Prince Albert firefighters spent Christmas evening fighting a major blaze at the Salvation Army building on Central Avenue.

Crews were called to 900 Central Ave. shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday, the Prince Albert Fire Department (PAFD) said in a post on social media.

Arriving firefighters began an interior attack but switched to a defensive approach after heavy smoke and flames spread and the roof started to fail.

Crews stopped the fire from spreading to nearby buildings, but the fire department says the Salvation Army building is expected to be a total loss. Most of the roof collapsed and unstable exterior walls remain a safety concern.

People are asked to stay away from the area.

PAFD says police have had a presence on scene throughout the evening and will continue to maintain safety and security throughout the day.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. The fire department thanked the Prince Albert Police Service and Parkland Ambulance for their assistance.

The Salvation Army has long been Prince Albert’s only warm-up shelter and a cornerstone support for many.

Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) says the loss of the building leaves a gap in services for vulnerable residents during extreme cold.

It says as an immediate measure, the temporary warming shelter has been relocated to PAGC urban services, in the former Margo Fournier building.

It will operate nightly from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. until Jan. 2. Relatives Lodge is also available for warm-up.

A woman from Milestone wants to say thank you to an anonymous Secret Santa that paid a large portion of her car repair bill.

Courtney Kolenich took her car to Midas in downtown Regina a couple of weeks ago to have her exhaust looked at. She got the quote for the repair and put a deposit down, with the intention of paying the remainder when the work was complete.

To her surprise, when she went to pick up her vehicle, the staff informed her that someone had paid the $750 that she was still owing.

“This time is hard for me for a couple reasons,” she said. “I’m going back off my maternity leave early for financial reasons … and then just having faith in humanity again, that that stuff actually happens.”

Kolenich says this generous act of kindness means a lot to her and her children this Christmas season.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott began the year with a smaller crew of mostly newbies, pledging to do better on everything from health care and education to balancing budgets.

By spring, he had more issues to contend with.

The province was hit by a double whammy of tariffs from the United States and China in March, leaving Saskatchewan in what the premier calls tempestuous waters.

He’s hoping the storm won’t last long, he said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press.

“In the short term, I’d say the waters are choppy, not just for the Saskatchewan economy, but also the Canadian economy,” he said.

“I think the word of the year is uncertainty.”

It has put his province in a position of having to make tough budgetary decisions next year, Moe said. He declined to provide further details on what those choices could be.

“If we can’t improve the revenue line, you have to change the expense line,” he said. “Any deficit is not acceptable, and we need to work towards bringing our budget … into balance.”

Moe said most of Canada’s immediate economic problems can be traced back to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump has imposed levies as high as 50 per cent on some products, while others remain duty-free under the current trade agreement.

Trump has also threatened tariffs on Canadian fertilizer, which could harm the potash industry in Saskatchewan, the world’s largest producer.

Moe has urged people “take a breath” over Trump’s threats and not take the president’s words literally.

Saskatchewan also won’t stop the flow of potash to the U.S., or apply an export tax, as a way to retaliate, Moe said.

“I just don’t see that any of the counter-tariff, export-tariff discussion as being conducive to Canada getting to the end goal, which is to have that free and fair trade not only with the U.S., but other countries as well,” he said.

Meanwhile, China’s tariffs on canola products have already taken a toll, as exports of the crop have dramatically fallen. India has also slapped levies on Canadian yellow peas.

Moe said his job is to use his contacts and work with Ottawa to smooth out the various trade issues.

“Hopefully sooner rather than later,” he said.

It has been over a year since Moe’s Saskatchewan Party won its fifth-straight majority government in October 2024. His team came out smaller and with less legislature experience. The governing party has no seats in Regina and only one in Saskatoon.

The losses lit a fire under the premier to refocus on issues affecting the major cities, including overcapacity hospitals, crowded school classrooms and deteriorating safety with increasing drug addictions and homelessness.

Moe said his government will do more listening and less talking.

“Rather than imposing policy and telling people how that policy or legislation is going to work, we need to do better in consulting individuals,” he said.

He pointed to recent legislation that, in rare cases, would force those with drug addictions to receive treatment. The province introduced the bill this month and is to consult with the public on it into the new year, he said.

The premier added that he wishes his government had built more treatment beds sooner, but it’s working as fast as it can.

“The consequences of having these poisonous substances in our communities are pretty dire,” he said. “It’s killing our family and friends all too often.”

On health care, Moe said his government is hiring more staff, building additional urgent care centres and adding nurse practitioners to the system.

In education, the province has earmarked additional money for classroom supports, including trying out separate specialized rooms for children with behavioural issues.

For Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck, the measures in health care and education are needed but come too late for a government that she argues has been slow at the wheel for the past 18 years.

“That’s how you find yourself from going to first to last in so many key sectors, (like) education, health care and also spending their way into a projected $40-billion debt now,” she said in an interview.

“We’ve not seen an urgency to make sure that there are supports available all the way from kids in school to people who are voluntarily reaching out to get into detox.”

Moe’s government had initially projected a $12-million surplus in its budget this year but is now forecasting a $427-million deficit with hundreds of millions of dollars to pay the interest on debt.

“The Toronto bankers are going to have a good Christmas, but unfortunately it’s Saskatchewan people who are struggling just to put food on the table who are picking up the tab,” Beck said.

New Democrats have also criticized Moe’s government for being ill-prepared to handle wildfires that destroyed half the village of Denare Beach in the summer.

In the fall, Moe apologized for not visiting the community sooner. He also promised a third-party review into the disaster but declined to hold a public inquiry that residents demanded.

On the economy, Beck said Moe has been lax on pushing hard for the province’s interests. She cited a decision by Nutrien Ltd. to build a new terminal in the U.S., not Canada.

Moe said it would have been ideal for the company to choose Canada, and he’s spoken with federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon about ways to address Nutrien’s concerns.

“Maybe this is a time for us as Canadians look in the mirror as to why that decision is being made and make the appropriate changes to determine our own destiny,” he said.

Two helicopters crashed midair in New Jersey on Sunday, killing one person and critically injuring another, authorities say.

Hammonton Police Chief Kevin Friel said rescuers responded to a report of an aviation crash at about 11:25 a.m. Video from the scene shows a helicopter spinning rapidly to the ground. Police and fire crews subsequently extinguished flames that engulfed one of the helicopters.

The Federal Aviation Administration described the crash as a midair collision between an Enstrom F-28A helicopter and Enstrom 280C helicopter over Hammonton Municipal Airport. Only the pilots were on board each aircraft. One was killed, and the other was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Sal Silipino, owner of a cafe near the crash site, said the pilots were regulars at the restaurant and would often have breakfast together. He said he and other customers watched the helicopters take off before one began spiraling downward, followed by the other.

“It was shocking,” he said. “I’m still shaking after that happened.”

Hammonton resident Dan Dameshek told NBC10 that he was leaving a gym when he heard a loud snap and saw two helicopters spinning out of control.

“Immediately, the first helicopter went from right side up to upside down and started rapidly spinning, falling out of the air,” Dameshek told the TV station. “And then it looked like the second helicopter was OK for a second, and then it sounded like another snap or something ... and then that helicopter started rapidly spinning out of the air.”

Hammonton is a town of about 15,000 people located in Atlantic County in the southern part of New Jersey, about 35 miles (56 kilometres) southeast of Philadelphia. The town has a history of agriculture and is located near the Pine Barrens, a forested wilderness area that covers more than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares).

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating the crash, Friel said.

Investigators will likely first look to review any communications between the two pilots and whether they were able to see each other, said Alan Diehl, a former crash investigator for the FAA and NTSB.

“Virtually all midair collisions are a failure to what they call `see and avoid,” Diehl said. “Clearly they’ll be looking at the out-of-cockpit views of the two aircraft and seeing if one pilot was approaching from the blind side.”

Although it was mostly cloudy at the time of the crash, winds were light and visibility was good, according to the weather forecasting company AccuWeather.

Sandra Demontigny knew something wasn’t right when she couldn’t remember buying herself a new pair of boots. They were a splurge — a little out of character for the mother of three — and she had been excited about bringing them home.

“I saw them near the door and I asked my kids, ‘Who bought these boots? I’ve never seen them,’” she said.

“The kids were saying, ‘No, (they’re) yours. You bought them and you really like them.”

Sliding her feet inside, she realized she couldn’t remember buying them. “I started crying,” she said.

The incident led to a diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer’s disease, the same kind Demontigny watched her father struggle with for years.

That was in 2018. Today, Demontigny is 46 years old and lives in an assisted-living facility in Lévis, Que.

She lives independently, but her short-term memory is failing and she finds it difficult to manage time. She has a tendency to repeat herself in conversation.

“I don’t know it, I just see it in the faces of the people who I’m talking to,” she said.

Early this year, she signed an advance request that sets out the conditions under which she would like to end her life. She isn’t sharing the details, but said it includes her ability to remember her children.

“It was a long process, a lot of reflection, a lot of crying, a lot of fear,” Demontigny said.

Now that it’s done, she said she feels at peace with the decision. It is not a choice she would have if she lived anywhere but Quebec.

Canada’s medical assistance in dying laws do not allow for advance requests, which are written requests to die with medical assistance under specific conditions, made before the patient loses the capacity to provide consent.

A 2023 report from a joint parliamentary committee on medical assistance in dying, also known as MAID, recommended changing the Criminal Code to allow advance requests in the event a person is diagnosed with a serious and incurable condition that leads to incapacity.

The committee wrote that “an advance request must be voluntary, non-coercive, well-considered and made by a person with the requisite capacity.” But the change has not been made.

Provincial legislation in Quebec allows for advance requests for MAID by ensuring that clinicians will not be criminally charged for providing the service.

Dying With Dignity Canada said it’s time for the federal government to act.

“Without federal legislation, we’re left with each province individually having to come up with and implement their own law,” said Helen Long, the organization’s CEO.

This fall, Health Canada released the results of a report it commissioned about advance requests, finding broad support among Canadians for the practice as well as concerns about the safeguards that should be put in place.

In Quebec more than 1,700 people have made an advance request so far.

Cardus, a Christian think tank, opposes any expansion to the assisted-dying regime and has advocated for stronger safeguards.

“Very few jurisdictions internationally have an advance MAID request in their legislation, and so we don’t have much data to see how it’s working in those countries,” said Rebecca Vachon, the group’s health program director.

“The data that we do have show how complex and difficult these ethical situations can be to navigate.”

Vachon said the requirement to provide consent is a key safeguard in Canadian law.

Cardus would like to see an independent monitoring and enforcement body created in Canada. Vachon said the group is alarmed that the latest data from Health Canada shows MAID accounted for about one in every 20 deaths in 2024.

Long said the numbers simply reflect people’s individual choices. She pointed out the data also shows more than 65 per cent of people who had a medically assisted death had been diagnosed with cancer.

“So, truly, they were dying of cancer. MAID was the process by which they chose to end their life,” she said.

The Liberal government has given no indication of whether it intends to change the existing laws.

A spokesperson for Justice Minister Sean Fraser did not answer specific questions, instead sending a short statement that noted MAID is a “complex and deeply personal issue.”

“We will continue to work with provinces and territories and medical professionals on the implementation of Canada’s MAID system,” said the statement from Lola Dandybaeva.

Demontigny said she has a clear idea of what’s coming as her illness advances, and she doesn’t want to live the way her father did in his final years. Young people with her diagnosis can live for decades.

“Because we are young, our bodies feel in really good shape. It’s just the brain that is bad,” she said.

Some flights may be delayed at Toronto Pearson International Airport due to “resource constraints,” says Canada’s air navigation service provider.

“Our team is moving aircraft safely, and as quickly as possible,” NAV CANADA said in a post on X on Thursday evening.

“Passengers: check the status of your flight with your airline. We regret any impacts to airlines and their passengers.”

Mexican authorities say they have raided four properties and seized dozens of high-priced items that appear to be linked to the former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin, Ryan Wedding – in what former FBI agents say is a move bringing authorities closer to one of the U.S.’s most wanted fugitives.

“It appears to me they are closing in on him and they’re closing in on his location,” former FBI agent and federal prosecutor, M. Quentin Williams told CTV News in a Zoom interview Thursday from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Mexican authorities said they seized 62 high-end motorcycles, two vehicles, methamphetamine, marijuana, artwork, ammunition and documents. They also said they seized two Olympic medals, although they didn’t publicly release who they belong to, since Wedding never made it to the podium in his one Olympic appearance in 2002.

The seized items are linked to a former Olympic athlete who is among the 10 most wanted fugitives in the U.S., according to a release by the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection of Mexico (SSPC) published Wednesday – but the document did not name Wedding directly.

It adds that multiple security agencies cooperated in creating lines of investigation regarding a former athlete of foreign nationality linked to transnational criminal activities.

The raids come as Canadian, U.S. and Mexican authorities have been stepping up efforts in a decade-long manhunt for Wedding, which began in 2015 when the RCMP charged Wedding with importing cocaine while he was living in Montreal – but he fled before police could arrest him.

The FBI alleges Wedding has been creating a drug empire in Mexico since then, trafficking billions of dollars’ worth of narcotics – earning him comparisons to Pablo Escobar and Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.

Earlier this year, a key FBI witness who was set to testify against Wedding was shot and killed, with the agency then adding Wedding to its 10 most wanted fugitives list. The FBI later put out a $15-million reward for Wedding’s capture.

It adds that multiple security agencies cooperated in creating lines of investigation regarding a former athlete of foreign nationality linked to transnational criminal activities.

“Somebody is going to turn him in,” said CTV News public safety analyst and former Ontario Provincial Police commissioner Chris Lewis in an interview Thursday on CTV News Channel.

“I mean, some of these guys have turned their buddies in for a steak dinner, let alone millions of dollars — so I think we’re seeing this get closer and closer, and one of these times they’re going to find him.”

In November, the RCMP arrested several associates, including Wedding’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, who allegedly advised Wedding that killing the key witness would make the case collapse. Paradkar was released on bail on Tuesday.

‘Doesn’t hurt his business’

Former FBI agents speculate the raid is a step closer to authorities arresting Wedding — also showing increased efforts by Mexican authorities to aid their American counterparts.

“Despite the fact that they didn’t capture Ryan Wedding in these raids, this is a significant step in that it shows that Mexican authorities are taking this seriously now and that they are making efforts to locate Ryan Wedding and attack his organization,” said former FBI agent and senior lecturer at the University of New Haven, Ken Gray, in an interview with CTV News on Thursday.

Authorities say Wedding is under the protection of the notoriously powerful Sinaloa cartel – and there’s speculation that Wedding and his associates avoided arrest in the recent raids because they were tipped off.

“They might have got a heads-up that the authorities were going to conduct these raids,” said Gray, adding that the seizures may have resulted in a loss of goods, but his alleged ties to drug trafficking are believed to be largely unaffected.

“These are just possessions of his that he had his fortune invested in,” added Gray. “It hurts him and it takes away some of his fortune -- but it does not hurt his business as far as we know.”

Gray believes the protection of the cartel over Wedding is weakening since the arrest of one of the cartel’s leaders, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, leading to increased pressure from police and rivalling cartels.

“Since Ryan Wedding had been protected by Sinaloa cartel, they are under attack and losing some of their authority plus the Mexican government are making efforts to assist U.S., which they had not been doing since last year, (meaning) they’re making efforts to find Wedding at this point,” Gray said.

“They themselves are under attack and their ability to protect him at this point in the area of Mexico city may have suffered some damage.” added Gray.

Experts say the seizure of these goods can provide clues that could lead to Wedding’s arrest.

“They’re going to have to figure out whether he’s affiliated to any of these items,” Lewis said. “There may be fingerprints, there may be a way to identify him within the buildings they’re searching and someone is going to come up with the right tip at the right time.”

Williams said there is a good chance the items seized will be used to find Wedding’s associates, who police will then try to get to turn on him.

“All the investigative tools, including seeing who owns the [motorcycles], because they might not be under his name,” he said.

“So, whose name are they under? And of course you go to those people to find out if they know where he is, where he’s hiding. So there’s a good chance that they’re registered under somebody else; those people will be close to him and maybe they know something.”

On the eve of Christmas, President Donald Trump has unleashed a fresh blast of vitriol at late-night comedy talk shows, saying comedian Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” who should be “put to sleep.”

Colbert’s “The Late Show” is scheduled to end in May 2026, a decision his fans say smacks of censorship.

In a late night Truth Social post, Trump wrote that Colbert “has actually gotten worse” since being “terminated by CBS, but left out to dry.”

“Stephen is running on hatred and fumes ~ A dead man walking! CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW,” Trump wrote.

Colbert has hosted the “The Late Show” since 2015 and it has been the highest-rated late night talk show on US television. His opening monologues often take aim at the Republican president.

There was no immediate public response from Colbert or CBS to Trump’s post.

CBS announced the sunsetting of Colbert’s show after one more season in July, the same month its parent company reached a $16 million settlement with Trump. CBS called the cancellation “a purely financial decision.”

Trump had sued Paramount, alleging that CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program deceptively edited an interview with his 2024 election rival, Kamala Harris, in her favor.

In another overnight post, Trump repeated threats to yank the broadcast licenses of networks whose content he deemed overly critical.

“If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!”

On Sunday, CBS’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, pulled a “60 Minutes” segment on alleged torture at El Salvador’s CECOT prison -- where Trump sent hundreds of deported Venezuelans -- saying it needed more reporting.

In August, Disney-owned ABC briefly suspended its late-night star, Jimmy Kimmel, before bringing him back on a one-year contract.

Kimmel had annoyed conservatives with comments in the wake of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Trump appears to be aiming to reshape the US media landscape, which he says is biased against conservatives.

His appointee to head the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, turned heads when he told a Congressional hearing that “the FCC is not formally an independent agency,” implying that his actions could justifiably be aligned with the political priorities of the White House.

🎉 Update Completed Successfully! 🎉

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We’re committed to providing our audience with a listening experience like no other! To maintain this standard, we’re excited to announce a major update to our Broadcast Network.

What’s New?

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