Manitoba is stepping up enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions as it tries to tamp down the spread of the novel coronavirus, while Alberta’s top doctor is warning that more restrictions could be coming unless the province sees case numbers “decline dramatically” in the days ahead.
Premier Brian Pallister on Thursday backed away from the idea of imposing a curfew in the Winnipeg area, saying the province will spend money to step up enforcement around existing restrictions first.
“There will be consequences for people when they put others in danger, when they put themselves in danger,” Pallister said at a Thursday briefing.
Pallister said that 277 more personnel, including fire safety inspectors, motor carrier enforcement officers and municipal bylaw officers will help make sure public health orders are followed. That brings the total number of enforcers to more than 3,000.
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 in Manitoba has more than tripled in two weeks, from 42 on Oct. 22 to 153 on Nov. 5. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)
The province has seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases in recent days — health officials reported 427 new cases and four more deaths on Thursday — and hospitalization numbers have been climbing.
In Alberta, Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw warned that more restrictions could be coming as the province reported a record high number of new cases.
“Unless our numbers decline dramatically in the next few days, we will have to consider additional measures,” she said.
The province wasn’t able to provide an exact number of new cases Thursday because of technical issues, but the range provided was well over its previous one-day record of 622.
“I can tell you that about 800 new cases have been identified in the last 24 hours,” Hinshaw said, noting that there are nine hospitals in Alberta dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks.
Faced with mounting case numbers, the province is looking to hire more contact tracers to help existing staff. A spokesperson for Alberta Health Services said there are currently 800 people working with the contact tracing team, and AHS is looking to hire “approximately 380 additional staff” in the coming weeks.
British Columbia also saw a record high daily case number on Thursday as health officials reported 425 new cases of COVID-19.
WATCH | Dr. Bonnie Henry talks about COVID-19 in Fraser Health region:
Dr. Bonnie Henry says there are a number of factors, including a large number of essential workers and multigenerational families. 1:50
Most of the new cases reported by B.C. health officials were in the Fraser Health region, which covers an area east of Vancouver and includes communities like Burnaby and Surrey.
A statement from public health officials said there were 97 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including 24 in intensive care.
What’s happening across Canada
As of 11:50 a.m. ET on Friday, provinces and territories in Canada had reported a cumulative total of 253,475 confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 210,024 cases as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 10,420.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday urged Canadians to be careful as winter approaches and people spend more time inside.
“We need to make sure we’re making it into winter on a good footing so we can hold on through winter.”
In Ontario, case numbers continued to rise a day after Premier Doug Ford’s government unveiled a much-anticipated budget after months of delay attributed to the global pandemic.
On Friday, the province reported 1,003 cases of COVID-19 and 14 new deaths.
Ontario is reporting 1,003 cases of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a>. Locally, there are 300 new cases in Toronto, 280 in Peel and 125 in York Region. There are 949 more resolved cases and nearly 41,300 tests completed.<br> <br>Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at <a href=”https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn”>https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn</a>.
Provincial figures updated Friday put the number of people in hospital at 380, with 86 in intensive care.
Quebec on Friday reported 1,133 new cases of COVID-19 and 25 new deaths — including five in the last 24 hours. According to the data on the provincial dashboard, there were 539 people in hospital, with 77 in ICU.
Saskatchewan also reported a record high on Thursday, with 129 COVID-19 cases. According to health officials, many of the new cases were in Saskatoon and the area around Prince Albert.
Nova Scotia reported one new case on Thursday. Prince Edward Island has no active cases of the novel coronavirus.
Across the North, there were no new cases reported in Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut.
What’s happening around the world
Soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment prepare a mass COVID-19 testing site in Liverpool, England. The government is piloting loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) coronavirus testing technology, offering all Liverpool residents quick-result tests to identify who has COVID-19 and asking them to isolate. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
As of Friday morning, more than 48.8 million of cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 32.2 million of those listed as recovered, according to a coronavirus tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 1.2 million, the U.S.-based university reported.
The World Health Organization is looking at biosecurity around mink farms in countries around the world to prevent further “spillover events” after Denmark ordered a national mink cull because of an outbreak of coronavirus infections in the animals.
In the Americas, the U.S. has been dealing with a surge in cases, reporting more than 100,000 new daily cases two days in a row, according to numbers reported by the New York Times.
The American job market showed a burst of strength in October, with employers adding 638,000 jobs and the unemployment rate tumbling to 6.9 per cent. Still, the pace of hiring isn’t enough to rapidly soak up the millions of Americans who were thrown out of work by the pandemic recession.
It’s far from clear that employers can maintain — let alone increase — their pace of hiring. The job market and the overall economy are under intensified pressure from the accelerating pandemic.
On Thursday, the country broke another record in the seven-day rolling average for new cases, hitting nearly 90,000. Daily new cases were also on track for another day above 100,000, with surging numbers reported all around the country, including a combined nearly 25,000 in Texas, Illinois and Florida.
A shopper wearing a face mask walks by the Christmas decorations at The Grove outdoor shopping centre in Los Angeles on Thursday. COVID-19 case numbers are on the rise in the U.S. (Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images)
Latin American countries, including those that have brought down coronavirus transmission rates, should take heed of the second wave hitting much of Europe, a Pan American Health Organization official said.
In Europe, Portugal’s parliament approved a new state of emergency starting on Monday to fight the spread of the coronavirus that has put the health-care system under pressure.
The initial state of emergency, which under Portuguese law is limited to 15 days but can be extended indefinitely in 15-day periods, was declared in March and lasted six weeks. It restricted the movement of people and led thousands of businesses to suspend activities.
A nurse puts on a second pair of gloves before tending to COVID-19 patients in negative pressure rooms at the Curry Cabral hospital in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday. (Armando Franca/The Associated Press)
Germany’s health minister has warned of hard times ahead unless the country can “break” the rising trajectory of coronavirus cases. Jens Spahn told lawmakers in parliament on Friday that “the situation is serious,” noting that the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in the country’s intensive care units has doubled in the last 10 days.
“As of today, the health system can cope with this,” he said. “But a doubling every 10 days is something the best health system in the world can’t cope with in the long term.”
Germany’s disease control agency reported a new record of more than 21,500 confirmed infections in the country in the past day, and 166 further deaths.
Russia’s daily number of new coronavirus infections topped 20,000 Friday, setting a new record since the beginning of the pandemic. Russia’s tally of confirmed coronavirus cases — currently the fourth largest in the world — has exceeded 1.7 million following a quick spread of contagion since September. The government’s coronavirus task force has reported 29,887 deaths since March.
Despite new daily records, authorities insist there is no need to impose a second lockdown or shut down businesses nationwide. They argue that the health-care system is capable of handling a surge in infections. Russian media, however, have reported on overwhelmed hospitals, drug shortages and inundated medical workers in some regions, indicating that the health-care system is under significant strain.
Austria warned that all its COVID-19 intensive care beds could be full within two weeks because of the “much stronger, more serious” second wave of infections.
Italian taxi drivers and co-operative taxi workers demonstrate in Rome on Friday as part of a national strike against the government’s restriction measures taken to curb the spread of COVID-19. (Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images)
Oslo has shut down restaurants, cafés, bars, gyms, cinemas and theatres to help curb the coronavirus. On Friday, officials in the Norwegian capital introduced what they called a “social closure of Oslo.”
Mayor Raymond Johansen said that to bring down the infection rates, “we must shut down where people gather.” However, schools will remain open.
Slovenian police said they detained 10 people following violent protests in the capital Ljubljana against lockdown measures designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
In the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea has alerted about 1,000 people who attended the memorial of the late Samsung Group patriarch Lee Kun-hee last week to get tested for the coronavirus after one person at the event tested positive.
India has recorded 47,638 new cases of the coronavirus, taking its total to 8.4 million.
Deaths rose by 670 in the last 24 hours, driving total fatalities to 124,985 on Friday, the health ministry data showed. India has the world’s second-highest caseload behind the United States. Even though the country has seen a steady dip in cases since mid-September, its capital is witnessing a surge in infections.
Health authorities in Thailand on Friday announced the country’s 60th death from COVID-19, a 66-year-old Thai man who was diagnosed with coronavirus after he returned from the United Kingdom. It was Thailand’s first coronvirus death since mid-September.
The U.S. mission in Geneva urged World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday to invite Taiwan to a major meeting the body is hosting next week that is expected to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Africa, the coronavirus pandemic is having a knock-on effect on other vital health services as countries are forced to redirect already stretched resources, a regional head of WHO said on Thursday. Lockdowns imposed by countries to halt the spread of the virus in May, June and July contributed to a more than 50 per cent drop in services monitored by WHO.
In Nigeria, for example, more than 362,000 pregnant women missed their antenatal care between March and August.
Iran remained the hardest-hit country in the Middle East, according to the Johns Hopkins tally. The country had more than 663,000 reported cases, with more than 37,400 deaths recorded.
Telus Corp. says it is avoiding offering “unprofitable” discounts as fierce competition in the Canadian telecommunications sector shows no sign of slowing down.
The company said Friday it had fewer net new customers during its third quarter compared with the same time last year, as it copes with increasingly “aggressive marketing and promotional pricing” that is prompting more customers to switch providers.
Telus said it added 347,000 net new customers, down around 14.5 per cent compared with last year. The figure includes 130,000 mobile phone subscribers and 34,000 internet customers, down 30,000 and 3,000, respectively, year-over-year.
The company reported its mobile phone churn rate — a metric measuring subscribers who cancelled their services — was 1.09 per cent in the third quarter, up from 1.03 per cent in the third quarter of 2023. That included a postpaid mobile phone churn rate of 0.90 per cent in its latest quarter.
Telus said its focus is on customer retention through its “industry-leading service and network quality, along with successful promotions and bundled offerings.”
“The customers we have are the most important customers we can get,” said chief financial officer Doug French in an interview.
“We’ve, again, just continued to focus on what matters most to our customers, from a product and customer service perspective, while not loading unprofitable customers.”
Meanwhile, Telus reported its net income attributable to common shares more than doubled during its third quarter.
The telecommunications company said it earned $280 million, up 105.9 per cent from the same three-month period in 2023. Earnings per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was 19 cents compared with nine cents a year earlier.
It reported adjusted net income was $413 million, up 10.7 per cent year-over-year from $373 million in the same quarter last year. Operating revenue and other income for the quarter was $5.1 billion, up 1.8 per cent from the previous year.
Mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.85 in the third quarter, a decrease of $2.09 or 3.4 per cent from a year ago. Telus said the drop was attributable to customers signing up for base rate plans with lower prices, along with a decline in overage and roaming revenues.
It said customers are increasingly adopting unlimited data and Canada-U.S. plans which provide higher and more stable ARPU on a monthly basis.
“In a tough operating environment and relative to peers, we view Q3 results that were in line to slightly better than forecast as the best of the bunch,” said RBC analyst Drew McReynolds in a note.
Scotiabank analyst Maher Yaghi added that “the telecom industry in Canada remains very challenging for all players, however, Telus has been able to face these pressures” and still deliver growth.
The Big 3 telecom providers — which also include Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. — have frequently stressed that the market has grown more competitive in recent years, especially after the closing of Quebecor Inc.’s purchase of Freedom Mobile in April 2023.
Hailed as a fourth national carrier, Quebecor has invested in enhancements to Freedom’s network while offering more affordable plans as part of a set of commitments it was mandated by Ottawa to agree to.
The cost of telephone services in September was down eight per cent compared with a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent inflation report last month.
“I think competition has been and continues to be, I’d say, quite intense in Canada, and we’ve obviously had to just manage our business the way we see fit,” said French.
Asked how long that environment could last, he said that’s out of Telus’ hands.
“What I can control, though, is how we go to market and how we lead with our products,” he said.
“I think the conditions within the market will have to adjust accordingly over time. We’ve continued to focus on digitization, continued to bring our cost structure down to compete, irrespective of the price and the current market conditions.”
Still, Canada’s telecom regulator continues to warn providers about customers facing more charges on their cellphone and internet bills.
On Tuesday, CRTC vice-president of consumer, analytics and strategy Scott Hutton called on providers to ensure they clearly inform their customers of charges such as early cancellation fees.
That followed statements from the regulator in recent weeks cautioning against rising international roaming fees and “surprise” price increases being found on their bills.
Hutton said the CRTC plans to launch public consultations in the coming weeks that will focus “on ensuring that information is clear and consistent, making it easier to compare offers and switch services or providers.”
“The CRTC is concerned with recent trends, which suggest that Canadians may not be benefiting from the full protections of our codes,” he said.
“We will continue to monitor developments and will take further action if our codes are not being followed.”
French said any initiative to boost transparency is a step in the right direction.
“I can’t say we are perfect across the board, but what I can say is we are absolutely taking it under consideration and trying to be the best at communicating with our customers,” he said.
“I think everyone looking in the mirror would say there’s room for improvement.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
