Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Black children in England and Wales were six times more likely to be strip-searched by police, according to a report being released Monday that found children were failed by those sworn to protect them.
Children's Commissioner Rachel de Souza found nearly 3,000 children were strip-searched between 2018 and mid-2022 and more than half the searches were conducted without an appropriate adult present.
The investigation was launched after a Black 15-year-old girl suspected of having marijuana was strip-searched at a London school in 2020 by two female officers without another adult present. The girl, identified as "Child Q," was menstruating and no drugs were found. A previous report said racism was a likely factor for the humiliating search.
"The bravery of a girl to speak up about a traumatic thing that happened to her" led to the report that found "widespread noncompliance" of safeguards and evidence of a "deeply concerning practice," de Souza said.
The findings follow a scathing report last week that found the public had lost confidence in London's Metropolitan Police and that the force was plagued with institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia and didn't do enough to remove bad officers. That report was commissioned after an officer raped and killed a young woman.
The new report said children as young as 8 were being searched in places that were often inappropriate, such as amusement parks or vehicles and sometimes even within public view. In some cases, at least one officer present was of a gender different than the child being searched.
More than a third of the 2,847 searches were of Black children, making them more than six times more likely to be searched based on population figures, the report said. White children were about half as likely to be searched.
De Souza called the disparity "utterly unacceptable."
The Runnymede Trust, a race equality think tank, said the findings were "even harder to absorb" than the report about the Metropolitan Police, which has faced critical reports in the past. The trust called for removing police from schools and revoking their authority to strip-search children.
"Officers are often unable to justify the necessity of strip-searching, nor can they report on the safeguarding impact on the child concerned," the group said. "Quite the contrary. It also confirms that our policing crisis is not just confined to London, it is national."
De Souza said strip-searches can be necessary but there need to be "robust safeguards" to protect children.
Among her 17 recommendations, she called on the Home Office to review legislation and policy for searches and make specific changes to police and criminal evidence codes.
A spokesperson said the Home Office takes safeguarding children extremely seriously.
"Strip-search is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police," the spokesperson said. "No one should be subject to strip-search on the basis of race or ethnicity and safeguards exist to prevent this."
De Souza also called on the National Police Chief's Council to publish a plan to reform child searches.
Chief Constable Craig Guildford said the council welcomed the scrutiny and would consider the findings.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
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.
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.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
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.
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
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.