National News

Several Abbott brand powdered infant formula products are being recalled due to possible contamination by Cronobacter sakazakii and salmonella bacterium.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the products were sold across the country, all with the same expiration date of Apr. 1, 2022.

Anyone who has them should throw them out or return them to the place of purchase.

The police presence in downtown Ottawa is growing as efforts to begin clearing a three-week long occupation around Parliament Hill appear imminent but the antigovernment demonstrators aren't buckling.

With rain and sleet falling on the nation's capital, workers began erecting fencing around Parliament Hill and several other buildings downtown, including the Senate, around 8 a.m. Access to the Hill grounds is still open in some places for now.

Unvaccinated truckers bringing COVID-19 vaccines and medical devices into Canada to combat the pandemic are exempt from testing and quarantine requirements at the border, a government order says. 

The exemption is due to the "urgent public health necessity" of the supplies they are transporting, Health Canada states. 

The government has given exemptions from testing and quarantine rules for certain people crossing the border into Canada to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A new report by a Canadian environmental group says alternatives to Line 5 already exist if the controversial cross-border pipeline gets shut down. 

The report, commissioned by Environmental Defence, recommends upgrading Enbridge Inc.'s new Line 78 pipeline to handle most of what Line 5 now delivers to Ontario and Quebec, as well as several Midwestern states. 

The state of Michigan is in court with Enbridge in a bid to shutter Line 5, fearing an ecological disaster in the Straits of Mackinac, where the pipeline crosses the Great Lakes. 

Trucks and other vehicles with horns blaring have rolled out of a southern Alberta town, ending a blockade that paralyzed a United States border crossing for more than two weeks.

Protesters had been restricting access to the main Alberta border crossing in Coutts since Jan. 29 to rally against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and broader public health restrictions.

Commercial and personal vehicles left the area Tuesday, one day after RCMP arrested 13 people and seized a cache of firearms and ammunition.

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says vaccinated travellers will no longer need a molecular COVID-19 test to enter Canada starting Feb. 28 because the COVID-19 situation in Canada has improved. 

Travellers can instead opt for a rapid antigen test approved by the country they are coming from. 

Unvaccinated children travelling with vaccinated adults who come to Canada will no longer have to isolate from school or daycare for 14 days.

Rescue teams searched in rough seas east of Newfoundland Tuesday for a Spanish fishing vessel that sank off Newfoundland with the loss of at least four of its crew while another 15 were reported missing.

Lt.-Cmdr. Brian Owens, a spokesman for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax, said a distress signal was received just after midnight from a vessel located more than 460 kilometres east of St. John's.

Owns confirmed three survivors and four bodies were found in a life-raft by another Spanish fishing boat that was in the area. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday invoked the national Emergencies Act to bring to an end the antigovernment blockades he describes as illegal and not about peaceful protest.

The government will use the act to force towing companies to remove big rigs and other vehicles that are blocking highways and other critical infrastructure, establish zones where public assembly is not allowed, and require banks to suspend or freeze accounts suspected of supporting the blockades, including those belonging to companies whose trucks are part of the convoy.

Police are working to reopen traffic across a key border crossing with the United States after officers ended what the local mayor described as a "national economic crisis."

Mayor Drew Dilkens of Windsor, Ont. said police will decide when cross-border traffic can resume. He also said that illegal acts, blockades and hate speech must not be tolerated and should be denounced.

Canada is a country that believes in freedom of speech and expression, Dilkens said in a statement, adding "we are also bound by the rule of law."

Experts have released a new set of draft standards for long-term care, this time focused on building design, materials and infection prevention and control.

CSA Group, formerly the Canadian Standards Association, developed the draft in parallel with care-giving standards from the Health Standards Organization, released two weeks ago.