National News

Jeremy Hansen, a colonel and CF-18 pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, has been selected to become the first Canadian to venture further into space and orbit the moon.

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency made the long-awaited announcement Monday, introducing the four astronauts who will steer the next stage of an ambitious plan to establish a long-term presence on the moon.

Saskatchewan politicians are raising concerns after a report recommended RCMP’s Depot police training academy in Regina be phased out for a new degree-style system.

A report released Thursday into the 2020 shooting rampage in Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead recommended the phaseout by 2032, and that provinces instead establish three-year policing degree programs.

The RCMP has been training recruits at the Depot for the past 140 years. It has strong ties to Regina and has been a source of heritage, employment and tourism in the province.

Kevin Garinger says it feels like the passage of time is inexplicable. The five years since a deadly bus crash changed his city, his hockey team and his life sometimes feel like a lifetime. Other times it feels like yesterday. 

"I don't know if anyone ever heals from significant loss or tragedy,” Garinger says after a moment of deep thought in his Humboldt, Sask., office. 

“You eventually just learn to live with this."

The federal government now expects far more Canadians with long-overdue dental needs to sign up for its insurance plan, and the health minister says that's why the estimated cost has risen by $7 billion.

In its 2023 budget Tuesday, the government revealed the federally-administered insurance program will be far more expensive over the next five years than it originally thought. 

It is also projecting that ongoing costs after that will more than double, to $4.4 billion per year, up from $1.7 billion.

An Alberta deputy premier says it was appropriate for his boss to phone up a pastor and discuss his upcoming criminal trial on charges stemming from protests over pandemic restrictions. 

Kaycee Madu says Premier Danielle Smith has a broad mandate to reduce divisions over the COVID-19 pandemic while helping the province grow. 

Madu says in pursuing that mission, Smith is free to contact whomever she wants.

For Canadians fed up with chargers that don't fit their cellphones, hidden fees, air-travel disruptions and cosmetic testing on animals, the Liberal government says help is on the way. 

Those and others are among the countless measures contained in the federal budget plan unveiled by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. 

Here are some of the less-prominent promises being made: 

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland's 2023 federal budget promises "transformative investments" in Canada's green economy as the country tries to maintain its place in the global clean tech revolution and realign its supply chains toward allies who won't use energy as a political weapon.

"Together these two great shifts represent the most significant opportunity for Canadian workers in the lifetime of anyone here today," Freeland said Tuesday in the House of Commons, according to her prepared remarks.

Brandy Hehn was a regular in the kidney dialysis unit at the Regina General Hospital when the deadly Humboldt Broncos bus crash happened five years ago.

Sixteen people died and 13 were injured after a transport truck went through a stop sign and into the path of a bus carrying the Saskatchewan junior hockey team on April 6, 2018.

Hehn, now 39, remembers a nurse walking into the room where she was getting a dialysis treatment a couple days later and commenting on the crash.

The Canadian Armed Forces is under fire for its plan to cut thousands of troops off a cost-of-living allowance without much notice.

The military announced last week that about 7,700 Armed Forces members will no longer receive the top-up starting in July, when it will be replaced by a new housing benefit that commanders say will better assist those who need the most help.

The pomp and circumstance of a presidential visit will give way today to a series of talks about green energy, migration and Haiti, as U.S. President Joe Biden heads to Parliament Hill.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is scheduled to greet Biden late Friday morning for a welcoming ceremony at West Block.

Dignitaries from the House of Commons and Senate, including the Speakers from each chamber and the leaders of each elected party and most Senate groups, are set to join them.

Biden and Trudeau plan to then have a bilateral meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office.