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Nathan Cirillo, officer killed by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Photo via Nathan Cirillo's Facebook page.
The country got pretty forcibly rattled in October as a pair of lone wolves, converts to radical Islam and seemingly inspired by ISIS, killed two Canadian Forces members.And even though the latter of the two, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, managed to burst through the front doors of Parliament and come within a few hundred feet of the prime minister, the country pulled itself together pretty well afterwards.Despite repeated warnings that the attacks would inspire some draconian Patriot Act-style laws, the Harper government hasn't overreacted. While it introduced one bill (that was already being planned) to give Canada's spy agency more powers, and it's planning a second bill to beef up powers already introduced in 2012, Ottawa doesn't appear to be sabre-rattling over the attacks.VICE asked Justice Minister Peter MacKay in October what those new changes would look like, and whether it included new preventative detention measures. While he wouldn't comment specifically, he did say that they're tinkering with existing legislation and "we're doing so in a reasonable, not reactionary way."So, stay tuned for that.
Supreme Court of Canada. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
In April, we learned that police made at least 1.2 million requests to obtain Canadians' data, based only on wink-and-nod agreements with cellphone and internet companies. Then we learned that it wasn't just police making the requests, and the requests weren't just for basic "subscriber data," like the government kept promising us. Instead, they were for passwords, GPS coordinates, and details on internet usage. It was all up for grabs under a loophole in Canada's privacy legislation that let any ol' copper call up a cellphone company and request, well, just about anything.
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Photo via Canadian Forces CF-18 Demo Team Facebook page.
Stephen Harper finally fulfilled all those prophecies from 2004 that, if he were to become prime minister, Canadian bombs would rain on Iraq.But this time around, Harper appears to have right on his side. As the threat of ISIS began looming large Canada quickly ponied up a fleet of aircraft—including two planes designed to scope out prospective attack sites to prevent collateral damage—to bomb ISIS positions and to take out equipment.
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Spurred by the news of Jian Ghomeshi's alleged attacks on women, two New Democrat MPs stepped forward to lodge their own complaints against two Liberal MPs.Newfoundland MP Scott Andrews allegedly forced a female MP against a wall, grinded her, then called her a "cockteaser" when she fought him off and ordered him to leave.
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Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
If you thought that last year's Christmas gift from the Supreme Court to sex workers was going to last, then you probably had a pretty dreary year.
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Photo via Stephen Harper's official Facebook page.
After a rocky few years of scandal, Stephen Harper got back on the horse this year, as job numbers picked up and the budget got back on track towards being balanced (well, sort of), Harper's numbers started picking up. A national terrorist attack and a bombing campaign probably helped spur that a bit.
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