The Alberta government introduced bills Thursday to prohibit minors from receiving certain types of gender-affirming care, require parents be notified when a child wants to use a different name or pronoun in the classroom, and also require parents to opt-in before their children are taught about sex in class.

Crews searched for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings Thursday as people tried to salvage what they could from their ruined homes following monstrous flash floods in Spain that claimed at least 158 lives, with 155 deaths confirmed in the region of Valencia.

Residential school survivors are calling on Canada to criminalize residential school denialism, days after the release of a report about unmarked graves and burial sites associated with the institutions.

Chinese sponsored threat actors have “compromised” government networks over the past five years, collecting valuable information, according to a new report from Canada’s cyber spy agency.

The B.C. Legislature has become the first provincially or federally elected house to be majority-female, with 49 MLAs identifying as female following the 2024 election.

Mounties with RCMP Federal Policing seized thousands of counterfeit cannabis-laced candy bars and arrested six people during raids at two Vancouver Island dispensaries and seven other properties earlier this month.

Police say the search warrants were executed on Oct. 3 as part of an investigation into alleged organized crime. 

Mounties say the properties that were raided, including the Green Coast Dispensary on Hupacasath First Nation land near Port Alberni – and the Coastal Storm Dispensary, located on Nanoose First Nation territory near Lantzville – had suspected ties to the production and distribution of illicit drugs and contraband tobacco. 

Police also searched five homes, as well as a suspected “stash site” in Port Alberni and a storage and production facility beside the Coastal Storm Dispensary.

Overall, police say they found over 120,000 cannabis edibles with packaging that was made to resemble popular snack brands, including chocolate bars, chips, honey, and other candy.

Mounties say they also found two modular trailers where cannabis edibles were being made, stored and distributed.

SEE ALSO: Cannabis edges out alcohol as the most common impairing substance: driver study

Besides the cannabis edibles, police seized over 500 pounds of cannabis bud, 6,000 cannabis vape cartridges, 19 pounds of cannabis shatter and 2.2 pounds of pressed cannabis resin.

They also say they found over three kilograms of psilocybin mushrooms, 1,740 psilocybin capsules, over 400 psilocybin chocolate/candies, and a range of other psilocybin products.

In addition to drugs, Mounties seized five vehicles associated with the properties, two ATM machines, more than $400,000 in cash, 164 “master cases” of contraband tobacco – equivalent to 82,000 packs of cigarettes – and a shotgun.

“Although the contraband cannabis-laced candy bars and chips resembled professionally manufactured, packaged, and quality-controlled products, they were discovered to have been produced in the highly unsanitary, and heavily contaminated modular trailers,” said RCMP in a release Tuesday.

Police say that based off a preliminary assessment of the trailers, the edibles were likely made with “unknown amounts of THC,” and may have been cross-contaminated with other drugs present in the trailers.

They also said the amount of TCH promoted on the fake candy wrappers was upwards of “one-hundred times more potent” than regulated cannabis products in Canada.

Regulated edible cannabis products max out at 10 milligrams of THC per package.

“Given the highly contaminated and unsanitary conditions of the illicit drug production facility where these cannabis edibles were being produced, it is possible that the consumption of these products can lead to serious health risks,” said Chief Supt. Stephen Lee, Deputy Regional Commander for the RCMP Federal Policing Program – Pacific Region.

He added that people should “practice extreme caution” if they already purchased one of the products, or come across them.

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