With Ontario’s COVID-19 case numbers plateauing in recent weeks, Premier Doug Ford announced Friday afternoon the province’s new plan for gradually lifting remaining restrictions.
Beginning Monday, the province is lifting capacity limits on restaurants, gyms, indoor event spaces and other venues where proof-of-vaccination is currently required, and anticipates lifting proof-of-vaccination controls in some venues starting in the new year.
But, we’ve been here before. When Ontario lifted restrictions in early 2021, case numbers shot up. The same happened in Alberta over the summer.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try easing restrictions, said Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and associate professor in the University of Toronto’s department of medicine and school of public health.
“I think that now is a good time to cautiously open things up,” she said. Although opening up too quickly risks a resurgence in cases, opening things carefully and using tools like proof-of-vaccination requirements could be safe,” she said.
“When they’re opening up stadiums to 20,000-30,000 people with no spacing between, it really doesn’t justify keeping things like restaurants closed,” she said.
Mike Willis, a heart transplant recipient from Guelph, Ont., agrees.
“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “At the same time, even though I’m triple-vaccinated, my antibody levels are way lower than a lot of people who have had only one shot. With the anti-rejection meds I take, I have to be very careful and have been being careful for over six years or so.”
Limiting access to certain venues to only vaccinated people makes him feel better about reopening.
“If people are careful, we need it for the economy,” he said.
Others aren’t so sure reopening is a good idea right now.
Dr. Susy Hota, medical director of infection prevention and control for Toronto’s University Health Network, urges caution.
“Across Canada, we’re at 88 per cent or above that for first doses. So I think we’re heading towards a very nice-looking number for eligible populations,” she said.
Still, she noted, it’s hard to say exactly at what point herd immunity would kick in.
“What’s the magic number? Nobody really knows.”
1:49 COVID-19 capacity limits to be lifted for many businesses, events in B.C. on Oct. 25
COVID-19 capacity limits to be lifted for many businesses, events in B.C. on Oct. 25
When considering reopening, she thinks authorities would want to see a clear trend of declining case counts.
“If you’re just on the point of starting to step down on the curve, that’s too early. You would need to make sure that it continues in that trend because further reopening can spin you back up into exponential growth,” Hota said.
She also thinks that governments should make sure that hospital numbers have receded as well, and consider giving health-care workers “a breather” after a wave of cases, rather than potentially plunging them right into a new one.
Then there’s the unvaccinated, including some kids who aren’t yet eligible. Hota would prefer waiting a few weeks to see if vaccines for children aged 5-11 are approved before proceeding with reopening. Pfizer Canada has submitted its application for a COVID-19 vaccine for that age group, and Health Canada is currently examining it.
A statement from the Children’s Health Coalition, a group of children’s hospitals and medical providers, urges a “cautious approach” to reopening that “doubles down” on measures to protect school-aged children, including keeping community transmission of the virus down.
Dr. Don Vinh, an infectious diseases specialist and medical microbiologist at the McGill University Health Centre, isn’t sure that now is the time to start relaxing COVID-19 restrictions.
“It’s like a campfire,” he said. “There are some places where the flame is going and those people are in trouble. And there are some other places where the flame is dying or it’s only embers.”
The risk, he said, is that if you walk away from embers they can reignite. And if you reopen too quickly, you “invite the possibility of an increase in community transmission.”
“Why do a medical cha-cha? Why two steps forward and one step back?”
1:58 Vaccine passports doing more harm than good for some West Indian businesses in Toronto
Vaccine passports doing more harm than good for some West Indian businesses in Toronto
Banerji said that given Canada’s high vaccination rate, a slow reopening could work.
“I think having those vaccinations and having a vaccine passport allows people to engage in a way that we couldn’t last year,” she said.
Having school-aged children vaccinated will make a difference too, she said.
“I’m hoping that once they’re vaccinated, that most of society is opened up again, especially to people who are vaccinated. It would make sense.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
