Alberta nurse practitioner program reducing primary care provider gap: minister

Rogers, Telus deny blame for June twister alert barrage

Telecom companies say they aren’t to blame for the barrage of tornado alerts Manitobans received during severe thunderstorms in early June.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced in August it would investigate the unusually high number of alerts, and called on the Pelmorex Corp., which operates the national Alert Ready system, along with telecom companies Bell, Rogers and Telus to respond to a number of questions.

They were given until last Friday to describe their possible roles in the creation, receipt, processing or distribution of alerts issued from Environment and Climate Change Canada in the midst of the June 9 storm.

Telus said in its response that it received 133 alert requests targeted to Manitoba created by Environment Canada and forwarded by Pelmorex between 2:35 p.m. June 9 and 3:29 a.m. the following day. While the majority of those messages contained identical information and were automatically suppressed, 17 were ultimately sent out as alerts in Winnipeg.

Putting together annual fashion show takes many hard-working hands

A frenzy of activity is taking place behind the closed doors of WAG-Qaumajuq on Monday. It’s the day before Crafted on the Catwalk, the gallery’s annual fashion and design show, and the clock is ticking.

There’s less than 30 hours before the big event and it’s all hands on deck.

A steady stream of people walk in and out of the Memorial Boulevard entrance towards the main hall, which glows in soft hues as technicians test out lighting equipment.

The ground floor is teeming with people lugging chairs and pushing trolleys. A stream of white material unravelling from its roll prompts a shouted “OK to step on this?” and receives an equally loud ‘No!” in reply, voices raised above the metallic buzz of a drill as staff from a local production company put together seats.

City wants short-term rental unit property owners to report all emergency-service responses

New rules could require the owners of short-term rental units, such as Airbnbs and VRBOs, to tell the city every time an emergency responder is called to their properties.