Beyond Local

TORONTO — Nine in 10 Canadian construction companies say they are dealing with a shortage of skilled labour or trades — and it's affecting their ability to bid on projects and meet deadlines amid unprecedented demand.

VICTORIA — Both sides of British Columbia's contentious fish farm debate are welcoming Ottawa's move to delay a decision on a planned transition from open-net salmon farms in the province's coastal waters.

HALIFAX — It could take years to rebuild hundreds of homes destroyed by unprecedented wildfires in Nova Scotia, a construction industry leader says.

Weather maps hang on the walls and precipitation reports flash across screens in the Winnipeg office where major decisions about Canada’s battle against an unprecedented wildfire season are made.

OTTAWA — Global News and its parent company Corus Entertainment say in response to a lawsuit filed by Han Dong that their reporting about the Toronto MP was based on a detailed investigation involving multiple sources.

Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair has said images of wildfires burning across Canada are some of the most severe ever witnessed in the country and the forecast for the next few months indicates the potential for continued higher-than-normal fire activity.

OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is promising a plan by this fall for a foreign-service reboot in which diplomats will have a better grasp of the languages and topics relevant to their postings.

OTTAWA — Hazy skies tinged with an eery yellow glow greeted millions of Canadians in Quebec and Ontario again Wednesday as the smoke from hundreds of wildfires continued to cause air quality warnings in Canada's most populated corridor.

OTTAWA — One of the architects of the law that governs Canada's prison system says it's understandable people want revenge on convicted killer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo, but that's not what the prison system is designed for.

HONG KONG (AP) — A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company which owns the popular short-video app TikTok, says in a legal filing that some members of the ruling Communist Party used data held by the company to identify and locate protesters in Hong Kong. Yintao Yu, formerly head of engineering for ByteDance in the U.S., says those same people had access to U.S. user data, an accusation that the company denies.