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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

With shortage of substitutes, Ontario government looks to retired teachers

By
Jonathan Bradley
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The Ontario government has reached an agreement with the Ontario Teachers’ Federation (OTF) to almost double the number of days that retired teachers can work. 

Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce released details in a statement on Monday. The agreement with the OTF will increase the number of days that retired teachers can work from 50 to 95. It will come into effect June 30.

Lecce claimed school boards were reporting high rates of teachers taking days off even before the arrival of the Omicron variant. 

“We need staff in order to continue providing live teacher-led remote learning and safely operate our schools when students return to in-person learning,” said Lecce. “That is why we have now secured an agreement with the Ontario Teachers’ Federation that will deliver access to thousands of teacher-qualified educators that will help keep schools open and safe.”

Lecce said Ontario is continuing to go beyond public health requirements by “providing non-fitted N95 masks as an optional alternative for all staff, accelerated access to booster shots for education and child care staff and are supporting school-focused vaccination clinics.” 

As with health care and other sectors, schools have lost significant numbers of staff due to vaccine mandates.

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) put 95 permanent staff on unpaid leave for not disclosing their vaccine status in November. Another 609 occasional staff with the TDSB failed to disclose their vaccine status and have been put on unpaid leave. 

There are 1,016 additional staff who said they were unvaccinated and at risk of being put on unpaid leave. 

Ontario will be investing $304 million to hire more than 2,000 additional staff, according to Lecce. He added that Ontario will be increasing access to second-year teacher candidates. 

“Through enhanced ventilation and masking, more funding to hire additional staff, and new access to thousands of retired educators, we are helping to stabilize the workforce to ensure students receive the mental, physical, and academic benefits to support their learning,” he said. 

The shortage of supply teachers is expected to hit 7,000 across all Ontario school boards, according to data provided by the boards in fall 2021. 

Government figures show that about 40% of school boards have 25% of teacher absences unfilled by a supply teacher, and close to 20% of them report up to 50% of teacher absences being unfilled by a supply teacher. 

Alberta NDP health critic open to forcing people to get vaccinated

By
Harley Sims
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Alberta’s New Democratic Party health critic has said he’s open to the idea of forcing Canadians to get COVID-19 shots.

Edmonton NDP MLA David Shepherd made the comments on Monday when asked about Federal Liberal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos saying that provinces might want to have a “conversation” with the feds about making vaccines mandatory for Canadians.

“Certainly, we have put forward a number of critiques regarding the (United Conservative Party) government’s decisions on how it has rolled out vaccinations,” Shepherd said. “Certainly, we have proposed a number of things that this government could be doing to increase uptake of vaccinations.”

“Certainly, we have called for vaccine clinics in schools and access to be there for it to be as ridiculously easy for Albertans as possible to access the vaccine. I think those are steps we need to take first and then the other discussions would take place after.”

Shepherd’s eagerness to consider forced vaccinations focused on Albertans’ “low vaccine uptake,” especially among young children.

“Certainly, we see that Alberta as amongst the lowest – I think, one of the two lowest – provinces in Canada in terms of uptake, in terms of the paediatric vaccine for those aged 5 to 11, and that is deeply concerning,” said Shepherd.

Alberta premier Jason Kenney vowed on Friday that his government would entertain no discussions of forcing Canadians to get vaccinated.

“Alberta’s Legislature removed the power of mandatory vaccination from the Public Health Act last year and will not revisit that decision, period,” Kenney tweeted. “While we strongly encourage those who are eligible to get vaccinated, it is ultimately a personal choice that individuals must make.”

John Carpay with the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) told True North that Shepherd’s position on vaccination is not only unconstitutional but also unscientific.

“It’s profoundly disrespectful of fundamental Charter rights to bodily autonomy,” Carpay said. “Every Canadian has a right to decide for herself what will or will not be done to her body, and every citizen has a right to determine what will or will not be injected into them.”

“There is no medical or scientific basis for violating that Charter right because we all know that the vaccines don’t stop the spread.”

Carpay also warned that even though Kenney has removed the power of mandatory vaccination from Alberta’s Public Health Act, a newly-elected NDP government could just as easily restore it.

“That legislation can be changed at the drop of a hat by whichever party has a majority in the Alberta legislature,” he said. “That can be done quite easily.”

A Leger poll for Postmedia in December put the Alberta NDP 11 points ahead of the UCP in Alberta, with 43% of decided voters opting for Rachel Notley over Kenney.”

Fired support worker one of thousands struggling to feed family

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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A Windsor, Ontario personal support worker who served the elderly for nearly 20 years is now struggling to put food on the table after being terminated for refusing to declare her vaccination status.

According to estimates by True North based on government and media reports, approximately 10,000 healthcare workers have lost their jobs across Canada as a result of vaccine mandates. 

Melissa Marlein is one of them. A mother of three, she was fired from Huron Lodge by the City of Windsor for refusing to get a COVID-19 shot. 

According to Marlein, without the prospect of receiving employment insurance or severance pay, her family faces a bleak future in the coming months.

“It’s a lot tighter right now,” she told True North. “I’m very thankful that my husband does have a source of income. My husband is disabled so he’s on Ontario disability as well as Canada pension disability, so with three children it’s very tight.”

“I’m not sure how we’re going to manage birthdays or Christmas. I don’t know what that’s going to look like in the future, but right now we’re just struggling to make sure that there’s food in our house.” 

Marlein’s troubles began after Windsor implemented a mandatory vaccination policy for city workers. Prior to being fired, Marlein claims that she and other unvaccinated staff were forced to reveal their medical status in an open setting. 

“That’s where the division began. You would come to work, be asked your vaccination status in front of everybody, then you would be forced to sign a clipboard stating that you would get your PCR test or your rapid test and that clipboard was also left for all to see with your information on there so everybody knows who is and who isn’t vaccinated, which is against Ontario privacy legislation,” said Marlein.  

A few days after her last day of work, Marlein said she drove by her former workplace only to find a police officer standing guard.

“He wasn’t at the door, mind you, where you think he would be to make sure that people aren’t coming in that are unvaccinated. No, they had him posted at the front window just standing there staring out the front window almost like for the intimidation factor,” Marlein told True North. 

As of Jan. 4, every unvaccinated worker at the long-term care home has been terminated, and Marlein received her termination letter over the weekend. True North was shown a copy of the letter signed by Windsor’s Chief Administrative Officer Jason Reynar. 

“According to our records, you did not provide any documentation as of this date showing that you are partially or fully vaccinated nor do you have a human rights exemption in place that has been approved by the City,” Reynar wrote. 

“Your manager will contact you for any items you have belonging to the Corporation. We are saddened by having to end our relationship in this manner, but we wish you all the best in your future endeavours.” 

With very little help from her union, Marlein says she’s stuck in limbo while she looks for another job.

“It was basically a big waste of our time because the only thing that our union told us was that we would lose in arbitration, so we’re not going to challenge the vaccination policy and basically told us that there’s nothing they can do for us until we’re fired,” said Marlein. “When I asked my union president about that he said that we won’t be entitled to severance pay because we are being terminated with cause.” 

“I’m basically sitting in limbo. I can’t get EI, it’s on the second adjudicator now so I’m sure that’s not going very well, and my union hasn’t done anything in the meantime.” 

Elections Ontario not requiring vaccine passports to vote

By
Jonathan Bradley
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Elections Ontario will not be requesting people show vaccine passports when they cast their ballots, despite the claim of an Ontario People’s Party of Canada (PPC) candidate. 

Former Windsor West PPC candidate Matt Giancola made the claim on Friday. 

“Elections Ontario now has a vaccine passport policy for entry to all locations, including field locations (i.e. polling stations),” said Giancola in a tweet. “People without a vaccine passport will not be able to vote in person at the 2022 Ontario provincial election.” 

Elections Ontario said in a since-deleted webpage that it had implemented a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy to stop the spread of the virus. Vendors, consultants and visitors would have to show vaccine passports and identification when they entered Elections Ontario locations. 

People who could not prove they were fully vaccinated would be denied entry. 

Elections Ontario said in a statement emailed to True North on Monday that people would not be required to show vaccine passports to vote. 

“Elections Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccination policy applies to all vendors, consultants and visitors entering its corporate office facilities to conduct in-person business,” it said. “It does not apply to voters wishing to cast their ballot at voting locations in Ontario.” 

Elections Canada does not require voters to be fully vaccinated. However, voters have to wear masks when they enter polling stations or risk being turned away. 

While unvaccinated Canadians are still free to vote in person in general elections, the situation is more complicated for legislative votes. For example, the House of Commons imposed a mandatory vaccination policy for MPs Nov. 22. 

Unvaccinated Ontario MPPs could also be prevented from entering the Legislative Assembly of Ontario unless they have tested negative for COVID-19. New Blue MPP Belinda Karahalios was kicked out of the Ontario legislature for violating COVID-19 protocols in December. 

Speaker Ted Arnott asked Karahalios to leave multiple times before ordering her to be escorted out of the Ontario legislature.While no democratic country has yet banned unvaccinated people from voting altogether, MPs in Latvia who have not been vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 will have their pay suspended and no longer be able to participate in parliamentary votes.

Hamilton reports 35% turnover rate among temporary nursing staff

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

A City of Hamilton plan to deal with a shortage of health care workers reveals that its temporary nursing workforce has seen a turnover rate of 35% due to COVID-19 “challenges.” 

The Interim Plan to Improve Staff Recruitment and Retention was submitted by Hamilton’s Public Health Services to the city’s Board of Health on Monday. 

“The turnover of temporary new staff hired for COVID-19 since Jan. 1, 2020 has presented staffing challenges for PHS. The most significant turnover has occurred for the temporary nursing workforce at a rate of approximately 35% of all nurses hired for the COVID response,” the report states. 

“This situation is not unique to Hamilton; health human resources continue to be strained across the province and beyond,” the report continues.  “Currently, there are unprecedented labour shortages as a result of both increased competition across all settings and an increasing number of staff facing burnout and mental health challenges as a result of the prolonged emergency response.”

The report blames “high demand” as one of the difficulties in retaining workers but makes no mention that as of October, 1,500 hospital staff in Hamilton faced losing their jobs after refusing to get a COVID-19 shot.  

“Several key positions and skillsets within the public health sector are in high demand making it a challenge to recruit and retain staff,” the report reads. “Many organizations in response have decided to recruit additional permanent staff in response, making temporary jobs unattractive.”

Most recently, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton revealed that those who are not fully vaccinated by Feb. 21 would be terminated. 

True North reached out to the City of Hamilton to confirm whether the firing of unvaccinated workers had impacted the turnover rate for temporary nursing staff. The city’s Public Health Services replied that when it came to their own staffing, “much” of the information contained in the report “is related to the fact a number of jobs were categorized as temporary and had finite terms.”

“When it comes to the policies of local hospitals, you will have to reach out to those organizations directly.” 

As exclusively reported by True North, media and government reports indicate that nearly 10,000 unvaccinated healthcare workers have been sacked by provincial and territorial governments. 

B.C. and Ontario had some of the highest numbers of terminated staff with each province reporting 3,325 and 1,665 fired healthcare workers respectively. 

While Ontario Premier Doug Ford has not mandated vaccines for the province’s health care workers, hospitals and public health units have taken it upon themselves to require COVID-19 shots for their staff.

Is Justin Trudeau losing his grip on reality?

By
Candice Malcolm
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to vilify Canadians who don’t agree with him. 

Recently, he’s upped his rhetoric against the unvaccinated – calling them “extremists, misogynists and racists” and blaming them for the unintended consequences of heavy-handed government lockdowns. 

Is Trudeau coming unhinged? Why isn’t the legacy media addressing his hateful message and calling him out for dividing Canadians and scapegoating the unvaccinated?

Today on The Candice Malcolm Show, Candice speaks to seasoned journalist Lorrie Goldstein about Trudeau’s strategy, his rhetoric, and his grasp on reality, as well as the general failings of the Canadian media to inform the public and hold the government to account.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE CANDICE MALCOLM SHOW

LEVY: The decisions of school trustees prove Ontario doesn’t need them

By
Sue-Ann Levy
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The Ontario Public School Boards Association (OPSBA) and Ontario’s trustees have become so out of touch with students and so dismissive of parents that many have come to realize they achieve very little, and that the provincial government could easily get rid of them. 

There was a time when the OSBA was middle-of-the-road politically and made a sincere effort to represent the concerns of all parents in Ontario’s school board system.

But after ex-Premier Kathleen Wynne threw a huge pot of money at boards and teachers to keep them happy, the trustees who sit on the OPSBA turned into advocates for every “woke” cause imaginable.

One has to look no further than the 22 progressives who sit on the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) who voted 13-4 last Thursday to make mandatory vaccines for all students a condition of returning to school on Jan. 17.

OPSBA has in fact led the charge for mandatory vaccines. They’ve even been calling for them for school kids aged 5-11 since August, long before the vaccine was even approved for use in that age group.

In a recent statement, OPSBA president Cathy Abraham – serving her fifth term as trustee –  makes it very clear that they support adding COVID-19 to the list of designated diseases under the Immunization of School Principals Act.

Thankfully, all of this requires provincial approval.

Long-time TDSB trustee Shelley Laskin, also serving her fifth term, helped ensure any debate was shut down by the few trustees truly concerned about the moral and ethical ramifications of such a move. 

Laskin sniffed imperiously that the board was merely following the guidance of Toronto public health and OPSBA. What she didn’t mention is that Toronto school trustees sit on both the health board and OPSBA, making it a very incestuous group of decision-makers.

That incestuousness came out loud and clear two days after the TDSB vote, when Laskin took to Twitter to complain that she’d received e-mails pushing back on the board’s decision containing “Nazi analogies.”

She didn’t provide any examples or clarify any further.

Of course using Nazi analogies to describe the draconian decisions of school trustees is inappropriate and offensive.

Yet, being tone-deaf, educrats, teachers and trustees reacted in a way that was entirely predictable. When I suggested to Abraham and other trustees on Twitter that while the use of the word “Nazi” was wrong, perhaps it showed that parents felt very strongly about being mandated to give their kids vaccines.

The communications flak with OPSBA, T.J. Goertz, went so far as to block me on Twitter.

This is entirely the problem with the progressives who run Ontario’s school system. It’s their way or the highway.

Those who dare try to engage or criticize their decision are blocked, like this woman:

Parents are so frustrated with not being heard, they’ve had to turn to petitions like this one.

That brings me back to my original statement: Are trustees really needed in Ontario’s school system if these are the decisions they are making?

I believe not.

Judge hands refugee 44th conviction, asks why he has not been deported

By
Jonathan Bradley
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A Niagara area judge is questioning why a violent refugee who has received more than 40 convictions since arriving from Syria has not been deported, according to the Niagara Falls Review. 

“He has lived a life in Canada of persistent criminality,” said Judge Joseph De Filippis in the Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines on Thursday. “As an aside, and respectfully, I don’t understand why he’s still in Canada.” 

Mohammed Al-Samaneh, a 32-year-old man who came to Canada as a Syrian refugee, has 44 convictions for multiple violent crimes such as assault and forcible confinement. Al-Samaneh had been placed on the National Flagging System, which identifies high-risk, violent criminals. 

Al-Samaneh most recently pleaded guilty to committing an indecent act and failing to comply with probation. He had been charged with criminal harassment. 

The court heard that a young woman was cleaning a Niagara Falls, Ont., restaurant in 2020 when she was approached in the reception area by an unknown male. The woman told the man that the restaurant was closed and asked him to leave. 

He ignored the request and followed her around the restaurant. He told her that she was “cute,” asked for a hug and masturbated in front of her. 

The woman attempted to walk away but he kept following her while continuing to masturbate. 

Al-Samaneh was arrested later that day. 

The court heard that the defendant was born in Iraq and spent time in a refugee camp in Syria before immigrating to Canada. 

“Mr. Al-Samaneh has had a very difficult life, more difficult than many of us could imagine, leaving a wartorn country and then going to another area which is often a place of conflict,” said De Filippis. “I can’t imagine how difficult it was for him but, that said, at the age of 32, he’s amassed 44 convictions.” 

Defence lawyer Mark Evans said that his client was on drugs when he went into the restaurant, so “his recollection of what happened on that occasion is foggy as a result.” 

Evans requested Al-Samaneh not receive any jail time because he had spent about eight months in pretrial custody. 

De Filippis disagreed with Evans, sentencing Al-Samaneh to 10 months in jail. He received credit for spending time in pretrial custody, so he will have to serve only two months in jail. 

Al-Samaneh has been put on probation and ordered to stay away from his victim and the restaurant where she worked. He has also been banned from possessing weapons for life. 

Permanent residents can lose their status and face deportation from Canada under the Immigration Refugee and Protection Act if they are found guilty of committing serious crimes. 

Children’s doctors call online learning harmful, tell Ontario govt. to reopen schools

By
Jonathan Bradley
-

The Canadian Paediatric Society, the Pediatrics Section of the Ontario Medical Association and the Pediatricians Alliance of Ontario issued a joint letter on Friday calling for the Ontario government to reopen schools. 

“Online learning is harmful,” the doctors wrote. “Social isolation and prolonged in-person school closures have precipitated increases in unhealthy behaviours such as excessive screen time, reduced physical activity and substance use.” 

The paediatrics groups said that school closures have prohibited children from engaging in healthy behaviours such as hanging out with friends, playing sports and celebrating milestones. 

They added that online learning has contributed to pediatricians seeing increases in depression, anxiety, suicidality, eating disorders, learning problems and delayed development. The declining health and well-being of children and youth is a “public health emergency,” according to the letter. 

School closures, the doctors said, have disproportionately affected racialized children, those living in single-parent or low-income households and those with pre-COVID mental illnesses and disabilities. 

The letter claimed that schools provide essential programs, which have been disrupted in the past two years, arguing that “(i)n-person learning is one of the only near-universal measures available to help children and youth.” 

The doctors go on to recommend that governments avoid shutting down schools “given the data we now have on the harms of school closures and the abundance of virus mitigation resources at our disposal.” 

The letter urges Ontario to restart in-person learning no later than Jan. 17 and not to close schools for the rest of the 2021-2022 school year. 

The Ontario government announced on Monday a slew of measures that included all schools moving to online learning until Jan. 17 because of high COVID-19 case counts stemming from the Omicron variant. 

“As we continue with our provincial vaccine booster efforts, we must look at every option to slow the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant,” said Ontario premier Doug Ford. “Putting these targeted and time-limited measures in place will give us more opportunity to deliver vaccines to all Ontarians and ensure everyone has maximum protection against this virus.”

A study done in British Columbia by the Canadian Medical Association Journal revealed that while COVID-19 case-counts in schools were similar to the level of the virus in the community, there were few transmissions in schools.   

FUREY: Are Canadians finally fed up with lockdowns?

By
Anthony Furey
-

Are we witnessing a societal shift in Canada?

The milder Omicron variant has resulted in thousands of COVID cases in recent weeks. Many Canadians know of others who have tested positive but have very mild symptoms – with only a small percentage of people having to go to the hospital.

As a result, many Canadians are starting to wonder why we’re in lockdown yet again.

Anthony Furey discusses.

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