Good morning,
U.S. President Donald Trump left Walter Reed hospital last night after a three-day stay to recover from COVID-19. Trump played down the seriousness of the illness, tweeting “Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”
But questions remain about how ill Trump is, how long he has been sick and how he will isolate at home in the White House. It’s also unclear whether his campaign can convince enough voters that the pandemic is under control after Trump and more than a dozen people in his circle have become infected.
A poll by SSRS for CNN conducted after the President’s diagnosis found that 60 per cent of respondents disapproved of his handling of the pandemic, 63 per cent believed he had been irresponsible with his own infection and 69 per cent said they did not trust information from the White House about his health. Those numbers are likely to worry Republicans amid a campaign in which the President’s policies on the pandemic are a key issue.
More coverage:
David Shribman: Trump’s COVID-19 crisis creates an even greater crisis for the U.S.
Lawrence Martin: On COVID-19, Donald Trump has been hoist with his own petard
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President Donald Trump removes his mask as he stands on the Truman Balcony upon returning to the White House Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, after testing positive for COVID-19 and spending four days at the the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times)
ANNA MONEYMAKER/The New York Times News Service
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Jails are modern version of residential schools for Indigenous, judge says
A judge in Northern Ontario compared jails to residential schools for Indigenous peoples as he refused to give six Indigenous offenders the mandatory jail sentence for driving drunk.
Six women from the Pikangikum First Nation pleaded guilty to impaired-driving offences, but brought a constitutional challenge to minimum sentences, saying they couldn’t serve them on weekends, as other people do, because the closest correctional facility is more than 200 kilometres away. In his ruling, Justice David Gibson said “removing mothers from their children for extended periods of time will [undoubtedly] exacerbate existing problems in this vulnerable and destabilized First Nation.”
Commenting on the conditions of the correctional facility, Justice Gibson said: “When one considers the impact such brutalizing experiences must have on inmates and what they must carry home with them to their First Nations, it is very hard not to notice the grotesque similarities between these kinds of ‘correctional institutions’ and residential schools that have caused such lasting damage to Indigenous communities.”
More coverage:
Atikamekw chiefs express cautious optimism after meeting with Legault on systemic racism
How many more Joyce Echaquans must die before François Legault recognizes Quebec’s systemic racism?
Alberta to diversify economy with big bet on hydrogen
In an effort to rejuvenate a struggling economy, Alberta is making a big play on hydrogen and plastics recycling in its new natural gas strategy.
The strategy, to be unveiled Tuesday, includes ambitious goals to establish Alberta as a “centre of excellence for plastics diversion and recycling” by 2030, and exporting hydrogen and hydrogen-derived products across North America and the world by 2040. The province also wants to see two or three additional liquified natural gas megaprojects online by 2030 so it can export LNG to Asia and Europe, and become a global Top 10 producer of petrochemicals.
Governments around the world see hydrogen as a clean fuel source as they pursue net-zero emission goals, giving Alberta “an incredible opportunity” Dale Nally, Alberta’s associate minister of natural gas, said.
More coverage:
Number of new stranded oil, gas wells in Alberta on pace to hit 12,000, regulator says
TD subsidiary launches Tesla battery project to support power grid
Editorial: Alberta might have one last oil boom. Will it make the same mistakes?
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Ottawa repatriates Canadian orphan detained in Syria, but has no plan to help others: The federal government is bringing home a five-year-old orphan who was detained in a camp in northeast Syria, but it has no plans to repatriate other Canadians, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. According to Human Rights Watch, 46 Canadians, including 26 children, remain in Kurdish-run camps and prisons.
Ending Canada’s pandemic alert system was a mistake, internal government e-mails show: Two days after an investigation by The Globe, a senior official at the Public Health Agency of Canada said in an e-mail to staff that the decision that led to cutbacks of the country’s early pandemic warning system was a mistake. The surprising admission suggests there were disagreements among top managers at the agency over the moves that would ultimately hinder Canada’s pandemic warning and intelligence gathering.
More: What happened with Canada’s pandemic alert system? The GPHIN controversy explained
Canada watchdog mum as British agency finds security defects in Huawei gear: Canada’s cybersecurity watchdog is refusing to say whether it has found the same defects in Huawei equipment that Britain’s agency found last week. In a report released last Thursday, Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said it did not believe the defects were a result of Chinese state interference, but added that if an “attacker has knowledge of these vulnerabilities and sufficient access to exploit them, they may be able to affect the operation of a U.K. network, in some cases causing it to cease operating correctly."
Vancouver mayor wants $30-million for emergency measures to combat tent cities: As the number of homeless in Vancouver continues to grow, the mayor is proposing that the city spend $30-million on emergency measures to deal with the crisis. In a report, city staff recommended acquiring hotels, apartments or residential hotels through leases or purchases to house the homeless.
Vaccine for tuberculosis being tested in Canada for effectiveness against COVID-19: Canadian researchers have launched a clinical trial of an existing vaccine that may work against COVID-19. According to a number of epidemiological studies, the vaccine, originally developed to prevent tuberculosis, may be playing a broader role in reducing overall rates of respiratory disease.
MORNING MARKETS
World stocks gain on U.S. stimulus hopes: World stock markets neared a more than two-week high on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House from hospital where he was treated for COVID-19, and expectations of a new U.S. stimulus package being agreed rose. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.52 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.90 per cent. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.48 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC slipped 0.09 per cent and 0.05 per cent, respectively. Wall Street futures were mostly flat. The Canadian dollar was trading at 75.40 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Rita Trichur: “Make no mistake, Canada is already paying a steep price for being willfully blind to Saudi Arabia’s transgressions. As Ottawa bends over backward to fulfill the ill-conceived LAV contract, [Mohammed bin Salman] is making a mockery of Canadian sovereignty.”
John Ibbitson: “But [Annamie] Paul may never be able to win a riding, which puts her political future at risk. If ever there were an argument for electoral reform, it could lie in the new Green Leader’s difficulty in entering the House of Commons.”
Editorial Board: “Mr. Trump’s failure has been huge and spectacular; American-sized all the way. The failures of some governments here have been quintessentially Canadian – marked by good intentions, quiet timidity and severe, crippling mediocrity.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
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Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Trick and no treat? Families get creative with Halloween alternatives to traditional shelling out
This Halloween will be anything but typical. Some parents will keep their children inside opting for Halloween at home and others are comfortable sending their children out to join crowds of trick or treaters. Here are some useful ideas for whichever side you fall on.
MOMENT IN TIME: OCTOBER 6, 1959
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Bertha Berman, an African American from Forest Hills, N.Y., invented the fitted bedsheet, patented on this day in 1959.
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Patent filed for the fitted bedsheet
Most of us will spend a third of our lives asleep in bed – if we are lucky. And thanks to the genius of Bertha Berman, most of us never awaken with the bottom sheet in a tangle, coiled around our legs like a linen python. Berman, an African-American from Forest Hills, N.Y., invented the fitted bedsheet, patented on this day in 1959. Her design featured a detachable band that encircled the sides of the mattress, keeping it in place and allowing the sheet to be easily removed for washing. This eliminated the need for flat-sheet corner tucks, the so-called hospital corners that were as hard to master as they were unreliable. Berman’s bedsheet was an improvement, and other designs followed, but Alberta’s Gisele Jubinville wanted a better one. In 1992, she patented the design we know today – a sheet with deep pockets on the corners that wrap under the mattress. “I was fed up with fitted bed sheets that didn’t stay on the mattress,” Jubinville said by phone. “I didn’t know how to sew, [but] I’m about solving a problem.” Eric Atkins
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