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The federal government is using $1.8 billion in surplus EI funds to help balance its books, drawing criticism from opposition parties and labour groups who say the money belongs in taxpayers’ pockets. Finance Minister Joe Oliver delivered Tuesday the Tories’ long-promised balanced budget ahead of this year’s federal election — though it was one that eked out a very small surplus of $1.4 billion. To get there despite a $6 billion decline in revenues due to falling oil prices, the government had to take $2 billion out of its $3 billion contingency fund and dip into the country’s EI fund. "This government is raiding the EI fund to pay for its other priorities, even though less than 40 per cent of unemployed Canadians qualify for EI,” said Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, the country’s biggest union. “With tens of thousands of Canadians losing their jobs, this is the time to fix EI – not raid the cookie jar." At the same time, the Conservative government — which panned...

OTTAWA - The Harper government has made a commitment to extend Canada's participation in the International Space Station mission for another four years — until 2024. The announcement was included in Tuesday's federal budget. The United States and Russia have already announced their continued support until 2024. But the space station's other key partners, the European Space Agency and JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, have not yet committed themselves beyond 2020. The federal budget also provides an additional $30 million over four years, starting in 2016–17, to support cutting-edge research and technology development in Canada’s satellite communications sector. Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, which represents over 700 of Canada's aerospace companies, praised the budget for providing what it called essential funding for the Canadian Space Agency. President Jim Quick says in a statement that the measures are another step as the association con...

TORONTO - Ontario's Liberals were quick to express disappointment Tuesday at the federal budget, saying the money Ottawa is promising for transit projects amounts to "crumbs" compared to the needs of Canada's largest province. "When it comes to transit, they've kind of missed the train, and they're not even in the station," Finance Minister Charles Sousa said shortly after his federal counterpart introduced the budget in the House of Commons. The federal budget promises a new infrastructure fund that allocates $750 million over two years, followed by $1 billion a year "ongoing thereafter." "The amount that's being brought forward, frankly, is only crumbs of what we need," Sousa said. The Liberal government has pledged to spend $130 billion on infrastructure over 10 years, $31 billion of which will go toward transit infrastructure. The province has been calling on the federal Conservatives to match its infrastructure inves...

A dramatic rock slide on the Stawamus Chief Mountain shook Squamish, B.C. on Sunday. Kirsten Andrews watched the slide unfold from her home a few kilometres away and posted a video to Facebook . "Never heard anything like this before," she wrote. "A huge chunk of The Chief just came down in front of our place. That was completely terrifying if I'm honest." RCMP estimated a slab about 1,000 cubic metres in size fell off the granite monolith about 60 kilometres north of Vancouver around noon. Never heard anything like this before. A huge chunk of The Chief just came down in front of our place. That was... Posted by Kirsten Andrews on Sunday, April 19, 2015 The Chief is a popular hiking and rock-climbing site. The slide occurred in the North Walls area of the north peak near a climbing route. "This particular area is really only for highly skilled rock climbers , not your more tourist-orientated climbs," Mayor Patricia Heintzman told CBC News. A prelim...

A dramatic rock slide on the Stawamus Chief Mountain shook Squamish, B.C. on Sunday. Kirsten Andrews watched the slide unfold from her home a few kilometres away and posted a video to Facebook . "Never heard anything like this before," she wrote. "A huge chunk of The Chief just came down in front of our place. That was completely terrifying if I'm honest." RCMP estimated a slab about 1,000 cubic metres in size fell off the granite monolith about 60 kilometres north of Vancouver around noon. Never heard anything like this before. A huge chunk of The Chief just came down in front of our place. That was... Posted by Kirsten Andrews on Sunday, April 19, 2015 The Chief is a popular hiking and rock-climbing site. The slide occurred in the North Walls area of the north peak near a climbing route. "This particular area is really only for highly skilled rock climbers , not your more tourist-orientated climbs," Mayor Patricia Heintzman told CBC News. A prelim...

We've all heard of a pride of lions and a gaggle of geese, but a parade of swans? Only in Stratford, Ontario, and only in the spring. It happens every April a few weeks before the opening of the theatre season, the festival that put this town on the map. When the Stratford swans are paraded into the Avon River to resume the life aquatic, it's no ordinary dunking. Because these are no ordinary birds. In a throwback to their elite heritage, Stratford's herd of thirty or so British and Polish swans lead a life of privilege and ease. In 1154, English King Richard Lionheart decreed swans were royal birds that nobody was permitted to own, hunt or eat without permission from the king. Apart from their kind of loutish disposition, there's not much medieval about these swans. They spend the winter in a modern barn behind the hockey arena (we're in Canada, remember) where they have their own pool, two squawk-prone Chinese geese as security guards, and a special high-protein ...