 as they make their way to the courthouse on the first day of trial, in Ottawa, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESSAdrian Wyld.jpg)
A look at news events in September 2023:
01 – Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett died at the age of 76. His song ''Margaritaville" was released in 1977 and spent 22 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.
04 - Steve Harwell, the longtime frontman of the Grammy-nominated pop rock band Smash Mouth, died of acute liver failure at the age of 56.
04 - Ontario's housing minister Steve Clark resigned from his role days after a damning report from the integrity commissioner found he violated ethics rules when the province opened up parts of the protected Greenbelt for development.
04 - Alberta Health Services declared an E. coli outbreak for six locations of a Calgary daycare and five additional sites.
05 - Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson called an election for Oct. 3. The vote was already scheduled for that date, but she officially launched the 28-day campaign.
05 - Tim Hortons started selling a new line of clothing with a retro feel. The fast-food chain launched an online store where buyers can get novelty crewnecks in bright pink and electric blue and even Timbits-inspired ensembles.
05 - The trial for "Freedom Convoy'' organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber got underway.
05 - The Williams Lake First Nation purchased a former British Columbia residential school site with the help of the provincial government.
06 - An evacuation order for Yellowknife was lifted three weeks after a nearby wildfire forced the city's 20,000 residents out of their homes
06 - The remains of two Innu children have been exhumed from a Quebec cemetery to help give closure to families who have long-standing questions about the identities of the bodies they buried in 1970.
06 - The central bank decided against another rate hike after raising it 10 times since March of last year.
08 - More than 2,500 federal Conservative members were in Quebec City for the latest party convention. Party leader Pierre Poilievre entered the convention fresh off the road from a summer spent touring.
08 - Hockey Canada's Beyond The Boards Summit opened in Calgary, tackling issues such as toxic masculinity in hockey and how it can breed sexism, racism and homophobia.
08 - The death toll from a powerful earthquake that hit Morocco rose to more than 2,000 people. The figure was expected to rise as rescuers struggled to get through boulder-strewn roads to remote areas hit hardest by the 6.8-magnitude quake.
09 - The G-20 summit kicked off in New Delhi, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arriving alongside other leaders from the world's richest and most powerful countries.
08 - Monique Begin, a former cabinet minister and academic died at the age of 87. Begin has been described by many as a "trailblazer for Canadian women,'' being the first of three women from Quebec to serve in the House of Commons.
12 - Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 at an Apple Event in Cupertino, Calif., alongside the higher-priced iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max flagships.
13 - Canadian Tire became the first funding partner of the Professional Women's Hockey League. They reached a multi-year agreement that includes sponsorship of the league's inaugural draft.
14 - Premier Tim Houston has named Twila Grosse minister of African Nova Scotian affairs and minister of the Public Service Commission. Grosse makes history as the first African Nova Scotian woman on the executive council in its 175-year history. The premier also announced that Karla MacFarlane will become the first female Speaker of the legislature after Speaker Keith Bain leaves next month.
15 - Metroland Media Group announced it is ending print editions for its community newspapers. The papers, owned by parent company NordStar Capital, will now be offered in a digital-only format, while its flyer business will end entirely.
16 - A powerful cyclone flooded roadways, toppled trees and downed power lines in parts of the Maritimes Saturday as it swept past the western tip of Nova Scotia and headed toward New Brunswick. But as post-tropical storm Lee left some coastal areas with a considerable cleanup, particularly in the region surrounding Nova Scotia's famed Peggy's Cove lighthouse, it left others virtually unscathed.
17 - Calgary started hosting the week-long 24th World Petroleum Congress, one of the largest oil-and-gas conferences in the world.
18 - MPs returned to the House of Commons following the summer break. Housing and grocery costs were considered likely to dominate the agenda of the fall sitting.
18 - The annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention kicked off in Vancouver. UBCM president Jen Ford said drug decriminalization, housing needs and wildfire responses were expected to be major talking points, with a record number of delegates expected to attend.
19 - Canada ordered an Indian diplomat to leave the country after Prime Minster Justin Trudeau revealed there is credible intelligence linking agents of India's government to the shooting death of a Sikh leader near Vancouver. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered in a parking lot of his gurdwara in Surrey, B-C, on June 18.
19 - Quebec's Anticosti Island, located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, has been recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site. According to UNESCO's website, Quebec's largest island is the most complete and best preserved paleontological record of the first mass extinction of animal life, between 447 million and 437 million years ago.
19 - A Humboldt Broncos bus crash survivor won "The Amazing Race Canada." Ty Smith and his girlfriend, Kat Kastner of Calgary, won a $250,000 prize, as well as a round-the-world trip and two Chevrolet trucks. The couple, who are both 25, said they were competing for all those affected by the 2018 tragedy that left 16 people dead and 13 others injured after a semi crashed into a bus carrying the junior hockey team in Saskatchewan.
20 - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the United Nations General Assembly, covering a number of topics in his speech.
21 - Ontario Premier Doug Ford is reversing his plan to open the protected Greenbelt lands for housing development after sustaining nearly a year of blowback over the decision. Last year, the province removed 74-hundred acres of land in more than a dozen sections to build 50-thousand homes, citing the housing crisis.
21 - Ottawa is giving Food Banks Canada almost $18 million for a pilot program to provide free menstrual products to those in marginalized low-income communities. The organization will be in charge of distributing the products to community organizations across the country.
22 - Montreal-born billionaire Michael Andlauer was introduced as the new owner of the Ottawa Senators. Andlauer and his group of investors had their bid for the Senators approved after a lengthy vetting process.
23 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with hundreds of supporters at a Canadian Armed Forces facility in Toronto on his first official visit to Canada since Russia's war on Ukraine began in February 2022. Zelenskyy arrived at the venue accompanied by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland. Zelenskyy later went to Ottawa to address the House of Commons, saying "justice is not an empty word for Canada.'' Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a new round of financial supports for Ukraine, with a $650-million commitment that aims to offer more predictable and stable support over the next three years.
24 - It was announced that singer Usher will headline the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime show in Las Vegas on Feb. 11.
24 - A tentative deal was reached to end Hollywood's writers strike after nearly five months. The Writers Guild of America reached the deal with an alliance of studios, streaming services and production companies. Hollywood's actors remain on strike with no deal yet in the works. The writers walked off the job May 2 over issues including the size of staffs on shows, long-term payment for their work and the use of artificial intelligence in scripts.
27 - Anthony Rota resigned as the House of Commons speaker after inviting a man who fought for the Nazis to attend Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address to Parliament last week. The House of Commons is expected to elect a new Speaker on Oct. 3.
28 - The premier of the Northwest Territories announced she won't be running for re-election. Caroline Cochrane made the announcement at a news conference, saying her time representing the NWT has been among the highest honours of her life.
28 - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Francois Legault were on hand for what's being billed as the largest private investment in the province's history. Swedish manufacturer Northvolt says it will build a $7-bilion factory for electric vehicle batteries at a 170-hectare site near Montreal. The facility is being developed with federal and provincial funding. It's expected to go into production in 2026, and will employ up to three-thousand workers.
30 - People donned orange clothing and gathered by the hundreds across Canada to acknowledge the systemic oppression of Indigenous people by marking the third annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.