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Ontario autism program gets $60M boost; advocates say many kids still in need

Ontario is boosting its funding for autism services by $60 million over last year, and while advocates say new money in the recent provincial budget is welcome, thousands of children will still be unable to access therapy. The budget announced $120 million for the autism program, but the government later clarified that includes a $60-million […]

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‘Pushed down our throats’: Letters detail school pronoun concerns in Saskatchewan

REGINA — The Saskatchewan government received 18 official complaints in the summer before it implemented a rule preventing most children from changing their names or pronouns at school without parental consent. The emails, recently obtained by The Canadian Press through an access-to-information request, were received in June and July and offer a first look into […]

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Bodycam video shows police saving residents from Maui wildfire, keeping people out of burn zone

HONOLULU (AP) — An officer sprinted from house to house in the historic town of Lahaina, Hawaii, alerting people to the approaching inferno. Another coughed and swore as he drove through thick smoke past burning buildings with people he rescued crammed in the back seat. With no ambulance available, one officer offered to bring a […]

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Inside Newfoundland and Labrador’s private, for profit homeless shelter system

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — A homeless woman says she’s been placed back in the very system she was trying to escape when she began living in a tent across the street from Newfoundland and Labrador’s legislature building. Karen Peddle, 43, said Wednesday that she had left the tent city in front of the government building […]

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Canada U.S. refugee pact changes expected to ‘exacerbate existing threats’: memo

OTTAWA — A newly released memo shows federal officials warned last spring that expanding a bilateral refugee pact to the entire Canada-U.S. border would likely fuel smuggling networks and encourage people to seek more dangerous, remote crossing routes. Officials feared the development would also strain RCMP resources as irregular migrants dispersed more widely across the […]

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As Peel Police breaks ground on massive facility questions linger about its future and how community safety should be funded

On October 4th Peel Police put shovels in the ground for a new operations facility to support public safety needs in the rapidly growing region. The investment in a space that will house more than 700 staff comes as the future of Peel Police remains unclear, with the dissolution of regional government in 2025, and […]

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Ontario autism program now funding over 8,000 kids for core therapy

TORONTO — The number of children with autism receiving publicly funded, needs-based core therapy in Ontario appears to have only now returned to the level it was at five years ago, before changes by the Progressive Conservative government upended the system, new figures suggest. Documents obtained through a freedom-of-information request show that as of mid-July […]

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AP Exclusive: 911 calls from deadly Lahaina wildfire reveal terror and panic in the rush to escape

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Trapped in their cars, in homes or on the beach as flames, black smoke and embers swirled around them, people in the historic Maui town of Lahaina called 911, the one number that might send help or tell them what to do, where to go. A man sprayed water on his […]

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Symposium emphasizes the need for access to Church Records at former Residential Schools

(ANNews) — The Acimowin Opaspiw Society (AOS) Investigation Methodologies National Symposium took place on September 26-28, 2023, at the River Cree Resort in Edmonton. At the symposium, participants were provided with a presentation on Access to Restricted Church Records by Leah Redcrow, Investigation Director of the Blue Quills Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Inquiry and […]

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Diwali fireworks advisory issued despite warnings it might be discriminatory: emails

OTTAWA — At least two Environment Canada meteorologists warned that linking Diwali fireworks to air pollution in an air quality advisory could be perceived as discriminatory, internal emails show, but the advisory was still published. Their warnings appeared well-founded. So many complaints had poured in by the end of the day that the department reissued […]

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15 ‘potential’ gravesites found near former Yukon residential school

CARCROSS, Yukon — Yukon First Nation elder Sandra Johnson says the discovery of 15 potential graves near the site of a former residential school has “uncovered long-buried wounds.” Johnson spoke Tuesday at the release of an investigation into unmarked graves and the deaths of children who attended the former Chooutla Residential School in Carcross, south […]

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B.C. First Nation research finds 158 child deaths at four facilities

MISSION, BRITISH COLUMBIA — An investigation into unmarked graves and missing children by British Columbia’s Sto:lo Nation has revealed at least 158 deaths, most of them at a hospital. But representatives from the Sto:lo Nation Chiefs’ Council and Sto:l? Research and Resource Management Centre said Thursday that their work has only just begun, and is […]

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