An outbreak of a rare Ebola strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has cast its pall over Canada.

Health authorities in Ontario announced Wednesday that a resident who’d recently travelled to the East African region was now being tested for exposure to the Bundibugyo strain of the severe, often fatal disease.

Simultaneously, an Air France flight bound for Detroit was diverted to Montreal because a Congolese passenger had boarded “in error” when departing Paris.

Here’s what to know about the threat of Ebola in Canada and the outbreak in East Africa.

What’s happening in Ontario?

In a statement to National Post, the Ontario Ministry of Health said the person, whose symptoms were not released, is being “assessed in hospital.”

“Out of an abundance of caution, clinicians are testing the patient for a range of possible infectious diseases, including Ebola virus, given their recent travel history, in accordance with established clinical protocols,” they wrote.

“All appropriate infection prevention and control measures are in place.”

The Ministry did not specify in which country the person may have been exposed to the virus, nor when they returned to Canada, but said there are no other confirmed cases in the province.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) told National Post Thursday that a sample is being tested at its National Microbiology Laboratory and results are expected within 24 hours.

What caused the Air France flight diversion to Montreal?

The Air France flight was diverted to Montreal-Pierre-Elliott Trudeau International Airport around 5 p.m. EST Wednesday at the request of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency.

An agency spokesperson told National Post via email that the passenger should not have been allowed to board the plane due to “entry restrictions put in place to reduce risk of the Ebola virus” and that CBP “took decisive action” in prohibiting its landing in the U.S.

On Monday, the U.S. Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Homeland Security announced new travel restrictions for all passengers without U.S. passports who have been in the DRC, Uganda or neighbouring South Sudan within the past 21 days. The latter nation is not currently experiencing any Ebola cases , according to Sudans Post.

Effective Thursday, all passengers whose flight originated from those countries or who visited them in the last 21 days — including U.S. citizens — will be routed directly to Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia for assessment, according to a DHS document published online.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Health Alert Network Health Advisory to alert clinicians, public health practitioners, and travelers about a new outbreak of Ebola disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda caused by the Bundibugyo… pic.twitter.com/cxGfDxGJ7n

— CDC (@CDCgov) May 19, 2026

An American doctor who was exposed while caring for patients in DRC has been transferred to a hospital in Germany for treatment, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

As for the Congolese passenger in question, a spokesperson for PHAC told National Post in an email that they disembarked and were assessed by a quarantine officer who “determined they were asymptomatic” before being returned to Paris.

A spokesperson for Air France confirmed the incident in an email, but was not able to release any information on the passenger’s whereabouts upon return, citing privacy considerations.

The flight was allowed to continue on to Detroit, where it landed later that evening, according to Flight Aware . The number of passengers wasn’t immediately available, but the seating capacity on the Boeing 777 used is 328, according to Flightseatmap.com .

What is the latest on the outbreak in East Africa?

After a DRC hospital noticed a cluster of health-care workers falling severely ill in early May, it notified the WHO, whose subsequent testing proved positive for the Bundibugyo strain, one of four types of orthoebolaviruses that result in Ebola disease, one for which a vaccine doesn’t exist.

The organization declared it a “public health emergency of international concern” last weekend.

In a press conference Wednesday , WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at least 139 people are suspected to have died from the virus, almost all of them in the DRC, where the bulk of the nearly 600 suspected cases are located.

Yesterday I convened an Emergency Committee on the #Ebola outbreak in the #DRC and #Uganda. The Committee agreed that the situation is a public health emergency of international concern. @WHO assesses the risk of the epidemic as high at the national and regional levels, and low… pic.twitter.com/HBNSGXSqJe

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 20, 2026

He said there are currently 51 confirmed cases in DRC and only two in Uganda, both carried by people who were in DRC, one of whom has since died.

Ghebreyesus said the scale of the epidemic is much larger,” and that the WHO expects “those numbers to keep increasing given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected.”

Making matters worse, he explained, is the transmission between health-care workers leading to deaths, “significant population movement in the area” and the ongoing conflict between armed groups that has “escalated significantly over the past two months, with over 100,000 people displaced.”

“The area is also a mining zone, with high levels of population movement that increase the risk of further spread,” he said.

The global risk, Ghebreyesus said, remains low, and the outbreak does not meet the threshold for pandemic status.

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Despite a year that included referendum threats, court battles and renewed sovereignty rhetoric, Canadians appear less worried about the prospect of Quebec and Alberta separatism than they were a year ago, a new poll revealed.

According to a survey conducted for the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS), concern over separation has cooled somewhat since last spring, with respondents appearing to view both movements with less urgency than those who were polled in May 2025.

During that survey, when asked if the threat of separation should be taken very seriously, 52 per cent of all people said yes for Alberta and 42 per cent agreed for Quebec. Agreement was highest among those provinces’ respondents — 63 per cent of Albertans and 47 per cent of Quebecers.

“I think there was more fever about this thing at the time,” ASC President Jack Jedwab told National Post.

“I think that’s diminished, and people are now, in particular in Quebec, beginning to feel that they’ve seen this film before. Whereas in Alberta, there’s still a bit more of the imponderable or uncertainty about where this is all going.”

While the question was worded differently in the most recent poll — “Are you worried about the threat” of either province’s separation from Canada — a subsided concern was evident.

Just 26 per cent of all respondents said they were worried about Alberta, and only 18 per cent said the same of Quebec.

Jedwab also attributed some of the lowered concern to recent political and legal developments, namely the Alberta Court of King’s Bench decision to strike down the Stay Free Alberta petition to force a referendum on separation, ruling that the province failed to consult First Nations on treaty rights implications, which came just before the poll was conducted.

Premier Danielle Smith later said this October’s referendum would be modified to ask citizens whether the province should remain a part of Canada or begin the legal process to hold another referendum on separation.

Regardless, Jedwab said, “it feels more diluted in terms of what it might have been prior to the machinations of the past two weeks.”

As for Quebec, Jedwab thinks the reduced unease is partially a result of the Parti Québécois losing ground ahead of this fall’s general election — the most recent Leger poll , for instance, has them almost neck-and-neck with the Liberals and the Coalition Avenir Québec surging on the popularity of new leader, Premier Christine Fréchette.

Jedwab also suggested the PQ has pulled back on sovereignty “being something that would immediately emerge in the event of election victory.” In his view, it’s a subject that would come up later.

“You have to have an election first and we don’t know after the election what the timing would be, whereas the Alberta one is very fixated on something that’s going to happen in October,” he said.

Albertans were the most likely to express concern about their province separating (39 per cent), while Anglophones in Quebec (41 per cent) are most anxious about theirs.

The results also indicate a correlation between concern and a respondent’s geographic proximity to either province.

“If you’re in Alberta, you’re going to be a lot less caring of what’s going on in Quebec than you are in Alberta, where the issues are more in your face, presumably, than they are on the other end of the country.”

The pattern was reflected in neighbouring provinces B.C. and Saskatchewan, where respondents shared comparatively greater concerns about Alberta separation than Quebec — 29 and 21 per cent, respectively, versus 16 and 8 per cent.

The survey also found Indigenous respondents expressed much higher concern about separation movements in both Alberta (42 per cent) and Quebec (29 per cent) than non-Indigenous respondents (26 and 19 per cent, respectively).

“That may be a partial explanation at least for the Indigenous leadership’s move to intervene here, reflecting that higher degree of concern in Alberta and not insignificant in Quebec either,” Jedwab said.

“It hasn’t been as much of an issue in the past, but based on what we’ve seen in Alberta, it may be an issue in Quebec at some point down the line again.”

Despite the relative decline in anxiety overall, Jedwab reasoned the issue is unlikely to disappear soon, particularly with both votes in October.

“There’ll clearly be more to say about this issue,” he said.

The poll, conducted by Leger between May 15-17, surveyed 1,511 individuals. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size yields a margin of error no greater than plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

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The ripple effect of the Iran war has moved beyond oil markets and has now reached everyday consumer goods. The nearly three-month war has triggered shortages affecting smartphones, snack packaging and restaurant kitchens. From monochrome potato chip bags to “Diet Coke parties,” here are five ways the conflict in the Middle East is wreaking havoc on global supply chains.

1. SNACK PACK INK

Japanese snack packaging is about to become a lot less vibrant due to a shortage of an ink ingredient. Calbee, Japan’s biggest snack maker with about half of the overall market, said shortages tied to the Strait of Hormuz blockade are forcing it to switch its brightly coloured bags to monochrome.

According to a statement released by the company, 14 product variants of potato chips, Kappa Ebisen snacks and Frugra cereal will temporarily switch to black-and-white packaging starting the week of May 25. Calbee said that the measure is an effort “to help maintain a stable supply of products” and is a response to “supply instability affecting certain raw materials amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East,” adding that it won’t affect product quality.

The greyscale packaging is reportedly due to a shortage of naphtha , a petroleum-derived ink ingredient. Japan imports almost all of its oil and nearly half of its naphtha from the Middle East via the Strait of Hormuz, which has been “ effectively closed ” since March 2.

Calbee isn’t the only snack maker affected by the Hormuz crisis. In March, difficulty procuring oil caused Yamayoshi Seika to suspend production of several products, including its popular Wasabeef (wasabi and beef-flavoured) potato chips. And the naphtha shortage is affecting more than just snack packaging.

The chemical is also used to make plastic. The New York Times reports that food manufacturers are contending with packaging constraints for products such as tea leaves and tofu. Car makers, paint and bathroom manufacturers have also reported issues securing naphtha, but a Japanese cabinet official offered reassurance when asked about the Calbee packaging change at a news conference in Tokyo on May 12.

“We have not received any reports of immediate supply problems for printing inks or naphtha,” Kei Sato reportedly said. “We believe that the necessary quantities for Japan as a whole are secured.”

2. DIET COKE

Diet Coke is scarce in India, where, unlike most other markets, it’s only sold in cans. Some orders aren’t being fulfilled due to a can shortage linked to the Iran war disrupting supplies of aluminum, suppliers told Reuters . The Gulf accounts for roughly nine per cent of global aluminum production.

The cans are disappearing from shelves as “Diet Coke parties” pop up across the country. Revellers are paying US$10-$16 entry fees for the pleasure of partaking in Diet Coke-centric drinks and activities, Reuters reports.

Marketing executive Ishika Gupta was reportedly the first to throw a “Diet Coke party” on April 26 in New Delhi. It started as a joke, Gupta told NBC News . “I thought only me and two of my friends would show up.” The alcohol-free event sold out. Roughly 150 Gen Zers showed up wearing Coke-themed outfits to dance to the house and pop music and drink “concoctions” inspired by Dua Lipa , who adds pickled jalapeño and dill pickle juice to her Diet Coke.

“We had a cocktail menu, which we call Coke-tails. The idea was to bring fans together,” said Gupta, a self-professed “big Diet ​Coke fan” who reportedly started an Instagram account devoted to the drink a month before the Iran war began. “It was some cosmic alignment,” she told NBC News. “We were celebrating the very thing that there was a so-called crisis for.”

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3. COOKING GAS

Also in India, where millions depend on liquified petroleum gas cylinders for cooking, kitchens are running low, and restaurants and hotels are warning of potential disruptions and shutdowns, Reuters reports. India is the ​world’s second-biggest importer of liquefied petroleum gas and relies heavily on Gulf oil imports. Gas canisters are now in short supply due to the Strait of Hormuz crisis.

“Even in the black market, there is no certainty that I will get any gas or not,” Abhishekh Dixit, owner of Parawthe Wala, a restaurant in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk market, told NBC News . “Everything is being affected, and our suppliers have raised prices by up to five per cent.”

Dixit’s restaurant has reportedly relied on gas cylinders to cook its specialties, including the parathas stuffed with onion and paneer and brushed with butter that have people lined up, for more than a century. The crisis has “created an artificial inflation,” he said, which has forced him to raise prices and buy electric stoves to stretch his gas supplies.

The country’s ceramics industry has also been affected by shortages of propane and natural gas. In March, the BBC reported that most manufacturers in Morbi, producers of roughly 80 per cent of India’s ceramics, were forced to shut down for nearly a month. The country’s ceramic industry is estimated to be worth roughly US$8.1 billion, and around 400,000 employees work in Morbi factories.

4. FERTILIZER

The Gulf region isn’t only a key producer of oil products and natural gas but also of fertilizer. Thirty per cent of the fertilizer trade goes through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. The blockade could put up to 10 billion meals at risk, with the poorest countries the hardest hit, Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Yara, one of the world’s largest fertilizer companies, told the BBC .

Global food production hangs in the balance as the blockade upends fertilizer supplies. Without shipping traffic able to pass, the world could be approaching a “global agrifoods catastrophe,” the FAO warned in a new report .

Maximo Torero, FAO chief economist, said in a statement in March that if the conflict were to continue for more than three months, they expect the repercussions to be “significantly” more serious. “Not only in terms of prices of commodities, the prices of inputs, of fertilizers and energy, but it will also impact significantly the next planting season, and that will have a longer-term impact. So that’s why it’s so important not to allow this to continue to escalate (for) an extended duration.”

5. HELIUM

The Iran war is also disrupting the world’s supply of helium, which could have wide-ranging impacts. The production of smartphones, electric vehicles, semiconductor chips and medical equipment, including MRI machines, relies on helium.

Qatar, producer of roughly one-third of the world’s helium, halted production in March after Iranian strikes on two liquid natural gas facilities. State-run QatarEnergy told Reuters that the attacks destroyed 17 per cent of the country’s capacity. Repairs could reportedly take three to five years.

“The effects are already being felt,” Cliff Cain of Pulsar Helium, a helium exploration and development company, told CBS News . “Everything from vehicle chips to iPhones will definitely be affected.”

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Negotiating trade deals — to secure access to global markets for Canadian soybeans, lentils, beef and other marquee agriculture exports, while shielding our own markets from a flood of foreign imports — is front page news.

Yet behind the tariff headlines, who is quietly fixing the more immediate problem of better quality, affordable food for Canadian families — especially when sky-high energy prices drive up the cost of producing and transporting it?

The answer is the smaller-scale, often family-owned producers in our own backyards. These are the quiet nation-builders. And no, we’re not talking about “grown in Canada” strawberries waved like flags by the Elbows Up crowd.

Big Marble Farms CEO Ryan Cramer is one of them — and this Canadian success story has little interest in chasing U.S. dollars at the expense of its Canadian customers. Like many such operators, he’d rather stay out of the spotlight. I caught him for an interview while he was in his truck — a trick I learned chasing my own dad around our family farm.

Big Marble is a multi-generational Alberta greenhouse operation that began in 2009 as a modest four-acre cucumber house. It has since scaled into one of the province’s largest year-round vegetable producers, now sprawling across more than 55 acres of greenhouse space. The farm grows vine-ripened cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, harvested fresh daily and shipped to grocery chains across Alberta and Western Canada.

“A lot of people look at this industry and our business and think, ‘Wow, that’s big. Who’s behind it — investors? Who’s in bed with these guys?’” Ryan says with a hearty chuckle. “It’s not. It’s me and my dad. That’s it. It’s a family operation.”

That’s increasingly rare. Many competitors race to expand by courting big investment groups. Ryan wants no part of it. “As soon as it becomes corporate and too big, I start losing interest,” he says. He hires others to handle the business side but still loves getting his hands dirty. “I love the plants, the growing. Walking the greenhouse every single day — that’s what keeps me engaged.”

Big Marble operates within Red Hat Co-operative, a producer co-op of greenhouse growers in the Medicine Hat/Redcliff area of southern Alberta. The co-op markets, grades, packs and distributes vegetables across the prairies. It started with a handful of growers in 1966 and peaked near 30; today it’s down to about 10-12. Yet it still runs on its original one-vote-per-grower bylaws — even though Big Marble is now by far the largest player and markets much of the group’s produce.

“We have a humble group of farmers here interested in growing enough to support our local market,” Ryan says. That market has expanded from southern Alberta to the full prairies. “Beyond that, we just haven’t grown to a size where we can reliably supply local demand plus the U.S. So we choose our local market. We look after our Canadian retail partners.”

Of course the U.S. looks tempting — the exchange rate, the size. But entering it properly would require a full product suite and either massive expansion or pulling supply from loyal Canadian customers. “We never felt good about doing that.” Instead, the primary goal is clear: displace imported product from prairie shelves.

All this talk of humble farmers, dirty hands and a 60-year-old co-op might suggest an outfit stuck in the past. Nothing could be further from the truth. The technological pace at Big Marble is gobsmacking.

Supplementary lighting is essential for year-round supply — grocers demand it. Robotics and smarter systems slash labour by, for example, moving produce without forklifts or pallet jacks. The farm employs about 400 people: 30 per cent local, 70 per cent temporary foreign workers, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand. AI projects are next. A camera system travels the rows, snapping thousands of images daily. The more data, the smarter the system becomes at tracking growth, spotting insect or disease outbreaks early, and forecasting yields.

Medicine Hat sits atop legendary natural gas reserves — Rudyard Kipling once quipped the place had “all hell for a basement.” Generators run on natural gas and capture waste heat to help warm the greenhouse. “Our burners produce almost no byproduct other than CO2, which the plants eat,” Ryan explains. By capturing and re-using that CO2, the operation runs close to carbon neutral for much of the year. A combined heat and power system generates up to 13 megawatts; excess electricity (when grow lights are off) feeds the city grid.

It’s hard to imagine anything slowing this ambitious, self-reliant operation. So what does Ryan need from governments or others to do even better?

“The industry is misunderstood,” he says. “We’re still ‘agriculture.’” Yet some in Ottawa don’t see high-tech greenhouses that way anymore. That misunderstanding is a problem, for example, if it threatens access to temporary foreign worker programs.

“We love our temporary foreign workers,” he says, emphatically, “but it’s actually far cheaper and easier to hire locals who handle their own housing and live in the local community.” People assume employing migrants costs us less, he reports; that’s untrue — it costs more.

Utilities are another pain point. Despite the dramatic carbon reductions from CO2 capture and efficient systems, the farm pays standard commercial rates for gas and power. We’re growing fresh food, he laments, with a cool sustainability story, yet we get no recognition for it. A rebate on gas or electricity would help. And every province is different, he adds, so we’re not even on a level playing field.

The biggest pressure, though, is price. “We’re being told to lower our prices in an environment where everything else is going up,” he says with a sigh. “Are you kidding me?”

Big trade deals are complicated. But after talking with Ryan, it’s clear the real work of feeding Canadians affordably and reliably is just as tricky—and far more grounded. It happens every day in places like Medicine Hat, where family operators harness technology, local energy and old-fashioned grit to keep fresh vegetables on prairie tables — without chasing the grass that looks greener south of the border. These are the quiet successes worth championing. Canada needs more of them.

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A man who pleaded guilty to several “vile” offences that included assaulting a teenager and smearing fecal matter over her face and mouth has been handed a sentence of 695 days, or almost two years, by a judge in Vancouver. However, after time served in pre-trial custody, he will face just 227 more days behind bars.

Fitsum Wode Zewdu, 33, pleaded guilty to sexual assault, assault, and committing an indecent act. In sentencing, Judge Reginald Harris of B.C. Provincial Court said he took into account the guilty plea and “the love and support of his parents,” including a letter from his father in his support.

However, Judge Harris also noted that “the vile nature of the unprovoked assault committed against a young woman who was a stranger to Mr. Zewdu warrants a sentence that strongly denounces and deters.”

Court documents released this week outline the troubling nature of the offences. In one, which took place on June 27, 2025, a 17-year-old was walking in a residential area near a SkyTrain station when Zewdu approached her from behind and grabbed her.

“He then smeared fecal matter over her face and mouth while pushing and jamming feces into her face and mouth,” court records state. “Mr. Zewdu was laughing as he held out his phone causing the victim to believe that Mr. Zewdu was recording the assault. A subsequent search of his phone showed that this was not the case.”

The assault only stopped when the victim screamed and ran to a nearby residence where she called the police. The police found Zewdu approaching a second woman with a stroller and asking her to smell his feces-covered hands.

In another instance on Oct. 13, 2024, Zewdu exited a SkyTrain station just after midnight and approached a woman who was waiting for a bus and slapped her buttocks before leaving the area.

Then on July 11, 2025, Zewdu was asked to leave an exotic strip lounge. Outside, he went to the rear parking lot and spotted a woman walking by. He approached her and threatened to kill her and to beat the “shit” out of her. Throughout, he had his penis exposed. The woman called the police, who arrested him after a brief chase.

Judge Harris noted that no victim impact statements were received by the court. “This said, common sense dictates that Mr. Zewdu’s conduct likely caused terror, created a fear of disease, hypervigilance, and concern about being out alone. No doubt, his actions robbed the victims of feeling secure and to some measure limited their movement in the community.”

Court records say that Zewdu was born in Ethiopia and moved with his father to Canada when he was three. A few years later, his mother and sister joined them. “Thereafter, the family moved frequently, ultimately settling in Burnaby,” the document states. “In 2012, Mr. Zewdu lost his sister to suicide.”

The judge noted that Zewdu has a criminal record that stretches back to 2019.

“A review of the record discloses two convictions for failing to comply with court orders and a termination of a conditional sentence order,” the judge wrote. “There is one conviction for sexual assault, two convictions for committing an indecent act, and two mischief convictions.”

Convictions include being found naked and masturbating while sitting at a library computer; spitting in a woman’s face; and dropping a cigarette down a woman’s top while whispering about her licking his feet. Zewdu was out of jail on a conditional sentence order when he committed the most recent sexual assault.

In sentencing, the judge noted several aggravating factors, including earlier convictions for similar offences; being bound by court orders at the time of his offences; and “the humiliating and disgusting act of putting feces in his victim’s face.” The judge also wrote: “Zewdu targets women and does so when few people are around.”

A court psychologist wrote that “Mr. Zewdu’s risk of sexual offending in the community is high,” adding: “The most likely victims are women. Risk scenarios including unwanted touching (e.g. slapping buttocks, grabbing, smearing feces), exposing his genitals in public, masturbating in public, verbal threats, and boundary violations.”

Zewdu has spent 311 days in pre-trial custody and, at 1.5 to 1, he has a “credit” of 467 days. The judge sentenced him to 60 days for the buttocks-slapping incident, 180 days for the incident outside the strip lounge, and 15 months (455 days) for the assault with feces.

He has a balance of 227 days to serve in prison, plus a lengthy probation order in effect for three years after his release. The judge waived the victim fine surcharge, noting that Zewdu has been unemployed for years.

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OTTAWA — Marilyn Gladu was planning to leave politics when she says a conversation with Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon changed her mind.

Gladu had a few offers lined up as she contemplated exiting her role as a Conservative MP, one she had held since 2015, and was pondering a return to engineering, a field she had spent years working in before entering politics.

“I was not really enjoying being on the Opposition benches, asking the food pricing question again and again and again, and not really being free to speak to the media, do meaningful roles,” Gladu recounted in a video published on Friday.

That conversation, a 45-minute sit-down with a community podcaster from her riding of S arnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, offered Gladu’s most detailed account yet of her decision to defect to the Liberals and her experience inside the Conservative caucus.

“I was ready to leave the Conservative party, because, like I said, it was a very toxic environment, I found,” Gladu said.

Poilievre’s office has not yet responded to a request for comment. A spokesman in Gladu’s office declined any further comment, saying in an email that she has “ expressed the extent of her views on the subject and doesn’t have anything more to add at this time.”

The MP recounts in the video how she never dreamed that the Liberals, a government that she admits she has said “terrible things about” for the past decade would ever take her — until she had a conversation with Solomon.

As the minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, a region Gladu represents, she says she had approached Solomon on a “begging mission” to restore funding that she says had been cut in her riding.

“And he said, ‘Sure, when are you coming over,'” recalled Gladu.

“And I looked at him, and I laughed. I said, ‘Well, I didn’t get a call, and I don’t expect I will.'”

That’s when she says Solomon asked: “Would you like a call?”

“I said, ‘Well, I think that would be a discussion worth having.'”

That conversation in West Block set into motion a series of events that culminated on April 8 when Gladu stunned the Conservative caucus and many others on Parliament Hill with her decision to defect to the Liberals, a move that inched Carney’s party even closer to securing a majority government, which it ultimately did after winning a trio of byelections days later.

Gladu was the fifth MP to defect to the Liberals and the fourth from the Conservatives, with Lori Idlout arriving from the New Democrats.

When it came time to announce her decision, Solomon was in the room as Carney welcomed her to the team.

As for the private conversation she had with the prime minister, Gladu recalled in Friday’s video how she had been upfront about her past criticisms.

“I said, ‘Well, thank you for the meeting, but I’ve said awful things about you and the party for the last 10 years, and I can’t really fix that,'” she says she told Carney.

“He was super gracious. He looked at me, and he said, ‘You know what, I’m not interested in the past, I’m interested in moving forward.'”

She says Carney cited her background in global business and engineering as being well-suited to address the challenges of the present day and, according to Gladu, told her: ‘”Everybody in the Liberal caucus loves you.'”

That’s when she responded. “I said, ‘Well, not everybody.'”

Later in the conversation, Gladu offered up the two names she says told the prime minister might have opinions about her joining: Government Whip Mark Gerretsen and Quebec Liberal MP and former Trudeau-era environment minister Steven Guilbeault. When she mentioned Guilbeault, Carney asked her to elaborate.

“I said, ‘Well, I did call him a convicted felon several times in the House of Commons’, and that made him laugh,” Gladu said of the prime minister.

Gladu said Guilbeault’s scaling of the CN Tower back in 2001 when he was a Greenpeace activist later came up between the pair during a committee meeting, which she admits started with silence between them.

That changed after Gladu says some Conservative MPs began making comments about the guts Guilbeault showed to criticize Carney’s approach to climate policy in a recent opinion piece he had penned.

“He said to me, ‘I don’t think I’m ballsy.’ I said, ‘Are you kidding? Did you not climb the CN Tower?'”

She said Guilbeault laughed and said, ‘Yeah, but I was younger then.'”

When it came to Gerretsen, Gladu said she figured he would “probably give me the smallest desk in the smallest closet he can find,” as seating assignments in the House of Commons fall to the party whip.

Ultimately, she said, that never happened. “He gave me a very nice office.”

As for other topics she says she covered with Carney, Gladu says they discussed the government bills that she took issue with, including Bill C-9, the Liberals’ anti-hate legislation that she voiced concerns over for the removal of an exemption for religious speech. Gladu says she also addressed the Liberals’ ban on hundreds of makes and models of firearms.

“He seemed to think my ideas were very creative and interesting, and so you know, I’m moving forward and bringing that conservative voice into the (Liberal) tent.”

She says they also discussed what portfolios she was interested in, with Gladu now sitting as a Liberal MP on the parliamentary committees for justice and the status of women.

Gladu served as chair of the status of women committee when she was a Conservative and defecting to the Liberals cost her that position, along with what the MP says was a $14,000 stipend for the role.

While Gladu says she has felt welcomed among Liberal MPs, she says she is unsure about reoffering. She said she and her staff have endured threats and harassment that at one point required her constituency office to close for several days because of vandalism.

The reaction among her former Conservative colleagues has been split, she said.

She said around half have offered comments suggesting they understand her decision, while others, as she put it, “are firebombing me.”

The MP said she never felt “rewarded with any kind of a role” from Poilievre after having served as one of his co-chairs in Ontario during his 2022 leadership.

She also described hearing from constituents once MPs began crossing the floor about how much they liked Carney over Poilievre. Since last summer, Gladu added that she also heard from Conservatives who expressed “we don’t think Pierre can win” and “that there’s nobody coming behind him.”

She also said she gave what she thought “was a reasonable plan” to Poilievre for how he might deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that involved leveraging Ontario MP Jamil Jivani’s relationship with Vice-President JD Vance and other advice to the Conservatives in the lead up to the last election, as navigating the Canada-U.S. relationship was shaping up to be the central ballot question. “They decided that this was not the direction,” Gladu said.

Poilievre has publicly stated that he plans to remain as leader, citing the 87 per cent vote he received at his leadership review in January and the gains made during the 2025 election.

Successive public opinion polling suggest Poilievre’s Conservatives to be trailing Carney’s Liberals by a roughly 10-point lead, with the government enjoying high approval ratings.

After crossing the floor, Poilievre has said Gladu ought to resign and seek a new seat.

In Friday’s video, the Liberal MP shot back at her former leader.

“I mean he can say ‘she has to look in the eyes of her constituents.’ Well, what about the constituents of Battle River—Crowfoot that elected Damien Kurek, and weeks later all of a sudden he gives up his seat,” Gladu said, referring to how Kurek stepped aside to allow Poilievre to run in a byelection after losing his seat in last election.

“I think we all have to look in the eyes of our constituents, but we all have to look in the mirror too.”

National Post

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A Toronto man found not criminally responsible for the unprovoked killing of an off-duty firefighter at a café in 2013 who “continues to represent a significant threat to the safety of the public” has moved out of hospital, only has to check in with his handlers every two weeks, and is now living in a residential facility that’s a quick walk or bus ride from the city’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Nabil Huruy, 35, had been living in the hospital’s secure forensic unit.

“His first transition to community living occurred when he moved to” a 24‑hour supervised residence on Dec. 1, 2025, “where he presently resides,” said a recent decision from the Ontario Review Board (ORB).

Police charged Huruy with second-degree murder for the death of Markham firefighter Dominic Parker. But Huruy — who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder (in remission, in a controlled setting) — was found not criminally responsible in December 2015 on account of a mental disorder.

The Dowling Avenue facility where he’s now living is Kelly’s Residence, which bills itself as “a large three-storey home in the King and Jameson area” with 19 single bedrooms.

“Over the past year, Mr. Huruy has remained psychiatrically stable on clozapine, with no episodes of aggression, threats or behavioural dysregulation,” said the May 12 decision from the independent tribunal that regularly reviews the status of individuals found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder.

“His mental status has been consistent, and he has continued to follow rules and cooperate with staff. He has not shown signs of acute psychosis, and his presentation has been calm, organized, and appropriate throughout the reporting period.”

The ORB heard that Huruy entered a Danforth Avenue café in Toronto on Sept. 14, 2013, “where the victim was seated with other patrons. After briefly sitting near the victim, Mr. Huruy suddenly produced a knife and stabbed the victim in the head, and, when pulled away, used a second knife to stab the victim in the face. The victim was transported to hospital, where he remained in critical condition until succumbing to his injuries. Mr. Huruy was later identified through a taxi he entered after the incident and was arrested the same day.”

Huruy was born in Saudi Arabia and immigrated to Canada at age 12 with his mother and sister, said the decision.

“He is the younger of two children and has maintained close relationships with his family, including renewed contact with his father in recent years. His childhood was described as stable, with no history of abuse or neglect.”

Initially, he did well in the Canadian school system, said the decision. “His academic performance declined in high school, and he ultimately left a few credits short of graduating.”

Before the killing, Huruy had convictions for theft, failing to comply with release conditions and break and enter.

In the days leading up to Parker’s stabbing, Huruy “exhibited behavioural and perceptual disturbances, including two police encounters” on Sept. 11, 2013, said the decision. “He was assessed in hospital but denied psychotic symptoms and was discharged. In the period immediately before the index offence, he reported increasing fear and persecutory beliefs. He armed himself with two knives for protection and later described interpreting others’ intentions and believing that the victim posed a threat to him.”

Huruy “has adjusted well to supervised community living,” at the Dowling facility, said the decision.

“He has complied with all reporting requirements, maintained medication adherence, and managed his daily routines without difficulty. Staff describe him as reliable and cooperative, and there have been no concerns related to substance use, safety, or elevated risk during this period.”

The facility “provides continuous staffing, supervised medication administration, routine mental status monitoring, and immediate communication with the forensic outpatient team regarding any concerns,” said the decision.

Huruy “participates in structured programming, including CAMH programs, several days per week,” said the decision.

He’s living about 1.7 kilometres from CAMH and “travels to programs by walking or public transit.”

According to his psychiatrist, he “has not exhibited active psychotic, manic, or residual psychotic symptoms over the past year. Previously noted religiously themed delusions have not emerged.”

There’s been no evidence of “substance use relapse,” said the decision. “Regular urine drug screening has consistently yielded negative results. Mr. Huruy has remained fully adherent to medication, with no concerns regarding compliance.”

His psychiatrist testified that he saw a “gradual but meaningful expansion in Mr. Huruy’s insight over the past year. While insight is not yet fulsome, Mr. Huruy increasingly links his index offence (of killing Parker) to psychosis and substance use, particularly cannabis.”

Huruy volunteers at a food bank and attends a local mosque for Friday prayers, said the decision.

“He visits his mother, an approved person, on weekends. He has accepted all recommended therapeutic programming and has not declined any proposed interventions.”

According to his psychiatrist, “establishing stability remains necessary before considering increased liberties or the granting of a conditional discharge. However, the evidence supported a reduction in reporting frequency to biweekly, given Mr. Huruy’s sustained compliance and progress.”

A lawyer for the province “raised an issue of concern for the victims,” Parker’s friends and family members, who frequent the area where Huruy’s now living, said the decision.

“Counsel for the Attorney General accepted that the victims’ concerns are genuine, arising from geographic proximity rather than any concern about Mr. Huruy’s conduct or intent.”

The ORB acknowledged that Huruy “has made substantial clinical progress and has demonstrated sustained psychiatric stability over the past year,” said the decision. “The board accepts the evidence that this progress reflects meaningful rehabilitation.”

But it noted Parker’s killing “occurred in the context of untreated psychosis and substance use, and the risk associated with relapse remains a central consideration in the board’s analysis.”

The ORB agreed that, for Huruy, “supervision, and the ability to intervene promptly, remain critical at this stage of reintegration. Any premature reduction in the level of oversight could introduce destabilizing stressors and increase the risk of relapse, with serious public safety concerns. While Mr. Huruy’s insight has improved, it remains partial, and his long-term capacity to independently maintain treatment adherence has not yet been established.”

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It’s been five years since the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced that it had discovered hundreds of unmarked graves in Kamloops, B.C., using ground-penetrating radar (GPR). The announcement sent shockwaves throughout Canada and brought the residential school controversy to global attention. Then prime minister Justin Trudeau ordered flags flown at half-mast at all federal buildings and they remained lowered for more than five months, the longest period in Canadian history. But in the years since the announcement, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc has walked back its initial claims about graves at a former Kamloops residential school. Here’s what we know about Canada’s graves controversy.

What were the original allegations about graves in Kamloops?

On May 27, 2021, Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced the discovery of the “remains of 215 children” following an examination of land at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. The residential school was one of the largest operated in Canada and was open from 1890 to 1978. Casimir called the development an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented” and said that some of the victims were as young as three.

“This past weekend, with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist, the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light — the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School,” the statement said.

The following day, The New York Times published a story with the headline, ‘ Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada , although the original statement from Casimir did not make any reference to a mass grave.

Five years later, there are many outstanding questions and the Times story remains uncorrected.

Sarah Beaulieu, an anthropology instructor at the University of the Fraser Valley, conducted the original GPR survey of the land: an orchard near the residential school where former students reportedly recalled finding human remains. Beaulieu cautioned in July 2021 that more research needed to be done on the site and that the number of potential gravesites had dropped to 200.

“We need to pull back a little bit and say that they are ‘probable burials,’ they are ‘targets of interest,’ for sure,” Beaulieu said during a press conference at the time. The sites “have multiple signatures that present like burials,” but she underscored the need for excavations to verify the claim.

The First Nation’s messaging has continued to change over the years. In 2024, on the third anniversary of the event, the alleged graves were referred to as “anomalies” in the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc’s Day of Reflection statement. The chief would also refer to them as “unmarked burials.” In February 2026, a statement from the Office of the Chief described “our ongoing investigation into potential burials” at the former residential school and did not make any mention children’s bodies.

In the February statement, Tk’emlups te Secwepemc said that while it had pursued a “multi-pronged” approach since 2021 — involving combing through public records and those of the Roman Catholic Church — the process has been “more complex” than expected.

“Obtaining 88 years of government records and sacramental records from the Roman Catholic Church of Canada is critical to confirming the identities of the children who attended the school and those who never returned home, along with the community to which they belonged,” the statement said.

“Each Nation upholds its own cultural and spiritual protocols for how ancestral remains must be treated,” the statement continued. “Possible future outcomes could be to preserve the orchard as a Sacred Site — a place of memory and healing — or excavate. Any remains would need to be repatriated to their home communities, an extremely complex and sensitive process involving extensive consultation with the Nations, DNA analysis, forensic expertise, and adherence to appropriate laws and protocols.”

Were alleged graves discovered at other residential school sites?

In late June, the Cowessess First Nation reported finding 751 unmarked graves near a former residential school in Marieval, Sask. Trudeau visited the site in July and laid a teddy bear at the site. However, Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme clarified during a news conference at the time: “This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves.”

That same month, a band from the Ktunaxa Nation near Cranbrook, B.C., reported finding another 182 unmarked graves in a cemetery using ground-penetrating radar. The burials were said to be shallow, just feet below the ground.

“ʔaq̓am leadership would like to stress that although these findings are tragic, they are still undergoing analysis and the history of this area is a complex one,” the First Nation said in a statement.

There have been no recent updates on the Ktunaxa Nation’s investigation into unmarked graves.

In Marieval, the use of GPR led to the discovery of “anomalies” which might indicate “possible grave locations,” Cowessess First Nation said. Cowessess has since built an interactive digital cemetery map based on the GPR findings, including “the coordinates of known graves (those having headstones) and possible unmarked graves.”

Neither site appears to have been excavated to confirm whether there were unmarked graves.

The Penelakut Tribe of the Southern Gulf Islands, B.C., announced in July 2021 the discovery of “160+ undocumented and unmarked graves in our grounds and foreshore.” However, as of August 2025 , tribal elders had yet to decide whether to excavate the potential burial area.

In January 2022, Williams Lake First Nation reported finding “93 potential burials (which) correlate with the historic and modern extent of the cemetery” they were discovered in. The following year, the tribe announced the discovery of an additional 66 potential unmarked graves. Chief William Sellars said during a press conference in January 2023 that the Williams Lake First Nation was seeking government funding that might go to finance the excavation of the site. However, the site has not yet been excavated.

The Stó:lō Nation reported that 158 children were in unmarked burial sites in the Fraser Valley, B.C., in September 2023. Two years earlier, the community had assembled a team to examine archival material, oral history records and used ground-penetrating radar. An excavation does not appear to have been conducted to date.

This month, the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in northern Alberta announced they had found 62 potential unmarked graves, however all but nine of them were found on sites of known former graveyards.

What money was allocated to investigate, and how was it spent?

In August 2021, the federal government announced the creation of a $320-million Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund. During the first three years of the program, $216.6 million was reportedly spent supporting nearly 150 Indigenous communities across Canada.

The initiative, according to the Chiefs of Ontario, is designed “to help Indigenous communities respond to and heal from the ongoing impacts of residential schools.” Such activities “could include local research, engagement and knowledge gathering, memorialization or commemoration, bringing children home, and more.” First Nation communities could apply for $3 million a year under the program to support such efforts.

In July 2024, that was reduced to $500,000 annually in an attempt to keep a “sustainable approach” to such projects. The cap was reversed shortly after.

Some of the public funds went to Kimberly Murray , the former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada, who was appointed by the federal government to be an independent special interlocutor for missing children, unmarked graves and burial sites. Murray was given a two-year mandate and a budget of over $10 million. During her tenure, Murray published several reports and hosted consultations across Canada. Her last report was published in October 2024.

Did First Nations excavate the sites?

So far, no excavations have proceeded at the Kamloops site, but recent reporting suggests the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation is still seeking to do so.

The Globe and Mail reported on Friday morning that the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation is planning to excavate the site in 2027, “pending consent from Tk’emlúps and the roughly 120 communities throughout western Canada that sent children to the school.”

Pine Creek First Nations, in western Manitoba, may be the only First Nation to have actually physically excavated an alleged burial site. After the tribe reported “71 anomalies” were found using ground-penetrating radar in May 2022, the following summer, the First Nation began the process of digging and investigating the grounds around a local church to verify whether any graves existed. However, noevidence was found to confirm a burial ground on the site.

Cultural sensitivities remain a factor influencing investigations. Murray, the former independent special interlocutor for missing children, unmarked graves and burial sites, said in July 2023 that some First Nations communities had put “barriers up around the cemetery to mark it and commemorate it and they’re done” rather than disrupt the grounds with a physical investigation.

However, people from outside the community have also illegally sought entry to sites. Murray described an incident in a 2023 report in which “denialists entered the site (Kamloops) without permission” at night with shovels to “‘see for themselves’ if children are buried there.”

How have media covered the topic?

Despite calls for The New York Times to correct its story alleging “mass graves,” the outlet has never issued a correction. Instead, the Times continued to publish similar accounts and shaped the tone of much of the early coverage.

Quillette editor Jonathan Kay published a detailed social media thread showing other mainstream Canadian and international news outlets claimed that the remains of 215 children had been found. A Canadian Press survey from 2021 polling dozens of editors found the Kamloops story to be the most important one of the year, outpacing even pandemic coverage.

Terry Glavin’s feature, The Year of the Graves , published in National Post on the first anniversary of the controversy, began to change the public discourse on the subject. “The New York Times headline illustrates the way the story was almost universally reported. Except that’s not what happened in Kamloops,” Glavin wrote. “As for the most recent uproars: not a single mass grave was discovered in Canada last year.”

Accounts published throughout 2024 by the Fraser Institute and The Wall Street Journal questioned the evidence of the existence of unmarked graves.

Indigenous press and mainstream Canadian outlets have sincemoved away from descriptions of “mass graves” or confirmed remains and unmarked graves at Kamloops and other former residential schools, instead using terms like “ potential unmarked graves ” and “ suspected unmarked graves ” instead.

What were residential schools like? What do we know about any deaths there?

There were roughly 150,000 Indigenous children who attended residential schools over the century and a half they operated in Canada. The first residential school was opened in Brantford, Ont., in 1831. The Roman Catholic Church may have operated as many as 60 per cent of Canadian residential schools. Sexual abuse was prevalent. Over 30,000 claims of sexual abuse or sexual assault have been filed by former students, with $2.8 billion in compensation paid as of April 2015.

The residential school system was “a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples,” the TRC concluded .

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said that as many as 6,000 Indigenous children died in the system, which included 139 schools over the century and a half they operated in Canada. The rate of Indigenous children dying in the first decades of the residential school system was high mostly due to tuberculosis and influenza. Many children’s bodies were never returned home.

Some former students recalled priests and sisters with mixed emotions.

“The residential school was a place so that Indian kids could go to school, but we lost our culture,” Fred Sasakamoose , the first ever Canadian Indigenous National Hockey League (NHL) player, recalled of his childhood years at a residential school in Duck Lake, Sask. “The priests and the sisters, although some of them were kind, some of them were harsh.”

Others remembered the lifelong community they built despite unbelievable hardships.

“Starvation was the order of the day,” Eugene Arcand of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation said as part of his survivor testimonial before the TRC.

“You may hear, ‘Well, it couldn’t have been that bad. Something good must have come out of those residential schools.’ Well, I’m not here to tell you everything about residential schools was bad but I am here to tell you that not a helluva lot of it was good. And the only thing I’ve come out of it with that is worth anything is my life-long friendships; the safety of being with my former schoolmates and other residential school survivors. Today, being with my fellow survivors is the only place where I truly feel comfortable. It’s the only place I can think straight, other than maybe being on a golf course or watching a hockey game or a ball game.”

In 2015, there were an estimated 80,000 former students of residential schools still alive.

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OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she’s open to having a “conversation” with her fellow premiers about rewriting parts of the Constitution relating to Indigenous treaty rights.

Smith told reporters on Friday that Section 35 of the Constitution , which governs Crown-Indigenous relations, has been stretched beyond recognition by the courts.

She said that an Alberta judge’s decision earlier this month to throw out a petition for a binding independence referendum, on the grounds that the province failed to meet its duty to consult with First Nations, was a prime example of this overreach.

“I don’t even know what the court would expect of a citizen-initiated petition to satisfy a bar to a duty to consult before they can even ask a question,” said Smith.

Smith has vowed to appeal the ruling, and is inviting her fellow premiers to help prevent similar decisions in the future.

“It needs to be challenged, we’re going to and, if there’s an appetite among the other premiers to talk about defining that ever further through some kind of constitutional amendment, I’m opening to having that conversation,” said Smith.

Smith was taking questions from the media in Calgary after announcing on Thursday evening that she’ll be adding an independence-related question to the fall referendum ballot.

She noted that Alberta isn’t the only province grappling with overly broad judicial interpretations of treaty rights.

“My reading of (Section 35) is that it was never intended to continue being open-ended and redefined by the courts, to create new and increasing rights over and over again with each new decision,” said Smith.

“It was never intended to undermine property rights (or) to undermine the ability of provinces to have control over their resources.”

Her comments follow a series of controversial treaty-related decisions in British Columbia that critics say have created uncertainty surrounding the property rights of private landowners and the viability of major resource projects.

Multiple candidates in the ongoing B.C. Conservative leadership race have said they’ll amend the Constitution to scale back Aboriginal title and inferred Indigenous veto powers over resource development.

B.C. Conservative leadership candidate Yuri Fulmer says he agrees with Smith’s assessment of Section 35.

“Section 35 must not be twisted into a tool to erase private property rights, override democratic decision-making, or paralyze responsible resource development. It was never meant to become an endlessly expanding veto over the lives, land, and livelihoods of British Columbians,” said Fulmer in an email.

Unlike B.C., Alberta is located entirely on numbered treaty land.

The Supreme Court announced this week that it will hear the appeal to a controversial B.C. decision finding that the province’s mining rules are inconsistent with Indigenous rights.

Smith said she’ll raise the issue of Indigenous treaty rights at a premiers’ meeting set for next week.

Changing Section 35 would require convening a constitutional conference that includes the prime minister, premiers and Indigenous leaders.

Smith will be putting four constitutional questions to Albertans in October’s provincial referendum, including questions on amending the Constitution to give provinces more power over judicial appointments and to abolish the Senate.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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Police shared new information about Esther in hopes it will help find the 14-year-old Jewish girl who has been missing since Friday.

The parents Shira and Joseph said on Thursday that their daughter has been diagnosed before as being on the autism spectrum, CP24 reports. The parents added that the “only reason we’re okay saying it now because she’s still missing.” Her mother said, “ It’s like her medical information that she should have the right to disclose when she chooses to.”

This week, Toronto police say they have elevated the search for Esther to Priority 1 status and on Thursday announced that they have launched a dedicated phone line for tips about her disappearance, committing all available resources as community volunteers join in the effort to find her.

A Priority 1 or Level 1 search is the highest level of response from the police, and mobilizes extensive resources like specialized K-9 units, drones, mounted officers and large-scale ground searches, in addition to community outreach.

14 year old Esther is missing and was last seen Friday night in the Earl Bales Park area near Sheppard and Bathurst in North York.

Anyone with information should contact @TorontoPolice immediately at 1-416-808-2222 or @CanStopCrime at 1-800-222-8477.

Please share this widely.… https://t.co/IL7xNkoUEH

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) May 18, 2026

Esther, also known affectionately as Esti, was last seen on Friday, May 15, in the area of Earl Bales Park , a large green space located at Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West in northern Toronto.

She is described as 5-foot-2, medium build, with brown hair, and was last seen wearing grey sweatpants, a green shirt and no shoes.

“It was Friday night,” her mother, Shira, told Global News. “It was cold outside and she left, and it was dark and she didn’t have her shoes. Both of her pairs of shoes are by the door. And she doesn’t have her phone. Her phone is in the house.”

Shira added that Esther had left her home before but always returned.

Police have released an image of Esther, as well as several blurry security camera images, which have been widely shared on social media.

“I don’t know who else she might have contact with,” her mother said. “I really hope that she’s OK and maybe she’s just scared to come home and she has friends or someone helping her.”

Volunteers in the search include many from Toronto’s large Jewish community, including Shomrim Safety Patrol , an organization founded in 2021 and committed to ensuring the safety and security of Jewish communities across the Greater Toronto Area.

A command centre is operating from the nearby Petah Tikvah Synagogue parking lot. Police say they have deployed a drone as well as marine, canine and mounted units in the search.

Today Chief Demkiw attended our Command Post at Earl Bales Park to get an update from officers on the ground and speak with community members and @ShomrimToronto regarding the search for 14 year old Esther.

If you have any information, please call @TPS32Div at 416-808-3200,… pic.twitter.com/P8GL9eaR05

— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) May 20, 2026

Duty Inspector Peter Wallace said in an update: “We are currently appealing to the pubic to please check your backyard if you reside in this area, your sheds and also your surveillance camera.”

At that time, Shira also delivered a direct appeal to her daughter.

“Esti, my love, if you are watching this, please come home,” she said. “We love you so very much. We miss you terribly. Your family, here, across the country, and around the world, are searching and praying for you every minute. Your friends, classmates, neighbours, and community are all worried about you and hoping to see you safe.”

In a brief press conference on Thursday afternoon, TPS had no new information to provide, but announced a new dedicated phone line of 647-355-4148 for anyone with information that could assist their search. They can also call 911, TPS directly at 416-808-3200, or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or at www.222tips.com .

“Anyone with information, no matter how small, please come forward,” Inspector Jon Rose said.

“ We do know and we deeply appreciate how concerning this is to the community and to the family when a young person goes missing, especially for this length of time. We would very much like to find Esther and get her home safely to her family.

Police have also created a QR code which people can scan and upload any video which may assist the investigation.

Officers continue to actively search for 14-year-old Esther, who has been missing since May 15. As the investigation continues, we’ve set up a dedicated phone line for tips.
📲If you have information, you can call the line at 647-355-4148. In addition, a QR code continues to be… pic.twitter.com/MbRWlSypfh

— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) May 21, 2026

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