Smoke rising over the grasslands west of Osoyoos this week is part of a carefully planned burn aimed at doing more than reducing wildfire risk.

The multi-day burn in the Nighthawk Road area is also helping revive Indigenous cultural fire practices that were suppressed for generations.

The Lower Similkameen Indian Band is working with partners, including the B.C. Wildfire Service, on the approximately 160-hectare burn.

Julia Peterson, a councillor with the Lower Similkameen Indian Band, says the project is about bringing traditional knowledge back together with modern wildfire management.

“It was abolished, you know, by previous law, and so we’re really trying to bring those practices back, and combine these together with Western science,” Peterson said.

For Peterson, the work is also deeply connected to ceremony and the relationship between the land and the community.

“Ceremony connects us to land, it connects us to the animals, to the water,” she said. “This is bringing this ceremonial practice back into our community.”

The controlled fire is also intended to improve the health of the grasslands by clearing overgrowth, encouraging native grasses and improving habitat for wildlife.

Daryl Gibb, who owns the Nighthawk RV Park near the burn area, has seen how quickly wildfire can threaten the region.

“At the bottom of the hill there was a lot of sagebrush that choked out the grass,” Gibb said. “Getting rid of that sagebrush will definitely bring the grass back again.”

Gibb also hopes the work will help reduce the risk to nearby communities and properties.

“About six or eight years ago, there was a big fire burning in the Cascades just across the river from us,” he said. “And then there’s been little local ones close.”

The project is also an example of First Nations and government agencies working together on wildfire preparedness.

Justin Smith, with Lower Similkameen Indian Band Emergency Management, says wildfire does not respect the boundaries between jurisdictions.

“Everybody’s in the same boat,” Smith said. “The fire doesn’t recognize the boundary. The fire doesn’t even recognize the border. It just goes where it wants to go.”

That makes cooperation particularly important as communities across the region work to reduce wildfire fuels and prepare for increasingly severe fire seasons.

Peterson says the Nighthawk Road burn is only part of a larger need for treatment across the region.

“We still have many other areas that need this kind of treatment to bring safety to the communities, both on and off reserve,” she said.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Two consultants hired by Hydro-Québec say they expect the demand from data centres to more than double between 2024 and 2030 — mostly because of the growing AI industry.

The analysts from energy and climate consulting firm Dunsky delivered the message at a public hearing reviewing Hydro-Québec’s proposal to hike rates charged to data centres.

Quebec’s energy regulator, the Régie de l’énergie, is reviewing the potential rate hike.

Hydro-Québec gave Dunsky a mandate to compare the utility’s proposal with how other North American jurisdictions have reacted to the surge in energy demand from data centres.

Alexis Renaud-Bezot, one of the analysts, said energy consumption from data centres in North America could increase by 133 per cent between 2024 and 2030.

“We are facing growth in our energy demands that is much more significant than what we saw over the past two decades. A large part of that growth is tied to data centres,” he said.

He added that data centres used to train AI models vary in size from 20 megawatts to many thousand megawatts.

The proposed Hydro-Québec changes would increase rates for data centres of five megawatts or larger to an average of 13 cents per kilowatt hour. Data centres currently pay an average of 6.82 cents per kilowatt hour, according to Hydro-Québec’s calculations.

With the average cost of energy production at around 12 cents per kilowatt hour and increasing, Hydro-Québec said early in the hearing it wants to ensure it does not keep selling energy to data centres at a discount that will leave other customers footing the bill.

Hydro-Québec has said data centres that would be subject to the new rate currently consume 190 MW at peak consumption and could reach 1,000 MW by 2035.

According to the firm’s analysis, even with the increased rate, Hydro-Québec’s energy would remain cheaper for data centres than in most neighbouring jurisdictions — but not all.

Data centres would find cheaper energy alternatives in Ontario and New Brunswick, as well as in some parts of the United States.

Renaud-Bezot said dozens of new energy rates have been created in North America to target data centres.

“What goal is behind the creation of these rates?” he asked. “The primary goal is to minimize or avoid impacting the rates for other consumers.”

He also highlighted growing social concerns around the effects of data centres on energy costs, local resources and the environment.

“That social opposition, we haven’t seen it as much for now in Quebec, but it’s coming,” said Renaud-Bezot.

Lawyers representing industry actors who oppose the proposal questioned the consultants on the relevance of their comparisons between the energy market in Quebec and elsewhere in North America, noting how Hydro-Québec has a monopoly as a supplier of electricity.

“Evidently, in Quebec, we don’t have a choice” when it comes to energy providers, said Marie-Pierre Boudreau, who represents a data centre coalition.

Hydro-Québec is also proposing an increase to energy rates for cryptocurrency mining and trading projects to an average of 19.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

The first part of the hearing is set to finish on Friday. Representatives from Google and a coalition of environmental groups are among those scheduled to present their own perspective on the proposed rate increase in December.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

OTTAWA – Carter Yakemchuk’s first goal of the season was the game-winner in the Ottawa Senators’ 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.

Yakemchuk broke the tie with a power-play goal with seven minutes remaining in regulation.

The Flyers (0-3-2) are still looking for their first win of the season.

Philadelphia’s Matvei Michkov was the lone Flyer to beat Linus Ullmark, who made 29 saves. Joseph Woll stopped 24 shots for Philadelphia.

Thursday’s game marked the start of a busy stretch for the Flyers with three games in four nights.

The Senators (3-1-0) had four power-play opportunities in the first period and only managed five shots on goal with the man advantage. Ottawa’s Nick Cousins opened the scoring at even strength when he tipped a Tyler Kleven shot past Woll midway through the period.

William Eklund left the game in the first period after he was hit against the boards by Simon Benoit. Eklund required help off the ice as he favoured his left leg and did not return.

Philadelphia tied the game with a power-play goal in the second period. Ullmark thought he had stopped a Trevor Zegras shot but it squeezed through his pads and Michkov slid it across the goal line.

Michael Bunting made his Flyers debut after signing with the team Tuesday and Ottawa defenceman Hoyt Stanley made his NHL debut.

Takeaways

Senators: The Senators continue to struggle with the man advantage, making Jake Sanderson’s absence even more apparent.

Flyers: After allowing at least 36 shots in their previous four games, the Flyers held Ottawa to just 26 shots.

Key Stat

Ottawa finished the game 1-for-5 on the power play and are now 2-for-18 on the season.

Key Moment

Kleven blocked two shots in the final minute to help salvage the win.

Up next

Senators: Ottawa will host the Nashville Predators on Saturday.

Flyers: The Flyers will travel to Boston to take on the Bruins on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2026.

Note to readers:This is a corrected story. A previous version said Yakemchuk made his NHL debut in the playoffs last spring.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are getting their first-string QB back this week.

Quarterback Zach Collaros is still on track to return from his head injury. After being limited on Wednesday in his first practice in close to a month, Collaros was a full participant on Thursday as they prepare for a pivotal game against the Calgary Stampeders on Saturday.

He’s listed as questionable to play on the club’s injury report, but Collaros told reporters he intends to play in their biggest game of the season, even though he said that’s not a factor in him coming back now.

“It had more to do with just feeling right and being back out there,” he said. “The return to play – that entire process, doing that and again, just feel good.

“I would not be going out there if there was any reservations.

“I would be at peace either way.”

Collaros missed their last two games and it’s essentially a must-win game for the Bombers, trailing the Stamps by two points for the final playoff spot with only three games left.

“His health would be the only factor,” said Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea.

Collaros has a well-documented long history of injuries, including numerous concussions. He’s missed six games this season with injuries and over the years many have voiced their concerns over his long-term health, but he said the decision to keep playing is one he’s given careful consideration to.

“A decision like playing football, it’s a violent game,” said Collaros. “I think if you have no injury history – you don’t make that decision lightly to begin with. But certainly, when you’ve been through things that could affect your health, you don’t make the decision lightly. So, I appreciate people’s concern and care, and especially our fans.

“When you’ve dealt with some of the things that I’ve had to deal with you don’t make the decision lightly. I feel very comfortable with the decision that I’ve made to play this week, that we have as an organization. And I wouldn’t be out there if I didn’t feel comfortable.”

And the 38-year-old is not ready for retirement and apparently has lots of football left him as he was asked if he wants to play again next year.

“Yeah, I do,” said Collaros. “I like football.”

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The planned leave of child killer Shane Ertmoed from a Vancouver Island prison has now caught the attention of some politicians.

In late September, Ertmoed, who is serving a life sentence, was granted a 60-day unescorted temporary absence from prison to take cooking classes.

That was then delayed, but the mother of his victim has now met with Frank Caputo, the Conservative MP for Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola, looking to make changes to the rules governing temporary absences.

Ertmoed, then 24, was convicted in 2002 of the sexual assault and killing of 10-year-old Heather Thomas.

Thomas disappeared on Oct. 1, 2000, while riding a bike outside her father’s townhouse complex in Cloverdale.

Her body was found three weeks later in Alouette Lake.

Thomas’ mother, Jody Aspin, said all she has wanted to do, since losing her daughter, is protect other children.

“Heather wasn’t protected,” she told Global News, “but I want to make sure other children are.”

Ertmoed was denied day parole last year because he still posed a risk of serious harm to others.

“There needs to be a situation where the onus is reversed and he has to justify his release into society and there has to be no risk of reoffending,” the family’s lawyer, Rebecca Darnell, said.

Caputo has already raised the case in the House of Commons, questioning the government about how an offender like Ertmoed could be approved for an unescorted absence.

The government says the Parole Board is independent, but Caputo says its answers have not been satisfactory.

“Well, it’s true in that they make decisions on their own that they are independent, but what that leaves out is that the Parole Board is interpreting the laws that parliament puts before the Parole Board,” he said.

“So, if we want changes to how the Parole Board makes its decisions, we need to change the rules and we do that through legislation in parliament.”

Aspin said she is ready to fight as long as necessary.

“I am going to do whatever I can until the day I die and even then, I know my son will take over at some point,” she said.

“She has so many friends, so many family. There isn’t one person that won’t step in, even after I’m gone. I won’t stop.”

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada says the city is planning to provide 3,000 beds in emergency shelters to address homelessness this winter.

The mayor says homelessness is the biggest humanitarian crisis the city is facing.

The new beds are needed, the mayor says, noting that many people using the emergency shelters have had to sleep in chairs over the last few years.

She adds that she believes the city will get the funding it needs after premier-elect Paul St-Pierre Plamondon promised to make homelessness a top priority.

The announcement comes after a woman died in an encampment in the Montréal-Nord borough early Wednesday following a fire.

Representatives of community organizations say they welcome the additional resources.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2026.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Canadians turning to chatbots for election information don’t always get accurate responses, a parliamentary committee heard Thursday.

An estimated 40 per cent of Quebec voters asked AI chatbots for election information, said Aengus Bridgman, a McGill political scientist who led a study tracking chatbot activity during the recent Quebec election.

But because most Quebec news outlets don’t allow chatbots to access their content, he said, those voters couldn’t obtain the most accurate and up-to-date information.

“Almost all Quebec newsrooms have blocked AI chatbots from collecting their content. Which means that AI chatbots are going elsewhere for information,” he said.

News outlets in both Canada and the United States have opposed the use of their content by AI platforms without compensation and permission.

Taylor Owen, associate professor in the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill, said researchers found that in the last three weeks of the election campaign, 39 per cent of voting advice provided by ChatGPT came from an error-filled hobby website built by AI.

“There was nothing nefarious by this person’s actions nor necessarily by the design of the chatbots themselves, nor by the publishers who de-indexed themselves,” he said.

“It was just this confluence of events that led to, likely, a large number of people getting false information about the election.”

“That’s actually a little bit terrifying … If that can happen by accident, imagine what could happen potentially on purpose,” Conservative MP Blaine Calkins responded.

Owen said that’s the question that needs to be asked “quite urgently.”

Thursday’s meeting was the first for a new study on AI and Canada’s democratic institutions launched by the House of Commons procedure and House affairs committee.

Bridgeman told the meeting chatbots are writing their own rules on what they can do during an election. He noted those rules can change — for instance, during the Quebec campaign, ChatGPT would flip-flop its responses when asked to recommend a political party.

“It went from one day to the next, recommending a political party to not recommending a political party,” he said.

Liberal MP Braeden Caley, who was elected in August, said his campaign ran into an issue during his byelection where a chatbot was directing potential volunteers to a Conservative campaign office.

He said the company behind the unnamed chatbot was “actually very helpful in solving this once it was reported.”

Bridgeman said one way to address the issue of chatbots giving false information would be to require higher standards for election-related questions, like the standards companies must meet for queries involving safety issues.

“There’s a degree of effort that chatbot will assign to each query, and that effort is, in the interest of the company, attempted to be minimized. So they are going to seek the least information possible to still provide what is a satisfactory, in their view, answer to the question,” he said.

“A very concrete thing to do is to say, look, for democratic questions, in the same way that for certain safety and other issues, there is a different path that model will go through.”

Taylor said elections law should address how chatbots provide election information.

“We accept very strict limits on speech, during this limited time period of democratic decision-making and deliberation, and I think chatbots are going to have to be included in that,” he said.

“What kind of speech from AI systems are we going to allow during our elections? That is a thing that can be legislated.”

In June, the federal government passed an elections bill that made it illegal to knowingly spread false or misleading information about election activities or the voting process with the intent to disrupt an election or affect the outcome. It also banned digital deepfakes of candidates.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2026.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice News on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of an execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the United States, especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

Experts offer mixed reactions on the plan

Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition in civilian court, which is a legal request for a court to review the legality of someone’s detention, and could significantly delay the execution, experts on military law said.

“It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” said Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law.

Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham University, said livestreaming an execution could make the process “much more transparent” and inform the public about all that capital punishment entails. Those are benefits that she said would be useful at a time when Pike’s botched execution has raised fresh questions about the manner by which criminal defendants are put to death for their crimes.

“I think it could possibly be a good idea because it would be transparent and the public would be fully aware that it’s happening,” she said.

Denno acknowledged that there may need to be public policy discussions about the platform hosting the livestream and what age or other viewing restrictions might be necessary. But she said that on balance, “It’s not such a far-fetched idea.”

On the other hand, Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, said Hegseth’s announcement raises a host of legal and public policy questions, including concerns for the dignity of the defendant, who will be eligible to view the execution and what the Trump administration has in mind in opting for an unusual spectacle.

Though there has been long-running discussion about the idea of televising an execution, “I don’t recall a situation in which it was instituted by the government. I think that also raises serious questions about what is the motivation of the government,” she said.

“This is a president who’s about spectacle and that’s, I think, precisely the message that he intends to deliver,” Semel said, adding that she was skeptical that the administration had given second thought to the legal and social questions being presented by the decision.

Trump has spoken out against public executions in Iran

Trump, who approved Hasan’s execution, has previously been critical of public executions in Iran, at times using the possibility of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a possible rationale for military action. Those warnings preceded his ultimate choice to attack Iran at the end of February.

“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 14. “It’s stopping, and there’s no plan for executions.”

He repeated that on Jan. 20 at a White House press briefing. Slightly more than a month later in his State of the Union address, Trump said, “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.”

The White House on Thursday referred questions about the plans for the livestreamed execution to the Pentagon.

Hegseth was asked Wednesday if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration. The Pentagon chief simply replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on Dec. 3.”

It’s not clear if Hasan will try to appeal

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. He also shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his 2013 trial. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back by law enforcement, and he now uses a wheelchair.

Hasan could seek a lengthy delay of his execution, though given his behavior at trial, he may not want to.

After firing his lawyers and representing himself, Hasan began his portion of the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. He said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.

As the trial progressed, those suspicions grew. The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “ still be a martyr ” if executed.

Attorney John Galligan, a former military judge who had represented Hasan in several civil matters following his criminal trial, spoke with Hasan Wednesday but is barred from offering much detail about that conversation. He is not representing Hasan in his criminal case but said he’s worried about his physical health under the plan laid out by officials, and that Hasan has not yet had access to legal counsel.

Galligan said that according to Hasan, the commandant of the facility brought a chaplain but no attorney from either the Trial Defense Service or from his civilian defense when he was notified that Trump had signed off on his execution. Galligan called that a breach of Army regulations.

A spokeswoman for the Army said Thursday that multiple attempts were made to contact Trial Defense Service attorneys, saying they made every reasonable effort and adhered to policy.

“The civilian counsel was not reasonably available to be physically present for the notification on the 5th,” the spokeswoman said, adding that counsel was located in Virginia, but did not provide a name.

The spokeswoman also said Hasan has not been kept from contacting and communicating with his counsel.

Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.

Amnesty International said in its report on executions in 2025 that it knew of at least 17 public executions — 11 in Iran and 6 in Afghanistan.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

The trial for the man accused of killing a woman in her Surrey home two years ago continued on Thursday.

Adam Mann, 42, is on trial for second-degree murder in the June 16, 2024 death of Tori Dunn.

Dunn was critically injured during an apparent random attack in her Port Kells home and died in hospital.

On Monday, Mann pleaded not guilty.

Const. Ryan Gerlinski took the stand on Thursday. He has been a member of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team for 4.5 years and was assigned as the initial crime scene manager in Dunn’s homicide.

He said he was called at 11:40 p.m. to Dunn’s home and was told a suspect was in custody in Surrey, clothing had been seized and that the suspect “appeared to have been high on drugs.”

Gerlinski said he took custody of three exhibits from a Surrey police officer at 3:20 a.m. – a pair of rubber gloves, a sweater and a toque.

He said he met with another member of the homicide team who seized DNA swabs from Dunn’s boyfriend, who was also at the scene at the time of the attack.

He added that the next day, June 17, a bloody knife was found on a neighbouring property. He seized the chef’s knife, which had a long metal blade, blood on the blade and a broken tip

Gerlinski said they got consent to search the Dunn residence at 4:40 p.m. that day and found a large pool of blood in the living room. They also took four DNA swabs inside the home.

Dunn’s family and supporters packed the courtroom on Monday for the first day of Mann’s trial, filling half the room, but her father declined to speak outside afterwards.

The Crown will be calling several witnesses, including police officers and a forensic pathologist in the jury trial, which is expected to last three weeks.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

A researcher from Simon Fraser University claims climate-driven wildfires in Canada could cost future generations trillions of dollars.

“A motivation of this study was to put it into economic terms that the general public could grasp a little bit better,” researcher Sian Kou-Giesbrecht said.

The study estimates that the worldwide price tag from wildfires could top $43 billion annually and $2.1 trillion cumulatively by the end of the century if global temperatures continue to warm between three and four degrees Celsius.

“These are costs that are born globally – these are not costs that are born on Canadians,” Kou-Giesbrecht said.

However, that doesn’t mean that Canadians will be spared the financial fallout.

Suppression costs, net timber yield loss and nature-based recreation loss would amount to $866 million annually and $46 billion cumulatively by the year 2,100, researchers estimate.

“And I would say that is a pretty constrained estimate because we didn’t factor in health costs, which is absolutely gigantic, especially over longer time scales,” Kou-Giesbrecht said.

The modelling also did not account for singular extreme events like Canada’s record-breaking 2023 wildfire season, which forced more than 200 communities to evacuate and exposed millions to hazardous pollutants.

It did show, however, that progress on green energy developments is helping to keep the most extreme warming scenarios at bay.

“And ideally, we would see a lot more of the climate action here in Canada,” Kou-Giesbrecht said.

“We just need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, hold global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius or ideally a lot lower and that’s really our only pathway.”

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.