Toronto Metropolitan University’s new medical school officially opens its Brampton campus Wednesday. The school is trumpeting the opening as the first new medical school in the Greater Toronto Area in more than a century. It will be located about an hour’s drive northwest of the downtown Toronto campus in the former Brampton Civic Centre, which has been renovated to include classrooms, labs, offices and student spaces for the incoming class of 94 MD students.

TMU president Mohamed Lachemi spoke to The Globe and Mail about the significance of the school’s opening and other issues affecting the university sector.

© Christopher Katsarov

Good morning. Companies want employees back at their desks, but one powerful Canadian institution has yet to fully return in-person – more on that below, along with the Taliban’s appeal for international aid and the new editor of American Vogue. But first:

Today’s headlines

• Alberta pauses its ban on school library books with sexually explicit content
• Trump vows to take his fight for tariffs to the U.S. Supreme Court
• With a grand display of force, China’s Xi flaunts his country’s military and diplomatic might

© Adrian Wyld

Lawyers for attorneys-general across the country want to appear in person before the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada when they make their arguments at a coming landmark hearing on Quebec’s secularism law and the Charter’s notwithstanding clause.

One problem, however: That’s not allowed.

More below • A sample from band practise • At the world championships • Bagpipes 101

Mastering It is a summer series to introduce you to Canadians who have sought to rise above being simply good at their chosen endeavour – and who, by perfecting their skill, strive to become the best.

© Genna Martin

The northern lights will be lighting up the night skies across much of Canada, with a high probability of aurora activity on Sept. 2 and 3, a forecast from U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts. Here is how to capture the colourful display.

Quebec Premier François Legault told a public inquiry on Tuesday that he knew nothing about the $500-million cost overrun tied to digitization efforts at the province’s auto-insurance board until it became public knowledge in February.

Mr. Legault’s appearance before the Gallant commission into mismanagement and alleged cover-ups at the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec was the culmination of months of speculation about how much the Premier knew, and when, about a scandal that has already claimed one of his cabinet ministers.

The province’s embattled leader, facing plummeting poll numbers as he approaches seven years in office, said that details of mounting problems and ballooning costs within the SAAQclic project should have reached his desk, but didn’t.

© Christopher Katsarov

Susan Duong was standing behind the counter, stacking containers of chicken fried rice, hot off the wok and ready to eat.

She looked out the window at Riverdale Collegiate – the large high school directly across the street from her little takeout restaurant – and checked her watch. 11:36 a.m. The lunch bell was about to ring. It was time to open the doors. Yummy House was once again open for business.

British Columbia’s core public service union has launched strike action, hoping to force a labour-friendly but debt-swamped government to more than double its wage offer in contract talks.

A segment of the B.C. General Employees’ Union’s 34,000 public sector workers walked off the job on Tuesday, and union president Paul Finch promised to escalate job action if the provincial government doesn’t return to the bargaining table with a better offer.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says she spoke today with the Canadian judge facing American sanctions for her work at an international tribunal, without condemning Washington’s decision.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month announced sanctions on International Criminal Court judges including Kimberly Prost for her work on a case involving American troops in Afghanistan.

Erin McLeod, the oldest player in the Northern Super League, has announced her retirement in the wake of a season-ending foot injury.

The 42-year-old goalkeeper, the first-ever signing by Halifax Tides FC, has been sidelined since June. She played in six games for Halifax (3-11-3) during the NSL’s inaugural campaign.

A mayor near Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital city said his town of about 27,000 people would likely run out of water by Tuesday evening.

Darrin Bent said officials noticed earlier in the day that the water flow was decreasing to Conception Bay South, on the outskirts of St. John’s. They soon found a main pipe was leaking and the town’s water reserves were running out, he said.

Three weeks after the Long Lake wildfire in western Nova Scotia forced evacuations and eventually destroyed 20 homes, fire officials say some evacuation orders will be lifted.

They say that of the almost 500 orders imposed on individual residences since Aug. 13, residents living at 360 civic addresses will be allowed to return home on Wednesday.

If there was a fire, a flood, kids in need of skates or a hungry family in Montreal, Sid Stevens could be counted on to organize help.

For seven decades, his name was synonymous with Sun Youth, the community organization he founded with his friend Earl De La Perralle when they were both barely into puberty.

The Alberta government is pausing its controversial order for the removal of books deemed sexually explicit from school libraries, a retreat that Premier Danielle Smith vowed would be short-lived as the province continues to push policies around sexuality and gender into the classroom.

As of this month, new amendments to the Education Act dictate that ministerial approval is required before learning resources related to gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality are presented in schools.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford reacted angrily to news that spirits maker Diageo will close its Crown Royal bottling plant in Amherstburg, Ont., early next year, pouring out a bottle at a press conference and encouraging others to dump the whisky as well.

As generative artificial intelligence tools become more readily accessible than ever, parents and educators are struggling to navigate its use in classrooms as the new school year begins.

There’s the worry that secondary and postsecondary students could use AI to cheat on assignments, potentially generating false sources or entirely made-up essays. But others say AI is a helpful tool to enhance learning, if used properly.

Alberta’s education minister is directing school boards to pause a government order to remove books with explicit sexual content from libraries.

Demetrios Nicolaides, in an e-mail to school divisions and officials Tuesday, said they should pause any development or distribution of lists of books that are to be removed, “including removing materials containing depictions of explicit sexual content.”

The Quebec government says it is ending funding for Northvolt’s planned battery plant in the province’s Montérégie region.

Economy Minister Christine Fréchette says the government made its decision after the company failed to produce an acceptable plan for Quebeckers.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is reacting angrily to news of the closure of a plant that bottles Crown Royal, pouring out a bottle at a press conference and encouraging others to dump the whisky as well.

Spirits maker Diageo announced last week that it will cease operations at its bottling facility in Amherstburg, Ont., early next year, as it shifts some bottling volume to the United States.

The federal NDP officially launched the race to find its next leader on Tuesday, leaving seven months for interested candidates to mount a campaign.

The next NDP leader will be elected at a national convention in Winnipeg in March.

It took 11 years, loads of equipment and multiple attempts to pull an excavator-turned-landmark out of an east-central Saskatchewan lake.

But for the owner of the company that got the job done, it was just another day.

Members of the union representing thousands of British Columbia public service workers set up picket lines Tuesday in what the union says is a “last resort” in its labour fight with the province.

Members of the BC General Employees’ Union set up picket lines at provincial government offices in Victoria, Surrey and Prince George as well as in front of the Royal BC Museum.

If you’re reading this on the web or someone forwarded this e-mail newsletter to you, you can sign up for Globe Climate and all Globe newsletters here.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

Hope you all had a good long weekend! We are sending this Tuesday edition to take a closer look at Vancouver Island, where First Nations guardians steward a changing landscape under threat.

© James MacDonald

Enbridge Inc. ENB-T says it is going ahead with a pair of natural gas transmission projects.

The company says it expects to spend US$300-million on the Algonquin Reliable Affordable Resilient Enhancement project which will increase deliveries from the Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline to existing local distribution company customers in the U.S. Northeast.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne says he wants to address headaches at the Canada Revenue Agency in 100 days.

Champagne said in a letter to the chair of Parliament’s finance committee that it’s clear the CRA is not meeting Canadians’ standards amid complaints of service delays at the agency’s call centres.

A new report released as students across the country return to school finds bullying, poverty and mental illness are on the rise among Canadian youth and urges action from policy makers to improve the lives of children.

The Raising Canada report says more than 70 per cent of Canadian youth between the ages of 12 and 17 experienced bullying in the last year, and more than 13 per cent of children were living in poverty by the end of 2024.

The Quebec government has turned down federal funding aimed at combatting systemic racism in the criminal justice system, saying it doesn’t agree with the program’s approach.

The federal government first offered $6.64-million in funding to provinces and territories in 2021 to improve fairness in the courts. Spread out over five years, the money was aimed at addressing the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system by promoting the use of race and cultural assessments before sentencing.

“You can’t be experimenting on dogs. They’re part of our families. Or cats. Go with mice, go with rats, no problem,” Doug Ford said recently as he announced his intention to ban most research on dogs and cats in the province.

The Ontario Premier was reacting to a report by the Investigative Journalism Bureau that beagles were being used in a medical research study at the Lawson Research Institute at St. Joseph’s Health Care in London, Ont.

Greater Toronto commuters are likely bracing for traffic and transit congestion to worsen over the coming months as a number of major employers get ready to increase in-office days.

Even before return-to-office mandates take effect, experts say vehicle traffic in the city is at a tipping point, while delays, construction and public safety concerns plague the public transit system.

Good morning. The first major piece of litigation dealing with solitary confinement for young inmates is set to go to trial in Canada. More on the landmark class-action lawsuit below, plus a closer look at labour troubles this summer and the Toronto International Film Festival’s 50th anniversary. Let’s get to it.

TOP STORY

Manitoba’s practice of putting incarcerated children in segregation jail cells − including some who are as young as 12 and 13 years old − will be challenged this fall when a landmark class-action lawsuit goes to trial.

The case, which has been about seven years in the making, will be the first major piece of litigation dealing with youth inmate segregation to go to trial in Canada. It follows several recent lawsuits against governments in the country that have successfully challenged aspects of how solitary confinement is used in adult prisons.

© Marissa Tiel

In a large commercial kitchen in Halifax’s north end, chef Shane Gallagher sprinkled a garnish of parmesan, garlic, parsley and breadcrumbs onto the creamy broccoli pasta his team had just plated. It was a simple dish, but Mr. Gallagher – who’s worked at some of the city’s best restaurants, including Bar Kismet and Drift – added some cheffy touches: The breadcrumbs were processed from fluffy, olive-oil-rich slabs of focaccia, and the sauce’s flavour was punched up with the sweet funkiness of puréed garlic confit.

This was lost on many diners. Some took a few bites before throwing out the rest of the dish. Others refused to taste it at all.

© Carolina Andrade

Oscar-nominated Canadian actor Graham Greene, who broke through with memorable roles across several genres at a time when the entertainment industry shunned Indigenous talent, has died at age 73.

Greene’s management team said he died on Monday in Stratford, Ont., after a long illness.

When Maurice McGregor graduated from high school, his father sat him down for a pragmatic talk about the future. The fact that young Maurice had not been the smartest of students did not preclude him from pursuing a career in education, law or medicine because if only the smartest were able to take on positions of authority, the world would be in a lot of trouble.

The son chose medicine because it was a field that sparked his curiosity. And, coming from a family of fierce pacifists who were all aware that a new world war was on the horizon, he wanted to be able to take part as a healer who would not have to maim or kill others.

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Many of the more than 35,000 public-service employees from two unions in British Columbia will be heading to the picket lines on Tuesday morning if they are not called back to the bargaining table, the union heads say.

“We think our government is out of touch with both our membership and the public‚” said Paul Finch, bargaining chair and president of the British Columbia General Employees’ Union. “We think the government needs to take a knee and revise their position here.”

The BCGEU, which represents 34,000 public-sector employees, as well as the Professional Employees Association (PEA), which represents more than 1,800 licensed government professionals, each issued a 72-strike notice on Friday.

© Adrian Wyld

Nearly a fifth of the Liberal caucus has issued a letter calling for more to be done to address a rise in antisemitism after a Jewish woman in her 70s was stabbed at an Ottawa grocery store.

Mount Royal MP Anthony Housefather posted the letter on social media he signed along with 31 other Liberal lawmakers that decries what the letter calls the “deplorable” rise in antisemitism, warning it is “becoming normalized” in Canada.

All eyes will be on Quebec Premier François Legault on Tuesday as he is set to testify at the public inquiry into the cost overrun scandal at the province’s auto insurance board.

The commission, overseen by Judge Denis Gallant, is examining how the creation of the online platform known as SAAQclic incurred cost overruns of at least $500-million.

A year ago, then-NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s Labour Day message to workers insisted that his party alone would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with working Canadians and the unions that work to protect their rights.

Six months later, Singh stood outside of an auto plant in Windsor, Ont. during the federal election, hoping to offer support and comfort to workers reeling from news of new auto tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump. But Singh was not greeted with warmth – most of them ignored him entirely, rushing past with their heads down as they came off shift, while some others indicated a preference for the Conservatives and Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Fewer tourists are coming to Jasper, Alta., than usual this year, but it’s not for a lack of people eager to visit the picturesque Rocky Mountain town.

Numbers are about as good as they can be, considering about one-fifth of the town’s overnight accommodations burned when a ferocious wildfire swept through last summer, said Tourism Jasper CEO Tyler Riopel.

Monty Python’s absurdist tribute to Canadian tree fellers – the famed Lumberjack Song – is renowned across the world as a comedic classic.

Even real lumberjacks like to sing the lyrics: “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay. I sleep all night. And I work all day.”

It was a 22-second video that changed the fortunes of a Hong Kong bakery in British Columbia.

Laura Ullock, a prominent food and lifestyle social-media influencer based in Vancouver, had heard about Unique Slow Rise Bakery, a small, family-run business tucked away next to a campground in the shadow of Shannon Falls, in Squamish.

Police say a man is dead after a home invasion in the northwest of Toronto.

York Regional Police say they responded to a report of the invasion in Vaughan, Ont., at around 1 a.m. Saturday.

The night before they had to leave their home in the Northwest Territories because of an encroaching wildfire, Paschalina Nadli and her daughter carefully packed up their truck.

Their community of Fort Providence, NWT, where fewer than 1,000 people live, is located west of Great Slave Lake along the Mackenzie River. It was placed on evacuation alert on Saturday evening as a wildfire raged nearby.

Margaret Atwood is taking aim at Alberta’s controversial ban on school library books containing sexual content with a new, satirical short story after the famed author’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale was yanked from some shelves owing to the province’s sweeping new rules.

In a social media post on Sunday, Ms. Atwood said since the literary classic is no longer suitable in Alberta’s schools, she has written a short story for 17-year olds about two “very, very good children” named John and Mary.

Some small Indigenous businesses are halting shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s tariff regime, even though trade ties exist that predate the founding of both Canada and the United States.

“There needs to be a resolution to allow Indigenous Peoples to continue to undergo the trade routes that they have established and practised, and the treaties that have been signed in the past have suggested that these would be honoured,” said Matthew Foss, who serves as the vice president of research and public policy at the Canadian Council for Indigenous Businesses.

An evacuation order was issued for a second community in Northwest Territories on Sunday due to a dangerously close wildfire.

After being told to be ready to leave a day earlier, the community of Fort Providence, which has a population of about 600 people, was ordered out because a forecast of strong winds in the afternoon risked flames encroaching the north side of town.

A NWT wildfire information officer said the wildfire was about two kilometres away from the community.

© JASON FRANSON

New research on a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu – a small portion of which should arrive in Canada soon – is offering a glimpse into how it came to be.

Studies published in Nature Astronomy and Nature Geoscience last week offer some insight into the granules that were collected and brought to Earth in September, 2023, as part of the NASA-led OSIRIS-REx mission.

In nearly 30 years as a palliative care physician, Dr. Nathalie Allard has provided end-of-life care in busy hospital hallways, and consulted with families with only a curtain separating them from sick people screaming or vomiting on the other side.

On Thursday, she attended the opening of a brand-new palliative care facility northeast of Montreal that represents the kind of place where she wants to work and, one day, to die.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent decision to lift countertariffs on U.S. goods has renewed questions about whether more Canadian provinces will allow liquor retailers to put U.S. alcohol back on their shelves.

American industry associations have been calling for an end to the booze bans, arguing that they harm Canadian consumers and businesses.

A Prince Edward Island man facing a terrorism peace bond has been ordered to follow a raft of conditions, including not accessing the internet and not holding a passport.

The RCMP in Prince Edward Island sought a terrorism peace bond for the 51-year-old man, fearing he may commit a terrorism offence.

Officers say they seized 3D printed firearm components and arrested the man at his residence in February.

© JASON FRANSON