National News

A serial killer has been formally sentenced to four concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years in the slayings of four Indigenous women in Winnipeg.

Jeremy Skibicki showed no emotion as the sentence was handed down Wednesday.

When asked by Court of King's Bench Justice Glenn Joyal if he had anything to say, Skibicki replied, “No.”

The judge said he was bound by law to impose the automatic sentence after convicting Skibicki last month of four counts of first-degree murder.

Whooping cough cases are on the rise in Canada, with some provinces reporting sharp increases compared to pre-pandemic averages. 

More than 11,670 cases have been reported in Quebec so far this year, a significant jump from the annual average of 562 cases between 2015 and 2019. 

The majority of whooping cough patients are between the ages of 10 and 14, a spokesperson for Quebec's health ministry said in an email to The Canadian Press.

The last peak of whooping cough activity in the province was in 2019, when 1,269 cases were reported, the email said.

The Assembly of First Nations has postponed a special assembly for chiefs to vote on a landmark child welfare reform deal with Canada due to concerns about the process and a late translation of the document to French.

The Assembly was scheduled to be held in September in Winnipeg, but it will not happen now until October or November, the AFN said Tuesday.

China on Tuesday accused Canada of protectionism after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government imposed a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles, matching U.S. duties on Chinese-made EVs.

Liberals are having some "robust" conversations about the state of their party and its slump in popularity with voters but those talks cannot happen in public, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Monday.

"The reality is we have to have these conversations behind closed doors," Miller said at the federal cabinet retreat in Halifax.

Canada is moving to match the United States with new tariffs on electric vehicles made in China in a bid to keep the cars from getting a significant foothold in the North American market.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlined the plan at the federal cabinet retreat in Halifax on Monday, promising to increase import taxes on Chinese-made EVs to 106.1 per cent on Oct. 1, up from 6.1 per cent.

Tariffs on Chinese-made steel and aluminum products will go to 25 per cent on Oct. 15, with a final list of which products will be affected expected Oct. 1.

The federal government has added 56 properties to a new public lands bank of locations that are suitable for long-term leases so developers can build housing, a move the Housing Minister says will help boost the supply of homes Canadians can afford. 

Sean Fraser made the announcement Sunday in Halifax just ahead of a three-day cabinet retreat intended to prepare for the upcoming fall sitting of Parliament.

"Making public lands available for home construction is going to reduce the cost of construction and in turn reduce the cost of living," Fraser said. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government will reduce the number of low-wage temporary foreign workers with stricter rules, urging employers to hire Canadian workers instead.

The federal government announced today that it will refuse applications for low-wage temporary foreign workers in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher.

Employers will be allowed to hire a maximum of 10 per cent of their workforce from the temporary foreign worker program, down from 20 per cent.

Parks Canada says a weekend drenching of rain on parts of Jasper National Park is doing a lot to quell fire activity, but the wet weather also comes with a warning.

In a daily update on the local wildfire situation, Parks Canada says parts of the national park received over 30 millimetres of rain on Friday night.

Cooler temperatures were also in the forecast, which the agency says could further decrease fire activity.

Traffic at Canada's two largest railways is slated to resume today as a rail work stoppage comes to an end following a Saturday decision from the federal labour board. 

Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City shut down railways last Thursday, locking out workers and disrupting freight traffic countrywide and commuter lines in the Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver areas.

The lockouts affected more than 9,000 railway workers amid an ongoing contract dispute between the two companies and the Teamsters union.