Blacklock's Reporter

Buried in the files of Ontario District Court is R v. Anguei Pal-Deng, an unsettling case. The accused, a Sudanese man, 25, already on probation for common assault, was charged with savagely pushing an 82-year old grandmother down a flight of stairs at Toronto’s Dufferin Mall on March 6, 2014. Two eyewitnesses saw everything: The vicious attack, the bleeding victim, the thin blue line of criminal justice that separates civilized society from public disorder. “He grabbed my arm and threw me down the stairs,” the woman said. The suspect spent seven months in jail awaiting trial. The case was assigned to Judge Melvyn Green, former co-president of the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted. Judge Green took an uncommon interest in the case. He pulled mall security tapes and examined them frame by frame. “I feel compelled to note that absent the closed-circuit television evidence, the result may have been tragically different,” he wrote. READ MORE

Canada needed nearly 82,000 homes to shelter new landed immigrants let into the country last year, says the Department of Immigration. The figure was equivalent to more than a third of all new urban housing starts in 2025: "Immigration affects housing." READ MORE

Parks Canada installed hundreds of small cabins at the equivalent of more than $57,000 apiece to encourage overnight visits by people who don't like camping, says an internal audit. Recordkeeping was so poor it was impossible to learn if the agency recovered its costs: "Further exploration of operational and capital costs will be needed." READ MORE

Government-paid publishers are petitioning MPs to maintain annual payroll rebates worth up to $29,750 per newsroom employee. The rebates, initially promised to be temporary, are set to roll back to $13,750 by year’s end: 'Reward those who maintain newsroom employment.' READ MORE

Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday proposed a trillion-dollar expansion of the power grid but would not say who would pay for it. Analysts have warned of substantially higher costs for ratepayers: "Get it wrong and Canadians will pay higher utility bills." READ MORE

Hundreds of Muslims in Canada have faced workplace discipline over their political views, says a Department of Justice report. The figure was attributed to an advocacy group: "Individuals have experienced job loss." READ MORE

Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s department in private talks with Chinese authorities said it regretted the “mass grave at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School,” Access To Information records disclosed yesterday. “Canada strongly urges China not to repeat Canada’s past mistakes,” said one memo. READ MORE