WATCH: Cancer charity calls for more family support.
A Canadian childhood cancer charity is calling on the federal government to provide more financial support to families whose children are undergoing cancer treatment.
The foundation has seen demand for its financial support programs rise 40 per cent over the past two years, but says government funding has not kept pace.
“This is the time to step up, talk to our parliamentary leaders, as well as make sure those families going through it have a helping hand,” said Kyle Smith with Childhood Cancer Canada.
The charity is asking Ottawa for $15 million in the next federal budget to sustain those programs, while also seeking changes to tax credits and employment insurance requirements to better support families dealing with childhood cancer.
About 1,500 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in Canada, according to the charity.
For many families, a diagnosis can mean a parent leaving work or reducing their hours to become a full-time caregiver, creating financial pressures that can continue long after a child’s treatment ends.
Smith said many parents caring for a child with cancer are under the age of 40, meaning time away from the workforce can have lasting consequences for their finances.
“That’s no RRSPs being built up, that is no other benefit,” he said, adding that decades later, “their retirement is impacted, the child’s retirement or education fund is impacted.”
For the Masikewich family, those pressures came after their daughter Sloane was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma in May 2023.
Treatment and a compromised immune system meant Sloane missed Grade 1 entirely, while Grades 2 and 3 were interrupted by trips to the hospital.
“It was hard not being in school and not being able to see my friends, but I enjoyed the time I got to spend with my mom and dad in the hospital,” Sloane said.
This school year marks a significant milestone for the family.
“This is the first year she doesn’t have to be in treatment, which is really incredible for our family and for Sloane,” her mother, Claire Masikewich, said.
Claire said families already coping with a child’s cancer diagnosis should not also have to contend with mounting financial pressures.
“The added financial stress for families on top of what you’re already going through is just not needed,” she said.
Childhood Cancer Canada raises awareness, funds research and provides support to families navigating a childhood cancer diagnosis.
The organization says financial stability is particularly important because it can allow parents to focus on caring for their children during treatment.
Beyond its $15-million funding request, the charity is calling for policy changes involving tax credits and EI requirements to provide more direct support to affected families.
For Sloane, being out of treatment has meant returning to the parts of childhood that cancer disrupted.
“I got to hang out with my friends, and I got to meet all my new classmates,” she said.
A Hamilton Police Service logo is seen in Ottawa, on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025.
Spencer Colby/ CP
A 27-year-old Stoney Creek, Ont., man is facing hate propaganda charges following an investigation into content posted publicly on social media, police say.
Investigators received a report in July 2025 about content posted to an account on X, Hamilton police said in a news release on Saturday.
The force’s Hate Crime Unit launched an investigation into the account and the material being shared.
Police said investigators identified an individual from Stoney Creek believed to be the person operating the account.
He is charged with wilful promotion of hatred, wilful promotion of antisemitism and advocating genocide.
Hamilton police said hate crimes and incidents can have a significant impact on individuals, targeted communities and the broader community.
The charges come as police in Toronto have increased their presence around synagogues during Rosh Hashanah
Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw said Friday that he visited several synagogues to thank officers and private security personnel deployed across the city.
“This morning, I stopped by several synagogues to thank our @TorontoPolice members strategically deployed across the city, as well as our private security partners, for their work keeping our communities safe,” Demkiw wrote on X.
Anyone who believes they have witnessed or been the victim of a hate crime or hate incident is being asked to contact authorities.
What is K-beauty? And what are the best viral K-Beauty brands on the market right now? Read on for all this and more.
The Curator independently decides what topics and products we feature. When you purchase an item through our links, we may earn a commission. Promotions and products are subject to availability and retailer terms.
Five years ago, I tried my first K-beauty product and I was instantly hooked.
What started as curiosity during the pandemic, turned into a full-on obsession. After years of struggling with dull skin, K-beauty completely changed the way I did my skin care.
What is K-beauty?
K-beauty—aka Korean beauty—is a term for beauty products made in South Korea. It’s a philosophy that isn’t only about the products, but rather the skin care ritual. Think about the viral glass-skin, snail mucin, and collagen masks you’re seeing all over TikTok right now—these have been a part of Korean beauty routine for ages.
K-beauty involves multi-step routines that focus on hydration, brightening and strengthening the skin barrier to achieve a healthy, glass-like skin glow. The best part? It’s meant for every skin type.
If you’re on the hunt for viral K-beauty products, shop these 10 products below:
This collagen hydro gel mask is a bedtime treat for your skin. Wear it overnight, watch it turn transparent and wake up to hydrated, brighter, and a healthier-looking complexion as your skin soaks up the ingredients.[/product_listing]
With freeze-dried hydrolyzed collagen to plump, and niacinamide to even skin tone, this collagen jelly cream deeply hydrates for that glass-skin appearance, minus the heaviness.[/product_listing]
A leave-on jelly night mask with capsules that melt onto your skin as you sleep. It has Korean yuja, niacinamide, and hyaluronic acid so you can wake up with brighter and softer skin.[/product_listing]
Infused with snail extract, these hydrogel eye patches are a quick recharge for your eyes. They hydrate, plump and brighten. Plus, with two different patch sizes, they fit where you need them most.[/product_listing]
A lightweight, watery serum that targets uneven and dull skin with the powerful trio of niacinamide, tranexamic acid, and arbutin. You’ll love how it leaves your skin looking smoother, brighter and hydrated. [/product_listing]
This viral cushion foundation is lightweight, long-lasting and gives a radiant finish. Plus, it lasts up to 72 hours so your glow stays put without the heaviness of makeup. Perfect for long days without touch ups.[/product_listing]
Infused with vegan collagen, hyaluronic acid, and peptides, this eye serum hydrates, firms and brightens eye area. Its CoolTouch applicator improves absorption so your eyes look aware more instantly.[/product_listing]
With ceramides at its core, this moisturizing cream offers deep hydration for 120 hours while strengthening the skin barrier. Perfect for sensitive skin leaving skin soft and nourished.[/product_listing]
Struggling with oily or combination skin? This rice milk toner hydrates, soothes, and keeps excess sebum in check for balanced and fresh skin. [/product_listing]
Wake up to happy skin with this overnight gel-cream mask. Packed with 3 types of hyaluronic acid, get ready for hydrated, brightened and glowing skin by the morning.[/product_listing]
More Asian Skincare:
This ultra-fine mist is a hydration hero for dry, sensitive skin. With ceramides to strengthen and soothe, it gives an instant boost of moisture. Perfect for refreshing and calming your skin on-the-go.[/product_listing]
Meet your new everyday essential: a lightweight moisturizer with SPF 50 that moisturizes, hydrates and protects while leaving a glowy finish. Packed with niacinamide and gentle on sensitive skin, it’s the perfect skin care and sun protection product.[/product_listing]
Prime Minister Mark Carney and his ministers are meeting behind closed doors at their Liberal cabinet retreat in Banff, Alberta, to plan their agenda for the fall sitting of Parliament while also discussing escalating trade tensions with the U.S. Carney took some time on Friday to get some fresh air and head outdoors, where he met with local politicians and residents. Amid the contentious trade war with the U.S., Carney could be heard remarking, “Maybe I should remind Donald,” as the crowd smiled and laughed.
Prime Minister Mark Carney will gather scores of deep-pocketed investors in Toronto next week in a bid to fix Canada’s “Achilles heel” — a persistent lack of business investment dragging down the economy.
Hundreds of global and domestic investors with trillions of dollars in assets under management will descend on a downtown Toronto hotel on Sept. 14 and 15 for Canada’s first-ever national investment summit.
Carney, cabinet members, premiers and other Canadian business leaders will be there with lists of major projects across the country.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she’s got a list of 34 proposed projects she’ll be shopping to investors at the summit; Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe plans to pitch his provinces’ energy, critical mineral, defence and agriculture sectors.
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said she will be pushing multiple projects including a port expansion, a data centre in Lorneville, and a rehabilitation project of a power plant known as the Mactaquac lifetime achievement project.
The investment event is being co-organized by the Prime Minister’s Office with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Public Sector Pension Investments, two of the country’s largest asset managers.
The summit is, in many ways, the manifestation of the capital-focused agenda Carney laid out 18 months ago when he first took office. Since that time, he has reoriented federal policy and Ottawa’s budget framework to funnel spending to critical infrastructure and other major projects.
Carney has set what experts consider a lofty goal of “catalyzing” $1 trillion in investments in Canada over five years.
Mahmood Nanji, a fellow with the Ivey School of Business at Western University, said Canada has suffered from a well-documented dearth of business investment for much of the past decade, which has fed into weak productivity and sluggish growth.
“This has been a bit of Canada’s Achilles heel over the last couple of decades. And this is why I think Prime Minister Carney, upon being elected, this was his big bet on rebuilding the Canadian economy,” Nanji said.
Critics usually blame that investment shortfall on a history of regulatory burdens and the long timelines and uncertainty facing project approvals in Canada.
The CPP Investment Board’s Insights arm published a report Monday surveying 65 of the world’s largest asset managers on how they view Canada’s investment opportunities.
While the energy sector stands out globally as Canada’s most attractive realm for investment, it also comes with the sharpest risks. Fears of policy reversals, regulatory fragmentation and scale or liquidity constraints were cited prominently by those surveyed.
The Conservative party points to what it calls “anti-development laws” and levies like the industrial carbon price as Liberal policies holding back the resource extraction and manufacturing sectors.
CPP’s survey of asset managers also highlighted Canada’s relative strengths in the competition for global capital.
Canada ranked well on openness to capital and execution in the energy transition, and trailed only Singapore when it came to policy stability and predictability. Nearly 70 per cent of investors ranked predictability as extremely important or essential in decisions about where to park their money.
Jeremy Kronick, president and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute, said Carney has taken a number of steps to show that Canada is “open for business” since taking office in March 2025. The major projects office and One Canadian Economy Act look to streamline approvals for nation-building projects, for example.
Kronick said that’s enough to start shifting conversations about Canada as a destination for investment. But he suggested there’s more work to be done on other problems such as interprovincial trade barriers — the kind of regulatory snarls that can cause uncertainty about an otherwise viable project.
“I think there’s been enough done on the change in tone. I think regulatory processes are harder to change,” Kronick said.
Political opinion also has shifted in a way that could make it easier to win public approval for major projects, Nanji said.
Angus Reid polling from July suggested broad support for a new pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast, for instance. But major projects like these are also common targets for litigation, and Nanji said officials will need to do more to ensure Indigenous stakeholders are on board before making too many promises to investors.
“There are still risks. They’ve not been eliminated, but they’re not as big as they were perhaps a decade ago,” he said.
There are signs that external capital is already taking a renewed interest in Canada. Statistics Canada said foreign direct investment hit $96.8 billion in 2025, the highest level since 2007.
BMO chief economist Doug Porter said most of this inflow of foreign money so far has come in the form of mergers and acquisitions — not the kind of greenfield investments that organizers of the upcoming summit hope can get new projects off the ground.
The foreign direct investment figures are all the more encouraging given the backdrop of the Canada-U.S. trade war, Porter said. He said that, all other things being equal, he would have expected investment inflows to fall off in the face of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda, which puts access to the U.S. market at risk.
All of the experts who spoke to The Canadian Press said the escalation of the tariff war over the past few weeks will definitely be part of the conversation at the summit. But it might not be a deal-breaker.
Summit participants are being presented with a list of projects that is likely to include ports, pipelines and critical mineral extraction. Nanji argued that means many of the opportunities being put in front of investors will be about getting Canadian goods to markets other than the United States.
“Some of the investors might be a little bit jittery about this relationship with the United States … but if some of these projects are going to be exporting goods to other markets, that may not necessarily factor into their decision,” he said.
Speaking to reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Banff on Thursday, Carney suggested that his pitch to investors will focus on Canada’s reliability as a supplier in an uncertain world.
“Canada is about so much more than being next to the United States, OK? We have what the world wants,” he said.
RELATED: Ongoing rain halts seeding but farmers are optimistic.
From destructive hail to excessive rain, drought and extreme heat, severe weather is taking a toll on pumpkin farms across Canada as growers prepare for the busy fall season.
Farmers in several provinces say unusually intense or poorly timed weather has damaged crops, accelerated growing seasons and made it increasingly difficult to predict what their fields will look like by Thanksgiving and Halloween.
In Ontario, Jordan Mackay saw firsthand how quickly a promising growing season could change.
“We lost our pumpkins, tomatoes, lots of strawberries,” Mackay told Global News, whose family is also involved with Pingle’s Farm Market and Nature’s Bounty Farm.
On Aug. 8, a severe hailstorm tore through his family’s Willowtree Farm in Port Perry, Ont., destroying more than 300 acres of crops in roughly 10 minutes.
“We’ve had hail before, but not wiping out all the crops to that devastating effect.”
The family’s other farms escaped the hail, but another weather problem soon emerged.
After what Mackay described as a good start to the growing season, heavy rainfall through August began taking a toll on pumpkins at the family’s Oshawa-area farm.
When pumpkin vines and roots remain wet, Mackay said they can develop fungal diseases that damage the plants and interfere with their growth. Persistently wet ground can also cause pumpkins themselves to rot.
“I was just in the patch yesterday walking around, and we saw a lot of powdery mildew,” he said.
Some pumpkins have already started rotting “due to the heavy rains we’ve had over the last number of weeks.”
Mackay said the intensity of some recent weather events and how localized they can be has made farming particularly challenging.
“It’s been a very tough season for weather and it’s very isolated storms,” he said.
The hailstorm that hit his Port Perry farm, for example, affected an area spanning only a few country blocks.
Similar uncertainty is playing out in the Niagara Region.
Donna Warner, who has been farming for about 40 years and owns Warner Ranch and Pumpkin Farm with her husband in Niagara Falls, said this year’s pumpkins are developing later and in smaller numbers than she would normally expect.
“The ones I have are beautiful. But again, there’s not as many,” she told Global News.
Warner said heavy rain could have affected pollination at a crucial point in the growing season. She experienced similar conditions last year, when pumpkins continued ripening well beyond their usual selling window.
“Last year, my field was orange in November,” she said, noting that pumpkins “don’t sell in November.”
Warner’s farm escaped the flooding and hail that affected some other parts of Niagara this year, leaving her hopeful that her crop can still catch up.
For farmers dealing with increasingly unpredictable conditions, Warner said there is only so much they can control.
“We’re at the mercy of Mother Nature,” she said.
Warner said recent weather patterns could change the way farmers irrigate and adjust by changing planting dates, irrigating during dry periods and staggering plantings to reduce the risk of losing an entire crop at once.
The effects of this year’s weather extend beyond Ontario.
In British Columbia’s Okanagan region, extreme heat and drought have instead pushed some pumpkins through their growing cycle much faster than usual.
At McMillan Farms in Kelowna, some pumpkins were ready roughly two to three weeks ahead of schedule.
“This year, because of the heat that we’ve had, it’s been pretty consistent, you know, day and then into the evening, so a lot of the pumpkins have been growing really well,” farm owner Ron McMillan said.
Some pumpkins that would typically take about 90 days to grow reached maturity in roughly 45 days.
Pumpkins at the Warner Ranch and Pumpkin Farm in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Donna Warner
“When you have heat and drought stress, it tends to push plants to go to maturity more quickly,” said Deborah Buszard of the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.
And on the Prairies, weather uncertainty has also complicated the traditional fall season.
Black Fox Farm and Distillery outside Saskatoon stopped growing pumpkins last year after dealing with unpredictable yields.
“One year we got completely frozen out, had no pumpkins at all,” co-founder John Cote said.
The uncertainty can be particularly costly for farms that rely on pumpkin patches as fall attractions because operators must prepare for visitors long before knowing exactly how the crop will turn out.
In Alberta, an unusually wet summer has also created problems for pumpkin growers, with some farms considering bringing in pumpkins from elsewhere as their local crops struggle.
“This has been a really rough year for us,” explains Kate de Windt, co-owner of Somerset Farms in Alberta’s Parkland County.
“Our crops are about a month behind, and as most people in Alberta know, frost can come very easy and early,” de Windt added.
Still, the conditions aren’t bad everywhere, underscoring just how localized and unpredictable the growing season has become.
At Springridge Farm in Ontario, a cooler, wet spring delayed planting slightly, but heat and rain later in the season ultimately helped the crop.
“Lots of pumpkins and good size due to all the rain,” farmer John Hughes told Global News in an email.
Mackay’s family also expects to have enough pumpkins for customers this fall. Because the family grows across three different locations and produces more pumpkins than it needs, Mackay said visitors should see little difference at its farms despite the losses.
“We’ll have a reduced pumpkin crop at Pingle’s, but still lots for pick-your-own and for customers purchasing directly from the farm,” he said.
The experiences suggest Canadians shouldn’t necessarily expect a widespread pumpkin shortage this fall. Instead, growers say the bigger challenge is not knowing what the next severe weather event could mean for their crops.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) said supporting local agriculture remains important as farmers navigate those conditions.
“Whether you’re shopping at a grocery store, farmers’ market or farm stand, take a closer look at where your food comes from. You might be surprised by just how diverse Ontario-grown food is,” Tracey Arts with the OFA said in a statement.
“This is why it is so incredibly important that we protect our farmland and our ability to grow and raise as much food as we possibly can right here at home.”
Watch: Montreal musician strikes 'life-changing' deal with Apple
A Montreal electronic musician says he is still processing the biggest opportunity of his career after Apple purchased one of his songs for a worldwide advertising campaign promoting the Apple Watch Series 12.
The campaign, released this week, features “Naissance,” a track created by Quebec artist CRi, whose real name is Christophe Dubé.
Dubé, 36, said the process moved quickly. About three weeks ago, his publicist received a call from Apple requesting the isolated audio track. Then, about a week ago, the company contacted him again with an offer to purchase the song.
The musician described the deal as “life-changing.”
For an artist, Dubé said, having music featured in a global Apple campaign represents a major milestone.
“You know, for an artist, I would not say it’s a dream, but it’s most definitely a milestone,” he told Global News on Friday.
“When you start to make music, you think maybe one day I will play Coachella and maybe one day Apple will use my music for one of their worldwide campaigns. It’s kind of part of the dream and I still can’t believe that it happened for me actually. It’s crazy.”
The track, whose title translates to “birth” in English, was originally created six years ago.
Beyond the financial impact, Dubé said the agreement reinforces his belief that major companies still recognize the value of human creativity at a time when artificial intelligence is transforming creative industries.
He also sees the project as an example of the benefits of cross-border collaboration.
Dubé said the partnership demonstrates that strong working relationships between Canadian artists and American companies remain possible despite political and economic tensions.
The campaign has already attracted millions of views on YouTube, providing what Dubé called invaluable exposure for his music.
For the Montreal artist, the experience marks a career-defining moment and a chance to introduce his work to a global audience.
The Winnipeg Goldeyes season came to a stunning conclusion on Friday night at Blue Cross Park.
The Goldeyes blew a two-run lead in the ninth inning in a 6-5 Game 2 loss to get swept by the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks.
The RedHawks won the best-of-three West Division semifinal series 2-0.
The Fish were just two outs away from forcing a deciding Game 3, up 5-3 in the ninth inning. But Matt Kroon hit a three-run homer to give Fargo the lead for good.
Goldeyes closer Derrick Cherry surrendered the game-winning home run for just his second blown save all season long.
Ray-Patrick Didder had just hit a solo homer in the eighth to give the Goldeyes some insurance. Roby Enríquez also hit a dinger in the season-ending loss.
Goldeyes starting pitcher Kevin Vaupel took a no-decision after allowing three runs in five innings. Sage Ferguson tossed three scoreless innings in relief.
Fargo will face either the Kansas City Monarchs or the Sioux Falls Canaries in the next round with that series going to a third and deciding game on Saturday.
WATCH: Widow of Canadian killed in 9/11 wants to "redefine" the day.
Maureen Basnicki stands in the dining room of the Albany Club in downtown Toronto on the eve of 9/11, proud of the dinner she has helped organize.
The “Service Day” dinner, she explains, is to show gratitude to service men and women — those who fought for Canada in Afghanistan, supported Canadians after 9/11, and those who continue serve our communities on a day-to-day basis.
Twenty-five years ago, her husband Ken Basnicki, 48, was killed when Al Qaeda terrorists highjacked planes and flew them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.
Maureen Basnicki, a flight attendant at the time, says she woke up that morning in a small town just outside of Frankfurt where her crew was on a layover.
She says she turned on her television and saw the second plane fly into the south tower.
“You can only imagine my shock and horror knowing Ken was there. I didn’t know which tower he was in, but I knew he was in New York and the rest is history,” she explains.
Because she didn’t have a cellphone at the time and was desperate to speak to Ken, Basnicki says she went down to the lobby of the hotel and asked the concierge if he could call Ken, who did have a cellphone.
There was no response so she begged the concierge to call back and leave him her number at the hotel.
“In any event, my mother-in-law received a call from Ken because he knew I was in Germany and didn’t have a cell phone. I can only repeat his last words to anybody, to his mother. He said ‘Mom, something horrible has happened. The room is full of smoke, the roof is blocked and I don’t know how I’m going to get out. I’m on the 106th floor of the World Trade Centre.’ That’s how definite I was about his whereabouts on that day,” Basnicki says.
The skies were shut down as a result of the terrorist attack so Basnicki was stuck in Germany for three days, far from New York and the couple’s two children, aged 16 and 21, who were back in Toronto.
“I still get emotional when I think of it. Thankfully, I had a great crew. I got support from other crew members at the hotel, from the German people. People couldn’t do enough for me, but of course, I wanted to be home with my children,” she explains.
Basnicki says their family played the waiting game hoping that Ken would be a survivor.
“I knew when I was trapped in Germany that Ken was never going to come home,” she explains.
In the years since then, Basnicki has worked hard advocating for survivors of terrorism and to change the dialogue on 9/11.
“It’s imperative for me and for history’s sake, for our young people to understand what happened that day was a global event.”
She says while people will “never forget” the hate and the horror of the heinous attack that occurred, she is more of an “always remember” person.
“The outpouring of love and support, the response from Canadians that came in the aftermath, that’s so important. Looking back, 9/11 was an attack on our values, a shared value with the United States. It was an attack on democracy. I like to think we can celebrate our values that day instead of dwelling on the hate and horror,” Basnicki says.
In the room at the Albany Club where the dinner is being held, the tables are decorated with red and white linens and recording artist and anthem singer Robert Pilon is set to perform.
“I was successfully able to get, under the Harper Government on the tenth anniversary, September 11th to be designated ‘National Day of Service'”, Basnicki says.
These are the kind of events that she dedicates her time to now.
“We all want to remember the good memories. I’ve reached a point where you can only imagine how I feel when I see the planes, as a former flight attendant, used as a murder weapon to kill my husband. That visual is hard for me to escape,” she says, her voice cracking.
“I would rather dwell on the aftermath, celebrate with my ‘Come from Away’ family, not to make light of the event but to show off our true values,” Basnicki adds, with a smile on her face.
Basnicki encourages everyone to commemorate 9/11 by doing an act of service, be it participating in the upcoming Terry Fox Run or donating blood.
“Buy a cop a cup of coffee, a firefighter, show your gratitude,” she says laughing.
“Just a small way. Everybody can do that. It took average Canadians to react after 9/11. Go beyond the political rhetoric. Find your own personal capacity, a way of saying ‘we live in a very great country and we love our values here.'”
Basnicki says she misses Ken and knows he would have been proud.
“Ken was a man of service. He coached the kids when he was able to, he put his family ahead of his work, He had his priorities right. He gave to his community, organized community events. We had an annual volleyball tournament, on Labour Day weekend,” says Basnicki.
She says she will continue to work towards advocating for new legislation to combat terrorism but also to remind Canadians to celebrate the National Day of Service.
“For me, it was a death day for my beloved Ken. But c’mon, life is beautiful and I’m very proud of my country.”
Basnicki says she will continue to remember the nearly 3000 lives lost that day, including 24 Canadians, but wants to redefine the day.
“We have yet to define the day. There’s no physical memorial but let’s have a living one.”
A Calgary city councillor is seeking a provincial review into how often city council meets behind closed doors. Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston, who claimed responsibility for leaking confidential budget documents, says the situation exposes a broader issue with transparency. It comes as Calgary's mayor also calls for an investigation into Johnston's actions. Adam MacVicar reports.
The Calgary city councillor who says he leaked confidential preliminary budget documents is now seeking a provincial investigation into council’s use of closed-door meetings.
Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston has penned a letter to Alberta’s municipal affairs minister requesting a review of city council’s use of closed meetings and confidentiality provisions, as well as amendments to the Municipal Government Act with clearer limits on when “municipal financial and policy” may be discussed behind closed doors.
In the letter, Johnston acknowledged he is making the requests “in the middle of a controversy,” after he last week claimed to have leaked confidential budget documents.
Preliminary documents, obtained by Global News, showed a property tax increase of 20 per cent would be required to fund the roughly $510 million in funding requests for city council to consider.
City councillors are getting set to discuss a pre-budget scenario of a 15 per cent property tax increase in 2027 during a closed-door session later this month, according to the documents, but the final numbers won’t be deliberated until November.
Johnston said he isn’t asking the minister to “excuse” his conduct, but rather to look into a broader issue he feels the situation has “exposed.”
“If he wants to investigate me, he should investigate everything,” he told Global News in an interview Friday. “I think what comes out of that is going to be a strengthened process that for every taxpayer and Calgarian, whether they disagreed or agreed with what I did, will be better for everybody.”
According to Johnston, the provision most frequently used to move meetings behind closed doors is “advice from officials,” which he called “the most abused access-to-information exception.”
He has asked the minister’s review to examine council meeting records from 2017 through to the present day to assess the frequency and duration of closed sessions and the provisions used to justify them.
Typically, council goes behind closed doors when disclosure may be harmful to the business interests of a third party, harmful to personal privacy, harmful to law enforcement or involve confidential evaluations.
“There’s some legitimate reasons we’ve gone in-camera over 20 times this year and I’d say 80 per cent of those have been legitimate,” he told Global News. “Personnel matters, those can be confidential for as long as they need to be, but even sensitive subjects need to be released at some point.”
In a statement to Global News, Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said he welcomes Johnston’s support for “provincial reforms that I’ve long advocated for,” including clearer confidentiality rules.
“Confidentiality should be narrow, justified, and time-limited,” Farkas’ statement read. “There should be independent review when confidentiality is disputed and clear consequences for when an oath of office or duty of trust are violated.”
The budget document leak prompted Farkas to call a special council meeting Tuesday morning to seek legal advice and determine repercussions.
City council voted in favour of sending a letter of its own to the municipal affairs minister as well as the provincial privacy commissioner to inform them of the leak and ask them to take whatever steps are deemed necessary.
“Investigate my incident to the fullest extent, I’ve got nothing to hide,” Johnston said. “But I think, at the same time, there needs to be an investigation into every leak that’s happened this year.”
In a statement to Global News, Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams confirmed he’s received Johnston’s letter, and is awaiting the other letter from council.
“Our office has received a letter from Councillor Landon Johnston detailing concerns related to municipal transparency,” he said. “We also understand that we should be expecting another letter from Calgary City Council, we’ll review both these letters and determine whether any further action is required.”
The provincial government already has a municipal inspection underway into the city’s water system after a second failure of the Bearspaw feeder main.
Former Alberta Energy Regulator board chair, David Goldie, was tasked with leading that investigation.
It remains unclear when the results will be released, but the provincial government said inspections can typically last anywhere from six to 18 months.
The 29-year-old goaltender made the announcement on his Instagram page on Friday saying, “Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened. Thanks hockey, I owe ya.” He last played for the Edmonton Oilers in 2025-26 after being traded by the Utah Mammoth.
Last season was the final year on his three-year, US$5.85 million contract, making him an unrestricted free agent this off-season.
Ingram worked his way from the Oilers’ American Hockey League affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, to becoming the team’s go-to guy between the pipes. He had a 16-10-3 record with a 2.60 GAA and .899 save percentage in 32 regular-season games (30 starts) for the Oilers, and also appeared in five playoff contests.
The Saskatoon native was a third-round pick (88th overall) by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2016 NHL draft.
In 134 career games across five seasons spent with the Nashville Predators, Arizona Coyotes/Utah Mammoth and Oilers, he went 55-54-18 with nine shutouts, a 3.01 goals-against average .901 save percentage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2026.
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