National News

Four people died and dozens of others were injured when the bus they were travelling on rolled over on an icy highway in the British Columbia Interior on Christmas Eve, provincial RCMP said Sunday.

The Mounties said they received multiple calls on Saturday shortly after 6 p.m. regarding the crash on the Highway 97C Okanagan Connector east of Merritt near the Loon Lake exit.

The force confirmed on Sunday afternoon that four people were found dead at the scene, but provided no details about the victims' ages or identities.

A highway in the British Columbia Interior has reopened after a passenger bus crash sent more than 50 people to hospital.

Few details have been released about the Saturday evening incident, but Interior Health tweeted that 53 people are being treated at three hospitals in Kelowna, Penticton and Merritt.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is asking Canadians to remind themselves how fortunate they are "to live in a country of peace."

Trudeau says in his annual Christmas address that it's the season when life slows down and "Christmas movies, including Die Hard, are on repeat."

But he says that 2022 was a challenging year and acknowledges that for some, the holidays won't be easy.

This holiday season marks a return to more normalcy for millions of Canadians who no longer have to navigate holiday travel and family gatherings under COVID-19 health restrictions. 

Thousands of Canadians woke up in the dark on Christmas Day as power outages caused by ferocious winter conditions persisted across Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.

A state of emergency continued in southern Ontario's Niagara Region as crews grappled with impassable roads and wildly blowing snow.

Phil Lambert said his community of Port Colborne, Ont., was a sea of abandoned cars Sunday. He and his daughter, Gracyn Burse, said they were heading into their second straight day without power, and they didn't anticipate it being restored until Monday.

Hundreds of Canadians are stranded in Cancún, Mexico and don't know how they'll get home after their Sunwing flights were cancelled last week.

Passengers said they've been shuffled from hotel to hotel after sleeping on floors at the airport and in lobbies, saying there's no end in sight to their ordeal.

There is a complex, counterintuitive relationship between rising global temperatures and the likelihood of increasingly intense snowstorms across Canada.

Winters are becoming on average milder and warmer than they used to be, but there has also been a noted rise across the country in extreme weather events, such as intense snowstorms, said John Clague, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C. 

Weather warnings remain in place across the country as major storms continue to dump snow and freezing rain on Quebec, Ontario and B.C., and batter the Atlantic provinces with heavy rain and powerful winds.

Hundreds of thousands of customers have been left without power in the final hours before Christmas, with hydro crews working around the clock to get the lights back on.

A Hydro-Quebec spokesman said about 1,000 workers were repairing power lines to restore electricity to approximately 355,256 customers as of early Saturday morning.

A major winter storm bearing down on Ontario and Quebec cancelled flights, closed schools and threatened widespread power outages Friday, with an Environment Canada meteorologist warning of a possible once-in-a-decade weather event. 

Environment Canada predicted strong winds, heavy snowfall and possible flash freezing, issuing winter storm warnings for most of Ontario and Quebec. 

"We may only see one of these storms every five or 10 years," said Environment Canada meteorologist Mitch Meredith. "I've only seen a couple of storms like this in the last 20 years." 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is heading to Jamaica after Christmas for a one-week vacation with his immediate family.

The Prime Minister's Office says Trudeau will remain in constant contact with Ottawa during the trip and continue to be briefed and updated on issues.

The PMO also says it checked with the federal ethics commissioner in advance of the travel to make sure it follows guidelines.

Trudeau had been found in violation of conflict-of-interest rules in 2017 after a 2016 vacation he took to the Aga Khan's private island in the Bahamas.

WestJet proactively cancelled flights at airports in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec Thursday night as storm systems bore down on the regions, deepening a cascade of disruptions that have sent travellers scrambling.

Diederik Pen, WestJet's chief operations officer, said the decision to stand down 243 more flights was extremely difficult but necessary, in order to fly safely with as little disruption as possible when the weather improves.