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Ontario’s government is ‘strongly’ recommending masks indoors. Why stop short of a mandate?
Despite increasingly urgent calls from doctors for a renewed mask mandate in Ontario, the province has issued a “strong” recommendation — leaving masking up to individuals at a time when, experts say, governments are wary of the political consequences of forcing health restrictions onto the public.
Medical professionals have urged new masking requirements in indoor spaces, including in schools, as hospitals across Ontario feel an earlier-than-usual strain from patients ill with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza, as well as COVID-19.
On Monday, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, recommended wearing masks indoors, including at social events where young children were present, as kids aged four and under were “highly susceptible” to RSV and influenza.
Moore was still “discussing and reviewing” whether masks should be mandatory in schools, he said.
The Ontario Medical Association welcomed the province’s recommendation, but individual doctors are continuing to push for more measures in schools to help reduce the pressure hospitals will face in the weeks ahead.
“Considering how full our hospitals are, [Moore] needs to go further than this. There literally is no capacity in our pediatric hospitals,” Toronto emergency room physician Dr. Kashif Pirzada told CBC News Network.
“[Moore] could have addressed the core of the problem by asking school boards to bring in some measures to protect kids and slow down spread amongst kids.”
Political and health experts say they believe the government is concerned about the potential for a public backlash, with protests over various other pandemic-related restrictions — including vaccine mandates — still fresh in its memory.
“I think part of what’s going on here, both at the level of the medical officials and of the premier, is an assessment of the political risk of requiring something that may be very unpopular and not followed that closely by a fair number of Ontarians,” said Peter Graefe, an associate professor of political science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. Read the full story here.
Shedding the signs of occupation
(Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)
A man removes a banner that reads “Russians and Ukrainians are one people, one whole” in recently liberated Kherson, Ukraine, on Monday. The takeover by Ukrainian troops of the Kherson region is the latest in a string of setbacks for Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Read more here.
In brief
A multi-partisan group of MPs on the procedure and House affairs committee agreed Monday to probe claims that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its agents have interfered in the Canadian political process. Citing unnamed sources, Global News reported last week that China was behind “a vast campaign of foreign inference” in Canadian politics. That campaign reportedly included “a clandestine network” of candidates in the 2019 election, a movement to place “agents into the offices of MPs in order to influence policy,” an attempt to “co-opt and corrupt former Canadian officials to gain leverage in Ottawa” and a campaign to “punish Canadian politicians whom the People’s Republic of China views as threats to its interests.” Global reported that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and some cabinet ministers were briefed by intelligence agencies on these foreign interference allegations in January. CSIS reportedly told Trudeau that China’s consulate in Toronto floated cash to at least eleven federal election candidates “and numerous Beijing operatives” who worked as campaign staffers. Read more on this story here.
Health Canada says a foreign supply of a children’s medication for reducing fever and pain has now been secured. “We are announcing that we have secured foreign supply of children’s acetaminophen that will be available for sale at retail and in community pharmacies in the coming weeks,” Health Canada said in a release on Monday. The regulator said it shares the concern of parents and caregivers who’ve been unable to find acetaminophen and ibuprofen for young children. “At this time, Canadians should buy only what they need, so that other parents and caregivers can access medication so we can meet the needs of sick children.” Exactly how much medication is coming wasn’t disclosed by the regulator. Read the full story here.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw is no longer Alberta’s chief medical officer of health. In a news release Monday, the provincial government announced Hinshaw will be replaced by Dr. Mark Joffe, an Alberta Health Services vice-president. Joffe’s interim term began Monday and will continue until the health minister rescinds the appointment, the news release said. He will continue in his current contract with AHS with no additional compensation as chief medical officer of health. When Danielle Smith was sworn in as Alberta’s premier on Oct. 11, she said she would replace Hinshaw and recruit a new team of advisers in public health who consider COVID-19 an endemic disease. Smith has made it clear that she blames both Hinshaw and Alberta Health Services for failing to deliver the best advice and care for Albertans as the hospital system came close to buckling in successive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more here.
When production restarts at the La Corne, Que., lithium mine early next year, it is set to be one of the only functional lithium concentrate mines in North America and position Quebec as a Canadian lithium leader. Sayona Quebec, which purchased the mine in 2021, has already hired about 80 full-time workers. “As a Quebecer, I’m proud,” Sayona Quebec CEO Guy Laliberté said. “Knowing that this lithium (will have been) produced with green energy, hydropower … in some very severe and strict environmental regulations.” But others are more skeptical. In the past 10 years, the lithium mine has changed owners four times, has been responsible for serious and damaging spills and filed for creditor protection twice — despite a $110-million investment from the provincial government. Environmental groups and members of the Long Point First Nation have spoken out about Sayona’s other proposed lithium projects in the region, saying the projects could threaten the water, as well as the Anishinabeg way of life. Read more on the mine here.
On Tuesday, the United Nations officially marked the day the global population reached eight billion people. It’s not an exact science. It may have happened weeks or months ago or may not even have happened yet. But the fact is that humans are abundant on this planet and our population is on an upward trend, at least until the end of the century. In the UN’s World Population Prospects 2022 report, the international agency said that it expects the population to reach somewhere near 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, 10.4 billion in the 2080s and remain at that level until 2100. At least one population expert is skeptical about this projection by the UN. “This is the last time we’re probably going to have a conversation about reaching another billion marker,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO at Ipsos Public Affairs and a fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. “Somewhere between eight and nine billion is where we’re going to end up [by the end of the century],” said Bricker, who co-wrote Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline. Read more on this story here.
Now here’s some good news to start your Tuesday: Erika Mullakady was sitting bored in science class when she got an idea for a movie. She wrote the script down on a napkin and gave it to her father, Ranjit Mullakady, who is a filmmaker in Alberta. It won the audience choice award at the online Gotta Minute Film Festival, which is Western Canada’s largest film festival for commuters. Perspective, the one-minute film they submitted, is silent and has no dialogue. Now, people riding the bus and train in Alberta’s biggest cities, Calgary and Edmonton, are seeing film — about a day in the life of a young deaf girl played by Red Deer breakout actor Lacey Oake — during their commutes. Read more on this story from CBC Kids News.
Front Burner: The collapse of the ‘Crypto King’
In the last two years, cryptocurrency exchange FTX spent millions of dollars on advertisements with the likes of NFL quarterback Tom Brady and Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Larry David.
FTX also sponsored Major League Baseball, the Mercedes Formula One racing team and Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary. Earlier this month, Bloomberg ranked the platform’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, as one of the world’s 100 richest people. He was sometimes referred to as the “King of Crypto.”
But now, after financial leaks triggered mass withdrawals and a halt in trading, Bankman-Fried is worth effectively nothing. FTX has gone from a recent $32-billion US valuation to bankruptcy. Today, CBC News senior business writer Pete Evans returns to explain how one of the world’s three biggest crypto exchanges was brought down so quickly.
Front Burner23:36The collapse of the ‘Crypto King’
Today in history: November 15
1948: William Lyon Mackenzie King resigns as prime minister after holding the job longer than anyone — more than 21 years over three non-consecutive periods starting in 1921. He was succeeded by Louis St. Laurent.
1969: A quarter of a million protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C.
1976: Canada’s political landscape undergoes a major upheaval as the separatist Parti Québécois, led by René Lévesque, scores a stunning victory in a Quebec general election. The PQ won 71 of 110 seats in the National Assembly, ousting Robert Bourassa’s Liberals after six years in power.
1984: Stephanie Fae Beauclair, also known as Baby Fae, the month-old baby who received a baboon heart transplant on Oct. 26, dies. She was the longest-surviving recipient of an animal heart transplant, an operation performed only four times previously and never before on an infant.