Hundreds of noisy California sea lions have taken over the beach at Deep Bay on Vancouver Island, across from Denman Island.

David Rosen, a marine biologist with the UBC Institute for Oceans and Fisheries, told Global News the sea lions are at the end of their six-month northern fish tour and waiting for the upcoming herring run.

“Herring are great food for both humans and sea lions because they are really fatty, and when they clump up in these big aggregations, they are pretty easy to catch,” Rosen said. “It’s like the ultimate buffet.”

1:58
Sea lion surprises swimmers near Victoria, B.C.

The sea lions have drawn crowds of people with many taking pictures, although people and their dogs are required by law to keep at least 100 metres away from marine mammals.

The sea lions are expected to be around Deep Bay until late April or early May, after which they’ll head back to California for the breeding season.

As the ink dries on the latest uranium agreement between India and Canada, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is praising the energy partnership, saying it is good for the province’s economy.

“It’s going to be good for the electricity outbuild here in India as well as good for the economy and good for Northern Saskatchewan and Canada,” Moe told reporters in New Delhi Monday.

The $2.6-billion deal means Saskatoon-based Cameco is to supply just under 22 million pounds of uranium to India for nuclear energy generation over nine years.

“Saskatchewan will certainly benefit from the agreement signed today, but all Canadians benefit as well. I think that’s important for us to remember,” Moe said.

This is the second agreement between Cameco and India’s government, following the first five-year contract, which ended in 2020. The new deal is from 2027 to 2035.

In a news release, Cameco says its uranium will be used for India’s 24 nuclear reactors support the country’s plans to build dozens more.

“That isn’t possible without a stable supply of uranium fuel,” Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel said in the news release.

“We are thankful for the continued advocacy of the Saskatchewan and Canadian governments to foster international trade opportunities that allow us to meet the needs of global customers and bring the benefits home.”

Warren Kaeding, Saskatchewan’s trade and development minister called the announcement of the agreement marked “a very great day here.”

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He continued saying the deal provides Cameco with a “very solid plan” on its exports for the next decade, adding it helps the company with its capital planning, employment and investment in the northern part of the province.

Kaeding also said Saskatchewan will see more royalty revenues from the deal, which will help the province’s bottom line. “It literally opens the door for more agreements that are going to happen as we can likely anticipate are going to happen in the next few years.”

Saskatchewan is included in several other agreements and memoranda of understanding (MOUs) announced on Monday.

Canada and India intend to announce the establishment of a joint “pulse protein centre of excellence” to advance cooperation in value-added agriculture and food innovation. The federal government says that, through a declaration of intent, the two countries will establish a joint task force to develop and operate the centre.

In a statement, Pulse Canada says this centre will help build capacity in the industry through research and innovation.

“For Pulse Canada and its members, this approach underscores the value of partnership-led engagement, bringing together industry, academia, and government to focus on the role pulses can play in the future of food,” Pulse Canada president Greg Cherewyk said in a news release.

Several MOUs were also signed between Indian and Saskatchewan schools. The University of Saskatchewan is signing two agreements for agricultural research with NIFTEM-Kundli and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.

Saskatchewan Polytechnic is signing three agreements. One is for emerging technologies with Atira University, while the other two are for pathway programs with Axia International and Cambridge International School.

“This mission presents an important opportunity to strengthen Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s global connections and deepen our partnerships with institutions in India,”a spokesperson for for the school said.

Despite the uranium deal and other commitments, no progress was made on removing India’s tariffs on Canadian yellow peas and lentils.

India currently has a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian lentils. The country also placed a 30 per cent tariff on Canadian yellow peas in November to protect its local producers.

Before his trip, Moe said he hoped the tariffs would be removed and that lentil tariffs may actually increase.

1:25
Premier Scott Moe lands in India, says lentil tariffs ‘might actually increase’

Kaeding said the province is doing “everything within our ability” to have those tariffs removed. “But we have to remember that ultimately it’s the federal government that has to be able to sign that trade agreement with India to have those tariffs reduced or eliminated.”

Moe remains in New Delhi until the end of the week, where he plans to attend the Raisina Dialogue, which runs until March 7.

With files from The Canadian Press.

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Premier Danielle Smith says with the province’s neighbours to the west moving to adopt year-round daylight time, it’s once again time for Alberta to consider abandoning the practice of changing clocks twice a year.

Premier David Eby announced Monday British Columbia will spring forward an hour for the final time Sunday, in an effort to make life easier.

That means it will be in lock-step with Alberta from November to March, and Alberta will sync with Saskatchewan from March to November.

In Canada, Saskatchewan is the lone daylight saving time holdout, with only a few border communities making the seasonal change.

Smith said along with most of Saskatchewan’s use of year-round central standard time, B.C.’s shift raises questions about whether Alberta should aim for consistency across the western provinces.

Almost five years ago, a referendum question was put to Albertans to keep daylight time year-round: permanently changing to summer hours and no longer turning clocks forward in March and backward in November.

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The question, put to voters in the 2021 municipal election, failed by the narrowest of margins — 50.2 per cent to 49.8 per cent.

1:59
Alberta referendum results released

That, despite the results of a public survey released by the Alberta government in the spring of 2020, in 91 per cent of the 141,000 Albertans who weighed in said they’d like to stop changing their clocks twice a year and stick with DST.

Smith has previously mused about putting the issue on a ballot and now says her United Conservatives will take another look.

“Our government will take these recent developments under consideration and evaluate whether a similar change would be in the best interest of Albertans,” she said in a statement Monday.

Alberta has been on daylight time since 1971.

The former NDP government explored doing away with daylight time in 2017, but did not go ahead in part over concerns about the impact on airline schedules and starting times for NHL games.

As for this year, clocks “spring ahead” when daylight saving time begins this Sunday at 2 a.m.

3:36
Sleep expert offers tips to manage time change

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— With files from Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press and Karen Bartko, Global News

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There is currently no parliamentary budget officer scrutinizing federal finances in Ottawa as the interim fiscal watchdog’s term expired Monday without a successor in place.

The PBO is an independent agent of Parliament tasked with analyzing federal budgets, spending proposals and election campaign promises to raise the quality of public debate.

With no budget officer installed, the office itself cannot publish any reports or accept new work requests from parliamentarians.

The budget office will continue to work on existing requests while waiting for a new officer to be named.

Interim PBO Jason Jacques was appointed to a six-month term in September that ended at 5 p.m. ET Monday.

Ottawa opened applications for a new permanent PBO in November and last week a Privy Council Office spokesman said information about the appointment of a permanent budget officer would be “made available in due course.”

The appointment of a permanent budget officer to a seven-year term is decided by cabinet and must be approved by Parliament.

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Interim PBOs, like Jacques, can be appointed without parliamentary sign-off for six-month terms.

3:04
2025 budget leaves ‘little room’ for future risks, watchdog finds

The federal government’s “persistent delays” in appointing new fiscal watchdogs were highlighted as a shortcoming in an otherwise glowing review of Canada’s parliamentary budget office published last week by the Organization for Economic Co operation and Development.

Jacques argued at the House of Commons standing committee on government operations and estimates Thursday that it would benefit Ottawa to shift the watchdog’s mandate from the budget officer to the office itself to help with continuity between mandates.

Bloc Québécois MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau told the same committee in French that the federal government’s failure to date to name a replacement PBO is “unacceptable” with Jacques’ term coming to a close.

Jacques’ tenure heading up the budget office started with a bang in September as he criticized the Liberal government’s fiscal track as “unsustainable.”

Later, when Liberals tabled their 2025 federal budget, Jacques said Ottawa’s debt path was broadly sustainable in the long term but argued the feds had used up some of their ability to absorb future fiscal shocks.

He also pushed for a new independent body to clarify definitions of capital spending under the Liberals’ new budget framework.

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From people taking vacations to one woman’s journey to teach fitness classes, a number of Canadians have had their travel plans shaken by the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran and its fallout.

There are approximately 85,000 Canadians and permanent residents registered as being in the Middle East, according to Global Affairs Canada. That list includes people who live in the region, but there are also many who are simply visiting.

Among them is Gaye Gibson from Vancouver, who decided to visit Doha, Qatar, for two weeks after stifling heat left her stuck indoors on a previous trip. This time, she said she’s made connections with local residents and found it an “amazing city.”

Gibson told Global News she was watching the news Saturday when the U.S. and Israel began their bombardment of Iran. President Donald Trump has said the objective of the attack is to eliminate Iran’s missile capabilities, destroy its navy and ensure it can never obtain a nuclear weapon.

“It’s strange because I’m kind of going from like, feeling OK, that everything will be OK, but then I watch the news and then I start getting kind of worried about everything and, you know, have to turn off the news,” Gibson said.

Iran retaliated after the initial attack, targeting U.S. and Israeli assets and firing missiles at several Middle Eastern countries including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

Gibson said she asked a local friend if it was safe to go out and was told to get some food but then return to her hotel. She did, but got an emergency alert on the metro. A local resident reassured her but told her to shelter in place.

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“Just watching the news and what started happening, and then I started hearing explosions in the sky and yeah, it’s pretty scary,” Gibson said.

3:33
Iran will not be ‘endless’ war, U.S. Pentagon chief Hegseth says

Regina fitness instructor Rachel Droege was also expecting a different experience when she flew to Kuwait to teach classes.

“To be honest, I didn’t really know how to feel,” she told Global News. “There hadn’t been any missile strikes here yet. There were quite a few sirens, it was like (a) tense feeling, like the energy in this city was pretty tense.”

Droege said most of the fitness classes she had come to teach have either been cancelled or poorly attended. The classes are held in the building where she’s staying, so she hasn’t had to leave her residence.

She added her plan is to stay and teach until the end of her residency on Sunday, but if no flights are going out she’ll stay longer.

“The past few days have been OK, the city is feeling very tense,” Droege said. “There’s been a few, not drone strikes, but they’re (Qatar) intercepting a lot of the missiles so there’s lots of debris falling. But other than their sirens, I haven’t found a lot happening.”

While Gibson and Droege say they’re able to stay longer, others such as Francis Vezina and his partner Genevieve Beaudoin say they feel stranded after planning a layover in Doha.

“We received communications from the Canadian government telling us that we might need to rebook our flight, nothing too concise at that point,” said Vezina, who is visiting from Quebec. “We don’t need to be picked up like children. We just need some information.”

Vezina said he and Beaudoin were aware of tensions in the region prior to booking their layover from Thailand, but because the Canadian government’s travel advisories for both Qatar and Thailand were yellow, he felt it would be OK.

“We were in Thailand, we saw communication but nothing official from the government and we decided to go because we needed to go home,” he said. “Now we’re here and we’ve heard bombs, we’ve seen debris, we’ve seen missiles being intercepted over our heads.”

Global Affairs Canada said Monday it had updated travel advice to avoid all travel to Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Canadians in these countries have been advised to follow the instructions of local authorities, sign up with the Registration of Canadians Abroad and ensure their travel documents are up to date.

—with files from Global News’ Heidi Petracek and Elizabeth Zogalis

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, on his first overseas trip as leader of the official opposition, is pitching a new plan to bind Canada closer to the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The plan that would go beyond existing trade deals each country has with each other to do more to boost defence co-operation and cut regulations that inhibit trade.

Poilievre sketched out his plan for a new partnership at a small reception given Monday night by the Conservative Party of Great Britain at the party’s 194-year-old “home” at the Carlton Club near St. James Palace in central London.

On Tuesday, Poilievre will present the complete plan as he delivers the annual Margaret Thatcher Lecture hosted by the Centre for Policy Studies, a leading centre-right think tank in the U.K.

“The time has come for a new partnership among Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand – a modern CANZUK –  a pact to open our economies further, remove barriers, recognize credentials, expand skilled labour mobility, and deepen capital markets,” Poilievre will say in the lecture.

An excerpt from a draft copy of Tuesday’s speech was provided to Global News.

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Poilievre, according to the draft, will argue that regulatory barriers in the UK are blocking meaningful access to the UK market for Canadian beef producers and ought to be eliminated.

He will say that, should he become prime minister, he would advance policies that would allow for automatic professional recognition for doctors, nurses, engineers and so one so that credentials earned in one country would be accepted by all four.

“If someone can perform heart surgery in Sydney, Australia, they should be able to do so in Sydney, Nova Scotia,” Poilievre is to say.

Similarly, Poilievre will argue that the four countries ought to agree on a “regulatory presumption of equivalence,” the idea that if a product is approved as safe in one country, it should be deemed safe for us in all four countries.

“If a drug or auto part is safe in London, England, it should be safe in London, Ontario,” he will say.

Poilievre’s overseas trip is part of plan by the Conservatives to get Canadian voters to see Poilievre in a different light and hear him proposing different policies, in the hope of reversing some polling data which shows Poilievre and the Conservatives falling further behind Mark Carney and the Liberals.

In the last election,  Poilievre faced criticism that he tended to substitute slogans — “Axe the Tax”, for example — for policy. The sloganeering has now been shelved in favour of keynote speeches chock full with new policy proposals.

In his speech Tuesday night, Poilievre will also repeat ideas he first advanced last week in front of a Bay Street crowd in Toronto, that Canada should create an Energy and Critical Minerals Reserve, controlled by Canada but which would be shared with its allies during times of conflict.

After spending two days in the British capital, Poilievre will travel to Berlin and Hamburg where his office says he will meet with German officials and business leaders. He will also deliver a keynote speech at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation on the Canada-Europe transatlantic relationship.

The cost of Poilievre’s travel is being borne by the Conservative Party of Canada, his office says.

He returns to Canada on Sunday.

David Akin is the chief political correspondent for Global News.

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Ontario and Nova Scotia have signed an agreement that will let residents in both provinces buy alcohol directly from local producers in either jurisdiction.

The new deal flows from a broader framework agreed to by several provinces last year to try to reduce or do away with internal Canadian trade barriers altogether.

Canadian provinces have various restrictive rules around the sale of alcohol that make it difficult for customers to buy outside of their territory.

In Ontario, for example, alcohol must be bought through the LCBO and direct shipments from other provinces are forbidden.

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The agreement signed between Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his Nova Scotia counterpart Tim Houston will abolish those barriers and allow for people to order direct from local breweries, wineries and distillers “in the coming weeks.”

It will allow people to purchase alcohol directly from other provinces without going through provincial agencies. Someone living in Ontario, for example, could order Nova Scotia wine directly from a small producer on the East Coast.

Both leaders hailed the agreement.

“Ontario is leading the way to unlock free trade within Canada. Our agreement means Nova Scotia residents can conveniently purchase any of their favourite Ontario craft beers, wines and more, while Ontario residents will be able to buy the very best Nova Scotia has to offer,” Ford said in a statement.

Houston said the deal was a “stepping stone” that would let alcohol makers in his province access the much larger Ontario market.

With the agreement now signed, both provinces will begin going through the process of authorizing sales from a competing jurisdiction.

The government has not indicated a date on which those changes will be formalized.

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A construction worker had to be rescued on the job on Monday after they fell down a six-metre hole.

Langley, B.C., RCMP said they were called to the 7800 block of 200th Street, which is the Langley Events Centre, at 8:13 a.m., along with first responders from the Township of Langley Fire Department.

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BC Ambulance Service was also called to the scene.

The worker had fallen down a six-metre hole on the construction site and a firefighter was sent down to assist in bringing the worker up.

The worker was taken to the hospital in stable condition, RCMP confirmed.

“At this time, there does not appear to be any criminality; however, we are working alongside Work Safe BC to determine the factors that led up to this incident,” Sgt. Zynal Sharoom of the Langley RCMP said in a statement.

Anyone who witnessed the incident is asked to contact the Langley RCMP at 604-532-3200 and quote file number 2026-6538.

A move by the Niagara regional chair to review municipal governance with an eye to possible amalgamations appears to have hit a snag after an at-times testy council meeting.

A letter earlier this month from provincial appointee Bob Gale to mayors of the region said there are too many elected officials in Niagara — 126 — and tax increases are too high, so he is starting consultation on reforms including potential amalgamations or reducing the number of councillors.

Several mayors have said the letter caught them off guard and they want a more thorough process involving data and discussions with residents, rather than the tight, two-week timeline he gave mayors to provide feedback.

“Everyone here seems to agree that there’s a need for a review of governance,” Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop told Gale at the meeting.

“There’s a need to review services, and there may be something further that comes out of a governance review. This is somewhat the direction you were going, but it’s going to rely heavily on data, a business case which the residents of Niagara … deserve. Not just word from you.”

Premier Doug Ford said earlier this week he agrees that Niagara has too many councillors, but that any move toward amalgamation has to be led by Niagara, with the approval of the majority of mayors.

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One councillor asked Gale if the province plans to just step in and impose its own governance changes on Niagara, if the region itself cannot agree on a path forward. Gale said he did not know.

Ford, a former Toronto city councillor himself, slashed the size of that city’s council in half shortly after becoming premier. His government also set out to dissolve the upper-tier municipality of Peel Region, but largely reversed course months later.

At a special meeting Thursday night, Niagara regional councillors — a group that includes mayors and some councillors from municipalities across the area — voted to conduct a full governance review and directed Gale to refrain from further action and using staff time or regional resources for his own consultations.

Pelham Mayor Marvin Junkin said his municipality supports governance changes, though not forced amalgamations.

“If amalgamation is to be a part of Niagara’s future, it should only involve willing parties,” he said.

“The premier has been very clear that he would respect the vote of any majority of Niagara mayors. I am very happy to hear this. If Ontario ever changes its position, I will point out that 18 months was the timeframe provided to Peel Region before that effort ended in disaster. Personally, I would expect a similar amount of time to be provided to Niagara municipalities.”

Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati is in favour of amalgamating down to four cities, and chastised councillors who said there has not been enough consultation, noting various reports and provincial government committee hearings over the years.

“By the way, folks, it’s your job, you’ve been elected to represent the people, not go back to them every time you want to make a decision,” he said.

“The idea is that you are elected to represent them, to make good decisions, not ask them every time. Otherwise, you’re not leading. We need to lead by example, and stop circling the wagons and shooting inward.”

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