Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.
The government of Quebec intends to accelerate immigration proceedings for blogger Raif Badawi who’s been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia since 2012. Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil and International Relations Minister Christine St-Pierre announced on Friday that a humanitarian grounds certificate would be issued for Badawi. The certificate would permit him to emigrate more rapidly to Quebec if he’s freed. Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, and their three kids live in Sherbrooke. The certificate will be given to Haidar next week. Badawi has again avoided a flogging in Saudi Arabia. The Amnesty International office in Paris says the postponement comes a few days after the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia upheld the sentence imposed on the blogger. The court had sentenced the 31-year-old man to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for criticizing Saudi Arabian clerics. However, after a first session of 50 lashes in January, all others were postponed, apparently due to health concerns.
A man was arrested Thursday in Ottawa for the 2008 kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout in Somalia. The RCMP say Ali Omar Ader was the “main negotiator” in the kidnapping. He now faces Canadian Criminal Code charges, including hostage-taking, and appeared in an Ottawa courthouse on Friday. The RCMP said they made the arrest after a long, complicated investigation titled Project Slype that included undercover officers, wiretaps and surveillance, but offered few details as to how they tracked the Somali in Africa and followed him to Canada. “This investigation posed a number of significant challenges as it was carried out in an extremely high-risk environment in a country plagued with political instability,” assistant commissioner James Malizia with the RCMP said at a press conference. He said the investigation spanned seven years. The case could prove a major test for the Canadian courts extraterritorial reach under anti-terrorism provisions passed in the post-9/11 era.
The Lakeshore General Hospital has been hit by four outbreaks of the same antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria this year, raising concerns that infection-control measures are not being followed by some of the medical staff. The number of patients who became carriers of the superbug — known as vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) — surged this spring, with 66 individuals testing positive for VRE since April 1. The vast majority of those who test positive never develop a VRE infection, but they can spread the superbug to already frail patients who could then become severely infected. In extremely rare cases, a VRE infection can be fatal.
And finally, Quebec family doctors got a reprieve from patient quotas and penalties, and now the specialists are getting a break. Speaking to reporters in Quebec City Thursday, Quebec Health Minister Gaëtan Barrette said the province will not force closure on Bill 20, the controversial health care reform bill, before the National Assembly breaks for the summer. “Actually, the adoption of Bill 20 can wait awhile,” Barrette said. A meeting has been scheduled for next week with the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec, Barrette said, adding that he expects to sign a deal with the specialists on restructuring the way they provide care. Barrette would not comment on the negotiations with the specialists, but conceded they asked for something similar to the deal reached with family doctors last month.
Stay with us for more on these stories and breaking news as it happens at montrealgazette.com
