Gone from air, and gone from the web.

(Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra) has been hinting at changes to the system for quite some time, with the province putting multiple boards under supervision in recent months.

Last fall, a new Ontario law gave the education minister more latitude to take over school boards. It arrived after high-profile cases of misspending, including one board's approval of a $40,000 administrator retreat to Toronto and another's $100,000-plus art-buying trip to Italy.

Other boards have come under his fire for their financial decision-making.

Critics have decried the minister’s actions as politically driven, saying most boards are struggling financially due to chronic provincial underfunding.

Living in Canada like living in limbo — unless you're one of the select few Ukranians with permanent residency

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Close to 300,000 Ukranians are living in Canada as part of the federal government's emergency travel program.

Ottawa doesn't have numbers on how many people have settled in the city, but some agencies speculate they've assisted around 3,000 Ukrainians.

Many, like 27-year-old Tatiana Piatkovska, are still on temporary work permits.

Working for a non-profit organization called StartUp Canada, Piatkovska wonders when she'll be able to obtain permanent residency — and feel as though she's not in the middle of nowhere.

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Jamie Liew, a University of Ottawa law professor and immigration lawyer, said she feels compassion for those seeking refuge here.

"Many people only have temporary status. So it means they're living in limbo and it means that there isn't any durable solution in sight for people who want to make a life here," said Liew. "I think people feel like they're in purgatory."

Liew said she feels for those who are only given temporary status without any assurances they can stay in Canada permanently, calling it "a Band-Aid solution."

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"There are large categories of multiple groups of people who are fleeing more zones, fleeing humanitarian crises that should be given permanent resident status," she said.

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Lena Diab said that as of the end of January, more than 3,250 applicants have been approved for permanent residence.

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[Op-ed by John McKay, former Liberal Member of Parliament and Canadian co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group.]

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Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne has just returned from China, accompanied by a high-powered delegation of senior business and financial leaders, including the governor of the Bank of Canada. The visit follows Prime Minister Mark Carney’s own trip to China earlier this year.

At roughly the same time, coincidentally, one might say United States President Donald Trump has issued a new series of trade demands, among them concerns about forced labour in supply chains. It is a reasonable assumption that the president’s interest in forced labour is less about principle and more about leverage. He has already criticized Canada’s engagement with China, warning that we risk exposure to Chinese pressure; as opposed, presumably, to his own unique talent for insults and bullying.

Meanwhile, completing this circle of absurdity, China continues to deny the existence of forced labour in its supply chains.

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So, how should Canada respond?

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Canada already has the building blocks of a credible approach to responsible business conduct. These include the Forced and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, import prohibitions on goods produced with forced labour, and commitments under the OECD Guidelines and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Each of these tools addressed a real gap at the time it was introduced. But, taken together, they do not yet function as a system.

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Canada does not lack policy instruments. It lacks integration and enforcement.

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A modern framework for responsible business conduct should align transparency, prevention, enforcement, and remedy into a single, reinforcing system.

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Global expectations are moving quickly in this direction. Key trading partners other than China and the U.S. are advancing integrated approaches to supply chain accountability and human rights due diligence. Canadian firms operating internationally are already adapting. A fragmented domestic regime risks placing them at a competitive disadvantage.

A coherent Canadian approach would do the opposite. It would provide clarity, reduce duplication, and support responsible companies seeking to meet rising global standards.

In a world increasingly shaped by pressure politics, this country needs more than good intentions. It needs a distinguishing strategy.

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We [Canadians] should define ourselves not by their demands, but by our own discipline ... we are no longer relying solely on the strength of our values, but on the value of our strength.

At the core of that strength should be supply chain accountability and the consistent defence and application of fundamental human rights.

If we fail to act with coherence and conviction, Canadian companies will bear the cost—caught between competing pressures without the benefit of a clear national framework.

But if we get this right, Canada can do more than withstand the pressures of others. We can stand up and stand out.

Manitoba's first appointee assigned to investigate inappropriate conduct by teachers has been let go for working out-of province, the premier says.

Bobbi Taillefer's recent departure as Manitoba's commissioner of teacher professional conduct was the result of a firing, not a resignation as originally reported by the Winnipeg Free Press on Thursday, Premier Wab Kinew said on Friday.

Taillefer investigated and penalized several teachers through disciplinary actions that ranged from reprimands and required training to suspensions, outright dismissal and loss of teaching licences.

The premier also suggested there could be data privacy issues associated with the commissioner working abroad.

The CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act, passed by the U.S. in 2018, gives the American government the authority to retrieve data from around the world as long as it is housed on a server owned by a U.S. company.

Wildfire expert Mike Flannigan says this year will be his "litmus test" for whether Canada's wildfire seasons, already in uncharted territory and fuelled by human-caused climate change, have entered a "new reality."

First Nations leaders are condemning Premier David Eby’s plan to suspend parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, as a step backward that will increase uncertainty for all British Columbians and create political problems for the NDP.

“To say we are frustrated or angry would be an understatement,” said Robert Phillips, First Nations Summit leader, at a Friday news conference. “This is a historical moment for First Nations and we will not back down.”

Eby has said suspending sections of DRIPA before the legislature breaks for the summer is necessary because of litigation risks the province faces.

Huy’wu’qw Shana Thomas, Lyackson Hereditary Chief and a member of the First Nations Summit Task Group, accused the premier of fearmongering and making unilateral decisions.

“We suggest that it is in the best interest of all British Columbians to ensure that reconciliation with the inherent rights and title of First Nations people is reconciled with the assertion of Crown sovereignty,” Thomas said. “That is something that is the unfinished business of Confederation in the province of British Columbia.”

As the cost of living rises in the province, Ontario’s government finds itself under increasing pressure to address affordability just weeks after it delivered its latest budget.

Opposition parties and anti-poverty advocates are questioning the wisdom of holding off on immediate measures to provide cost-of-living relief.

On budget day, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy acknowledged that Ontarians have been hit by rising costs because of U.S. tariffs, the war in Iran and general global economic uncertainty. But he found himself defending the lack of affordability measures in the spending plan, pointing to a time-limited HST cut for new home buyers, amongst a mix of previously announced policies.

“People are feeling very anxious,” Bethlenfalvy said on budget day. “It's a challenging world that we live in, and the uncertainty has hit our shores.”

Officials are issuing a reminder about gun safety following a close call where a stray bullet entered a family’s car while travelling along a forest service road outside of Mission, B.C.

In a press release Friday, Mission RCMP said a family of four was driving near Davis Lake when they heard gunshots.

The father then heard a noise inside the vehicle, and saw a bullet spinning around inside the cup holder of one of his children’s car seats, according to RCMP.

Police say it appears the bullet entered through an open window or the open sunroof.

Gill said a suspect has not been identified, but noted police are regularly called to the Mission backcountry due to people illegally and unsafely discharging firearms.

He said in cases where Mission RCMP have found people illegally shooting in the background, the offenders were nearly always a group of men from elsewhere in the Lower Mainland, usually from Surrey.

Steelmaker ArcelorMittal Dofasco says it's decommissioning one of its two remaining coke plants in Hamilton, with "the last push of coke" to be completed April 13.

People who work at the coke plant are being reassigned to new roles within the company, Verdun said, though she didn't say how many people or whether their new jobs will pay as much.

In 2022, federal and provincial governments touted investments in ArcelorMittal Dofasco's plan, saying the business would decommission its blast furnaces and coke plants and replace them with direct reduced iron technology and electric arc furnaces by 2028.

That quietly changed, CBC Hamilton reported in January, with the company extending its timeline to 2050, according to federal documents. Facing scrutiny at a heated community meeting later that month, Gas Gebara, Dofasco's general manager of environment and energy, acknowledged "timelines have shifted." He refused to provide any indication of when it will follow through on its plan, or even if it would happen in the next quarter century.

The teacher has taken the government to court, seeking to invalidate a provincial education policy that allows students 14 and up to change the name and pronouns used in school with or without parental consent.

A youth hockey team in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., that nearly lost the opportunity to play in a championship game over an alleged messy dressing room has been given the green light to compete this weekend.

The U18 AA Soo Jr. Greyhounds reached a resolution with the Northern Ontario Hockey Association (NOHA) late Friday night, according to team manager Lindsay Fera.

She said the NOHA reached out to the team and met virtually to discuss the league’s ruling that would have barred the Jr. Greyhounds from competing in the regional final against the Sudbury-based Copper Cliff Reds.

“Win or lose, the fact they get to play this game is a win in itself,” she said. “Our players are very grateful to be able to end this season the right way.”

The argument First Nations groups made this week in an Edmonton courthouse wasn’t only aiming to block Alberta separatists’ petition drive toward a referendum, even if that was the specific, narrow goal of an injunction and a related hearing.

Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation and other litigants are challenging the very idea that a province can split from Canada, and in doing so sever their constitutionally protected First Nations treaties.

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) is centred in northeast Alberta, but its ancestors followed caribou throughout what’s now Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories — and members today freely cross those boundaries to hunt, fish and trap, lawyer Kevin Hille told the court this week.

“Any constraint on those activities by an international border would violate those [rights],” Hille said.