Canadian COVID-19 News

[AiniA]

You could not make this up if you tried. The health minister particularly asked companies to cancel Christmas get-togethers.

"Alberta UCP holds Christmas party after health minister asked all to cancel plans

Alberta’s Opposition says the governing United Conservative Party showed hypocrisy by going ahead with a Christmas party a few hours after the health minister strongly encouraged workplaces to cancel holiday gatherings."

This may be paywalled, but it is a CP report so will appear widely.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...cel-plans.html

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by AiniA

You could not make this up if you tried. The health minister particularly asked companies to cancel Christmas get-togethers.

"Alberta UCP holds Christmas party after health minister asked all to cancel plans

Alberta’s Opposition says the governing United Conservative Party showed hypocrisy by going ahead with a Christmas party a few hours after the health minister strongly encouraged workplaces to cancel holiday gatherings."

This may be paywalled, but it is a CP report so will appear widely.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...cel-plans.html

Ah... you just gotta love Kenney & the UCPers (sounds like bad cover band ). They try so hard to say the right things, but they just can't seem to get their walk to follow their talk.

[Montanan]

Somewhat less disruption by Covid restrictions enables Canada to meet its 2021 goal of providing permanent residency to 401,000 foreign immigrants by focusing mostly on those which had been granted temporary visa status, equal to roughly 1% of the population of Canada.

It would seem that to achieve similar levels of permanent immigration Canada [a goal of 411,000 for 2022] Canada will likely need to expand its incoming number of new migrants to repopulate the temporary status visa holders; can't just draw down on the temporary visa status population and sustain a pool for conversion to permanent residency.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/canada-me...233530165.html


"Canada, which depends on immigration to drive its economy and support an aging population, saw new permanent residents falling over 45% to 185,000 in 2020, when borders were largely closed due to COVID-19.

The majority of the new 401,000 permanent residents - a figure reached for the first time in more than a century - were already in Canada on temporary status, according to a statement from the immigration minister.

"Last year, we set an ambitious goal. Today, we achieved it," Fraser said."

[Montanan]

Canada's public health agency admits it tracked 33 million mobile devices during lockdown

“Due to the urgency of the pandemic, (PHAC) collected and used mobility data, such as cell-tower location data, throughout the COVID-19 response,” a spokesperson told National Post. The program’s existence was first brought to wider attention by Blacklock’s Reporter.

PHAC used the location data to evaluate the effectiveness of public lockdown measures and allow the Agency to “understand possible links between movement of populations within Canada and spread of COVID-19,”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/canad...?ocid=msedgntp

[N Coast Murray]

Montanan...

A) Canada has the concept of multiculturalism written into the Canadian Charter of Right and Freedoms whereby people are encouraged to celebrate the traditions of their former countries as they adjust to Canada. We don't have a problem with immigrants, which is great, because my family immigrated here about 6 generations ago and we haven't been kicked out...yet.

https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebs...ations/200920E

B) Cell phone locations are easily traced. I remember maps in 2020 showing where all the university spring break revellers were dragging Covid to across the western and central USA. I don't have a problem with 'authorities' using such information for the greater good.

If you're trying to stir things up, it won't work.

Hope you & yours are having a great Christmas!

P.S. Where are you?

[TrentePieds]

NCMurray said: " I don't have a problem with 'authorities' using such information for the greater good."

Doesn't whether or not one has THAT sort of problem depend greatly on the underlying ethos that informs a nation's founding and Constitution and, in turn therefore, what gets taught both at home and in schools :-)?

TP (FDP)

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by N Coast Murray

Montanan...

A) Canada has the concept of multiculturalism written into the Canadian Charter of Right and Freedoms whereby people are encouraged to celebrate the traditions of their former countries as they adjust to Canada. We don't have a problem with immigrants, which is great, because my family immigrated here about 6 generations ago and we haven't been kicked out...yet.

https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebs...ations/200920E

B) Cell phone locations are easily traced. I remember maps in 2020 showing where all the university spring break revellers were dragging Covid to across the western and central USA. I don't have a problem with 'authorities' using such information for the greater good.

If you're trying to stir things up, it won't work.

No such intent, just noting that Covid was very disruptive to multinational transport and migration and as to bureaucracies being able to process routine procedures. Overseas embassies and consulates pretty much shut down person to person interviews and processing of visas and borders were closed or limited to essential travel only. Is has been difficult to obtain H-1B visas processed to recruit skilled persons to expand our company technical staff, and my visa to China while still valid is of course precluded from being able to use because it would involve a minimum of three weeks isolation to arrange business travel. Gladden to see that Canada has been able to recover its permanent residency issuances so as to support the economy and stabilize the population.

I use the voluntary contact notification apps of the State of Washington when I travel there so as to receive notices if perchance I become in contact with someone who tests positive, for example when we go to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of the US Dept. of Energy. Unfortunately we don't have a similar mobile phone contact tracing system here in our 406 Country of the Big Sky, nor any metadatabase for aiding public health management.

Hope you & yours are having a great Christmas!

You too.


P.S. Where are you? Presently at my primary residence in The Last Best Place. Images below, of Polson, Montana on Flathead Lake, where we are having a white Christmas on the Flathead Nation of the Confederate Salish and Kootenai Tribes Reservation.

Notes above.

Similarly, the USA had a drastic drop in visa issuances in 2020. See snipet copied below.

All the best.

[N Coast Murray]

Ahh, thanks, got it.

My suspicions were up because when people drop such news items into an online forum without any opinion or insight as to how that person feels about the issues, they're typically trying to kick the hornets nest.

Looks like a dang purdy spot to live.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by N Coast Murray

Ahh, thanks, got it.

My suspicions were up because when people drop such news items into an online forum without any opinion or insight as to how that person feels about the issues, they're typically trying to kick the hornets nest.

Looks like a dang purdy spot to live.

Presently Flathead Lake and the Mission Mountain Range looks like this, freshly snowcovered mountains and valley, but not frozen. Flathead is the largest freshwater lake in the USA west of the Great Lakes, great place to sail in the summer, very few if any boats on the alpine lake. Polson is the largest city on the lake and the county seat, all of 5,150, albeit quite a few tourist arrive in the summer. Have missed the influx Canadians.

Prefer going to the tropics this time of the year but with Covid restrictions this is not the time to travel, and being very engaged in starting up a major new business, I have no free time to travel. Been working from home for going on 18 months, [or am I living at work???]. Hours of video conferences with personnel all over the world.

I tend to not opine, just post factual and hopefully helpful info.

Regards,

Dan

[N Coast Murray]

Gets a double star rating from me for being a natural lake.

The town where I live is normally about 8,500 but there's a project being built so is infested by construction/contract workers.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by N Coast Murray

Gets a double star rating from me for being a natural lake.

The town where I live is normally about 8,500 but there's a project being built so is infested by construction/contract workers.

It is nice to live in smaller communities, at 8,500 that would be small by most standards yet that is what we might call a metropolis and would be listed as the tenth largest city in Montana. Not a lot of Montanans.

Whereas Polson, is listed as our 19th most populated city, still consider large in our scale of things. Often, we are the only boat visible on the lake, particularly if is anchoring out overnight in a cove at one of the islands of the clear water.

We also like to sail on the more remote and more alpine lakes in Glacier National Park, images below.

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by Montanan

It is nice to live in smaller communities, at 8,500 that would be small by most standards yet that is what we might call a metropolis and would be listed as the tenth largest city in Montana. Not a lot of Montanans.

Whereas Polson, is listed as our 19th most populated city, still consider large in our scale of things. Often, we are the only boat visible on the lake, particularly if is anchoring out overnight in a cove at one of the islands of the clear water.

We also like to sail on the more remote and more alpine lakes in Glacier National Park, images below.

Pretty spectacular!

[N Coast Murray]

Are the photos yours? if so, kudos to you and thank you, thank you, thank you for not making mountain and sky reflections in water shockingly lighter than the actual mountains and sky. It's a HUGE post processing pet peeve of mine!

[Thumbs Up]

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/...-phillips.html

[desodave]

Originally Posted by N Coast Murray

Gets a double star rating from me for being a natural lake.

The town where I live is normally about 8,500 but there's a project being built so is infested by construction/contract workers.

Hey Murray
Appreciate big projects screw up small communities for many people ... we have relatives in Terrace and Rupert. But our son in law is on the Kemano project ... flies in, boats out to Kemano, lives/works there for a month then goes home. His schedule always changing and, among other things, affects their ability to get out on the boat with us. I can't classify him as part of an "infestation" .