Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

The Liberal government is planning to create a "digital safety commission of Canada" to regulate social media companies to take steps to reduce the risk of online harms to their users.

Justice Minister Arif Virani tabled the Online Harms Act today, and creating a new regulator is just one of the new measures being proposed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has long promised to better protect against online harms, but his ministers have repeatedly said developing such legislation was complicated.

The federal government is hitting pause on its plans to make medical assistance in dying available to people whose only medical condition is a mental illness — and Health Minister Mark Holland is offering no clues about a new timeline.

The country is not yet ready to take such a significant step, Holland acknowledged Monday, concurring with a findings of a joint parliamentary committee that released its final report earlier in the day. 

The federal government's bail-reform legislation is on its way to becoming law after the House of Commons decided on Thursday to accept changes the Senate made to the bill.

Justice Minister Arif Virani urged MPs to accept the amendments to Bill C-48 on Thursday, and they did so unanimously.

The Liberal government introduced the bill earlier this year in the face of sustained calls from all provincial leaders and many police chiefs to make bail more difficult to access for repeat violent offenders. 

The bombing of a hospital in Gaza was "absolutely unacceptable," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, as federal officials confirmed Canada stands ready in Egypt to help people in the besieged territory get out amid a worsening humanitarian crisis. 

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is ready to use the notwithstanding clause to protect a new rule requiring parental permission for transgender and nonbinary students to use different names or pronouns at school.

In the face of a court challenge brought against the new education policy, Moe announced late last week that his provincial government would seek to enshrine the changes in legislation to be introduced this fall.

He recently told reporters that his Saskatchewan Party government was prepared to use different "tools" to ensure that the policy remains in place.

For Emily Brown, it feels pretty good to be Conservative. 

"It's quite a time to be a part of this, honestly."

Buoyed by successive polls showing the federal party's message on the cost of living and housing resonating among a wider, and younger, swath of Canadians at the governing Liberals' expense, Brown will be among the thousands at the Conservative convention starting today in Quebec City.

Canada's minister for women, gender equality and youth says policies in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick that require parental consent before students under 16 can have schools use their preferred pronouns and names puts transgender and nonbinary kids in a "life-or-death situation." 

And while Marci Ien declined to comment on whether Ottawa sees a role for itself in any potential court challenges, the cabinet minister said the Liberal government is keeping an eye on what unfolds. 

Indigenous communities searching for unmarked graves have encountered a rising number of individuals questioning, or outright denying, that children disappeared or died in residential schools, says a new report from an independent special interlocutor.

Ground-penetrating radar is the technology behind the identification of what are believed to be unmarked burial sites, including for the remains of children, on the grounds of former residential schools.

If members of Parliament do not avoid the dangers of "performance politics" and chasing "likes" on social media, future Canadians will look back on the current moment as the start of the country's decline, Erin O'Toole warned Monday. 

The former Conservative leader and Ontario MP used his last address to the House of Commons to issue a call to colleagues to focus on what he said should be figuring out the country's national purpose.

Instead of debating that he said, "too many of us are often chasing algorithms down a sinkhole of diversion and division."

A parliamentary committee voted Monday to launch a study into the causes behind Canada's chaotic holiday travel season and to hear not only from industry giants, but also from some of the passengers who saw their plans upended. 

Members of the federal transport committee met to discuss the scope of the study, which all agreed was necessary given the widespread disruptions that plagued thousands of passengers who travelled by air and train last month and into January.