The Canadian Press

Calgary residents are getting a happy diversion from their water woes, as its annual Stampede summer festival begins today with a downtown parade.

The parade comes a month to the day after a major water main broke in the city’s northwest, flooding streets and turning off the taps to 60 per cent of the drinking water for the city and surrounding communities.

Crews scrambled to repair the line and, in the process, found five more weak spots to fix.

A First Nation community in northern Manitoba says ground-penetrating radar has found 150 anomalies at the site of a former residential school, including 59 unmarked graves at a nearby cemetery.

The chief of Pimicikamak Cree Nation also says 37 anomalies have been found off-site, more than a kilometre away from St. Joseph's Residential School.

The anomalies — places where the ground has been disturbed — were found at depths of between one and two metres, Chief David Monias said Wednesday.

The federal government says it is naming Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan as defence chief, making her the first woman to hold the Canadian Armed Forces' top job.

Carignan is currently the military's chief of professional conduct and culture, a job created in the wake of the sexual misconduct crisis. 

Several high-ranking leaders were forced to step down from their posts after they were accused of sexual misconduct in 2021, prompting a damning external report that called for culture change.

A Manitoba man convicted of murder 50 years ago is getting another court date and a chance to clear his name.

Clarence Woodhouse was found guilty in 1974 of fatally beating and stabbing a restaurant worker in downtown Winnipeg.

Woodhouse was granted parole in 1983 and filed last year for a ministerial review of his conviction.

His lawyers have said a confession Woodhouse supposedly made was in fluent English, although he primarily spoke Saulteaux.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's summer campaign circuit will not include a stop at the Calgary Stampede.

The annual 10-day rodeo and festival is usually a must-do event for politicians and Trudeau hasn't missed a summer except for the COVID-19 years of 2020 and 2021.

But his office confirms there will be no pancake flipping, cowboy-hat tipping or crowd-hopping for the prime minister this year.

There was no immediate explanation provided for his absence.

The Stampede officially begins Friday with a parade and runs until July 14.

WestJet flight disruptions are expected to continue this week, after a deal was reached over the weekend to end a strike by its mechanics.

The airline said in a statement Monday morning that "full resumption of operations will take time and further cancellations will be required over the coming days."

Some 680 members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association had walked off the job on Friday evening despite a directive for binding arbitration from federal Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan. 

The leader of Vancouver's Roman Catholic archdiocese says the church was wrong to administer residential schools in British Columbia, and he hopes a newly released covenant with a First Nation can act as a road map for redress.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller said the covenant between the archdiocese, the diocese of Kamloops and the Tkemlups te Secwepemc First Nation, signed in March, can be "an instrument of further dialogue and accountability" in guiding reconciliation between Indigenous and Christian communities across Canada.

WestJet is cancelling flights ahead of a possible strike by its mechanics' union.

The Calgary-based airline says in a statement the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association has provided them with another notice of strike action.

WestJet says that as a result, it has preemptively cancelled 25 flights between Thursday and Friday, affecting about 3,300 customers.

Police will not be laying charges in a bus crash that killed 17 people in western Manitoba.

RCMP say they do not expect to be able to talk to the bus driver, who was severely injured in the crash.

And they say officers have found no explanation as to why he pulled into an intersection when it wasn't safe.

The bus, carrying seniors to a casino, collided with a semi-trailer while crossing the Trans-Canada Highway near the town of Carberry last June.

Manitoba Mounties and a Crown prosecutor are set to provide an update today on an investigation into a bus crash that killed 17 people.

RCMP say the prosecutor is to discuss a decision about charges relating to the crash last June near Carberry, west of Winnipeg.

The bus, carrying seniors to a casino, collided with a semi-trailer while crossing the Trans-Canada Highway.

Police have said the truck had the right of way.

Police handed over their findings in January to the Crown's office, including forensic reports and interviews with witnesses and survivors.