Not far from the country’s largest airport near Toronto, a Peel Region hotel has been converted into an isolation centre for anyone exposed to COVID-19, including those confirmed to be infected.
Almost anyone is eligible to stay — free of charge — with one big exception. This quarantine facility isn’t for returning travellers.
“We’re hoping to fill the place,” said Leslie Moreau, who runs three other hotel sites in Brampton and Mississauga, now giving the region a total isolation capacity of 373 rooms.
While the federal government ramps up a requirement for inbound travellers to stay at least three days in a hotel, at their own expense, Peel Region has been scaling up its own local isolation operation, opening three hotel sites in just over a month. The fourth started accepting people on Monday.
The area has consistently had one of the country’s highest rates of COVID-19 infections. Public health authorities point to a concentration of health and long-term care workers, as well as communal work settings like e-retailing warehouses and manufacturing, as contributors to the spread of the virus in the community.
Peel also has a significant number of large multigenerational households, where elderly grandparents may live alongside working parents and school-age grandchildren.
“It’s very hard to safely isolate,” said Moreau of Peel’s multigenerational homes, “so if they’re here [at the hotel] in their own room, then it’s safer and we’re going to be able to control the spread.”
Persuading the skeptical to leave home to isolate
Though the region has requested that the exact location of the hotels not be revealed publicly, the four sites are located in East Brampton, South Brampton, North Mississauga and now, South Mississauga.
The cost to rent and staff the hotels is paid for entirely with emergency money from the federal and provincial governments. As a result, guests requiring isolation pay nothing for their stay.
Rebekah Brant Garcia, with the Salvation Army, lays out a meal package on Feb. 1 ahead of the arrival of guests at a hotel converted into a voluntary COVID-19 isolation facility near Pearson Airport. Peel Region started the initiative to help reduce community spread of the coronavirus, particularly in multigenerational homes that are common in the area. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
With transportation to the facility available in a specially sealed mini-bus, 24-hour on-site nursing staff, temperature checks, security, and meals delivered right to the door, Peel Region is trying to remove any inconvenience, fear or stigma from the isolation process.
“Racialized Canadians are most impacted by COVID-19. It requires a nuanced approach,” notes nurse Ameek Singh.
“To hear a common language … their anxiety goes way down. It starts not only with us as the health care providers here, but the food that’s offered, the facilities that are offered, and the cultural norms that are understood.”
Nurse Ameek Singh, part of a group of health care and hospitality workers, prepares a room for the arrival of a guest at a hotel converted into a voluntary COVID-19 isolation facility in Peel Region on Feb. 1. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Families are, for instance, able to drop off food or other supplies should a guest ask for anything. Menu options offer everything from hamburgers to vegetarian biryani, and mild jerk chicken to fish tandoori.
The catch, of course, is the isolation. By checking in, a guest is agreeing to stay inside their room with rare opportunities to go outside, and they can’t mingle with others or see anyone other than staff. Guests are forbidden. Even for those who remain asymptomatic, cable TV and wifi only stave off boredom to a certain degree.
Others who come to an isolation hotel will also be COVID-positive, and could become very ill during their time there. Those who test positive are kept on a separate floor, and nursing staff conduct regular health checks to ensure wellbeing. Anyone needing hospitalization is offered transfer by ambulance.
The keys to the success of the program are twofold — persuading people of the benefits of isolation outside their homes, and timing.
Health authorities want those potentially exposed to COVID-19 to come here immediately, rather than returning home or to a workplace where the risk of transmission jumps.
Guests at Peel Region’s isolation hotel are offered menu options ranging from hamburgers to vegetarian biryani. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Having restricted who could access an isolation hotel earlier in the pandemic, the criteria has recently been loosened in the hopes more will use the service. Anyone who learns of a potential exposure through public health, or contacts them directly, is now told of the isolation hotel if they report not having a suitable place to quarantine apart from others.
“We’ve done a lot of work in the past week … getting out to assessment centres,” said Moreau, Peel’s manager of Human Services.
“What we really want is people to come here when they’re looking to book a COVID test, not once they’re already positive. So we would like to get them here sooner rather than later.”
Isolation hotels similar to what incoming travellers will soon face
While guests are strongly encouraged to stay for their entire 14-day quarantine period, this is not an obligation at the Peel Region facility and the other three isolation hotels in the area.
That is not the case at another hotel in Mississauga operated by the Public Health Agency of Canada, which may serve as the model for the mandated isolation period that returning or arriving international travellers could soon face.
On Jan. 28, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that mandatory testing for the coronavirus would soon be required for people returning to Canada, on top ofpre-departure test requirements implemented earlier this year. Travellers will then have to wait up to three days at a government-approved hotel for their results, which Trudeau said must be paid by the traveller and could cost upwards of $2,000.
Ottawa isn’t banning non-essential travel; it’s making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible. Now, in addition to existing requirements, returning travellers will need to quarantine in a hotel for three days at their own expense, at a likely cost of at least $2,000. 2:33
“It’s not an experience that I would pay to have,” Hyunseo Cho said.
Cho and her husband, JT Stubbs, returned from South Korea in the early months of the pandemic. At the time, they were sharing a home with a pregnant relative and, unable to afford temporary accommodations, asked border officials if there was an alternative. They were transported to a hotel room where they spent 23 hours a day.
Unlike the regional isolation hotel, the young couple was not permitted to leave the hotel unless seeking urgent medical treatment. They were required to remain in their room for 14 days after arrival, with the exception of one hour of walking time each day in the fenced-off parking lot.
“Boredom was my big issue,” Cho recalled.
The couple is now strongly opposed to any international travel, except for emergency reasons.
Their experience — confined by security guards, seeing only cleaning staff passing through the peep-hole in the hotel door — may be indicative of what Canadians returning from abroad will now experience.
Saving lives in hotel isolation
While federal authorities are sending a message of discouragement through their new hotel quarantine urging Canadians to stop travelling abroad, regional officials are sending a very different message.
Peel Region is encouraging those who’ve been exposed to isolate safely with them. And besides the desire to protect their families and community, the care and monitoring people receive at Peel’s isolation hotel may help attract those who have been exposed or infected.
At the regional facility for local residents, nurse Rasheen Oliver is a veteran of isolation hotels. Just before Christmas in one of the hotels, she was caring for a woman whose health was rapidly deteriorating, but the woman’s anxiety about going to hospital was also high.
Nurse Rasheen Oliver says the work at isolation hotels is stressful, but also rewarding. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Oliver called an ambulance and coaxed the woman to leave the hotel. The patient ended up hospitalized for 21 days.
“If she would have stayed in the hotel room … she probably would have died. So she was very grateful. She sent me flowers and a beautiful card saying she would pray for me for the rest of her life.”
Oliver is now working at the newest of the four hotels, part of a team going door-to-door in full personal protective equipment (PPE) to regularly check on residents and respond to their concerns. As she does so, she remembers that one woman.
“It reminds me of why I’m here. The work in itself sometimes can be a little stressful, but it’s rewarding when you have moments like that.”
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Almost seven years since news broke of an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread across Canada, the saga isn’t over: the Competition Bureau continues to investigate the companies that may have been involved, and two class-action lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.
Here’s a timeline of key events in the bread price-fixing case.
Oct. 31, 2017: The Competition Bureau says it’s investigating allegations of bread price-fixing and that it was granted search warrants in the case. Several grocers confirm they are co-operating in the probe.
Dec. 19, 2017: Loblaw and George Weston say they participated in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread. The companies say they have been co-operating in the Competition Bureau’s investigation since March 2015, when they self-reported to the bureau upon discovering anti-competitive behaviour, and are receiving immunity from prosecution. They announce they are offering $25 gift cards to customers amid the ongoing investigation into alleged bread price-fixing.
Jan. 31, 2018: In court documents, the Competition Bureau says at least $1.50 was added to the price of a loaf of bread between about 2001 and 2016.
Dec. 20, 2019: A class-action lawsuit in a Quebec court against multiple grocers and food companies is certified against a number of companies allegedly involved in bread price-fixing, including Loblaw, George Weston, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart Canada, Canada Bread and Giant Tiger (which have all denied involvement, except for Loblaw and George Weston, which later settled with the plaintiffs).
Dec. 31, 2021: A class-action lawsuit in an Ontario court covering all Canadian residents except those in Quebec who bought packaged bread from a company named in the suit is certified against roughly the same group of companies.
June 21, 2023: Bakery giant Canada Bread Co. is fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act as part of the Competition Bureau’s ongoing investigation.
Oct. 25 2023: Canada Bread files a statement of defence in the Ontario class action denying participating in the alleged conspiracy and saying any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods, which is not a defendant in the case (neither is its current owner Grupo Bimbo). Maple Leaf calls Canada Bread’s accusations “baseless.”
Dec. 20, 2023: Metro files new documents in the Ontario class action accusing Loblaw and its parent company George Weston of conspiring to implicate it in the alleged scheme, denying involvement. Sobeys has made a similar claim. The two companies deny the allegations.
July 25, 2024: Loblaw and George Weston say they agreed to pay a combined $500 million to settle both the Ontario and Quebec class-action lawsuits. Loblaw’s share of the settlement includes a $96-million credit for the gift cards it gave out years earlier.
Sept. 12, 2024: Canada Bread files new documents in Ontario court as part of the class action, claiming Maple Leaf used it as a “shield” to avoid liability in the alleged scheme. Maple Leaf was a majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014, and the company claims it’s liable for any price-fixing activity. Maple Leaf refutes the claims.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:MFI, TSX:MRU, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 250 points in late-morning trading, led by strength in the base metal and technology sectors, while U.S. stock markets also charged higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 254.62 points at 23,847.22.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 432.77 points at 41,935.87. The S&P 500 index was up 96.38 points at 5,714.64, while the Nasdaq composite was up 486.12 points at 18,059.42.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.68 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The November crude oil contract was up 89 cents at US$70.77 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down a penny at US2.27 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$9.40 at US$2,608.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.33 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
MONTREAL – Quebec Premier François Legault says the Bloc Québécois must vote to topple the federal Liberal government next week and trigger an election.
Legault called on Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon to summon the “courage” to ask the Bloc to support the expected Conservative non-confidence motion against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government on Tuesday.
The Bloc and PQ, which both campaign for Quebec independence, are ideologically aligned and have historically worked together.
But moments later Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet said on X that he would not vote to topple Trudeau, saying he serves Quebecers “according to my own judgment.”
Legault made the comments after expressing frustration with what he described as Ottawa’s inaction on curbing the number of temporary immigrants in Quebec, especially asylum seekers.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said he will put forward a motion of non-confidence in the government on Sept. 24, and specifically challenged NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to back it.
The Conservatives don’t have enough votes to pass the motion with just one of the Bloc or the NDP.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
