A Manitoba man is facing  Criminal Code and provincial taxation-related charges for allegedly importing more than 800,000 contraband cigarettes from Ontario. The government has said  in a release that Dennis Donald Lange, a 72-year-old resident of the Rural Municipality of Rosser, was arrested following an investigation. A total of 810,000 cigarettes were seized and the province says if they had been sold, it stood to lose nearly $239,000 in tax revenue. If convicted, Lange faces fines of between $10,000 and $50,000 and/or jail time of up to a year. He also faces a mandatory quadruple tax penalty of $955,800 for a previous conviction. Lange, who remains in custody, had also been sought on two arrest warrants for failure to appear in court on outstanding previous charges.

Montreal fire department plans to recruit more women and members of cultural minorities

 In a city where one resident out of three belongs to a visible minority, three out of five are first- or second-generation immigrants, and 51.4 per cent is female, the fire department remains a white, male bastion, Suzanne Desjardins, director of health at Montreal said.

The fire department should take inspiration from Montreal’s police force and transit corporation, whose efforts to be more representative of the population date back to the 1980s, Fo Niemi executive director of the Montreal-based Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations. “Part of it is outreach, education and, basically, to send the message that not only we want you, but we need you, and there’s a viable career opportunity for you here with the fire department. I think that message has really not been sent strongly enough until today,” he said.

Women make up one-third of police officers and one-quarter of employees at the Société de transport de Montréal. Twelve per cent of police officers and 22 per cent of transit workers are from ethnic or cultural minorities.