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Hello,
Canada and the United States are extending a ban on non-essential travel between the two countries for another 30 days, until Sept. 21.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair tweeted Friday morning that the government “will continue to do what’s necessary to keep our communities safe.”
The closing of the border does not affect essential travel, such as truck and rail traffic carrying food and goods essential to supply chains, as well as travel to get to work. Flights between both countries continue. But the closing has forced many couples and family members apart for months.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in June that immediate family members who have been separated by the closing would able to reunite, but those entering Canada are required to quarantine for 14 days.
A Nanos poll in July found that more than eight in 10 Canadians believe the Canada-U.S. border should remain closed to non-essential travellers for the foreseeable future.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
WE Charity told federal MPs it had registered Thursday with the federal lobbying registry, months after receiving a $543.5-million contract to run the government’s student grant program. Dalal Al-Waheidi, the executive director of WE Charity, told the House of Commons finance committee that the organization did not register previously because it didn’t think it was necessary under lobbying rules.
Asylum seekers working on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis are getting an early chance at permanent residency in Canada. Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino announced the program Friday in response to public demand that the so-called “Guardian Angels” – many in Quebec – be recognized for their work in the healthcare sector during the pandemic.
Members of Parliament were warned that sweeping national security legislation in Hong Kong jeopardizes 300,000 Canadians who live in the former British colony, and to prepare for the possibility that China might prevent some from leaving.
Public health officials are warning that as many as 550 people may have been exposed to COVID-19 at a Toronto strip club last week. Toronto Public Health says a worker at the Brass Rail strip club on Yonge Street tested positive for the virus.
Ontario’s largest school board says it won’t be able to ensure smaller class sizes despite a government plan to allow boards to use money from their reserves, as it warned Toronto schools may not be ready for students’ scheduled return in less than a month. The province’s four major teachers’ unions also threatened Thursday to go to the labour relations board over what they say are unsafe conditions.
Elizabeth Renzetti (The Globe and Mail) on the phony war against Kamala Harris: “Once Joe Biden had chosen Kamala Harris to be his running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket, a fascinating detail arose about the gruelling vetting process: The 11 candidates for the job were asked what nickname they thought President Donald Trump might give them. ‘Sleepy’ was already bestowed on Mr. Biden, while the perfectly good adjectives ‘Crooked’ and ‘Crazy’ had been affixed to Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. The world didn’t have to wait long to find out. Shortly after the announcement, the President tweeted out a campaign ad slamming ‘Slow Joe and Phony Kamala. Perfect together.‘”
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail)on the expansion of employment benefits: “There are two sets of changes coming to employment insurance, and both are going to have a major impact on Canadian politics. The first will be launched next week, when the Liberal government starts the process of cramming COVID-19 emergency benefits together with EI – and a lot of folks who had been receiving $500 a week from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB, will learn their payments will be reduced. The second is something that is now in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plans for 2021: a major reform that will expand EI permanently to include gig workers and more of the self-employed.”
Kelly Egan (The Ottawa Citizen) on the perils of public life in a simmering pandemic: “Has there ever been a worse time to be in public life in Ottawa? Quite shocking, really, the amount of abuse that’s been hurled at elected officials this summer — and now at every level, as though our outbursts of crazy are both non-partisan and blind to jurisdiction. There was a rock for a city councillor, a truck attack directed at the Prime Minister, a threat and act of vandalism toward a local MPP and a vicious verbal assault aimed at the MP for Ottawa Centre and her staff. All that, probably more, since Canada Day.”
Sarah Moritz (The Globe and Mail) writes that to move forward, Lebanon needs more than donations: “I moved to Lebanon in March, 2019, to pursue my graduate degree, which means I have experienced the thawra (revolution), economic crisis, COVID-19 and now the explosion, which has torn apart my home of Beirut. Through this I have learned to understand the magnitude of the resilience of the people in Lebanon, and why it is an attribute that has rightfully served as a point of pride. There is a reason why Beirut’s favoured symbol is the Phoenix – something that dies and is reborn, rising in its beautiful splendour again, from its own ashes. This power is made much more astounding, though, when you realize the resilience is a result of a population living under a regime that seems to do everything it can not just to stymie progress, but to prevent comfortable basic existence. The care those in Lebanon have for one another is genuine, but it is also necessary for survival – because it is understood by many that it is better to support and help one another, than to rely on the government for anything.”
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