FRASER Health Public Health officials are asking everyone that bought Original Kulfi brand product from Supreme Ice Cream in Surrey to immediately discard the product. Product also bought in convenience stores should be thrown out due to possible contamination.
The business is licensed to sell only pre-packaged ice cream. Fraser Health Environmental Health officers discovered the homemade ice cream product being prepared in an unlicensed and unapproved facility following an inspection of the premises.
The product has been sold under Original Kulfi label, primarily to Indian [South Asian] restaurants and food stores in Surrey, as well as other cities in the Lower Mainland. The item is a popsicle-shaped frozen dairy product similar to ice cream in appearance and taste. The product is available in a number of flavours including mango, strawberry, tutti-frutti and pistachio and all flavours are at risk of contamination.
The Original Kulfi product should not be consumed because it has been prepared in a facility that does not meet public health safety guidelines, and any surplus stock should be disposed of. While no illness has been reported to date, individuals suffering from gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting, stomach cramps or fever after eating this product should seek medical attention.
A cease and desist order has been issued to the operator of Supreme Ice Cream to immediately stop production, storage and distribution of the Original Kulfi product.
ILLEGAL tobacco products are usually easy to identify, and Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers is joining Crime Stoppers in Ontario and the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturer’s Council in encouraging anyone with information to call in anonymously with tips about people trying to sell them.
These cigarettes are sometimes sold in bags or even in legitimate-looking packaging – but are missing the duty paid stamp to show that the product is legal with taxes paid. The price, compared to full retail, is also a giveaway.
Many suppliers are well-organized medium or large-scale operators often with criminal connections. The B.C. Ministry of Finance says these sellers often deal only with people they know and have been in business with for a long time.
The cigarettes may have been legally manufactured in the U.S. and smuggled into the country to avoid Canadian taxes, or unlawfully made right here in Canada. They may also be international brands entering the country illegally via sea container, or even stolen from convenience stores.
“On the surface it may seem a victimless crime, but it isn’t,” says Linda Annis, Executive Director of Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers. “When you buy tobacco from an underground source, you’re often helping fund organized crime, and that presents a public safety issue, plus you don’t know where the tobacco comes from, or what’s in it.”
Sales of illegal cigarettes have been known to fund trade in illegal guns, encourage minors to smoke due to their low cost, and can even provide an introduction to gangs for school students wishing to make money selling them. Public Safety Canada has noted as much as 30 per cent of the tobacco consumed in Canada is obtained illegally.
“Contraband tobacco is illegal for a reason, and the sale of these products help fund organized crime, serving to make our communities less safe,” says Sean Sportun, Director of the Ontario Association of Crime Stoppers. “Given the close connection between illegal cigarettes and its funding of criminal activity, it’s important to educate and empower members of the community to safely make a difference by calling Crime Stoppers no matter where you are in Canada. We offer guaranteed anonymity and cash rewards for tips on all criminal activity, including contraband or illegal tobacco.”
Here in B.C., the province collects $700 million in tobacco tax revenues annually, but several million dollars are lost each year due to the smuggling of illicit tobacco. When the federal and provincial governments lose revenue as a result of illegal tobacco, it increases the tax burden for all of us.
In a 12-month period ending March 31, 2017, the Finance Ministry’s investigation unit seized three million contraband cigarettes and prevented the loss of more than $730,000 in tax. Much of it involved a single shipment of 2.85 million cigarettes thought to have been manufactured in Eastern Canada and the United States, and headed for sale on Lower Mainland streets.
Reporting illegal tobacco to Crime Stoppers
Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers is not the police. Tips to Crime Stoppers can be provided by telephone or online through a secure server, texts, or free mobile apps. Tips from the public are passed on to authorities to investigate. They don’t record phone calls, log IP addresses and they don’t need to know your name. Tipsters are provided with a code number and if their information results in a charge, arrest, the seizure of stolen property or illegal weapons, or the denial of a fraudulent insurance claim, a reward of up to $2,000 may be offered.
About Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers
Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers is a non-profit society and registered charity that receives anonymous tip information about criminal activity and provides it to investigators in the communities of Metro Vancouver.
EVEN as a racist, right-wing section of mainstream media in BC subtly attacked federal NDP leadership hopeful Jagmeet Singh for his Sikh beliefs, Nathan Cullen, five-term MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley and NDP Critic for Ethics and Democratic Reform, announced his support for him.
Cullen said: “Jagmeet has shown that has he has both the ability to project a strong, progressive vision for Canada while proving himself humble and able to incorporate new ideas.”
He added: “All of the candidates are qualified and capable, with excellent qualities. But only Jagmeet has demonstrated an ability to attract and motivate a broad, diverse group of Canadians. This skill is the very thing New Democrats and Canadians need right now.”
Cullen said: “Jagmeet is a strong social democrat, and his commitment to electoral reform and a green economy stand out strongly for me. He has also demonstrated an undeniable ability to connect with broad audiences through traditional outlets and social media – making a bigger platform for our party and our causes.
“Jagmeet’s leadership will empower New Democrats to grow our party as well as cultivate organizers and leaders throughout the party, equipping us with the tools to win and to govern,” said Cullen.”
Jagmeet Singh said: “It is an honour to have Nathan’s support. A caucus veteran with a wealth of institutional knowledge, Nathan has been a powerful advocate for so many of the issues New Democrats hold dear, from electoral reform to climate change and the green economy to the rights of Indigenous communities. I am so excited to have Nathan on board.”
The anti-Sikh column in a BC newspaper that attacked Jagmeet Singh ironically quoted two South Asian politicians who have been mocked for their political opportunism. One of them just couldn’t get himself elected as MP even after desperately switching from the Liberal Party to the Conservative Party. The other politician switched from the NDP to the Liberal Party and could only get nominated by being parachuted into a riding; he later lost when he ran for re-election.
ONTARIO plans to crack down on careless and distracted driving with tough new rules and penalties that would help improve road safety and keep the most vulnerable road users – including pedestrians and cyclists – safe, the province announced on Wednesday.
Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca and Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Eleanor McMahon, were in Toronto to announce the tough new road-safety measures. They were joined by Han Dong, MPP for Trinity-Spadina.
The province plans to introduce new legislation this fall that, if passed, would help protect pedestrians and cyclists and reduce the number of people killed or injured by impaired, distracted and dangerous drivers. The proposed measures include:
A new offence for careless driving causing death or bodily harm with penalties that include fines, licence suspension and imprisonment
Tougher penalties for distracted driving, such as using a cellphone while operating a vehicle, including higher fines, more demerit points, and license suspensions
Increased penalties for drivers who fail to yield for pedestrians and escalating fines for drivers who are convicted of multiple pedestrian-related offences within a five-year window
Expanding the use of rear flashing blue lights for enforcement and emergency vehicles.
In addition, the province is consulting on the use of cameras on school buses that capture the offence of illegally passing a school bus, so that this evidence can be admitted into court without a witness.
For 16 years in a row, Ontario’s roads have been ranked either first or second safest in North America, but more can still be done. These strong measures add to recently-announced tough new penalties for those who drive under the influence of drugs, including cannabis, said the province.
DEl Duca said: “Ontario is taking action to reduce the number of people killed by impaired, distracted and dangerous drivers. These measures will help keep some of our most vulnerable road users safe and help us drive home the message that dangerous, impaired and distracted driving is unacceptable, and will not be tolerated.”
QUICK FACTS
On average, one person is killed on Ontario’s roads every 17 hours. In 2014, pedestrians and cyclists made up approximately 25 per cent of Ontario’s road fatalities.
While drunk driving remains in the top-five killers on Ontario’s roads, the province’s most recent roadside survey found that drivers who tested positive for drugs were more than twice the number who tested positive for alcohol.
The proposed legislation builds on existing measures Ontario has introduced to improve road safety including tougher impaired, distracted and street racing laws.
In May Ontario passed legislation to protect the most vulnerable such as pedestrians and cyclists, by giving municipalities more tools to address speeding. These tools include the ability to set reduced default speed limits and use automated speed-enforcement systems on roads with speed limits below 80 km/h that are designated as community safety zones or in school zones.
In June 2015, Ontario passed legislation to toughen penalties for offences such as distracted driving.
The Ministry of Transportation hosted a road safety symposium in June with municipalities and many road safety partners to discuss a broad range of road safety concerns that helped shape the government’s proposed actions to help to save lives on Ontario’s roads.
THE Burma Task Force (USA) on Tuesday said it rejects Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech addressing the ongoing military attacks on Rohingyas in Burma. The speech delivered in English was clearly meant for the consumption of a foreign audience, in order to temper growing international outrage and condemnation of Myanmar’s crimes against humanity targeting Rohingya Muslims, it pointed out.
In a statement the BTF said: “Suu Kyi’s speech boasted ignorance of the well documented crimes against the Rohingya, claiming “solid evidence” was needed before action could be taken. Reacting to the speech, Imam Malik Mujahid, Chair of Burma Task Force said, “Over 400,000 Rohingya have been forced to flee to Bangladesh, and there is satellite images of 214 burned down villages: what more proof does Suu Kyi need to consider as ‘solid evidence?’”
“Human rights organizations and the United Nations have documented and presented Suu Kyi’s government with copious facts regarding the ongoing abuses of Myanmar’s military against civilians, including: killings, rapes, forced disappearances and looting. In fact, 52% of female refugees interviewed by the U.N. in Bangladesh reported having been sexually abused by Myanmar’s forces.
“Burma Task Force notes Suu Kyi conceded that 50% of Rohingya Muslim villages are still standing. She must then recognize that the other 50% have been destroyed by the Burmese military.
“Burma Task Force has called for continued international pressure and for governments to take greater actions from cutting military aid to Myanmar’s military and placing targeted sanctions on generals directly complicit in the genocide.”
“World leaders must start to accurately describe what is happening to the Rohingya, just as the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh has, by calling the violence against Rohingya by its actual name – ‘genocide,’” said Imam Malik Mujahid.
Burma Task Force is a coalition of 19 American and Canadian Muslim organizations.
U.S. President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to bring jobs back to America. But his plan to limit outsourcing of manufacturing jobs may be flawed, according to research from the UBC Sauder School of Business.
Professors Jan Bena and Elena Simintzi are currently researching how access to cheap offshore labour due to the 1999 U.S.-China bilateral agreement affected U.S. companies’ innovation.
In this Q&A, Bena discusses how limiting offshore labour won’t necessarily lead to more jobs in the U.S.
Based on your research, would Trump’s strategy bring jobs back to America?
It’s unlikely. Our research suggests that stopping the globalization of work may not lead to more jobs in the U.S. This is because companies can respond to limiting offshore labour by investing more in process innovation, such as automation, and relying less on labour overall.
Take, for example, the case of Carrier heating and air conditioning, which came under fire from Trump during the election campaign for moving jobs to Mexico. Trump offered the company a tax cut to keep jobs in Indiana, but the money was eventually invested in more automation instead. At the time, Carrier CEO Greg Hayes said the company was competing with 80 per cent lower labour costs in Mexico, so automation was the only way to drive down production costs in the U.S.
Why do companies rely on offshore labour, and what effect does this have?
It all comes down to cost. There are two main ways U.S. firms can lower their production costs: by substituting cheap offshore labour for U.S. labour, and by investing in automation.
China’s integration into the global economy— primarily the result of the 1999 U.S.-China bilateral agreement— has resulted in a large flow of investment by foreign companies looking to tap into China’s cheap labour market. Our research shows that innovation aimed at reducing production cost within these firms decreased by 25 per cent following the 1999 agreement, since it became more profitable to use cheap offshore labour than to focus on automation.
How can governments adapt labour policies to these economic forces?
Anti-globalization rhetoric seems to be on the rise around the world. Anxieties about job loss among the public in developed countries are understandable and the labour market challenges need to be addressed by public policy.
What we are contributing to this debate is that solutions that seem obvious at first may have unintended consequences that will make them ineffective, possibly leading to big disappointment. Specifically, restricting offshore labour may fail to create domestic jobs and, at the same time, it will hamper benefits that globalization brings about, such as the large variety of inexpensive goods everyday shoppers are accustomed to in the developed world.
We argue that public policy aimed at addressing the labour market challenges needs to be more nuanced and thought through.
Their working paper is titled “Globalization of Work and Innovation: Evidence from Doing Business in China.”
FORTY organizations and individuals from across Canadian society issued a joint letter to the federal government about their overarching concerns with Bill C-59, an act on national security matters.
Bill C-59 makes some meaningful and necessary improvements to Canada’s national security regime, but it fails to reverse the legacy of its unpopular predecessor, Bill C-51, and introduces serious new problems, the coalition says. It specifically falls short in mitigating the discriminatory impact national security activities continue to have on vulnerable minorities, which has in the past included conduct that contributed to the torture of Canadians.
The signatories all share the concern that despite the message clearly delivered by Canadians during the federal government’s extensive public consultation on national security, the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Charter are still not where they belong, at the core of Canada’s national security framework.
They point out that Bill C-59 introduces some improvements to our national security framework, while reversing some, but certainly not all, of former Bill C-51’s excesses. It creates important new bodies to review and control national security activities; introduces a detailed and explicit new law for Canada’s signals intelligence agency, the CSE; adds new protections for the rights of youth involved in terrorism-related offences; and reforms the terrorist speech offences introduced by Bill C-51.
“Bill C-59 brings forward important and useful changes to Canada’s existing anti-terrorism laws, but it leaves us with ongoing concerns about the lack of due process around the no-fly list and the strengthening and deepening of CSIS powers, given the damage the spy agency has done to Canadian Muslims. Well-known Canadian Muslims have been discriminatorily profiled and rendered to torture by Canada for no reason other than their faith and identity. At the same time, Canadian Muslims have been subject to rising hate crimes and violent attacks by individuals for the same reason. National security policy that is incapable of protecting all Canadians equally is not worthy of our endorsement, even if it is a significant improvement over more odious previous legislation,” says Ihsaan Gardee, Executive Director, National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM).
The signatories also identify a number of specific aspects of Bill C-59 that say require serious attention and meaningful change, including:
The newly-renamed Security of Canada Information Disclosure Act still permits far too much information to flow between too many departments, and to further concerning objectives;
The no-fly list still lacks adequate due process while proposed redress mechanisms remain unfunded;
The bill fails to reverse the low threshold Bill C-51 set for terrorism peace bonds;
The preventative detention powers introduced in 2001 are still in place and remain deeply problematic;
The risk for abuse of CSIS disruption powers is reduced, but the government has yet to demonstrate either their necessity or constitutionality;
The newly created oversight agencies lack the guarantees necessary to ensure their effectiveness;
The general risk that our security activities will once again contribute to torture remains;
CSE “active” cyber security powers (i.e. offensive hacking) are introduced without a rationale for their necessity or measures to adequately prevent abuse;
The new bill fails to reverse the erosion of due process C-51 extended in security certificate proceedings; and
The bill legitimizes troubling conduct, including mass surveillance by our foreign intelligence agency and extensive data-mining.
The letter discusses these issues, and more, in greater detail. Read the full letter here.
One of the vehicles that was targeted on Tuesday. Photos by SUKHWANT SINGH DHILLON
VANCOUVER Police say shots were fired into parked vehicles in the area of Main Street and East 56th Avenue early Tuesday morning.
Just before 12:30 a.m. on September 19, police received 911 calls reporting the sounds of shots fired in the area of East 57th and Main Street. Officers searched the area and spoke with several people who were in the neighbourhood at the time, but were unable to confirm that shots were fired.
However, around 10:30 a.m., police were called back to the area after a firearm and shell casings were found on the ground at Main Street and East 56th Avenue. A further search of the area located a number of parked, unoccupied vehicles with what appeared to be bullet holes. There have been no reported injuries.
While still early in the investigation, based on the initial information, police say this appears to be a targeted shooting. There is no additional information to share at this time.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the investigators at 604-717-2596, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
ANDREW Scheer, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, on Tuesday launched a Save Local Business campaign, saying that the Trudeau Liberals are planning major tax increases on local businesses, which would threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Canadians.
“Canada’s Conservatives are fighting to save local business, and the jobs they create, from [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau’s latest tax hike. The Trudeau Liberals want to make local businesses pay more, regardless of the cost to jobs or the impact on local communities,” said Scheer.
He noted that Trudeau has previously said he believes that small businesses are mainly a way for the wealthy to save on their taxes.
Scheer added: “We’re not talking about multinational corporations. We’re talking about our neighbors. They’re the coffee shop owners, the farmers, and mechanics who are the heart and soul of our communities. These are good people, hardworking people, honest taxpayers who are being demonized by the Trudeau Liberals because the government can’t get its spending under control. There’s nothing fair about targeting local business.”
The Save Local Business campaign will reach out to Canadians and ask them to show their support for local businesses in their community.
“Canada’s Conservatives respect local businesses and the people who rely on them for a living,” said Scheer. “We’re fighting this tax hike every step of the way.”
THE Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) Cpl. Meghan Foster announced on Tuesday that Joseph Lucien De Carvalho, 41, of Richmond who was killed in what is believed to be a targeted hit on Monday, was known to police.
On September 18, just after 3 a.m., Richmond RCMP responded to a report of a shooting in the 7500-block of Bridge Street and found a male victim in the street suffering from gunshot wounds.
Police initiated first aid until the BC Ambulance Service arrived and took over the male victim’s treatment. Despite their best efforts, the male victim succumbed to his injuries at the scene and his death was deemed a homicide. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team took conduct of the investigation.
IHIT is working with the Richmond RCMP, the Integrated Forensic Identification Section (IFIS), and the BC Coroner’s Service during this evidence gathering stage. It remains early in the investigation, and there is no evidence to say that DeCarvalho’s death is linked to other recent homicides or reported acts of violence.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the IHIT Information Line at 1-877-551-IHIT (4448) or email at ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca. Should you wish to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers by phone at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
FRASER Health Public Health officials are asking everyone that bought Original Kulfi brand product from Supreme Ice Cream in Surrey to immediately discard the product. Product also bought in convenience stores should be thrown out due to possible contamination.
The Original Kulfi product should not be consumed because it has been prepared in a facility that does not meet public health safety guidelines, and any surplus stock should be disposed of. While no illness has been reported to date, individuals suffering from gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting, stomach cramps or fever after eating this product should seek medical attention.
