National News

Ottawa has concluded negotiations for a trade deal with Indonesia and is proposing nuclear-energy collaboration with Southeast Asian leaders.

The moves are a show of faith for multilateralism as the re-election of Donald Trump in the United States is raising fears of further strain in global co-operation on trade and the environment.

Canada's elections chief wants a ban on the misrepresentation of candidates and other key players in the electoral process through manipulation of their voice or image without consent.

The proposed change to the Canada Elections Act is among several measures chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault is putting forward to address the use of deepfakes and other artificially created content to fool voters.

In an interview, Perrault said he is "hoping to convince" MPs to expand an electoral reform bill, currently in a House of Commons committee, to include some new elements.

Canada's Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault apologized Friday, after shifting claims about his Indigenous identity came under scrutiny.

The Liberal member of Parliament said at an unrelated announcement in Edmonton that he's sorry he hadn't been clear, "with everything that I know now."

"I apologize that I wasn't as clear as I could have been about who I am and my family's history,” he said, adding that he's still learning about his family's heritage "in real time."

Workers at Canada Post went on strike Friday in a move that is expected to create delays and other disruptions to mail and parcel delivery — just as the Crown corporation prepares for what's typically its busiest period.

Canada Post workers are on strike after failing to reach a negotiated agreement with their employer.

Canadian Union of Postal Workers says approximately 55,000 workers are striking, claiming little progress has been made in the bargaining process.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week, saying it's been asking for fair wages, safer working conditions and other improvements over nearly a year of bargaining.

The RCMP is rolling out body-worn cameras for officers, deploying more than 10,000 cameras across the country in the next 12 to 18 months.

Officers will be expected to turn on their cameras when they answer calls or interact with the public. They will wear the cameras on their chests and they will flash red lights to indicate they are recording.

"The muscle memory that we're training officers to build in is essentially seatbelt off, camera on," said Taunya Goguen, the RCMP’s corporate management officer, at a press briefing Thursday. 

President-elect Donald Trump's promise to slap an across-the-board tariff of at least 10 per cent on all imports including from Canada is unlikely to apply to Canadian oil, energy experts are predicting.

The threat of the tariff is causing a lot of concern north of the border, where the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said such a tariff could take a $30-billion bite out of the Canadian economy.

A proposed class-action lawsuit against the Canadian government says Indigenous people removed from their communities and placed in group homes beginning in the 1950s suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse that "was commonplace, condoned and, arguably, encouraged."

The Federal Court lawsuit filed this month in Vancouver says Indigenous children across the country were forcibly removed from their homes and taken "to live with strangers — sometimes hundreds of kilometres from their families and Indigenous communities."

Canada's Public Health Agency has confirmed that a British Columbia teenager hospitalized last Friday is the country's first ever human case of domestically acquired avian flu.

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that testing at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirms the teen did contract the H5N1 avian flu, the same strain related to viruses found in B.C. flocks in an ongoing outbreak at poultry farms.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the Canada carbon rebate for small businesses will be tax-free.

In a statement posted to X late Tuesday, Freeland clarified the parameters of the program after an advocacy group for small business raised concerns that the rebate would be a taxable benefit.

Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, posted on X soon after that post that he had received a call from Freeland, who offered "assurance" that the rebate would be tax-free.