Canada manhunt under way after three police officers shot dead

TORONTO (Reuters) - Three police officers were shot dead in the Canadian city of Moncton and two more were wounded as they conducted a manhunt for a man carrying a rifle and wearing camouflage clothes, Canadian police said on Wednesday

Police said they were searching for Justin Bourque, 24, and urged residents to stay inside and locked their doors.

"Three RCMP members have been killed," RCMP spokesman Paul Greene said in an emailed statement. "Two RCMP members were taken to hospital with what are believed to be non-life threatening injuries. The shooter remains at large."

Moncton, a city of about 70,000 people, is located in Canada's east coast province of New Brunswick. Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the United States.

Local media published a photograph of a man in camouflage clothing and a black headband carrying a rifle. Reuters could not immediately authenticate the picture.

In an interview with CBC News, Greene said the officers were shot in the early evening after responding to reports of a man wearing camouflage clothing and carrying guns.

Regional healthcare outfit Horizon Health Network said on its Twitter feed that Moncton's hospital had received three patients with gunshot wounds.

The deaths of the three officers prompted an outpouring of grief on social media, with New Brunswick Premier David Alward and Federal Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney both saying they were shocked by the news.

The last mass killing of Canadian police took place in Mayerthorpe, Alberta in 2005, when a gunman killed four RCMP officers.

Insufficient brake force blamed in Canada crash

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (AP) — Insufficient brake force was applied before an oil train came barreling out of nowhere in the middle of the night and slammed into a small town in Quebec, killing 47 people, officials said Friday.

Donald Ross, chief investigator for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the insufficient brake force could have been due to mechanical problems with the handbrakes, or a problem with the way someone applied them.

"The train got out of control because it wasn't fully immobilized," said Transportation Safety Board investigator Ed Belkaloul. "The number of brakes (applied) is important, but the quality of the braking is also important."

An unattended Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train was parked overnight on a rail line before it came loose, hurtling down a seven-mile (11-kilometer) incline on Jan. 6. The train derailed and ignited in Lac-Megantic, near the Maine border. All but one of its 73 cars was carrying crude oil, and at least five exploded, setting off massive explosions that devastated the small lakeside town of 6,000 people.

A spokesman for the agency said it has had a closer look at 25 tanker cars since gaining access to the blast site two days ago — and has taken pictures and samples.

The investigators said they are also analyzing the contents of the tanker cars that did not explode in the crash, looking for clues on why the crude oil in the other cars exploded so violently.

"We want a more in-depth chemical analysis of the goods. We want to make sure dangerous goods do not explode," said Belkaloul.

The agency says the investigation has already resulted in two safety advisories urging a revision of the Canadian Rail Operating rule governing the securing of parked trains.

Obama Losing Canada's Oil to China

By Jim Meyers

The Obama administration is foot-dragging on approving a pipeline to deliver abundant Canadian oil to the United States at the same time the Chinese are investing in a pipeline that could send that oil to China.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week passed a bill requiring President Barack Obama to speed up a decision on approving the pipeline. The bill was introduced by Nebraska Republican Rep. Lee Terry, who maintains that the Obama administration has been too slow in making a final decision, the Montreal Gazette reports.

The Canadian province of Alberta has the world’s third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and more than Russia or Iran. Daily production from oil sands is expected to rise from 1.5 million barrels today to 3.7 million in 2025.

Delivering the oil will mean building two pipelines, one south to the refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast and the other west toward the Pacific, where it can be exported to China.

If the United States doesn’t approve its pipeline promptly due to environmental concerns, “Canada might increasingly look to China, thinking America doesn’t want a big stake in what environmentalists call ‘dirty oil,’ which they say increases greenhouse gas emissions,” according to a report from The Associated Press.

Sinopec, a Chinese-controlled company, has invested $5.5 billion in the planned pipeline to the Pacific coast.

Sinopec has also paid $4.6 billion for a stake in Syncrude, Canada’s largest oil-sands project, and PetroChina, Asia’s largest oil and gas company, bought a $1.7 billion stake in Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.

According to Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, American government officials have expressed concerns about the Pacific pipeline delivering oil to China that might have otherwise gone to the United States.

Far Reaching Audience

There is a new STAT feature on this BLOG that lets me know how many hits I get. and the country WHERE they come from. I am amazed.

United States, South Korea, Luxembourg, Canada, Russia, Germany, Ukraine, Netherlands, China and the United Kingdom, to name the most recent.

I want to thank all those who have visited this site, say hello, and hope you are all in good health.

If you have time, I would love to hear from you. A HELLO in the COMMENT section would be nice. I was going to put my EMail address, but was warned against that, so I will take their advice.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate the event, hello and best wishes to those who do not. I hope that everyone has something to be "thankful" about. Whether you celebrate the day or not, tomorrow, sometime, prior to eating, lets ALL bow our heads, give thanks for what we have, and pray, in your own way, that present wars soon end, and that NO new wars start. We have all had enough war, it is time to live in peace. I have lived through WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm and all of our present "conflicts."

I am 78, born in 1932. A war started officially in 1941, and we have had very little "peace" since then. Out of my 78 years, most years there has been a war of a conflict of some kind. Am I the only one who wants to live in a world where peace reigns?

My regards to all ..........................

The Winter Olympics from Canada

It is nice, once in a while to see something on TV that is inspiring. The Olympics from Canada, the opening ceremony, the marching in of the athletes, but primarily I love it when they pan in on those great faces of those athletes. They don't know they are on TV, they are reverent, respectful, proud. It makes you think that maybe there is some hope for humanity.

I have no idea how they do all they doin the opening ceremony, graphically, mechanically, with the people and the crowd. I sit quietly in awe of it all. I thought nothing could top China, but in its own way, they came close.

I cried a few times, got a little emotional, it's just nice to see something worthwhile and inspiring once in a while. Nice to see dedicated kids that are proud to wave their countries flag.

It was first class, Canada can be proud, they put on a great show tonight, first class all the way.

FREE Health Care ....... In Canada

Canadian health care is free and first-class
-- if you can wait
by Beth Duff-Brown
March 19, 2005 The Associated Press

TORONTO -- A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."

The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care.

Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.

"It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.

"Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton.

The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.

It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario director of the federation. "We have to examine private alternatives as well."