Extreme cold leads to flight cancellations in BC, Alberta : In The News for Dec. 21

It says in a release that there were 146 flight cancellations on Monday and 104 on Sunday.

Morgan Bell, a WestJet spokeswoman, says its teams at airports are working as quickly as possible to support all of their guests.

She says the winter weather is also affecting its staff and service partners, including the ability of some employees to get to work safely.

Bell says the severe weather is making it a challenge as WestJet works to stabilize its operations and fulfil mandatory crew rest safety requirements.

“The ongoing extreme cold weather warnings affecting Alberta and prolonged forecasted snow and weather events for regions across B.C. inclusive of Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and the Okanagan, are having a severe impact not only on our operations, but our staff and service partners,” Bell said.

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Also this …

One was the building peacemaker who always had a smile on his face.

Another was a savvy businesswoman who knew the ins and outs of real estate.

Still, another was the proud grandfather of a Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman.

Details emerged Tuesday about the victims in a weekend shooting rampage at a Toronto-area condo.

Court documents show the shooter, 73-year-old Francesco Villi, had a long-running beef with the condo’s board and police believe he went door-to-door in the highrise Sunday night gunning down some of its members and their loved ones.

York Regional Police identified those who died as Rita Camilleri, 57, her 79-year-old husband Vittorio Panza, Russell Manock, 75, his 71-year-old wife Lorraine Manock, and Naveed Dada, 59.

Camilleri, Russell Manock and Dada were members of the Vaughan condo’s board. Another woman, 66-year-old Doreen Di Nino, the wife of the condo board’s president, was also shot but survived.

York Regional Police Chief Jim MacSween said those who died were kind, generous and loved their families.

“These are (victims) who had grandchildren,” MacSween said. “These are people who have loved ones and who were actually killed with their loved ones, their partners … There’s a lot of people that have been impacted by this.”

Police have said Villi used a semi-automatic handgun on his victims before being shot dead by offices.

Court documents show Villi had a lengthy history of threatening members of the condo board.

Villi believed the board was trying to kill him with electromagnetic waves emanating from the electrical room below his unit, documents indicate. The legal filings also show Villi was to return to court this past Monday as the board sought to have him evicted for being a nuisance.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was making his way to Washington on Wednesday for a summit with President Joe Biden and to address Congress in his first known trip outside the country since Russia’s invasion began in February.

Zelenskyy said on his Twitter account that the visit was “to strengthen resilience and defense capabilities” of Ukraine and discuss cooperation between his country and the U.S with Biden.

The highly sensitive trip is taking place after 10 months of a brutal war that has seen tens of thousands killed and wounded on both sides of the conflict, along with devastation for Ukrainian civilians. It also comes as U.S. lawmakers are set to vote on a year-end spending package that includes about $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and as the Pentagon prepares to send Patriot surface-to-air missiles to the country to defend itself.

Zelenskyy headed abroad after making a daring and dangerous trip Tuesday to what he called the hottest spot on the 1,300-kilometre front line of the conflict, the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s contested Donetsk province. He praised Ukrainian troops for their “courage, resilience and strength” as artillery boomed in the background.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Tuesday banned female students from attending universities effective immediately in the latest edict cracking down on women’s rights and freedoms.

Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women’s and minorities, the Taliban have widely implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

They have banned girls from middle school and high school, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms.

The Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and returned to power after America’s chaotic departure last year.

The decision was announced after a government meeting. A letter shared by the spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education, Ziaullah Hashmi, told private and public universities to implement the ban as soon as possible and to inform the ministry once the ban is in place.

Hashmi tweeted the letter and confirmed its contents in a message to The Associated Press without giving further details.

The decision is certain to hurt efforts by the Taliban to win recognition from potential international donors at a time when the country is mired in a worsening humanitarian crisis. The international community has urged Taliban leaders to reopen schools and give women their right to public space.

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On this day in 1990 …

The federal and Quebec governments reached an agreement on immigration. The deal gave the province exclusive jurisdiction to decide which immigrants will be allowed into the province.

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In entertainment …

Terry Hall, lead singer of ska band The Specials, has died at the age of 63. The band announced late Monday that Hall had died after a brief illness. The Specials formed in the English Midlands city of Coventry in the late 1970s. With its mix of Black and white members and Jamaica-influenced style of sharp suits and porkpie hats, the band became leaders of the anti-racist 2 Tone ska revival movement. The Specials captured the uneasy mood of the times in songs including “A Message to You, Rudy,” “Rat Race,” “Too Much Too Young” and “Ghost Town.” Hall went on to form Fun Boy Three and The Colourfield, and co-wrote the Go-Go’s hit “Our Lips Are Sealed.”

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Did you see this?

Up to 80 per cent of people who are injured at work in Montreal and require rehabilitation are immigrants, says a new study from a research institute for occupational health and safety.

Jessica Dube, a researcher with the Robert-Sauve institute, said the province’s workplace health and safety board reports that the majority of its cases involve immigrants _ compared to a decade ago when the majority involved Quebecois workers.

“We spoke with employees from the workplace health and safety board, injured immigrant workers, rehabilitation counsellors, employers and doctors,” Dube said in an interview Tuesday.

“We wanted to understand the different issues in the process of occupational rehabilitation for immigrant workers.”

She said the rise in injuries involving immigrants can be partly explained by the increase in Montreal’s immigrant population and by the sectors that they choose to work in — or are pushed to work in.

Many immigrants, Dube said, face obstacles in the job market, such as not having their degrees and accreditations recognized by Quebec professional orders. These difficulties sometimes push immigrants to accept jobs for which they don’t have proper skills or training, which she said increases the likelihood of injury.

The study shows that some industries that lead to many injuries _ and that include a high percentage of immigrants _ include agriculture, manufacturing and health and social services, which tend to involve long hours, gruelling work and manual labour.

“These jobs carry more risk of injury because they are very manual and repetitive,” she said.

As well, immigrants may not know that they can report injuries and possibly be compensated, Dube said.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 21, 2022.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Extreme cold leads to flight cancellations in BC, Alberta : In The News for Dec. 21

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