OTTAWA — Canada’s corporate-ethics watchdog is investigating if Walmart, Hugo Boss and Diesel have forced labour in their supply chains. Sheri Meyerhoffer, the Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, issued three reports today saying none of the companies have done enough to demonstrate the products they sell in Canada are free of slave labour. The Canadian subsidiaries […]

New Brunswick’s education minister has announced small changes to the school gender policy that’s created a storm of controversy. Bill Hogan told reporters outside a rural school in Keswick Ridge on Wednesday that his Progressive Conservative government was making tweaks to Policy 713, which addresses gender identity, less than two weeks before school starts. Those […]

NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. — At Marineland, the Ontario theme park subject to a long running animal welfare investigation, 14 whales and one dolphin have died since 2019, The Canadian Press has learned. Details about the deaths at the tourist attraction in Niagara Falls, Ont., are contained in a list created by the Ministry of the […]

OTTAWA — Canada has been pondering a new way to settle First Nation land claims, newly released internal documents show. In briefing materials prepared for the deputy minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, the federal government also acknowledged issues with the current specific claims process. Specific claims deal with past wrongs against First […]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Top administrators at New Mexico State University wanted to find just the right wording to announce that they were pulling the plug on the men’s basketball season following reports of alleged hazing involving team members. It was a busy afternoon in February — Super Bowl Sunday, in fact — as university […]

The federal government has delayed implementing energy-efficiency regulations for major home appliances in order to align with new stringent standards announced by the U.S. Department of Energy. A briefing note obtained by Canada’s National Observer through a federal access-to-information request reveals how Natural Resources Canada is adapting to the U.S.’s new plan to increase energy-efficiency […]

The Manitoba government’s main reason to make a U-turn and build classrooms via public-private partnerships — a controversial model the Tories rejected in 2018 — is to fulfil a new promise to open 22 public schools by 2027. Internal documents obtained by the Free Press show government staffers have been in talks about using a […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s GOP-dominant Legislature will return to the state Capitol on Monday months after a deadly school shooting, equipped with a long list of proposals about mental health, school resources, tougher penalties for violent criminals and more. Almost certainly missing from the special legislative session will be any serious consideration of tightening […]

Residents of the Northwest Territories are feeling the effect of the news vacuum on Facebook as they flee communities that are under threat by wildfires. But industry observers say the regional media landscape was barren long before Meta — Facebook’s parent company — pulled news content from its platforms in Canada, and that the current […]

TORONTO — Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles is asking the province’s integrity commissioner to consider within his Greenbelt investigation the premier and government staffers’ reported use of personal phones and emails. Stiles’ request comes in the wake of last week’s scathing auditor general’s report into the government’s decision to open up protected Greenbelt lands to […]

OTTAWA — Federal officials worried long-promised legislation declaring First Nations policing an essential service was being delayed by Assembly of First Nations hesitations about the bill, newly released internal documents show. Records obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act also appear to show that one of the sticking points for both […]

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — The woman in the corner of the emergency room still haunts Dr. Gerard Farrell, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association. Obviously suffering from dementia, she was impossible to miss as he passed back and forth, always sitting in the same chair in an environment not built to care for […]