The province provided some updated numbers yesterday related to the pandemic. Alberta Health officials reported 42 more COVID-19 deaths over the past week, while the number of hospital and intensive care patients continues to decline. It says since the pandemic began, there have been 4,567 COVID-19 deaths in the province. The number of people in Alberta hospitals with the virus has dropped from 931 on May 30th to 816 on June 6th.Public health officials confirmed 1,840 new COVID-19 cases from May 31 to June 6. There were 2,348 cases confirmed in the previous reporting week.

Two Alberta NDP workers say they quit recently because they could no longer stomach a party culture that demeans and ignores volunteers, with the majority of those targeted being women. Sharie Valentine says too often staff are rude, belittling, and condescending to volunteers and potential candidates, adding she is aware of volunteers being shouted at in meetings. Krista Li (LEE) says she quit as the constituency president of Calgary-Bow earlier this year after her board learned off Twitter who their candidate would be. Li says volunteers are not treated as active, engaged members but rather

At least three motorcycles, excessively speeding and weaving in and out of traffic on Highway 17, prompted over a dozen 9-1-1 calls to police Monday evening. On Monday, June 6 at 7 p.m. witnesses reported to police that the motorcycles were racing up and down Highway 17 in Saanich and then into neighbouring Central Saanich, North Saanich and Sidney. There are reports they were in the West Shore area as well.Traffic Safety Officers with the Saanich Police Department attended to the highway, observed the racing motorcycles and attempted to stop them. The riders failed to pull over and they conti

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra says the federal government is working on new measures to help ease delays at major airports, adding that a ``similar phenomenon'' is happening worldwide. Speaking with reporters on his way to a weekly Liberal caucus meeting, the minister says working groups that include airports, airlines, public health and federal officials are meeting up to three times a week to try and find solutions. But when pressed for details about when changes are expected, Alghabra says he's not yet ready to announce new measures. People travelling through Canadian airports have been

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is reporting more outbreaks of avian flu in British Columbia and Alberta. After a succession of outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus in both provinces during April and May, the agency website shows a reprieve of about 10 days at the end of last month.But the agency now confirms outbreaks in early June in small flocks in three widely separated B.C. farms in Peace River, Sechelt and Summerland, bringing the total number of infected farms in the province to 15.Outbreaks on June 2 have also been confirmed in two small flocks in Alberta,

British Columbia's health and safety agency for workers has imposed a hefty fine on BC Ferry Services Inc., over the death of one of its workers in June 2020. A statement on the WorkSafeBC site says a fine of $674,445 was imposed last month. It says one of the firm's employees was doing work on a ferry that was docked for maintenance in Richmond. The worker leaned onto a fabric webbing panel that broke away when he was trying to retrieve an item floating in the water, and he drowned. The agency says the worker wasn't wearing a life-jacket and the fabric panels were insufficient at stopping hi

Firefighters and number crunchers are joining forces in a bid to prevent house fires, reduce injuries and save lives. BC's fire commissioner, Brian Godlonton, says his office and Statistics Canada will work together to create a dashboard that identifies areas in communities that are at greatest risk of house fires. Godlonton says an increasing number of fire deaths is a ``concerning trend'' across BC and Canada and the dashboard will help fire officials know where to focus their prevention and safety programs. The fire commissioner's annual report shows a 119 per cent increase in fire-related

The former director of strategic communications for the Nova Scotia RCMP now says communications procedures need to change. Lia Scanlan broke down in tears as she told a public inquiry into the deaths of 22 people in April of 2020 the procedures she used to alert residents about an active shooter led to a crucial delay. That's not what she told inquiry investigators last September, when she insisted she would not have done anything differently. It took more than three hours for the R-C-M-P to warn people that the killer was driving a car that looked exactly like an RCMP cruiser.

Alberta's energy minister says anything resembling the U.K.'s so-called ``windfall tax'' on the profits of oil and gas companies must not be implemented in Canada. The U.K. recently imposed additional taxes on oil and gas firms, who are reaping record profits in 2022 due to sky-high commodity prices. The windfall tax is meant to help fund cash payments to help millions of British citizens cope with rapidly rising energy bills. Similar programs are being considered in other countries. Recent news reports quoted a senior White House advisor as saying the Biden administration is actively looking