COVID response offers chance to shift direction of Canadian economy: experts
The end of the COVID-19 pandemic may be a long way off, but analysts are already looking ahead to how Canada could hasten its recovery and position itself for a low-carbon economy. “The main thing we need to be doing right now is protecting Canadians’ health and well-being,” said Josha MacNab of the Pembina Institute. […]
Queen to address Commonwealth amid coronavirus pandemic
The Queen will present a rare broadcast to the Commonwealth on Sunday as coronavirus cases surge past 1.2 million globally. Buckingham Palace confirmed the address on Friday through its social media accounts, adding that viewers can tune in on television, radio or online at 3 p.m. EDT. Tune in to watch the Queen’s public address […]
Ottawa looks to Kushner, other U.S. trade officials to resolve medical equipment dispute
The Trudeau government is looking to the relationships it established during NAFTA negotiations to resolve the urgent dispute over personal protective equipment with the United States. According to senior sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Canadian politicians at different levels, and of different political stripes, will and have been reaching out to contacts in […]
Family members in Canada who have criticized Iran’s government after losing their loved ones in the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 say they’re being targeted with threats and intimidation — and they blame Tehran. Global Affairs is aware of “reports” of victims’ families “being approached in Canada in situations which have caused them […]
Read MorePrime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is not looking at retaliatory measures after U.S. President Donald Trump told a manufacturer of medical masks not to export them to Canada. Trudeau said he would be speaking with Trump in the coming days and looking for a positive solution on the issue. He made the remarks in […]
Read MoreIn the wake of the U.S. Centre for Disease Control recommending that all Americans start wearing homemade cloth face masks outside due to COVID-19, many Canadian doctors and officials are saying cloth masks are recommended in certain situations, though Canada’s top doctor has stopped short of officially calling for facial coverings. Chief public health officer […]
Read MoreOntario Premier Doug Ford says his efforts to secure new respirator masks for frontline healthcare workers are being stifled both inside and outside the country, blaming U.S. President Donald Trump and federal regulators who are holding up plans to produce them in the province. Ford said that speaking with 3M Canada on Saturday; it appears […]
Read MoreCanada is set to receive “millions” of medical masks from China, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Saturday. Trudeau made the comments from Rideau Cottage, where he is currently self-isolating.
Read MoreCaught in the crossfire of a trade row between Canada and America, London-based 3M Canada is “looking at every possible way” to meet domestic demand for medical masks after President Donald Trump forced the company’s American factories to stop exporting the in-demand product. As the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic continues to escalate, Trump on […]
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Alberta’s ‘double-whammy’ is a lesson for Canada
The COVID-19 humanitarian crisis is compounded in its severity by an economic crisis that, like the virus, is worsening exponentially. Nowhere is this more pronounced than Alberta where, this week, the price of Western Canadian Select oil plummeted below $5 a barrel — equivalent to the price of a pint of beer. We are facing […]
Andrew Cuomo’s crisis management gold medal
“I love you, little brother.” With that terse but powerful declaration, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo confirmed his status as the crisis leader in North America. Frank admission of emotional vulnerability takes guts for most men, even in private. But in public, day after day, the 62-year-old, tough, often abrasive and far from universally loved […]
Patty Hajdu’s China Syndrome
China’s government is no doubt delighted with federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu’s vigorous defence of its credibility regarding its role in the outbreak of COVID-19, which has created a global health and economic crisis. Canadians, on the other hand, should be concerned. Not only did Hajdu blow past Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s non-committal answer Thursday […]
A new government priority: children’s voices
Even isolation cannot prevent the sights and sounds of children and youth at play. Their laughing voices ring out with bicycle bells on soft spring winds and occasionally, they taunt each other with unbridled shouts of freedom. Their colourful jackets and boots provide a welcome antidote to the grim background of COVID-19 masks and ventilators […]
Canadians will soon need to have a serious conversation about Plan B
What Canadians are facing as a nation has quickly gone from being a public health crisis to a whole-of-society one. It’s the same for many countries. Yet, not all countries are responding the same way to the coronavirus. And not all experts are urging the same action. Right now, Canadians are mostly on the same […]
Warned of a pandemic, Canada’s governments still seem to be playing catch-up
The nature of a contagion is that it grows at a speed that always just exceeds our awareness. It seems dormant for a long while, then suddenly it is surging. No sooner have we adapted to this than we find it has grown still further, faster. It is like a tsunami in this respect. Far […]
In Doug Ford’s Ontario, knowledge is sorrow
“Sorrow is knowledge,” Lord Byron told us long ago. “They who know the most/ Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth/ The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.” Doug Ford, no classicist, had a similar message for Ontarians on Friday as he finally broke a short-lived taboo whose justification none of us […]
No sugar-coating it as Doug Ford delivers the grim COVID-19 news to Ontarians
Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the projected spread of COVID-19 in the country’s largest province “stark and sobering”. Ontario is the first jurisdiction in Canada to share the modelling on which public policy decisions are being made, including projected fatalities. No wonder the premier, and health minister, Christine Elliott, looked ashen-faced. The province is expecting […]
‘He’s my therapist’: How Chrystia Freeland and Doug Ford forged an unlikely friendship in the fight against COVID-19
Canada’s deputy prime minister has found therapy in an unexpected source in the midst of a global pandemic. Chrystia Freeland’s “therapist,” as she calls him, is Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and he sees their conversations the same way.
Bring on the projections – and the caveats: COVID-19 models are a complicated truth
Once the White House’s coronavirus task force released its own model predicting that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die from COVID-19, it was inevitable that there would be more questions about what Canada’s projections say. If there’s one thing that social distancing and self-isolation have made common, it is wondering where all this is going. […]
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s finest moment came when he publicly name-shamed an upscale grocery store charging $30 for Lysol wipes normally retailing for a fifth of that amount. That was a catalyst to impose hefty fines on pandemic price-gougers, a campaign which instantly boosted his popularity and cost the abruptly-apologetic grocer every last shred of […]
Read MoreIt is often said that history repeats itself. It is how we respond to history that makes a difference. If the 2008 recession spearheaded by the collapse of Lehman Brothers was the “great recession,” then the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is pushing us to the brink of an even economic disaster. For Canada to recover as […]
Read MoreWe are experiencing an unprecedented situation. The crisis caused by COVID-19 has not just health, social and economic implications but also media implications, as its coverage completely overshadows all other events happening on the planet at the moment. It is a media eclipse unlike anything we have ever seen before.
Read MoreThe income supports are in place, the wage subsidy is set to go to employers, and the central bank is greasing the wheels of the money markets so that they can function in a predictable way. Federal authorities have now put more than $193 billion into forming a cushion, hoping Canada’s collapsing economy can ride […]
Read MoreJustin Trudeau’s reluctance to level with Canadians by releasing the government’s death-toll projections has understandably led to nervousness. Are the forecasts so bleak the prime minister is worried we can’t handle the truth? Yet key decision-makers suggest that the main cause for apprehension in Ottawa is not over the immediate health crisis, or even the […]
Read MoreIn Canada’s history, great crises have invariably led to the concentration of power in Ottawa. It’s happening again. Decades of decentralization have been reversed in a matter of weeks. Provincial governments are in desperate straits. Newfoundland and Labrador, the weakest of the lot, teetered on bankruptcy last month, unable to find anyone willing to lend […]
Read MoreIn times of crisis, countries must fend for themselves. That is the fatal weakness of globalization. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted this weakness. The theory behind globalization (or the liberal world order as Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland prefers to call it) sounds good. It is based on two principles. First, nations should conc
Read MoreCanada has never been an energy superpower, especially in terms of its largest energy commodity: oil. We are price takers not price makers. We export, dribblings aside, to only a single market. We are woefully non-strategic and unsophisticated in the ways of the world; our innate sense of decency distracting us with “ethical oil” arguments […]
Read MoreIt has been almost three weeks since the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 had become a global pandemic. Since then, like everyone, you have been following public health directives. You are staying home, kids too. You wash your hands and the surfaces around you. If you develop symptoms, you isolate yourself completely and, if […]
Read MorePity the poor opposition politicians across Canada nursing a severe case of pandemic politics. Their collective challenge: how do they do what opposition parties are supposed to do — oppose and criticize the government — at the same time frightened Canadians look to those in power to protect them? As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to […]
Read MoreEntertainment Plus
‘This illness is serious’: Singer Pink says she had tested positive for COVID-19
The singer Pink had tested positive for COVID-19, she said Friday, also announcing that she is donating US$500,000 each to two emergency funds. In a pair of tweets, she said she and her three-year-old son were displaying symptoms two weeks ago, and she tested positive after accessing tests through a primary care physician.
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