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There’s a price shocker coming at the pumps.
The Windsor Essex County Health Unit has announced 63 new cases of COVID-19 as of Saturday, bringing the local total to 3,570.
Cases increased from 3,507 on Friday November 27th to 3,570 on Saturday November 28th and 367 cases of COVID-19 are currently active in Windsor-Essex.
Saturday’s increase in cases by 63 is the highest daily increase since June 28th.
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The Health Unit says 26 cases are close contacts of confirmed cases, 7 cases are community acquired, 2 cases are agri-farm workers, 3 cases are local health care workers, 1 case is travel related to the US, and the sources of 24 cases are still being investigated by the Health Unit’s case and contact management staff.
They say 3,124 people locally have recovered (an increase of 49 recoveries today).
There has been one additional death from COVID-19 in Windsor Essex as of Saturday bringing the local death toll to 79. The Health Unit says a man in his 60s from the community passed away.
As of Saturday, the Health Unit lists 11 people as hospitalized, and 2 people in the ICU with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Windsor Essex. Eight hospitalizations are listed at Windsor Regional Hospital.
Long-term Care / Retirement Home Outbreaks
As of Saturday, four long-term care/retirement homes remain under outbreak:
Workplace Outbreaks
As of Saturday, there are seven workplaces under outbreak:
School Outbreaks
As of Saturday, two schools remain under outbreak:
Community Outbreaks
As of Saturday, there are two community outbreaks:
Premier Doug Ford lashed out at the gas companies for the double-digit overnight increase in the price of gas across the GTA, calling it unacceptable and disgusting.
Speaking at an unrelated announcement in Oakville, Ont., on Thursday, Ford took a moment to vent on behalf of “16 million people” across the province.
“You go out last night and you’re sitting there for 20 minutes in the lineup to get gas. It’s unacceptable,” said Ford. “Everywhere I was going it was a $1.59. You wake up this morning and it’s $1.80. It’s absolutely disgusting.”
Prices at the pumps surged 14 cents overnight to 178.9 cents/litre at most GTA stations. Analysts attribute the increase to the annual changeover from winter gas to summer gas.
“That is why prices are going up so significantly all at once is essentially we’re seeing discounts on winter gasoline to get rid of it but now that we’ve made the jump, summer gasoline inventories are much lower and thus a much higher price,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy tells CityNews.
That explanation, Ford said, was simply a way for the gas companies to gouge people.
“It’s absolutely disgusting what the oil companies are doing,” said an agitated Ford as he questioned whether the gas companies are waiting for the tanks to drain at gas stations before filling them up with the new summer formulation. “Or are you using the old gas and charging the higher cost.”
“I have my opinion that it’s not physically possible to drain every single gas station to put the fresh stuff in. So either you’re putting the fresh stuff in last month or you’re gouging the people right now.”
Ford went on to say that after consulting with some friends in the United States, he found that gas prices were trending around $3.80 per gallon. “Folks, let’s do the math – it’s a $1.80 (a litre) that’s $7.20 (a US gallon).”
Mike Eppel, 680 News Radio Toronto Senior Business Editor, says it also comes down to a refining capacity issue in this country.
“So there’s lots of oil, that’s not the issue – oil supplies are high. It’s the refining capacity. We haven’t had a refinery built in eastern Canada since whenever – you can’t get a pipeline built. And anytime there is any disruption in the system, up goes the price for gas.”
Ford did not limit his anger on rising gas prices to just the oil companies, closing his rant by taking a shot at the federal government’s carbon tax, which took effect on April 1 and pushed gas prices up three cents a litre.
“This goes back to the federal government sticking their hands in the people’s pockets, they don’t care that we have some of the highest prices in North America on the carbon tax, they jack it up 17.5 per cent,” explained Ford. “And then of course the oil companies thought they’d hop on board, no one’s going to notice, because if I remember … just a few months ago I remember filling up for $1.30 to $1.34. Did the barrel of oil go up 30 per cent? The answer is no. So where is the 30 per cent.”
While the price of gas is expected to fall by four cents/litre on Friday, prices will continue to fluctuate with no real relief in sight until June or July.
Google has fired 28 employees after a number of staffers protested the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government.
The workers were terminated after staging protests inside Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, per CNN.
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In a statement, Google’s parent company Alphabet said that “physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior.”
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The protests were organized by the No Tech For Apartheid campaign and protesters held signs that read “No More Genocide For Profit” and “We Stand with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers.”
The company said it would continue to investigate and take action as needed, reports The Guardian.
The protesters say that Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract granted to Google and Amazon.com in 2021, provides cloud services to the Israeli government and aids in the creation of military applications.
A form letter on the campaign’s website demands that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian “end all ties with Israeli apartheid and cut the Project Nimbus contract.”
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Google says the Nimbus contract “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.” It added that Google Cloud “supports numerous governments around the world, including the Israeli government.”
“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.”
The No Tech for Apartheid campaign called the firings a “flagrant act of retaliation” and a “clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers.”
The campaign added that some of the individuals fired did not directly participate in the protests.
Despite what its critics allege, Israel has attempted to warn and shield civilians as the IDF hunts the Hamas terrorists who hid themselves among Gaza’s civilian population and infrastructure after the group’s October 7 attack. As well, critics who call Israel an apartheid state ignore the freedoms enjoyed by the democratic country’s Arab citizens, who play major roles in business, the judiciary and even the Knesset.
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Gas prices have not been this high since August 2022
There’s a price shocker coming at the pumps.
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Gas in Ontario, including the GTA, will go up 14 cents a litre overnight for customers filling up on Thursday, says Dan McTeague, the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
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“So going from $1.65.9 (per litre) going to $1.79.9,” said McTeague adding the increase will affect the entire province except for northwestern Ontario, which gets its prices from the prairies market.
“That’s the highest level since August, 2022, almost two years ago,” he added.
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McTeague said the reason for the price hike is that stations are switching over to summer-blend gasoline.
“Around this time of year prices go up to reflect the new blend of gasoline, which is more expensive to make,” he explained. “Butane is used in the winter, for gasoline, whereas in the summer it’s alkyaltes. Alkyaltes are extremely expensive.”
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“In the winter you want your ignition to start quickly in cold temperatures, you uses volatile butane. You take that out in the summer. That’s a big difference. This is going to be around for awhile and it could get higher,” McTeague said.
McTeague also blamed the rise in gas prices in Canada on the carbon tax increase, the rising price of oil, and the weak Canadian dollar.
“It just makes a bad situation worse,” he said. “It’s just another brick in the wall, another load on the camel’s bank. The cost of denying our resources, blocking pipelines, is one of the most significant reasons why the Canadian dollar is so weak.”
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