The federal government says it will spend up to $1.5 billion over the next three years to improve access to drugs used to treat rare diseases.Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says up to $1.4 billion of that money will be used to help provinces and territories expand coverage of new and existing drugs that treat rare diseases.The federal government says it wants to create a list of new and emerging drugs for rare diseases that would be covered in a similar way by all provincial and territorial health insurance plans.Another $52 million will be used to gather evidence on the safety and effective

Families Minister Karina Gould announced today that the federal government has now "completely eliminated" the backlog of passport applications that caused major delays and major political strife last year.She also announced that Ottawa is launching a new digital tool that will allow Canadians to check the status of their Service Canada application online, as long as they provide an email address.The update comes after Gould said in late January that the backlog was "virtually eliminated," with the exception of some complex cases held back for reasons such as child-custody issues.The pandemic

Provincial police say a third person has died after a pickup truck crashed into pedestrians in an eastern Quebec town one week ago.Police say Simon-Guillaume Bourget, 41, died on the weekend after being injured last Monday.Two other men, Gérald Charest, 65, and Jean Lafrenière, 73, died after being struck in Amqui, about 350 kilometres northeast of Quebec City.Police have said eight others were injured in the crash, ranging in age from less than a year old to 77, and hospital officials in Quebec City say one person is in critical condition and two others are stable.Steeve Gagnon, 38, is faci

A new Punjabi bilingual program is set to start at the Seven Oaks School Division in Winnipeg next school year. Students will receive Punjabi instruction in core subjects for about half of the day.There will also be some focus on Indian culture and history.Amber Trails Community School will be offering the program to students in kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 2.This is the fourth non-French bilingual program offered in the school division, which currently runs similar programs in Ukrainian, Ojibway and Tagalog.

The federal government says Mike Duheme will be the interim commissioner of the RCMP, until a replacement is found for Brenda Lucki.Lucki, who was appointed commissioner in April 2018, is retiring as of today.Her tenure as the top Mountie has been marked by internal and external challenges, including allegations of systemic racism within the force, growing calls to defund the police, and the devastating mass shooting in Nova Scotia in 2020.Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says Duheme, who currently oversees federal policing for the Mounties, will take over the job on Saturday.Duheme was

A memorial mass will be held this evening in the Quebec town where two people were killed and nine injured when a pickup truck crashed into pedestrians.Two men, Gérald Charest and Jean Lafrenière, died after being struck on Monday afternoon.Police have said those injured in the crash range in age from less than a year old to 77, and on Thursday a Quebec City hospital said two injured adults remained in critical condition.The mass will be held at Saint-Benoît-Joseph-Labre church in Amqui.A candlelight vigil was held in front of the church Thursday evening in the town about 350 kilometres nor

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada will hold a special ceremony marking the coronation of King Charles on May 6.The ceremony in Ottawa will be one of several events held over two days as Canada marks the investiture of its new monarch.Trudeau says the Canadian ceremony will acknowledge the special relationship that King Charles has had with Canada over the past 50 years as the Prince of Wales.Other details about the event, including how Canadians can watch, will be revealed in the coming weeks.The coronation will take place May 6 at Westminster Abbey and will be marked by a procession,

A 12-year-old girl and a man in his 40s died Wednesday in a head-on collision between a minivan and a heavy truck in Quebec's Chaudière-Appalaches region.Emergency services were called to the scene shortly after 4 p.m. on Highway 112 in the small municipality of St-Frédéric, about an hour's drive south of Quebec City.The minivan was carrying six people, and provincial police said two of its occupants were left in critical condition while the other two suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.Authorities also said that none of the five people in the truck sustained any apparent inj

Two University of B.C. researchers are among five in Canada to be awarded a 100-thousand dollar Killam Prize for their work.Sarah Otto, an evolutionary biologist, has pioneered several mathematical models to understand how and why sexual reproduction happens in nature, while Pieter Cullis helped develop the targeted delivery of recently approved drugs for cancer and gene therapies as well as vaccines including the COVID-19 vaccine.Other winners include Charles Morin, a Laval University psychology professor, Praveen Jain, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Queen's, and Guelph