Almost eight months after a strike halted Western Forest Products operations across Vancouver Island, workers at the Duke Point sawmill near Nanaimo are preparing to head back to the job. The union representing workers at the sawmill confirms employees have been recalled and have been taking part in safety training, prior to startup at the mill -- which is set for Monday. Western Forest Products and the United Steelworkers Union reached a deal earlier this month resolving the job action that began last July 1st. Steelworkers Local president Brian Butler says the company still hasn't announced

Police in Vancouver are investigating after a float plane was badly damaged in what appears to have been a botched theft. Const. Tanya Visintin says officers were called to the city's waterfront about 3:30 a.m. after a report of a plane.She says a man had begun moving the Harbour Air float plane, but crashed it into a second aircraft.Visintin doesn't say if the first plane ever got into the air, but she says its wing was torn off in the collision. No one was injured and no arrests have been made.Visintin says police are looking for a suspect.

Canadian passengers who spent weeks stuck in their cabins aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship have arrived in Cornwall, Ontario. They were flown out of Japan overnight, then bused to a NAV Canada centre, where they will spend an additional quarantine period. Forty-seven Canadians are still in Japan receiving treatment for the new coronavirus.Also today, the Canadian evacuees from Wuhan, China are being released from quarantine at CFB Trenton, Ontario.Health Minister Patty Hajdu (HY'-doo) says the government is helping them with their travel plans.

Another case of the coronavirus has been diagnosed in British Columbia. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says a woman in her 30s has been diagnosed with COVID-19 after returning from Iran. Henry says the woman's case is relatively mild and a number of her close contacts have already been put in isolation. This brings the number of cases of COVID-19 in B.C. to six. Henry said earlier this week that four of the five people already diagnosed with the virus were symptom free. The fifth person, a woman in her 30s who returned from Shanghai, China, is in isolation at her home in B.C.'s In

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says she wants to make Canada's trade negotiations more "transparent," by agreeing to proposals from the New Democrats to provide more details of future deals. Freeland offers that view in a Wednesday letter to the New Democrats, a promise that secured the party's support for a speedier ratification of the new North American trade deal, which is still before Parliament. In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press, Freeland makes clear she is agreeing to the NDP proposals to get support for ratifying the new continental trade agreem

Chinese health officials are expressing new optimism about a deadly virus, but it continues to bring new threats elsewhere. The latest front in the widening global fight against COVID-19 emerged in Daegu, South Korea, whose 2.5 million residents were urged to stay inside, wearing masks even indoors to stem further infection after 35 new cases were reported in the city and surrounding areas. Across the Yellow Sea at the virus' epicenter, China voiced confidence as a noticeably reduced number of new daily infections was recorded. But that came after the country again changed its method for how

BJP President JP Nadda on Thursday met Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal at the latter's residence here and termed the meeting a personal one. "BJP has a very old relation with SAD, I came here to invite Badal Sahab for my eldest son's wedding. We not only share political relations but also a deep personal bond," Nadda told reporters here after his meeting with the former Punjab chief minister. "He gave his blessings for the wedding and has said that he will attend it. I have personal relations with him when I started with students politics and it strengthened when I became

The first person in Canada to test positive for the novel coronavirus has now been completely cleared of the virus. Ontario health officials say the man in his 50s has now had two negative tests 24 hours apart, which is the standard for being cleared. Associate chief medical officer of health Dr. Barbara Yaffe says the man is no longer infectious to others and has recovered. The man returned to Toronto in January from the Chinese city at the centre of the outbreak, and had to be hospitalized. His wife, who had travelled with him, also fell ill, but had less severe symptoms and is still in sel

The Independent Investigations Office has cleared officers in the RCMP's University of B.C. detachment of any wrongdoing in the death of a UBC student two weeks ago. The student had been arrested early in the morning on February 5th and was briefly held at the UBC detachment but was released about 2:30 a.m. and taken back to his residence on campus. Just hours later a security guard found the unnamed student dead under the Lions Gate Bridge. The office, which examines all incidents of police involved death or serious injury in B.C., says the student's death was not the result of RCMP action o