Today in history: Oct. 10

Today in history: Oct. 10

1864: The Fathers of Confederation meet in Quebec to discuss the feasibility of a political union of British North America. The 33 delegates from Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. would pass 72 resolutions as an outline to the proposed federal union. These eventually form the core of the 1867 British North America Act.

1911: Sir Robert Borden succeeds Sir Wilfrid Laurier as prime minister of Canada.

1970: Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte is kidnapped by FLQ terrorists in Montreal. He’s found dead a week later.

2011: Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo becomes the all-time passing leader in pro football, breaking Damon Allen’s record of 72,381 yards. (Calvillo would end his career with 79,816 yards.)

2013: Decorated short story author Alice Munro wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Canadian-based writer to secure the honour. The Swedish Academy lauds Munro as a “master of the contemporary short story.”

2013: In a split decision, B.C.’s Court of Appeal reverses a lower court ruling that said Canada’s assisted-suicide ban violates the charter rights of gravely ill Canadians.

Today in history: Oct. 9

Today in history: Oct. 9

1668: Canada’s first institution of higher education, The Quebec Seminary, later called Laval University, is founded by Bishop Francois de Laval.

1919: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series, 5 games to 3, defeating the Chicago White Sox 10-5 at Comiskey Park. (The victory turns hollow amid charges eight of the White Sox had thrown the Series in what becomes known as the Black Sox scandal.)

1940: “They say it’s your birthday ….” John Lennon, future Beatle, music icon and peace activist, is born in Liverpool, England. 

1963: Prime Minister Lester Pearson announces in the House of Commons that Canada has given the United States permission to store defensive nuclear warheads for jet interceptors at American bases in Newfoundland. 

1984: In 1984, Toronto art student Peter Greyson is sentenced to 89 days in jail for pouring red ink on an original copy of the 1982 Constitution Act to protest the former Liberal government’s decision
to test cruise missiles in Canada.

2006: North Korea sets off its first nuclear test, becoming the eighth country in history to join the club of nuclear weapons states.

2011: The NHL returns to Winnipeg with its first official game in 15 years, and even losing 5-1 to Montreal doesn’t dampen the massive civic celebration.

Vac­ci­na­tion cam­paign starts ear­lier than usual

Flu …

  • Montreal Gazette, Canada
  • Oct 8, 2019
  • A2

Mon­treal pub­lic health au­thor­i­ties are brac­ing for a po­ten­tially vi­cious flu sea­son this year, given that Aus­tralia has just emerged from one that started ear­lier than usual and was more se­vere than ex­pected.

For the first time, nurses will ad­min­is­ter flu shots that pro­tect against four virus strains rather than three to adults.

Pre­vi­ously, only chil­dren re­ceived what are called “quadri­va­lent” shots.

Also this year, au­thor­i­ties will forgo the in­tranasal spray for the stan­dard nee­dle be­cause the spray lacks one of the com­po­nents of this sea­son’s vac­cine.

On Mon­day, the Que­bec Health Min­istry launched an aware­ness cam­paign on the ra­dio aimed at peo­ple who are vul­ner­a­ble to com­pli­ca­tions from the flu, in­clud­ing those suf­fer­ing from di­a­betes, can­cer, a weak­ened im­mune sys­tem as well as heart, lung and kid­ney dis­ease.

The gov­ern­ment is start­ing the pub­lic­ity cam­paign ear­lier than pre­vi­ous years in the hope of boost­ing the num­ber of peo­ple who will get the vac­cine.

Dr. Renée Paré, in charge of im­mu­niza­tion ser­vices for the Mon­treal Pub­lic Health Depart­ment, noted that since flu strains mu­tate each year, vac­cine man­u­fac­tur­ers must con­stantly read­just their vac­cines, some­thing they did this year fol­low­ing the flu in Aus­tralia.

“I don’t know if in Aus­tralia they had the chance to ad­just their vac­cine, but we did suc­ceed in ad­just­ing the vac­cine,” Paré said. “It will surely take into ac­count the strains that have been in cir­cu­la­tion.”

The flu started cir­cu­lat­ing in Aus­tralia two months ear­lier than usual. The num­ber of flu-re­lated deaths was higher than usual, but not alarm­ingly so, epi­demi­ol­o­gists say. And just be­cause Aus­tralia might have had a more se­vere flu sea­son does not mean North Amer­ica will also have a bad one.

Paré sought to dis­miss the myth that the flu vac­cine can ac­tu­ally cause the flu.

“The vac­cine con­tains pieces of dead virus, so we can’t get sick be­cause of the vac­cine it­self,” she ex­plained. “We can have a re­ac­tion to a vac­cine, es­pe­cially the first time we’ve had a vac­cine and our im­mune sys­tem re­acts for a day or two. That’s pos­si­ble. But there are also lots of viruses that cir­cu­late that are not the flu.”

On Nov. 1, the Que­bec gov­ern­ment will be­gin its an­nual flu vac­ci­na­tion cam­paign for vul­ner­a­ble pa­tients.

In Mon­treal, nurses plan to ad­min­is­ter a to­tal of 450,000 doses in nurs­ing homes and CLSC clin­ics.

The shots are free for the fol­low­ing groups:

■ Chil­dren from six months to 17 years old who have cer­tain chronic dis­eases.

■ Adults who have chronic dis­eases (in­clud­ing preg­nant women re­gard­less of the stage of preg­nancy).

■ Preg­nant women in their sec­ond and third trimesters.

■ Peo­ple aged 75 and over.

■ Fam­ily mem­bers who live in the same house­hold as a child un­der six months of age or a per­son who is at a higher risk of be­ing hos­pi­tal­ized.

■ Health care work­ers.

■ Healthy chil­dren from six to 23 months old.

■ Healthy peo­ple from 60 to 74 years old.

Last year, the Health Min­istry at first ex­cluded healthy in­fants and se­niors from free flu shots, but the Coali­tion Avenir Québec gov­ern­ment re­versed that de­ci­sion.

Flu sea­son typ­i­cally lasts from De­cem­ber to March.

The flu shot does not con­fer full­proof pro­tec­tion, and is known to of­fer 20 to 30 per cent pro­tec­tion against the AH3N2 strain, Paré said.

Man­ners are im­por­tant

Manners .. did we forget about them?

  • Montreal Gazette, Canada
  • Oct 1, 2019
  • Section B8

Dear An­nie:
I know that I was raised in the Stone Age.
But some of the things I re­mem­ber sure would be nice ad­di­tions to to­day’s so­ci­ety. They’re called man­ners. I re­call my mother say­ing, “Mind your man­ners.” When­ever she said that, I knew right then what I was do­ing was un­ac­cept­able.

Man­ners were not any­thing writ­ten down. They were learned at home. There was no test to be sure you un­der­stood what to do and not do. There are too many to list, but I have a few ex­am­ples:

  • Don’t eat with your el­bows on the ta­ble.
  • Al­ways say “please” when ask­ing some­one to pass the pota­toes. Then re­ply with a “thank you.”
  • Hold the door for other peo­ple.
  • Don’t dis­rupt some­one who is talk­ing.
  • Learn the phrases “ex­cuse me” and “par­don me” and use them.
  • When meet­ing some­one new, hold out your hand to shake their hand.
  • Don’t talk with your mouth full.
  • Open the car door for ladies. Pull the chair out for ladies to sit at a ta­ble.

Nowa­days, when some­one says, “Mind your man­ners,” all you get is, “What’s a man­ner?” —

Long­ing for Eti­quette Dear Long­ing for Eti­quette:

Thank you for this re­minder about the im­por­tance of man­ners. I’m sure that some young peo­ple know what man­ners are, but those who do not are miss­ing out. Here’s hop­ing that old-fash­ioned man­ners will come back in style just like some names from older gen­er­a­tions have.