Six stories in the news for Tuesday, April 25
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U.S. HITS CANADA WITH SOFTWOOD LUMBER DUTIES
The United States has fired the opening shot in a latest softwood-lumber war against Canada, with the Trump administration announcing its first batch of duties on imported wood in the neighbourhood of 20 per cent. But Canada vows to fight back against what Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr calls an unfair, baseless and unfounded punitive duty.
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PM TRUDEAU SAYS FATHER HELPED BROTHER AVOID POT CHARGE
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his younger brother was able to avoid a criminal record after he was caught with marijuana because of the connections of their famous father. Trudeau told Vice Media that six months before Michel's death about 20 years ago, he was in an accident and police found some joints at the crash scene. But former prime minister Pierre Trudeau called friends and made the charges vanish.
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EDMONTON POLICE SAY TODDLER SUFFERED REPEATED ABUSE
Edmonton police say a 19-month-old boy found dead outside a church last week was covered in bruises and was horribly abused before he was killed by a blow to the head. A passerby found the lifeless body of Anthony Joseph Raine outside the church on Friday. The toddler's father, Joey Crier, 26, and Crier's girlfriend Tasha Mack, 25, face several charges, including second-degree murder.
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EXTENDED EI BENEFIT SPENDING TOPS $1 BILLION
A federal program designed to give extra financial help to out-of-work Canadians in the hardest-hit economic regions of the country has blown past Liberal budget estimates with more than $1 billion in payouts. The payments to date are double what the government anticipated it would spend to provide extra weeks of employment insurance benefits to workers in 15 regions smarting from a sharp downturn in energy prices.
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SPRING SESSION OF N.S. LEGISLATURE SET TO BEGIN
Today's opening of the Nova Scotia legislature means an unofficial election campaign, underway for weeks, will be temporarily shelved as the Liberal government gears up to present a budget later this week. The budget is scheduled to be tabled Thursday. Whether house proceedings continue much beyond that is up to Premier Stephen McNeil, who is widely expected to call an election as early as Friday or Saturday, resulting in a May 30 vote.
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RED CROSS: $323 MILLION RAISED FOR FORT McMurray
The Canadian Red Cross says the bulk of the $323 million raised since a destructive wildfire struck Fort McMurray last spring has been spent or committed nearly a year after the disaster. The fire forced 88,000 people to flee the Alberta city last May. It destroyed about 10 per cent of the community's structures. The Red Cross says $244 million of the amount raised has been spent or committed.
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ALSO IN THE NEWS TODAY:
— The Canadian Real Estate Association will release sales figures for March.
— Companies reporting quarterly results today include Rogers Communications, Metro Inc., First National Financial and Teck Resources.
— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will visit Kitchener and Guelph in Ontario.
— Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland attends the Women20 (W20) Summit in Berlin.
— Heritage Minister Melanie Joly will meet with Facebook executives in San Francisco.
The Canadian Press
