Canada's environment commissioner says the country is nowhere near to meeting its goal of planting two-billion trees by 2030.
The Liberals first made the massive tree-planting promise during the 2019 federal election campaign and followed through with a 10-year 3.2-billion-dollar budget for it in 2020.
However, an audit of the first two years of planting says it appears the government isn't on track to get even four per cent of the promised trees in the ground by the end of 2030.
British Columbia's health minister says the province is "ahead of the curve" on recommendations by a national advisory group that Canadians ages 50 and older get a COVID-19 booster. Adrian Dix says his ministry announced weeks ago that it would start its booster program and already 470,000 people have had a third shot.
But Selina Robinson says the effects of the floods and extreme weather may affect the government's bottom line after she met today with the Economic Forecast Council, a 13-member private-sector group that is giving her advice before next spring's budget.
There are currently 3,071 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 214,047 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 276 individuals are currently in hospital and 95 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the new federal climate plan won't be ready until the end of March. The net-zero accountability law passed in June requires the government to make public a greenhouse-gas emissions reduction plan for 2030 within six months.
Caroline McDonald-Harker, a professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, has studied the impacts of extensive flooding in southern Alberta in 2013 and the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire.
Statistics Canada says the economy added 154,000 jobs in November as the labour market showed more signs it's returning to pre-pandemic levels. The unemployment rate fell to 6.0 per cent last month compared with 6.7 per cent in October.