National News

OTTAWA — Liberal cabinet ministers defended the sweeping temporary powers now afforded to police under the Emergencies Act on Wednesday, even as major border blockades they decried for disrupting the economy have already been cleared.

The latest developments on ongoing protests against COVID-19 restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, in Ottawa and various locations across Canada, on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. All times eastern: 9:10 p.m.

OTTAWA — Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez says streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime are "the new big players" and should contribute more to Canadian culture.

VANCOUVER — Significant numbers of salmon returning to spawn in British Columbia are being caught in southeast Alaskan fisheries, hindering Canada's efforts to preserve and rebuild stocks that are declining to historic lows, B.C. salmon advocatessay.

VANCOUVER — A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in British Columbia wants the court to order criminal records related to sex work removed from police information systems nine years after Canada's highest court threw out the laws.

OTTAWA — A new data leak shows that about 60 per cent of donors to an "Adopt-a-Trucker" page on the online fundraising platform GiveSendGo were Canadian and 37 per cent were American.

Quebec City is giving more powers to its police force to control traffic and prohibit the consumption of alcohol outdoors ahead of a protest planned for this weekend against COVID-19 public health orders.

OTTAWA — Canada's safety minister says a group with allegedly violent motives that was arrested at a border blockade in southern Alberta speaks to broader concerns.

WASHINGTON — Viable alternatives to Line 5 already exist if the controversial cross-border pipeline gets shut down, says a new report from an Canadian environmental group looking to bridge the ideological gulf in the public debate over North America'

MONTREAL — The fatal shooting by Montreal police of a man in distress highlighted a lack of training for officers dealing with people in crisis, a Quebec coroner found in a report released Wednesday into the 2017 death of Pierre Coriolan.