magazine’s list of the “Best Inventions of 2025”.

“We’re talking Time Magazine, that’s a pretty cool thing,” he said. “To be recognized as one of their top 300 inventions, alongside some like Earth-shattering inventions, is super cool.”

Matuszewski is the founder and CEO of Thunderstruck Ag in Winkler, Man., and what he created is a new kind of concave, which is a device used in every combine. It plays a vital role during harvest.
How it works

The concave, which sits under the rotor, helps to separate the chaff from the grain — essentially, the good from the bad. It has a series of openings that are sized according to the type of crop that is being harvested.

For example, a wheat concave is different from a concave used while harvesting corn.

This means a farmer must switch the concave every time they harvest a different crop, which takes time.

On top of that, although each combine is different for each company, like John Deere or Case, all concaves are designed the same.

“If every machine is operating differently, why is every concave designed the same, no matter what machine it goes in,” said Matuszewski. “I started wondering, ‘what if we change how the concave is designed to try and control how the material flows through?’”

Matuszewski asked a welder in Winkler to make some prototypes of differently designed concaves and got them tested on farms in Australia in 2023.

‘We were on to something’

Matuszewski got the new product, known as the Razor’s Edge Concaves, patented and did more testing across North America in 2024, making some tweaks in the process.

Once he was satisfied, he launched the product at the tail end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.

“We’re seeing a significant difference in grain sample quality, a significant difference in fuel consumption and we are also seeing a pretty big difference in grain loss coming out of the back of the machine,” he said. “All of those things equal dollars in farmers’ pockets.”

The concave is designed to improve cleaning and separation, and most importantly, removed the need to change between crops.

Farmers have the option to slow their rotor speed, have wider concave gaps and are being sold on efficiency and lower fuel costs.

Matuszewski says they have sold products all around the world, including across North America, Australia, Europe, South Africa and most recently in Brazil.
‘It’s a good product’

The concave is also being used by farmers locally in Manitoba.

Jayme Janzen, who farms around 3,500 acres of crop near Winkler, says the new concave is a major time saver.

“The convenience is why we use it,” he said. “It’s the ability to switch between crops without having to pull cover plates or touch our concaves at all. Going from field to field has been very nice.”

Janzen farms corn, soybeans, wheat, and canola

When CTV News caught up with Janzen, he was combining his final field of crop for the harvest season. He first began testing the product in 2024, and said it’s made his last two harvest seasons very efficient.

“The convenience of being able to move from crop to crop will become the norm,” he said.

The recognition of the Razors Edge Concave from Time comes months after winning the Farmer’s Choice award and Innovation award at Canada’s Ag in Motion farm show, which was held in Langham, Sask. this past summer.

Matuszewski says he hopes his story can inspire the next generation of innovators.

“I didn’t think this would work, and it did work,” he said. “I would say, ‘don’t be afraid to put your ideas out there.’”

#CBSA officer boost ‘a move in the right direction’: analyst

The federal government plans to hire 1,000 new Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers across the country, according to a statement released Friday by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office.

“These new officers will help crack down on the movement of stolen goods, illegal guns and drugs, enforce import measures, and investigate unfair trade practices,” the statement read.

The Liberal government is also raising the CBSA’s recruitment stipend for the first time since 2005, from $125 to $525 per week, the statement said.

Keith Cozine, a border security analyst at St. John’s University, told CTV News Channel on Saturday that this “significant increase” is a move in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go.

Cozine added that the CBSA currently has about 8,500 frontline employees, meaning the new hires would represent more than a 10 per cent increase.

“The one thing I like about it is that it’s focusing on the ports of entry. From a U.S. perspective, I’ve always viewed the Achilles heel when it comes to border security in Canada being the ports of entry. More specifically, the airports of entry,” he said.

“That’s where the individuals who are entering into Canada eventually end up crossing the border into the U.S., and some of those have posed security threats to the U.S.”

This revision will be included in next month’s federal budget, with an estimated $617 million in funding over the next five years, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said during a press conference Friday.

The plan also includes proposed amendments to the Public Service Superannuation Act to create stronger support for recruitment and retirement options for employees after 25 years of service, without any age restrictions or pension reductions, the statement said.

“It would apply to frontline federal workers, including border services officers, parliamentary protection officers, search and rescue personnel, and both federal and territorial firefighters, paramedics, and correctional officers,” it read.

Cozine added that because Canada does not have a border patrol agency like the U.S., it relies on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and provincial law enforcement officers.

“Organized crime and transnational organized crime have a long history of adapting and innovating to overcome the security measures that we put in place to try and stop them,” he said.

Meanwhile, there has been a “greater push” toward co-operation between the two countries on border security in recent times, Cozine said, noting that the August meeting between U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Justice Minister Sean Fraser was termed “productive.”

“Earlier this month, we introduced a bill into the House of Representatives that authorized the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security to amend and negotiate existing agreements between the U.S. and Canada that allow for cross-border co-operation,” he said.

However, the federal government is still moving forward with a separate bill that would grant authorities access to personal information, a measure that has faced substantial criticism.

With files from CTV News’ Nick Moore and the Canadian Press

How this #Quebec shop was tasked with modernizing the Supreme Court attire. A made-to-measure shop in the Saguenay region of Quebec received a tall order from the Supreme Court of Canada.

Les Rabats-Joies was asked to create new ceremonial robes for the nine Justices of the country’s top court. This marks the first redesign of the vestments in the court’s 150 years of existence.

The mission was to thread the needle between respecting traditions and renewal.

“No fur for the new robes which is very important,” says Les Rabats-Joies owner Romane LeGallou. “We used silk, pure silk, which is a very noble fabric.”

LeGallou got her start in the business of making robes and accessories for lawyers and judges by designing them for her friends in law school.

Now LeGallou, whose shop is in the heart of Saguenay, is one of a few on Canadian soil devoted to clothing those in the profession in many provinces. Its stylish storefront mixes an antique sewing machine and black robes.

In November 2024, LeGallou received an intriguing email from the Supreme Court.

“I was sent an email to set up a meeting, because the brand was bold, original,” she said. “They wanted to speak about a secret project.”

She guessed the job would involve making adjustments and modifications to the existing robes for the court’s 150th anniversary, but was excited to learn this was a far more elaborate mandate.

The justices’ old robes were bright red, trimmed with layers of white fur, and described by some, even by some sitting at the top court, as Santa suits. The justices wore these for ceremonies, including the Speech from the Throne, which King Charles III delivered in Parliament last May.

“The justices were saying that the robes were very heavy, they were very hot and uncomfortable,” said LeGallou. “So there were changes that could be made not just about the aesthetics, the look, but also to make them more comfortable.”

LeGallou and her team set out on a nearly year-long endeavour to create a new design that was more modern for the traditional world. The shop’s technical chief, seamstress Myriam Herrera, played a key role.

Herrera is originally from Nicaragua, and learned the craft from her mother, who taught her how to sew from an early age. She fabricated wedding dresses and evening gowns for Miss World contestants before she arrived to a new home in the Saguenay region.

“This project was quite complicated,” Herrera said. “We worked with pure silk, there were hundreds of embroideries on each robe, everything had to look flawless. I never imagined that I would be part of something like this.”

#Canada’s crime gap with the U.S. narrows - an expert says policy, policing may explain why.

A new Statistics Canada report comparing crime trends in Canada and the U.S. over the last 25 years reveals that while the U.S. still records higher levels of violent crime and homicide, the gap between the two countries has steadily narrowed.

Published Wednesday, the report highlights opposite trajectories: declining violent crime in the U.S. and modest increases in Canada.

In 2023, Canada’s police-reported violent crime rate stood at 252 incidents per 100,000 people, compared to 334 in the U.S. – a 33 per cent difference. Fifteen years ago, the gap was 77 per cent.

The U.S. saw a 37 per cent drop in violent crime between 1998 and 2023, while Canda experienced a nine per cent rise since 2009, when reporting methods shifted from victim-based to incident-based counts.

The report primarily attributes the rise in Canada to major assaults, which include attempted murders and both level 2 and level 3 assaults. Level 2 covers assault with a deadly weapon or causing bodily harm assaults, while level 3 is also known as aggravated assault.

In 2023, level 2 assaults accounted for 94 per cent of all major incidents and occurred 1.6 times more frequently than a decade earlier.

But according to criminologist Laura Huey, these changes aren’t happening in isolation, but reflect the impact of public policy decisions and policing trends over the past decade.

“You can see that some of the changes in violent crime map onto public policy by the federal government and provincial governments, for that matter,” Huey said.

Although a few regions made modest changes, Huey noted that most have worked to maintain tight budgets, embracing the view that policing costs are too high. She adds that, as a result, police staffing levels have largely remained stagnant or even declined across much of the country.

At the same time, she cchanges to Canada’s bail system have made it easier for accused individuals to be released pretrial. These combined factors have created, in her words, “a space in which it’s easier to work (in Canada) as a criminal.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. major assault rate has fallen by nearly 27 per cent since the late 1990s. Robbery rates have also dropped steeply in the U.S. — 60 per cent since 1998 — helping close the historical crime gap.

In Canada, there were 23,561 robberies reported in Canada in 2023, representing a rate of 59 incidents per 100,000 population. Over the 25-year period, robbery rates in Canada have fallen down 46 per cent from 1998 to 2023.

Firearms continue to mark a key distinction. In 2023, 36 per cent of robberies in the U.S. involved a gun, compared to 13 per cent in Canada.
Property crime reversal

For the first time in decades, Canada’s property crime rate now slightly exceeds that of the U.S. In 2023, Canada recorded 1,995 incidents per 100,000 people, compared with 1,906 in the U.S.

Both countries have seen dramatic declines in break-ins, thefts and vehicle thefts since the early 2000s, but the pace of reduction has been steeper south of the border

Break-and-enter incidents have been down 183 per cent in the U.S. and 62 per cent down in Canda since 2011.

As for motor vehicle theft, it has sharply declined in both nations, with StatCan suggesting that Canada’s drop is tied partly to mandatory electronic immobilizers in new vehicles after 2007.

Non-vehicle related theft, has been down 44 per cent in Canada and 51 per cent down in the U.S. since 1998.

Despite the improvements, Canadian theft rates in 2023 stood at 1,373 incidents per 100,000 people and now slightly surpass those in the U.S. — 1,340 per 100,000. Roughly a quarter of these involve shoplifting — 28 per cent in Canada and 26 per cent in the U.S.
Homicides remain a stark divide

The most persistent difference between the two countries lies in homicide rates.

In 2023, the U.S. recorded 5.7 homicides per 100,000 people, triplling Canada’s rate of 1.9 per 100,000. The ratio has remained relatively stable for 25 years.

In Canada, Huey argues that organized crime networks — particularly those tied to auto theft, drug trafficking and human trafficking — have taken advantage of what she calls “good operating conditions.”

“Look at the rise of car theft rings in Canada,” she said. “It’s a business, and when the operating condition for illegal businesses is good, they’re going to take advantage of that.”

Firearms account for most of the discrepancy. In 2023, 76 per cent of the U.S. homicides involved a gun, compared with 38 per cent in Canada. When firearm homicides are excluded, the two countries’ rates are nearly identical: 1.24 per 100,000 in the U.S. versus 1.18 in Canada.

Handguns are the most common weapon type in both countries, representing more than half of all firearm-related killings – 57 per cent in Canada and 53 per cent in the U.S.

Demographic patterns were also similar: men made up about three-quarters of victims, while younger people under 40 were disproportionately affected with 59 per cent in Canada and 66 per cent in the U.S.

Limitations

The report notes that crime comparisons between the two countries are inherently complex due to differences in data collection. Canada’s Uniform Crime Reporting system tracks over 100 offence types while the U.S. system tracks around 50.

Changes in the U.S. data reporting in 2021 created temporary gaps in comparability, leading Statistics Canada to exclude that year from long-term trend analysis.

Yvon Dandurand, professor emeritus of criminology from the University of the Fraser Valley, told CTVNews.ca in an interview that the StatCan comparison report is not helpful.

“I would not make too much of this statistical comparison other than the general idea that Canada is not facing the same crime problem as its neighbour to the south,” he said in an email.

“The comparison is really like comparing apples to oranges because there exist significant differences in the statistical police data collected in the two countries,” he added.

According to Dandurand, the data points to crimes reported to the police while there exists cultural, social and demographics differences influence victims’ reporting behaviour, including confidence in the police.

Huey says she sees it differently.

“I’ve never seen a piece of research that shows victim reporting is different between #Canada and the U.S.,” she said. ”If anything, you would expect to see underreporting in both cases.”