Good morning,
The grades are posted, because The Globe has written Canada’s COVID-19 report card as provinces start to reopen.
For the better part of three months, Canada has been in an economic and social holding pattern. Here’s where the provinces and territories are today, and the challenges that lie ahead, with insight from Lynora Saxinger, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alberta.
Speaking of grades, all eyes are on Quebec schools, which reopened nearly three weeks ago and drew more than 200,000 eligible children back to class. Just as B.C. plans to follow by reopening schools next week, Quebec has at least two schools that have identified more than one case of COVID-19.
There are 41 students and teachers infected, but officials say this is in line with their expectations about how the virus would appear. Areas of Quebec outside the greater Montreal region have added new cases at a rate of 44 per 100,000 people since school restarted.
Sylvain Levesque, a teacher at Ecole Hamelin, a small primary school in Wotton, just outside Sherbrooke in the Eastern Townships, built a life-sized foosball court too allow school children to play soccer while social distancing.Courtesy of Sylvain Levesque
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As protesters burn Minneapolis police station over death of George Floyd, Twitter censures Trump for ‘glorifying violence’
It was the third consecutive night of protests after Mr. Floyd’s death, which was seen in a video that showed him gasping for breath while an officer knelt on his neck for almost eight minutes as.
Late Thursday, President Donald Trump blasted the “total lack of leadership” in Minneapolis. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he said on Twitter.
Twitter on Friday said Trump’s tweet had breached its rules about “glorifying violence” and attached a disclaimer to it.
Derek Chauvin, the officer involved, has become the focus of a federal investigation. Minneapolis city records show that 17 complaints were filed against Chauvin before his encounter with Mr. Floyd. Sixteen complaints were closed with no discipline. The remaining complaint generated two letters of reprimand. The records don’t include any details on the substance of the complaints.
Canso funds Torstar takeover bid after backstopping two of its print media rivals
Canso Investment Counsel Ltd., which oversees $24-billion on behalf of clients, is lending the money that entrepreneurs Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett need to buy struggling Torstar Corp, owner of the Toronto Star and 70 other papers, and pay for a digital revamp of the company.
The Toronto-based fund manager is pledging $50-million for the planned takeover of Torstar, which also is the major lender of Postmedia Network Canada Corp., which owns the National Post and 140 other Canadian newspapers and digital platforms, and to Black Press Group Ltd. of Surrey, B.C., with a stable of 170 publications in British Columbia, Alberta and four U.S. states.
Exteriors of 1 Yonge St. (C) long time home of the Toronto Star newspaper, are photographed on May 27 2020.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Canada and its allies condemn China’s Hong Kong crackdown
In a joint statement with the United States, Britain and Australia, Canada accused China of jeopardizing international co-operation during the pandemic. China forged ahead with national-security legislation for Hong Kong, which Canada says breaches the agreement it signed with Britain to allow Hong Kong’s capitalist system and freedoms.
Hong Kong’s government warned Washington that withdrawing its special U.S. status, which has underpinned the city as a global financial hub, could be a “double-edged sword” and urged the United States to stop interfering in internal affairs.
- Opinion (Michael Bociurkiw): Trapped between China and the U.S., Hong Kong may be over as we know it
- Opinion (Guy Saint-Jacques): Working with China can’t be at the expense of our values or the rule of law
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Ontario police watchdog to probe woman’s fatal fall from Toronto high-rise building: The family of the woman, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, 29, say they have questions about the role police played in the death after responding to a call about a “domestic incident.”
Trump threatens to remove ‘shield’ protecting social-media giants: The President is accusing tech giants of censorship and issuing an executive order threatening to end the legal protections that shield social-media companies from being liable for content published on their platforms.
UN confirms year-long delay for crucial climate summit: It was billed as the most important climate change summit since the 2015 talks that produced the Paris agreement.
Brazil registers record 26,417 coronavirus cases in a day: The news comes as Brazil’s unemployment rate rose to its highest in just over a year and brings its total tally to 438,238, second only to the United States in confirmed cases.
MORNING MARKETS
World stocks slip as investors await Trump’s Hong Kong response: Global stock markets fell and safe havens such as bonds and the Japanese yen gained on Friday, as investors awaited Washington’s response to China tightening control over the city of Hong Kong. In Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 1 per cent around 6 a.m. ET. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 fell 1.43 per cent and 1.13 per cent, respectively. Japan’s Nikkei ended down 0.18 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.74 per cent. New York futures were lower. The Canadian dollar was trading at 72.71 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Airline customers have no right to complain about not getting refunds
Ashley Nunes: “Has the pandemic inconvenienced fliers? Yes. Should airlines do something to address consumer concerns? Absolutely. Should consumers be given carte blanche in dictating how those concerns are addressed? Certainly not.” Nunes is a senior research associate at Harvard Law School whose research explores how innovation affects markets.
Canada should not cut ties with China, but we need new friends in Asia
Jonathan Manthorpe: “More fundamentally, Canada’s national political parties should stop seeing relations with the PRC as the axle around which this country’s relationship with Asia turns.” Manthorpe is a journalist and author.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
By Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Full Stream Ahead: The best Canadian Screen Award movies to stream on Crave, NFB.ca, CBC Gem and VOD this May 30-31 weekend
Antigone, Crave: This modernization of Sophocles is worth your time and attention, no matter its awards bounty, as Deraspe transfers the action from ancient Greece to modern-day Montreal. Sophie Deraspe crafts an immigration tale as enlightening as it is gripping.
nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, NFB.ca and CBC Gem: Painful, necessary and laced with time-capsule-ready images of what it means to live in Canada today, Tasha Hubbard’s movie will sear itself into your consciousness. CBC Gem has the cut-for-TV version, but for the full impact, best to watch Hubbard’s feature-length film on the National Film Board’s under-the-radar site.
Disappearance at Clifton Hill, VOD: If ever there was a setting crying out for cinematic exploitation, it’s the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The film becomes just as thrilling and disturbing as its titular strip of haunted houses and fading-fast motels.
MOMENT IN TIME: May 29, 1985
Steve Fonyo dips his leg into the Pacific Ocean in Victoria to complete his cross-Canada run Wednesday, May 29,1985.chuck stoody/The Canadian Press
Steve Fonyo ends his epic run across Canada
Steve Fonyo was always going to have a tough time outrunning Terry Fox when he set out to complete a route of 7,924 kilometres between St. John’s and Victoria. While the latter’s Marathon of Hope had ended prematurely four years earlier when lung cancer forced him to stop, the teenager from Vernon, B.C., who lost his left leg to bone cancer at the age of 12, was aiming to make it all the way to the West Coast on his Journey for Lives. But he wasn’t Fox, and people wouldn’t let him forget it. Even the mayor of Thunder Bay – where Fox had ended his own run – referred to Fonyo as “Terry” while he was passing through. Out of Ontario, though, he was into uncharted territory for a one-legged Canadian runner, even if it meant enduring a freezing Prairie winter and a cancer scare in Brandon. But Alberta embraced him – convicts at a prison in St. Albert named him an honorary inmate – and the then-19-year-old’s 14-month journey came to an end when he dipped his artificial limb and poured a vial of Atlantic seawater into the Pacific Ocean before hobbling the last few kilometres to the Mile Zero marker on the Trans-Canada Highway. Paul Attfield
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