National News

OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau always knew 2020 was going to be a difficult year, his first leading a minority Liberal government dependent on opposition party support for its survival.

OTTAWA — Canada's top public health officer has been a model of stoicism through the first year of COVID-19, but Dr. Theresa Tam still got a little choked up last week when the first Canadians were inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine.

The largest mass immunization effort in Canadian history began Dec. 14 in Ontario and Quebec after the country received its first COVID-19 vaccine shipment.

BLIGH ISLAND — Not far from an oily sheen on the waters of British Columbia's Nootka Sound is a site that the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation considers the centre of the world.

The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday Dec. 19, 2020. There are 501,594 confirmed cases in Canada. _ Canada: 501,594 confirmed cases (76,044 active, 411,396 resolved, 14,154 deaths).

Canada surpassed 500,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Saturday as infections continued to surge while the vaccine rollout reached its final province.

MIRAMICHI, N.B. — New Brunswick started its COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Saturday with the inoculation of an 84-year-old nursing home resident who said needles don't bother her in the least.

HILLSBURN, N.S. — The aerial search for five fishermen who were working on a scallop boat when it sank in the Bay of Fundy has been suspended until Sunday, and the ground search has been called off indefinitely.

OTTAWA — International Development Minister Karina Gould isn't running any victory laps despite ending 2020 by doing what so few of her political predecessors could — wrestling a sizable increase in Canadian foreign-aid spending.

OTTAWA — Jagmeet Singh is being squeezed.