Good morning. Albertans will soon be able to self-refer and pay out-of-pocket for private diagnostic tests. More on that below, along with managing wildfires in France and Spain, and medals at the Commonwealth Games.

In another move to remake its health care system, the Alberta government will soon allow residents to decide for themselves if they need medical diagnostic tests and to pay out-of-pocket for a private provider to do them. But if a test results in a cancer diagnosis, the provincial government will reimburse the cost for the scan.

The details: Coming into effect Friday, Premier Danielle Smith announced that the new policy will allow individuals to privately purchase MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds and X-rays without a referral from a physician. The Opposition Alberta NDP criticized the plan, saying it will only benefit those able to pay thousands of dollars for tests.

The context: In October, Smith and Adriana LaGrange, then Alberta’s minister of primary and preventative health services, announced forthcoming changes that would allow Albertans to pay for “any diagnostic screening and test services they wish” and be reimbursed if the purchased test revealed a “significant or critical condition.” Yesterday’s announcement limited the scope of that promise.

An assailant shot at the United States consulate in Toronto early Monday and led police on a high-speed chase through the city’s downtown that ended because of safety protocols. There were no reported injuries and at a news conference yesterday, authorities said they still did not yet have any suspects.

The context: This incident takes place only four months after a similar shooting at the same location that investigators linked to an alleged guns-for-hire network. An officer was killed last month as police executed a warrant to arrest suspects in that case. U.S. prosecutors previously tied the March shooting to an alleged Iraqi terrorist, but the RCMP said that it’s too early to determine a motive in yesterday’s shooting.

French authorities ordered nearly 4,000 people evacuated from tourist sites on the Atlantic coast as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux. Meanwhile, water-dropping aircraft continued battling several major wildfires in Spain.

The effort: Fires in France and Spain have forced roughly 330,000 people to evacuate. French President Emmanuel Macron urged fire crews to “stay strong,” warning that the fight will take time, but vowing, “We will win this battle together.”

Back home: In Canada, a complex of fires continues to burn out of control and is threatening Clinton, B.C., 350 kilometres northeast of Vancouver. Already, homes and other structures have been destroyed, and evacuation orders continue to expand while around 130 wildfires burn in the province.

A new program in Quebec connects patients with chronic kidney disease and their families with volunteers who themselves have gone through a transplant or donation. It aims to address a care gap: the sharing of first-hand knowledge about the transplant experience, which health care providers do not have.

The backstory: The Transplant Ambassador Program is a first in Quebec – operating out of Montreal General Hospital – and draws lessons from long-standing efforts by its co-founder Susan McKenzie, who received a kidney from her sister-in-law in 2010 and became a transplant advocate. The program first was launched in Ontario in 2017.