A Vancouver Island First Nation sues over land claims, and a transgendered woman in Winnipeg accuses police of abuse
British Columbia: A Vancouver Island First Nation is suing the B.C. government and five homeowners over a sliver of land adjacent to its reserve. The lawsuit claims that a surveyor’s error in 1888 stripped the territory, just northwest of Nanaimo, from the Nanoose band. The First Nation has filed a trespass claim in a bid to get it back.
Alberta: A woman is suing the Alberta government for revealing her true identity after she spent years building a new life under a different name for herself and her daughter. She changed her name after she entered the New Identities for Victims of Abuse program in 2001. Eight years later, she found her real name published alongside her new one when performing a Google search. “You can’t imagine the horror, the grief, the anger, the frustration,” she recently told the media.
Manitoba: A transgender woman is suing the City of Winnipeg after she says she was roughed up by police and mocked for her sexuality. She was having a cigarette in her car when police surrounded her vehicle. She says she was forced out at gunpoint, pushed to the ground then shoved into a cruiser. She was released shortly after—police were looking for someone else—but not before she allegedly overheard an officer say, “He’s a tranny.”
Quebec: A student in Quebec City is suing her CEGEP junior college over a fitness test that she calls “abusive” and unfair. The 18-year-old has failed several times, so she has been unable to get the transcript she needs to go to law school. The woman, who claims to be active and in shape, blames her naturally high heart rate for her inability to beat the test.
Nova Scotia: A Halifax man is suing Canadian Tire for negligence after he tripped—but didn’t fall—over a dog’s leash in one of their stores. The man says employees were feeding a pair of dogs when he stumbled on his way by. He says that his back seized up outside in the parking lot.