Ottawa convoy deemed national security threat a week before Emergencies Act: police

Ontario police deemed the so-called “Freedom Convoy” a threat to national security one week before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act.

Police have described the unprecedented invocation of the legislation as “critical” to their efforts to end the demonstrations, which saw participants encamped in downtown residential streets for three weeks.

Yet it is unclear at this point why it took seven days before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, or why it took police an additional week beyond that to begin clearing out the convoy.

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Good luck getting Canadians to give up working from home

The longer Canadians have worked at home the more they’ve learned to love it, and that is going to make it harder for employers to drag them back to the office, according to a new poll.

A large majority of Canadians (79 per cent) who have worked from home for the past two years are now “attached to their arrangement,” and “prefer to be doing it all or most of the time,” said the survey, conducted in early March by the Angus Reid Institute and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and released this week.

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COVID-19 restrictions are lifting, but unvaccinated Canadians still can’t board planes or trains

Canada’s vaccine mandate — which took effect in November 2021 to boost vaccination rates — prevents unvaccinated Canadians from boarding a commercial plane or train in Canada to both domestic and international destinations. Now that COVID-19 restrictions are fast disappearing, some unvaccinated Canadians question why the federal government still maintains the mandate.

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How Vaccine Messaging Confused the Public

Pivotal randomized control trials (RCTs) underpinning approval of Covid-19 vaccines did not set out to, and did not, test if the vaccines prevent transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Nor did the trials test if the vaccines reduce mortality risk. A review of seven phase III trials, including those for Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines, found the criterion the vaccines were trialed against was just reduced risk of Covid-19 symptoms.

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How did we let lockdown happen?

Two years on from the UK’s first ‘stay at home’ order, we must vow to never shut down society again.

‘You must stay at home.’ Two years ago today, on 23 March 2020, prime minister Boris Johnson delivered that instruction to the British people, ushering in the first ever UK lockdown.

Lockdown may be fading from view right now, thanks in part to other, more pressing crises abroad. But as we learn to ‘move on’ from Covid, we cannot ever allow ourselves to think that such an extreme, extraordinary and cruel policy was ever normal or necessary.

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The Covid-cautious are hungriest for war

There’s a strong correlation between a fear of Covid and a desire for open conflict

Risk calculus is a funny thing. According to a new poll, the Canadians most cautious about the risk of catching Covid-19 are also the most likely to support open war between Russia and the United States.

It wasn’t a big sample, but the results were stark.

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Plenty of Twitter “experts” unhappy with end of mask mandates

Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, an Ottawa-based doctor, feminist and strong supporter of mandates and restrictions, criticized the move to give Ontario residents and students the choice to wear a mask, calling the decision political.

“The end of mask mandates was driven by politics, disinformation, and ideology, not by sound health policy or science,” she tweeted.

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Despite a manipulated media, the COVID lab leak has not been ‘debunked’

The worldwide toll of deaths from COVID-19 has just hit 6 million, nearly 1 million of which are in the United States. Few science stories are more important than understanding where the COVID virus came from. Yet the science writers’ section of the press corps has proved strangely incapable of telling the story straight.

Two hypotheses have long been on the table. One is that the virus jumped naturally from some animal host, as many epidemics have done in the past. The other is that it escaped from a lab in Wuhan, where researchers are known to have been genetically manipulating bat viruses in order to predict future epidemics. Both hypotheses are plausible but, so far, no direct evidence exists for either.

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‘Human-Induced Event’: Experts Reveal Horrifying Likely Causes Of Boeing 737 That Plunged Into Ground

Experts have started to speculate about the causes of a horrifying plane crash that was caught on camera on Monday that showed a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashing vertically into the ground.

Flightradar24 released data from the flight that showed the aircraft was cruising at just over 29,000 feet when it then plunged more than 20,000 feet in under a minute before later slamming into the ground. Rescue crews have not been able to locate any survivors of the more than 130 people that were on board the flight.

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Inflation Mostly a Made-in-Canada Problem, Finance Committee Hears

The high inflation bout affecting Canadians is not transitory nor mostly tied to a global phenomena, two economics experts told the House finance committee on March 21, but it is instead the product of domestic monetary and fiscal policies.

“Inflation is indeed a global problem, but our inflation problem is very much made at home here in Canada,” testified Vivek Dehejia, associate professor of economics and philosophy at Carleton University.

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‘It’s a betrayal to us’: Ontario students walkout Monday in protest of the province’s end to mask mandates

As masks became optional in most public settings Monday, Ontario students staged walkouts at schools across the province, calling for mandates to be extended and more health measures to be implemented.

“It’s a betrayal to us,” Grade 11 student Derek Song said about the government’s decision. “We don’t really get our voices heard.”

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Journalists, or PR Agents? Why science reporters don’t report fairly on the origins of Covid-19

The worldwide toll of deaths from Covid-19 has just hit 6 million, nearly 1 million of which are in the United States. Few science stories are more important than understanding where the Covid virus came from. Yet the science writers’ section of the press corps has proved strangely incapable of telling the story straight.

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It Is Not Enough To End Vaccine Mandates, They Must Be Banned

Many Canadians are happy to see provincial governments, and now even the federal government ending COVID-19 restrictions, mask mandates, and worst of all, COVID-19 vaccine mandates for certain occupations and activities, but is that really enough?

The fact that the government had the capability to mandate vaccines that did not stop the spread of the virus they were meant to fight is quite troubling. In some provinces like Ontario, they have still not scrapped the digital infrastructure for the mandates, making it so that businesses can still continue discriminating against customers based on vaccine status.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is tacitly endorsing discrimination, and even if you think businesses should be allowed to deny service to whomever they please (which is a fair argument), it is undeniable that nobody would care about vaccine status if the government did not tell them to care.

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Ontario reports 1,217 new Covid cases, well not really … and This Is it! Mask No More!

Ontario reports 1,217 new Covid cases, well not really … and This Is it! Mask No More!

COVID-related hospitalizations drop below 600 in Ontario; 4 more deaths added to cumulative total

The number of patients with COVID-19 at Ontario hospitals hit the lowest level seen in nearly three months, dropping below 600 today.

Provincial health officials say there are currently 551 COVID-19 patients currently receiving treatment in hospitals, down from 602 last week. COVID-related hospitalizations have not dipped below 600 since December 28, when 491 patients were receiving treatment in Ontario.


Ontario lifts mask mandates in most public spaces including schools, retail settings

TORONTO — Face masks will no longer be required in schools, retail settings and most other indoor public spaces in Ontario beginning today.

The change comes a few weeks after the province lifted proof-of-vaccination rules and capacity limits.

Select settings such as public transit, health-care facilities, long-term care homes and congregate care settings will keep mask mandates until the end of April, when the province plans to put an end to all remaining public health rules.

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