Canada hauled in four Olympic medals on Monday, bringing its tally to six at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Snowboarder Max Parrot earned Canada’s first gold medal of the Games in men’s snowboard slopestyle, and four ski jumpers earned the country its first-ever Olympic medal in the sport.
Many other Canadian athletes were also in competition on Sunday evening and Monday morning.
Here’s what you may have missed from the overnight competition.
Men’s snowboard slopestyle
Bromont, Que., native Parrot dominated the men’s snowboard slopestyle event on Monday, earning him a gold medal — Canada’s first of the Games.
His teammate Mark McMorris, of Regina, won bronze. Parrot logged a score of 90.96, while McMorris scored 88.53 points. China’s Su Yiming took silver with a score of 88.70.
Sebastien Toutant of L’Assomption, Que., was ninth with a score of 54.00. Toutant won gold in the big air event in 2018, and will defend his title starting Feb. 14.
Silver medallist, Yiming Su, of China, left to right, gold medallist Max Parrot, of Bromont, Que., and fellow Canadian and bronze medallist Mark McMorris, of Regina, celebrate on the podium with their national flags following the men’s slopestyle final at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in Zhangjiakou, China on Feb. 7.
Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Ski jumping
Canada made history on Monday, earning its first Olympic medal in the sport of ski jumping.
It came in the brand new mixed team ski jump event. Olympians Alexandria Loutitt, Abigail Strate, Matthew Soukup and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes, produced an 844.6 score that was good enough to lock in a bronze medal.
Slovenia’s team earned a gold medal finish with a score of 1001.5, while the Russian Olympic Committee won sliver with a score of 890.3.
Historically, Canada’s best finish in a ski jumping event was seventh in men’s individual large hill by Horst Bulau at the 1988 Games in Calgary.
Canada’s Alexandria Loutitt, left, celebrates with teammates Matthew Soukup, Abigail Strate and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes during the the venue ceremony after winning a bronze in the ski jumping mixed team event at the 2022 Winter Olympics Feb. 7 in Zhangjiakou, China.
Matthias Schrader/AP
Speed skating
Canadian speed-skater Kim Boutin won bronze in the women’s 500 metre speed skating event on Monday.
Boutin, who holds the world record for the fastest time logged in the event, also won bronze in the 500 metre event in the 2018 Games in PyeongChang.
The win is Boutin’s fourth Olympic medal of her career. The The 27-year-old from Sherbrooke, Que., won three medals at the 2018 Games – one silver and two bronze.
Arianna Fontana of Italy, is congratulated by Kim Boutin, centre, of Canada, and Suzanne Schulting, right, of the Netherlands, after winning the final of the women’s 500-meter during the short track speedskating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics Feb. 7 in Beijing.
David J. Phillip/AP
Mixed curling
Canada won’t defend its mixed curling title after losing 8-7 to Italy in its final preliminary round game.
The match came down to the wire — two measures were needed to confirm that Canada’s final stone was outside the winning Italian rock.
Canada’s Rachel Homan, left, and John Morris, center left, stand with Italy’s Amos Mosaner, right center, and Stefania Constantini, right, before the mixed doubles curling match at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Feb. 7 in Beijing.
Brynn Anderson/AP
Women’s hockey
Canada’s high-scoring women’s hockey team continued its offensive domination against the Russian Olympic Committee with a 6-1 win.
The game did not begin at its scheduled time after the Canadians refused to leave their locker room because COVID-19 tests taken earlier in the day by the Russian athletes were not yet processed.
The game finally got underway with players from both teams wearing masks underneath their face cages.
Canada remains undefeated in the preliminary round, topping its group with 29 goals scored and three conceded.
Canada’s Rebecca Johnston, centre, celebrates after scoring a goal against the Russian Olympic Committee during a preliminary round women’s hockey game at the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 7 in Beijing.
Petr David Josek/AP
Men’s downhill skiing
Toronto skier Jack Crawford came close to adding to Canada’s medal count after finishing fourth in men’s downhill skiing.
Crawford logged a time of 1:42.92, just behind bronze medalist Matthias Mayer of Austria who finished at 1:42.85.
Switzerland’s Beat Feuz won gold in the event, while France’s Johan Clarey took home silver.
Team figure skating
Despite another standout performance from 18-year-old Madeline Schizas, Canada finished fourth in the team figure skating event and won’t repeat as team figure skating champion.
In her event, the rookie Olympian finished third behind the Russian Olympic Committee and Japan, but it wasn’t enough to put Canada on the podium.
Russia took home gold, while the United States won silver and Japan bronze.
Madeline Schizas, of Canada, competes in the women’s team free skate program during the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 7.
David J. Phillip/AP
Women’s 1500 metre speed skating
Canada finished well outside the podium in women’s 1500 metre speed skating on Monday.
Ivanie Blondin finished 13th, while teammate Maddison Pearman finished 24th.
The Netherlands’ Ireen Wust won gold, and beat her previous Olympic record time of 1:53.51 set on Feb. 16, 2014, with a time of 1:53.28.
Japan’s Miho Takagi, who set a world record in 2019 with a time of 1:49.83 in the event, finished with silver after logging a time of 1:53.72.
The Netherlands’ Antoinette de Jong finished with bronze.
Women’s 15km individual biathlon
Canada had four athletes participate in the women’s 15-kilometre individual biathlon event, but none landed in a podium spot.
Canada’s best performance in the event came courtesy of Megan Bankes, who finished in 33rd spot.
Germany’s Denise Herrmann finished first, followed by France’s Anais Chevalier-Bouchet in second and Norway’s Marte Olsbu Roeiseland in third.
LANGLEY, B.C. – Police in Langley, B.C., say one person is dead in a crash between a car and a motorcycle on Highway 1 that shut down the route for hours.
Mounties say their initial investigation indicates both vehicles were travelling east when they collided shortly before 4:20 a.m. near 240 Street on the highway.
The motorcycle rider died from their injuries.
Highway 1 was closed for a long stretch through Langley for about 11 hours while police investigated.
RCMP say their integrated collision analysis reconstruction team went to the scene.
The Mounties are asking anyone who witnessed the crash or who may have dash-camera footage from the area to call them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A court has been asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person in a case that may go further than any other in trying to establish the rights of nature in Canada.
“It really is that simple,” said Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Manitoba Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which filed the suit Thursday in Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg.
“The lake has its own rights. The lake is a living being.”
The argument is being used to help force the provincial government to conduct an environmental assessment of how Manitoba Hydro regulates lake levels for power generation. Those licences come up for renewal in August 2026, and the chiefs argue that the process under which those licences were granted was outdated and inadequate.
They quote Manitoba’s Clean Environment Commission, which said in 2015 that the licences were granted on the basis of poor science, poor consultation and poor public accountability.
Meanwhile, the statement of claim says “the (plaintiffs) describe the lake’s current state as being so sick that she is dying.”
It describes a long list of symptoms.
Fish species have disappeared, declined, migrated or become sick and inedible, the lawsuit says. Birds and wildlife including muskrat, beavers, duck, geese, eagles and gulls are vanishing from the lake’s wetlands.
Foods and traditional medicines — weekay, bulrush, cattail, sturgeon and wild rice — are getting harder to find, the document says, and algae blooms and E. coli bacteria levels have increased.
Invasive species including zebra mussels and spiny water fleas are now common, the document says.
“In Anishinaabemowin, the (plaintiffs) refer to the water in Lake Winnipeg as moowaakamiim (the water is full of feces) or wiinaagamin (the water is polluted, dirty and full of garbage),” the lawsuit says.
It blames many of the problems on Manitoba Hydro’s management of the lake waters to prevent it flushing itself clean every year.
“She is unable to go through her natural cleansing cycle and becomes stagnant and struggles to sustain other beings like animals, birds, fish, plants and people,” the document says.
The defendants, Manitoba Hydro and the provincial government, have not filed statements of defence. Both declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Daniels said it makes sense to consider the vast lake — one of the world’s largest — as alive.
“We’re living in an era of reconciliation, there’s huge changes in the mindsets of regular Canadians and science has caught up a lot in understanding. It’s not a huge stretch to understand the lake as a living entity.”
The idea has been around in western science since the 1970s. The Gaia hypothesis, which remains highly disputed, proposed the Earth is a single organism with its own feedback loops that regulate conditions and keep them favourable to life.
The courts already recognize non-human entities such as corporations as persons.
Personhood has also been claimed for two Canadian rivers.
Quebec’s Innu First Nation have claimed that status for the Magpie River, and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta is seeking standing for the Athabasca River in regulatory hearings. The Magpie’s status hasn’t been tested in court and Alberta’s energy regulator has yet to rule on the Athabasca.
Matt Hulse, a lawyer who argued the Athabasca River should be treated as a person, noted the Manitoba lawsuit quotes the use of “everyone” in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The term ‘everyone’ isn’t defined, which could help (the chiefs),” he said.
But the Charter typically focuses on individual rights, Hulse added.
“What they’re asking for is substantive rights to be given to a lake. What does ‘liberty’ mean to a lake?
“Those kinds of cases require a bit of a paradigm shift. I think the Southern Chiefs Organization will face an uphill battle.”
Hulse said the Manitoba case goes further than any he’s aware of in seeking legal rights for a specific environment.
Daniels said he believes the courts and Canadians are ready to recognize humans are not separate from the world in which they live and that the law should recognize that.
“We need to understand our lakes and our environment as something we have to live in cohesion with.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – MPs on the public safety and national security committee voted unanimously to launch an investigation into an alleged Russian ploy to dupe right-wing influencers into sowing division among Americans.
A U.S. indictment filed earlier this month charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a US$10-million scheme that purportedly used social media personalities to distribute content with Russian government messaging.
While not explicitly mentioned in court documents, the details match up with Tenet Media, founded by Canadian Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who is identified as her husband on social media.
The committee will invite Chen and Donovan to testify on the matter, as well as Lauren Southern, who is among the Tenet cast of personalities.
The motion, which was brought forward by Liberal MP Pam Damoff and passed on Thursday, also seeks to invite civil society representatives and disinformation experts on the matter.
Court documents allege the Russians created a fake investor who provided money to the social media company to hire the influencers, paying the founders significant fees, including through a company account in Canada.
The U.S. Justice Department doesn’t allege any wrongdoing by the influencers.
Following the indictment, YouTube removed several channels associated with Chen, including the Tenet Media channel.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
