Canadians should postpone or cancel any plans for non-essential travel abroad as government and health officials step up their fight to contain the spread of the new coronavirus disease known as COVID-19.
Incoming air travel will also be restricted to landing at certain airports and all cruise ships carrying over 500 passengers are barred from docking in Canada until later in the summer.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said in a press conference on Friday that there are now 157 cases of the virus in Canada and that the time has come for Canadians as well as event organizers to cancel their plans and limit their social interactions.
“My advice is to postpone or cancel all non-essential travel outside of Canada. This means reconsidering your vacations,” Tam said. “By making the choice to stay at home and not travel outside of Canada, you are protecting yourself, your family and doing your part to slow the spread of the virus.”
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Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief of public health, said the Public Health Agency of Canada is changing its recommendation now because of several recent developments in the global response to the virus.
“What’s happened recently is more and more countries have been involved and the WHO has declared a global pandemic,” he said.
“Now, cases are also being reported in Canada having had travel to the United State and Europe and that’s why now, we’re at the point of changing our advice.”
Health Minister Patty Hajdu said the country is in a “critical time” right now to try to “flatten the curve,” or slow the rate of transmission in order to avoid overwhelming the public health system’s ability to respond and treat patients.
She also added the warning against travel outside of Canada is because of both the risk of potential transmission and the risk of being stranded in a country that shuts down its own borders or whose public health system cannot handle the number of cases.
0:56 Coronavirus outbreak: Canadian health official advises against all non-essential travel outside country
Coronavirus outbreak: Canadian health official advises against all non-essential travel outside country
Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the government is also taking additional measures to ban cruise ships carrying more than 500 people from stopping in Canada until July 1, 2020. That comes on the heels of a warning from Tam not to travel on cruise ships.
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“These decisions were not easy to make,” he said. “We are aware of the impacts they will have.”
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair was also at that press conference and said the government is going to restrict international arrivals to land only at certain airports in an effort to try to concentrate screening and border security resources.
The announcements came after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hinted in an interview with CBC’s The Current on Friday morning that such measures were coming.
He said much of the power right now rests on Canadians themselves but that the government was also considering urging against any foreign travel.
“Instead of feeling completely powerless, Canadians do have a capacity to affect how this unfolds in Canada and, to a certain extent, around the world,” he said.
“We are looking at making a recommendation that people not travel outside the country except for exceptional purposes. That’s an announcement that will likely come later today.”
1:48 Coronavirus outbreak: Quebec lays out new measures to stop spread of COVID-19
Coronavirus outbreak: Quebec lays out new measures to stop spread of COVID-19
Trudeau gave the interview from his home in Ottawa, where he is in isolation for the next 14 days.
His wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, tested positive for the new coronavirus on Thursday.
Trudeau said he is feeling fine and has no symptoms.
He was asked several times about why he is not being tested for the coronavirus given his wife has tested positive.
In particular, he was asked whether he was concerned he could have transmitted the virus without having any symptoms given he was also at a conference in Toronto where an attendee tested positive for the virus.
“We did discuss that with the public health authorities and the fact that I have no symptoms whatsoever of the coronavirus means that, according to them, there is no risk for the people I might have worked with over those days,” he said.
1:45 Canadian military shifts to pre-pandemic planning: Gen. Jonathan Vance
Canadian military shifts to pre-pandemic planning: Gen. Jonathan Vance
Public health officials around the world are grappling with the spread of the new virus, which has infected more than 135,000 people worldwide and killed 4,981.
In Canada, there are 138 confirmed cases and one death.
The Canadian military said on Thursday night its members are no longer allowed to travel internationally for work or personal travel.
In a directive circulated to members, Lt.-Gen. Jean-Marc Lanthier said he was speaking on behalf of Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance in informing members that as of Friday, there military was rescinding any authorizations members may have received to travel abroad.
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“It is recognized that the execution of this direction will be messy and complex,” Lanthier acknowledged.
The military said some exceptional circumstances will be evaluated.
Vance had said earlier in the month that the military was shifting to pre-pandemic preparedness mode to get ready for any requests it could receive to assist in the response to the outbreak, which the World Health Organization has now declared a pandemic.
Nova Scotia RCMP say their investigation into two suspicious deaths earlier this month has concluded that one man died by homicide and the other by suicide.
The bodies of two men, aged 40 and 73, were found in a home in Windsor, N.S., on Sept. 3.
Police say the province’s medical examiner determined the 40-year-old man was killed and the 73-year-old man killed himself.
They say the two men were members of the same family.
No arrests or charges are anticipated, and the names of the deceased will not be released.
RCMP say they will not be releasing any further details out of respect for the family.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from its original location because members were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
Nemaska’s story illustrates the challenges Legault’s government faces as it looks to build new dams to meet the province’s power needs, which are anticipated to double by 2050. Legault has promised that any new projects will be developed in partnership with Indigenous people and have “social acceptability,” but experts say that’s easier said than done.
François Bouffard, an associate professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, said the earlier era of hydro projects were developed without any consideration for the Indigenous inhabitants living nearby.
“We live in a much different world now,” he said. “Any kind of hydro development, no matter where in Quebec, will require true consent and partnership from Indigenous communities.” Those groups likely want to be treated as stakeholders, he added.
Securing wider social acceptability for projects that significantly change the landscape — as hydro dams often do — is also “a big ask,” he said. The government, Bouchard added, will likely focus on boosting capacity in its existing dams, or building installations that run off river flow and don’t require flooding large swaths of land to create reservoirs.
Louis Beaumier, executive director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said Legault’s visit to Nemaska represents a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous people who were traumatized by the way earlier projects were carried about.
Any new projects will need the consent of local First Nations, Beaumier said, adding that its easier to get their blessing for wind power projects compared to dams, because they’re less destructive to the environment and easier around which to structure a partnership agreement.
Beaumier added that he believes it will be nearly impossible to get the public — Indigenous or not — to agree to “the destruction of a river” for a new dam, noting that in recent decades people have come to recognize rivers as the “unique, irreplaceable riches” that they are.
Legault’s visit to northern Quebec came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
The book, published in 2022 along with Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Nemaska community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault was in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro complex in honour of former premier Bernard Landry. At the event, Legault said he would follow the example of his late predecessor, who oversaw the signing of the historic “Paix des Braves” agreement between the Quebec government and the Cree in 2002.
He said there is “significant potential” in Eeyou Istchee James Bay, both in increasing the capacity of its large dams and in developing wind power projects.
“Obviously, we will do that with the Cree,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
