Author: Silas Reed

With a baby on her back, Zawadi Maringa came in quietly to the Utange Field Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya, in early November. She had heard about a cleft lip and palate camp offering surgery free of charge by a Canadian medical team called Operation Rainbow Canada.But the help she needed wasn’t for her child. The 35-year-old had lived her whole life with a deformed face.“Since I was born, I went to another operation mission with my mom. But my mom ran away because she feared the general anesthetic. I came alone today. I’m happy you welcomed me,” Maringa explained. Zawadi…

Descrease article font size Increase article font size British Columbians are preparing to pay their respects and say a final goodbye to one of the province’s most popular premiers. The provincial state funeral for former premier John Horgan will be held Sunday, Dec. 15, at the Q Centre in Colwood, next to Horgan’s hometown of Langford.The ceremony is open to the public, but free tickets must be booked in advance either through the website of his beloved lacrosse team, the Victoria Shamrocks, or by contacting the Office of Protocol at 250 387-1616.Tickets are limited to two per person and will…

Fifty years ago, Charlie Bourgeois’ father — a corporal with what was then known as the Moncton Police Force — went missing. Bourgeois was 13 at the time, and recalls the pain his mother and siblings endured.“It was obviously a very difficult time for myself, our family, especially not knowing for several days what had happened,” he recalled.“It certainly left a mark on me.”It turns out his father, Cpl. Aurèle Bourgeois, had been murdered alongside Const. Michael O’Leary. The pair had gone missing while investigating the kidnapping of a 14-year-old boy.On Dec. 15, 1974, the two police officers were found…

Sabrina Dufaan and her family has nowhere to go after their Montreal apartment burned down, along with what little savings they had stashed away in the kitchen. The mother of two says her husband had lit scented candles while they were cleaning, before they left to pick up their young daughter and grab some groceries on Dec. 3.“Within 10 minutes we got a phone call from the lady downstairs. She was like ‘Your house is on fire. Come now,’” Dufaan said in an interview Friday.Dufaan froze before running back to the family’s apartment in the city’s St-Leonard borough. The whole…

Canadians heading out to do some holiday shopping this weekend will notice some of the tax on various products knocked off as the federal government’s temporary “tax holiday” goes into effect Saturday. The two-month tax break is expected to save taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion, and will reduce that amount from federal revenues, the parliamentary budget officer (PBO) said in a costing note published Monday.The “tax holiday” is in effect until Feb. 14, 2025.Basic groceries like fresh fruits and vegetables, most milk products, fresh meat, poultry and eggs already have no GST/HST, but prepared foods like sandwiches, salad and pre-made…

A frightening incident at a downtown Kelowna ambulance station has the union representing paramedics calling for immediate safety improvements. “We don’t want it to take a paramedic dying for change to happen,” said Ian Tait, communications director for the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C.Early Tuesday morning, a paramedic was washing an ambulance in the station’s garage bay on Lawrence Avenue when he suddenly came face to face with a knife-wielding woman screaming and allegedly uttering threats.“The assailant popped out from behind the ambulance brandishing like a four-inch hunting knife with,  like an edged tip on it,” Tait said.According to Tait, the…

Descrease article font size Increase article font size 2024 world champion chuckwagon driver Chanse Vigen brought his chuck to the parking lot of a local grocery store on Friday in order to wrangle up a couple thousand dollars’ worth of donations for the Calgary food bank. For Vigen, making the choice to support his local food bank is just one way he can give back.“It’s easy to take and take,” explained Vigen. “It’s important to remember that you gotta give back.“There’s not enough of us doing it nowadays, so I’m trying to represent the chuckwagon community by giving back the…

Railway hazards are not unheard of in Winnipeg. In 2012, a fireball billowed into the sky above St. Boniface after a fuel plant burst into flames, igniting a tanker in its wake.For Tom Scott, who has lived in St. Boniface for 34 years, it was a wake-up call.“You can see the damage that can happen very quickly. It’s just not, you know, something happens and, ‘Well, it got a little bit out of hand. We’ll take care of it.’ It can get quite out of hand quite easily,” he said.It’s not the first rail-related event he’s dealt with during his…

Descrease article font size Increase article font size Pickleball courts in a Halifax suburb are in danger of being shut down by the city after drawing complaints from residents who describe the noise levels as “excessive.” The Halifax Regional Municipality’s community planning and economic development committee voted Thursday to convert a set of pickleball courts in Castle Hill Park back into tennis courts while seeking out more appropriate pickleball sites elsewhere in the municipality.Coun. Kathryn Morse said she brought a motion forward after receiving complaints from people in her district who “couldn’t stand the noise” generated from people playing pickleball…

Two former premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador say a draft energy agreement signed Thursday with Quebec shattered a political standoff that leaders had been trying to end for decades. Brian Tobin, a Liberal premier from 1996 to 2000, said the shift in political alignment will be good for the provinces, and for the entire country.“I think it is a long-awaited breaking of a gridlock in the relationship between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec,” he said in an interview Friday. “I think that this is really important.”The tensions stem from a contract signed by the two provinces in 1969, which allowed…