Canada

A couple in Victoria says living next to an Airbnb rental is causing all kinds of headaches and they want the city to do more to stop short-term vacation rentals from operating in residential areas. 

Melanie Wood and her husband bought half a duplex in a Victoria neighbourhood in May.

An Ontario couple says their costly dream vacation in the Rockies has been marred, because their tour company deliberately downplayed what effect the wildfires would have on the tour. 

Mike Ramsay, a high school teacher from Barrie, Ont., and his wife, recently finished a tour on the Rocky Mountaineer, a luxury rail service which weaves through the interior of British Columbia and into Canada's flagship national parks in the Canadian Rockies. 

Marie Simmonds is fixated on ferreting out illegal short-term rentals in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighbourhood, knowing her detective work does little to stop the onslaught.

And the city seems to ignore her.

In Canada, despite our prime minister's famous quip defending his choice of female ministers — "Because it's 2015" — there have only been eight female provincial premiers and one female prime minister to date.

Christy Clark's recent wave goodbye to politics after a six-year stint as premier of B.C. is a reminder that the political arena is still short female players.

A group of 40 Clinton-area ranchers and property owners is demanding compensation from the B.C. government for damage caused by controlled fires, which they say went "terribly wrong and led to untold losses of livestock and property."

In a press release, the group also asks that B.C. Wildfire Service leadership "start doing things differently," and communicate better with residents who are finding themselves and their livestock affected by control fires.

Two announcements Thursday on B.C.'s political scene put this fall's legislative session into sharper focus.

The legislature will reconvene Sept. 8, seven weeks after John Horgan and the NDP were sworn into office.