Emergency health-care summit, NDP postelection priorities : In The News for Oct. 6

The organizations are particularly concerned about growing surgical backlogs and the effect that will have on patients’ quality of life for the years to come.

The well-being of health workers is also top of mind, as they report feeling exhausted, demoralized and short-staffed for 18 months straight.

CMA President Dr. Katharine Smart is expected to brief reporters about the meeting Wednesday morning.

The CMA and other organizations are already working together to lobby the government to create a national health workforce agency to better plan for the future of health human resources, said Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses.

The CFN wants to see the summit continue to focus their advocacy on the health workers shortage, which has been exacerbated by exhausted nurses and other workers leaving the industry entirely.

Silas said the summit is not only concerned with hospital issues like surgical backlogs and overcrowded ICU beds, but also on the impact the pandemic has had on long-term care and home care.

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Also this …

N-D-P Leader Jagmeet Singh is set to unveil his party’s top priorities for the coming session of Parliament.

Among the priorities he is to lay out are the pursuit of Indigenous rights, a wealth tax and action on climate change.

Singh will go over the priority list during the N-D-P’s first caucus meeting following last month federal election.

The party won 25 seats in the Sept. 20 vote, one more than after the last election, and increased its share of the vote.

The caucus meeting will also be a chance for Singh to introduce five new N-D-P faces, including Alberta M-P Blake Desjarlais, a two-spirit Métis leader.

But Singh may face questions from some M-Ps about why the N-D-P, which spent 25 million dollars on the campaign, did not perform better.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

HOWELL, Mich. — U.S. President Joe Biden is making the case for his ambitious social spending and building plans by framing them as key to America’s global competitiveness and future success.

Biden travelled to Michigan on Tuesday, declaring he wanted to “set some things straight” about his agenda. He called his opponents “complicit in America’s decline.”

At a union training centre, surrounded by bulldozers and other heavy equipment, Biden spelled out his plans in greater detail than he has in some time, highlighting popular individual parts of the plan, including funding for early childhood education and investments to combat climate change, rather than the expensive $3.5 trillion topline.

Speaking afterward, Biden acknowledged that the overall price tag for his social spending bill will decline, but he insisted that he and Democrats in Congress will “get it done.”

On Capitol Hill, strong signs were emerging that Democrats were coalescing around Biden’s push for a slimmed-down package in the $2 trillion range, a figure that seemed potentially acceptable to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and other centrists with reservations. With all Republicans opposed, Biden can’t spare a single Democratic senator.

Polling suggests that elements in the social spending bill and a related $1 trillion infrastructure bill — such as expanded child care opportunities and roads-and-bridges infrastructure projects — are popular with large parts of the public.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

MOSCOW — Coronavirus deaths in Russia have hit a record for the third time this month and new infections have once again exceeded 25,000 a day in a surge that comes as vaccination rates in the country remain stagnant.

Russia’s state coronavirus task force reported 25,110 new confirmed cases on Tuesday and 895 new deaths. That’s the highest daily death toll in the pandemic.

Officials have blamed the low vaccine uptake. Only 33 per cent of Russia’s 146 million people had received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine as of Tuesday. And just 29 per cent have been fully vaccinated.

The Kremlin has said that it isn’t considering a countrywide lockdown or any other nationwide measures despite the surge.

Tatyana Golikova, the deputy prime minister and head of the country’s coronavirus task force, said Tuesday that Russia is close to registering 30,000 coronavirus infections a day. There are three times more confirmed coronavirus cases this fall compared with last fall, she said.

A number of Russian regions have limited attendance of mass events and restricted access to some public places, such as theatres, cinemas, restaurants and bars, only to those who have been vaccinated, recently recovered from COVID-19 or tested negative over the past 72 hours. But critics question whether these measures are enough to slow down the surge.

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On this day in 1969 …

Montreal police and firefighters began a strike that led to widespread rioting, looting, arson and vandalism. Members of both unions were ordered back to work by the Quebec legislature on Oct. 8.

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In entertainment …

Composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, who wrote the distinctive score of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” and Montreal producer Kaytranada are among the winners at a Quebec-based edition of the SOCAN Awards.

Louis Celestin, known on stage as Kaytranada, who took home songwriter of the year for his release, “Bubba.” The album has also won a Juno and two Grammys.

De Veer picked up the award for screen composer of the year after his percussive score for “The White Lotus” captivated viewers of the breakout HBO hit series.

Pop singer Charlotte Cardin was among the songwriters on “Passive Aggressive,” to receive an anglophone popular song award for the track.

Soulful band Chiiild nabbed the breakout award for their success in the United States.

A virtual celebration of the SOCAN Gala recognized achievements by francophone and anglophone members of the music organization in 22 categories. The SOCAN Gala is a companion event to the annual SOCAN Awards, which took place in May with a similar online event.

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ICYMI …

OTTAWA — Gasoline use dropped to its lowest level in two decades for weeks at the end of last year as pandemic lockdowns left cars sitting in driveways and garages for weeks, but environmental experts say the resulting drop in greenhouse gas emissions will not be permanent.

Statistics Canada data show Canadians bought 38.6 billion litres of gas in 2020, 14 per cent less than the year before. Diesel use also fell nine per cent, to the lowest amount since 2009.

It is the smallest amount of gasoline purchased over the course of a year since 2001, and the biggest one-year adjustment to the amount of gasoline purchased since at least 1987, when Statistics Canada started reporting the data this way.

A reduction of six billion litres of gasoline and 1.6 billion litres of diesel, translated into greenhouse gas emissions, would cut Canada’s carbon output about 2.5 per cent. Canada has promised to cut its emissions 40 to 45 per cent by 2030, compared to 2005 levels. The most recent report listed 2019 emissions as on par with 2005.

Caroline Brouillette, national policy manager at the Climate Action Network Canada, said getting transportation emissions zero is going to take more than temporary measures during a pandemic.

“Without structural changes that address how Canadians move around, it’s unlikely that emissions reductions that could have occurred during the pandemic will be permanent,” she said.

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

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Emergency health-care summit, NDP postelection priorities : In The News for Oct. 6

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