Support for new travel rules and Myanmar military in control: In The News for Feb. 2

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Feb. 2 …

What we are watching in Canada …

The vast majority of Canadians support tighter restrictions on international travel imposed by the federal government, a new poll suggests.

Eighty-six per cent of respondents agree with stricter measures that suspend flights to most sun destinations and require quarantining at a hotel at the passenger’s expense upon arrival in Canada, according to an online survey by Léger and the Association for Canadian Studies.

The poll also found that 87 per cent of respondents think the government should go further by banning international travel until there are several consecutive days of reduced COVID-19 numbers.

The wariness of foreign trips stems in part from more transmissible — and possibly more lethal — variants of the virus emerging abroad as well as homegrown politicians jetting off to far-flung beaches during the holidays, says Léger executive vice-president Christian Bourque.

“We probably would not have gotten such high numbers before the whole talk about the South African variant, the Brazil variant,” Bourque said in an interview. “I think this probably jolted Canadians in a way.

“And then when you see people coming back with a very nice tan, you’re thinking, ‘Why am I making the effort and you’re not?’ And in certain cases it was MLAs and even (provincial) cabinet ministers,” senators and MPs, he noted.

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Also this …

Groundhog Day will be observed online across Canada today in the interest of public safety during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Ontario’s Wiarton Willie and Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Sam will make their annual predictions in front of no crowds, instead the critters’ emergence from their homes will be broadcast.

Folklore has it that if a groundhog sees its shadow on Feb. 2, it will retreat into its burrow, heralding six more weeks of cold weather.

No shadow is said to foretell spring-like temperatures are on the way.

Janice Jackson, the mayor of Wiarton, Ont., says that the town in the South Bruce Peninsula has pivoted the celebration of its famous albino groundhog to a webcast.

Organizers for Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia say they will not be hosting a public event but will be livestreaming his prediction on the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park’s Facebook page.

Groundhog Fred La Marmotte in Val-d’Espoir, Que., will also be delivering his forecast online.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

The Minneapolis mayor and police chief said Monday that officers will no longer be allowed to turn off their body cameras to talk privately when they respond to calls, one of several changes implemented following George Floyd’s death in police custody.

The new policy outlined by Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Medaria Arradondo states that although officers cannot deactivate their cameras while an event is in progress, conversations about performance or tactics can still be edited out prior to public release of any video.

“We’ve seen as a community and as a police force, body camera footage increasingly plays a crucial role in understanding critical events in our community,” Arradondo said in a statement.

Floyd, who was Black and handcuffed, died May 25 after Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck as Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. Floyd’s death was captured in widely seen bystander video that set off protests in Minneapolis and around the world calling for police reforms.

The procedures regarding body cameras have been widely discussed in the case of another former Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an unarmed woman. Mohamed Noor was convicted in the 2017 shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault.

The incident commander turned her body camera off when talking to Noor in the moments after the shooting. Other officers told him not to say a word, according to prosecutors and court testimony. Many responding officers turned their body cameras on and off at different times.

Frey and Arradondo have issued other policy changes in recent months, including new approaches to no-knock warrants, documenting attempts to de-escalate situations, expanding reporting requirements for use-of-force incidents and banning the use of chokeholds.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

The man installed by army leaders as Myanmar’s president after Monday’s military coup is best known abroad for his role in the crackdown on 2007 pro-democracy protests and for his ties to still-powerful military leaders.

Myint Swe was the army-appointed vice-president when he was named on Monday to take over after the military arrested civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of her party.

Immediately after he was named president, Myint Swe handed power to the country’s top military commander, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

Under Myanmar’s 2008 constitution, the president can hand power to the military commander in cases of emergency. That is one of many ways the military is assured of keeping ultimate control of the country.

Min Aung Hliang, 64, has been commander of the armed forces since 2011 and is due to retire soon. That would clear the way for him to take a civilian leadership role if the junta holds elections in a year’s time as promised. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party’s humiliating loss in last November’s elections would likely have precluded that. The military justified the coup by saying the government failed to address claims of election fraud.

“It seems there’s been the realization that Min Aung Hlaing’s retirement is coming and he expected to move into a senior role,” said Gerard McCarthy, a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute. “The fact that the USDP couldn’t deliver that sparked a realization that the system itself isn’t designed to create the outcomes that they expected.”

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On this day in 1942 …

Ottawa proclaimed western British Columbia a “protected area” and soon began moving Japanese people inland. The measure was intended to quell fears of Japanese people assisting an invasion during the Second World War. Within weeks, the action was expanded to include all those of Japanese origin. They were treated as aliens and deprived of their property. Decades later, the federal government apologized to Canada’s Japanese community.

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In entertainment …

Theatre giant Cineplex is celebrating Black History Month by offering a curated collection of more than 100 films across Canada.

Titles including “Harriet” and “Selma” are available throughout the month on the Cineplex Store.

Select films will also screen in Cineplex theatres in markets where cinemas are permitted to operate.

The company will donate $1 from every transaction on the Cineplex Store and from in-theatre ticket sales of the select titles in February to The Black Academy. 

Toronto-raised actor-brothers Shamier Anderson and Stephan James co-founded The Black Academy in early December as a permanent, year-round operation to showcase Black talent and combat discrimination and systemic racism.

The organization is also planning to launch an awards show to celebrate and uplift Black talent across Canada in the latter half of 2022.

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ICYMI …

A colony of 800 snow penguins was set up on the grounds of the Alberta legislature to send a strong message.

But before student union representatives from Edmonton’s two universities could use their frozen creations Friday as a backdrop to protest provincial cuts to post-secondary education, most of them were wiped out.

Rowan Ley, vice-president of the University of Alberta Students’ Union, says about a dozen students the penguin snow sculptures with moulds purchased at a local hardware store.

The snow penguins also had signs with the hashtag “Don’t Freeze Our Future.”

Ley says the student unions were going to hold interviews with about 10 students at a time to talk about what upcoming cuts would mean to them.

Alberta’s Ministry of Infrastructure said the sculptures were removed because they were in walkway areas, creating potential tripping hazards for visitors.

And although only 200 penguins were spared, Ley says the message still got out.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2021

The Canadian Press