Ontario fines two LTC homes for not complying with air conditioning law – Canada News

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 8:59 pm | Story: 382039

A judge has handed fines to five Manitobans who repeatedly violated COVID-19 pandemic public health orders over a period of months — even after they were given tickets for each offence.

It was the second courtroom loss in a year for people trying to overturn restrictions the Manitoba government imposed.

“A message must be sent that public health orders … are meant to be respected,” provincial court Judge Victoria Cornick said during her sentencing Thursday.

“Receipt of multiple tickets did nothing to deter the actions of any of these individuals. … Their involvement spanned months and were not isolated incidents.”

Tobias Tissen, Patrick Allard, Todd McDougall, Sharon Vickner and Gerald Bohemier organized and spoke at anti-restriction rallies in 2020 and 2021 that exceeded limits on public gatherings at the time.

The Crown had asked for fines of between $18,000 and $42,000, plus costs and surcharges, based on the number of convictions of each individual. Defence lawyers had asked for no fines and said their clients had been punished enough by spending a short time in jail after the tickets piled up.

Cornick imposed slightly lower fines than the Crown sought, ranging from $14,000 to just under $35,000. She also allowed seven years for payment and waived costs and surcharges, citing the financial position of each defendant.

Cornick said the five showed no signs of remorse for their actions and mistakenly believed that they could not follow public health orders that were, at the time, being challenged in another case.

“The Public Health Act and orders made pursuant to it were and are in place to protect the health and safety of the people of Manitoba,” she said.

“The fact that a law, or restriction in this case, is being litigated does not automatically suspend its application.”

Outside court, there were few signs of regret among the five.

“My only regret was that I didn’t go harder and I wasn’t louder,” Allard, who owns a home renovation company, said of his fight.

“I would say the community surrounding us … continues to grow,” Todd McDougall, a citizen journalist, said.

Tissen, a pastor at a rural church southeast of Winnipeg, declined to comment outside court. He spoke briefly with a man dressed up as the Grim Reaper who celebrated the convictions and fines.

The five plan to appeal to a higher court, where they hope to have the public health orders declared a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A similar attempt was made last year by a group of churches. The Court of Queen’s Bench ruled against them and upheld the public health orders. That ruling is being appealed in a hearing set for December.

Holly McKenzie-Sutter, The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 5:45 pm | Story: 382014

One person has died in a Toronto outbreak of meningococcal disease, the city’s public health unit said Thursday.

The disease is considered rare in Canada but it’s of renewed concern for experts as vaccination rates for immunizations typically given in school have fallen during the pandemic. 

Toronto Public Health said it had confirmed three cases of invasive meningococcal disease in people between 20 and 30 years old who began experiencing symptoms between July 15 and 17.

All three people were born outside of Canada in countries that don’t provide childhood immunization against the disease, public health said.

A link between the cases was not identified but public health said the three people had recently been confirmed to have the same rare strain of serogroup C meningococcal disease.

Meningococcal disease refers to illnesses caused by bacteria called Neisseria meningitides, which are often severe, can be deadly and can cause meningitis and infections of the lining of the brain, spinal cord and bloodstream.

“It’s quite serious,” public health physician Dr. Jia Hu said from Calgary.

Meningococcal disease is one of several conditions that children must be immunized against to attend school in Ontario. 

Provincial guidelines say babies should receive vaccinations for the disease at 12 months old, and another shot is given to Grade 7 students in public school.

Hu, who is also CEO of the non-profit group 19 to Zero that aims to boost vaccine uptake, said Canada has traditionally had strong immunization rates for vaccine-preventable diseases, making outbreaks like the one in Toronto “fairly rare.”

But he pointed out that the pandemic has caused many children to fall behind on immunizations, particularly those that are typically given in school.

A Public Health Ontario report on provincewide coverage for school-based vaccination programs noted that the COVID-19 pandemic “has posed significant challenges to the delivery of immunization services in schools,” because schools were closed for extended periods of time and staff were redeployed to COVID-19 response efforts. 

The report showed that the meningococcal disease vaccination rate among Ontario 12-year-olds plummeted to approximately 17 per cent in the 2020 to 2021 school year, down from 67 per cent the previous school year. 

Dramatic drops in vaccination coverage were also seen over the same period for human papillomavirus and hepatitis B vaccinations, the report said. 

Public health units across Ontario are in the process running catch-up clinics to get shots to students who have fallen behind. 

Hu said occurrences such as the Toronto meningococcal disease outbreak and the detection of polio virus in wastewater in New York City and other locations worldwide should remind people of the importance of catching up on shots for vaccine-preventable illnesses.

“Vaccination is very effective, but we need people to be vaccinated,” he said. 

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Zain Chagla said meningococcal disease outbreaks are rare, but can happen in dormitories and universities as well as other congregate settings including military barracks.

“It is devastating for young people,” he said.

“It can lead to young people dying or lead to young people getting seriously ill, even if they get medical care in a rapid fashion.” 

Chagla, who works at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, said there has been one or two cases of the disease a year in Hamilton for many years.

“It’s rare, but when it happens, it is one of these diseases where the outcomes are so bad that we really, really want to get control of it very quickly,” he said.

Early symptoms of meningococcal disease include fever, aches, joint pain, headache, stiff neck, sensitivity to light and can often be similar to signs of flu and other viral infections, making it difficult to diagnose. 

Meningococcal bacteria is spread by sharing respiratory and throat fluids, typically through close contact like kissing, coughing, sharing utensils, cups, cigarettes and musical instruments.

The health unit is recommending that all adults between 20 and 36 years old who have not received a meningococcal disease vaccine contact their health provider to receive one as soon as possible.

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 5:44 pm | Story: 382013

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 5:42 pm | Story: 382011

Canada has sanctioned a Russian woman whom the foreign affairs minister’s office alleges is the architect of a scheme to abduct thousands of Ukrainian children and facilitate their adoption into Russian homes.

The federal government has imposed sanctions on Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, who has been accused by Ukraine of organizing the removal of children from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

The move is designed to “isolate her and hold her accountable for her crimes,” said Adrien Blanchard, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.

“She will become a global pariah.”

The U.K. has also sanctioned Lvova-Belova, signifying its opposition to the child-removal program Russia has introduced since invading Ukraine.

Yulia Kovaliv, the Ukrainian ambassador to Canada, said earlier this week in an interview that her country is trying hard to get children abducted by Russia back.

The child abductions are some of the 28,000 suspected war crimes being probed by Ukraine, with help from Canadian investigators.

Thousands of children have been transported to Russia from the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, including from orphanages.

Moscow has claimed most of them are Russian-speaking.

Blanchard said “targeting children and in many cases orphans is simply diabolical and cannot go unpunished.”

He said Lvova-Belova is the “architect” of the system which “has inflicted untold pain on thousands of Ukrainian children and families.”

“Canada will continue to lead the international efforts to hold Russia accountable for these atrocities,” he said. “We were one of the first countries to stand with Ukraine in their International Court of Justice case against Russia.”

On Wednesday Ukraine observed its Independence Day with a series of events across Canada, marking 31 years of Independence from Russian control.

At a Toronto auction to raise money for ambulances and evacuation vehicles, hosted by Kovaliv, a piece of a Russian missile that fell on a Ukrainian training base near the Polish border fetched $5,000.

Only weeks before the missile fell in March killing 43 soldiers, Canadians had been training Ukrainian troops there.

Before she took up her posting in Ottawa in April, Kovaliv grabbed the piece of shrapnel to bring it to Canada.

Roman Shimonov, CEO of Roshel, chosen by the Canadian government in April to supply eight armoured personnel carriers for Ukraine, won the bidding for the rocket fragment.

Shimonov, who was among Canadians recently sanctioned by Russia, bid $3,000 and topped it up with another $2,000.

He said in an interview that he would display the piece of Russian rocket in a case at his company’s headquarters in Mississauga, Ont.

“It has a very big symbolic significance,” he said. “We bought this lot … to enable them to purchase the ambulances.”

Jessica Smith, The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 5:41 pm | Story: 382010

Some advocates say Ontario’s expanded eligibility for the monkeypox vaccine should include people experiencing homelessness.

Ontario released new guidelines Wednesday that include a broader segment of the LGBTQ population as well as sex workers.

The new guidelines from the Ministry of Health allow people who are two-spirit, non-binary, transgender and who belong to the LGBTQ community, and anyone with partners who identify as such, to receive a single dose of the pre-exposure monkeypox vaccine if they meet certain criteria.

The criteria includes those who have been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection, have recently had or are planning to have two or more sexual partners and those who have had anonymous sex recently or are planning to.

It also includes those who have attended events and venues for sex, such as bath houses and sex clubs, or who work or volunteer in these settings, as well as those who are sexual contacts of sex workers.

Previously, the priority group for the vaccine was gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men who met certain criteria.

Abe Oudshoorn, a housing advocate and lead researcher with the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness based in London, Ont., said it’s “vital” that people experiencing homelessness be included in the expanded vaccine guidelines.

“They are often already struggling with poor health conditions and anything we can do to protect them from any condition is vital,” said Oudshoorn.

“What we’ve learned from … the recent COVID-19 pandemic, is that people experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable around their health, because of both pre-existing conditions as well as the environment in which they live (often congregate living environments),” he said.

“And so we really wanna see homelessness as a priority population for this preventative approach,” said Oudshoorn.

Earlier this month, the City of Toronto confirmed a case of monkeypox in a person who had visited a shelter, prompting concerns from community workers about further infections in the shelter system and calls to prioritize individuals experiencing homelessness for vaccination.

Dr. Aaron Orkin, director of population health for Inner City Health Associates Toronto and emergency physician at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, said that while he felt the focus of the updated monkeypox guidelines was appropriate, they could have also underscored how the province will vaccinate those who are experiencing homelessness.

“People experiencing homelessness face special challenges in avoiding exposure to monkeypox, they face special risks, given the disproportionate overlap between the LGBTQ community and the community of sex workers as well as homelessness,” said Orkin.

“And then when people facing homelessness contract monkeypox, they face really special challenges in managing it, and it affects their housing security, it affects where they live, it affects their access to income and it’s really much more challenging for someone who’s homeless than somebody who’s independently housed.”

The updated guidelines also recommend two doses of the pre-exposure vaccine for people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised and those who work in certain research laboratories.

Those who have already been exposed to the monkeypox virus can also receive the vaccine, but only up to 14 days from the date of last exposure, and ideally within four days.

The guidelines say those who self-identify as a high-risk contact of a confirmed or probable monkeypox case should first consult their local public health unit to see if a post-exposure vaccine is recommended.

Patricia Mueller, CEO of Homes First, a company that oversees a series of shelters in Toronto, said she’s been paying close attention to the guidelines out of concern for those who use shelters, and thought the latest changes were “excellent.”

“I think the monkeypox strategy makes sense at this point in time,” she said.

Mueller said they have had three monkeypox cases out of 1,200 clients at their shelters.

She said some of her staff members have concerns, however, about whether more doses of the vaccine will be available to meet their needs.

“A lot of staff that are of a certain age … that had the smallpox vaccination, they’re all saying things like, ‘Is mine still valid?'” Mueller said. “They have questions like, ‘Did it wear off?’ I haven’t had a definitive answer like, ‘Don’t worry.'”

Those questions have also been raised by some of her clients who are older and received smallpox vaccines in the 1960s and ’70s, she said.

Monkeypox spreads when people have close, physical contact with an infected person’s lesions, their clothing or bedsheets, and symptoms can include rash, swollen lymph nodes and fever.

Public Health Ontario has said that most cases are among men who report intimate contact with men, but it said anyone can get monkeypox.

The agency said there were 582 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the province as of Monday, up from 529 last Wednesday.

Its latest report, published Wednesday, said 437 of the confirmed cases, or about 75 per cent, are in Toronto, and all but three cases are reported among males. The average age of all confirmed cases in the province is about 36, and confirmed cases range in age from under 20 to 74.

Public health says 18 people have been hospitalized with the illness in the province and two people have been in intensive care.

There are also seven probable cases in Ontario.

Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 5:40 pm | Story: 382009

Canada’s top film and television awards are going gender neutral in a bid to better represent the country’s diverse creative community, including gender non-conforming performers who may not identify as either male or female.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced a plan Thursday to ditch separate awards for best actor and actress in the 2023 edition of the Canadian Screen Awards, but the shift will result in fewer performance trophies and fewer nominations overall.

Instead of four film categories that each feature five nominees for best lead actor or actress and best supporting actor or actress, two film acting categories with eight nominees each will celebrate best “performance in a leading role” or “performance in a supporting role.”

Several genre-based TV categories have similarly been redrawn, with the contests for best lead comedy actor or actress now simply “best lead performer” in a comedy. 

The interim head of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, which runs the annual star-studded bash, said organizers are trying to better support potential nominees who are non-binary and/or do not identify as either or exclusively one gender.

“We have a mandate of being inclusive and for many years there were large portions of the industry, or creators I should say, that weren’t really invited to be part of the industry in different ways, and sometimes in subtle ways,” said Louis Calabro, acknowledging that the academy has faced recent complaints over representation.

“We’ve done a lot of great work to include different creators from under-represented communities but this is one of those spaces where we may not have been doing that work.”

The move follows a broader industry shift away from gender-specific awards that includes the Toronto International Film Festival’s Tribute Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards, which recently announced gender-neutral acting categories for its 2023 edition.

The Junos, the Grammys, the British Independent Film Awards, and the MTV Movie & TV Awards also feature non-gendered categories.

It also follows a CSA bash earlier this year in which the star of CBC’s gender-fluid millennial TV dramedy “Sort Of” was notably absent from the acting nominees, despite the show snagging a leading 13 nominations. 

“Sort Of” star and co-creator Bilal Baig and non-binary co-star Amanda Cordner chose not to submit their performance for consideration due to “disappointing” binary acting categories, executive producer Jennifer Kawaja confirmed earlier this year in an email to The Canadian Press.

Calabro said he thought the last bash featured “an extremely representative list.”

“And I would say that we’re so excited for this upcoming year, though, to include more people,” he said.

The new non-gendered categories were met with mixed reaction by non-binary actor and writer Jo Vannicola, a founding chair of the LGBTQ committee in the actors’ union ACTRA Toronto who applauded the academy’s “good intent.”

However, Vannicola – who uses they and them pronouns – said they would rather see additional categories for various genres and different gender identities, fearing that without more specific categories nominees could skew white male. 

“I think we’ve got to go the other direction — not reduce, just expand. More options, more opportunities, more categories,” said Vannicola, who played a non-binary character in “The Expanse” and a transgender character in “Slasher.”

“We live in a very oppressive, transphobic, homophobic world. And creating more opportunity is something we should embrace as an industry. If that means that a trans woman wants to submit for both woman and transgender, all the power to her, I feel like we should support that. Because it’s very hard to get work in an industry that has very few opportunities for queer, non binary, and transgender performers.”

Calabro said organizers will be watching for any imbalance and would consider corrections if needed, but noted the CSA digital media performance categories have been gender neutral since 2019 and he described them as “a fairly even field.”

Director and electronic music producer D.W. Waterson, who identifies as non-binary and gender-fluid and uses the pronouns they and them, welcomed the changes as “a very strong step forward for the Canadian Academy.”

“It just opens so many doors and opportunities and really lifts up performance above all else, rather than what gender you were assigned at birth, which really shouldn’t dictate how great of an actor or performance you can have,” said Waterson, part of the TIFF Filmmaker Lab at next month’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival where they will work on developing their feature debut “Backspot.”

The CSA changes announced Thursday were among a swath of tweaks that also added a category for best original score in a feature length documentary, and split categories including the best sound, non-fiction race, which is now best sound in the documentary or factual genre and best sound in lifestyle, reality, or entertainment.

The changes bring the number of CSA categories to 148, up from the last edition’s 145.

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 1:35 pm | Story: 381952

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says the government is looking at ways to prioritize visa applications for international students set to start school this coming semester as many are left wondering whether they’ll make it to Canada in time.

Students, universities, immigration consultants and even the High Commission of India have raised concerns about delayed visas putting many students’ studies at risk.

Some have already paid tuition, adding significant financial stress to the already difficult task of moving to a new country and starting school.

Federal data shows 34 per cent of pending international student visa applications are taking longer to process than government standards dictate they should, as of the end of July.

Fraser says the Immigration Department is processing more study permits than ever before, and the delays are being driven by the huge increase in demand.

He hopes to ensure students who are supposed to begin classes in September are prioritized before the start of the semester.

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 1:32 pm | Story: 381949

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says former U.S. President Donald Trump used “bully” tactics during negotiations for a new North American free-trade agreement more than two years ago.

Freeland is responding to a characterization of herself as a frustrating and difficult negotiator in a new memoir by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Freeland was the foreign affairs minister at the time and as such was Canada’s chief negotiator in the talks.

In his book Breaking History, Kushner accuses Freeland of purposely stalling negotiations and speaking publicly about the talks against the wishes of the White House.

Asked about the book’s characterization of her, Freeland says when faced with a bully, you simply cannot back down.

She says Canada’s best asset in those negotiations was a united front on the talks presented by Conservative premiers and the federal Liberal government.

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 12:25 pm | Story: 381942

The father of a victim aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 — shot down by Iranian missiles in January 2020 — has arrived in Ottawa after marching for over two weeks to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Mehrzad Zarei, father of 17-year-old Arad who died in the shootdown, began his journey from Richmond Hill, Ont., to Ottawa on Aug. 10 to hand Trudeau a letter with demands for justice for the flight victims.

Among the demands is listing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.

A branch of the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force, is already listed as a terrorist group by Public Safety Canada.

More than 100 of the 176 people killed in the plane crash on Jan. 8, 2020, had ties to Canada, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.

With Trudeau in Nunavut on Thursday, Zarei was ushered in to meet parliamentary secretary to the prime minister Greg Fergus instead.

Zarei is accompanied by family members of other victims from Flight 752 who held photos of their loved ones and remained outside the Prime Minister’s Office.

“Today’s message, we say, enough is enough,” Zarei told reporters before entering the meeting. He listed demands that also included Canadian sanctions on Iranian authorities and for the case to be pursued at the International Court of Justice.

Zarei went on to read his letter addressed to Trudeau.

“Arad was not only my son, but my best friend in my life. He was my only reason to live,” Zarei said. “Since that fateful day of January 8, every day of my life has been consumed with sorrow and pain.”

The Prime Minister’s Office had no immediate response to a query about Zarei’s march to Ottawa.

The family members will return to Ottawa on Oct. 4 to mark 1,000 days since the flight was shot down and to renew their calls for justice.

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 9:38 am | Story: 381896

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending herself against accusations she doesn’t support police officers, amid a spate of shootings in the city.

Plante admits she can be criticized on many subjects but says it is false to suggest she isn’t devoted to Montreal or to addressing gun violence.

Her comments to reporters today come after the union representing Montreal police officers said that the force doesn’t have enough members to properly police the city and that officers are quitting because they don’t feel supported.

The Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal sent a letter to Plante this week claiming that since the mayor promised last year to hire 250 additional officers, the number of police in the city has dropped by 72.

Plante and other Quebec politicians are under pressure to respond to gun violence in the Montreal area.

Two men were murdered within less than one hour on Tuesday, the latest killings in a series of high-profile and brazen shootings in the city this summer.

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 9:20 am | Story: 381887

Conservative party leadership candidate Scott Aitchison is condemning Leslyn Lewis’ message to members last week about the Nuremberg Code and medical experimentation as nothing but a “dog whistle” to COVID-19 vaccine critics.

Aitchison made the comments in a missive sent to party members Thursday, with less than two weeks before they must return their ballots for a new leader by the Sept. 6 deadline.

Aitchison, an MP first elected for the party in 2019 and again last year, entered the leadership race as a largely unknown figure.

Throughout the race, the rural Ontario representative has campaigned on a message of restoring decency in politics at a time when leaders of different stripes have been accused of stoking division.

He referred to those values in Thursday’s message, saying he has heard from Canadians who were confused and “appalled” at the comparison Lewis drew between contemporary issues and the Holocaust.

In her message, Lewis provided a timeline of moments in history when humans have been subjected to experimentation, including some Indigenous children in residential schools who were malnourished.

She wrote that, “even in modern times the tenets of informed consent and voluntary participation in scientific experiments, can be easily undermined by even our modern governments.”

Although Lewis didn’t mention COVID-19 in last week’s note about the Nuremberg Code — a set of research guidelines established after the Second World War, in which Nazi doctors carried out inhumane experiments on prisoners — Aitchison says some opposed to COVID-19 vaccinations have described requirements to get one to the horrors of Nazi Germany.

“Leslyn’s email was a dog whistle to these people so loud that it sounds more like a freight train’s horn,” Aitchison said.

“Let me be clear — being offered a vaccine that prevents serious illness and our governments’ responses to this pandemic are not the same as being tortured in a Nazi concentration camp.”

Lewis has not responded to a request for comment about her email and Aitchison’s criticism of its content.

Aitchison also touched on a recent decision by the Liberal government to cut ties with a group hired to do anti-racism work after it was discovered one of its consultants sent out an antisemitic tweet.

Many Conservative MPs have roundly criticized the government, questioning what kind of vetting occurred.

“If we want to actually deliver on the promise of better government, we as a party must do better as well,” Aitchison said.

The Canadian Press – Aug 25, 2022 / 6:51 am | Story: 381855

Health-care facilities across Canada have been grappling with worker shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic, but struggles to recruit and retain staff are nothing new in the North.

The Northwest Territories and Nunavut are no strangers to staffing gaps and service disruptions, where many communities have limited resources and are often reliant on visiting staff from Southern Canada.

But the pandemic and a shrinking national workforce has only made things worse.

“We’ve gone from a situation of kind of cheerful strain to one of real worry that we won’t be able to meet the basic coverage to keep people safe and systems functioning,” said Dr. Courtney Howard, a longtime emergency physician in Yellowknife who worked her last shift at Stanton Territorial Hospital last month.

Howard, who is now pursuing a master’s degree in public policy, said doctors who don’t usually work in the emergency department helped keep it staffed.

COVID-19 amplified staffing challenges, with many professionals working extended hours and unable to take vacation time, she said, adding shortages at health centres across the territory put additional strain on the capital’s hospital. Health services have been reduced in 14 communities across the N.W.T., including 10 where only emergency services are available.

N.W.T. Health Minister Julie Green said at the end of June the vacancy rate was 26 per cent for the territorial health and social services authority, 50 per cent for the Tlicho Community Services Agency, and 13.5 per cent for the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority.

Several health centres in Nunavut have also faced service reductions and temporary closures this summer due to a lack of staff.

CBC reported in June that half of the permanent nursing positions were empty at Nunavut’s health department.

The territories have long faced challenges attracting and keeping health-care staff due to their remoteness, limited access to amenities such as high-speed internet, high cost of living and a lack of adequate housing.

A 2021 survey of 847 nurses working in the North cited high rates of burnout, workplace violence, inadequate staffing levels and increasing overtime as challenges.

Of the nurses who responded, 79 per cent in the N.W.T. and 68 per cent in Nunavut said they had considered leaving their job in the past two years. Nearly half of those surveyed in Nunavut and 43 per cent in the N.W.T. said they plan to retire in the next decade.

Some positives were noted in the survey, like the northern lifestyle, ability to work in small communities, and professional growth opportunities.

Howard said another advantage the N.W.T. has over southern urban centres is an existing system to accommodate locums and established relationships with physician recruiters across the country. She added rural communities have stronger local connections that help to identify and maximize available resources.

The N.W.T. government announced new measures late last week to ease shortages, including using paramedics to provide acute care support and funding for nurses to bring loved ones north during the winter holidays.

It also announced funding incentives for territorial government employees who refer nurses for hard-to-fill positions and international travel coverage for practitioners from abroad.

The territory aims to increase the number of resident health-care professionals by at least 20 per cent by 2023.

“We know that more work is needed,” said Green, the N.W.T. health minister. “This is a crisis and it can’t be solved overnight.”

Nunavut Health Minister John Main said there have been short-term measures to recruit more nurses, like financial incentives, for the past couple of years. He said paramedics have helped meet patient needs during staff shortages.

Nunavut has also developed a five-year plan to strengthen the nursing workforce and is updating its recruitment strategy.

“We want to be an employer of choice. We want our reputation to be one that is excellent,” Main said.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine, the new president of the Canadian Medical Association, said immediate efforts to address staffing shortages should include retention incentives and reducing administrative tasks and patient ratios so practitioners can build better relationships with patients.

“It’s not a great patient experience to come into the health care system that doesn’t really see you, that you feel like a number or a disease and you don’t have time to sit and connect with the person across from you who is trying to walk you through your pathway towards better health,” he said.

In the longer term, Lafontaine said the association wants to build on existing virtual care models, have more internationally trained providers work in Canada and create a national approach to human resources.

“That is going to make a big difference especially in area’s that are under-resourced like Canada’s North.”