Corporal George Cameron of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told AFP yesterday the children were rushed to the hospital on Sunday after firefighters responded to a chemical spill in a home in Fort McMurray, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Edmonton, Alberta.
A family member told the daily Edmonton Journal the mother had been using a pesticide to kill bedbugs when she inadvertently poisoned her children.
Cameron said the chemical "has not yet been identified."