Recalling that last week he said there was “light at the end of the tunnel,” Quebec Premier François Legault said Tuesday that he now believes the province is coming out of that tunnel — and so will ease more pandemic restrictions as of Jan. 31.
But he said the easing will happen slowly. As of Monday, people can resume private indoor gatherings, but with a maximum of four people from two bubbles, Legault said.
The same rules will apply to dining. Restaurants may reopen to indoor dining as of Monday, with a capacity of 50 per cent. Tables must be limited to four people, again from only two bubbles, and vaccine passports will be required.
Kids under 18 will also be able to resume extra-curricular and non-school related sports, but there will be no games or competitions — only practices permitted with a gathering maximum of 25 people.
Restaurants at ski lodges will be able to open at 50 per cent capacity, as will other tourist attractions such as the Biodome.
WATCH | Vaccine mandate for stores could help:
Requiring vaccine passport for big-box stores may contribute to ‘sense of security,’ professor says
15 hours ago
Duration 0:52
Emily McDonald, a specialist in internal medicine at McGill University Health Centre, says requiring that shoppers at big-box stores be vaccinated may not lessen COVID-19 transmission, but might encourage a small percentage unvaccinated residents to get their first dose. 0:52
A second phase of reopening will begin Feb. 7 and focus on cultural venues, such as concert halls and cinemas, which will be able to reopen at 50 per cent capacity to a maximum of 500 people. Places of worship will also be allowed to reopen at 50 per cent to a maximum of 250 people. Vaccine passports will be required for all.
Legault said in his briefing that the Quebec health system is beaten down, with still 12,000 health-care workers absent from the system. He made an appeal to young people to choose a career in nursing.
Quebec currently has 3,278 patients in hospital, with 263 in ICU. The province has 2,977 newly confirmed cases and 85 new deaths.
– From CBC News, last updated at 2:30 p.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
WATCH | Alberta prepares field hospitals:
Alberta prepares field hospitals amid expected COVID-19 patient surge
21 hours ago
Duration 1:50
Alberta is preparing field hospitals in Calgary and Edmonton ahead of an expected COVID-19 patient surge, but health-care workers are concerned about not having enough staff for additional beds. 1:50
With lab-based testing capacity deeply strained and increasingly restricted, experts say true case counts are likely far higher than reported. Hospitalization data at the regional level is also evolving, with several provinces saying they will report figures that separate the number of people in hospital because of COVID-19 from those in hospital for another medical issue who also test positive for COVID-19.
For more information on what is happening in your community — including details on outbreaks, testing capacity and local restrictions — click through to the regional coverage below.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) has upgraded its initial advice that kids aged five to 11 “may” get two doses of a mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.
It recommends a four- to eight-week interval between doses, but says a longer interval will likely lead to longer-lasting protection.
NACI also recommends immunocompromised kids between those ages be offered a third dose.
WATCH | Stronger vaccine advice for kids:
NACI strengthens COVID vaccine advice for kids 5-11
3 hours ago
Duration 4:13
NACI is now strongly recommending children aged five to 11 be vaccinated against COVID-19, with an interval of at least eight weeks between the two doses. Dr. Noah Ivers, a family physician from Women’s College Hospital says, ‘The most important decision is to go ahead and get your children vaccinated. The secondary consideration is the intervals.’ 4:13
In Central Canada Tuesday, 4,008 people were in hospital in Ontario with COVID-19, including 626 in intensive care. The province reported 64 deaths, which it says reflects data from the past 20 days. There were also 3,424 newly confirmed cases.
In Atlantic Canada, most students in Newfoundland and Labrador headed back to classrooms Tuesday, making it the second Atlantic province to return to in-person education this year.
The return to class plan posted by the government includes screening guidelines, mask rules and cohorts aimed at reducing the number of close interactions. Students were also asked to take two rapid tests, including one Tuesday morning, prior to their return.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald has said that at this time in Newfoundland and Labrador, ‘the benefits of being in school for children outweigh the risks of COVID-19.’ (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador)
There were 20 people in hospital with COVID-19 Tuesday. Five remain in the ICU. The province also reported 296 new lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Students in Nova Scotia were the first to return to school in the winter term in Atlantic Canada, heading back to classrooms on Jan. 17.
In Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, students are set to stay remote until Jan. 31 at the earliest.
New Brunswick reported another seven people were in hospital Tuesday for a total of 138 patients being treated for COVID-19. Eleven were in the ICU. The province also confirmed another 350 cases, as well as three deaths.
As of Tuesday, Prince Edward Island had 10 people in hospital with COVID-19, including two in ICU. There have been 275 newly confirmed cases and one more death from the virus.
Nova Scotia on Tuesday said there were still 92 people in hospital with COVID-19, with one more patient in the ICU, bringing the total there to 15. The province also reported an additional 492 lab-confirmed cases and five additional deaths.
WATCH | Scientists are watching a new sub-variant of Omicron:
Sub-variant of Omicron not yet a concern, says epidemiologist
24 hours ago
Duration 3:41
A new sub-variant of Omicron has not yet led to enough of an increase in COVID-19 cases to be troubling, but Dr. Prabhat Jha, an epidemiologist at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital, explains that how a variant behaves cannot be predicted. 3:41
In the Prairie provinces, Saskatchewan hospitals reported an additional 29 people in hospital with COVID-19, for a total of 291, including 33 in the ICU. There have been 1,048 new cases confirmed along with two new deaths. The province currently has a 7-day positivity rate of 33.7 per cent, the second highest in the country after Yukon, which has a daily positivity rate of 38 per cent. .
Manitoba on Tuesdayreported an additional 13 patients in hospital for COVID-19. for a total of 729. There were no new patients in the ICU, Tuesday, where 49 patients are still being treated. There have been 637 new cases of the virus confirmed along with six additional deaths.
Alberta reported 1,377 people in the hospital with COVID-19 on Tuesday,, an increase of 73 since yesterday. There were 111 people in intensive care. There have been 2,722 newly confirmed cases and 13 additional deaths.
Across the North, Nunavut on Tuesday reported 52 additional cases of COVID-19. There were no patients being treated in hospital for COVID-19. The Baffin Island community of Iglookik was under a strict lockdown as COVID-19 spread rapidly among households. All offices and schools were closed and travel is restricted. Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Michael Patterson said there were 17 active COVID-19 cases listed in the community Tuesday, but noted the numbers were much higher because of a lag in testing.
Health officials in Yukon reported 22 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, with one in hospital with the virus.
The Northwest Territories reported 282 new cases on Monday, as well as one additional death. There were no patients with COVID-19 in hospital.
British Columbia health officials on Monday reported 4,997 new cases of COVID-19 covering the three-day period since Friday. There were 24 additional deaths over the same period. There were 987 COVID-positive individuals in hospital, including 129 in the ICU.
-From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 5:45 p.m. ET
What’s happening around the world
Syringes and vials of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are seen on a work surface. The companies say they will begin clinical trials on a vaccine specifically to target the Omicron variant. (Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press)
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 357.2 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s case-tracking tool. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.6 million.
In the Americas, Pfizer and BioNTech said on Tuesday they started a clinical trial to test a new version of their vaccine specifically designed to target the COVID-19 Omicron variant, which has eluded some of the protection provided by the original two-dose vaccine regimen.
Chile, which already boasts one of the world’s highest COVID-19 vaccination rates, has agreed to purchase two million vaccine doses from Moderna, Chilean interim health minister Maria Teresa Valenzuela said.
In Europe, Russian health authorities have shortened the required isolation period for those who come in contact with COVID-19 patients from 14 days to seven, a move that comes as an unprecedented surge of coronavirus infections, driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant, rips through the vast country.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced the shift Tuesday. It only changes the rules for those who had close contact with someone who has COVID-19, not for those with a confirmed infection. Those who test positive were still required to isolate for 14 days, with a mandatory test on day 10 or 11.
A woman wearing a face mask walks in Moscow on Monday as Russia reported a substantial increase in COVID-19 cases. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images)
In the Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defended herself for not wearing a mask at news conferences, saying it was so people could see how “solemn” she was when talking about COVID-19.
South Korea’s daily count of new coronavirus cases topped 8,000 for the first time, as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly despite the recent extension of strict physical-distancing rules to slow infection.
Japan is set to more than double the number of regions under enhanced coronavirus curbs on Tuesday, even as it sought to modify strategies to contend with the infectious Omicron variant that has fuelled record numbers of cases.
In the Middle East, an Israeli government advisory panel has recommended offering a fourth vaccine dose to all adults, on condition that at least five months have passed since they received the third or recovered from the illness.
On Monday, Israel’s health minister said he did not think Israel would offer a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose to most people after the government made it available to those older than 60 and other high-risk groups.
In Africa, the Health Ministry in South Africa reported 1,332 cases of COVID-19 on Monday, and 88 additional deaths.
-From Reuters, The Associated Press and CBC News, last updated at 3:40 p.m. ET
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
CALGARY – Sam Edney and Jesse Lumsden sat on a bench on Parliament Hill during an athlete celebration after the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
Having just represented Canada in their sliding sports — Lumsden in bobsled and Edney in luge — the two men pondered their futures together.
“There was actually one moment about, are we going to keep going? Talking about, what are each of us going to do? What’s the next four years look like?” Edney recalled a decade later.
“I do remember talking about that now. That was a big moment,” Lumsden said.
As the two men were sounding boards for each other as athletes, they are again as high-performance directors of their respective sliding sports.
Edney, an Olympic relay silver medallist in 2018 and the first Canadian man to win a World Cup gold medal, became Luge Canada’s HPD upon his retirement the following year.
Lumsden, a world and World Cup bobsled champion who raced his third Olympic Games in 2018, leaned on his sliding compatriot when he returned from five years of working in the financial sector to become HPD at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in July.
“The first person I called when BCS reached out to me about the role that I’m in now is Sam,” Lumsden said recently at Calgary’s WinSport, where they spent much of their competitive careers and now have offices.
“It’s been four months. I was squatting in the luge offices for the first two months beside him.
“We had all these ideas about we’re going to have weekly coffees and workouts Tuesday and Thursday and in the four months now, we’ve had two coffees and zero workouts.”
Canada has won at least one sliding-sport Olympic medal in each of the last five Winter Games, but Edney and Lumsden face a challenge as team leaders that they didn’t as athletes.
WinSport’s sliding track, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and where Edney and Lumsden did hundreds of runs as athletes, has been closed since 2019 needing a $25-million renovation.
There is no sign that will happen. WinSport took the $10 million the provincial government offered for the sliding track and put the money toward a renovation of the Frank King Lodge used by recreational skiers and snowboarders.
Canada’s only other sliding track in the resort town of Whistler, B.C., has a fraction of Calgary’s population from which to recruit and develop athletes.
“The comparison is if you took half the ice rinks away in the country, hockey and figure skating would be disarray,” Edney said.
“It just changes the dynamic of the sports completely, in terms of we’re now scrambling to find ways to bring people to a location that’s not as easy to get to, or to live out of, or to train out of full time.
“We’re realizing how good we had it when Calgary’s (track) was here. It’s not going to be the end of us, but it’s definitely made it more difficult.”
Lumsden, a former CFL running back as well as an Olympian, returned to a national sport organization still recovering from internal upheaval that included the athlete-led ouster of the former president and CEO after the 2022 Winter Olympics, and Olympic champion pilot Kaillie Humphries suing the organization for her release to compete for the U.S. in 2019.
“NSOs like Luge Canada and Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, they’re startups,” Lumsden said. “You have to think like a startup, operate like a startup, job stack, do more with less, especially in the current environment.
“I felt it was the right time for me to take my sporting experience and the skill set that I learned at Neo Financial and working with some of the most talented people in Canada and try to inject that into an NSO that is in a state of distress right now, and try to work with the great staff we have and the athletes we have to start to turn this thing around.”
Edney, 40, and Lumsden, 42, take comfort in each other holding the same roles in their sports.
“It goes both ways. I couldn’t have been more excited about who they hired,” Edney said. “When Jesse was coming in, I knew that we were going to be able to collaborate and work together and get things happening for our sports.”
Added Lumsden: “We’ve been friends for a long time, so I knew how he was going to do in his role and before taking the role, having the conversation with him, I felt a lot of comfort.
“I asked ‘are you going to be around for a long time?’ He said ‘yeah, I’m not going anywhere.’ I said ‘OK, good.'”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.
The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.
The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.
