Prime Minister Mark Carney leaves Thursday for a 10-day visit to India, Australia and Japan — his first international trip since his headline-making speech in Davos that called for middle powers to band together.

It will give Carney a chance to put that speech into action as he visits three “powerhouses of the region,” Asia Pacific Foundation vice-president Vina Nadjibulla said in an interview.

“The Indo-Pacific is where the centre of gravity for geopolitics and economic growth … is increasingly converging,” she said.

In his speech to the World Economic Forum in January, Carney urged middle powers to work together against “American hegemony” and the efforts of great powers to coerce and subjugate smaller countries.

“In Asia, Canada is having a moment. Prime Minister Carney’s speech really was quite an important development in how Asia sees Canada,” Nadjibulla said.

4:17
Moe says reviving Canada-India trade talks would be ‘a real positive’

University of Waterloo political science professor David Welch said the trip is a “clear follow” on the speech, since India, Japan and Australia are all important middle powers. He said Canada’s “stock has risen dramatically globally since the Davos speech.”

But it’s still not clear how much Carney will be able to accomplish with the trip, beyond symbolism.

“Whether he comes back with deals that do significantly enhance Canada’s economic relationship or security relationship with any of these countries, that remains to be seen,” Welch said.

At the G20 summit in South Africa last year, Carney launched a partnership on emerging technologies with India and Australia.

“We don’t have a lot of details but I’m hoping that we will see some announcements connected to the trilateral during the prime minister’s visit,” Nadjibulla said, noting the agreement came after India hosted a global summit on AI.

Carney will land in Mumbai on Feb. 27, then head to New Delhi on March 1, where he will meet Indian President Narendra Modi. He will then fly to Sydney March 3 before stopping in Canberra on March 5 and then Tokyo on March 6.

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While Canada has a good relationship with both Australia and Japan, Carney has set out to reset Canada’s relations with India after a diplomatic crisis that erupted in 2023.

In September 2023, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons Canada was pursuing “credible allegations of a potential link” between India and the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

A year later, the RCMP accused New Delhi of playing a role in a network of violence linked to domestic homicides and acts of extortion.

Both countries recalled their high commissioners and diplomatic ties were suspended for months.

Then Carney invited Modi to the G7 summit in Alberta last June and the two countries have since reappointed high commissioners.

2:29
Canada, India revive negotiations for comprehensive trade deal

“We both decided that this is too important a relationship to let go, for it to meander the way it was meandering,” India’s High Commissioner to Canada Dinesh Patnaik said in an interview last week.

The two countries have relaunched trade negotiations that have stopped and started since 2010. Patnaik said he’s optimistic about the chances of reaching a deal in just 12 months of negotiations because both countries want stability in a turbulent world.

Both Canada and India are looking to diversify their trade links away from dependence on the United States. Sushant Singh, a lecturer on South Asian studies at Yale University, said Carney and Modi are being driven by the same motive.

“Very clearly there is a desire to close the previous chapter or whatever happened with the previous government … and to start afresh,” he said.

After India, Carney heads to Australia, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been in power since 2022. Carney will address Australia’s Parliament during the trip, government officials said in a background briefing.

Both Canada and Australia are Commonwealth countries and partners in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, along with the U.S., U.K. and New Zealand.

Nadjibulla said there is a lot of goodwill and trust between the two countries, along with strong investment ties, but the “defence and security relationship is one that absolutely needs to be strengthened.”

Canada and Australia signed an agreement last year to deploy an over-the-horizon radar system.

Welch said Canada’s relationship with Australia is good but the opportunities for interaction are limited.

“They’re a commodity exporter. We’re a commodity exporter. They’re an agricultural powerhouse. We’re an agricultural powerhouse,” he said. “Just trying to figure out what we could sell them that we don’t sell them now and vice versa is a bit of a trick.”

Carney’s last stop will be in Japan, also a close ally. His visit comes after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female prime minister, was re-elected in a landslide earlier this month.

“In some ways, the trip is long overdue given how significant Japan is as a partner for us in the region,” Nadjibulla said. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau visited in 2023.

A side-trip to Japan was considered when Carney travelled to Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea last fall, but the timing did not work out.

3:00
Carney, Modi hold talks to reset India-Canada ties during G7 in Alberta after tense 2 years

Canada launched an Indo-Pacific strategy three years ago. Nadjibulla said that strategy has led to a deeper relationship with Japan.

She described it as a “full spectrum partnership” that includes strong economic relations, commercial investment, partnerships on energy and critical minerals, “alignment around values and deep people-to-people ties as well.”

But Nadjibulla noted that because the relationship is in a very good place, “it’s easy to overlook it and to not give it the kind of attention that it deserves.”

Welch said Canada and Japan have grown closer as global volatility and uncertainty have increased.

“Canada and Japan in the past few years just seized on each other as stable, like-minded countries that are committed to a rules-based international order and committed to a liberal international order,” he said.

Max Scherzer is returning to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Two weeks into spring training, the three-time Cy Young Award winner has agreed with the reigning American League champions on a US$3 million, one-year contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press early Thursday.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal was subject to a successful physical and had not been announced.

The 41-year-old Scherzer can earn another US$10 million in performance bonuses.

Scherzer went 5-5 with a 5.19 ERA in 17 starts and 85 innings for the Blue Jays last season, his 18th in the major leagues. Then he made three starts in the postseason, beating Seattle 8-2 in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series before getting the ball twice in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The right-hander pitched 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball in Game 7 and left to a rousing ovation from fans in Toronto, but the Blue Jays lost 5-4 in 11 innings.

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Scherzer signed a US$15.5 million, one-year contract with Toronto in February 2025. A free agent again this winter, he’s set to rejoin the Blue Jays and provide even more depth for a strong rotation expected to feature some combination of Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, Trey Yesavage, Cody Ponce, José Berríos and Eric Lauer.

“He’s not afraid to question baserunning, question defense, question offense. He still thinks he’s our best baserunner on the team from his days with the Nationals,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said about Scherzer last fall. “He’s not afraid to push the envelope. He’s not afraid to be curious. He’s not afraid to share things that he’s been through that maybe I haven’t been through.”

Scherzer has won two World Series titles, with Washington in 2019 and Texas in 2023. The eight-time All-Star is 221-117 with a 3.22 ERA for the Diamondbacks, Tigers, Nationals, Dodgers, Mets, Rangers and Blue Jays.

He ranks 11th on the career list with 3,489 strikeouts — 20 behind Hall of Famer Walter Johnson.

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Cassidy Horne and her partner William Biso were set to welcome their first child Arabella in January.

But things didn’t go according to plan.

“We were ready to take care of her for the rest of her life and now that’s just not going to happen,” Biso said.

Holly Horne, Cassidy’s mother, says concerns were first raised in December 2025 when her daughter was 31 weeks pregnant, but only measuring at 29 weeks.

In response, she says her daughter’s family doctor sent an emergency referral to the IWK Health Centre’s ultrasound clinic on Dec. 11.

“We didn’t hear anything for two weeks,” Holly said. “We went to the next appointment and found out that the referral got lost, due to their new system. So they sent another one on the 23rd, which also got lost.”

Holly Horne says that during a prenatal appointment on Jan. 8, the family says they learned the second referral also couldn’t be found.

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“Our doctor even called the clinic, but they said they couldn’t do anything or tell us anything at that time because the system was down,” the patient’s mother says they were told. “The whole system was down that day.”

Holly then said on that Jan. 12, after leaving several voicemails, she was able to schedule an emergency ultrasound for Jan. 14.

But by then, she said, it was too late.

“Her heart had stopped on the 13th due to the cord being wrapped around her neck seven times,” Holly Horne said.

“I don’t really know who to blame at this point,” Cassidy said, “because there’s not really anybody specific to blame. It’s the whole system.”

The IWK Health Centre transitioned to a new digital system in December.

It was part of the province’s rollout of its new One Person One Record Clinical Information Program, which is expected to be fully implemented provincewide by the end of the year.

The union representing health-care workers and support staff at the IWK said “workers are expressing a great deal of frustration” over the system’s rollout.

“Part of those concerns are regarding potential errors or delays in care for patients as a result of this new records management system,” the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union says in a statement. “The concern of these front-line workers should be taken seriously by government and management.”

The IWK Health Centre said it’s unable to comment on this specific case, but that concerns of this nature are taken seriously and are thoroughly reviewed.

The 18-year-old couple and Holly all said the situation has made them lose trust in the province’s health-care system.

“We should be holding her in our arms, not in an urn. It’s not fair,” Holly said.

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Ty Sperle says he felt “insane shock” after learning he’d been cured of a rare genetic disease through a clinical trial using a new gene-editing treatment.

The B.C. man says he’d started that day last year feeling hopeless, but the news he was cured filled him with indescribable happiness.

Sperle is the first person known to have received and be cured by a treatment known as “prime editing,” in a breakthrough by U.S.-based Prime Medicine reported in the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine last December.

The 19-year-old, who lives in Kelowna, B.C., had been diagnosed with chronic granulomatous disease around age five, compromising his immune system.

Dr. Stuart Turvey, a pediatric immunologist who treated Sperle for more than a decade during his stays at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, says the disease leaves patients susceptible to infections that can turn serious, even fatal.

“People with this disease don’t live long and healthy lives,” Turvey says.

But the sequencing of the human genome has allowed researchers to identify “spelling” mistakes in people’s DNA, he says, and “the era we’re really in now is about translating those fundamental discoveries to helping patients.”

In a statement issued by the hospital, Turvey says he “jumped” at the opportunity to register Sperle for the clinical trial, which was offered at a limited number of sites. The only one in Canada was Montreal’s Sainte-Justine university hospital, he says.

Prior to the gene-editing treatment, which Turvey calls a “miracle,” he says Sperle was taking antibiotics and antifungal medications daily to help protect him.

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“But that’s not perfect,” he says. “So every day there was a possibility sort of hanging over (Sperle) and his family that some serious infection might sneak in.”

Other patients with the same disease may undergo a combination of chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant to effectively wipe out their compromised immune system and build a new one using cells from a healthy donor, Turvey says.

“But not everyone has an optimal donor to give those healthy cells, and (Sperle) was in a position where there was no good donor,” he says.

Chronic granulomatous disease is rare, he says, with just a handful of diagnoses over the two decades Turvey has worked at the hospital.

The gene-editing treatment involved extracting Sperle’s own cells, fixing the “spelling mistake” and inserting the cells back into his body, where they multiplied, overriding his cells that hadn’t been working properly, Turvey says.

“What that meant was, you know, his body wasn’t going to reject those cells, those cells weren’t going to attack his body because they were his cells, just fixed up.”

Turvey says it’s a “dream come true” for his patient to be free of symptoms.

Sperle, who’s now a second-year science student at the University of B.C.’s Okanagan campus, says he’d been living with constant uncertainty.

Being cured of the disease means he no longer has to live in fear of developing a serious or life-threatening infection, Sperle says.

“I do like camping as well and you know, it was a risk before, like there’s lots of bacteria in the woods … so now I can do that without having that risk,” he says.

“I was on a regimen of pills and all those are gone, so I don’t have to take medication anymore, which is just amazing,” he adds.

Sperle says he was “extremely nervous” to be the first patient to undergo the treatment.

“When they put the transplant thing inside me, I was super stressed out, unimaginable stress,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview.

But he had confidence in his doctors, he says.

Sperle says his mother was with him at the Montreal hospital following the gene-editing treatment, but she wasn’t in the room when he first heard he was cured.

She reacted with “instant tears” of happiness when he told her, he says.

Sperle says the success of his treatment can provide hope for others with genetic diseases, especially as the technology advances in years to come.

Turvey says certain diseases may be individually rare, but considered in the aggregate, they’re common. “For us, at BC Children’s Hospital, we estimate that about one in three admitted to hospital actually has a rare disease.”

He says Sperle’s case proves the gene-editing technology can be a cure. But it’s not yet routinely available for patients.

“The next (step), and these are complex steps, is to work out how to deliver this within our various health-care systems, and that’s still an ongoing effort.”

In the statement issued by BC Children’s Hospital, the provincial health minister, Josie Osborne, says Sperle’s successful treatment is a “milestone” that shows the power of public health care, research and global collaboration.

“This gives hope to families facing rare conditions and shows how smart investment in science can lead to life-changing care.”

An Ontario woman who first put on skis more than 80 years ago is still making her way down the slopes, and inspiring generations of skiers along the way.

Doris Pierson, 95, has been a familiar sight at Sir Sam’s Ski hill on Eagle Lake in Ontario’s Haliburton Highlands for decades. And despite her age, she says the hill is where she still feels at her quickest.

“I am slowing down now,” she joked. “Except on the hill.”

Pierson first learned to ski as a teenager. She says her brother bought her a pair of skis when she was 13, partly to keep her busy and out of trouble. Skiing quickly became a family tradition. Her daughter, Leslie Currie, told Global News that her parents worked as ski patrollers when she was young, which gave their four children a chance to ski every weekend.

Today, that family legacy spans four generations. Pierson says her children, grandchildren and great‑grandchildren all ski, and some of them continue to join her on the slopes.

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“I have two great‑great‑granddaughters skiing here with me today,” she said at the ski kill.

Around Eagle Lake, many regulars know Pierson by name. Fellow skiers describe her not just as a skilled athlete, but as someone who brings energy and warmth to the hill.

“Doris is so inspirational. Not just because of the way she skis, but for so many other reasons,” said friend and skier Barb Bolin.

“She’s an all‑around great person,” said another friend, Chris Bishop. “She brings a lot to the hill.”

Pierson’s love of skiing has taken her far beyond Ontario. She has skied across Europe, the United States and Chile, and even taught at Whistler. She says she still considers Sir Sam’s her second home.

“The people, the families I love, the friends I’ve made here — it means everything,” she said.

Even after having both knees replaced several years ago, Pierson says the surgery allowed her to keep doing what she loves, and she says she has no plans to stop.

“It gives you a reason to get up in the morning,” she said. “It’s what I do every day that the sun shines.”

Because of her eyesight, Pierson skips cloudy days. But regulars say one thing is certain: if the sun is out, so is Doris.

For the full story, watch the video above.

6:49
Milano-Cortina Olympics: Brendan Mackay speaks after bronze medal win in men’s ski halfpipe

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Despite being considered one of the best tools to reduce wildfire risk,  prescribed burns are not that common.

For instance, a controlled fire on Kelowna‘s Knox Mountain last October was one of only two performed in the city in 2025.

In neighbouring West Kelowna, there’s been plenty of fire damage over the years but not a prescribed burn.

“For us here, we’ve never done one here in West Kelowna,” said West Kelowna fire chief Jason Brolund.  “It’s very complex. It takes a lot of work to prepare in advance and the people who are doing it need to be highly trained and highly skilled.”

The types of resources used have been in shorty supply in Canada. However, a first-of-its-kind program hopes to change that.

Called the Canadian Prescribed Fire Training Program, it’s been co-developed by UBC-Okanagan and the Ontario-based Weston Family Foundation, which has donated $8 million to ignite it.

“To be more resilient to fire can only come if people are trained and they have the capacity to do this kind of work,” said Dr. Mathieu Bourbonnais, assistant professor with UBC-O’s Faculty of Science.

Bourbonnais, a former wildland firefighter himself,  is leading the charge and will help administer the nationwide program.

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“Unlike suppression, where we’ll share resources across the country, in prescribed fire, we don’t have the framework for doing that right now,” Bourbonnais said. “It’s kind of created this capacity gap.”

The new program will train more people to safely plan and carry out prescribed burns, create national training standards and provide hands-on experience in the field.

The initiative will also support Indigenous-led fire stewardship and cultural burning practices.

“Every province and territory and jurisdiction does things a little bit different, and what that’s done is it’s limited opportunities for both people in wildfire agencies to get trained up,” Bourbonnais said. “It’s also limited opportunities for, you know, broader groups that might be involved in this, to get trained in prescribed fire.”

1:52
Fire crews out in force in Kelowna’s Knox Mountain Park

That training is critical when it comes to lighting fires to remove dangerous fuels with many factors to consider.

“We’ll assess the fuels, the topography, what we’re going to see for weather, the type of fire behaviour that we want to kind of put on the ground,” Bourbonnais said.

“We also want to make sure that we’re communicating well with the public around, you know, hey, this is happening.”

Brolund said prescribed burns have several advantages, including being cost-effective and impactful.

“It’s something that had been practiced for thousands of years but we lost it,” Brolund said. “And if we’re going to make a dent on a scale that is really measurable, we need to re-learn those skills and be able to apply fire to the ground over a large area to, you know, really have an impact on these fires that we face.”

The new program will help establish five regional hubs (Western, Northern, Central, Eastern, and Atlantic Canada) to tailor training to local ecosystems and governance realities.

2:03
Concerns over changes to FireSmart funding

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An Okanagan Falls, B.C., family says their lives changed in an instant after a skiing accident left their 14-year-old son with serious injuries earlier this month.

“Our entire world was turned upside down in seconds,” said Sean Hall, Connell Hall’s father.

Connell Hall was skiing with friends at Apex Mountain Resort when he lost control coming down a hill.

“I think his speed got a little too high. He wasn’t able to navigate a turn, got some air,” Hall explained. “And when he landed, he landed on his front, on the side of his head, which is where he incurred the majority of the injuries.”

Connell was knocked unconscious. Ski patrol and medical staff rushed to treat him on the mountain before he was airlifted to Royal Inland Hospital for emergency care.

“I can honestly say a helmet saved my son’s life, and the Apex ski patrol saved my son’s life,” Hall said.

2:28
Toronto woman dies in Banff skiing accident

James Shalman, general manager of Apex Mountain Resort, says safety is always the top priority.

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“We just want to make sure that everyone has a safe experience,” Shalman said. “When something happens, it’s all hands on deck to look after the person and make sure they have all the care they can.”

Connell remained unconscious for three to four days. He suffered a broken femur, a broken wrist and a traumatic brain injury.

Now awake and responsive, he faces a long road to recovery as he works to regain full cognitive function.

“His dry sense of humour, his sarcasm, it’s starting to poke through every once in a while,” Hall said. “For maybe 30 seconds, two or three times a day, I get my son back. And those moments are starting to happen more often.”

Connell is expected to be transferred long-term to BC Children’s Hospital for further treatment and rehabilitation. An online fundraiser has also been launched to help cover travel and medical expenses, as Connell’s mother is recovering from breast cancer surgery at the same time.

Hall says despite the challenges ahead, the experience has strengthened his family.

“It’s building resilience in my son and my daughter, teaching them how to push on through life,” he said. “Because it’s probably not going to get any easier.”

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On the eve of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s official visit to Mumbai and New Delhi, a senior official said the government believed India was no longer plotting attacks on Canadians.

The official’s comments at a press background briefing were the first to suggest India had halted the clandestine operations that Canada has linked to a murder and other violence.

“We have a very robust diplomatic engagement, including between national security advisers, and I think we can say we’re confident that that activity is not continuing or we would not be having this type of discussion,” he said.

Pressed by reporters to clarify the comment, the official declined to elaborate, but added, “I really don’t think we’d be taking this trip if we thought these kind of activities would continue.”

The official spoke on the condition he would not be identified.

Canadian national security agencies believe India began a campaign in 2022 to kill activists in North America who support Khalistan, an independent state in the Sikh-majority Punjab.

Among those allegedly targeted was Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in June 2023 as he was leaving the Surrey, B.C., temple where he served as president.

The RCMP believes the Indian government tapped gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi to arrange the murder. An Indian intelligence officer was also implicated in a plot to kill another Canadian in the U.S.

2:03
Police warn Canadian Sikh activist of threat to life ahead of Carney’s India visit

As the RCMP investigations progressed, Commissioner Mike Duheme announced that India’s government had been linked to a broad array of violence, often targeting pro-Khalistan activists.

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Canada subsequently expelled six Indian diplomats. But since taking office, Carney has restored, and deepened, ties with India, which he is courting for a trade deal to offset a tariff-obsessed White House.

Since then, the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which India had allegedly cooperated with to target opponents in Canada, has been tied to the extortion crisis in cities with large South Asian populations.

But at a briefing on Wednesday in advance of Carney’s arrival in India on Feb. 27, the senior government official seemed to suggest that New Delhi’s targeting of Canadians had stopped.

The World Sikh Organization of Canada called the official’s comment’s “utterly false” and said it “does not align with what Sikh Canadians are experiencing on the ground and what we are seeing firsthand.”

Only last weekend, Vancouver police warned Canadian Sikh activist Moninder Singh about an imminent threat to himself, his wife and their children. It is the fourth such warning he has received since 2022.

“The WSO is aware of incidents in the past six months of individuals being surveilled, harassed and intimidated by agents of the government of India,” the national Sikh group said in the statement.

“The Carney government has failed to hold India accountable or to create any meaningful safeguards to ensure that Sikh Canadians are protected from foreign interference and transnational repression. Declaring the problem resolved does not make it so.”

3:10
Anand addresses report Canadian government is ‘confident’ Indian extortion threats ‘not continuing’

The senior officials would not answer when asked when they believed India had stopped its transnational repression and foreign interference campaign in Canada.

“We have a mature, robust discussions with the government of Indian on these issues. And we have robust safeguards in place to avoid foreign interference,” the official told reporters.

“I can’t give you a specific date of which individuals changed views. We’ve got a systematic engagement with the government in India, at senior officials level, at the ministerial level, at the leader level. And these issues have been raised regularly. And we are confident that we have the basis for further productive discussion.”

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca

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