The history for this flight is not good - highly susceptible to delays. I'd say a 1hr connection at EWR to a once-a-day international flight is a very risky proposition. When I used to fly via EWR, I always made sure I had at least 2-3 hours of connection time, even for a domestic flight.

I would try (now, or if you don't want to pay the fee, SDC later) to rebook to the very first or second flight from YYZ to EWR on 12/14 and buy a PC pass if you're not a member and spend the afternoon relaxing in the club before your HKG departure.

CO's YYZ staff are very hit and miss - sometimes you get a good agent who upon detecting a misconnect would follow *A rules and might rebook you YYZ-HKG on AC or possibly CX - while you could get one of their grouches who will send you home with a smirk and tell you to call reservations.

I'm very anal about these things connections, but that's me.