Unifor president Jerry Dias says Air Canada is promising to refund passengers whose flights were cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic.Dias says the airline has made the commitment repeatedly during negotiations with the federal government over an aid package for the battered sector.He says he spoke with Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau last night, confirming the pledge.Dias says roughly 4,000 of the union's 15,000 aviation workers remain fully employed a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, lending urgency to discussions in Ottawa.Air Canada and the Finance Department did not respond immediately

A former military ombudsman says he told Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan about allegations of misconduct against former chief of defence, General Jonathan Vance three years ago, and was met with hostility. Gary Walbourne spoke to a parliamentary committee this afternoon, telling members he had a toxic working relationship with Sajjan. Walbourne says he told the minister that the person accusing Vance of wrongdoing did not want to issue a formal complaint. Sajjan at that time repeatedly refused to say what he and Walbourne discussed during their meeting on March 1, 2018, citing confidentiality

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expressing optimism that his government's timeline for getting a vaccine into the arm of every Canadian who wants one can be accelerated. He says the federal government's September timeline didn't factor in the arrival of new vaccines such as the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, which was approved last week. Trudeau notes that a change in the public health guidance regarding the time allowed between the first and second doses of a vaccine could also affect Canada's rollout. Health officials in B-C and Newfoundland and Labrador have said they are extending that interva

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says this isn't the time to pull back on support for workers and business owners. This morning he announced announced an extension of programs to help workers and businesses make it to the finish line of the pandemic. The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and Lockdown Support will continue at their current levels until June. Trudeau says we've come a long way in the fight against the pandemic, but we're not out of the woods yet. He has announced an extension of programs to help workers and businesses make it to the finish line.Tru

A Canadian judge has found guilty a man who admitted using a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.Alek Minassian faced 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.The April 23, 2018, attack drew attention to an online world of sexual loneliness, rage and misogyny.His lawyer argued he didn't know what he was doing was wrong because he has autism spectrum disorder, a stance that angled autism rights advocates.Justice Anne Molloy said Wednesday the man's lawyers failed to prove he was not criminally responsible.

A House of Commons committee is unanimously urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to promise he won't call a federal election while the COVID-19 pandemic rages across Canada. In a report by the procedure and House affairs committee, even Liberal members supported a recommendation calling for a commitment that there will be no election during the pandemic, unless Trudeau's minority Liberal government is defeated on a confidence vote. The committee makes no similar call for opposition parties to promise not to trigger an election during the pandemic by voting non-confidence in the government. Ho

Canada is now recording an increase in new COVID-19 cases because of the spread of the variants. No province has been spared from these variants, but some continue to ease anti-pandemic restrictions. Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says more ground is being gained on the "vaccine-versus-variants leg of this marathon" every day. Federal Procurement Minister Anita Anand says a half-million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca's vaccine will arrive tomorrow. Three-hundred thousand of those doses expire in just a few weeks' time but Tam says all vaccines should be administered as soon as they

The federal Conservatives say they're worried about vaccine hesitancy among seniors because of conflicting advice on the use of the recently-approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Tory MP Michelle Rempel Garner says the advice is confusing. A national panel of vaccine experts says provinces should not use the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on seniors. But Health Canada says it can be used on Canadians aged 65 or older. Michelle Rempel Garner on Twitter: We have called for an emergency meeting to understand why Health Canada is recommending use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in seniors when the

The Canadian economy posted its worst showing on record in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the country, shutting down businesses and putting millions out of work.Statistics Canada says real gross domestic product shrank 5.4 per cent in 2020, the steepest annual decline since comparable data was first recorded in 1961. The drop for the year was due to the shutdown of large swaths of the economy in March and April during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that crushed the economy.Since then, economic activity has slowly and steadily grown. Statistics Canada says the economy grew