>>Mayor Tory: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
We will actually start today's briefing prior to the briefing itself by joiningCanadians across the country in observing a moment of silence to honourthe victims of the tragedy in Nova Scotia.
The National Police Federation inpartnership with the RCMP is asking citizens to pause today at this time andobserve a moment of silence while wearing red.
That two-minute moment of silence begins now.
< two-minute moment of silence > >>Brad: Thank you.
Welcome to the City of TorontoCOVID-19 media briefing for Friday April 24, 2020, joining us today is Mayor John Tory, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health Dr.
Eileen de Villa and TorontoCity Manager Chris Murray who is here to answer any questions you may have.
We'll start with Mayor Tory.
>>Mayor Tory: Good afternoon again and thank you Brad.
We have now been in the midst of this fight against COVID-19 for almost afull six weeks.
That is the period of time that has passed since the variousmeasures began to be put in place and life for many many people in fact almosteverybody across the city began to change.
All those changes were based onPublic Health's advice to protect the health of our city and to save lives.
Six weeks later, your hard work and sacrifices have saved thousands of livesand we have reason for 'cautious optimism' something we did not have when thisbegan.
In fact some of the earlier projections that were put in front of meand others by the Medical Officer of Health were really very very grim untilall of you joined this fight.
Our goal throughout this emergency is to protectthe health of Toronto and save as many lives as we can in the face of alittle-known but terribly deadly virus.
I also want to thank at this opportunetime Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Doug Ford for working with usthroughout this crisis to do just that protect health and save lives.
Today, the Prime Minister announced another example of the government's working together andthat was the commercial rent relief plan.
I have been advocating for businesses toget help with their rent from the other governments and I'm glad to see thatcall has been answered by both the government of Canada and the governmentof Ontario which worked together to develop this program which will help somany landlords and through that will help so many of the tenants who are theshops and the businesses and the restaurants and the bars and other smallbusinesses that need this help.
This is a good plan I believe it will provide realrelief and I hope that many of the businesses that are struggling right nowin our city will get that relief and it will allow them to hang on until suchtime as better days are upon us.
Today, Premier Fordalso announced the five private long-term care homes that will getsupport from the Canadian Forces.
Three of those private long-term careresidences are here in Toronto and I want to thank Premier Ford and theGovernment of Ontario for making this request for assistance and I want tothank the Canadian forces in the Government of Canada for making surethat this life-saving help can be provided.
I also want to thank each andevery person in our city all of these people doing the right thing – stayinghome as much as possible, keeping their distance from others when they do go out, and if they do develop symptoms or are diagnosed with COVID-19 self isolating.
I heard Dr.
Mitch on Newstalk 1010 this morning acknowledged that manyresidents are bored now but that's a good thing, it means these measures areworking.
I would rather be bored than be sick.
I'm sure most of you wouldrather be bored than be sick.
But I recognize that people are also becomingincreasingly focused on when life will be able to go back to normal or as closeto normal as we're going to get.
We've been focused on the health emergency butalso working to protect the economy now and map out a safe sensible healthyrestart and recovery program.
I'm proud to announce today that Saad Rafi willlead the Toronto Office of Recovery and Rebuild.
He is already at work developingour post-COVID plan and is working with Dr.
David Mowat who is guiding thehealth strategy.
These two individuals I can tell you that we have found thebest one-two punch you could possibly find to make sure we have the best planthe most well thought-through plan and the plan that is going to protect healthat one in the same time in the best way we possibly could.
Over the last 30 years, Mr.
Rafi has worked in both the public and the private sectors, includingseveral very senior leadership roles in the Government of Ontario, government hewill be working with very closely in this endeavor he was the CEO of theToronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Games, where he worked extensively with Toronto andthe other GTHA municipalities to deliver successfully the largest multi-sportevent in Canadian history.
You can see the kind ofdetail that was involved in that will be something very helpful to us as we goabout developing and implementing this plan.
I am confident that he can and hewill get this plan done at wartime speed and we need that because we need Torontobackup and safely working with good health at the foremost one of ourconsiderations as soon as we possibly can and this will be no easy task butit's something that I've asked Mr.
Rafi to develop guided by the public healthadvice of Dr.
Mowat.
I'll have more to say about Dr.
Mowat in just a moment.
Toronto's Office of Recovery and Rebuild will report to our City Manager ChrisMurray with a mandate of: first, delivering the City's recoverystrategies and actions making sure they are based on evidence, transparency, accountability and best practices from other jurisdictions.
Second, making surethe municipal government itself emerges from the pandemic more efficient, moreeffective and more resilient than ever.
It is going to be crucially importantfor us that as we recover and as we renew ourselves government citygovernment not be in the way.
Third, working with all governments with the nonprofit sector and with the private sector to support economic and communitygrowth including the full implementation of stimulus strategies and prioritiesand delivering on the city's own continuing priorities.
You know, when itcomes to this plan and the development of it and more importantly theimplementation of it there is no on/off switch the plan will take a phasedapproach we will communicate this plan as widely as we can to residents andbusinesses as soon as it is ready so everyone knows the path of our recoveryjust as we will have to consult in advance on the details of that path andof that plan.
We know the things we know in government and we know the things wedon't know as well as those will be directly affected by this plan.
Throughout this emergency, we have also followed the advice of our public healthprofessionals including in particular our Medical Officer of Health dr.
Eileen de Villa and that will very much guide all of our planning work and all of ourrestart and recovery work.
Dr.
Mowat who I mentioned earlier is a former ChiefMedical Officer of Health for the Province of Ontario who brings to thisrole more than 30 years of leadership at all threelevels of government.
He will lead a multi-disciplinary team of Toronto PublicHealth staff with expertise in epidemiology, policy analysis, publichealt, and stakeholder relations.
This team will review current evidence toinform city officials to guide recovery decision-making.
Becauseeverything will be guided by considerations of Public Health andmaking sure people stay healthy and that we don't fall back after the success wewill have enjoyed by the time we get to implementing this plan.
Dr.
Mowat – who hasworked on emergencies such as SARS, H1N1 Influenza and Ebola – will also provideconsultation on when and how the City can reopen local businesses andcommunity facilities.
When exactly we restart the City depends on each andevery one of us right now.
We are very much still waging war against this virus.
As dr.
de Villa will tell you and as we here every day in her update, lives arestill at risk and we cannot take our foot off the gas when it comes to ourcollective efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The efforts that so many of youare making right now and that you will hopefully continue to make this weekendto stop the spread of COVID-19 will make this great restart happen as soon aspossible.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I launched the Mayor's EconomicSupport and Recovery Task Force.
I want to thank a number of my CityCouncil colleagues including Deputy Mayor Michael Thompson who heads up theeconomic development portfolio all of them have been working on that taskforce and focusing on individual areas of the Toronto economy.
Their ongoingwork will be crucial to this overall recovery plan.
I'm very glad we'vebeen consulting extensively and doing a lot of this work to developrecommendations that can be put into the hands of Mr.
Rafi and others as theyactually flesh out this plan.
Any hope of rebuilding Ontario and Canada's economyrests heavily on Toronto's economy successfully restarting and stronglyrecovering.
You might expect me to say that as the Mayor of Toronto but thefacts indicate that I'm simply speaking the truth Toronto androse economy are the economic engines of this country.
We want to play a proudrole in seeing the whole country recover and do as well as it can and ourrecovery here is going to be crucial to making that happen.
We're all focused now on fighting COVID-19, it is heartening toknow that Mr.
Rafi and Dr.
Mowat will be doing the important work that needs tobe done and that needs to be ready when we come to the closing chapters of thiswar.
As I've said many times, Toronto success is Ontario success andCanada success and we're proud of the fact that we can play a role that we'vegot what it takes here to play a role to make sure it helps everybody in thecountry to recover from this trauma I am confident that Toronto with the help ofMr.
Rafi and Dr.
Mowat will meet this challenge.
Although pedestrian traffic has dropped dramatically across the city there are hot spots on somesidewalks in some areas and I've asked through previous encounters with themedia that people should let us know where some of those are and ourtransportation staff have been doing research in that regard as well.
We are working with Toronto Public Health they've been very much involvedin this and with our transportation services department to identify keyhotspots where there are line ups or pinch points on sidewalks that need tobe addressed.
We will roll out a plan early next week to address that.
In themeantime, I do want to make good on a promise that I made to a Metro morninglistener on CBC this morning who asked that we urge people who are out walkingon our sidewalks to be courteous to others.
While Dr.
de Villa advises that therisk of catching the virus from someone when momentarily passing them on thesidewalk is essentially non-existent, people still should be mindful of othersand remember that we're all anxious right now.
We're all trying very hard to engage in physical distancing so that means just showing basic courtesyon the sidewalk stepping to one side to let others pass or getting the kids andeven the dog to walk in more of a single-file and not take up the entiresidewalk.
This is a time when we have to continue to be good to each other and Iknow the vast majority of people are doing that.
It's interesting and I'm sureyou've noticed as I have that people seem a lot friendlier right nowwhen you do come across them even if they're complete strangers and there's asense that even though we're all asked to keep our distance and not tosocialize that we're all in this together.
Our Clean Toronto Togethercampaign was supposed to be underway it's really something that tells youwe've begun the real part of spring when the weather is much nicer which is whatit's supposed to be at the end of April but the spring cleanup itself the formalprogram that the city runs with many of you as volunteers was canceled or atleast postponed because of COVID-19.
But we still need to do a spring cleanup ofthe city.
So I'm happy to also announce today that a targeted springcleanup will take place across Toronto over the next few weeks starting rightaway.
The city's been working hard to keep public spaces clean and safe.
Staff are now out as they have been for some days now picking up litter emptyingstreets and park waste bins and sweeping streets.
That work will intensify inthe coming days when winter comes to end there's always a lot more work to dothings that have been hidden by the snow.
I don't think that we're looking ourbest these days and it's something that the staff will begin to deal with in anintensive way and I hope that we'll be able to postpone and reschedule thevolunteer cleanup that so many of you get involved in.
The City's annual springcleanup activities include and these are the things we'll be getting at in a moreintensive way with our wonderful staff starting now, illegal dumping cleanup, Boulevard and lane way cleaning, litter and debris removal in parks, fence-linelitter clearing, and street sweeping in order to clean up dirt and debris fromToronto's streets.
This is often people have asked me by the way, why we have thestreet sweepers out and one of the answers to that is it clears away thedebris that can block the drains and when the rains come in April and May andon this can cause flooding and so we do that for that reason among others.
If there's a particular spot on public property that needs some attentionplease call 3-1-1 and let us know.
I want to say thank you to our frontlinecrews who will be out there doing this important work while still respectingphysical distancing.
There's been an increase in the littering that has beencaused to by people throwing down items of personal protective equipment, masksand gloves in Toronto's public spaces.
This type of littering in particular isvery troubling because of the fact that in we're short of that not that youreuse it but it just seems like something very ill-advised to do tothrow it down on the ground.
It's unacceptable.
It's a $500 fine if you getcaught doing it this is the littering and fine that applies all the time butyou know we don't want to issue tickets we just want people to stop engaging inthat sort of behavior be considerate use the waste receptacles that are providedat the places where you're using the PPE.
I want to say thank you to the residentswho've taken it upon themselves to clean up some of this later when they see itin parking lots and on the street.
My office received an email from a mannamed Graeme the other day and he was out picking up litter while he waswalking his dog and he talks about the fact that he'd heard that the cityclean-up day was cancelled but he couldn't help himself because no oneseemed to have told the litter about that so he said during his morningwalk he started to clean things up himself and I hope other people willtake the initiative on a formal clean-up day otherwise to do just that soGraeme, thank you for showing that leadership and for emailing meto tell me what you were doing.
This is a great city with great residents.
It''s great in so many respects the world looks at us and just says howlucky we are to live here and it's not all good luck it's been because we'vemade an effort to make sure that the values that are really at the foundationof how we live and the way that we look after the most vulnerable and so on arejust a feature of how we live here and we're going to get through this pandemicthanks to the strength of the residents thanks to you complying with thethings you're advised to do, thanks to you those values which see us supportingeach other and in particular looking after the most vulnerable in our city.
It's something that I come to appreciate every single day that I have theprivilege of being the Mayor of the City those values the way people do supporteach other the way they come together to do what has to be done to get through atough time.
I hope everybody has a good weekend – I know that with the weathergetting better it is not easy to stay home as Dr.
de Villa will continue toadvise us all to do and to keep our distance from other people in thetemptation to start socializing is a much greater but this is exactly whatneeds to be done in order to conquer COVID-19 and get on with the recoveryand rebuild that we're hard at work planning.
I look forward with Mr.
Murrayand with Mr.
Rafi and with Dr.
Mowat to telling you more about that plan inthe days ahead the day we roll it out partly depends on you.
It depends on youa lot as a matter of and how much you continue to do some ofthe things that you've been doing that have made such a contribution so far.
Let's show this virus a thing or two with self discipline and self distancingthat's what it will take to take us to the treasure at the end of the rainbowwhich is just getting back to life in this great city.
Thank you very much andit is now my pleasure to introduce Dr.
Eileen de Villa our Medical Officer ofHealth for her report for today >>Dr.
de Villa: Thank you Mayor Tory and good afternooneveryone.
As of 9 o'clock this morning there are 4486 cases of COVID-19 in Toronto.
This includes 4048 confirmed cases and 438 probable cases.
Thereare 300 people in hospital, 113 of whom are in intensive care units.
Sadly wecontinue to see COVID-19 deaths in our community and to date 238 people havedied of this virus in our city Our thoughts are with those who have lostloved ones and those who are recovering from this virus.
I am sincerely lookingforward to working with Dr.
David Mowat in the new city recovery and rebuildrole that Mayor Tory just announced.
I had the great privilege to work directlywith Dr.
Mowat for nearly a decade at Peel Public Health.
We work togetherduring significant public health emergencies and responses including anotable measles outbreak in 2008 and the 2009 H1N1 Influenza pandemic.
I also hadthe opportunity to collaborate with Dr.
Mowat during the Ebola response in 2014 when he was the Chief Medical Officer ofHealth for Ontario and I was the acting Medical Officer of Health for PeelRegion.
On a more personal note Dr.
Mowat has been asignificant mentor to me over the course of my career.
I know from my experiencesworking with him that his deep public health expertise spans all three levelsof government his knowledge and his expertise combined with exceptionalprofessionalism are exactly what we need to effectively guide the critical PublicHealth work of the Toronto office of recovery and rebuild and to help us getback to safely enjoying our city we need to get this right or we run the risk ofprompting another wave of COVID-19.
I truly believe that Dr.
Mowat is the mostqualified person for this role I do appreciate that as the weather getswarmer public health and physical distancing measures become increasinglymore difficult for all of us we all want to get back to enjoying our city withour friends our families and our loved ones but as I said yesterday we arestill in the middle of an unprecedented global health emergency and we need tostay focused on our physical distancing measures in order to win this battle theweekend is upon us and I know many of us want to spend time with friends andloved ones outside but I need to remind you that it continues to be extremelyimportant for us to stay home as much as possible to reduce the spread of thisvirus I encourage you to connect and I encourage you to stay connected withyour loved ones but to do so virtually or by phoneyour actions these actions will help us to get our city back and it will help usto save lives thank you again for everything that you are doing to protectour city the only way we are going to get to the other side of this pandemicis to continue to stay home stay safe and take care of each other thank you>>Brad: Thank you Dr.
de Villa.
Before we go to questions just a reminder to limit yourquestions to two is there are several questioners on the line and just so youknow as well Chief Matthew Pegg is here should you have questions for the Chiefand on the line we have Paul Raftis from Senior Services along from care andMary-Anne Bedard from shelter support and housing the first questionis to Matt Bingley from Global News >>Matt: just when it comes to the recoveryeffort I understand that making sure systems are in place to detect andcontain any new transmissions at COVID-19 are among one of the the toprecommendations so with that being said are you confident in the level oftesting right now available for Toronto that this is is something that the citycan actually do >>Dr.
de Villa: Thanks Matt for the question and just to be clear testing isactually under provincial jurisdiction so it's not so much a question of whatthe city can do we're certainly participating and actively working withour provincial partners on testing but I'm just going to remind everyone thattesting is one method there is case finding writ large that has to be wellestablished so that we can readily identify new cases that they ariseidentify they're close contacts and make sure that we're effectively isolating orquarantine in these individuals if we are to successfully think about easingup on public health measures so again testing is within the provincial purviewthey've made great strides towards increasing testingtesting capacity throughout the province clearly we benefit from that here inToronto and we're engaging regularly with our provincial partners and otherhealth system partners to make sure that everything is in place so that we can besuccessful as we think about recovery and rebuild and I know it is very earlydays but when you look at whatever type of city it is when it reopens do youlook at us basically acting like it's flu season for the next foreseeable oreven the remainder of the year well I think we are still very much asyou say in the early days of our you know thinking about recovery andrebuilding our city and I think that when we look at influenza and itspatterns and and how it moves through a city it is different from what we'reseeing with COVID-19 certainly there are lessons that we can learn from influenzabut we also have learned a lot of lessons around how best to manage kovat19 in our city from experiences from other jurisdictions and our ownexperiences so there will be elements I think of the influenza response thatyou'll see infectious disease control principles apply to both influenza andCOVID-19 but I suspect that you will see some differences as well and I'll lookforward to speaking with you and other members of the public around what thatlooks like specifically as we develop those plans >>Brad: thank you next questiongoes to Francine köppen from the Toronto Star >> Francine: My question is for Mary-Anne Bedard I'm looking at the number of cases atWillowdale on the chart that's posted and you know with the city with thepublic house and the number of the cases right now is 60 in the table when welearned earlier this week that it was 110 and I'm wondering howyou can explain that discrepancy >>Mary-Anne: there yes and maybe I'll get Dr.
de Villato add on to my answer my understanding is that the the public health data isupdated when they've been able to verify the resulttesting that was done at Willowdale was coordinated through North York Generaland the results were given directly to the agency and to the clients and thenwith a partnership with public health Bay Co and we also received thoseresults and thereby the findings and that's when the information gets updatedokay someone has tweeted us a question that pointing out that the site forpeople from shelters who have tested positive COVID-19, 200 room siteis full and another 400 bed site has been cancelled is that accurate?>>May-Anne: no that's that's completely inaccurate the 200 bed facility that we currentlyhave active has 130 people up there currently as of thismorning so we continue to have space at that site and we are actively engagedwith our community health partners on an expanded site and working very closelywith the province to ensure that that site gets opened very quickly >>Brad: we will go to Siobhan Morris now from News Talk 1010 >>Siobhan: my questions are for the Mayor The positions you're asking Mr.
Rafi and Dr.
Mowat to take on are these paid positions with a salary or their othercosts involved at all in their work and if so how much are we talking? < Murray I'm sure canelaborate if he wishes they will work with public servants that we have herewe have many capable public servants here but we needed to people steeped inexperience in Mr. Rafi's case in a very detailed sort of organizational planningand we couldn't take away any of our very capable for example deputy citymanagers to do that because they've got their hands full and then we neededsomebody to allow Dr. de Villa to continue to concentrate on managing the publichealth emergency as she has been doing so well to continue to focus on that butsomebody of great stature in public health to beable to work hand in glove with mr. Ravi to take into account the public healthconsiderations which are going to be paramount in deciding how we go aboutdoing this so I think we're just so lucky to have two people of thisdistinction and with the two sets of abilities put together I think we willhave a plan working with the province and the federal government that is goingto be absolutely second to none >>Siobhan: Can you expand on the idea of I'm just I'mstruggling to understand and I think a lot of other people will why thesepositions are necessary you have you know very capable doctor and Dr. Eileende Villa you have, you know economic development staff there Deputy CityManagers we said are busy but like why is it that this work cannot be donewithin the existing structure especially in a moment where you know by your ownadmission Toronto's in a tough economic spot and people are worried about thefuture of their jobs worried about the future of city services >>Mayor Tory: you knowcompared to what's at stake here the amount of money that's going to beinvolved in in executing this exercise is going to be tiny indeed but as Dr. de Villasaid as I've said we've got to get this right it's got to be it's in aplan that is incredibly complex. If you think of restarting an economy in a city of 3 million people with all that goes withthat in terms of all the businesses and the public transit and public servicesthat might have been altered by this emergency and the fact is I can assureyou personally because I see them every single day that everybody from the citymanager to the medical officer of health to the deputy city managers to thepolice chief to the fire chief I could go right down the list they are fullyoccupied managing the biggest emergency probably this city has ever faced thebiggest economic shock and financial shock gets ever faced so to bring in twopeople on a very short-term basis who have very particular sets of expertiseto lead this exercise that is the responsible thing to do and I would doit a hundred times out of a hundred because that's what's necessary to getthis right and I'm determined to make sure we get this right that peopleexpect that they want the best plan they want it as soon as possible and that'sexactly what we're gonna deliver for them. >>Brad: City Manager, if he wants add >>Chris: Today the only thing I can add to that is you need people who are going to be24/7 on this task and and I can certainly say and it was pointed outalready that the two gentlemen that were engaging here are extremely wellrespected all levels of government and well-respected within this communityso I think to be able to in relatively short notice to secure to very seniorpeople who have our full confidence notwithstanding what the Mayor's alreadypointed out you know the other duties that we are assigned to make sure thatthe city operates as well as it can given the circumstances it is it's inour interest to have people who are not just skilled but have relationships withupper levels of government because I can tell you this phase that we're in isprobably the most important phase not taking anything away from the responsebut how we recover how we rebuild and really the goal of this is to make surethat that we're saving livelihoods and to make this kind of investment withthis quality of individuals to me certainly is the responsible thing to do>>Brad: Thank you Chris. we'll go now to Dave Ryder from the Toronto Star >>Dave: I just following on line for us exactly what her responsibilities are going to begoing forward versus Dr. Mowat it's just a little because she's been the publicface of this fight and now we're told oh now it's he's going to do this otherthing I'm hoping you can just tell us exactly what those roles are and howthey're different >>Dr. de Villa: Sure so as you can well imagine there is a significant role for Toronto Public Health in managing the next steps clearly we've been veryactively engaged on kovat response but recovery and rebuild are importantcomponents as we've just heard from Mayor Tory and Chris Murray our citymanager and what's interesting is that of course recovery and response are notindependent but they are inextricably intertwined and they must work well witheach other to say nothing of the fact that in fact there are otherresponsibilities that Public Health has to the people of this cityso in fact we have a whole other set of responsibilities and obligations we needto make sure that we discharge to the people of this good city so taking intoconsideration all three of those aspects I will overseeand continue to provide leadership to COVID recovery and rebuilt plus covertresponse and all the other aspects that we need to make sure are being welltaken care of and well managed on behalf of the city these are all importantportfolios and you will continue to see me being actively engaged on all threeof those portfolios >>Dave: my follow-up question I think also to Dr. de Villaunless somebody else knows is just if there's any update on kind of the othermore serious epidemic if there's kind of two of them in Toronto the generalpopulation in long-term care homes if there's anything new on the long-termcare home or if we're still seeing large numbers of new deaths and new infections?>>Dr de Villa: so you know at a very high level we are continuing to see cases and deathsindeed within the long-term care setting I think as we know that a certainproportion of cases particularly when we're talking about those that occurwithin long-term care because you have an older population with chronic healthconditions we anticipate that as you see cases there which will we will see moreof given increased testing efforts that you will continue to see deathsunfortunately occur in those settings I do think it's important that thosetesting efforts occur and I do think it's important and we're seeing a reallyremarkable collaboration across the board whether we're talking about localpublic health staff within long-term care settings the healthcare systemincluding acute care partners really coming to the fore and as we've justheard from Mayor Tory with the provincial government and they're askedand the response from the federal government we're getting support fromthe military as well in three particular homes in this city that are runprivately so these are the kinds of activities that are happening nowimportant activities in order to make sure that we do the very best we can toserve those vulnerable residents throughout our city in long-term care homes>>Brad: thank you will now go to Marie-Helene Ratelle from Radio Canada>>Marie-Helene: good afternoon Mayor Tory I was wondering if you made itcity has made a decision about the summer programs and camps because we'veheard from some parents that they have received a refund for activities thatwere planned in July so I was wondering if you could give some more informationabout that >>Mayor Tory: it may well be the case that some of the programs in respect to whichyour parents receive refunds stretched into July because those were our springprograms with respect to the summer programs no decision has been made asyet and it is something we discussed this morning and we're going to it's oneof those things that will lapse into the time when the work of the recovery andreopening group will be you know applying some of its public healthexpertise and we'll have to look at the administrative aspects of it so nodecision has been taken but I think we're all aware of the fact that thosedecisions have to be taken fairly soon simply because parents are making theirplans we have to hire and train the people that run those camps who arepermitted are primarily students and others and so we know that the time isupon us we're looking quite frankly at whether there are ways with the adviceof public health you could run those camps a bit differently with say morestaff because you have two kids or kids and to have them keep a physicaldistancing rules in mind when they're running around in the summer having agood time is a big challenge so those are the kinds of things that we'retaking a look at we'll have a decision on that soon >>Marie-Helene: for my fuller follow-upI was wondering if you could tell us when are you hoping to share your planto the public about the different stages about lifting the measures there we knowthat Premier Ford just said this afternoon that he's planning to presentthe provincial plan next week when is it for this city? >>Mayor Tory: we're working very closelywith them for example public health Toronto Public Health has representedabout the table with the province we're talking all the time I'm talking withthe premier Mr. Murray's talking with his counterparts I'm sure as Mr. Rafigets settled in he too will be talking with his counterparts and we're going tobe trying to make sure that what we outline in terms of our plans are notonly plans that aren't radically different from that of the provincealthough Toronto is its own City with its own challenges but that we try to doas many of these things as possible in in some degree of tandem with themsimply so that people don't get confused and so that we all keep up on the samesort of pace so you'll hear more from us Mr. Rafi and Dr. Mowat have begun their work and they've got other people helping them inthe public service so we will let people know as soon as possible or certainlynot trying to delay notifying people of anything is just a matter of getting itdone properly so that whatever we outline is communicated properly and hasthought through the inevitable questions that come from yourselves and fromothers once you make these are important announcements and important frameworksso we're going to get it right and we'll have further word I'm sure in the daysahead >>Brad: Thank you. Go to Mark Douglas now from 680 News >>Mark: thank you Brad. Mayor Tory, Mr. Rafi and Dr. Mowat approached the city to take these rolesor did your office seek them out and I'm wondering if there were any othercandidates who were considered to lead the charge to rebuild the city>>Mayor Tory: We approached them it was one of those instances I think as you've heard fromthe background of these two people that as the names were put forward indiscussion of different people that could take on these two very importantassignments these two people stuck out as being exceptionally well qualifiedmr. Rafi has worked in the Ontario government which is going to be veryvery important to work in coordination with them and he knows many of thepeople he's run a very sophisticated multi multidisciplinary endeavor thatwent very successfully the Pan Am Games so he's known to the city as well andhe's a very experienced executive and Dr. Mowat you've heard from Dr. de Villais one of the most experienced public health executives in all of Canada andso to have those two available for us it's an honor to be able to take theminto our midst and have them provide these leadership roles so we approachthem and thank goodness they both said yes I think almost without much hesitation>>Mark: follow-up question and at the risk of repeating it like my colleaguesthe questions you just asked is there a deadline for Mr. Rossi and Dr. Mowatand in their rebuilding plan or is this going to be a take as long I think it'sjust that it was taken long heated situation and and also just logisticalhow many staff are helping about this massive project >>Mayor Tory: All that Mr. Murrayanswer the the second part of the question with respect to the question ofa deadline we got to get this fine ready as soon as we can but it's moreimportant that we get it right and we have to be in a position where in termsof our accountability for all kinds of things when Dr. de Villais that happy day where she's able to report to us that all of the numbers arein such a position that we can start a process of rebuilding then it's our jobto have a plan ready as of that day so that we know what's the first thing tohappen when's it going to happen what's the second thing to happen and and allthat sort of thing so the answer is as soon as possible and the actualimplementation though nobody knows the data because that's really dependent onhow well we all do to fight this virus to the ground and then we can get onwith the implementation plan but we got to have a plan ready for that. You want to talk about the staff? >>Chris: Sure. in terms of number of staff between the public health function and the function that Mr. Rafi is going to look afterwe're in the order of about 30 to 40 people and again the bulk of thosepeople are obviously within the City of Toronto and but let's not lose sight ofthe fact that we've actually been working on the recovery for actuallysome time I mean there the Mayor points out some good work that was done by histask force in gathering information from the community in terms of differentsectors of our of our community which helped us I think in in terms of theresponse but also has given us some information as to what would be usefulfrom a recovery standpoint as well we've been our selves gathering informationfrom around the world so countries provinces in fact cities that are aheadof us in terms of recovery so all of that information is being funneled intothe office and and with the staff that are very senior in position within ourorganization so it's not like either gentleman is working without adequate context>>Brad: thank you. Final question to Pfizer from City News >>Pfizer: Good afternoon everybody I wanted to touch a little bit on the rent relief forcommercial businesses I'm sure a lot of these business owners are happy to hearabout this relief but with the first of the month just around the corner I'msure there are a lot of renters here in the City of Toronto who also have thesame question about whether or not they'll be seeing this same kind ofrelief especially as April first came we did see some issues relating to thathave you spoken with the province or have is this a discussion that has beenhad with other levels of government >>Mayor Tory: for myself we've had discussions aboutthe residential sector and we have of course you know bothlobbied for but also responded very positively to the ban on evictions thatwas put in place by the provincial government early on the notion ofresidential rent relief which came predictablyfairly quickly after the program was announced today for the businesses andfor the small businesses in particular is something that has been discussedonly at a very top level and I think what people wanted to see was the degreeto which there could be deferral and other kinds of arrangements put in placeacross the board and and how big of a problem this turned out to be in thecontext of you know what percentage of people had been dislocated to the pointwhere they couldn't pay the rent and this kind of thing but I will just saythere hasn't been an intensive discussion as there had been withrespect to businesses in part because the matter of eviction of businessesfrom their premises for a non-payment of rent was left open so there were in factas people saw I'm sure through the news media businesses that were being evictedfrom their premises so the notion of doing something to backstop them becamea necessity since the provincial government decided not to abandon thoseevictions so I'm sure that as we go on we're gonna be discussing many morecategories of people I can assure you from the meeting of the big city mayorsthat took place last night by teleconference we were discussing withfederal government ministers the whole range of areas that while they've helpedin many areas and I commend them for the strength and and and depth of theprograms they brought forward there are still many other areas includingmunicipalities that need help transit being another example so all of theseareas are interactive discussion knowing knowing that that it's not that therearen't the resources available to do everything for everybody but that we arecertainly discussing those kinds of priorities. >>Pfizer: I'd like to use the follow-upto us a question on behalf of my colleague and she asked for truckdrivers have been voicing concerns about being unable to use washrooms while onthe road doing their job as this pandemic continues is the city doinganything to help them are there any solutions here >>Mayor Tory: the city has put out anumber of public washrooms that have been I've put out specifically to helppeople who are homeless of people who are in need of using a washroom andcan't find once they might normally have used in apublic building or whatever because those buildings are closed and in factwe expanded the number of those washrooms just within the last week orso and we've also I have a couple of times up here and I'll repeated todayasked a private sector and other concerns restaurants and so on that havestayed open would they please be considerate of people who need to usethe washroom and might ordinarily have public facilities available to them justto allow them to use those facilities because I think again it's back anotherexample of this whole business of how we try to work together and support eachother and so I would hope that people will adopt a reasonable attitude in thatregard we have expanded recently the number of public toilets that have beenput out there portable toilets and we will continue to keep an eye on it tosee if we're doing a job that is adequate given the time that it stillhas to pass before this pandemic is over with and a lot of those public buildings reopen>>Brad: Thank you Mayor Tory. Thank you for tuning in. We will be back here Monday at 3:45. Over the weekend we will update case numbers on both Saturday and Sunday. Stay well everybody. Thank you.
