OTTAWA — Gatineau police say the deaths of a father and his two young children at an Aylmer, Que. home were a double murder-suicide.

Officers were sent to the home on Rue Dunkerque just after 2 p.m. Wednesday to carry out a “well-being check.”

The bodies of a 51-year-old man and two girls, ages three and five, were found inside the home. 

In a statement Thursday afternoon, police say investigators have concluded that the two girls were victims of a homicide, and the father had taken his own life.  Police said the daughters showed no signs of violence. 

The victims have been identified as three-year-old Orli Kpatcha and five-year-old Liel Kpatcha.  Police identified the father as 51-year-old Essodom Kpatcha.

A police spokesperson told CTV News Ottawa on Thursday investigators suspected a “family drama” was linked to the deaths.

Neighbours say they’re shocked by the tragedy on the quiet residential street.

“When I heard that the two girls died, I kind of freaked out,” said Nicholas Chartier. “You know it’s kids, it’s hard to see kids dying. I think everybody in the neighbourhood was in shock.”

One neighbour said the father had just moved into the neighbourhood a couple of months ago.

Rue Dunkerque was closed for the investigation but has reopened, Gatineau police said Thursday.

OTTAWA — Further deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines to Canada are on pause because provinces already have more doses than they can currently use.

Canada was to get 95 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna by the end of September, but is about 20 million doses shy of that as of Wednesday.

But Canada is already sitting on a stockpile of 18.7 million doses and doesn’t need any more to fully vaccinate eligible people over the age of 12. That includes 8.5 million doses shipped to provinces and not yet used and 10.2 million in a federal stockpile provinces can turn to if they need it.

As of Wednesday 80 per cent of eligible Canadians were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and another seven per cent have their first shot. At most Canada would need 11 million doses to finish vaccinating everyone over 12.

As such all provinces stopped requesting new doses by the end of August, and Canada has told suppliers not to send any more shipments for the time being.

Canadian officials are currently in talks with suppliers and other countries that need vaccines working on plans to donate Canada’s excess doses of Pfizer and Moderna.

Canada has already promised to donate 40 million doses it purchased but cannot use from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and the COVAX vaccine-sharing alliance.

It has to date shipped just 82,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine directly to Trinidad and Tobago.

Vaccine donations are trickier than they might first sound, because of legal liabilities and vaccine dose expiration issues. Most countries won’t accept doses if the expiration date is under eight weeks, to ensure they can be used in time.

The vaccine contracts with Pfizer and Moderna also did not specifically spell out how excess doses could be donated, while the contracts Canada signed with AstraZeneca and J&J did.

U.S. President Joe Biden called on countries like Canada to do more to help get the rest of the world vaccinated following a virtual vaccine summit at the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday.

Biden said the U.S. was doubling its donations to more than one billion and said “we need other high-income countries to deliver on their own ambitious vaccine donations and pledges.” He said the goal should be to vaccinate 70 per cent of the world’s population within 12 months.

Currently, 31 per cent of the world’s population is fully vaccinated, but the rollout has been very lopsided. Wealthy countries snapped up the vast majority of available doses, leaving developing nations to wait.

Africa has only fully vaccinated four per cent of the population, compared with 51 per cent in Europe and 45 per cent in North America.

At least 13 countries are above 70 per cent fully vaccinated. Canada, with 69.5 per cent of the entire population fully vaccinated, is close.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in the Liberal election platform that Canada will donate “at least” 200 million doses of vaccine through COVAX by the end of next year.

His spokeswoman said there were no new specific commitments made by Trudeau Wednesday at Biden’s vaccine summit.

Canada is also preparing to start vaccinating children between five and 11, with Pfizer expected to request authorization for that age group imminently. The company said earlier this week a clinical trial showed the vaccine was safe and produced a robust antibody response in that age group.

The dose for children is one-third the size that given to adults and it’s not clear yet whether Canada could simply draw out smaller doses from each vial of vaccine already shipped.

A spokeswoman for the company said Wednesday Pfizer was preparing a “different presentation for pediatric use” but would not confirm if that meant none of the doses Canada already has could be repurposed for kids.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2021.

NASA is splitting its human spaceflight department into two separate bodies – one centred on big, future-oriented missions to the moon and Mars, the other on the International Space Station and other operations closer to Earth.

The reorganization, announced by NASA chief Bill Nelson on Tuesday, reflects an evolving relationship between private companies, such as SpaceX, that have increasingly commercialized rocket travel and the federal agency that had exercised a U.S. monopoly over spaceflight for decades.

Nelson said the shake-up was also spurred by a recent proliferation of flights and commercial investment in low-Earth orbit even as NASA steps up its development of deep-space aspirations.

“Today is more than organizational change,” Nelson said at a press briefing. “It’s setting the stage for the next 20 years, it’s defining NASA’s future in a growing space economy.”

The move breaks up NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, currently headed by Kathy Leuders, into two separate branches.

Leuders will keep her associate administrator title as head of the new Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, focusing on NASA’s most ambitious, long-term programs, such as plans to return astronauts to the moon under project Artemis, and eventual human exploration of Mars.

A retired deputy associate administrator, James Free, who played key roles in NASA’s space station and commercial crew and cargo programs, will return to the agency as head of the new Space Operations Mission Directorate.

His branch will primarily oversee more routine launch and spaceflight activities, including missions involving the space station and privatization of low-Earth orbit, as well as sustaining lunar operations once those have been established.

“This approach with two areas focused on human spaceflight allows one mission directorate to operate in space while the other builds future space systems,” NASA said in a press release announcing the move.

The announcement came less than a week after SpaceX, which had already flown numerous astronaut missions and cargo payloads to the space station for NASA, launched the first all-civilian crew ever to reach orbit and returned them safely to Earth.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)

CALGARY – A Calgary man wanted on a sexual assault case involving a 13-year-old girl has been captured.

Jesse Donald Hammon, 32, was located and arrested in Peterborough, Ont. by the Peterborough Police Service. He is now in custody.

Hammon was wanted on several warrants including sexual interference with a child under the age of 16, invitation to sexual touching of a child under the age of 16 and sexual assault of a minor.

He was also wanted for breach of probation, breach of a protection order, failure to comply and other charges for unrelated offences.

TORONTO — Many older voters, parents with young children and Canadians with disabilities didn’t vote on Monday because they couldn’t wait in long lineups at their voting sites. Elections Canada has apologized but said there was little else they could do given COVID-19 restrictions.

“I always vote and am incredibly disappointed I did not this time,” said Patricia Au, a voter in the Toronto riding of University—Rosedale. She was told two times on Monday she’d be waiting for two hours. “I forfeited my ballot this year.”

Farah Hassanali, a single mother from Ajax, Ont. with five-year-old twins, was similarly discouraged by how slow the line was moving at her voting site.

“I had to pick up my kids from school and daycare… and I wasn’t able to go back to vote because my kids are young and I couldn’t stand in line with them for hours,” she told CTVNews.ca In a phone interview.

“I did set out some time in my day to go and vote but my past experiences have never taken that long,” Hassanali said. And because a Liberal win was projected before many had even voted, she saw people who left the line because they felt their votes didn’t matter.

“I don’t think it was efficient and properly run.”

ELECTIONS CANADA ‘SORRY’ BUT HANDS WERE TIED

Upon hearing the stories of people ditching the lineups, Elections Canada media advisor Rejean Grenier said, “I feel for people who had to do that.”

But he stressed the agency didn’t have a choice in whether to run the election during the pandemic. This year, there were significantly fewer overall voting sites in many ridings across the country, due to COVID-19 restrictions which prevented many schools, churches, or other buildings from being eligible locations.

“We had all of the criteria that was placed on us where we had no choice about choosing certain sites,” Grenier said in a phone interview. He explained that despite ridings having fewer voting sites, there were more booths inside them, which meant the total number of voting booths overall was similar to past years.

He also noted that people who couldn’t or didn’t want to wait in line, could’ve mailed in their ballots, or submitted their ballots through advanced voting during the four assigned days earlier this month.

“We’re very sorry that people couldn’t or wouldn’t stay in line, but most people were patient and did,” Grenier said.

OLDER VOTERS, THOSE WITH DISABILITIES LEFT OUT

For many older voters and those with disabilities, it was less a matter of patience and more of physical limitations.

Roy Bagnato and his wife, in the Ontario’s York-Simcoe riding, told CTVNews.ca in an email that they’re in early 80s and couldn’t wait in the hot sun. Meanwhile seniors Gord Bulllied and his wife similarly couldn’t wait hours at their voting site in Peterborough county in southern Ontario.

“So for the first time in our life we did not vote,” Bulllied wrote to CTVNews.ca in an email.

Several other voters — such as Patricia Farmer from Keswick, Ont. who uses a wheelchair — said their physical disabilities made lineups difficult.

“Cars were lined up all the way down the main road. It was not moving and it would have taken hours before we could even park,” she wrote CTVNews.ca in an email, saying this was the case the two times she went.

“We have always instilled the importance of voting into our children and grandchildren no matter what, and we practiced what we preached. Well, this time none of us were offered the ability to vote.”

Whitby, Ont. resident Nikki Yannique Henderson has cerebral palsy and felt “very deflated” because she can’t stand for long periods of time.

“I think it super disappointing. We hear time and time again that people with disabilities matter, but this goes to show that we have a long way to go,” she told CTVNews.ca via text, noting that simply having the building being wheelchair accessible isn’t enough to make areas truly accessible.

“Ideally there should be a line for those who may have mobility challenges,” she said. “We need to continue to look at ways to make the experience fully accessible from the beginning.”

Her father, David MacKinnon — vice-chair of the Town of Whitby Accessibility Advisory Committee — wished that security and voting site volunteers had shown more leeway in expediting wait times for older Canadians and those with disabilities.

“I’m almost 70 years old. I’m not going to stand in line for that kind of time… One look at the lineup and we just kept driving,” he told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. “It’s been a long, long time since I’ve not voted in an election.”

The Elections Canada spokesperson said in past elections, volunteers would often scan lines to allow older voters to skip the line. But this time around, the lines were too long and volunteers were instead focused on moving the lines along.

WHAT ABOUT ONLINE VOTING?

MacKinnon said more needs to be done for disabled Canadians, and this pandemic election was the year to do it.

“Persons with disabilities have a tough time voting, even with mail-in ballots. A web-based voting system is needed,” he said.

He said it there should be a “trusted voter” program which allows people to vote online if they’ve been screened thoroughly by the government.

The Elections Canada spokesperson Grenier cited evidence showing how online voting – as was seen in the 2018 municipal elections in Ontario — can be unfortunately prone to errors and irregularities. He said even if an infrastructure could be set up, it would require a change to the Elections Act before it’s used federally.

Although she was unable to vote, Hassanali said she has sympathy for Elections Canada for organizing an election during a pandemic, but given the COVID-19 restrictions were known so far in advance, she wishes there were more advance polling days or more time allowed to mail in their ballots.

“I feel like my voice wasn’t heard and I understand many people are in the same situation.”