COVID-19 continues to impact Ottawa Public Health’s budget in 2023

Local news

CityNews: COVID-19 takes up 60 per cent of the Ottawa Public Health’s draft budget for 2023. On Monday, the regulating body of public health in Ottawa presented its draft budget. The pandemic remains a concern.

The OPH board is expected to vote on the budget at the next meeting in February. City council will approve budgets on March 1.

National:

CBC: British Columbia lost more than 2,200 people to toxic drugs in 2022. The numbers for 2021 and 2022 show a loss of more than six deaths per day and around one person every four hours.

The new regulation’s main objective is to put an end to these figures. The initiative aims at making possession of very small amounts of certain illicit drugs legal for those aged 18 and above.

B.C. chief coroner Lisa Lapointe said the change is a “key first step,” but “only one measure of many that are necessary to end this crisis.”

International:

BBC: A blast in a mosque in Pakistan cost the life of 100 people in the city of Peshawar. No group said it carried out the attack, but it has been linked to the Pakistan Taliban. The mosque is within the tightly-guarded police headquarters area because it contains police headquarters and intelligence and counterterrorism bureaus. The explosion took place during the afternoon prayers in the north-western city, near the country’s border with Afghanistan.

In a statement, PM Shehbaz Sharif said those behind the attack “have nothing to do with Islam”.

He added: “The entire nation is standing united against the menace of terrorism.”

The police of Islamabad, the capital, issued a security high-alert.