British Columbia's budget deficit is expected to be lower than forecast but the COVID-19 pandemic remains a risk to the economy. Finance Minister Selina Robinson says the province's financial statement for the first three months of the 2021-22 fiscal year projects a deficit of $4.8 billion, about half the $9.7 billion that was originally forecast in the budget. She says the lower deficit projection is the result of an improved job market along with higher revenues from natural resources and federal transfers. Robinson says B.C.'s economy is forecast to grow by four per cent, slightly higher t

Six members of a family have died in a fire Sunday evening in a travel trailer in rural Nova Scotia. The RCMP say firefighters were called to Mountain Road in Millvale, N.S., Sunday evening around 6:30 p.m. A release says when they arrived, officers discovered the bodies of a 30-year-old man, a 28-year-old woman and four children, ages three, four, eight and 11. It will be up to the fire marshal's office to establish the cause of the fire, but police say after a preliminary investigation they do not consider the fire suspicious. The medical examiner's office will be determining the cause of th

The ongoing battle over blockades set up to prevent old-growth logging on Vancouver Island is heading back to BC Supreme Court this week. Several days of hearings are scheduled in Nanaimo as logging company Teal-Jones seeks to extend an injunction order against protesters in the Fairy Creek area. The injunction granted is set to expire later this month, four months after police enforcement began and more than a year after the blockades were first set up. The RCMP say officers have made at least 989 arrests since May, including 110 people who've been arrested more than once.

Police on Vancouver Island say BC's police watchdog has been called to investigate after an officer fatally shot an armed man yesterday morning. They say officers in Saanich responded to a report of a man who was armed, in crisis, making threats and who allegedly stole from a nearby liquor store. A statement from police in neighbouring Victoria says they engaged with the man for about an hour until an ``interaction'' occurred and an officer shot him. They say officers and paramedics gave first aid, but the man died at the scene, the Independent Investigations Office has been notified.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole focused his campaign on families this morning.He's announced a plan that would allow new parents to earn up to one-thousand dollars per month from remote or part-time work without it affecting their maternity or parental leave payments. N-D-P Leader Jagmeet Singh used a stop in northwestern Ontario to criticize anti-vaccine demonstrations planned in front of hospitals today.He says he'd beef up the Criminal Code to deter protests close to a hospital or health-care workers.Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will speak later today in Vancouver.

Amazon Canada plans to hire 15-thousand new warehouse and distribution workers across the country and is boosting the starting pay for front-line, hourly employees by 27 per cent to $21.65 an hour.Current employees are getting raises immediately, regardless of how long they've been with the company.Amazon Canada has 25-thousand full and part-time workers in 25 communities across five provinces, and is growing rapidly due to the pandemic-driven explosion in online shopping.

B.C. is reporting 820 new cases of COVID-19, including 11 epi-linked cases, for a total of 173,158 cases in the province.There are 5,850 active cases of COVID-19 in the province and 165,027 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 281 individuals are in hospital and 135 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.In the past 24 hours, nine new deaths have been reported, for an overall total of 1,856.The new deaths include:Vancouver Coastal Health: threeInterior Health: threeNorthern Health: twoIsland Health: one From Sept. 2-8, pe

Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation, has issued the following statement on the release of Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey for August 2021:"The Labour Force Survey for August shows that B.C. is making great strides in our economic recovery with another 14,400 jobs gained throughout the province – 13,600 of these jobs are among women. All job gains are full-time."B.C. has one of the lowest unemployment rates and a job recovery rate of 101.1%, leading Canada as the only province with employment above pre-pandemic levels for the third straight month."In areas

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait announced that farmers' protest in Karnal will continue as "talks with administration have failed". "Talk (with Karnal district administration) lasted for 3 hours but failed. The officers are getting directions from Chandigarh. Along with our protests in Delhi, this agitation will also continue until our demands are met. Our demand is that the officer is suspended," he said.