Mayor urges Torontonians to stay home as COVID-19 cases rise in the city

Waiting for Cormier verdict the ‘calm before the storm’

As the jury room door closed behind the seven women and four men who are now deliberating on the evidence against Tina Fontaine’s accused killer, Thelma Favel rose from the chair she’s occupied for most of Raymond Cormier’s second-degree murder trial.

Almost every day over the past three weeks, Favel, the woman who raised 15-year-old Tina, has sat right up front, directly across from the jury box, listening, sobbing and soaking in disturbing details of the teen’s last days that have come to light over the course of Cormier’s second-degree murder trial.

On Wednesday afternoon, after Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal instructed the jury and sent them off to be sequestered until they decide whether 56-year-old Raymond Cormier is guilty of killing Tina, Favel got up and hugged Crown prosecutor Breta Passler. It was one of many moments, this one shielded from jurors, that have long since proven the emotional impact of the case and the lasting power of Tina’s legacy.

Tina’s death sparked a public outcry that renewed calls for a national inquiry into disproportionately high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada, and the criminal trial for the man accused of killing her hasn’t happened in a vacuum.

Must-see Folk Fest workshops

Workshops have always been an integral part of the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

They are magic-moment makers; a curated group of musicians — sometimes friends, sometimes strangers — on one stage playing together, supporting each other, creating something that will only exist for an hour or two. No one knows what will come out of the collaboration, but usually it’s something special.

When the Free Press spoke to Winnipeg Folk Festival artistic director Chris Frayer ahead of the lineup release in early March, he noted he would be paying some extra attention to workshops this year, as some of the special projects occurring during the past couple of festivals had pulled some of his attention away.

And with 37 workshops on the books, it would seem he followed through on his promise.

Neo-Nazi group members plotted to kill Free Press reporter

Disturbing details of a plan to kill a Free Press reporter who had infiltrated a white nationalist hate group were revealed for the first time Wednesday.

Brian Bowman wins mayoral battle

In the end, it wasn’t even close.

A mayoral race that was supposed to be a head-to-head battle between privacy lawyer Brian Bowman and former NDP MP and MLA Judy Wasylycia-Leis turned into a rout on election night. Wasylycia-Leis, the experienced politician, had held what looked like an unassailable lead for months, but Bowman, the outsider who promised Winnipeggers a better, prosperous future, chipped doggedly away at it.

“I’m excited to tell you that positive change is coming to city hall,” Bowman told roaring supporters at the Inn At The Forks after making his way into the small ballroom accompanied by his wife and two young sons.

He said he hadn’t expecting such a landslide victory, but had believed that the campaign was building momentum.