National News

Pope Francis says he is sorry for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in cultural destruction and forced assimilation of Indigenous people, which culminated in residential schools. 

Francis apologized Monday in front of residential school survivors and elders in Maskwacis, Alta., south of Edmonton after visiting the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School.

He received applause from many in the crowd of thousands.

George Arcand Jr. says it was a humbling experience to welcome Pope Francis to Canada as the Treaty 6 Grand Chief encouraged the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to join a path of healing by speaking with survivors of residential schools.

“I asked the Pope to walk with us in this new journey," Arcand Jr. said.

Francis arrived Sunday to an honour drum song ahead of a brief welcome ceremony in an airport hangar in Edmonton.

Residential school survivor Rod Alexis remembers his late father telling him: "Son, I don't know how to be a parent."

"I lost the gift that was given to us by the Creator because I was all alone in the residential school," the member of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation recalls his father, also a residential school survivor, saying. "Many times I wanted to say 'I love you,' wanted to give you a hug, but I didn't know how."

Rogers Communications Inc. says in a submission to the federal telecom regulator that it could not have restored emergency services any faster during a widespread service outage earlier this month that crippled the company's networks and affected millions of customers across Canada.

New details about the extent of the disruption were also included in the filing and range from media outlets unable to produce news broadcasts to outages for all customers in critical infrastructure such as hospitals and energy providers.

Hockey Canada says members of its 2003 men's world junior hockey championship team are being investigated for a group sexual assault.

The national sports organization says it learned of the alleged incident on Thursday evening after being contacted by a reporter seeking comment on the alleged assault.

Hockey Canada says it has immediately contacted Halifax Regional Police about the allegations because Halifax was the co-host city of the 2003 world junior hockey championship.

Trevor Norris is used to hot summer weather, being from the Prairies. But his trip to England this week — one of many European countries facing record temperatures — has left him battling train delays and searching high and low for some sort of air-conditioned refuge.

"Nowhere in England seems to have AC," Norris said.

"I went into a pub and everyone was standing outside with their beers after ordering ... because it was too hot inside the pub itself. I was in there for maybe 10 minutes ordering drinks and my legs were drenched. It was that bad."

Canada's annual inflation rate spiked to 8.1 per cent in June according to new data from Statistics Canada (Stats Can). It's the largest yearly change in 39 years.

The climbing inflation rate came largely from gas prices, which were up over 50 per cent when compared to a year ago, Stats Can says in its report on Wednesday, July 20. Excluding the cost of gasoline, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the country was up by 6.5 per cent.

Researchers at Dalhousie University believe the food inflation rate in Canada may have already peaked.

Statistics Canada reported the rate was 8.8 per cent in June, which is still higher than the general inflation rate.

Janet Music is the Research Program Coordinator at the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

Canada's annual inflation rate spiked to 8.1 per cent in June according to new data from Statistics Canada (Stats Can). It's the largest yearly change in 39 years.

The climbing inflation rate came largely from gas prices, which were up over 50 per cent when compared to a year ago, Stats Can says in its report on Wednesday, July 20. Excluding the cost of gasoline, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the country was up by 6.5 per cent.

Canada's annual inflation rate spiked to 8.1 per cent in June according to new data from Statistics Canada (Stats Can). It's the largest yearly change in 39 years.

The climbing inflation rate came largely from gas prices, which were up over 50 per cent when compared to a year ago, Stats Can says in its report on Wednesday, July 20. Excluding the cost of gasoline, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the country was up by 6.5 per cent.