British Columbia's Labour Ministry says the province's lowest paid workers are getting a pay bump as of Sunday. It says the minimum wage will increase from $17.40 to $17.85 an hour. The ministry says the 2.6 per cent increase also applies to pay rates for resident caretakers, live-in home-support workers, live-in camp leaders and app-based delivery and ride-hail services workers. The government says it has made regular, gradual increases to the minimum wage to provide certainty for workers and predictability for businesses. It says this is the fourth year of the government's ongoin

Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, one of the stalwart leaders of the Shiromani Akali Dal, has passed away. He was 89 years old. According to the information received, he had been ill for some time and was undergoing treatment in a hospital in Mohali, where he breathed his last today. He was honored with the Padma Bhushan award in 2019. Dhindsa has had a long political journey with the late Parkash Singh Badal. He entered the Punjab Vidhan Sabha after winning the election as an independent candidate in 1972, after which he joined the Shiromani Akali Dal under the leadership of Harchand Singh Longowal. H

Two men are to be sentenced today for their role in a human smuggling operation that saw a family of four freeze to death on the Canada-U.S. border south of Winnipeg. Harshkumar Patel and Steve Shand were convicted last fall on four charges related to bringing people illegally into the United States and transporting them. Court was told during one operation in January of 2022, a couple from India and their two children were left to walk across the border in an overnight blizzard on the bald prairie, as temperatures dropped below -20 C. Prosecutors say Patel organized the logistics while Shand

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says Canada has invited her to attend the G7 leaders' summit next month in Alberta but she hasn't decided yet if she'll attend. At her press briefing this morning, Sheinbaum said she has not confirmed her attendance at the upcoming summit in Kananaskis, Alta. U.S. President Donald Trump is set to attend the summit, along with other leaders from the group of advanced, democratic economies, such as France and Japan. Ottawa also has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the summit, which runs from June 15 to June 17. Canada was supposed to host the

Parliament gets back to work Wednesday with a new Speaker, a new prime minister and plenty of new faces in the House of Commons. Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia will preside over the House of Commons for the first time today, while his office has confirmed that all 343 members of Parliament have now been sworn in. Roughly a third of those MPs, including Prime Minister Mark Carney, were elected for the first time in April and will face their first question period today. King Charles formally opened Parliament on Tuesday with the speech from the throne and the minority Liberal government says it

The Carney government has fulfilled its promise of GST relief. Now first-time buyers buying new homes worth up to a million dollars will save $50,000. In addition, the GST on new homes priced between $1 million and $1.5 million has also been reduced for first-time homebuyers. In this regard, Finance Minister Francois Philippe Champagne tabled legislative proposals for changes to the Excise Tax Act today. According to government figures, this rebate will save Canadians $3.9 billion in taxes over the next five years. People who are buying a new home from a builder will qualify for this rebate. T

Construction of a 10,000-seat stadium in Surrey is set to begin in 2027. Mayor Brenda Locke says there is a lot of interest from potential partners. The city council included the project in Surrey’s proposed five-year financial plan in late March. The mayor acknowledged that the project will cost a lot, saying that “we are very conscious of that and we will try to make sure that it does not put a huge burden on our taxpayers.” The mayor also said that the council’s idea is to build a hotel and conference facilities near the city centre in downtown, which is going to be the Surrey S

A large number of people are about to lose their jobs in Canada, with the country's oldest company Hudson's Bay announcing the closure of all stores by Sunday, which will make more than 8,000 of its employees unemployed. Hudson's Bay has said that it will lay off 8,347 or 89 percent of its employees by June 1. At the same time, about 899 of the remaining employees will be terminated around June 15. It is worth noting that Hudson's Bay is a 355-year-old company, which filed for creditor protection in March, citing a slow recovery from pandemic losses, low traffic and a tariff war with the U

Alberta has seen more than 600 cases of measles since early March, as 19 more cases of the highly contagious disease have been confirmed. The province says 22 are still transmissible and all but two of the new cases are in southern Alberta, the area that has seen most of the province's cases. Alberta Health Services says the slew of cases is likely due to underreporting, prompting officials to issue an exposure advisory until further notice. All people living, working, attending school or travelling are to be aware of the significant current risk for measles disease, and ensure im