The federal government is planning to launch a catalogue of pre-approved home designs to speed up the home-building process for developers. Housing Minister Sean Fraser announced this on Tuesday. He said that the catalog of pre-approved house designs is being reintroduced. These blueprints were prepared by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation at the time to speed up the construction of houses. The housing minister said the government will start a consultation on the matter in January and our goal is to make them available to developers next fall. The Minister said that hundreds of thous

The Ontario man accused of sending poison to people who later killed themselves is now facing murder charges in those cases. Kenneth Law has been charged with 14 counts of second-degree murder on top of the previous charges of counselling and aidingsuicide. His lawyer says Law plans to plead not guilty to the new charges, which are connected to 14 alleged victims in Ontario between the ages of 16 and 36. Police allege the Mississauga man ran several websites to sell sodium nitrite and other items that can be used for self-harm, shipping hundreds of packages across the globe. British police s

Police have arrested a 23-year-old man from Abbotsford, British Columbia, in connection with the shooting incident that happened on Saturday at a tire business in Brampton. The youth has been identified as Tanmanjot Gill. According to police, shots were fired at a tire business in the Clark Boulevard and Rutherford South area of ​​Brampton at approximately 3:37 a.m. Saturday. The second suspect in the case is still at large. Police said that upon receiving the report, officers rushed to the scene where a suspect was arrested. Gill has been charged with half a dozen charges, including rec

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says it has detected the presence of avian influenza at a non-poultry, non-commercial location in the central Okanagan. It is now the 52nd place in B-C where the contagious viral infection has been detected at commercial or backyard bird operations since October. This comes after the C-F-I-A confirmed the presence of the flu at a commercial poultry farm in Abbotsford on Saturday. Commonly known as bird flu, avian influenza can affect several species of food producing birds as well as pet birds and wild birds.

British Columbia has announced a new three-year action plan that includes building more housing for those fleeing violence, adding 75 new sexual assault support programs, establishing new free virtual counselling as well as new 24/7 crisis lines and new policing standards. Amy FitzGerald, executive director of the BC Society of Transition Houses, says the organization welcomes the investments, but it is still not enough. She says the society's research shows that only four per cent of the 80-thousand women and children who access their services move on to long-term, safe and affordable housi

Time is running out for the Liberal government to table pharmacare legislation before the end of the year, but the NDP's health critic says almost-daily phone calls are still giving him hope. Still, if the Liberals need more time, New Democrat MP Don Davies says his party is prepared to give it. The Liberals and NDP signed a supply-and-confidence deal last year that sees the opposition party support the minority government on key votes in exchange for progress on New Democrat priorities. The deal states that pharmacare legislation must be passed by the end of the year. That hope is now dashe

About 80,000 unionized Quebec nurses and other health-care workers will be joining fellow public sector workers already on strike since last week. The health workers are members of the FIQ, who will begin a four-day strike today, joining workers from four unions representing 420,000 Quebec public sector workers who began a weeklong strike on Friday. Those workers include teachers, education support staff and lab technicians and are members of a group of four unions that calls itself the "common front." The unions rejected the government's most recent contract offer, which includes a salary

Ottawa announced today that seniors over the age of 87 will be the first cohort that can apply to join a new federal dental-benefits plan, which will be phased in slowly over the next year. Health Minister Mark Holland announced the rollout of the program this morning, and it is budgeted to cost 13 billion dollars over the next five years.The program is for people with an annual household income under 90-thousand dollars who don't have access to private insurance. Eligibility will be slowly expanded over the course of 2024 to include all qualifying seniors, children under the age of 18 and peo

House Speaker Greg Fergus apologized to a committee of MPs this morning for a video he made that was shown at a recent Ontario Liberal Party convention. Fergus was called to speak to the committee on procedure and House affairs, which is examining whether the non-partisan Speaker should be punished for appearing in the video in his ceremonial robes. The committee has scheduled five hours of hearings on this today, with witnesses that also include House clerks and John Fraser, the Ontario member of the provincial parliament who was the subject of Fergus's video. Fergus says a member of Frase