Environmental advocacy group WWF has updated its Living Planet Index for Canada and found that downward trends in monitored wildlife populations are becoming more pronounced – a sign that federal and provincial policies are inadequate to the task of protecting species at risk across the country or improving their chances of recovery.

In a report released on Monday, the organization found that 53 per cent of the Canadian species it measures are decreasing in abundance, with an average decrease of 10 per cent since 1970 (a point in time from which wildlife population data were sufficient to allow for reliable estimates). Among those species already listed as threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 43 per cent showed population declines, including the boreal caribou.

An ostrich farm in the B.C. Interior has got further support from right-wing American influencers when another online commentator added his voice, saying he would like to “help the ostriches out there in Canada” and relocate them to Texas.

The Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood, B.C., has been calling on supporters to gather at the property to save about 400 ostriches at the farm after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ordered the cull of the birds following an outbreak of avian flu last December.

Prime Minister Mark Carney formally announced that Canada will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly. The United Kingdom and Australia also recognized a Palestinian state, and others are expected to do so during the general assembly in New York this week.

The date was Feb. 8, 1954 and young David Edmonston had an upset tummy.

Compared with other global events around that time – the death of Joseph Stalin, the advent of colour TV – the gastrointestinal woes of an 11-year-old in rural Massachusetts hardly seemed consequential.

The passing thought of moving to Canada from the United States because of its political climate became an active idea for physician Libby Fleming when, in 2022, the constitutional right to abortion was overturned south of the border.

She had a planned trip to Costa Rica later that summer but cancelled it, booking a plane ticket to Nova Scotia instead. The Atlantic province was a bucket-list destination for her. It was also actively recruiting foreign physicians to address a country-wide shortage of doctors.

Alberta’s premier says her government might invoke the notwithstanding clause to defend laws affecting transgender people because courts may take “years and years and years” to resolve the issue, and she wants to “protect kids.”

Smith, who made the comments Saturday on her provincewide radio call-in program, was responding to news that an internal memo from her government, obtained by The Canadian Press, says it plans to apply the clause this fall to its three laws that police school pronouns, female sports and gender-affirming health care.

Canadians in several major cities demonstrated Saturday against elements of the Liberal government’s agenda, including Prime Minister Mark Carney’s support for new fossil fuel projects and expected public service cuts.

Hundreds who took part in “Draw the Line” protests in Toronto marched from downtown to the provincial legislature building, carrying signs that included messages advocating full immigration status for all, ending trade with Israel, Indigenous rights and a revolution against billionaires.

Canada’s finance minister says the country could be a “supplier of choice” for European markets looking to bolster energy security and defence capabilities.

Following a meeting in Denmark with European Union finance ministers, François-Philippe Champagne said Saturday that Canadian critical mineral and energy exports could help European economies become more resilient while diversifying Canada’s trade relationships.

A legal challenge is seeking to expand the right to a lawyer for immigrants and asylum seekers in “high-stakes” proceedings that impact their ability to enter or remain in Canada.

Currently, extensive portions of the immigration and refugee system do not afford people the right to be represented by a lawyer, says the proposed application for judicial review by the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association, or CILA.

No one saw much cause for alarm when the Pattanasat Witaya School in the deep south of Thailand first noticed last summer that children were getting sick, their chests flushing with bumpy red spots.

© Lauren DeCicca

Homelessness, street chaos, mental-health problems and drug addiction are the top preoccupations for many municipal politicians set to gather in Victoria next week for their annual convention.

Stretched to the limit of their resources, they say that although the provincial government has been stepping up with housing support in the past year, it’s still not enough.

Sometimes change is hard to spot. Limberlost Place, a new 10-storey facility for George Brown College, lands quietly on Toronto’s eastern waterfront. Its serrated, copper-hued facades rise up and slim to a peak with just a hint of bravado.

There’s no sign this is among the country’s most innovative buildings – not until you cross the threshold. The main lobby rises in a grand staircase framed by ten-tonne columns and nine-metre-long beams of black spruce.

Alberta’s plan to use the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to shield laws affecting transgender young people from court challenges has sparked criticism and intensified a national debate about governments’ wielding of such power.

The laws, passed by the United Conservative Party government late last year, generally focus on people younger than 16 and ban transgender girls from female-only sports, prohibit gender-affirming health care and require parental consent at school to change a name or pronouns.

An RCMP commander in B.C. has been charged with multiple counts of assault after an off-duty altercation this summer in a Vancouver suburb.

The BC Prosecution Service said in a news release Friday that Assistant Commissioner David Teboul, who is the RCMP’s Pacific Region commander, is accused of assaulting two people and choking one of them.

Nova Scotia RCMP are deploying dogs that are specially trained to detect human remains in “areas of highest probability” in the search for Lilly and Jack Sullivan, children who mysteriously disappeared months ago from their home in the wooded community of Lansdowne, N.S.

Staff Sergeant Stephen Pike from the Police Dog Service Training Centre in Innisfail, Alta., told reporters Friday that using cadaver dogs in an investigation means there is reason to believe human remains are present.

The Carney government is barring the Belfast rap group Kneecap from entering Canada, saying the group has endorsed political violence and terrorism.

Liberal MP Vince Gasparro, parliamentary secretary for combatting crime, made an announcement in a video posted Friday morning to social media. He said Kneecap has “publicly displayed support for terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas” and said that goes beyond artistic expression.

More than one million people have already submitted claims for compensation under the $500-million settlement that Canada’s largest grocer, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. L-T, and its parent company, George Weston Ltd. WN-T, agreed to pay to settle their part in class-action lawsuits over a scheme to fix bread prices in Canada from 2001 to 2015.

So, how much could eligible bread customers be paid? That depends on a few factors.

A new federal anti-hate bill would make it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to obstruct someone from accessing a place of worship or other sites where Jews, Muslims and other identifiable groups gather, including by blocking doors, driveways and roads.

The Combatting Hate bill would also criminalize the promotion of hatred toward religious and ethnic groups by publicly displaying terror or hate symbols, including the swastika and insignia of the Nazi SS.

Canada, which is preparing shortly to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, will nevertheless withhold full normalization of relations until the territory’s leadership delivers on commitments they made, including releasing Israeli hostages, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said.

Speaking to reporters Friday during a visit with Prime Minister Mark Carney to Mexico, Ms. Anand said she intended to speak the same day with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to drive home this point.

Retail sales fell 0.8 per cent to $69.6-billion in July as shoppers spent less at supermarkets and grocery stores, Statistics Canada said Friday.

However, the agency said its advance estimate for August pointed to an increase of one per cent, though it cautioned the figure would be revised.

Cenovus Energy Inc. CVE-T says its cash-and-stock bid for MEG Energy Corp. MEG-T offers a premium valuation and certainty over a rival all-stock offer by Strathcona Resources Ltd. SCR-T

“Cenovus brings scale, industry-leading experience, tier-1 assets, near-term growth, diversified revenues, a stronger balance sheet and clearly defined synergies,” Cenovus said in a presentation laying out its arguments for MEG shareholders to accept the friendly deal.

Last week, Strathcona revised its hostile offer to 0.80 of a share for each MEG share it does not already own. Its initial overture this spring was a combination of cash and stock. When the new bid was announced, it was worth $30.86 per share, up from $28.02.

© Victor R. Caivano

Canadians might be shunning leisurely visits to the U.S., but new data show corporate travel appears to be business as usual. 

Despite political tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, economic uncertainty stemming from tariffs and fears of treatment at the border, data from SAP Concur suggests Canadian business travel to the U.S. during the first half of the year has remained stable compared with last year’s levels, even if it means some companies are taking more precautions at the border. 

Good morning. The gender gap in higher education has persisted for many decades. Do universities need to do more to entice men back? More on that below, plus follows to our reporting on the notwithstanding clause and the BC Ferries deal. But first:

Today’s headlines

• A real estate executive, lobbyist and banker held an event for cabinet ministers and MPs, raising concerns over federal lobbying rules
• Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum vowed closer ties Thursday against the backdrop of rising U.S. protectionism
• American television’s remaining active late-night talk shows put on a display of deference to the U.S. President, with a wink
• In Toronto’s Dufferin Grove, a big tent of compassion for homeless encampments begins to fray

© Fred Lum

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has directed officials to invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause in amending three laws that affect transgender people, says a leaked government memo obtained by The Canadian Press.

The internal document sent Sept. 10 by the Justice Department asks other departments to assemble information as per a directive from Ms. Smith’s office to invoke the clause.

Ottawa is defending its proposal at the Supreme Court of Canada to put limits on governments’ use of the notwithstanding clause, with the federal Liberals arguing they are standing up for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In the House of Commons on Thursday, Minister of Canadian Identity Steven Guilbeault said, “We have the responsibility to defend one of the pillars of our democracy, the Charter.”

When officials took steps to remove an encampment in a Toronto park this week, sympathizers rushed to the park to defend it. One of them wore a sign on the back of his jacket made from strips of adhesive tape: “Love Your Neighbour.”

To supporters of those who live in the cluster of tents near the southwest corner of Dufferin Grove Park, it is that simple. If we call ourselves a caring society, we must stick up for its most vulnerable members. Many of those who end up in encampments have mental or physical conditions that have landed them where they are. Unless we find a humane way of accommodating them, we should leave them be.

© Duane Cole

Thousands of public servants have requested exemptions to the Ontario government’s upcoming order to return to the office full-time, as unions say they are set to meet with the province’s top bureaucrat later this month to plead their case for flexible work arrangements.

Dave Bulmer, president of Ontario’s professional employees union AMAPCEO – which has 17,000 members – said there have been about 4,500 requests for remote or hybrid work arrangements in the last three weeks.

Canada Post is sending new offers to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) in an effort to move negotiations forward, the postal service said Thursday.

The new terms will allow the two sides to return to the bargaining table next week, with work already under way to make that happen, the Crown corporation said.

© Adrian Wyld

When Sandy Fainer was growing up in Toronto in the 1950s, she loved reading Nancy Drew mystery books and channelled her admiration for the girl detective by conducting her own investigations in the family’s suburban bungalow.

“I was snooping through my mother’s underwear and found it,” she recalled. It was what her mother, Fania Fainer, called in Yiddish “the little book,” a tiny heart-shaped autograph book covered in purple fabric, with a letter F stitched onto the cover.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is appointing his principal secretary David Lametti as Canada’s next ambassador to the United Nations.

The Prime Minister’s Office announced Thursday that Lametti, a former federal justice minister, will replace former Liberal leader Bob Rae, 77, who has held the role since 2020.

© Ranz Bontogon

When fires burned near towns or villages in the past, they were stamped out, and fast. “Redshirts,” as Canada’s wildland firefighters are still known – although they wear banana yellow now – reliably came to the rescue.

Those days are over.

© DARREN HULL

The RCMP say they have taken down a cryptocurrency platform that was being used mainly for criminal transactions, in what the force claims is the largest crypto bust in Canadian history.

In a statement Thursday, the force’s federal policing wing in Quebec said it had recovered $56-million from a platform known as TradeOgre, “the first time that a cryptocurrency exchange platform has been dismantled by Canadian law enforcement.”

Canada’s government is sending more asylum-seekers hoping to file claims in Canada back to the U.S. under a bilateral pact, even as the U.S. says it may deport them to third countries.

Some of the people Canada is turning back should be eligible to file refugee claims in Canada, lawyers say, under exemptions to the Safe Third Country Agreement. The agreement broadly requires asylum-seekers at the Canada-U.S. border to be sent back to the first of the two countries they entered but allows some people - for example those with close family in Canada or stateless persons - to file claims.

Donald Oliver, the first Black man appointed to the Senate of Canada, has died at the age of 86.

Oliver’s family in Nova Scotia confirmed the retired senator died Wednesday from a chronic heart condition.

Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next panel, aimed at wrenching more political control from Ottawa, was spurred to take action in Grande Prairie Wednesday.

The panel is expected to eventually pick six ideas that could become potential referendum questions, and the naysayers were again outnumbered in a packed house of more than 500 attendees.

Canada-wide protests are planned this weekend, a coalition of progressive civil society groups say, in what organizers call an emerging “common front” to elements of the new Liberal government’s agenda.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s support for new fossil-fuel projects, expected public service cuts, expanded military support and new border measures are some of the concerns motivating Saturday’s co-ordinated day of action, organizers of the Draw The Line protests say.

Vancouver-based musician Sarah McLachlan says working on the new documentary Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery kicked up old emotions tied to her memories of the influential all-female tour. But she says if it were ever to be revived for another iteration it would have to be done by a younger artists. The film is streaming on CBC Gem and premieres on Hulu in the United States on Sept. 21.

Telus Corp. T-T is partnering with Samsung to deploy what it calls Canada’s first commercial radio access network intelligent controller, a software platform that will help eventually deliver networks fully powered by artificial intelligence.

Samsung said its technology will enable automation, enhanced energy efficiency and optimized performance across Telus’s wireless network.

A psychiatrist, politician and patron of the arts, Janusz Dukszta was a man of many faces – literally. His two-bedroom apartment, on the edge of Toronto’s exclusive Rosedale neighbourhood, was filled with paintings, many of them portraits of himself, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends and family. They were hung everywhere, higgledy-piggledy, on walls, suspended from the ceiling, or mounted three-deep over packed bookshelves.

It was not narcissism that prompted Dr. Dukszta to commission such portraits, but rather a desire to support artists who were starting their careers, and a deep-seated curiosity about the process of transformation and transcendence. How would others see him? Serious and natty in one of his many Savile Row-tailored suits, or posing in the nude, it did not matter. As he told this newspaper in 2010, “I am much more interesting than a vase or a mandolin.”

© Vincenzo Pietropaolo

Good morning. Meatballs built IKEA’s food empire but its plant balls failed to make a dent in the MAGA era – more on that below, along with Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension and Donald Trump’s state visit. But first:

Today’s headlines

• The Bank of Canada and U.S. Federal Reserve resume rate cuts amid job market slowdowns
• The BC Ferries deal was raised with Transport Canada weeks before Freeland’s criticism, e-mails show
• Canada and Mexico will sign a strategic partnership during Carney’s visit
• Gaza faces internet and phone blackouts as Israeli tanks advance

© Kyle Berger

The federal broadcast regulator begins a hearing today to look at which Canadian content obligations should apply to music streamers like Spotify.

Streaming services argue their current efforts to promote Canadian culture – and the royalties they pay – are good enough. Radio broadcasters, meanwhile, say their sector is in serious decline and they want the CRTC to take a lighter regulatory touch for traditional players.

Kira Schulz is standing in the field behind her daughter’s elementary school in the Alberta city of Airdrie and trying to make sense of space.

If the school adds modular classrooms to accommodate new students – the local school division has asked the government for several – where will the children play, Ms. Schulz wonders.

British Columbia is creating a provincial police unit to crack down on the wide-scale extortion of South Asian businesspeople, including a wave of shootings in recent months that echoes similar violence seen across Alberta and Ontario.

Assistant Commissioner John Brewer, with the British Columbia RCMP, and provincial Solicitor-General Nina Krieger announced the new 40-member team at a news conference Wednesday flanked by police leaders from around Metro Vancouver. They said this unit will lead new investigations as well as help local RCMP detachments and other municipal forces with their open cases.

Saskatchewan Mounties have charged three more people in their investigation of the Kingdom of Canada, a group likened to a cult that has been clashing with area residents.

RCMP said in a news release Wednesday three women face charges of obstruction of a peace officer in Richmound, a village west of Regina.

Quebec has become the second Canadian province after Alberta that will no longer provide free vaccination against COVID-19 for all its population.

Instead, only certain categories of people will still receive the shot at no cost: seniors, health care workers, residents of remote regions and medically vulnerable patients.

A Minnesota court requested the arrest of a Canadian resident this month so he can stand trial in the U.S. after he allegedly helped with the 2022 cross-border smuggling of an Indian family of four who froze to death in Manitoba.

U.S. authorities were concerned that Fenil Patel, 37, who also goes by the name Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel, would flee Canada – possibly to India – according to new court documents filed in Ontario and Minnesota, verified by The Globe and Mail.

Ottawa is calling on the Supreme Court of Canada to clarify the law around governments’ use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause, arguing that courts should have a bigger role in such cases than previously granted by legal precedent.

If the Supreme Court accepts Ottawa’s arguments, it will mark the first substantive limits on governments’ use of the notwithstanding clause to override the rights of Canadians since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982.

The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point, bringing it down to 2.5 per cent after three straight holds. Governor Tiff Macklem says the central bank has shifted to worrying more about a slowing economy than high inflation, which provided the rationale for the interest rate move.

British Columbia Premier David Eby is off to Ottawa to lobby the federal government for more investment in major infrastructure projects in the province.

The Premier’s Office says in a statement that Eby is leading a mission to Ottawa that will last until Thursday, and the itinerary includes a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney on priorities for B.C.’s economic growth.