Category: ksufujua

APTN National NewsClose to 73,000 electors live in the Burnaby North-Seymour riding in the greater Vancouver area.It’s not considered a swing riding as the First Nations vote is low.But the environment and development have surfaced among the main issues facing voters in the newly created riding.APTN’s Shirley McLean has this story.

(Jon Styres from Six Nations of the Grand River was shot and killed in 2016) The Canadian PressA murder trial taking place in Hamilton, Ont., just outside Toronto, which has some similarities to the racially fraught trial and acquittal earlier this year of Gerald Stanley, a white Saskatchewan farmer accused of murdering Colten Boushie, a Cree man from the Red Pheasant First Nation, is being closely watched by First Nation leaders.“Indigenous people will not feel safe until there is a justice system in place that values Indigenous lives,” said Six Nations Chief Ava Hill.Hill said in a statement that Styres’s death has had a “significant impact” on the community.Peter Khill, 30, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting death of Styres on Feb. 4, 2016, though he does not deny that he hit the 29-year-old with a pair of shotgun blasts.On Wednesday, Khill’s wife testified that there had been numerous break and enters and car thefts in their rural community in the months before her husband shot and killed a man who was allegedly trying to steal his truck.Melinda Benko, told jurors she woke him up around 3 a.m. after she heard loud knocking or banging noises outside their home near Hamilton.Her husband got his shotgun from the bedroom closet, loaded it and headed out the back door while she looked out the window, she testified.Benko saw the silhouette of a person in the passenger seat of the truck, then a blinding light coming from the breezeway between the house and garage, followed by yelling and two loud, echoing blasts accompanied by flying sparks, she said, adding that she could not tell at first who had fired the shots.“I was hoping Pete would shoot first if he had to,” said Benko, who is six months pregnant with the couple’s first child.“I just freaked out and called 911.”The Crown played the nearly 15-minute 911 call for the jury, in which Benko describes the series of events, adding that her then-boyfriend had shot a man who was trying to steal their truck.Khill can later be heard telling the operator that he fired in self-defence after seeing Styres in the truck raising his arms as if he had a gun.“It looked like he was literally about to shoot me so I shot him,” Khill said over the phone. “I didn’t want to lose my life… Looking at him now it doesn’t look like (he has a gun).”Benko testified on Wednesday that she and Khill had been “on edge” in the days leading up to the shooting.The couple moved into their house around Binbrook, Ont., about six months earlier and there had been “a lot of chatter in the community” about break and enters, car thefts and people being hurt by intruders, she said.The week before the shooting, Benko was home alone while Khill was on a business trip and on two separate occasions she heard what she believed was someone trying to unlock the back door using the electronic keypad, Benko said.Both times she opened the back door and found no one there, but the couple was concerned enough that Khill changed the back door’s key code once he got home.Benko told the court she thought at first that the noise she heard on the morning of Feb. 4, 2016, could have been someone in the covered breezeway between the house and the garage, kicking through one of the windows into the basement, trying to get into the home.A police officer who was at the scene has previously testified that Khill recounted a similar version of events after being taken into custody.“I’m a soldier. That’s how we were trained. I came out. He raised his hands to like a gun height. It was dark. I thought I was in trouble.“Does self-defence mean anything in court?” Const. Matthew Robinson said Khill told him.Khill, a 26-year-old mechanical technician and licensed millwright at the time of the shooting, served as a reservist with a Brantford artillery regiment of the Canadian Armed Forces.He has been on bail since shortly after his arrest.The jury heard Tuesday that police did not find a gun on or near Styres, but an officer who attended the autopsy said they found a hinged knife closed and clipped in his pocket.Investigators also found a soldering lighter, a flashlight and a cellphone charger in and among Styers’ clothes, Det. Const. Doug Moon told the court.A pathologist removed several shotgun shell components from Styers’ chest wall and right arm, Moon said.Styers was wearing a T-shirt and three sweatshirts when he died, each of which had a hole in the chest and a hole in the right shoulder, he added.The Crown showed the jury a photo of the tank top Styers was wearing under his T-shirt, which appeared to be covered in blood.news@aptn.ca@aptnnews read more

VANCOUVER, B.C. – ICBC says that many B.C. residents could benefit from re-learning the rules of the road after launching its Drive Smart Refresher Test less than three weeks ago.The insurance corporation says that over 45,000 British Columbians logged on to take the test, which is similar to the knowledge test that residents write when attempting to get their learner’s licenses.ICBC says that if the refresher test were treated like the knowledge test, which requires a minimum score of 80 percent to obtain a learner’s licence, over 18,000 or 40 percent, would have failed. Based on the completed tests, drivers had the most difficulty with what to do around emergency vehicles, minimum following distances, and the meaning of road signs.Interestingly, ICBC said that questions related to texting while driving had near-perfect scores, despite police handing out more than 34,000 tickets for using an electronic device last year alone.“What’s just as important as knowing the rules of the road is putting them into practice whenever you drive,” said ICBC’s interim vice-president responsible for road safety, Lindsay Matthews. “No matter how many years of experience you have under your belt, we can all benefit from shedding bad driving habits and refreshing our knowledge.”Here are some of the top questions that were answered incorrectly:When approaching a stopped emergency vehicle with flashing lights on highways with speed limits of under 80 km/h, in addition to changing lanes, drivers must slow to: 40 km/hWhen approaching a stopped emergency vehicle with flashing lights on highways with speed limits of 80 km/h or over, in addition to changing lanes, drivers must slow to: 70 km/h.The minimum following distance when behind a large vehicle or a motorcycle on a high-speed road, should be: 3 seconds.The minimum following distance in bad weather or slippery conditions on high-speed roads should be: 4 seconds.Drivers are required to yield to a public transit bus that is signalling to enter traffic: on all roads where the speed limit is 60km/h or lower.The number of crashes in B.C. peaked in 2017, with 350,000 crashes happening in the year, or 960 a day. The total cost of claims in 2017 was $4.8 billion, equivalent to $13 million a day.To take the Refresher Test, visit: icbcdrivesmart.ca. read more