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Police have charged a 20-year-old London, Ont., man they say deliberately struck down five members of a Muslim family with his truck in a hate-motivated act of mass murder, an attack that prompted an outpouring of condemnation from political leaders and calls for the accused to face terrorism charges.
Four of the family members – a 74-year-old woman, a 46-year-old man, a 44-year-old woman and a 15-year-old girl – died on Sunday evening.
Relatives of the family posted an official statement late Monday to a fundraising website. That statement, confirmed by family friend Saboor Khan, was signed by the Afzaal family. It says that the victims of the attack “were always there giving and participating in spreading goodness.”
The statement adds that God “gave Salman [the father] Madiha [the mother] Yumna [the daughter] and Yumna’s grandmother the ultimate rank of a shaheed [martyr] while Fayez [the son] is on the road to recovery from serious injuries.”
Minutes after the collision, Nathaniel Veltman was arrested after a police chase, in a shopping mall parking lot seven kilometres away. He faces four charges of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder. Authorities say they are weighing whether to pursue terrorism charges.
People are seen at a makeshift memorial at the fatal crime scene where a man driving a pickup truck jumped the curb and ran over a Muslim family in what police say was a deliberately targeted anti-Islamic hate crime, in London, Ont., June 7, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos OsorioCARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
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Members of Catholic community call for papal apology for role in residential schools
Members of the Catholic community are calling on their leadership to ask Pope Francis to make a formal apology about the church’s role in running residential schools, saying in petitions and open letters that the responses have been inadequate.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has yet to promise any concrete actions, after the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced more than a week ago that the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C.
Read more:
House passes motion calling for Ottawa to end legal actions involving First Nations children
Ryerson statue toppled as calls amplify for name change at Toronto university
Who sabotaged the Sea to Sky Gondola? An unsolved mystery hangs over Squamish as tourist attraction is set to reopen
One thing the perpetrator hellbent on wiping the Sea to Sky Gondola off the face of the Earth could not know – and probably still doesn’t – was how close they came to killing someone.
On Sept. 14, just after 4 a.m., a security guard stationed at the gondola’s base just south of Squamish, B.C., saw the passenger cars begin suddenly swaying on the line – an ominous sign. There was no wind that morning.
To get eyes on the support towers, the security guard ran to the clearing beneath the rope. He gave up when thick smoke impeded his view, stepping past the gondola line to call in the disturbance. Had the guard lingered even a few moments longer, he would have been crushed by dozens of cable cars caroming down the granite cliff, like Ping-Pong balls bouncing down a wooden staircase. And this strange, West Coast mystery that has set the town of Squamish on edge would have become a homicide investigation.
The Decibel: The politics of trees in Fairy Creek, B.C.
On today’s The Decibel podcast, host Tamara Khandaker speaks with reporter Justine Hunter about the logging of old-growth forest in and around Fairy Creek, B.C. She’ll tell us about divisions within the NDP, the changing landscape around Indigenous sovereignty over traditional lands, battling climate change and high lumber prices all converging in the pristine valley of Fairy Creek.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Multiple outages hit social media, government and news websites across the globe Websites across the globe went down Tuesday morning, with some reports pointing to a glitch at U.S.-based cloud computing services provider Fastly. Separately, Amazon.com retail website also seemed to be down. Amazon was not immediately available to comment.
Poll shows rising approval of federal government’s vaccine rollout: Almost half of Canadians now say they believe Ottawa has done a very good job on its vaccine rollout, according to a new poll. Over all, provincial governments have even more backing for their role in the vaccination campaign, but governments in Ontario and the Prairies are faring much worse in public opinion than their counterparts across the country,
Also: Ontario patios, retail to open Friday as province speeds up COVID-19 reopening plan
Opinion: Global vaccination must be the top priority at the G7 meeting
Ottawa opening up new immigration paths for Hong Kongers: Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said two new immigration streams will now begin taking applications from Hong Kongers working in Canada or recent university graduates from Hong Kong now living in Canada. They will be offered a quicker and more efficient pathway to permanent residence.
China envoy in regular contact with Huawei to find a way to free two Michaels, Garneau says: Dominic Barton, Canada’s ambassador to China, remains in “regular contact” with tech giant Huawei Technologies as he talks to Beijing and Washington to find a way to free Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor from Chinese jails, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau told MPs yesterday.
Editorial: For the two Michaels, the road out of China may go through Washington
U.S. FDA approves Alzheimer’s drug: U.S. regulators yesterday approved Biogen Inc.’s aducanumab as the first treatment to attack a likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease despite controversy over whether the clinical evidence proves the drug works.
Canadiens move on to Stanley Cup semi-finals: The Montreal Canadiens weren’t expected to get passed the first round, but have now booked a ticket to the semi-finals after defeating the Winnipeg Jets in overtime in Game 4.
MORNING MARKETS
Global stocks hold near record highs: Markets were in consolidation mode on Tuesday, with world stocks hovering just off record highs, the U.S. dollar lifted by upcoming inflation data and the main volatility gauges all looking reassuringly calm. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.37 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.22 per cent and 0.39 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.19 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.02 per cent. New York futures were little changed. The Canadian dollar was trading at 82.73 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
André Picard: “Like victims of traumatic events and the first responders and front-line workers who help them, reporters can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. But journalists often feel their suffering is somehow less important, or unearned. After all, they are just observing. They are there voluntarily.”
David Milstead: “In its Sunday night statement about the bonus giveback, Air Canada said its 2020 pay decisions “were consistent with compensation outcomes at companies that also suffered significantly during the pandemic.” Unfortunately for the workers of Canada who have truly suffered in this pandemic, that assertion from Air Canada is spot on.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights will get you dancing, and you might not ever be able to stop
I promise not to begin every film review this one-dose summer with the following lament, but: my goodness, I wish that I could have watched In the Heights in a crowded movie theatre. A blindingly bright burst of unabashed romanticism powered in equal parts by the showtune-drenched childhood dreams of Lin-Manuel Miranda and several too many cups of café con leche, the new musical is explicitly designed to be projected on the largest screen possible, paced with enough breaks for spontaneous audience-in-the-aisle applause. But better to see In the Heights at home then not at all. Mostly.
MOMENT IN TIME: JUNE 8, 1905
Ralph Steinhauer, 10th Lieutenant Governor of Alberta (July 2, 1974 - October 18, 1979).Courtesy of Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta
Ralph Steinhauer, Alberta’s first Indigenous lieutenant-governor, is born
“I know this is a very large step I am taking on behalf of the native people,” Ralph Garvin Steinhauer said on his first day as lieutenant-governor of Alberta. Born on this day in 1905, the Saddle Lake Cree Nation member and residential school survivor made history by becoming the first Indigenous person to serve as Alberta’s lieutenant-governor. However, his list of firsts didn’t end there. During his tenure in office, he advocated for Indigenous rights across Canada. In 1976, while presenting a speech at the University of Calgary, Mr. Steinhauer outlined the many injustices faced by Indigenous peoples throughout Canada’s history and in modern days. In the same speech, he said he might refuse to sign legislation that would affect Indigenous rights. A year later, he opened the 18th Alberta Legislature while wearing the full regalia of a Nēhiraw chief to read the Speech from the Throne. When his time as lieutenant-governor was coming to a close, he also became the first person to mention the Great Spirit in Alberta’s legislature. In his lifetime, Mr. Steinhauer received various honours, including being named to the Order of Canada and honorary law degrees from two universities in Alberta. Alessia Passafiume
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