National News

Health officials say a hiker reported missing in the wilds of northern British Columbia more than five weeks ago is on the path to recovery after being found alive amid frigid conditions.

Northern Rockies RCMP said that Sam Benastick was spotted on Tuesday when he flagged down two workers on a trail to Redfern Lake, which is about 250 kilometres southwest of Fort Nelson.

The workers recognized 20-year-old Benastick and took him to hospital, where police confirmed he was the missing hiker.

He had spent 50 days in the freezing wilderness. 

The Center for Addiction and Mental Health says responders have fielded more than 300,000 calls and texts since the launch of the national 988 suicide helpline a year ago. 

Dr. Allison Crawford, the chief medical officer for the helpline, says people having suicidal thoughts or other mental health distress can get help 24 hours a day, seven days a week no matter where they live in Canada. 

She expects the volume of calls and texts will go up as more people become aware of the service.  

The federal government says it is not planning to intervene to resolve the labour dispute at Canada Post, even with less than a month to go before Christmas.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said sending the matter to binding arbitration "is not in the cards," even though he invoked that authority only a few weeks ago to resolve the ports dispute and a few months ago to resolve the rail dispute.

Business and political leaders in Canada say there will be pain if Donald Trump follows through on his pledge to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods, but they note the hurt will happen in his country as well.

The president-elect posted to Truth Social on Monday he will sign an executive order imposing a 25 per cent tariff on all products coming in to the United States from Canada and Mexico.

He said the tariff will remain in place until both countries stop drugs, in particular fentanyl, and people from illegally crossing the borders.

Canada Post says it has seen a shortage of more than eight million parcels amid the ongoing strike that has effectively shut down the postal system for nine days compared with the same period of 2023.

The federal government is providing $45 million in compensation to Inuit in Nunavik as part of Canada's apology for its role in the killing of sled dogs between the mid-1950s and the late 1960s.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree is travelling to Kangiqsujuaq is scheduled to apologize for Canada's role in the killings Saturday afternoon in Northern Quebec.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has confirmed the country's first case of a more severe type of mpox in a person in Manitoba, though it says the risk to the general population remains low.

The agency says the travel-related case is associated with an ongoing outbreak of what's known as clade 1 mpox in central and eastern Africa.

Pat King, one of the most prominent figures of the 2022 "Freedom Convoy" in Ottawa, has been found guilty on five counts including mischief and disobeying a court order.

A jury deliberated for about an hour Friday before convicting two men on human smuggling charges in a case where a family from India froze to death in Manitoba while trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border.

Steve Shand of Florida and Harshkumar Patel, an Indian national arrested in Chicago, were each found guilty on all four counts they faced related to bringing unauthorized people into the U.S., transporting them and profiting from it.

A prosecutor urged a jury Thursday to find two accused human smugglers guilty, saying the men cared more about money than people's safety and their actions led to the deaths of a family of four in a prairie blizzard.

"They knew they were risking people's lives," Michael McBride said in his closing arguments after three days of testimony in U.S. district court.

"To them, all of those people were nothing but dollar signs."