The senior military officer once tasked with overseeing Canada's COVID-19 vaccination drive is opting to have his sexual assault case tried by a Quebec judge without a jury present. A lawyer for Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin announced the decision during a brief hearing in a Gatineau courtroom this morning. Fortin was removed from his position on the vaccine campaign in May and was charged with one count of sexual assault in August. He is fighting for reinstatement to his former role with the Public Health Agency of Canada alleging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior members of the Liberal

British Columbia's Education Ministry says graduation assessments for students in grades 10 to 12 will not take place this month due to COVID 19. The ministry says in a statement that staffing issues have significantly affected the administration of the assessments. The ministry says it will provide an exemption to Grade 12 students graduating early in the school year. It adds that is has worked with post-secondary institutions to ensure that admissions will not be affected by these changes. The ministry says the news may cause concern for students and promised that all Grade 12 students w

Mounties in Mission, B.C., say officers were called after two people were dropped off at a hospital with gunshot wounds. RCMP say they were called early Saturday morning after finding a man, 61, and woman, 52, suffering serious injuries after being dropped off at the Mission Memorial Hospital. Const. Harrison Mohr says the shooting appears to be targeted but not connected to the Lower Mainland's ongoing gang conflict. Mohr says the shooting took place in an industrial area where the majority of businesses were closed. Police say no one has been arrested but an investigation is ongoing. Anyone

B.C. is reporting 2,364 new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 308,079 cases in the province.There are 33,997 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 269,137 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 924 COVID-positive individuals are in hospital and 130 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.The new/active cases include:686 new cases in Fraser HealthTotal active cases: 15,768499 new cases in Vancouver Coastal HealthTotal active cases: 8,121655 new cases in Interior HealthTotal active cases: 6,490190 new cases in Northern

British Columbia's top doctor says the current wave of COVID-19 is causing less severe illness and that calls for a shift to shorter periods of isolation in order to minimize societal disruptions. Dr. Bonnie Henry says unvaccinated adults who test positive are at risk of having longer-lasting and more severe illness and must isolate for 10 days but those who are vaccinated should isolate for five days. She says children are at much lower risk of severe illness and are able to clear an infection faster, so five days' isolation is also suitable for them, with mounting evidence showing they need

A warning from Avalanche Canada about warm weather increasing the avalanche risk has been expanded through southeastern B.C. This week's warning for southern B.C. and western Alberta, including Glacier, Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks, has been extended to the South Rockies and Lizard Range regions. Avalanche Canada says in a news release there are persistent weak layers in mountain snowpacks in the regions. James Floyer, forecasting program supervisor for the agency, says those layers combined with warming temperatures will make natural and human-triggered avalanches much more likely

More than 80 transit workers in Whistler have served 72-hour strike notice, saying they do the same job as bus drivers in Vancouver and Victoria and it's time to close the gap in wages. The drivers, members of Unifor, voted in favour of job action in August but haven't been able to reach a deal on issues ranging from wages and benefits to pensions and job security. Unifor national president Jerry Dias says increasingly unaffordable housing costs in Whistler will eventually snowball into a staffing crisis unless the drivers get a fair contract that keeps them from being priced out of the housi

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says a B.C. Supreme Court judge has convicted a man in the shooting death of Pritpal Singh in Surrey, B.C. Robert Tomljenovic was charged with second-degree murder and robbery with a firearm after Singh's death in April 2020. The homicide team says in a news release that Tomljenovic was convicted by the court on Thursday of robbery and a lesser charge of manslaughter. Police said at the time when charges were laid they believed the shooting was targeted, but RCMP later said it was a random shooting. Singh was 21 years old. The man will be sentenced a

Correctional Service Canada says 24 inmates at Pacific Institution in Abbotsford, BC have tested positive for COVID-19 in an outbreak that began Monday. There were 116 active cases across all correctional facilities in BC as of Wednesday. That includes 62 cases in an ongoing outbreak at the maximum-security Kent Institution in Agassiz. The correctional service says it is monitoring the situation and staff are required to perform rapid tests to minimize the spread of the virus.