The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times Eastern):
2:30 p.m.
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Yukon officials say they do not have the space or staff to accommodate a full-time return to class for students in grades 10 to 12 in Whitehorse.
Education Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee says current health and safety guidelines to fight COVID-19 would require classes in multiple locations other than schools and the territory would have to hire up to 60 more people.
She says students will remain on a modified schedule for the rest of the school year.
Yukon’s chief medical health officer Dr. Brendan Hanley says students will now have to maintain a one-metre distance from each other in classrooms and masks will not will be not just recommended but required in common areas including hallways, cafeterias, libraries and corridors.
Yukon reports no current cases of COVID-19.
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2:05 p.m.
Manitoba health officials are reporting 383 new cases of COVID-19, five additional deaths and a record number of people in hospital with the coronavirus.
The province says 207 COVID-19 patients are in hospital, 30 of them in intensive care.
Manitoba’s recent surge of cases has prompted the government to impose a wide range of restrictions, including the closure of in-store shopping at non-essential retail outlets, that will take effect Thursday.
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1:55 p.m.
Quebec Premier François Legault says he’s maintaining partial lockdown orders affecting most of the province until at least Nov. 23.
Legault said today the slight uptick in daily infections across the province justifies keeping bars, gyms, entertainment venues and restaurant dining areas closed across most of Quebec.
He says while Montreal and Quebec City are stable, the situation in five regions — including Saguenay and Lanaudière — are especially worrying.
The premier is also warning managers of long-term care homes they will be held responsible if they cannot keep COVID-19 outbreaks under control inside their residences.
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1:15 p.m.
Prince Edward Island is reporting one new case of COVID-19.
The new case is a woman in her 20s who is a close contact of a previously identified case.
Health officials say the province now has three active cases and all three people are self-isolating and experiencing mild symptoms.
Prince Edward Island has had 67 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, and all have been travel-related.
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12:45 p.m.
Public health officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are advising rotational workers in the province about an outbreak at the Seymour Pacific Developments work site in Manitoba.
Officials say any workers from the province returning from the site must self-isolate away from family members for a full 14 days upon arrival.
Public health authorities also say the source of a COVID-19 infection announced Sunday is still under investigation.
Newfoundland and Labrador has seven active cases of COVID-19, with 297 confirmed cases since the onset of the pandemic.
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12 p.m.
The Manitoba government is forcing non-essential stores to close and banning social gatherings in an effort to stop a surge of COVID-19 cases.
Starting Thursday, non-essential retail outlets will be limited to curbside pickup and delivery, and churches will not have in-person gatherings.
Social gatherings with anyone other than household members will be forbidden, and restaurants, museums, theatres and recreational activities must close.
Schools will remain open as the province’s chief public health officer says officials are not seeing much transmission within schools.
Premier Brian Pallister says the province is at a critical point in its fight against the virus.
Manitoba leads all provinces in per-capita active cases.
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11:50 a.m.
Procurement Minister Anita Anand says her department is searching for suppliers that can help find a way to physically distribute doses of a future COVID-19 vaccine to provinces and territories.
She says the logistics of distributing a COVID-19 vaccine are complex, especially given the need to transport and store the doses at specific temperatures.
She says Ottawa is moving quickly to ensure that when a vaccine is ready, so is Canada.
Anand also says the federal government has signed a new agreement with Ontario company Becton, Dickinson to receive about 7.6 million rapid antigen tests.
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11:45 a.m.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is begging provincial governments to ask for more help if they need it to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
He says cases are surging across the country, and he insists that no leader should loosen anti-pandemic restrictions because they’re worried about the economic impact of keeping those restrictions.
Trudeau says that’s how we end up with a worse pandemic, more people sick and more businesses harmed.
The federal government is spending $61 million more for anti-COVID-19 efforts on First Nations in Manitoba, which are seeing sharp increases in cases.
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11:30 a.m.
The British Columbia body that has the power to set and enforce workplace health and safety standards is stepping up COVID-19 inspections in two regions where cases of the virus are spiking.
WorkSafeBC says it will conduct enhanced COVID-19 inspections at workplaces in the Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health regions — covering the central and south coasts, Fraser Valley and all of Metro Vancouver.
Priority inspections will happen at workplaces where it is difficult to maintain physical distance, where large numbers of people interact, and where workers share surfaces, tools and equipment.
B.C. recorded five deaths and 998 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend, with close to 4,900 active infections.
But of the nearly 19,000 cases in the province since the start of the pandemic, data shows fewer than 10 per cent have been reported outside the Fraser or Vancouver Coastal health regions.
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11:15 a.m.
Quebec is reporting 1,162 new COVID-19 infections and 38 more deaths linked to the novel coronavirus, nine of which occurred in the past 24 hours.
Health officials said today hospitalizations decreased by six, to 534, but 82 people were in intensive care, a rise of six patients.
The province says 981 more people have recovered from the disease, for a total of 99,721.
Quebec has reported 117,151 COVID-19 cases and 6,493 deaths linked to the virus.
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10:50 a.m.
Ontario is reporting a record high of 1,388 new COVID-19 cases today, and 15 new deaths due to the virus.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 520 cases are in Toronto, 395 in Peel Region, and 100 in York Region.
Elliott says there are also 72 new cases in Halton Region and 50 in Niagara Region.
The province says it has conducted 29,125 tests since the last daily report.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2020.
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.
