Business
Ontario reports just over 100 new COVID-19 cases today, no new deaths – CP24 Toronto's Breaking News
Ontario is reporting just over 100 new COVID-19 cases today as more than a dozen public health units in the province logged no new infections over the past 24 hours.
Officials confirmed 114 new COVID-19 cases today, down from 166 on Sunday and 179 on Saturday.
It is the lowest single-day tally in the province since Sept. 1.
The rolling seven-day average of new infections now stands at 184, down from 223 last week.
With 15,933 tests processed over the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health is reporting a provincewide positivity rate of 0.9 per cent.
Thirteen out of Ontario’s 34 public health units reported no new cases today, including Durham Region.
Elsewhere in the GTA, the regions of Halton and York reported four new cases each and nine new infections were confirmed in Peel Region.
Toronto saw just 10 new cases today, the lowest single-day total in nearly 11 months.
The highest daily case counts were reported in Grey Bruce, which saw 18 new infections, and Waterloo Region, where 15 new cases were logged.
With no new deaths confirmed today, the total number of virus-related fatalities in the province is unchanged at 9,251.
Data released by individual public health units and hospitals indicates that there are 211 people with COVID-19 in Ontario hospitals.
The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care is now 204, up slightly from 202 on Sunday but down from 228 one week ago.
Ontario has confirmed a total of 547,263 COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic and of those, 536,402 are recovered cases. This brings the active caseload in the province to 1,610, down from 1,967 seven days ago.
More than 17 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have now been administered in Ontario and on Sunday, Mayor John Tory confirmed that 60 per cent of adult Toronto residents have now been fully immunized.
The city has shifted its strategy to focus on inoculating people in areas where vaccination rates are notably lower.
While Toronto’s overall vaccination rate is about 78 per cent for first doses and 60 per cent with two shots, those rates drop to 59 per cent and 36 per cent respectively in the northwest corner of the city.
“We’ve got to work now at getting to some places where it’s been a bit harder to achieve the requisite numbers and just go neighborhood by neighborhood, sometimes building by building, sometimes apartment by apartment to reach people and to convince them that they need to be vaccinated,” Tory said.
The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.
Business
Pearson airport gold heist: Police announce 9 arrests – CTV News Toronto
Police say one former and one current employee of Air Canada are among the nine suspects that are facing charges in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year.
At a news conference Wednesday on the one-year anniversary of the heist, police confirmed that five suspects were arrested and four others are facing charges in connection with the largest gold theft in Canadian history.
Police said the suspects face a total of 19 charges and Canada-wide warrants have been issued for the arrest of three of the suspects who have not yet been apprehended. All of the suspects arrested in connection with the heist have been released on bail, police confirmed in a news release issued Wednesday.
Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said the heist was “carefully planned” by a “well-organized group of criminals.”
“This story is a sensational one and one which probably, we jokingly say, belongs in a Netflix series,” he said.
Police said 6,600 gold bars were stolen from Air Canada’s cargo facility on the evening of April 17, 2023 by a suspect who arrived at the warehouse in a five-tonne delivery truck.
The gold, along with about $2.5 million in foreign currency, had been shipped to Toronto from Zurich in the hull of an Air Canada plane and was offloaded to an Air Canada cargo facility shortly after the flight landed at Pearson Airport that afternoon.
Police allege that the suspect came into possession of the stolen gold and bank notes after presenting Air Canada personnel with a fraudulent airway bill.
“The airway bill was for a legitimate shipment of seafood that was picked up the day before,” Det.-Sgt. Mike Mavity, the major case manager for the joint investigation, dubbed Project 24K, told reporters on Wednesday.
“This duplicate airway bill was printed off from a printer within Air Canada cargo.”
Brinks Canada, which was hired to provide security and logistics services for the transportation of the shipment, showed up at the facility a few hours later to pick up the items, police said.
According to investigators, when Air Canada employees tried to locate the container, they realized it was missing and quickly launched an internal investigation. Police were notified about the stolen goods shortly before 3 a.m. the following day, Mavity said.
Air Canada launches probe
An exhaustive investigation followed, police said, with officers reviewing video surveillance footage from 225 businesses and residences in an effort to track the path of the truck, which has since been recovered.
Mavity said that last summer, they identified 25-year-old Durante King-McLean as the driver of the truck but were unable to locate him.
In September 2023, Mavity said King-McLean was stopped in rental vehicle by Pennsylvania State Police near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
“After a brief foot chase, he was detained and troopers located 65 illegal firearms in the vehicle,” Mavity said Wednesday.
According to Mavity, investigators believe that the stolen gold was melted down and sold and the proceeds were used to purchase illegal guns for a firearms trafficking operation.
He said members of Project 24K have been liaising with the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Bureau (ATF) with respect to this aspect of the investigation.
Speaking at the news conference on Wednesday, a representative from the ATF said the law enforcement agency believes the 65 guns seized during the arrest of King-McLean were bound for Canada.
While King-McLean is currently in custody in the United States, he is now wanted on multiple charges in connection with the gold theft.
“We are alleging that some individuals who participated in this gold theft are also involved in aspects of this firearms trafficking,” Mavity added.
Two “debt lists” were found by investigators at separate locations during the investigation, police said.
“A common term in drug trafficking investigations, we believe these lists actually show where the money was distributed when the gold was sold by the suspects,” Mavity said.
He said the names on both lists are “consistent” and police are trying to identify all of those identified.
‘They needed people inside Air Canada’
Police said one current Air Canada employee, identified as 54-year-old Brampton resident Parmpal Sidhu, has been charged with theft over $5,000 and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. A Canada-wide warrant has been issued 31-year-old Simran Preet Panesar, who police said resigned from his position as a manager at Air Canada back in the summer.
“He has been known to us since early on in the investigation. He actually led a tour for Peel Regional Police before we knew his involvement,” Mavity said Wednesday.
He added that police have an idea where Panesar may be but did not elaborate on a possible location.
Mavity said he believes the suspects needed employees on the inside to carry out the heist.
“Because of their position within Air Canada, in my opinion, yeah they needed people inside Air Canada to facilitate this theft,” he said.
Business
Gas prices expected to rise 14 cents on Thursday
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Drivers are bracing for a double-digit spike at the gas pumps on Thursday, as the price is expected to rise 14 cents at midnight.
Roger McKnight, chief petroleum analyst withEn-Pro International Inc., tells CityNews the price at gas pumps is set to rise to 178.9 cents/litre at local stations. The price as of Wednesday is 164.9 cents/litre.
The last time gas prices were this high was back in August 2022.
McKnight says the spike is due to price increases for wholesale gas and only applies to gasoline. He adds the price for diesel will increase by 0.4 cents.
Earlier this month, the price rose to its highest levels in six months following the implementation of the federal carbon price, also referred to as the carbon tax.
That saw the carbon tax on gasoline go up by 3.3 cents per litre, while diesel increased by 4.1 cents per litre.
Business
Rupture on TC Energy's NGTL gas pipeline sparks wildfire in Alberta – The Globe and Mail
A section of TC Energy’s TRP-T NGTL gas pipeline system in Alberta ruptured and caught fire on Tuesday, sparking a wildfire in a remote area, the company said.
“An initial ignition of natural gas at the rupture site is now extinguished. We are working to support Alberta Wildfire in their response to contain a secondary fire,” the company said in a statement on its website.
TC said there were no injuries and it was working closely with first responders in the region.
How fire broke out at the TC gas pipeline near Edson, Alberta
The fire broke out about 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Edson, Alberta, in Yellowhead County. Canadian broadcaster Global News said there was a plume of flames and smoke visible from many kilometres away.
The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) said initial investigations indicated a rupture in a gas pipeline caused the fire, which was under control.
TC Energy said it has isolated and shut down the affected section of the NGTL system, and the remainder of the system is operating normally with no commercial impact.
The CER said it is sending inspectors to the area to monitor and oversee the company’s response and determine the impact of the incident.
NGTL is TC Energy’s natural gas gathering and transportation system that transports gas produced in Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) to markets in Canada and United States.
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