Air quality advisories issued in 5 provinces, 1 territory
Air quality advisories are in effect across Western Canada as smoky conditions plague some areas, according to the latest forecasts. Here's where.
A lawmaker from Britain's governing Conservatives accused the government on Thursday of blackmailing opponents of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as the party's internal rifts over its beleaguered leader deepened.
William Wragg, a Conservative member of Parliament, said legislators calling for a challenge to Johnson's leadership have faced "intimidation," and urged them to contact the police.
Wragg accused Johnson's staff, government ministers and others of "encouraging the publication of stories in the press seeking to embarrass those they suspect of lacking confidence in the prime minister." He also alleged that rebellious lawmakers had been threatened with a loss of public funding for their constituencies.
Wragg told a parliamentary committee session that such actions "would seem to constitute blackmail. As such it would be my general advice to colleagues to report these matters to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police."
Johnson brushed aside the blackmail claim as he visited a medical diagnostics centre in southwest England on Thursday.
"I've seen no evidence to support any of those allegations," he said, though he added that he would "of course" look into it.
Whips, the officials responsible for maintaining discipline in Britain's political parties, have long deployed persuasion to keep lawmakers in line, and have sometimes been accused of crossing a line and using threats.
Christian Wakeford, a lawmaker who defected from the Conservatives to the opposition Labour Party on Wednesday, said he was told he would not get a new high school for his constituency "if I did not vote in one particular way."
He said the threat of "holding back regeneration of a town for a vote" had made him start to "question my place" in the Conservative Party,
The allegations are the latest outburst in a Conservative battle over Johnson's future, sparked by claims of lockdown-breaching parties by the prime minister's staff during the pandemic.
Wragg is one of a handful of Tory lawmakers openly calling for Johnson to face a no-confidence vote over the "partygate" scandal, which centers on allegations that Johnson and his staff broke restrictions the government imposed on the country to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Senior civil servant Sue Gray is investigating claims that government staff held late-night soirees, boozy parties and "wine time Fridays" while Britain was under coronavirus restrictions in 2020 and 2021.
Johnson has apologized for attending a "bring your own booze" gathering in the garden of his Downing Street offices in May 2020, but said he had considered the party a work gathering that fell within the rules.
He has urged critics to wait for Gray's report, which is expected to be published next week.
Johnson and his supporters hope a defiant performance at Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday, combined with anger at the defection of a Conservative lawmaker to the opposition Labour Party, has helped dissuade party legislators from trying to topple the prime minister.
"I think people have recognized that, actually, this constant navel-gazing and internal debating is only to the advantage of our political opponents," Conservative lawmaker Andrew Percy told the BBC.
But David Davis, a former Cabinet minister who in Parliament on Wednesday dramatically urged Johnson to "In the name of God, go," said any reprieve was likely temporary.
"The party is going to have to make a decision or we face dying a death of 1,000 cuts," he told the Daily Telegraph.
Steve Baker, leader of a group of hardline pro-Brexit Tories who formerly backed Johnson, said the party was in a "sorry situation."
"We didn't make Boris Johnson prime minister for his meticulous grasp of tedious rules but this is appalling and the public are rightly furious," he told the BBC. "At the moment I'm afraid it does look like checkmate but whether he can save himself, we'll see."
Air quality advisories are in effect across Western Canada as smoky conditions plague some areas, according to the latest forecasts. Here's where.
After receiving a DNA kit one Christmas from his son-in-law, Hugh McCormick soon discovered that he had six unknown siblings, with whom he shared the same birth parents.
Four years on, the controversy over whether airlines owed refunds to passengers after cancelling hundreds of thousands of flights during the pandemic continues to simmer, aggravated by a sluggish, opaque complaints process.
Many foods fall under the category of ultraprocessed foods, depending on their exact ingredients. This type of food has been studied a lot lately, and the results aren’t great.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
A new study projecting declining rates of cancer cases and deaths in Canada demonstrates the success of prevention and early detection programs, but also highlights areas where more work is needed to save and prolong lives, researchers say.
The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to take the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president.
Millions of Indians across 96 constituencies began casting their ballots on Monday as the country's gigantic, six-week-long election edges past its halfway mark. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third straight term with an eye on winning a supermajority in Parliament.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.