National News

BANFF, Alta. — American visitors attempting to use a loophole allowing them to travel through Canada on the way to Alaska ran into the long arm of the law in Banff National Park last week.

TORONTO — Ontario farmers who employ temporary foreign workers received a warning Monday from Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Protect those workers from COVID-19 or face consequences.

OTTAWA — Canada's employment minister says federal officials are looking for ways to fill gaps in a key, but decades-old, safety net for unemployed workers to catch those left out from upcoming changes to pandemic-related aid.

Airlines faced a tough reception at the House of Commons health committee Monday as MPs grilled them on the lack of refunds for customers whose flights were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

OTTAWA — The federal government needs to do better at responding to formal information requests from the public, Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos acknowledged Monday.

OTTAWA — Iran has promised to hand over the flight recorders from the civilian airliner it shot down in January "without further delay" and begin compensation talks with the families of those killed in the incident, the federal government said Monday

OTTAWA — Auditor general Karen Hogan said Monday the government needs to boost funding to her office because of the unprecedented demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.

OTTAWA — The federal government is taking a close look at the amount of office space it will need in the coming years as it considers how some of Canada's hundreds of thousands of federal public servants could end up working from home permanently.

OTTAWA — The COVID-19 pandemic will leave some long-term economic damage that will only become clearer as the country moves further along a "prolonged and bumpy" course to recovery, Canada's top central banker says.

OTTAWA — The federal government is helping finance an innovative, new agricultural production plant in Winnipeg that turns peas and canola into protein powders for the food industry. Merit Functional Foods Corp.