As Toronto’s major sports teams appeal to season ticket holders to renew for next season, fans are expressing frustration that the Ford government’s hastily passed ticket resale legislation has unfairly punished them.

Earlier this year, in an attempt to crack down on predatory ticket resellers before the FIFA World Cup, the Ford government promised new financial enforcement measures on both businesses and individuals who resell tickets for more than their retail purchase price.

The law currently appears to be enforced on an honour system, with resellers needing to acknowledge that they are not selling their ticket for more than retail on most large resale sites before posting a listing.

The government’s enforcement approach has created confusion for season ticket holders in Ontario, who pay one bulk rate at the beginning of the season.

Currently, some season tickets do not have a per-game face value attached to them for individual games, effectively making it difficult to offload tickets they don’t want, or to re-sell higher-value games to subsidize the cost of the packages.

When that issue was put to the provincial government, they said in a statement to Global News that they expect all resellers to comply with the new rules, and “will not hesitate to hold bad actors accountable.”

Season ticket holder confusion

Years before scoring season tickets to the Toronto Blue Jays, Sam Dumcum remembers being a classic “Jays kid” who cheered on his team from Manitoba.

“Jays bedspread, Jays posters, Blue Jays everything,” he said of his childhood bedroom.

After religiously watching home openers in the 500-level of the Rogers Centre, Dumcum and his wife began buying season tickets. To make the finances work, however, the pair attends between 50 to 60 of the 81 home games and sells the rest.

In the era of the Ford government’s ticket resale law, however, fans say they are caught between provincial legislation and the teams which haven’t been clear about how to proceed.

“There’s really a lot of confusion among season ticket holders on what actually even is face value, because we pay below face value for tickets,” Dumcum told Global News.

“The Blue Jays haven’t said anything straightforward, Ticketmaster, the government, it’s all been a little muddled on what exactly the rules are.”

Tan Husnani, a 12-year Toronto Raptors season ticket holder who also runs Tickets4Fans, said fans can’t afford to attend every single game they’ve purchased and will now face unfair restrictions.

“Every season ticket holder has to pay a year in advance before the season starts, and you’re locking yourself in at this better rate, but then you don’t even have the opportunity to recoup your money back,” Husnani said.

Adding to the frustration, fans say, is the dynamic pricing teams can still apply to games based on demand.

Husnani said teams are increasing or lowering prices for the most popular games, something fans are no longer allowed to do with their own season tickets.

“It’s not fair that I have to sell it at a discounted rate,” Husnani said. “If we were to follow the laws, we would be out of money.”

In order to ride the resale wave, Dumcum keeps a vigilant watch on how teams are pricing tickets.

“What I do is go to Bluejays.com and look at what face value is, and ensure that I’m posting it for less than that price, but that could also be more than I paid for it,” Dumcum added.

Resale sites not being fined

Confusion about the new rules appears to extend beyond individual season ticket holders.

Multiple ticket-brokering sites including Stubhub and Seatgeek have admitted to not being in compliance with the new law, in part, they say, because they are still making sense of it. No fines have been issued from the province.

Dumcum said, despite the new legislation, he’s noticed some tickets have been listed five times above face value on re-sale sites. Meanwhile, he said, teams don’t appear to have answers either.

“I’ve asked my season ticket holder rep at least four times, ‘Before I get my tickets for next year, what’s the legislation going to be?’ They don’t have a straight answer,” he added.

“Rogers is saying, ‘Hey, give us your money for next year,’ and we’re like, ‘You’re not even telling us what next year is going to look like, so it’s a double risk right now.”

Global News asked the Toronto Blue Jays whether it has received clarity from the provincial government on how to navigate the season ticket issue and did not receive a response from the team.

Husnani said he has had a similar experience with MLSE and his Raptors season passes.

“I know people who have gone to MLSE and said, ‘Hey, this legislation came about, and I was not prepared,’ and I’ve heard refunds and credits are being given,” Husnani said.

Renewals, Husnani said, depends on whether the legislation is clarified by the Ford government.

Global News reached out to Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment. The organization declined to comment for this story.

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

Calgary city council will maintain the rules around building backyard suites, after city administration recommended making them a permitted use across low-density zoning districts across the city.

The move stems from council’s repeal of citywide rezoning, which is set to take effect on Aug. 4, and create “significant inconsistency” in the application process for a suite, administration said, as residential properties will be governed by 16 different zoning districts.

As a result, city administration recommended listing both secondary suites and backyard suites as “permitted use” across the city.

Permitted use would exempt secondary suites from requiring a development permit, and would only need a building permit if all the rules in the bylaw are met.

According to city administration, 98.9 per cent of secondary suite applications were approved last year; there were 6,232 registered secondary suites in the city in 2025.

After a lengthy public hearing on the matter, city council narrowly voted Friday to list secondary suites as a permitted use.

Councillors Ward, Johnston, Jamieson, Tyers, Chabot, Wyness and McLean voted in opposition.

“Council, and I think the public as a whole, has recognized that there’s a reason that we should have an automatic approval for basement suites,” Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said Tuesday. “This is a needed way to be able to provide housing.”

Allowing secondary suites to proceed directly to the building permit process is expected to save up to six weeks of processing time and over $600 in permit fees, city administration said, with 2,300 secondary suites estimated to be built per year as a result.

The recommendation to also make backyard suites permitted, however, was quashed by council.

Council instead approved an amendment from Ward 11 Coun. Rob Ward to keep backyard suites as discretionary use, which would require a development permit.

“Secondary suites as permitted use makes sense because it’s within the building envelope that already exists,” Ward told Global News. “Whereas when we do a backyard suite, that’s a new building and every parcel in the city is different.”

Ward said the decision also allows more flexibility for administration to make adjustments based on the property, while giving neighbours a chance to appeal.

“That’s why we hire professional planners to look at those unique differences of every lot,” Ward said.

Councillors Schmidt, Kelly, Pantazopoulos, Atkinson, Clark and Yule voted against.

Schmidt said the move was meant to cut red tape as all but two of the 192 development permit applications for backyard suites submitted to the City of Calgary last year were approved.

“With all the other work we have to do around Local Area Plans, or the new zoning bylaw, the Calgary Plan, we will now need to look at funding additional staff to do that work because these others are doing work that is approved almost 99 per cent of the time anyway,” he told Global News.

Council’s decision was disappointing for Stephanie Chipeur, the Azrieli Accelerator Professorship in Law & Disability Policy at the University of Calgary.

Chipeur, who uses a wheelchair, advocated to city council during the public hearing that at-grade backyard suites remove barriers for those with disabilities and allow them to live close to family supports.

“It is those kinds of connections and relationships that we need in order to live our lives, and if we had to pay for it, it would be enormously expensive and it’s not covered by any provincial supports,” she said.

According to Farkas, proposed changes to the rules for backyard suites including an increase the maximum interior floor area were a sticking point for council.

“Ultimately, the combination of making it automatic everywhere but also allowing for them to be bigger was a bit too much for members of the public as well as council,” Farkas said.

“Make no mistake, we see backyard suites as an important part of addressing housing here in Calgary.”

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

There’s some fascinating work being done at a North Vancouver shop that always sparks intense curiosity.

“Sometimes in the summer we’ll keep the door open and people will wander down the street and they have no idea what they’re looking at,” said Nuytco Research Ltd president Jeff Heaton.

What they’re looking at is more than 40 years of evolution of their atmospheric dive suit, started by founder Phil Nuytten in the early 1980s.

“Think of it as a submarine that you get into,” said Heaton. “A submarine that you wear that allows divers to get to those depths and go to places they’re not meant to go.”

Nuytco Research Ltd. has been at the forefront of this technology ever since.

“Ninety percent of our work right now is all military, specifically submarine rescue,” said Heaton. “Most Navy divers are not war fighters; they support operations like rescue, like salvage. That’s where we excel and we perform that role for many Navies worldwide.”

The DSEND (Deep Sea Expeditionary No-Decompression system suit) used by the US Navy will be showcased at the Pentagon later this week. It’s the latest design that allows divers great mobility.

“You can walk in the suit, you can jump, you can lay down, you can roll over on your back, you can kick up your feet,” said Heaton.

The company tests all its creations on site in a tank out back. Designs also include submersibles that have been used by oil and gas companies, the scientific community, even Hollywood.

“We go back to the 80s, all the subs on The Abyss. Black Panther, was that’s the latest one, we had all of our suits in that,” said Heaton.

Future advancements will allow divers even more freedom and control over their underwater assignments, as the ingenuity at Nuytco Research Ltd. continues to lead the way in this highly specialized industry.

“Globally, we are the only company that is currently building atmospheric diving suits,” said Heaton. “This has been an amazing ride, and it’s not over.”

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

There are many questions about HandyDART service after Global News reported about a Surrey man who was denied the service after 28 years.

Tom Cretain has been isolated inside his home since HandyDART stopped giving him a ride.

“It’s shut my life down,” he said.

“I haven’t been out for two months, except in the neighbourhood.”

Cretain is living with spinal muscular atrophy and requires a special wheelchair.

Both TransLink and HandyDART operator Transdev say they cannot safely accommodate Cretain anymore because of the size of his mobility device.

Mark Beeching, a retired HandyDART trainer and driver, had assessed Cretain’s case in 2010.

“When we did a previous assessment, we found it did fit,” he told Global News.

TransLink says a recent detailed assessment found it can no longer safely accommodate Cretain.

“The manufacturer’s specs for HandyDART vehicle lifts state that a mobility device can’t exceed 48 inches by 37 inches, and the combined weight of the customer and device also can’t exceed 800 pounds, so these are not arbitrary limits,” Anita Bathe, a TransLink spokesperson, said.

Beeching said the measurements need to be done from wheel to wheel.

“They’ve managed to transport me for 30 years safely,” Cretain said.

“It’s never been an accident, never an accident.”

Critics are blaming the government, but B.C.’s Transportation Minister says he has now directed staff to fix the problem.

“I am like most people — like most people, frustrated when I see the story going, you know, what’s going on here?” Mike Farnworth said.

Cretain just wants to get back on the road.

“If I don’t fix this, I don’t have much of a life left,” he said.

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

A long-term plan to widen Highway 97 in Kelowna, B.C., has taken a step forward but major questions remain about cost, timing, and how much private property could be affected.

City council approved the Highway 97 Right-of-Way Protection Plan Monday, which aims to preserve space for a possible future expansion of the 14-km highway corridor.

The concept would add two transit-only lanes to the existing six lanes between the William R. Bennett Bridge and UBC Okanagan — a project staff say could be 20 years away.

The proposed widening would require a 50-metre right-of-way along the highway corridor, meaning land may eventually need to be secured from affected property owners and developers.

The city says the goal of the protection plan is to guide future development and ensure new projects do not create additional barriers to a potential widening.

“We can work around what we have now but we want to make sure we don’t have more obstacles in the way,” Brittany Hallam, Integrated Transportation Manager with the City of Kelowna, told council.

Kelowna mayor Tom Dyas said the city wants to begin conversations early and be transparent with property owners who could be affected.

“That’s why we want to get ahead of it, because if this takes place and happens and we’re not communicating and being transparent about it, then stories will start to develop on how it is and we don’t want that to happen,” Dyas said.

Ron Cannan was the only councillor to vote against it.

Cannan questioned whether the long-term vision is realistic.

“For example, Highway 97 in Gordon — it’s congested. How are you going to buy all those buildings? It’s not going to be millions, tens. It’s going to be billions of dollars,” Cannan said.

Cannan said the city should focus instead on more immediate solutions to reduce congestion, including improving traffic signal timing and removing bottlenecks.

“We need something that’s concrete now,” Cannan said. “Synchronization of the … signalization of the lights, maybe removing a signal light or two, moving traffic through.”

In an email to Global News, the Ministry of Transportation stated, “The Ministry of Transportation and Transit and the City of Kelowna are working closely to determine the best approach to protect the corridor over time.”

The email went on to say, “There are no plans to expropriate property and any future expansion of the highway right-of-way would happen over time through development applications.”

City staff will now begin discussions with potentially affected property owners and report back to council in early 2027.

The project remains in the early planning stages, with no construction timeline, cost estimate, or committed funding currently in place.

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

Researchers spent Tuesday waist-deep in streams near Okanagan Falls, searching for one of the smallest indicators of river health — mussels.

“Mussels are an indicator of water quality, so we are looking to put in more habitat that the mussels like,” said geomorphologist Zoe Eyjolfson.

As drought continues to strain the region, scientists are surveying mussels, fish habitat and river conditions to collect data that will help guide future restoration projects aimed at creating a more robust watershed and increasing biodiversity in areas that have lost multiple species.

The work is part of a broader effort by the Collaborative Leadership Table (CLT), a partnership of First Nations and local governments developing a 250-year vision for managing water across the Okanagan.

“Last year, the drought started in the valley and climbed up the mountains. This year, the drought seems to be all over, all at once,” said Chani Welch, a hydroscientist working with the initiative.

The information collected could help identify areas where rivers can be restored with more natural banks and habitat, improving biodiversity and creating healthier conditions for fish and other aquatic species.

Researchers say they have already found a stark contrast between the man-made channels near Okanagan Falls and sections of the river farther downstream, where natural embankments remain intact and support greater biodiversity.

“When you don’t have that natural biodiversity within a river and that natural river energy, you have a very homogeneous, dead river, and it’s pretty much just a hot bath for these species. A lot of them die” Eyjolfson said.

The research will help inform future decisions by municipalities, First Nations and the Collaborative Leadership Table as they work toward restoring waterways while balancing the needs of agriculture, ecosystems and communities.

“We need to get better at communicating that these decisions are being made with data. And it’s not just Western data, it’s also our Syilx community members who are telling us that we are in a severe drought,” Welch said.

For the researchers in the water, every measurement collected today is another piece of evidence that could help shape a healthier Okanagan watershed for generations to come.

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

People living in the west end Rosenthal neighbourhood are excitedly waiting for the completion of the Lewis Farms Recreation Centre and surrounding park.

According to the city, the finish line is in sight and the rec centre is expected to begin operating in 2028.

Media were invited for a tour of the construction site on Tuesday. Once it’s finished, the facility just off Winterburn Road and 92 Avenue is expected to have several different recreational spaces.

It’ll include an aquatic centre with a 50-metre pool, leisure pool, hot tub, diving platforms and a water slide. There will also be a public library, a twin arena, an indoor playground and daycare, a fitness centre, running track and double gymnasium.

The Lewis Farms rec centre had a target cost of $311.3 million when it was approved by Edmonton city council in 2021, after the project was put on hold for 18 months during budget deliberations.

However, that year-and-a-half delay occurred in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic when inflation drove up the cost of almost everything, including construction materials.

The city estimated the new cost of the rec centre, as it was planned, to then be $427 million.

Changing the scope and size began in 2022 and those efforts carried on into 2025, as the city worked with industry partners to value-engineer and simplify design elements of the project down to an adjusted budget of $309.3 million.

The city decided to prioritize programming and daily public access for area residents over having a facility that could host specialized, high-performance sports competitions, which in the case of aquatics would have required a deeper pool and higher diving platforms than what is now being built.

As well, space inside was set aside for a future daycare and commercial retail units.

Councillors to approve a budget increase this spring and the city says its current estimated budget is roughly $343 million.

Katherine Ludwig has the full story in the video above.

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

Saskatchewan’s health minister says the province’s plan to attract new health-care workers is delivering results, with thousands of workers joining since its launch four years ago.

Jeremy Cockrill says over 7,500 health-care professionals, including nurses and doctors, have joined Saskatchewan’s workforce as part of the province’s Health Human Resources (HHR) Action Plan, launched in 2022, which focuses on accelerating efforts to attract and retain health-care workers.

As part of this plan, the province created the Saskatchewan Healthcare Recruitment Agency (SHRA) to streamline health-care recruitment efforts. Terri Strunk, the agency’s CEO, says it has been using targeted advertising campaigns to attract workers from outside the province, helping connect prospective health-care workers with recruiters.

“We have some physicians who notice those ads,” said Strunk. “What they do is visit our website, create a profile, and from there, our team notices them and begins working with them.”

But the province’s official Opposition is questioning whether the recruitment efforts are producing enough results, particularly after the province launched a campaign last year aimed at attracting physicians from the United States.

“We’re continuing to spend taxpayers’ dollars and we’re not seeing any new health-care workers, no new physicians added to the rolls,” said Nathaniel Teed, NDP labour critic.

But Strunk defends the campaign, saying seven physicians who responded to the U.S.-focused recruitment efforts are currently moving through the hiring process.

“They’re in the process right now and it can take a good amount of time for the employers to work through those referrals,” she said.

Overall, the province says it has recruited 742 physicians, including 369 family physicians and 373 specialists, as well as 3,000 nurses, from countries like the U.S., Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Philippines since launching the action plan.

But the president of a union representing over 14,000 health-care workers in the province says the health ministry should prioritize its existing workforce before looking overseas.

“The first thing they have to do is to focus on what we are we gonna do to retain the current people we have, and when we do that, then we can embark on recruitment,” said Bashir Jalloh, president of CUPE Local 5430.

The comments come one week after the union announced its workers will vote on potential job action in September after over three and a half years of bargaining with its provincial employer.

Despite the ongoing labour negotiations, Cockrill says he remains optimistic about the bargaining process.

“I’m really confident that we are going to come to an agreement at all of our tables,” Cockrill said at a Tuesday press conference.

The province is continuing its international recruitment efforts, said Cockrill, adding that it will now shift its focus more toward the U.K. and Ireland and less toward the U.S., due to similarities between those health-care systems and Saskatchewan’s.

The province is planning a recruitment mission to the two countries this fall, said Cockrill.

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

The City of Montreal is urging residents to keep conserving water as emergency repairs on a major aqueduct continue through the summer.

Officials say work on the aging water main beneath Atwater Avenue remains on schedule. The aqueduct supplies drinking water to about 1.3 million people across 16 Montreal boroughs.

Repairs began after inspections determined urgent work was needed to prevent a potential rupture. So far, two sections of the aqueduct have been repaired, while work on a third section is ongoing. A fourth and critical section is expected to begin in the coming days.

Executive committee member Alan De Sousa says the city is hopeful repairs can be completed by the end of August or early September.

A cooler, wetter summer has helped keep water demand lower than expected, but officials warn that future heat waves could quickly increase consumption.

The city launched a voluntary conservation campaign in May, asking residents to reduce daily water use by about 100 million litres, or roughly seven per cent of normal consumption. Montreal also suspended several water-intensive municipal activities and shut down decorative fountains as part of the effort.

Officials set a target of keeping daily water consumption below 1.4 billion litres and say that goal has been met so far.

The repairs have also highlighted the challenges posed by Montreal’s aging water infrastructure, which is valued at approximately $43 billion. De Sousa says the city faces a funding gap for needed upgrades and is calling on other levels of government for additional support.

City officials warn a complete watering ban could still be imposed if voluntary conservation efforts are no longer enough to protect the drinking water system.

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

There is increasing concern about two growing homeless encampments off Highway 99 in Richmond.

The encampments are on both sides of the highway, and explosive growth is one concern, while an actual explosion is another.

“This encampment is right above the new jet fuel pipeline and there have been significant fires that have been set by the unsheltered population here,” Richmond city councillor Kash Heed told Global News.

The encampments are on Crown land and the responsibility lies with the B.C. government.

“We get no cooperation from them whatsoever,” Heed said.

“We actually get resistance from them on taking any action.”

Heed said axes, swords and machetes are among the dozens of weapons seized in the past year.

The city estimates there are more than 30 campers and trailers and the cleanup bill could exceed $200,000.

“How long have I been here? About a year and a half,” resident Guylaine Auclair told Global News.

She claims to own four trailers and lives at the encampment with her many cats and kittens.

Auclair told Global News she has been offered a spot in modular housing, but with so much space, rent-free, she said she doesn’t need to leave.

“It’s so pretty,” she said.

“There’s like flowers everywhere… It’s like paradise.”

Minister of Transportation Mike Farnworth told Global News that they are aware of the frustrations.

“The people in these sites often have a variety of differing needs in terms of where they eventually end up,” he said.

A similar situation played out under the Oak Street Bridge late last year.

The City of Vancouver spent more than 40,000 taxpayer dollars clearing an encampment, all without provincial participation.

Heed said if these sites next to the highway are not dealt with soon, Richmond might take matters into its own hands again and send the provincial government the bill.

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