A disc jockey playing alt-rock tunes on Edmonton’s airwaves on a late Sunday night introduces herself and jokes about being regularly asked about firmware updates.
Her sarcasm, she says, also gets auto-corrected.
In 2011, on the federal election campaign trial, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives promised Canadians “the right to defend their property.” The next year, after his party won a majority government, Mr. Harper rewrote Canada’s law on self-defence.
The previous version, dating back to the Liberals in 2003, stated that anyone who is unlawfully assaulted, without provocation, was “justified in repelling force by force” – but no more than necessary. The response also could not be intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm.
Michelle Duff was the first North American and, so far, the only Canadian to win a motorcycle race on the world championship grand prix circuit.
A triumph at the 1964 Belgian grand prix helped make Duff a popular figure among racing fans in Britain and on the Continent – where the sport enjoyed crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands – but earned her little notice back home.
The Ontario government, alongside Toronto City Hall, recently announced planning reforms in Canada’s largest city that would legalize larger apartment buildings around most transit stations.
Ontario Housing Minister Rob Flack and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow jointly announced the changes on Aug. 15. They alter Toronto’s official plan in 120 mass transit station areas, or MTSA, around transit stations or stops.
When hydrogen sulphide − also known as sour gas − started bubbling up from underground behind the local library in Wheatley in late June and forced a brief evacuation of nearby homes, it was a stress-inducing déjà vu for this small Ontario town about an hour from Windsor.
Four years ago, a similar leak in the basement of a defunct pub caused a massive explosion that destroyed two buildings and injured 20 people − and drew attention to the danger posed by the thousands of old and often improperly capped oil and gas wells that dot much of Southwestern Ontario.
Before last fall, when cellphones weren’t yet officially banned during classes in Orly Kaye’s Toronto high school, the students’ glowing screens were ubiquitous. They scrolled TikTok and Instagram Reels, made lunch plans via group chats, played games or watched YouTube videos. Some kids, the 16-year-old says, wouldn’t even turn down the volume or use earbuds. The refrain of “put your phones away, please” from desperate teachers was near-constant, and mostly ignored.
Orly wasn’t immune to their phone’s pull either. When they’d get bored during science class, they’d start scrolling. “I’d be half paying attention to class, and half paying attention to Pinterest and drawing,” says Orly, who is going into grade 12.
© Amber Bracken
A teachers’ strike or a lockout is looming in Alberta just days before the start of school. The conflict between the province and union is coming to a head as the government mandates book restrictions in school libraries and implements sweeping rules around students’ pronouns and transgender identity.
Contract negotiations between the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the province’s bargaining team have reached a significant impasse, said Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides. He characterized the union as “manipulative” after it declined to accept an offer during mediated talks this week.
“Parents should be furious that union leaders are gambling with their kids’ future,” Mr. Nicolaides told reporters in Calgary, joining Alberta’s Finance Minister Nate Horner on Friday to emphasize that the province cannot afford to pay teachers more than a proposed 12-per-cent salary increase over four years.
© Jeff McIntosh
Hong Kong is a special sort of place. A tiny enclave on China’s flank, it rose in the course of a generation from steamy colonial port to modern economic dynamo – a magnet for struggling migrants from mainland China, a financial hub for East Asia, a bustling entrepôt with trading links around the world.
When I arrived there in the early 1980s to work on a regional newsmagazine, signs of its rising wealth were all around. Skyscrapers were going up left and right. Rolls-Royce limousines carried freshly minted millionaires through the clogged streets. Even the tin-roofed shanties that spilled down the hillsides boasted new television sets.
The private developer who had partnered with British Columbia’s Squamish Nation to build the country’s most ambitious Indigenous-owned apartment project to date has sold the last of his stake to a major Ontario pension fund.
The move by Ian Gillespie’s Westbank Corp. is the latest in a series of divestments by the company as it grapples with a dramatic slowdown of the Vancouver residential market. The Squamish announced Thursday that the Senakw project, which is just completing the first three towers of a planned 11, will now be a “restructured partnership.”
A 71-year-old man from Cornwall, Ont., is facing charges after he allegedly stabbed an elderly woman in Ottawa in what police consider to be a hate-motivated crime.
Police say a woman in her 70s entered a grocery store on Baseline Road with a friend at around 1:35 p.m. on Wednesday when she was approached by a man who stabbed her, causing serious injuries.
In late July, Steffen Skjottelvik set out on what he knew would be a perilous journey through the Canadian North.
Carrying a rifle and his backpack, and with his two huskies by his side, the Norwegian hiker planned to traverse 300 kilometres along the coast of Hudson Bay, from Fort Severn, Ont., to York Factory, a remote national historic site in Manitoba, about 250 km southeast of Churchill.
The summer that the ocean fell silent stays with Mike Reid.
“It looked like a dead zone. There were no birds, no seals, no otters. When you looked into the water column, there was no urchin, there was no [sea] cucumber, no fish swimming about.”
The BC General Employees’ Union says provincial public-sector workers have voted to approve strike action.
Union president and public service bargaining committee chair Paul Finch says a 72-hour notice has been issued of potential strike action beginning 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday.
Finch says there was 92.7-per-cent support for strike action, and 86.4 per cent of Public Service Agency members in the union voted.
© Adrian Wyld
Zellers is making a comeback with its first new store set to open in Edmonton next week.
Landlord Henry Zavriyev says Londonderry Mall in the city’s north will be home to a Zellers location in a space formerly occupied by Hudson’s Bay.
A 17-year-old boy who allegedly intended to carry out an attack on behalf of the Islamic State is facing a new charge of assaulting a peace officer, a federal Crown prosecutor said Friday.
Prosecutor Marc Cigana told reporters at Montreal’s youth court that the alleged assault occurred at RCMP headquarters in Westmount, Que., after the teen was arrested on Aug. 20.
“The charge is a charge of assaulting a police officer in the fulfilment of his duties causing bodily harm,” Cigana said.
© Christinne Muschi
The federal government needs to amend the Criminal Code so the use of force is presumed to be reasonable to defend your home and family if someone breaks into it, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Friday.
Poilievre called a news conference in Brampton, Ont., amid an outcry over assault charges that were laid against an Ontario man who encountered another man who allegedly broke into his apartment while carrying a crossbow.
On a Friday afternoon, the sun blazes down on a Mississauga truck yard. With less than 24 hours before Toronto’s annual Carnival parade, Freedom Mas hasn’t started building its sound system. The semi-truck bed for the float is four hours late, and the rented speakers aren’t what were ordered.
Khalil Bernard is pacing anxiously across the yard. As lead DJ for Freedom Mas, the only masquerade band (mas band) playing primarily Jamaican music in the Grand Parade, Bernard carries the weight of ensuring their sound system delivers not just tunes, but a statement of cultural pride.
“Will they know that we were pulling out hair and crying behind the scenes and all of this before the parade started?” he asked.
© Sarah Espedido
Laurentian Bank of Canada LB-T says it had a net income of $37.5-million in the third quarter, up from a profit of $34.1-million in the same quarter last year.
The Montreal-based bank says earnings worked out to 73 cents per share for the quarter ending July 31, an increase from 67 cent per share last year.
Thomas Verny is a clinical psychiatrist, academic, award-winning author, public speaker, poet and podcaster. He is the author of eight books, including the global bestseller The Secret Life of the Unborn Child and 2021’s The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness and Our Bodies.
Today, as a society, we are under a great deal of stress. Men and women, LGBTQ people, racialized people, Indigenous people and new immigrants are experiencing these rapidly changing times differently. An in-depth discussion of these differences would take a book, not a column, so, in this piece I have elected to focus on men.
BRP Inc. DOO-T says it delivered better than anticipated results despite the economic environment, leaving it confident enough to issue full-year guidance.
“Since we are starting to see the benefit of our action, and despite ongoing volatility, we are comfortable issuing guidance,” said outgoing president and chief executive José Boisjoli on an earnings call Friday.
The federal government says it’s “looking into” what appears to be the accidental removal of a privacy provision in its Online Streaming Act.
Earlier this week, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist outlined in a blog post that a privacy provision in the legislation was removed only two months after the bill became law, through an amendment contained in another bill.
Canada’s economy contracted in the second quarter by a much larger degree than anticipated on an annualized basis as U.S. tariffs squeezed exports, but higher household and government spending cushioned some of the impact, data showed on Friday.
The GDP for the quarter that ended June 30 decelerated by 1.6 per cent on an annualized basis from a downwardly revised growth of 2.0 per cent posted in the first quarter, Statistics Canada said, taking the total annualized growth in the first six months of the year to 0.4 per cent.
Canadian child-protection advocates are urging the administrators of the network that underpins much of the dark web to block access to millions of child-abuse images and the thousands of websites that post them.
They are warning that pedophile material is proliferating on the anonymous web, including tips on how to abuse minors and evade the police, which is jeopardizing the safety of huge numbers of children worldwide.
Good morning. As one of the few news organizations in the world with a contributing reporter on the ground in Gaza, sharing these stories is a unique privilege and a challenge – and today we take you behind the scenes on our coverage. More on that below, plus improving international relations and preparing for back to school. But first:
© Hatem Khaled
Mayah Obadia was vacationing in Toronto when she received a text message from her petsitter about her cat, Fig. He was not eating or playing.
For most Canadians, this would warrant a pretty simple solution: a trip to the local veterinarian’s office, likely scheduled during regular clinic hours.
Spirits maker Diageo DEO-N will cease operations at its bottling facility in Amherstburg, Ont., early next year, as it shifts some bottling volume to the U.S., the company announced on Thursday.
The facility, which bottles Crown Royal products, will close in February in a move aimed at improving its North American supply chain.
Nova Scotia’s largest wildfire destroyed 20 homes in the Annapolis Valley over the weekend as dry winds fanned the flames of the Long Lake fire that continues to burn out of control.
Minister of Emergency Management Kim Masland said 20 homes and at least 11 outbuildings, such as sheds or garages, were destroyed or seriously damaged Sunday.
A new national report on how abuse and maltreatment are handled in sport says “Canadian sport has lost its way” and the federal government must act to better protect athletes across the country.
The Future of Sport in Canada Commission released its preliminary report Thursday, saying it heard that there are “deeply ingrained” issues across the country, from a culture of silence that has led to abuse and maltreatment to underfunding and a lack of diversity.
A new poll indicates an overwhelming majority of Canadians are in favour of regulating artificial intelligence, and almost half are worried it will contribute to cognitive decline.
The Leger poll found 85 per cent of respondents believe governments should regulate AI tools to ensure ethical and safe use. More than half, 57 per cent, said they strongly agreed with that statement.
An unusually broad coalition composed of the United States, its traditional English-speaking allies, including Canada, and other nations including Germany, Italy and Japan is calling out three Chinese companies over alleged hacking activity.
In a 37-page advisory published on Wednesday, the countries accused the firms – Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology, Beijing Huanyu Tianqiong Information Technology and Sichuan Zhixin Ruijie Network Technology – of providing “cyber-related products and services to China’s intelligence services, including multiple units in the People’s Liberation Army and Ministry of State Security.”
The bad news for Alberta’s oil-reliant budget is set to get worse.
Finance Minister Nate Horner says softening oil prices mean this year’s projected budget deficit is expected to grow by $1.3-billion, and will now finish at $6.5-billion in the red when the fiscal year ends next spring.
The Quebec government says it is planning to ban prayer in public places as part of a move to strengthen secularism in the province.
The announcement makes good on an idea first mentioned last winter by Premier François Legault, who said he didn’t want to see people praying in public parks or on streets.
© Kenya-Jade Pinto
Canada and India named seasoned diplomats as their new high commissioners Thursday, as both gradually soothe diplomatic tensions over transnational repression and Sikh separatism 10 months after expelling each other’s top envoys.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Christopher Cooter will be Canada’s new high commissioner to India. Anand’s department said Cooter has served as a diplomat for 35 years, including postings in Israel and South Africa, as well as in New Delhi 25 years ago.
The Supreme Court of Canada has decided not to hear an appeal of lower-court rulings that deemed a stretch of Sauble Beach, Ont., to be within the local Saugeen First Nation reserve, despite arguments the case could have broad implications for property owners caught up in Indigenous land claims.
The top court’s announcement, made on Thursday, caps a 30-year legal battle waged by the Saugeen First Nation. This Indigenous band on the shores of Lake Huron had long held that it was owed an additional strip of Sauble Beach, one of the longest freshwater beaches in the world and a destination for hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.
Loud cheers for mass deportations and Alberta separation were the peaks of an otherwise tame and quiet town hall for Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next panel in Lloydminster.
Smith’s panel, which is touring the province to hear from the public on ways to shield the province from federal overreach, drew a friendly crowd of about 350 to a public recreation centre Wednesday night.
So, a funny thing happened on the way to the meltdown of the condo presale market.
About a year ago, with dark clouds gathering over dozens of large development ventures, officials at Dream Unlimited and Great Gulf decided to take a hard look at one of their marquee waterfront projects, with an eye to executing a rapid reboot.
Good morning. I will be delving into sepsis today, a life-threatening medical condition, especially if not diagnosed promptly. We’ll have more about the families fighting for better treatment in Canada below. Plus, small businesses prepare for the end of de minimis, and throwing tomatoes, but in a good way. But first:
© Nick Iwanyshyn
In the early days of Doug Ford’s first term as Ontario Premier, Stephanie Smyth says she used to get phone calls from him, voicing his displeasure about the news coverage on her TV channel, CP24.
As CP24’s anchor and managing editor, she said she would always take the Premier’s calls to hear what he had to say.
Alia Hogben asked for my help when she and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women challenged the 2003 proposal by the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice to determine family law matters using a faith-based arbitration tribunal, which would apply only Sharia law. They maintained that Sharia law had outmoded and, in some cases, had abusive attitudes toward women.
I had been part of the effort to secure for Ontario women full rights to share property accumulated during a marriage and improve spousal support rights, among other things. I heartily agreed with Ms. Hogben that Muslim women were entitled to the same rights and benefits of the Ontario Family Law Act 1986 as other Ontario women and should not be required to accept religious rulings instead of the civil courts. I and others joined her in the public challenge to the Islamic Institute proposal.
Canada Post is urging the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to revisit its offers after meeting at the bargaining table Wednesday.
The Crown corporation says the union has “maintained or hardened” its position on many items and added new demands and that the gap between the parties remains “substantial.”
Justice Minister Sean Fraser, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree and fentanyl czar Kevin Brosseau met with U.S. Attorney-General Pam Bondi on Wednesday as Ottawa continues to re-engage with the Trump administration after failing to reach a trade deal earlier this month.
The sit-down in Washington was the second in as many days between top officials from the two governments.
Manitoba’s ethics commissioner has cleared Premier Wab Kinew of any wrongdoing after he accepted and paid for private travel with Winnipeg’s professional football team to go to two Grey Cup games.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers invited Kinew on a private charter to the 2023 Grey Cup game in Hamilton and the following year to the football finals in Vancouver. The Bombers were playing both years.
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