Trudeau acknowledges charges in Nijjar killing, calls for commitment to democracy
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The Canadian Armed Forces says its members have arrived in Nunavut's capital to assist with the city's ongoing water emergency.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Friday that he had spoken with Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq and the military would be deployed to Iqaluit to co-ordinate and deliver clean drinking water.
Late Saturday, the military tweeted that there are over 20 Canadian Armed Forces members in Iqaluit setting up deployable equipment for reverse osmosis water purification.
Maj. Susan Magill, a public information officer for Joint Task Force North, said one purification unit arrived in Iqaluit in a military jet on Saturday and a second was on its way Sunday.
"It's as big as a sea can and it comes loaded and ready to go on a truck. So when the aircraft opens up, the truck rolls out," Magill said of the purification units during an interview Sunday in Iqaluit.
"We're still in the process of trying to find a good site to put these two units on."
Iqaluit's 8,000 residents haven't been able to consume tap water for nearly two weeks after fuel was found in samples.
Residents have been collecting water from the city's Sylvia Grinnell River and picking up free bottled water from distribution sites, and local officials say they're continuing efforts to identify the source of the contamination.
Magill said Canada's water purification units have been used in the past in warm climates like Haiti and the Philippines, so running them in Iqaluit in late October will be a new experience for the team.
"It's definitely going to be a challenge, but the team is up here for precisely that," Magill said, noting that three members of the group are already based in the city.
The plan, she said, is for purified water to be stored in large bladders, and then the city will collect it in trucks for distribution. She said that at 8 degrees Celsius, one of the units can purify 5,000 litres per hour if the water is passed through the system once, or half that much if it's put through the unit twice.
Testing will determine how much purification the water will need, and Magill said it could take a few days or a week before the units are ready to produce water for consumption.
She said the deployment is scheduled to last until Nov. 17, at which time it will be reassessed.
In a news release Sunday, the city said the investigation into the cause of the tainted water has pointed to potential hydrocarbon contamination in the soil or ground water outside the municipal treatment plant, which it said may have leached into a storage tank.
"The in-ground tank containing the high concentrations of contaminants in the Water Treatment Plant has been isolated, pumped out for remediation and has undergone cleaning," the release stated.
"The affected tank has been successfully bypassed and water continues to be treated and sent out to the City's distribution system."
That system has been flushed out, but the city said it will need to be done again and an order not to consume the water remains in place.
Amy Elgersma, the city's chief administrative officer, said last week that an assessment found "no obvious cracks" in the contaminated tank.
The territory's chief public health officer, Dr. Michael Patterson, told a news conference Friday that residents may still smell fuel in their water even though the city has bypassed the contaminated tank.
Patterson has said the health risks to residents who drank the city's tap water are very low.
Sunday's news release from the city noted that an environmental site assessment is underway where contractors will drill for soil and water samples around the treatment plant. It said the next steps are dependent on the test results.
"We will take direction from our experts on actions required to remediate the site," the release stated.
It also noted the city installed a "real time water monitoring station focusing detecting and trending hydrocarbons" on Sunday.
It said the monitoring station "will allow the city to obtain real-time information on hydrocarbon levels."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2021.
-- By Rob Drinkwater in Edmonton
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Princess Anne paid tribute to veterans buried at a cemetery in British Columbia today, laying a wreath to honour the more than 2,500 military personnel and family members buried there.
Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, edging out Forever Young and Sierra Leone for the upset victory.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.