Maya Cassady was just two months away from graduating high school with honours when she obtained her mental health records through a freedom of information request. Just hours after reading the contents, which included doctors’ ponderings about a diagnosis, the 17-year-old took her own life.  It was March 30, 2023. Since Maya’s death, her mother, […]

The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a case about applications for access to personal information held by Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations. The congregations withheld information from two former members who applied under B.C.’s Personal Information Protection Act for records about themselves, on the basis it was confidential religious communication. After mediation failed, an […]

Police in British Columbia say they have dismantled a local operation involved in global cybercrime activity that used malicious software. Mounties say Canadian police along with international agencies have succeeded in dismantling software and online infrastructure used to steal data from personal devices around the world. They says a main suspect was arrested in Greece […]

British Columbia’s Attorney General says she’s “deeply disturbed” that the social media company X has filed a legal challenge against an order to remove a non-consensual intimate image from the internet.  Nikki Sharma says the social media firm is challenging a “clear order” from B.C.’s Civil Resolution Tribunal to remove an image from its platform […]

The truck slowly pulled alongside as I idled at the side of a remote dirt road in northern B.C. No cell service, the nearest town half an  hour away. I’d pulled off to let industrial traffic heading the other  direction pass. It was 2022 and I was on my way to meet with Indigenous  land […]

In the weeks before a deadly attack at a Vancouver Filipino festival, suspect Adam Kai-Ji Lo asked to have his antipsychotic medication reduced, even as his mental health was deteriorating, a B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit says.  The proposed class-action civil suit filed Thursday by a survivor of the attack says Lo’s psychiatrist was concerned during […]

Seven obstetrician gynecologists have resigned from in-hospital privileges under the Interior Health authority at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, B.C. Interior Health vice-president of medicine Dr. Mark Masterson says the doctors make up the whole department, but he assured the public there will be no change to obstetric or gynecology services at the hospital. His […]

The president of the group representing local governments in British Columbia says she welcomes proposed changes that would make it easier for First Nations and municipalities to meet behind closed doors. Cori Ramsay, president of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, said her group and First Nations requested the changes, saying they give nations “the […]

British Columbia’s Opposition Leader John Rustad confirms the cellphones of Conservative members were searched during a meeting this week to find a leak from inside his caucus.  Rustad said on Thursday the phones were searched by other members to “make sure that there was nothing that had gone out that was inappropriate.”  The search didn’t […]

Two police organizations have announced charges against five men in connection to separate extortion cases in Surrey, B.C. The Surrey Police Service announced on Monday the arrest and charges against three men believed to be linked to an extortion investigation in the city. The RCMP said hours later that charges had been laid against two […]

Public service workers in British Columbia are again escalating job action, picketing a citizens’ services office that issues services cards, processes freedom of information requests and facilitates the BC Bids procurement system. The BC General Employees’ Union says that in addition to the Ministry of Citizens’ Services office in Victoria, pickets have also gone up […]

The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected a bid by a British Columbia ostrich farm to prevent the culling of its flock that had been infected with avian flu, in a case that has drawn international attention and protests about government overreach. But a spokeswoman for Universal Ostrich Farms Inc. said they would fight on […]