Climate change? It’s already here

Winnipeg’s roads are buckling. Ontario forests are burning. Toronto chokes on wildfire smoke. The summer heat dome in Europe has already killed thousands. Climate change is not some future dystopian vision. It’s right here, right now. And the cause is crystal clear: burning fossil fuels.

Restorative justice program helps newcomers find their way

The Masjid Bilal is a chunky grey building just off Logan Avenue surrounded by warehouses and railyards. It looks more like a bunker than a mosque.

But on a summer Friday afternoon, its green-and-white carpeted interior is humming with activity. Two men in white robes and flat woolen caps are seated on the carpet poring over a copy of the Qur’an. A few young boys dodge through hallways, poking curious noses into open doors. At the back, next to a table piled with prayer mats, two girls in hijabs share schoolyard gossip. In the kitchen, women are cooking up pots of rice and chicken for people who will soon arrive for Friday prayers.

The Masjid Bilal is a community hub for members of Winnipeg’s African diaspora as well as Muslims from many other countries.

It’s also home to the Bilal Community and Family Centre, an innovative, community-centred nonprofit that is meeting vital needs for newcomers in this city.

Opposition brewing as data centre capacity is set to explode across Canada

OTTAWA - Across Canada, plans are underway for a massive boom in construction of the huge new data centres needed for artificial intelligence technology.

But opposition is also building as residents worry about how the facilities will affect their communities — and as the data centres themselves become a symbol of the anxieties swirling around AI.

"An AI data centre is like the physical avatar of AI. And so it's just like concrete and steel, physical space of a technology that increasingly I think Canadians are worried is going to have a really disruptive impact on their lives," said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data.

"The local concerns are tied to the resources that these data centres consume. So it's about electricity, it's about water, it’s about noise."

First Nations’ concerns overshadowed by talk of major projects

The contrast could not have been more stark in Ottawa — unceded Algonquin territory — this week.

Fire-ravaged First Nations community accuses Ottawa of denying it federal aid

OTTAWA - A small First Nations community in Ontario that was burned to the ground by a raging wildfire on Monday is being deprived of the help it needs because the federal government doesn't recognize it as a First Nation, the community's lawyer says.

And its chief says she didn't hear anything from Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty for nearly a week after the fire broke out.

Residents of Collins First Nation, a remote community without road access more than 200 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, were forced to self-evacuate earlier this week in advance of fast-moving fires.

Videos show community members fleeing on small boats as the flames encroached upon the shoreline.

Manitoba chiefs behind renewed effort to criminalize residential school denialism

First Nations chiefs from across the country have unanimously passed an emergency resolution that calls on the federal government to criminalize residential school denialism as hate speech.

The resolution was adopted Tuesday at the Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly in Ottawa. It was introduced by David Monias, chief of Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba and seconded by Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee.

“We must honour the survivors and we must honour every child who never came home,” Monias said Wednesday. “We must also support every person who was left behind and those children who never returned home. We are left to mourn those children. They would have been our grandfathers today, our grandparents.”

The federal government estimates about 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools.

Grain latest Port of Churchill shipment

Prairie grain will soon ship out of the Port of Churchill for the first time in at least five years.

Alberta First Nation sues Ottawa over $5 treaty annuity, argues amount stuck in 1899

EDMONTON - A northern Alberta First Nation is suing the federal government to increase its annual treaty annuity payments.

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam says the $5 his members receive every year is an amount that's stuck in 1899, when Treaty 8 was signed.

The payments date back to the signing of treaties across the country more than a century ago and were meant to provide assistance to First Nations members.

Depending on the treaty, annuity payments made to First Nations members across Canada total either $4 or $5, and have never increased.

Canada pauses applications for parent, grandparent immigration sponsorship program

OTTAWA - The federal government will not accept any new applications this year from people who want to sponsor their parents and grandparents to come to Canada as permanent residents under a program meant to promote family reunification.

The Immigration Department said the change is part of an effort to responsibly manage the system and reduce wait times.

In a statement posted online Wednesday, the department said interest in the program continues to exceed the number of available spaces.

There are 60,500 applications in progress already and wait times for processing sit at around 33 months, or up to 66 months in Quebec.

Chiefs call on feds to criminalize residential school denialism as hate speech

OTTAWA - First Nations chiefs say the federal government is enabling residential school denialism by failing to make it a crime.

The chiefs passed an emergency resolution at the Assembly of First Nations general meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday calling on the feds to criminalize residential school denialism as hate speech.

"Truth is not optional and reconciliation cannot exist without truth," said Chief David Monias of Pimicikamak Cree Nation.

"We must honour the survivors and we must honour every child who never came home."

Feds, most provinces get top marks on internal trade — but more work to be done

OTTAWA - The federal government has gone from a C student to top of the class in its work to advance internal trade between provinces, says the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

In the federation's latest annual report card on internal trade, the federal government jumped to an A-plus from the C grade it got in 2025.

The report card released Wednesday by the advocacy group for small businesses said Canada has made unprecedented progress toward breaking down internal trade barriers long considered a self-imposed drag on the domestic economy.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that removing internal trade barriers could boost Canada's real gross domestic product by $210 billion over the long term.

Chief says assembly will tackle effect of major projects push on First Nations rights

OTTAWA - Major projects and a coming meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premiers will be the main focus of the Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly this week, National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said Monday.

The AFN gathering begins Tuesday and runs for three days.

Speaking alongside a handful of regional chiefs and First Nations representatives at a news conference, Woodhouse Nepinak blasted the federal government over its approach to major projects development and said it could threaten the rights of First Nations.

She said First Nations are not opposed to economic growth and are simply asking for a seat at the table as the federal government attempts to shore up the economy.

bet365 expands Canadian footprint with launch in Alberta’s gaming market

Trip Stoddard and bet365 are expanding their Canadian footprint.

Alberta officially opened its regulated sports betting and iGaming market Monday, becoming the second Canadian province to do so. Ontario became the first to offer a regulated, private market for online gaming April 4, 2022.

And like it did in Ontario, bet365 is among the operators that will set up shop in Alberta.

“Canada is a key market for bet365, and cementing our brand’s presence in Alberta marks another milestone in our long-term commitment to Canadian sports fans,” said Stoddard, head of development at bet365. "We're proud to work alongside Alberta's regulators to give fans a trusted platform to engage with the sports they love through a responsible, world-class experience."

If it works in Ontario, why not in Manitoba?

Grid-scale battery storage has fundamentally changed the global energy landscape — and Manitoba needs to get on board.

Battery systems store large amounts of excess electricity for when it’s most needed. While they can be charged from any generation source, they are especially beneficial for integrating wind and solar power, which vary with weather and time of day. Batteries allow electrical grids to meet the need for firm, dispatchable and affordable capacity using renewable energy, rather than relying on coal, nuclear and fossil gas. They also provide numerous other benefits, including reducing overloading of transmission infrastructure and helping to regulate the grid’s frequency and voltage.

Average costs for grid-scale batteries plummeted by more than half between 2023 and 2025 and installations have skyrocketed in China, the U.S., Australia and Europe. Texas now has 16,500 megawatts (MW) of battery storage, while California has 15,200 MW. Closer to home, Ontario recently awarded 640 MW of contracts to three battery storage projects in a competitive auction, with batteries beating out fossil gas-fired power plants on cost every time. One of these projects will be built near Dryden, only four hours east of Winnipeg.

Each battery system will provide eight hours of capacity but will cost considerably less than Ontario’s previous battery procurements, which provide only four hours of capacity. With this latest auction, Ontario has now secured 3,600 MW of battery storage capacity, including the operational Oneida (250 MW), Hagersville (300 MW) and Napanee (250 MW) projects. Almost all have significant Indigenous participation, with the latest procurements boasting 50 per cent First Nations ownership.

Quebec municipalities express interest in Samuel de Champlain statue from Ontario

Some Quebec municipalities and organizations are offering to take a controversial statue of Samuel de Champlain from an Ontario city in Simcoe County.

The nearly four-metre-tall bronze monument of the 17th century explorer and founder of Quebec City was removed from a park in Orillia, Ont., and placed in storage in 2017 following debate over its colonial imagery.

Orillia Mayor Don McIsaac said a wave of offers poured in after the city recently raised the possibility of melting the statue down.

“They say it's racist, it's not our history, it is an insult to Indigenous peoples,” McIsaac said in an interview about the controversy over the statue.

Canada’s Senate: A glimpse at the operations of the upper chamber

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney made his first appointments to the Senate on Tuesday, naming four new senators to the upper chamber. They include Carney's principal secretary Tom Pitfield and Conservative MP Richard Martel, who will both fill seats from Quebec.

He also announced he is dropping the non-partisan criteria for appointments to the upper chamber, and plans to rejig the independent appointments advisory committee established by former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Those were just some of the changes Trudeau made to the Senate, which had been dogged by accusations of cronyism and spending scandals.

Here's a look at the role the Senate plays, and how the Senate has changed in the last 10 years.

Pipeline could be Kinew’s legacy or a slick disappointment

Is Wab Kinew poised to become Manitoba’s Pipeline King?

Developments on several fronts are giving Manitoba’s premier the opportunity to make oil and gas pipelines not only the cornerstone of his current economic policy, but also the lasting legacy from his time governing the province.

On the one hand, Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised significant sums of federal money to develop the Port of Churchill into the major shipping hub it has always aspired to be. The catch is that Manitoba must come up with a firm plan to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the port by 2030, a goal that almost certainly requires a pipeline.

At the same time, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and, most recently, Ontario Premier Doug Ford are signing deals to build LNG pipelines that connect western oil fields to major shipping hubs in eastern Canada.

Westman residents fear power project’s wind turbines will sully their idyllic landscape

POLONIA — Leonard Kaspick can list just about every household in the valley.

“There’s someone living right across the northeast, someone living behind here, about a quarter mile there’s a house there, then a half mile there’s another house there, I’m here, and then on top of the hill there’s someone else there,” he says, standing in the heart of the hamlet — a community hall just off the main drag.

Besides the hall and the smattering of homes, there’s a historic (though out-of-commission) church next door and a single general store further down the road.

“There’s less people here now than there was in 1885,” Kaspick, 83, jokes as he wraps up a condensed history of the western-Manitoba community.

FIFA World Cup, youth job gains gave the labour market a lift in June

OTTAWA - The FIFA World Cup and a better summer jobs market for young workers appeared to drive steady gains in Canada's labour market last month.

Employers added 18,000 jobs in June, Statistics Canada said Friday, mostly in part-time and private sector work.

That pushed the unemployment rate down a tenth of a point to 6.5 per cent, back to where it stood in January.

Employment gains narrowly topped economists’ expectations heading into the release but mark a slowdown from the 88,000 jobs added in May.

Keeping cool: How Meta plans to cut down on water use at its Alberta data centre

CALGARY - A Meta Platforms Inc. executive garnered applause at a news conference this week after he boasted that a gargantuan data centre planned for north of Edmonton would use less water annually than a typical Alberta golf course.

The tech behemoth was announcing a $13-billion-plus investment in a complex the size of 33 Canadian Football League fields. It will be powered by a new natural gas plant that could eventually produce more electricity than what the City of Edmonton uses.

The data centre in Sturgeon County, like other hyperscale proposals in Canada, is to use what's known as a closed-loop cooling system to keep servers from overheating. That differs from an evaporative cooling system, which requires enormous amounts of cool water that is not reused.

Gary Demasi, vice-president of data centre strategy and development at Meta, told a news conference Wednesday that no water will be needed for regular cooling operations.