'Hardscapers' celebrate move to ease costly bureaucratic burden at city hall

An Indian-born man who “absconded” from Canada the day after an Ontario jury convicted him of sexual assault and extortion has been sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison. The offender, identified only as H.B. in a recent decision from Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, was in an intimate partner relationship with his victim, who is described as a “new Canadian” who is also from India. “The first assault occurred at the victim’s home which should have been a place of safety,” wrote Justice Stephen T. Bale. “Some of the assaults were brutal, painful and degrading — when...