The Ontario government has taken control of four school boards including in Toronto and Ottawa, a move the province says stems from concerns over large deficits, depleting reserves and widespread mismanagement.

Education Minister Paul Calandra announced Friday the appointment of supervisors at the Toronto District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, following investigations earlier this year.

A civil liberties group has launched a legal challenge of a controversial “bubble zone” bylaw that prohibits protests near locations such as places of worship and schools, saying it marks a disturbing trend that seeks to stifle the democratic right to speak out.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which advocates for rights and freedoms, announced Tuesday it has launched a Charter challenge of the first such bylaw to take effect in the country in Vaughan, a city of about 350,000 people north of Toronto.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has apologized for warning that First Nations cannot “keep coming hat in hand all the time to the government” if they oppose mining or other resource projects – comments Indigenous leaders condemned as racist.

The Premier met on Thursday with chiefs from the Anishinabek Nation, which represents 39 of Ontario’s 133 First Nations chiefs, to discuss his government’s contentious legislation to speed up resource projects, known as Bill 5.

A group of Canadian premiers and American governors are urging Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump to strike a deal at this week’s G7 summit that eases U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports and ends the American leader’s threats to annex Canada.

The call was made at a Monday meeting in Boston between Eastern Canadian premiers and state governors from the U.S. northeast. It was issued before the White House announced that Mr. Trump was leaving the Group of Seven summit in Kananaskis, Alta., a day early because of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Canadian officials said the two countries had plans to continue talks later this week.

Joy Fiddler sat outside a hotel smoking a cigarette, as her daughter, Saffron, registered their family of nine with the Canadian Red Cross. Fleeing from an out-of-control wildfire near her Northern Ontario home in Sandy Lake First Nation, she had slept for less than an hour after arriving more than 1,500 kilometres away in Cornwall.

“All I saw was orange,” Ms. Fiddler, 51, said Monday afternoon, recalling her 11-hour wait at the Sandy Lake airport, where military aircraft and helicopters have been landing since Saturday, struggling to airlift nearly 3,000 people amid heavy smoke.