British Columbia teens looking for a mid-winter glow may soon find it easier to opt for a tan in a bottle.

As the Vancouver Sun reports, the B.C. government plans to bring tighter regulations into effect regarding tanning-bed use among the province's youth.

B.C. Health Minister Michael de Jong announced on Monday that his department was currently deciding whether young folks under the age of 18 will be banned outright from strapping on a pair of tiny goggles and soaking up the UV, or if they will simply require parental consent. Both options, as the article notes, will require a new set of regulations.

"I think it's clear that there is a strong desire to regulate the access minors have to tanning beds. I think that debate has evolved to a choice between requiring specific parental consent, or an outright ban," de Jong told the paper, adding that he would like to have the final decision within a few months' time.

The move comes on the heels of increasing pressure from medical and health

Torontonians will soon have another chance to chow down on delectable treats curbside when food trucks invade part of the city.

The craze that is sweeping through the U.S., has been slow to enter Canada, but the popularity of past festivals has groups working to organize a fourth event in the city.

Food Truck Eats and the Toronto Underground Market will be teaming up to host a Street Food Block Party at the Don Valley Brick Works on May 5.

And this time, possibly because of previous success, they will be selling tickets.

Food trucks in other Canadian cities

Organizers for the festivals in Toronto expected 750 to show up for the first one and were astonished when 3,500 hungry people arrived.

At the Nuit Blanche food truck festival early last October, scores of people lined up in the freezing cold to taste burritos or grilled cheese and then huddled under a propane heat lamp to stay warm and eat.

The Brick Works festival has only been posted on Facebook for a few hours and almost 800

2012 may go down as the year that Winnipeg was forced to import its snow.

In an incident so unusual it even got picked up by Reuters, Manitoba's capital city, normally quite adept at producing its own frozen precipitation, had to ship in machine-made flakes from a winter recreation area in order to fill the flurry quota for this year's Festival du Voyageur.

The festival, a ten-day province-wide event, relies on the area's typical February snow bank surplus for its famous snow carvings. Throughout the Voyageur's 43-year history, there has only been one other winter in which organizers needed to order a truckload of fake flakes.

But festival spokesperson Emili Bellefleur said many locals were celebrating, not ruing the root cause.

"People refer to Winnipeg as Winterpeg so they expect it to be really cold, but everyone is really happy about the warm weather," she told the news agency. "We're going to take it, you know?"

Though certain parts of Canada remain as cold and icy as ever, many

Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo.First Nations and the RCMP are teaming up with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection on a new program to help aboriginal communities search for missing children.

The initiative was announced this week at the Assembly of First Nations' justice forum in Vancouver, The Canadian Press reported.

"The stark reality that more and more First Nation youth go missing in Canada each year is unacceptable," said assembly National Chief Shawn Atleo said in a statement. "First Nation youth must be supported and nurtured to achieve their dreams and reach their full potential."

The initiative connects aboriginal communities with the centre's web site, MissingKids.ca, to assist in the search for children that have gone missing. The site serves as a central point for parents and communities needing help, as well as providing resources to prevent children from going missing, the centre said in its news release.

"We are living in a more complex world and our children are facing new risks," said Christy

Just as the federal Conservative government is trying to sell voters on the need for pension reform, a poll suggests almost half of Canadians worry the bedrock Canada Pension Plan won't be there for them when they retire.

The poll by Nanos Research, conducted for CTV News and the Globe and Mail, found that 48 per cent of Canadians surveyed earlier this month were "somewhat not confident" or "not confident" in the future of the CPP or the Quebec Pension Plan.

That's a decline in confidence from a 2010 Nanos survey result of 41 per cent.

The new poll found 41 per cent of respondents were confident or somewhat confident in the CPP but a majority - 59 per cent - also said they believed pension payments would be reduced in the future, CTV News reported.

The online poll of 1,001 Canadians done between Feb. 7 and 11, found many were pessimistic about private pensions, many of which are in financial trouble due to poor investment returns. Some 47 per cent said they lacked confidence in their

Legendary Canadian singer Anne Murray is trying to stop construction of a wind farm near her Pugwash, N.S., summer home and that's put her at odds with another local success story.

Murray, known for No. 1 hits such as Snowbird, You Needed Me and Danny's Song, has written to Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter asking him to cancel the proposed $85-million project sited near the village, its scenic golf course and about three kilometres from her summer home, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald reports.

"Pugwash is simply the wrong place for this," Murray, born in nearby Springhill, told the Chronicle-Herald from her home in Jupiter, Florida.

North Cumberland Wind Farm, an affiliate of Atlantic Wind Power Inc., plans to put up to a dozen wind turbines about two kilometres from Murray's summer place north of Halifax, where she reportedly spends three to four months a year.

Work on the wind farm, which would produce up to 33 megawatts of electricity, would begin next year if it's approved.

Murray,

Toronto's Bay subway station is best known for its "lost" subterranean track, an abandoned lower link that now serves film crews rather than passengers.

It's also home to a different sort of lost item — or more precisely, a slew of them. It's the home of the Toronto Transit Commission's (TTC) Lost Articles department. This is where any item left behind on a seat (that isn't stolen first, of course) eventually finds its way.

And anyone who's forgotten a bag, an umbrella, glasses, or even a cell phone can appreciate the relief that comes after being reunited with that object; a sense that you've somehow defied the odds.

"This is the one bit of the TTC where you get to make people happy," chief customer service officer Chris Upfold said to the Toronto Star. "It's somebody's rent, it's somebody's Christmas shopping."

"You feel good when people actually get back stuff," added customer service employee Diane Wisdom.

But it's not always run-of-the-mill stuff, like wallets, glasses, or cell

Seventy years ago almost to the day, Winnipeg fell to the Nazis.

Selkirk fell first and by 6 a.m. on Feb. 19, 1942, Nazi forces were converging on the Manitoba capital. The sirens sounded and troops were stationed in a line five miles from city hall. The Nazis arrived at the first line of defence by 7 a.m. and opened fire, according to The Manitoba Historical Society.

After more than two hours of fighting and retreating, there was nothing left for Winnipeg to do other than surrender. Brandon and Flin Flon had also fallen by this time and Manitoba was considered a German province.

"At that point the Nazi soldiers rode around the city harassing Winnipeggers and harassed people who were on buses and in some cases they took people away to be interned," said Rhonda Hinther, Ph.D. with the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the If Day Documentary.

If you are wondering why you don't remember learning about these events in history class it is because it was all an act. According to the