Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 13, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2020 ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I CANADA . WORLD Ontario's public health authorities on Saturday reported 1,873 new cases and 17 more related deaths. York Region, north of Toronto, and Windsor-Essex are set to move into the "lockdown" phase of the province's tiered pandem- ic response plan on Monday. The measures mean bars, restaurant dining rooms and indoor sports facili- ties must close, while private gather- ings and indoor public events are banned. Non-essential shopping will be limited to curbside pickup. In Quebec, health officials reported 1,898 new cases of the novel coronavi- rus and 40 additional deaths. Saskatchewan reported 274 new cases of COVID-19 Saturday and 11 deaths associated with the virus. Authorities in the province said there are nearly 120 people in hospital, with 23 in intensive care. Newfoundland and Labrador report- ed three new infections, while officials in New Brunswick reported one new case, with 72 still active in the prov- ince and four people in hospital. Nova Scotia reported seven new infections on Saturday, with 61 active cases. Public health officials in Prince Ed- ward Island reported five new cases. All of those cases were travel-related, the province's top doctor said. There are currently 17 active cases in the province. The Public Health Agency of Canada said Saturday there are currently 73,297 active cases in Canada, with an average of 6,543 daily new cases reported between Dec. 4 and Dec. 10. It said at an average of 2,900 people were being treated in hospital, with 565 in intensive care, each day be- tween Dec. 4 and Dec. 10. Canada reported an average of 100 deaths associated with the virus each day during that period, it said. "Nationally, we remain in a rapid growth trajectory. The latest longer range forecasting, using a model from Simon Fraser University, forecasts that we could have 12,000 cases daily by the beginning of January," the agency said. - The Canadian Press VACCINE ? FROM A1 O TTAWA - Ali Mansour spent his first two weeks in Canada watching through a win-dow as winter gave way to spring and squir- rels ran across the lawn. As one of the last refugees to arrive in Canada before the border closed due to the COVID-19 pan- demic, it still felt like freedom. "It felt like I was in a movie," he said through an interpreter from his home in Waterloo, Ont. For Mansour and thousands of refugees set to start new lives in Canada this year - and for the community groups providing them financial and social support - the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic may reverberate for years. Mansour, 31, fled Syria in 2017 to escape mil- itary service. Through a connection, he became acquainted with Aleya Hassan's family in Canada. Hassan arrived in 2011 as part of the skilled- worker program, and three years later became in- volved in sponsoring refugees. Her family agreed to sponsor Mansour as a refugee. "I feel it is my duty to help, because l am lucky to be able to be in Canada and then, if I can change the life of even few people, that will be great," she said. Hassan said in her past sponsorship experien- ces, the work revolved around getting the newly arrived person or family to be self-sufficient as soon as possible. That all went out the window with COVID-19. After years of being a sponsor, Hassan had a schedule in place for new arrivals: when they'd get a bank account and a bus pass, be registered for classes and connect with community supports. Mansour, however, arrived on March 16, on one of the last flights allowed into the country. It was that week the country largely shut down. Banks reduced their hours, community classes were cancelled or went online. Every resource Hassan was used to drawing upon vanished. A de- sire for Mansour to become self-sufficient was re- placed by fear he'd get sick, and she took to driving him everywhere. "It's so strange when you don't have a plan, and no one knows what the plan can be," she said. Within his first month, Mansour did find work: at the Canadian Shield Co. making personal pro- tective equipment, one of the only companies act- ively hiring in the pandemic's early days. "The company is based on serving society, doing something good," he said. "That makes me happy." He doesn't know when he'll be able to return to school to advance his engineering education. The tight-knit social networks he left behind in Syria are impossible to recreate, his English isn't improving as fast as he needs and his life is just the commute to work and back, every day. The enforced isolation of the pandemic is the biggest risk, said Yazan Alhajali, who has seen both sides of the refugee process. He arrived as a refugee in 2017, and since then has become increasingly involved in supporting others, especially LGBTTQ+ refugees from the Middle East. Those who have arrived in the last year have none of the easy access to community that he did, he said. "They're locked at home, you can't see anyone, you can't learn English properly," he said. Refugees, already struggling through trauma, can't access mental-health supports or even con- nect properly with primary care, he pointed out. Altogether, he says, the supports have been cur- tailed so dramatically it raises questions about how long it will realistically take people to settle properly. He had every advantage, he said, but it still took him three years to feel at home. One of the reasons Canada's private sponsorship program is celebrated globally is the yearlong backing provided by sponsors. Studies have shown it is a jumping-off point that sees many privately sponsored refugees achieve better long-term out- comes than refugees supported solely by govern- ment. For those whose private support ran out during the pandemic, that jumping-off point has become more like jumping into an abyss. While Mansour found work fast, Laura Beth Bugg, a Toronto-based sponsor, said a family she sponsored has applied for 80 jobs, with no luck. She's continuing to give them money, even though the year is over, because the social sup- ports that exist simply aren't enough. She and Alhajali are among dozens of people trying to convince the federal government to pro- vide an additional six months of financial support to refugees in acknowledgment of the pandemic's toll. So far, they say, the government has shown little interest. Canada had planned to settle 20,000 privately sponsored refugees this year but by the end of September only 3,500 had arrived. How long it will take for the rest remains unclear. The government, and private citizens, remain committed to refugee resettlement, even in a pandemic, said Kaylee Perez, a migration and re- settlement associate with the Mennonite Central Committee in Ontario, a major facilitator of pri- vate sponsorship. The question is how to make it happen. "There are always people who have the money, but not the time, and there are people who have the time, but not the money," she said. "How can we bring them together? That that's part of what we'll try to do in 2021." - The Canadian Press COVID-19 consequences could be felt for years An uncertain time for refugees STEPHANIE LEVITZ ALI MANSOUR / THE CANADIAN PRESS Ali Mansour arrived in Canada on one of the last flights before the border closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two people in the United Kingdom suffered severe allergic reactions to the Pfizer- BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and recovered. PARIS - U.S. president-elect Joe Biden pledged Saturday to rejoin the Paris climate accord on the first day of his presidency, as world leaders staged a virtual gathering to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the international pact aimed at curbing global warming. Heads of state and government from over 70 countries took part in the event - hosted by Britain, France, Italy, Chile and the United Nations - to an- nounce greater efforts in cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming. The outgoing administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who pulled Washington out of the Paris accord, wasn't represented at the online gather- ing. In a written statement sent shortly before it began, Biden made clear the U.S. was waiting on the sidelines to join again and noted Washington was key to negotiating the 2015 agreement, which has since been ratified by almost all countries around the world. "The United States will rejoin the Paris Agreement on Day 1 of my presi- dency," he said. "I'll immediately start working with my counterparts around the world to do all that we possibly can, including by convening the leaders of major economies for a climate summit within my first 100 days in office." Biden reiterated his campaign pledge that his administration will set a target of cutting U.S. emissions to net zero "no later than 2050." Experts say commitments put for- ward by the international community in the past five years have already im- proved the long-term outlook on climate change, making the worst-case scenar- ios less likely by the end of the century. But wildfires in the Amazon, Australia and America, floods in Bangladesh and East Africa, and record temperatures in the Arctic have highlighted the im- pact an increase of 1.2 C since pre-in- dustrial times is already having on the planet. "If we don't change course, we may be headed for a catastrophic temper- ature rise of more than 3 C this cen- tury," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, urging world leaders to declare a "climate emergency." The Paris agreement aims to cap global warming at well under 2 C, ideally no more than 1.5 C, by the end of the century. Meeting the temper- ature target will require a phasing-out of fossil fuels and better protection for the world's carbon-soaking forests, wet- lands and oceans. The UN chief called the announced U.S. return to the Paris accord "a very important signal." "We look forward for a very active U.S. leadership in climate action from now on," Guterres said. "The United States is the largest economy in the world, it's absolutely essential for our goals to be reached." Biden insisted that the dramatic eco- nomic shifts needed would be positive for American workers. "We have before us an enormous eco- nomic opportunity to create jobs and prosperity at home and export clean American-made products around the world, harnessing our climate ambi- tion in a way that is good for American workers and the U.S. economy," he said. American representatives at the vir- tual meeting included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and U.S. business leaders, such as Apple chief executive Tim Cook. Also absent from the event were ma- jor economies such as Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Most have offered no signifi- cant improvements on their existing emissions targets lately. Environmental campaigners singled out Brazil's recent announcement it will stick to its target of cutting emis- sions by 43 per cent over the next dec- ade compared with 2005 levels and aim for net zero by 2060 - later than most other countries. By contrast, an agreement Friday by European Union members to beef up the continent's 2030 targets from 40 per cent to at least 55 per cent com- pared with 1990 levels was broadly wel- comed, though activists said it could have aimed even higher. China, the world's biggest emitter, also surprised the world in September by announcing a net zero target of 2060, with emissions peaking by 2030. In his speech Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping provided further details on his country's medium-term goal for improving energy efficiency and ramp- ing up electricity generated from re- newable sources of power such as wind and solar. But Xi also cautioned that "unilat- eralism will lead us nowhere" - a veiled reference to discussions in the EU to impose tariffs on goods imported from countries that have less stringent emissions standards than the 27-nation bloc. The issue is likely to dominate dis- cussion between China, the EU and the U.S. in coming years. The Maldives, an Indian Ocean na- tion made up of low-lying islands that are particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, announced Saturday it will now aim to achieve net zero by 2030, one of the most ambitious goals worldwide. Bhutan and Suriname claim to have al- ready achieved that goal. The 189 countries that are party to the Paris agreement are required to submit their updated targets to the United Nations by the end of the year. This would normally have occurred at the annual UN climate summit, but the event was postponed for a year because of the pandemic. The gathering, now scheduled to take place in Glasgow, Scotland, in Novem- ber 2021, will see haggling over finan- cial support for poor countries to cope with climate change, and fine-tuning the rules for international markets in emissions trading. Britain, next year's host, announced this month that it's aiming to cut emissions by 68 per cent over the next decade and end state sup- port for fossil fuel industry exports. Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who was a key player at the Paris negotiations, said leaders had a duty to be optimistic about their ability to curb global warming. "Because if we don't, the alternative is unthinkable," she said. "None of us adults alive today want to have on our shoulders the responsibility of turning over a world that is a world of misery for generations to come." - The Associated Press Biden pledges U.S. support for Paris climate accord FRANK JORDANS AND JEFF SCHAEFFER SUSAN WALSH / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. president-elect Joe Biden pledged to rejoin the Paris climate agreement on the opening day of his presidency. A_04_Dec-13-20_FP_01.indd A4 2020-12-12 10:26 PM ;