Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and severe, experts say, with Canada being the latest flashpoint as it battles extreme heat.
On the West Coast, the B.C. Wildfire Service noted 70 new fires sparked on Thursday alone, with roughly 12,000 lightning strikes reported in the province that day. As of Friday, the service said there were 136 active wildfires across B.C., after temperatures that soared into the forties, dried out forests and caused scores of heart-related deaths.
Warning Preparedness Meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada Natalie Hasell told CTV News Channel Friday that Canadians need to prepare for more extreme weather events.
“The fact that this has happened, and the suggestion that it could happen more – with the same intensity or greater intensity than what we have seen in the past, a longer duration than what we’ve seen in the past, that does fit with what we can expect from climate change,” Hasell said.
“Global warming - we have evidence for that, it’s real,” she continued. “Unfortunately we are living it already – it’s not the future, it’s here…so I hope people take the time to get better prepared as we will likely be seeing this more often.”
The B.C. coroner’s office said the death toll from the heat wave was in the hundreds.
Approximately 79,000 hectares (790 square kilometres) of B.C. have burned already this wildfire season, above the province’s 10-year average. Another fire destroyed an estimated 90 per cent of the village of Lytton, with residents still missing and the B.C. coroner service sharing reports of two deaths.
The North American Lightning Detection Network recorded 113,000 strikes hitting the ground in B.C. and Northern Alberta over 15 hours Wednesday and into Thursday.
While connecting one single adverse weather event to climate change is difficult, global warming has already caused things like heatwaves, storms and droughts to be more frequent and more severe.
The U.S. government said in its national climate assessment that “human-induced climate change has already increased the number and strength of some of these extreme events. Over the last 50 years the U.S. has seen increases in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, heavy downpours and in some regions, severe floods and droughts.”
The heat dome has now pushed east from B.C. and spread to the Prairies, an extreme weather event that puts the most vulnerable, like the elderly and those experiencing homelessness, at extreme risk.
“We’ve seen a lot of our clients with heat exhaustion,” said Jennifer Whitecap of Saskatoon’s Indian and Metis Friendship Centre to CTV National News.
Chief Climatologist for Environment Canada David Phillips echoed the U.S. government’s assessment for what is driving the climate crisis, a product of which are the extreme weather events Canada is facing now.
“Yes it was Mother Nature that helped produce it, but there’s a new agent of change called people, and so that’s why our weather systems are bigger, badder and more impactful,” Phillips said.
Climate change also drives storms to be more intense, as sea levels rising increase the impacts of coastal storms and warming can place more stress on water supplies during droughts, which are frequently getting longer.
Currently, Hurricane Elsa is battering Barbados as it churns up the Atlantic, already the fifth-named storm in what is expected to be a very active season.
So far it’s “above average as far as named storms go, and the strength of those storms,” explained CTV News Halifax meteorologist Kalin Mitchell to CTV National News.
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Electric scooters (e-scooters) have been gaining popularity in the capital and this season comes with some changes and updates.
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
Quebec Premier François Legault reiterated that the pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University must be dismantled while police remain 'on the lookout for new developments.'
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
The United Nations food agency warned Sudan's warring parties Friday that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don't allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.
Ontario Provincial Police say two people were killed after a car and a transport truck collided in the westbound lanes of Highway 417 near Limoges, Ont. on Tuesday afternoon.
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.