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Paramedics across Canada are struggling to answer emergency calls and provide care because of staff shortages and overcrowded hospitals, with people who are calling 911 in many regions of Canada facing lengthy delays, sometimes hours long, for ambulances – and further delays once they arrive at hospitals.
While dispatchers are triaging calls, giving priority to the most serious medical emergencies, the pressure on paramedic services is having effects throughout Canada.
Health experts say these problems are not new and that they have been calling attention to the overstretched system for years. But the COVID-19 pandemic has brought additional challenges that are pushing many parts of the system beyond the breaking point.
Read more:
- With ERs on the brink, doctors explain what patients should consider before they go
- Ontario unions call for urgent action on hospital staffing, emergency-room closings
- What’s happening in ERs across Canada? Dispatches on waiting times, crowding and closings
Paramedics stand by their ambulances at Toronto Western Hospital in Toronto on Oct. 27, 2020.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
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Pope Francis holds second mass amid calls for broader residential-school apology
The thousands who attended Pope Francis’s mass at the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré on Thursday morning were not expecting yet another apology from the pontiff. But many had hoped they would be wrong.
Later Thursday, Pope Francis presided over evening prayers at Quebec City’s Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica-Cathedral. His homily did not mention residential schools, but he did address sexual abuse for the first time during his visit to Canada.
- Konrad Yakabuski: For Pope Francis, apologizing came second to evangelizing
- Pope Francis renews his residential-schools apology in Quebec
- Pope’s message of investigation into residential-school abuse a ‘lost in translation’ moment, Vatican clarifies
Minor-league associations begin to rebel against Hockey Canada
Minor-hockey associations across the country have begun to rebel against Hockey Canada after learning that a portion of funds from players’ registration fees have been used to settle sexual-abuse claims.
Quebec regional hockey associations are scheduled to meet with Hockey Quebec on Aug. 3 to discuss the fallout over the controversy that has enveloped Hockey Canada since the organization settled a $3.55-million lawsuit in May over sexual-assault allegations. Associations in Manitoba and Alberta are also considering their next moves.
- Hockey Canada says it paid $8.9-million to settle 21 cases of alleged sexual assault since 1989
- Opinion: If hockey is our game, then its history of violence is our legacy - one that Canada must reckon with
- Listen to The Decibel: Outrage over Hockey Canada’s fund to settle sexual-assault claims
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Also on our radar
Senior RCMP officer testifies he was told not to disclose call from Commissioner Brenda Lucki: A senior Mountie told a public inquiry Thursday that federal lawyers advised him not to disclose a call he received from the RCMP Commissioner that he says appeared to be motivated by a desire to use the Nova Scotia mass shooting to boost support for Liberal gun-control measures.
B.C. opens cooling centres as heat wave hits Western Canada: As extreme heat warnings blanketed Western Canada with more than 60 active heat warnings Thursday and temperatures surpassing 40 C in some areas, officials urged precaution and cooling centres opened their doors in parts of British Columbia.
Ukrainian civilians are being taken from their homes and interrogated by Russian soldiers for weeks: Filtration, a process where civilians who aren’t suspected of any specific crimes are held in Donetsk People’s Republic or Russian facilities for days or weeks while authorities check their backgrounds and credentials, has become a fact of life for residents of Donetsk’s Russian and DPR-held territories.
- Russia tasks mercenaries with frontline sectors as infantry losses mount: Britain
- Anxiety grows among Ukrainian farmers over fate of grain exports despite deal with Russia
U.S. economy contracts, flashing signs of technical recession: The American economy unexpectedly shrank for the second quarter in a row between April and June, triggering a fight among economists and politicians over whether the U.S. faces a full-blown recession, or simply a technical one.
Leslyn Lewis to skip Conservative leadership debate: Earlier this week, Lewis issued an open letter saying she had reservations about a debate that did not deal with questions about subjects such as abortion, the World Economic Forum, the WHO Pandemic Treaty as well as an inquiry into the pandemic response and severe adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines.
Cost estimate for Coastal GasLink pipeline soars 70 per cent to $11.2-billion: TC Energy Corp. says it’s optimistic about completing construction by the end of 2023. The project previously carried a price tag of $6.6-billion for the 670-kilometre pipeline, which is designed to transport natural gas from northeast B.C. to LNG Canada’s $18-billion export terminal.
Morning markets
Global stocks eye winning month: Global stocks rose on Friday, on course for their best month since late 2020, as traders bet a weakening U.S. economy could slow the pace of monetary tightening in the world’s largest economy, while the U.S. dollar struggled broadly against its rivals. Just after 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.54 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.78 per cent and 1.40 per cent. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei slid 0.05 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 2.26 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading at 77.95 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
“Radical change is needed, and I have zero confidence in Hockey Canada’s leadership. When the spotlight was on safe sport … the organization failed to change, and is now promising action only after the alleged assault was brought to light by the media.” - Kirsty Duncan
“The 24th International AIDS Conference, taking place this week in Montreal and bringing together thousands of activists, scientists and policymakers, could not have come at a more vital time. … we are not on track to end AIDS, and millions of lives are at risk. We can turn this around, but in this particular emergency, the only safe response is to be bold.” – Winnie Byanyima
Today’s editorial cartoon
BRIAN GABLEBRIAN GABLE/The Globe and Mail
Living better
Should you still try to change jobs for higher pay as recession risks grow?
For more than a year, Canada’s record labour shortage has held the promise of generous pay bumps for those willing to switch jobs. But with economists increasingly worried about a recession and some tech companies trimming their headcounts, some workers are starting to wonder whether jumping ship may no longer be a good idea.
Moment in time: July 29, 1958
NASA is created
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, centre, swears in T. Keith Glennan, right, as NASA’s first administrator and Hugh Dryden as its deputy administrator shortly after the agency’s creation.NASA
The Soviet Union’s successful launch of the Sputnik I satellite in 1957 kicked the U.S. space program into overdrive. The Department of Defence had been doing research in rocketry and upper-atmosphere sciences since the end of the Second World War, including rocket plane experiments by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. But would the new agency be a military one, or civilian? Then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower preferred that it be a civilian agency, and in April, 1958, he delivered an address to Congress and submitted a bill to create a “National Aeronautical and Space Agency.” Congress passed the bill, renaming it the “National Aeronautics and Space Act.” Eisenhower signed the act on this day in 1958, creating NASA. The agency’s first objective, as set out in the act, was “the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.” Just shy of 11 years later, NASA’s Apollo 11 mission landed a man on the moon, effectively winning the space race that had spurred NASA’s creation. The agency’s goals have evolved to include extending and sustaining human activities across the solar system. Whatever its stated aims, it always has, and always will, inspire dreamers who reach for the stars. Dave McGinn
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