OTTAWA - Driving into York Region on Toronto's northern border, what first stands out to most people are the large houses and vast estates that Michael Braithwaite says leaves the impression that homelessness isn't an issue here.

As COVID-19 vaccination rates increase and case numbers drop across the country, the provinces and territories have begun releasing the reopening plans for businesses, events and recreational facilities.

OTTAWA - Former Afghan interpreters now living in Canada are pleading for the federal government to help extended family members stuck in Afghanistan as the Taliban continues its march across the country.

WASHINGTON - Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden each got the chance to sports-gloat a little Monday as the two North American leaders talked for the first time since Canada and the United States appeared to part ways over their shared border.

REPENTIGNY, Que. - The family of a Black man shot and killed by police in a Montreal suburb on Sunday wants to know why officers opened fire.

MONTREAL - A labour strike at a Quebec pork-processing plant is creating a dangerous backlog of pigs ready for slaughter, putting thousands of animals at risk of going to waste, says the head of an association of pork producers.

DUNCAN, B.C. - Christmas tree growers in British Columbia say they are facing a brown holiday season due to the heat dome that drove temperatures above 40 Celsius for days and burned firs destined for family living rooms.

MONTREAL - Brendan Holt Dunn said he wanted to invoke the legacy of his great-great-grandfather, pioneering Quebec industrialist Sir Herbert Holt, in the name of his Montreal-based venture capital fund.

OTTAWA - The federal government is expecting to receive more than 2.3 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine this week, as public health officials brace for a potential fourth wave of infections.

MONTREAL - Quebec provincial police say they are searching for two hunters in the Outaouais region who have been missing since Friday.

MONTREAL - Quebec lifted further COVID-19 restrictions across the province on Sunday, including extending closing times for bars and restaurants, and increasing capacities for gatherings.

VANCOUVER - An extraordinary set of handwritten notes by Canada's acting defence chief appear to reveal a behind-the-scenes struggle between due process, political optics and support for the complainant after a sexual misconduct allegation emerged against Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin.

MONTREAL - It's no coincidence that a wave of Indigenous women have won leadership roles previously held only by men, say leaders and advocates.

VANCOUVER - There is more to learn about the consequences of intensifying wildfires on community watersheds across Canada, but a large, severe fire followed by heavy precipitation could seriously affect drinking water, says a wildfire research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service.

VANCOUVER - British Columbia is gearing up for another heat wave this weekend by opening more cooling centres and redeploying health-care workers as temperatures are expected to soar.

EDMONTON - The public inquiry report into what the Alberta government labels troublesome foreign funding of enviro-groups was delivered Friday – a year late and million dollars over its original budget.

OTTAWA - The federal government has reached a nearly $8-billion settlement with First Nations who launched a class-action lawsuit over the lack of clean, safe drinking water in their communities.

Canada’s top doctors say Alberta’s decision to end isolation requirements for those who test positive for COVID-19, or who have been in close contact with someone who has, could have ripple effects across the country.

CHISASIBI, Que. - Mandy Gull-Masty has become the first woman to be elected grand chief of Quebec's Cree Nation.

OTTAWA - A copyright collective cannot force York University to pay fees for the use of published works in the classroom, given that the school bowed out of a formal arrangement, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.

MONTREAL - A judge has put off a decision on a bail request from one of three men accused in an alleged abduction that triggered an Amber Alert in Montreal this week, telling the court on Friday she needs more evidence before ruling.

Federal officials are warning Canada could be on the brink of a fourth wave of COVID-19 driven by the Delta variant if the country opens too fast before enough people have been vaccinated.

OTTAWA - The federal government ran a deficit of nearly $24 billion over the first two months of its fiscal year, a sharp drop from the unprecedented spending one year earlier at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

VANCOUVER - Two groups focused on environmental issues are calling on the British Columbia government to come up with a plan to track "heat dome injuries" following record-setting temperatures that are also linked with 570 deaths in the province over a one-week period.