National vaccine committee recommends high-risk teens get a COVID-19 booster shot
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization is now recommending teenagers with underlying conditions or at high risk of COVID-19 exposure get a booster shot.
The advice comes as more provincial health officers are transitioning to a position of learning to live with COVID-19 and loosening public health restrictions.
Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says kids and adolescents are still at low risk of serious illness in general from COVID-19 but because of the high rate of infection due to Omicron more kids are being admitted to hospital.
Parliament Hill girds for massive truck convoy protest
The first trucks in a massive national convoy that was organized to protest the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for cross-border drivers are due to arrive in Ottawa today.
The convoy has been gaining participants and supporters as it rolls across the country from all directions for a weekend rally in the capital.
In Toronto Thursday crowds of people lined part of the route, waving Canadian flags and holding up signs denouncing the vaccine mandate as they cheered the truckers on.
Bodies of family from India trying to cross into U.S. by foot identified
Officials in Ottawa say they have confirmed the identities of four Indian nationals whose bodies were found frozen near Emerson, close to the Canada-U. S. border last week.
The High Commission of India has released a notice saying the four who died were Jagdish Baldevbhai Patel, a 39-year-old man, Vaishaliben Jagdishkumar Patel, a 37-year-old woman, Vihangi Jagdishkumar Patel, an 11-year-old girl, and Dharmik Jagdishkumar Patel, a three-year-old boy.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is isolating after learning of COVID exposure
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is isolating at home after learning that he was exposed to someone who had tested positive for COVID-19.
The prime minister says in a tweet that he learned about the exposure just last night.
He says the result of a rapid antigen test he took was negative, but he is following local public health rules and isolating for five days.
Trudeau says he will be working from home during that stretch.
Investigation finds 93 possible burial sites at B.C. Indian Residential School
Caution: This story contains distressing details
Williams Lake First Nation is grieving after discovering close to 100 possible human remains locations at the former St. Joseph’s Mission site.
On Tuesday, Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN), located 330 km northeast of Vancouver in the San Jose River Valley, announced the first phase of their geophysical investigation had come to a close at the former St. Joseph’s Mission site.
CRA to send out new round of letters checking eligibility from CERB recipients
The Canada Revenue Agency is sending out a new round of letters to pandemic aid recipients to verify they were eligible for the help, and warning of potential need for repayments.
It's the second time the agency is mailing Canada Emergency Response Benefit recipients as part of a process to verify the eligibility of the millions of Canadians who received the $500-a-week benefit.
The CRA sent out more than 441,000 letters to CERB recipients near the end of 2020 asking them to verify they met eligibility rules for the payments.
Bank of Canada keeps key interest rate target on hold, but warns of looming hikes
The Bank of Canada is keeping its key interest rate target on hold at 0.25 per cent, but warning it won't stay there for much longer.
The trendsetting rate has been at its rock-bottom level since March 2020 during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as the economy went into a downturn and three million jobs were lost.
The central bank said Wednesday the rebound since then and especially over the last few months has been stronger than it anticipated.
Telepoem booths read poetry to listeners in poet's own voice
Listeners are being invited to open a decommissioned phone booth's folding doors, pick up the receiver, and dial a poem's phone number.
In 2016, Elizabeth Hellstern and her partner Owen Fritts were driving along a road in their home of Arizona when a thought came to her: what if they took an old rotary phone booth and when people picked the receiver up, it had poetry on the other end? She tracked down her first vintage "lost object" of a telephone booth, making that thought a reality.
Poll suggests some Canadians are feeling brighter about the economy, own finances
A new poll suggests some Canadians are feeling more upbeat about the state of the domestic economy and their own pocketbooks, though not quite as positive as they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The annual Leger survey of economic confidence found that nearly two in every five respondents rated the economy as being good or very good, which was up from the same survey last February.
Still, just over half of respondents weren't as chipper on the state of the economy, with 54 per cent rating it as poor or very poor.
Canada orders kids, families of Ukrainian diplomats to leave amid Russia tensions
Canada has ordered the children and family members of its embassy staff in Ukraine to leave the country as the possibility of a Russian invasion looms.
The decision comes after Britain said it would pull some of its diplomats out of its Ukraine embassy, and after the U.S. State Department decided to order the families of its Ukraine embassy personnel to leave.
Russia has positioned about 100,000 troops across Ukraine's borders along with tanks and other heavy artillery, stoking fears across Europe of an invasion, something Russia has denied.