Conservatives call for travel ban on southern Africa as alarming new COVID-19 variant emerges
CBC
Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole is urging the federal government to ban all non-essential travel to and from southern Africa to stop a new — and possibly more infectious — COVID-19 variant from taking hold in Canada.
Countries around the world already have restricted travel from some areas of the African continent in an effort to keep the newly identified coronavirus variant from crossing their borders.
While many questions remain about how transmissible or virulent this new variant is, the U.K. Health Security Agency warned Friday that the new strain found in southern Africa is the "most complex" and the "most worrying we've seen."
Britain, Israel and Singapore, among others, have restricted travel from South Africa and some neighbouring countries. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is proposing member states pull the "emergency brake" on travel from some countries in Africa to limit the spread of the variant.
"With reports of the spread of a new COVID-19 variant, we have a small window of opportunity to act and we must move now. Canada's Conservatives are calling on Justin Trudeau to secure Canada's borders," O'Toole said in a media statement.
O'Toole is proposing a ban on all non-essential travel from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini and mandatory quarantines for all travellers from the affected countries, regardless of their vaccination status.
"Lessons learned from earlier in the pandemic need to inform our actions today. Temporary measures to immediately secure our borders will keep Canadians safe and protect our economy," O'Toole said.
In question period Friday, Conservative MP Luc Berthold, the party's health critic, called for swift action to prevent the new variant from derailing Canada's progress in the fight against COVID-19.
"Canadians are worried," Berthold said. "The Liberal government has been slow, slow to warn Canadians, slow to close the borders, slow to provide vaccines. There's still time to protect Canadians who are fed up with lockdowns."
Associate Health Minister Carolyn Bennett said pre-departure PCR testing is still in place and those tests "are capable of detecting this variant."
"The COVID-19 situation around the world continues to be volatile and unpredictable and we continue to monitor the situation very closely," she said.
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said the government won't take lessons from the Conservatives on pandemic management when O'Toole himself refuses to require that all Conservative MPs get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Just last week, Alghabra said, the Conservatives were also calling for an end to pre-departure PCR testing and fewer travel restrictions.
"Forgive me for not taking advice from the Conservative Party," he said.
Dozens of Indigenous women with a desire to learn how to hunt and to use traditional methods to prepare the animal will meet this weekend for the first-ever all-female deer hunt on Oneida Nation of the Thames territory.
A disgraced real-estate lawyer who this week admitted to pilfering millions in client money to support her and her family's lavish lifestyle was handcuffed in a Toronto courtroom Friday afternoon and marched out by a constable to serve a 20-day sentence for contempt of court, as her husband and mother watched.
A provincial child-care advocacy group says governments need to commit to pushing $10-a-day child care forward in Canada, but a conservative think tank says data shows it isn't working as intended in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Diane Sims has already written her own obituary.
Thirty years after her murder in 1994, Halifax police are still looking for Kimber Leanne Lucas's killer.
When Kevin Campbell took a 1991 Chevy truck in trade at his dealership on Moncton's Salisbury Road in early November, he didn't have it for long.
Quebec mayor says 'one-size-fits-all' language law isn't right for his town where French is thriving
English is not Daniel Côté's first language but he says it's integral to the town he calls home.
As their role in health care continues to grow, nurse practitioners across Canada are looking to Alberta, where nurse practitioners recently formed their own union — but on P.E.I., the nurses' union that represents them says it's doing its job.
As the fallout over fallen buildings in Gore Park continues, Hamilton officials will be turning their attention to other properties.
Fire crews responded to a transport truck fire on the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor and Detroit.
When the government touts that its auto insurance reforms might curb premiums by $400 come 2027, the ministers and premier don't readily mention what's to come in the three years leading up to that.