Ontario premier, health minister speak as mask mandates set to be dropped
CBC
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, Christine Elliott, will be making an announcement at 10 a.m. Following that, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore will provide an update on the pandemic at 11 a.m.
CBC News will carry both news conferences live.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott are set to make an announcement this morning, as CBC News has learned the province will drop most COVID-19 mask mandates — including in schools, restaurants and stores — across the province on March 21.
Two sources with the province's Progressive Conservative government confirmed the information, first reported by the Toronto Star, Tuesday night.
Shortly after Ford and Elliott's announcement, Ontario's top doctor is also set to provide an update on how the province plans to "live with and manage COVID-19" at 11 a.m.
The news conference will replace what was to be Dr. Kieran Moore's final planned pandemic briefing, which was originally scheduled for Thursday.
Dr. Peter Jüni, who heads Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table, said "it's too early to tell" if removing mask mandates is the right move at this time.
However, he said Ontarians have done well when it comes to masking and said he hopes many will continue to wear them — adding he will continue to do so himself.
"There's a lot of solidarity going on," Jüni told CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Wednesday.
"For the majority of us, masks are not a big deal."
In a letter to city council, Toronto's medical officer of health also recommended that the city's mask bylaw expire when mask requirements in the Reopening Ontario Act are revoked or amended.
"Toronto is at a dramatically different point in the pandemic compared to when the Mask Bylaw came into effect," said Dr. Eileen de Villa in the letter.
While the city may no longer enforce the mask bylaw, de Villa noted that lifting masking requirements does not preclude people from wearing a mask.
"Toronto Public Health continues to recommend wearing well-fitted, high-quality masks, particularly in crowded indoor spaces with limited ventilation, amongst other steps that Torontonians can take to protect themselves and reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, such as accessing their third vaccine dose, practicing physical distancing, and participating in activities outdoors where possible," the letter reads.
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.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.