Smoke alerts and heat warnings are in place across the country this weekend, as thousands of people are fleeing their homes from out-of-control wildfires.

In a rare occurrence, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew declared a second provincewide state of emergency this week, calling upon the military to airlift residents from northern communities toward safer areas, emphasizing the severity of this year’s historically bad wildfire season. The province was under a state of emergency from May until late last month, during which more than 21,000 people had been evacuated.

Officials from a B.C. construction union say it’s been four years since a crane collapse killed five people in Kelowna, and their families and the industry are still waiting for answers from WorkSafeBC about what happened, and from prosecutors about possible criminal charges. 

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115, which represents hundreds of crane operators in the province, says it’s calling on the BC Prosecution Service to move forward with a criminal trial to “deliver justice to the victims’ families.” 

Sometimes Toronto doesn’t know a good thing when it sees it. Consider the plan to redevelop Ontario Place, the big island playground down by the lake. Furious opposition has followed the project from the start. Critics say the provincial government is handing a priceless public asset to a private company so it can build a luxury spa.

That is a gross caricature of the plan, which includes not just the spa and accompanying waterpark but also a better concert venue, a new Ontario Science Centre, a revived marina and acres of trails, beaches and open space that everyone will be able to use for free.

Two girls, aged 13 and 14, have been charged with assault after an alleged swarming attack in Oshawa, Ont., last week while three other youths, including an 11-year-old, are considered suspects, police said Friday. 

But Durham Region police said there’s “no evidence” at this time that hate was an aggravating factor in the alleged attack on a Muslim woman whose hijab was ripped off.

A British Columbia father and son are suing the Anglican Church of Canada, alleging the son was conceived as a result of sexual abuse by a female employee of St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Alert Bay in the late 1960s.

The lawsuit says the father was 14 years old when he was sexually assaulted by a school supervisor in 1968, and he settled a lawsuit with the church in 2008.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is relaxing its policy against doctors treating themselves, family members and others close to them amid the province’s primary care crisis.

Doctors were previously only allowed to treat relatives and other people close to them in emergencies or for minor conditions if no other qualified health-care professional was readily available.

Alberta animal farmers are pleased but anxious for updates after the provincial government paused new limits on annual on-farm slaughter sales.

Under Alberta’s on-farm slaughter program, licensed producers can sell cows, pigs, chickens and other animals directly to consumers and avoid going through commercial meat inspection rules.

Alberta and Ottawa have signed off on $203-million for new affordable housing projects across the province.

Provincial Social Services Minister Jason Nixon says the joint funding will go toward 25 projects and see more than 2,300 units built.

One of two cyclists who was struck in a hit and run earlier this week in Prince George, B.C., has died of his injuries.

Mounties say Shane Kelly was a “community rider” who had been training with an officer from the detachment for the Cops for Cancer Tour de North fundraiser. 

Transport Canada says Tesla TSLA-Q legitimately claimed thousands of electric vehicle rebates in the final weekend before the department suspended its rebate program.

In an email to the Canadian Press, a spokesperson for Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland said the department is still assessing a few claims.

The mother of a nine-year-old British Columbia girl with a rare and deadly disease says she’s “disgusted” with the decision not to renew coverage for medication that costs about $1-million a year.

Charleigh Pollock’s mother, Jori Fales, said through sobs in a social media video that there’s been a “complete disregard” for the life of her daughter who suffers from Batten disease.

This week, Therme Canada revealed more visuals of its controversial Ontario Place facility – a sprawling private spa complex on what used to be parkland.

The PR rollout emphasized “sustainable” and “inclusive” aspects of the design. But this is still the same disastrous project it’s always been. It is a private stadium-sized recreation facility that has no business existing on a waterfront, accompanied by an enormous parking garage. And it’s not getting better.

The British Columbia provincial court has handed a retired RCMP officer a suspended sentence, saying the man was “reckless” but not deceitful when he convinced a neighbour to invest in his failing cannabis company. 

The court ruling says six years after Jasvindar Singh Basi retired from the RCMP he incorporated a cannabis company called GrowX Global Corp., and its business plan was “centred” on building a production facility in Mission, B.C. 

As a major funding shortfall looms over Pride Toronto, some prominent LGBTQ advocates say it’s high time to rethink the organization’s corporate partnerships and return to its political grassroots.

Ahead of last month’s Pride parade, organizers sounded the alarm over Pride Toronto’s $900,000 shortfall after sponsors such as Google, Nissan, Home Depot and Clorox pulled their support.

Canadian border officials say two brothers have pleaded guilty to several charges after attempting to smuggle large amounts of tobacco into the country.

Investigators with the Canada Border Services Agency in Niagara Falls say James and Jason McDuffie attempted to smuggle a total of 45,620 kilograms of contraband tobacco in a commercial truck.

The mother accused of abandoning her three-year-old daughter in a field near a highway in Ontario burst into tears on Friday as a judge told her she was being denied bail.

The 34-year-old woman, whose name is under a publication ban to protect the girl’s identity, was ordered to undergo a 30-day psychiatric evaluation at a hospital in the Montreal region.

Environment Canada has issued a heat warning for southern Ontario, saying hot and humid conditions could last into next Thursday.

The alert issued Friday morning says daytime highs for areas between Windsor and Cornwall are expected to range from 29 C to 32 C, with the humidex making it feel like it’s 35 C to 40 C.

Coal Taurozzi favoured a stylish blue tie on public outings, but that’s not what made him a gentleman feline.

At the cat colony on Parliament Hill where, according to early reports, he’d been abandoned as a kitten, he was never seen with a bird or mouse in his jaws, and he maintained a polite truce with the raccoons who made guest appearances at mealtime.

Corus Entertainment Inc. CJR-B-T plans to wind down five kids’ channels later this summer as the broadcaster continues to cope with advertising revenue challenges.

The company says in a statement it will stop distributing ABC Spark, Nickelodeon, Disney French (La Chaine Disney), Disney XD and Disney Jr. channels as of Sept. 1.

Unifor says the B.C. Labour Relations Board has awarded union certification to workers at an Amazon facility in Delta, B.C.

The workers will now begin the process of negotiating a first contract, the union says.

Canada’s unemployment rate surprisingly dropped a tick to 6.9 per cent in June as employment increased in wholesale and retail trade and health care and social assistance, data showed on Friday.

The economy added 83,100 new jobs in June, the first net increase since January, Statistics Canada said. Most of this employment growth was in part-time work.

A superficial reading of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s policybook is that she’s simply following the blueprint laid out for her by her MAGA cousins down south. It indeed has many of the Republican highlights: enduring grievance politics, legislation on trans youth, a tinge of vaccine skepticism, and most recently, an initiative to effectively ban certain books from school libraries. On Thursday, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides announced a new provincial standard to “ensure school library materials are age-appropriate and free of sexually explicit content.”

Each agenda item could be defended on its own merits; for example, if you actually look at the library material the United Conservative Party (UCP) cites as inappropriate for certain ages in public school libraries, including a graphic novel that shows scenes of oral sex that is available in K-9 and high schools in Calgary, one could make a reasonable case for intervention (though one could make a better case for the government staying out of it and letting schools and boards handle the issue).

Good morning. The family of a Canadian man who died in ICE custody are grieving and seeking answers about why he was detained, unreachable, and if he had access to his medication. More on that below, plus updates from the Middle East and a lost message that has been found.

Today’s headlines

• U.S. President Donald Trump announces 35% tariffs on all Canadian goods starting Aug. 1
• Manitoba wildfires prompt a second declaration of provincewide state of emergency
• Alberta to ban books deemed sexually explicit from school libraries and restrict materials about puberty
• Moscow unleashed heavy air strikes on Ukraine ahead of U.S.-Russia talks with a frustrated Washington

© Michelle Bruzzese

A company selling night-vision devices says it parted ways with a Canadian soldier right after police raided his home, 18 months before he was charged this week in connection with an alleged terrorism case.

Corporal Matthew Forbes, 33, from Pont-Rouge, Que., faces 11 criminal counts, including unauthorized possession of firearms and military-grade night optical devices. The RCMP arrested him Tuesday along with three other men from the Quebec City area who were charged with facilitating terrorism.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday the U.S. would impose a 35% tariff on imports from Canada next month and planned to impose blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most other trade partners.

One of Ontario’s largest hospital corporations is taking the unusual step of suing its former chief executive and two senior administrators, alleging they failed to act properly when they were presented with evidence of a procurement fraud.

London Health Sciences Centre, which manages three hospitals and more than 15,000 employees, announced two lawsuits this week stemming from an investigation into an alleged $50-million fraud scheme. The hospital network alleges inflated contracts were steered to companies with ties to a former vice-president of London Health Sciences.

Up until two days ago, the residents of the tiny Ontario community of Quadeville had been on high alert. Some children were kept indoors, and parents were on the lookout for a possibly violent and unpredictable creature.

The fear stemmed from the discovery of a missing eight-year-old girl on June 24 who had been so savagely attacked, investigators warned residents that they believed it must have been an animal.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would impose 35-per-cent tariffs on imports from Canada starting Aug 1, upping pressure on Ottawa as it seeks to secure a deal with the White House in the coming weeks.

In a letter posted on his website Truth Social on Thursday evening, Mr. Trump said he would increase the tariffs that were imposed on Canada in March and currently stand at 25 per cent, with notable carve outs. Mr. Trump justified the levies – which don’t apply to goods that comply with continental free trade agreement rules – as an effort to force Canada to do more to address U.S complaints about fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration.

Lt.-Gen. Jamie Speiser-Blanchet made history Thursday by becoming the first woman to lead the Royal Canadian Air Force.

She took the reins from Lt.-Gen. Eric Kenny at a change-of-command ceremony at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum presided over by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan.

Ten people are hospitalized with measles in British Columbia, with one active, contagious case as of July 8, the province’s Health Ministry said.

It said the infections are among 102 confirmed cases this year, with most involving people who were not fully immunized.

© Geoff Robins

Pop icon Justin Bieber surprised his fans with “Swag,” his seventh studio album, released Friday.

Beliebers all around the world waited in anticipation this year as the 31-year-old singer teased his followers with photos from the recording studio and mysterious social media posts.

The federal Fisheries Department says it found no evidence that fish-farming waste along Newfoundland’s south coast was harming fish or their habitat.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada says it reviewed reports that companies were allegedly dumping marine debris in the region.

Contemporary folk-poet Mustafa, alt-pop singer Nemahsis and electronic experimentalist Marie Davidson are among the 10 acts shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, which carries a slimmed-down cash reward this year.

Organizers say the best Canadian album winner will receive $30,000, down from $50,000, as various sponsors scale back financial contributions.

© ETHAN CAIRNS

The federal government is extending changes it made in March to the employment insurance program in response to the trade war with the U.S.

The changes were meant to help businesses retain workers by reducing their hours and compensating them through employment insurance for lost wages.

Infectious-disease experts are cautiously optimistic that Ontario’s measles outbreak will continue to taper off after a gradual decline in new cases over the past two months.

Cases peaked in early May, show provincial data, with weekly case counts hovering around 200. They have since been declining with some variation.

Protesters have blockaded a Hydro-Québec work site at a proposed hydroelectric project in traditional Innu territory in Labrador, prompting the utility to suspend its operations in the area.

Jerome Jack was among the demonstrators gathered at the site at Gull Island on Thursday afternoon. Innu people in Labrador, he said, were not properly consulted by the Innu Nation nor Hydro-Québec about the proposed power plant.

On the floe edge near Pond Inlet, in the northern part of Baffin Island, Nunavut, narwhal pods are migrating to open waters.

As landfast sea ice retreats and shifts to create passageways through open water, the ice-loving toothed whales journey into Eclipse Sound – the eastern Arctic entrance to the Northwest Passage – before venturing deeper into coastal inlets to forage for foods.

Cineplex Inc. says its box office revenue for June totalled $51.8 million, marking the first quarter since 2019 that it topped $50 million in each month. The company says a steady stream of blockbuster titles, combined with strong demand for its premium formats drove sustained attendance and revenue growth throughout the quarter.

Alberta has issued a ministerial order to restrict books from school libraries that the province believes are sexually explicit, instructing authorities to remove the material by October and prohibit students from accessing it.

Demetrios Nicolaides, Alberta’s Education and Childcare Minister, said Premier Danielle Smith’s government will require all school boards to create or update policies to meet the province’s new safeguards. Until now, he stressed, schools had “zero standards” to select appropriate content for libraries.

Wildfires have burned through more than a million hectares of forest in Manitoba this year, prompting Premier Wab Kinew to declare a second provincewide state of emergency and call upon the military to help once again with thousands of evacuations from fly-in communities.

The province, which was under a state of emergency until late last month, made the latest declaration Thursday. More than 12,600 people across the province are now being told to leave their homes, many for the second time.

Cineplex Inc. CGX-T says its box office revenue for June totalled $51.8-million, marking the first quarter since 2019 that it topped $50-million in each month.

The movie theatre company says a steady stream of blockbuster titles, combined with strong demand for its premium formats drove sustained attendance and revenue growth throughout the quarter.

© Nathan Rochford

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew again declared a provincewide state of emergency Thursday, as renewed wildfires forced thousands out of their homes, some for the second time in weeks.

Kinew said the order, the second since late May, is critical to rally resources.

A Newfoundland couple’s romantic message in a bottle was found 13 years later on a beach in Ireland. Martha Farrell, co-founder of the Maharees Conservation Association in Ireland, found Anita Squires, one half of the now-married couple, through the group’s Facebook post about the bottle.

A romantic message in a bottle thrown from the cliffs of an island off Newfoundland nearly 13 years ago was found on a beach in Ireland this week – and the couple behind it are still in love.

Brad and Anita Squires had been dating for about a year when they decided to end a quiet September picnic on Bell Island in 2012 by casting a message out to sea.

Good morning. Companies can’t seem to get the face time they want from their workers – more on that below, along with Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat and the generic Ozempic coming to Canada. But first:

Today’s headlines

• Border bill would create “in limbo” foreign residents who can’t be sent home or get an asylum hearing, refugee groups say
• U.S. Congress members press Canada to deal with the wildfire smoke ruining their summer
• Vancouver’s Lapu-Lapu attack inquiry urges B.C. to mandate risk assessments for all public events
• A memorial ceremony is held for those killed in the Texas floods, with more than 160 still missing

© Cole Burston

Some of the kinds of tactical gear that the RCMP alleges was in the hands of the soldiers arrested in Quebec is highly restricted and is generally inaccessible to individuals, experts say.

On Tuesday, the Mounties arrested and charged four men in connection with an alleged terrorist plot. Two are active non-commissioned army officers, one is a former soldier and the fourth a former cadet instructor.

A teen from eastern Ontario is accused of attempted murder and sex assault after a child was attacked last month.

Ontario Provincial Police say they responded to a report of a missing child on June 24 in Quadeville, about 170 kilometres west of Ottawa.

Garett Hickling wheeled into the Olympic Stadium in London before hoisting a large Canadian flag with his left hand.

The wheelchair rugby legend was given the honour of leading 145 athletes, 12 support personnel and 134 officials as Canada’s flag bearer at the 2012 Paralympics, a highlight in a career that included four Paralympic medals and a world championship gold medal.

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Just for Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon says he’s been treated like a pariah in the eight years since he was publicly accused by multiple women of sexual assault.

The disgraced former comedy mogul says the allegations have ruined his life and cost him his company.