Canada now has more than 60,000 confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases, but as numbers continue to climb in some provinces, parts of Atlantic Canada have gone several days without any new cases.
New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have had extended runs with no new cases reported, while Newfoundland and Labrador has now gone three days without any new cases.
Federal health officials and politicians have stressed that the reopening process will vary depending on where people live, noting that while there are shared guidelines, provincial leaders and health officials will make their own decisions based on the reality in their region.
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As of 7:30 a.m. ET, Canada had 60,772 confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19. Provinces and territories listed 26,030 of those as either recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally based on provincial data, regional health information and CBC’s reporting put the COVID-19-related death toll in Canada at 3,981, plus two known deaths of Canadians abroad.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said no matter where they are, all Canadians will need to reconcile living with COVID-19. That means continued physical distancing, frequent handwashing and covering coughs with elbows.
“And, although we’ll be getting out of our homes more and more, it will be vitally important that at the slightest sign of symptoms, we stay home to save lives,” Tam said.
The novel coronavirus, which causes an illness called COVID-19, first emerged in China in late 2019 before spreading around the world. There are no proven treatments or vaccines for the virus, which causes mild to moderate symptoms in most but can cause serious illness and death.
What’s happening in the provinces and territories
British Columbia’s top doctor, Bonnie Henry, says the time is coming when people in the province will be able to see more people. “Our challenge, and our work together, is to find that sweet spot — somewhere around increasing our contacts by twice as many as we have now, but without allowing those opportunities for rapid exponential growth in our communities.” Read more about what’s happening in B.C.
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People who get tested for COVID-19 in Manitoba can now go online to see if they have a negative result. Those who test positive will still get a phone call from public health officials. Read more about what’s happening in Manitoba, which also lifted some restrictions on Monday.
Montreal won’t reopen its retail stores until May 18 amid concern about the coronavirus. Stores with doors that open onto the street had been set to reopen on May 11. Dr. Mylène Drouin, public health director in Montreal, said the city is “not lowering the epidemic curve.” Read more about what’s happening in Quebec.
A person who passed through the Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport in New Brunswick late last month tested positive for COVID-19, the airport announced on Monday. The person was travelling from Toronto and arrived in Moncton at 1:52 p.m. on April 27, an airport spokesperson said. Read more about what’s happening in N.B.
N.B. Premier <a href=”https://twitter.com/BlaineHiggs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@BlaineHiggs</a> says he’s looking to keep provincial border measures in place for at least a few more months. “Our biggest risk will be in relation to borders… we have concerns about the different levels of the covid and the virus in different provinces or states.” <a href=”https://t.co/BUDOYtO3iS”>pic.twitter.com/BUDOYtO3iS</a>
In Nova Scotia, drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites are allowing health workers to conserve personal protective gear. Raj Makkar, health services manager at the Colchester East Hants Health Centre, said “you could see 30 patients and still use the one gown, for example.” Read more about what’s happening in N.S.
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Prince Edward Islandreported no new cases of COVID-19 on Monday. Health officials report that 25 out of the 27 reported coronavirus cases in the province have recovered from the illness. Read more about what’s happening on P.E.I.
From The Associated Press and Reuters, updated at 7:30 a.m. ET
In the U.S., states are taking halting steps to lift some restrictions even as thousands of new cases continue to be reported each day.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the first governors to impose a statewide stay-home order, announced that some businesses can reopen as early as Friday, with restrictions.
WATCH | Senators return to Washington as more states relax COVID-19 restrictions:
As more states relaxed COVID-19 restrictions, senators returned to Washington after an extended absence because of the COVID-19 pandemic with new physical distancing measures in place. 2:00
In Louisiana, state lawmakers were restarting their legislature — but feuded over whether they should return at all. Political battles have become increasingly embedded in U.S. coronavirus policy.
Texas, Oklahoma, and Montana are among those newly allowing restaurants to reopen. Malls, movie theatres and other venues are reopening in several states. Some states have outlined phased reopenings — North Carolina’s governor said he hopes to start such a process after this week if virus trends allow.
A New York City MTA transit worker cleans a subway car during the outbreak of the coronavirus in New York City on Monday. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
Some states, including the U.S. epicentre New York, are moving more slowly, with restrictions in place at least until May 15.
Here’s a look at what’s happening around the world
From The Associated Press and Reuters, updated at 7:30 a.m. ET
Britain’s death toll from the pandemic appears to have surpassed Italy, making it Europe’s hardest-hit nation. The government said 28,734 people with COVID-19 had died in U.K. hospitals, nursing homes and other settings. But official U.K. statistics released Tuesday that take into account people who died with suspected, rather than confirmed, COVID-19, put Britain’s toll at more than 30,000 dead. Those figures also suggested the true toll could be a third higher than the government virus figure. Italy has reported 29,079 fatalities.
Tallies from both nations are likely to be underestimates because they only include people who tested positive and testing was not widespread in Italian and British nursing homes until recently.
A specialized helper disinfects a corridor of the Anatole France preschool in Cenon on Tuesday as schools in France are to gradually reopen from May 11, when a partial lifting of restrictions due to the pandemic come into effect. (Mehdi Fedouach/AFP/Getty Images)
In Russia, the number of infections rose sharply again, with Moscow reporting more than 10,000 new cases for three days in a row.
At the same time, many European countries that have relaxed strict lockdowns after new infections tapered off were watching their virus numbers warily.
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“We know with great certainty that there will be a second wave — the majority of scientists [are] sure of that. And many also assume that there will be a third wave,” Lothar Wieler, the head of Germany’s national disease control centre, said Tuesday.
The death toll in Iran rose by 74 in the past 24 hours to 6,277.
Widely seen as a success story, South Korea reported only three new cases of the virus, its lowest total since Feb. 18. Schools will be reopened in phased steps, starting with high school seniors on May 13, but the highlight Tuesday was the baseball season.
Members of the media are seen standing near an image of an audience before a baseball game in South Korea. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)
Cheerleaders danced beneath rows of empty seats and umpires wore protective masks as one of the world’s first major professional sports returned to action in games broadcast to starved sports fans around the world.
The Korea Baseball Organization employed other protective measures, including fever screenings for players and coaches before they entered the stadiums.
Other places in the Asia-Pacific region have also suppressed their outbreaks, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, which has had zero new cases for two days. Bu experts say India, a nation of 1.3 billion people, has yet to see the peak of its outbreak.
Students wearing face masks stand in a line to get their temperatures checked at the Marie Curie school in Hanoi on Monday as schools reopened after an extended closure to combat the spread of COVID-19. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images)
Uganda began to loosen one of Africa’s strictest anti-coronavirus lockdowns on Tuesday after President Yoweri Museveni declared the infection “tamed.” The country of 42 million reported 97 confirmed cases and no deaths in 45 days of restrictions, and Museveni said it was now better equipped to trace and detect new infections faster.
“We have somehow tamed the virus,” Museveni said in a televised address late on Monday. “It is high time we … start slowly and carefully to open up, but without undoing our achievements.”
Schools and international borders were to remain shut, Museveni said.
There have been 4,075 new cases in Brazil and 263 deaths over the last 24 hours and Indigenous leaders in the country have asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to set up an emergency fund to help protect their communities.
WATCH | COVID-19 pushes move toward online health care:
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed forward a move towards more online health care for Canadians that may become the new normal. 1:57
CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.
The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.
Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.
MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.
President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.
The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
