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Montreal police investigate after Jewish man assaulted in front of his children

Montreal police say no arrests have been made.

Montreal police are investigating after a Jewish father was attacked in the city’s Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough on Friday afternoon, an act condemned by much of the political class on Saturday.

Police say no arrests have been made as the 32-year-old man who was with his three children was struck several times by a suspect around 2:45 p.m.

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Police arrest Canada’s 10th most wanted man at Montreal airport

 A man who’s been on the list of Canada’s top 25 most wanted fugitives for murder and drug trafficking charges in Saskatoon dating back to 2022 has been arrested at the airport in Montreal while police say he was returning to Canada. 

Quebec provincial police say officers from the Sûreté du Québec Airport Unit, the Mascouche Major Crime Investigation Division and the Canada Border Services Agency arrested Jonathan Ouellet-Gendron on several Canada-wide warrants at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport on Saturday.

A Saskatoon Police Service news release from May 2022 says Ouellet-Gendron, 36, was first sought by police after being identified as a suspect in a homicide that occurred in the 700 Block of Melrose Avenue.

© Christinne Muschi

<p>A Surete du Quebec police shoulder patch is seen in Montreal, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi</p>
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BC Hydro says Site C dam is fully operational ahead of schedule

BC Hydro's Site C dam and hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River near Fort St. John can now power half a million homes a year.

B.C.’s minister of energy and climate solutions Adrian Dix said Site C won’t be the last major energy project in the province after becoming fully operational ahead of schedule. 

The dam in northern B.C. is now able to generate 1,100 megawatts of electricity – enough to power half a million homes per year – after the sixth and final power-generating turbine came online. The first of the six turbines started to generate power in October 2024.

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Newfoundland firefighting efforts push on as New Brunswick bans woods activities

Forest fires have closed roads and caused mandatory evacuations from several Avalon Peninsula communities along Conception Bay in north Newfoundland.

Firefighters battling out-of-control wildfires in Newfoundland were facing windy and dry conditions Saturday, while ongoing dry conditions in New Brunswick prompted officials to issue a ban on activities in the woods on provincially owned land.

Three ongoing fires in Newfoundland have forced hundreds of people to evacuate their communities. Two are on the Avalon Peninsula in the Conception Bay North area and to the south near Holyrood. A third fire in central Newfoundland, south of Bishop’s Falls, was reported on Tuesday afternoon.

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Conservative MP calls on minister to apologize to MAGA-affiliated singer over concert cancellations

Singer Sean Feucht at the National Mall in Washington in October, 2020.

A Conservative MP is calling on Identity and Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault to apologize to U.S.-based Christian musician Sean Feucht after the permits for recent concerts in venues overseen by Parks Canada were revoked.

Marilyn Gladu, the opposition critic for civil liberties, says in a letter dated Friday that denying the permits did not “preserve the principle of inclusion” but had the opposite effect in excluding Feucht and many Canadians who had planned to attend the events.

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Heat wave hits Ontario and Quebec, prompting warnings for sweltering multi-day stretch

The heat event, which is expected to blanket most of Ontario and parts of Quebec, is set to last into the middle of next week when slightly cooler temperatures are expected, says Environment Canada.

Hot, humid weather settled over much of Ontario and parts of Quebec on Saturday with Environment Canada warning of a multi-day heat wave set to bring even higher temperatures Sunday and Monday.

Environment Canada said several days of sweltering conditions began taking hold of southern Ontario and half of northeast Ontario on Saturday, blanketing communities including Windsor, Timmins, Sudbury, Toronto and Ottawa.

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RCMP union advocates for ease of foreign applicant requirements to attract talent

RCMP currently requires applicants are Canadian citizens or have permanent resident status. Applicants with permanent resident status must have lived in Canada as a permanent resident for three of the last five years.

The union representing front-line RCMP members wants the force to ease requirements for foreign applicants to help attract experienced police officers from agencies like the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and counterparts in the United Kingdom and Australia.

The RCMP currently requires that applicants be Canadian citizens or have permanent resident status in Canada. Applicants with permanent resident status must have lived in Canada as a permanent resident for three of the last five years.

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Brace yourself for the rest of Trump 2

We are just half a year into Trump's second term and it has already been more chaotic than even his bitterest rivals warned.

The night that Donald Trump won the election for the first time I was in New York.

I had parked myself in a bar where young Republicans were gathering to watch the results come in. My assignment was to talk to them after Mr. Trump had lost and write something about the future of the Republican Party after his failure. A look at the post-Trump GOP, in other words.

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Stratford’s iconic Avon River has dried up, stunning locals and tourists

The water in Lake Victoria in Stratford, Ont., started receding after a brutal storm tore through Perth County on July 24.

From its earliest days, the Avon River has been the heart of the community of Stratford, Ont.

The centrepiece of the river, known as Lake Victoria, was created in the 1830s as a millpond for industry. The parks board later convinced the city to invest in horse-drawn scoops to dredge the lake. Locals warded off railroad proposals along the shorelines, where roses from Queen Mary were planted. A pair of swans from Queen Elizabeth arrived in 1967.

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B.C. health authority cuts dozens of jobs after quiet government directive to balance budget

B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne in Burnaby, B.C., in June. Documents reveal the Ministry of Health directed B.C.'s health authority to balance its budget this fiscal year, separate from and before Health Osborne publicly launched a corporate-spending review.

British Columbia’s Provincial Health Services Authority has quietly cut more than 50 staff and eliminated more than 60 vacant positions amid a government-ordered spending review and a previously unpublicized directive to balance its budget, internal memos show.

Members of the health authority’s executive leadership team announced the layoffs in a series of five memos sent to their staff between July 23 and Aug. 5 and obtained by The Globe and Mail.

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B.C. businesses call U.S. decision to double Canadian softwood duties harmful to both countries

Prime Minister Mark Carney was in B.C. this week promising $700-million in loan guarantees for the industry and $500-million for long-term supports to help companies diversify export markets and develop products.

The U.S. Department of Commerce says it has made a final decision to more than double countervailing duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports, a move business groups in British Columbia say will harm communities on both sides of the border.

A statement from the American department said the duty for most Canadian companies is being increased to 14.63 per cent, up from 6.74 per cent, after it determined softwood lumber from Canada was being unfairly subsidized.

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B.C. wildfires see some relief from cooler weather, many properties continue to be under evacuation order

The number of active fires in the province has been pushed down to just over 100, with more than 160 blazes declared out in the last week.

A Vancouver Island artist who was evacuated from her home studio near an out-of-control wildfire says she remains nervous despite being allowed back this week.

Ina-Griet Raatz-von Hirschhausen, whose home is a few kilometres from the Wesley Ridge wildfire near Cameron Lake, said she is waiting a bit longer to bring back half of her art collection, which was taken to a friend’s home when her family was told to evacuate late Sunday.

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Major land claims ruling says B.C. Indigenous group has claim to a portion of city and port lands

In what was billed as the longest trial in Canada’s history, the ruling represents a milestone in Indigenous reconciliation.

A British Columbia First Nation has won a major court victory, with a judge declaring it has title to a portion of land in the Vancouver area that includes currently active industrial operations on the Fraser River.

Justice Barbara Young of the B.C. Supreme Court declared the Cowichan Tribes “have established Aboriginal title” to roughly 800 acres in the City of Richmond, as well as an Aboriginal right to fish for food. Her 863-page ruling – from a trial that stretched 513 days over five years, from 2019 to 2023 – was issued Thursday and published online Friday.

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RFK Jr.’s defunding of mRNA vaccines to threaten Canadian tech access, stall development, experts say

On Aug. 5, Robert F.  Kennedy Jr. announced the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was halting funding for 22 mRNA vaccine projects worth nearly US$500-million. 

Canadian doctors and scientists say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s defunding of mRNA vaccine research and development projects will have negative health effects in Canada and around the world.

“I think that Canadians do need to understand that this and a lot of the changes that Kennedy is making to vaccination policy in particular are definitely going to affect Canadians,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization.

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