President Donald Trump’s acting head of the Department of Homeland Security abruptly resigned Monday, leaving the post ahead of schedule as the nation faces a heightened terrorism threat from extremists seeking to reverse the election.
The announcement by acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf was perplexing. It came less than a week after he pledged to remain in office and just 10 days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Wolf cited a legal challenge to his leadership as a reason for his resignation, but that had surfaced months ago.
“For months we have known Chad Wolf has been serving illegally in his position, so the timing of his resignation from the Department today is questionable,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “He has chosen to resign during a time of national crisis and when domestic terrorists may be planning additional attacks on our government.”
Wolf, who had been serving in an acting capacity since November 2019 and was never confirmed by the Senate, said he was compelled to leave by “recent events,” including court rulings that found he could not legally hold the position. He did not specify the other events or cite other factors.
“These events and concerns increasingly serve to divert attention and resources away from the important work of the Department in this critical time of a transition of power,” he said in a written message to DHS employees.
The resignation comes a day before Trump is set to visit the U.S.-Mexico border wall, Trump’s signature political project and one overseen by DHS.
Wolf’s departure followed the abrupt resignation of other Cabinet officials angered by Trump’s role in encouraging the mob to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 over his false claims of election fraud.
Wolf condemned the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, calling it “tragic and sickening.” He also said then he would stay on at DHS until the end of the administration to ensure a smooth transition and to help the department stay focused on the threats facing the nation.
It was unclear what prompted him to change course with the nation braced for the potential for more violence ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration. The FBI has warned of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C
The White House had no immediate comment.
Wolf led DHS as it carried out Trump administration priorities on immigration and law enforcement, prompting criticism that he politicized a department that was created to better protect the nation in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The department was accused during his tenure by a whistleblower of suppressing facts in intelligence reports that Trump might find objectionable, including information about Russian interference in the election and the rising threat posed by white supremacists. Wolf and the department denied the allegations.
The acting secretary defended his tenure in his statement to employees, saying DHS had strengthened border security and successfully launched the cybersecurity agency that helped safeguard the 2020 election.
“I leave knowing that the Department has positioned itself for an orderly and smooth transition to President-elect Biden’s DHS team,” he wrote. “Welcome them, educate them, and learn from them. They are your leaders for the next four years — a time which undoubtedly will be full of challenges and opportunities to show the American public the value of DHS and why it is worth the investment.”
Peter Gaynor, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will serve as acting head of the Department of Homeland Security until the Biden administration takes over.
“Right now, our nation is facing significant challenges and it is our privilege to support the nationwide efforts to fight the pandemic and protect our homeland,” Gaynor said in a message to FEMA employees. He announced that his post would be filled by Bob Fenton, the Region 9 administrator for the agency, on an acting basis.
Biden has nominated Alejandro Mayorkas, a former senior DHS official, to lead an agency that carried out Trump administration priorities on immigration and law enforcement and was criticized for becoming politicized as a result.
Trump appointed Wolf acting secretary in November 2019, following the resignation of Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary who took over following the resignation of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Wolf had been a chief of staff to Nielsen and an undersecretary in the agency as well as an official at the Transportation Security Administration, a component of DHS. He has also worked as a lobbyist.
Trump had said he liked the “flexibility” of having senior officials in an acting status despite criticism that it keeps people from long-term planning that would give an agency more stability.
The president sent Wolf’s nomination to the Senate for confirmation after the Government Accountability Office determined that neither Wolf nor his deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were legally eligible to run DHS because of a violation of the rules of succession in federal agencies.
That finding has put policy changes under their tenure, especially related to immigration, in potential jeopardy because of legal challenges, including one as recently as Friday in which a federal judge blocked sweeping asylum restrictions imposed by the administration.
The FBI is warning of plans for armed protests at all 50 U.S. state capitals and in Washington in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, stoking fears of more bloodshed after last week’s deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.
An internal FBI bulletin warned that, as of Sunday, the nationwide protests may start later this week and extend through Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, according to two law enforcement officials who read details of the memo to The Associated Press. Investigators believe some of the people are members of some extremist groups, the officials said. The bulletin was first reported by ABC.
“Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the U.S. Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,” the bulletin said, according to one official. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The FBI issued at least one other bulletin — they go out to law enforcement nationwide on the topic — before the riots last week. On Dec. 29, it warned of the potential for armed demonstrators targeting legislatures, the second official said.
Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters on Monday that the Guard is also looking at any issues across the country,
“We’re keeping a look across the entire country to make sure that we’re monitoring, and that our Guards in every state are in close co-ordination with their local law enforcement agencies to provide any support requested.”
The riots followed weeks of online calls for violence in Washington in the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
A tweet in which Trump promised that last Wednesday’s event “will be wild” fueled a “month-long frenzy of incitements, strategizing, and embrace of violence against lawmakers,” according to a research group that tracks online extremism activity, In a report issued Saturday, the SITE Intelligence Group also warns that the Capitol attack has emboldened Trump-supporting extremists.
“No matter how all this plays out, its only the beginning,” posted a user on TheDonald message board, according to the report.
Oakville Mayor Rob Burton has resigned as Chair of the Halton Police Board after approving Halton Police Chief Steve Tanner’s controversial trip to Florida.
Tanner released a statement last Friday apologizing for travelling to Florida in late December to address “personal business matters.”
At the time, Tannersaid the trip was taken with the approval of Burton.
On Monday, Burton resigned from the police board in a letter to Halton Regional Chair, Gary Carr.
“I am resigning now as a member of the Halton Police Board, deeply regretful for my response to the chief’s proposed trip, proud of what we have accomplished in my years as chair…” he wrote.
“I regret sincerely that I focused at the time on the ways the chief’s trip qualified as essential travel. I should have recommended against it because it could generate public concern about me not setting a higher example than the rules and guidelines actually called for.”
When news broke that Tanner was in Florida, Burton released a statement of support for the police chief.
“Chief Steve Tanner informed me in advance of his travel to tend to a property matter,” Burton wrote. “I had no objection. Chief Tanner continues to have my full confidence. The chief leads our police service in an exemplary manner and will continue to do so.”
Tanner later apologized, saying flying south “was a poor decision, and one that I deeply regret.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to conduct a small shuffle of his cabinet Tuesday, sparked by the departure of Navdeep Bains, the minister of innovation, science and industry.
Rumours of the impending shuffle began circulating late Monday.
According to sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the moves, Bains has informed Trudeau that he does not intend to run in the next federal election, which could come as early as this spring.
Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne is expected to replace Bains.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau is expected to take over from Champagne at Global Affairs Canada.
Trudeau is expected to elevate Toronto-area MP Omar Alghabra to cabinet to take on the Transport portfolio.
Alghabra has been parliamentary secretary to several ministers, including Trudeau.
Trudeau’s minority Liberal government could be toppled if the opposition parties unite against it _ potentially after the next budget in the spring, the first since the COVID-19 pandemic sent the federal deficit skyrocketing.
Bains’s department will be a key player in the government’s plan to reignite the shattered economy once the pandemic is over.
Trudeau has been clear that critical portfolios need to be overseen by ministers who intend to be around for the long haul and who can sell the government’s agenda during the next election campaign.
He made that argument last August, when Bill Morneau abruptly resigned as finance minister and gave up his seat in the House of Commons. Morneau was replaced by Chrystia Freeland.
President Donald Trump has been kicked off of most mainstream social media platforms following his supporters’ siege on the U.S. Capitol. But it remains to be seen how fast or where – if anywhere – on the internet he will be able to reach his followers.
The far right-friendly Parler had been the leading candidate, at least until Google and Apple removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service by midnight Pacific time on Sunday.
Parler’s CEO said that could knock it offline for a week, though that might prove optimistic. And even if it finds a friendlier web-hosting service, without a smartphone app, it’s hard to imagine Parler gaining mainstream success.
The 2-year-old magnet for the far right claims more than 12 million users, though mobile app analytics firm Sensor Tower puts the number at 10 million worldwide, with 8 million in the U.S. That’s a fraction of the 89 million followers Trump had on Twitter.
Still, Parler might be attractive to Trump since it’s where his sons Eric and Don Jr. are already active. Parler hit headwinds, though, on Friday as Google yanked its smartphone app from its app store for allowing postings that seek “to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.” Apple followed suit on Saturday evening after giving Parler 24 hours to address complaints it was being used to “plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities.” Public safety issues will need to be resolved before it is restored, Apple said.
A message seeking comment from Parler was sent Sunday on whether the company plans to change its policies and enforcement around these issues.
Amazon struck another blow Saturday, informing Parler it would need to look for a new web-hosting service effective midnight Sunday. It reminded Parler in a letter, first reported by Buzzfeed, that it had informed it in the past few weeks of 98 examples of posts “that clearly encourage and incite violence” and said the platform “poses a very real risk to public safety.”
Parler CEO John Matze decried the punishments as “a co-ordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace. We were too successful too fast,” he said in a Saturday night post, saying it was possible Parler would be unavailable for up to a week “as we rebuild from scratch.”
Earlier, Matze complained of being scapegoated. “Standards not applied to Twitter, Facebook or even Apple themselves, apply to Parler.” He said he “won’t cave to politically motivated companies and those authoritarians who hate free speech.”
Losing access to the app stores of Google and Apple – whose operating systems power hundreds of millions of smartphones – severely limits Parler’s reach, though it will continue to be accessible via web browser. Losing Amazon Web Services will mean Parler needs to scramble to find another web host, in addition to the re-engineering.
Trump may also launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol by a Trump-incited mob.
Twitter ended Trump’s nearly 12-year run on Friday. In shuttering his account, it cited a tweet to his 89 million followers that he planned to skip President-elect Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, saying it gave rioters license to converge on Washington once again.
Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.
In a statement Friday, Trump said: “We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.”
Gab is another potential landing spot for Trump. But it, too, has had troubles with internet hosting. Google and Apple both booted it from their app stores in 2017 and it was left internet-homeless for a time the following year due to anti-Semitic posts attributed to the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Microsoft also terminated a web-hosting contract.
Online speech experts expect social media companies led by Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube to more vigorously police hate speech and incitement in the wake of the Capitol rebellion, as Western democracies led by Nazism-haunted Germany already do.
David Kaye, a University of California-Irvine law professor and former U.N. special rapporteur on free speech believes the Parlers of the world will also face pressure from the public and law enforcement as will little-known sites where further pre-inauguration disruption is now apparently being organized. They include MeWe, Wimkin, TheDonald.win and Stormfront, according to a report released Saturday by The Alethea Group, which tracks disinformation.
Kaye rejects arguments by U.S. conservatives including the president’s former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, that the Trump ban savaged the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from restricting free expression. “Silencing people, not to mention the President of the US, is what happens in China not our country,” Haley tweeted.
“It’s not like the platforms’ rules are draconian. People don’t get caught in violations unless they do something clearly against the rules,” said Kaye. And not just individual citizens have free speech rights. “The companies have their freedom of speech, too.”
While initially arguing their need to be neutral on speech, Twitter and Facebook gradually yielded to public pressure drawing the line especially when the so-called Plandemic video emerged early in the coronavirus pandemic urging people not to wear masks, noted civic media professor Ethan Zuckerman of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Zuckerman expects the Trump de-platforming may spur important online shifts. First, there may be an accelerated splintering of the social media world along ideological lines.
“Trump will pull a lot of audience wherever he goes,” he said. That could mean more platforms with smaller, more ideologically isolated audiences.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/01/10/pelosi-house-will-proceed-to-impeachment-of-trump/
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday the House will proceed with legislation to impeach President Donald Trump as she pushes the vice-president and the Cabinet to invoke constitutional authority force him out, warning that Trump is a threat to democracy after the deadly assault on the Capitol.
The House action could start as soon as Monday as pressure increases on Trump to step aside. A Republican senator, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, joined Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in calling for Trump to “resign and go away as soon as possible.”
A stunning end to Trump’s final 10 days in office was underway as lawmakers warned of the damage the president could still do before Joe Biden was inaugurated Jan. 20. Trump, holed up at the White House, was increasingly isolated after a mob rioted in the Capitol in support of his false claims of election fraud.
“We will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat,” Pelosi said in a letter late Sunday to colleagues.
“The horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
On Monday, Pelosi’s leadership team will seek a vote on a resolution calling on Vice-President Mike Pence and Cabinet officials to invoke the 25th Amendment, with a full House vote expected on Tuesday.
After that, Pence and the Cabinet would have 24 hours to act before the House would move toward impeachment.
During an interview on “60 Minutes” aired Sunday, Pelosi invoked the Watergate era when Republicans in the Senate told President Richard Nixon, “It’s over.”
“That’s what has to happen now,” she said.
With impeachment planning intensifying, Toomey said he doubted impeachment could be done before Biden is inaugurated, even though a growing number of lawmakers say that step is necessary to ensure Trump can never hold elected office again.
“I think the president has disqualified himself from ever, certainly, serving in office again,” Toomey said. “I don’t think he is electable in any way.”
Murkowski, long exasperated with the president, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Trump simply “needs to get out.” A third, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., did not go that far, but on Sunday he warned Trump to be “very careful” in his final days in office.
House Democrats were expected to introduce articles of impeachment on Monday. The strategy would be to condemn the president’s actions swiftly but delay an impeachment trial in the Senate for 100 days. That would allow President-elect Joe Biden to focus on other priorities as soon as he is inaugurated Jan. 20.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a top Biden ally, laid out the ideas Sunday as the country came to grips with the siege at the Capitol by Trump loyalists trying to overturn the election results.
“Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” Clyburn said.
Corporate America began to show its reaction to the Capitol riots by tying them to campaign contributions.
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s CEO and President Kim Keck said it will not contribute to those lawmakers – all Republicans – who supported challenges to Biden’s Electoral College win. The group “will suspend contributions to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy,” Kim said.
Citigroup did not single out lawmakers aligned with Trump’s effort to overturn the election, but said it would be pausing all federal political donations for the first three months of the year. Citi’s head of global government affairs, Candi Wolff, said in a Friday memo to employees, “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said an impeachment trial could not begin under the current calendar before Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
While many have criticized Trump, Republicans have said that impeachment would be divisive in a time of unity.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that instead of coming together, Democrats want to “talk about ridiculous things like `Let’s impeach a president”‘ with just days left in office.
Still, some Republicans might be supportive.
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said he would take a look at any articles that the House sent over. Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic, said he would “vote the right way” if the matter were put in front of him.
The Democratic effort to stamp Trump’s presidential record – for the second time – with the indelible mark of impeachment had advanced rapidly since the riot.
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I, a leader of the House effort to draft impeachment articles accusing Trump of inciting insurrection, said Sunday that his group had 200-plus co-sponsors.
The articles, if passed by the House, could then be transmitted to the Senate for a trial, with senators acting as jurors to acquit or convict Trump. If convicted, Trump would be removed from office and succeeded by the vice-president. It would be the first time a U.S. president had been impeached twice.
Potentially complicating Pelosi’s decision about impeachment was what it meant for Biden and the beginning of his presidency. While reiterating that he had long viewed Trump as unfit for office, Biden on Friday sidestepped a question about impeachment, saying what Congress did “is for them to decide.”
A violent and largely white mob of Trump supporters overpowered police, broke through security lines and windows and rampaged through the Capitol on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to scatter as they were finalizing Biden’s victory over Trump in the Electoral College.
Toomey appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Clyburn was on “Fox News Sunday” and CNN. Kinzinger was on ABC’s “This Week,” Blunt was on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and Rubio was on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Transport Canada is warning Canadians planning on visiting Jamaica that they may be in for “significant delays” when returning home because they may not be able to get a COVID-19 test before boarding their flight.
As of Jan. 7, anyone 5 years old and up travelling to Canada, regardless of citizenship, must provide proof of a negative test when boarding a flight to the country. Results must be no more than 72 hours old.
Exceptions were made for 24 countries/territories, including Jamaica, where tests can be done within 96 hours of departure.
However, the agency’s latest warning suggests it may not be possible to take a test in Jamaica for quite some time.
A CityNews viewer called in from Jamaica saying he expected to fly home on Jan. 17, but the first available date for a COVID-19 test in Montego Bay is not until mid-February.
On their website, Transport Canada says in order to deal with a shortage of tests in that country, travellers coming from Jamaica who were not able to take a COVID-19 test prior to boarding may still be allowed to travel if they “consent in advance to take a COVID-19 test at the Toronto Pearson International airport immediately upon their arrival in Canada.”
The temporary measure is only valid for flights coming in to Pearson International Airport and is subject to daily volume limits. Travellers using this option will also “be subject to other measures as deemed suitable by a Public Health Quarantine Officer.” The exemption went into effect Sunday and will last until Jan. 18
Travellers from Haiti and Saint Pierre et Miquelon do not need to present a negative COVID-19 test due to lack of testing facilities, but they will have a choice to either take a test upon landing or quarantine at a federal facility.
The agency continues to caution Canadians against non-essential travel as COVID-19 cases continue to spike across the country.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is warning of “turbulent waters” over the next several months ahead of new COVID-19 modelling data scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
In a brief video tweet on Sunday, Ford says the healthcare system is on the brink of being overwhelmed and he urged Ontarians to stick together as it will be late spring before mass vaccination is available.
“I’m asking one more time we need to band together, we need to stick together. We’re going to see some real turbulent waters over the next couple of months,” Ford said. “The healthcare workers, the hospitals, the public health units are all doing everything they can to make sure we vaccinate as many people as possible. Mass vaccination won’t happen till April, May and June but until then, over the next few months we need to practice the social distancing and washing hands.”
On Friday, Ford offered an ominous hint about what to expect, telling Ontarians “you will fall off your chair” when the new data is released.
“They are actually scary numbers, this is crunch time right now,” he said
When it comes to possible new restrictions, sources tell 680 NEWS that no decisions have been made, but that recommendations on further lockdown measures will be put forth to cabinet by the health table on Monday for approval.
All options are said to be on the table, including a possible curfew which would be the government’s most severe restriction since the first wave of COVID-19 last spring.
While a recent public opinion poll found a majority of Ontarians support continuing and even enhancing current lockdown measures, it was also clear that many draw the line on restrictions which would limit their movement outside of their homes, such as a curfew.
Ontario would be the second province to issue a curfew after Quebec imposed one on Saturday night for the next four weeks.
Ontario surpassed 200,000 total coronavirus cases last week, only six weeks after it topped 100,000 cases back on Nov. 20.
Ontario faced a shortage of personal protective equipment at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in part because it did not replenish its stockpiles over the previous years, an independent commission examining the impact of the health crisis on long-term care has heard.
Ontario’s former deputy minister of health and long-term care, Bob Bell, told the independent commission that the province’s supply of personal protective equipment should have been refilled around 2017 or 2018, under the previous and current provincial regimes.
Bell, who served as deputy minister for four years until mid-2018 and now chairs an advisory panel for the Revera chain of nursing homes, said there was no conscious decision to let the stockpiles dwindle. The issue simply fell through the cracks, he said.
“In the midst of everything else that goes on in government, the decision to replenish stockpiles was not undertaken as an affirmative action kind of thing that should have been done,” he said in his Dec. 21 testimony that was posted online recently.
He also said the move to destroy expired N95 masks was, in hindsight, “not a smart decision” because only the elastic posed a potential problem and the masks still had “ventilatory capacity.”
As a result, he said, there was not enough personal protective equipment in the provincial health system when the COVID-19 pandemic hit early last year, and skyrocketing demand made it difficult to obtain once the crisis began.
What’s more, the personal protective equipment that was available was largely earmarked for hospitals rather than long-term care, he said.
“We also focused the stocks distributed to the hospital sector thinking that, should a pandemic arise … the response will be led by hospitals,” he said.
“That’s what happened in 2003 (with SARS). That’s what would have happened with Ebola, and that’s where we focused our stocks of PPE.”
Dr. Samir K. Sinha, director of geriatrics for the Sinai Health System and the University Health Network, told the commission that other jurisdictions, such as British Columbia, were able to deploy their supply of personal protective equipment more efficiently than Ontario and get it to the long-term care system faster.
Sinha, who is also on the Revera advisory panel, said the B.C. government took control of the province’s entire supply of personal protective equipment and distributed it with a science-based approach, preventing any “unnecessary hoarding.”
“As they had prioritized long-term care and congregated care settings early on, they were able to actually get PPE very quickly to those settings, including to primary care practices, much earlier on than we were able to get in Ontario,” he said.
A spokesperson for the minister of health did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
More than 2,900 long-term care residents and 10 staff members have died as a result of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Of the province’s 626 long-term care homes, 218 reported an active outbreak on Thursday.
The independent commission, led by the Superior Court’s associate chief justice Frank Marrocco, isn’t open to the public, but transcripts of testimony are later posted online.
The Ford government has given the go-ahead for the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs to play home games in their respective arenas when the new NHL season gets underway.
The two teams are set to play in an all-Canadian division when the NHL season starts Jan. 13.
The league and its teams are set to play an abbreviated 56-game season and has realigned its divisions in order to limit travel during the pandemic, especially as the Canadian border remains closed.
Lisa MacLeod, the Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries says the approval was granted after close scrutiny of the rigorous health and safety protocols that have been adopted to keep players, staff, and communities safe from the spread of COVID-19.
“I look forward to continued work with both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators on a public relations campaign to warn Ontarians against the spread of COVID-19 and to rebuild confidence in minor sports post pandemic,” she said in a statement.
However, at around the same time her announcement was made public, Dr. David Williams – the province’s top doctor – seemed unaware of MacLeod’s statement.
“We are assessing that at this time, we have not made a final decision [but] it’s getting very close,” he said during his daily provincial update. “I haven’t signed off on it at this time.”
The decision comes as the province of Ontario is currently in a lockdown which prevents minor hockey organizations from getting together and playing games.
The federal government gave the start of training camps a thumbs up and also waived the 14-day quarantine rule under “national interest grounds” in favour of a modified plan for players and team staff returning to the country.
The Maple Leafs are set to start the season at home against the Montreal Canadiens on opening night while the Senators will play host to the Maple Leafs two nights later on Jan. 15.
British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec have already given approval for their respective teams while Manitoba has yet to officially clear the Winnipeg Jets to play at home, but has expressed confidence they will be able to.
Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report
