B-C's minimum hourly wage is increasing to 17 dollars and 40 cents, up from 16.75.
The Labour Ministry says the 3.9 per cent increase kicks in on Saturday.
It says in a statement that the increase will help about 240-thousand workers in the province who currently earn less than 17.40 an hour.
The B-C government amended the Employment Standards Act in February so future increases to minimum wages happen automatically, based on the previous year's average inflation rate for the province.
A senior State Department official says Canada's dispute with India could make for fertile ground for foreign efforts to sow disinformation. James Rubin, the co-ordinator of the Global Engagement Center, says the diplomatic standoff makes Canada "ripe" for manipulation, and not just from inside India.
A man who held up a bank in Kelowna and fled with more than 40-thousand-dollars in cash has been sentenced to four years in prison. Alan Stuart Metcalfe was sentenced in August after pleading guilty to one count of robbery, and the decision was released online this week.
The Mounties say police and firefighters responded Wednesday evening to a report of a structure fire on a vacant property along Gunn Avenue and found several buildings on fire, with indications that the blazes had been set intentionally. They say police responded to flames on a different property along the same road yesterday and again found they appeared to have been sparked intentionally.
COVID-19 cases are on the rise in British Columbia, with the BC Centre for Disease Control reporting hospitalizations have increased 58 per cent in the past two weeks. The centre says in its latest update that deaths due to COVID-19 are also trending upwards, with 24 fatalities in the last week of September, compared to nine in the second week of August.
The count by the Homelessness Services Association of B-C was done on March 7th and 8th -- and identified just under five thousand people in 11 communities, up from the roughly 36-hundred identified in the March 2020 count.
Business leaders in Surrey are pleading with the province to provide a clear plan as the city grapples with the next stage of implementing a new police force. The Surrey Board of Trade has sent a letter to Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth saying the city needs a solid policing strategy with adequate wraparound support services and infrastructure as it juggles the costs of the outgoing R-C-M-P and incoming Surrey Police Service.