A COVID-19 outbreak has been declared in the nephrology unit at a hospital in Surrey, B.C. Fraser Health's interim chief medical health officer says a patient tested positive for the virus on Tuesday. Dr. Elizabeth Brodkin says the unit at Surrey Memorial Hospital has fewer than a dozen patients, and staff are being monitored and screened. She says the nephrology unit is closed to new patients and it is not expecting visitors. Brodkin says an outbreak is defined as a transmission at a hospital site. The new outbreak comes as B.C.'s health minister and provincial health officer announced 104 n

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole is naming Manitoba MP Candice Bergen his deputy. Bergen was first elected in 2008 and was a junior cabinet minister in Stephen Harper's government. She has been the Tories' House leader, managing the Conservatives' part in moving legislation through the House of Commons. Bergen follows Leona Alleslev, an Ontario MP who resigned as deputy leader in July to back O'Toole's key rival for the leadership, Peter MacKay. O'Toole is naming Quebec MP Gerard Deltell as the Tories' House leader and Richard Martel as his Quebec lieutenant. O'Toole says he plans to nam

Health Canada has reversed course on home test kits for COVID-19, saying it will now review applications for such devices.In June, the department indicated it would not review such applications.But Cole Davidson, a spokesman for Health Minister Patty Hajdu, says that was meant to apply to test kits for diagnosing cases of COVID-19.Due to the evolution of the pandemic since then, he says Health Canada is now considering applications for at-home testing devices for screening purposes.Davidson says Health Canada, which regulates the safety of all medical devices sold in the country, "is open to

An outbreak of COVID-19 in British Columbia's Nass Valley has prompted an alert from the Northern and First Nations health authorities. The warning goes out to anyone who attended gatherings between Aug. 21 and 25 in the valley. A statement from the Nisga'a government says all those who attended a memorial, a funeral or settlement feast need to contact their community clinic. A joint statement Tuesday from Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says there have been 58 new cases of COVID-19 for a total of 5,848 cases. There has been one additional death, whil

An Ottawa-based consulting firm with a history of reviewing allegations of workplace harassment on Parliament Hill is being tasked to do so again at Rideau Hall.The Privy Council Office says it has hired Quintet Consulting Corp. to conduct a third-party investigation into allegations of a toxic work environment at the office of Gov. Gen. Julie Payette.An online notice says Quintet is to interview current and former employees in the office of the Governor General so they can share their experiences.Payette will also get a meeting with the consultants as they try to determine precisely what beha

BC is reporting 294 new cases of COVID-19 over the past three days as well as four more deaths, all residents of long-term care homes. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says recent increases in cases are concerning with September arriving tomorrow. Dr. Henry says people needed to re-connect with family and friends over the summer but it's now time to take a step back from social interactions. She says the bar to stay home needs to be lower than it's ever been before so the province can successfully move forward when the respiratory season arrives.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government has signed agreements with two more American suppliers to reserve millions of doses of their experimental COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians.Deals are now in place for Canada to get access to vaccines being tested by both Johnson & Johnson and Novavax.Earlier this month Ottawa signed similar deals with Pfizer and Moderna.The vaccines are still in either Phase 2 or 3 clinical trials and won't be purchased unless they are deemed safe and effective by Health Canada. Trudeau says the vaccines all show promising results and Canada is signi

BC is reporting 124 new cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths, leaving the death toll at 204. In a joint news release, Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Doctor Bonnie Henry say there are 974 active cases of the illness in the province. They say 2,796 people are being actively monitored by public health workers as a result of exposure to known cases. 23 people are hospitalized with the illness, including seven who are in intensive care, while 4,310 people who tested positive have recovered.

Statistics Canada says the economy posted its steepest decline on record in the second quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of non-essential businesses and slowed the economy to a crawl.The agency says real gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 38.7 per cent for the three-month period.Economists had expected a contraction in the quarter at an annualized rate of 39.6 per cent, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.Almost every single component of the economy that works into calculating GDP was at its lowest point over April, May and June driven