Federal leader debates, COVID hospitalization costs : In The News for Sept. 9

The debates come as opinion polls suggest the Liberals and Conservatives are stuck in a tight two-way race, with the NDP and Bloc poised to determine which of the two main parties emerges victorious.

The topics discussed Wednesday included health transfers to the provinces, child-care funding, climate and the COVID-19 pandemic as the politicians sought to sway francophones ahead of the election on Sept. 20.

Much of the back-and-forth Wednesday revolved around health care and how to pay for it. Moderator Patrice Roy pushed the politicians to spell out how much money they would give the provinces, and whether they would hand over the extra $28 billion in annual funding requested by premiers.

Trudeau pledged an added $25 billion, but “not unconditionally,” while O’Toole reiterated his plan to boost health transfers to the provinces by $60 billion over 10 years, “without conditions because it is a matter of respect” — a word he used repeatedly when referring to Quebec.

Paul brought a personal touch to the federal debate — the first for the 11-month Green leader — noting her father’s death in a long-term care home during the pandemic’s second wave. She also said she sees Greens as “allies” to First Nations, citing her own experience as part of a diaspora robbed of its traditional culture.

Singh said he would “completely agree” that Indigenous languages should be recognized as official, going further than other leaders asked on the topic Wednesday.

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Also this …

A new report says costs for a COVID-19 patient treated in intensive care can climb to an estimated $50,000 compared with about $8,400 dollars for someone who’s had a heart attack.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information report says the cost for a pneumonia patient being in ICU is about eight-thousand dollars.

But it says COVID patients remain there for much longer and, on average, their treatment amounts to about $23,000.

The report covers data from between January 2020 and March 2021.

It says COVID-19 cost Canada’s health-care system a billion dollars during that time, but it excludes costs for doctors and all costs for Quebec.

Health economist Walter Wodchis of the University of Toronto’s school of public health says there are many other costs related to the pandemic, including the mental health toll, particularly on youth, and a rise in deaths from the opioid crisis.

He says all those costs should be considered and there needs to be a general discussion on how to allocate scarce health-care resources.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

RICHMOND, Va. — A statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee that towered over the city for generations has been taken down, cut into pieces and hauled away.

It happened as the former capital of the Confederacy erased the last of the Civil War figures that once defined its most prominent thoroughfare. Hundreds of onlookers erupted in cheers and song as the more than six-metre-tall bronze figure was lifted off a pedestal and lowered to the ground.

The removal was a major victory for civil rights activists. Their previous calls to dismantle the statues had been steadfastly rebuked by city and state officials alike.

“It’s very difficult to imagine, certainly, even two years ago that the statues on Monument Avenue would actually be removed,” said Ana Edwards, a community activist and founding member of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom Justice & Equality. “It’s representative of the fact that we’re sort of peeling back the layers of injustice that Black people and people of colour have experienced when governed by white supremacist policies for so long.”

Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the statue’s removal last summer amid the nationwide protest movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. But litigation tied up his plans until the state Supreme Court cleared the way last week.

Northam, who watched the work, called it “hopefully a new day, a new era in Virginia.”

“Any remnant like this that glorifies the lost cause of the Civil War, it needs to come down,” he said.

The sculpture was installed in 1890 atop a granite pedestal about twice that tall. It was perched in the middle of a state-owned traffic circle, and it stood among four other massive Confederate statues that were removed by the city last summer.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

PARIS — The trial of 20 men accused in a series of co-ordinated attacks on Paris in 2015 that spread fear across Europe and transformed the nation has opened in a custom-built complex embedded within a 13th-century courthouse.

Nine Islamic State group gunmen and suicide bombers struck within minutes of one another at several locations around Paris on Nov. 13, 2015. The attacks left 130 people dead.

It was the deadliest violence to strike France since the Second World War.

The worst carnage was at the Bataclan concert hall, where three men, dressed in black and armed with assault rifles, gunned down scores of people and grabbed a handful of hostages. Others targeted the national soccer stadium, where the president was attending a game, as well as cafes filled with people on a mild autumn night.

The key defendant, Salah Abdeslam, has so far refused to speak to investigators.

Abdeslam, whose brother was among the suicide bombers, appeared in court Wednesday dressed all in black, mask included. He declared his profession to be “fighter for Islamic State” and later burst out with complaints about treatment in prison.

Abdeslam is the only defendant charged with murder. The other defendants face lesser terrorism charges.

The presiding judge, Jean-Louis Peries, acknowledged the extraordinary nature of the attacks — which changed security in Europe and France’s political landscape — and the trial to come. France only emerged from the state of emergency declared in the aftermath of the attacks in 2017, after incorporating many of the harshest measures into law.

“The events that we are about to decide are inscribed in their historic intensity as among the international and national events of this century,” he said.

The trial is scheduled to last nine months.

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On this day in 1954 …

Sixteen-year-old Marilyn Bell became the first person to swim across Lake Ontario. Bell started her swim the previous day from Youngstown, N.Y. She swam for 20 hours and 57 minutes under gruelling conditions, fighting five-metre waves and lamprey eels attacking her legs. About 300,000 people were on hand when she came ashore in Toronto. Bell continued her long-distance efforts and in 1955 became, at the time, the youngest person to swim the English Channel.

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In entertainment …

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bob Odenkirk is back shooting “Better Call Saul,” six weeks after a heart attack.

Odenkirk tweeted a photo of himself getting made up to play title character Saul Goodman in the AMC series, indicating that shooting had resumed on its sixth and final season.

Odenkirk said on Twitter: “Back to work on Better Call Saul!”

The 58-year-old Odenkirk had what he later called a “small heart attack” and collapsed on the set for the show in Albuquerque on July 27.

Odenkirk has been nominated for four Emmys for the role of luckless lawyer Jimmy McGill, who becomes increasingly corrupt and adopts the pseudonym Saul Goodman, the “criminal lawyer” who appeared in dozens of episodes of “Breaking Bad” before getting his own spin-off.

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ICYMI …

Leylah Annie Fernandez arrived at the U.S. Open with so little fanfare that tennis observers were barely paying attention to the young Canadian in the early days of the tournament.

Ranked No. 73 in the world when the major began on Aug. 30, the teenager from Laval, Que., didn’t seem poised for a magical run as the final slam of the season got underway.

But then she beat four-time major champion Naomi Osaka of Japan in the third round last Friday — and followed that up with wins against other high-ranked opponents — and the perception of Fernandez began to change.

“None of us had Leylah Fernandez as our pick, none of us,” said Pam Shriver, an analyst on the U.S. Open’s ESPN broadcast and a former world No. 3. “That win against Osaka immediately put us on alert.

Fernandez plays No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus on Thursday, a player that Tennis Canada national coach Sylvain Bruneau described as “a bulldozer on the court.”

Fernandez will have to dig deep to defeat the 5-foot-11 Sabalenka, Bruneau said, but she’s got the potential to do it.

“It’s not going to be easy … the tough part is ahead of her,” he said. “But I do really believe deep down that Leylah has a good chance.”

Fernandez, who turned 19 this week, has a left-handed serve that has given opponents trouble. She’s also won over the electric U.S. Open crowd with her joyful smile and the way she raises her arms to encourage cheers after big points.

“She’s inviting them in, she saying ‘Come on, get behind me,'” Shriver said.

Fernandez is one of two Canadians in the U.S. Open semifinals. No. 12 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Montreal plays No. 2 Daniil Medvedev of Russia on the men’s side on Friday.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2021

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Federal leader debates, COVID hospitalization costs : In The News for Sept. 9

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