John “Big Man” Venizelos has been sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to running a mafia linked drug trafficking ring. Prosecutors say Venizelos is an associate of the Bonanno crime family and was one of the biggest New York customers of Jimmy “Cosmo” Cournoyer an alleged Canadian drug kingpin. The operation was an alliance between the Bonanno family, Montreal mafia namely the Rizzuto family, and the Hells Angels according to prosecutors.

“Jimmy Cournoyer and John Venizelos”

Federal agents busted up the ring back in 2013 seizing more then $150,00 of drug money along with illegal narcotics, guns, and encrypted blackberry devices. Venizelos also got into trouble for attempted witness tampering when he was caught sending encrypted messages from a blackberry to colleagues telling them that Cournoyer wasCanadians are not feeling good about the performance of the federal Conservative government and the direction of the country, but they are more positive than they were last year, a new poll suggests.

A survey released Thursday from Nanos Research and the Institute for Research on Public Policy found that 45 per cent of respondents rated the performance of Stephen Harper's government as poor or very poor, with 37 per cent rating it as very or somewhat good. Forty-eight per cent of respondents said the country is going in the "wrong direction," while 37 per cent said the country was going in the "right direction."

In addition, 50 per cent said Canada's reputation around the world had gone down and 52 per cent of respondents gave poor grades to the