Morning Update: Ontario education workers will be off the job Monday and beyond, CUPE chief says

Good morning,

Many schools across Ontario will be closed to in-person learning on Monday, as education workers continue to defy a government law that prohibits their right to strike – irrespective of a decision on the legality of their job action by the province’s labour board.

Several large boards, including the Toronto District School Board, Peel District School Board and the York Region District School Board, said Sunday that its schools would be closed for as long as workers remain off the job. Their students will transition to remote learning sometime this week.

About 55,000 Canadian Union of Public Employees education support workers walked off the job on Friday after the Ontario government imposed a four-year contract on the union and banned its right to strike by invoking the Charter’s notwithstanding clause. These workers include early childhood educators, education assistants, custodians and other support staff.

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Canadian businesses urge Ottawa to resolve Nexus dispute with Washington

Nearly 60 Canadian business groups are urging Ottawa to resolve a dispute with Washington over the popular Nexus trusted-travel program that allows citizens of both countries to cross the border more quickly.

The dispute, which has left about 490,000 Canadians waiting in the queue to get their applications approved, also involves the Fast program that makes cross-border commercial shipments simpler and subject to fewer delays.

In a letter to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and U.S. Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the business groups, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said the dispute must be immediately resolved to prevent economic and personal repercussions.

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Percentage of mortgages with an amortization of more than 30 years soars

A growing share of mortgage loans made by major Canadian banks have amortization periods of more than 30 years, a sign of the rising stress borrowers are under as interest rates soar.

With every interest-rate hike by Canada’s central bank, the cost to service a variable-rate mortgage rises. But at most banks, the borrower’s monthly payment doesn’t increase right away. Instead, the amortization period – the time it takes to pay the loan off in full – gets longer. When the loan’s term comes up for renewal, the amortization has to snap back to its original length, which in the current environment of rising rates forces a sudden increase in monthly payments.

At Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the percentage of mortgages with an amortization of more than 30 years recently doubled in a three-month span, according to company filings. That is one of the clearest indicators that stress is building on variable-rate mortgage holders, who are increasingly paying more interest and less principal on their loans.

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The “Trump ticket” races in Arizona that could shape balance of power in Washington

They are the “Trump ticket”: Blake Masters, Kari Lake, Mark Finchem and Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican candidates for the top offices of government in Arizona, each a close political follower of the former president.

Perhaps nowhere else is the imprint of Donald Trump, and with him the outlook for U.S. democracy, more closely bound up with Tuesday’s midterm elections. What happens in Arizona stands to shape national politics, with Mr. Masters, the Republican Senate candidate, vying to unseat the Democratic incumbent, Mark Kelly. Republicans need to gain just one Senate seat to assume control of that chamber, with its powers to confirm or deny presidential appointments. Nathan VanderKlippe reports on the races that could tip the scale.

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Also on our radar

She lost two sons to overdoses. At 52, she returned to school determined to address addiction in Indigenous communities: Meet Milly Youngpine, a 53-year-old Blackfoot grandmother who has lost two kids to overdoses – and who is back in school to gain the skills she needs to address addiction in Indigenous communities.

Ottawa and provincial health ministers urged by nurse union head to stop “squabbling” as they sit down for first meeting since 2018: The president of Canada’s nurses’ unions is urging Ottawa and the provinces to stop “squabbling” and to focus on finding practical solutions to the country’s health care crisis, including addressing a chronic shortage of nurses, when they meet early this week to discuss federal health transfers.

Early morning eclipse this week set to paint the moon orange: Halloween may be over, but a total lunar eclipse during the early morning hours of Tuesday promises to deliver an eerie spectacle for sky watchers across Canada.

What’s gone wrong with passports, airports and basic federal services? How a perfect storm swamped Canada’s bureaucracy: For months, Canadians who want to travel or newcomers hoping to immigrate have been left behind by short-staffed, slow-to-adapt institutions. The Globe asked the experts how it happened and who’s responsible.

Recognize genocide in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, experts urge Canadian committee: MPs say they will push ahead with their Tigray report as urgently as they can, spurred on by witnesses who described mass rapes and starvation.

Dissidents ask Canada to extend immigration lifeline for those fleeing Hong Kong: Human-rights activists and former pro-democracy legislators from Hong Kong, in self-imposed exile around the world, are calling on Ottawa to extend and expand a program that helps residents fleeing the former British colony to immigrate to Canada.

Morning markets

World stocks bounce: Global stocks edged higher in volatile trade on Monday, even though Beijing denied it would consider easing its zero COVID-19 policy, which stemmed safe-haven flows into the U.S. dollar ahead of potentially pivotal U.S. inflation data this week. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.07 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 gained 1.01 per cent and 0.16 per cent, respectively. Japan’s Nikkei closed up 1.21 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 2.69 per cent. New York futures were positive. The Canadian dollar was relatively steady at 74.10 US cents.

What everyone’s talking about

Canada must invest in university research to compete globally

“Canada over the past two decades has built an enviable reputation as a leading science-and-technology-development nation with major public investments in university research. But investments in publicly funded research are not keeping pace with those of many other countries. We are not developing the number of highly qualified individuals needed to drive our rapidly developing innovation economy. Canada now stands 28th in the OECD in graduate-level educational attainment.” – Peter Stoicheff

We have to believe in a world without war – and science should lead the way

“Today, I believe only radical actions can save us. We must reshape history. Ours must be an age of abolition; it has already been marked by an end to slavery, and we must soon see an end to female servitude, an end to environmental degradation and, above all, an end to threats of mass destruction.” – John Polanyi

Bill C-11 could help Canadian content become a better reflection of the country

“The laws and guidelines that govern broadcasting and content creation haven’t changed since Brian Mulroney was prime minister. As a result, the gatekeepers remain largely the same. Shows and films continue to under-represent – or misrepresent – the experiences of Indigenous people and others. We’re stuck in a loop.” – Jesse Wente

Today’s editorial cartoon

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Living better

Three sleep pros share their nightly routines

This weekend, many Canadians set their clocks back an hour as daylight saving time came to an end. For most of us, this just means an extra hour of sleep. But if you’re someone who struggles with sleep problems, the small change can have big impacts on your ability to get a good night’s sleep. To help you prepare for the end of daylight saving time, and even improve your sleep routine year-round, we asked three experts – including a sleep coach and a former insomniac – to share their bedtime tips, routines and more.

Moment in time: Nov. 4, 2022

King Tut’s tomb is discovered

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For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month, we’re looking at the 100th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

On Nov. 4, 1922, after six years of searching in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings near Luxor, British archaeologist Howard Carter had his eureka moment. It was a set of stairs, carved downward in the bedrock and ending in an underground door. Three weeks later, with benefactor Lord Carnarvon by his side, he chiselled through the last wall. He soon confirmed he had found the 3,000-year-old tomb of a relatively obscure pharaoh, Tutankhamun, a boy king who died at 19, barely 10 years into his reign. There were small chambers packed with everything a king would need in the afterlife, more than 5,000 items including furniture, chariots and a golden throne. And, inside a series of coffins and covered with a gold death mask, the mummified body of King Tut. It was the only pharaoh’s tomb found never to have been looted or disturbed, the biggest archeological find in Egyptian history. Philip King.

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