Latest from Global News
Global News
an hour ago
- Health
- Global News
First-of-its kind urban flower farm in Montreal fuelled by sibling love
Montreal's first cut flower green care farm is not only growing beautiful blooms, it's also blossoming bonds between people with and without intellectual disabilities. The new project was born out of the love between a former medical ethicist and her neurodivergent big brother. 'We feel really, really good about it,' said Posy Flower Farm founder Lucy Wade, standing next to her older brother Harris. 'I think for me, it's a bit like coming home.' Wade created Posy Flower Farm in Montreal this spring on a small plot of land at the Verdun borough's municipal greenhouse. Where the flowers are now growing, dahlias, cosmos and zinnias among them, not long ago, there was just grass and weeds on the 'unloved' tract. 'It was a huge job. It just took a little elbow grease, eh Harris?' she said to her brother. Story continues below advertisement Harris lives with an intellectual disability. He works regular shifts at the flower farm, along with new employee, Ellis, who is also is also neurodivergent. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy She's hoping the green care farm becomes a place where neurotypical people can not only shop for flowers, but also gain a better understanding of the realities of people living with intellectual disabilities. 'The idea is that if we can put people in the community who don't have disabilities in contact with something beautiful, where they can also see people with disabilities doing something they value and contributing in a very real way to the functioning of this business,' Wade explained. Green care farming is when people with medical conditions, including intellectual disabilities, get major benefits from working outdoors, surrounded by people. When people with disabilities age out of school, society offers little support for them or their loved ones. 'They end up kind of retreating away from society and being more at home,' she said. Wade decided to leave her career as a medical ethicist at the Jewish General Hospital to create an environment where her brother and others with disabilities could thrive. Before being an ethicist, she studied sperm whales in the Maritimes as a marine biologist. 'I do mulch. I do watering, and we sell a bunch of flowers,' Harris said. Story continues below advertisement Wade said she felt in her work life, she had to 'compartmentalize' a major part of herself: being the sister of a brother with a disability. She wanted to bring both sides of her to the forefront at the flower farm. 'I think this is something that a lot of siblings of people with disabilities will understand,' she said. 'You have your family life and the life where inclusion of people with disabilities is completely natural and normal. And then you have your other life where people don't understand that. And you pick and choose who you share that with.' For the full story, watch the video above.
Global News
an hour ago
- Health
- Global News
New Brunswick shelters see increased demand during warm summer months
Some New Brunswick homeless shelters are reporting their busiest summer yet, at a time when many unhoused people ordinarily choose to stay outside in the warmer weather. In Fredericton, a building at the exhibition grounds that was only meant to be an out-of-the-cold shelter until mid-April is instead staying open for the foreseeable future. 'Normally people sort of go out into the world, and spend their summers in tents or out and about or wherever they can be without rules and live their life and that's their choice to do so,' said Warren Maddox, the executive director of Fredericton Homeless Shelters. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'What we found this year is that our usage is way up.' For Maddox, increasing drug toxicity is playing a big role in the summer increase. 'The people are scared. They don't have a place to go where they can be safe at night,' he said. Story continues below advertisement In Saint John, Ben Appleby with the Outflow Ministry is also reporting a record number of people accessing their shelter. 'We've seen basically double since (20)22-23 in individuals experiencing homelessness for at least one day in a year,' said Appleby. The shift is seen provincewide, according to numbers provided by New Brunswick's social development department, which shows 60 per cent of out-of-the-cold beds in the province have stayed available for the summer. 'We saw this coming, to be honest; that's why we were really being proactive… really looking at how can we look at increasing capacity in shelters as a response to what's coming,' said Social Development Minister Cindy Miles. She says the issue is complex, meaning every community will need different supports. For more on this story, watch the video above.
Global News
an hour ago
- Global News
‘There's no justice': Mother of Halifax murder victim pleads for answers 13 years later
The mother of a Halifax tattoo artist killed in a 2012 shooting is speaking out about the investigation surrounding her son's murder. No arrests have been made in the homicide of 27-year-old John Newcombe, but his mother believes there's someone out there who can help solve the case once and for all. 'That's what John needs. That's what his family needs … the justice,' said Laura Lee Jennex, who desperately combs through newspaper articles and Facebook group posts to try and uncover the truth. Newcombe was a rising hip-hop artist and owner of a tattoo shop when he was gunned down outside Winston's Pub in Clayton Park during the early morning hours of June 1, 2012. View image in full screen John Newcombe, 27, was shot outside a bar in the Clayton Park area of Halifax on June 1, 2012. Halifax Regional Police According to Halifax Regional Police at the time, responding officers found Newcombe on the sidewalk outside the bar. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Story continues below advertisement The investigation found that Newcombe had just left the bar when he was shot in the parking lot. The shooter reportedly fled through a walkway towards Willet Street where he was picked up by a vehicle. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Police said they believed Newcombe was the intended target and that it wasn't a random incident. Jennex says she believes her son knew he was in danger. She said she recently spoke with a man who told her he was there the night of her son's killing. 'He said that he was in the bar. John had went out for a cigarette. John came back in and said, 'That guy's here,'' she said. 'This person didn't know who John was referring to, but they went out and there was some people in a car. One of them got out and was giving John a hard time. And at the end of it, the fella said, 'Never mind, I'll be back for you later.' And they left.' Jennex says her son was killed an hour later after that interaction. She says she has received few updates from detectives over the years since Newcombe's death. 'It was maddening because there was very little correspondence with Halifax police or the detectives. They had never returned my phone calls. They had not reached out to me,' she said. Story continues below advertisement Halifax police have said they believe there are people who have information that could solve his murder. Jennex says there's no better time than now for someone to speak up. 'All I want is to be able to put John to rest. I still have his ashes. I haven't been able to do anything with them because I feel like I'd be giving up on him if I did that, where there's no justice,' she said. She remembers her son as an artistic man, who loved his career as a tattoo artist and wrote his own hip-hop songs and had released some 20 music videos. 'I wasn't really familiar with the hip-hop scene. But being a singer and songwriter myself, I recognized that John was getting his thoughts and feelings down on paper and through his music,' she said. 'So as he says in some of his songs, it was a form of therapy to be able to do that. And I was just so, so proud of him when I looked at him as an artist.' Her message to anyone with information about her son's death is simple: come forward. 'It's been 13 years. I realize back then you would have been in your 20s, probably. Now you'd probably you're in your 40s and have a family of your own, perhaps,' she said. Story continues below advertisement 'But I feel like now is the time to come forward. I think the circumstances for people are now safer to speak. So I'm encouraging anyone to please help put this to bed.' Newcombe's case was added to the province's Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes program in 2017. There is a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
Global News
8 hours ago
- Global News
Public hearing ordered of alleged racist posts among Nelson police officers
For three years, the Nelson Police Department has been at the centre of an investigation into alleged racist posts in a private WhatsApp chat. Now, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has ordered three current and three retired officers from the department to take part in a public hearing. We first reported the allegations in 2022, when eight officers were initially under investigation, which was conducted by the Vancouver Police Department. It resulted in two officers being cleared of wrongdoing. Six were found to have committed discreditable conduct. 1:14 Nearly half the officers at the Nelson Police Department are under investigation In ordering the hearing, complaint commissioner Prahbu Rajan said, 'There needs to be clarity for the officers involved in this case, and for policing more generally, about whether group chats between police officers are protected and when they bring discredit to their police department or undermine a respectful workplace culture.' Story continues below advertisement Professor Arthur Schafer, founding director for the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba commented about the case, saying, 'It's important because when police officers have a racist or sexist attitudes, when they're prejudiced, when they're bigoted, those attitudes are likely to leak into their conduct as police officers and to prejudice their ability to act professionally.' 1:41 Nelson police officers facing discipline following report on racist messages The case faced delays due to a constitutional challenge, with some officers arguing their rights were contravened when their chat logs were obtained. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Schafer said that when the adjudication of the case is finished, it will be an occasion for reflection, 'to think about how we recruit new members of the police force, how we train them, what attitudes and values we inculcate as they're learning how to become police officers.' Dates for the public hearing are still to be determined. It will be overseen by retired judge Brent Hoy.
Global News
8 hours ago
- Business
- Global News
Vancouver man says institutions unable to recognize new Indigenous street name
David Gardiner received a handout from the City of Vancouver on June 6, telling him that his street name was going to be changing. He has lived on the now formerly-named Trutch Street for 40 years, which now bears the name šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm Street (pronounced sh-MUS-quee-um-AW-sum), which translates to Musqueamview in English. Signposts bear the English name below the official Musqueam name, which is written in the North American Phonetic Alphabet. Gardiner said he has no issue with the name change and it was not a surprise, but told Global News that when he tried to change his address to the legal Musqueam spelling — šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm — both of his banks told him they have no capacity, nor plans, to be able to recognize the official spelling. 'I think it was very unfair because I think they should have consulted all the stakeholders and that would include the City of Vancouver itself, the province of B.C., at least all the banks, whole bunch of what they call stakeholders, and they left that job to the residents of Trutch Street, former Trutch Street, and that's kind of ridiculous,' Gardiner added. Story continues below advertisement 'We're not being paid for this.' Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Gardiner said he is also having issues changing his address with his credit cards and MSP. 2:08 Vancouver's Trutch Street officially renamed to šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm Communications strategist Bill Tieleman said the city should have given residents way more than the two weeks' notice that they got. 'They had four years… they voted for this in 2021… and it's 2025 and they haven't done the work yet,' he said. Global News asked the City of Vancouver if staff sought data about how many Vancouverites are familiar with he North American Phonetic Alphabet but they said they did not have any. However, they said they are supporting people with questions via e-mail and they had reached out to service providers. Story continues below advertisement Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said that the name on Google Maps comes up as Musqueamview, so there are alternatives for people to use that for their address change. 'Change is hard,' he said, 'but it's the right change.'
