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Cruise ships offer crucial income to poverty-hit village of Pond Inlet but opponents say it is vicious cycleAn increase in “last chance tourism” in Canada’s melting Arctic is causing a row between those who warn of the devastation it is causing to the environment and those who rely on income from tourists to survive as hunting becomes increasingly difficult.Pond Inlet, a village of about...

Man, 19, charged with six counts of first-degree murder as police condemn ‘senseless act of violence’ in Barrhaven neighbourhoodPolice in Canada say two adults and four young children, the youngest of whom was less than three months old, are dead in a mass killing in what Ottawa’s mayor described as “one of the most shocking incidents of violence” in the city’s history.A 19-year-old male...

Spavor was one of two Canadians detained in China in 2018 amid a broader diplomatic feud between the two countriesCanada’s federal government has reached a million-dollar compensation settlement with Michael Spavor, a businessman who was held by China for nearly three years amid a broader diplomatic feud between the two countries.Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who became known as “the two Michaels”, were detained by...

Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative PM, ‘never stopped working for Canadians,’ Justin Trudeau says after his deathBrian Mulroney, the former Canadian prime minister who struck a landmark free trade deal with the US and signed breakthrough environmental accords, but whose legacy was marred by revelations of improper business dealings with an arms dealer, has died at the age of 84.His daughter announced the death in...

Chong Ke, from Vancouver, under investigation after allegedly using ChatGPT to cite case law – but those cases did not existA lawyer in Canada is under fire after the artificial intelligence chatbot use she used for legal research created “fictitious” cases, in the latest episode to expose the perils of using untested technologies in the courtroom.The Vancouver lawyer Chong Ke, who now faces an...

Report says Xiangguo Qiu secretly worked with Wuhan Institute for Virology and posed a ‘threat to Canada’s economic security’A leading research scientist at Canada’s highest-security laboratory provided confidential scientific information to Chinese institutions, met secretly with officials and posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” according to newly released intelligence reports.The dismissal of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, has...

Decision by premier Danielle Smith further pits Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energyAlberta will block renewable energy projects on “prime” agricultural land and limit the placement of wind turbines to preserve “pristine viewscapes”, a decision that increasingly pits the western Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy – and the companies investing in it.The decision, announced by the premier, Danielle Smith,...

Senior church officials in Rome decline to act, citing worsening health of French clergyman known as ‘devil priest’A French clergyman dubbed the “devil priest” who stands accused of sexually abusing Inuit children in Canada’s north will not be dismissed from his congregation after senior church officials in Rome declined to act, citing the nonagenarian’s declining health.Johannes Rivoire, a priest with the Missionary Oblates of...

The pristine unopened case of Oh-Pee-Chee brand NHL cards could contain as many as 27 much-coveted rookie cards of ‘the Great One’Among avid collectors of sports trading cards, rumours of a “holy grail” – a trove of cards so rare that they shouldn’t exist – have long swirled, but never materialized.“It thought if we were ever going to find it … it would be...

First Nation members say in lawsuit that radiologists subjected them to a secret study without their knowledge or consentMembers of a First Nation in Canada have launched a lawsuit alleging they were subjected to a secret medical experiment without their consent that left them feeling “violated and humiliated”.The class-action lawsuit, which was certified by the Nova Scotia supreme court in early February, revives the...

Canada has one of the highest rates of euthanasia in the world, with 4.1% of deaths aided by doctors, but moves to make it more accessible are being questionedWhen Canada’s justice minister announced plans to legalise medically assisted dying nearly a decade ago, she acknowledged the proposed law might prove divisive. “For some, medical assistance in dying will be troubling,” Jody Wilson-Raybould told reporters...

University of Waterloo dispenser displays facial recognition message despite no prior indication it was monitoring studentsA malfunctioning vending machine at a Canadian university has inadvertently revealed that a number of them have been using facial recognition technology in secret.Earlier this month, a snack dispenser at the University of Waterloo showed an error message – Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognition.App.exe – on the screen. Continue reading...

Company claimed its chatbot ‘was responsible for its own actions’ when giving wrong information about bereavement fareCanada’s largest airline has been ordered to pay compensation after its chatbot gave a customer inaccurate information, misleading him into buying a full-price ticket.Air Canada came under further criticism for later attempting to distance itself from the error by claiming that the bot was “responsible for its own...

Chronic wasting disease, which affects deer and other cervids, confirmed in Canada but experts divided over risk to humans‘Zombie deer disease’ epidemic spreads in YellowstoneThe Canadian province of British Columbia has released a strategy to combat the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) as it continues to move across North America.Officials in the westernmost province this week ordered the testing of any road-killed deer,...

Eli Ndatuje of Royal Canadian Mounted Police was charged with accessing police records and passing information to the Rwandan governmentA member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has been arrested and charged with accessing police records and passing information to the Rwandan government.The federal police force said on Tuesday that its integrated national security enforcement team (Inset) had arrested Constable Eli Ndatuje, who...

Bears use ice to access food, but study of animals in Canada shows them struggling to adapt to more time on land amid climate crisisPolar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay risk starvation as the climate crisis lengthens periods without Arctic Sea ice, despite the creatures’ willingness to expand their diets.Polar bears use the ice that stretches across the ocean surface in the Arctic during...

Bullet hole found in Inderjit Singh Gosal’s house, reigniting fears of apparent campaign of violence targeting Sikh separatistsThe house of a Sikh activist in Canada has been hit by gunfire, in the second such incident this month, reigniting fears of an apparent transnational campaign of violence and intimidation targeting Sikh separatists.A construction crew found a bullet hole in a window of an unfinished house...

Immigration minister Marc Miller frustrated by impasse over list of about 1,000 people trapped in Palestinian territoryCanada’s immigration minister, Marc Miller, has said he is “pissed off” that extended family members of Canadians are being blocked from leaving war-torn Gaza.Ottawa last month provided a list of about 1,000 people approved to come to Canada to Israeli and Egyptian authorities, who jointly control the only...

Cameron Ortis was convicted of passing secret material in a case that shocked the Canadian intelligence communityThe former head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence unit has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, months after he was found guilty of leaking state secrets.Justice Robert Maranger delivered what he said was a “a fit and just” sentence on Wednesday after a jury convicted...

Mammal ‘made contact with equipment’, disrupting a subway line and shutting off water in latest escapade of city’s ‘trash pandas’A lone Toronto raccoon was able to cut power to nearly 7,000 people in the city’s downtown core on Thursday night, highlighting the fraught coexistence between residents of Canada’s largest urban centre and the divisive “trash pandas”.Hydro One, Ontario’s power utility, said a raccoon “made...

Brandi Morin was charged while reporting at encampment authorities arrived at to dismantle and could face two years in jailA journalist in Canada who was arrested and charged while reporting on a police operation to clear an encampment for unhoused Indigenous people says she fears the charges will chill further reporting of marginalized groups.Brandi Morin, an Indigenous journalist, was arrested on 10 January while...

Kenneth Law now faces 14 counts in Ontario of first-degree murder and 14 counts of counselling and aiding suicideProsecutors in Canada have upgraded murder charges against the man who allegedly mailed “suicide kits” and is allegedly linked to more than 100 deaths in several countries.Kenneth Law, who is due to appear in court on Thursday, now faces 14 counts in Ontario of first-degree murder...

Thieves haul off taxidermy animal from resort hotel in northern Alberta that had previously lost two stuffed raccoonsAs temperatures in western Canada recently plunged to -30C (-22F), most residents retreated indoors to wait out the blistering cold snap. But one group of thieves saw opportunity.On one of the coldest nights of the winter, they gained access to a hotel north of Edmonton, where security...

Residents of tiny coastal community of Cape Ray excited by discovery of what appears to be 19th-century vesselA coastal community in Newfoundland has been left baffled and excited by the sudden and unexplained appearance of a centuries-old shipwreck on the sands of a nearby shore.Gordon Blackmore, a local resident, was hunting seabirds on the sandy shores of Cape Ray when he spotted a dark...