Several nations gathered in Ottawa on Wednesday to explore importing Canada's unique refugee system that looks in part to private individuals, church groups and others to sponsor asylum seekers.

Developed in the late 1970s, at the height of the boat-people crisis in Southeast Asia, the program has facilitated the resettlement of 288,000 refugees to Canada. 

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to Cuba Tuesday as the breakthrough in U.S. relations with the communist regime hangs in the balance following Donald Trump's presidential election win.

Canada's parliament adopted Tuesday an opposition motion to resettle Yazidi refugees within four months, while declaring IS group's persecution of Yazidis near the Syrian border in northern Iraq a genocide.

Belgium has conceded it cannot sign off on a landmark EU free trade deal with Canada because of continued objections from Wallonia and other regional leaders who rejected a late Monday deadline.

The head of the European parliament and Canada's trade minister held last-ditch talks Saturday aimed at salvaging a trade deal threatened by a Belgian region's refusal to sign on.

EU assembly chief Martin Schulz also planned an 11th-hour huddle with Paul Magnette, head of Wallonia's socialist government which is blocking the agreement between Ottawa and the 28-nation European Union.

Some 60 schools and universities in eastern Canada were evacuated Wednesday over a series of bomb threats, including one received by police, that appeared to have been bogus.

The threat posed by the massive fire that led to the evacuation of Fort McMurray, Canada has diminished, but it will take time before residents can return home, officials said Thursday.

Rescue crews have restored electricity downtown but still must do the same for gas and drinking water, as well as the sewer system.

The center of the city at the heart of the forest fires raging through Alberta's oil sands region remains "largely intact" even though outlying neighborhoods have suffered serious damage, the authorities said Friday.

Fort McMurray's downtown area "is largely intact, the hospital is still standing, the telephone center is intact and the water treatment center is back up and running," Alberta's Premier Rachel Notley told reporters during a news conference, adding that municipal buildings and the airport also remain intact.

About 200 demonstrators gathered late Friday in Montreal to give the "Up All Night" protests sweeping France a go, and see if they can press for political results across the Atlantic.

The goal of the event, said student Pauline, is "to create spaces for people who were not involved in politics. It's a movement of citizens."

Protests and hotel cancellations have marred French far-right leader Marine Le Pen's visit to Canada, her party said Tuesday.

Two Montreal hotels successively canceled her bookings of banquet halls that were to be used for news conferences, the National Front said in a statement.