Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne will provide details later today of the government’s plan to help Canadians trapped in the coronavirus-affected region of China due to commercial travel restrictions.
Champagne is holding a news conference in Ottawa at 3:30 p.m. ET and CBCNews.ca is carrying it live.
The minister said the government is working with Chinese authorities and assessing the number of Canadians in need of assistance. He would not say if the government plans to dispatch aircraft to bring those Canadians home.
“Every nation is responding to this crisis in a coordinated fashion,” he said. “As you would appreciate, it is very dynamic. The number of people requesting assistance will drive, obviously, the consular assistance we’re going to be providing.”
During the daily question period today, Champagne said that 250 Canadians in the affected area have now registered with Global Affairs, and 126 have received consular services.
Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne says government is assessing the number of Canadians in China who require assistance, including how many will require help leaving. 0:33
B.C. health officials said Tuesday a man in his 40s who regularly travels to China has tested positive for the virus and is now recovering at home in isolation.
The case is officially considered “presumptive” until Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Lab confirms the results from B.C.
The official number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China rose to 4,515 on Tuesday, with at least 106 deaths. Several governments — including the United States, France, Belgium, the U.K. and Japan — are planning to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, the locked-down city at the centre of the outbreak.
Risk remains low
Health Minister Patty Hajdu and Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam have said more cases are likely but the risk to Canadians remains low.
Hajdu said today that Champagne is working on ways to help Canadians who want to get home, while protecting the health and safety of all Canadians.
On Monday, Global Affairs Canada changed its travel advisory for the region, warning against all travel to the area at the centre of the outbreak. Hajdu said the government changed the advisory largely because the widespread quarantine is making it difficult for anyone to leave the area.
“There is no transportation in or out of 18 cities in China. That number may grow, and so it makes if very difficult for people who are visiting to conduct their everyday business,” she said.
Health committee hearings
Tomorrow, the House of Commons health committee will begin hearings on the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in China.
Conservative health critic Matt Jeneroux said Canadians have many unanswered questions about the virus, and he hopes they can be answered by federal health, transport and foreign affairs officials.
“There are questions about how public safety is being taken care of, how the screening at airports is being taken care of, how hospitals are being taken care of. I think all of those are legitimate questions that are being asked, and having detailed responses back to those questions I think is appropriate,” Jeneroux told CBC.
“Ultimately, we don’t want to light up a partisan fire on this. We want to make sure that Canadians are assured that their government is working diligently to protect all Canadians.”
Mary Grace Baguio hugs a relative after arriving on a flight from Hong Kong at Pearson airport arrivals in Toronto January 26, 2020. (Carlos Osorio/Reuters)
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.
