By Canadian Press

Year in review: A look at news events in June 2022

Dec 16, 2022 | 7:27 AM

A look at news events in June 2022:

1 – A jury awarded actor Johnny Depp $15 million in damages in his libel lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard. The same jury awarded Heard $2 million in damages in her countersuit against Depp. Depp sued Heard for $50 million, accusing her of libelling him with a 2018 op-ed she wrote about being abused. She then filed a $100-million counterclaim against the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star. 

2 – Turkey’s state-run news agency said its foreign minister sent a letter to the United Nations formally requesting that his country be referred to as “Turkiye.” The move was seen as part of a push by Ankara to rebrand the country and dissociate its name from the bird and some negative connotations that are associated with it.  

2 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the chief of the Siksika First Nation signed a $1.3-billion land claim settlement, which the federal government said was one of the largest agreements of its kind in Canada. The settlement dates back to 1910, when Canada broke its Blackfoot Treaty promise and took almost half of Siksika Nation’s reserve land, including some of its agricultural lands, to sell to people who settled in the area.  

2 – Doug Ford and the Ontario Progressive Conservatives sailed to a second majority government in the provincial election with a campaign focused on rebuilding highways and hospitals to chart a course out of the pandemic. In winning 83 seats, the Tories produced a victory so sweeping it toppled two other party leaders. The NDP won 31 seats — enough to form official Opposition again — but Andrea Horwath stepped down as leader. Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca also stepped down after he failed to secure official party status and didn’t even win a seat for himself in the legislature. 

vehicle damage

Over 40 vehicles damaged during late-night Nanaimo vandalism spree

51m ago

rising costs

RDN taxpayers want relief as board grapples with budget

5h ago

new mayor

Spring Mayoral by-election called in Ladysmith

18h ago

5 – Queen Elizabeth appeared on the balcony at the end of four days of celebrations marking her 70 years on the throne. She was joined by her son Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, her grandson Prince William, his wife Catherine and their three children. The small family group included the Queen’s three heirs to the throne. The Platinum Jubilee celebrations ended with the singing of “God Save the Queen.” 

5 – Jacob Hoggard, the frontman for the Canadian band Hedley, was found guilty of sexually assaulting an Ottawa woman but acquitted of the same charge against a teenage fan. Thirty-seven-year-old Hoggard was also found not guilty of sexual interference, a charge that relates to the sexual touching of someone under 16, in an incident involving the same fan when she was 15.  

8 – The federal government named Kimberly Murray as its special interlocutor for residential schools. The former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was expected to work with Indigenous communities to bring justice to Indigenous children and their families. The government announced the position last year after ground-penetrating radar detected hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. 

9 – The Crown dropped its case against Matthew Matchett, a federal bureaucrat accused of leaking secret cabinet documents about a $700-million shipbuilding contract. The Crown’s decision came more than three years after the Crown’s case against vice-admiral Mark Norman was also dropped. Both Matchett and Norman had been accused of leaking information about the Liberal government’s decision in 2015 to delay approval of a navy contract. 

10 – Carl Girouard, 26, the man who used a sword to murder and maim people in Quebec City on Halloween 2020, was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. Quebec Superior Court Justice Richard Grenier delivered the sentence. A jury convicted Girouard last month on two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder. The sword attacks began in front of Le Chateau Frontenac hotel in the city’s historic quarter.

11 – Chiefs from two First Nations in Manitoba said their communities were looking for answers after possible graves were discovered at the sites of former residential schools. Sagkeeng First Nation found 190 anomalies in the soil and Minegoziibe Anishinabe First Nation located six. The communities said initial data from ground-penetrating radar showed the anomalies fit some of the criteria of graves but more information was needed. 

12 – Prolific character actor Philip Baker Hall died at the age of 90. Hall starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s early movies and memorably hunted down a long-overdue library book in “Seinfeld.” Hall’s other credits included playing Richard Nixon in Robert Altman’s 1984 drama “Secret Honor.”  

13 – The man responsible for Toronto’s deadly 2018 van attack was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Alek Minassian was also sentenced to 20 years for 15 counts of attempted murder, which were to be served concurrently. Eight women and two men died on April 23, 2018, when Minassian deliberately drove a rented van down a busy sidewalk. Another woman died more than three years later from injuries suffered that day. The court heard that Minassian had been radicalized online and was bent on infamy — angered by women who wouldn’t sleep with him. 

14 – Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly struck a historic deal with Denmark, settling a dispute stretching back five decades over a 1.3-square-kilometre island in the Arctic. Joly and her Danish counterpart signed an agreement to divide Hans Island — an uninhabited rock situated between Nunavut and Greenland. Joly said the deal ended the so-called Whisky War, which involved both nations leaving bottles of spirits on the island with little notes for one another while removing each other’s flags. 

17 – The Assembly of First Nations said it had voted to suspend National Chief RoseAnne Archibald. The AFN executive committee and board of directors said her suspension was effective immediately pending the outcome of investigations into four complaints against her. It said public statements she made a day earlier breached her obligations to the AFN and were contrary to her oath of office. In a statement, Archibald said she was being “undermined, discredited and attacked” for trying to clean up corruption in the AFN. 

17 – The federal government discontinued the COVID Alert app. Launched in the summer of 2020, the app was billed as a way to let people know if they’d been in close contact with someone with COVID-19, without collecting personal data. It had been criticized as being ineffective. 

20 – The Federal Court of Canada certified a class-action lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of off-reserve Indigenous children taken from their families in what’s known as the Millennium Scoop. The children were placed in non-Indigenous care between Jan. 1, 1992, and Dec. 31, 2019. The plaintiffs alleged the federal government breached the children’s Charter rights. They sought various damages on behalf of the affected children and families. 

20 – Former Parti Québécois leader Andre Boisclair pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual assault. Boisclair was charged in separate cases involving two alleged victims whose identities were covered by a publication ban. He pleaded guilty in a Montreal courtroom to one count of sexual assault with the participation of another person and one count of sexual assault. Boisclair served as PQ leader between 2005 and 2007 when the party was in opposition. 

22 – Civil trial jurors found Bill Cosby guilty of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. The Los Angeles County jury delivered the verdict in favour of Judy Huth, and awarded her $500,000. The jury’s decision was a major legal defeat for the 84-year-old Cosby, who did not attend the trial. It came nearly a year after the comic’s Pennsylvania criminal conviction for sexual assault was thrown out and he was freed from prison. 

22 – The federal government froze Hockey Canada’s federal funding over the organization’s handling of an alleged sexual assault by members of the 2018 gold medal-winning world junior hockey team and an out-of-court settlement. Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge said the national body would only have its funding restored once it disclosed the recommendations of improvement provided by a third-party law firm hired to investigate the alleged incident. 

23 – The European Union’s leaders agreed to make Ukraine a candidate for EU membership, setting in motion a potentially years-long process that could draw the embattled country closer to the West. Ukraine applied for membership less than a week after Russia invaded on Feb. 24. The decision by the 27-nation bloc also granted candidate status to Moldova, which borders Ukraine. Gaining membership could take years or even decades. 

24 – The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place since 1973. It overturned Roe v. Wade in a decision that was unthinkable before former U.S. president Donald Trump appointed three justices to the bench. The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in about half of U.S. states.  

28 – Group of Seven leaders announced they would phase out or ban the import of Russian coal and oil in response to that country’s war with Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis the invasion sparked.  

28 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced more money for Ukraine. At the end of the G7 leaders’ summit in Germany, Trudeau said Canada was giving a $200-million loan to Ukraine through the International Monetary Fund. He also pledged $75 million in humanitarian assistance to help with operations in Ukraine and its neighbours, $52 million in agricultural aid and support, $15 million to fund demining efforts and $9.7 million for those tracking human rights violations. 

28 – Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls. The sentencing marked the end of a prosecution that detailed how the two flaunted their riches and associations with prominent people to exploit vulnerable girls. The crimes occurred even as the couple hobnobbed with some of the world’s most famous and wealthy people. Epstein killed himself in jail while awaiting trial, and Maxwell had denied being his accomplice. 

29 – R&B superstar R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison for using his fame to sexually abuse young fans. Several of Kelly’s accusers told a court, and the singer himself, that he had preyed on them and misled them. Kelly didn’t speak at his sentencing and showed no visible reaction on hearing his penalty. Kelly was convicted last year of racketeering and sex trafficking. 

29 – Actress Sandra Oh and track champion Donovan Bailey were among 85 new appointees to the Order of Canada. Bailey was named an officer for his track and field excellence and philanthropic commitment to youth and amateur athletes. Oh was also named an officer of the order.  

29 – Canada signed an agreement to upgrade the 2,000-soldier NATO battlegroup it led in Latvia. Defence Minister Anita Anand said it would be brought to a brigade level, though she did not say how many more troops Canada would send. Anand signed the agreement along with her Latvian counterpart on the sidelines of a major NATO summit in Spain.  

The Canadian Press