Politics

The election campaign in Nova Scotia may not be getting much attention on the national stage, but the federal Liberals in Ottawa are almost certainly keeping a close watch on the race.With Justin Trudeau’s Liberals appearing poised to seek a third term in office – a feat their Nova Scotia...

Elections Canada says measures will be in place to protect the health and safety of Canadians should an election be forthcoming, but it also sees challenges ahead, including the need to identify voting locations and recruitment of staff.The prospect of a fallelection triggered by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the...

The federal government says it is looking at ways to make web giants pay for news content, even as Canadian media outlets continue to strike voluntary payment deals with Facebook.On Tuesday, the Department of Canadian Heritage released a report on the best ways for online platforms such as Facebook to...

Because this is Canada, where officials are loath to go on record to describe the colour of the sky or whether rain indeed feels wet, it will probably be some time before the complete picture of the allegation against Major-General Dany Fortin is fully known.When Maj.-Gen Fortin was suddenly removed...

The federal ethics watchdog has concluded Justin Trudeau was not involved in a decision that saw Liberal MPs using their taxpayer-funded budgets to hire the services of a company run by one of the prime minister’s lifelong friends.In a letter to Trudeau, Mario Dion says he’s satisfied that the prime...

Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver here this morning and James Keller is in Calgary.Canadians’ willingness to line up for a COVID-19 jab has garnered us international acclaim for our progress and allowed a collective exhale after months of terrifying news and grim statistics.So it was with creeping dread that...

Alberta will no longer require people who test positive for COVID-19 to isolate and will stop routine testing for mild symptoms, as new infections increase and a British Columbia region reimposes measures such as mandatory masking.Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, announced the changes on Wednesday...

Ontario is reporting 226 new cases of COVID-19 and 11 more deaths.That’s the highest daily death toll since July 1, when the province recorded 19 fatalities linked to the virus.Health Minister Christine Elliott says 62 of the new cases are in Toronto, 35 were in Waterloo Region, and 24 were...

Hello,This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know...

The federal Liberals remain ahead as a new poll suggests Canada’s political parties are holding relatively steady in terms of voter support only weeks before a possible election call.Twenty-nine per cent of respondents in the survey by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies said they would vote for the...

Michael Wernick, the clerk of the Privy Council, has bid farewell to the more than 200,000 workers in the federal public service.Wernick announced in mid-March that he would leave his post as the top federal bureaucrat prior to the fall election campaign.At the time, he told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau...

The federal Ethics Commissioner says there is no reason to believe former Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick broke the conflict-of-interest law during the SNC-Lavalin affair.In a report Tuesday, commissioner Mario Dion said he would therefore not undertake a full examination of the allegation and considers the matter closed.In late September,...

You might have thought that everything about the WE Charity agreement would become clear once we heard from the civil servant who recommended that the organization handle a student grant program.But she testified before a Commons committee on Thursday, and yet it still wasn’t really clear what was the genesis...

With the provincial election campaign into its third week, Nova Scotia’s Progressive Conservative leader is continuing to stress the need to improve the health-care system.It’s been a recurring theme for Tim Houston, who today talked about increasing support for those working in long-term care.Houston told reporters that health professionals such...

Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Iain Rankin is only committing to review the weak powers of the province’s information commissioner but his rivals are promising to give her office some legal teeth.Advocates for freedom of information have long argued the authority of the commissioner’s office is too weak because it lacks...

Canada’s aviation sector is in talks for government bailout loans totalling as much as $9-billion, according to Jerry Dias, head of the Unifor labour union.Aid talks between the government and airlines, airport operators, NAV Canada and other companies battered by the pandemic’s near-complete travel shutdown are continuing, said Mr. Dias,...

The association representing Canada’s restaurants says the federal government needs to provide the sector with more targeted support, or half of the country’s food establishments could be at risk of closing.Food services have been among the hardest-hit sectors during the pandemic, with most facing tight restrictions on indoor and outdoor...

Most of the weddings Tammy Maki caters were cancelled when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The Sudbury, Ont., chef had a no-refunds policy, but couples were in such despair she gave some money back and allowed others to postpone bookings.With little business, she couldn’t stay open and instead started chocolate and...

Two organizations representing academics of Chinese origin in Canada are warning that new mandatory national security assessments for federal funding of university research could lead to “racial profiling Chinese researchers as foreign agents.”The Canadian Academy of Chinese Professors and the Canadian Association of Chinese Professors recently released a statement, addressed...

An extraordinary set of handwritten notes by Canada’s acting defence chief appear to reveal a behind-the-scenes struggle between due process, political optics and support for the complainant after a sexual misconduct allegation emerged against Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin.More than 100 pages of heavily redacted documents, including notes mostly written in bullet-point...