Category: ultafcc

City of Barrie launches virtual fitness classes

Starting December 7, the City of Barrie will offer virtual, livestreamed fitness classes to existing recPASS members as a pilot program.

For the first two weeks, virtual classes will be open to current recPASS members only. Registration is now open at . Starting December 21, virtual classes will be open to all recreation users with an online account on

“We’re committed to offering unique ways for our community to maintain a healthy lifestyle, which right now is more important than ever,” says Mayor Jeff Lehman. “Our staff have been hearing from our members and residents that they’d like to see alternative, virtual options, and we’ve delivered on this with online fitness programming you can participate in safely from the comfort of home.”

Participants can choose from a variety of different instructors and fitness activities, including Bootcamp and Zumba. If successful, the City plans to rollout additional virtual recreation program offerings in the months ahead.

The City reminds all recreation program participants that if they have registered for a class (either in-person or virtual) but cannot make the time, to cancel through their online account before the class starts, which allows others to take the space.

More information about the reopening of the remainder of the City’s recreation and community facilities will be shared as it become available. The City continues to follow the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit’s guidelines on the safe reopening of facilities.

Premier Doug Ford won’t close bars and restaurants in Toronto without ‘more data,’ despite soaring case counts and plea from city’s top doctor

Three days after Toronto’s top doctor asked the province to intervene to prevent the from spreading further in the city, said he’s unwilling to act.

As Toronto has become unable to even effectively trace the spread of COVID-19, of community spread, Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, is recommending in the city, that people only leave their home for essential trips and that indoor group fitness classes be shuttered.

But saying those sweeping closures and orders exceeded her legal authority as a local medical officer of health, de Villa on Friday called on the province to enact those measures.

On Monday, Ford said the province lacks evidence to respond to de Villa’s request and that he won’t make a “willy-nilly” decision to “ruin” people’s livelihoods.

“If there’s a request to shut down restaurants, I have to sit back and look at evidence,” Ford said at Queen’s Park.

“You better show me real, real good evidence before we do it … I’m sorry I’m not prepared to do that to people’s lives right now. I’ve proven if I have to do it, we’ll do it in 10 seconds. But show me more evidence.”

When asked to respond to those comments Monday, de Villa said the province has “many sources of information” and that Toronto Public Health provides data about all of their cases every single day.

In her letter Friday, she outlined several “critical observations,” including the existence of 169 active outbreaks. Of new outbreaks, 44 per cent — about 18 outbreaks — were tied to restaurants, bars and entertainment venues. She also noted significant exposures, including up to 1,700 people at the Yonge Street Warehouse.

And she compared the city’s current daily cases to earlier counts, saying that when cases tallied 165 per day, the city was essentially in lockdown. On Oct. 1, Toronto had 280 cases, de Villa said.

Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, echoed Ford’s comments on Monday, saying the province will continue to look at the request with its public health measures table, while looking at the impact of existing provincial measures and requesting Toronto Public Health provide “more data to make sure that it supports any further steps so we can handle that.”

Williams said the premier is looking for evidence that patrons have been impacted with illness.

“As of yet we haven’t seen that. We’ve seen outbreaks related to staff during their pre- and post-work time and their activities in the back rooms,” he told reporters when asked to elaborate on Ford’s comments. He said that they have not seen evidence that restaurants generally are contributing to outbreaks in the community.

De Villa said if there are further requests for data “we’ll be happy to provide as best we can.”

said Monday that they continue to work collaboratively with the province, saying he believes they’re acting in “good faith.”

“Sometimes it takes some time to compare notes, to fashion solutions which work both for Toronto and for the rest of Ontario and we will continue to succeed at forging those solutions in a collegial and collaborative way,” he said.

Meanwhile, at Queen’s Park, the premier’s officials repeatedly cited section 22 of the provincial Health Protection and Promotion Act as evidence that Toronto’s medical officer of health already has the power to close restaurants and bars if she so chooses.

That law says the city’s top doctor can intervene where “she is of the opinion, upon reasonable and probable grounds, that a communicable disease exists or may exist or that there is an immediate risk of an outbreak of a communicable disease.”

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On Monday, infectious disease specialists said there is no reason to disagree with de Villa’s recommendations.

“Even with imperfect data we still know that there is transmission in many indoor settings,” including bars and restaurants, said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a University of Toronto infectious disease specialist.

“The person who has their finger on the pulse and has probably the best access to that information is the chief public health officer of the city … so who am I to argue with Dr. de Villa when she’s saying there’s an unacceptable number of cases associated to bars and restaurants in the city?

“I hope the province listens to her.”

Dr. Andrew Morris, with the Sinai Health System and University Health Network, said he’s also in agreement with de Villa, noting he is not a medical officer of health.

“I actually don’t know what more they would want,” Morris said of the province and available data.

He also noted the directions currently being given to people with bars and restaurants still open are sending “mixed messages.”

“You can go to a restaurant but you can’t have people over to your home for dinner. That doesn’t make sense to a lot of people.”

Asked Monday if she supported a 28-day shutdown in Toronto as requested by de Villa, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public officer of health, said de Villa is in the best position to know.

“At the rate of acceleration and as we’ve heard about, the public health capacity is not limitless — there’s some testing backlogs and some difficulties with contact tracing — then making sure that we reduce contacts and look at restricting those settings where transmission is occurring is really critical to do,” she said. “The speed is of the essence. The faster you reduce this acceleration, the sooner you come out of it. Whatever decision is made has to be made pretty rapidly.”

On Monday, de Villa urged people to cancel plans for Thanksgiving gatherings this year and opt for virtual celebrations, saying missing the holiday this year is better than looking back on the occasion with regret.

Meanwhile, . De Villa said Monday that even with double the number of contact tracers, they would not be able to keep up with the current overwhelming pace of transmission will resume that strategy when possible.

“We have 700 case and contact managers at Toronto Public Health — the most in the country. Infections are rising at a rate that will very quickly outpace conventional case management and contact tracing no matter how many people are deployed to support it,” she said.

“To be frank, I expect we could have another 700 people added to the ranks and still be unable to contact trace with the same reach and results as when infection rates were lower. It’s an indicator of how serious the spread of infection is.”

With files from Robert Benzie and Tonda MacCharles

Jennifer Pagliaro is a Toronto-based reporter covering city hall and municipal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter:

Barrie to ask for extra sound barriers as part of Anne Street bridge replacement

Barrie councillors are making some noise in hopes of getting additional sound barriers along Highway 400.

On Dec. 7, council is expected to approve a motion calling on the Ontario government to add a few extra structures to its upcoming Anne Street bridge replacement project. In addition to barriers already proposed by the province at seven locations around Anne, Bayfield and Duckworth streets, the city will ask for the following locations to be included:

• Adjacent to the 400, northeast of Anne to the end of Edgehill Drive.

• Next to the Sunnidale Road bridge on both sides of the highway.

• Immediately north of Bayfield Street, both sides of the 400, and adjacent to any residential properties.

Barrie development services director Michelle Banfield said the barriers have historically been less prominent in the city than the Greater Toronto Area. That’s because there’s much less residential development backing onto the highway here.

“We don’t have that many residential areas right near the highway,” she said. “Noise barriers can provide localized improvements. But, ultimately, it’s to lessen the path of the noise. The most immediate benefits are if you’re right there. As soon as you move away, it decreases the benefit.”

Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation is currently designing the project. But, once complete, it should include pavement resurfacing in the area, as well as median replacement and drainage improvements.

In a related motion, the committee received a report on the province’s expropriation of land for several upcoming projects along the 400 — Anne (scheduled for 2021-22), Essa Road bridge and interchange (2022-24), Sunnidale bridge replacement (2023-24) and Dunlop Street bridge and interchange (2024-27). The province is offering the city nearly $548,000 for the land.

Twenty-five privately-owned properties were also expropriated as part of this process, the city says.

These projects are being designed to accommodate the eventual widening of the 400.

“The 2017 environmental assessment actually recommended more noise barriers than what we’re getting; they’ve been dropped for some reason,” deputy mayor Barry Ward said. “We’re going backward. It’s not going to eliminate the noise. It’s not a big difference, but the quality of life for some residents will be improved.”

For more information, visit .

Ontario reports another 30 per cent jump in active COVID-19 cases at schools, including 21 more students

The number of new active cases in publicly funded schools across the province has jumped by another 30 per cent from the previous day to a total of 180.

, the province reported 42 more school-related cases — 21 more students were infected for a total of 77; five more staff members for a total of 38 and 16 more individuals who weren’t identified for a total of 65.

There are 153 schools with an active case, which the province notes is 3.17 per cent of the 4,828 publicly funded schools.

Two schools are closed — Monsignor Paul Baxter elementary school in Ottawa and .

Premier Doug Ford told reporters Wednesday that he “wouldn’t hesitate” to shut down all the schools again if needed like he did back in March, pointing out that he was the first in Canada to do so.

Ford said “everything is on the table” but the system is working.

There is a lag between the provincial data and news reports about infections in schools. The provincial data is current as of 2 p.m. the previous work day, and doesn’t indicate where the place of transmission occurred.

For instance, the Toronto District School Board that a student at Harbord Collegiate Institute has tested positive but that case isn’t reflected in the latest provincial numbers.

Epidemiologists have that the numbers in the schools aren’t a surprise, and that the cases will be proportionate to the amount of COVID that’s in the community.

The province overall on Wednesday. Locally, there were 102 new cases in Toronto with 79 in Peel and 65 in Ottawa.

Dr. Ashleigh Tuite, an epidemiologist with the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, told the Star on Wednesday that the number of cases in schools were expected. The challenge now, she said, is with the because of long lines at testing centres.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty and anxiety right now because if your child has symptoms you can’t go to school,” Tuite said.

“You also know if you want to get them tested, there’s a chance you’re going to be waiting in line for a long period of time or you might not even be able to get tested on the day that you need to.

Despite the long delays for testing, Tuite urged parents not to send their kids to school if they do have symptoms.

“This is a bumpy start to the school year (but) parents and kids need to be patient as much as possible and adhere to the public health recommendations,” Tuite said.

Ontario’s current school COVID-19 screening checklist includes: fever, chills, cough that’s new and worsening, shortness of breath, sore throat, runny nose, congested nose, headache, pink eyes, digestive issues, fatigue and sluggishness.

The TDSB updates its information on current COVID-19 cases throughout the day .

“Please note that all schools where there is a confirmed case of COVID-19 who was contagious while at school will receive a letter from Toronto Public Health to inform them about the possible exposure,” the website says.

Positive cases at private schools aren’t included in the daily provincial numbers. On Monday, two students at the York School tested positive for COVID-19 as well as a faculty member at Branksome Hall, .

With files from Breanna Xavier-Carter

Libaan Osman is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star’s radio room in Toronto. Reach him via email:

Toronto vs. everybody … or at least the Ontario government

The City of Toronto and the Ontario government are in a tussle … again. The fight is seemingly perpetual and it boils down to one big question: who gets to call the shots?

This time, it’s about control measures to slow the spread of the virus in the second wave. As caseloads surged in the fall across the GTA, Dr. Eileen De Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, called on to return Toronto to Stage 2 — closing indoor dining, bars, gyms and movie theatres. The Ontario government did eventually take that advice a full week later, but not before Premier Doug Ford publicly doubted Toronto Public Health’s data and another were recorded across Ontario.

This case is another instance of municipal-provincial tensions turned into public spats. In recent years, both sides have clashed over(under former Premier Kathleen Wynne) and infamously, the mid-provincial election in 2018 (under Premier Ford) that turned into a full-blown legal battle.

Each time, Toronto has been on the losing end with the province seemingly “bigfooting” the city on how it is run and what the province wants.

, city hall reporter for the Toronto Star, talks to Adrian Cheung about the push-and-pull relationship between City Hall and Queen’s Park, the powers Toronto actually has in controlling its fate and the case for “charter city” status for the economic recovery ahead.

Listen to this episode and more at or subscribe at , , or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

Chasing that ‘yes’: Students find resilience in the most trying of times

When Amna Alyass decided to apply to university, her father and sister took her aside and, with earnest faces, explained why they felt she was setting herself up for failure.

“Slow down,” Alyass, 17, recalls being told last December. “Take another year. Or at least apply to an easier program at a college.”

The words came from a place of protective love for a daughter who has faced more adversity than most, including moving from school to school and fending off bullies who mocked her for wearing a hearing aid and a hijab.

But rather than heed their advice, she plowed through and prevailed, getting into all four universities she applied to — and, after just three years of high school, not four. Today, Alyass is proud to be a first-year student in Ryerson University’s politics and governance program.

“I just didn’t give up,” she says. “I told myself that I am going to finish what I started and anyway, once someone tells me I can’t do something, I need to prove that I can.”

Alyass is a picture of resilience and her story is, perhaps, one of hope for millions of students across the province who are in the midst of a school year like no other.

Last March, forced the sudden shutdown of schools, and when classes resumed weeks later, students and teachers were forced to pivot to online learning with little preparation and no training. The start of the wasn’t much better as boards scrambled to make in-person schools safe and create virtual schools from scratch.

Between delayed starts, shuffling of classes, absent teachers, and, more and more often, the shuttering of classrooms due to COVID-19 outbreaks, it is not surprising some parents and students have wondered, as 2020 comes to a close, whether all these disrupted days of education are adding up to a lost year.

Alyass, a teenager who has overcome much more than — and come out the other end, not only hale and whole, but better off — is an example, along with an untold number of students around the world who have faced educational hurdles in non-pandemic times, whether due to a lack of access to formal schooling or having to battle cancer or to flee war as refugees.

And despite the United Nations Secretary General having warned that an entire generation over fallout from the pandemic — and, there is no research to help us predict specifically what can happen to children who miss a year of school — there is a wealth of evidence from lived experience that shows people can thrive in the face of hardship.

And, in fact, that they can’t become resilient without it.

“Let’s face it,” Toronto behavioural therapist Katy Albert says. “Life is a struggle.”

While it’s difficult, as parents and educators, to see our kids suffer — and we often feel it’s our job to remove whatever barriers are in their way, she says, to do that would invalidate their experience and deprive them of essential skills for the future.

Of course, she says, there is a difference between adversity and trauma. Child abuse, horrible accidents, extreme poverty, violence — those are things that create chronic, traumatic stress that “we don’t want kids to go through,” Albert says, but “we can’t make the world void of stress. Rather, we need to equip our children with coping strategies.”

In situations we can’t control, like a pandemic, she says, the first thing we need to do is allow children to experience whatever the situation brings, and “normalize and validate” those feelings, telling them it’s OK to be scared, sad, bored or upset over missing out. “We need to tell them that they can have some adversity and still enjoy what’s good,” she says, “to still find meaning in things; still treat people well and still do well.”

We’re not all “dandelions,” whose seeds can be dropped anywhere, anytime and from any height, and still grow big, she says. Some of us are fragile and need to be handled with care, given more time and support to acquire the grit and determination to overcome hardship — and do our best.

That describes Alyass.

At age two, her parents left her behind in Iraq with relatives to take her newborn sister to the United States for emergency medical treatment. When her parents finally sent for her, nearly three years later in 2007, the shy girl was devastated once again, this time at having to leave her grandparents, caregivers she had grown to love, and at having to acclimatize to a whole new way of life. That included yet another new baby sister. “It was really hard for me,” Alyass says. “I cried every night.”

By this time, her parents had settled in Toronto.

For the next few years, things didn’t get much better.

Moving from school to school as her parents changed jobs and homes, she never felt like she fit in. And as the only brown-skinned student among a sea of white faces at her Etobicoke elementary school, she struggled to make friends. It didn’t help that she was in French Immersion and spoke only Arabic. And even though, getting a hearing aid in Grade 2, was thrilling — she could hear well for the first time — it also made her a target for bullies. Wearing a hijab starting in Grade 4, gave the bullies yet another reason to poke fun. “I was so different,” she says, today, “they didn’t know what to make of me.”

At first, she says, she was crushed, and would come home crying. But over time she developed strategies to cope. She escaped in books, watched movies to learn English and later in life, took up volunteering at a hearing aid clinic, which, she says, helped her find comfort and friendship. Switching to homeschooling in Grade 6, she says, was also a boon, allowing her to learn at her own pace and curb her anxiety.

But, Alyass says, she wouldn’t have figured out how to keep going all those times without her mom’s support — and advocacy — and her “yes.” Even if she came to her mom with ideas or desires that seemed out of her league or impossible to achieve, she always found an ally. No matter what, she says, her mother would always give her that first “yes.”

And she did once again in September 2019 when Alyass came asking.

Earlier that month, Alyass had discovered she didn’t have enough credits to graduate. She had been mourning the death of her grandfather and didn’t notice that she hadn’t planned properly for what was supposed to be her last year in high school. As a homeschooler she didn’t have the benefit of regular advice from teachers and guidance counsellors — so no one caught her mistake early enough to fix it.

Alyass was devastated, but refused to give up, throwing herself into research and coming up with a plan to meet her goal. It involved convincing an alternative high school to let her take seven advanced courses — all without the prerequisites — and then, to ace them.

Rather than laugh and tell her daughter it sounded impossible, Alyass’ mom smiled and said, “What do you have to lose? Just go and chase that ‘yes’.”

By the time she got into school, it was already halfway through the first semester. She tried to catch up. Her marks were initially poor and her father could see she was struggling. While supportive, Alyass says, like any doting father, hers was only trying to shield the daughter he loved from getting hurt that day last December. And so was her sister.

“I knew that,” she says. “But it was still a lot of extra pressure.”

Nonetheless, she held onto her mom’s yes — pulled her marks up and got into university, carving not only her own path, but beating the odds.

“It was surreal,” she says. “I was like — wait, there must be a mistake.”

There wasn’t. And, these days, navigating the demands of university during a pandemic, Alyass is calm. If ever things get hard, she says, she just reminds herself about what she accomplished last year. “If I got through that,” she says, “I can certainly get through this.”

Like Alyass, Duom Maper, 24, is someone who refuses to take no for an answer.

Her entire life had been shaped in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, home to almost 200,000 refugees from East Africa. It’s where her parents, originally from war-torn South Sudan, had met, and where she was born.

Life at Kakuma was harsh. The weather was extreme, and the camp’s brittle homes were hardly enough to shield its residents. Drinking water was only available five kilometres away and food was rationed. 

Education was also difficult for Maper to access. Going to high school meant leaving her family and travelling nine hours south to a boarding school, paid for in part through church fundraising, and where she’d live for the school year.

But even with working hard and finishing high school in 2015, higher education was never a guarantee. “My parents didn’t have money to take me through university,” she says.

Through others at the camp, she heard about the World University Service of Canada student refugee program and wasted no time in applying. It took three attempts before she was given the nod to come to Canada — applications she filed through crushing tears and resignation, and an impending deadline of her 25th birthday, after which she would be ineligible for the program. 

“I kept applying because I knew it was my only hope of going to school,” Maper says.

She now studies biomedicine at Trent University and is in her second year and is hoping to eventually become a nurse. 

Maper remains resilient, a quality she credits to her relentless optimism, fuelled by life lessons passed down by her mother and the responsibility of being the eldest daughter.

“My mom made it very clear that (education) was going to be a way for me to achieve as much as I could,” Maper says, adding her mother was with her every step of the way; from every triumphant report card to every heartbreaking rejection.

And despite being some 11,000 kilometres away from her pillar of strength, Maper remains determined to build a better life for herself and her family who supported her throughout the years.

“I want them to have a better life,” she says.

This is the second of a two-part series about how students are coping in a year like no other.

Read part 1:

Michele Henry is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star, writing health and education stories. Follow her on Twitter:

Nadine Yousif is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering mental health. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Follow her on Twitter:

Noor Javed is a Toronto-based reporter covering current affairs in the York region for the Star. Follow her on Twitter:

Distillery District imposes mask rule outside effective immediately

As of Thursday, visitors of the Distillery District will be required to wear masks when they’re taking a stroll outside.

The requirement does not apply to people seated at a table to eat or drink, the shopping district announced in a press release Thursday.

“We did this now primarily because the counts are going up significantly in Toronto,” Distillery Historic District general manager Elena Price told the Star in an interview.

Price said the district’s goal in extending the mask-wearing mandate to those walking outside on its brick-paved streets is to reduce COVID-19 cases while supporting local retailers.

“We’re trying to stay ahead of any directions or lockdowns,” Price said. “Hopefully, if we do this, other people will follow suit and put the same requirements on their own sites that happen to be outside.

“We’ve done a lot of initiatives to support the local retailers that are at the Distillery all year-round and this is a very important time for them.”

The pedestrian-only Winter Village, hosted from Nov. 12 until March 31, has starlit canopies, a Christmas tree already lit and festive music.

Complimentary masks will be available upon request at the security booth, public relations representative Laurie Weir said in an email to the Star. However, there is no enforcement planned for the mask rule, Price said.

“We are in our education stage, and all efforts will be made to communicate to patrons the importance of wearing a mask indoors and outdoors,” Price said. “We are hoping people will respect our policy and help us keep our community safe.”

Throughout the district, there are signs reminding visitors to wear a mask, physically distance, wash their hands and follow public health protocols, according to the release.

Ontario reported 1,210 cases of COVID-19 and 28 deaths Thursday. Locally, there are 361 new cases in Peel, 346 in Toronto and 143 in York Region.

With files from Rob Ferguson

Manuela Vega is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star’s radio room in Toronto. Reach her via email:

SIU drops case of woman arrested by OPP at Elmvale Zoo

Ontario’s police watchdog has closed an investigation because it could not prove there were any serious injuries to a 24-year-old woman when she was arrested at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre on July 25.

“The medical records do not establish that the woman suffered any serious injury within the SIU’s mandate,” Special Investigations Unit (SIU) director Joseph Martino said a media release. “Regrettably, while the SIU made repeated efforts to secure further medical records from the woman regarding additional assessment in the days after the incident, she has not provided those releases.”

The woman was initially arrested at the Elmvale Jungle Zoo in Phelpston for an alleged assault.

OPP officers took her the Barrie hospital for a mental-health assessment after she made comments suggesting suicide.

At the hospital, the woman allegedly became violent toward the officers and was arrested and charged again.