Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed... Trudeau expected to announce temporary GST break on some items, NDP says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce on Thursday a temporary GST break for certain essential items to help ease affordability pressures. NDP...

VANCOUVER - Canada's border agency says it has detained about 50 shipments of cargo over suspicions they were products of forced labour under rules introduced in 2020 - but only one was eventually determined to be in breach of the ban. The Canada Border Services Agency provided the figures after being asked about a law...

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce on Thursday a temporary GST break for certain essential items to help ease affordability pressures. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says in a statement that the announcement is in response to his party's demands to permanently lift the goods and services tax on a ...

WASHINGTON - U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has picked a former Michigan congressman as his upcoming administration's ambassador to Canada. Trump said in a statement that Pete Hoekstra would help him "once again put America first." Hoekstra thanked Trump on social media platform X, saying he was honoured f...

SURREY - Mounties in Surrey, B.C., say a year-long investigation has led to one of the largest drug seizures in the detachment's history and will "disrupt" the drug trade in the city. RCMP say they launched an investigation in June 2023 into a criminal group alleged to be involved in trafficking "high-po...

OTTAWA - A former police officer involved in the case of an Ottawa man who died after a violent arrest says the incident still affects him eight years later. A coroner's inquest into the July 2016 death of 38-year-old Abdirahman Abdi began earlier this week, with witnesses testifying today. Abdi died after police respo...

MONTREAL - The City of Montreal is promising to speed up construction permits, raise taxes on owners of vacant lots and spend tens of millions of dollars more to help develop affordable housing as part of its 2025 budget. The $7.28 billion budget unveiled today by Mayor Valérie Plante includes a promise to incre...

MONTREAL - A new survey conducted for Quebec's language watchdog says young Quebecers are far less interested compared to older residents about being served in English in stores. In a report published this week, the watchdog says 41 per cent of customers between the ages of 18 and 34 reported feeling indifferent to bei...

OTTAWA - Randy Boissonnault is leaving his post as employment minister in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet after weeks of questions about the Edmonton MP's past claims of Indigenous identity. Boissonnault has been under intense scrutiny after reporting from the National Post that raised questions about his past ...

OTTAWA - A new poll suggests Canadians are supportive of government intervention in the labour disputes at ports and at Canada Post. Polling firm Leger found 63 per cent of respondents to a new survey were in favour of the Liberal government's move to step in and ask the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order a res...

EDMONTON - Former prime minister Stephen Harper is the new chairman of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, or AIMCo, which oversees more than $160 billion in funds, including pension funds and the Heritage Savings Trust Fund. The move comes almost two weeks after the province's finance minister fired the Cro...

TORONTO - Ontario Premier Doug Ford says all provincial and territorial premiers are aligned on his push for the federal government to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the United States. Ford, who is the current chair of the Council of the Federation, the group of Canada's 13 premiers, says they had a call today a...

LONGUEUIL, Que. - Canada's new lunar rover will head to the moon when it's built, but first it needs a name. The Canadian Space Agency has begun polling the public on four possible choices: Athabasca, Courage, Glacier or Pol-R. The rover, still in development, will be the first Canadian craft to explore the moon's surf...

OTTAWA - The Canadian and American embassies in Ukraine are closed to the public today after the U.S. warned of a "potential significant air attack" by Russia in Kyiv. Ukraine's intelligence agency posted a statement today accusing Russia of spreading fake messages about the threat of an "extremely massi...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - An international group led by a Canadian is in Rome this week to push the Catholic Church to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for clergy abuse. Newfoundlander Gemma Hickey is the board president of non-profit Ending Clergy Abuse, which is advocating for the church to adopt widespread rules requiring any...

A lawyer representing the families of two teenage girls murdered by notorious killer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo says they have been denied the right to deliver their victim impact statements in person at Bernardo's upcoming parole hearing. In a letter sent to the Parole Board of Canada chairperson and others, lawy...

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed... More details emerge about fatal border crossing The trial of two men accused of human smuggling is expected to soon hear from a migrant who survived a long walk across the Canada-U. S. border in a blizzard. Steve Shand and Harshku...

OTTAWA - A significant increase in the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Canada has prompted some cities to start building temporary housing for new arrivals. The city of Ottawa is working to establish what's known as a sprung structure that serves as both a temporary shelter and a centre to provide settlement s...

DAWSON CITY, Y.T. - Governance in Yukon's second-largest municipality has been at a standstill since its newly elected mayor and council refused to pledge allegiance to King Charles during their swearing-in ceremony. Stephen Johnson, the mayor-elect of Dawson City, said he and the four-member council refused to take Ca...

EDMONTON - Adebayo Chris Katiiti, jailed for being a transgender man in Uganda, was brutally beaten as a child for wearing his brothers' clothes. He says moving to Alberta in 2016 saved his life. "I found home in Edmonton," said Katiiti, 29, a therapist and life coach who works with the LGBTQ+ community. &quo...

BURNABY, B.C. - The metallic screech of a train rolling by. The constant hum of traffic on the nearby Trans-Canada Highway. These are the sounds of the Brunette River in the fall, as it cuts through the suburbs of Burnaby, B.C. And rising above the din of Metro Vancouver, the splashing of chum salmon as they push upstr...

FERGUS FALLS - The trial of two men accused of human smuggling is expected to soon hear from a migrant who survived a long walk across the Canada-U. S. border in a blizzard. Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel are charged with organizing several illegal crossings, from Manitoba to Minnesota, of people from India. They hav...

VANCOUVER - Hurricane-force winds of up to 159 km/h have slammed into parts of the British Columbia Coast as a massive storm swirling off Vancouver Island severed highways and cut power to about 225,000 people. Winds from the bomb cyclone weather system were expected to reach 120 km/h on the central and north coast, al...

VANCOUVER - The union representing port supervisors in British Columbia is formally challenging the legal and constitutional authority of the federal labour minister to order them back to work. In a legal document dated Tuesday, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 says it's questioning whether the ord...

MONTREAL - Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is lending her support to a gun control advocacy group as it urges the federal government to complete a list of banned assault-style weapons before a federal buyback program comes into effect. PolySeSouvient, a group that represents survivors and families of the 1989 &Eac...

OTTAWA - A Métis member of Parliament is calling on the employment minister to resign over what he calls harmful false claims to Indigenous ancestry. Randy Boissonnault, who had said his great-grandmother was a "full-blooded Cree woman," has also been described as Indigenous multiple times in communica...

OTTAWA - Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says she shares the "legitimate" concerns of U.S. officials about Mexico becoming a back door for China to wedge its way into the North American trading regime. Her comment comes the day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised the issue with Mexican Presiden...

MONTREAL - A Quebec Superior Court judge has ordered the seizure of two Montreal-area residences belonging to billionaire Robert Miller, at the request of four women who have filed civil lawsuits alleging he sexually abused them as minors. Justice Serge Gaudet on Friday authorized the request for a seizure before judgm...