The Canadian who formerly headed the United Nations Human Rights Commission said the biggest trend in warfare over the last two decades has been the rise of civilian casualties. Read more…

British Columbia government officials have been working for months to figure out how much the federal omnibus crime bill will cost the province, but Justice Minister Shirley Bond is keeping the results of that work secret. Read more…

British Columbia's top RCMP officer says he's talked to hundreds of women who work for the force in British Columbia and they've told him the work environment has to change, so he's appointing 100 Mounties to investigate sexual harassment complaints in an effort to improve a culture condemned by some as intolerably sexist. Read more…

The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down a law that allowed police to immediately start wiretaps in urgent cases without getting a search warrant. Read more…

Young workers have given a local Subway restaurant franchise owner the BC Fed's Bad Boss Award for alleged "wage theft." Ministry of Labour says it will seek employer's side of the story. Read more…

A former sex worker who survived an attack on serial killer Robert Pickton's farm five years before his arrest, only to see charges against him dropped, has decided against testifying at the public inquiry into the case. Read more…

Fifteen groups originally granted standing with the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry are boycotting the second phase, and are hoping to spark an international inquiry into what they say is a flawed inquiry. Read more…

VANCOUVER - Lillian Beaudoin has spent much of the past six months sitting in a Vancouver courtroom waiting for answers about why the police failed to stop serial killer Robert Pickton before he murdered her sister, Dianne Rock. But she worries those answers are being drowned out by persistent controversies that have plagued the hearings, most recently anonymous allegations of sexual harassment levelled against unnamed staff members at the commission. Read more…

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - A British Columbian woman originally barred from the Miss Universe Pageant because she was born a male has been given the thumbs up to participate in the competition and there's a suggestion her case might allow others like her to take part in future. Read more…

VANCOUVER - The case of a transgendered Vancouver woman kicked out of the Miss Universe Canada pageant reached a new high on Monday, pitting Donald Trump's Miss Universe Organization against a prominent American lawyer. Read more…

A two-day conference starting Friday will bring together B.C. politicians, policy-makers, educators and others who are at the cutting edge of social change -- and finding that edge close to home. The range of workshops at The Future Is Local Civic Governance Forum, to be held at Harrison Hot Springs, reflects various hot button issues local public officials face these days, said Charley Beresford, executive director of The Columbia Institute, which is putting on the event. Read more…

If human rights groups and survivors of a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo have their way, the Supreme Court of Canada will grant them a day in court to consider claims that the Canadian mining firm Anvil Mining provided logistical support to Congolese troops who massacred over 100 unarmed civilians in Katanga province in 2004. Read more…

Over 70 foreign workers who say they were cheated by their employer after they were brought to Canada to work at local Denny's restaurants have won a significant legal victory. On March 5, Madam Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick of the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the workers can proceed with a class action against Northland Properties Corporation -- doing business as Denny's Restaurants -- and Dencan Restaurants Inc., the companies that run Denny's Restaurants in British Columbia. If successful, the class action certified by the court could cost Denny's upwards of ten million dollars. Read more…

Vancouver's third homicide of the year is having a large ripple effect in the city's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, where residents of the hotel where the incident occurred are being moved into other hotels and overcrowded shelters while the investigation is ongoing. Read more…

A 49-year-old rancher battling air pollution in Alberta’s Peace River country hopes a high profile meeting with four Alberta government ministries and two local MLAs will result in some concrete changes this Friday. Read more…

If the British Columbia government succeeds in its arguments to keep parts of a contract with IBM secret, it will be a major change to how freedom of information law is interpreted in the province, says Vincent Gogolek, executive director of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. Read more…

Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney has cancelled a Canadian speaking appearance due to security concerns sparked by demonstrations during a visit he made to Vancouver last fall, the event promoter said Monday. Read more…

A Simon Fraser University economics professor says voters were "demobilized" by robocalls in the 2011 federal election. In a preliminary draft of her report, published on March 8, Dr. Anke S. Kessler argues that voters in non-Conservative polls turned out in fewer numbers in 2011 than they had in 2008. Read more…

Gary Mar used to be Alberta's best-recognized and most persuasive oil sands lobbyist in Washington, DC. But his diplomatic future is now uncertain, pending a probe from the province's ethics commissioner. Read more…

VANCOUVER - A British Columbia study suggests about 40 per cent of mentally ill people have been arrested at some point during their lifetime. Read more…