Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
For Canadians clinging to the promise of COVID-19 vaccines on the horizon, developments today brought a glimmer of hope coupled with reminders that the pandemic stands to inflict much more pain over the next several months.
Misery south of the border looms constantly, but a new spike in coronavirus infections has overwhelmed U.S. hospitals and prompted a warning from the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the winter months may be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.” Yesterday, the U.S. had a single-day record of 3,175 deaths. The trend isn’t improving.
Meanwhile a vaccine made by Pfizer, with a critical assist from a Vancouver biotech company, is set to be approved by Health Canada in a matter of days. But Canadians who reject physical-distancing guidelines are still spreading infection and getting sick, such as members of a B.C. old-timers’ hockey team that recently travelled to Alberta. And in Quebec, optimistic Christmastime gathering advice has been reversed by the government in the face of a growing crisis in hospitals.
- Related: Alberta’s worst COVID-19 rates are in racialized communities, data show
Canada comes to Australia’s defence over fake image circulated by China
As a dispute between China and Australia entered strange territory this week, Canada condemned a Chinese government spokesman for publishing misinformation in the form of a fabricated photo of an Australian soldier killing a young Afghan.
“We were shocked to see the fabricated image posted by a Chinese government official,” said Syrine Khoury, the press secretary for Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne, in a statement. “The dissemination of such inflammatory material and disinformation is beneath the standards of proper diplomatic conduct.”
The diplomatic chain of events affirmed Canadian-Australian co-operation on the China file, a notable development given the importance of the fragile relationship between Canada and China.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Aligned with UNDRIP: A long-promised bill that sets Canada up to apply the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to its own laws has finally been tabled in the House of Commons. “The government of Canada must, in consultation and co-operation with Indigenous peoples, take all measures necessary to ensure that the laws of Canada are consistent with the declaration,” the bill states.
Capitalizing on a green transition: The Canadian engineering giant WSP Global Inc. is in a relentless expansion phase, and has again bolstered its environmental consulting business with the $1.5-billion purchase of Enterra Holdings, Ltd., the parent company of geosciences firm Golder.
Ontario tragedy: The father of a boy who was killed when police fired at the car they were in has also died, nearly a week after the incident.
MARKET WATCH
Most major stock indexes were up today, but the S&P 500 closed slightly down amid caution about the rollout of Pfizer Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine. With the last of the major Canadian banks reporting earnings today and financials up 0.09, the S&P/TSX Composite Index closed up 39.81 points, or 0.23 per cent, at 17,398.02.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 86.71 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 29,970.5, the S&P 500 lost 2.24 points, or 0.06 per cent, to 3,666.77 and the Nasdaq Composite added 27.82 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 12,377.18.
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TALKING POINTS
Canada needs to dig deep and find the national will to fix the water crisis
“Non-Indigenous people in Canada are often shocked that this has been allowed to happen in their country. They want to do something, anything, to help. But they can’t seem to wrap their heads around the broader history of Indigenous erasure and how Canada has failed to live up to its treaty obligations. As a result, First Nations are treated like we live in another Canada – one with a different set of rights.” – Tanya Talaga, staff columnist
When will Ottawa start reducing stimulus spending?
“Frankly, the government might want to sit down with the Bank of Canada and ask for its input on this process. After all, the central bank has signalled that it, too, will be looking to the economic indicators for clear evidence of a healthy, sustained recovery before it starts to withdraw monetary stimulus – and the labour market will be central to that analysis.” – David Parkinson, economics reporter
Canada’s fiscal update may be feminist in its approach, but it’s not so intersectional
“Low-income racialized women with precarious status who dutifully file income tax still cannot access the CCB, even for their Canadian-born children. They are the same mothers, along with others, who are denied access to almost all COVID-19 emergency benefits, including the CRB and CERB, because they lack permanent status in Canada – despite disproportionately being the ones who put their and their families’ lives at risk by doing essential work.” – Avvy Go, Debbie Douglas and Shalini Konanur, advocates for racialized people in Canada
LIVING BETTER
Full Stream Ahead: The greatest Christmas-ish movies, from Die Hard to You’ve Got Mail
Let film critic Barry Hertz program your holiday-adjacent double-, triple- or quadruple-header with these beloved Christmas-ish films available for streaming. The criteria? If it’s set around the holidays but shopping-mall Santas or the Christmas spirit are absent from the plot, it might be a Christmas-ish movie. Prepare your non-denominational nog of choice, grab some cookies and settle in.
TODAY’S LONG READ
Families of nine of the hundreds of men who have disappeared in Mexico.Illustration by Timothy Moore and Felix Marquez
Mexico’s mass graves and the search for the ‘disappeared’
What happens when a loved one simply vanishes? In Mexico, 16 people go missing every day. The Globe’s team of reporters and editors set out to follow the families of the victims in their quest for answers. They started at a scrubby patch of forest on an old ranch beside Colinas de Santa Fe, which has become the largest mass grave in Latin America. What they found is that the grave is an open secret, a bold proclamation meant to terrorize and intimidate.
Read the full story here, and the backstory of how the story was reported by Stephanie Nolen and her colleagues. While tracing the crimes back to those responsible has so far proved impossible, detailing the grave site on the ground and through drone footage has at least connected the scale of the horror to the families’ personal tragedies.
Evening Update is compiled and written weekdays by an editor in The Globe’s live news department. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.