The head of the federal public service says he is personally committed to “continuous action” to address racism and discrimination in the workplace, following the public release of an internal report that details employees’ troubling experiences on the job.  Privy Council clerk John Hannaford says the department has put a number of initiatives in place, […]

Delayed air passengers, disgruntled phone customers and even hungry people craving a slice of pizza increasingly find their pleas to private companies being answered by artificial intelligence. Soon Canadians who need to reach out to the federal government could also find themselves talking to an employee who’s been helped by non-human assistants.  Ottawa is working […]

Unclaimed bodies are piling up in Newfoundland, and a funeral director says they likely belong to people whose loved ones couldn’t get enough government help to pay for a funeral.  Emails obtained by the provincial NDP show the number of unclaimed bodies kept in temporary freezer units at the province’s largest hospital more than doubled […]

Newfoundland and Labrador published a list of standards on Thursday that public and private emergency homeless shelters must follow, after conditions in for-profit shelters became a central issue in the province’s struggles with homelessness. The report on shelter standards was completed by Ontario-based firm, OrgCode Consulting. It covers details ranging from required mattress sizes to […]

Ontario is the only province where inmates are regularly locked down due to staff shortages, according to expert evidence in a pair of class-action lawsuits. Former inmates of provincial correctional facilities and immigration detainees who were held there are suing the Ontario and federal governments, alleging that inmates are commonly held in their cells for […]

Federal New Democrats won’t say how they intend to vote on a bill that aims to keep minors from accessing sexually explicit material online, while the Conservatives say they’re prepared to work on amending the controversial legislation. The legislation would require websites like Pornhub to verify the age of their users, but privacy experts warn […]

Rayna Dove kept careful notes about her attempts to move out of the shelter in downtown St. John’s, N.L., where her mother says she was “living in fear.”  On Dec. 27, 2021, Dove’s fears came true. She died there in the early morning hours, stabbed in the abdomen by another resident, David Quirke. Joan Dunphy, […]

Canada’s privacy czar and a government official are warning that a Senate bill proposing to block minors from “sexually explicit material” online could apply to streaming services such as Netflix.Philippe Dufresne, the country’s privacy commissioner, says legislators should dramatically narrow the bill’s scope to address concerns about “what will be captured.”Dufresne, along with Owen Ripley, […]

The Alberta government is facing calls to stop admitting complex mental health patients into long-term care facilities until the risks are fully reviewed. Seniors’ advocates joined Opposition New Democrats at a news conference Monday in asking for the halt. They said mixing residents at Calgary’s Carewest Colonel Belcher facility with those who have vastly different […]

Immigration Minister Marc Miller says Israel seemed to be on the verge of approving a program to get Palestinian relatives of Canadians out of the Gaza Strip before the country’s invasion of the town of Rafah.  “While we have been limited in our success, it is certainly not for lack of trying,” Miller told the […]

The First Nations Health Authority in B.C. is investigating after being hit by a cybersecurity attack. The health authority, which bills itself as the first and only provincial one of its kind in Canada, says it became aware on May 13 of “unusual activity” on its corporate network. It says an “unauthorize entity” was intercepted […]

Emails show an early draft of Saskatchewan’s school pronoun policy would have allowed teachers to use a child’s preferred identification if there was concern the student faced danger when parents were notified.  Premier Scott Moe’s government announced the policy last year. It requires teachers to have parental consent when children under 16 want to change […]