OTTAWA —
The Public Health Agency of Canada has posted guidelines aimed at helping event planners figure out whether to cancel mass gatherings of people as the federal government works to quell the potential spread of the novel coronavirus.
The next best thing to stopping the virus completely is to slow it down, public health officials have said, and try to delay widespread community transmission as long as possible to ease the burden on the health-care system.
In the United States, where COVID-19 has sickened more than 800 people and killed at least 30, sports teams are playing without crowds, several concerts have been cancelled and some schools and universities are shutting down in an effort to keep the virus from spreading.
Canada, meanwhile, has seen very limited domestic transmission of the virus, and event planners say it’s largely business as usual until that changes.
Still, concert promoters, major sports leagues and festival organizers say they are watching carefully to decide whether they should bring crowds of people together to share the same space.
“We have been told by public health there is no need to cancel events or minimize social gatherings at this point,” said Erin Benjamin, president of the Canadian Live Music Association. “I think that’s going to be public health’s determination, and I hope we don’t get to that.”
The newly released federal guidelines urge organizers to assess risk, highlighting factors like the ages of the attendees, given the virus hits older populations hardest, and whether they are likely to be arriving from regions that have been impacted by COVID-19.
They also offer ways to reduce the risk without cancelling the event altogether, such as by limiting the number of people who attend, staggering arrivals and departures, making more hand-washing stations available, or even live-streaming activities online.
But they don’t dictate whether certain types of events should be shut down, and under what conditions.
Rather, they’re intended to help event planners, municipalities, provinces and territories make informed decisions.
“You may be in a context where you have a very strong healthy system where you can say ‘OK, well we will welcome this event because if there’s a problem we’ll be able to contain it,”‘ Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said Tuesday in Ottawa.
“On the other hand, you may be in a situation where you feel that you can’t do that.”
Earlier Tuesday, the band Pearl Jam announced it would postpone the first leg of its tour, including several stops in Canada, over concerns about COVID-19. It’s the first major act to cancel a live performance in Canada because of the virus, according to the Canadian Live Music Association.
The Broadbent Institute, a policy think tank, also said Tuesday it would postpone a summit planned for later this month in Vancouver, citing advice from the provincial medical health officer. B.C. has now recorded Canada’s first death linked to COVID-19.
“The Institute prides itself on ensuring that our events are safe and inclusive environments, and we can no longer say with confidence that a summit held in March would be able to meet this standard for all participants,” the think tank said in a statement.
Another policy conference, this one planned by the Manning Centre for later this month in Ottawa, is going ahead, organizers said Tuesday. But they are changing their meal setups to minimize contact between participants, and will be making hand sanitizer available.
Meanwhile, the NHL is monitoring the spread of the virus in Canada and the United States and putting contingency plans together in case large gatherings become unsafe.
As for potential school closures and limiting access to public spaces, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that will also be up to local and provincial governments if transmission becomes widespread in their area.
“The measures have to be balanced against what is going on on the ground, and you can’t sort of blanket a whole geographic area without really paying attention to the details on the ground,” Tam said at a briefing Monday.
Each jurisdiction has their own public health laws that govern when they should trigger those kinds of measures, she said.
While the risk is low, Canadians can take personal measures to protect themselves and others against the spread of the virus, federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said Tuesday. Those include staying home when sick, staying two metres away from others and coughing and sneezing into their elbow.
Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said he’s in contact with his counterparts in Italy, which is currently under lockdown because of a massive spike in the number of cases.
He said he wants to learn from that country’s experience, but doesn’t expect to see massive widespread quarantines in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2020.
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.
