The Sprout: Change needed to prevent more farm-worker deaths: deputy coroner By Kelsey Johnson. Published on Apr 28, 2021 12:36pm A migrant worker sifts through a trailer load of beets in this file photo, a new deputy coroner s report in Ontario includes 35 recommendations to improve conditions for migrant farm workers. (Jim Rankin/Toronto Star)
Here’s today’s agriculture news.
The Lead
A deputy chief coroner’s report on the deaths of three migrant farm workers in Ontario last year from the coronavirus says better oversight is needed of workers’ living conditions and they need better access to health care.
As CBC News reports, Reuven R. Jhirad’s report includes 35 recommendations, including better communication between governments and agencies involved in the process of bringing temporary agricultural workers to Canada each year and, farm workers should also be considered a high priority group for COVID-19 vaccinations. CBC reports, the deputy coroner
Toronto bans tall buildings in downtown neighbourhood and people just noticed
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New zoning bylaw amendments that were just adopted by Toronto City Council could mean major difficulties for any new builds slated for a sizeable portion of downtown mainly, that they will now be subject to new height limitations that aren t exactly in line with the majority of condos going up in the city right now.
The changes were quietly pushed through on Wednesday after a number of public consultation meetings.
They dictate that developers eyeing certain neighbourhoods will have to keep projects below, in most cases, 30 metres or 10 residential storeys, along with abiding by other new restrictions for density, setback distances and more.
Published Wednesday, April 21, 2021 1:12AM EDT Local activists are hailing the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in George Floyd’s death, but say that the guilty verdict is just a starting point for more work that needs to be done to combat systemic racism in policing. Chauvin was
convicted by a jury Tuesday on all three counts in connection with the May 25, 2020 death of Floyd, who died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for around nine minutes while bystanders screamed and pleaded with him to stop. The horrific killing was caught on video and seen around the world, igniting mass protests and calls for police departments to be reformed or even defunded.
Foreign homeowners who have properties sitting vacant in Canada could soon be hit with a new tax.
The federal government released its budget plan on Monday and, with it, announced a new 1% annual tax on non-resident, non-Canadian owned residential real estate that is either sitting vacant or is considered underused.
“This will help to ensure that foreign, non-resident owners, who simply use Canada as a place to passively store their wealth in housing, pay their fair share,” the budget reads.
Details on what will constitute an “underused” property were not given in the budget proposal.
The new tax would kick in on January 1, 2022, and is expected to rake in around $700 million in the first four years, according to the budget documents. The money earned from the tax will go towards affordable housing investments.
When Doug Ford closed a whole whack of outdoor facilities on Friday, Canada’s scientific and medical community responded with a collective “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sumon Chakrabarti, an infectious disease specialist at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, is one of the experts calling out the province for their lack of data-driven decision making. “The people in our ICUs are not coming there because they spent time in parks,” he says. Here, Chakrabarti tells Toronto Life about what we do need (paid sick days and more time outside), what we learned from last summer’s Trinity Bellwoods bender, and why the current restrictions are just driving actual dangerous behaviour underground.