As we enter another wildfire season, Environment and Climate Change Canada is advising people to pay attention to air pollution levels and check the Air Quality Health Index - especially on smoky days. HOW CAN I CHECK THE AIR QUALITY READING IN MY AREA? The Air Quality Health Index is at: You can take a look at the ...

Last year's record-breaking wildfire season forced Canadians to become familiar with the scale of air pollution as hazardous smoke drifted across the country. Environment Canada's colour-coded Air Quality Health Index, designed to help people understand health risks associated with contaminated air, was closely watched...

TORONTO - The Prime Minister's Office has announced a federal byelection will be held in the Ontario riding of Toronto-St. Paul's on June 24 to fill the seat left vacant by longtime Liberal cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett. Bennett announced in December that she was retiring as an MP after 26 years in the House of Com...

MONTREAL - A 55-year-old woman is dead and her former partner is facing charges in what police say is Montreal's 13th homicide of the year. Police were called Saturday evening to an apartment in the Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension borough, where they found the victim with fatal upper body wounds. Police spokesman ...

TORONTO - It was early May and wildfire season had already started to rage in Western Canada when seven people settled into a monthly support-group meeting over Zoom. The facilitator, Toronto-based Kady Cowan, opened the conversation by prompting others to acknowledge any climate change-related concerns weighing on t...

OTTAWA - As Canada's strategy for supporting Rohingya people expires, advocates are calling for a rethink of how Ottawa is trying to limit suffering in refugee camps in Bangladesh, and to rout the military junta overseeing ethnic violence in Myanmar. "We cannot turn away from this," said Bob Rae, Canada's amb...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Lawyers are questioning Canada's approach to screening visa applications for people in Gaza with extended family in Canada after one applicant, a medical worker, was asked whether he had treated members of Hamas. The Canadian Press obtained a redacted letter sent to the applicant by a Canadian immigr...

FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. - Wildfire crews have reported no further growth in the wildfire that continues to burn southwest of Fort McMurray. Alberta Wildfire reports the lack of growth allowed crews to keep working on establishing fireguards overnight. The northeast Alberta city has seen rain in the last few days and Envir...

OTTAWA - A major international report on the safety of artificial intelligence says experts can't agree on the risk the technology poses - and it's unclear whether AI will help or harm us. The report, chaired by Canada's Yoshua Bengio, concludes the "future trajectory of general-purpose AI is remarkably uncertain....

MONTREAL - It's 2:55 a.m. on a recent evening at Blue Dog bar, in Montreal's Plateau district. A bell rings, the bartender shouts, "last call," and a handful of people wander to the bar for one more drink. Slight variations of this scene occur across the city every night, as bars and venues are prohibited - m...

VANCOUVER - Francis Silva watches the blood flow through astraw-like tube in his left arm to a dialysis machine where it's cleaned of toxins and returned to his body through a second tube. The 60-year-old chef endures the four-hour process every Tuesday, Thursday and Sundayat St. Paul's Hospital where a 42-bed unit is ...

Dialysis is one of the most resource-intensive therapies but patients with kidney failure have no other option, except for a kidney transplant. Nephrologists are trying to quantify the waste as they advocate for environmentally sustainable kidney care, noting the lifesaving therapy generates hundreds of litres of wast...

CALGARY - The bodies of four girls and women were found outside Calgary in 1976 and 1977. For nearly 50 years, their killings were unsolved. On Friday, RCMP identified Gary Allen Srery, an American sex offender, as the killer. He died in an Idaho prison in 2011. Here's a look at the police investigation: Feb. 12, 1976:...

OTTAWA - Addictions Minister Ya'ara Saks has rejected Toronto's request to decriminalize the possession of controlled drugs, citing concerns about public safety. More coming. The Canadian Press

MONTREAL - McGill University says it's going to court again to dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment that has been set up on its downtown Montreal campus since late April. Earlier this week McGill failed to convince a Superior Court judge that the situation at the encampment was sufficiently urgent to justify a prov...

Health-care professionals are joining forcesto cut down on waste including single-use plastics, surgical gloves and syringes where possible. Many have provided recommendations to the advocacy group Choosing Wisely Canada. Here's a look at howclinicians can change their practice while caring for patients and the planet....

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization is recommending a universal immunization program against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, for all infants. It says provinces and territories should work toward providing the antibody drug Nirsevimab for all infants before their first RSV season. But it says they c...

VANCOUVER - The president of the University of British Columbia has told pro-Palestinian protesters that the school must remain neutral on the Gaza conflict. Benoit-Antoine Bacon says in response to demands by the organizers of a protest encampment on the Vancouver campus that professors and students hold a broad range...

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says some immigrants to Canada who lack official status need a pathway to help them stay, while in other cases Ottawa must speed up deportation procedures. The Liberals pledged in late 2021 to "explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing ...

From new plant-leaning hospital menus tofewer surgical gloves, gas-spewing inhalers and single-use syringes, health-care professionals are finding ways to combat waste and pollutants. Dr. Wendy Levinson,chair of the eco-advocacy group Choosing Wisely Canada, said physicians are changing their practice to reduce the env...

Wildfires have forced thousands out of several communities in Western Canada. Roughly 6,600 residents have been told to leave their homes in Fort McMurray, Alta., while the rest of the city remains on evacuation alert. In Fort Nelson, B.C., the northern community of about 4,700 people has been evacuated for a week. And...

OTTAWA - Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is ordering all petrochemical companies operating in Sarnia, Ont., to take steps to control leaks of the cancer-causing chemical benzene. The order comes a month after elevated levels of benzene pollution were recorded around the Ineos Stryolution plant in Sarnia. More co...

MONTREAL - A woman in Quebec's Eastern Townships has been awarded nearly $460,000 in damages after she was attacked five years ago by a trio of dogs. In a May 15 decision, a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled that the dogs' owner, Alan Barnes, and the municipality of Potton were jointly liable. The court said the munici...

FORT NELSON, B.C. - A rainy Thursday in and around Fort Nelson was exactly what fire crews were looking for. In a video released late Thursday night by the B.C. Wildfire Service, fire behaviour specialist for the Parker Lake and Patry Creek blazes Evan Peck said recent rain was much needed and made for excellent condit...

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today... Rain, cooler temperatures help Western wildfires The oilsands hub city of Fort McMurray got a watery reprieve from a menacing wildfire Thursday as steady rain fell and water cannons delivered a soaki...

EDMONTON - RCMP in Alberta say they have linked the killings of four women in the 1970s to a serial sex offender. They say the killer has since died. Investigators with the historical homicide unit were scheduled to give a media briefing today in Edmonton. Mounties say some details are sensitive and disturbing in natur...

TORONTO - A defamation lawsuit filed by the mother of Marc and Craig Kielburger against the Canadaland podcast and its host will head to trial after an Ontario court rejected an application to have it thrown out, finding there is reason to believe the claim has "substantial merit." Canadaland, its host Jesse ...

OTTAWA - Eight in 10 Canadians back a woman's right to an abortion and two in three don't want the notwithstanding clause used to restrict access to abortions, a new poll suggests. The Leger survey also suggests support has diminished significantly since the fall for the idea of a province using the notwithstanding cla...