Two-year-old Geo (GEE’-oh) Mounsef (MOON’-sehf) was pinned to a wall and later died in hospital.

The boy’s mother stormed out of the courtroom while the judge was still talking, while the child’s father screamed expletives at the accused, who appeared on a video screen.

Provincial court Judge Janet Dixon ordered Richard Suter (SOOT’er), who is 62, to stay away from alcohol when he is released.

Details of the bail hearing cannot be revealed due to a publication ban.

Police allege Suter was in his vehicle, stopped outside a restaruant on Edmonton’s south side, when he shifted into drive instead of reverse.

Geo’s parents were also injured but his five-month-old brother was unharmed.

Suter is charged with impaired driving causing death, impaired driving causing bodily harm and refusing to give a breath sample.

A funeral for the boy is to be held Wednesday.

An avalanche of mud and debris rolled over the tiny community in southeast B.C. last July, killing four people.

The province has provided about $300,000 in disaster financial assistance so far and will provide about the same amount again to an undisclosed number of residents.

But David Curtis, with Emergency Management B.C., says the government doesn’t have to provide more compensation because the province wasn’t at fault for the slide.

A report released yesterday says heavy rain and spring snowmelt triggered the slide that destroyed five homes and left another 18 properties at high risk of another potential landslide.

Curtis says there’s no mechanism for the government to buy the homes around the landslide and the province would only provide exceptional assistance if the province was somehow at fault for the slide.

The corporation has filed a formal description of the proposed $5.4 billion, 1,150 kilometre-long project to the National Energy Board.

The plan calls for installing 981 kilometres of new buried pipeline alongside its existing pipeline and an expansion of the existing Westridge Marine oil terminal in Burnaby.

The plan also calls for installing 11 new pump stations and 21 storage tanks and facilities to help handle up to 890,000 barrels of crude per day.

Kinder Morgan says based on the level of public interest, it is asking that the proposal be subject to rigorous review under the National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment acts.

The company says it will file its full application for the project to the NEB late this year.

At the same time, Doug Holyday says it’s urgent for Ford to deal with the allegations that gained attention around the world.

More than a week ago, the American website Gawker and the Toronto Star reported viewing a cellphone video they said appeared to show Ford smoking crack cocaine.

Ford’s own executive is drafting a letter urging the mayor to address the allegations as soon as possible.

Last Friday, the mayor called the allegations “ridiculous” but has said little else about them.

On Thursday, Ford fired his chief of staff but again evaded reporters.

Holyday says he will talk to the former aide to see if he can find out why Ford has been unavailable for the past week.

The Canadian centre said Friday an unusually warm tropical Atlantic Ocean is one of the factors behind the forecast of an active hurricane season, which continues a 15-year period of high hurricane activity.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States is predicting a 70 per cent likelihood of 13 to 20 named Atlantic storms.

It predicts seven to 11 could strengthen into hurricanes and three to six could become major hurricanes.

Hurricane season officially begins June 1.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre says there is little correlation between the number of storms that form in the North Atlantic and the number that make their way into Canadian waters.

“It only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it a bad season,” said Chris Fogarty, program supervisor for the Canadian Hurricane Centre. “That’s why we’re reminding Canadians that, no matter the number of storms predicted for the Atlantic, it’s time to start preparing for hurricane season.”

He said the hurricane centre responds to four or five tropical cyclones a year, with two of those affecting Canadian soil and another two or three threatening offshore waters.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says a normal year has 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major storms with winds over 175 kilometres an hour.

Last year was the third-busiest on record in the United States with 19 named storms. Ten became hurricanes and two were major storms, including Sandy, even though it lost hurricane status when it made landfall in New Jersey.

Maclean’s Magazine Ottawa Bureau Chief John Geddes says the Conservatives are at one of the party’s lowest points since they formed government in 2006.

As the RCMP was looking into whether to open a criminal investigation into the senator spending scandal yesterday, Senator Mike Duffy was calling for a full and open inquiry into the $90,000 cheque he received from Harper’s former Chief of Staff Nigel Wright.

Harper still hasn’t answered questions on the scandal and Geddes says the prime minister will probably take the weekend to figure out what his next move will be.

“There are two possibilities here. One is to tackle the issues head on and try to address them more explicitly, be more apologetic but also be more definitive in explaining exactly what happened in his own office,” explains Geddes.

“The other would be to try to fill the vacuum or give people something else to think about, which is to try to show a vigorous, activist agenda and hope that he can cruise through to the end of the Parliamentary session in June.”

He tells us Harper will likely try to re-group over the summer and then try to gain some momentum with a new policy speech.

Geddes also expects Harper will shuffle his cabinet and come out with a throne speech in an attempt to shift the conversation away from the senate.

In the meantime, new Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is getting a nice bump in the polls and the NDP continues to hammer away at the Tories with its campaign to abolish the senate.

Geddes says Harper’s problems don’t end there. “They’ve had this backbench revolt that was really over the freedom of Conservative backbenchers to say what they like in the House.”

“It was prompted by the desire of some MPs to talk on abortion related issues and all of that really injected a sense of independence in backbench MPs who typically towed the line. Now we’re starting to hearing grumblings from the backbenches and I think the two things are related. I think those MPs started to think, ‘Hey, we’re tired of being told what to say and when.’ Now that this fiasco is unfolding, I think some of them would like to speak their minds a little bit, so Harper has a caucus management problem on his hands.”

Geddes says while things don’t look good for Harper right now, this crisis probably isn’t as big as the one he faced in 2008 when the Liberals, New Democrats, and Bloc Quebecois threatened to form a coalition government.

Winnipeg-based MTS, which operates Manitoba’s largest telecommunications business, says the deal values Allstream at $520 million.

Manitoba Tel says it expects to realize $405 million from the sale, of which $130 million will be used towards the company’s pension plan and $70 million will be used to repay debt incurred in February to meet its pension obligations.

“This transaction makes MTS a stronger, more focused and more valuable company, said Pierre Blouin, Manitoba Tel’s chief executive officer.

“MTS goes forward as a pure-play telecom with a strong consumer franchise and significant free cash flow to support our dividend.”

The deal is subject to certain conditions but it’s expected to close later this year.

The buyer is Accelero Capital Holdings, a private investment group focused on telecommunications, digital media and technology companies.

Blouin said the transaction will enable Allstream to accelerate its strategy towards achieving long-term sustainable growth.

“Accelero brings access to capital, telecom expertise and intimate knowledge of the Canadian marketplace. We have confidence that Accelero and Allstream’s management will together succeed in realizing Allstream’s full potential,” Blouin said.

“This is a very positive development for Allstream employees, customers, business partners, and for increased competition across the Canadian enterprise market”

Allstream, formerly an independent publicly traded company created after AT&T Canada restructured, competes in the business telecom market against Bell Canada, Telus and others.

When it bought Allstream in 2004, MTS said the Toronto-based company would give the Manitoba-focused company a national presence in certain types of telecom services, mainly geared to large corporations and institutions.

However, the Allstream deal has been controversial from the start and the company said Friday that it will recognize a loss of $50 million on a non-cash, post-tax basis.

It estimated the realized return on its investment in Allstream at minus one per cent.

Montreal-based bank said its adjusted earnings hit a record $369 million — up six per cent from the same time last year. That equalled $2.08 per share, a seven per cent increase from $1.95 per share in the same quarter last year.

National Bank’s net income also beat analyst estimates but was down year-to-year, due to an unusual $198-million gain that it recorded in the second quarter of its 2012 financial year.

Net income equalled $2.49 per share, or $434 million, down from $553 million or $3.22 per share in the quarter ended April 30, 2012.

Revenue dropped eight per cent to $1.386 billion from $1.499 billion.

Analysts had been looking for National Bank to produce $1.98 per share in adjusted earnings and $1.99 per share in net income with $1.26 billion of revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

The bank says its quarterly dividend on common shares will rise by five per cent to 87 cents per share, starting with the August payout.

It also announced a share buyback program that will enable it to repurchase and cancel up to 3,246,676 common shares in the 12 months beginning June 20.

Speaking to reporters outside of the mayor’s officer, Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said the statement will be released later today.

Holyday said the longer it takes Ford to speak, the worse it gets and said he’s concerned about the pressure Ford is under.

Holyday reassured the city’s residents that city hall is on top of administering business. “I don’t like the city of Toronto shown in this light.”

Political affairs specialist John Stall with 680News spoke with Holyday about the executive committee’s reported plans.

Listen to the interview below:

“The only thing I can tell you about a meeting with the executive committee is that Councillor Peter Milczyn is trying to organize a conference call to discuss the ongoing problem at city hall, pertaining to the mayor’s situation,” says Holyday.

“I told Milczyn and others through e-mail that I wasn’t going to participate in a phone conversation. If we were going to have any meeting it would have to be face-to-face, and I would try to get the mayor there,” he adds.

Holyday notes he will be seeing Ford today.

“I am going to tell him about the executive committee, and he knows probably by now they wish to have a meeting. I think that opposed to having a meeting without him, I’d rather have a meeting with him, and if they have questions to put to him, go ahead and put them.”

According to The Globe and Mail, said the executive committee has put together a contingency plan to run the city — if and when the mayor backs away for a while to get the kind of help that they are pushing him to seek.

The Rocky Mountain population of northern leopard frogs plummeted by the millions in the 1970s, and only two populations are now known to exist near Creston, in B.C.’s West Kootenay region.

The aquarium announced Thursday its scientists have, for the first time in Canada, bred the species in an aquarium setting and created an assurance — or backup — population.

Dennis Thoney, the aquarium’s director of animal operations, said officials plan to release about 2,000 tadpoles Monday in the Columbia Marshes near the east Kootenay city of Cranbrook, while maintaining a population at the aquarium.

He said the frogs are expected to become the third Rocky Mountain population of northern leopard frogs in the province.

“Frogs, in general, are facing probably the largest extinction since the dinosaurs right now,” said Thoney. “Of the 6,000 species, a third to more are threatened or endangered now.”

Known by the scientific name Lithobates pipiens, the species is medium sized, green-brown in colour and possesses distinctive dark spots encircled by paler rings that resemble halos.

The frogs possess large hind legs with dark bars and are known for their pale under parts.

From nose to rump, the frogs measure between 5.5 and 10 centimetres, and have a distinctive call described as a “chuckling” or “gabbling” or even as a hand rubbing against a wet balloon.

Scientists don’t know why the population plummeted.

Suspected causes for the decline include habitat destruction, water-quality changes, the introduction of new species like the bull frog, and the spread of a fungus carried by the African clawed frog, which at one time was injected with urine from human females as part of pregnancy testing, said Thoney.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has listed the population as endangered, and the provincial government has included it on its red list, which according to the Ministry of Environment means it’s extirpated, endangered, or threatened.

“Animal diversity is precious to start with, but it’s also important and all part of a food web,” said Thoney.

“And frogs themselves are pretty important in that they feed on a lot of insects, including mosquitoes and everything else, and so they help keep those populations under control, but also they get fed upon by a lot of animals also, including various birds, like heron, or various mammals like raccoons.”

Thoney said aquarium scientists have worked with other species, like the Oregon spotted frog, another endangered frog, but have been working with northern leopard frogs for about four years to create an assurance population.

“That’s what our expertise is in: maintaining and breeding animals and holding animals,” he said.

Thoney said the aquarium has been acquiring a few eggs each year, and this was the first year the frogs reached maturity to breed.

“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to reintroduce the northern leopard frog into the Columbia Marshes,” said David Hillary of the Kootenay Conservation Program.

His organization worked with the regional district and the Columbia Valley Local Conservation Fund to generate seed money for the project, said Hillary who noted a contractor from Kimberley, B.C., will release the tadpoles.

The Columbia Marshes are the best-possible site to reintroduce the frogs and will give the amphibians the best opportunity for a viable population, he added.

Meantime, the aquarium will keep adults and tadpoles at the aquarium and will try to acquire a few more to maintain genetic diversity, said Thoney, adding the program is expected to last at least about 10 years.

“It’s not inexpensive,” he said, noting the program costs thousands of dollars. “Well, it’s hard to put a price on a species, right?”