Weekly News 05/03/21 to 05/07/21

Canada has become the first country to approve the use of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE Covid-19 vaccine for adolescents as young as 12.

The shot was initially approved in December for those 16 and older. The decision by the country’s public-health officials comes ahead of a similar clearance that is expected soon from regulators in the U.S. It allows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to expand its vaccination campaign to adolescents.

The Senate of Canada has begun debating legislation that could legalize single-game sports betting across the country, with the bill’s sponsor in the upper house seeing a “good chance” of getting it passed before the current session of Parliament ends if progress is made. 

Canada’s labour market lost 207,000 jobs last month as a spike in COVID-19 variant cases led to renewed public health restrictions and raised concerns about longer-term economic consequences from the pandemic.

The unemployment rate rose to 8.1 per cent from 7.5 per cent in March, Statistics Canada reported. It would have been 10.5 per cent had it included in calculations Canadians who wanted to work but didn’t search for a job.