Juliet O'Neill is a Canadian journalist who was the subject of controversy when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided her house in 2004 in an attempt to find the source of an alleged internal leak giving her access to privileged documents related to the Maher Arar case.
In 1986, O'Neill was working for the Canadian Press newswire, when she caught international attention for being the only reporter to capture Sondra Gotlieb slapping her social secretary Connie Gibson Connor at a state dinner held to honour Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and US Vice President George H.W. Bush. [1] In 2004, she was a reporter with the Ottawa Citizen at the time of the raid, and she had earlier served as a foreign correspondent in Moscow. [2]
On January 21, 2004 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided her house as part of an attempt to identify the leak. During the raid, police seized notebooks, files, hard drives and other materials.
In November 2004, Ontario Superior Court Judge Lynn Ratushny ruled that the sealing of the search warrants was unacceptable, although Justice of the Peace Richard Sculthorpe had given approval after the RCMP invoked the Security of Information Act. Justice Ratushny stated that the sealing of the search violated guarantees of a free press, freedom of expression and the publics right to an open court system. She ordered that a redacted copy be released to the public. [3]
In October 2006, Ontario Superior Court Judge Ratushny struck down Section 4 of the Security of Information Act, [4] ruling that it was "unconstitutionally vague" and broad [5] and an infringement of freedom of expression.
All materials seized from O'Neill were ordered returned.
O'Neill was represented by attorneys Rick Dearden and Wendy Wagner from Gowlings a law firm with offices in Ottawa. [6]
In 1996 O'Neill was awarded a Southam Fellowship. [2] In 2005 she was honored with the World Press Freedom Award . In 2009 she was honored with the Charles Lynch Award for Outstanding Coverage of National Affairs. [7]
Louise Arbour, is a Canadian lawyer, prosecutor and jurist.
Maher Arar is a telecommunications engineer with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship who has resided in Canada since 1987.
Human rights in Uzbekistan have been described as "abysmal" by Human Rights Watch, and the country has received heavy criticism from the UK and the US for alleged arbitrary arrests, religious persecution and torture employed by the government on a regional and national level. Amnesty International stated that freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly continue to be restricted, and that relations between gay men are illegal.
The Munsinger affair was Canada's first national political sex scandal in 1966. The affair involved Gerda Munsinger, a German citizen who had been convicted in Germany as a common prostitute, a petty thief and a smuggler, who emigrated to Canada in 1956 in spite of a warning card dated 1952, and who in 1960 was the mistress of the former Associate Minister of National Defence Pierre Sévigny. Munsinger was "a self-admitted espionage agent" in the employ of the "Russian Intelligence Service".
Victor Toews is a Canadian politician and jurist. Toews is a justice of the Court of King's Bench of Manitoba. He represented Provencher in the House of Commons of Canada from 2000 until his resignation on July 9, 2013, and served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, most recently as Minister of Public Safety. He previously served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1995 to 1999, and was a senior cabinet minister in the government of Gary Filmon. Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, Toews was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP (Gowlings) was a Canadian and international law firm, with about 700 legal professionals in 10 offices in Canada, as well as in London, Moscow, and Beijing. The firm offered legal support in business law, advocacy/litigation and intellectual property law.
Gordon Fripp Henderson, was a Canadian intellectual property lawyer who joined the law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP in 1937, and later became its chairman. He was known for his advocacy on intellectual property matters as well as his involvement in intellectual property organizations throughout his career. Henderson's contribution to the development of Canadian and international jurisprudence is described as one of the most significant in Canadian legal history.
Colleen Constance Kollar-Kotelly is an American lawyer serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and was previously presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Source protection, sometimes also referred to as source confidentiality or in the U.S. as the reporter's privilege, is a right accorded to journalists under the laws of many countries, as well as under international law. It prohibits authorities, including the courts, from compelling a journalist to reveal the identity of an anonymous source for a story. The right is based on a recognition that without a strong guarantee of anonymity, many would be deterred from coming forward and sharing information of public interests with journalists.
The Charles Lynch Award is an annual award presented to a Canadian journalist in recognition of outstanding coverage of national issues as selected by their colleagues in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery. The award is presented each year at the Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner.
Beverley Ann Busson is a Canadian Senator and former police officer who served as the 21st commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) from December 2006 to June 2007. She was the first woman to hold this position and was appointed on an interim basis in the wake of Giuliano Zaccardelli's resignation amid controversy. Busson's subsequent appointment as a member of the Senate of Canada representing British Columbia was announced on September 24, 2018.
The 1985 Turkish embassy attack in Ottawa was the storming and attack that took place on 12 March 1985 by agents of the Armenian Revolutionary Army against the Turkish embassy in Ottawa, Canada.
Trailblazer was a United States National Security Agency (NSA) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet. It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as cell phones and e-mail.
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is a non-profit organization founded in 2012 to fund and support free speech and freedom of the press. The organization originally managed crowd-funding campaigns for independent journalistic organizations, but now pursues technical projects to support journalists' digital security and conducts legal advocacy for journalists.
Gowling WLG is a multinational law firm formed by the combination of Canada-based Gowlings and UK-based Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co in February 2016.
Paul Manning, also known by the pseudonyms Paul Wright and the Englishman, is a former Hamilton Police Service officer, Metropolitan Police Service officer and Royal Military Police officer (UK) who worked undercover in an Ontario Provincial Police and Hamilton Police Service joint task force for 18 months, successfully infiltrating the Musitano crime family, Papalia crime family and the Hamilton chapter of Hells Angels.
Wendy Hawthorne is a Canadian former soccer player who played as a goalkeeper. She was a member of the Canada national team that played at the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup, their first World Cup appearance, and on the team that won the 1998 CONCACAF championship. Hawthorne was awarded British Columbia Soccer's Order of Merit in 1997 and was appointed the province's Soccer Director for 1997–1998.
The Freedom Convoy was a series of protests and blockades across Canada in early 2022, initially organized to oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers. The movement quickly expanded to protest broader COVID-19 restrictions and mandates. Beginning on January 22, 2022, hundreds of vehicles departed from various locations across Canada, converging in Ottawa on January 29 for a rally at Parliament Hill, joined by thousands of pedestrian protesters. Parallel demonstrations occurred in provincial capitals and at key border crossings with the United States.
Tamara Lich is a Canadian activist who has organised for the right-wing Maverick Party, the far-right Yellow Vest protests, and the Canada convoy protest in Ottawa.
The Public Order Emergency Commission, also known as the Rouleau inquiry or the Inquiry into Emergencies Act was a public inquiry in Canada that investigated the invoking of the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022, by the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the Canada convoy protests. It was the first time the Emergencies Act had been invoked and it remained in place from February 14–23, 2022, the POEC investigated the rationale for invoking the Emergencies Act and the measures taken for dealing with the emergency". The inquiry was led by commissioner Justice Paul Rouleau, who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on April 25, 2022. Justice Rouleau had a surgical intervention which delayed the inquiry from September 19, 2022, to mid-October. The inquiry is independent of the parliamentary review committee.