'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
A new survey suggests about 20 per cent of vaccine-hesitant Canadians would lie about their COVID-19 vaccine history if injections were required for international or domestic travel.
The 2021 Smart Traveller Survey, conducted by the Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada (THIA), found that 14 per cent of Canadians are not interested in getting the vaccine, and among those, about 20 per cent would lie about it if vaccines were a requirement for travel or entry into large events.
Will McAleer, THIA’s executive director and spokesperson, said the number of people willing to lie about their vaccine history is somewhat expected given the amount of people already caught faking documentation to travel during the pandemic.
“We saw a virtual cottage industry in the international travel space with fake COVID-19 tests, the PCR tests that are required in order to get back into the country,” he said in a recent phone interview with CTVNews.ca. “All around the globe, there were fake ones popping up just so people could travel.”
As recently as May, news emerged that two travellers were slapped with $9,000 in combined fines after presenting COVID-19 test results upon arrival at the Toronto airport, while other travellers have also been fined and charged after presenting fake documents while trying to enter Canada.
The survey also found that 31 per cent of unvaccinated Canadians would get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were required for international travel.
McAleer said this information could be useful when it comes to getting more Canadians vaccinated.
“What we're saying is it could be an interesting way for the government to use a good carrot approach to getting people vaccinated by just saying: ‘Hey, look, in order to travel, you're going to need to provide proof of vaccination,’” he said.
“If it's a reality out there among many of the countries Canadians travel to, it makes sense for government to recognize that and to leverage it as best they can.”
Several countries, including Greece, Denmark, France, the Bahamas and Barbados, already require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative COVID-19 test for entry. Newfoundland and Labrador is also preparing to allow fully vaccinated Canadians into the province beginning on July 1.
“What we're seeing is there is a swift and full movement toward this type of proof in various forms,” McAleer said. “It's likely that they're going to be some digital technologies that get put in place. The Canadian government and provincial governments are going to have to figure out how we get our proof of vaccines.”
Vaccine proof for international travel is nothing new. Most African and Asian countries already require proof of vaccination against yellow fever before entering, depending from where the traveller is arriving.
Other parts of the world also require proof of vaccination against polio and meningococcal meningitis.
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Rookie goalie Arturs Silovs will start in net for the Canucks as Vancouver kicks off a second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.