Average hourly wage in Canada now $34.95: StatCan
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
A 101-year-old man was convicted in Germany of 3,518 counts of accessory to murder on Tuesday for serving at the Nazis' Sachsenhausen concentration camp during the Second World War.
The Neuruppin Regional Court sentenced him to five years in prison.
The man, who was identified by local media as Josef S., had denied working as an SS guard at the camp and aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners.
In the trial, which opened in October, the man said that he had worked as a farm laborer near Pasewalk in northeastern Germany during the period in question.
However, the court considered it proven that he worked at the camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party's paramilitary wing, the German news agency dpa reported.
"The court has come to the conclusion that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years," presiding Judge Udo Lechtermann said, according to dpa, adding that in doing so, the defendant had assisted in the terror and murder machinery of the Nazis.
"You willingly supported this mass extermination with your activity," Lechtermann said.
Prosecutors had based their case on documents relating to an SS guard with the man's name, date and place of birth, as well as other documents.
The five-year prison sentence was in line with the prosecution's demand. However, the defendant can appeal the court's ruling.
For organizational reasons, the trial was held in a gymnasium in Brandenburg/Havel, the 101-year-old's place of residence. The man was only fit to stand trial to a limited extent and was only able to participate in the trial for about two and a half hours each day. The trial was interrupted several times for health reasons and hospital stays.
Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's office in Jerusalem, told The Associated Press that the sentence "sends a message that if you commit such crimes, even decades later, you might be brought to justice."
"And it's a very important thing because it gives closure to the relatives of the victims," Zuroff added. "The fact that these people all of a sudden feel that their loss is being addressed and the suffering of their family who they lost in the camps is being addressed ... is a very important thing."
Sachsenhausen was established in 1936 just north of Berlin as the first new camp after Adolf Hitler gave the SS full control of the Nazi concentration camp system. It was intended to be a model facility and training camp for the labyrinthine network that the Nazis built across Germany, Austria and occupied territories.
More than 200,000 people were held there between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of inmates died of starvation, disease, forced labour and other causes, as well as through medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations including shootings, hangings and gassing.
Exact numbers on those killed vary, with upper estimates of some 100,000, though scholars suggest figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are likely more accurate.
In its early years, most prisoners were either political prisoners or criminal prisoners, but they also included some Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals. The first large group of Jewish prisoners was brought there in 1938 after the so-called Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht, an antisemitic pogrom.
During the war, Sachsenhausen was expanded to include Soviet prisoners of war -- who were shot by the thousands -- as well as others.
As in other camps, Jewish prisoners were singled out at Sachsenhausen for particularly harsh treatment, and most who remained alive by 1942 were sent to the Auschwitz death camp.
Sachsenhausen was liberated in April 1945 by the Soviets, who turned it into a brutal camp of their own.
Tuesday's verdict relies on recent legal precedent in Germany establishing that anyone who helped a Nazi camp function can be prosecuted for accessory to the murders committed there.
In a different case, a 96-year-old woman went on trial in late September in the northern German town of Itzehoe. The woman, who allegedly worked during the war as the secretary for the SS commandant of the Stutthof concentration camp, has been charged with more than 11,000 counts of accessory to murder.
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
A 4.2-magnitude earthquake was recorded west of Vancouver Island early Friday morning.
Andy Kim's 'Rock Me Gently' is marking a major milestone, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
Oprah Winfrey said on Thursday evening that she has long played a role in promoting unhealthy and unrealistic diets.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Toronto police say a man who allegedly attempted to access Drake’s Bridle Path property was taken to hospital on Thursday after an altercation with security guards.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.