Hamilton police investigate theft of Pride flags from 4 Catholic schools, 2 residences
CBC
Police are investigating after Pride flags were stolen from four Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic School Board (HWCDSB) schools and two private residences on Hamilton Mountain.
All six flags were stolen over the last six days, police say.
Marnie Jadon, communications manager for the school board, confirmed the flag thefts.
They occurred at:
Police said it's an "assault investigation with evidence of hate motive."
Investigators say it's unclear whether the thefts are connected and are asking anyone with information to contact them.
In a news release, Hamilton police said hate crime is unacceptable and can negatively affect communities.
In recent months, some groups have pushed against Catholic school boards flying rainbow flags for June's Pride month.
At the end of May, York Catholic District School Board in Vaughan, Ont., voted against flying the flag this year, after months of debates by advocates and critics. The debates became so heated that police were called to three different school board meetings.
In the same week, a video surfaced of Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB) trustee Natalia Benoit comparing the Pride flag to a Nazi flag.
Benoit has since denied the comparison, saying "deeply religious children are also being harmed" by debates over whether the Pride flag should be flown or not. She did not elaborate on how they are being harmed.
Other Catholic schools in Ontario have meanwhile embraced the Pride flag and its message.
St. Denis Catholic School, part of the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB), raised a Pride flag to show the importance of inclusion and acceptance.
The school also unveiled a permanent Pride flag art installation at the school.
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.