Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Quebec’s race to vaccinate all long-term care residents first brings relief after so many coronavirus deaths
Nearly a year after the WHO declared a global pandemic, a glimmer of hope in Quebec: Nursing homes have halted their most severe outbreaks of COVID-19, with cases down to single digits a day across the province. It’s the first sign that vaccination may be working in the care system where a quarter of Canada’s pandemic deaths took place.
Quebec made it a top priority to vaccinate as many as possible of the 35,456 seniors who live in long-term care homes. This week the homes are averaging six new cases a day, down from more than 60 a month ago.
Officials say reduced community spread, better protective measures, testing and the completed first round of vaccination three weeks ago are bringing relief to the beleaguered residents and caregivers. However, the effectiveness of a single vaccine dose in the frail older population is still unknown and new variants could throw the system back into chaos.
Opinion:
Read more:
- Ottawa has negotiated more Moderna vaccine doses and faster delivery: Trudeau
- Momentum grows for vaccine technology-sharing as shortages worsen
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Portraits of loss: One hundred lives, felled by an overdose crisis
Courtesy of family
An epidemic of drug overdoses has claimed more than 20,000 Canadians since 2016 – about the same number of victims as the coronavirus.
The individuals behind these numbers are a lot more varied than you might think.
Here, The Globe puts names and faces to 100 people who died last year, taking them out of the shadows of grief and shame.
As the report shows, no community in Canada has gone untouched.
ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Air Canada posts $4.6-billion annual loss: Air Canada lost $4.6-billion in 2020 because of the “catastrophic” impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s largest airline said its full-year revenue fell by $13.3-billion to $5.9-billion, compared with 2019, as passenger volume dropped by 73 per cent. Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu called it “the bleakest year in the history of commercial aviation.”
Mario Draghi forms new Italian government: Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, took charge of Italy’s new government on Friday, and unveiled a cabinet that mixed unaffiliated technocrats with politicians from across his broad coalition. President Sergio Mattarella asked Mr. Draghi to be prime minister after party wrangling brought down the previous government.
Canada approves world’s first bitcoin ETF for retail investors: Purpose Investments Inc. has been cleared by regulators to launch the world’s first bitcoin exchange traded fund, opening the door for retail investors to more easily access a cryptocurrency that had been stalled by regulators for years.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index moved past a one-day blip to resume its upward trend as crude oil approached US$60 a barrel.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 67.22 points to 18,460.21.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 27.70 points at 31,458.40, the S&P 500 index was up 18.45 points at 3,934.83, while the Nasdaq composite was up 69.70 points at 14,095.47.
The Canadian dollar traded for 78.67 cents US compared with 78.83 cents US on Thursday. - CP
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TALKING POINTS
Shoal Lake 39 is a classic David and Goliath story. It shouldn’t have to be
Tanya Talaga: “The people of Iskatewizaagegan have a spiritual connection to the lake and the lands that surround it. It is a sacred trust. Under Indigenous law, they are to protect and keep safe the area for the next generations. Ontario has thumbed its nose to these truths.”
Newfoundland election delay puts the province in political purgatory
Lori Turnbull: “Postponing the election, given the surge of cases, is a no-brainer. However, this decision poses challenges from a legal and constitutional perspective and has the potential to undermine the real and perceived integrity of the electoral process.”
The puck-stop fear: Will hockey evolve, or will it get benched?
Will Baldwin: “As presently constructed, the game simply doesn’t afford everyone the same opportunity to have that love reflected back. And as Canada becomes more diverse, the sport we have come to define ourselves by is in need of a big cultural shift if it hopes to remain the rite of passage for the country’s male youth.”
Either way, Dominic Barton’s plea of ignorance makes Justin Trudeau look bad
Konrad Yakabuski: “How is it possible that the top brass at McKinsey, including Mr. Barton, failed to grasp the seriousness of a public-health crisis as massive and mediatized as the opioid epidemic while their firm advised Purdue on how to sell more OxyContin?”
LIVING BETTER
How to recreate the chaotic joy of a classic bookstore browse
Book shelves inside the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library in Vancouver on Saturday, July 25, 2020.Maggie MacPherson/The Globe and Mail
Cathal Kelly says the inability to browse through a bookstore is one of the worst consequences of the pandemic. Staring at your phone, he writes, is “worse for you than processed sugar.”
However, he has made one great discovery: Libby.
Libby’s an app that connects you to your local library and all the material contained within.
Libby, he says, can’t replicate a great browse, but it “allows you to read something for the heck of it, without expectation. If you drop it 10 pages in, you haven’t blown $25.”
TODAY’S LONG READ
Canada’s Environment Minister seeks common ground with U.S.
Last month, The Globe’s Adam Radwanski wrote that America under Joe Biden will reposition the United States as a leader on climate change – treating it as the existential challenge that it is.
Now, Radwanski says Canada and the U.S. are taking the first steps toward a continental view of the crisis.
In an interview after his first call with President Joe Biden’s top climate adviser, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson described a conversation that touched on an array of potential new agreements. Those could include cutting methane emissions from fossil-fuel production, expediting sales of electric vehicles, and increasing hydroelectricity exports from Quebec to states seeking to get off coal.
At the same time, Mr. Wilkinson is starting to stick-handle the process of preventing Buy American policies from hurting a Canadian clean-technology sector seeking to compete for large U.S. government spending on decarbonization. Canada is looking to benefit rather than suffer competitively from a highly ambitious presidential climate agenda that includes decarbonizing the American electricity grid by 2035
Read the full story here.
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Rob Gilroy