Any British Columbians looking for a new fur friends from the province's S-P-C-A branches can get 50 per cent off adoption fees between now and Sunday.
The promotion is to mark National Adopt A Shelter Pet Day.
The S-P-C-A says many locations are also hosting special activities and offering extended hours this weekend.
The organization says it cared for nearly 16-thousand animals last year.
One person is confirmed deceased. Shooting appears to be targeted.
Modelling expert Sarah Otto of the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network says the fast-spreading subvariant is on track to dominate infections across the country. The University of British Columbia professor predicted a July wave, peaking in August.
Canada's chief public health officer Theresa Tam says circulating Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are even more transmissible and able to evade immunity than previous versions, making a rise in cases likely in coming weeks.
The policy, more than five years in the making, will clearly label products with the so-called "nutrients of public health concern" that have been linked to conditions such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
Chief public health officer Theresa Tam says there are "continuing discussions and contract negotiations" to obtain doses from Bavarian Nordic, the Danish manufacturer of a smallpox vaccine approved for use against monkeypox.
Mike Farnworth says that would give displaced residents returning home a sense of their future after 90 per cent of their village burned to the ground last June 30 during a record-setting heat wave.