The fifth wave of the pandemic appears to be peaking in hard-hit provinces like Ontario and Quebec, but Saskatchewan is bracing for a wave of COVID-19 hospitalizations and workers off the job until the middle of next month. Alberta's hospitalization rates are rising to levels not seen since mid-October and P-E-I is bringing in restrictions on gathering limits and shutting down gyms and restaurant dining rooms. B-C provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry is going to let gyms and other fitness facilities re-open tomorrow -- a move she calls a cautious step in lifting COVID-19 restrictions.

Inflation hit 4.8 per cent in December. The last time it was that high was December, 1991 when the number-one hits on the radio included Michael Bolton's ``When a Man Loves a Woman'' and Michael Jackson's ``Black or White.'' The main drivers for price growth were higher year-over-year prices for food, passenger vehicles and housing. Prices at the gas pumps shot up 33.3 per cent from December 2020, but that was lower than November's 43.6 per cent annual increase.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says this year's floods in B-C helped make 2021 Canada's sixth-highest year in insured losses since 1983. The bureau says insured damage from last year's extreme weather events totalled more than two-billion dollars. B-C floods were the biggest ticket event at 515-million dollars, followed closely by Calgary's 500-million-dollar hailstorm in July. 2016 remains the most expensive year on record at five-point-four billion in insured damage, due in large part to the Fort McMurray wildfires.

Grocery stores are struggling with rising labour and product shortages that experts warn could threaten Canada's food security. Gary Sands, senior vice-president of public policy with the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, says employee absenteeism due to COVID-19 protocols has hit about 30 per cent across Canada, and rising. Without access to rapid testing in many provinces, he says workers are repeatedly forced to isolate for a week or more after an exposure to COVID-19. Sands says if the situation worsens, some grocery stores won't be able to open, threatening food security in rur

New figures show the Canadian Armed Forces are struggling with a growing shortage of personnel even as the military faces more and more demands at home and abroad. While the military is supposed to have just over 100,000 troops at full strength, new Defence Department figures show it was short about 12,000 regular force troops and reservists at the end of November. The shortfall is worse than at the end of 2020, when military was short about 7,000 troops as the onset of the pandemic forced recruiting centres and training schools to close for months. The latest figures also show another 10,000

A huge snowstorm continues to blast southern Ontario and parts of Quebec. The city of Toronto and other centres were brought to a standstill today with major highways having to close for a time. Environment Canada had issued snowfall or blizzard warnings for a stretch of the province but some of those have since been lifted. Dozens of flights to and from Toronto's Pearson airport were also delayed or cancelled this morning. The region was forecast to get as much as 50 centimetres of snow. Canada Post has issued a red delivery service alert for southern and eastern Ontario as a fierce storm h

Pfizer's antiviral treatment for COVID-19, Paxlovid, has received Health Canada approval. It’s a combination of two different drugs, to be taken together twice a day for five days. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says the first doses are already here with more to come in March. He says the provinces and territories have been given preliminary information on deliveries, which will be done on a per capita basis.Canadian doctors have been anxious to get their hands on the medication as the Omicron wave is spreading so quickly. Canada bought one-million courses of the treatment for delivery thi

Health Canada has approved Pfizer's antiviral treatment for COVID-19. The authorization posted to the Health Canada website this morning says the treatment is greenlighted for adult patients with mild or moderate COVID-19 who are also at high risk of becoming more seriously ill. Health Canada did not authorize it for use on teenagers. It is also not authorized for use on patients who are already hospitalized because of COVID-19.Paxlovid is a treatment that uses a combination of drugs to prevent the virus that causes COVID-19 from replicating once it has infected a patient.Clinical trials sho

New modelling by the federal government suggests daily hospitalizations will surge in the coming weeks, driven by extremely high levels of transmission of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Though the rate of people who are hospitalized with Omicron is lower compared to the Delta variant, the forecast shows new daily hospital admissions will far exceed previous historical peaks due to the sheer number of cases. Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam released the new modelling today, which suggests the current wave of COVID-19 driven by the Omicron variant will peak this month at between 1