Filipino restaurants in Metro Vancouver face uncertain Christmas amid flood aftermath, COVID-19 restrictions
CBC
For many Filipinos, celebrating Christmas means attending Catholic mass as a family and having large gatherings with treats like lechon, or whole roast pig, often the centrepiece in a holiday feast.
"They need to have that on their table," said Mary Loa, owner of Kumare Restaurant and Bakery in Richmond, B.C. "It's our tradition, it's [our] custom, passed from one generation to another."
Loa was fielding many requests for lechon ahead of the holidays, but problems arose after floods in November killed thousands of animals in the Fraser Valley.
"My heart just sank," she said. "All those pigs have been ordered. The customers fully paid. We have to do e-transfer, to give them back their money."
Loa is one of several Filipino restaurant owners that had been anticipating a busy season during a significant holiday for the Filipino community, but now face a challenging December, following devastating floods and new COVID-19 restrictions.
With supply chain disruptions, Filipino ingredients have been hard to come by, and increasing food prices have driven up costs by 40 per cent over the past few months, Loa says.
She says Kumare, which has been running for 12 years, can absorb some cost increases but the future is uncertain.
"If it's long-term, I just don't know what lies ahead," she said. "... If we have to really have a huge loss, then I don't know. Sad to say."
"Christmas is one of the biggest events, if not the biggest event of the Filipino families back home, especially to the Catholics," said Joel Castillo, president of the United Filipino Canadian Associations in B.C. (UFCABC).
He says festivities typically begin with Simbang Gabi, which translates to 'night mass' and involves going to church for nine days leading up to Dec. 24, when families prepare a large feast to celebrate Christmas eve with loved ones.
"If it is a Filipino event, there is food, not just enough for the people who are joining the event, but [for] what we call the 'doggie bag' after," he added.
On Monday, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry limited indoor gatherings to household members plus 10 visitors, or one other household, with everyone over 12 fully vaccinated.
The smaller gatherings mean smaller feasts. Since the restrictions were announced, Loa has received calls from customers cancelling their large orders.
The same has happened to Bennet Miemban-Ganata, who owns Plato Filipino restaurant in New Westminster.
At a Tim Hortons in downtown Hamilton, drivers intent on getting their morning double doubles brave the murky waters of the parking lot, as sloshing waves reach as high as their car bumpers.
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.