By Ken Kellar
Staff writer
kkellar@fortfrances.com

Priorities for local MP include propping up the tourism industry, tackling the drug overdose crisis and recruiting more medical doctors As 2022 takes off in full swing, Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski has several big-ticket items on his parliamentary plate that he’s keeping an eye on. In conversation with […]

By Ken Kellar
Staff writer
kkellar@fortfrances.com

Like the year before it, 2021 was in many ways ruled by the COVID-19 pandemic, and not everyone was impacted the same way – something our Member of Parliament is well aware of. Speaking with the Fort Frances Times to both look back on the year that was and look […]

By Maan Alhmidi
THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO – Breanna Reid-Clarke has attended all her university classes over the last two years from her bedroom and it’s taking a toll. Studying from home as a result of the pandemic has meant feeling isolated, and has brought challenges in building strong connections with colleagues and instructors, says the […]

By Holly McKenzie-Sutter
THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO – More than 300 Ontario schools reported staff and student absences of more than 30 per cent by the end of last week, after students returned for in-person learning following the latest pandemic-related shutdown. But the data includes all absences, not just those that might be related to COVID-19, […]

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OSLO (AP) – Every member of Norway’s men’s cross-country skiing team is isolating ahead of next month’s Beijing Olympics because a coach has contracted the coronavirus. Sprint team head coach Arild Monsen tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to Norway from the Italian Alpine resort of Seiser Alm, the Norwegian […]

THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO – Ontario is set to start sharing data about school absences today, a week after in-person learning resumed without public reporting of classroom COVID-19 exposures. The province moved its schools to remote learning at the end of the winter break as Omicron cases surged to unprecedented levels and overwhelmed […]

THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO – Health Minister Christine Elliott says the first shipment of an antiviral COVID-19 treatment has arrived in Ontario. The oral antiviral drug Paxlovid is meant to protect against hospitalization and death. Elliott has previously said Ontario was set to receive 10,000 courses of treatment in January, and she says […]

By Erika Ibrahim
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA – A federation representing truckers across Canada has denounced a series of planned protests against the federal government’s cross-border travel vaccine mandate, arguing such demonstrations aren’t a safe or effective way of resisting the policy. The Canadian Trucking Alliance spoke out against the pending protests in a statement issued […]

THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO – Ontario is reporting 4,061 people in hospital with COVID-19 and 594 people in intensive care units. That’s the second day in a row that the number of hospitalizations has fallen, from a peak Tuesday of 4,183, though the ICU occupancy is still rising. The province reports that another […]

TORONTO — With key public health and health care indicators starting to show signs of improvement, the Ontario government, in consultation with the Chief Medical Officer of Health, today released details of steps to cautiously and gradually ease public health measures, starting on January 31, 2022. “The evidence tells us […]

By Emma Tranter
THE CANADIAN PRESS

IQALUIT, Nunavut – Former laboratory technologists in Iqaluit say their not receiving a bonus given to Nunavut nursing staff led them to resign after years of burnout and a lack of support. Four of the techs who left spoke to The Canadian Press on the condition that they would remain […]