OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was under intense pressure on Monday to reassure voters that his administration is above reproach amid questions surrounding a secret check paid to Senator Mike Duffy.

“There’s been nothing under this prime minister’s watch that’s tied him so closely to such a massive ethical scandal. We need to see him show leadership,” opposition New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Charlie Angus told a news conference.

OTTAWA, May 17 (Reuters) – Cheaper gasoline and cars helped
Canada’s annual inflation rate fall dramatically in April to 0.4
percent from 1.0 percent in March – its lowest rate since 0.1
percent in October 2009, below expectations and well outside the
Bank of Canada’s target range of 1 to 3 percent.

The data released by Statistics Canada on Friday depressed
the Canadian dollar sharply and boosted bond prices, as the
market figured it made any interest rate by the Bank of Canada
even less likely than before.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s Liberals regained a seat in the House of Commons on Monday in a race viewed as an early test of the popularity of the party’s new leader, Justin Trudeau, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Liberal candidate Yvonne Jones had 50.8 percent of the vote and incumbent Conservative Peter Penashue only 29.1 percent, with 86 of the 91 polls reporting.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s Liberals appeared to have regained a seat in the House of Commons on Monday in a race viewed as an early test of the popularity of the party’s new leader, Justin Trudeau, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Newfoundland radio station VOCM called the election for the Liberals, and with 60 of the 91 polls reporting, Liberal Yvonne Jones had 50.7 percent of the vote to 29.6 percent for incumbent Conservative Peter Penashue, who had stepped down over campaign irregularities.

OTTAWA, May 10 (Reuters) – The Canadian economy in April
recovered 12,500 of the 54,500 jobs estimated to have been lost
in March, but the unemployment rate stayed at 7.2 percent,
Statistics Canada reported on Friday.

The figures were in line with the median forecast, in a
Reuters survey of economists, of 15,000 new jobs and a 7.2
percent jobless rate. The unemployment rate had risen to that
level in March from 7.0 percent in February.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada is more than ever a nation of immigrants, with one in five Canadians born outside the country, according to a 2011 survey released by Statistics Canada on Wednesday.

That 20.6 percent proportion of people born abroad, up from 19.8 percent five years previously, is far bigger than in most other rich industrialized countries.

OTTAWA, May 2 (Reuters) – Canada tapped an outsider on
Thursday to head its central bank, bringing in the
well-respected head of the Canadian export credit agency, who
immediately stressed the need to nurture a choppy economic
recovery.

Incoming Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, 57, worked
at the central bank for 14 years earlier in his career. But he
has spent the last 14 years at Export Development Canada.

OTTAWA, April 29 (Reuters) – The Canadian government
announced tighter rules on Monday to prevent employers from
using its temporary foreign worker program to squeeze Canadians
out of jobs, acting after two high-profile cases tarnished the
program’s reputation.

The new rules will prevent employers from paying foreign
workers less than Canadians, and will ensure that employers who
rely on temporary foreign workers have a “firm plan” in place to
transition to a Canadian labor force.

OTTAWA, April 29 (Reuters) – The Canadian government was set
to announce tighter rules on Monday to prevent employers from
using its temporary foreign worker program to squeeze Canadians
out of jobs, acting after two high-profile cases tarnished the
program’s reputation.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Human
Resources Minister Diane Finley have scheduled a news conference
for Monday afternoon to announce reforms to the program, which
the Conservative government was expected to present to
Parliament in its budget implementation bill on Monday
afternoon.

OTTAWA, April 26 (Reuters) – Canada must review its
deportation policy in light of a pardon that was granted to a
Canadian resident once threatened with deportation and now
accused in an alleged al Qaeda plot to derail a passenger train,
a government minister said on Friday.

Raed Jaser, one of two men charged in connection with the
suspected plot, argued in a 2004 deportation hearing that Canada
should not deport him because he was stateless and no country
would take him in.