Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Vikramjit Singh Sahney on Friday thanked Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for making clear that GST would not be charged on religious places and that sarais run by Sikhs will not need to pay the tax. "No GST will be charged in religious places. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave out this ruling today morning. I thanked Nirmala Sitharaman for accepting our demands and waiving off GST from Sarai's," said Vikramjit Singh Sahney. "If SGPC has paid GST charges after the circular which was July 17 to August 5 can claim for GST return and the

China has announced unspecified sanctions on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her visit earlier this week to Taiwan. A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said Friday that Pelosi had disregarded China’s concerns and resolute opposition to her visit to the self-ruled island, which Beijing claims. China views the island as part of its territory, but Taiwan has been governed independently since 1949, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. China repeatedly voiced its opposition to Pelosi’s trip to the disputed island, but the U.S. official decided not to cancel her plans. “In res

The Alberta government is tightening the rules around employee bonuses in light of the six-figure payout to the chief medical officer of health. Finance Minister Jason Nixon says the civil service has been directed to review and make changes to the rules to ensure future bonus payments during emergencies go through cabinet for approval. Nixon says the public service should not have the ability to sign off on such big-ticket bonuses. Earlier this week, the government's salary list revealed Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the chief medical officer of health, received a bonus of almost 228-thousand dollars fo

The United Conservative government has cancelled an emergency directive that called for some patients in Edmonton hospitals to be treated in hallways. The order was enacted to reduce pressure on emergency departments while Alberta Health Services worked to place some patients in other hospitals. The province says it was dealing with high demand, staffing shortages and higher numbers of patients due to COVID-19. The Opposition NDP says the government contributed to the staffing shortages by tearing up the master contract with doctors and fighting at one point to cut nurses' salaries.

Defence lawyers working with Legal Aid Alberta have voted to stop taking any cases for two weeks. They say it is their response to what they call the provincial government underfunding the system. The Criminal Defence Lawyers Association, the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association, and the Southern Alberta Defence Lawyers' Association have been pushing the province to increase Legal Aid's budget in line with other Canadian jurisdictions. Alberta Justice says it has reached out to all three organizations for a meeting.

On August 3rd at approximately 2:00 pm, the New Westminster Police Department responded an domestic incident near 20th Street and 6th Avenue. The suspect was identified and later located at a residence in the 300 block of Agnes Street. The suspect would not acknowledge police and patrol members attempted to negotiate the surrender of the suspect. Due to the suspect refusing to exit the apartment, the Lower Mainland District Emergency Response Team was deployed to assist with the arrest. The suspect was located inside the residence at approximately 7:00 pm and was taken into custody without inc

A judge in Russia convicted American basketball star Brittney Griner of drug possession and smuggling. She was sentenced to nine years in prison in a politically charged case that could lead to a high-stakes prisoner exchange between Washington and Moscow. Griner showed little emotion to the sentence but her lawyers said later she was "very upset, very stressed. U.S. President Joe Biden denounced as ``unacceptable'' the verdict and sentence, which came amid soaring tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine. Griner had told the court she had no intention to break the law by bringing va

With the ongoing erosion of B.C.’s health care system and the continued lack of urgent action from the NDP government to address the now system-wide crisis, the BC Liberals are asking the question, where is NDP Health ​Minister Adrian Dix and the NDP’s long-promised health care human resources plan? "For months we have watched the crisis in B.C.’s health care system grow and tragically, some British Columbians have lost their lives as a result of the dysfunction in the system. This has become a province-wide crisis that continues to get worse by the day, and yet Minister Adrian Dix ref

Former Supreme Court of Canada judge Thomas Cromwell is leading an independent review of Hockey Canada's governance that begins immediately. There have been calls for a change of leadership at Hockey Canada for the way it handled recent sexual assault allegations against players. Members of the 2003 and 2018 world junior team have been accused of separate incidents of group sexual assault. It was also revealed that the organization maintained a fund for uninsured payments, including settlements of sexual assault complaints, that was funded by player fees. The independent review is expected to