I suspect there's something artificial about Ontario's case numbers because they no longer match hospitalization and death trends, nor comparable trends in neighbouring Québec.
Thread:
Charts demonstrating covid seasonality.
Neighbouring provinces of Ontario and Québec both peaked at virtually the same time. However, cases trending up again in Ontario - but not in Québec.
On the contrary, hospitalizations in both provinces are still trending downward in unison.
Likewise, deaths are also trending downward in both provinces.
Looking closely at Ontario specifically, the uptick in cases since early/mid February doesn't conform at all to the continued decline in hospitalizations and deaths.
Meanwhile in Québec, all three metrics continue to decline.
Here we have the total number of deaths in Canada over the past five years.
Zooming out nationally over the past decade, we see that it's natural for deaths in one year to exceed deaths in the previous year (blue line > 0%). Note that a year of low or negative growth is often followed by a year of much higher growth.
Here we have the chart you saw earlier now expressed as a rate per 100,000 people. Generally, a flatter trend in death rates would suggest that population growth may be a key factor driving growth in total deaths.