If you're getting ready to buy your first home, don't miss out on the new first-time home buyers tax credit. Introduced as part of the federal government's economic stimulus budget in February 2009, and designed to encourage investment in Canadian housing, this tax credit provides up to $750 in tax relief for first-time home buyers.

You can also qualify for this tax credit if you have a disability or are buying a home for a relative with a disability, even if you're not a first-time home buyer. The definition for "first-time home buyer" for this tax credit is also quite lenient. You can qualify for this tax credit if neither you nor your spouse or common-law partner has owned and lived in another home in the year of purchase or any of the four preceding years. The tax credit applies to homes bought after January 27, 2009. Read more about the First-Time Home Buyers Tax Credit.

Photo: Burazin / Photographer's Choice RF /Getty Images

Homes and Income Taxes in Canada
Home Renovation Tax Credit
Housing Finances in Canada
Canadian Income Taxes - The Basics
Canadian Personal Income Taxes

The federal government has declared Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia a national museum and will put about $15 million into its exhibits and operations to help it live up to its new mandate. Pier 21, Canada's Immigration Museum and already a national historic site, is the only surviving immigration pier in Canada and since 1988 has been preserved by the volunteers of the Friends of Pier 21 Society, founded by the late J.P. LeBlanc, a former immigration official.

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The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is warning that while pregnant women are not more likely to catch the swine flu (H1N1 virus), they have a greater risk of developing complications if they do catch it. Those complications can include pneumonia and severe respiratory distress as well as early delivery or miscarriage.

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Pictures of relief camps, soup kitchens, protest marches and drought are vivid reminders of the pain of the 1930s and the Great Depression in Canada.

Governments in Canada were slow to respond to the desperate economic and social conditions. Until the Great Depression, governments in Canada intervened as little as possible in the economy and social welfare was left to churches and charities.

The Great Depression led to the creation in 1934 of the Bank of Canada to manage Canada's money supply and help formulate monetary policy. The Great Depression also led to the beginnings of a social safety net in Canada, which now includes minimum wage, employment standards and programs such as health insurance and employment insurance.

Photo: Unemployed Parade in Toronto in the Great Depression
Toronto Star / Library and Archives Canada / C-029397