OTTAWA — Canada’s spy service warns that climate change poses a profound, ongoing threat to national security and prosperity, including the possible loss of parts of British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces to rising sea levels. A newly released analysis by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service also foresees an increase in ideologically motivated violent extremism […]

Shannon McPhail said she felt like the “world’s biggest schmuck” after reading an email from a senior official at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The official told her it was “impossible to confirm” how many living salmon eggs were in the path of the Coastal GasLink pipeline at a major river crossing. With wild salmon populations […]

Canada is under increasing pressure to declare a moratorium on seabed mining just as federal leaders are set to host an international marine conservation summit. More than 700 international scientists and a multitude of environmental organizations are calling on Canada to ban the search for deep-sea minerals in its own waters and show global leadership […]

EDMONTON — Alberta is preparing to change how it ensures oilsands companies are able to pay for the mammoth job of cleaning up their operations, but critics fear a year of consultations hasn’t been enough to avoid repeating past mistakes. “There’s no signal to me from this government that they are going to hold industry […]

A second port on Canada’s West Coast is proposing a ban on cruise ships dumping contaminated and acidic wastewater while docked to protect the marine environment. The Port of Prince Rupert on B.C.’s north coast is taking public feedback until Feb. 5 on changes slated for 2023, including forbidding the open-loop scrubber systems that cruise […]

EDMONTON — The Alberta government is refusing to release information on toxic contaminants in snowpacks downwind from mountaintop removal coal mines. The data was collected by two senior provincial government scientists who conducted research into the impact of windblown dust from mines in British Columbia on a pristine Alberta alpine lake. They recently published a […]

As the year’s climate-related gains and catastrophes wrap, Canada’s National Observer is reviewing the top five stories to make waves in B.C.’s coastal and island communities in 2022. First Nations, forests and fish-related news surfaced as some top issues from CNO’s Island Insider beat, and are likely to dominate headlines in the new year as […]

VANCOUVER — Internal RCMP documents show police saw potential for human-wolf “conflict” after the animals escaped their enclosure at the Greater Vancouver Zoo in August, while the facility announced there was no danger to the public. The zoo in Aldergrove was shut for three days from Aug. 16 as workers and conservation officers searched for […]

Msit No’kmaq, Wahkohtawin, Nindinawemaganidog — all loosely translate into the phrase “all my relations,” which is defined by a kinship between beings in the natural world and Mother Earth. It’s a phrase that asserts the symbiotic relationship between Indigenous nations and their lands. Now, as the world prepares to converge on Montreal for the United […]

In late August, Brampton residents were tormented by an onslaught of rain leading to extensive property damage and numerous calls to the City and emergency services. As walls of water came down, rivers of brown runoff flowed into low-lying basements, causing widespread damage across parts of the region. Up to 100 millimetres of precipitation fell […]