Doug Ford shares ‘stay-at-home’ message in 22 languages

By GEOFF ROHOMAN and Dilshad Burman

A week after social media users poked fun at the premier for his French, Doug Ford released a stay-at-home video message in multiple different languages.

In the 50-second video, Ford says “stay at home” in 22 different languages including French, German, Urdu, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Punjabi, Portuguese and Arabic, to name a few.

The video then ends with a caption, “Stay home. Saves lives.”

In a tweet Ford made a little fun of himself saying “no matter what language you speak — or in my case, try to — all of us need to stay home.”

Many in the comments were not amused and asked Ford to answer the calls for paid sick days that have been growing louder over the last two weeks, instead of reiterating an order that many cannot comply with due to a lack of that support.

Ford has said there is no reason for the province to step in and mandate paid sick days when the federal government’s sickness recovery benefit is currently being underused.


RELATED: Debate over paid sick days continues


Last week, the premier’s tone was far less tongue-in-cheek when he declared a state of emergency and announced a stay-at-home order.

“I hear there’s a little bit of confusion on the order. There is no confusion here, it’s very simple. Stay home, that’s it,” he said at the time. “If you’re questioning, ‘should I go out?’ you got the answer. Stay home. Restay ala maison.”

Ontario is currently recording a seven-day average of over 2,750 cases with a record high of 4,249 on Jan. 8, less than a week before stricter restrictions were announced.


RELATED: COVID-19 cases in Ontario could hit 12K per day if U.K. variant spreads: modelling


Recent modelling data predicted daily case counts could hit 12,000 if the U.K. variant of the virus takes hold in the province.

Currently, Ontario has recorded 15 cases of the U.K. variant.

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