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Alberta gets court injunction against planned anti-COVID-19 health order protests

EDMONTON — The Alberta government says it has taken legal action to stop any planned protests of COVID-19 public health orders, including one at a central Alberta cafe that was closed for not following the rules.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

On Wednesday, Alberta Health Services closed the Whistle Stop Cafe in the hamlet of Mirror until its owner can demonstrate the ability to comply with health restrictions.

The agency says it had received more than 400 complaints against the business since January.

Alberta Health Services says it has been granted a pre-emptive court injunction against a planned protest by the cafe owner and supporters.

It says it also has received a court order against all other organizers of advertised illegal gatherings and rallies breaching COVID-19 public health orders.

There is an ad promoting a rally this weekend at the cafe in Mirror called "The Save Alberta Campout Protest."

The ad says the event is a response to "harmful restrictions" imposed by Premier Jason Kenney, Health Minister Tyler Shandro, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, and "the United Conservative Party caucus' ongoing attack on the rights and freedoms of the people of Alberta."

Video: Alberta promises more enforcement of public health rules (cbc.ca)

Alberta Health Services says the court order restrains the cafe owner and others from organizing, promoting and attending the event.

"AHS has taken this step due to the ongoing risk to Albertans created by those breaching COVID-19 public health restrictions and advertising social gatherings which, if held, breach current and active CMOH Orders and pose a risk to public health," the agency said in a release Thursday.

"AHS strongly condemns the intentional disobeying of COVID-19 public health restrictions,"

The agency says with COVID-19 cases increasing in the province, including the more easily transmitted and potentially more severe variants, there is urgent need to minimize spread to protect all Albertans.

Last weekend, hundreds of people gathered near Bowden, also in central Alberta, for a pre-advertised maskless "No More Lockdowns'' protest rodeo.

Days later, the premier announced stronger restrictions and doubled fines for scofflaws

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2021

The Canadian Press

Long-time Edmonton politician Amarjeet Sohi hasn’t decided if he will run for mayor in the upcoming election, contrary to a news report Thursday.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Former member of Parliament and Edmonton city councillor Amarjeet Sohi said is considering running for mayor in the upcoming Edmonton municipal election, but hasn't made a final decision.

Sohi, a former member of Parliament and city councillor, told Postmedia Thursday afternoon he was surprised to see an article by The Hill Times citing anonymous sources that he would be officially entering the race to be Edmonton’s mayor race this month.

Instead, Sohi said he is “seriously considering” a run for mayor but hasn’t made a decision. He said he is continuing to engage with residents on what they would like to see in a leader and has no timeline for an announcement either way.

“I’ve lived in Edmonton for 40 years and I love our city and we have faced a number of difficult challenges over the last few years, particularly over the last 14 months living through a pandemic and we’re still living through that. But I also believe that coming out of this pandemic we will continue to face significant challenges as well as opportunities, so that is why I’m seriously considering to run to be Edmonton’s next mayor,” Sohi said. “It’s a huge, huge responsibility and I want to continue to engage with more Edmontonians over the next while to understand their priorities and what their ambitions are about our city. But I am deeply committed to our city and I want to play my part in providing that leadership.”

Sohi was elected as Ward 12 city councillor for three terms starting in 2007 before resigning in 2015 to run federally. He then served as the Liberal member of Parliament for Edmonton Mill Woods and took on the roles of minister of natural resources and minister of infrastructure and communities before losing his seat in the 2019 election.

If Sohi does enter the mayor’s race, he will join three other candidates who have served on Edmonton city council. Mayor Don Iveson announced last November he would not be running for a third time leaving an open race for the mayor’s chair. Current Ward 11 Coun. Mike Nickel is running for mayor for the third time ADVERTISING IN THE FAR RIGHT RAG WESTERN STADARD and former councillors Kim Krushell and Michael Oshry have confirmed their candidacy.

Cheryll Watson, Diana Steele, Brian Gregg, Rick Comrie, Abdul Malik Chukwudi and Augustine Marah have also registered, bringing the number of confirmed candidates to nine.

Aspiring candidates for both mayor and the 12 councillor seats have until Sept. 30 to officially register. Edmontonians will go to the polls on Oct. 18.

duscook@postmedia.com

twitter.com/dustin_cook3

USA DUMPING

Millions of Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses made at a Baltimore plant are reportedly being held across Europe, Africa, and Canada as a precaution

acooban@businessinsider.com (Anna Cooban)  

© Photo by Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images Emergent BioSolutions disposed of 15 million doses of J&J vaccine in March Photo by Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images

Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses are on hold in Europe, Africa, and Canada, the New York Times reported.

The doses were produced in a Baltimore plant around the time some batches were contaminated.

Emergent BioSolutions had to discard 15 million J&J doses in March after the incident.

Millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are sitting unused across three continents as national regulators assess their safety, The New York Times has reported.


Health officials across Europe, Africa and in Canada are reviewing batches of the J&J vaccine manufactured at a Baltimore plant after some were found in March to be contaminated by portions of a harmless version of the virus that is used to make the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is also manufactured at the plant.

Emergent BioSolutions, the biopharma company running the facility, had to dispose of up to 15 million doses after the incident.

An estimated six to nine million doses are on hold worldwide because they were manufactured during the time of the original contamination in February, according to the NYT.

Regulators in the EU, Canada and South Africa have said there was no evidence to show the doses they received were contaminated, but they required further testing. Some doses from a batch produced at the site are being used in Europe.

The Food and Drug Administration has not approved doses produced at Emergent's plant for use in the US, and did not say whether it had helped ship doses to other countries when asked by the NYT.

"In general, individual importing countries determine if a product meets that country's standards for importation," an FDA spokeswoman said in a statement to the NYT.

The pause threatens to slow down the vaccination programs of countries relying on the J&J vaccine, such as South Africa, which stopped using AstraZeneca's vaccine in February after a study suggested it offered "minimal protection" against a COVID-19 variant spreading through the country.

South Africa has one of the lowest vaccination rates of any country, while Europe and Canada also use vaccines by AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech to make up for a shortfall of J&J shots.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Researchers work to authenticate Titanic passenger’s message in a bottle

Duration: 01:49 


A message in a bottle found on a beach at the Bay of Fundy in 2017 could actually be a letter written by a 13-year-old girl who was on the Titanic. Experts are studying it to confirm, but they believe it's possible the letter is authentic.

Tories accused of politicizing education

Nearly 15 years after he was hired by Manitoba Education, John Finch retired as a public servant this year — earlier than planned — because of his concerns about the growing politicization of the department in charge of K-12 schooling.

Finch, 56, worked in consultant, managerial, and co-ordinator roles during his career in the department; most recently, he was in charge of learning support and technology, a unit responsible for all curricular areas outside of numeracy and literacy.

He left his post in early January, two months before the Pallister government released the kindergarten to Grade 12 review, an action plan to address it, and Bill 64 (Education Modernization Act).

“I really wasn’t seeing the values that I had reflected in the department any longer; there’s no educators in the senior ranks,” he told the Free Press.

“Assistant deputy ministers have traditionally been educators, but that’s not the case now, and so you have people that don’t necessarily understand how schools function making the decisions on what should happen within schools.”

Finch, who got his start in education as a public school teacher, had planned to retire in a year’s time, but said the prioritization of policy over educational philosophy, in part, prompted an earlier leave. He sees Bill 64, which aims to overhaul the existing school governance model, as a political decision rather than one related to curriculum or education management.

“I can’t think of anyone in the education department who would think about removing elected trustees from the education milieu of Manitoba. It’s something that I think took everybody by surprise. It certainly did not come from the education department. It wasn’t even in the K-12 review,” Finch said.

The commission tasked with examining all things education recommended the province downsize its school board roster into six to eight regional boards, and create both appointed and elected trustee positions for them.

Instead, the province wants to replace all 37 English boards with a centralized authority run by government appointees who will oversee 15 regions. The new model will allow for administrative services to be streamlined. It also calls for approximately $40 million in the $2.5-billion education budget to be redirected to classrooms, according to Education Minister Cliff Cullen.

Amalgamation of some kind makes sense, Finch said, but what has been proposed — Winnipeg as a single region with more than 100,000 students, 41 times the size of the smallest region, a combination of Evergreen and Lakeshore — “makes absolutely no sense from a management perspective.”

“Hanover, Seine River, the areas that were (not) combined have a political perspective that would match the government perspective,” he added.

The contents of the legislation only reinforce his worry that major curriculum developments in the works could be subject to political involvement, given various new advisory councils made up of external appointees will be created to consult on everything from curriculum to funding.

The challenges the department faced in overseeing dozens of entities during the COVID-19 pandemic are being used as rationale for change.

Finch, however, said divisions were “far more responsive” in comparison to government-led efforts, which require a time-consuming approval process, when it came to everything from setting up remote learning to providing nutrition support.

“Some of the school divisions, for example, went way beyond what we ever had envisioned — Winnipeg School Division was using their culinary arts kitchens to send meals to students at home, to the magnitude of a couple thousand per day,” said Finch, who worked on the department’s COVID-19 nutrition program. “The response that we had for the home nutrition learning program didn’t come close, and it took three months for our nutrition program to get off the ground.”

He credits Deputy Education Minister Dana Rudy for playing a key co-ordination role in communicating with superintendents about their needs throughout the pandemic, but said he doubts scrapping agile divisions will result in a more responsive system.

Rudy was executive director and chief allied health officer of Winnipeg Regional Health Authority before she moved to Manitoba Education in February 2020 — one month before the province was originally scheduled to release the K-12 review. The current assistant deputy minister’s résumé includes leadership roles in the families and finance departments.

Cullen, who is in charge of the education portfolio, has a background in agricultural and environmental sectors.

In a prepared statement Thursday, he said, “We know not everyone will agree with decisions made by their current elected government.

“The role of Manitoba Education is to provide leadership and oversight to the system and ensure a consistent standard of high-quality education is available to all students across the province. The strategic direction for the education system set by the department is grounded in educational philosophy and informed by expert advice including that from educators.”

The education minister added the province is confident in the qualifications and credentials of its dedicated ministry staff and will continue to engage educators on the future of the public school system.

Meantime, Finch said he hopes there is some “sober second thought” about the changes on the table.

“We have a really good education system in the province and the way that it’s being characterized… it’s basically saying, ‘(Teachers), you’re not doing your job so government is going to step in and make it better,’ without really specifying how they’re going to make it better.”

Maggie Macintosh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

After 4 years, bill requiring sexual assault training for new judges becomes law

A long-awaited bill that would require prospective judges to undergo training in sexual assault law was finally adopted by the Senate Thursday, clearing the way for it to be officially added to the federal Judges Act and Criminal Code

  

© Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press A gavel sits on a desk in Ottawa, Wednesday February 13, 2019.

Bill C-3 quickly received royal assent after passing through third reading in the Senate. The bill officially became law once the Speaker of the House of Commons was informed shortly afterwards.

The bill, which will also require judges to commit to continued education in how systemic racism and discrimination factors into assault cases, unanimously passed the House last November.

Read more: Rona Ambrose’s judicial sex assault law training bill gets 2nd shot as Liberals retable

It began as a private members bill introduced in February 2017 by former interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose, which the Liberal government supported.

The bill had made it all the way to the Senate in May 2017, but it was held up there for two years and ultimately failed to pass before the 2019 federal election.

Justice Minister David Lametti reintroduced it as a government bill in February 2020 with amendments that senators had proposed to Ambrose's bill. But he then had to reintroduce it again last fall after Parliament was prorogued by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in late August.

Reintroduction of bill requiring sexual assault law training for judges to break down myths, stereotypes: Lametti

Lametti had urged the Senate in March to pass the bill quickly and avoid adding further amendments that he feared would doom the bill once again.

"This bill sends a clear message to all survivors of sexual assault, and to all Canadians," Lametti said on Twitter after the bill passed the Senate.

"The justice system must serve you fairly and respectfully. Sexual assault cases will be heard without the influence of myths and prejudices."

He thanked Ambrose for her "support and cooperation" as the bill wound its way through Parliament.

MPs working across party lines to pass bill that aims for mandatory sexual assault law training for Canadian federal judge

Trudeau says Conservatives ‘played politics’ with Rona Ambrose’s proposed legislation

The idea that judges need added training to hear sexual assault cases was driven by rulings that critics have said relied on stereotypes about victims of sexual abuse.

The bill would also require the Canadian Judicial Council to report on continuing education seminars offered on matters related to sexual assault law and social context.

It also amends the Criminal Code to require judges to put their reasons for decisions in sexual assault proceedings on the record.

— With files from the Canadian Press

Judges' sexual assault training bill receives royal assent after clearing the Senate

OTTAWA — Rona Ambrose says she had no idea it would take so long and require such determination to see that new judges are properly trained in sexual assault law.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Four years and three attempts later, Bill C-3 received royal assent in Parliament on Thursday evening.

The legislation will require new federally appointed judges to agree to take training, including learning about rape myths and stereotypes and how to make sure biases about race, gender and other social factors do not influence their decisions.

It will also require judges to put their reasons on the record when ruling on sexual assault cases.

The legislation originated as a private member's bill that Ambrose presented in 2017 while she was interim Conservative leader, but after it received cross-partisan support in the House of Commons, it stalled in the Senate.

Ambrose said there were certain senators who purposely tried to hold up the bill with the intent of quashing it. These individuals, whom she did not name, posed questions and made statements about the bill that she says were sexist and misogynistic.

"There were senators who knew that they could hold it up. They said things like, 'This will sway the legal system in favour of victims,' which was the most bizarre thing I've ever heard because it was just about education, and things like, 'This is just another part of the Me Too movement,' " she said in an interview Friday.

"It was misogyny, without a doubt. Sexism and misogyny, and from corners I didn't expect."

The Liberal government supported her original bill, but because of the stalling tactics employed in the Senate, it died when Parliament was dissolved for the 2019 election.

The Liberals revived it last year, making it a government bill that could not be killed in the Red Chamber.

Justice Minister David Lametti said the new law will help ensure survivors of sexual assault are treated with respect and dignity in their interactions with the criminal justice system.

"We expect that these changes will have a broad and positive impact that reach beyond sexual assault matters," he said Friday.

"Judges will benefit from new tools and perspectives that they can apply in all of their work."

Lametti gave full credit to Ambrose for championing the passage of this legislation, which she has continued to do even though she is no longer involved in federal politics.

"Rona's ongoing support and collaboration were important to getting this bill through the parliamentary process, and I wanted to thank her, personally, for her commitment to this issue and to this legislation."

Looking back over the long road to royal assent, Ambrose said she was emotional when she learned the bill had finally passed.

Her thoughts were with the victims of sexual assault who have reached out to her over the last four years, many of whom disclosed their painful experiences, including triggering and re-victimizing ordeals within the justice system.

It was these women's stories that kept her driven to ensure federal judges are properly applying Canada's laws when it comes to sexual assault and rape victims.

"This isn't the be-all and end-all that's going to solve all kinds of things, this is just a small thing that we needed to do, but it's incredible that a small thing took so long to get done," Ambrose said.

"Because the truth is institutions are pretty opaque at times. We're seeing that with the military now too and with the RCMP — there are a lot of great things about our institutions, but willingness to reform themselves is not one of them."

The bill was sparked by some high-profile rulings that led to public outcry. Alberta judge Robin Camp asked a sexual-assault complainant in 2014 why she couldn't keep her knees together; Halifax judge Gregory Lenehan said "a drunk can consent" while acquitting a taxi driver of sexual assault on a passenger in 2017.

Camp resigned from the bench after the Canadian Judicial Council eventually recommended he be removed. Lenehan was cleared of misconduct, though a committee examining his decision said his words were "ill-considered."

The new law will only apply to federally-appointed judges and training will not be mandatory for those already on the bench, in order to respect the principle of judicial independence.

However, the training will be available for all judges who wish to take it, Lametti said.

"We can't force judges who are currently sitting to undergo training, but we do hope that this will create a positive environment to receive that training, and hopefully we will, with time in particular, have a much better-equipped bench that will instill confidence in Canadians."

Some provinces have begun taking steps toward adopting similar mandated or voluntary training programs for judges, including Prince Edward Island, which passed legislation in 2018, and Saskatchewan, which committed to developing a training program for judges, lawyers and other justice system professionals in 2019.

Ambrose said she hopes all the provinces and territories will pass legislation similar to the new federal law, although she is aware of intense push back from the legal and judicial community in many jurisdictions that has made this challenging.

She plans to continue working with any province that wish to make courtrooms a safer and more sensitive place for victims.

"Some of the things that judges have said and some of the mistakes that they've made are just unacceptable for people who hold those positions," Ambrose said.

"To me, the easiest way to rectify that is to make sure they have the right education and training, so yeah, I'm going to keep pushing for it at the provincial level because that's where a lot of these cases are."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2021.

The Canadian Press

DNA used to ID sailor from doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition with living relative

Logan Turner


When Sir John Franklin, two ships and some 130 sailors left a British port in 1845, they hoped to successfully navigate the fabled Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic and into the Pacific Ocean.

Last spotted in Baffin Bay later that year, the ships disappeared and every crew member perished. The expedition reportedly resulted in the greatest loss of life event in the history of polar exploration, and left more questions than answers about what happened.

But 176 years later, a DNA match has identified the skeletal remains of a sailor aboard HMS Erebus as Warrant Officer John Gregory, the first time genetics have been used to name any of the officers and crew.

In a study recently published in the Polar Record journal, scientists said the discovery provides clues about the final movements of the Franklin expeditioners.

"We now know that John Gregory was one of three expedition personnel who died at this particular site, located at Erebus Bay on the southwest shore of King William Island," said Douglas Stenton, an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and co-author of the study.

© Supplied by Robert W. Park Douglas Stenton, an adjunct professor of anthropology at Ontario's University of Waterloo, works to excavate the remains of an unidentified crew member of the 1845 Franklin Expedition through the Northwest Passage. Gregory's remains were found in the same area.

Since the mid-19th century, the skeletal remains of dozens of crew members had been found on King William Island, but none had been positively identified.

"The identification proves that Gregory survived three years locked in the ice on board HMS Erebus. But he perished 75 kilometres south," added archeology anthropology professor Robert Park, co-author of the paper who's also at the University of Waterloo.

The remains of Gregory and two others were first discovered in 1859 and buried in 1879, before being rediscovered in 1993 and excavated two decades later to extract DNA samples. To date, the DNA of 27 members of the Franklin Expedition have been extracted, yielding important information about their estimated health, stature and age at death, according to a news release.

Stephen Fratpietro, the self-described DNA guy with Paleo-DNA lab at Thunder Bay's Lakehead University and another author of the study, was present when the DNA matched with a sample from one of Gregory's living relatives.

"I had to double check my results because up to that point, I think we tested 16 or 17 individuals and we hadn't had any matches at all," said Fratpietro.

Since 2013, Fratpietro and his team have been working with remains of crew on the Franklin Expedition to develop a database of different DNA profiles. Meanwhile, a genealogy team has been trying to "scout out possible living descendants" of the original expeditioners, and ask them to donate DNA to help identify other remains.

In this case, the living descendant was John's great-great-great grandson, Jonathan Gregory, of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

"Having John Gregory's remains being the first to be identified via genetic analysis is an incredible day for our family, as well as all those interested in the ill-fated Franklin expedition," Jonathan said in a release.

Fratpietro said this discovery gives the research team hope they'll identify the remains of the 26 others, and help answer the questions shrouding the centuries-old mystery.

"We want to know what happened, what killed them, how they moved, why were some remains found in this part of the Arctic … just basically, what happened in those years where they were all stuck in the

'Kiss baby for me': First use of DNA to link Franklin expedition sailor to descendant

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Canadian archeologists have used DNA analysis to identify the remains of a Franklin expedition sailor and to link him with his modern-day descendants.

"The news came by email and I was at work," said Jonathan Gregory of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the great-great-great-grandson of John Gregory, whose remains were found on King William Island in Nunavut.

"I literally needed to hold on to my seat when I was reading."

It's the first time genetics have been used to identify any of the 129 officers and crew on the expedition, which was lost in the Arctic in 1848 while searching for the Northwest Passage. The men's fate has given rise to one of the North's most enduring mysteries, now slightly less so.

"The real story lies in learning as much as we can about the men who perished on this expedition. This was an opportunity to do that," said Doug Stenton, a University of Waterloo archeologist who co-led the research.

Capt. John Franklin led an expedition out from England in 1845 to look for a sea lane to Asia over the top of North America. HMS Erebus, its sister ship HMS Terror and the officers and seamen aboard both never returned.

More than 30 expeditions tried to find them. A few artifacts, graves and horrible tales of cannibalism were all that was uncovered.

Three sailors were found in marked graves on Beechey Island and another three men were tentatively named through artifacts buried with them. Through a blend of Inuit oral history and high-tech surveys, the Erebus was found in 2014 and the Terror two years later.

But remains found at three sites on King William Island — about 100 kilometres from the ships — were never identified.

The 23 sailors died after having spent three years frozen in sea ice. They abandoned their ships and hauled Royal Navy lifeboats across the tundra on sledges in an attempt to escape.

In 2013, Stenton investigated one of the sites — an isolated cairn atop the partial skeletons of three men.

"I paused and just stopped and looked around and imagined," recalled Stenton, whose research is published in the journal Polar Record.

"These men were hauling heavily laden sledges with boats. Snow blindness, frozen fingertips ... It's pretty daunting trying to visualize what it was like."

Stenton and his colleagues have analyzed DNA from 27 of Franklin's crew.

That DNA was mentioned in a museum show after the excavation of the two ships. A sign posted in that show asked visitors with family links to the expedition to get in touch.

The Gregory family has long known about its Franklin connection.

"We've got lots of memorabilia," said Gregory, 38. "It was something we always knew of."

So when a relative of his in British Columbia heard about the request and passed it along, Gregory reached out. Once it seemed possible that there was a direct paternal connection, researchers sent him a DNA testing kit.

Eventually, the results came in. Gregory, who manages a retail outlet in Port Elizabeth, still remembers the shock of reading the message.

"'We are pleased to inform you it was a positive match,' (it said)."

"It was an incredible day for me and my family."

John Gregory wasn't even a sailor. Contemporary records show he was an engineer at the firm that made the steam engines in Franklin's ships. He went along to mind them as a newly minted warrant officer.

There are no pictures of John Gregory. The research team has constructed a bust of what he may have looked like.

"I definitely think it had a resemblance to my grandfather," said Gregory. "My mom is still alive and she's extremely proud."

John Gregory's remains were returned to the site in 2014 and placed in a new cairn.

His great-great-great-grandson said there's just one more thing he'd like to do — stand on the lonely, remote spot where his namesake ancestor suffered and died.

"I think that would be quite eerie," he said. "But I like to believe that closure would be a good word, that we've joined the dots."

More dots could be joined, Stenton said.

"We're always working on this. We're very interested in anyone else who is a descendant."

John Gregory himself was last heard from in a letter to his wife Hannah and their five children dated July 9, 1845, posted from Greenland. It closes:

"Give my kind Love to Edward, Fanny, James, William, and kiss baby for me — and accept the same yourself."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2021.

 cbc.ca

Researchers work to authenticate Titanic passenger’s message 

in a bottle

Duration: 01:49

 A message in a bottle found on a beach at the Bay of Fundy in 2017 could actually be a letter written by a 13-year-old girl who was on the Titanic. Experts are studying it to confirm, but they believe it's possible the letter is authentic.

 

Global News
Veteran intelligence officer fought for mandatory masking months before COVID-19 outbreaks at CSIS
Duration: 02:09

A veteran staffer at Canada’s security intelligence service, CSIS, is slamming his employer for its initial refusal to have a mandatory masking policy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. CSIS only recently made this an office-wide rule after its building had already been hit with coronavirus outbreaks this year.

CANADA
Opinion: There's no replacement for paid sick days

Judy Henley is president of CUPE Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan is struggling with an intense third wave of COVID-19, fueled by more infectious and deadlier variants of concern. This third wave continues to push our health-care system to the brink. Admissions to intensive care units have never been higher. Increasingly, those hospitalized are younger and previously healthy. Our rate of active cases and hospitalizations remain among the highest in the country. Too many Saskatchewan residents are losing their lives during this pandemic.

© Provided by Leader Post Paid vaccination leave is one step, but full employer-paid sick days are needed, writes CUPE Sask. president Judy Henley.

Many COVID-19 outbreaks are occurring in workplaces.

Health officials have repeatedly urged workers to stay home if they are feeling unwell, develop COVID-19 symptoms or have been exposed to the virus.

This is all good advice, but not a viable option for most workers.

According to the latest data, 58 per cent of Canadian workers reported having no access to employer-paid sick leave. Among those earning less than $25,000 per year, 74 per cent said they had no paid sick leave. Those without paid sick leave are more likely to be in low-wage, precarious jobs and are disproportionately women, Indigenous and racialized workers.

Too many workers cannot afford to lose even one day of pay. The choice comes down to staying home or going to work sick so they can pay rent or put food on the table. Tragically, those infected at work will often infect family members, despite best efforts to isolate. No one should be put in this situation.

Video: Manitoba announces 5-day paid sick leave program (Global News)

For some time, the labour movement has called for paid sick leave to be made available to all workers, whether unionized or non-unionized. As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, a growing chorus of doctors and public health experts have added their voices to these calls.

In early April, nearly 300 Saskatchewan doctors signed an open letter calling on the provincial government to, among other things, provide paid sick time for essential workers . The Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table also recently called on the Ford government to enact paid sick leave to essential workers to limit the spread of the virus.

After much pressure, the Ontario government finally announced that it will temporarily require employers to provide three days of paid sick leave, which can then be reimbursed by the province. This is clearly inadequate, but sadly better than what most provincial governments provide. The federal labour code and Prince Edward Island mandate three employer-paid sick days a year, while Quebec offers one annual paid sick day. The remaining provinces don’t mandate any paid sick leave.

The Saskatchewan Party government has resisted calls to enact paid sick leave. They point to the paid vaccination leave passed earlier this year and job protection leave enacted last year to provide expanded unpaid leave without the requirement of sick notes. While these are welcome initiatives, they do not go far enough and most certainly do not replace the need for paid sick days.

Our provincial government, like others, also passes the buck by pointing to the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit. This program excludes many workers, is cumbersome, does not guarantee full replacement of income and is not immediate. Workers who wake up sick in the morning need to know immediately that they will not be financially penalized if they stay home sick.

Our provincial government needs to get serious about protecting front-line workers from COVID-19 and promoting public health. The government needs to immediately legislate a minimum of 10 employer-paid sick days for all workers in Saskatchewan. The province could set up a fund to reimburse small businesses to ensure they are not unduly impacted while struggling through the pandemic. Paid sick days need to be permanent, available during COVID-19 and beyond, and not conditional upon receipt of a sick note.

Public health experts and doctors all agree: Paid sick leave should play a key role in getting us out of this pandemic. Our provincial government must act now.