TORONTO - Marineland's crumbling infrastructure, staffing shortage and lack of resources have created dangerous conditions for its belugas and they should be moved immediately, a fired beluga trainer says.

Kristy Burgess, who worked at the Niagara Falls, Ont., park when a young beluga was put down in February, said Marineland's threat to euthanize all 30 of its remaining belugas if it doesn't receive emergency funding is a "repulsive" tactic that uses the whales as leverage.

"We need to get them out," Burgess said of the last captive whales in Canada. "Immediately."

Burgess is speaking out for the first time about her experience at Marineland as the very whales she loved now face possible death.

Canadian economist Peter Howitt, who is among a group of three researchers to win this year's Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, said he found out about the prize from a persistent Swedish reporter who called his wife's phone early in the morning, even before the committee could reach him.

"It's just the dream of a lifetime come true," he said when reached early Monday. "We didn't have any champagne in the fridge in anticipation of this."

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday that Howitt, along with Dutch-born Joel Mokyr and Philippe Aghion of France, received the prize for “having explained innovation-driven economic growth."

Howitt and Aghion relied on mathematics to explain how creative destruction works, a key concept in economics that refers to the process in which beneficial new innovations replace — and thus destroy — older technologies and businesses. The concept is usually associated with economist Joseph Schumpeter, who outlined it in his 1942 book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.”

The latest survey of endangered southern resident killer whales confirms their plateau and gradual slide toward disappearance in the absence of stronger measures to protect them, a director with the Center for Whale Research says.

Michael Weiss says declining chinook salmon, pollutants and noise from cruise ships, tankers and freighters in the orcas' habitat off the coast of Washington state and southern British Columbia are among the factors driving the decline.

"We're not talking about southern residents going extinct in the next five years, but we are talking about a fairly good chance of at least one of the (three) pods being gone within the next 50 years," Weiss told The Canadian Press.

The long-term work of restoring chinook habitat, particularly freshwater spawning grounds, along with adjusting fisheries, would be key to the orcas' recovery, says Weiss.

MONTREAL - A recent study out of Laval University finds many foods that are high in sodium and sugar on Canadian shelves are much cheaper than healthier, equivalent options. 

The lead author said she hopes the findings could prompt meaningful action at the political level to reduce health inequalities caused by high food prices in the country.

“Someone who has the means can perhaps afford to make changes to the foods they’re used to eating and opt for something that may be a little more expensive but is more nutritious, but we know that’s not the case for everyone,” said Isabelle Petitclerc, also a PhD candidate in nutrition at the university.

The study was published in the journal Public Health Nutrition in August. 

OTTAWA - The Liberal government's efforts to revise Canada's national security strategy hit a snag when it became clear earlier this year that many of the assumptions underlying the work were "no longer valid," a newly released memo reveals.

John Hannaford, the Privy Council clerk at the time, told Prime Minister Mark Carney in the memo that "changes to Canada's strategic environment" meant work on a draft of the document was based on outdated premises.

The Canadian Press obtained a copy of the heavily redacted March 20 note through the Access to Information Act.

The memo, which was also sent to national security and intelligence adviser Nathalie Drouin, came less than a week after Carney was sworn in as prime minister.

OTTAWA - A Quebec senator says she was never told by her doctor that a surgical procedure she went through in 2005 would render her unable to have children,  and hopes her story can advance a broader reckoning on systemic racism in Canada.

Sen. Amina Gerba told her story to her colleagues on the floor of the Senate earlier this month. She said she went public to support legislation before the Senate to criminalize forced or coerced sterilizations.

"I never wanted to be seen as someone who played the victim. I always fought to move forward," Sen. Amina Gerba told The Canadian Press in an emotional French-language interview this week.

"I didn't want to talk about it at all. But it was too hard to keep quiet."