A major cleanup effort is underway following Saturday’s fierce storm that left at least eight people dead and hundreds of thousands without power after it swept across southern Ontario and Quebec.
The storm damage has led the Ontario towns of Uxbridge, north of Toronto, and Clarence-Rockland, east of Ottawa, to declare states of emergency, while hundreds of thousands across Ontario and Quebec remain without power as crews work to restore services.
WATCH | Storm leaves extensive damage in its wake:
Thousands in Ottawa area without power after deadly storm
7 hours ago
Duration 1:53
Hundreds of thousands of people in the Ottawa-Gatineau area are without power, following storms that left at least eight people dead in Ontario and Quebec.
A statement posted on the Township of Uxbridge’s website says there are widespread power outages and many closed roads due to downed trees and power lines.
Residents are being asked to stay home to allow municipal workers to focus on removing road hazards rather than manage traffic congestion.
Hydro providers, meanwhile, are warning that it could take days for some customers to get their power back.
“Between trees, branches, broken poles and wires down, it’s really a very, very messy, messy cleanup,” Hydro One spokesperson Tiziana Baccega Rosa said.
She said while it’s not unusual to have such high numbers of customers temporarily without power — which for Hydro One stood at about 226,000 early Monday — the extent of the damage, including the toppling of metal transmission towers in the Ottawa area, is notable.
200 poles destroyed in Ottawa area
The utility could not say when most issues were likely to be resolved, noting that 200 hydro poles had been knocked out or destroyed. Hydro Ottawa said 166,000 customers remained without power early Monday and advised it could take days to restore service.
Ottawa Fire Services said on Twitter that the city’s fire, police and paramedics fielded about 3,000 911 calls between 4 a.m. Saturday and midnight; 2,000 of them came in the storm’s first three hours.
Utility crews work to make sure the power is off as motorists remain in their vehicles after the storm took down poles and power lines, on Merivale Road in Ottawa on Saturday. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Hydro-Québec said that at the peak, the storm cut power to 550,000 customers from Gatineau to Quebec City, while as of about noon Sunday, there were some 370,000 customers still in the dark. Most of the power outages were in the Quebec City, Outaouais, Laurentians, Lanaudière and Montérégie regions.
A Hydro-Québec spokesperson said most people should have their power later Sunday, starting with those in the hardest-hit regions.
Destructive winds of a ‘derecho’
The level of damage across the two provinces came in part from the nature of the storm, which looks to have been what is called a “derecho,” said Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Gerald Cheng.
“When they say derecho, it’s widespread, long-lived wind storms that are associated with rapidly moving thunderstorms, and that seems to be what we had yesterday,” he said. “Because when you look at the damage, that was widespread, it wasn’t just one track.”
Police remind residents to avoid travel if possible. Some areas in the city have downed electrical wires or trees and traffic lights at intersections may not be working, making roads hazardous. Let’s keep roads clear for road crews and emergency services to work.<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/ottnews?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#ottnews</a>
Hydro One, Ontario’s largest service provider for electricity, supplies power to Toronto Hydro, which on Sunday morning tweeted that it continues to deal with “multiple outages across the city.”
Customers heading to Toronto Hydro’s outage map on its website were unable to get an update for hours on what areas were still affected. But the outage map was functioning again on Sunday afternoon.
WATCH | Severe thunderstorms hit southern Ontario:
Severe thunderstorms hit southern Ontario
2 days ago
Duration 0:31
Several cities and towns were under a thunderstorm warning on Saturday as areas such as Kitchener, Ont., saw heavy rain and high winds.
“We’re working on restoring our outage map and appreciate your ongoing patience,” the utility said on the website earlier in the day.
Weather alert system kicks in
The storm carried winds strong enough to trigger the agency’s first use of the broadcast-interrupting weather alert system for a thunderstorm, Cheng said.
Trees and power lines were knocked down by ferocious winds in a system that first developed near Sarnia, Ont., and then moved west to the Ottawa area and Quebec. Environment Canada reported peak wind gusts of 120 km/h at the Ottawa International Airport. At one point, winds reached 132 km/h at the airport in Kitchener, Ont.
The Ontario fatalities from the storm include a 44-year-old man in Greater Madawaska, west of Ottawa; a woman in her 70s out for a walk in Brampton; a 30-year-old man in the Ganaraska Forest, east of Oshawa, Ont.; and a 59-year-old man on a golf course in Ottawa. As well, one person was killed and two others were injured in their camping trailer near Pinehurst Lake in Brant County. All five people were killed after being struck by a falling tree.
Peel police say a woman was reportedly walking between two houses in Brampton, Ont., when a tree fell on top of her. (Grant Linton/CBC)
At an emergency news conference on Saturday night, the City of Ottawa’s head of emergency services, Kim Ayotte, was surprised by the storm’s scope.
“This one hit us hard, it hit us fast…. I was out at the airport earlier and I saw telephone posts knocked down, large trees uprooted, several hydro lines being split in half. It was incredible. The sheer area that was affected is like nothing I’ve seen in my memory.”
Officials in Ottawa say the cleanup from the storm could take several days.
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government says it is taking steps to ensure tree fruit growers are compensated for past harvests after the closure of a co-operative that had served farmers for almost 90 years.
It says the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC is “redirecting” about $4 million in provincial funding that will be used to ensure co-op members receive money they are owed.
The province says the foundation will pay growers in the coming weeks and then recoup the funds at the end of the court process involving the BC Tree Fruits Cooperative that filed for creditor protection last month.
In July, the co-op, which processed, stored, packaged and sold fruit for 230 member farms, announced it was shutting down after 88 years of operation.
It says it has more than $58 million in liabilities.
The agriculture ministry says it is has also provided $100,000 to the BC Fruit Growers Association that will go toward food-safety certification that was previously done by the co-op.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Jesse Marsch issued Canada’s men’s soccer squad a challenge — get physical.
The edict came after the Canadians surprised many at this summer’s Copa America tournament, making it through to the semifinals. As his players departed for their professional clubs, the head coach wanted them thinking about continued growth.
“I challenged them to be more physically present in the matches that they played in,” Marsch said. “I’ve tried to encourage all the players to sprint more, to win more duels, to win more balls, to be more dynamic in matches.”
When Canada reconvened for a pair of friendlies last week, the coach saw some players had already heeded his call, including Vancouver Whitecaps product Ali Ahmed.
The 23-year-old midfielder started in both Canada’s 2-1 victory over the United States on Saturday and Tuesday’s 0-0 draw against Mexico.
“I’m really happy for him,” Marsch said. “I think he’s still young and still has a lot of room and potential to continue to grow.”
Playing under Marsch — who took over as head coach in May — has been a boon for the young athlete, currently in his second full season with Major League Soccer’s Whitecaps.
“Jesse has a very clear way of playing,” Ahmed said. “And I think the way we’ve been training and the way we’ve been growing as a group, it’s been helpful for me.”
The reward of getting minutes for a national team can spur a player’s growth, including Ahmed, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini.
“Of course that fuels him inside to say ‘Hey, I want to be a better player. I want to get to that stage,'” said Sartini.
Vancouver had six players — including Ahmed — away on international duty during its 0-0 draw against Dallas FC on Saturday. The absences are a good problem to have, Sartini said.
“Because we have players that are close to the national team, we have a lot of players that development is faster, better, bigger than it would have been if they hadn’t been called,” he said.
Born in Toronto, Ahmed came up through the Whitecaps’ academy system and played for Vancouver’s MLS Next Pro side before cementing his spot on the first team in 2023. He put up two goals and two assists across 22 regular-season games, and added another goal and another helper in 19 appearances this year.
Taking the next step will require the five-foot-11, 154-pound Ahmed to push himself physically, Marsch said.
“Tactically, he’s technically gifted,” the coach said. “I’ve told him he’s got to get in the gym more.
“There’s a lot of these little things where too many guys, they still look like kids and we need to help them look like men and play like men. And that’s what the high standards of the game are about.”
Marsch has quickly adjusted to recalibrating standards in his short time with Team Canada. Since taking over the squad in May, the coach said he’s learned the players are smarter and more capable than he originally thought, which forces the coach to constantly recalibrate his standards.
“That’s my job right now, to keep raising the level of the demands,” he said.
The way 40th-ranked Canada is viewed on the international stage is evolving, too.
“I think we’re changing the perception on the way we’re playing now,” he said. “I think beating the U.S. — it would have been nice to beat Mexico as well — the way we did, the way that we performed at Copa, I think teams are starting to look at us differently.
“Right now, I think we’re focused on ourselves. We’re definitely trying to be the best in CONCACAF and we have higher goals as well.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
An investigator gave the World Anti-Doping Agency a pass on its handling of the inflammatory case involving Chinese swimmers, but not without hammering away at the “curious” nature of WADA’s “silence” after examining Chinese actions that did not follow rules designed to safeguard global sports.
WADA on Thursday released the full decision from Eric Cottier, the Swiss investigator it appointed to analyze its handling of the case involving the 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
In echoing wording from an interim report issued earlier this summer, Cottier said it was “reasonable” that WADA chose not to appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s explanation that the positives came from contamination.
“Taking into consideration the particularities of the case, (WADA) appears … to have acted in accordance with the rules it has itself laid out for anti-doping organizations,” Cottier wrote.
But peppered throughout his granular, 56-page analysis of the case was evidence and reminders of how WADA disregarded some of China’s violations of anti-doping protocols. Cottier concluded this happened more for the sake of expediency than to show favoritism toward the Chinese.
“In retrospect at least, the Agency’s silence is curious, in the face of a procedure that does not respect the fundamental rules, and its lack of reaction is surprising,” Cottier wrote of WADA’s lack of fealty to the world anti-doping code.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and one of WADA’s fiercest critics, latched onto this dynamic, saying Cottier’s information “clearly shows that China did not follow the rules, and that WADA management did nothing about it.”
One of the chief complaints over the handling of this case was that neither WADA nor the Chinese gave any public notice upon learning of the positive tests for the banned heart medication Temozolomide, known as TMZ.
The athletes also were largely kept in the dark and the burden to prove their innocence was taken up by Chinese authorities, not the athletes themselves, which runs counter to what the rulebook demands.
Despite the criticisms, WADA generally welcomed the report.
“Above all, (Cottier) reiterated that WADA showed no bias towards China and that its decision not to appeal the cases was reasonable based on the evidence,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said. “There are however certainly lessons to be learned by WADA and others from this situation.”
Tygart said “this report validates our concerns and only raises new questions that must be answered.”
Cottier expanded on doubts WADA’s own chief scientist, Olivier Rabin, had expressed over the Chinese contamination theory — snippets of which were introduced in the interim report. Rabin was wary of the idea that “a few micrograms” of TMZ found in the kitchen at the hotel where the swimmers stayed could be enough to cause the group contamination.
“Since he was not in a position to exclude the scenario of contamination with solid evidence, he saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities,” Cottier wrote.
Though recommendations for changes had been expected in the report, Cottier made none, instead referring to several comments he’d made earlier in the report.
Key among them were his misgivings that a case this big was largely handled in private — a breach of custom, if not the rules themselves — both while China was investigating and after the file had been forwarded to WADA. Not until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on the positives were any details revealed.
“At the very least, the extraordinary nature of the case (23 swimmers, including top-class athletes, 28 positive tests out of 60 for a banned substance of therapeutic origin, etc.), could have led to coordinated and concerted reflection within the Agency, culminating in a formal and clearly expressed decision to take no action,” the report said.
WADA’s executive committee established a working group to address two more of Cottier’s criticisms — the first involving what he said was essentially WADA’s sloppy recordkeeping and lack of formal protocol, especially in cases this complex; and the second a need to better flesh out rules for complex cases involving group contamination.
