Evening Update: Education workers in Ontario back on the job tomorrow

Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:

CUPE to end education worker protests in Ontario after Premier Doug Ford said he will repeal Bill 28

Ontario education workers say they will return to their jobs in response to Premier Doug Ford’s pledge to repeal legislation that imposed a four-year contract on the union and return to bargaining.

The Toronto District School Board, Canada’s largest board, says that schools will be open tomorrow.

About 55,000 workers represented by Canadian Union of Public Employees’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions walked off the job on Friday and Monday in defiance of the province’s legislation. Bill 28 used of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to take away the union’s right to strike. The walkout prompted many school boards to shut their doors for two days.

Asked if he would pledge not to use the notwithstanding clause, known as Section 33, again in a labour disruption, Ford declined to answer.

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Emergencies Act inquiry: Doug Ford wins legal fight, plus today’s testimony

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has won his legal fight in which he resisted testifying at the Emergencies Act inquiry.

A Federal Court judge found that while the summonses issued to Ford and former solicitor-general Sylvia Jones were valid, they could not be enforced because of parliamentary privilege.

Meanwhile, from today’s session of the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings looking into the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act during convoy protests this winter:

• The Canadian Security Intelligence Service warned cabinet ministers on Feb. 13 that invoking the Emergencies Act could push convoy protesters toward violence.
• Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens says he supported the invocation of the act on Feb. 14, even though police had already cleared the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge border crossing, fearing protesters would return.

Opinion: Peter Sloly has been made into a convenient scapegoat for the Ottawa occupation - Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Alan Broadbent

Election day in the United States is tomorrow - with much at stake

The midterm elections – 34 for the Senate, 435 for the House of Representatives, 36 for the various governorships across the country – will determine the balance of power of the Congress and in the nation’s state houses.

With an electorate sharply divided, an aged warrior presiding in the White House, a former president raging on the rural heaths, mobilized women fighting restrictions on abortion, and inflation surging through the economy, the political calculus could not be more complicated, the drama could not be more contentious, and the stakes could not be greater, David Shribman writes.

Read more:

• In Arizona, ballot drop box vigilante surveillance is shut down, but their wary worldview remains steadfast
• Georgia’s high-stakes race has controversial Republican Herschel Walker in a dead heat with incumbent Democrat

ALSO ON OUR RADAR

Rogers, Shaw at Competition Tribunal: The Competition Bureau squared off against Canada’s two largest cable companies at the tribunal over whether the proposed divestiture of Shaw’s Freedom Mobile would address any anticompetitive effects stemming from Shaw’s $26-billion merger with Rogers.

Westjet delays, cancellations: WestJet Airlines says flight delays and cancellations caused by a weekend systems outage will spill into this week, even though the problem at the data centre has been fixed.

Early morning eclipse tomorrow: Halloween may be over but a total lunar eclipse during the early morning hours tomorrow will appear to paint the moon orange. It will also be the last chance to see a total lunar eclipse in Canada until March, 2025.

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MARKET WATCH

Wall Street ended higher as investors focused on tomorrow’s midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, while shares of Meta Platforms jumped on a report of job cuts at the Facebook parent. Canada’s main stock index followed suit.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 423.78 points or 1.31 to 32,827.00, the S&P 500 climbed 36.25 points or 0.96 per cent to 3,806.80 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 89.27 points or 0.85 per cent to 10,564.52.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index added 96.10 points or 0.49 per cent to close at 19,545.91. The loonie traded at 74.11 U.S. cents.

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TALKING POINTS

Kids are suffering from COVID in ways we never expected

“The potential consequences of widespread immune suppression are frightening. It’s a reminder that the harms of SARS-CoV2 can be long-lasting, just as we’re seeing with long COVID.” - André Picard

Vlad Guerrero Jr. is speaking his mind on New York. Toronto should listen

“If the Jays are for real, there needs to be a new sense of urgency about this team, and a willingness to say what they intend to do. Good for Guerrero in taking the lead on that. But you also know how this ends.” - Cathal Kelly

LIVING BETTER

While life expectancy has increased over the years, it’s no free ride, says personal trainer Paul Landini writes. He offers these tips to maintain quality of life as we age. They include

• Resistance training matters: The involuntary loss of muscle mass can lead to falls. Try two to four sessions of total-body resistance training weekly, with each session lasting between 20 to 60 minutes.
• So does mobility training: It allows us to reconnect with our bodies in a low-risk environment, and 10 to 15 minutes a day is all it takes. Yoga is a great option.

TODAY’S LONG READ

She lost two sons to overdoses. At 52, she returned to school determined to address addiction in Indigenous communities

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One day in September, a slim woman in jeans and a blazer walked into Room B210 of Mount Royal University in Calgary. Milly Young Pine sat down at a front-row desk, took out a pen and paper and prepared to take notes.

She had recently suffered one of the worst things a human being can experience, the death of a child – and suffered it twice. Thousands of parents have lost sons or daughters to the opioids crisis. Some nurse their grief in silence, blaming themselves for what happened. Others speak out.

Young Pine decided to go back to school. Leaving home and family behind, she enrolled in an open-studies program at Mount Royal University, hoping to gain the skills to ease the toll the crisis was taking on her Indigenous community in southern Alberta. Read Marcus Gee’s full story.

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