National News

After a month-long pause, the federal government is bringing back random, mandatory COVID-19 tests for vaccinated travellers arriving at Canada's four main airports.

Ottawa paused the tests in mid-June as it faced criticism from tourism and air travel groups about the chaos at Canadian airports.

The government also said it planned to move the tests themselves to locations outside of airports.

That means that when the tests resume next week, they will completed either at an in-person or virtual appointment.

Canada's drug regulator approved Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for infants and preschoolers, making it the first vaccine approved for that age group in the country.

Health Canada now says the Moderna vaccine can be given to young children between the ages of six months and five years old in doses one-quarter the size of that approved for adults.

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization is expected to provide advice on its use later today.

Hockey Canada says it is in the process of making changes. 

Whether those moves will be enough to satisfy the general public, fans, federal government and corporate sponsors remains to be seen. 

The sport's under-fire national federation made a series of announcements in an open letter to Canadians published Thursday, including the reopening of a third-party investigation into an alleged sexual assault involving members of the country's 2018 world junior team. 

The federal government says it will provide more than $35 million during the papal visit to Canada to support Indigenous communities, organizations and residential schools survivors. 

Pope Francis is set to travel to Alberta, Quebec and Nunavut from July 24 to 29. The papal visit is to include public and private events with an emphasis on Indigenous participation.

A new tranche of census data shows the typical Canadian family is diverging further from the nuclear structure that was once the norm, with more couples living in common-law partnerships and without children. 

Statistics Canada released results Wednesday from the 2021 national census that show 23 per cent of couples who live together are unmarried — the highest percentage of any G7 nation. 

When a daring construction crew entered a century-old hut in the Rockies on the first day of its takedown, they lit the fireplace one last time and discussed for an hour the gravity of what they were about to do.

"The whole crew knew the grandness and the sadness of what we were doing," said Sean Alexander, the manager of the construction crew that last month took apart the Abbot Pass Refuge Cabin. It straddled the Continental Divide and the Alberta-British Columbia boundary about three kilometres above sea level and was the second-highest structure in Canada.

Canadian incomes trended higher in 2020 everywhere except in Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, as millions benefited from pandemic supports, according to new census data from Statistics Canada.

The agency reports that median after-tax household income was $73,000 in 2020, up 9.8 per cent compared to its last national survey five years earlier, partly driven by the losses of lower-paying jobs.

Rogers Communications Inc. will compensate its customers for the massive outage that crippled its network last week by crediting them with the equivalent of five days of service as a first step.

In a statement, Rogers spokesperson Chloe Luciani-Girouard says the company has been listening to its customers and Canadians from across the country who have shared how significant the impacts of the outage were for them.

Rogers wireless and internet customers were left without service in the outage that began early Friday morning last week and led to widespread disruptions.

The family of a five-year-old Saskatchewan boy whose body was found 81 days after he was reported missing said Tuesday he will be buried this week.

RCMP said Frank Young was located Saturday in the Carrot River, about two kilometres downstream from where he was last seen playing on the Red Earth Cree Nation in April.

Frank's grandmother Teresa Whitecap, the matriarch of the family, said they have have been participating in ceremonies and prayers to prepare for his burial on Friday.

Canada's premiers have wrapped up talks in Victoria, B.C., frustrated that a date has yet to be set for a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau focused on health care.

The 13 premiers were unanimous in calling for the meeting to chart a path forward for working with the federal government on funding the modernization of what they say is a "crumbling" health system plagued by severe staffing shortages.