In the news today, Feb. 19

The opposition parties are charging back into the House of Commons today, loaded with questions for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about what his office did to try to help the embattled Montreal engineering company SNC-Lavalin in its corruption case. Before MPs left for a week in their ridings, Jody Wilson-Raybould was veterans affairs minister and Gerald Butts was Trudeau’s principal secretary, his closest adviser. Now they’ve both quit and it’s still not clear what Butts or anyone else in the Prime Minister’s Office might have done to push Wilson-Raybould on SNC-Lavalin when she was attorney general and had a say over the charges the company faces.

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WILSON-RAYBOULD SUPPORTED BY MANY RIDING RESIDENTS

Community leaders in MP Jody Wilson-Raybould’s Vancouver Granville riding say they’re disappointed she’s no longer in cabinet, but they respect her decision to resign. Reverend Steven Epperson says many members of his Unitarian Church of Vancouver are more left-wing than the governing Liberals, but they deeply admire Wilson-Raybould. He says they think what’s happened is a tragedy and they hope she remains in politics and continues to represent the riding as an MP. Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet last week amid allegations the Prime Minister’s Office pressured her when she was attorney general to drop criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

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PRO-PIPELINE PROTEST CONVOY NEARING OTTAWA

A convoy of angry Albertans and other westerners rolls into Ottawa today for a mass protest against federal energy and environmental policies that has also become a magnet for extremist, anti-immigrant elements. A couple of hundred vehicles are expected on Parliament Hill as part of the United We Roll convoy, which began in Red Deer, Alta., on Thursday and made its way east over four days with stops for rallies along the way. The protesters want the Liberal government to scrap the carbon tax and two bills that overhaul environmental assessments of energy projects and ban oil tankers from the northern coast of British Columbia.

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MAN SEEKS PAROLE IN MANSLAUGHTER OF WIFE

A man who strangled his wife and concealed her body in the family home after enduring what he described as years of domestic abuse is scheduled for his first parole hearing today. Allan Shyback was convicted in 2017 of manslaughter and indignity to a body in the 2012 death of Lisa Mitchell in the Calgary home they shared with their children. His original seven-year prison term was appealed and last October the Alberta Court of Appeal added an additional three years to the sentence, saying that the judge made sentencing errors. Shyback has been in custody since 2014.

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ALSO IN THE NEWS:

— Lawyers are expected to be in a Toronto court today arguing for a new trial for Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier. The two men convicted of plotting to derail a passenger train.

— Alberta Premier Rachel Notley will provide an update today on the crude-by-rail negotiations.

— A coroner’s inquest is held into the death of Gurwinder Singh Mann, who was injured in 2013 in the custody of Correctional Services Canada.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

In the news today, Feb. 19

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