ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION
Premier Doug Ford tested after minister comes in contact with COVID-19 case
TORONTO—Premier Doug Ford got tested Wednesday for COVID-19, a day after his education minister came into contact with someone who was infected — despite the minister’s test coming back negative.
Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott held a joint news conference Tuesday with Stephen Lecce to announce a child-care reopening plan, and Lecce’s office said he was notified the same day that he had come into contact with someone with COVID-19, so he got tested.
As a result, Ford and Elliott cancelled their usual daily news conference and the premier’s office said they were monitoring themselves for symptoms and getting tested while awaiting Lecce’s results.
Not long after the colleges and universities minister began a solo appearance at the daily briefing, Lecce’s office said his test result came back negative.
Ford spokesperson Ivana Yelich said Ford still got tested for COVID-19 “out of an abundance of caution.”
Public health officials have not recommended getting a COVID-19 test immediately after possible exposure.
“If you are worried about possible exposure to a person with or under investigation for COVID-19, based on evidence and the incubation period of the virus, we suggest individuals get tested four to eight days after potential exposure,” Toronto’s Michael Garron Hospital writes on its website.
Neither the premier’s office nor a spokeswoman for Lecce would say how he came into contact with a positive case, or why his possible exposure wasn’t made public sooner.
The premier’s office would also not confirm if Ford was in self-isolation while awaiting Lecce’s test results.
His nephew, city councillor Michael Ford, recently tested positive for COVID-19, but the premier hadn’t seen his nephew in more than two weeks, a spokeswoman said.
Colleges and Universities Minister Ross Romano took to the podium alone Wednesday to announce that limited inperson education and training could start on post-secondary campuses starting in July.
The summer session will be for students “in areas of high labour market demand” — such as nursing, personal support worker, welding and engineering — who need to complete a lab or practicum course component to graduate.
There will be strict limits on the number of students per campus, the government said.
Ontario reported 251 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, and 11 more deaths.
That brings the province to a total of 31,341 cases, including 2,475 deaths and 25,380 resolved cases — 551 more than the previous day.
OTTAWA—Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is urging developing island countries to use the upcoming United Nations Security Council election as leverage to push Canada and Norway to step up their games on climate change.
The 17-year-old from Sweden has become one of the most recognized climate activists in the world with her climate strike movement growing into a global phenomenon last year.
She is the headline signatory on a letter to UN ambassadors of small island developing states, which says that Canada and Norway both give lip service to climate action, but remain steadfast in their commitment to expand fossil fuel production and subsidizing oil companies.
“For the young generation who will inherit the consequences of these decisions, it is critical that those who claim to be leading on climate action are held to account for decisions they are making back at home,” the letter reads.
Three other youth climate activists and 22 global climate scientists also signed the letter, including Eddy Carmack, a recently retired Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist who was awarded the Order of Canada this year for his work on climate change.
The letter asks the ambassadors to raise the issue with Canada and Norway “and demand that they unite behind the science” of climate change, commit to no new oil and gas exploration or production, and phase out their existing production.
Canada is going up against Norway and Ireland for the two seats available in next week’s election to the prestigious UN body. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has devoted a lot of political capital to trying to win the spot.
With most European countries expected to side with their continental neighbours, Canada has put its effort into wooing countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, including most of the more than three-dozen island nations targeted by Wednesday’s letter.
Trudeau has spoken or met directly with the leaders of nearly one-third of those countries since February.
Norway and Canada both have economies heavily based on oil and gas.
Ireland has very little fossil fuel production and last year committed to ending oil and gas exploration altogether.
Thunberg first expressed her discontent with Canada’s climate policies directly to Trudeau last September, when the two met in Montreal on the same day hundreds of thousands of Canadians took to the streets as part of a global climate strike.
In their letter, Thunberg and the others say that Canada is nowhere close to hitting its Paris climate agreement targets. They also say Canada is the second-biggest supplier of fossil fuel subsidies among the world’s wealthiest 20 countries and has opened up billions of dollars in loans to fossil fuel companies as part of its COVID-19 economic aid.
Oil companies have been particularly hard hit from a combination of plummeting demand for oil products, and a production war between Saudi Arabia and Russia that flooded the world with more oil at a time it was already using less.
For major oil companies, and other big corporations, to qualify for the loans, Canada does require them to show a climate plan and how their business is helping Canada meet its emissions targets.
The letter writers said if Canada was serious about implementing the Paris agreement, it would make permanent its temporary ban on extracting oil and gas in the Arctic, cancel both the Trans Mountain and Keystone XL pipeline projects, and end all subsidies to the oil and gas industry.
They give Canada credit for promising to make climate change a regular part of the Security Council’s discussions, and push for it to create a new special representative for climate security.