National News

Canadian superstar Céline Dion's Instagram announcement that she has been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome is sparking questions about the rare and widely unknown disease. 

The condition is a "neurological disorder with features of an autoimmune disease," according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the U.S.  

The name doesn't do justice to the pain and life-changing symptoms the syndrome causes, said Tara Zier, founder of the Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation.

The Mendelson family would love to find the envelope where their father, Lee, scribbled some lyrics to jazz musician Vince Guaraldi's composition “Christmas Time is Here” for an animated TV special featuring the “Peanuts” gang in 1965.

Calls from the daughters of a slain Indigenous woman to bring her remains home from a landfill that police in Winnipeg won't search turned into a rallying cry Wednesday to end the violence against their women and girls.

Cambria Harris, speaking before an Assembly of First Nations gathering in Ottawa, says her mother, Morgan, was a "bright and loving soul" who had her life stolen by a "monster."

The 39-year-old mother and grandmother is one of four victims police believe were killed by 35-year-old Jeremy Skibicki, now facing first-degree murder charges. 

Emergency shelters in Alberta haven't been able to provide refuge to thousands of women who were fleeing domestic violence due to a lack of space, a report shows.

The data, which runs from April 1, 2021 to March 30, 2022, was compiled by the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters from more than 50 member shelters across the province.

It shows shelters received 65,390 calls for help, and about 25,530 of those callers requested admission. About 16 per cent of those calls led to a woman being admitted, says the report released Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mint is issuing a new black-ringed toonie to honour Queen Elizabeth II. 

The mint says the coin's black outer ring is intended to evoke a "mourning armband" to honour the queen, who died in September after 70 years on the throne.  

The mint says it will start to circulate nearly five million of the coins this month, and they will gradually appear as banks restock inventories. 

Aside from the black ring, the mint says the coin retains the same design elements of the standard toonie. 

By Sidhartha Banerjee and Marisela Amador in Montreal

A solemn wreath-laying ceremony was held Tuesday to mark the 33rd anniversary of the École Polytechnique mass shooting, one of a handful of tributes planned throughout the day.

On Dec. 6, 1989, a man motivated by a hatred of feminists shot and killed 14 female students and injured 13 other people at the Montreal engineering school.

The Alberta government is crafting changes to be debated next week to reverse the section of a bill that gives cabinet unfettered power to rewrite laws behind closed doors without legislature approval, the province's premier said Saturday.

Danielle Smith told her Corus radio talk show that her sovereignty bill was never supposed to give cabinet such sweeping authority, adding her government wants to make it clear in law that this is not the case.

“You never get things 100 per cent right all the time,” Smith told her radio listeners.

The Alberta government has introduced a bill that would grant Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet broad powers to rewrite provincial laws behind closed doors in an effort to push back against Ottawa. 

The proposed legislation would also allow cabinet to direct “provincial entities” — Crown-controlled organizations, municipalities, school boards, post-secondary schools, municipal police forces, regional health authorities and any social agency receiving provincial money — to not use those funds to enforce federal rules deemed harmful to Alberta's interests.

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney resigned as a member of the legislature on Tuesday, the same day his successor introduced her flagship sovereignty bill in the legislature, of which he had been a staunch critic.  

In a signed letter posted on Kenney's verified Twitter account, he says the resignation is effective immediately and that it has been a privilege to have represented the constituency of Calgary Lougheed since 2017.

Canadians enjoying a brief relief from the onset of winter-like conditions may want to enjoy the temperatures while they can because The Weather Network is forecasting a colder-than-normal start to winter across most of the country.

The network’s winter outlook says a La Niña – a weather pattern characterized by cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean – is returning for a rare third winter, likely meaning colder and snowier weather through December.