EDMONTON — New documents outline a massive increase in public funding for the Canadian Energy Centre’s campaign to change attitudes toward Alberta’s oil and gas. An agency founded by Alberta’s United Conservative government to fight what it calls misinformation about the province’s industry and otherwise known as the “war room,” the centre’s most recent annual […]

It’s an unprecedented wildfire season in Canada, with millions of hectares burned and hundreds of structures destroyed while extreme heat has had devastating effects on people’s health, especially for those from racialized and newcomer communities. At least 619 people died in B.C. during the 2021 heat dome when the province broke records and oppressive 40C […]

TORONTO — Ontario’s housing minister violated ethics rules when the government removed land from the protected Greenbelt for development, the province’s integrity commissioner found, saying the process was marked by “unnecessary hastiness and deception.” In a report released Wednesday, the commissioner found Housing Minister Steve Clark violated two sections of the Members’ Integrity Act that […]

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 […]

UNDATED (AP) — The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the state’s Pollution Control Agency improperly granted permits to a fiercely contested copper-nickel mine and concealed environmental concerns about the project, which critics say threatens to pollute Lake Superior and hurt tribal lands. The proposed mining project, a 50-50 joint venture with PolyMet Mining […]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Evan Burroughs has spent eight years touting the virtues of an Oregon pilot program charging motorists by the distance their vehicle travels rather than the gas it guzzles, yet his own mother still hasn’t bought in. Margaret Burroughs, 85, said she has no intention of inserting a tracking device on her […]

EDMONTON _ The governments of Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec are joining the federal privacy commissioner in investigating the company behind the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. Alberta’s privacy authority says the joint investigation would see if OpenAI, which is the parent company of ChatGPT, obtained valid consent from Canadians to collect, use and disclose their personal information via its chatbot. ChatGPT, which […]

EDMONTON — They’re affixed to old buildings where someone important used to live. Or they’re mounted on a rock overlooking somewhere where something once happened. Cast in bronze or lettered on a sign, they’re sometimes the only history lesson many of us ever get. And now Parks Canada wants hundreds of them changed. “The way […]

TORONTO — Deforestation, contaminated air, polluted water and the loss of wetlands are a growing concern, Ontario’s auditor general concluded in a “state of the environment report” released Tuesday. Bonnie Lysyk also said Ontario’s environment has improved in many areas over the last several decades. Yet she found the Doug Ford government is not providing […]

EDMONTON — Former members of an elite Alberta wildfire-fighting crew say government budget cuts have left the province battling its current blazes short-handed. “We could have been difference-makers,” said Jordan Erlandson, a former member of Alberta’s Rapattack team. Those firefighters were trained to rappel from helicopters to get at wildfires while they still only covered […]

EDMONTON — Alberta’s information commissioner has started an investigation into how the province’s energy regulator notified the public about tailings pond releases at Imperial Oil’s Kearl mine. “Information and Privacy Commissioner Diane McLeod has launched an investigation into the Alberta Energy Regulator concerning AER’s consideration of the public interest override,” said a news release Wednesday […]