Newsstand: October 30, 2015

Today's news: Nestlé wants to take Ontario water and sell it back to us, and James Forcillo's trial is still going on.

By Tannara Yelland • Illustration by Matthew Daley

Nestlé Waters Canada, a subsidiary of Nestlé, has plans to take water from an aquifer near Elora, Ont., and sell back to Canadians. The company wants to pump up to 1.6 million litres of water per day from the aquifer, which many residents say worries them about their own water supply. Area residents use well water for both personal and agricultural purposes, and are concerned that if Nestlé’s plan goes through, their water levels will drop. Around 2.4 billion bottles of water are sold each year in Canada alone, and at exorbitant prices for a commodity also provided as a public utility. “This is huge money. Water is you know … I always call it the new gold,” said Mike Nagy, one of the approximately 4,000 people who live in Elora.

At the trial of James Forcillo, the Toronto police officer charged in the death of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim in summer 2013, Michael Federico, Toronto police deputy chief, testified that officers receive yearly “stress inoculation” training to give them tools to keep cool heads and make decisions in stressful situations. Federico, who was testifying as a representative of Forcillo’s employer, the Toronto Police Service, was not there to offer an opinion on the killing, in which Forcillo shot nine bullets at the young man (eight of them hit him). Instead, he explained the training officers receive and added that, “We couldn’t possibly anticipate every situation. There’s no recipe or formula.” The defence also sought to prove that Yatim and Forcillo were closer together than witness Eugenio Liscio previously said. They—and the crown prosecutor—finally settled on a distance of 2.77 metres between Yatim and the man who would shoot him to death. Forcillo’s lawyer implied it would have been possible at that distance for Yatim to jump at Forcillo and stab him in a second and a half.