The Canadian Press

Some members of Parliament want to see Google in the hot seat over the tech company's move to temporarily block news access to some of its Canadian users.

The House of Commons heritage committee is meeting today and members are expected to discuss whether to summon leadership from Google to testify. 

Last week Google confirmed to The Canadian Press that it was limiting news access on its search engine to less than four per cent of its Canadian users. 

Alberta has become the seventh province to sign an agreement in principle with Ottawa on health-care funding.

The federal government said in a news release Monday that more than $24 billion is to be invested in Alberta's health-care system over the next 10 years.

Canada is imposing more sanctions against Iran for what it describes as gross violations of human rights. 

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced twelve senior Iranian government and law enforcement officials are being sanctioned for participating in "gross and systematic human rights violations," including through repressing demonstrations in the western part of the country.

The listed individuals will have their Canadian assets frozen and be barred from entering the country. 

Alberta is scheduled to introduce its budget Tuesday — the last before a spring provincial election — with political observers wondering what the province will do with all its billions of extra petrodollars.

“Any budget that’s leading into an election is always one that contains quite a few goodies,” said University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe.

“Combine that with a government with significantly higher resource royalties than planned, and you have a lot of scope for big announcements."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office says he shared a call with King Charles that centred on environmental issues. 

Trudeau's office says he and the King discussed the COP15 biodiversity summit that was held in Montreal last month, where nearly 200 countries signed a landmark conservation agreement.

They also exchanged "ideas on tackling climate change and protecting the environment moving forward."

Sunwing Vacations Inc. is sending out dozens of recovery flights this week to bring home thousands of passengers stranded in Mexico after winter storms disrupted its operations. 

"We continue to navigate unprecedented operational challenges, resulting in a number of ongoing flight delays," said airline president Len Corrado in a statement. 

"We deeply apologize for the impact to our customers’ travel plans over the holiday season."

The airline said Thursday that it has 40 recovery flights planned this week with 24 expected to be completed by the end of the day.

WestJet proactively cancelled flights at airports in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec Thursday night as storm systems bore down on the regions, deepening a cascade of disruptions that have sent travellers scrambling.

Diederik Pen, WestJet's chief operations officer, said the decision to stand down 243 more flights was extremely difficult but necessary, in order to fly safely with as little disruption as possible when the weather improves.

Canada's ban on the manufacture and import for sale of some plastic items, including grocery bags and straws, has taken effect.

As of today, companies can no longer produce or bring into Canada plastic checkout bags, cutlery, stir sticks, straws and takeout containers — and in a year, it will also be illegal to sell them.

The manufacturing and import ban will extend to the plastic rings used to package six-packs of canned drinks next June and their sale will be prohibited a year after that.

Emergency shelters in Alberta haven't been able to provide refuge to thousands of women who were fleeing domestic violence due to a lack of space, a report shows.

The data, which runs from April 1, 2021 to March 30, 2022, was compiled by the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters from more than 50 member shelters across the province.

It shows shelters received 65,390 calls for help, and about 25,530 of those callers requested admission. About 16 per cent of those calls led to a woman being admitted, says the report released Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mint is issuing a new black-ringed toonie to honour Queen Elizabeth II. 

The mint says the coin's black outer ring is intended to evoke a "mourning armband" to honour the queen, who died in September after 70 years on the throne.  

The mint says it will start to circulate nearly five million of the coins this month, and they will gradually appear as banks restock inventories. 

Aside from the black ring, the mint says the coin retains the same design elements of the standard toonie.