Military to provide help to Ontario

The federal government will announce this afternoon the provision of military medical personnel to help Ontario's beleaguered health-care system with a third wave of COVID-19.

A senior government official, granted anonymity to discuss matters not yet public, confirmed to The Canadian Press the military will help the struggling province.

The plan involves providing teams of nurses and medical technicians to hospitals and other facilities struggling to keep up with a spike of new infections.

Such teams were deployed into long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec last spring as the first wave of COVID-19 swept across the country.

Military aircraft are also being made available to fly medical professionals from other provinces to Ontario to help with the pandemic.

Today's move follows a formal request for military and Canadian Red Cross assistance by the province.

Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc first announced last week that the military would fly medical personnel from other provinces and territories to Ontario, and that Ottawa would cover the transportation costs.