Canada is staying in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant for another year. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced this afternoon that Canada will keep up to 850 troops in Iraq and the surrounding region until next March. The extension comes only one day before the mission, which began in October 2014, was set to end. It also coincides with growing concerns about Iran's influence in Iraq, with Tehran backing numerous Shia militia groups. Those groups, which have largely displaced ISIL as the main threat in Iraq, have stepped up attacks on Western forces in recent month

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Pfizer-BioNTech has confirmed it will move up delivery of five million vaccine doses to June from later in the summer. The earlier shipment period will boost the number of Pfizer doses received by the end of that month to 18 million doses. Procurement Minister Anita Anand says the accelerated schedule means Canada will receive about 44 million vaccine doses in total by the end of June, more than enough for every Canadian to receive at least one shot. By the end of this week, Canada will have received about 9.5 million vaccine doses from three manufacturers,

The federal government is expecting around 1.5 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the United States today. The vaccines are expected to arrive by truck and represent the first to come from south of the border. Provincial governments decide on their own how to use a vaccine, but Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada's deputy chief medical officer of health, says all provinces and territories have agreed to suspend the use of the vaccine for those under 55, pending the results of further study. The province's are acting on an advisory committee's concerns about a possible link between the

Federal immunization experts changed their recommendations for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization says the vaccine should not be used on people under the age of 55. Health Canada is asking AstraZeneca to do a full analysis of the risks of its vaccine across all age groups and genders, following additional reports of patients in Europe developing blood clots. Dr. Supriya Sharma, the chief medical adviser at Health Canada, says there have been no blood clots reported in Canada to date and still believes the vaccine's benefits outweigh the r

New federal modelling data shows severity indicators and daily cases of COVID-19 are back on the rise, with incidents highest among young adults.Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says daily cases have increased more than 30 per cent over the past two weeks, with an average of 29 deaths reported daily.Tam says that indicates we're in a ``very tight race'' between vaccines and variants of concern, which make up an increasingly high proportion of new cases in several provinces.The data released today by the Public Health Agency of Canada shows that while the number of cases have declin

The federal auditor general is giving the Trudeau government a sort of back-handed compliment on how it handled the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Karen Hogan says the government moved as fast as it could to respond to the pandemic, but on the other hand it wasn't prepared for one in the first place. Hogan's report on the government's response found the Public Health Agency of Canada spent years letting elements of pandemic preparedness slide. She found the government's financial support programs rolled out well, but now extensive efforts will be needed to ensure the money went where it was

Health Canada's chief medical adviser says the three cases of blood clotting reported out of 300,000 Canadians who have received a Oxford-AstraZeneca shot have no apparent link to the vaccine. Dr. Supriya Sharma says none of the cases resemble the very rare brain blood clot seen in a small number of patients in Europe. She notes that blood clotting rates are the same or even higher among people who have not received the AstraZeneca vaccine than for those who have been jabbed. Warning of blood clotting on product label for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Health Canada has updated the product l

A lawyer for Canada's attorney general says it was entirely reasonable for border officers to question Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou before her arrest in 2018. Diba Majzub told the B.C. Supreme Court that Meng's arrival at a port of entry created a unique context where both the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency had mandates to fulfil. He says there's no playbook or operations manual that spells out which organization should go first. Majzub made the comments as he disputed claims from Meng's legal team that Canadian and U.S. officials co-ordinated a covert criminal investigation under th

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the federal Liberals will table a budget on April 19. It will be the first federal budget in over two years, after the government opted not to introduce one in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Canada. It will also be Freeland's first budget as finance minister. She took on the portfolio last summer following Bill Morneau's resignation. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the budget date in the House of Commons today during question period. The budget is expected to provide a full accounting of all government spending through the pande