ETA Canada News

Four suspects have been convicted of violently breaking into a Vancouver home three years ago and kidnapping a family to Richmond. Vancouver police said the case involved three women and one man who were taken from their home in the 5200 block of St. Catherines Street around 4 a.m. on March 11, 2023, and then taken to a location where they were “held hostage for a period of time.”

The victims included a couple and their two daughters, aged 21 and 18, who were bound with duct tape, their mouths gagged with packing tape and then abducted into several of the family’s vehicles. The three female victims were taken to a car and abandoned on Rice Mill Road in Richmond. They eventually sought help from staff at a nearby BC Ferries service station (pictured above).

The victim’s father was taken to his company on River Road in Richmond, then transferred to another car where he was repeatedly beaten and extorted before being abandoned in a remote location in Surrey.

In April 2024, after a year-long investigation, Vancouver police arrested three of the four suspects and recommended that the prosecution bring charges. The prosecution also prepared to bring charges against the remaining suspect. Two 21-year-old men from Surrey, Duoth Techen Garkouth and Ramadhan Ibrahim-Hussein, have been charged with kidnapping and trespassing, and both have pleaded guilty.

An unnamed 17-year-old pleaded guilty to unlawful entry and unlawful confinement in 2024 and has since served his sentence. Another defendant, 23-year-old Sijuola Obatusa, was convicted on the 2nd of this month on the same charges as the first two defendants after a trial in the British Columbia Supreme Court.

According to police, the 23-year-old defendant is accused of planning and directing the incident and playing a commanding role during the home invasion and kidnapping. Vancouver Police Department Constable Darren Wong stated, “The judge’s ruling affirms the investigators’ extensive efforts in gathering evidence and bringing these offenders to justice. More importantly, it gives the victims a sense that justice has been served.”

The three defendants remain in custody and will appear in court on May 6 to determine the date for their sentencing hearing.

In the 2025 Canadian budget announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney, the federal government emphasized that the engineering, regulatory, and permitting work for Alto, the country’s first high-speed rail project, will be accelerated. However, with the project’s launch, some opposition has recently emerged.

The project is currently facing strong opposition from residents along the route, the Conservative Party, and some local political parties. Most of the criticism comes from the communities whose land will be acquired for development, with rural residents in Ontario and Quebec increasingly opposed to the project. Residents along the route angrily pointed out that the planned high-speed rail route could take away their ancestral businesses, and many rural communities believe that it will destroy the local natural and agricultural environment.

The Quebec Group emphasized that the project lacked sufficient consultation and believed that the government’s approach was hasty and failed to follow reasonable procedures. The Conservative Party criticized the project, questioning its rationale and potential negative impact on rural areas.

In response, Prime Minister Carney stated at a press conference that the project will create more than 50,000 jobs and contribute more than $35 billion to the economy. Carney said, “Overall, high-speed rail is more cost-effective, more sustainable, connects our communities, and is faster.” Carney stated that the project only requires approximately 10 meters of land for road construction, and those who lose their land will receive compensation.

The first phase of the project to connect Montreal and Ottawa is expected to begin in 2029 or 2030, with the entire project estimated to cost between 60 billion and 90 billion dollars. Carney also stated that Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s recusal of the project was in accordance with government ethical standards.

In a letter to Carney last year, Champagne stated that he was proactively conducting a conflict-of-interest review of Alto, the company in charge of the project, “because I have a personal connection with someone in the company with whom I have a close relationship, to prevent any actual or potential conflict of interest.”

Anne-Marie Gaudet, a partner at Champagne, is the Vice President of Environment at Alto, and she will take up the position in August 2025.

With global inflation driving up prices, more people are looking for ways to earn extra income. Tom Blake, a 29-year-old from Canada, has tried dozens of different side hustles and figured out which ones are both profitable and relatively easy to manage.

From a student in debt to earning $100,000 a year in an interview with the Daily Mail, Blake shared that his exploration of side hustles began in 2014. At the time, he was still in college and burdened with student loans. He worked part-time at Starbucks on campus during his spare time, but the income was barely enough to cover living expenses.

To earn more money, he began to try various side jobs, such as reselling textbooks and freelance writing. “At first, I tried many ideas, some of which worked well, while others were complete failures,” he admitted. “I even saw a ‘passive income’ side hustle on Reddit called ‘phone farming,’ which claimed to earn hundreds of dollars a month, but I only managed to earn a measly 30 dollars a month, which was very disappointing.”

He later discovered that there were too many types of side hustles, making it difficult to determine which ones were truly profitable and which were just a waste of time. So, in 2018, he started a blog called This Online World to document in detail every side hustle he had tried.

At the time, he had just graduated from university and was working at a digital marketing company. In his spare time, he tried almost every side hustle he could find and wrote detailed reviews, which he then posted on his blog. “I persisted in publishing income reports, side hustle reviews, and experience sharing, and my fan base gradually expanded,” Blake explained. By the fourth year, he had earned nearly $100,000 from blog advertising alone.

Which side hustles are the most worthwhile? Blake’s “red list” recommendations.

1. Paid surveys: the first choice for beginners.

Blake stated, “These kinds of side hustles may not be very lucrative, but they’re perfect for beginners.” “Many companies pay you to answer questionnaires on various topics such as entertainment, food, music, and politics; market research firms need this data. You get paid for each completed survey, usually withdrawable via PayPal or redeemed for gift cards from companies like Amazon. I highly recommend platforms like Branded Surveys, Prolific, and Survey Junkie.”

2. Taking on odd jobs: Earning money through physical labour Blake also believes that doing odd jobs for others is a great side hustle. “Some people are willing to pay you to help them move, clean, garden, shovel snow—you name it,” he said. “You can also post your services on relevant platforms, sometimes people post for help in Facebook groups, or you can proactively post to promote your services.”
3. Niche delivery and recycling: Avoiding saturated competition in addition, he revealed that many niche apps on the market can make money. “Everyone knows about food delivery and ride-hailing, but DoorDash and Uber are already too saturated. There are many niche apps that pay much more,” he said. “For example, Oppizi pays you to hand out flyers in neighbourhoods. And companies like Sharetown pay you to collect returned furniture, mattresses, and other large items, then resell them on Facebook Marketplace and earn a commission.”
4. Reward apps: Earn an extra few hundred yuan per month Blake also strongly recommended various cashback and reward apps, saying he could earn several hundred dollars a month using them. “There are now many apps and websites where you can get rewards for downloading apps, playing games, or even opening a free checking account,” he said. “Some rewards can be as high as several hundred dollars. The biggest platform in this space is Freecash, which has millions of users worldwide.” “I also like Scrambly and Kashkick, which are also very popular platforms.”
5. Cashback Apps: Turning Consumption into Income Finally, he recommended that everyone try cashback apps, or those free apps that allow you to get cashback when you shop. “For example, Upside offers cashback on gas, restaurants, and grocery shopping,” he added. “I also use Fetch to get cashback on grocery shopping. Now there are newer apps like Franki that even pay you to explore cities, new restaurants, and bars. It’s perfect for beginners.”

Pitfalls to avoid: Blake’s side hustle “blacklist” Regarding which side hustles are not worth doing, Blake strongly advises everyone to avoid projects that “require a large upfront investment.” “For example, if you’re doing drop shipping, you might have to invest thousands in advertising to test the products right away. Or like with Amazon FBA, you need to invest money in inventory upfront,” he said. “While these models may be profitable, starting with debt or emptying your savings can create enormous psychological pressure.”

The Liberal Party convention passed a resolution agreeing to set the legal age for Canadians According to the Canadian Press, the Liberal Party grassroots organization passed a non-binding resolution on Saturday morning (11th) supporting age restrictions on social media use and placing the responsibility for implementation on social media companies.

Quebec Member of Parliament Rachel Bendayan stated that prolonged use of social media can be detrimental to children’s mental health. She pointed out that social media companies need to take more responsibility and stop allowing minors to use technologies designed to be addictive.

Prime Minister Carney said last month that the idea “deserves to be discussed openly and seriously in Canada,” although he has not yet reached a conclusion and said that both sides have their own reasons.

Australia took the lead globally last December by legislating mandatory age restrictions for social media accounts and imposing fines on social media companies found to be in violation of the regulations.

Across Canada, there have been text message scams impersonating settlement payments for “bread class-action lawsuits” and “milk class-action lawsuits (milk settlement).” The “bread class-action lawsuit settlement” scam was warned about by the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) on X on March 31st. The “bread class-action lawsuit” was a real class-action lawsuit filed against the major Canadian supermarket chain Lovlow Company and its parent company George Weston, alleging price manipulation by the entire bread industry. However, the filing period for this lawsuit ended in December 2025.

Meanwhile, regarding the “settlement money for the milk class-action lawsuit,” the Waterloo Police Department in Ontario issued a warning on social media on April 3rd, stating that text messages about “settlement money for the milk class-action lawsuit” are scams.

The post included images of actual messages received and sophisticated fake websites, along with warnings such as “Do not click (the link),” “Do not reply,” “Delete the message,” and “Check the official website.” However, unlike the “bread class action lawsuit,” there is no actual “milk class action lawsuit.” However, there is a similar case: a lawsuit concerning plant-based milk that was recalled due to a Listeria outbreak, which was recently settled.

The official website for this class action lawsuit explicitly states that the claim process has not yet begun and that the company will not send any text messages. Both messages claim that the recipient is subject to a class-action lawsuit and prompt them to click a link and enter personal information such as credit card numbers. The CAFC and the police are urging anyone who receives such text messages not to reply and to report them to the CAFC.

According to CAFC data, Canadians will lose more than $704 million to fraud by 2025, and the total amount of losses reported since 2022 currently exceeds $2.4 billion. Furthermore, it is warned that this amount represents only a small fraction of the total losses, as only 5-10% of frauds are reported. March was Fraud Prevention Month.

The Quebec Court of Arbitration (TAT) has ruled that Montreal blue-collar workers’ plan to launch a three-day strike in mid-April has been approved by the court, based on the basic service lists submitted by both parties. Montreal blue-collar workers will strike for three days in mid-April, after employers and unions reached an agreement on a list of essential services.

The strike is expected to begin at 6 a.m. on April 15 and end at 6 a.m. on April 18. The arbitration tribunal ruled that the basic services promised by both parties were sufficient to safeguard public health and citizen safety. For example, regarding waste collection, the regular work team in the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district will resume normal operations on April 15. For other areas, waste collection will be primarily handled by outsourced companies. However, many other services will be affected during the strike, with reduced staff and a response-on-demand or on-call basis.

Services that will continue to operate during the strike include public space cleaning, water maintenance, sewage maintenance, and major road repairs. The CUPE 301 union, representing over 6,000 members, plans a strike from April 15 to 18. The union is organizing this action because negotiations to raise municipal workers’ wages have stalled.

The CUPE 301 union officially announced a strike on March 27, following a 24-hour strike in February. Since February 2025, the union has been negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the city government, whose previous contract expires in December 2024.

The main point of contention in the negotiations is wages, with the union finding the city government’s proposed 11% pay rise over five years unacceptable.

Vancouver police arrested a man on April 1st on suspicion of stealing expensive Pokémon cards. According to the announcement, police have been responding to five incidents involving the buying and selling of Pokémon cards since March 23.

In each case, the victims met a man they had connected with through Facebook Marketplace for the purpose of selling cards. The transactions appeared to be perfectly normal at first glance. The suspect’s modus operandi was to meet victims in public places, pretend to buy cards, spray them with bear spray, steal the cards, and flee.

Some of the stolen cards were reportedly worth several thousand dollars. Police contacted the suspect online on March 27 and arranged a meeting under the guise of a Pokémon card transaction. They arrested the suspect when he showed up at the designated location. According to reports, the suspect is in his 20s and police believe he acted alone. Police believe there are other victims and are urging them to come forward. They also recommend using the well-lit, security-camera-equipped “Safe Exchange Location” near the main entrance of Vancouver Police Headquarters (2120 Cambie St. Vancouver) when buying, selling, or exchanging goods with strangers.

Incidents targeting Pokémon cards have been occurring frequently across Canada recently. In Metro Vancouver, a card shop in New Westminster was robbed in January of this year, and another shop in Abbotsford was targeted in March. In Alberta, incidents were reported last year in Calgary and Fort McMurray, with millions of dollars’ worth of cards stolen.

Canada Post says it will continue to move forward with the restructuring plan mandated by the federal government last fall. The plan involves a complete overhaul of its business model, including the potential permanent elimination of traditional door-to-door mail delivery services. In a statement to CTV News on Monday (March 30), Canada Post said, “This broad business transformation will ensure that we can meet the evolving needs of Canadians while avoiding becoming a continuing burden on taxpayers.”

The federal government had already warned Canada Post about its financial situation as early as September 2025. At the time, Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement, stated that the agency was facing an “existential crisis.” Since 2018, Canada Post had accumulated losses of billions of Canadian dollars and was in a state of “de facto insolvency.”

Lightbound stated that this situation is “unsustainable” and instructed Canada Post to implement a series of structural reforms to ensure its long-term operational capability. Core reform measure: Replacing door-to-door delivery with community mailboxes Based on currently disclosed information, the reform measures mainly include: Adjusting the standards for mail delivery services

Change all remaining door-to-door delivery addresses to community mailboxes.

Promote digitalization and operational modernization reform

Canada Post stated that it is in ongoing communication with the federal government regarding the specific implementation details. Meanwhile, given the government’s request to initiate initial reform steps, the company has begun contacting various negotiating bodies (unions) to consult on the relevant changes.

The union strongly opposed The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) continues to oppose the reforms, arguing that they will impact employee jobs and weaken postal service coverage in rural and remote areas. In a statement released Monday, CUPW said that it should not proceed with reform consultations at this critical stage of the agreement approval vote.

“We are fully committed to advancing the upcoming vote on the ratification of the agreement, which is a major undertaking. Now is not the right time to conduct related consultations.” The union also pointed out that this move by Canada Post and the federal government could disrupt the current labor negotiations.

The lack of transparency in the transformation plan has sparked controversy. According to union disclosures, the federal government had requested Canada Post to submit a complete transformation plan within 45 days. However, more than four months have passed since the plan was submitted, and it has still not been disclosed to the public or the union. CUPW stated that it had repeatedly requested access to the relevant documents but had received no response. “Neither the government nor Canada Post has provided us with the plan, and it remains undisclosed to this day,” the union statement said. The union called for nationwide public consultation and full consideration of stakeholders in various regions before any structural reforms are undertaken.

The reforms are also expected to involve amendments to the Canadian Postal Service Charter, which, since 2009, mandates that postal services be universal, affordable, reliable, convenient, secure, and responsive to public needs. Canada Post has confirmed that the proposed changes are still under discussion with the federal government.

A Toronto man accidentally entered the wrong email address when transferring money to his sister via e-transfer around Christmas, resulting in the money being sent to someone with a very similar name. He has spent several months trying to get the money back.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, what have I done?’” Tony De Simone said. This was also his first time using e-transfer. “Actually, I have vision problems; I’m blind in my right eye, so sometimes things like sending emails and typing are difficult for me.”

He said he owed his sister 1,600 Canadian dollars and was planning to pay her back around Christmas, so his sister gave him her email address. “I kept telling my sister I had made the transfer, and she would usually receive an email notification saying she had received the payment from the e-transfer,” De Simeone recalled. But the money never arrived, so he checked the email address he had entered and realized he had missed two numbers, resulting in the money being sent to the wrong email address. He contacted his credit union, which told him that the recipient had activated an auto-deposit, and the money had already gone directly into the recipient’s account.

“They told me I had transferred the money to the wrong person, and that since the money was already in my account, there was no way to get it back,” De Simeone said. In a statement to CTV News, Windsor Family Credit Union said, “We understand the distress this has caused our member and extend our sympathies to anyone who has suffered financial loss.”

The statement also indicated that the e-transfer was operated by De Simeone himself, who entered the recipient information and confirmed the transaction, as well as confirming that the funds would be directly deposited into his account via automatic deposit.

Once an e-transfer with automatic deposits is successfully activated, the funds cannot be withdrawn without the recipient’s consent. ”

Since the recipient is not a client of our institution, we do not have the authority to deduct the money from their account. We have made every reasonable effort through normal banking channels to try and recover this money,” the credit union stated. “We also remind all members to carefully verify the recipient’s information before confirming an e-transfer. We can also provide assistance and guidance at any time if needed while using online banking.”

When De Simeone contacted the person who had mistakenly received the money and explained that it was a misunderstanding, the person, fearing it was a scam, refused to return the money. De Simeone initially stated that losing the $1,600 CAD did indeed affect his financial situation.

Later, after CTV News contacted the person who had mistakenly received the money, the person said that he had been scammed before, but now confirmed that it was indeed a mistake, and finally agreed to return the 1,600 Canadian dollars to De Simeone.

Canada ‘s Lotto Max lottery draw is about to undergo a major change—not a small one, but many changes—which will take effect on April 14th, a few weeks from now.

According to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, the top prize for Tuesday’s Lotto Max draw is expected to be $55 million CAD, and there are also four additional Max Million jackpots worth $1 million CAD each. This is the biggest Lotto Max jackpot since March 3, when a ticket sold in Toronto won a prize of $75 million CAD. No one won the massive $50 million jackpot in the final draw last Friday.

One of the two Max Million lottery tickets, each worth $1 million CAD, has been won – OLG says the ticket was sold in Hamilton. The massive CAD 55 million prize comes just three weeks before Lotto Max’s major changes take effect. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation previously announced at a press conference that starting this spring, the price of a lottery ticket will increase from $5 to $6.

This is the first price increase for Lotto Max lottery tickets since its launch in 2009. But the changes are not just about ticket price increases; there are also many attractive changes to the prize money. Most importantly, the jackpot cap has been increased from CAD 80 million to CAD 90 million. In addition, a new $100,000 CAD prize will be added for each draw, based on the jackpot amount. This will give people the opportunity to try for more prizes, similar to the previous Max Million, even if they don’t win the jackpot. The press release stated:

“For example, when the jackpot is $10 million CAD, 10 additional $100,000 CAD prizes will be drawn, and so on, until the jackpot reaches $90 million CAD, when 90 additional $100,000 CAD prizes will be drawn.” “This is on top of the potentially ever-growing million-dollar prize money.”

The Maxmillion bonus is an additional $1 million CAD bonus that will be available once the jackpot reaches $50 million CAD. However, there are no eligibility requirements for this newly added 100,000 yuan prize. Furthermore, don’t feel cheated even if ticket prices rise, because each lottery ticket will contain four sets of numbers, unlike before when there were only three. OLG stated, “With these new features, the overall odds of winning will be higher than in previous versions of Lotto Max.”

However, there’s a saying that buyers are never as shrewd as sellers. The biggest winning number has changed from 50 to 52, which may mean that the odds of winning the grand prize have become even lower. OLG stated that the odds of winning the jackpot will change from 1 in 33,294,800 to 1 in 33,446,140. Fortunately, the overall odds of winning any award will increase—from one in seven to one in five and a half. April 14 will be the first draw date for the new version of Lotto Max, and the changes will take effect across Canada.