A longtime Alberta NDP representative is now officially running under Mark Carney’s Liberal banner.

Rod Loyola says he’s running in the newly formed riding of Edmonton Gateway to fight in Ottawa for affordable housing, strong public services and “a just transition to a sustainable economy.”

He was in the middle of his third term in the provincial legislature when he resigned his seat this week.

Ratepayers in Swift Current will see a property tax increase and a new recreational levy on their 2025 bills after the City of Swift Current unveiled its 2025 budget.

City council approved the 2.71 per cent property tax increase this Wednesday morning, alongside an additional $140 levy for recreational services.

Swift Current Mayor Al Bridal said the Aquatic Centre needs more than $2 million in repairs to make it operational while they plan for a new facility. 

"The evidence is overwhelming as a community, we will require targeted funding towards our recreational facilities," he said. 

The City's 2025 budget is projected at just under $76 million, with $26 million being spent on capital, but $15 million of that spending is dependent on grants. 

More to come. 

The New Democrats and Conservatives both rolled out a series of promises to cut taxes Wednesday that the party leaders say will help provide relief to lower-income Canadians. 

With the Nova Scotia legislature expected to adjourn Wednesday, a political scientist says the winter sitting was marked by government moves aimed at increasing cabinet’s authority and shrinking the legislature’s ability to provide oversight.

Tom Urbaniak, a professor at the University of Cape Breton, said the government’s multiple omnibus bills paint the picture of a government working to consolidate its power after winning a sweeping majority last fall.

Hudson's Bay asked an Ontario court Wednesday to approve a restructuring agreement that will give it a few extra days to save the six stores it has so far spared from liquidation.

On Wednesday morning, Halifax Regional Police received a report from the public about a suspicious package in Grand Parade. Police determined the package was a "hoax improvised explosive device."

PARIS (AP) — Their collective name, “coalition of the willing,” suggests that the loose grouping of Ukraine’s allies certainly wants to help. But as the nearly three dozen nations gather again for more talks in Paris, it is still far from clear exactly what kind of aid they are preparing that could contribute toward their goal of making any ceasefire with Russia lasting.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been driving the coalition-building effort with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is expecting 31 delegations around the table Thursday morning at the presidential Elysee Palace. That’s more than Macron gathered for a first meeting in Paris in February — evidence that the coalition to help Ukraine, possibly with boots on the ground, is gathering steam, according to the presidential office.

The big elephant in the room will be the country that’s missing: the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has shown no public enthusiasm for the coalition’s discussions about potentially sending troops into Ukraine after an eventual ceasefire to help make peace stick. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has dismissed the idea of a European deployment or even the need for it.

“It’s a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic,” he said in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

That’s not the view in Europe. The shared premise upon which the coalition is being built is that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine — starting with the illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and culminating in the 2022 full-scale invasion that unleashed all-out war — shows that he cannot be trusted. They believe that any peace deal will need to be backed up by security guarantees for Ukraine, to deter Putin from launching another attempt to seize it.

Strengthening Ukraine

European officials say that in any peace-deal scenario, Ukraine’s first line of defense against any future Russian aggression would be Ukraine’s own army. Options for the coalition of allies could include providing more military training to help replenish the Ukrainian army’s losses, which Kyiv keeps secret but are heavy after more than three years of intense fighting.

That’s something allies already have been doing, preparing more than 75,000 Ukrainian troops for battle against Russia’s larger and expanding military.

The 27-nation European Union is also pressing ahead with a so-called steel “porcupine strategy” aimed at making Ukraine an even tougher nut for Russia to crack, by strengthening its armed forces and defense industry. Britain is also pledging continued military aid so Ukraine can keep fighting if peace talks fail or a ceasefire is broken.

Boots on the ground

The basket of possible options that military chiefs and planners have been looking at in their own meetings in Paris and in the U.K. includes an array of scenarios that they’ve been preparing for their government leaders to consider and, ultimately, green light.

A possible option that France has been pushing would be a deployment by coalition members of a sizable force — large enough to serve toward deterrence — in central Ukraine, somewhere along the Dnieper River, away from the frontlines, said a French official who spoke on condition of anonymity about the closed-door military planning discussions.

The official said other possible options being examined are deploying a support force even further away from the fronts, in Ukraine’s far west, or in a neighboring country.

British officials have said a Europe-led force could consist of between 10,000 and 30,000 troops — which would be a considerable effort for nations that shrank their militaries after the Cold War but are now rearming.

A second French official, at the president’s office, said France does not envisage a troop contingent serving in Ukraine as “combat forces” but rather as “reassurance forces. That is to say signals of our presence, of support for Ukraine in various military tasks.” The official also spoke anonymously, under the French presidency’s customary practices.

The official said missions and contours of the proposed force are still a work in progress but the aim remains for France and Britain to put it together with “numerous European countries.”

But some countries are more comfortable with a potential deployment than others — not least because one of the big unknowns is whether U.S. military forces and intelligence agencies would get Trump’s green light to offer back-office support for any European force in Ukraine.

Russia is bristling at the prospect of a force involving NATO-nation troops and demanding that military and intelligence aid for Ukraine cease.

Zelenskyy and Macron meet first

The war has turned the leaders of France and Ukraine into close partners. Macron and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will get the summit ball rolling by meeting first together at the Elysee on Wednesday night, to prepare the talks due to start at 10 a.m. the next morning. Macron will give a press conference after the discussions.

___

AP journalists Jill Lawless and Emma Burrows in London and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.

John Leicester, The Associated Press

Police have laid new charges against a 66-year-old man previously charged with attempted murder following the death of a snowmobiler in Port au Port.

When good policy becomes bad politics

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is defending her plan to fly to Florida to appear at an event alongside a far-right U.S. influencer who calls Canada "a silly country," saying it is her duty to do everything she can to reach out to Americans to prevent tariffs.

RNC are searching for a woman reported missing from the St. John’s area.

Police say 40-year-old Romaine Keefe is described as 5 feet 4 inches tall and 225 bounds with brown hair and brown eyes.

She was last seen around 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 22nd in the area of Cochrane Street. There is no available description of the clothes she was wearing at the time.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the RNC by calling 709-729-8000 or Crime Stoppers by phone at 1-800-222-8477

St. John’s council has cleared the way for a new 10-storey apartment building on the former YMCA and Max Athletics site.

They signed off on changes yesterday for what will be one of the tallest residential structures in the city, alongside Kenna’s Hill.

A two-storey parking garage was part of the original plans by developer KMK Capital in 2023, but that was removed from the final draft.

Instead, they sought parking relief for six of the 117 spaces required, which council took in stride and approved.

But KMK also wanted an exemption for so-called stepbacks, which narrow the upper storeys to reduce impact on neighbours.

A commissioner cited the city’s new Envision regulations in recommending against the exemption.

But Councillor Maggie Burton noted that plan was authored before the housing crisis, and in this case would be unfair for the developer.

“I think that this site is not sensitive enough to require the stepback requirement, which would likely kill the project due to the amount of money it would take to fit out the building in the strange shape … ,” she said. “I believe the developer that this is an undue burden and I believe the research and jurisdictional scans that they’ve done to show us that other municipalities don’t work this way.”)

Not all councilors were okay with the exemption, with Deputy Mayor Sheilagh O’Leary and Councilor Tom Davis opposed.

The existing building at 34 New Cove Road will be demolished before the new one goes up, but no timeline has been provided.

Ottawa city council waded into a brief but testy debate over the definitions of racism and colonialism on Wednesday, amid questions over whether a funding policy should specifically mention white people.

The Louise Bridge will be closed to drivers for more than six hours on Friday as workers repair bearings on the century-old bridge.

It's evident the place Youth for Christ (YFC) in Steinbach holds in the community's heart.

Around 400 people showed up to the organization's fundraising banquet Tuesday night to show their support for it, and the work the staff and volunteers do in the community.

"They could have been elsewhere, like at the Piston's game. But they believe in our youth and want to invest in our young people," says Rueben Singh, YFC Steinbach's executive director.

While the banquet was, of course, a fundraiser, Singh says it also meant so much more than just how much money could be raised.

"For our partners to see all these other people that are investing in our youth, and in our community, and in our organization, is life giving," he says. "It's encouraging (and) creates a buzz that people get excited about, and it builds fellowship and relationship."

Various stories about what YFC has been doing were shared as a part of the evening.

Singh says some felt more comfortable standing before hundreds than others, but all find it worth it.

"They do love being able to share about the young people they care about and walk with, and making sure their stories get told and get advocated for," he says.

That's important in a time when many can fall through the cracks.

"One of our goals is to stand in that gap with them," Singh says.

He notes that most of the funds raised at the banquet will go towards YFC's impact fund to continue the work it is doing. Some of it will also go towards the staff, who fundraise their salaries, he says.

Written with files from Kenton Dyck

More images from the fundraising banquet:

More charges have been laid against a man accused of attempting to murder a snowmobiler near Port au Port on March 17th.

RCMP say 66-year-old Wayne Hynes of Port au Port West was charged with attempted murder after a man, who was driving a snowmobile on Gravel’s Pond, suffered life-threatening injuries.

RCMP say as part of their continuing investigation, Hynes is now facing additional charges of using a firearm in the commission of a criminal offence, careless use of a firearm, pointing a firearm, discharging a firearm with intent to endanger the life of a person, assault with a weapon and aggravated assault.

Hynes remains in custody pending his next court appearance on Monday, March 31st.

Osgoode ward residents will head to the polls on a mid-June Monday to choose their next city councillor.

MONTREAL — WestJet says it has launched an on-board Wi-Fi service powered by Starlink, the satellite internet technology made by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX.

In an email, the airline says it now offers free Wi-Fi on 16 of its nearly 140 planes following federal certification.

Spokesman Josh Yeats says WestJet plans to complete hardware installations on its narrow-body fleet by the end of this year and on its wide-body aircraft before 2027.

The higher-speed connectivity comes as controversy around Musk grows, thanks to his close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump as well as recent expressions of support for far-right groups, prompting some online backlash to WestJet’s move.

Carriers including United Airlines and Air France have also partnered with Starlink, while more than half of Canada’s provincial and territorial governments buy critical internet and emergency communications services from it — though unease with the Musk connection has grown in communities stretching from northwestern Ontario to Newfoundland and Labrador.

WestJet, which first activated the speedier Wi-Fi earlier this month, says it chose Starlink in a multi-year agreement between the two parties and Telus that was announced in July after a competitive bidding process that began in 2023.

— With a file from Sarah Smellie in St. John’s, N.L.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2025.

The Canadian Press