Ontario government holds firm in re-opening, despite growing COVID cases

Local news

CBC News: Minister of Health Christine Elliot stated there are no plans to reintroduce masking mandates or other restrictions if there is a sixth wave of COVID-19. “We need to get on with our lives and learn to live with COVID as it still exists with us,” said Elliot. There is no current threshold of hospital admissions at which restrictions would be re-introduced. Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, has ceased holding regular press briefings on COVID-19. Elliot says the lack of media scrums is a good sign that “the peak of the pandemic has passed us.”

National news

CTV News: The Quebec Superior Court has ordered the ringleader of Canada’s great maple syrup heist to pay a $9-million fine. Richard Vallières was part of a group of 16 people who stole around $18 million worth of syrup from a warehouse near Quebec City between 2011 and 2012. The theft was discovered during a routine check of inventory, barrels were found to contain water. Vallières made a $1-million profit on the illegal sale of maple syrup. Chief Justice Wagner of the Supreme Court of Canada said he must pay the fine within 10 years or else go to prison for six years.

International News

National Observer: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the United States to provide more military aid, saying his country’s defense against the Russians is at a ‘turning point.” Russia had just reneged on its promise to pull back troops from Kyiv and Chernihiv, and was shelling a humanitarian convoy into the latter city. To date, four million refugees have fled the war in Ukraine, half of them children. During Tuesday’s peace talks in Istanbul, there seemed to be some progress when the offer was made for Ukraine to remain a neutral territory, and not seek NATO membership. Shortly after the meeting, new attacks were made on some of Kyiv’s outlying areas.