An Ottawa-based consulting firm with a history of reviewing allegations of workplace harassment on Parliament Hill is being tasked to do so again at Rideau Hall.The Privy Council Office says it has hired Quintet Consulting Corp. to conduct a third-party investigation into allegations of a toxic work environment at the office of Gov. Gen. Julie Payette.An online notice says Quintet is to interview current and former employees in the office of the Governor General so they can share their experiences.Payette will also get a meeting with the consultants as they try to determine precisely what beha

There are 128,948 confirmed cases in Canada. Quebec: 62,492 confirmed (including 5,760 deaths, 55,353 resolved) Ontario: 42,309 confirmed (including 2,811 deaths, 38,277 resolved) Alberta: 13,902 confirmed (including 239 deaths, 12,293 resolved) British Columbia: 5,790 confirmed (including 208 deaths, 4,406 resolved) Saskatchewan: 1,619 confirmed (including 24 deaths, 1,561 resolved) Manitoba: 1,214 confirmed (including 14 deaths, 731 resolved) Nova Scotia: 1,085 confirmed (including 65 deaths, 1,013 resolved) Newfoundland and Labrador: 269 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 265 resolved) New Bru

The Liberals have announced an extension of the Canada Emergency Business Account until the end of October. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the government is also working with financial institutions to expand eligibility to companies that have been shut out of the program. That would include those who use personal rather than business bank accounts. The government had said in mid-May that it was working to address that particular issue. Freeland says details about eligibility changes will be released in the coming days. The business loan program has provided more than 29 billion dolla

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government has signed agreements with two more American suppliers to reserve millions of doses of their experimental COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians.Deals are now in place for Canada to get access to vaccines being tested by both Johnson & Johnson and Novavax.Earlier this month Ottawa signed similar deals with Pfizer and Moderna.The vaccines are still in either Phase 2 or 3 clinical trials and won't be purchased unless they are deemed safe and effective by Health Canada. Trudeau says the vaccines all show promising results and Canada is signi

The federal government has once again extended travel restrictions to limit the spread of COVID-19. Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says existing restrictions on international travel to Canada will be extended one more month to September 30th. Blair says Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are returning home to Canada will continue to be subjected to strict quarantine measures. New arrivals are required to quarantine for 14 days if they don't have symptoms, or isolate for 14 days if they do.

Quebec is reducing the mandatory isolation period required for people infected with COVID-19 from 14 days to 10.From now on, people can end their isolation period 10 days after their first symptoms appear -- but only if they no longer have symptoms, like a fever. The new rules apply only to confirmed COVID-19 cases involving people who are isolated at home and whose symptoms are considered mild or moderate.People who are in preventive isolation due to being in contact with a confirmed case must still isolate for 14 days to see if symptoms develop.

Canada's chief public health officer says families should expect to see cases of COVID-19 in schools as children head back to class in the coming weeks. Dr. Theresa Tam says it is important that each school have a plan and that everyone knows what to do when there's an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. At a media briefing in Ottawa today, she says it is normal to feel stressed about the fact many students are returning to classrooms.But she emphasizes that planning and awareness can help ease anxiety. Tam says while Canada generally has quite low levels of COVID-19, it doesn't mean families w

The federal deficit soared to 120.4-billion-dollars in the first quarter of Ottawa's fiscal year, up from a deficit of 85-million a year ago. The Finance Department says the treasury was pumping out emergency aid to businesses and workers to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Major transfers to persons, which includes seniors benefits, employment insurance payments, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, and children's benefits jumped 193.5 per cent year-over-year, to almost 70.6-billion-dollars.

Statistics Canada says the economy posted its steepest decline on record in the second quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of non-essential businesses and slowed the economy to a crawl.The agency says real gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 38.7 per cent for the three-month period.Economists had expected a contraction in the quarter at an annualized rate of 39.6 per cent, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.Almost every single component of the economy that works into calculating GDP was at its lowest point over April, May and June driven