The federal government is rejecting a Conservative accusation that it was either ignorance or corruption that led the Liberals to briefly award a huge contract to the WE charity. The group had paid members of Justin Trudeau's family for speaking engagements. During question period in the House of Commons, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer pointed to reports that auditors had been concerned while reviewing WE Charity's financials. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland maintained it was civil servants who favoured WE running the 900 million dollar student jobs program. The House of Commons is

US President Donald Trump's coronavirus briefings are coming back starting tomorrow afternoon. That will be a first since late April, when ratings began to slide and Trump mused about the possibility of using disinfectants inside the body to kill the virus. He now says record numbers of people watched the briefings adding that, ``in the history of cable television, television, there's never been anything like it.'' The virus has killed at least 140,000 Americans and is surging again in much of the country.

The Province is bringing into force regulations to fully implement the Province's leading-edge vaping action plan, which was announced in November 2019.The regulations restrict the content, flavour, packaging, advertising and sale of vapour products in British Columbia.B.C.'s ministries of Health and Education will also establish a provincial youth advisory council to develop, pilot and launch youth-informed strategies to reduce vaping by young people. "We heard from young people across the province that vaping companies are targeting them with a product that poses real and serious health and

There have been some minor side effects, but scientists at Oxford University say their experimental COVID-19 vaccine has produced good early results. The study conducted on about one-thousand people prompted a protective immune response in hundreds of people who got the shot. Dr. Adrian Hill says the vaccine does well at triggering both arms of the immune system. He says neutralizing antibodies are produced, molecules which are key to blocking infection and that the vaccine also causes a reaction in the body's T-cells which help to fight off the coronavirus.

Walmart Canada is going to build two new distribution centres, one north of Toronto and the other in Surrey, as part of a five-year, $3.5-billion plan.The retailer says it aims to improve service in stores and on the web.Walmart is going to renovate 150 stores, which will create hundreds of construction jobs.It also plans to work with Canadian high-tech companies to develop a system that will let customers use their mobile device to pay for purchases anywhere in the store.

The House of Commons meets today as the Liberals seek to pass a bill to extend their wage-subsidy program, send a special payment to people with disabilities and extend some legal deadlines for court cases. Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the wage-subsidy program needs to be extended to December and have its criteria loosened a little, so business can re-open and employ workers even if trade is slow at first as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. The payments of up to $600 for people with disabilities and the court extensions were elements of a bill the Liberals couldn't get through the House

Canadian investigators are in Paris today to take part in the long-awaited downloading of data from the flight recorders of the Ukrainian passenger jet shot down by Iran in January.Canada's Transportation Safety Board confirmed today that after Tehran's nearly four-month delay, the so-called black boxes have arrived in Paris.The TSB sent a team to Paris to witness the download of the data, after an Iranian news agency report that they had been shipped on Saturday.Today marks a crucial step for grieving families seeking answers to why Iran's military fired two missiles at the passenger jet on J

There are 109,669 confirmed cases in Canada. Quebec: 57,142 confirmed (including 5,647 deaths, 49,939 resolved) Ontario: 37,274 confirmed (including 2,746 deaths, 33,162 resolved) Alberta: 9,219 confirmed (including 167 deaths, 8,193 resolved) British Columbia: 3,198 confirmed (including 189 deaths, 2,802 resolved) Nova Scotia: 1,067 confirmed (including 63 deaths, 1,002 resolved) Saskatchewan: 936 confirmed (including 15 deaths, 793 resolved) Manitoba: 325 confirmed (including 7 deaths, 318 resolved), 11 presumptive Newfoundland and Labrador: 262 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 259 resolved)

BC's top doctor is urging residents not to let COVID-19 steal their summer as she reported more outbreaks and cases around the province. Doctor Bonnie Henry says she feels for those people who want to get out and have fun, but it needs to be done in a way that minimizes the risk of community transmission. She says there are now 35 cases connected to COVID-19 exposures in the Kelowna area that Health Minister Adrian Dix had said were connected to private parties around Canada Day. That's in addition to a new outbreak reported at the neo-natal intensive care unit at St. Paul's Hospital in Vanco