Ontario reported 746 additional cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, as well as 807 from Monday, as the number of confirmed, active cases in the province reaches a new record high.
New daily case counts for both Sunday and Monday were reported simultaneously on Tuesday, as the province does not provide updates on statutory holidays.
The average daily number of new cases of the illness continued its steep climb and is now at 761.4. The figure has increased on each of the last eight days, and has been trending steadily upward since a low in mid-August.
This comes after the province imposed stricter measures to three hot spot regions on Friday in a bid to slow the spread of COVID-19.
When asked at the province’s daily briefing if there are plans to expand the restrictions into any adjacent regions, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said no.
“I’m just praying we don’t have to expand this,” Ford said.
“Everyone just keep following the protocols and let’s get these numbers down.”
Ford also took issue with those who refuse to wear masks amid the pandemic, as well as those who don’t believe COVID-19 is a real health risk. You can watch those comments in the video below:
“This is real,” Ontario’s premier says of threat posed by COVID-19. 1:22
Ontario hot zones still seeing highest number of new infections
New cases for Monday and Tuesday are once again concentrated in a handful of public health units, including:
Other regions that saw double-digit increases on both days include:
Hamilton: 34 on Monday; 15 on Tuesday
Halton Region: 20 on Monday; 29 on Tuesday
Middlesex-London: 29 on Monday; 13 on Tuesday
The province’s network of labs processed more than 67,700 tests over the same two days, while the backlog is down to 24,240 — likely the result of fewer tests being collected on weekends. That means Ontario is dealing with a positivity rate of roughly 2.3 per cent in the same period.
The positivity rate is among the key indicators experts say the public should keep an eye on amid the pandemic. You can read more about that here.
The number of people in Ontario hospitals with confirmed cases of COVID-19 has similarly continued its upward trend and is now at 230, up from a low of about 32 in mid-August. At least 60 of those people are being treated in intensive care, while 34 are on ventilators.
Ontario also added 12 COVID-19-linked deaths in the two-day period, and the cumulative toll now sits at 3,017.
The province has seen a total of 60,692 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak began in late January. Of those, slightly more than 85 per cent are considered resolved.
There are currently 5,946 confirmed, active cases of the illness in Ontario, a new record high.
All of the figures used in this story are found in the Ministry of Health’s daily update, which includes data from up until 4 p.m. the previous day. The number of cases for any particular region on a given day may differ from what is reported by the local public health unit, which often avoid lag times in the provincial system.
Government urges support for local restaurants, food services
Ford, speaking inside a closed Etobicoke restaurant, urged the public to support local restaurants by ordering take out — especially in those areas where indoor dining has been stopped.
Ford also encouraged food delivery services, including Uber Eats, to drop commission rates in a bid to provide relief to local restaurants.
“Do the right thing in these difficult times,” Ford said.
Ford again touted the government’s $300 million in relief funding that’s being made available to restaurants and other businesses impacted by the new measures.
Red Cross help as number of LTC home outbreaks rises
Meanwhile, the provincial government is working to decide which of Ontario’s long-term care homes will receive assistance from the Canadian Red Cross as the second wave of the pandemic takes hold.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Long-Term Care says the province will be finalizing details of the deployment over the coming days.
On Sunday, the federal government announced it had approved a request from Ontario to send the Red Cross to seven long-term care facilities in Ottawa.
The federal minister of public safety, Bill Blair, tweeted that the organization would “help assess and stabilize the situation” in the homes.
Provincial data shows 66 long-term care homes currently have outbreaks of COVID-19.
Daily case counts lower than predicted by modelling
Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, said Ontario may be reaching a daily plateau of case counts in the mid-to-low 700s and the numbers are better than what was predicted by modelling.
According to the data, the province could have had daily case counts in the 1,200 to 1,500 range in October.
“We are not seeing that, fortunately, so that trend may be a good sign,” Williams told reporters. “We did bump up to over 900, but we seem to be levelling down at the moment. But we have to watch.”
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.
