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As the Ontario government pushes Ottawa to ban “all non-essential travel” into Canada to curb COVID-19, a Globe and Mail analysis has found flights delivering infected passengers into Canadian airports are now predominantly domestic routes, a trend that began around the onset of spring break.
Tamsin McMahon and Mike Hager report on the development here.
Last week, Ontario’s ruling Progressive Conservative Party launched an ad blitz attacking the federal Liberal government for not shutting down international travel before variants of concern were introduced into the country. Premier Doug Ford’s government has demanded that Ottawa imposes predeparture COVID-19 testing for domestic flyers and bans “all non-essential travel” into Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government is willing to work with Ontario to further tighten borders. Mr. Trudeau added that his federal government has already limited most international travel to Canada, with exceptions that include temporary foreign workers, agricultural workers and those allowed in for compassionate reasons.
“There is proportionately a very small number of people compared to past years coming into Ontario every day but there is more we can do,” Mr. Trudeau told a news conference on Friday.
The Prime Minister noted that Premier Ford had asked Ottawa to restrict international students coming to Ontario. “But it’s been a week since we’ve received that request directly from the Premier but they haven’t followed up on, except with personal attacks which doesn’t make sense and quite frankly won’t help Ontarians,” he said.
CEWS ANALYSIS - The Trudeau government said Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy would be a lifeline to struggling employers in the pandemic. But when The Globe and Mail compiled a list of who got money, and how much, it showed many firms weren’t struggling at all in the lean months of 2020.
NEXT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE - Globe and Mail justice writer Sean Fine looks at the contenders for the next Supreme Court of Canada appointment. Details here.
RACISM RESPONSE STRATEGY - The head of an organization tasked with combating racism in Canada says the group is building a collaborative strategy to tackle the issue, but some advocates say more government support is needed to directly address the rise of anti-Asian racism.
NOVA SCOTIA GOVERNMENT - There has been a change in the status of the government in Nova Scotia. Details here.
TELFORD TESTIMONY - Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff made a high-profile appearance Friday before the House of Commons defence committee, testifying she never informed the Prime Minister in 2018 about an allegation of sexual misconduct against then-chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance.
EXIT OF ALBERTA’S BIG-CITY MAYORS - Both of Alberta’s big city mayors are making their exits come October, leaving a void in Edmonton and Calgary and marking the end of two notably progressive leaders in a province inclining towards the right. From The National Post.
POLLING
DEFICIT CONCERN - The size of the federal deficit is a concern to three in four Canadians, according to a new Nanos poll, but the Liberal Party scores higher than other parties when it comes to managing the government’s finances.
QUEBEC PARTIES - A new public opinion poll shows Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government is firmly in the driver’s seat despite the long pandemic. According to the Leger poll conducted for the Journal de Montréal, the CAQ leads the five largest parties in Quebec with the support of 46 per cent of decided voters. From The Montreal Gazette.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
Private meetings. The Prime Minister participates in a virtual discussion with nurses and nursing students from across Manitoba in recognition of National Nursing Week. Also virtually visits a pop-up vaccination clinic site at the Brampton Islamic Centre. Also chairs cabinet meeting.
LEADERS
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet holds a press scrum on Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh holds a media availability about the pandemic, meets with B.C. Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, delivers his response to the Ministerial Statement on Veterans in the House of Commons, and meets with the Canadian Health Coalition.
OPINION
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on the inability of the PMO to see its own contradictions on sexual misconduct in the military: ”On Friday, Ms. Telford defended that with now-familiar talking points that are ridiculously flawed. The Liberals have argued that Mr. Sajjan was right not to look at the e-mail because politicians should not be involved in investigating such things – but of course you can read an e-mail and then forward it to bureaucrats. Ms. Telford said the bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office had said they would handle it – but they got nowhere, and even after that, no one asked Mr. Sajjan to peek at the e-mail. To this day, that remains the nub of the story. It is far less important than the failure to create an independent reporting system for sexual misconduct, but it is not nothing. Mr. Vance was the general responsible for handling sexual misconduct in the military, so you’d think it’s important to know what kind of allegation it was. Instead it was lost in the HR processes.”
Kelly Cryderman (The Globe and Mail) on how Jason Kenney could be at a turning point on both COVID-19, and Alberta politics: “Mr. Kenney is [Alberta’s]18th premier. But the province has cycled through six premiers since Ralph Klein, the 12th, was forced into an earlier-than-planned exit by his own party members in 2006. This week is a turning point for Alberta, where new restrictions could force grim pandemic trends to shift for the better. The question of whether Mr. Kenney’s premiership is at a turning point, or is salvageable, still rages.”
David Parkinson (The Globe and Mail) on the choices facing Newfoundland and Labrador after the Moya Greene report: “[Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey’s] immediate backpedalling raised the brow of Don Drummond, the Queen’s University economist who led a similar panel that examined Ontario’s finances nine years ago. The Drummond Report laid out a whopping 362 recommendations, and within two years, the government of Dalton McGuinty boasted that it had acted on more than 80 per cent of them. But ultimately, as time passed and leadership and then governing parties changed, the province never implemented the most critical and difficult proposals. The lesson, Mr. Drummond says, is that the political will to act on the toughest measures, to the extent that it is there at all, doesn’t last long.”
Kate Taylor (The Globe and Mail) on how a “dishonest censorship scare” may torpedo Bill C-10, a chance to update broadcasting laws for the modern era: “The alarm over supposed censorship is overblown and misplaced. It is fuelled by dishonest politicking from O’Toole and the Conservatives, and predictable paranoia from technological fundamentalists, those who believe the heaven-sent internet should not be subject to any human law – disinformation and election interference be damned.”
Sophie Mathieu (Policy Options) on four lessons from Quebec’s early child care model: “However, lowering child care costs is not a panacea: there still need to be enough spaces available to meet the demand. Quebec’s child-care system has always been a victim of its own success: it has never succeeded in providing universal access to child care services. Not only are the waiting lists long – over 50,000 families are currently waiting for a space – but children from low-income families are underrepresented in early childhood centres.”
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Ian Bailey