The federal government is expanding its drug and substance use strategy to try to save more lives and provide more services to people disproportionately affected by Canada's overdose crisis.The Public Health Agency of Canada says the drug landscape has changed with an increasingly toxic supply since the strategy was first developed in 2016.It also says the COVID-19 pandemic revealed gaps in the government's approach and the need for a more holistic, integrated response.The strategy's priorities include funding more community-based programs for prevention, treatment and support.It also includes

The Federal Court today dismissed a legal challenge to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's May 2020 regulations banning some 1,500 styles of firearms.Justice Catherine Kane says in a decision released today that the applicants raised issues around the matter of guns and public safety but the court only explored the question of whether Trudeau's cabinet went beyond its powers in passing the regulations.A few weeks after a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 22 people in April 2020, the Liberals announced they were banning 1,500 models of firearms that it considered too dangerous to be society.The Canadian

Ontario is lowering the age for regular, publicly funded breast cancer screenings from 50 to 40, which Health Minister Sylvia Jones says will help with early detection.Jones is set to make the announcement later today and says the expansion will mean an additional 130,000 mammograms are completed in the province each year.The move follows a draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force earlier this year that said screenings in that country should start at 40 instead of 50, because evidence suggests that would have a moderate benefit in reducing deaths.The change in Ontario

The federal government is banning WeChat and Kaspersky applications from its phones over security concerns.WeChat is a social network, messaging and payments app from Chinese company Tencent, while Kaspersky was founded by Russian entrepreneur Eugene Kaspersky and offers cybersecurity and antivirus software.The government says both apps will be removed from its devices today and users will be blocked from downloading WeChat or Kaspersky products in the future.It says it made the move because the chief information officer of Canada determined that the WeChat and Kaspersky apps present "an unacc

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says time is running out to help people in Gaza.In a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto this afternoon, Joly is expected to plead for humanitarian pauses in the Israel-Hamas conflict to allow more aid to get into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which is home to more than two million Palestinians.Joly's speech will also urge that the more than 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza must be released.Her call comes as the Canadian Armed Forces confirms it has sent special forces to Canada's embassy in Tel Aviv, after Global Affairs C

Officials say the restrictions, which have been in effect for two months, will be removed Tuesday.They were implemented in mid-August due to record low flows in the Bow and Elbow rivers that supply the city and other downstream communities across the Prairies.City officials say they expect decreasing temperatures and seasonal shifts in water use to stabilize demand.They say the restrictions helped to save 1.5 billion litres of water, which is the equivalent of 606 Olympic-size swimming pools.It was the first time that the city had asked its residents to reduce their outdoor water use due to dr

Alberta's legislature resumes today, beginning with the speech from the throne.Government house leader Joseph Schow has said there will be between seven and nine bills in the sitting, which is to run until early December.Premier Danielle Smith's United Conservative government is to spell out in legislation that a referendum must be held before Alberta could leave the Canada Pension Plan and set up a provincial one.The government has also promised legislation on Albertans having a direct say on any future tax hikes.The throne speech is to give a broad outline of the government's goals and prior

More than 200,000 people turned out to vote in two unofficial referendums at the centre of Canada's ongoing tensions with India, officials said Sunday, after the latest one in the MetroVancouver municipality of Surrey wrapped up in the evening.A second referendum on Khalistan, an independent state in India proposed by some Sikhs was held today at the same Surrey gurdwara where activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in June.Sarbraj Kahlon, news director at Radio Punjab who was at the referendum site, called the latest vote a success after 65,700 people turned out in Surrey Sunday to cast b

The Town of Cochrane made the declaration earlier this week after an accident on Saturday affected its water and wastewater pipelines, causing sewage to flow into the Bow River.There haven't been any issues with water quality in the town or in downstream communities such as Calgary, and the sewage leak was contained earlier this week.Damage to the water pipeline, however, led to significant water loss in Cochrane.The town had asked its 32,000 residents, as well as its businesses, to follow mandatory water restrictions to make sure there was enough available for fire suppression and other emerg