
Portion of Highway 33 blocked in southeast Sask. following semi rollover
An RCMP detachment can be seen in this file photo. (David Prisciak/CTV News)
The Weyburn and Fillmore RCMP detachments say Highway 33 is blocked Thursday morning about two kilometres northwest of Heward, Sask. because of a rolled semi.
RCMP said the semi is blocking both lanes of the highway.
Travel restrictions are anticipated to last well into Thursday morning, RCMP added.
Motorists are encouraged to find alternate routes to avoid delays.
Heward, Sask. is about 132 kilometres southeast of Regina.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Montreal Grand Prix fans stuck paying turbocharged prices for accommodation
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc of Monaco, right, and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain steer their car at the hairpin during the first practice session, Friday, June 7, 2024, at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot Paula Wadden has been a huge Formula One fan ever since she got hooked on the Netflix show 'Drive to Survive' a few years ago. But the Halifax-area health-care worker says watching the Grand Prix in Montreal this weekend comes with high-octane prices. The Montreal hotel where she's spending the first part of the week doubles in price for the weekend. Instead, she'll spend the weekend at a hotel outside the city, near the airport, for about $600 a night. 'The tickets (prices) are OK, it's the accommodation and the means that are getting expensive,' she said Tuesday in Old Montreal. 'I don't know how the average Joe can afford it.' Wadden said the trip, which she's taking with her daughter and her daughter's partner, will cost $6,000 to $7,000. And that's despite the switch in hotels and the decision to save money by driving the 12 hours from Halifax rather than flying. While looking up hotels online, she said she saw even more eye-watering hotel prices ranging between $1,200 to more than $2,000 a night, as well as $4,000-per night Airbnbs. The Grand Prix is Montreal's biggest tourist event, expected to attract some 350,000 visitors and generate $162 million for the city, according to the head of Tourisme Montreal. Yves Lalumière estimates average hotel room prices on Grand Prix weekend at $600 to $800 per night — although some wealthy CEOs will pay $8,000 for a suite. 'This year's prices will probably stabilize quite a bit, maybe a two to three per cent increase over the previous year,' he said in an interview. 'But the last five years I've seen an increase year after year, and a substantial increase as well.' A ticket package for the three race days starts at $360, according to the Canadian Grand Prix website — though well-off fans can pay much more. Packages with perks such as VIP concierge service, reservations at popular restaurants and parties, and access to areas like pit lanes and paddocks can cost tens of thousands of dollars. However, Lalumière noted that the city also offers plenty of free entertainment, including a Grand Prix party on Crescent Street. He said hotel room prices are still 'very competitive,' especially for those paying in U.S. dollars or euros. Crowds, meanwhile, are not only growing but also becoming more diverse, he said. 'I think F1 has done a great job in selling the sport over the media,' Lalumière said. 'And, therefore, now you're attracting a lot more ladies, you're attracting a lot more young people as well to the race.' Black-and-white checkered banners were already fluttering on Saint-Paul Street in Old Montreal on Tuesday, as tourists lined up to photograph a Formula One car on display outside Max Bitton's racing-themed store, Fanabox. Bitton said he brought in the car as a gift to fans after last year's Grand Prix, which was marred by mishaps on and off the track that left a bad taste in some fans' mouths. Those issues included traffic headaches, flooding from rain, fans turned away from a practice session they were led to believe was cancelled, and restaurants ordered to suddenly close their patios on one of the busiest evenings of the year. 'I'm trying to give back because last year was so tough,' Bitton said. While Grand Prix fans are generally well-off, Bitton also worries about rising prices, especially now that the city has imposed tougher new rules on short-term rentals for primary residences. Next year, the Grand Prix will be held from May 22 to 24, which is outside the June-to-September window in which primary residence rentals are allowed. 'A lot of the fans love to flock here because of the heritage and they love this place,' Bitton said. 'They're willing to pay more but at some point it doesn't make sense.' At Bitton's store, tourists said attending the Grand Prix was costly, but worthwhile. Max Harrison, from Bournemouth in southern England, said he managed to find a spot in a hostel for about $40 a night early in the week. For race weekend, he's spending $200 a night to stay in a room in an Airbnb shared with several others. 'It's a bit much, you can tell they've spiked (the prices),' he said. He believes the Netflix show Drive to Survive has brought new fans to the sport, which means prices will only continue to go up. But for him, it's worth it to check the Montreal Grand Prix off his bucket list. 'The championship this year is looking really close, so it's going to be a really good race,' he said. 'And Canada is a beautiful place and I've always wanted to come.' Denise Beevor and Mark Omerod, from West Sussex in England, say they're spending 'a small fortune' for a 10-day trip that includes Sunday's race as well as stops in Quebec City and Mont-Tremblant. 'I think, particularly since COVID, it's important to have things to look forward to and to take memories away with you, and you can't replace that,' Beevor said. 'Possessions come and go, memories don't.' The CEO of the greater Montreal hotels association said the occupancy this weekend is expected to be around 90 per cent, similar to last year. Dominique Villeneuve said the industry was prepared to meet the demands of Grand Prix weekend 'enthusiastically and with the same professionalism that characterizes our industry.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 12, 2025.


Globe and Mail
2 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
As gas cars began to hit the streets of Toronto, the city was already an EV manufacturing hub
Dumaresq de Pencier is the exhibit and project coordinator for the Canadian Automotive Museum in Oshawa, Ont. While Tesla may be credited with popularizing modern electric vehicles, they are far from being the first to develop an EV. And I'm not talking about General Motors's EV1 from 1996. EVs appeared decades before the first gas-powered car, going back nearly 200 years. And around the time gas cars began hitting the streets of Toronto the city was already an EV manufacturing hub. From 1893 to 1913, four Canadian companies and one American company built or tried to build electric vehicles in the Greater Toronto Area. Two of these companies still exist, though most people likely wouldn't recognize them today. In an era when gasoline engines were a novelty and steam power was inconvenient for automobile use, electrics were the next big thing. British engineer William Joseph Still was an inventor of steam and electrical technologies whose patent batteries sold well on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1890s. In 1893, he approached Toronto patent lawyer Frederick Barnard Fetherstonhaugh with a new lightweight battery design. The two had already worked together for several years and Fetherstonhaugh, a tinkerer and inventor himself, thought the new battery would be perfect for an electric automobile. Fetherstonhaugh worked with Still and the Toronto-based Dixon Carriage Company at the corner of Bay and Temperance Streets to build the car. It was a 320-kilogram technological marvel that could manage an hour of driving at 24 kilometres an hour. This speed was comparable or even slightly faster than most passenger cars being introduced at the time. Fetherstonhaugh used it as his daily driver for 15 years, charging it at his home in southwest Toronto neighbourhood of Mimico and demonstrating it at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1893, 1896 and 1906. The vehicle vanished from the historical record after the 1912 Toronto Auto Show. In 1897, Still established the Canadian Motor Syndicate to build and sell his car designs. The company's first vehicle was an electric delivery tricycle, shown at the 1898 Canadian National Exhibition. By 1899, Still had invented a more efficient electric motor, better suited for large vehicles. His business was reorganized as the Still Motor Company Limited (SMC) and began selling vehicles in earnest. Its factory on Yonge Street was a hive of activity, helped by one of the City of Toronto's first commercial telephone lines. SMC generally didn't build vehicles from scratch; clients brought them commercial carriages, which the factory retrofitted with motors and batteries. Parker's Dye Works (known today as Parker's Dry Cleaning) was an early adopter and, by 1900, many of Toronto's biggest industrial and commercial concerns had at least one or two SMC vehicles in their fleets. SMC electrics were light, reasonably fast and easy to control, but almost all of them were custom jobs, resulting in high costs and low profits for the company. Financial support came in the form of a buyout from a group of British investors who renamed the company Canadian Motors Limited (CML). In late 1899, Still had developed a moderately successful line of two- and four-seater passenger electrics: the Ivanhoes and the Oxfords. The new owners wanted to sell them in England and CML became the first British-owned car company in Canada and Canada's first car exporter. The company sent dozens of vehicles to England in late 1900 and early 1901, but CML's success in British road trials didn't equate to sales. By 1904, the organization was shuttered on both sides of the Atlantic and Still had moved on to other more lucrative projects. The CML factory in Toronto didn't remain closed for long. In 1903, it was bought by bicycle manufacturing conglomerate Canadian Cycle & Motor Company, which turned it over to the manufacturer of an American electric car, also named the Ivanhoe. These vehicles never sold well and in 1905 the company dropped the brand to focus primarily on gasoline cars. A small side business making hockey equipment under the brand 'CCM' would prosper and still exists today. These Canadian manufacturers had competition. The Fischer Equipment Company of Chicago demonstrated its twin-engine Woods Electric cars and trucks in Toronto in 1898, gaining so much interest that by 1899 the whole enterprise had reorganized as the Woods Motor Vehicle Company. This company had a mostly Canadian board of directors that included representatives from Canadian General Electric, the Dominion Bank and Canadian Pacific Railways. Woods cars were planned to be built at the General Electric plant in Hamilton, which would provide Toronto with an electric taxi network. Woods shifted its focus south of the border in 1901 and kept producing electrics in the U.S. until 1918. Canadian demand for electric cars continued. In 1911, the wealthy McLaughlin Motorcar Company of Oshawa began marketing luxury electric cars on the American Rauch & Lang chassis across southern Ontario. There were plans to build the cars in 1912, but it is unclear if those plans materialized. Within a few years, McLaughlin would become General Motors Canada, though the company has yet to attempt EV production in Oshawa a second time. A smaller-scale local contender was the Peck electric, built on Jarvis Street and marketed at the 1912 Auto Show as the car that 'Keeps Pecking.' Despite cushy interiors, easy-to-use controls and lavish colour ads in the pages of Motoring Magazine, the car's whopping $4,000 sale price – more than $109,000 in today's dollars – was a deterrent, and the company folded in 1913. It would take around a century, and dramatic improvements in technology, for EVs to return to Toronto. Still, every electric car driven on our streets today forms the latest link in a chain that extends back in time more than a century to the era of steam and brass.


CTV News
8 hours ago
- CTV News
Windsor Assembly returning to regular production ahead of schedule
Windsor Assembly Plant seen in Windsor, Ont. on April 3, 2025. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor) Two shift production is set to return to Windsor Assembly sooner than expected, according to the union representing workers at the Stellantis plant. On Wednesday, Unifor Local 444 updated its members through its social media pages full two shift operation would return on June 23. The automaker had put the workforce on alternating layoffs, in part, pointing to the economic uncertainty created by new U.S. tariffs brought in by the White House. All workers weren't set to return to full production until June 30, according to a union schedule. CTV News has reached out to Stellantis for comment.