The British Columbia government is closing all provincial parks to ensure compliance with recommendations to stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.A statement from the Environment and Climate Change Ministry says the closure applies to everyone, from B.C. and out-of-province, who may have been planning a trip to a provincial park.Minister George Heyman says efforts were made to provide spaces for exercise and fresh air in the parks but it ``has proven too challenging'' to maintain safe physical distancing of two metres between visitors.The timing of the decision is aimed at heading off Ea

Canada's deputy minister of foreign affairs has tested positive for COVID-19. Marta Morgan has been the top official in the department for just under a year, after leading the Immigration Department, and is the first woman to hold the job. Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne shared the diagnosis on Twitter. He wished Morgan a full and speedy recovery and called her an invaluable part of the foreign-affairs team. Several ministers and MPs have isolated themselves out of concern that they have the respiratory illness but Morgan is the most senior Canadian government figure to test positive. Cha

Four more people have died as a result of COVID-19 in British Columbia. The total number of deaths is at 43 in the province. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, says 25 new cases have been diagnosed. A total of 12 hundred and 91 people have tested positive for the new coronavirus in BC.

Ontario is reporting 379 new cases of COVID-19 today, including 21 more deaths.That brings the totals in the province to 4,726 confirmed cases, including 153 deaths and 1,802 cases that have been resolved.The new cases represent an 8.7 percent increase over Monday, marking the second day in a row that the growth rate has been under 10 percent.There are now 614 people in Ontario hospitalized with COVID-19, with 233 of them in intensive care and 187 of those people on ventilators. There are at least 51 long term care homes in Ontario with one or more cases of COVID-19, and there have been at lea

3M says it will continue to send N95 respirators to Canada after reaching an agreement with the White House to import millions of the increasingly scarce medical face masks from China for use in the United States. The Minnesota-based company announced the news in a release late Monday after President Donald Trump said 3M would be producing 166.5 million masks over the next few months for the U.S. market. Trump picked a fight with 3M last week after hearing reports it was selling its masks outside the U.S. despite the fact there wasn't enough supply in the country to meet the needs of health

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says 240,000 people successfully applied for emergency relief in the first few hours after Ottawa opened the process.Only people with birthdays in the first three months of the year can apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit today.The benefit offers $500-a-week payments for workers who have lost all of their income.Trudeau says changes to the program will come soon to offer help for people whose hours have been slashed but who are still working a little.

Commercial vessels and passenger ferries face more restrictions in a government effort to clamp down on the spread of the novel coronavirus. Transport Canada has ordered a stop on all non-essential vessels with a capacity of 12 or more passengers, such as recreation and tourism vessels. BC Ferries and other essential vessel operators have been told to immediately cut in half the maximum number of passengers carried on their ships. Over the weekend, BC ferries chopped its service after it said ridership was down by about 80 per cent.

The steps the Ontario government has taken so far to limit the spread of COVID-19 have likely saved tens of thousands of lives, public health officials said Friday, but even with further action the death toll could reach as high as 15,000. Projections released by the province showed 100,000 Ontario residents could likely have died over the full course of the pandemic if the province hadn't implemented measures such as widespread closures of businesses and schools in order to promote physical distancing. As it is, the figures estimate thousands of people could still die without more aggressive

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Canadian Forces are being sent to northern Quebec to help communities there prepare to respond to COVID-19. He says the federal government is answering a call from the Quebec government. In a daily appearance outside his Ottawa residence today, Trudeau also says the federal government has an agreement with Amazon to use its distribution network to send medical supplies to meet provincial needs. Trudeau also announced that the government would donate $100 million to meet urgent food needs across the country, including in northern and Indigenous communitie