Canadians who pass medical screening expected to disembark Diamond Princess today.
47 Canadians among the more than 630 people from the cruise ship to test positive for COVID-19.
Local media report that 2 Japanese passengers who tested positive for coronavirus have died.
Charter flight for eligible Canadians expected to leave Friday.
Canadian passengers aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan who have not tested positive for COVID-19 are disembarking today ahead of a charter flight that’s scheduled to leave Tokyo on Friday.
There are 256 Canadians on the ship, which has been docked in Yokohama since early February. Of those, 47 have tested positive for COVID-19, Global Affairs Canada said.
A charter flight to repatriate Canadians and permanent residents who have not tested positive is expected to leave Friday morning Tokyo time.
Coronavirus rescue set to go: Canadians boarding buses near Diamond Princess cruise ship, should be driving to Tokyo Haneda airport for charter flight home soon <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/CBC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#CBC</a> <a href=”https://t.co/WCLabfeFs6″>pic.twitter.com/WCLabfeFs6</a>
Lolita Wiesner of Alberta, who has been in quarantine on the ship along with her husband, posted on Facebook Thursday saying they had been checked by nurses and passed a pre-flight screening.
“Our bags are packed and outside the cabin. We have fresh masks. Now we just wait until we’re called,” her post said.
The pair, who have been sending photos back to their daughter in Toronto who then posts to Twitter, said they are off the ship and heading to buses that will take them to the airport.
Few pics on our way out of here! We’re on the bus already waiting to depart to the airport. <a href=”https://t.co/1EjaynDUTB”>pic.twitter.com/1EjaynDUTB</a>
The plane is set to land at CFB Trenton in Ontario, as did previous repatriation flights that brought people back to Canada from Wuhan, China — the epicentre of the outbreak. From there, the Diamond Princess returnees will be transported to the NAV Canada Training Institute in Cornwall, Ont.
Global Affairs said that if space allowed, non-Canadian immediate family of citizens and permanent residents would be allowed on the flight to allow families to stay together.
If people choose not to return home on the charter flight, GAC said they would have to finish the quarantine being run by health officials in Japan and follow local instructions.
“Canadians seeking to return to Canada by commercial means will be subject to the Quarantine Act upon their return, in line with a determination to be made by the Public Health Agency of Canada,” the statement read, though it did not say exactly what that would mean for those who elect not to board the charter.
Cruise ship case numbers increase
On Thursday, Japan said another 13 people from the ship had tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total to more than 630.
The increase came after local media reported that two Japanese citizens who had contracted the virus while on the ship had died.
The two patients who died, an 87-year-old man and an 84-year-old woman, had both tested positive for the virus although the woman’s cause of death was listed as pneumonia, the Health Ministry said. Two government officials who had worked on the ship were infected, it added, bringing the number of infected officials to five.
Public broadcaster NHK reported that 27 people from the ship were in serious condition. Kyodo News has previously reported 29 were in serious condition.
Hundreds of passengers who were cleared were able to get off the ship on Wednesday, the first batch of travellers to leave the ship after the two-week quarantine ended.
The coronavirus emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, apparently in a wildlife market, and has now infected some 75,000 people and killed about 2,100.
The vast majority of cases and deaths have been in China, and more specifically Hubei province, of which Wuhan is capital, but the global spread appears inexorable.
WATCH: CBC’s Saša Petricic reports from Japan as the first group of passengers disembark
Passengers who tested negative for the coronavirus were able to leave the Diamond Princess cruise ship where they had been quarantined for two weeks, a move experts say turned the vessel into an uncontrolled breeding ground for the illness. 2:54
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.
