The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

A pair of pop-up vaccination clinics have been scheduled for the coming days in Hamilton to provide second doses of Moderna vaccine to those 80 and older.

The clinics are scheduled for Sunday at Ancaster Rotary Centre and Monday at Saltfleet Community Centre in Stoney Creek.

ALSO: More contagious COVID-19 variant prompts calls for two-dose coverage in hardest-hit areas

GUEST: Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Chief Medical Officer of Health for the City of Hamilton

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Air passengers entering Canada who refuse to quarantine in a designated hotel will soon be subject to a $5,000 fine.

The federal government has announced that, starting Friday, international air passengers who decline to take their required COVID-19 tests or who refuse to check into a quarantine hotel could be hit with a $5,000 fine for each offence — a $2,000 increase from the current fine.

GUEST: Saibal Ray, James McGill Professor of Operations Management at the Desautels Faculty of Management and the Academic Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management

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The United States unveiled details of its first global donations of COVID-19 vaccines Thursday, with plans to ship 19 million doses through the COVAX vaccine-sharing alliance, and another six million doses directly to neighbours, including Canada, and countries experiencing pandemic surges.

The offer comes as Canada’s vaccine rollout is nearing the best in the world, and at the same time as pressure is mounting on the Canadian government to start sharing some of its COVID-19 vaccines as well.

Canada isn’t producing any COVID-19 vaccines of its own, but has been criticized for not sharing any doses of imported vaccines.

“By August, Canada will have enough to fully vaccinate its entire population,” reads a statement signed by 32 agencies and organizations, including the Canadian arms of One, UNICEF, World Vision, the Mennonite Central Committee, Canadian Council of Imams and the Anglican Council of Indigenous People.

The groups joined together Thursday to pressure Canada to donate to COVAX four million doses by the end of June – one-tenth of the doses Canada expects to have delivered by then – and then to donate up to 94 million excess doses by the end of the year.

GUEST: Reggie Cecchini, Washington Correspondent for Global News

With many working from home and likely to continue doing so in the future, should remote workers be given the right to disconnect? The Government of Canada is currently reviewing this option and other countries, such as France, have already gone through with the change. Technology has made it easier to stay connected with work at all hours, and many are feeling the consequences of this. Constantly keeping up with emails and work messages can lead to burnout, anxiety, stress and even depression.

GUEST: Kiljon Shukullari, HR Expert with Peninsula Canada

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

Premier Doug Ford has announced that Ontario schools won’t reopen to in-person learning until September.

Ford made the announcement alongside Education Minister Stephen Lecce and Health Minister Christine Elliott Wednesday afternoon.

Ford said that modelling shows “thousands” of new cases would arise as a result of reopening schools before more teachers and students are vaccinated.

The news comes despite Ford and Lecce repeatedly insisting in the past that schools are safe and students should be in class as much as possible.

But they changed their tune after closing classrooms in April, pointing the finger at more contagious variants of COVID-19 that first made their way to Canada in late December and early January.

GUEST: Harvey Bischof, President of OSSTF (Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation)

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There’s no decision yet as to whether the city will accept $3.4 billion in federal and provincial funding to build a 14-kilometre light rail transit (LRT) line from McMaster University to Eastgate Square.

City Councillors were expected to vote on a motion Wednesday that would direct staff to work with Metrolinx and the province on a memorandum of understanding for the project.

Instead, members of the general issues committee deferred Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger’s motion until June 16, when they hope to know more about the financial impact of day-to-day operating and maintenance costs.

GUEST: Chad Collins, City Councillor, Ward 5

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The discovery of 215 children’s remains in an unmarked burial site in British Columbia has revived discussion about the residential school system, which international law experts say was a genocide against Indigenous Peoples.

Ryerson University law professor Pamela Palmater said the definition of genocide in the United Nations’ convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide applies to Canada’s actions.

She said the convention states that a genocide is committed when members of a group are killed, subjected to serious physical or mental harm, put in conditions to destroy them, become victims to measures intended to prevent births or have their children forcibly transferred to another group.

Canada only needs to be guilty of one of the five acts in the UN convention, with the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, to commit genocide under international law, Palmater said.

Could Canada face legal consequences?

GUEST: Bruno Gelinas-Faucher, Law Professor at the University of Montreal and a PhD candidate in International Law at the University of Cambridge