Tag: Canadian

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Entertainment

Shakespeare or Bieber? This Canadian Metropolis Attracts Devotees of Each

Shakespeare or Bieber? This Canadian City Draws Devotees of Both

STRATFORD, Ontario – It’s a small town that practically screams “Shakespeare!”

Majestic white swans swim in the Avon River not far from Falstaff Street and Anne Hathaway Park, named after the playwright’s wife. Some residents live in Romeo Ward while young students attend Hamlet Primary School. And the school’s eponymous play is often performed as part of a renowned theater festival that draws legions of Shakespeare fans from around the world from April to October.

Steeped in references and reverence for the bard, Stratford, Ontario has counted on its association with Shakespeare for decades to reliably bring millions of tourist dollars to a city that would otherwise have little appeal to travelers.

“My dad always said we had a world-class theater housed in a farming community,” said Frank Herr, second-generation owner of a boat tour and rental business along the Avon River.

Then, about a dozen years ago, a new and usually much younger breed of culture enthusiast emerged on Stratford’s streets: Beliebers, or fans of local talent, pop star Justin Bieber.

Local residents don’t have much trouble telling the two types of visitors apart. A hint: look at what they are wearing.

“You have the Shakespeare books in your hands,” said Herr Herr of those who are here for the love of the theatre. “They’re just serious people.”

Beliebers, on the other hand, always have their smartphones handy to excitedly document the pop star’s otherwise boring sights: the location of his first date, the local radio station that first played his music, the diner where he was rumored to be eating.

Unlike Shakespeare – who never set foot in this town, named after his birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon, England – Mr. Bieber has real and deep connections: he grew up here and is familiar to many.

“I know Justin,” said Mr. Herr. “He used to skateboard on the cenotaph, and I used to kick him off the cenotaph,” he added, referring to a World War I memorial in the gardens next to Lake Victoria.

Diane Dale, Mr. Bieber’s maternal grandmother, and her husband Bruce lived a 10-minute drive from downtown Stratford, where the young singer, now 28, could often be found busking and collecting on the steps of the Avon Theater under her supervision up to $200 a day, she said in a recent interview.

Those moves became something of a pilgrimage for Mr. Bieber’s fans, particularly those vying to become “One Less Lonely Girl” during his teen-pop dreamboat era.

Another popular stop on the pilgrimage was Mrs. Dale’s front door. After fans rang her doorbell, she reassured them that her grandson wasn’t home, but that didn’t stop her from snapping selfies in front of the red-brick bungalow.

“Justin said if you don’t move, we won’t come see you anymore,” recalled Ms. Dale, a retired seamstress at a now-closed auto factory in town. In the meantime she has moved.

Stratford businesses that benefited from this second group of tourists began to speak of the “Bieber Effect,” a play on the “Bilbao Effect,” in reference to the Spanish city revitalized by a museum.

But one of the problems with pop fame is that it can be fickle. As fans have aged from their youthful infatuation with the musician, the “Bieber fever” has cooled and the number of pilgrims has dwindled.

The problems that have long plagued other Canadian cities, such as soaring home prices and drug addiction, are peeking more frequently through the picturesque veneer of Stratford, a city of about 33,000 surrounded by sprawling cornfields in southwestern Ontario’s farmland region.

But more than 400 years after his death, Shakespeare’s appeal is still fully intact.

The theater festival, which attracts over 500,000 visitors in a typical year and employs around 1,000 people, features Shakespearean classics, Broadway-style musicals and modern plays in its repertoire.

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the festival returned to its roots, holding a limited number of outdoor shows under canopies, as it did for the first four seasons beginning in 1953. In 1957 the Festival Theater building was inaugurated with a summer production of Hamlet, starring Canadian actor Christopher Plummer in the title role.

In this year’s production, a woman, Amaka Umeh, plays the first black actress to play Hamlet at the festival.

While it’s unknown how popular Mr. Bieber will be four centuries from now, the appeal of someone who’s sold over 100 million digital singles in the United States alone doesn’t fade overnight.

And Stratford has taken steps to permanently commemorate his youth here.

Mr. Bieber’s grandparents had kept boxes of his belongings, including talent show sheet music and a drum set, which were paid for by the community in a crowdfunding effort – until a local museum offered them a chance to display the items.

“It changed the museum forever in so many ways,” said John Kastner, general manager of the Stratford Perth Museum.

After telling the local newspaper that the museum was opening an exhibition called Justin Bieber: Steps to Stardom in February 2018, Mr Kastner said he was inundated with calls from international media.

“We wanted to make a room, like a 10 by 10 room,” said Mr. Kastner. He called his curator. “I said, ‘We have a problem.'”

They canceled the agricultural show planned for the adjacent space, which proved helpful in accommodating the 18,000 visitors in the first year of the Bieber show, a huge increase in attendance from the 850 who visited the museum in 2013.

The Bieber show, which will be on at least until next year, has generated thousands of dollars in merchandise purchases, Mr. Kastner said, giving the modest museum a welcome financial cushion.

Mr. Bieber has also made a handful of visits, chalked his name on the guest board and donated some recent memorabilia, including his wedding invitation and reception menu, which featured a dish called “Grandma Diane’s Bolognese.”

But even before the Beliebers came to town, organized school visits brought young people to Stratford in busloads, with 50,000 to 100,000 students arriving each year from across the United States and Canada.

Barring the pandemic border closures, James Pakala and his wife Denise, both retired seminary librarians in St. Louis, have come to Stratford for about a week every year since the early 1990s. Thirty years earlier, Ms. Pakala traveled to Stratford with her high school English literature class from Ithaca, NY, and the trip has become a tradition ever since.

“I love Shakespeare and I love Molière too,” said Mr Pakala, 78, who was studying his program ahead of a recent production of Molière’s comedy The Miser outside the Festspielhaus.

Other guests enjoy the ease of getting around Stratford. Traffic is fairly light, there is ample parking and most major attractions are a short walk from each other, with lovely views of the rippling river and picturesque gardens.

“It’s easy to go to theaters here,” said Michael Walker, a retired banker from Newport Beach, California, who visits with friends every year. “It’s not like New York, where it’s arduous, and the quality of the theater here is better than Los Angeles or Chicago, in my opinion.”

The Here for Now Theatre, an independent non-profit that opened during the pandemic and plays to a maximum of 50 people, has a “symbiotic relationship” with the festival, said its artistic director Fiona Mongillo, who compared the scale of their activities to a Fiat for the Festival freight train.

“It’s an interesting moment for Stratford because I think it’s growing and changing in a really beautiful way,” Ms. Mongillo said, noting the increasing diversity as Canadians have moved from neighboring cities to a previous city, she added , “very, very white.”

Longtime residents of Stratford, like Madeleine McCormick, a retired corrections officer, said it can sometimes seem like residents’ concerns are being sidelined in favor of tourists.

Nonetheless, Ms McCormick acknowledged the assets of the vibrant community of artists and creative people that captivated her musician husband.

“It’s a strange place,” she said. “Because of the theatre, there will never be a place like that again.”

And Mr. Bieber.

Categories
World News

How Canadian Leaders Marketing campaign in a Pandemic

How Canadian Leaders Campaign in a Pandemic

After nearly two weeks of campaigning, it would be a stretch to say that election fever is sweeping Canada. Lawn signs are relatively scarce in Eastern Ontario, where I live, and others tell me similar stories from other parts of the country.

Political scientists and pollsters expect, or hope, that the nation’s focus will turn to the campaign after Labor Day brings an unofficial end to summer’s all-too-short reign.

Meanwhile, inside the campaigns, candidates and their teams are busy looking for new ways to get their messages across and interact with voters during the pandemic, without risking in-person gatherings.

This week, I checked out a modified campaign event hosted by the Conservative Party in Ottawa, my first event of this campaign. The party has transformed part of a ballroom in a downtown Ottawa hotel into a television studio that Erin O’Toole, its leader, uses for what the party calls virtual town hall meetings, which it targets to specific parts of the country. On Tuesday, when I dropped by, the audience was in British Columbia.

For about an hour, the Conservatives robot-dialed voters in the province and asked them if they would listen in and try to ask Mr. O’Toole questions.

Mr. O’Toole had an answer for every question, of course. But the callers weren’t allowed to follow up, making it impossible to determine if his answers actually satisfied them. That said, it’s likely safe to assume that the man who asked if Mr. O’Toole would take the advice of a recent U.N. report to immediately start moving away from fossil fuels was not sated. After acknowledging that the Conservatives did not have a valid climate plan in 2019, Mr. O’Toole praised the party’s new proposal, a system that would aim for substantially smaller emissions reductions than the government’s current target.

Mr. O’Toole has conducted 10 virtual town halls from Ottawa to date. The sessions are streamed live on YouTube and through Facebook, where questions can be submitted in writing. But the questioners, and the listeners, are found mostly through automated phone calls placed by the campaign, and none of them appear on video. The party declined to describe the screening process it uses before putting anyone through to Mr. O’Toole. But there are clearly people vetting the callers.

Whether by chance or by design, many of the questions at the session that I attended, and others that I watched, were on issues that polls show resonate the most with Conservative voters, such as the budget deficit and rolling back recently strengthened gun controls. But at least two people called for action on climate change far beyond what the Conservatives are proposing.

The session had the feel of a video stream of a talk radio show. Its moderator was Michael Barrett, a Conservative member of Parliament from Eastern Ontario, who never challenged any of Mr. O’Toole’s claims and promises, the way an independent host might.

The vast ballroom-turned-studio, dominated by a flag lined stage that vaguely evokes the interior of the Parliament buildings, was utterly devoid of campaign atmosphere during the session.

The only people physically present during the town hall were professionals. In addition to me, the very socially distanced, in-person audience consisted of a television producer, a television network camera operator, a handful of Conservative Party technicians running the show, Mr. O’Toole’s bodyguards and, briefly, a photographer.

Despite the absence of a crowd, let alone crowd energy, Mr. O’Toole remained enthusiastic and energetic for the entire hour.

It’s much too early to say if virtual town halls, like other pandemic make-dos, will succeed the traditional campaign road show with its jets and buses. Mr. O’Toole is, like the other leaders, still hitting the road. I’ll also be out there soon to see how the campaigns of Mr. Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh of the New Democrats have adjusted to the pandemic.

This week: Letter Boxed, where you try to create words using letters surrounding a square. All of The Times’s games, and tips on playing them, can be found here.

A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.

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Police in China Detain Canadian Pop Star Kris Wu on Suspicion of Rape

Police in China Detain Canadian Pop Star Kris Wu on Suspicion of Rape

The police in Beijing said Saturday they had detained Kris Wu, a popular Canadian Chinese singer, on suspicion of rape amid a #MeToo controversy that has set off outrage in China.

The police did not provide details of their investigation into Mr. Wu. But it comes several weeks after an 18-year-old university student in Beijing accused him of enticing young women like herself with the promise of career opportunities, then pressuring them into having sex.

Known in China as Wu Yifan, Mr. Wu, 30, is the most prominent figure in China to be detained over #MeToo allegations.

He rose to fame as a member of the Korean pop band EXO, then started a successful solo career as a model, actor and singer. Though he denied the allegations when they first surfaced, they set off an uproar that led at least a dozen companies, including Bulgari, Louis Vuitton and Porsche, to sever ties with the singer.

The Chaoyang District branch of the Beijing police said in a statement on social media on Saturday night that it had been looking into accusations posted online that Mr. Wu “repeatedly deceived young women into sexual relations.” It said that Mr. Wu had been detained while the criminal investigation continued.

Mr. Wu’s accuser, Du Meizhu, has said publicly that when she first met Mr. Wu in December last year, she was taken by the singer’s agent to his home in Beijing for work-related discussions. She said that she was pressured to drink cocktails until she passed out, and later found herself in his bed.

They dated until March, according to her account of the events, when he stopped responding to her calls and messages. She has also said she believed that he targeted other young women.

Mr. Wu’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ms. Du could not be reached.

It was not immediately clear if the police were specifically investigating Ms. Du’s claims. In a statement in July, the police had released what appeared to be preliminary findings about Ms. Du’s allegations. The police had said Ms. Du had hyped her story “to enhance her online popularity,” an assessment that was criticized by her supporters as victim shaming.

The outpouring of support for Ms. Du was a sign that the country’s nascent #MeToo movement continues to grow despite the government’s strict limits on activism and dissent. After Ms. Du spoke out, her supporters flooded the social media pages of several brands, threatening boycotts if they did not drop their partnerships with Mr. Wu, a campaign that quickly forced the companies to distance themselves from him.

The accusations have triggered a heated debate on issues like victim-shaming, consent and abuse of power in the workplace — concepts that had rarely featured in mainstream discussions before the #MeToo movement went global.

The authorities in China often discourage women from filing sexual misconduct complaints, and sexual assault or harassment survivors are frequently shamed and even sued for defamation. Censorship and limits on dissent have also stymied efforts among feminist activists to organize, even as trolls are given cover to spew abuse.

Yet the high-profile nature of the controversy made Ms. Du’s allegations impossible to ignore for Chinese authorities, who are always on the lookout for what they deem to be potential sources of social unrest.

The police announcement, posted on the country’s popular Weibo social media platform, immediately started trending, drawing more than six million likes.

Lu Pin, a New York-based feminist activist, said the detention of Mr. Wu was a major step forward for the #MeToo movement in China.

“Regardless of what the motivation of the police may have been, just the fact that he was detained is huge,” Ms. Lu said.

“For the last three years, a number of prominent figures have faced #MeToo accusations but nothing ever happened to them,” Ms. Lu said. “Now with Wu Yifan, #MeToo has finally taken down someone with real power in China — it has shown that no matter how powerful you are, rape is not acceptable.”

The detention of Mr. Wu comes amid a broader government crackdown on the entertainment industry.

In recent years, Chinese authorities have moved aggressively to clean up the industrywide problem of tax evasion and to cap salaries for the country’s biggest movie stars. In June, the country’s internet watchdog began a crackdown on what it called the country’s “chaotic” online celebrity fan clubs, which the government has come to see as an increasing source of volatility in public opinion.

The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, depicted Mr. Wu’s detention as a warning to celebrities that neither fame nor a foreign citizenship would shield them from the law.

“A foreign nationality is not a talisman. No matter how famous one is, there is no immunity,” the propaganda outlet wrote. “Remember: The higher the popularity, the more you must be self-disciplined, the more popular you are, the more you must abide by the law.”

Categories
Business

Canadian Rivals in Bidding Struggle for U.S. Railroad: Dwell Updates

Canadian National Railway proposed a $33.7 billion deal to acquire Kansas City Southern, challenging an offer from Canadian Pacific.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Christinne Muschi/Reuters

The railroad barons are at it again.

Canadian National Railway on Tuesday offered to buy Kansas City Southern for $33.7 billion, topping a $29 billion bid put forward last month by a rival railroad operator, Canadian Pacific.

The competing offers underline the riches expected to come from trade flows after the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was passed into law last year. A merger with either suitor would create a railroad line that stretches from Canada to Mexico. In the already consolidated railroad industry, few lines are left to bid on — let alone deals that will be approved by regulators.

Canadian National said in a letter to Kansas City board that the company had spent “considerable time and resources analyzing a potential combination of our two companies.” It argues its offer represents “an unparalleled opportunity to create a premier railway for the 21st century.”

The offer gives Kansas City Southern a valuation 21 percent higher than Canadian Pacific’s bid, which had been agreed on by the companies’ boards.

For Canadian National, the proposal would be a chance to stop its smaller domestic competitor from gaining significant scale. Unlike Canadian Pacific, Canadian National already has track agreements extending to the Gulf of Mexico.

The rival bid is one further challenge to Canadian Pacific’s offer, which was already facing regulatory scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Justice has urged the Surface Transportation Board — which must approve the offer — to examine the deal under tough industry guidelines put in place in 2001 and expressed concern over its use of a voting trust that would it allow it close the deal even before getting regulatory approval.

Canadian Pacific has argued that there should be no regulatory trouble, given the two railroads have no overlap and in some cases create new markets. It said its smaller size compared with other major North American railroads should exempt it from the guidelines.

A Louis Vuitton store in Paris. The retailer’s parent company helped set up a digital ledger that provides a history of luxury goods bought by consumers.Credit…Charles Platiau/Reuters

Three rival names in the European luxury sector have established a new blockchain consortium that will allow shoppers to track the provenance of their purchases and authenticate goods.

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which first unveiled plans for a global blockchain-based system in 2019, will be joined by Prada Group and Compagnie Financière Richemont in the Aura Blockchain Consortium, a nonprofit group that will promote the use of a single blockchain solution open to all luxury brands worldwide.

Many sectors are looking at the possibility of using blockchain, the distributed ledger system that underpins Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Because blockchains are unchangeable and decentralized, the data stored on them is trustworthy and secure.

In this case, each product will be given a unique digital code during the manufacturing process that will be recorded on the Aura ledger. When customers make a purchase, they will be given login details to a platform that will provide the history of the product, including its origin, components, environmental and ethical information, proof of ownership, a warranty and care instructions.

Bulgari, Cartier, Hublot, Louis Vuitton and Prada are already using the system, with “advanced conversations” being held with a number of other luxury brands, according to a statement released Tuesday. Participating luxury brands pay an annual licensing fee and a volume fee. Aura, based in Geneva, was developed in partnership with Microsoft and ConsenSys, a blockchain software technology company in New York.

“The Aura Consortium represents an unprecedented cooperation in the luxury industry,” said Cartier’s chief executive, Cyrille Vigneron, adding that he invited “the entire profession” to join the consortium.

“The luxury industry creates timeless pieces and must ensure that these rigorous standards will endure and remain in trustworthy hands,” he said.

Journalists watch a screen showing China's president, Xi Jinping, delivering a speech during the opening of the Boao Forum on Tuesday.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, called for cooperation and openness to an audience of business and financial leaders on Tuesday. He also had some warnings, presumably for the United States.

Speaking electronically to a largely virtual audience at China’s annual Boao Forum, Mr. Xi warned that the world should not allow “unilateralism pursued by certain countries to set the pace for the whole world.”

The audience included American business leaders including Tim Cook of Apple and Elon Musk of Tesla, as well as two Wall Street financiers, Ray Dalio and Stephen Schwarzman. Long a platform for China to show off its economic prowess and leadership, the Boao Forum is held annually on the southern Chinese island of Hainan. (Last year’s was canceled amid the pandemic.)

In recent years, Mr. Xi has used the forum to portray himself as an advocate of free trade and globalization, calling for openness even as many in the global business community have become increasingly vocal about growing restrictions in China’s own domestic market.

On Tuesday, he also reiterated his earlier message opposing efforts by countries to weaken their economic interdependence with China.

“Attempts to ‘erect walls’ or ‘decouple’” would “hurt others’ interests without benefiting oneself,” Mr. Xi said, in what appeared to be a reference to the United States and the Biden administration’s plans to support domestic high-tech manufacturing in the United States.

The White House held a meeting with business executives last week to discuss a global chip shortage and plan for semiconductor “supply chain resilience.” Speaking to executives from Google, Intel and Samsung, Mr. Biden said “China and the rest of the world is not waiting, and there’s no reason why Americans should wait.”

China is pursuing its own program for self-sufficiency in chip manufacturing.

Mr. Xi also pledged to continue to open the Chinese economy for foreign businesses, a promise that big Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have clung to even as foreign executives complain that the broader business landscape has become more challenging.

The display at a crytocurrency ATM in Zurich, Switzerland. Prices of cryptocurrencies and related stocks slipped lower on Tuesday.Credit…Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency started as a joke, now has a market value that can’t be laughed at: more than $50 billion. On Tuesday, traders of Dogecoin were trying to push up the price to coincide with 4/20, or April 20, a date associated with smoking cannabis.

On Twitter, the hashtags #DogeDay and #Doge420 were trending. Dogecoin’s price, which has surged lately, fluctuated between gains and losses on Tuesday, trading at about 40 cents, according to Coindesk. A month ago, it was about 5 cents.

The ripple effects of the boom in crypto markets are being felt far and wide. Coinbase, the cryptocurrencies exchange that went public last week and is helping the industry move into the mainstream, has a market value of $66 billion. Central banks have ramped up plans to explore digital currencies to offer people a secure alternative to cryptocurrencies, which are out of their control. On Monday, the Bank of England was the latest to announce it was looking into a central bank digital currency.

On Tuesday morning, prices of cryptocurrencies and related stocks slipped. Bitcoin fell 1 percent, trading just above $55,000. Shares in Coinbase and Riot Blockchain were slightly lower in premarket trading.

  • U.S. stocks followed European and Asian stock indexes lower. The S&P 500 index dropped 0.3 percent in early trading, but it’s still less than a percentage point away from the record high reached on Friday. The Stoxx Europe 600 index dropped 1.1 percent.

  • Oil prices rose. Futures on West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, rose slightly to about $63.55 a barrel.

  • Shares in British American Tobacco dropped 8 percent on Tuesday, the worst performance in the FTSE 100, after The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Biden administration is considering making tobacco companies cut the nicotine in cigarettes so they aren’t addictive. American tobacco companies saw their shares fall on Monday

A used-car dealership in Naperville, Ill. The average price paid for a used car is well above $20,000.Credit…Nick Carey/Reuters

Last year’s pandemic-induced production delays, combined with a continued shortage of computer chips and other automotive components, have tightened the supply of new models — especially popular sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

That means it may be challenging to find a new ride with the colors and features you want at a price you can afford, Ann Carrns reports for The New York Times. “It’s harder to get exactly what you want,” said Ivan Drury, senior manager of insights at Edmunds. “Don’t expect heavy discounts.”

So if new cars are too expensive, you can just buy a used car, right?

Yes, but deals may be elusive there as well. Fewer people bought new cars last year, so fewer used cars were traded in. And the short supply of new cars is pushing more buyers to consider used cars, raising those prices, analysts say. The average price paid for a used car is well above $20,000, Edmunds says.

On the plus side, if you have a car to trade in, its value is probably higher, especially if it’s a popular model. The average value for trade-ins, including leased cars turned in early, was about $17,000 in March, up from about $14,000 a year earlier, according to Edmunds. The average age of trade-ins was five and a half years.

Various online services, like Kelly Blue Book, TrueCar and Carvana, will supply a trade-in estimate based on your location and your car’s age, mileage and general condition, and offer more tailored appraisals if you provide details like the vehicle identification number. Some even offer to buy your car outright.

  • Lululemon said on Tuesday that it would introduce an apparel trade-in program in Texas and California in May, as clothing chains pay more attention to secondhand clothing. It will accept “gently used” Lululemon garments from customers at more than 80 stores and through the mail in exchange for gift cards to the retailer. The cards will range in value from $5 to $25, and a typical pair of leggings would fetch $10. The effort is part of a sustainability initiative called “Lululemon Like New,” and will expand to include a resale business in the same markets in June.

  • United Airlines said Monday that it lost nearly $1.4 billion in the first three months of the year, but added that a turnaround was close as bookings picked up. The airline said it had stopped spending more money than it collected in March from operations, investing and financing activities — losses known as its “cash burn.” United also said it expected to turn a profit sometime this year.

  • JPMorgan Chase’s role as the financial backer of the so-called Super League, a breakaway soccer league made up of top clubs from England, Italy and Spain, has made it a target for a storm of criticism. Soccer’s organizing bodies and domestic leagues, European heads of state, former players and supporter groups of the clubs involved were among those speaking out against the plan.

  • Tribune Publishing said Monday that it had ended talks to sell itself to Newslight, the company set up last month by the Maryland hotel executive Stewart W. Bainum Jr. and the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, after Mr. Wyss withdrew from a planned offer on Friday. Tribune Publishing’s special committee, which evaluates the bids, said in a news release on Monday that the Newslight bid could no longer “reasonably be expected to lead to a ‘superior proposal’” than the nonbinding agreement the company had reached in February with Alden Global Capital.

Exxon wants to capture carbon from industrial plants along the Houston Ship Channel and pipe it offshore.Credit…Bronte Wittpenn for The New York Times

HOUSTON — Under growing pressure from investors to address climate change, Exxon Mobil on Monday proposed a $100 billion project to capture the carbon emissions of big industrial plants in the Houston area and bury them deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, wants to create a profit-making business out of the capture of carbon emitted by petrochemical plants and other industries. But its plan would require significant government support and intervention, including the introduction of a price or tax on carbon dioxide emissions, an idea that has failed to attract enough support in Congress in the past.

The company already captures carbon, which it injects into older fields to produce more oil. Exxon now wants to use its expertise to store the carbon dioxide generated by other industries. But without a price on emitting carbon, many businesses would have little financial incentive to pay Exxon to capture and store their carbon.

The Obama administration failed to enact a cap-and-trade system, which raises costs for polluting companies by forcing them to buy tradable permits to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. California, the European Union and 11 states in the Northeast use versions of cap-and-trade. Other governments, including British Columbia and Britain, have imposed a per-ton tax on emissions.

Exxon wants to capture carbon from industrial plants along the Houston Ship Channel and pipe it offshore where it would stored up to 6,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico. The effort would be paid for by industry and the government, and would eventually store 100 million tons of carbon annually — equivalent to the emissions of 20 million cars, according to Exxon.

The company has discussed its idea with national and Texas policymakers and Republicans and Democrats in Congress, Exxon’s chief executive, Darren Woods, said in an interview. “They see the opportunity and appeal of this idea,” he said. “The question is, how do you translate the concept into practice?”

Exxon said its proposal complements President Biden’s climate efforts, but it would require the administration to embrace a price on carbon, something it has not done.

“The concept of a price on carbon is critical,” Mr. Woods said. “There has to be a way to incentivize the investment.”

Offshore storage has already gained traction in Europe, where governments have put carbon prices in place and lawmakers are more willing to spend taxpayer money to address climate change.

Mr. Woods said that, given the right policies, carbon capture projects could be a major business for Exxon around the world. “The potential for these markets is very, very large to the extent that demand continues to increase to decarbonize society,” he said.

Noting the power of digital platforms, Margrethe Vestager, a European Commission official, said in a recent speech that “we need something more to keep that power in check.”Credit…Pool photo by Olivier Hoslet

Around the world, governments are moving simultaneously to limit the power of tech companies with an urgency and breadth that no single industry had experienced before.

Their motivation varies. In the United States and Europe, it is concern that tech companies are stifling competition, spreading misinformation and eroding privacy; in Russia and elsewhere, it is to silence protest movements and tighten political control; in China, it is some of both.

Nations and tech firms have jockeyed for primacy for years, but the latest actions have pushed the industry to a tipping point that could reshape how the global internet works and change the flows of digital data, Paul Mozur, Cecilia Kang, Adam Satariano and David McCabe report for The New York Times.

“It is unprecedented to see this kind of parallel struggle globally,” said Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan and an antitrust expert. Now, Mr. Crane said, “the same fundamental question is being asked globally: Are we comfortable with companies like Google having this much power?”

Underlying all of the disputes is a common thread: power. The 10 largest tech firms, which have become gatekeepers in commerce, finance, entertainment and communications, now have a combined market capitalization of more than $10 trillion. In gross domestic product terms, that would rank them as the world’s third-largest economy.

Governments agree that tech clout has grown too expansive, but there has been little coordination on solutions. Competing policies have led to geopolitical friction. Last month, the Biden administration said it could put tariffs on countries that imposed new taxes on American tech companies.

Tech companies are fighting back. Amazon and Facebook have created their own entities to adjudicate conflicts over speech and to police their sites. In the United States and in the European Union, the companies have spent heavily on lobbying.

Categories
World News

China sanctions U.S. spiritual freedom officers, Canadian member of parliament

China sanctions U.S. religious freedom officials, Canadian member of parliament

A masked protester holds a US flag during a protest against China’s human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province and calls on the US government to crack down on Beijing on April 6, 2019 in Washington, USA.

Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

China has imposed sanctions on two US religious rights officials, a Canadian MP and a subcommittee on human rights, in Canada’s lower house, according to a statement released by the Chinese State Department on Saturday.

The sanctions are the latest escalation in a growing dispute between Western nations and Beijing over the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in China, particularly in Xinjiang Province.

The Chinese sanctions target the chairman and vice chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Gayle Manchin and Tony Perkins. USCIRF has condemned China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang and approved recent US sanctions against Chinese officials.

Beijing also targeted Canadian MP Michael Chong, who is vice chairman of the House of Common’s Foreign Affairs Committee. The Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights was also sanctioned.

The House of Common Foreign Affairs Committee released a report earlier this month based on meetings of the subcommittee that concluded that human rights violations against Uighur Muslims in China constitute crimes against humanity and genocide.

Chinese sanctions prohibit officials from entering mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau, and prohibit Chinese citizens and institutions from doing business with the officials and interacting with the Human Rights Subcommittee.

The sanctions are in response to penalties imposed by the US on two Chinese officials earlier this week. The government of Biden said it imposed these sanctions in response to human rights violations against Uighur Muslims.

The US sanctions were directed against China’s Wang Junzheng, secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Party Committee, and Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau.

The two officials were targeted for their links to “arbitrary detention and aggravated physical abuse, among other serious human rights violations against Uyghurs,” the Treasury Department said in a statement Monday.

Canada also imposed sanctions on Chinese officials for treating Uyghurs.

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Chipotle to open its first Canadian restaurant since 2018

Chipotle to open its first Canadian restaurant since 2018

A chicken burrito, guacamole, bag of tortilla chips and a drink at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. restaurant in El Segundo, California.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Chipotle Mexican Grill announced Tuesday that it will be opening a new restaurant in Canada for the first time since 2018 as it accelerates its Canadian expansion over the next 12 months.

The new restaurant will open on March 30th. The Burrito chain announced that it will add eight new locations in Canada, including one with a “Chipotlane” for picking up digital orders. Chipotle operates 23 Canadian restaurants, most of which are concentrated in and around Vancouver and Toronto.

“We will experiment with different location formats and restaurant designs across the country to measure consumer preferences in different markets,” CFO Jack Hartung said in a statement.

It has taken Chipotle longer than its peers to grow its international footprint as it focused on revitalizing US sales after a string of foodborne disease outbreaks battered its business a few years ago. Chipotle implemented new security measures and added menu items to lure customers back. It has also built several sites with chipotlanes.

The company has more than 2,750 locations worldwide, most of them in the United States

Chipotle’s shares are up more than 5% this year, equating to a market value of more than $ 41 billion. The stock gained 1.6% on Tuesday.

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World News

Mom of Killed Indigenous Man Advised to ‘Get It Collectively’ by Canadian Police

Mother of Killed Indigenous Man Told to ‘Get It Together’ by Canadian Police

OTTAWA – When seven police officers arrived at Debbie Baptiste’s house in August 2016, circling the house and carrying rifles, they informed her that her son was dead. Instead of comforting the grieving mother, they asked if she had been drinking and told her to “put it all together.”

The persistent treatment of Ms. Baptiste, a Cree woman, as well as other incidents of racial discrimination by police against her family were described in an independent review, which was released to the public on Monday, that examined the police’s conduct and investigation into the death of Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Cree man in Saskatchewan.

The damning report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission found that officers treated Ms. Baptiste “with such insensitivity that her treatment amounted to a pretense of discrimination.” The surveillance group, which has no power to punish, also found that the police could not protect the evidence at the scene where Mr. Boushie was killed and destroyed records of the handling of the case.

“It felt like I was forever fighting a battle that could never be won,” Ms. Baptiste said at a press conference Monday. “The injustices of racism in the courtroom, the discrimination must stop. Things have to change. We need a change for the future generation. “

Mr Boushie was shot dead after he and four other Indians drove into Gerald Stanley’s property in August 2016. Mr Stanley testified in court that he believed their goal was theft, which he and his son were trying to prevent.

Mr Stanley was acquitted in 2018 after testifying that he accidentally shot Mr Boushie in the back of the head when his semi-automatic pistol exhibited a rare mechanical malfunction. The verdict shocked many Indigenous Canadians.

In a country where politicians typically shy away from court rulings, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has made healing Canada’s relations with its indigenous peoples a priority, released a message of support and met with Mr Boushie’s family after the 2018 trial.

On Monday, Mr Trudeau told reporters that the treatment of Mr Boushie’s family and friends was “unacceptable”, adding, “Unfortunately, we have seen examples of systemic racism within the RCMP in many of our institutions and we need to do so.” better.”

The National Police Federation, a union that represents the mounted police force, disagreed with the report’s findings, saying it “promotes a perspective that disregards our members and challenges their impartiality, commitment and professionalism.” In a separate response to the report, the union rejected the commission’s report on what happened at Ms. Baptiste, claiming that it “only reflected the Boushie family’s interpretation of the interaction” and not the reports of the officials present.

“The RCMP union is still asking the people of this country not to believe this woman,” Chris Murphy, lawyer for the Boushie family, told reporters. “Shame on you.”

The killing and acquittal remain a source of anger for many Indigenous Canadians who have argued the case, which has exposed significant flaws in the Canadian legal system. Mr Boushie’s family and others said the police were racially discriminatory towards them while being respectful of a farmer who was ultimately charged with murder.

Mr. Boushie was out swimming with friends when a tire fell on her Ford Escape near Mr. Stanley’s farm in central Saskatchewan. Mr Stanley testified that he and his son believed the group, many of whom were drunk, were trying to steal vehicles. The two men came out with guns and attacked the escape with a hammer. After Mr. Boushie was killed, the others fled.

As a result, the commission said, police descended on Ms. Baptiste’s home in Red Pheasant Cree Nation, her indigenous community, with two goals: to inform them of Mr. Boushie’s death and to look for a member of Mr. Boushie’s group Friends on a related investigation into theft and attempted theft. No one in the group was ultimately charged with theft.

Officers armed with rifles circled Ms. Baptiste’s house and told her about her son’s death when she came to the porch. After hearing the news, Ms. Baptiste collapsed and was taken to the house by police.

“MS. Baptiste was concerned about the news they had just given her. A member told her to bring it together,” the report said. “One or more RCMP members smelled their breath,” apparently because of it Signs of alcohol.

Although they lacked a required search warrant, police officers ransacked Ms. Baptiste’s home.

Back at the scene, the report found lax investigative practices. Immediately thereafter, little effort was made to gather forensic evidence and little was done to protect evidence on-site. Despite bad weather predictions, the Ford Escape that killed Mr Boushie was not covered, allowing rain to wash away blood spatter evidence before forensic scientists arrived about three days later, the commission said.

The commission said it also had “serious concerns” about the failure of the Serious Crimes Division to visit the scene when it took over the case. She also criticized the police for failing to tell Mr. Stanley, his wife, and son not to discuss the case together before making statements and that they were together in a family car that was part of the crime scene assembled police station were allowed to drive.

The report also found that the police were destroying records and transcripts of their communications from the time of the murder, which were in accordance with standard on-file records, but knowing that Mr Boushie’s family and the commission had filed complaints for which they were Files would have been relevant.

“We have recognized that there is systemic racism in the RCMP,” the Mounted Police Department in Saskatchewan said in a statement, adding that it plans to implement the recommendations in the commission’s report.

In addition to making recommendations that include reviewing the procedures with the officers involved in the case as well as reviewing general Mounties practices in this part of Saskatchewan, the commission said that cultural awareness training should be offered to all police officers. “Taking into account the factors identified in the latest research. “

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Brenda Lucki, who had the opportunity to comment on the Commission’s findings prior to their publication, said she accepted the main findings, despite rejecting a few small points in the report

“This entire judicial system from top to bottom must be restored,” said chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents the First Nations in Saskatchewan, at a press conference. “Brenda Lucki, what are you going to do instead of just saying that we agree with what has been found? Big thing. Brenda Lucki, do something. ”

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Michael Spavor, Canadian Accused of Spying, Stands Trial in China

Michael Spavor, Canadian Accused of Spying, Stands Trial in China

A Chinese court on Friday opened a lawsuit against a Canadian businessman who has been in custody for more than two years on charges of espionage. This case sparked a worldwide outcry and called on the US to intervene.

A court in Dandong, a northeastern Chinese city, tried the Canadian Michael Spavor, who campaigned for cultural travel to North Korea before he was arrested in late 2018, in retaliation for Canada’s decision to arrest a leading Chinese technology executive United States request.

The court said in a concise statement that Mr. Spavor had been tried for espionage and “illegally providing state secrets abroad”. It was said that a verdict would be pronounced at a later date.

As a sign of China’s efforts to control the trial, the authorities banned the public and the news media from participating in the trial. A group of 10 diplomats from eight countries, including Canada and the United States, tried to gain access to the trial in Dandong, a coastal city near China’s border with North Korea, but were turned away. The court said the trial, which lasted about two hours, was held in private because it contained state secrets.

“We are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency in these processes,” said Jim Nickel, a senior official at Canada’s Embassy in Beijing who attempted to participate in the process, in a statement.

Another Canadian, Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was also arrested in 2018, is expected to stand trial in Beijing on Monday.

Since their detention, Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig have been at the center of a heated international dispute between China, Canada and the United States.

China, accusing western countries of attempting to thwart its rise as a tech superpower, is urging the US to end a full-blown fraud case against Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei. The United States, requesting Ms. Meng’s extradition, has asked China to release Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig.

“The trials of the two Michaels are revenge for Ms. Meng,” said Guy Saint-Jacques, a veteran Canadian ambassador to China who was Mr. Kovrig’s boss when he was first secretary at the Canadian embassy in Beijing. “It’s a message to Canada and the world: ‘Don’t mess with China.'”

The Canadians question was about to come up when senior government officials from Biden met their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage on Thursday. Friends and relatives of Mr Spavor and Mr Kovrig have urged President Biden and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take steps to ensure their release.

American officials said Friday that they were “deeply alarmed” by China’s decision to continue the trials of Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig. “We stand side by side with Canada in demanding their immediate release,” a US embassy spokesman in Beijing said in a statement.

Any compromise with Beijing could be elusive as China has shown no signs of withdrawal but has used the persecution of the two men to project an image of strength and demand that the United States withdraw its extradition request for Ms. Meng.

“Beijing makes it clear that the two Michaels with Chinese characteristics will be tried: closed to the public and the media,” said Diana Fu, professor of political science at the University of Toronto. “His actions leave little doubt as to who will be the ultimate decider of the fate of the Canadians – the Chinese Communist Party, not Biden, not Trudeau.”

The detention of the two men has led to tougher measures against China in Canada. According to a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute, a leading polling company, only 14 percent of Canadians view China positively. A majority see the Chinese government’s liberation of the two Canadians as a prerequisite for re-establishing relations.

“There is a backlash against China in Canada and the process will only exacerbate attitudes,” said Gordon Houlden, director emeritus of the University of Alberta’s China Institute. He added that the case of the two Michaels underscored the limited leverage of a middle power like Canada in the face of an economic and political giant like China.

Legal experts and human rights defenders have denounced China’s treatment of Canadians and accused Chinese officials of using “hostage diplomacy”. The two men, held in separate prisons in northern China, are largely cut off from the world and sometimes forced to go months without diplomatic visits. They had limited access to defense lawyers.

“Like so many cases where Chinese authorities try to silence a critic or settle a bill, these cases have nothing to do with the law,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.

As a self-described consultant, Mr. Spavor ran an organization in Dandong promoting cultural trips to North Korea. There he made high-ranking contacts and once met North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. In 2013, Mr. Spavor helped organize a visit to North Korea for Dennis Rodman, the former NBA star.

“Michael is just an ordinary Canadian businessman,” his family said in a pre-trial statement on Friday. “He loved living and working in China and would never have done anything to harm the interests of China or the Chinese people. We stand by Michael and keep his innocence in this difficult situation. “

Claire Fu and Albee Zhang have contributed to the research.

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Trend Mogul Peter Nygard Denied Bail by Canadian Choose

Fashion Mogul Peter Nygard Denied Bail by Canadian Judge

Mr Nygard appeared in court via video link from prison and looked like the shell of the man who was once plastered on billboards in New York’s Times Square and Winnipeg Airport. His gray hair, usually covered in a lion’s mane, was tied in a messy bun. He was wearing a face mask and gray-blue shirt while in jail and stared straight ahead without reacting to the judge’s decision.

Updated

Apr. 5, 2021 at 4:14 pm ET

Denied bail is relatively rare in Canada, especially for those with no criminal record like Mr Nygard, said Seth Weinstein, a Toronto criminal defense attorney who co-authored a book on extradition cases.

Mr Prober said he would wait for more information on the charges from the US prosecutor’s office before deciding on his client’s next steps. It is very unlikely that a challenge from Mr Nygard to his extradition would be successful, experts said.

“In Canada, it is almost impossible not to be extradited, especially to our good friends the US,” said Robert Currie, professor of international criminal law at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He added that wealthy people, using all legal means, could prevent extradition for a few years.

In Canada, the bail system is largely based on community trust and connections and does not involve large cash deposits and commercial bail-borrowers as is the case in many US states.

Instead, in most cases, the defendant needs to find one or more “guarantees” – usually a family member or lifelong friend who pledges collateral, often in the form of property. More importantly, they also agree to supervise the accused, make sure the accused keeps bail set by the court, and notify the police of any violations.

In Mr. Nygard’s case, none of his 10 children, ex-girlfriends, or longtime businesspeople who helped set up his business appeared in court as a proposed surety. Instead there were two employees: one a former site manager with a criminal record of cocaine trafficking and a previous association with the Hells Angels motorcycle club, and the other a former director who still works for Mr Nygard overseeing the company’s bankruptcy proceedings.

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‘Like Wartime’: Canadian Corporations Unite to Begin Mass Virus Testing

‘Like Wartime’: Canadian Companies Unite to Start Mass Virus Testing

TORONTO – A consortium of some of the country’s largest companies has launched a rapid testing program to protect its 350,000 employees and publish a playbook for business Canada on how to safely reopen.

The program is considered the first of its kind in the group of 7 industrialized nations and has already attracted the attention of the Biden government.

The 12 companies, including Canada’s largest airline and grocery chain, have been working together for four months. Creation of a 400-page instruction manual for performing rapid antigen tests in various work settings. They started testing the tests in their workplaces this month and expect to expand the program to 1,200 small and medium-sized businesses.

They also plan to share their test results with state health officials to significantly increase the number of tests in the country and provide an informal study on the spread of the virus among asymptomatic people.

“It’s like wartime – people come together to do something that is in everyone’s interest,” said Marc Mageau, senior vice president of refining and logistics at Suncor Energy, the country’s largest oil producer, who conducted the tests this month introduced his employees.

The program faces some inherent challenges: After an outbreak last year in the White House, antigen tests were discovered that induce both false negative results and a false sense of security. They are also in short supply in Canada. Some experts feel that they should be reserved for schools and nursing homes rather than non-essential businesses.

While vaccines are considered the world’s best weapon to fight the pandemic, most experts believe it will take months, if not a full year, for Canada to reach the vaccination levels that will allow workplaces to safely return to their pre-Covid surgeries .

Canada is in a second wave of pandemics that has driven infections to record levels and deaths to around 19,800. In response, many parts of the country are on lockdown, restaurants, theaters, and non-essential retail stores are closed.

Canada’s economy contracted about 5 percent during the pandemic. Some industries such as real estate and manufacturing have performed well, but those that depend on public crowds, such as entertainment and hospitality, have seen employment decline.

“Think about downtown Toronto: nobody is there anymore. Entertainment – everything is stopped, ”said Joshua Gans, professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto who served as advisor to and is the author of the project “The Pandemic Information Gap: The Brutal Economy of Covid-19.”

“It is time to figure out how to actually reopen the closed sectors,” he said.

The consortium companies were brought together in the spring by Ajay Agrawal, founder of the University of Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab. That helps science and technology start-ups. They were inspired by the most Canadian muses: Margaret Atwood, the author.

“How soon can we get a cheap, self-administered test at the drugstore?” Ms. Atwood asked business leaders and others who were tasked with brainstorming ideas for economic recovery during the pandemic during a virtual meeting last May.

The problem, the group noted, was the “information gap” – with no way of telling who an asymptomatic carrier might be, everyone was treated as a potential threat.

Ms. Atwood envisioned something like a home pregnancy test.

“That would be a game changer,” she said.

When the group realized that the government was overwhelmed by the health crisis, they decided to take on the task themselves and form a consortium led by the Creative Destruction Lab.

The group focused on antigen testing because of its speed, price, and utility: you can get results in minutes, don’t require a lab, and can cost anywhere from $ 5 to $ 20 in Canada.

Updated

Jan. 30, 2021, 8:47 p.m. ET

However, they are less accurate and produce more false negative results than the gold standard polymerase chain reaction or PCR tests, which can cost 20 times as much. The three antigen tests approved for use in Canada characterize between 84 percent and 96.7 percent of those infected with the virus.

In the UK, antigen tests used in a mass testing campaign identified only two-fifths of the coronavirus cases detected by PCR testing.

Because of this, many experts in Canada and elsewhere initially argued that it would be wiser to expand PCR testing. However, as the pandemic spread and the country failed to meet its testing goals, that thinking changed, said Dr. Irfan Dhalla, co-chair of the Canadian Advisory Panel on Testing and Screening for Covid-19, which recommended increasing the country’s use of rapid tests.

“A rapid antigen test is clearly better than no test at all, as long as it is not used as a free pass, ”said Dr. Dhalla. “Whether it’s a job or a school, you still have to wear a mask and physically distance yourself as much as possible.”

In the long term, the members of the consortium hope that the testing program will help reduce infection rates enough to allow crowded restaurants and boardroom meetings to take place again. In the meantime, however, they plan to use the tests as an extra layer of protection – in addition to wearing masks, social distancing, and pre-screening of staff so those with symptoms can stay home.

The consortium companies also test their employees twice a week to increase the likelihood that positive cases will be picked up.

“Everyone is looking for a silver bullet. We realized that it doesn’t exist. It’s not, ”admitted Laura Rosella, professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto and advisor to the project.

In September, more than 100 consortium employees began working together at the expense of their companies to come up with a plan. Two retired generals volunteered to manage the logistics.

The coronavirus outbreak>

Things to know about testing

Confused by Coronavirus Testing Conditions? Let us help:

    • antibody: A protein produced by the immune system that can recognize and attach to certain types of viruses, bacteria or other invaders.
    • Antibody test / serology test: A test that detects antibodies specific to the coronavirus. About a week after the coronavirus infects the body, antibodies start appearing in the blood. Because antibodies take so long to develop, an antibody test cannot reliably diagnose an ongoing infection. However, it can identify people who have been exposed to the coronavirus in the past.
    • Antigen test: This test detects parts of coronavirus proteins called antigens. Antigen tests are quick and only take five minutes. However, they are less accurate than tests that detect genetic material from the virus.
    • Coronavirus: Any virus that belongs to the Orthocoronavirinae virus family. The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 is known as SARS-CoV-2.
    • Covid19: The disease caused by the new coronavirus. The name stands for Coronavirus Disease 2019.
    • Isolation and quarantine: Isolation is separating people who know they have a contagious disease from those who are not sick. Quarantine refers to restricting the movement of people who have been exposed to a virus.
    • Nasopharyngeal smear: A long, flexible stick with a soft swab that is inserted deep into the nose to collect samples from the space where the nasal cavity meets the throat. Samples for coronavirus tests can also be obtained with swabs that do not go as deep into the nose – sometimes called nasal swabs – or with mouth or throat swabs.
    • Polymerase chain reaction (PCR): Scientists use PCR to make millions of copies of genetic material in a sample. With the help of PCR tests, researchers can detect the coronavirus even when it is scarce.
    • Viral load: The amount of virus in a person’s body. In people infected with the coronavirus, viral loads can peak before symptoms, if any.

The group was registered as a nonprofit called the CDL Rapid Screening Consortium in November, with each company contributing $ 230,000 in operating costs.

The employees work in teams Researched around 50 different antigen tests around the world, analyzed what was required for a screening program – from staff to number of dresses – and estimated the total cost.

The resulting 400-page user guide includes everything from an example of an employee invitation to participate in the program and a standard consent form, to a detailed shopping list of materials required to run a program.

One of the hurdles was getting tests. They had to get them from the government because they are not yet widely available in Canada and the demand from schools and nursing homes is high.

“Let’s do tests there first,” said Dr. Dhalla, referring to schools, nursing homes and important workplaces. “As we gain experience, we can talk about getting people back to work where working from home is an option.”

In January, five companies began testing the program in environments as diverse as pharmacies and radio stations. So far, around 400 employees have volunteered and nearly 1,900 tests have been carried out. According to Sonia Sennik, the executive director of the Creative Destruction Lab and avid quarterback of the project, only three have made positive returns.

“They didn’t go to work and they might spread something,” said Ms. Sennik. “We interrupted the transmission chain three times.”

The companies found the program reduced employees’ fear of not only getting to work but returning home every day, she said.

“I’m relieved,” said Mohamed Gaballa, an Air Canada official who took the test during a break at Toronto Pearson International Airport. This came up within 15 minutes by email: “Your screening result is negative. You can go on with your day. “

“This has been a missing piece in Canada for far too long,” said Dan Kelly, president and chief executive officer of Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses that represents 110,000 small and medium-sized businesses.

Small businesses face a lot more hurdles to implementing such a program, even if dodging a 400-page manual, he said. There is the cost of the tests, but more importantly the staff to manage them.

Mr. Kelly envisioned that the program would not work in restaurants and busy stores – places where unscreened customers far exceeded the number of employees screened unless they were planned to be tested. But in kitchens, small warehouses, small manufacturing facilities, and offices, “these tests could be very helpful,” he said.

“Under normal circumstances, the idea of ​​small businesses doing employee testing for everything would be a fantasy,” said Kelly, who sits on the federal government’s industry advisory group on Covid-19 testing. “But in this case, given the desperation to remain or remain open among small business owners, there is a potential appetite for it.”