Alberta premier says she won’t retaliate Trump’s latest threats with alcohol ban

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she does not plan to retaliate against U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian goods with an alcohol ban.

She told her provincewide call-in radio show Saturday she is leaving it up to retailers and consumers to decide how to stock their shelves and whether to drink American products with the looming tariffs.

"People should understand that the Americans have not banned a single product from Canada from going into the United States, so it's a pretty extraordinary measure to put a ban in place," she said.

"The approach that we've got to take has got to be measured. We've got to be calm about it. We can't get overly emotional about it, and we've just got to work through the sectoral issues one by one."

Canadian NATO intern arrested on suspicions of espionage in Belgium

MONS - A Canadian intern at NATO has been arrested on suspicions of espionage. 

Belgium’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office said it launched an espionage investigation after NATO’s security services tipped off Belgium’s military intelligence. 

Authorities then detained “a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin” on Friday, a day after raiding the suspect’s home and workplace inside NATO’s vast command centre.

Belgium's federal prosecutor said the intern is suspected of spying on behalf of a third country and being a member of a criminal organization. 

Embrace difference, says 4-foot-6 B.C. performer Devyn Dalton, Damon’s Odyssey double

Vancouver stunt woman Devyn Dalton says she never expected her biceps to go viral.

But then Matt Damon credited his four-foot-six-inch stunt double in "The Odyssey" for having "the greatest arms" he's ever seen.

He didn't identify her in the interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, but after friends tagged her name in the video on social media, Dalton said her phone blew up at 4 a.m. in New Zealand where she's filming a new project.

"I'm like, what is going on? And of course I'm ignoring it, and then when I woke up, I saw the video and my friends are so sweet — they had tagged my name in the video, and then that is how people actually found out," said Dalton.

Feds received more than 21,000 emails on proposed changes to major project reviews

OTTAWA - The federal government says it received more than 21,000 emails on proposed changes to how major projects are reviewed and will spend the coming weeks combing over those submissions.

A window for public feedback on the proposed changes closed Wednesday. The government said it will publish a report summarizing the submissions by the end of the summer.

A spokesperson for the Privy Council Office — which oversees the major projects office — said that while officials are still compiling the feedback, as of July 17 the government had received 187 written submissions from stakeholders. They included Indigenous and environmental groups, think tanks, academics, provinces, territories and municipalities.

"The Government of Canada also attended 24 meetings with Indigenous groups (including three virtual engagement sessions) and 27 stakeholder meetings," said spokesperson Pierre Cuguen.

The government has two definitions of disability. Advocates say it leaves people out.

OTTAWA - Advocates for people with episodic disabilities say they don't understand why the federal government has two different definitions of disability in law — and uses the narrower version to decide who gets benefits. 

Canada's disability benefit program was launched in June 2025, after being promised by the Liberal government for years. 

It's meant to help low-income people with disabilities and offers a maximum payment of $2,450 per year, or just over $200 a month. 

In the legislation that created the program, the government borrowed a definition of "disability" from the Accessible Canada Act, the law that sets out a goal to make the country barrier-free by 2040. That definition explicitly includes people with episodic disabilities, while the benefit program itself does not.

Clinton, B.C., stills standing with some structure losses, but wildfire still looms

CLINTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA - The village of Clinton, B.C., is largely still standing after an overnight battle against a raging wildfire, a local official confirmed on Saturday.

Brian Doddridge, with the village's emergency operations centre, said he believed the vast majority of Clinton's residential area survived the encroaching flames.

Still, he said officials understood some structures were lost as flames from the Pear Lake wildfire reached the outskirts of the community late Friday.

They would work to assess the damage and notify the property owners, he said.

Charity cyclists have bikes stolen in Winnipeg

WINNIPEG — Bicycles belonging to two New Brunswick men who are cycling across Canada for mental health awareness were stolen while they did a media interview in downtown Winnipeg Friday morning.

Thomas Clark and Valentin Duquenne were devastated after the bikes went missing outside CBC Manitoba’s headquarters, but uplifted by the outpouring of support from Manitobans afterward.

“When I walked out, Tom started running towards the car and then I saw the bikes were gone. We were pretty speechless,” Duquenne, 24, said. “It’s not great. We’re kind of stranded in Winnipeg without the tools that get us across the country.”

Valued at $15,000 to $20,000, the bikes — Trek and Cannondale models — were locked on a rack on the back of a support car that was parked on Young Street, just south of Portage Avenue, when the theft happened at about 7:40 a.m. The lock had been cut.

Stampede time in Austin!

» Photos by Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun

Federal government rejects expansion of Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport

TORONTO - The federal government has rejected Ontario's plan to expand Toronto's Billy Bishop airport to accommodate jets on a longer runway.

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said public consultations on the future of the island airport got feedback on a range of issues including transportation, noise, environmental impacts and quality of life. The government received more than 87,000 responses, he said.

"We will always work collaboratively with our partners in studying the region's connectivity needs and protecting the interests of local residents," he said in a statement Friday.

"However, we will not pursue any plans that infringe on treasured public spaces like Little Norway Park or Hanlan's Point Beach, result in elevated noise, have significant environmental impacts or hinder Toronto's ability to build much-needed housing."

‘Too big to rig’: Alberta separation petition succeeds with 223K verified signatures

EDMONTON - A citizen-led petition seeking to force a vote on Alberta quitting Canada is officially successful.

Elections Alberta announced Friday it verified nearly 223,000 signatures out of almost 280,000 valid names counted. The petition needed almost 178,000 signatures to be successful.

Despite the result, the document is largely moot.

It was quashed in court in May, although the ruling is being appealed by those behind the petition campaign as well as by Premier Danielle Smith's government.

B.C.’s unionized nurses to end job action provincewide to review recommendations

VANCOUVER - The union representing 55,000 nurses in British Columbia has accepted a mediated proposal that could end its weeks-long strike action. 

The BC Nurses' Union says in a statement that its bargaining agent has accepted the recommendations for settlement from mediators Vince Ready and Amanda Rogers, and all job action will cease as of midnight Friday.

The union says its members will review the offer, while outstanding issues on compensation are anticipated to move to binding arbitration this fall.

Nurses have been conducting strike action since the start of July after members voted to reject a tentative contract reached in May between union and the Health Employers Association of B.C.

Canada, UAE conclude negotiations on a free-trade agreement

OTTAWA - The governments of Canada and the United Arab Emirates say they have concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement.

International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu told a press conference in Toronto on Friday that the next steps include legal review, the signing of the deal and ratification.

"It's been a busy couple of days. We've been at it negotiating and we literally just walked out of the room with the final touches," Sidhu said. 

Sidhu said the government has been working to expand its partnership with the UAE and that while the conflict in the Middle East delayed the start of negotiations, his team was determined to reach an agreement. 

Alberta wants provinces to address retail alcohol trade after direct-to-consumer deal

EDMONTON - Fresh off multiple Canadian provinces agreeing this week to make it easier to get out-of-province alcohol shipped right to people's doorsteps, Alberta says it's now time to do the same for commercial retailers.

Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally says many provinces have a "protectionist" mindset when it comes to retail liquor rules. He says that makes it difficult for breweries and distilleries in one province to get products on shelves in another.

"What we need the other jurisdictions to do is to take a page out of Alberta's playbook," Nally said in an interview Thursday.

"Get rid of all the red tape, get rid of the higher taxes and make it easy for our producers to get their product onto their shelves."

Ottawa acknowledges “lasting impact” of forced adoptions but offers no apology

TORONTO - The federal government acknowledged this week that forced adoptions had a lasting impact on people and families in Canada after the Second World War but stopped short of offering the public apology sought by advocates, including some affected by the practice.

A petition calling on Ottawa to formally apologize for taking part in the system garnered signatures from more than 600 people from across Canada and was tabled in the House of Commons in May.

The petition was created by Christine Nayler, a mother whose child was taken away decades ago, who also launched a national advocacy campaign called Canadians for a National Apology.

The group said in a statement this week that the "state-sanctioned" forced adoptions had a lifelong impact on mothers and their children, calling it “one of Canada’s largest human rights violations.” 

First Nation evacuees fleeing wildfire face safety risks in Toronto, leaders say

TORONTO - In a Toronto hotel off Highway 401, a bag check station screening for alcohol greets people in the lobby.

Cat Lake First Nation operations manager Derek Spence said it’s to limit drinking among residents who evacuated from the community north of Sioux Lookout, Ont., last week as wildfires closed in and downed power lines. Alcohol and drugs are much easier to come by in Toronto than the remote fly-in community residents call home, Spence explained. 

Substance use and fears of suspicious people hanging around the hotel where Cat Lake residents are sheltering have been fuelling some residents’ desire to return home as soon as possible, even as nearly 180 wildfires continue to burn in Ontario’s north. 

“It is a scary city for some people, and there (were) people hanging around here trying to abduct some of the ladies,” Spence said. “Someone's gonna get lost, someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get killed.”