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Just 10 days before Christmas, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos reimposed Canada’s advisory against all non-essential international travel. He stopped short of adopting more significant restrictions that Ottawa was also considering, such as a travel ban on all foreign nationals and a two-week quarantine or isolation requirement for returning travellers.
In Ontario, Doug Ford’s government announced Wednesday the province will expand booster shots, shorten the time between second and third doses, reduce capacity limits by half in large entertainment and sports venues, and expand rapid testing.
In Britain, the Omicron variant drove the country to record its highest number of daily COVID-19 cases since pandemic began.
Alberta braces for more Omicron, ramps up COVID-19 self tests, loosens health rules
COVID-19 restrictions cut Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena capacity in half
What Canadians need to know about rapid antigen tests and how to get them for free and for sale
A health worker plays a guitar while Francesco, 8, and Lorenzo, 11, receive their first doses of COVID-19 vaccine at Nuovo Regina Margherita Hospital, as Italy begins vaccinating children 5 to 11 years old in Rome, Dec. 15, 2021.YARA NARDI/Reuters
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Canadian inflation hits 30-year high as Omicron threat looms
Inflation in Canada hit a 30-year high in November, with the consumer price index (CPI) rising 4.7 per cent in November from a year earlier. Gasoline prices surged 44 per cent over the past year, driving the rate increase.
Inflation is rising at a faster rate than average hourly wages, eroding the buying power of Canadian households, and the United States and Europe are also dealing with their loftiest price increases in decades, piling pressure on policy makers to respond.
- U.S. Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they expect to raise interest rates three times next year. The major pivot by the U.S. central bank signals a heightened focus on reining in inflation.
How the death of the Kyiv Post fuelled a journalism rebirth in Ukraine
On Nov. 8, the Kyiv Post’s owner decided to shutter a publication that had made its name delivering English-language news about Ukraine’s tumultuous politics to the outside world. All 30 of the newspaper’s editors and reporters were fired.
But that wasn’t the end of the newspaper, nor the careers of its former staff. After a three-week shutdown, owner Adnan Kivan relaunched the publication online with a new chief executive officer, a smaller staff and a new focus on producing advertising-friendly stories. Its former staff, meanwhile, moved even more quickly to launch an online publication of their own, the Kyiv Independent.
Now, the Post and the Independent are forging a battle over the standards of journalism in a country where powerful oligarchs control almost all major media outlets.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
A quieter ‘patriots only’ election in Hong Kong: The Globe’s Asia correspondent James Griffiths tells The Decibel podcast how Hong Kong’s normally boisterous election has been quieted by a new national security law, and why it’s still going ahead even though critics call it a sham.
Engineer accused of trying to leak government secrets to China no longer being prosecuted: Qing Quentin Huang, an Ontario shipbuilding engineer, was charged under the Security of Information Act (SOIA) after authorities alleged he was caught on tape trying “to communicate to a foreign entity information that the government of Canada was taking measures to safeguard,” in 2013. Citing unreasonable delays in the case, a judge has stayed the eight-year criminal prosecution.
Indigenous artist Carl Beam’s forgotten works to be auctioned off to benefit Yukon friendship centre: The Skookum Jim Friendship Centre’s hot meals program — feeding those struggling with addictions and housing — is oversubscribed. While hunting for items to sell in an online auction to raise additional funds, staff hauled out some boxes of art that had been stored in the centre’s basement for more than a decade and found 114 works by Carl Beam.
Liberals reopened the government books to backdate nearly $10-billion in spending: The public accounts tabled this week show that Auditor-General Karen Hogan approved them on Sept. 9, but then on Nov. 19, a change that added billions in new spending related to Canada’s First Nations child-welfare system was approved. Non-partisan fiscal observers say this suggests all the rules were followed, but that backdating the new spending gives the government room to show a smaller deficit in the future or to approve new spending.
Trudeau, Blanchett spar over Quebec’s Bill 21 amid heated debate on secularism law: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he strongly opposes Quebec’s law that bans some public servants from wearing religious symbols at work, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said the Prime Minister was “condoning Quebec bashing” and defaming legitimate legislation.
MORNING MARKETS
Central banks dominate: World stocks marched back toward record highs on Thursday as traders waited to see if Europe’s top central banks, the ECB and Bank of England, would match the U.S. Federal Reserve’s upbeat message and cut stimulus. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.88 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were up 1.51 per cent and 1.09 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei jumped 2.13 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.23 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading at 78.19 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Robyn Urback: “It was mystifying to watch last week as a handful of federal politicians discovered their voices on Quebec’s 2019 religious symbols ban. It was like seeing babies discover their feet for the first time – You mean to tell me I’ve had toes this whole time?! – except these infants were seasoned politicians who had chosen to look away for years as the country’s second most populous province actively discriminated against its own residents.”
John Ibbitson: “The day the economy matters more to voters than the pandemic is a day the Liberals should worry about.”
Kate Taylor: “If you are worried about attracting buyers to condo towers on an old brownfield site at the edge of downtown, you can try offering artists reduced rents and see if you can’t strike up a vibe. That is what happened – with spectacular success – at the Distillery District in Toronto. But 20 years later, many of those artists are now being forced out: Their leases are expiring in 2022 and they are discovering there isn’t space for them in the hip new neighbourhood they helped to popularize.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Food inflation is making restaurants less appetizing
In a recent survey by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and a cashback reward app called Caddle asking how people will adjust their food-shopping habits in the new year, 52.8 per cent of participants said they will use coupons more, 51.7 per cent of participants said they won’t eat out as much, 45.5 per cent said they will read flyers more often and 31.9 per cent said they would visit different food stores. We all know which of these measures will deliver the most significant savings – visiting restaurants less.
MOMENT IN TIME: DEC. 16, 1910
THE GRAIN GROWERS GUIDE: A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF WESTERN FARMERS (Dec. 21, 1910, edition). Text at centre, left, says 800 farmer delegates from across Canada descended on Ottawa to try to get the Liberal government to act on a number of agricultural grievances in December, 1910. Courtesy of University of Alberta LibrariesCourtesy of University of Alberta Libraries
‘Siege of Ottawa’ by disgruntled farmers
In December, 1910, 800 farmer delegates from across Canada descended on Ottawa to get the government to act on a number of grievances. The group met first in the Opera House on Dec. 15 to discuss strategy and draw up the “Farmers’ Platform.” The next morning, they marched en masse up Parliament Hill and crammed into the House of Commons, filling both the chamber floor and galleries. The delegates sat wherever they could, including at the desk of the prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. It was the first and only time in Canadian history that a delegation of that size had occupied the House. The farm leaders raised a number of concerns but talked mostly about Canadian trade policies, especially the protective tariff. One delegate quipped that they were there to “talk turkey.” But Laurier offered little in response. The delegates were then sent to see the governor-general at a Rideau Hall reception. It was a disappointing ending, especially given the distance many had travelled. One disillusioned farmer complained, “We have asked for bread, and [Laurier] gave us a stone.” Bill Waiser
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