OTTAWA, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Canada’s economy unexpectedly shed
21,900 jobs in January, delivering a reality check after months
of outsized employment growth and confirming forecasts of
slowing economic expansion.

A drop in the number of people seeking work pushed the
unemployment rate down to a four-year low of 7.0 percent,
Statistics Canada data said on Friday.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The revelation on Tuesday that a Canadian-Lebanese dual national took part in the 2012 bombing of a tourist bus in Bulgaria underscores security agencies’ concerns about the danger posed by Canadians joining attacks abroad.

It is not a problem that is exclusive to Canada. But last April the government’s Canadian Security Intelligence Service said as many as 60 Canadians had traveled – or tried to travel – to Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen to join al Qaeda-affiliated groups and engage in terror-related activities.

OTTAWA, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Canada’s offshore petroleum boards
are not equipped to cope with a major spill, the country’s
environmental watchdog said on Tuesday in a report that also
said regulators could struggle to handle a booming resource
sector.

Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan, who said officials
were not carrying out enough inspections of resource projects in
the north, suggested that unless Canada tightened its oversight,
customers for Canadian resources might be deterred by the
country’s environmental record.

OTTAWA, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Canada’s federal government is set
to sharply cut back its direct spending on the fossil fuel
sector as part of an international push to phase out subsidies,
the government’s environment watchdog said on Tuesday.

Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan said direct spending
on the sector by the federal government totaled C$508 million
($508 million) from the 2007/08 fiscal year to 2011/12. It was
Vaughan’s first calculation of the total amounts Ottawa gives to
energy companies.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada and the European Union will not be able to conclude a long-delayed free-trade deal at ministerial talks set for Ottawa this week, a source close to the negotiations told Reuters on Monday.

Talks on an agreement started in 2009 and were supposed to have wrapped up by the end of 2011, a date that was later pushed back to the end of 2012. Industry sources say the two sides still have differences over areas such as agricultural exports, intellectual property and public procurement.

OTTAWA, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Canada’s annual inflation rate in
December remained at a three-year low of 0.8 percent,
underlining how little pressure the Bank of Canada is under to
raise interest rates, Statistics Canada data indicated on
Friday.

The rate – the lowest since 0.1 percent recorded in October
2009 – is far below the Bank of Canada’s 2.0 percent target.
Market analysts had expected the annual rate to increase to 1.2
percent from November’s 0.8 percent.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada wants to see Algeria’s evidence for saying that last week’s attack and hostage-taking at a desert gas plant was coordinated by a Canadian militant, a government official said on Tuesday.

Canadian foreign ministry officials summoned Algeria’s ambassador late on Monday to make the request directly.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Likely Canadian involvement in the deadly hostage taking at an Algerian gas plant that ended this weekend adds to Canadian government concerns about militant citizens who have trained with radical groups abroad or who seek to use violence to further their causes.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday that a Canadian gunman had coordinated the four-day siege, which ended with Algerian forces storming the BP plant on Saturday. At least 80 people were killed, including 37 foreigners.

OTTAWA, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Canadian Finance Minister Jim
Flaherty apologized on Friday for breaking ethics rules when he
lobbied on behalf of a constituent who wanted to set up a radio
station, and said it was an “oversight” that would not happen
again.

Flaherty acted after Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson told
him on Thursday that he had been wrong to send regulators a
letter in his capacity as finance minister, and formally ordered
him to refrain from writing similar letters without her
approval.

OTTAWA, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Canadian Finance Minister Jim
Flaherty apologized on Friday after he was formally reprimanded
for lobbying regulators on behalf of a constituent who wanted to
set up a radio station.

Mary Dawson, Canada’s ethics commissioner, bluntly told
Flaherty that he had been wrong to send regulators a letter in
his capacity as finance minister and ordered him to refrain from
writing similar letters without her approval.