Ontario’s education minister has announced March break will be postponed for all schools across the province until the week of April 12.
Stephen Lecce says they are postponing the break to reduce travel and limit opportunities for congregation as concern for variants increases.
He added the decision was made in consultation with public health officials.
“I recognize this is one more change in a year that has been challenging for so many students and our education staff,” Lecce said Thursday. “But it is one made on the best advice of public health officials to keep them safe and to keep our schools open in this province.”
The province’s largest teachers’ union has called on the government to keep March break in place, saying students, families and teachers need the time off.
Schools across Ontario, except those in three Greater Toronto Area hot spots, have resumed in-person learning after a stretch of online classes.
Students in Toronto, Peel Region and York Region return to physical classrooms on Feb. 16.
Top doctors in Toronto and Peel have warned that rolling back other restrictions as students resume in-person learning amid the spread of new virus variants could kick off a worse wave of infections.
The provincial and the federal governments have been urging residents to limit their travel.
The federal government recently introduced its own policies aimed at preventing travel over the spring break. Four major airlines have halted their flights from Canada to Mexico and the Caribbean until the end of April.
The provincial government has also introduced mandatory COVID-19 testing for all international arrivals to Ontario.
While public health measures have helped curb the cases of COVID-19 and led to a decrease in hospitalizations, variants of the coronavirus are spreading and are expected to increase by the end of the month.
Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of the province’s COVID-19 science table, says the latest modelling data shows aggressive vaccination coupled with stay-at-home measures will help the province avoid a third wave and a third lockdown.
Provincial health officials indicate that if public health measures are lifted, cases could rise dramatically depending on the spread of the UK COVID-19 variant, which will soon be the dominant strain in new cases.
Currently, variant strains of the virus account for between five- and 10 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in the province.
“The new variants of concern that spread so much more easily are here and they threaten to undo our progress,” said Brown.
According to the latest provincial data, a total of 239 variants of concern have been recorded to date – 236 of those are the UK variant. The province has also seen cases of the South African variant and recently reported its first case of the Brazilian variant of the virus.
The Ford government’s state of emergency expired on February 9 and the province has begun to ease restrictions to allow businesses to reopen as regions gradually transition back to the colour-coded framework. Stay-at-home orders are expected to remain in effect for Toronto, Peel and York regions until February 22.
Absent any restrictions, the modelling data says Ontario could see almost 2,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day by the end of March with a worst case scenario of almost 18,000 cases a day.
“We are, let me be clear, operating with uncertainty. That is the nature of a new disease with new variants but we need to do as much as we can to reduce that uncertainty. The best bet we can offer from the science this: if we’re able to push the impact of COVID-19 down further by sticking to public health measures and aggressive vaccination we can avoid a third wave and hope for a late spring and summer that is much safer and more open,” said Brown.
The data also reveals that focusing vaccinations on long-term care settings is paying off as the number of daily deaths declines. However, the number of deaths from the second wave is expected to surpass the total number of deaths from the first wave in a matter of days.
While hospitalizations have started to decline, ICU occupancy remains flat. However, an increase in new cases spurred on by the new variants could see ICU numbers climb once again, as early as the second week in March with admissions surpassing 600 by the end of the month.
“In a matter of months, the B.1.1.7. variant went from detection to the dominant strain and as it became the dominant strain cases more than tripled in a month,” Brown said. “At the same time their healthcare system strained with nurses forced to care for four to eight times as many patients as usual and there were daily deaths regularly in excess of 1,000 people. …But there is little room for error in our response to this threat.”
A northern California sheriff’s deputy who filed a lawsuit against Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri has dropped the court proceeding.
Deputy Alan Strickland alleged in a lawsuit filed one year ago this month that he suffered injuries “which caused and continue to cause great mental, physical, emotional and psychological pain and suffering” after a shoving match with Ujiri.
The incident occurred June 13, after the Raptors won the deciding Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors at Oakland’s Oracle Arena. Ujiri went onto the court to join his celebrating team, when Strickland stopped him because the Raptors executive didn’t provide the proper on-court credential, leading to a shoving match that was partially captured on video.
Several bystanders intervened and Ujiri got onto the court without displaying any credentials.
As part of Ujiri’s counter suit, body cam footage of the incident was released that appears to support the executive’s claim that Strickland shoved him twice despite Ujiri flashing what looks to be a card attached to his body.
Prosecutors decided in October 2019 not to press criminal charges against Ujiri.
“Masai has been completely vindicated, as we always knew he would be,” read a statement released by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. “We are disappointed that he and his family have had to endure the past 18 months of worry and uncertainty, but for their sake we are pleased the legal process has come to an end.”
MLSE added Ujiri would be taking some time to “process the ordeal” before making any public statements.
Strickland and his wife were seeking US$75,000 in general damages, as well as other compensation including punitive damages, lost wages, current and future medical expenses and legal costs as part of their lawsuit. But according to MLSE, “the claims made against Masai and MLSE were dismissed entirely, free of any financial settlement.”
Ujiri called Strickland’s lawsuit “malicious,” and Warriors president Rick Welts apologized to the Raptors executive after video of the incident was widely circulated.
Alameda County Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Kelly said Strickland has since returned to work and has been assigned to administrative duties.
Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report
The calls for the province to reinstate paid sick leave are growing louder as a group of business owners joined together to demand the Ford government reinstate them.
The business owners want to see the paid sick leave brought in immediately as they continue to struggle amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are also expected to urge the government to pass Bill 239, the “Stay Home if You Are Sick Act.”
The NDP private members bill that has passed first reading would guarantee 10 personal emergency leave days a year for every worker, seven of which are paid days.
It would also allow for 14 more days of paid leave during any infectious disease emergency and provide financial support for small businesses.
The business owners say legislating paid sick leave will help level the playing field for small and mid-sized businesses struggling to compete with bigger corporations.
Last week, Toronto City Council voted in favour of calling on the province to immediately implement 10 days of paid sick leave for workers during the pandemic.
Councillor and Board of Health Chair Joe Cressy says giving those workers paid sick days is desperately needed.
“Those heroes stocking our shelves, delivering our goods, processing our food, those heroes who are keeping our seniors safe, they’re the ones at risk. They’re the ones who are tragically continuing to get sick and in turn transmitting the virus,” said Cressy.
But the premier has said there is no need for it, because the federal government already has the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit. However, critics say the program is flawed and does not provide the same benefit.
A virtual celebration was held Wednesday for Hazel McCallion — Mississauga’s longest-serving mayor — ahead of her 100th birthday on Valentine’s Day.
The video conference celebration was hosted by current mayor Bonnie Crombie and Mississauga city councillors. It also included greetings from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier Doug Ford, and Toronto mayor John Tory.
“The City of Mississauga owes a great deal of gratitude for the decades of public service that Hazel has proudly and tirelessly provided the residents of this great city,” said mayor Crombie. “She is a source of inspiration for all of us and is an exemplary role model to women in politics, myself included.”
On November 25, 2020, council approved the renaming of the city’s Central Library to “Hazel McCallion Central Library.” It will close on March 20 to undergo a renovation to modernize the space.
The city along with the Mississauga Library and the Museums of Mississauga posted a virtual exhibit online Wednesday and a special video titled “Hazel A Celebration: 100 Years In The Making,” will be released online on February 14 at 7:30 p.m.
“Hurricane” Hazel served Mississauga as mayor from 1978 to 2014.
Mississauga’s Civic Centre clock tower will be lit red and pink on Sunday in recognition of ‘Hazel McCallion day’ which was officially declared in 2016.
Almost two in three Canadians surveyed recently said they trust COVID-19 vaccines to be both safe and effective.
Proof Strategies conducts a survey every year to assess how much faith Canadians have in major institutions and authorities.
Bruce MacLellan, Proof’s CEO, says trust in vaccines is not quite strong enough, based on health experts who suggest at least three-quarters of Canadians need to be vaccinated for good herd immunity against COVID-19 to take effect.
“It is concerning,” said MacLellan.
The survey was conducted online with about 1,500 respondents between Jan. 8 and Jan. 20.
The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error as they are not random and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.
Canada has approved two vaccines so far, one from Pfizer-BioNTech and a second from Moderna. Three others are under review; the federal government has bought two more, but neither of those is expected to be considered for approval until the fall.
More than 220,000 Canadians are now fully vaccinated with the two doses the current vaccines require, and almost 930,000 people have received single doses so far.
When the survey was taken, Canada was ramping up vaccinations, with more than 40,000 doses given out most days during that period. In the days since deliveries slowed to a crawl, and faith in the rollout plummeted.
At that time however, 64 per cent of people surveyed said they trusted the vaccines, a number that was relatively constant across the country. Younger people and low-income Canadians expressed less trust in the vaccines.
Eighty-six per cent of those over the age of 75 said they trusted the vaccines, compared with less than 60 per cent for millennials (between 25 and 44 years old) and Generation Z (between 18 and 24 years old.)
Almost seven in 10 people with incomes above $100,000 said they trusted the vaccines, compared to only half of those with low incomes.
The survey also reported that almost two-thirds of respondents trusted the federal and provincial public health doctors they see delivering updates on COVID-19 multiple times a week.
Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam said Feb. 5 that Health Canada currently has data that suggests about 10 per cent of the population is not going to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and there is little that could change their minds. She said another 20 per cent or so don’t currently want to be vaccinated but could be persuaded.
Tam said some of the questions people have are relatively easy to answer, including some fear about how quickly the vaccines were developed, or questions about the data on how effective they are.
She noted there have been no serious adverse events after the vaccinations in Canada so far, and the more people who do get the shots safely, the more others may be convinced to follow suit.
“Look at our seniors,” she said. “They’re getting vaccinated. The vaccine has so far been safe, with no safety signals, so I think that’s actually a really good way of boosting vaccine confidence, is seeing other people get vaccinated.”
Tam said people who turn to mainstream media for their information are more likely to trust the vaccines than those who rely more heavily on social media.
The Proof survey also found a year into the pandemic, Canadians’ trust in doctors and scientists appears to have grown. In January 2020, the survey found about 76 per cent of respondents said they trusted doctors and 70 per cent had trust in scientists. In January 201 that had grown to 81 per cent for doctors and 77 per cent for scientists.
MacLellan said it is noteworthy that a year ago, friends and family were the most trusted sources of information for those surveyed, but this year scientists and doctors have both exceeded them.
Politicians did not fare as well. A year ago 40 per cent of those surveyed said they trusted government, compared to 32 per cent this year. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has seen a steady decline in trust over the five years he has been in office, with 46 per cent indicating trust in him in 2016, compared with 32 per cent this year.
Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial opened Tuesday with graphic video showing the former president whipping up a rally crowd to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” against his reelection defeat, followed by images of the deadly attack on Congress that came soon after.
In an early test of the former president’s defence, Trump’s team lost a crucial bid to halt the trial on constitutional grounds. Senators confirmed, 56-44, their jurisdiction over the trial, the first of a president no longer in office. While six Republican senators joined the Democrats in proceeding, the tally showed how far prosecutors have to go to win conviction, which requires a two-thirds threshold of 67 senators.
Tuesday’s vote was on whether a former president could be tried after leaving office.
House Democrats prosecuting the case told senators they were presenting “cold, hard facts” against Trump, who is charged with inciting the mob siege of the Capitol to overturn the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Senators sitting as jurors, many who themselves fled for safety that day, watched the jarring video of Trump supporters battling past police to storm the halls, Trump flags waving.
“That’s a high crime and misdemeanour,” declared Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., in opening remarks. “If that’s not an impeachable offence, then there’s no such thing.”
Trump is the first president to face impeachment charges after leaving office and the first to be twice impeached. The Capitol siege stunned the world as hundreds of rioters ransacked the building to try to stop the certification of Biden’s victory, a domestic attack on the nation’s seat of government unlike any in its history. Five people died.
Acquittal is likely, but the trial will test the nation’s attitude toward Trump’s brand of presidential power, the Democrats’ resolve in pursuing him, and the loyalty of Trump’s Republican allies defending him.
Trump’s lawyers are insisting that he is not guilty of the sole charge of “incitement of insurrection,” his fiery words just a figure of speech as he encouraged a rally crowd to “fight like hell” for his presidency. But prosecutors say he “has no good defence” and they promise new evidence.
Security remained extremely tight at the Capitol on Tuesday, a changed place after the attack, fenced off with razor wire with armed National Guard troops on patrol. The nine House managers walked across the shuttered building to prosecute the case before the Senate.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would not be watching the trial of his predecessor.
“Joe Biden is the president, he’s not a pundit, he’s not going to opine on back and forth arguments,” she said.
With senators gathered as the court of impeachment, sworn to deliver “impartial justice,” the trial started with debate and a vote over whether it’s constitutionally permissible to prosecute Trump after he is no longer in the White House.
Trump’s defence team has focused on that question, which could resonate with Republicans eager to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behaviour.
Lead lawyer Bruce Castor said that no member of the former president’s defence team would do anything but condemn the violence of the “repugnant” attack, and “in the strongest possible way denounce the rioters.”
Yet Trump’s attorney appealed to the senators as “patriots first,” and encouraged them to be “cool headed” as they assess the arguments.
At one pivotal point, Raskin told the personal story of bringing his family to the Capitol the day of the riot, to witness the certification of the Electoral College vote, only to have his daughter and son-in-law hiding in an office, fearing for their lives.
“Senators, this cannot be our future,” Raskin said through tears. “This cannot be the future of America.”
Trump attorney David Schoen turned the trial toward starkly partisan tones, the defence showing its own video of Democrats calling for the former president’s impeachment.
Schoen said Democrats are fueled by a “base hatred” of the former president and “seeking to eliminate Donald Trump from the American political scene.”
It appears unlikely that the House prosecutors will call witnesses, in part because the senators were witnesses themselves. At his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump has declined a request to testify.
Presidential impeachment trials have been conducted only three times before, leading to acquittals for Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and then Trump last year.
Timothy Naftali, a clinical associate professor at New York University and an expert on impeachment, said in an interview, “This trial is one way of having that difficult national conversation about the difference between dissent and insurrection.”
The first test Tuesday was on the constitutionality of the trial, signalling attitudes in the Senate. Six Republicans joined with Democrats pursue the trial, just one more than on a similar vote last week. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana added to the ranks of Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
The House prosecutors argued there is no “January exception” for a president on his way out the door. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., referred to the corruption case of William Belknap, a war secretary in the Grant administration, who was impeached, tried and ultimately acquitted by the Senate after leaving office.
Trump’s case is hardly a run of the mill corruption charge, he said, but incitement of insurrection. If Congress stands by, “it would invite future presidents to use their power without any fear of accountability.”
In filings, lawyers for the former president lobbed a wide-ranging attack against the House case, suggesting Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment rights and dismissing the trial as “political theatre” on the same Senate floor invaded by the mob.
Because of the COVID-19 crisis, senators were allowed to spread out, including in the “marble room” just off the Senate floor, where proceedings are shown on TV, or even in the public galleries above the chamber. Most were at their desks on the opening day, however.
Presiding was not the chief justice of the United States, as in previous presidential impeachment trials, but the chamber’s senior-most member of the majority party, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
Under an agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the substantive opening arguments will begin at noon Wednesday, with up to 16 hours per side for presentations. The trial is expected to continue into the weekend.
Trump’s second impeachment trial is expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated affair of a year ago. In that case, Trump was charged with having privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, then a Democratic rival for the presidency.
This time, Trump’s “stop the steal” rally rhetoric and the storming of the Capitol played out for the world to see.
The Democratic-led House impeached the president swiftly, one week after the attack. Five people died, including a woman shot by police inside the building and a police officer who died the next day of his injuries.
With Ontario’s COVID-19 state of emergency expiring Tuesday, the province will transition back to the colour-coded reopening plan that eases restrictions based on COVID-19 case counts in respective regions starting Wednesday.
That system has now been modified to allow some degree of in-person shopping at non-essential stores at all levels, including the grey-lockdown level.
The first three regions to enter the green-prevent level on Wednesday will be Hastings Prince Edward, Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington, and Renfrew County and District.
All other regions remain under the stay-at-home order until Feb. 16 and COVID-19 hotspots Toronto, Peel and York regions will be the last to re-enter the framework about a week later, on Feb. 22.
Here is a look at the changes in the framework for stores, organized events, restaurants and bars, personal care services and gyms and other recreational facilities (click image to expand):
The RCMP say six people have been charged with human trafficking over allegations they brought workers into Canada from Mexico to work through their companies.
Police say the foreign nationals entered Canada as visitors through airports in Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton, Ont., and then worked through employment agencies operated by the accused.
A joint investigation by Mounties and the Canada Border Services Agency say these workers were being exploited.
Police say during searches in July and September of 2019 police found about 80 foreign nationals living in places in Hamilton and Milton, Ont., infested with bed bugs, cockroaches and other vermin.
Investigators say some of those employment agencies included Nora Services, Trillium Management and Bryan Enterprise Agency.
The accused are to appear in Hamilton court on March 8.
Christian Vitela, 33, Mario Roca Morales, 47, Cheang Kim, 60, Miurel Bracamonte, 43, Nora Rivera Franco, 36, and Myriam Vitela, 55, all face human trafficking charges.
“The investigation uncovered a group of individuals exploiting foreign nationals, as well as manipulating our immigration systems and processes for personal gain and profit,” Ann Koenig, officer in charge of the RCMP Hamilton-Niagara Regional Detachment, said Tuesday in a release.
The RCMP and CBSA say the investigation continues and more charges are pending.
Ontario will begin to gradually reopen its economy Wednesday starting with three public health units outside of the GTA.
Health units in Hastings Prince Edward; Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington; and Renfrew County will move into the least-restrictive green category today.
That means the province’s lockdown and stay-at-home orders will lift in the regions and restaurants and non-essential businesses can reopen.
On Feb. 15, all remaining regions except three hot spots in the Greater Toronto Area are set to move to the restrictions framework.
The category they are placed in will depend on their local case rates.
Toronto, Peel Region and York Region are expected to be the last to make that transition on Feb. 22, but the province said any sudden increase in COVID-19 cases could delay that plan.
