Unemployment rate 5.4 per cent in April

The city’s unemployment rate stood at 5.4 per cent in April, according to a Statistics Canada labour market survey, as more than 50,000 people held down jobs for the second straight month.

Indeed, the number grew by 1,000 to 51,300 from March. The numbers are based on a three-month rolling average.

At the same point last year, the unemployment rate was 6.3 per cent and 47,500 people were working in the city. At 54,200, there are also 3,600 people of working age in the city and the number of people of working age stood at 18,300 last month, 3,300 fewer than a year ago.

The number of people seeking employment stood at 2,900 which is 300 fewer than in April 2017. The numbers do not separate full-time from parttime employment.

— Citizen staff

Notley, Horgan part of same meeting

LANGFORD (CP) — The premiers of British Columbia and Alberta will join their counterparts from Western Canada at a meeting next week, but John Horgan doesn’t expect any drama over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

Horgan says proposals will be made about a national pharmacare program because the provinces have always led the way on cost savings for prescription drugs and he wants B.C. to be at the forefront of the issue.

While acknowledging he and Alberta’s Rachel Notley have differences on the pipeline, he says they are in agreement on a number of other matters and have been friends for 20 years.

On Thursday, British Columbia announced plans to launch a lawsuit over new Alberta legislation that could restrict fuel exports to the West Coast.

B.C. Attorney General David Eby said his province will ask the Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta to declare the legislation unconstitutional on the grounds that one province cannot punish another.

Plans to triple capacity along Kinder Morgan’s existing Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby have pitted Alberta and the federal government against B.C.’s government, which says the risk of a spill is too great for the province’s environment and economy.