A negotiator with the union representing striking Rogers Communications workers in Metro Vancouver says they’ve reached a tentative deal with the company. Jayson Little with United Steelworkers Local 1944 Unit 60 says nearly 300 workers will decide this afternoon whether to ratify the agreement. If they do, he says they could be back at work by Wednesday, just under three weeks after Rogers issued a lock-out notice for the workers in response to the union’s plan for a series of rotating strikes among the former Shaw technicians. He says the agreement would help with job security and the bargaining committee will recommend its ratification, although he adds Rogers “could have done better” with its wage offering given cost of living challenges.
Mounties in northeastern BC say the death of a 37-year-old man has been deemed a homicide and major crime investigators are taking over the case. RCMP say officers responded to a report of a suspicious death and found the victim inside a home on 106th Avenue in Dawson Creek last Thursday afternoon. The victim is described as being Indigenous. A statement from Corporal James Grandy says the investigation is in its early stages and anyone with information is asked to call police.
RCMP say one man is dead after barricading himself inside an apartment and exchanging gunfire with police in Dawson Creek this past weekend. A statement from the Mounties says officers went to arrest the man at around 11:45 on Saturday night, but he was armed and refused to come out. It says police tried to negotiate with the man to surrender, but there were two exchanges of gunfire, and officers went inside around 8:25 am the next day to find him dead of what they believe to have been self-inflicted injuries. A statement from BC’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, describes the incident as a “police-involved shooting.”
Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has lost touch with the struggles of Canadians, while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre only pretends to care about regular people. Singh took political swings at his leadership counterparts during a speech at the BC New Democrat convention in Victoria over the weekend. Singh, whose party is in a confidence and supply agreement with the federal Liberal minority government, told more than 700 delegates that Trudeau is out of touch and only acts when facing political troubles. He says Poilievre wants to help ordinary people facing affordability challenges, but he doesn’t know about their struggles and lives. Premier David Eby, meanwhile, told delegates that his N-D-P government will focus on building more affordable homes and fighting climate change in the lead up to next year’s provincial election.
Delegates at the BC New Democrat convention this weekend overwhelmingly endorsed an emergency resolution titled “Saving Lives in Gaza and Israel.” It says the provincial NDP will call on the federal government to back an immediate ceasefire in the conflict gripping the Middle East. The party also calls for the immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas militants during a series of attacks that killed an estimated 12-hundred Israelis on October 7th, prompting Israel to begin an airstrike campaign in Gaza. The resolution says the BC New Democrats will “stand in solidarity with all Israelis and Palestinians who want to live free of fear, oppression and violence.”
People in Vancouver may have experienced deja vu this weekend as a runaway barge floated in waters of English Bay before it was brought under control. The empty barge had broken free of its mooring buoy and a video posted to YouTube shows it floating just a few metres away from shore yesterday. It was reminiscent of another barge that was stuck for a year at a neighbouring beach after it broke free during the November 2021 storms. But two Coast Guard vessels kept yesterday’s barge from running aground and it has now been secured to a different mooring buoy.