Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is heading to Jamaica next week for a family vacation over the holiday break. The Prime Minister's Office says Trudeau will travel with his immediate family to the Caribbean country from Dec 26 to Jan 4. Jamaica is a frequent vacation spot for Trudeau, who spent time there in August as well as after Christmas last year. He will be travelling with Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, after the pair announced earlier this year they were separating following 18 years of marriage. At the time, the Prime Minister's Office said Canadians could expect to see the family together, an

After many delays, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday calling for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza but without the original call for an "urgent suspension of hostilities" between Israel and Hamas. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining. The vote followed a U.S. veto of a Russian amendment that would have restored the call for a suspension of hostilities. That vote was 10 members in favor, the U.S. against and four abstentions. The revised text was negotiated during a week and

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has approved RBC's $13.5-billion takeover of HSBC Canada despite calls from opposition politicians and other groups to block it. Freeland's approval was the last hurdle for the deal, after the Competition Bureau approved it in September. The minister's approval comes with conditions on RBC, including that HSBC's Canadian workforce be protected and that banking services continue to be provided at a minimum of 33 HSBC branches for four years. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had called for the deal to be blocked, saying Canada's banking sector is overly con

Montreal's Concordia University has announced financial support of up to $4,000 for new Canadian undergraduate students from outside Quebec starting next fall. The school says it is introducing the Canada Scholars Awards to address concerns that a government-imposed $3,000 tuition increase for out-of-province students will deter them from coming to Quebec. The value of the award will depend on high school students' average grade at the time of admission to Concordia, ranging from $1,500 for a B-minus to $4,000 for an A-plus. The university says students will be automatically considered for the

The Alberta government is committing 200-million-dollars to help family doctors keep the lights on. Dr. Paul Parks of the Alberta Medical Association and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange say the money will be spent over the next two years as the two sides work out a new funding deal for physicians. Parks says the money is a critical stop-gap for doctors. He says family physicians are struggling to make ends meet under the current billing system, given rising costs for office and administration and inflation. Parks and LaGrange said they are still working out the criteria for how the 200 milli

The economy was flat for a third straight month in October as services-producing industries rose 0.1 per cent and goods-producing industries didn't change. Real estate agent and broker activities fell 6.8 per cent in October, the largest monthly decrease since April 2022, as most of the country's largest housing markets continued to cool off. Statistics Canada is forecasting real gross domestic product for November increased 0.1 per cent.

The Canadian Transportation Agency says it's issued a $97,500 penalty to Air Canada for violating the Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations. The penalty of $97,500 is for several violations of the regulations. The agency says that on August 30, Air Canada failed to assist a wheelchair user to disembark its plane. The passenger, who has spastic cerebral palsy and can't move his legs, was forced to disembark on his own. As well, the CTA says Air Canada failed to ensure that its personnel periodically checked in on the passenger while he was waiting in the terminal.

The federal government says it will give Toronto nearly half a billion dollars in housing funding. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement in Toronto this morning, saying the city will receive $471 million from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund. The $4-billion fund is a federal initiative to encourage municipalities to make changes to bylaws and regulations that would spur more housing construction, in exchange for more money. Some of the changes Ottawa has pushed for include denser zoning and faster issuance of permits. Housing Minister Sean Fraser, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow an

The man who extorted and bullied British Columbia teenager Amanda Todd into suicide has had his 13-year sentence from a Canadian court converted to a six-year prison term in Europe.An Amsterdam court handed Aydin Coban the six-year sentence on Thursday, which is the maximum allowed under Dutch law and is longer than the 4 1/2 years prosecutors recommended to the court in July.Todd was 15 when she died by suicide at her home in Metro Vancouver in October 2012, weeks after posting a video watched by millions around the world describing being harassed and extorted by an online predator.Coban was