Statistics Canada says the country’s fertility rate reached an all-time low of 1.33 children per woman in 2022. The federal agency says that's part of a downward trend that began in 2009. The COVID-19 pandemic appeared to have temporarily disrupted the trend when the fertility rate rose in both 2020 and 2021. According to the report, other countries had a similar experience during those years. The decline in the fertility rate between 2021 and 2022 is the largest observed since the baby bust in the early 1970s. StatCan says it puts Canada in the middle of the pack of 10 high-income countries

Canada's economy appears to have ended 2023 on a stronger note than expected, which economists say could push back the timeline for interest rate cuts this year. Statistics Canada reported Wednesday the economy grew 0.2 per cent in November, marking the first expansion in six months. A preliminary estimate suggests real gross domestic product increased 1.2 per cent on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter, following a decline of a similar magnitude in the third quarter. That would bring economic growth in 2023 to 1.5 per cent, StatCan said. Those figures exceed the Bank of Canada's forecas

Shiromani Akali Dal's senior leader Bikram Singh Majithia has challenged Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal on his own challenge. In fact, Kejriwal challenged the central government from education system to providing 24 hours free electricity and He said that if the BJP government fulfills his 5 demands, he will leave politics. Taking Kejriwal on this, Majithia said that if the Aam Aadmi Party fulfills these 5 demands in Punjab, Das will also leave politics.

The Sangrur court has given relief to Punjab government minister Aman Arora and stayed the punishment awarded to him by the lower court for 2 years. This sentence was pronounced by the court of Sunam in a case of family dispute. On Wednesday, a hearing for surety bail was held in the court regarding this case. After hearing both the sides, the court granted surety bail to Aman Arora and suspended the sentence completely.

A Pakistani court on Wednesday sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife to 14 years in prison for corruption, a day after another special court convicted Khan for leaking state secrets and gave him a 10-year prison sentence. Khan and his wife are accused of retaining and selling state gifts when the former premier was in power. The court also disqualified Khan for years from holding any public office ahead of Feb. 8 parliamentary elections.

The federal ethics watchdog is asking parliamentarians and the public to read between the lines about advice he gave to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before his recent holiday trip. Konrad von Finckenstein told a House of Commons ethics committee today that under the Conflict of Interest Act, he can't publicly disclose conversations he's had with politicians. But he says that if Trudeau's stay at a family friend's property in Jamaica had been unacceptable, it would've been recorded on his office's website and nothing is there. Trudeau's office said earlier this month that the family's stay was

AAP MLA Kulwant Singh from Mohali, Punjab was interrogated by the ED team for 7 hours on Tuesday. He reached the ED's Jalandhar office at 1.30 pm to join the investigation, after which the interrogation ended at around 8.30 pm. According to sources connected with the ED, the AAP MLA is suspected of helping in laundering money of drug trafficking. It is also being claimed that some evidence has been found. However, neither the ED nor the Aam Aadmi Party MLA has said anything about it yet. According to sources, the ED is not satisfied with Kulwant Singh's answers and may be called for question

In the mayoral elections of Chandigarh, the India Alliance has faced its first defeat. In this election, BJP's Manoj Sonkar has become the new mayor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation after defeating Aam Aadmi Party and Congress candidate Kuldeep Kumar. One MP and 35 councilors voted for the mayoral election. In which the BJP candidate got 16 votes and the AAP-Congress candidate got 12 votes, while 8 votes were not included in the counting, these votes were declared invalid. This was the first direct contest between the BJP and the opposition India Alliance across the country.

Canada is sending another $40 million in aid to organizations that are helping Palestinians in Gaza after pausing funding to the UN's relief agency in the region. The funding will go to groups including the World Food Program, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Canada suspended funding to UNRWA, the UN agency that supports Palestinians in Gaza, in response to allegations that its staff played a role in the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7. That came after international outcry when the agency's director fired staff members suspected of being