Ahead of the planned protest of the farmers outside Parliament on July 22, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait on Wednesday said the protest would be ''peaceful' despite the country witnessing violence on Republic Day when protestors reached Red Fort as a part of their 'tractor rally' protest.The protest will be held between the scheduled dates of the monsoon session, which is said to commence on July 19 and conclude by August 13."It will be a peaceful protest. We will sit outside the Parliament while proceedings will continue in the House," Tikait told ANI.He further said 200 peo

B.C. is reporting 33 new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 148,187 cases in the province.There are currently 639 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 145,775 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 66 individuals are currently in hospital and 14 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation. In the past 24 hours, no new deaths have been reported, for an overall total of 1,760. Since December 2020, the province has administered 5,805,541 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines. 80.2% (3,470,198)

A Nanaimo fisherman has a wild tale to tell and a video to back up his story about the one that got away. Roy Ban was fishing for ling cod near Entrance Island in Nanaimo when he felt a tug on his line from what he thought was a big fish, which took him about 15 to 20 minutes to bring up. Ban says he had to ask his fiancee if she saw what he'd just seen, something that looked like a shark and was longer than a metre and a half. He cut the line and the shark swam away, but Ban says a relative who saw the video later confirmed he'd indeed had an encounter with a sixgill shark.

The Mounties say four people were killed and a fifth person is missing after a crane collapsed in Kelowna, B.C. Insp. Adam MacIntosh says four people on the ground, all construction workers, were killed when the crane toppled off the 25-storey building on Monday. He says the crane operator hasn't been found but police believe his body is buried in the rubble.The upper portion of the crane smashed into a neighbouring building, leaving most of its support tower attached. The head of the development company building the residential tower said Monday he didn't know what caused the crane to fall. J

Premier John Horgan has responded to what he says is the ``tragedy of the revelations'' related to the discovery of more unmarked, undocumented graves at a residential school, this one on Penelakut Island, off the southeast coast of Vancouver Island. Horgan says his government is awaiting the direction of the Penelakut Tribe and other BC First Nations before acting on the recent discoveries. He says it would be premature to do anything else while Indigenous people are grieving and coping with generational trauma. Speaking at a news conference this morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says h

Private liquor retailers are now allowed to sell their products to holders of special event permits to serve liquor at events such as community festivals, family gatherings and private functions.The change follows a recommendation from the Business Technical Advisory Panel. Previously, only government liquor stores could sell liquor products to permit holders. The private retailers who may now do so include:* B.C. wineries, breweries and distilleries with on-site stores;* licensee retail stores (private liquor stores);* wine stores (excluding sacramental wine stores) and special wine stores; a

A new evacuation order has been issued as the largest wildfire in British Columbia continues to challenge efforts to bring it under control. The BC Wildfire Service says the blaze north of Kamloops now covers 402 square kilometres and flames on one of its flanks surged toward control lines Monday. An evacuation order for nine more properties near Savona has been issued, adding to the 170 already ordered out by the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and the Skeetchestn Indian Band. In the south Okanagan, the wildfire sparked Sunday east of Skaha Lake now covers nine square kilometres but firefi

A BC First Nation says in a newsletter that more than 160 unmarked and undocumented graves have been found at the site of a former residential school on a small island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. The Penelakut Tribe has not officially commented but its newsletter says the graves have been found on Penelakut Island, at the former Kuper Island Industrial School. A University of BC Ph-D student in anthropology said in May that he had been working with the Penelakut Tribe, using ground penetrating radar to search for remains of children who died at the school during the nearly 100 yea

Police in Nanaimo say a man who'd been missing since March of 2020 was the victim of homicide. They say 32 year old Sidney Mantee's family in Saskatchewan contacted police last October, saying it was out of character for him not to contact them so long. Constable Gary O'Brien says in May, RCMP officers searched Diver Lake and a park in Nanaimo, as well as an apartment where Mantee had lived. Another search of the waters off the city was done this past weekend. He could not say if anyone has been arrested or how the Indigenous man died.