The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times Eastern):
6:30 p.m.
Health officials in B.C. are reporting 622 new cases of COVID-19, pushing the total over 90,000 since the pandemic began, while eight more people have died due to the illness.
A joint statement from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix says B.C. has confirmed 136 new variant cases for a total of 1,132, of which 143 remain active.
The latest numbers come after the province announced that more than 300,000 front-line workers, including grocery staff, police, firefighters, teachers and others, will be eligible to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the coming weeks.
Henry and Dix add that under the current trajectory for B.C.’s age-based immunization plan, everyone who is eligible for vaccination will have access to a shot before July 1.
More than 21,000 doses of three approved COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C. in the last day for a total of 465,584.
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3:40 p.m.
Saskatchewan has expanded its age limit for who can get vaccinated against COVID-19 at its drive-thru clinic in Regina.
The Ministry of Health says those who are 68 and 69 can now get a shot of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a national committee recommended it can be used on people 65 and older.
People aged 60 to 64 are currently eligible for a shot at the drive-thru clinic.
Establishing the clinic was part of the province’s strategy to deal with a rise in variant cases in Regina.
Health officials say there are 433 presumed cases from more infectious COVID-19 strains provincewide.
It reports 368 of these cases coming from in and around the capital.
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1:40 p.m.
Manitoba is reporting 91 new COVID-19 cases and one death.
However, two cases from unspecified dates have been removed due to data correction for a net increase of 89.
Health officials have also confirmed 12 cases that involve variants of concern first detected overseas.
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1:35 p.m.
Saskatchewan has announced people will get paid time off from work to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
The province says it has amended its occupational health and safety regulations to allow an employee to get a special leave from their job to get inoculated.
The change takes effect immediately, and means an employee is entitled to take three consecutive hours off to receive a shot without losing any pay or benefits.
Starting at noon, the province opened its vaccination bookings to people aged 67 and older, down from the cutoff age of 70.
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1 p.m.
Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting one new case of COVID-19.
Officials say the case involves a man between 20 and 39 years old and his infection is related to international travel.
Public health says there are now 34 active cases in the province.
Many children in the Avalon region, where an outbreak swept through the capital last month, went back to school today after lockdown measures eased up last weekend.
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12:45 p.m.
The European Medicines Agency says the benefits of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine still outweigh any risks, even though it hasn’t been able to fully rule out a link between the vaccine and a small number of patients who developed two specific types of rare blood clots after getting it.
EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke says the risk committee of the EMA has reached a clear and scientific conclusion that this is a safe and effective vaccine.
She says the shot is not associated with an increase in the “overall risk” of blood clots.
But she says the agency is amending the warning label on the product because there is not yet conclusive evidence of what role the vaccine may have played either in blood clots that developed in the brains of 18 people or tiny clots that developed in veins of seven others.
Cooke says those cases were out of more than 20 million people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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12:30 p.m.
The Manitoba government may allow concert halls and theatres to reopen and ease self-isolation rules for some travellers.
The government is launching public consultations on what future public health orders might look like, as case numbers remain low and more people are vaccinated.
Among the options is allowing big indoor venues, such as concert halls, theatres and casinos, to reopen with capacity limits.
The province may no longer require domestic travellers to self-isolate for 14 days if they do not have symptoms and are travelling for business.
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12:25 p.m.
The Atlantic travel bubble is reopening by April 19 if COVID-19 infections in the region remain low.
The premiers of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador made the announcement today following a joint meeting Wednesday evening.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s participation will depend on continued progress in easing its restrictions following an outbreak last month in the St. John’s region.
The Atlantic travel bubble allows residents of the region to travel between the four provinces without having to isolate for 14 days.
The bubble opened last summer but was closed in November following an increase of COVID-19 cases in the region.
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11:25 a.m.
Quebec is reporting 702 new COVID-19 infections and seven more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, none of which occurred in the past 24 hours.
Health officials say hospitalizations dropped by 13 to 519, and 101 people were in intensive care, a decline of six.
The province says it administered 26,225 vaccine doses Wednesday, for a total of 832,469.
Officials say that figure represents about 9.8 per cent of the population.
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11:20 a.m.
Nova Scotia is reporting its first COVID-19-related death since last August.
Health officials said today the death involved a woman over the age of 80 in the health region that includes Halifax.
Nova Scotia has reported 66 deaths linked to the virus since the onset of the pandemic.
The province is also reporting three new COVID-19 infections today.
Two involve close contacts of previously reported infections, while the other is travel-related.
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11:10 a.m.
Ontario says there are 1,553 new cases of COVID-19 in the province today along with 15 more deaths linked to the virus.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 404 of those new cases are in Toronto, 294 are in Peel Region and 176 are in York Region.
More than 58,000 vaccine doses were administered in Ontario since the last daily update.
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9:30 a.m.
The military commander handling logistics for Canada’s vaccine distribution program says there will be enough vaccine delivered to give a first dose before Canada Day to every adult who wants one.
Maj. Gen. Dany Fortin says that’s if provinces follow the advice to delay second doses up to four months.
He also cautions that it is dependent on having no production delays again.
Health Canada anticipates a total of 36.5 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India by June 30.
There are approximately 31 million Canadians over 16, and no vaccines are approved for anyone younger than 16.
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9:12 a.m.
Canada’s deputy chief public health officer says almost seven per cent of Canadians have now received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 1.6 per cent have received two doses.
Dr. Howard Njoo says 42 per cent of Canadians over the age of 80, and 12 per cent of those between 70 and 79, are now vaccinated.
He calls it “encouraging news.”
In all, Canada has received 4.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, and about 73 per cent have been administered.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2021.
LANGLEY, B.C. – Police in Langley, B.C., say one person is dead in a crash between a car and a motorcycle on Highway 1 that shut down the route for hours.
Mounties say their initial investigation indicates both vehicles were travelling east when they collided shortly before 4:20 a.m. near 240 Street on the highway.
The motorcycle rider died from their injuries.
Highway 1 was closed for a long stretch through Langley for about 11 hours while police investigated.
RCMP say their integrated collision analysis reconstruction team went to the scene.
The Mounties are asking anyone who witnessed the crash or who may have dash-camera footage from the area to call them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A court has been asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person in a case that may go further than any other in trying to establish the rights of nature in Canada.
“It really is that simple,” said Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Manitoba Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which filed the suit Thursday in Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg.
“The lake has its own rights. The lake is a living being.”
The argument is being used to help force the provincial government to conduct an environmental assessment of how Manitoba Hydro regulates lake levels for power generation. Those licences come up for renewal in August 2026, and the chiefs argue that the process under which those licences were granted was outdated and inadequate.
They quote Manitoba’s Clean Environment Commission, which said in 2015 that the licences were granted on the basis of poor science, poor consultation and poor public accountability.
Meanwhile, the statement of claim says “the (plaintiffs) describe the lake’s current state as being so sick that she is dying.”
It describes a long list of symptoms.
Fish species have disappeared, declined, migrated or become sick and inedible, the lawsuit says. Birds and wildlife including muskrat, beavers, duck, geese, eagles and gulls are vanishing from the lake’s wetlands.
Foods and traditional medicines — weekay, bulrush, cattail, sturgeon and wild rice — are getting harder to find, the document says, and algae blooms and E. coli bacteria levels have increased.
Invasive species including zebra mussels and spiny water fleas are now common, the document says.
“In Anishinaabemowin, the (plaintiffs) refer to the water in Lake Winnipeg as moowaakamiim (the water is full of feces) or wiinaagamin (the water is polluted, dirty and full of garbage),” the lawsuit says.
It blames many of the problems on Manitoba Hydro’s management of the lake waters to prevent it flushing itself clean every year.
“She is unable to go through her natural cleansing cycle and becomes stagnant and struggles to sustain other beings like animals, birds, fish, plants and people,” the document says.
The defendants, Manitoba Hydro and the provincial government, have not filed statements of defence. Both declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Daniels said it makes sense to consider the vast lake — one of the world’s largest — as alive.
“We’re living in an era of reconciliation, there’s huge changes in the mindsets of regular Canadians and science has caught up a lot in understanding. It’s not a huge stretch to understand the lake as a living entity.”
The idea has been around in western science since the 1970s. The Gaia hypothesis, which remains highly disputed, proposed the Earth is a single organism with its own feedback loops that regulate conditions and keep them favourable to life.
The courts already recognize non-human entities such as corporations as persons.
Personhood has also been claimed for two Canadian rivers.
Quebec’s Innu First Nation have claimed that status for the Magpie River, and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta is seeking standing for the Athabasca River in regulatory hearings. The Magpie’s status hasn’t been tested in court and Alberta’s energy regulator has yet to rule on the Athabasca.
Matt Hulse, a lawyer who argued the Athabasca River should be treated as a person, noted the Manitoba lawsuit quotes the use of “everyone” in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The term ‘everyone’ isn’t defined, which could help (the chiefs),” he said.
But the Charter typically focuses on individual rights, Hulse added.
“What they’re asking for is substantive rights to be given to a lake. What does ‘liberty’ mean to a lake?
“Those kinds of cases require a bit of a paradigm shift. I think the Southern Chiefs Organization will face an uphill battle.”
Hulse said the Manitoba case goes further than any he’s aware of in seeking legal rights for a specific environment.
Daniels said he believes the courts and Canadians are ready to recognize humans are not separate from the world in which they live and that the law should recognize that.
“We need to understand our lakes and our environment as something we have to live in cohesion with.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – MPs on the public safety and national security committee voted unanimously to launch an investigation into an alleged Russian ploy to dupe right-wing influencers into sowing division among Americans.
A U.S. indictment filed earlier this month charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a US$10-million scheme that purportedly used social media personalities to distribute content with Russian government messaging.
While not explicitly mentioned in court documents, the details match up with Tenet Media, founded by Canadian Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who is identified as her husband on social media.
The committee will invite Chen and Donovan to testify on the matter, as well as Lauren Southern, who is among the Tenet cast of personalities.
The motion, which was brought forward by Liberal MP Pam Damoff and passed on Thursday, also seeks to invite civil society representatives and disinformation experts on the matter.
Court documents allege the Russians created a fake investor who provided money to the social media company to hire the influencers, paying the founders significant fees, including through a company account in Canada.
The U.S. Justice Department doesn’t allege any wrongdoing by the influencers.
Following the indictment, YouTube removed several channels associated with Chen, including the Tenet Media channel.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
