In the news today, Oct. 31

Six stories in the news for Wednesday, Oct. 31

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KENNEY TURFS PARTY MEMBER AMID REPORT OF EXTREME VIEWS

Alberta United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney has turfed a party member who once ran the call centre for his leadership bid amid reports the worker is behind an online store that sells white supremacist memorabilia. “I am shocked and disturbed by reports of hateful and extreme online activity by a UCP member named Adam Strashok,” Kenney said in a statement on Twitter Tuesday. “Neither I nor anyone on my staff was aware of the extreme views of the individual in question.” Kenney said he has ordered party officials to cancel Strashok’s membership.

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FUNDING PROPOSAL REACHED FOR CALGARY OLYMPIC BID

Calgary city council will decide today whether a last-minute revamping of financial terms is enough to save a potential bid for the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. A bid seemed destined for the dust bin after Tuesday’s meeting of the city’s Olympic assessment committee that brought forth motions to kill the bid and cancel a Nov. 13 plebiscite asking Calgarians if they want the Games or not. But Calgary 2026 announced Tuesday night that an agreement was reached between the federal and provincial governments to consider a new funding proposal. The public investment required was reduced by $125 million to $2.875 billion.

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DOGS USE UNDERWATER SCENT TO FIND BOY’S BODY

The search for an 11-year-old boy who fell into the St. Lawrence River near Rockport, Ont., this fall took an agonizing 48 days and involved dozens of people from amateur dive teams to military divers, police helicopter units and the Canadian Coast Guard. His body was finally found Oct. 18 by a sonar expert trolling the water from above, but the location in a channel near Club Island was no surprise. He was exactly where a team of search and rescue dogs from Ottawa pointed more than a month earlier. The dogs’ handler insists they were just one part of the effort but the boy’s family and friends on social media say the dogs were “instrumental” to finding him.

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CANADA POST ROTATING STRIKES MOVE TO P.E.I.

Canada Post employees in two Prince Edward Island communities are joining the Canada-wide rotating strikes a day after about 6,000 workers walked off the job in Montreal. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says walkouts started in Charlottetown and Summerside, P.E.I., on Wednesday just after midnight local time. CUPW also says the seven Ontario communities are still on strike, as well as five in B.C. and three in Saskatchewan.

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NOVELIST STEVEN GALLOWAY FILES DEFAMATION SUIT

The former chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia is suing a woman, claiming she falsely accused him of sexual and physical assaults. Steven Galloway’s lawsuit also accuses two dozen other people of repeating the accusations on social media. The lawsuit filed by the novelist in the B.C. Supreme Court claims he was defamed and suffered damage to his reputation. It asks for damages and an injunction preventing the defendants from repeating the allegations, as well as having them removed from the internet.

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BOARD REJECTS BERNARDO’S LOW SELF-ESTEEM ‘MANTRA’

The fact that convicted killer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo resorted to blaming his sadistic behaviour on an anxiety disorder and low self-esteem underlines his lack of insight into his criminality, the Parole Board of Canada said. In providing written reasons Tuesday for why it refused to grant him day or full parole at a hearing two weeks ago, the board said it doubted Bernardo had truly come to understand the depravity behind his horrific crime wave in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bernardo, 54, who has served more than 25 years of a life sentence for the savage kidnapping and killing of two teen girls, was rejected for day or full parole on Oct. 17.

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ALSO IN THE NEWS:

— The 16-year-old charged with attempted murder in shooting of German tourist in Calgary is scheduled to appear in court today.

— Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz will testify today before a Senate committee on banking, trade and commerce.

— Statistics Canada is expected to releases gross domestic product by industry figures for August.

— RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust will release its third-quarter results today and hold a conference call with financial analysts.