Tourists walk in a shopping area in Beijing during the final day of the Golden Week holiday. Officially, COVID-19 case numbers have remained low, but authorities are concerned about another wave of infection with flu season ahead. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
COVID-19 pandemic reveals major gaps in privacy law, watchdog says
As COVID-19 pushes more and more Canadians online to work and shop, the pandemic is demonstrating the need for better laws on data use and privacy, the country’s privacy watchdog warned the federal government Thursday. “This year, the COVID-19 pandemic makes the significant gaps in our legislative framework all the more striking,” wrote Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien in his annual report, tabled in Parliament today. “This rapid societal transformation is taking place without the proper legislative framework to guide decisions and protect fundamental rights.”
Therrien said most interactions taking place online now — such as remote work, socializing with friends, logging into school or discussing health issues with a doctor — use commercial videoconferencing technology. The situation comes with risks, he said, including commercial enterprises collecting exchanges between doctors and patients or of e-learning platforms capturing sensitive information about students’ learning difficulties or behaviour.
Therrien said his office hasn’t investigated companies based on those risks yet, but added Canada needs laws that set limits on permissible uses of data and that do not rely “on the good will of companies to act responsibly.” He also said the pandemic has stirred up heated debates about privacy, including questions about the government’s contact tracing app (on which Therrien was consulted) and about Canadians being asked for personal health information or required to undergo temperature checks at airports or before entering workplaces and stores.
The privacy commissioner’s office has long argued for enforcement powers to go after those who violate Canadians’ privacy — including the ability to make binding orders and impose consequential administrative penalties for non-compliance with the law, writes CBC’s Catharine Tunney. Therrien’s office is also asking the federal government to define privacy as a human right, but he said he hasn’t seen much movement on the issue in government. “The short answer is I don’t know when the government will table privacy legislation. I see that a number of provinces apparently are getting weary of inaction by the federal government and are starting to act,” Therrien said.
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The majority of Canada’s more than 9,500 deaths have been in long-term care facilities during the first months of the pandemic. Now, with cases on the rise again in Ontario, families and advocates says it’s not clear long-term care residents are any safer. 1:54
IN BRIEF
Confused about whether to gather for Thanksgiving this year? You’re not alone
Depending where you live in Canada, it’s getting harder to navigate conflicting guidelines from various levels of government regarding gatherings at Thanksgiving — because they can often seem completely out of sync. “Different communities have different issues,” said Timothy Caulfield, a Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta. “So there is going to be variation from rural Alberta to downtown Toronto.” Messaging in one area might not be relevant in another, but he said those messages can cut across the country, which “creates confusion.”
In Canada’s hardest-hit provinces, the messaging is no less confusing, writes CBC’s Adam Miller. Quebec moved to close bars, casinos, restaurants, libraries, museums and movie theatres in its hardest-hit red zones this month, while also banning home gatherings as cases spiked. But the province also prohibited outdoor gatherings like barbecues, despite permitting people to meet in public spaces as long as they stayed two metres apart. In Ontario, residents are being urged to avoid gathering with friends and family, but restaurants, bars, banquet halls and even casinos remain open with much higher limits on occupants. Local public health officials in Ontario have been vocal about the need for clearer messaging and more concrete action from the province amid record-high case numbers.
“This just drives confusion en masse when you see such discord between different levels of government, between different public health units, between what’s being put out in the media, in press conferences,” said Dr. Andrew Boozary, executive director of health and social policy for Toronto’s University Health Network. “How can we blame individuals, when it’s incredibly challenging to make sense of any of the advice?” Caulfield said public health officials and politicians need to be more transparent about the uncertainty they’re facing and the science informing health policies, because it signals to the public that the guidelines could change in the future. “It’s a really chaotic information environment right now, but we have to get it right,” he said.
Trump balks at plan for presidential candidates to be in separate locations at next debate
The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates said a second debate between U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden would take place virtually amid the fallout from Trump’s diagnosis of COVID-19 — a change denounced by the incumbent. “I’m not going to do a virtual debate,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business. Biden campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, meanwhile, said in a statement that the former vice-president “looks forward to speaking directly to the American people.”
The commission said the candidates were to “participate from separate remote locations” on Oct. 15 “in order to protect the health and safety of all involved with the second presidential debate.” Moderator Steve Scully of C-SPAN would remain in Miami as well as the participants, as the second debate is scheduled to be conducted in the town hall format, in which some selected voters ask the nominees questions. Biden derided Trump while leaving for a campaign stop, saying that he’ll follow the guidance of the commission. “We don’t know what the president’s going to do,” he said. “He changes his mind every second.” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo “that’s not what debating’s all about; you sit behind a computer and do a debate. That’s ridiculous, and then they cut you off whenever they want.”
Trump was criticized for a chaotic performance at the first debate in Cleveland on Sept. 29, in which he interrupted Biden numerous times. As set out by the commission earlier this year, a third debate was scheduled for Oct. 22 in Nashville. Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, who is among several people associated with the president to test positive, said the campaign was proposing that the town hall be postponed by one week to Oct. 22 and the third debate held on Oct. 29. Biden’s campaign rejected the proposal, saying the Republican president’s “erratic behaviour does not allow him to rewrite the calendar and pick new dates of his choosing.”
Federal government lifts cross-border travel restrictions for wider range of family members
The federal government is lifting COVID-19 cross-border travel restrictions for a wider range of family members as of today, which means some Canadians will soon be able to reunite with loved ones outside the country after being separated for months. The changes, announced on Oct. 2, will allow for the entry of certain extended family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents, including couples who have been dating for at least a year and their children, as well as grandchildren, siblings and grandparents.
The government said it would also consider “potential limited release from quarantine” for some visitors. Visits will be permitted for these classes of travellers on compassionate grounds such as terminal illnesses, critical injury or death. Details on which members of an extended family qualify for the newly announced exceptions and the conditions that have to be met to secure a compassionate exception will also be released later Thursday.
Meanwhile, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the second wave of COVID-19 is showing up in Canada as a series of regional epidemics. Ontario and Quebec account for 80 per cent of recent cases, but British Columbia and Manitoba are seeing more daily diagnoses than they did in the spring. Tam said New Brunswick has been doing well, like the rest of Atlantic Canada, but has an outbreak in a long-term care home that it’s rushing to contain. An increase in the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals in Ontario and Quebec has her worried that they could be strained before long.
Edmonton woman assembles COVID-19 kits for kids in honour of father who died of disease
Noor Saeed wanted the kits to be fun for kids, so she included some stickers, a cute holder for the hand sanitizer and a mask with a funky print. (Noor Saeed)
An Edmonton woman’s grief over losing her father to COVID-19 has inspired her to help protect others and give to charity at the same time. Noor Saeed created Cokids — kits for children that include two cloth masks, one disposable mask, hand sanitizer, alcohol wipes and some stickers for fun — following the death of her father in Pakistan in July.
“It was a very sudden death because he was fine, he was doing all the protocols, washing his hands, doing everything,” Saeed told CBC News in an interview on Tuesday. Khawaja Waquar Saeed died within four days of being diagnosed with the virus, and Saeed was unable to return to Karachi for the funeral. “I felt the need at that time, that I want to do something for my dad. I want to help out the families out there, being a mom myself,” she said.
Saeed said the kits are easy to use for children and compact enough to fit in a backpack. Each kit costs $7.50 to put together; Saeed is selling them for $12.99, and said she’s donating 15 per cent to the neonatal intensive care unit at Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital. “My son was born premature and he spent a few weeks over there in the NICU and the nurses went above and beyond to take care of my son.”
TORONTO – Ontario is pushing through several bills with little or no debate, which the government house leader says is due to a short legislative sitting.
The government has significantly reduced debate and committee time on the proposed law that would force municipalities to seek permission to install bike lanes when they would remove a car lane.
It also passed the fall economic statement that contains legislation to send out $200 cheques to taxpayers with reduced debating time.
The province tabled a bill Wednesday afternoon that would extend the per-vote subsidy program, which funnels money to political parties, until 2027.
That bill passed third reading Thursday morning with no debate and is awaiting royal assent.
Government House Leader Steve Clark did not answer a question about whether the province is speeding up passage of the bills in order to have an election in the spring, which Premier Doug Ford has not ruled out.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
