The Canadian Press

Canada's premiers are starting their summer gathering at a Victoria-area First Nation where they'll meet with leaders of the National Indigenous Organizations, a collection of five national Indigenous groups. 

The Council of the Federation, representing premiers from Canada's 13 provinces and territories, are meeting in Victoria today and Tuesday.

The Songhees Nation says in a statement that Monday's gathering of premiers and Indigenous leaders at the Songhees Wellness Centre creates a precedent by holding such an event on its reserve lands.

Interac says its services are fully available again after debit transactions were halted by a widespread Rogers network outage impacting mobile and network services across much of Canada.

Interac issued a statement on its social media platforms apologizing for the inconvenience and saying it is adding a supplier to bolster service access in the future.

Rogers Communications says it has restored mobile and internet service for "the vast majority" of customers after the outage that got underway early Friday morning and lasted more than 15 hours.

The Manitoba government is getting set to fine people who set up encampments on the legislature grounds.

The Progressive Conservative cabinet has approved a list of banned activities that also includes setting a fire, damaging property and using a vehicle to block public access to the grounds.

People who break the rules can be evicted from the grounds and face fines of up to $5,000.

The list of banned activities follows a law passed by the legislature earlier this year that gave cabinet the authority to determine what can and cannot occur on the grounds.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is "shocking," and that Canada has "lost a close friend" with his death.

Abe was assassinated Friday on a street in western Japan by a gunman who opened fire on him from behind as he delivered a campaign speech — an attack that stunned the country that has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.

The Canadian government says it is business as usual with the U.K. despite the dramatic ousting of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson by his party.

Global Affairs Canada and the Department for International Trade signalled Thursday that the relationship with the U.K. will remain strong and that the toppling of Britain's prime minister will not affect Canada's negotiations on a crucial free-trade agreement.

The Canadian soldier charged with speaking against federal vaccine mandates while wearing his uniform and who recently led a march to Ottawa is now facing a court martial.

Warrant Officer James Topp's lawyer says the army reservist was recently notified that he will be allowed to have his case heard in a military court instead of by his chain of command.

Phillip Millar says the decision represents a second about-face after the military initially offered his client a court martial, only to rescind the offer and send his case to his unit commanders.

Canada is about to toss more than half of its doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine because it couldn't find any takers for it either in or outside of Canada.

A statement from Health Canada says 13.6 million doses of the vaccine expired in the spring and will be thrown out.

A year ago Canada said it would donate almost 18 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to lower-income countries.

As of June 22, almost nine million doses were delivered to 21 different nations.

Rick Bowness is returning to his roots.

The Winnipeg Jets announced the hiring of Bowness as their head coach on Sunday after several days of speculation.

The 67-year-old Bowness, who becomes the team's eighth head coach in franchise history and third since the club’s relocation to Winnipeg, began his coaching career with the Jets, culminating in 28 games running the bench to close the 1988–89 season.

The former right wing ended his NHL playing career with Winnipeg in the 1982 playoffs.

The chief of police in Saanich, British Columbia, says it is truly amazing that no members of the public were hurt during a gunfight at a bank in which two robbery suspects died.

Chief Const. Dean Duthie says two suspects who were believed to be wearing body armour died Tuesday in the gun battle with police outside a Bank of Montreal. 

Six members of the Greater Victoria emergency response team were hurt, three of them seriously enough to require surgery. 

Duthie says the emergency response team happened to be deployed nearby and was on the scene within minutes.

Cat and dog owners who cuddle their pets when infected with COVID-19 could end up making the animals sick with the virus, according to a Canadian study.

The study said that while it was already known that animals including cats, dogs, ferrets and hamsters seem to be susceptible to COVID-19, transmission may be happening more often than previously thought.

The research, published this month in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, involved 69 cats and 49 dogs, including pets and animals from shelters and neuter clinics.