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The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times eastern):
8:45 p.m.
Alberta reported 465 new cases of COVID-19 and three more deaths.
The province identified 197 new variant cases, bringing the province’s total to 1,908.
There were 290 people in hospital, including 53 in intensive care.
Altogether there are 6,231 active cases in Alberta.
The province says so far 497,280 vaccine doses have been administered.
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7:30 p.m.
B.C. is reporting 682 new cases of COVID-19 and 144 of those involve variants of concern.
A joint statement from Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says almost 560,000 doses of the vaccines have been administered and bookings are now open for people 77 years and older.
There’s been one more death for a total of 1,438 fatalities since the pandemic began.
The province says letters are going out now to about 200,000 clinically vulnerable people with cancers and other illnesses telling them they can start booking a vaccine appointment on Monday.
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6 p.m.
British Columbia health officials are prioritizing medically vulnerable people for COVID-19 vaccine.
Health Minister Adrian Dix says in a news release that people with conditions such as cancer, transplant recipients and those with severe respiratory conditions will be able to register for a shot starting next Monday.
Dix says the province has made progress on its age-based program and that allows the expansion to those who are at increased risk from COVID-19.
The government says those people identified as vulnerable will get a letter in the mail telling them how to book an appointment.
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5 p.m.
Regina is heading back to some of the toughest public-health restrictions seen during the pandemic because of a concerning spread of COVID-19 variants.
Effective immediately, a ban on household guests lifted two weeks ago is back on for households in the city.
Starting Sunday, restaurants and bars in Regina will only be allowed to offer takeout or delivery.
Indoor event venues like movie theatres, museums and community halls are not allowed to have customers starting that day.
The province says these rules will be in effect until at least April 5.
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4:10 p.m.
Saskatchewan health officials are reporting 151 new cases of COVID-19.
The province says 91 of them are from the Regina area.
The capital city is home to most of Saskatchewan’s cases of more infectious COVID-19 variants and is driving the province’s spread.
The Ministry of Health says 763 of the 891 variant cases identified are from the Regina area.
It has confirmed 352 cases are from the mutation first detected in the United Kingdom, known as B.1.1.7.
There are 152 people in hospital, with 26 patients receiving intensive care.
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2:55 p.m.
After a prolonged outbreak in one community, there are now no active cases of COVID-19 in Nunavut.
Premier Joe Savikataaq says Nunavut’s case count dropped to zero on Saturday, March 20.
There have been 383 cases in the territory since the start of the pandemic.
Four Nunavut residents have also died from COVID-19, three of them outside the territory.
To date, 12,142 Nunavut residents have received one dose of the Moderna vaccine, while 6,577 have had two jabs.
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2:10 p.m.
New Brunswick is reporting seven new cases of COVID-19 today.
Health officials say three cases are in the Moncton region and four cases are in the Edmundston area.
Officials say the case that was identified at Moncton High School on Sunday is presumed to involve the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant.
New Brunswick has 56 active reported cases and one patient in hospital with the disease.
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1:30 p.m.
The Manitoba government is increasing the number of people allowed to gather outdoors to 25 from 10.
It’s one of a small number of COVID-19 restrictions being eased starting Friday.
The limit on people allowed to attend weddings and funerals will also rise to 25 people from 10.
The 50 per cent capacity rule for retail outlets will change to a maximum of 500 people from 250.
Manitoba is reporting one COVID-19 death and 98 new cases.
However, five cases have been removed due to data correction, for a net increase of 93.
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1:30 p.m.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is asking residents in two regions to reduce their contacts after a recent rise in cases.
Legault says residents of Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean and Outaouais need to be careful if they want their regions to remain orange zones.
The premier says the province is stable but the next few weeks will be crucial in the fight against a third wave of COVID-19 driven by a rise in variants.
He’s urging everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated, adding that he will be getting his own shot Friday in Montreal.
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1 p.m.
Canada’s top doctor says a rise in new strains of COVID-19 in Canada, including the B.1.1.7 variant, is leading to higher average hospitalization rates and more severe outcome trends among younger people across the country.
Dr. Theresa Tam says stronger evidence coming from the United Kingdom, where the B.1.1.7 variant originated, shows this new strain can cause more severe illness in the elderly and in younger age groups.
She says if these numbers increase in the younger population, hospitalizations and visits to intensive care units are likely to increase.
Over the past week, there has been a further 15 per cent increase in COVID-19 daily cases, with an average of over 3,600 new cases daily.
Tam continues to urge Canadians to follow public health guidelines, as the countrywide vaccination program continues to roll out.
Canada has seen a total of 938,000 cases to date, including more than 22,700 deaths.
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12:20 p.m.
The federal government is rolling out extra funding in key regions of Ontario to add more options for residents to protect against the spread of COVID-19.
Ottawa will spend $23.7 million to operate self-isolation sites in Toronto, and the regions of Peel, York and Durham.
More sites are in the works for Thunder Bay, Windsor and other regions.
Health Minister Patty Hajdu says the federal government recognizes many barriers exist in places of overcrowded housing and in areas where housing costs are unaffordable.
That’s why the government will fund an added 1,600 COVID-19 isolation rooms, bringing the total of rooms being paid for by Ottawa to 2,000.
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12 p.m.
Ontario family doctors say they want to be more involved in the province’s COVID-19 vaccination effort.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians says a survey found 60 per cent of vaccine-hesitant respondents were more likely to get immunized if a family doctor endorsed and administered their shot.
Dr. Liz Muggah, president of the group, says it’s in the public interest to have family doctors more involved in giving out the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines.
Some family physicians in six regions are offering Oxford-AstraZeneca shots to patients aged 60 and older as part of a pilot project.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says more vaccine supply will be sent to primary care physicians in the future, though she did not provide specifics.
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11:55 a.m.
The first of two expected shipments of Moderna vaccines this week is being delayed by 24 hours.
Canada is receiving 846,000 doses of the vaccine from Moderna this week, split between two shipments.
The first shipment was to arrive this morning in Canada, but is now set to arrive Wednesday, according to federal officials.
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11:15 a.m.
Nova Scotia is reporting one new case of COVID-19 today.
Health officials say the case involves a person in the eastern health region and is related to travel outside Atlantic Canada.
Officials say more than 66,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, more than 20,000 of which have been booster shots.
The province has 21 active reported infections.
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11:10 a.m.
Quebec is reporting 656 new cases of COVID-19 and four more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including one in the past 24 hours.
Health officials said today hospitalizations rose by six, to 519, and 113 people were in intensive care, a drop of one.
The province says it administered 26,040 does of vaccine Monday, for a total of 993, 102.
Quebec has reported a total of 303,707 COVID-19 infections and 10,618 deaths linked to the virus; it has 6,742 active reported infections.
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10:50 a.m.
Prince Edward Island is reporting two new cases of COVID-19 today.
Chief medical officer of health Dr. Heather Morrison says one case involves a female under the age of 19 who is a close contact of a previously reported infection.
She says the other case involves a male under 19 and may be related to regional travel.
There are now eight active reported cases on the Island.
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10:40 a.m.
Ontario reports 1,546 new cases of COVID-19 and nine more deaths linked to the virus.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says that 465 of those new cases are in Toronto, 329 are in Peel Region, and 161 are in York Region.
More than 50,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine were administered since Monday’s report.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2021.
The Canadian Press
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Even while he battled his illness, Murphy still filed in recent months, writing about Hamas and Christmas and interviewing Pierre Poilievre with his distinctive panache
Published May 09, 2024 • Last updated 4 minutes ago • 5 minute read
Rex Murphy, the loquacious and voluble National Post columnist, radio host and podcaster, has died.
For decades, Murphy was a fixture of the Canadian media and punditry scene, a regular on the public-speaking circuit, and, perhaps less well-known, an aficionado of The Simpsons and, at least until the pandemic, when he was forced to learn how to toss together Kraft Dinner, a dreadful cook.
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Murphy died at age 77 after a battle with cancer.
He died just one day after his column on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s stance on the Hamas atrocities of October 7 appeared on the front page of the print edition of the National Post.
“Rex could not be held back,” said Rob Roberts, editor-in-chief of National Post. “He filed what turned out to be his last column on Monday, so driven was he to voice his support for Israel and Canada’s Jewish community. It mattered immensely to him in his final days.
“His last email to me on Tuesday: ‘Did the piece make the online edition?’” said Roberts.
Even while he battled his illness, Murphy still filed in recent months, writing about Hamas and Christmas and interviewing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre with his distinctive panache.
He was born in Newfoundland in 1947, before that province even was a province, to Harry and Marie Murphy, the second of five children, in Carbonear, although he grew up in the community of Freshwater. He skipped two grades and eventually, in 1968, headed to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, before returning home and, after bailing on a Master of English degree, done in by the endless necessity of footnotes referring to 17th-century poetry, settling into a media career.
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Murphy, in 1981, attempted to run for the federal Conservative party, although he abandoned the idea and instead went to work for provincial Conservative leader Frank Moore. He also ran for provincial political office twice, in 1985 and 1986, under the Liberal Party of Newfoundland banner. He lost both times.
For 21 years, Murphy, with his distinctive Newfoundland accent, hosted Cross Country Checkup on CBC Radio, a nationwide call-in show and appeared on various other CBC programs. He was, as a Ryerson Review of Journalism writer noted in 1996, the “antithesis of … other high-profile on-air personalities, with their CBC smiles and central Canadian dialects.”
Yet, after he left CBC in 2015, the public broadcaster became a favoured recipient of Murphy’s ire, often dispatched from the Comment pages of the Post. But CBC was his home repeatedly over the decades.
He worked on Here and Now, a Newfoundland and Labrador radio show, through the 1970s and in Toronto, on the current affairs program Up Canada! Indeed, it may be a surprise to his younger readers, who saw his regular excoriations of Justin Trudeau, to know that in 2004, during The Greatest Canadian contest CBC hosted, Murphy’s pick was prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
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He joined the National Post in 2010, having had his column at the Globe and Mail cancelled. “Now that Rex Murphy has moved to the National Post, I am left with absolutely no recourse but to cancel my subscription … to The Globe,” wrote one reader to the Post’s letters to the editor after Murphy’s arrival.
“Rex was a Rhodes scholar who could match wits with any intellectual, but he always seemed more comfortable and far happier being around regular Canadians, wherever they were. Whenever he would speak and write, as sharp and witty as he was, you could always tell it came from a place of genuine love for Canada and its people. This nation is poorer without him,” said Kevin Libin, Postmedia’s executive editor, politics, and a longtime editor of Murphy’s.
National Post
“Rex Murphy was one of the most intelligent and fiercely free-thinking journalists this country has ever known. Laureen and I extend our deepest condolences to Rex’s family and loved ones.” — Former prime minister Stephen Harper
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“Canada has lost an icon, a pioneer of independent, eloquent, and fearless thought, and always a captivating orator who never lost his touch. I was honoured to toast to Rex a few months ago on receiving the Game Changers Award for one of this country’s true game changers. Rex, you will be dearly missed.” — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre
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“Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are mourning one of our own tonight, and sending condolences to his family and friends. Rex Murphy’s quick wit and mastery of words were unmatched, and his presence was significant – whether or not everyone always agreed.” — Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey
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“Alberta’s government and her people send our condolences and love to the family, friends, and colleagues of Rex Murphy. Canada will never have a voice like his again- as a proud Newfoundlander he championed what he believed to be right for our country and was always a good and true friend to Alberta. Rest in peace, dearest Rex.” — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
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“Long before I played him on 22 Minutes, he worked with my dad at VOCM. There was no greater wordsmith in Newfoundland. And it’s a place where know for wordplay. You might not always agree with what he had to say but oh, how he could say it.” — Comedian Mark Critch
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“Rex Murphy, born in Newfoundland before it even entered Confederation, was a strong advocate for western Canada. That’s because he was a fiercely proud Canadian who believed every part of Canada should be treated fairly because every part of Canada makes our nation stronger.” — Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe
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“I first met Rex Murphy when we were both interviewed on TV in 1978. He stole the show. We disagreed about many things, but I never lost my affection and admiration for him. He loved Newfoundland and Canada and was fearless.” — Canadian UN Ambassador Bob Rae
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“B’nai Brith Canada is deeply saddened by the death of Rex Murphy, an outspoken supporter of Israel and the Jewish people. Murphy had long been one of the premier journalists in Canada. He was a television commentator, radio host, author, podcaster and columnist. His opinion pieces in the National Post were consistently well read and often bred controversy. Recently, he wrote a brilliant piece in the Post about Israel and antisemitism. Atop the piece was this headline: ’Hatred of Israel is the great moral disorder of our time.”’ — B’nai Brith Canada
The Canadian Press
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.
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Canada’s recruitment of international students has tilted strongly toward filling spots in business programs, while doing little to meet the demand for workers in health care and the skilled trades, according to a CBC News analysis of federal data.
CBC obtained figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) showing the fields of education chosen by foreign students who received study permits from Ottawa to attend college or university in each year since 2018.
Experts say the figures demonstrate that neither federal nor provincial governments — nor Canadian colleges and universities themselves — focused international student recruitment squarely on filling the country’s most pressing labour needs.
“What we’re seeing with this data is that oversight was really lacking,” said Rupa Banerjee, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University who holds the Canada Research Chair in the economic inclusion of immigrants.
The figures, which have not previously been made public, show that business-related programs accounted for 27 per cent of all study permits approved from 2018 to 2023, more than any other field.
Over that same time period, just six per cent of all permits went to foreign students for health sciences, medicine or biological and biomedical sciences programs, while trades and vocational training programs accounted for 1.25 per cent.
Banerjee says the data shows far too many foreign students were lured to Canada for post-secondary programs with little prospect of a good job in an in-demand field.
“Instead of really trying to bring in the best and the brightest to fill the labour market gaps that need to be filled, what we’re doing is bringing in low skill, low wage, expendable and exploitable temporary foreign workers in the form of students,” Banerjee said in an interview.
She says the figures point to a failure by both federal and provincial governments to ensure that international student recruitment was in line with Canada’s need for skilled workers.
“Students are graduating from programs that are not particularly valuable in the labour market, that are not allowing them to get the jobs that will then allow them to transition and become productive Canadian permanent residents,” Banerjee said.
The industries with the highest job vacancy rates and the largest absolute numbers of job vacancies have been generally consistent since 2018, both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic began: construction, health care and accommodation and food services, according to Statistics Canada data.
Yet from 2018 to 2023, the growth in the number of international students coming to Canada for business programs far outpaced the growth in any other post-secondary field.
The number of study permits granted for programs in business management, marketing and related support services increased fivefold between 2018 and 2023. No other field of study saw anywhere near that rapid of an increase.
The number of permits granted to non-business fields increased on average 1.7 times over the same time period, according to the data. The fields of health sciences (2.6 times) and computing/IT (2.4 times) saw the next-largest increases.
Marc Miller, the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, told CBC News that he’ll be raising the issue of better matching Canada’s intake of newcomers to labour market needs when he meets provincial and territorial ministers responsible for immigration on Friday.
“There is a responsibility of provinces in this … to make sure that the programs that [colleges and universities] are offering to international students are the ones that fit the job market,” Miller said Tuesday on Parliament Hill.
Foreign students pay significantly higher tuition fees than Canadians and have poured billions of dollars into the country’s post-secondary institutions. CBC News revealed earlier this year that the biggest drivers of Canada’s sharp increase in international students were public colleges, largely in Ontario.
At the time, officials from several colleges with large foreign student enrolment told CBC News that they ramped up their international recruitment — at the urging of both federal and provincial governments — to fill the country’s need for skilled workers.
“International students are needed to fill employment gaps,” said a statement from Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ont., which topped the national list for international study permits in four of the past five years. “Our growth over the last few years has been tied to our mission: to meet workforce demands in the communities we serve.”
International students made up 70 per cent of the enrolment in Conestoga’s business programs in 2021-22, according to Statistics Canada.
An official from Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ont., which had a nearly fivefold increase in its international student intake between 2018 and 2023, said its recruitment “mirrors and aligns with the federal government’s own efforts to increase annual levels of immigration, including students, in order to meet the demand for skilled workers now and in the future.”
The new data showing how many foreign students came to Canada to study business raise questions about why it happened.
The Trudeau government was warned about the misalignment more than a year before it finally clamped down on international student numbers.
A September 2022 report from RBC questioned whether Canada was doing enough to match its recruitment of international students with demand in the labour force.
The report described a “misalignment between the study programs pursued by international students and labour market needs” and called for numbers to rise in health care, some trades and services and education.
“I don’t think that there was any effort or plan to match the enrolments by field of study to the needs of the labour market,” said Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, in an interview.
IRCC approved more than 776,000 permits for students to enrol in programs classed as “business/commerce” or “business management, marketing and related support services” during the six-year timeframe covered by the data.
By contrast, about 143,000 study permits were issued over the same time period for programs classed as health sciences, 36,000 for trades and vocational programs and 6,300 for medicine.
Economist Armine Yalnizyan, the Atkinson Foundation’s fellow on the future of workers, says there appears to have been “no rhyme or reason” to the pattern of international student recruitment.
“It’s selling a false bill of goods to the [students] that are coming here, because we don’t need that many people that have expertise in business,” Yalnizyan said in an interview.
“We need much closer scrutiny of what skills we are trying to build through our post-secondary institutions,” Yalnizyan said.
As a student from India, Akash Singh paid $34,000 for a two-year business program through St. Clair College, one of Ontario’s 24 public colleges. Singh studied at the college’s Toronto campus, in a program delivered by Ace Acumen Academy as part of a public college-private partnership open only to international students.
Since getting his diploma in 2021, the only jobs that Singh, 22, has managed to land were as a security guard and in a McDonald’s restaurant.
“I thought I would do my course here, and if I get good marks, I’m going to find a good job related to that field,” Singh said in an interview.
“No opportunities are here for business students,” he said. “I have been trying to find jobs in finance, and it’s not possible.”
Singh says recruiters for Canadian colleges based in India strongly encouraged students to apply for business programs, telling them that admission to the program and jobs after graduation would be easy to obtain.
He says to his knowledge, none of the students in his cohort actually found work in business-related fields.
Singh’s challenges in finding relevant work do not reflect what most international business students have experienced, said Ron Seguin, senior vice president international relations at St. Clair College.
“It’s not a story we hear often, quite honestly,” said Seguin in an interview. “Those employable skills that the student learns can be applied to many sectors, and that’s more the case with business than anything else.”
Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, a consulting firm, says the explosive growth of international students in business programs was largely driven by colleges in Ontario seeking ways to make up for provincial underfunding.
“I don’t think it had much to do with labour market needs, I think what it had to do with was colleges’ financial needs,” Usher said in an interview. “It was a fountain of money.”
He says business programs are relatively cheap to run, especially in contrast with clinical and technical courses.
With colleges charging each international student in the neighbourhood of $15,000 per academic year for such a program, a less-expensive-to-run course, such as business, leaves the school more revenue to spend elsewhere.
Usher believes the provinces deserve more of the blame than the federal government for the makeup of the international student body.
That’s because the provinces have responsibility to oversee the type of programs their colleges and universities offer. Although IRCC has the role of approving study permits, the provinces have the power to limit the number of international students allowed to enrol in post-secondary programs.
Before this year’s federal cap, the only province that exercised this power was Quebec, which required each international student to obtain an authorization letter from the provincial ministry of education. In other provinces, all a student needed before applying for a study permit was admission from a college or university program.
“It was possible for provinces to regulate the numbers, it’s just that nine out of 10 of them chose not to,” said Usher.
Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop was not available for an interview, but her spokesperson provided a statement.
“Colleges and universities are autonomous and have the freedom to make their own decisions regarding international enrolment,” said Liz Tuomi, Dunlop’s press secretary in an email to CBC News.
However, Ontario is barring international students from enrolling in one-year business/management programs while the ministry conducts a review, said Tuomi.
She said the priorities for Ontario’s reduced allotment of international student permits will be programs that “help prepare graduates for in-demand jobs,” including skilled trades, health human resources, hospitality, child care and the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).
Marketa Evans, president and CEO of Colleges Ontario, the umbrella group representing the 24 publicly funded colleges in the province says a “significant number of international students” are enrolled in programs that fill key labour market needs, including logistics, computer programming, business analytics, hospitality management, travel and tourism and culinary arts.
“Students choose what programs they take, and Ontario’s public colleges offer dozens of business programs that have clear labour market value,” said Evans in a statement.
Some 18,000 international students are currently enrolled in programs related to advanced manufacturing and technology, while 900 international students are enrolled in nursing, according to figures provided by Colleges Ontario.
The data obtained from IRCC show large numbers of study permits issued in which the specific field of study was labelled other (367,000) or unspecified (339,000).
IRCC officials said this is a result of how students filled in their study permit applications: “other” represents when an applicant indicated their chosen field of study was not among the listed categories, and “unspecified” represents when the applicant left the field blank.
METHODOLOGY: HOW CBC ANALYZED STUDY PERMITS BY FIELD OF STUDY
The data presented in this story was compiled and provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on March 18, 2024 and represents all new and extended study permits approved by Ottawa between calendar years 2018 to 2023. The tables provided had two fields of study categorized as “Other” (~12% of permits) and “Unspecified” (~12% of permits). Between 5-7 per cent of geography fields were identified as “Unknown/Unspecified”.
IRCC explained that “Other” is used “when a chosen field of study is not listed in a selection” and that “Unspecified” is used “when the system did not register a field of study. This is due [to] the field being left blank by applicants”. In addition, “Unknown/Unspecified” is used “when the geographic location is not available or not entered into the system”.
On April 23, IRCC provided a second “revised” data table, in which all values between 0 and 5 were suppressed “for privacy reasons to prevent individuals from being identified when IRCC data is compiled and compared to publicly available statistics”. All others were rounded down by a multiple of 5 for the same reason. As a result of this rounding, some of the summed-up values in cells no longer matched the totals by geographies, years and programs.
In both tables, overall trends show the same significant growth of permits related to business programs and the same overrepresentation of those programs compared to other fields.
In an effort to present the most exhaustive and accurate numbers available – as figures have not previously been made public – CBC News has retained the March 2024 table where the values are not rounded for its analysis. One exception was made: to reflect significant revisions made by IRCC that were not rounding, cells showing a discrepancy of more than 5 between the old and new tables were updated with their revised number. Those updates largely affect study permits in Quebec (2018-2023), Unknown/Unspecified geographies (2018-2023) and a handful of 2023 programs in Ontario, BC and Alberta. All totals were recalculated to reflect the true sum of values in cells.
To protect the privacy of individuals, geographies and/or programs with 0-4 approved permits in a given year were replaced with “<5” in the publicly downloadable and searchable chart, however, the accurate values were used in all analyses and visualizations.
Data cleaning and analysis: Valerie Ouellet, Senior Data Journalist (March-April 2024)
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