Spring allergy season has begun. Where is it worse in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
The number of Canadians receiving employment insurance benefits are at a record low, new figures from Statistics Canada show.
In January, 375,000 Canadians received regular EI benefits, which is down by 20,000, or five per cent, from December 2022. StatCan says this is the lowest number of regular EI recipients since 1997, when data first became available.
The number of EI beneficiaries in January is also down 44 per cent from the previous year, and the declines are largest among young people. For women between the ages of 15 to 24, the number of EI beneficiaries fell 73 per cent from January 2022, while EI recipients among men aged 15 to 24 dropped 60 per cent.
Quebec saw the highest month-to-month drop in the number of EI beneficiaries with a decline of 11 per cent from December 2022. In PEI, EI claims dropped eight per cent, while in the declines in Alberta and Ontario were around five per cent.
Windsor, Ont., Quebec City and Oshawa, Ont., were the census metropolitan areas that saw the largest drop in the number of EI beneficiaries. In all three regions, EI claims declined by around 14 per cent compared to the previous month.
There has been a constant downward trend of EI usage since the spring of 2021 as COVID-19 restrictions around the country began to ease. The number of EI recipients peaked in May 2021 at nearly 1.7 million beneficiaries.
The latest numbers also come at a time when Canada has been experiencing unemployment rates at or around record lows, despite the Bank of Canada's interest rate hikes, which were expected to raise unemployment as the bank tries to fight inflation.
Earlier this month, StatCan reported that Canada's unemployment rate held steady at five per cent in February, just above the record low of 4.9 per cent reached last summer. The Canadian economy also added 22,000 jobs in February and 150,000 jobs in January.
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unravelled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world's most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.