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Ontario exercises caution in plans to ease lockdown
Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a 12-page plan, setting out benchmarks including a consistent decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases before some workplaces and public spaces open. The province’s plan doesn’t mention schools, which are closed until at least the end of May.
“The framework is about how we’re reopening – not when we’re reopening,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said. “This is a road map, it’s not a calendar.”
Ontario’s plan outlines three phases for reopening the economy – protect, restart and recover – which will be monitored by public health officials for two to four weeks. The government could change course at any time.
Ontario will first open select workplaces and allow small gatherings, followed by allowing more workplaces and outdoor spaces to open. Small funerals might be allowed. In the next stage, Ontario will open some service industries as well as office and retail stores. The third stage allows all workplaces to open and loosens restrictions on large gatherings.
Concerts and sporting events “will continue to be restricted for the foreseeable future.”
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, David Williams, will advise the government on the reopening.
Quebec sets more audacious schedule
Meanwhile, Quebec, though facing hundreds of new cases and dozens of deaths each day, still set May 11 as the start for opening elementary schools and daycare centres. The province expects to have all elementary schools and daycares open on May 19, including in the hot spot of Montreal, and will introduce a plan for relaunching business today.
Quebec Premier François Legault said the situation is stable outside nursing homes and the province has achieved its main objective of protecting the hospital system, which has 5,500 empty beds.
“We are opening our schools for social reasons and because the situation is under control, particularly in hospitals.”
Epidemiologist David Fisman called Quebec’s plan a “calculated gamble.”
“I wish we had a better handle on the role of kids in transmission of COVID,” said Dr. Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. He described the Ontario Premier’s road map as “pitch perfect. Our control efforts decide the timeline, it’s that simple.”
Student support package
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says his party wants the federal government’s proposed $9-billion support package for postsecondary students to include incentives for them to accept available jobs.
The package includes a new Canada Student Emergency Benefit that will provide $1,250 a month for students who can’t find work, $1.9-billion for expanded student loans and a Canada Student Service Grant that will provide up to $5,000 apiece to students who volunteer in their community on projects or programs related to COVID-19.
Scheer argues that incentives are vital. “Right now, there is no link between those available jobs. There is no incentive to fill them."
Student advocates pushed back against Scheer, saying that summer jobs will be extremely scarce this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian Federation of Students chairperson Sofia Descalzi said students will choose to work and gain experience if jobs are available. “If students are able to find work, they will work,” she said.
The bill could be introduced as early as Wednesday.
The University of Ottawa campus is quiet, Wednesday, April 22, 2020 in Ottawa. The federal government announced funding for post-secondary students affected by Covid-19.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian WyldAdrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
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China tries to prevent second coronavirus wave
If the Chinese capital is back to business in the midst of the global coronavirus epidemic, it is a strange kind of normal – one that presages the discomfort likely to accompany attempts elsewhere, including in Canada, to restart everyday life while minimizing the chances of a new outbreak. Among the new restrictions:
- Offices in Beijing must adhere to distancing requirements, limiting the number of employees returning to their places of business.
- Retail shops must bleach before opening and regularly disinfect fitting rooms and sales terminals.
- Schools, which so far reopened only to Grade 12 students in Beijing, must maintain limits on their numbers in classrooms and adhere to strict disinfection schedules.
- Many restaurants and bars record identification and phone numbers of those entering, after verifying a readout from an app that they are clear to leave their homes.
Inside the negotiation of Canada’s coronavirus bailout
The pandemic has made strange bedfellows of Canadian politicians and has been a wake-up call that Canada’s social safety net – with few protections for gig economy workers – is out of sync with the times.
The Globe and Mail does a deep dive into the planning and execution of a bailout that has forced Ottawa to adapt on the fly and admit that for every good call, there would also be mistakes and climb-downs.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Alberta communities grapple with flooding
Spring ice breakup on the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers led to flooding, and the complete closing of Fort McMurray’s downtown core. It dealt a blow to a region still dealing with the after-effects of a devastating wildfire in 2016 and which has also been hit hard by the oil slowdown amid the pandemic.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the federal government was aware of the situation and was looking for ways to help.
South Korea warns against reports about Kim Jong-un’s health
South Korean officials say they have detected no unusual movements in North Korea and caution against reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may be ill or is being isolated because of coronavirus concerns.
Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader’s health began after he failed to make a public appearance at a key state holiday on April 15, and has since remained out of sight.
Foodora to exit Canada just months after workers won the right to unionize
The food delivery service app Foodora Inc. will shut down Canadian operations in May. The company says “intensified competition” has prevented Foodora from reaching a “strong leadership position” that would allow it to make a sustainable profit.
MORNING MARKETS
Oil continues to fall, easing lockdowns bolster world stocks: Another big fall in oil prices dragged hordes of petrocurrencies under on Tuesday but even an HSBC warning of mounting bad credit and a near 80-per-cent plunge in BP’s profits could not keep stock markets down for long. In Europe, Britain’s FTSE was up 1.27 per cent around 6 a.m. ET. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 gained 1.42 per cent and 1.17 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei slid 0.06 per cent. Hong Kong’ Hang Seng gained 1.22 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading at 71.67 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
How is Ottawa going to pay off its COVID-19 debt? With any luck, it won’t have to
Editorial: “National finance isn’t household finance. A person’s lifespan is constrained, as is their capacity for income growth; a country is a very different creature.”
The best lessons from abroad about reopening our economies are in Europe
Daniel Schwanen and William B.P. Robson: “They are all wrestling with the balance between intrusive surveillance and contact tracing and civil liberties – the same tensions Canada must deal with in the weeks and months ahead.” Daniel Schwanen is vice-president, research, and William B.P. Robson is president and chief executive officer, at the C.D. Howe Institute.
Why reopening schools will be harder than shutting them down
Paul W. Bennett: “Whether the radical shift to e-learning will stick is more difficult to assess. Thrust unprepared into uncharted emergency online learning may sour teachers on adopting education technology and simply exhaust parents and families struggling to cope with the fears, anxieties and stress of a pandemic.” Paul W. Bennett is the director of the Schoolhouse Institute in Halifax.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Will virtual health care be the new normal after COVID-19?
The need for physical distancing has led many provinces to make it easier for doctors to provide certain forms of care without seeing patients face-to-face. Ontario, for instance, has introduced a new billing code that pays doctors for talking to patients on the phone or by video. Almost overnight, virtual care has become the norm.
MOMENT IN TIME: APRIL 28, 1986
FILE - This April 1986 aerial file photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, as made two to three days after the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine. (AP Photo/File)stock
It was only 41 words but Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Communist Party, later described the events as leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union. At 9:02 p.m., on April 28, 1986, the Soviet Union issued a statement: “There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of the accident are being remedied. Assistance has been provided for any affected people. An investigative commission has been set up.” The accident happened two days previous and it was still early in Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, which was meant to leverage the ingenuity of the Soviet citizen to address the problems of their system and seek solutions through openness and transparency in government. The policy had the opposite effect. The attempted cover-up of the world’s worst nuclear disaster showed Soviet citizens the hypocrisy of glasnost and that their government and industry were inferior and incompetent. The outcome was open dissent. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and Gorbachev resigned after an attempted coup in 1991, effectively ending 74 years of Communist rule. – Graeme Harris
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