Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

The U.S. military shot down a fourth high-altitude object in just over a week on Sunday, this time closer to heavily populated areas in southern Ontario and the U.S. East Coast.

Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand said in a statement Sunday evening that a "high-altitude object" was detected in U.S. airspace over Lake Huron.

"NORAD launched Canadian and U.S. aircraft to investigate and the object was taken down in U.S. airspace by U.S. aircraft," Anand said.

To flush or not to flush?

It is a question Canada's Competition Bureau says it cannot answer.

Three years ago, Friends of the Earth Canada and lawyers from Ecojustice filed a grievance with the bureau saying the makers of 20 disposable wipes were falsely advertising the products as safe to flush down the toilet.

In February, the Competition Bureau informed Friends in a letter that it was closing its inquiry because it's not clear what it really means to be "flushable."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today will unveil the full details of a plan to try and take some of the sting out of inflation for Canadians feeling it the most.

Both Liberal and NDP sources tell The Canadian Press the plan includes doubling GST rebate cheques for six months as well as a temporary dental-care benefit for some families with young children, and an expanded housing allowance payment.

All three are initiatives the NDP has been asking for since the spring as inflation began weighing heavily on Canadians with low and modest incomes.

The federal government intends to temporarily hike GST rebate cheques in a bid to ease some of the hurt of inflation for lower-income Canadians.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will announce a three-pronged plan to address affordability at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Vancouver today.

Cabinet ministers are gathering ahead of the fall sitting of Parliament with the economy and the cost-of-living crisis top of mind.

New federal regulations to force down the greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline and diesel will cost Canadians up to 13 cents more per litre at the pump by 2030.

An impact analysis of the Clean Fuel Regulations published Wednesday estimates they will cut about 18 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, or five to six per cent of what Canada needs to eliminate to meet its current targets for that year.

The federal government is banning companies from importing or making plastic bags and takeout containers by the end of this year, from selling them by the end of next year and from exporting them by the end of 2025.

The move will also affect most single-use plastic straws, as well as all stir sticks, and cutlery. Six-pack rings used to hold cans and bottles together will get slightly more time before the ban affects them, with June 2023 targeted for stopping production and import, and June 2024 to ban their sale.

Electric vehicle sales grew almost 60 per cent last year but they need to pick up the pace even more to hit the new federal sales mandates expected by the end of this year.

Statistics Canada released the latest quarterly data on new vehicle registrations Thursday, showing in the fourth quarter of 2021, plug-in cars and SUVs made up more than six per cent of new vehicle registrations for the first time.

Governments should consider extreme heat a natural disaster as climate change raises the risk of soaring summer temperatures in much of Canada, a new report says.

Irreversible Extreme Heat, penned by experts at the Intact Centre on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo, says "Canadian alarm bells should be ringing" about the risk of intense heat.

"Extreme heat is kind of a disaster waiting to happen," said lead author Joanna Eyquem, managing director of climate−resilient infrastructure at the Intact Centre.