In the news today: Trudeau in Poland for Auschwitz anniversary

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

Trudeau in Poland for Auschwitz anniversary

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Krakow, Poland, where leaders from around the world are gathering to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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The notorious Nazi extermination camp is where historians estimate more than one million people, mostly Jews, were killed during the Second World War.

More than six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Before the ceremony, Trudeau is set to meet with Canadian Auschwitz survivors who also made the journey to Poland.

This may be Trudeau’s last major international trip as prime minister before the next Liberal party leader is chosen on March 9.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

Economists expect Bank of Canada to cut rate again

Economic forecasts suggest the Bank of Canada will likely lower its key policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday in light of recent inflation and jobs data, bringing it down to three per cent.

The quarter-point cut would mark a slowdown from the central bank’s two previous supersized cuts. It slashed its key rate by half a percentage point in October and December as inflation hovered at or below its two per cent target.

Canada’s annual inflation rate fell to 1.8 per cent in December, largely on the back of the federal government’s temporary GST tax break.

Statistics Canada said last week that restaurant food purchases and alcohol bought from stores contributed the most to the deceleration in the overall inflation reading. Ottawa introduced a temporary pause on taxes to those items in mid-December, along with other items including children’s clothing and some toys.

Without the tax break, the agency said the annual inflation rate would have risen to 2.3 per cent.

Verdict expected for former Calgary councillor

A judge is expected to hand down his verdict today on whether a former Calgary city councillor is guilty of fraud and breach of trust.

Joe Magliocca is accused of lying on travel expense claims between October 2017 and December 2019.

He named politicians from across the country, including a Quebec cabinet minister, Ontario’s NDP leader and the mayor of Halifax, but they testified they had never met the councillor.

Concerns over Magliocca’s spending were raised after an investigation found he had spent double what other Calgary councillors had at the 2019 Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Quebec City.

Magliocca, the former councillor for Ward 2 in the city’s northwest, was charged with fraud and breach of trust just days before the 2021 municipal election, in which he lost his seat.

Chinese Canadians recall pandemic ridicule, racism

In early 2020, Lili Wu was already “armed to the teeth” whenever she ventured to public places near her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C. — face mask, sanitizer, protective eyewear and gloves.

It was more than a month before the World Health Organization’s March declaration of a global pandemic that introduced most other Canadians to concepts like masking and social distancing.

But for Wu and many other members of Canada’s Chinese-speaking communities, the outbreak that was exploding out of Wuhan, China, did not seem like a distant problem around the start of the Lunar New Year.

Almost five years on from the official start of the pandemic, Chinese Canadians are reflecting on how their early precautions were met with confusion, ridicule and hostility.

But their measures, including masking and avoiding crowds, would eventually become accepted as key strategies.

Prescribe exercise to older patients: researchers

Bob Bursach has worked with professional athletes over the course of his career as a personal trainer — but these days, he’s focused on helping seniors make exercise part of their lives.

“The first thing that they notice is that (their) strength is coming back,” said Bursach, who is 82 and lives in Toronto.

His oldest client is a 96-year-old woman he trains twice a week.

Bursach attributes his good health and youthful appearance to his near-daily workouts. He enjoys seeing his clients improving their quality of life through exercise — such as when they realize they can get up from lying down without taking his hand or using a chair for assistance.

Regular physical activity is critical to improving health at any age, including people in their 80s and 90s — and doctors should be prescribing it more often to their oldest patients, a new paper published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal says.

Physicians sometimes worry more about the risk of injury than the benefits of exercise for seniors with chronic conditions, who are considered frail or who might be at risk of falling, said lead author Dr. Jane Thornton, Canada Research Chair in Injury Prevention and Physical Activity for Health at Western University.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2025.

The Canadian Press