Adalsteinn Brown

Large parts of Canada are starting to hunker down, with new restrictions coming into effect as a fifth wave of COVID-19 fuelled by the Omicron variant saw thousands of new cases across the country over the weekend.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Canadians to be cautious over the holidays as the country's two largest provinces started taking steps to slow surging cases of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.

A top science adviser says Ontario is far from in the clear despite a downward trend in COVID-19 cases, while some provinces criticized Ottawa for lower-than-expected vaccine shipments and the pandemic was flagged as an outsized contributor to Quebec's death count last year.

When Kelly Lopes learned back in the spring that the Ontario government was ordering her teenaged children to stay home from school for their own safety but expected them and their parents to continue going to work, fear and anger set in almost immediately.