National News

A man has admitted in court that he killed four women in Winnipeg, but his lawyers are asking he be found not criminally responsible because of mental illness.

Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal said Monday the question of Jeremy Skibicki's mental capacity and intent will now be the focus of the trial.

Canada and Manitoba are partnering to launch an alert system that would inform the public when an Indigenous woman or girl goes missing, they announced Friday in Winnipeg, ahead of a national day to mark the crisis.

The long-awaited Red Dress Alert system is a bid to prevent deaths and increase safe reunions with loved ones. 

Statistics Canada concluded in a report last year that the homicide rate for Indigenous women and girls was six times higher than the rate for their non-Indigenous counterparts. 

The brains of older adults feel a sense of reward when listening to music, even if it's a song they don't particularly like, a researcher at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University says. 

Sarah Faber said her work on how healthy brains respond to music as they age creates a baseline for future research on people who have Alzheimer's or dementia to better understand those diseases.

Foreign meddling attempts didn’t change who won the last two federal elections in Canada but they may have changed the result in one riding in 2021, a public inquiry concluded Friday.

A preliminary report by commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said the extent of the impact of foreign interference in particular ridings is uncertain, though the number of races involved is small.

"The ultimate effects of foreign interference remain uncertain," she said in her interim report.

London Drugs says its phone lines are working again after being taken offline in response to a cybersecurity incident. 

A statement from the Richmond, B.C.-based pharmacy and retail chain says Canada Post offices inside London Drugs stores are also up and running again.

The company closed all of its stores across Western Canada until further notice after the incident was discovered on Sunday.

The federal government is planning to create a new agent of Parliament to oversee modern treaty implementation, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says will ensure Ottawa is held to account no matter who is in power.

He announced the plan to appoint a commissioner for modern treaty implementation Tuesday in Gatineau, Que., at a second annual meeting of self-governing Indigenous governments.

"This is a lasting commitment to be a better treaty partner," he said. 

The long-awaited Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is complete and the Canada Energy Regulator has given the go-ahead for the project to open.

The regulator said Tuesday it has approved the last remaining "leave to open" applications submitted by Trans Mountain Corp., the Crown corporation behind the project. Approval of these applications was required before the expanded pipeline could begin shipping oil. 

Also on Tuesday, Trans Mountain confirmed that Wednesday, May 1 will mark the commercial start date for the expansion. 

Officials at McGill University are awaiting word from Montreal police, following a request to help clear a pro-Palestinian encampment on the school grounds.

The call for assistance comes after efforts to persuade the protesters to end what the school has called an illegal action failed.

The demonstrators say they have no intention of dismantling their tents until McGill, as well as nearby Concordia University, divests from all companies that are "profiting from genocide."

London Drugs has temporarily closed all of its stores in Western Canada as it grapples with a "cybersecurity incident."

In a statement Monday, the retailer and pharmacy chain said it learned it was the victim of a cybersecurity incident on Sunday, when it first closed its stores "out of an abundance of caution."

McGill University says the camp set up by pro-Palestinian student activists on the institution's grounds in Montreal violates both school policies and the law.

More than two dozen tents had been pitched at the school's downtown campus as of Sunday afternoon, with a steady stream of visitors stopping by to drop off donations and supplies.

McGill said Monday morning that the number of people who have set up tents on campus has tripled since Saturday, and many of them, if not the majority, are not members of the school community.