An in-brief look back at some of the most significant news
events of the last 12 months, in chronological order:
JANUARY
4 – Disgraced Roman Catholic Bishop Raymond Lahey was
sentenced in Ottawa to 15 months in jail and two years probation for importing
child pornography. He was released from custody after receiving credit for
pre-sentencing time served.
4 – Defence Minister Peter MacKay married human rights
activist and former Miss World Canada Nazanin Afshin-Jam at a private civil
ceremony in Mexico.
6 – Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto was among 22 new
cardinals named by Pope Benedict XVI. Collins was formally elevated on Feb. 18.
6 – Seven months after the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver,
Ryan Dickinson, 20, became the first person convicted in the rampage. Dickinson
pleaded guilty to participating in a riot and was later sentenced to 17 months
in jail.
6 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed seven new
senators, including Betty Unger, the first woman electee to the upper chamber.
Unger filled a vacancy in Alberta.
10 – Four of five people aboard a Keystone Air Service plane
were killed in a fiery landing at the North Spirit Lake First Nation, about 400
km north of Dryden, Ont.
13 – For a limited time, the Bank of Montreal cut its
five-year fixed mortgage rate to 2.99 per cent, the lowest rate from a major
bank in Canadian history.
13 – The cruise ship Costa Concordia slammed into a reef off
the coast of the tiny Italian island of Giglio after Capt. Francesco Schettino
made an unauthorized diversion. More than 4,000 people were forced to evacuate
and 32 were killed as the vessel listed and ended up half-submerged. Schettino
was accused of causing the shipwreck, manslaughter and abandoning ship before
all passengers were evacuated.
16 – Canadian naval intelligence officer Sub.-Lt. Jeffrey Paul
Delisle was charged with two counts of breaching the Security of Information
Act by allegedly passing secrets to a foreign entity. It was the first charge
under that section of the act since it was passed after the 9-11 attacks in the
U.S.
18 – Trapped by a Feb. 21 deadline imposed by Congress, U.S.
President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada’s proposed $7-billion
Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada was allowed to submit
another plan with an alternate route around an environmentally sensitive
aquifer in Nebraska.
19 – Pioneer Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke died in a
Utah hospital from injuries she sustained in a superpipe training run on Jan.
10. She was 29.
19 – Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper company agreed to
pay damages of nearly $1 million to 36 high-profile victims of tabloid
phone-hacking, including actor Jude Law, soccer player Ashley Cole and former
British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
- Posters promoting ‘Steal From Loblaws Day’ are circulating. How did we get here?
- Canadian food banks are on the brink: ‘This is not a sustainable situation’
- Video shows Ontario police sharing Trudeau’s location with protester, investigation launched
- Solar eclipse eye damage: More than 160 cases reported in Ontario, Quebec
20 – An explosion and fire tore through a sawmill in Burns
Lake, B.C., killing two workers and sending 19 others to hospital.
20 – Legendary blues singer Etta James died from
complications of leukemia. She was 73.
22 – Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, a sainted
figure at the university for 46 years but scarred forever by a child sex abuse
scandal, died of lung cancer. He was 85.
23 – BlackBerry maker Research in Motion’s co-CEOs, Jim
Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, stepped down and were replaced by former chief
operating officer Thorsten Heins in an attempt to pull the troubled company out
of a years-long slump.
29 – Mohammad Shafia of Montreal, his second wife Tooba
Yahya, and their son Hamed, 21, were each found guilty of four counts of
first-degree murder in the so-called mass honour killing of Shafia sisters
Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, their
father’s first wife in a polygamous marriage.
FEBRUARY
1 – Seventy-four people were killed and hundreds injured
after soccer fans rushed the field in Port Said following an upset victory by
the home team over Egypt’s top club, setting off clashes and a stampede as riot
police largely failed to intervene.
4 – Florence Green, the last known surviving veteran of the
First World War, died in Norfolk at age 110. She served with the Women’s Royal
Air Force as a waitress at an air base in eastern England.
6 – Queen Elizabeth marked the 60th year to her ascension to
the throne. Only Queen Victoria had a longer reign.
6 – Ten of 13 farm workers in a van and a truck driver died
in a horrific collision in Hampstead, Ont.
7 – Two RCMP officers were shot and wounded at a rural
residence in Killam, Alta., evoking painful memories of the 2005 massacre of
four Mounties in Mayerthorpe. Sawyer Clarke Robison, 27, was arrested three
days later.
11 – Onetime pop music queen Whitney Houston was found dead
in a bathtub on the eve of the Grammy Awards. A coroner’s report concluded the
48-year-old died from drowning but that heart disease and chronic cocaine use
were contributing factors.
13 – An Ontario Superior Court judge struck down a mandatory
three-year minimum sentence for a first offence of possessing a loaded firearm.
13 – Quebec student action officially began over proposed
hikes in tuition fees with the first groups voting in favour of a walkout. Over
100 days of protests followed with nearly 2,600 arrests.
14 – A fire started by an inmate at an overcrowded prison in
Comayagua, Honduras killed 382 people, many of them trapped in their cells.
15 – The Harper government used its majority in the House of
Commons to pass legislation to scrap the controversial long-gun registry by a
vote of 159-130, with the support of two maverick New Democrats.
21 – Pierre Juneau, who had the Juno music awards named
after him after a career spent championing Canadian performers as head of the
CRTC and CBC, died at age 89.
21 – The countries that used the euro pulled Greece back
from an imminent and potentially catastrophic default when they stitched
together a US$170-billion rescue package.
21 – Copies of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, were burned
in a pile of garbage at a U.S. military base north of Kabul. More than 30
people were killed, including four U.S. soldiers, in the days of unrest
following the incident.
26 – A Toronto-bound Via train derailed in Burlington,
killing three engineers and injuring 32 passengers, three of them seriously.
26 – “The Artist” won five Academy Awards,
including best picture, becoming the first silent film to win since
“Wings” was named outstanding picture at the first Oscars in 1929.
Canadian Christopher Plummer, 82, became the oldest acting winner ever for his
supporting role in “Beginners.”
26 – Neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot and
killed unarmed Trayvon Martin, 17, in Sanford, Fla. As weeks followed without
an arrest, protests were held across the U.S. over racial profiling and
controversial self-defence laws in Florida.
27 – Liberal party researcher Adam Carroll resigned for
creating the Vikileaks30 Twitter account that detailed salacious information
about Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ divorce as a protest against the
government’s online surveillance bill.
29 – James Murdoch, the executive at the epicentre of the
phone-hacking scandal at his father’s British newspapers, stepped down as
executive chairman of News Corp.’s U.K. newspaper arm.
29 – A pre-dawn EF4 tornado flattened entire blocks of homes
in Harrisburg, Ill., as violent storms ravaged the U.S. Midwest and South,
killing at least 12 people in three states.
29 – Davy Jones of the made-for-TV rock band “The
Monkees” died of a heart attack at age 66.
MARCH
2 – Elections Canada announced it was reviewing more than
31,000 complaints about robocalls placed to voters during the May, 2011 federal
election telling them to go to the wrong polls or polls that didn’t exist.
2 – BP agreed to pay $7.8 billion to settle lawsuits over
the 2010 Gulf oil spill, making it one of the largest class-action settlements
ever.
2 – A violent wave of U.S. Midwest and Southern storms
flattened some rural communities, killing at least 37 people in Alabama,
Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.
4 – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won Russia’s presidential
election, a post he held from 2000-08. Independent observers said the election
was marred by widespread violations.
6 – The Royal Bank of Canada announced that it reached a
$17-million out-of-court settlement with victims of financial fraudster Earl
Jones, who bilked them of $50 million in a Ponzi scheme.
7 – Clouds of tear gas wafted over downtown Montreal as
police clashed with students protesting planned tuition-fee increases.
11 – U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 38, allegedly gunned
down 17 Afghans civilians, including nine children, as they slept in their
homes in two southern villages.
12 – Stephen Harper’s majority Conservative government
passed its omnibus tough on crime bill, which included nine separate bills, in
a 154-129 vote in the House of Commons.
13 – Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. announced it would stop
publishing print editions of its flagship encyclopedia for the first time since
1768.
14 – Back-to-work legislation was passed to send two Air
Canada labour disputes to binding arbitration in order to keep the airline
flying. Labour unrest continued with a wildcat strike by ground workers at
Toronto’s Pearson International and dozens of pilots twice calling in
sick, delaying or cancelling hundreds of flights.
14 – The International Criminal Court convicted Congolese
warlord Thomas Lubanga of using child soldiers, a verdict hailed as a legal
landmark in the fight against impunity for the world’s most serious crimes.
17 – Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younus leapt to her
death from the sixth floor of a building in Rome, where she had been living and
receiving treatment. She was 33.
19 – A gunman on a motorbike opened fire in front of a
Jewish school in Toulouse, France, killing a rabbi, his two young sons and the
principal’s eight-year-old daughter. An Islamist extremist also wanted in the
earlier killing of three French paratroopers was killed in a police raid on
Mar. 22.
20 – Disgraced former junior hockey coach Graham James was
sentenced to two years in prison following his second conviction for sexually
abusing players.
24 – Thomas Mulcair, a combative former Quebec Liberal
cabinet minister, was chosen to succeed the late Jack Layton as leader of the
federal NDP.
26 – The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled a ban on brothels put
prostitutes at risk and was therefore unconstitutional. In October, the Supreme
Court agreed to hear the federal government’s appeal.
27 – Former Mountie Janet Merlo launched a class-action
lawsuit against the RCMP, alleging widespread sexual harassment.
28 – Bluegrass legend and banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs died at
a Nashville hospital. He was 88.
29 – Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tabled his
first majority federal budget, scrapping the penny and raising the eligibility
age for old age security to 67 from 65, starting in 2023.
31 – After spending more than a year in a Beirut jail on an
arrest warrant alleging he exported rotten potatoes to Algeria in 2007, New
Brunswick potato farmer Henk Tepper reunited with his family at the Ottawa
airport.
APRIL
1 – Nobel Peace prize winner and Myanmar democracy icon Aung
San Suu Kyi won a parliamentary seat in the country’s byelection, where the
military ruled almost exclusively for a half-century and where a new
reform-minded government was seeking legitimacy and a lifting of Western
sanctions.
2 – A 43-year-old nursing student expelled from a small
Christian university in Oakland, Calif., and upset about being teased over his
poor English skills, opened fire at the school, killing six students and a
secretary.
3 – The Harper government froze spending on the
multi-billion-dollar plan to buy 65 new F-35 stealth jet fighters after new
auditor general Michael Ferguson concluded the Defence Department low-balled
estimates and kept Parliament in the dark about spiralling problems with the
project.
3 – James Murdoch stepped down as chairman of British Sky
Broadcasting, surrendering one of the biggest jobs in the Murdoch media empire
as fallout continued from the telephone hacking scandal.
4 – Twenty-three-year-old transgender Vancouverite Jenna
Talackova, originally barred from the Miss Universe Canada Pageant because she
was born a male, won her fight to participate. At the competition on May 19,
she made it into the Top 12.
5 – Legislation abolishing the federal long-gun registry was
given royal assent. Quebec won a court injunction barring destruction of data
from that province while it fought to preserve the information to start its own
registry.
5 – Helene Campbell, 20, the Ottawa organ donation crusader
whose campaign captured the attention of celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and
Justin Bieber, underwent a successful double-lung transplant in Toronto.
7 – CBS newsman Mike Wallace, who helped make “60
Minutes” the most successful primetime television news program ever, died
at age 93.
7 – An avalanche smashed into a Pakistani army base on a
Himalayan glacier along the Indian border, burying 140 military and civilian
personnel.
8 – Wiebo Ludwig, eco-warrior to some, terrorist to others,
and was for decades a polarizing figure in the debate over northern Alberta’s
oil and gas industry, died at age 70.
11 – George Zimmerman, 28, the Fla.-neighbourhood watch
volunteer who shot and killed unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26,
was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
17 – Ottawa outlined a major overhaul for
environmental-assessment rules for big economic projects. The government would
have 45 days to decide if an assessment was needed, and if so, the review would
take a maximum of two years.
17 – Prominent Quebec construction magnate Tony Accurso was
among 14 people arrested by the anti-corruption unit of the Quebec provincial
police.
18 – Cora Hansen, believed to be Canada’s oldest woman, died
at a Medicine Hat, Alta., care facility. She was 113.
18 – Dick Clark, the ever-youthful television host and
tireless entrepreneur who helped bring rock ‘n’ roll into the mainstream on
“American Bandstand,” died of a massive heart attack. He was 82.
19 – Ottawa announced it would close Kingston Penitentiary,
the country’s oldest penal institution dating back to 1835, as well as the
Leclerc prison near Montreal as part of a cost-cutting effort.
9 – Levon Helm, singer and drummer of the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame group “The Band,” died of throat cancer. He was 71.
20 – A Pakistani passenger jet with 127 people on board
crashed into wheat fields as it was trying to land in a thunderstorm at an
airport near the capital Islamabad. There were no survivors.
23 – Two workers died and 22 others were injured after a
massive explosion rocked the Lakeland Mills sawmill in Prince George, B.C.,
setting off a massive fire that engulfed the facility.
23 – Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives under Alison
Redford defied the pollsters, winning a 12th consecutive majority. The upstart
Wildrose party became the Official Opposition for the first time.
24 – A new tax on the rich in exchange for NDP support
allowed Ontario’s Liberal minority government to survive a confidence vote on
its budget.
25 – Montreal police arrested 85 people as a student tuition
protest turned violent.
27 – A pastor, his wife and youngest son were among seven
people killed in a fiery head-on collision on Highway 63 between Edmonton and
Fort McMurray.
28 – A 27-year-old woman who was hang gliding in tandem with
a more experienced pilot over B.C.’s Fraser Valley somehow became detached from
her harness and fell about 300 metres to her death. The pilot was later
arrested on a charge of obstructing justice, accused of swallowing a memory
card that may have contained evidence of the fatal flight.
MAY
1 – A Federal Court ruled that Ottawa must stop clawing back
pensions from disabled veterans. The 2007 class-action lawsuit argued that
payments were unfairly deemed as income. Ottawa did not appeal the decision.
2 – Edvard Munch’s 1895 “The Scream” – one of the
art world’s most recognizable images – sold at auction for a record $119.9
million, including the buyer’s premium.
2 – Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sworn in to
Myanmar’s military-backed parliament, taking public office for the first time
since launching her struggle against authoritarian rule nearly a quarter
century earlier.
4 – Former media baron Conrad Black was released from a
Florida prison where he was completing a 42-month sentence for fraud and
obstruction of justice. U.S. immigration officials deported him to Canada where
he earlier was granted a one-year temporary resident permit.
6 – France elected socialist Francois Hollande as president,
narrowly defeating incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.
8 – Maurice Sendak, author of “Where the Wild Things Are,
died in Danbury, Conn., at age 83.
9 – Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to throw
his support behind same-sex marriage.
11 – A London, Ont., jury found Michael Rafferty guilty of
first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping in the
killing of eight-year-old Victoria “Tori” Stafford of Woodstock in
2009.
12 – Two small planes collided in mid-air near St. Brieux,
northeast of Saskatoon, killing all five people involved.
14 – Quebec’s education minister and deputy premier Line
Beauchamp resigned from politics amid months of student-related unrest.
14 – B.C. introduced a new-and-improved provincial sales tax
to replace the harmonized tax that was defeated in a fractious referendum a
year earlier. It would be effective Apr. 1, 2013.
15 – Former U.K. tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks, her husband
Charlie and four aides were the first people charged after police reopened
inquiries into wrongdoing in Britain’s tabloid phone hacking scandal.
16 – A report by Ontario’s independent police watchdog found
Toronto police violated civil rights, detained people illegally, and used
excessive force during the 2010 G20 summit. The report made 42 recommendations,
including changes to the police code of conduct.
17 – “Queen of Disco” Donna Summer died after a
battle with cancer. She was 63.
18 – The Quebec government passed Bill 78, a controversial
emergency law aimed at restoring order amid student protests over tuition
hikes. Instead it exacerbated the protests.
18 – One of the most anticipated IPOs in Wall Street history
ended on a flat note, with Facebook’s stock closing at $38.23, up 23 cents.
After a week, the stock price fell to $31. A lawsuit forced lead investment
bank Morgan Stanley to compensate investors who overpaid.
19 – Nepal-born Canadian Shriya Shah-Klorfine was among four
people who died from altitude sickness and exhaustion while descending from
Mount Everest’s summit in an area known as the death zone.
20 – Robin Gibb, co-founder of the “Bee Gees,”
died after a battle with colon cancer and intestinal problems. He was 62.
20 – Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi died
of cancer.
21 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada’s military
involvement in Afghanistan would come to a firm end in March 2014, although
Canada would continue to financially support the Afghan army.
22 – Quebec Superior Court justice France Charbonneau
officially launched the province’s inquiry into allegations of corruption
involving construction firms, local and provincial governments, political
parties, and even organized crime.
23 – More than 15 months after autocratic leader Hosni
Mubarak’s ouster, Egyptians streamed to polling stations to freely choose a
president for the first time in generations. Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim
Brotherhood group was declared the winner on June 24.
25 – At least 108 people were killed, including 34 women and
49 children in Houla, a collection of poor farming villages in Syria’s central
Homs province, by forces loyal to the Assad regime.
25 – Pope Benedict XVI’s butler Paolo Gabriele was arrested
in the “Vatileaks” scandal for releasing confidential documents that
shed light on power struggles and intrigue inside the highest levels of the
Catholic Church.
29 – Jim Unger, the Canadian artist behind the syndicated
cartoon strip “Herman,” died at age 75.
29 – A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck northern Italy near
Bologna, killing 17 people. It followed a 6.0-magnitude quake in the same area
that had killed seven people on May 20.
30 – Montreal police named male escort and porn actor Luka
Rocco Magnotta a suspect in connection with the slaying of 33-year-old foreign
student Jun Lin. He was also a suspect in Lin’s dismemberment and the mailing
of body parts to political parties in Ottawa. Magnotta was arrested in Berlin
on June 4 and returned to Canada on June 18.
30 – Judges at an international war crimes court sentenced
former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years imprisonment for arming
and supporting murderous rebels in Sierra Leone in return for “blood
diamonds.”
JUNE
1 – New duty-free limits for Canadian travellers to the U.S.
took effect. An overnight trip jumped from $50 to $200 while two to seven days
doubled to $400. A visit lasting more than a week increased $50 to $800.
2 – A shooting at Toronto’s Eaton Centre killed two gang
members and injured six others and caused mass panic as shoppers scrambled to
evacuate the busy downtown mall.
2 – Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to
life in prison for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the 2011
uprising that forced him from power.
3 – A Boeing MD-83 of Dana Air crashed into businesses and
crowded apartment buildings near Murtala Muhammed International Airport in
Lagos, Nigeria. All 153 aboard died, including one Canadian.
4 – A U.S. drone strike killed al-Qaida’s second-in-command,
Abu Yahya al-Libi.
5 – Ray Bradbury, the science fiction-fantasy master best
known for the book-burning future of “Fahrenheit 451,” died at age
91.
8 – Quebec became the sixth province to sue big tobacco
companies, launching a $60 billion lawsuit in an attempt to recoup health
costs.
13 – Ontario’s Human Rights Code was updated for the first
time since the 1980s to extend protections to transgendered people. Manitoba
followed suit the next day.
14 – The Conservative majority government’s omnibus budget
bill survived a 22-hour marathon voting session on 871 opposition proposed
amendments that were grouped into 159 voteable packages.
14 – Seventy-seven-year-old retired judge Jacques Delisle,
believed to be the first Canadian judge to ever stand trial for murder, was
found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his invalid wife.
15 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the
construction of a new $1-billion bridge between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit.
15 – Three armoured car employees were shot dead and another
was critically injured at the University of Alberta’s mall and residence
complex. Trainee security guard Travis Baumgartner was arrested the next day at
the Lynden, Wash., border crossing near Abbotsford, B.C.
15 – B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lynn Smith declared the laws
banning doctor-assisted suicide are unconstitutional, but also suspended her
ruling for one year to give Parliament time to draft new legislation.
15 – Nik Wallenda battled brisk winds and thick mist to make
history, becoming the first person to walk across the brink of Niagara Falls on
a tightrope. A crowd of over 120,000, and millions more on TV worldwide.
17 – Rodney King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped
beating by L.A. police officers touched off one of the most destructive race
riots in U.S. history, was found dead at his home. He was 47.
17 – Fears of an imminent Greek exit from Europe’s joint
currency receded after the conservative New Democracy came first in critical
elections and pro-bailout parties won enough Parliamentary seats to form a
joint government.
21 – Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tightened mortgage rules,
cutting the maximum term of CHMC insured mortgages by five years to 25. The new
rules went into effect on July 9.
22 – Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry
Sandusky, 68, was found guilty on 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over a
15-year period.
23 – Two women were killed and 20 others were hurt when part
of the roof-top parking deck at the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, Ont.
collapsed into the shopping centre.
24 – Egypt’s election commission declared Mohammed Morsi of
the Muslim Brotherhood the winner of Egypt’s first free elections.
28 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the heart of President
Barack Obama’s health care overhaul aimed at covering more than 30 million
uninsured Americans.
29 – The Canadian Pacific Railway named Hunter Harrison as
its new president and CEO, after former head Fred Green resigned in a
high-profile battle waged by William Ackman, head of a New York-based
investment fund.
30 – The National Historic Site of Grand Pre, situated in
Nova Scotia’s picturesque Annapolis Valley, was recognized by UNESCO as a World
Heritage Site.
JULY
3 – Embattled International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda
announced in a news release she was resigning from politics, effective July 31.
Her spending habits, including paying $15 dollars for a glass of orange juice
during a trip to London, sparked intense Opposition criticism earlier in the
year and became national water-cooler talk.
3 – Actor Andy Griffith, best known as the wise sheriff in
“The Andy Griffith Show” died at age 86.
4 – The Maple Group Acquisition Corp.’s bid for the TMX
Group, owner of the Toronto Stock Exchange, received approval from both the
Competition Bureau and the Ontario Securities Commission. B.C. and Alberta
securities regulators signed off on the deal a week later.
4 – Physicists at the world’s biggest atom smasher in Geneva
hailed the apparent discovery of a new subatomic particle. Called the Higgs
boson, or “God particle,” it could help explain why all matter has
mass and crack open a new realm of physics.
6 – Canadian celebrity chef Anthony Sedlak died in his North
Vancouver apartment after collapsing from an undiagnosed medical condition. He
was 29.
8 – Ernest Borgnine, known for his role in the TV comedy
“McHale’s Navy” as well as his Academy Award-winning role in
“Marty” died at age 95.
10 – U.S. investigators concluded Alberta-based Enbridge
bungled its response when millions of litres of oil began to pour in and around
the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in July 2010, comparing the company’s handling
of the spill to the “Keystone Kops.”
12 – Celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the
Calgary Stampede were marred when three horses died during the chuckwagon
races.
12 – A large landslide hit the tiny community of Johnson’s
Landing, B.C., about 70 km north of Nelson, destroying three homes and killing
a father and his two daughters and a German woman.
15 – The “Gangnam Style” video by Korean rapper
PSY made its debut on YouTube. It became a worldwide sensation, with its dance
moves inspiring online parodies and flash mobs.
16 – Gang-related gunfire erupted at a crowded Toronto
community barbeque, killing a 14-year-old girl and 23-year-old man.
Twenty-three others were wounded in what police called the worst mass shooting
in Toronto history.
18 – Incumbent Shawn Atleo was re-elected as national chief
of the Assembly of First Nations.
18 – A bomb ripped through a high-level security meeting in
the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing three senior officials in President
Bashar Assad’s regime, including his brother-in-law. It was the harshest blow
to the ruling family dynasty and the rebels’ boldest attack to date in the
country’s civil war.
20 – A gunman wearing a gas mask set off an unknown gas and
fired into a crowded movie theatre in suburban Denver at a midnight premiere of
the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.” Twelve people were killed
and 58 others were wounded.
23 – Canadian oil giant Nexen announced it was being
acquired by CNOOC – the China National Offshore Oil Co. – in a US$15-billion
cash deal.
23 – The NCAA fined Penn State University $60 million over
the school’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal. The NCAA
also imposed a four-year bowl game ban and negated 14 years of coach Joe
Paterno’s victories.
26 – Hudson’s Bay Co. announced it was closing most of its
remaining 64 Zellers locations by March 2013, affecting up to 6,400 jobs.
30 – Prosecutors formally charged former neuroscience
graduate student James Holmes in the July 20 Colorado theatre shooting that
left 12 dead and 58 wounded.
30 – Irish author Maeve Binchy, whose novels included
“Circle of Friends” and “Tara Road,” died in Dublin. She
was 72.
31 – Gore Vidal, the author, playwright, politician and
commentator, died of complications from pneumonia. He was 86. “Myra
Brekinridge” was among his best-known works.
AUGUST
1 – New federal legislation kicked in to end the Canadian
Wheat Board’s decades-long monopoly on western wheat and barley sales.
1 – Premier Jean Charest announced a Quebec election would
be held Sept. 4. The call was made amidst student protests against his plan to
raise tuition fees and an inquiry into corruption in the construction industry.
1 – The world’s biggest power outage occurred in India – 670
million people affected – one day after a similar outage left 370 million
without power.
5 – A 40-year-old U.S. Army veteran and reported white
supremacist opened fire at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee,
killing six people. The gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the
head after he was shot by police.
6 – Marvin Hamlisch, who composed or arranged the scores for
dozens of movies including “The Sting” and the Broadway smash “A
Chorus Line,” died at age 68.
11 – Twin earthquakes in Iran claimed 306 lives and injured
more than 3,000.
13 – Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan
magazine who invited millions of women to join the sexual revolution, died at
age 90. She first won fame for her book “Sex and the Single Girl” in
1962.
16 – The CRTC approved the sale of the Ontario’s Teacher
Pension Plan’s 80 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to BCE
Inc., Rogers Communications, and minority MLSE owner Larry Tannenbaum.
16 – Ecuador granted political asylum to WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange on humanitarian grounds two months after he took refuge in its
London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning for alleged
sexual misconduct.
17 – A Moscow judge sentenced three female members of the
provocative punk band “Pussy Riot” to two years each in prison on
hooliganism charges following a trial that drew international outrage as an
emblem of Russia’s intolerance of dissent. In March, the five-piece band had
given an impromptu “punk prayer” in Moscow’s main cathedral calling
for the Virgin Mary to protect Russia against president Vladimir Putin.
19 – Tony Scott, director of such Hollywood hits as
“Top Gun,” “Days of Thunder” and “Beverly Hills Cop
II,” died after jumping from a towering suspension bridge spanning Los
Angeles harbour. He was 68.
20 – Phyllis Diller, the comedian known for her bizarre
looks and husband she called “Fang,” died in her Los Angeles home at
age 95. She was a staple of nightclubs and television from the 1950’s – when
female comics were rare – until her retirement in 2002.
20 – Apple became the world’s most valuable company. Its
surging stock propelled the company’s value to $623 billion, beating the record
for market capitalization set by Microsoft Corp. in the heady days of the
Internet boom.
30 – The Canada Border Services Agency ruled a female
American soldier who sought refuge in Canada in 2007 to avoid further military
duty in Iraq must return to the U.S. Kimberly Rivera complied with the
deportation order and returned to the U.S. on Sept. 20, where she was
immediately taken into military custody.
SEPTEMBER
1 – Hal David, the lyricist who teamed with Burt Bacharach
on dozens of timeless songs including “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My
Head” and “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” died at age 91.
3 – Actor Michael Clarke Duncan, whose dozens of films
included an Oscar-nominated performance as a death row inmate in “The
Green Mile,” died at age 54.
4 – Quebec voters returned the separatist Parti Quebecois to
power after nine years in opposition, albeit with a minority government. PQ
leader Pauline Marois’ victory speech was marred by an attack that saw two
people shot, one fatally, outside the building where she was speaking. Police
arrested a 62-year-old man at the scene.
5 -After a career that spanned nine federal and provincial
elections and a stormy nine-year run as Quebec premier, Jean Charest announced
he was stepping down. Charest lost his riding in the Sept. 4 Quebec election.
7 – Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced the
Canadian embassy in Iran would close immediately and Canada was expelling
Iranian diplomats in Ottawa. He cited safety concerns in Tehran and the
longstanding view that Iran is a threat to global peace.
9 – More than 1,500 people were ordered to evacuate from the
path of a wind-driven wildfire raging near Peachland, B.C.
10 – The Quebec Superior Court sided with the provincial
government and ordered Ottawa to hand over the province’s data of the scrapped
long-gun registry. Ottawa later announced it would appeal the decision.
10 – High winds fuelled a massive grass fire in southern
Alberta, prompting precautionary evacuations in the communities of Coalhurst
and Milk River, with populations of 2,200 and 800 respectively.
11 – Prime Minister Harper was named “World Statesman
of the Year” by the New York-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation.
11 – Ontario’s minority Liberals and Progressive
Conservatives teamed up to pass a controversial anti-strike bill that cut
benefits and reins in wages for thousands of Ontario teachers.
11 – A mob armed with guns and grenades launched a fiery
attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, killing the American ambassador to
Libya and three other Americans.
13 – Peter Lougheed, who is widely credited as being one of
the most influential leaders in Alberta’s history, died in Calgary at the age
of 84. He led the Progressive Conservatives to victory in 1971 and remained
premier until 1985.
16 – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned against the
consumption of several brands of ground beef from XL Foods of Brooks, Alta.,
because of possible E.coli contamination. The plant later had its operating
licence suspended and the recall was increased to include 1,800 products sold
across North America in one of the biggest beef recalls in Canadian history.
Eighteen cases of E. coli illness were later reported in four provinces.
17 – U.S. home-improvement giant Lowe’s withdrew its controversial
$1.8 billion proposal to buy Canada’s largest home-improvement retail chain
Rona.
18 – A French court ordered the publisher of gossip magazine
Closer to hand over topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge and blocked
further publication of the images. The ruling only affected the French
publisher as the images were already published in Ireland and Italy.
23 – Sam Sniderman, the charismatic founder of the legendary
Sam the Record Man music store and whose unwavering support for Canadian
performers helped shape the country’s musical landscape, died. He was 92.
23 – An avalanche hit a team of climbers on a high Himalayan
peak in Nepal, leaving at least nine dead and six others missing, including a
Quebec doctor.
25 – Singer Andy Williams died after a year-long battle with
bladder cancer. He was 84.
26 – Tory MP Stephen Woodworth’s bid to examine the
definition of human being was defeated in Parliament. The prime minister was
among the majority of M-Ps to vote against it over concern it would re-open the
debate on abortion.
27 – The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled a teenage
girl allegedly defamed on a bogus Facebook page could proceed with a lawsuit
without revealing her name.
29 – Toronto-born convicted terrorist Omar Khadr was
returned to Canada from Guantanamo Bay to serve out the remaining six years of
his sentence in the 2002 death of a U.S. special forces soldier in Afghanistan.
30 – Raylene Rankin of the internationally acclaimed Nova
Scotia musical group “The Rankin Family” died after losing her
decade-long fight with cancer. She was 52.
30 – Barbara Ann Scott, the only Canadian to win the Olympic
women’s figure skating gold medal, died at her Amelia Island, Fla. home. She
was 84.
OCTOBER
2 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper nominated Justice Richard
Wagner of the Quebec Court of Appeal to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court
of Canada.
2 – Montreal Papineau MP Justin Trudeau stepped out of his
famous father’s shadow, launching his bid to lead the federal Liberal party.
9 – A Taliban gunman in Pakistan’s volatile Swat Valley shot and wounded 14-year-old activist Malala
Yousufzai, known for championing the education of girls and publicizing
atrocities committed by the Taliban.
10 – B.C. teen Amanda Todd, who posted a gut-wrenching video
to YouTube describing how she had been sexually exploited by an online stalker
and bullied by her peers, committed suicide. She was 15. Her story sparked more
than 100 memorial pages on Facebook and renewed calls across the country to
fight bullying.
10 – Former Halifax navy intelligence officer Sub-Lt.
Jeffrey Paul Delisle pleaded guilty to all the espionage charges he was facing.
In January, he was charged with breach of trust and two charges of passing
information to a foreign entity that could harm Canada’s interests.
11 – Novelist Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the
first time the award was given to a Chinese who is not a critic of the
authoritarian government.
12 – The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize for
promoting peace and democracy in Europe, an honour that came as 27-nation bloc
was struggling with an economic crisis.
15 – More than 90 per cent of the Communications, Energy and
Paperworkers Union of Canada members voted in favour of a merger with the
Canadian Auto Workers union, a move that will create the country’s largest
private sector union.
15 – Dalton McGuinty announced he had decided to quit after
nine years as Ontario’s Liberal premier. He also announced he was shutting down
the legislature amid a rare contempt motion over the costs of cancelling two
gas-fired generating plants in Liberal ridings.
18 – The CRTC rejected BCE Inc.’s controversial $3.4-billion
takeover of specialty TV provider Astral Media, marking the first major ruling
for newly installed commissioner Jean-Pierre Blais.
18 – Newsweek announced plans to end its print publication
after 80 years and shift to an online-only format starting in early 2013.
19 – Lincoln Alexander, Canada’s first black MP, cabinet
minister and lieutenant-governor of Ontario, died at the age of 90.
19 – The federal government rejected the Malaysian
state-owned energy giant Petronas’ proposed $6 billion takeover bid for
Calgary-based natural gas producer Progress Energy Resources.
21 – Kateri Tekakwitha became the first indigenous woman
from North America to become a Catholic saint. She was born in New York state
in 1656 before fleeing to a Mohawk reserve outside Montreal to escape
opposition to her Christianity.
21 – George S. McGovern, the senator from South Dakota who
suffered one of the most crushing defeats in presidential election history
against Richard Nixon in 1972, died at age 90.
22 – Lance Armstrong was banned from cycling competition for
life and officially stripped of his Tour de France titles. The U.S. Anti-Doping
Agency had released a report in August detailing allegations of widespread
doping by Armstrong and his teams when he won the race seven consecutive times
from 1999 to 2005.
25 – Eight Grade 6 children were injured, three seriously,
when a minivan crashed through an outside wall and into a classroom at Racette
Junior High School in St. Paul, Alta. An 11-year-old succumbed to her injuries
two days later.
25 – Microsoft unveiled its Windows 8, the most radical
redesign of the operating system since 1995. It also marked the launch of the
Surface tablet, its first venture into making computer devices.
26 – A Milan court convicted former Premier Silvio
Berlusconi of tax fraud and sentenced the media mogul to four years in prison,
his first prison sentence in years of criminal probes. Under Italian law, the
case must pass two levels of appeal before the verdict is final.
27 – New Brunswick’s Liberals chose 30-year-old Moncton
lawyer Brian Gallant to be their new leader and rebuild the party.
28 – A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook the
north-central coast of British Columbia in the Haida Gwaii area. Tsunami
warnings were issued along the B.C. coast and as far away as Hawaii, though
there were no reports of major damage.
29 – Superstorm Sandy, the downgraded hurricane that morphed
with two wintry systems, made landfall near Atlantic City, N.J. The 1,600
km-wide hybrid of rain and high wind caused major flooding and killed more than
100 people in 10 states. New York City was among the hardest hit, with flooded
streets and subway tunnels in Lower Manhattan.
29 – Gen. Tom Lawson was officially appointed as chief of
the defence staff, taking over the country’s highest military post from Gen.
Walt Natynczyk.
30 – Walt Disney Co. announced it was paying $4.05 billion to
buy Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company behind “Star Wars,” from
its chairman and founder, George Lucas.
NOVEMBER
1 – The MP and Senate pension reform bill received royal
assent. MPs would see their annual contributions to their pension plans rise
from about $11,000 a year to just under $39,000 and extend the age participants
can start cashing in on their plans without penalty to 65.
5 – Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay resigned in the midst of
a construction corruption scandal, becoming the highest-profile political
casualty of the controversies rocking Quebec.
5 – Robert Kaplan, a former veteran Liberal MP and cabinet
minister who presided over the creation of CSIS, died at age 75 after losing a
long battle with cancer.
6 – U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, blunting a
mighty challenge by Republican Mitt Romney. Voters made history on two divisive
social issues, with Maine and Maryland becoming the first states to approve
same-sex marriage by popular vote while Washington state and Colorado legalized
recreational use of marijuana.
8 – An explosion and fire at the Neptune Technologies &
Bioresources plant in Sherbrooke, Que., killed two people and sent 19 others to
hospital. A third person died two days later in hospital.
8 – Jared Lee Loughner was sentenced to seven consecutive
life sentences plus 140 years in prison for killing six people and shooting 13
others, including grievously wounding former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle
Giffords, in a 2011 shooting rampage at a Tuscon shopping centre.
9 – Gilles Vaillancourt, the longtime mayor of Laval, Que.,
resigned amid a province-wide corruption scandal.
9 – An overnight explosion and fire at a Bombardier
Recreational Products complex in Valcourt, Que., left two people with serious
burns, one who later died of his injuries in hospital.
9 – David Petraeus, the retired four-star general who led
the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned as CIA director
after acknowledging an extra-marital affair with a woman identified as his
biographer Paula Broadwell, a reserve Army officer.
14 – The Ontario Securities Commission reached a plea
agreement with David Radler, the former long-time business partner of Conrad
Black at the Hollinger newspaper group, that bars him from acting as a
corporate director or officer of a public company based in Ontario.
14 – Israel carried out a blistering offensive of more than
50 airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, assassinating Hamas’ military commander Ahmed
Jabari and targeting the armed group’s training facilities and rocket
launchers.
15 – Xi Jinping succeeded Hu Jintao as China’s leader,
assuming the top posts in the Communist Party and the powerful military in a
once-a-decade political transition.
15 – Oil giant BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion, including a
record $1.3 billion in criminal fines, in a wide-ranging settlement with the
U.S. government over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It also agreed
to plead guilty to criminal charges including 11 felony counts of misconduct
related to the deaths of 11 men in the rig explosion that triggered the oil
spill.
16 – Michael Applebaum won a vote at city council to become
Montreal’s first non-francophone mayor since just before the First World War, a
stunning victory inside a city hall that was shaken by a corruption scandal.
17 – A speeding train crashed into a bus carrying Egyptian
children to their kindergarten in central Egypt, killing at least 48 along with
three adults.
20 – Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash resigned from “Sesame
Street” in the wake of a new allegation that he had sex with an under-aged
youth.
20 – The Church of England’s governing body narrowly blocked
a move to permit women to serve as bishops, falling short of the necessary
two-thirds majority among lay members of the General Synod.
21 – Egypt helped broker a cease fire to end a week of
fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip that saw 140
Palestinians and five Israelis killed.
23 – Clashes erupted between pro-democracy protesters and
supporters of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a day after the Islamist leader
gave himself sweeping new powers and effectively neutralized the judiciary by
declaring that the courts are barred from challenging his decisions.
23 – Actor Larry Hagman died due to complications from his
battle with cancer at age 81. He earned his greatest stardom as ruthless oil
baron J.R Ewing on the serial drama “Dallas.”
24 – At least 112 people were killed as a result of a fire
that raced through an eight-storey garment factory just outside of Bangladesh’s
capital, Dhaka. Police later arrested three factory officials suspected of
locking in the workers.
26 – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was ordered out of office in 14
days after Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland ruled he broke
conflict of interest rules. Hackland later ruled Ford could run if a byelection
was ordered to fill his post. Ford was granted a stay on Dec. 5 until his
appeal would be heard in early January.
26 – Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Bank of
Canada governor Mark Carney was chosen to run the Bank of England, beginning
July 1. It’s the first time a foreigner had been tabbed to run Britain’s
venerable central bank, which dates to 1694.
28 – Quebec’s anti-corruption squad arrested former
SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime in connection with alleged fraud involving the
McGill University Health Centre.
28 – Two tickets from Missouri and Arizona split the record
$588 M Powerball jackpot, and the second largest jackpot in U.S. history. After
taxes, each ticket was worth about $136 M.
29 – At the end of a year-long inquiry into newspaper
wrongdoing, Lord Justice Brian Leveson issued a damning verdict on the British
press, saying an independent media regulatory body should be established in law
to prevent more people from being hurt.
29 – The U.N. voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution
upgrading the Palestinians to a non-member observer state. Canada, the U.S. and
Israel were among the nine nations that voted “No.”
30 – Another Quebec mayor who faced several
corruption-related charges announced his resignation, although Mascouche mayor
Richard Marcotte insisted family-related reasons prompted him to end his 22
years in power.
30 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed off on a $6.3 billion
federal loan guarantee for the $7.4-billion Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project
in Labrador, saving the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova
Scotia more than $1 billion in borrowing costs.
DECEMBER
1 – After an eight-and-a-half year hiatus from performing,
country music superstar Shania Twain began her two-year residency at Caesars
Palace in Las Vegas.
1 – Enrique Pena Nieto took the oath of office as Mexico’s
new president, bringing the Institutional Revolutionary Party back to power
after a 12-year hiatus.
3 – St. James Palace announced that Prince William and his
wife Catherine were expecting their first child after she was hospitalized with
a severe form of morning sickness.
3 – Alberta Premier Alison Redford was cleared by the
legislature’s Speaker on allegations she deliberately misled the house about
her role in awarding a government contract to her ex-husband’s law firm.
4 – A military jury found Canadian reservist Maj. Darryl
Watts guilty of unlawfully causing bodily harm and negligent performance of
military duty, but not guilty of manslaughter in a 2010 Afghanistan training
accident that killed Cpl. Josh Baker and injured four others.
4 – Besse Cooper, who was listed as the world’s oldest
person, died in a Monroe, Ga., nursing home at age 116.
4 – Typhoon Bopha killed over 700 people and nearly 900
others missing in the southern Philippines.
7 – King Edward VII hospital nurse Jacintha Saldana was
found dead in London, two days after falling victim to a prank telephone call
by two Australian DJs posing as the Queen and Prince Charles to elicit private
information about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge.
7 – The federal government approved the foreign takeovers of
Nexen Inc. and Progress Energy Resources Corp. by China’s CNOOC and Malaysia’s
Petronas respectively. But Prime Minister Harper warned it would only consider
future takeover deals in the oilsands by state-owned companies in exceptional
circumstances.
10 – Christine Sinclair was named the winner of the 2012 Lou
Marsh Award, becoming the first soccer player to take home the 76-year-old
trophy named after the former Toronto Star sports editor.
11 – British banking giant HSBC agreed to a record $1.9
billion fine to settle a U.S. money-laundering probe. It faced accusations it
transferred funds through the U.S. from Mexican drug cartels and on behalf of
nations such as Iran that are under international sanctions.
11 – Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar died at age 92.
12 – Pope Benedict XVI began tweeting in eight languages
from his personal Twitter account @Pontifex.
14 – A gunman killed 26 people at an elementary school in
Newtown, Conn., including 20 young children, in one of the worst school
shootings in U.S. history. The assailant was found dead inside the school and
his mother was found slain in another location.
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