Here are the B.C. ministries, provincial agencies and roles affected by job action
By The Canadian Press About 26,000 members of two unions representing British Columbia professionals and public service workers are participating in escalating job action as they push for pay increases in new contracts with the provincial government. The weeks-long strike action includes more than 1,000 members of the Professional Employees Association and close to 25,000 members of the B.C. General Employees’ Union. More than 20 provincial ministries, Crown corporations and agencies are affected. Here is a breakdown: BCGEU job action Ministries Citizens’ Services (including Service BC) Education and Child Care Energy and Climate Solutions Finance Housing and Municipal Affairs Indigenous Relations & Reconciliation Infrastructure Jobs and Economic Growth Mining and Critical Minerals Office of the Premier Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Post-Secondary Education and Future...
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Manitoba Opposition leader sorry for gun gesture in legislature
Manitoba’s Opposition Progressive Conservative leader is apologizing for making a gesture in question period that mimicked shooting himself in the head. Obby Khan says the action was in frustration during question period Wednesday, and called it childish and not justifiable. He says he apologizes without reservation. Education Minister Tracy Schmidt had been answering a question, when Khan turned to a colleague, pointed two fingers toward his head and pretended to pull a trigger. The governing NDP complained, and the Speaker said Khan’s gesture was egregious and offensive. Schmidt says she’s deeply disturbed by what happened, given the current political climate and because students were in the public gallery at the time. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2025....
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Nishnawbe Aski Nation leaders declare State of Emergency over flow of illegal drugs, violence and deaths
Nishnawbe Aski Nation leadership issued the following statement after OPP lifted a shelter-in-place advisory for Ginoogaming First Nation on Thursday . OPP assisting the Anishinabek Police Service (APS) responded Wednesday at about 2:15 a.m., to reports of shots fired in a residential area. One person was found dead and another injured a police media release issued Thursday. The NAN leadership statement: THUNDER BAY, ON: The Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) leadership have declared a public State of Emergency after a drug related shooting incident sparked a a community lock down in Ginoogaming First Nation. Tragically, and ironically, the incident comes in the midst of a forum convened by Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Nishnawbe Aski Police Services, and Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services to address the very crises that cause these situations, including gang infiltration,...
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Shelter-in-place order lifted, one person dead in northern Ontario First Nation: OPP
By Rianna Lim Provincial police say they’ve lifted a shelter-in-place order in a northern Ontario First Nation, after a two-day search for two suspects in an incident that left one person dead and another injured. Police issued the emergency alert early Wednesday morning for residents in the area of Ginoogaming First Nation, saying the two suspects were believed to be armed and dangerous. OPP said Thursday afternoon that they responded to a report of shots fired in the area of Echum Drive at around 2:15 a.m. Wednesday, and one person was found dead and another injured. All public and Catholic schools in Long Lac and Long Lake #58 First Nation, as well as the Long Lac campus of Confederation College, were closed Wednesday and Thursday as police searched for the...
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B.C. strike escalates to include about 26,000 public service workers, professionals
By Brenna Owen Two unions representing British Columbia professionals and public service workers escalated their weeks-long job action on Thursday to include about 26,000 staff across 14 ministries and provincial Crown corporations. The Professional Employees Association, whose members include engineers, foresters and geoscientists, said more than 1,000 staff from the health, mining, transportation, resource stewardship and attorney general ministries are on strike. The association had previously joined job action by the BC General Employees’ Union in its dispute with the province by picketing a number of government offices across B.C. The BCGEU also escalated its job action Thursday to include about 25,000 public service workers across 475 work sites. A statement from the union said 11 ministries and B.C. Crown corporations were “fully struck,” including the ministries of finance, citizens’...
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B.C. government says dissolving Vancouver park board will require referendum
British Columbia’s Housing Ministry says dissolving the Vancouver park board will require a referendum. The ministry says new legislation to amend the Vancouver Charter would give city council the authority to dissolve the park board after holding an “assent vote,” should a majority of Vancouverites vote to approve the plan. It says if a simple majority — 50 per cent plus one — votes to dissolve the board, Vancouver city council can pass a bylaw to dissolve the board, giving jurisdiction over designated city parks to council. The province says the legislation will also require a referendum and a unanimous council vote if the city wants to remove a permanent park designation, unless the lands are being transferred to First Nations. Vancouver city council under Mayor Ken Sim moved to...
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Lakehead University gets a boost in funding for Indigenous learning
By Clint Fleury, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, TBnewswatch.com THUNDER BAY — A recent $100,000 donation will help create Indigenous-led spaces and programming at Lakehead University. The funding from insurance and financial services company Canada Life is for the school’s Gichi Kendaasiwin initiative, and was announced at Lakehead on Sept 29. “Right now, (with) this project we’re looking at building various spaces across all of our three campuses that allow for cultural learning to happen … in a more appropriate way,” Denise Baxter, the vice provost of Indigenous initiatives at Lakehead, told Newswatch. “Supporting student success is obviously really at the heart of all this and why we’re doing this, and then connecting our work with outreach to communities.” More than a decade ago, Lakehead University planned to build its Gichi...
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Winston Churchill, William Berczy paintings among items in Hudson’s Bay auction
By Tara Deschamps A painting of a sunny day in Morocco by former British prime minister Winston Churchill, an 1894 depiction of downtown Toronto by Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith and several pieces from one of Toronto’s founders are among the works Hudson’s Bay is set to auction off next month. All three are contained in a catalogue released Thursday by Heffel Fine Art Auction House, which was retained by the defunct retailer to find new homes for its most prized possessions. Although the retailer had 4,400 pieces — 1,700 pieces of art and about 2,700 artifacts — at the time of its collapse, details about the collection have been a closely guarded secret since the Bay filed for creditor protection and closed all of its stores earlier in the year. The...
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Gun Lake residents sound the alarm on salvage logging proposal
By Luke Faulks, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Pique Newsmagazine When Jessica Shoubridge and her family moved to Gun Lake, she imagined a future rooted in the area’s natural beauty. She envisioned her commercially zoned property one day hosting an eco-tourism venture built around the lake and featuring a west-facing view of the hillside. Then, the 2023 Downton Lake Wildfire ripped through the Bridge River Valley, burning up nearly 10,000 hectares, destroying 43 properties and exposing Shoubridge to a network of logging access roads previously under tree cover. Now, two years after the fire, Shoubridge says she has watched the forest recover naturally. “The natural regeneration that’s happened in the last two years has been remarkable,” she said. “We’re like, “It’s going to be OK, it’s starting to look good now....
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No charges recommended in 2022 death of Indigenous man at jail in Williams Lake, B.C.
The Independent Investigations Office says it will not be recommending criminal charges against RCMP officers in Williams Lake, B.C., after the sudden death of man in their custody. It says officers arrested the man who was driving an unlicensed moped around the Cariboo city on Sept. 30, 2022, and brought him to the RCMP cells. The release says the man appeared to have fallen asleep on a bench in his cell and about two hours later, around 3 a.m. on Oct. 1, he fell off the bench onto the floor. It says while a guard checked on the detainee through the cell door and verbally confirmed that he was OK, the man was found unresponsive a few hours later. He was declared dead at the scene, and the IIO says...
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Indigenous leaders urge action after alleged drug-related shooting in First Nation
By Rianna Lim Indigenous leaders in northern Ontario are calling on politicians to take action against illegal drugs and provide more resources to communities after an alleged drug-related shooting in a First Nation left one person dead and another injured. Ontario Provincial Police issued a shelter-in-place order early Wednesday morning for residents in the area of Ginoogaming First Nation, saying officers were searching for two suspects believed to be armed and dangerous. All public and Catholic schools in Long Lac and Long Lake #58 First Nation, as well as the Long Lac campus of Confederation College, were closed Wednesday and Thursday as police searched for the suspects. Police lifted the shelter-in-place order Thursday afternoon after determining there was no longer an active threat to public safety. OPP said they had...
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Experts say Ottawa’s new AI task force is skewed towards industry
By Anja Karadeglija The Liberal government has given its new AI “task force” until the end of the month to fast-track changes to the national artificial intelligence strategy — a plan that critics say leans too much on the perspective of industry and the tech sector. Teresa Scassa, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada research chair in information law and policy, said the makeup of the 27-member task force is “skewed towards industry voices and the adoption of AI technologies.” The risks posed by artificial intelligence to Canada’s culture, environment and workforce “deserve more attention in a national strategy,” Scassa said in an email. Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon announced the task force last month and tasked it with a 30-day “national sprint” to draft recommendations...
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Indigenous leaders urge action after alleged drug-related shooting in FirstNation
By Rianna Lim Indigenous leaders in northern Ontario are calling on politicians to take action against illegal drugs and provide more resources to communities after an alleged drug-related shooting in a First Nation left one person dead and another injured. Ontario Provincial Police issued a shelter-in-place order early Wednesday morning for residents in the area of Ginoogaming First Nation, saying officers were searching for two suspects believed to be armed and dangerous. All public and Catholic schools in Long Lac and Long Lake #58 First Nation, as well as the Long Lac campus of Confederation College, were closed Wednesday and Thursday as police searched for the suspects. Police lifted the shelter-in-place order Thursday afternoon after determining there was no longer an active threat to public safety. OPP said they had...
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‘A big mess’: Expert, parents criticize Alberta tool kit for students during strike
By Fakiha Baig An education expert is criticizing online lessons the Alberta government has curated for students during a provincewide teachers strike as “incoherent.” Maren Aukerman, an education professor at the University of Calgary, says the nearly 200-page “tool kit” hops from one topic to another without context and barely aligns with the provincial curriculum. It tries to teach Grade 1 students how to multiply. Grade 3 students learn how to count American money — not Canadian. And Grade 4 students are instructed in drawing triangles — an activity for those in Grade 1. “There are layers upon layers of problems with it … nothing makes sense,” Aukerman said in an interview. “It is incoherent.” The province’s 51,000 teachers at 2,500 schools went off the job Monday in the largest...
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Taking action for Indigenous women in Kanesatake
By Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Eastern Door Mary Hannaburg and her daughter Kahsennóktha George were straining to reach a hook in the sign above the door of Pizza Greco, the red dress they wanted to hang there dangling from their hands. As they struggled to place the garment, a symbol used to commemorate and raise awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and gender-diverse people (MMIWG2S+), a couple strolled by on the sidewalk. The couple – tourists, Hannaburg believes – didn’t hesitate. The man picked up the woman in his arms, and from that height she easily secured the red dress over the window. Hanging red dresses in Kanesatake and beyond on October 4 – the National Day of Action for MMIWG2S+ – is something Hannaburg and...
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Boost for Church reno in Kahnawake
By Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Eastern Door A substantial contribution from the federal government is the latest infusion for a planned 10-year, $3 million restoration of the St. Francis Xavier Mission and Fort St. Louis. “There are some projects that are more urgent than others, so we’re doing the projects in terms of ensuring the site remains safe and secure and restored as per the requirements to retain its historic site status,” said Rheena Diabo, a member of the Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine Finance and Administrative Committee. The committee has been granted $250,000 for the conservation of the presbytery’s windows and doors, with work planned to begin spring 2026. This funding comes from the National Cost-Sharing Program for Heritage Places, a Parks Canada program. The restoration is...
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‘A big mess’: Expert, parents criticize Alberta tool kit for students during strike
By Fakiha Baig An education expert is criticizing online lessons the Alberta government has curated for students during a provincewide teachers strike as “incoherent.” Maren Aukerman, an education professor at the University of Calgary, says the nearly 200-page “tool kit” hops from one topic to another without context and barely aligns with the provincial curriculum. It tries to teach Grade 1 students how to multiply. Grade 3 students learn how to count American money — not Canadian. And Grade 4 students are instructed in drawing triangles — an activity for those in Grade 1. “There are layers upon layers of problems with it … nothing makes sense,” Aukerman said in an interview. “It is incoherent.” The province’s 51,000 teachers at 2,500 schools went off the job Monday in the largest...
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Shelter-in-place order lifted, one person dead in northern Ontario First Nation: OPP
By Rianna Lim Provincial police say they’ve lifted a shelter-in-place order in a northern Ontario First Nation, after a two-day search for two suspects in an incident that left one person dead and another injured. Police issued the emergency alert early Wednesday morning for residents in the area of Ginoogaming First Nation, saying the two suspects were believed to be armed and dangerous. OPP said Thursday afternoon that they responded to a report of shots fired in the area of Echum Drive at around 2:15 a.m. Wednesday, and one person was found dead and another injured. All public and Catholic schools in Long Lac and Long Lake #58 First Nation, as well as the Long Lac campus of Confederation College, were closed Wednesday and Thursday as police searched for the...
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First Nations Leadership and NAN Grand Chief Declare State of Emergency on Flow of Illegal Drugs and Deaths in Communities
THUNDER BAY, ON: Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) leadership are declaring a public State of Emergency (October 9, 2025) following a drug related shooting incident that unfolded in Ginoogaming First Nation. Tragically, and ironically, the incident comes in the midst of a forum convened by Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Nishnawbe Aski Police Services, and Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services to address the very crises that cause these situations, including gang infiltration, illegal drugs and drug-related violence that plague NAN First Nations. Leaders further addressed the urgent need for resources and mechanisms for First Nations to protect their borders and their community members. Community members in Ginoogaming First Nation remain in lockdown following an active shooting yesterday. This declaration is a response to both this incident, alongside the escalating crisis across the territory....
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Six Nations Elected Council says man convicted in triple homicide cannot be buried at Six Nations
SIX NATONS OF THE GRAND RIVER- A man responsible for the triple homicide of three Six Nations people, including a pregnant woman, has died in prison but will not be buried at Six Nations. . Nicholas Shipman, involved in a gruesome homicide in 2018. died in Millhaven Institution’s Regional Treatment Centre, near Bath. Shipman, 43, died on Oct. 2 at the facility His death sparked controversy on Facebook when a community member asked if he should be buried at Six Nations. One of the victim’s families approached Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) chief Sherri-Lyn Hill telling her that plans were being made for Shipman to be buried at the Stump Hall cemetery on First Line Road. Elected Chief Hill told SNEC, in an emergency session, Oct., 8, 2025, that she...
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