Year in review: A look at events in September 2023

A look at news events in September 2023: 1 – Singer songwriter Jimmy Buffett dies at the age of 76. His song ”Margaritaville” was released in 1977 and spent 22 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. 4 – Steve Harwell, the longtime frontman of the Grammy nominated pop rock band Smash Mouth, dies of acute liver failure at the age of 56.

4 – Ontario’s Housing Minister Steve Clark resigns from his role days after a damning report from the integrity commissioner found he violated ethics rules when the province opened up parts of the protected Greenbelt for development. 4 – Alberta Health Services declares an E. coli outbreak for six locations of a Calgary daycare and five additional sites.

5 – Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson calls an election for Oct. 3. The vote was already scheduled for that date, but she officially launches the 28 day campaign. 5 – Tim Hortons starts selling a new line of clothing with a retro feel. The fast food chain launches an online store where buyers can get novelty crewnecks in bright pink and electric blue and even Timbits inspired ensembles.

5 – The trial for “Freedom Convoy” organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber gets underway. 5 – The Williams Lake First Nation purchases a former British Columbia residential school site with the help of the provincial government. 6 – An evacuation order for Yellowknife is lifted three weeks after a nearby wildfire forced the city’s 20,000 residents out of their homes 6 – The remains of two Innu children are exhumed from a Quebec cemetery to help give closure to families who have long standing questions about the identities of the bodies they buried in 1970.

6 – The central bank decides against another rate hike after raising it 10 times since March of last year. 8 – More than 2,500 federal Conservative members are in Quebec City for the latest party convention. Party leader Pierre Poilievre enters the convention fresh off the road from a summer spent touring.

8 – Hockey Canada’s Beyond The Boards Summit opens in Calgary, tackling issues such as toxic masculinity, sexism, racism and homophobia. 8 – The death toll from a powerful earthquake that hit Morocco rises to more than 2,000 people. The figure is expected to rise as rescuers struggled to get through boulder strewn roads to remote areas hit hardest by the 6.8 magnitude quake.

9 – The G 20 summit kicks off in New Delhi, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arriving alongside other leaders from the world’s richest and most powerful countries. 12 – Apple unveils the iPhone 15 at an Apple Event in Cupertino, Calif., alongside the higher priced iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max.

13 – Canadian Tire becomes the first funding partner of the Professional Women’s Hockey League. The company reaches a multi year agreement that includes sponsorship of the league’s inaugural draft. 15 – Metroland Media Group announces it is ending print editions for its community newspapers.

The papers, owned by parent company NordStar Capital, will now be offered in a digital only format, while its flyer business will end entirely. 16 – A powerful cyclone floods roadways, toppls trees and downs power lines in parts of the Maritimes as it sweeps past the western tip of Nova Scotia and toward New Brunswick.

17 – Calgary starts hosting the weeklong 24th World Petroleum Congress, one of the largest oil and gas conferences in the world. 18 – MPs return to the House of Commons following the summer break. 19 – Canada orders an Indian diplomat to leave the country after Prime Minster Justin Trudeau reveals there is credible intelligence linking agents of India’s government to the shooting death of a Sikh leader near Vancouver.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed in the parking lot of his gurdwara in Surrey, B C, on June 18. 19 – Quebec’s Anticosti Island, located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site. According to UNESCO’s website, Quebec’s largest island is the most complete and best preserved paleontological record of the first mass extinction of animal life, between 447 million and 437 million years ago.

19 – A Humboldt Broncos bus crash survivor win “The Amazing Race Canada.” Ty Smith and his girlfriend, Kat Kastner of Calgary, win a $250,000 prize, as well as a round the world trip and two Chevrolet trucks. The couple, who are both 25, say they were competing for all those affected by the 2018 tragedy that left 16 people dead and 13 others injured after a semi crashed with a bus carrying the junior hockey team in Saskatchewan.

20 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the United Nations General Assembly. 21 – Ontario Premier Doug Ford reverses his plan to open the protected Greenbelt lands for housing development after sustaining nearly a year of blowback over the decision. 22 – Montreal born billionaire Michael Andlauer is introduced as the new owner of the Ottawa Senators.

Andlauer and his group of investors had their bid for the Senators approved after a lengthy vetting process. 23 – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with hundreds of supporters at a Canadian Armed Forces facility in Toronto on his first official visit to Canada since Russia’s war on Ukraine began in February 2022.

Zelenskyy goes to Ottawa to address the House of Commons, saying “justice is not an empty word for Canada.” 24 – A tentative deal is reached to end Hollywood’s writers strike after nearly five months. The Writers Guild of America reaches the deal with an alliance of studios, streaming services and production companies.

Hollywood’s actors remain on strike. The writers walked off the job May 2 over issues including the size of staffs on shows, long term payment for their work and the use of artificial intelligence in scripts. 27 – Anthony Rota resigns as the House of Commons speaker after inviting a man who fought for the Nazis to attend Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to Parliament a week earlier.

28 – The premier of the Northwest Territories announces she won’t be running for re election. Caroline Cochrane makes the announcement at a news conference, saying her time representing the N.W.T. has been among the highest honours of her life. 28 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Francois Legault are on hand for what was being billed as the largest private investment in the province’s history.

Swedish manufacturer Northvolt says it will build a $7 billion factory for electric vehicle batteries at a 170 hectare site near Montreal. The facility is being developed with federal and provincial funding. It’s expected to go into production in 2026, and will employ up to three thousand workers.

The Canadian Press.