Most Canadians don’t want Charles as King, and don’t care about the coronation, according to poll

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

Health-care spending expected to outpace economy and reach $372 billion in 2024: CIHI

The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in the country is projected to reach a new high in 2024. The annual report released Thursday says total health spending this year is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian. CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent last year, and 1.7 per cent in 2022. This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.

Legions struggle with high costs, aging buildings

Some Royal Canadian Legion branches are struggling to keep their doors open, as they face inflation and rising maintenance costs on aging buildings. Several legions say the COVID-19 pandemic hit them hard financially and they’re still struggling to recover, even if they’re no longer at risk of closure. Montreal’s Verdun legion sold its building over a decade ago and now meets once a week in a rented space. The branch in Grenfell, Saskatchewan, has decided to put its building up for sale, due to what its president calls aging membership and an aging building.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

Safe consumption site closures to affect hundreds

A new study suggests hundreds of people will lose access to supervised consumption sites in Toronto when the province closes a few of them next year. Researchers with Saint Michael’s Hospital say that will likely mean more public drug use and more overdoses. The Ontario government announced in August that it would close 10 supervised consumption sites across the province next spring because they were too close to schools and daycares. Five of those sites are in Toronto, leaving another five open. A sixth centre in the city may shut down once its lease runs out next year. The supervised consumption sites slated for closure are set to be shuttered by March 31, 2025.

How to care for your mental health if you’re struggling with U.S. election result

The Canadian Psychological Association says the U.S. election has a worldwide impact and it’s normal for many Canadians to have strong emotions about it — whether they’re positive or negative. Association president Anita Gupta, a clinical psychologist, says if people are feeling anxious or distressed about the results, they may want to take a break from news coverage and social media. Gupta says some people may be sleep-deprived from staying up late the last couple of nights to follow the latest developments and she suggests prioritizing sleep tonight. She says anxiety may worsen in some people who were already struggling, and reaching out to friends, family or a mental health professional can be helpful.

Who destroyed B.C.’s Hobo Hot Springs?

British Columbia’s Ministry of Water says it’s investigating after some hot spring pools in Harrison Hot Springs were suddenly filled in with dirt and rocks. The locals call the mineral pools Hobo Hot Springs because it’s free to enjoy, unlike the neighbouring hotel resort or the public mineral pool in the community that’s about 130 kilometres east of Vancouver. The ministry says the springs are Crown resources and changing the pools would require approval, even if on private land, but it received no applications for work in the area. Grand Chief William Charlie with Sts’ailes (sh-HAY’ liss) First Nation says they should have been consulted before anyone made changes to the spring, noting Indigenous people have used the hot pools for medicinal purposes for thousands of years.

Elliot Page among honourees at PTP Pink Awards

Actor Elliot Page, singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright and professional hockey player Marie-Philip Poulin are among six prominent LGBTQ+ figures being toasted tonight at the inaugural PTP Pink Awards. The gala is organized by media company Pink Triangle Press to recognize notable LGBTQ Canadians, who each hand-pickan individual orcommunity organization they feel has made a difference. The five honourees chosen by the celebrities will receive $5,000, a spot in an advocacy media campaign, and a portion of the proceeds from a silent auction. Other names being honoured include queer activist Latoya Nugent, two-time Polaris Music Prize winner Jeremy Dutcher and entrepreneur Salah Bachir, who receives the Legacy Award for his philanthropy.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.

Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.

“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.

King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.

On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”

King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.

King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.

“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”

Driven by the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.

Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.

Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.

Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.

A host of gambling related problems

Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.

On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.

“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.

Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.

“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.

Pressure to bet

Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.

Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.

The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”

Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”

De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.

“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.

Gamblers Anonymous in high demand

Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.

Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.

“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”

___

Dumphreys reported from Rio de Janeiro.

SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.

After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.

Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.

The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.

The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.

The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.