Juno News - True North Update： Troops at our border？

00:00:00.000 Hi, and welcome to True North Update.

00:00:07.600 I'm your host, Candice Malcolm,

00:00:08.840 and I am joined by co-host Andrew Lawton.

00:00:11.520 Andrew, thanks so much for being here.

00:00:13.280 Yes, absolutely.

00:00:14.840 So we are doing something special today.

00:00:16.940 We are recording this broadcast live.

00:00:19.400 We usually pre-record it,

00:00:20.960 but we decided to do it live today to get you all of

00:00:23.680 the facts and all the information as fast as possible.

00:00:26.680 So before we get into today's news,

00:00:28.760 let's just go through the latest statistics on coronavirus.

00:00:32.320 So as of today, Thursday at 2 p.m.,

00:00:35.880 there are 3,845 confirmed cases in Canada,

00:00:40.880 which has resulted in sadly 37 deaths.

00:00:44.520 So that cumulative number continues to grow,

00:00:48.080 not quite at the same rapid pace that we are seeing

00:00:50.660 in other parts of the world,

00:00:51.660 but it's still alarming nonetheless.

00:00:53.520 So the big news story at the press conferences today,

00:00:57.200 the prime ministers, and then the COVID-19 response team,

00:01:00.760 the cabinet there.

00:01:02.760 The thing that everyone is focusing on and in the media

00:01:05.120 is a story of global news.

00:01:06.680 So Mercedes Stevenson over at Global had the scoop today 0.96

00:01:09.960 that Donald Trump and the U.S. administration

00:01:12.280 is looking to put troops near the Canadian border amid coronavirus fears.

00:01:17.320 So Andrew, what happened with this story at these press conferences?

00:01:22.880 Yeah, it was interesting because I was seeing that headline earlier and thought,

00:01:28.120 okay, you know, whatever seems like a pretty sensible thing when we know that border containment

00:01:32.880 efforts are pretty much the priority for a lot of jurisdictions with blocking COVID-19.

00:01:37.880 But then to see how quickly this escalated to be the huge story that everyone's focusing

00:01:43.600 on today, I found a little bit odd.

00:01:45.960 The details of it are, and it's important to note that the U.S. hasn't made a final decision

00:01:50.360 on this by what we've heard so far, we'll be using military to patrol a perimeter about

00:01:56.020 30 kilometers from the border.

00:01:57.780 Now, military cannot operate on U.S. soil.

00:02:02.340 So they're there strictly in a monitoring capacity.

00:02:05.160 If they detect people, they engage the nearest border officials who will then come, detain,

00:02:09.960 deport if need, remove, be, whatever the process is.

00:02:13.640 The military will be more there to just turn it over to the border guards.

00:02:18.340 But what's interesting here is that despite this being a matter of America trying to secure

00:02:23.280 its border, Canada has been very resistant to this.

00:02:27.000 Chrystia Freeland said that Canada strongly opposes this, that it could damage the relationship.

00:02:32.720 She said it's not necessary.

00:02:34.920 She said that, yes, the U.S. has the right to do it, but this is harming Canada's relationship.

00:02:39.720 It's a point of pride, as we all know, that Canada and the U.S. share the longest unprotected

00:02:44.680 border in the world.

00:02:46.740 This doesn't threaten that.

00:02:48.160 It's simply a measure, well, there is this restriction in place that blocks Canadians from

00:02:53.880 going to the U.S. for non-essential purposes.

00:02:57.420 This agreement that blocks people from illegally going from Canada to the U.S. and vice versa.

00:03:02.220 So this really doesn't seem to be all that controversial an idea, but the Canadian government

00:03:08.180 is viewing it very negatively.

00:03:10.180 Right.

00:03:11.180 And I just feel like, I don't know if this is an example of, like, Trump derangement syndrome

00:03:14.980 in the media or just, you know, the tone of anti-Americanism that runs through the sort

00:03:20.860 of center-left elite in Canada.

00:03:23.280 But I mean, the story is speculative.

00:03:25.420 It's based on, you know, unnamed sources, and it says they might, they're thinking about

00:03:30.560 it, they're in talks about it.

00:03:32.040 So there's nothing, you know, in concrete that this is going to happen, and yet it really

00:03:37.520 did dominate the press conference.

00:03:40.380 And I mean, this is just a small point of contention, but you can just tell how sort of anti-Trump

00:03:46.100 and anti-American the media are in Canada just by the way that they pose the questions.

00:03:50.560 Like they make this seem like it's somehow an act of war.

00:03:53.280 One journalist said, you know, Donald Trump has announced that he will be opening the economy

00:03:58.640 for Easter.

00:03:59.880 Does that make you worried?

00:04:01.480 Should we close the border even further?

00:04:02.640 And it's like, well, hold on a second.

00:04:05.200 Trump didn't say that they're opening the border at Easter.

00:04:07.160 He said that he hopes that they did in a sort of aspirational way.

00:04:10.740 So the very premise of the question is, is based on sort of a deliberate misreading and

00:04:15.400 bad faith.

00:04:16.440 So that, that was the big story that dominated today.

00:04:19.440 And again, I think it's more of a non-story, but we'll have to, I guess, wait and see what

00:04:23.660 comes out in the days and weeks.

00:04:25.260 The story that I thought dominate, that should have dominated, there's a big, big story came

00:04:29.560 from the Globe and Mail.

00:04:31.140 Steve Chase writes a story about how Ottawa's facing criticism for sending 16 tons of personal

00:04:37.040 protective equipment to China back in February.

00:04:40.380 Really interesting.

00:04:41.380 So Canada was sending personal protective equipment, including clothing, face shields, mask goggles,

00:04:46.940 all the stuff that we're really in short supply of and in need of right now.

00:04:51.560 We sent that to China back in February, February 4th.

00:04:54.820 Just as a point of reference, Canada had already had its first positive case of coronavirus in

00:05:00.500 January, January 25th.

00:05:01.500 So this is after we already had the virus in Canada.

00:05:04.160 We began shipping equipment to China.

00:05:06.660 And it's interesting to note that our colleague, Anthony Fury, writing in the Toronto Sun reported

00:05:11.560 on the same story a week ago, but somehow the Globe re-reported today and it became a

00:05:16.000 big story on social media.

00:05:17.880 So Andrew, was this really a story that was focused on at all during those press conferences

00:05:22.000 today?

00:05:23.000 Is there, did we get more answers or more of an explanation as to why Canada is sending

00:05:26.480 gear to China when we're in such short supply here?

00:05:29.280 No, it was very, I mean, there were a couple of questions here and there.

00:05:34.740 The one case that really came out was the health official, the senior public health official,

00:05:40.460 Dr. Theresa Tam saying that, basically defending it, saying that at this time China was the

00:05:46.160 epicenter and it's important to deal with basically all hands on deck, throw everything

00:05:50.800 you can at the point where it is really becoming the biggest problem.

00:05:55.780 And at that point it was China, specifically Wuhan.

00:05:58.880 So very much defending it, saying at that time the gear was needed in China, it wasn't

00:06:03.260 needed around the world.

00:06:04.800 Now I guess the problem with that is that if Canada was at that point in time so aware

00:06:10.580 that China was the problem, why were travel restrictions not put in place from China at

00:06:16.400 that point?

00:06:17.400 And I think it reinforces the double standard here, that when it came to foreign aid, Trudeau

00:06:22.080 realized, yes, China's the problem, we've got to put everything we can there. 0.99

00:06:26.260 But when it came to the domestic story, Canada wasn't paying any attention to the very same

00:06:31.320 reality that it had acknowledged in the different context.

00:06:34.180 Well, and I think it's also worth noting that report that came out that said that basically

00:06:38.660 China sat on this information, that they knew, like right up to the highest levels of the 0.86

00:06:42.860 government, they knew that this disease was caused by human-to-human transmission.

00:06:47.600 They lied about that, kept it secret.

00:06:49.900 An analysis of the situation found that if they had released the information that they

00:06:53.700 had when they had it, the global spread could have been contained and reduced by 95 percent.

00:06:58.640 So China really is a bad actor in all of this. 0.97

00:07:01.680 And I don't really see them facing the kinds of consequences that they should.

00:07:05.580 The fact that, again, Canada's facing shortages is really difficult to justify after sending

00:07:13.120 this.

00:07:14.120 In the report, I believe it was Evan Solomon, said that senior government sources told him

00:07:18.020 that China was going to be sending back this equipment.

00:07:21.020 So I guess now that China has sort of contained the virus outbreak over there, they're going

00:07:25.500 to be returning the favor.

00:07:26.860 I mean, I'll believe that when I see it.

00:07:29.700 But it's really kind of jarring to hear that Canada's kind of giving away all the say and

00:07:35.860 sending money to all these other places when we really have a problem here at home.

00:07:40.120 Yeah, and certainly for the numbers that China has seen, it's unclear how they even have

00:07:46.180 that much equipment left over to share.

00:07:49.520 But I mean, of course, I'm optimistic and hopeful.

00:07:52.140 But you're right.

00:07:53.140 I mean, believe it when you see it.

00:07:54.460 Yeah.

00:07:55.460 And so likewise, I think on a similar strain, we're seeing stories today.

00:07:58.960 There's a story in iPolitics about hospitals anticipating shortages.

00:08:03.320 So despite repeated assurances from the federal and provincial governments, frontline workers

00:08:08.320 in Ontario are growing increasingly weary of the dwindling supply of the same personal

00:08:15.820 protective equipment.

00:08:17.420 At least Toronto hospitals have begun rationing the protective gear as the COVID-19 crisis

00:08:23.340 deepens.

00:08:24.340 And I mean, we're also hearing of a lot of frontline workers being infected.

00:08:28.240 I know that in British Columbia, there was a report that said that 55 healthcare workers

00:08:33.100 in British Columbia have been infected.

00:08:35.120 In Toronto, there was similarly over a dozen, I believe I saw, that had been infected.

00:08:40.260 So I think this all results in really like a lack of proper preparation.

00:08:45.600 We know that there's going to be a big increase.

00:08:47.760 We know that there's going to be a lot of people coming in with symptoms.

00:08:50.640 And we need to have our healthcare workers prepared and having the right equipment that

00:08:54.840 they need.

00:08:55.840 Was this something that any of the ministers specifically discussed or explained during the press conferences

00:08:59.820 today, Andrew?

00:09:00.820 Yeah, Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott had actually denied that there is any rationing

00:09:06.720 taking place when it comes to equipment.

00:09:09.100 I mean, she's just reiterating what I think a lot of the hospitals have said, which is that

00:09:13.740 there are very specific criteria about who needs which personal protective equipment or PPEs

00:09:19.180 and those people are getting them.

00:09:21.100 Now, there's also another aspect in Ontario, which is rationing care itself.

00:09:25.560 We've heard reports of cancer surgeries being bumped back, so not just non-elective things,

00:09:31.000 but very essential, in many cases, life and death surgeries that are being bumped back as

00:09:37.080 hospitals deal with it.

00:09:38.280 Now, this isn't to say that these decisions aren't going to be, aren't few and far between

00:09:43.240 at this point, but we've seen in Italy what happens when the system does get overwhelmed.

00:09:47.680 In Ontario, where a lot of these stories are coming out, as of an hour ago, the government

00:09:52.320 still says that the system is not overburdened at this point.

00:09:55.680 I mean, that's certainly not the story that we're seeing in some cases like the ones you

00:10:00.400 mentioned, but overall, the government is still saying it's on track.

00:10:04.640 But at this point, we are still looking at, in Ontario in particular, numbers rising pretty

00:10:11.760 rapidly.

00:10:12.240 So over, I think, three or four days ago, we were averaging maybe 40, 50 new cases a

00:10:17.520 day in Ontario.

00:10:18.880 That went up to, I think, 100 new cases were added yesterday, and 170 new cases were added

00:10:24.960 today.

00:10:25.840 Now, you have to take this with a bit of a grain of salt, because Ontario is trying

00:10:29.600 to boost its testing capacity, so you never know if more people are getting sick, or if

00:10:34.000 they're just testing more people and reporting it more accurately.

00:10:36.720 But we are still seeing an increase that looks to be getting to exponential in Ontario, which

00:10:44.080 is something that, I mean, as you're in my province, is certainly of interest to me.

00:10:48.320 But we're seeing in other provinces as well, numbers continue to rise as well.

00:10:52.000 It's good, at least, that the government is giving that assurance, because you have to

00:10:57.120 trust that they are monitoring it and trying to keep ahead of it.

00:11:00.960 I mean, the thing that we're trying to avoid is the situation like we saw in Italy, like

00:11:05.200 we're now seeing in Spain, and to some extent in New York City, where it's just such a massive

00:11:10.240 surge that it's not really about, you know, the rate of transmission or the death rate,

00:11:14.720 but just a vast sheer number of how many people in one specific area get infected.

00:11:19.440 We know this thing is just incredibly contagious.

00:11:21.840 I'll give you an example.

00:11:23.120 There was a funeral in Newfoundland.

00:11:25.440 So according to health officials in Newfoundland, there are now 67 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

00:11:31.920 And so health officials said that of those 67 cases, 44 of them could be traced to one

00:11:37.120 individual who was overseas and he came home to St. John's to attend a funeral.

00:11:42.320 So at that funeral and then beyond, he is connected to 44 of the cases.

00:11:48.160 So that just kind of shows how quickly this thing can spread and how one individual

00:11:52.480 can really multiply and lead to cases.

00:11:54.880 There's a bunch of other examples of similar things.

00:11:57.360 There was a dental conference up in Vancouver.

00:11:59.840 You've got to wonder why these things weren't canceled because, you know, by the time this

00:12:03.040 thing was held, same with there was a curling tournament in Edmonton, March 11th to 14th.

00:12:08.240 I mean, that was just last week.

00:12:09.840 I can't I can't believe this thing was allowed to be held at that curling tournament.

00:12:15.200 11 people who happened to all be medical professor professionals

00:12:18.800 have all been tested positive for coronavirus.

00:12:22.160 So, Andrew, you know, it just shows how quickly things can change

00:12:25.920 and how prepared we need to be in order to get ahead of this curve.

00:12:30.960 Yeah, and I think all of these numbers are really reinforcing why

00:12:35.120 governments are starting to switch to more of that enforcement mentality,

00:12:39.680 because despite the fact that a lot of people are being responsible and doing what they're supposed to,

00:12:44.640 we're also seeing more and more stories of this where people are going around what the advice is,

00:12:50.800 and now it's no longer advice, but rather an order.

00:12:54.320 Right. So why don't we go through some of the initiatives and announcements that provinces have made?

00:12:58.800 I know that a bunch of provinces have now announced fines for people who don't self-isolate and self-quarantine.

00:13:06.960 So, yeah, I'm just pulling up the list here.

00:13:10.080 The one that happened in Ontario, individuals can be $1,000.

00:13:15.280 Corporations can be fined up to $500,000 for defying emergency orders.

00:13:21.520 Vancouver businesses can be fined $50,000, individuals $1,000.

00:13:26.320 $1,000 seems to be the going rate in Alberta, PEI, and Montreal.

00:13:30.800 Now, these are provincial fines.

00:13:32.960 It's worth noting that as of yesterday, as we talked about,

00:13:35.920 the federal government has decided to invoke the Quarantine Act, which means there will be

00:13:40.400 further measures that can be applied if people coming back from another country do not quarantine

00:13:46.320 themselves for 14 days. And Trudeau acknowledged this morning that the penalty for breaking that

00:13:53.280 is a fine that could range to tens of thousands of dollars or even jail time.

00:13:58.880 So now there is a federal penalty that isn't incorporated in these lists,

00:14:03.440 which are more for the provincial regulations.

00:14:06.080 Well, that's very interesting because I understand that prison populations are the

00:14:10.640 most sort of at risk or one of the most at risk. So the idea of sending someone to prison because

00:14:15.520 they have coronavirus and they didn't self-quarantine, I mean, probably they'd go to a hospital

00:14:19.520 first and get cured. But I can't really imagine the government mass enforcing this. And it's still

00:14:25.520 not clear to me what it would mean to not self-isolate. I mean, are you allowed to go

00:14:31.840 for a walk? Are you allowed to go to the grocery store? I know there's a park across the street

00:14:36.160 from my house and a city of Toronto official was there first thing this morning with tape and he

00:14:40.880 wrapped it all up and basically just cornered off so that no kids can go on the swing. Heaven forbid,

00:14:46.720 a little kid goes on a swing and gets too close to another little kid. It really, at this point,

00:14:52.080 seems that we're overreacting because we didn't react enough weeks and months ago. But that's my personal

00:14:59.360 opinion. So there was also an order out of British Columbia that I saw BC orders hotel operators to

00:15:06.000 provide accommodation services for purposes of self-isolation, supporting essential workers,

00:15:12.720 or other purposes identified for the province. Do we know anything more about that order, Andrew?

00:15:18.480 Yeah. So basically provinces under their emergency powers and the federal government as well

00:15:23.840 can effectively abscond with property if they need it for dealing with the emergency. So this happened

00:15:29.920 in New York City, by the way, where the Four Seasons in Manhattan was converted to by the government

00:15:34.960 to an accommodation facility for anyone who's working in healthcare. So, you know, doctors, nurses,

00:15:41.120 other frontline care workers that the government designates and the hotel has to put them up. Now,

00:15:46.240 I don't know what the compensation structure is. If anything, if the government's paying or if it's just

00:15:50.880 seizing it, as far as British Columbia is concerned, I don't know if you get to choose the hotel, you

00:15:55.760 know, if it's like the Fairmont waterfront or just like the Howard Johnson down by the lake.

00:15:59.840 But we do know that the BC government is basically using that emergency power to say, look, your hotel

00:16:05.920 belongs to us now. And it shows that they're trying to import a lot of healthcare workers from different

00:16:12.080 parts. And we know that healthcare workers are actually exempt from the quarantine when you enter

00:16:17.040 Canada. So if you're a nurse coming back from the United States, and we talked about this a bit

00:16:21.760 yesterday, you don't need to quarantine for 14 days because the expectation is that they can put you to

00:16:27.120 work right away. But the other part of this is that the federal government under this Quarantine Act

00:16:32.800 can also use the same power to turn properties into quarantine centers. So the federal government could

00:16:40.160 take a hotel near the border and say, we're housing people that we don't think are going to go home,

00:16:46.080 or that we don't, or that may not have a home to go to. And we're going to put them in this

00:16:50.640 quarantine facility. So they are stepping this up a fair bit now.

00:16:55.120 Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It really is starting to feel more and more like a war effort. I know

00:17:00.240 Premier Doug Ford referred to this as sort of like a wartime effort. I know US President Donald Trump said

00:17:06.080 that he's now a wartime president. So it really is starting to feel that way. Andrew, okay, we've got,

00:17:11.600 we're going to end the show today on two positive notes. We usually end the show on one positive

00:17:16.480 note, but we have two good news stories today. So the first one is out of Ontario,

00:17:21.520 bars are reopening again or something like that. Andrew, why don't you, why don't you handle this

00:17:25.120 story? They're not reopening in the sense that you can't just like decide to go clubbing now,

00:17:29.920 if that's your jam. But effective immediately, licensed restaurants and bars in Ontario can sell

00:17:36.400 alcohol takeout or delivery between the hours of 9am and 11pm. So restaurants and bars have been

00:17:43.360 shut down in Ontario with the exception of takeout and delivery. Now you can order a glass of wine or

00:17:49.760 maybe a big pink margarita type thing or a Bellini or whatever your beverage of choice is with your

00:17:55.680 order. And this is actually great because now like dinner is served in Ontario, you can get your

00:18:00.880 cocktails as well. So this is one of these things that I hope lives past the pandemic. One of these

00:18:07.200 things that, you know, the alcohol rules across Canada are far too restrictive. I'm not even a huge

00:18:12.480 drinker, but I think if this keeps on the books after the coronavirus crisis is behind us, it'll be a

00:18:18.640 very good thing for free markets. Well, absolutely. And I just will say, you know, one of the things that

00:18:24.640 I do remember from the 2008 financial recession is that, you know, markets tanked, it was really,

00:18:29.760 really bad, but everyone was sort of commiserating at their local pub and local bars. And I know that

00:18:35.040 the sort of, you know, the amount of profits that those companies were receiving was kind of through

00:18:40.000 the roof. So even in that really drastic financial recession, bars and restaurants were doing really

00:18:45.040 strongly. That was part of the reason it helped bridge that initial gap in the economy. So part of the

00:18:49.520 reason that, you know, things have been so dire here in both Canada and the US is because people

00:18:54.880 can't even, you know, go, go have a pint at their local pub. Yeah, you have nowhere to commiserate.

00:18:59.920 That's how bad things are, because what you're commiserating about is the lack of being able to

00:19:03.680 go out and commiserate. It's very meta. Very meta, very meta. Well, that is good news. And then we have

00:19:08.800 another good news story that's coming straight from us here at True North. So I'm actually really excited and

00:19:13.360 proud of this initiative here at True North. Our team has put together a coronavirus assistance map

00:19:19.440 so you can go onto our website and you can see all of the local sort of charities, food banks,

00:19:24.960 meals on wheels, shelters. We did as much research as we can and we put it all together in a map.

00:19:30.080 So we are really encouraging members of True North nation and people tuning in right now,

00:19:34.640 anyone who might have the means to help out your fellow Canadian in their time of need. I know that

00:19:40.080 a lot of people are out of war, people are struggling financially, so I'm not talking to you. But

00:19:44.080 if you are someone who hasn't been adversely affected so far by the economic turmoil that's

00:19:49.440 come as a result of coronavirus and you have some means, you know, you haven't been going out to

00:19:53.200 your local pub, you haven't been going out to restaurants and you have a bit of money left over,

00:19:57.520 consider donating to a local food bank, a shelter, one of the organizations. I mean, this list is by no

00:20:03.360 means extensive. We've probably missed many. And if you know of any good cherry out there that's doing work

00:20:08.240 to help folks in need of the coronavirus, please let us know. We'll add to it. It's sort of a work

00:20:13.600 in progress, but we're really excited. We're calling on everyone in True North nation who has the means

00:20:18.960 to just open up your wallet. You know, it's a time like this that you really need to rely on the

00:20:23.920 community, on individual goodwill of civil society to just be there for one another. Some of the services

00:20:30.720 include grocery deliveries, which is really vital for people who are in the more vulnerable population

00:20:36.640 that are self-isolating. A lot of people are scared to leave their house and they need groceries. They

00:20:40.720 don't have them in the house. So some of these services are just doing really good work. And

00:20:44.400 because of the crisis, they're all short on supplies. They don't have enough volunteers. They don't have

00:20:48.480 enough cash. So again, go check that out. It's on our website, tnc.news. And if you are able, please,

00:20:54.720 please consider making a donation to one of your local groups. Or if you can, go out and volunteer

00:20:59.600 personally. I think that, you know, if you're healthy and you're not someone who's recently returned to

00:21:04.480 Canada, maybe you can go out and deliver groceries or do something like that. So please, please help

00:21:09.360 out if you can. So Andrew, thanks so much for joining me on the update. And we will be back again on Friday.

Juno News - March 26, 2020

True North Update： Troops at our border？

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