TORONTO —
COVID-19 activity in Canada is at its highest level yet, but it appears Canadians are still living as if it’s the tail end of the first wave.
The latest data from Google and Apple suggests that Canadians are spending about as much time at home, in workplaces and visiting stores as they were last May, even though the average daily number of new COVID-19 cases is now more than six times what it was then.
Google has been tracking population-level movement trends since last February by comparing the amount of time its users spend in various locations to pre-pandemic levels.
According to its latest Community Mobility Report for Canada, Canadians spent between 17 and 19 per cent more time at home during the first week of January than they did before the pandemic.
If that doesn’t sound like a lot, keep in mind that the time-at-home increase rarely topped 10 per cent during August and September. Even at the peak of the first wave, it almost never exceeded 25 per cent.
Last week’s pattern was more in line with mid-May 2020, when the number of daily new cases across Canada first fell below 1,500 – a total Ontario and Quebec now each exceed on their own every day.
Time spent at home is time not spent in public, and Google’s other metrics also show that while Canadians are adjusting their lifestyles in the face of escalating COVID-19 spread, it isn’t happening to the extent it was during the first wave.
Time spent on public transit last week was the least seen since last May, according to Google, while time spent in workplaces was at its lowest level since last summer – but still above where it was even after the first wave ended.
Workplaces are considered a major driver of current COVID-19 spread in many parts of the country, in part because some people cannot afford to stay home from work even when they know they are risking their health by going in.
Dr. Lisa Salamon, a Toronto-based emergency room doctor, told CTV’s Your Morning on Tuesday that she would like to see more governments do more to restrict workplaces from opening in areas where case counts are rising.
“We need to go back to what we did in wave one: only essential workplaces can be open,” she said.
“I think there are a lot of workplaces that are open right now that should be closed, or should [have] people working from home.”
Retail foot traffic is also dying down, based on Google’s reporting, albeit not as much as it did last spring. Its data on time spent in Canadian grocery stories and pharmacies shows a decrease of about 10 per cent from the baseline, putting it in line with the final weeks of the first wave.
However, that decrease only came after a significant spike in activity over the holidays. According to Google’s data, Dec. 23 brought a bigger increase in traffic to grocery stores and pharmacies nationwidethan any other day since the pandemic began. Dec. 24 is third on that list; sandwiched between them is March 13 – the day the federal government advised Canadians not to leave the country, exacerbating a surge of panic-buying that was already underway.
Time spent in restaurants and other service-industry businesses, meanwhile, came out of the holiday period 30 per cent below the pre-pandemic average – again, a similar level to that of last May.
Dr. Brian Conway, the president and medical direction of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, told CTV News Channel on Monday that the current state of COVID-19 in many parts of the country should be giving Canadians more reason to pause before venturing outside.
“Once there is high-level community-based spread, any environment where people are close together for any period of time becomes a risky environment,” he said.
Google is not the only major tech player tracking Canadians’ collective movements during the pandemic.
Apple issues Mobility Trends Reports based on requests for directions in Apple Maps. Its data for last week shows a similar pattern to Google’s: declining activity coming out of the holiday period, with the rate of requests essentially equal to what it was at the end of the first wave.
Most major cities follow this pattern, although there is a clear exception in Halifax, where the post-holiday decline has not been as steep, and Apple is reporting similar activity levels to late June 2020. This matches up with Google’s data for Nova Scotia, which shows more workplace activity and less home activity than at any point in the spring or summer.
The other blip in the national pattern is in British Columbia, where Google does not show any significant post-holiday changes in behaviours. Time spent at home and in workplaces there has been consistent for the past two months, with noticeably more time spent at work and less at home than was the case last spring.
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.
