Canada added another 2,342 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus Thursday, one of the highest daily case counts yet since the pandemic began early this year.
The new positive cases pushed the country’s total to 191,532 infections. It took five days for Canada to add over 10,000 new coronavirus cases, after taking just four days to jump from 170,000 to 180,000.
The new cases also represented about 2.5 per cent of the 92,796 new tests performed over the past 24 hours. To date, more than 10.2 million tests have been performed across Canada, although some provinces and territories do not update their testing data daily.
Thursday also saw the national death toll rise to 9,699 after 38 new deaths were reported. Twenty-two of those deaths were historical and all based in Quebec, which also removed two earlier deaths from its total after they were found to not be attributable to COVID-19.
Quebec did report eight new deaths had occurred since Wednesday, as well as 969 new positive cases. The province has now seen a total of 89,963 confirmed infections and 6,005 deaths, while 75,467 patients have recovered from the virus.
Newfoundland and Labrador reported one new case, the only Atlantic province to see any increase Thursday. Newfoundland has now seen 284 new cases, four of them fatal, while 271 have recovered.
New Brunswick reported no new cases for the first time since Oct. 4. A total of 292 cases have been reported so far, with two deaths and 200 recoveries. Nova Scotia has seen a total of 1,092 cases and 65 deaths, while Prince Edward Island has three active cases out of 63 total infections, with no deaths so far.
1:38 National COVID-19 app launched in Nova Scotia
National COVID-19 app launched in Nova Scotia
Manitoba posted another new record with 173 new cases, while health officials said another person has died from COVID-19. The province has now seen a total of 3,098, only half of whom have recovered, and 38 deaths.
In Saskatchewan, 33 new cases were reported, with no new deaths. A total of 2,232 cases have been confirmed to date, along with 25 deaths and 1,936 recoveries.
Alberta added another 244 new cases and one new death, bringing the province’s totals to 21,443 confirmed infections and 288 deaths, while 18,417 patients have recovered from the virus.
Officials in British Columbia reported 139 lab-confirmed cases and three more “epidemiologically-linked” cases, meaning they have not been confirmed by laboratory testing. The province has now seen 10,836 confirmed cases and 198 epi-linked cases to date.
No new deaths were reported Thursday, keeping the death toll at 250, while 9,257 patients have recovered so far.
None of the three territories reported new cases on Thursday.
2:08 Defining Ontario’s new COVID-19 rules
Defining Ontario’s new COVID-19 rules
The Northwest Territories has seen five cases to date, all of which have recovered. The territory’s last case was reported over six months ago.
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The Yukon said Wednesday that a presumptive case has come back negative, keeping its total at 15 cases — all of which have recovered.
While Nunavut says it has seen no local confirmed cases, several positive cases have been confirmed in out-of-territory workers at a pair of local mines. All of those cases have been counted by their home jurisdictions.
With cases rising — and some provinces moving to limit or close businesses again — many Canadians who remain unemployed or short of work are turning their attention back to government relief and ensuring they can qualify.
On Thursday, the Canada Revenue Agency said it will update the wording of a question on its online application for the Canada Recovery Benefit, to make clear that Canadians who exhausted their Employment Insurance benefits are eligible for the new benefit.
The decision comes after Global News indicated the phrasing was creating confusion for some jobless Canadians.
Worldwide, over 38.8 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed by public health authorities, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Over 1,096,000 of those patients have died to date.
India, with 7.3 million confirmed cases, is continuing to surge towards the United States’ world-leading total of 7.9 million cases. The U.S. still leads the world in deaths, at over 217,000.
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.
