The tens of thousands of Taylor Swift fans packed into Vancouver for the first of the singer’s final three shows of her Eras Tour may find themselves “In the Pouring Rain.”

Environment Canada has issued a rainfall warning for Metro Vancouver, the western Fraser Valley and Howe Sound, as a “robust and rain-ladden frontal system” moves down the B.C. coast.

“Rain, at times heavy, will begin late this afternoon for Howe Sound and the Sea to Sky, and this evening for the remainder of the regions,” the agency warned.

Environment Canada also said that localized flooding is possible in low-lying areas.

Fans headed downtown to watch the singer perform on Friday will want to dress for the weather. They will also want to be mindful of BC Place’s venue restrictions for the concert — including a ban on umbrellas.

Ticketholders are also advised not to bring bags to the stadium, though they are allowed to bring the following items with them:

• Clutch purse or belt bag no larger than 4.5” x 6.5”
• Clear plastic bag no larger than 12” x 12” x 6”
• Clear bags may have a printed logo no larger than 3.5” x 4.5” on only one side of the bag

Fans leaving the venue may also get a blast of “Midnight Rain,” with the downpour expected to continue overnight before the heaviest precipitation tapers off later Saturday morning.

Environment Canada is forecasting a total rainfall of between 50 and 70 millimetres.

 

© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

One year after its launch, a streamlined licensing program to attract international pharmacists to Nova Scotia has drawn more than 100 applications.

The Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists launched the program for pharmacists from the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand last December.

The change was made possible through the provincial Patient Access to Care Act, which waived the national licensing exam and internship period that is otherwise mandatory when internationally trained pharmacists come to practice in Canada.

Since then, 102 pharmacists have applied to be licensed in Nova Scotia — 32 have their licences and 70 applications are in progress.

Bev Zwicker, CEO and registrar of the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists, says the countries were selected because their education models, scope of practice and regulatory oversight is most like Canada’s.

She says the program reduces the wait-time for pharmacists from these countries to become licensed to a matter of “weeks versus years.”

© 2024 The Canadian Press

On the anniversary of the death of an Edmonton toddler, police are renewing their call for tips in the unsolved homicide investigation.

Friday marks four years since the two-year-old boy died.

At approximately 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2020, police said officers responded to a home near 2nd Avenue and 85th Street SW in the Ellerslie neighbourhood, after it was reported that the toddler was found in medical distress.

The boy was taken to the Stollery Children’s Hospital, where he died of his injuries.

An autopsy done the next day determined the boy’s death was a homicide but the cause was withheld for investigative reasons.

“The murder of a child is an unimaginable tragedy,” said homicide section Staff Sgt. Rob Bilawey. “Homicide detectives are working relentlessly to identify those responsible for this tragic murder, and we are asking anyone with information to come forward.”

Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to contact the EPS at 780-423-4567 or #377 from a mobile phone.

Anonymous information can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online.

© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Guelph, Ont., police acted lawfully when they seized a drug suspect’s phone and exchanged text messages with another dealer without first getting a warrant, the Supreme Court has ruled.

In a split decision released Friday morning, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Dwayne Alexander Campbell, who was arrested in June 2017 on suspicions of dealing fentanyl-laced heroin.

But Campbell was not the Guelph cops’ target that day. Instead, while arresting another alleged drug dealer, the police seized a cellphone that began receiving text messages that suggested another dealer was looking to sell their suspect heroin.

Without first getting a warrant, the cops began texting back and impersonating the man they already had in custody. When Campbell showed up at the first suspect’s house later that day, he was arrested while holding 14 grams of heroin laced with the deadly synthetic opioid.

Crown attorneys argued the police actions were justified, given fentanyl-imbued heroin hitting the street constituted an emergency or “exigent” situation. Taking the time to get a warrant in the context meant the drugs may have hit the street, they argued.

A majority of Supreme Court Justices agreed.

“The police reasonably believed that they faced an urgent situation involving a suspected drug sale calling for immediate police action to prevent the drugs from being trafficked in the community imminently. The police also had reasonable and probable grounds to believe the transaction specifically involved heroin laced with fentanyl, which posed a grave risk to public safety,” the majority decision read.

“Although the police had grounds to obtain a warrant, it was impracticable to obtain one … (as) it would likely arrive too late to complete the transaction.”

Three justices dissented with the court’s decision, arguing that police impersonating someone in a text message exchange is highly intrusive, calling it “hijacking an existing identity” that exploits “an existing relationship between two private actors, which has the potential to reveal to police deeply personal information.”

Police interception of text messages or other digital communications typically require prior judicial authorization, given the intrusive nature reading a target’s private messages.

Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy – including in their electronic communications – and are protected from unreasonable search and seizure at the hands of police.

In exceptional circumstances, law enforcement officials can take actions that normally require a warrant without first getting a judge to sign off. These are known as “exigent” circumstances – think asking telecom companies for cellphone data if it is believed a person is in imminent and serious danger.

Even though they agreed the Guelph police actions were justified, the majority opinion noted that law enforcement officials “cannot peruse the contents of a phone at liberty and without any limits.”

“However, their actions may be appropriate if they limit and circumscribe the scope of their conduct to the investigation before them,” the majority ruled.

“In the instant case, the police were at liberty to view and respond to the four text messages from (Campbell) that they passively received and observed on (their suspect’s) lawfully seized phone.”

In the dissenting opinion, Justices argued that police are able to seize cellphones and search text messages – so long as they get a warrant, first. Furthermore, the facts of this specific case “do not establish an imminent safety risk justifying warrantless police action, the justices argued.

“In contrast to a phone conversation, where the police’s ability to impersonate a person known to the caller is limited, within a text conversation, the potential for police to impersonate the recipient and deceive the sender is limited only by their opportunities to do so and the strictures of the law,” the dissenting opinion read.

“It would gravely impact one’s trust in general, and one’s trust in the state, if the last text message received from an acquaintance or family member was, instead, from the police in disguise.”

“Recognizing that in a free and democratic society the privacy claim in personal text message conversations between individuals known to one another must be beyond state intrusion … does not thwart the ability of police to investigate crimes and uncover evidence through searches. It simply requires the police to have lawful authority to do so.”

In a statement Friday afternoon, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) said they were encouraged the Supreme Court’s majority opinion affirmed individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy when it came to text messages, but were concerned that the court “widened the boundaries” of what police can call an emergency.

“Warrantless searches should only be conducted when there is a bona fide emergency marked by a significant degree of immediacy that overrides an individual’s privacy rights and the state’s obligation to apply for a warrant,” the organization said.

“The doctrine does not permit the police to create or maintain an urgent circumstance to skirt prior judicial authorization nor does it contemplate the police participating in maintaining urgency for investigative purposes.”

© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says the location of a planned supervised drug consumption site is not a foregone conclusion.

Kinew says the community will be consulted and, if the proposed location is not the right one, there’s a chance the province may go in a different direction.

The province has selected 200 Disraeli Freeway in Winnipeg’s core area for the facility that would allow people to inject drugs, with staff on hand to respond to overdoses and guide people toward treatment.

Some area residents say they have not been consulted, and critics have said the location is wrong because a high school is directly across a busy six-lane street from the site.

Kinew says it’s important that a supervised consumption site be built in order to save lives, and the required application is now before the federal government.

The premier says the government is willing to consider a change in location, if there is a strong outcry from the community.

© 2024 The Canadian Press

Some homeowners in the southeast Calgary community of Sundance got a rude awakening early Friday morning.

The Calgary Fire Department says emergency crews were called out to investigate reports of a possible gas leak around 5 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2024.

A spokesperson for ATCO, the natural gas supplier in the area, said there were reports of a gas odour around Sun Valley Drive.

Ten homes were evacuated as a precautionary measure while some other residents of the area say told Global News they were told to be ready to evacuate if needed.

One resident who spoke to Global News described the response by emergency crews as “extremely helpful” and she was “very impressed.”

Several roads in the area were also blocked off and transit buses were brought in to help keep residents warm.

No gas was detected in any of the homes, but a CFD spokesperson said gas was detected coming from an underground source that supplied up to 170 homes and the gas was surfacing through electrical boxes and fence posts in the area.

About five hours after the initial call, ATCO said the leak, described as ‘a minor issue’, had been fixed and residents were allowed to return to their evacuated homes.

The evacuations come just over two weeks after a gas leak in the nearby southeast community of Mahogany caused a spectacular explosion and fire in a townhouse that was under construction.

© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Emotional swings which would make a Hollywood writer smile have been a regular occurrence on home ice for the Saskatoon Blades.

That was the case Wednesday night, hosting the Red Deer Rebels with a late goal from Tyler Parr to force overtime, only to fall in a five-round shootout.

The Blades have recorded a point in 19 straight regular season games dating back to March 1 of the 2023-24 season, but that notion is providing little comfort to head coach Dan DaSilva.

“ outworked us in our own rink,” said DaSilva. “I mean, obviously we’re happy to salvage a point out of that, but it never should have got there. We were distracted, we weren’t focused on doing what we needed to do in order to win the game.

“We didn’t deserve to win that game. They outplayed us, they outworked us and that doesn’t sit well with us.”

Leading 3-1 in the early stages of the third period Wednesday, the Blades would allow three straight Red Deer goals to give the Rebels the lead with just over five minutes left on the clock.

Parr would score off a rebound with 1:19 remaining in the game to get it to overtime, however the damage had already been done.

“Losing a lead in the third like that is never something you want to do,” said Parr. “We pride ourselves on having the third period being our best and that wasn’t our best tonight. We got to regroup and get ready for Saturday.”

Despite the loss, some history was made earlier in the night with overage forward Brandon Lisowsky scoring the 250th point of his five-year WHL career just 16 seconds into the game.

Not only did Lisowsky hit the milestone with the tally, he moved past Hockey Hall of Famer and St. Louis Blues legend Bernie Federko into eighth in the franchise’s all-time goal list with the 134th of his career.

“He was a crazy player for the Blades and had an awesome NHL career,” said Lisowsky. “So it’s awesome to do that and 250 is obviously a good achievement. You thank your teammates from the past and current teammates. It’s kind of a team award as well, so I’m happy about that.”

Saskatoon still has yet to lose a game at home in regulation this season, seeing their record fall to 11-0-1-1 on the year after the shootout loss to Red Deer.

It’s a streak which has them four points clear of first place in the Eastern Conference with 37 points, a feat Parr credits to the atmosphere generated by fans walking through the doors of SaskTel Centre.

“We’ve come here and the fans are amazing,” said Parr. “We get up for the game every night. They make it really easy on us to get excited and have energy for the games. It’s showed in our record at home so far.”

The Blades will have a chance at extending that point streak on home ice to 20 consecutive regular season games on Saturday, as Saskatoon hosts the Calgary Hitmen at 7:00 p.m.

© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The Manitoba government is planning to have conservation officers help patrol efforts along the Canada-United States border.

Premier Wab Kinew says the officers would serve as extra eyes and ears for police and other security agencies and could help in humanitarian efforts to rescue people.

He pointed to the case of a family from India who froze to death in Manitoba in 2022 while trying to walk across the border in a blizzard.

Kinew says strengthening border security would address concerns expressed by the U.S. and help protect Manitoba’s economy.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods unless border security is improved.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has hinted at setting up an Alberta border patrol that would operate like a specialized fugitive apprehension team of sheriffs.

© 2024 The Canadian Press

The U.S. issued a federal order on Friday mandating that the national milk supply be tested for bird flu, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters, as authorities seek to grapple with the rapid spread of the virus among dairy herds.

Bird flu has infected more than 500 dairy herds in top milk state California, and more than 700 nationwide since March, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, raising concerns of the impact to farmers and the milk supply as well as the risk to human health from ongoing spread.

Nearly 60 people have contracted the virus since April, most of them workers on infected poultry and dairy farms, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The symptoms have been mild and CDC officials have said the risk to the general public from bird flu is low.

The USDA first announced it would begin national milk testing in October after a push from industry and veterinary groups for stronger surveillance of the virus, but had not detailed the extent of the program or how it would be implemented.

The testing plan, which will involve monthly or weekly sample collection from bulk milk tanks and dairy processors, will be rolled out first in California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Oregon, Vilsack said.

The latter three states have not reported bird flu infections in dairy cattle.

“It gives us the opportunity to get potentially a heads up about potentially new virus in areas of a state that currently has the virus, or new states,” Vilsack said of the testing.

The agency will begin the testing on Dec. 16, Vilsack said.

The pace of testing will depend on whether virus is detected in initial sampling, said Rosemary Sifford, USDA’s chief veterinarian.

The order requires farms and processors to make raw milk available for sampling, and farm owners whose animals test positive for the virus to tell the agency about animal movements and other information.

The USDA currently only requires testing of lactating dairy cattle moving across state lines, a requirement laid out in its only other federal bird flu order issued in April.

Both federal orders will remain in effect indefinitely, Vilsack said, adding that the testing plan was developed with industry groups, state officials and veterinarians.

California this week issued a recall of milk and cream products made by raw milk company Raw Farm after bird flu was detected in its retail products and bulk milk.

The Food and Drug Administration advises against consuming raw milk because it can contain pathogens, including bird flu, but says pasteurized dairy products are safe because the pasteurization process kills those pathogens.

The state has about 1,100 dairies, according to the California Milk Advisory Board, meaning nearly half have been infected with bird flu.

© 2024 Reuters

Nicole Klopfenstein wonders what tales her family cat Felix would tell if he could speak.

She wagers the best would be about how the four-year-old black and white tabby survived in the wilderness for more than 100 days after a ferocious wildfire forced the evacuation of the Rocky Mountain town of Jasper, Alta., this summer.

“What did he eat? He must’ve eaten mice,” says Klopfenstein, a 41-year-old animal health technician born in Jasper.

“Maybe he went to a house and he got some food there. What did he do every day?”

Klopfenstein says Felix jumped out of a friend’s arms and ran away in Valemount, B.C., as a wildfire scorched one-third of Jasper’s homes and businesses about 100 kilometres east.

A few nights earlier, she says she was babysitting Felix, who belongs to her sister, when Jasper ordered some 5,000 residents to leave as a wall of flames approached.

Klopfenstein says she grabbed Felix, and her own dog and cat, and started driving toward her dad’s cabin in Valemount. Her parents, who moved to Jasper from Switzerland in the 1970s, followed behind.

She says ash floated in the air and cars beelined to one exit in the town, moving slowly bumper to bumper.

“I just remember the sky was really red. I got the back seat full of all these animals, like the cat, the dog, the other cat meowing like, ‘What’s going on?'”

Klopfenstein says after Felix ran away from the cabin, she spent four weeks putting up posters around town for the missing feline, posting on social media, setting up cat traps full of sardines and tuna, and waiting for word that Jasper residents could return.

She says intense heartache kept her up at night at the cabin. She kept thinking about the wildfire ravaging her community and how scared and alone Felix must be feeling.

She returned to Jasper a month later with her sister, who had left her vacation and reunited with her family to help with the search.

Klopfenstein says she returned to Jasper with a feeling of guilt because her home was standing but several belonging to her loved ones were ash.

A week later, she says she got a call from a woman who thought she saw Felix. Klopfenstein drove to Valemount again with her sister and caught a cat in her trap that wasn’t him.

She drove back to Jasper disappointed.

Then Klopfenstein’s phone rang again.

A woman sighted Felix on her home’s security camera.

“So we went out again, set the trap, called him, but nothing,” she says.

She returned home devastated, with brutal thoughts swirling of Felix in a ditch, getting hit by a car or roaming around hungry.

On Nov. 7, the same woman who had seen Felix on her security camera texted a photo of Felix hiding in a marsh 15 kilometres away from the family cabin.

“I look (at the photo), and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, looks like him.'”

Klopfenstein says Felix would have had to cross train tracks and a busy highway to reach the marsh.

She and her sister raced to the area from Jasper one last time and caught Felix in a trap.

On the drive back home, Felix was quiet.

“He was relaxed and sort of grooming himself. He was quite feral when eating, which was a little bit disturbing.”

Klopfenstein says Felix has regained weight since his return from the wilderness. She’s grateful he survived while many other pets died in the flames because they couldn’t evacuate with their owners.

Jasper residents she bumps into ask about Felix constantly, and tell her he’s a reminder there’s hope despite the devastation.

“When you’re having a bad day, it’s like. ‘Oh, he survived 100 days. I can do it too.'”

© 2024 The Canadian Press