B.C. to end state of emergency as wildfire risk winds down
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 14 Sep, 2023 05:12 PM
The British Columbia government says it is ending the state of emergency imposed last month when thousands of residents were chased out of their homes by wildfires.
The government says in a statement the wildfire risk is diminishing in much of the province as temperatures cool, allowing most residents to return home.
B-C Hydro says it set a new record for the highest peak hourly demand in August on Monday night. It comes as a heat wave sweeping across the southern half of B-C also sets records, including 37.5 Celsius in Port Alberni, breaking a benchmark set in 1933 and 30.6 Celsius at Yoho National Park, surpassing a mark set in 1930.
Two men who have been arrested for allegedly carjacking a delivery van in Richmond failed to consider that many of those vehicles come equipped with G-P-S tracking systems. R-C-M-P say it happened on Sunday when the driver said his van was taken at gunpoint by two people wearing masks.
Mario Dion retired in February after serving as the last permanent ethics and conflict-of-interest commissioner. A longtime staffer in that office, Martine Richard, took on an interim role in April — but she resigned within weeks amid controversy around the fact she is the sister-in-law of Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
New data from the Public Health Agency of Canada suggests that COVID-19 infections may be slowly starting to rise again in Canada. On its website, the agency says there are signs of continued fluctuations in some COVID-19 activity indicators after a long period of gradual decline.
The inflation rate rose to 3.3 per cent in July, a development that economists warn spells bad news for the Bank of Canada. Forecasters say the latest report raises the odds of an interest rate hike next month, despite other signs of economic softening, including rising unemployment.
The Fraser Canyon communities of Lytton and Lillooet both broke the 40 C mark on Monday, with Lytton reaching 41.4 C and Lillooet slightly behind, while the southern Okanagan community of Osoyoos was expected to join the 40-plus club by the end of the day.