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Half of the children in Canada who need surgery are facing waiting times that far exceed clinical recommendations for treatment, a situation experts say could have serious, lifelong consequences for young patients’ development.
The waiting-time numbers, collected from children’s hospitals across the country by the Pediatric Surgical Chiefs of Canada, highlight the immense strain pediatric facilities are under. The burden has also led to overcrowded hospitals, record emergency-room waits and delayed diagnosis and treatment of developmental conditions.
Emily Gruenwoldt, the president and chief executive of Children’s Healthcare Canada and executive director of Pediatric Chairs of Canada, said children are being left in pain for months as they wait for surgery, and parents are having to give up their jobs to care for them.
The exterior of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto is photographed on Jan. 21, 2021.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
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Uprooted trees, frayed nerves and a massive cleanup: Halifax residents get to work fixing Fiona’s mess
While Ian Livingstone stood on his porch in Halifax’s north end, mourning the century-old tree out front that post-tropical storm Fiona had knocked over Saturday, François Tardif was loading hunks of the tree’s dismembered corpse into the back of his pickup truck.
This tree is one of thousands in Halifax injured or toppled by the weekend’s violent winds. Electricity has returned to most homes here, but cleaning up the tree carnage will be a longer project. More than 400 trees have already been cleared off streets by city crews since Saturday, but the job is far from over. Countless others – or what remains of them – are strewn across private property and have kept arborists and chainsaw-wielding residents busy for the last four days.
- Trudeau says stronger infrastructure needed after viewing Fiona damage in Maritimes
- Residents of coastal N.L. town sift through rubble of their homes after Fiona
- Hurricane Ian strikes Cuba, Florida braces for winds, floods
Ukraine presses Canada to push for tribunal to prosecute crime of aggression
Ukraine wants Canada to take a leadership role in the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russian military and leaders for the crime of aggression.
Andrii Smyrnov, the deputy head of the office of the President of Ukraine, said he shared an outline of the plan with Canada’s ambassador last Friday, and hopes the government will be a leading voice in establishing the tribunal.
“I really hope for Canada’s endorsement in this,” he told The Globe and Mail in an interview in Kyiv.
Ukraine is pushing for a special tribunal to prosecute high-ranking Russian perpetrators. It would be in addition to the International Criminal Court, which is investigating allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The international court does not have jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of aggression.
- Kremlin announces vote, paves way to annex part of Ukraine
- Gas leaks from Russian pipelines in Baltic Sea give rise to sabotage accusations from European leaders
On World News Day, let’s remember that access to information is a human right
“If those who attempt to turn journalists into the enemy are successful, the people’s right to independent access to information will be lost. And as we all know, a world where people are blinded from facts is a dangerous one.… World News Day exists to help the news industry to explain itself better, to involve the global audience in showcasing how accurate information makes life better.” - David Walmsley, The Globe’s editor-in-chief and founder of World News Day
- For World News Day, read The Globe’s full series on journalism and moral courage
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop
Also on our radar
Employers forced to increase salaries: Employers across the country are increasing wages and projecting future salary bumps into their budgets amid inflationary pressure and a continuing talent shortage that shows little sign of easing in the near future.
Bill C-11 critic should be investigated for failing to disclose YouTube funding, MP says: A Liberal MP has asked the lobbying commissioner to investigate an outspoken critic of the federal government’s online-streaming bill for failing to immediately disclose funding from YouTube and TikTok.
Ottawa should fund Indigenous artifact repatriation, museum association says: Canadian museums have been painfully slow to return the millions of Indigenous cultural objects and human remains in their collections, and Indigenous communities need tougher laws and federal funding to speed the process, a new report from the Canadian Museums Association concludes.
Europe prepares for winter without gas: With prices for gas and oil rising rapidly and fears of a long-lasting shutdown of Russian gas supplies, families and businesses across Europe are rethinking how much energy they use and preparing for a winter of hardships.
The legal woes that could bring down Trump: Trying to overturn the 2020 election. Taking classified documents on nuclear weapons out of the White House. Business fraud. These are the three major accusations Donald Trump faces. Now prosecutors and attorneys-general must soon decide whether to lay criminal charges if they want to avoid their cases running up against the 2024 election, in which Trump is mulling a comeback bid.
The 2022 Giller shortlist marks a first: This week sees the detachment of the Giller’s rocket booster: its longlist. Having accomplished some significant liftoff of its own (ie., book sales), it will now fall gently back to earth as the remaining five titles continue their journey to the Nov. 7 gala. So what, if anything, unites the books on the shortlist? The most obvious is that, for the first time, all are by writers of colour.
Morning markets
Rate fears, recession concerns hit global markets: World shares sank to two-year lows on Wednesday, hammered by spiralling borrowing costs that intensified fears of a global recession and sent investors to the safe-haven U.S. dollar. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 1.92 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were off 2.12 per cent and 1.42 per cent, respectively. Japan’s Nikkei closed down 1.5 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 3.41 per cent. New York futures were in the red. The Canadian dollar was trading at 72.47 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Robyn Urback: “I expect that Mr. Poilievre will no longer be selective in his outrage, and careful in his implications when going on the attack. Indeed, having expressed his intolerance for this sort of extremism, and humbled by its personal effect, Mr. Poilievre will surely refrain from dabbling in conspiracies that play to stereotypes about certain groups, and pretending he doesn’t see lawlessness and bigotry in movements he supports, and shrugging off radicalism among his fans so he can keep a certain antagonism going between himself and the media. Right? Anything else would render him a charlatan and a raging hypocrite.”
Editorial: “But remember, to squelch inflation, the Bank of Canada will likely have to lower economic demand. It may have to go so far as making us all temporarily poorer (and some of us unemployed), by causing a recession. And that approach will, however indirectly and impersonally, involve taking money out of millions of pockets.”
Today’s editorial cartoon
Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
Living better
The good, the great and the meh of hotel loyalty reward programs
It’s a fact: Canadians love earning points. According to a 2019 global study by KPMG, Canadians are one of the most active loyalty program users in the world. With an average of 12 loyalty cards per Canadian, many travellers are focused on programs such as Air Miles, Aeroplan or WestJet Rewards, but should there be a slot in the wallet for a hotel loyalty program? Here’s the pros and cons of five hotel loyalty programs and how they can benefit travel planning.
Moment in time: Sept. 28, 1991
American jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis sits with his instrument during a studio recording session, October 1959.Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jazz legend Miles Davis dies
Miles Davis, the trumpet-playing poster child for the cool-jazz genre, died this day in 1991 in Santa Monica, Calif., of pneumonia, respiratory failure and a stroke. He was 65 years old. He was a bandleader, composer and a shape-shifting conceptualist with a haunting tone, an iconic silhouette and a brooding persona, whose recordings at the turn of the 1950s represented a major development in post-bebop jazz and helped advance cultural hipness over all. According to Ian Carr, the author of Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography, the trumpeter’s work broke the monopoly of established thought on jazz in decade after decade by causing people to “revise and expand their ideas of the music’s identity and possibilities.” The 1959 album Kind of Blue was not only innovative but commercially successful; the best-selling jazz album of all time attracts new audiences to the genre to this day. Other significant discography moments include the 1957 compilation Birth of the Cool, 1969′s In a Silent Way and 1985′s You’re Under Arrest. His last studio album, Doo-Bop, which won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance, was released posthumously in 1992. Brad Wheeler
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