#63: INTO THE ORANGE 🟧

🔥 NATURE - Thousands flee as wildfires ravage Northern Ontario

📱 TECH - Ontario town’s paid parking system taken offline after hack redirects users to pornographic website

🚓 CRIME - Two arrested, several injured after violent machete attack in Victoria, BC

Good morning.

Well, it’s July and the world looks like a Denis Villeneuve movie again.

What else is new?

I hope all my Northern Ontario subscribers are safe and sound, especially those in the Thunder Bay area. 🙏

Enjoy today’s stories.

-Peter

⌛️ Today’s read is 2.5 minutes long.

Thousands of Northern Ontarians are fleeing their homes as wildfires ravage the boreal forest near Thunder Bay.

Nearly 200 wildfires are burning in the province’s northwest region. The OPP is helping people evacuate several towns and First Nation reserves.

However, several highways are closed as the fires burn out of control, further complicating efforts to evacuate residents from the burning hinterland.

CN rail workers have been evacuated out of the area after a video surfaced of two rail workers inside a cab requesting permission to move down the tracks as flames surrounded their train.

A trade union representing railworkers is now denouncing CN.

The Teamsters union says its members operating the train had to be treated for smoke inhalation after their narrow escape.

The union’s director of communications is also accusing CN of knowingly sending the men into the fire.

“We know that CN has some sort of system in place to monitor the conditions around the railroads,” Marc-André Gauthier told Global News. “But what happened that day?”

CN released a statement saying the safety of its workers remains its top priority.

The new paid parking system in Elora, Ontairo, has been taken offline after a hack redirected users via a QR code to a pornographic website.

Centre Wellington Township launched the new system in early May. It allowed Elora residents to park downtown for free, while visitors had to pay.

Less than a month later, the system was hacked.

The QR code that was supposed to direct parkers to the payment page instead sent them to a pornographic website, according to CTV News.

“I thought it was a legitimate joke, so I scanned the QR code myself,” said Erika Montiero, owner of Blackbird Consignment in downtown Elora.

Montiero says the city covered the electronic parking meters with garbage bags the day of the hack to hide the QR codes.

Downtown parking in Elora has been free for over a month now as the township works to restore the system.

Tourists are enjoying it.

“We looked for signage but we didn’t end up paying, which worked out,” one visitor told CTV News.

“We noticed that the parking signs were covered,” said another. “So we just assumed that there was free parking.”

The system was only online from May 8 to June 10. During that time, the township generated over $100,000 in revenue from paid parking and an additional $44,000+ from over 630 penalty notices.

A man and a youth were arrested earlier this month after a machete attack on the Victoria waterfront that left several people bleeding and hospitalized.

An anonymous woman told CTV News that she and a group of friends gathered near the waterfront on Dallas Road on July 3 to watch the sunset and listen to music when a group of around 10 to 15 males arrived and began lingering nearby.

“It was kind of weird,” she said. “They were standing about 20 feet away from us for hours.”

When the woman and several of her friends briefly stepped away from their group, the men approached and asked them to go for a walk.

When they refused, the woman said she heard a “clicking noise.”

“I looked over and he flicked out a knife,” she said. “It wasn’t pointed at us, but it was clearly meant to scare us.”

The men followed the women back to their group.

“It went from yelling to a fist fight,” she said. “Then he reached into a bag and pulled out a machete.”

“It was a lot of fear. A lot of people just ran.”

The woman says she witnessed two of her friends get attacked. One was left with several deep slashes and the other suffered serious wrist injuries, leaving him with little to no movement in a hand and arm.

“There was a lot of blood,” she said. “It was really bad.”

The woman says she and some of her friends chased the suspects before police arrived.

“We didn’t want them to get away before police got there,” she said.

Police charged two people in connection with the incident.

20-year-old Hussein Saadedeen faces charges including aggravated assault and two counts of assault with a weapon.

And a youth (who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act) is also charged with aggravated assault, two counts of assault with a weapon and carrying a concealed weapon.