Transport Minister Omar Alghabra says the Canadian government will suspend COVID-19 vaccine mandates for domestic and outbound international travellers and federally regulated workers. The new rules will come into effect on June 20, though the requirements for foreign nationals coming to Canada will not change. Intergovernmental affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc warns the government is prepared to ``bring back'' necessary policies if there's a resurgence of the virus in the fall. Travel industry groups have blamed federal public health measures and mandates for slowdowns at airport customs tha

A federal government source says Canada's much-criticized COVID Alert app will be discontinued in the coming days. The app was launched in the summer of 2020 as the pandemic began. Nearly 7 million people had downloaded it as of February 1st, but it requires users to enter a one-time key for a positive PCR test, which many provinces are no longer offering. Less than 58,000 of the keys have been used in the app. The COVID Alert App cost the government 20-million-dollars.

The man responsible for Toronto's deadly 2018 van attack has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Alek Minassian has also been sentenced to 20 years for 15 counts of attempted murder, which are to be served concurrently. He was found guilty last year of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. Eight women and two men died on April 23, 2018, when Minassian, bent on infamy, angered by women who wouldn't sleep with him and radicalized in the bowels of the internet deliberately drove a rented van down a busy sidewalk. Another woman die

Canada's chief public health officer says there are now 112 cases of monkeypox across Canada and all of those infected are male. Dr. Theresa Tam told a briefing today that there are 98 cases in Quebec, 9 in Ontario, 4 in Alberta and one in British Columbia, with other suspected cases being investigated. She says the National Advisory Committee on Immunization is recommending that people who may be at high risk of exposure have a vaccine. But she says a mass vaccination campaign against the virus is not currently necessary. Dr. Tam says the disease mainly spreads from close physical contact, i

Canada is poised to become the first country in the world to require that a warning be printed on every cigarette. Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett says the measure is meant to reach more people, including youth who often share cigarettes and don't encounter the packaging. A 75 day consultation period is to begin tomorrow. Bennett also revealed expanded warnings for cigarette packages that include a longer list of smoking's health effects. Canada has required the photo warnings since the turn of the millennium, but the images haven't been updated in a decade. Rob Cunningham, senior policy a

The White House has released details of Canada's contribution to an international effort to ease the pressure caused by irregular migration. The US says Canada has agreed to welcome four-thousand additional migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean by 2028. It's part of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, which is being announced at the Summit of the Americas. The agreement will also see Canada accept an additional 50-thousand agricultural workers this year from Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra says the federal government is working on new measures to help ease delays at major airports, adding that a ``similar phenomenon'' is happening worldwide. Speaking with reporters on his way to a weekly Liberal caucus meeting, the minister says working groups that include airports, airlines, public health and federal officials are meeting up to three times a week to try and find solutions. But when pressed for details about when changes are expected, Alghabra says he's not yet ready to announce new measures. People travelling through Canadian airports have been

The former director of strategic communications for the Nova Scotia RCMP now says communications procedures need to change. Lia Scanlan broke down in tears as she told a public inquiry into the deaths of 22 people in April of 2020 the procedures she used to alert residents about an active shooter led to a crucial delay. That's not what she told inquiry investigators last September, when she insisted she would not have done anything differently. It took more than three hours for the R-C-M-P to warn people that the killer was driving a car that looked exactly like an RCMP cruiser.

The federal Conservatives and New Democrats both delivered forceful pleas today to the government to do more to address the cost-of-living crisis in Canada, though the parties diverged on what they want to see from the Liberals. Interim Tory leader Candice Bergen accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of being ``vindictive'' in his staunch opposition to her party's proposals on inflation, saying that by trying to punish her party politically, he is in fact punishing Canadians. The party has introduced what Bergen calls an ``omnibus motion'' in the House of Commons, calling on Trudeau's governm