TORONTO —
Mayor John Tory says it is “absolutely imperative” that the public is given “clearly understood criteria” for how the province will decide to move forward with restarting Ontario’s economy.
As part of the first stage of the Ford government’s plan to reopen Ontario, businesses across Toronto and the province, including retail stores with street entrances, will open their doors to customers on Tuesday for the first time since Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency in March.
Tory said that while he believes the city is ready for this major milestone, the public needs to have a clear understanding of exactly how the province is making decisions to move forward with reopening Ontario.
“I think what will open tomorrow will be manageable… then we can see how the numbers go and that is the thing that is really important is to see what happens when we do have this modest reopening and keep a very close eye on that before we decide to rush into further reopenings,” Tory said.
The mayor said the province’s criteria for reopening more businesses will need to be clearly communicated to the public.
“We need to know what are the top five things that our governments… are using as criteria for saying it is time to do more,” Tory said.
“I think if we don’t have that, then the public will be more anxious than they perhaps need to be.”
Pools could reopen in ‘the next few weeks’
Over the past few months, the mayor has fielded many questions from Torontonians who are eager to know when more restrictions will be lifted and additional facilities will be open to the public, including city pools.
Tory said his best guess for pools is sometime in the next few weeks.
“I have asked the question a couple of times and nobody seems to say pools are particularly dangerous. In other words, there is no one that suggests that in the water the virus transmits itself,” he said.
“My guess is we are going to be looking at some kind of an opening of pools… sometime in the next few weeks as we gradually reopen the community centres and the places where those pools are located.”
Tory promises to bring back fireworks
Tory also vowed to keep another summer tradition going this year despite the pandemic.
He said while the city had to skip the annual Victoria Day fireworks this weekend to keep crowds from gathering, he wants to bring fireworks back to the city at some point this summer.
“I’m still looking for a way to do some fireworks on Canada Day where you might do it in a place that would be very visible to most Torontonians without them having to be in a crowd scene,” he said.
“If we have to fireworks on the August Civic holiday this year… then that is what we will do but we are going to do it safely… Tell the kids it is coming up soon, that there has bit of a change in schedule this year.”
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
