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.

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."

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."

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.'

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."

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."

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.

A former Canadian Human Rights Commission appointee has fallen short in his bid to raise $200,000 through crowdfunding to finance multiple defamation suits. Records showed Birju Dattani struggled to raise less than a quarter of the amount $50 and $100 at a time, including one donation under the name of a retired MP: "These are tough times."

CBC managers will not tell the Budget Office how they plan to spend an extra $150 million added to their 2026 budget, records show. The additional funding raises the Crown broadcaster’s annual parliamentary grant to a record $1.6 billion this year: "Abuse of taxpayer dollars when Canadians are struggling for financial survival has contributed to the ‘defund the CBC’ movement."

Vaping by young adults threatens to undermine a longstanding federal campaign to cut smoking rates to five percent of the population by 2035, says a Department of Health report. Researchers noted legalization of marijuana also had consequences: "Cannabis consumption begins as early as 13 or 14."

Record-high natural gas stocks of more than a trillion cubic feet helped overcome the cold winter, federal regulators said yesterday. Homeowners and industry “relied heavily” on fuel in storage, said the Canada Energy Regulator: "To meet demand, central and eastern Canada relied heavily on withdrawing gas from storage."

Canadians with drug convictions are not barred from becoming federally licensed marijuana dealers, says the Department of Health. Regulators would not say how many of the nation’s commercially licensed growers, processors and retailers have criminal records: 'The framework does not automatically disqualify individuals with past cannabis or drug-related convictions.'

Federal managers sought to copy a Liberal Party website in promoting a housing program, Access To Information records show. Opposition MPs have complained numerous federal departments are in breach of a directive stating taxpayer-funded advertising must be free of partisan references: "It is clear the shape of the house comes directly from the Liberal video ‘Building Canada Strong.'"

Canada Post yesterday said $673 million in credits voted by cabinet March 30 represented a rollover of lapsed loan funding for a total $2.04 billion to date, not $2.72 billion as reported. The correction came as the Budget Office questioned the scope of service cuts including rural post office closures: 'We continue to build a modern postal service that meets evolving needs without burdening taxpayers.'

Retired Supreme Court of Canada judge Jack Major, 95, yesterday said the country had entered an era of “judicial supremacy and court overreach.” Major’s comment came in the forward to an essay critical of the current Supreme Court by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa think tank: "The trend of court overreach is regrettable."