Canada

“Someone is coming up behind you,” species-at-risk biologist Scott Gillingwater says. We lower our voices and change the subject. The two of us look conspicuous; we’re wearing chest waders and sun hats and are standing on the edge of a potholed road beside a grassy path near a marshy wetland. I turn to see a man with binoculars and a large camera approaching. He is either a birder or a turtle poacher posing as a birder. “Anything good?” Gillingwater asks him, gesturing skyward. “No, not yet,” he replies.

We wait for the man to disappear down the road and step onto the path to begin our clandestine operation. Gillingwater, who works for the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority in southwestern Ontario, has agreed to show me the top-secret area where he studies spotted turtles. It is one of Canada’s last natural strongholds for the endangered reptile, he says, home to “an exceptionally important population.”

For traffic planners, roundabouts have been huge game changers. Decades of studies show that the introduction of traffic circles greatly improves flow and reduces collisions overall by slowing vehicles down. Another plus is the reduction in greenhouse gases, from fewer idling cars, and increased safety for pedestrians, who have shorter distances to travel. They’re cheaper to maintain than traffic lights and work even during prolonged power outages, such as the kind we experienced recently during Post-Tropical Storm Fiona.

Among the controversial provisions are section 20 (1) “Every person commits an offence who, at the direction of, for the benefit of or in association with, a foreign entity or a terrorist group, induces or attempts to induce, by intimidation, threat or violence, any person to do anything or to cause anything to be done (a) that is for the purpose of increasing the capacity of a foreign entity or a terrorist group to harm Canadian interests; or (b) that is reasonably likely to harm Canadian interests.”

Language in the provision, such as being “in association with” or “foreign entity” are so broad they could be easily abused. What might be considered a “foreign entity” is also up for grabs.

The punishment for the above is drastic: “Every person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.”

Testifying before the House Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security last Monday, Tim McSorley of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group representative warned that “Bill C-70 also grants CSIS significant new production order and warrant powers. It comes after years of courts admonishing CSIS for misleading them in their warrant applications.”

On June 14, Sealand's Pipistrel Velis Electro will take flight for an introductory flight lesson. It will be the first time a person can purchase a commercial flight on an electric aircraft in Canada. The student will be allowed to operate the aircraft under the guidance of the flight instructor.

Sealand Flight is hosting a contest to find a person for the training flight.

Building permits issued B.C. in April 2024 totalled 3.13 billion -- up $1.4 billion from March -- and created a record-high 7,521 residential units — up almost 78 per cent compared to the previous month. Based on these figures, B.C. accounted for almost 28 per cent of all new residential units in the country in April.

Much of the growth happened on the multi-residential side. Of the new residential units created in April 2024, 95 per cent were multi-residential units.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault broke the law when he waited eight months to recommend an emergency order protecting British Columbia's endangered spotted owls, a federal court judge has ruled.

Environmental group Wilderness Committee argued the delay was unreasonable and unlawful. Justice Yvan Roy agreed, saying Guilbeault had formed an opinion that the species faced imminent threats to its survival and recovery months before he made a formal recommendation.

Roy found Guilbeault had violated the Species at Risk Act.

"Once [there is] the opinion that the threats are about to happen, the Act says that the recommendation must be made. There is [an] emergency," Roy wrote in a June 7 decision.

"I find it difficult to fathom how a period of more than eight months could be reasonable once the opinion has been formed."

A plastics plant in southwestern Ontario that was ordered by the province and federal government to reduce emissions of the cancer-causing chemical benzene now says it will permanently close by June 2026.

The Sarnia facility, which employs about 80 people directly, has been shut down since late April, after members of nearby Aamjiwnaang First Nation said they went to hospital and were treated for illnesses related to benzene exposure.

Orders from the provincial government drastically reduced the target for benzene emissions in May.

"The production site in Sarnia is currently shut down due to recent orders from regulatory authorities that forced us to declare force majeure. We are currently assessing what is required to restart the site — a process that could take approximately six months."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Tuesday his party will oppose the government's proposed capital gains inclusion rate increase — a tax hike that is projected to pull in roughly $19 billion in new revenue.

Weeks after the budget was tabled, Poilievre finally made his position known when he stood in the House of Commons to blast the Liberals' plan and their so-called "high tax agenda."

Poilievre's team also released a 15-minute social media video narrated by the leader to explain why the party is taking a stand against a policy that disproportionately affects wealthy people and big corporations.

"Businesses, jobs, doctors and food production will leave Canada," Poilievre says in the video.

May told a news conference the full version of the classified report does not contain a "list of MPs who have shown disloyalty to Canada."

May said one former MP accused in the report of proactively sharing privileged information with a foreign operative should be fully investigated by authorities. She said that former MP is not named in the full report.

Turns out Pierre Poilievre comments about being muzzled if he saw the reports might have been him talking about his hobbies. Hopefully he doesn't show in parliament one day in a full gimp suit.

Proposed packaging changes include allowing the lids and containers of cannabis products to be different colours, permitting cut-out windows or transparent packaging so that consumers can see the product before buying, and allowing QR codes so buyers are able to find more information.

The deaths of two bear cubs of a well-known rare white grizzly — known as Bear 178, but nicknamed Nakoda by locals — in Yoho National Park this week has reignited calls for increased awareness and highway safety for those visiting the mountains.

The cubs were struck and killed along the Trans-Canada Highway.

Parks Canada says it received a call about the incident at around 5:15 a.m. on Thursday and staff found the cubs dead when they arrived at the location.

"Wildlife management staff had been monitoring the bears' movements along the road on June 5, after reports of a fence intrusion," James Eastham, a communications officer with the agency, said in a written statement.

A day after her cubs were killed, Nakoda was also hit by a car and injured near a turnoff in Yoho National Park. Parks Canada said staff witnessed the collision and have been monitoring Bear 178 since then.

In Quebec's Laurentians region, a few kilometres from a wildlife reserve and just outside the town of Duhamel, lies a source of one of the world's most sought after minerals for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries: graphite.

Since Lomiko Metals Inc., a mining company based in Surrey, B.C., announced plans to build a graphite mine in the area, some residents living nearby have protested the project, fearing the potential harm to the environment.

But opposition has only gained steam after locals found out last month that the Pentagon is involved in the project.

In May, Lomiko announced it received a grant of $11.4 million from the U.S. Department of Defence and another $4.9 million from Natural Resources Canada to study the conversion of graphite into battery-grade material for powering electric vehicles.

For millennia, the sense of smell has been widely undervalued — ranked far below vision by the likes of Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud. In 2021, a survey in the journal Brain Sciences found that people consistently ranked smell below vision and hearing — and even below commercial products. One quarter of college students surveyed said they'd prefer to give up their sense of smell than their smartphones.

But modern research suggests that smell, also known as olfaction, is less dispensable than we might think. In recent decades, we've gained a greater understanding of just how much humans rely on the sense of smell — for everything from social communication to the detection of environmental hazards. Researchers even believe that changes in patients' sense of smell could eventually be used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases.

As the science of smell continues to progress, it's becoming increasingly clear how much we stand to gain by focusing on it.

(Video of incident in article)

A number of people have been hospitalized after a seaplane collided with a boat in Vancouver's Coal Harbour near Stanley Park on Saturday, officials confirmed.

A CBC reporter on the scene, near Canada Place, confirmed that rescue boats were circling a small plane in the water near Brockton Point in Stanley Park.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) said in a statement that a Harbour Air seaplane collided with a pleasure boat in the water around 1 p.m. PT.

"A number of people were on board both the plane and boat," the VPD said. "Several passengers have been treated for injuries and taken to hospital."

On Aug. 3, 2023, the Alberta government announced a surprise seven-month moratorium on all new renewable energy projects, much to the surprise of the industry.

The government initially said its announcement was a response to requests from independent agencies that oversee the electricity system in Alberta, but successive revelations have proved that is untrue.

“The Alberta Electric System Operator asked for us to do a pause, to make sure that we could address issues of stability of the grid,” Smith said in August 2023 when pressed by reporters asking why the government made the decision. Smith added that the grid’s regulator, the Alberta Utilities Commission, also asked for the pause.

But behind the scenes, the government had spent months considering the moratorium and a related inquiry into renewable energy regulations in the province.

Hundreds of pages of documents, obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information requests, show the government expressed its desire to halt projects only one month into its mandate. They show the government was behind the push, and not independent agencies as Premier Danielle Smith repeatedly claimed.

Internal emails obtained by The Narwhal also revealed that the top official at the Alberta Electric System Operator found the pause “very troubling” and was “not comfortable” with the decision. He was told to “support the minister without reservation.”

Here, then, is a timeline of what we know happened and when.

In late summer 2023, the RCMP made headlines with the arrests of two men in Ottawa and Kingsey Falls, Quebec, on terrorism and hate propaganda charges. The arrests marked a significant victory in a three-year investigation by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team targeting the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division.

This Indigenous History Month, Read Local BC is showcasing nine new books and an educational board game to touch your heart and engage your mind.

One of the men arrested was Patrick Gordon Macdonald, 26, on charges of participating in and facilitating terrorist activities and the wilful promotion of hatred tied to his alleged involvement with the Atomwaffen Division. His apprehension followed the previous year’s arrest of a teenager in Windsor, Ontario, similarly charged with terrorism for his involvement with the same extremist group.

Macdonald is out on bail after his parents posted $40,000 in sureties and must stay at their home under strict conditions.

The case against Macdonald is unprecedented in Canada, marking the first time an alleged far-right extremist was prosecuted for both terrorism and hate propaganda.

According to Bain in Toronto, a reliance on funding from corporations and the Canadian government has made pride festivals and other major LGBTQ+ organizations, like Egale and Rainbow Canada, beholden to those funders.

“They are forced into silence,” Bain said, referring to mainstream Pride organizers. “They have chosen to be silent as well, because they have chosen to accept the funding. And they have chosen to align themselves with state policies that actually support Israel, and then also support the pinkwashing that Israel does.”