Paralympics follow lead of Olympics: No fans during pandemic

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife believes in magic potions, which used to make me laugh. But since Halloween season started this year, she’s been acting in a way that frightens me. She seems to think she’s a modern-day “witch.” Give me a break!

Now she has three friends who think they are really casting spells when they get together! And this year on Halloween night she’s being formally accepted into their little witchy group meeting at one of their homes, and is getting a new sorceress name. It’s creepy! How do I cope? I’ve had enough of this.

— Seriously Upset, South St. Vital

Dear Upset: Don’t buy into the hocus pocus by being afraid of it and expressing any trepidation to your wife. She needs you to be strong, so she knows she has a solid anchor and can drop out of this witchy group if it becomes too scary or silly for her.

Ottawa is betting that billions of taxpayer dollars spent on steel, asphalt and concrete will secure Canada’s economic future and prosperity. Through the $51 billion Build Communities Strong fund, the federal government is paying for roads, bridges, water systems and transit to boost productivity and attract capital from Europe and Asia.

As the shovels hit the ground from Halifax to Vancouver, Canadians should be asking themselves: What good does it do to build a stronger country if we are not building healthier Canadians?

The fund’s $5 billion allocation for health infrastructure is welcome news, as many of our hospitals and long-term care homes across the country are showing severe signs of aging, and modern care centres are much needed. But pouring concrete for new facilities is not the same as building a healthy population.

A ribbon-cutting at a modern hospital does not guarantee you see a family doctor when you need one, keep a rural emergency department open overnight, or shorten the wait for a knee replacement keeping someone off the job or robbing a retiree of independence.

When Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew declared Sept. 17 that the province would remain on permanent daylight time, he suggested it was a historical moment people would share with their “great-great-grandkids.” But, while Sunday, Nov. 1 has been heralded as the date many Canadians will stop changing their clocks, there are rumblings behind the scenes suggesting this will actually cause more trouble than ever before.

There are, of course, the warnings from chrono-biologists and sleep scientists about the damage permanent daylight time will do. The lighter evenings will mean many more dark mornings. But there is another set of problems in the offing in the critical infrastructure that underpins our digital lives.

While it used to be common to spend the Sunday morning after a time change going around our homes updating the clocks, we now wake up to devices that have already adjusted to the new time. These automatic updates occur regularly for daylight time, as well as when we travel to new time zones.

Our clocks are able to change by themselves owing to the hard work of a group of volunteers who were recently named in a list of the people who hold up the internet. This group, led by Paul Eggert, a computer scientist at UCLA, maintains a little-known tool called the Time Zone Database. Since the 1980s, it has kept track of regional, national and international debates about clock time and provided an up-to-date table of what time it should be on our walls.

OTTAWA - A timeline of events regarding the Canada Student Service Grant program, based on public documents, events and statements from cabinet ministers, government officials, and WE Charity:

March 6, 2020: WE Charity staff prepare a concept paper on service learning for public servants at Employment and Social Development Canada.

April 5: Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk over the phone about how to help students whose summer job and volunteer opportunities were vanishing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finance Department officials are tasked with considering options the next morning.

April 7: Small Business Minister Mary Ng and WE co-founder Craig Kielburger have an introductory phone call in which Ng asks WE to send what it calls a ``pre-established proposal'' to help young people launch businesses.