National News

Police clashed with anti-government protesters in Ottawa on Saturday, pushing deeper into the national capital and closing in on the heart of the site where they have been encamped since late January.

The second day of the massive police enforcement effort comes as members of parliament resumed debating the government's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in a bid to quell demonstrations in Ottawa and further afield.

Rows of officers clad in riot gear and carrying batons massed along Wellington Street near the Prime Minister's Office in downtown Ottawa.

Police clashed with anti-government protesters in Ottawa on Saturday, pushing deeper into the national capital and closing in on the heart of the site where they have been encamped since late January.

The second day of the massive police enforcement effort comes as members of parliament resumed debating the government's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in a bid to quell demonstrations in Ottawa and further afield.

Rows of officers clad in riot gear and carrying batons massed along Wellington Street near the Prime Minister's Office in downtown Ottawa.

Ottawa police say officers have begun making more arrests of anti-vaccine mandate protesters who have occupied the city's downtown core for weeks.

Police say on Twitter there is a large police presence on Nicholas Street downtown and protesters are being advised to leave immediately.

They say some are surrendering and being arrested.

"We ask protesters to remain peaceful and lawful," police say.

The action follows several arrests made Thursday night including of key organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber.

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.