More than 500 homes and buildings have been destroyed or damaged by wildfires across British Columbia this year, marking one of the province’s worst years for structural wildfire damage in recent years. Although the total area of forest burned remains lower than in some record-breaking fire seasons, more than 1,000 wildfires have already caused significant damage to structures. Four major fires - Bald Range near Summerland, the Bradley Complex near Vernon, the Big Bar Complex near Clinton and the Brunswick Complex near Boston Bar - have grown to major incidents, with only the Bradley Compl

A 56-year-old man has been critically injured in an overnight shooting in Maple Ridge, B.C. Police say the shooting happened around 10 p.m. Tuesday at a home in the 11400 block of 236 Street. Officers responding to reports of gunshots found the wounded man inside a vehicle outside the residence. The Maple Ridge RCMP Serious Crime Unit has taken over the investigation. Police say no motive has been established and no suspect information has been released. Investigators are asking anyone who witnessed the shooting or has dashcam footage from the area around the time of the incident to come forwa

The B.C. government’s decision under Premier David Eby to suddenly shut down its online directory of government employees to the general public has sparked a political controversy in the province. Opposition parties have accused the government of hiding information from the public and undermining transparency. The government, however, says the decision was made to protect employees’ safety, privacy and cybersecurity. Through the directory, members of the public could previously find out which employees worked in different government departments, their positions and how to contact them. Lan

B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad has accused Premier David Eby of blaming U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs for the province’s forestry-sector decline in an attempt to hide his government’s own failures. In a statement Tuesday, Rustad said U.S. tariffs are harmful and should be strongly opposed. However, he said forestry production in B.C.’s Interior began declining as early as 2016, long before Trump returned to office, and has now fallen by about 50 per cent. According to Rustad, poor provincial policies, permit processes that can take two to three years, and uncertaint

A 27-year-old man has died after getting into distress while swimming near Goldstream Falls in Goldstream Provincial Park on Monday evening. West Shore RCMP said officers responded to the incident at around 7:35 p.m. on August 17. The man reportedly went underwater while swimming near the waterfall and did not resurface. Bystanders pulled him from the water and immediately began life-saving measures. Police, BC Emergency Health Services and Langford Fire Department later arrived and continued the emergency response. The man was taken to hospital for further treatment but later succumbed to his

Canada’s main opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, has launched a strong attack on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government over its electric vehicle policy. Poilievre alleges that while the government is moving to scrap the existing EV sales mandate, it is planning to bring back a similar requirement through the “back door” using tougher emissions standards. According to a notice published in the Canada Gazette, the government has recently started the process of repealing the previous EV Sales Mandate, which required 20 per cent of new vehicles sold in 2026 to be electric. Reacting to

Unionized Metro Vancouver outside workers have stepped up job action, with picket lines established at two water main projects in Vancouver and North Vancouver. The Greater Vancouver Regional District Employees’ Union says the projects must be completed before planned dredging beneath the Second Narrows Ironworkers Memorial Bridge can begin in September. The dredging is intended to allow larger oil tankers carrying greater loads to navigate Burrard Inlet. The plan has received support from the federal government. The outside workers and Metro Vancouver have been without a new collective agre

Nanaimo RCMP are investigating a hit-and-run collision that occurred on August 16 and resulted in the death of a pedestrian. According to police, the incident happened at around 1:48 a.m. at the intersection of Albert Street and Dunsmuir Street, where a vehicle struck a pedestrian. The driver fled the scene in the vehicle immediately after the collision. A frontline officer arrived at the scene and transported the seriously injured man to hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries. Police initially took one driver into custody, but the individual was released after investigators determ

B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad and Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Eleanor Sturko have sharply criticized Premier David Eby’s latest cabinet shuffle. Rustad described the new appointments - including Josie Osborne as finance minister and Ravi Kahlon as health minister - as little more than a “musical chairs” exercise. He argued that replacing ministers will not address the province’s growing tax burden and large deficits, saying the Eby government has no concrete plan to bring spending and finances under control. Sturko, meanwhile, accused the NDP government of failing to address hom