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York United manager says while spying in soccer is not unusual, it’s not for him

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Benjamin Mora’s coaching career has taken him from his native Mexico to Malaysia and now Canada, with the Canadian Premier League’s York United FC.

As such, the drone spying scandal at the Paris Olympics surrounding the Canadian women’s team does not come as a surprise to him.

“What is spying?” Mora asked. “I mean, strategy in war, all over the world, has always been knowing what your opponent is going to do to you, knowing their shape, knowing who they are going to line up.

“In many, many countries that I’ve been in and I’ve watched football — I’m taking about Malaysia, I’m talking about Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Thailand — I’ve seen things, of course, I’ve seen situations like this.”

Mora referenced Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa, who admitted in January 2019 to spying on opponents while in charge of England’s Leeds United. The club was eventually fined 200,000 pounds ($353,550) and given a severe reprimand by the English Football League.

While admitting to spying — in one instance, a member of the Leeds’ backroom staff, equipped with pliers, binoculars and disguised clothing was apprehended outside Derby County’s training ground — Bielsa insisted no specific rules were broken.

“All the information I need to clarify, I gather it without watching the training session of the opponent, so why did I send someone to watch them? Just because I thought I wasn’t violating the norm. I gathered information that I can obtain in another way,” Bielsa, a native of Argentina, said at the time.

“We feel guilty if we don’t work enough. (Watching the opponents train) allows us to have less anxiety and in my case I am stupid enough to allow this kind of behaviour.”

Mora said it’s not his kind of behaviour.

“I don’t do that. I don’t like it because I don’t need it,” said the York coach.

Mora, whose team is in Langley, B.C., to play Pacific FC on Friday noted that his players trained at Pacific’s Starlight Stadium on Wednesday and Thursday.

When some of them asked him whether that allowed Pacific staff to see them train, he replied: “I don’t really care. I’m not hiding anything.”

“But I think it’s unethical,” Mora said of spying.

It also goes against sportsmanship and respecting your opponent, he added.

“Just let them do their job. And you do your job. And you study what you have on hand. That is the last games they played, their shape, how they modify. What are their variants … I think that is enough to know what they are going to do. You don’t need to really go spy on them. You’re not going to learn anything.”

And Mora believes the current spotlight on such spying — and the heavy sanctions handed down to Canada by FIFA — are for the best.

“It’s good that they put their hand on the table and said ‘We will not permit these kind of situations.”

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2024

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Suspicious deaths of two N.S. men were the result of homicide, suicide: RCMP

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Nova Scotia RCMP say their investigation into two suspicious deaths earlier this month has concluded that one man died by homicide and the other by suicide.

The bodies of two men, aged 40 and 73, were found in a home in Windsor, N.S., on Sept. 3.

Police say the province’s medical examiner determined the 40-year-old man was killed and the 73-year-old man killed himself.

They say the two men were members of the same family.

No arrests or charges are anticipated, and the names of the deceased will not be released.

RCMP say they will not be releasing any further details out of respect for the family.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Turning the tide: Quebec premier visits Cree Nation displaced by hydro project in 70s

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For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.

François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from its original location because members were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.

The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.

George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”

“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”

Nemaska’s story illustrates the challenges Legault’s government faces as it looks to build new dams to meet the province’s power needs, which are anticipated to double by 2050. Legault has promised that any new projects will be developed in partnership with Indigenous people and have “social acceptability,” but experts say that’s easier said than done.

François Bouffard, an associate professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, said the earlier era of hydro projects were developed without any consideration for the Indigenous inhabitants living nearby.

“We live in a much different world now,” he said. “Any kind of hydro development, no matter where in Quebec, will require true consent and partnership from Indigenous communities.” Those groups likely want to be treated as stakeholders, he added.

Securing wider social acceptability for projects that significantly change the landscape — as hydro dams often do — is also “a big ask,” he said. The government, Bouchard added, will likely focus on boosting capacity in its existing dams, or building installations that run off river flow and don’t require flooding large swaths of land to create reservoirs.

Louis Beaumier, executive director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said Legault’s visit to Nemaska represents a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous people who were traumatized by the way earlier projects were carried about.

Any new projects will need the consent of local First Nations, Beaumier said, adding that its easier to get their blessing for wind power projects compared to dams, because they’re less destructive to the environment and easier around which to structure a partnership agreement.

Beaumier added that he believes it will be nearly impossible to get the public — Indigenous or not — to agree to “the destruction of a river” for a new dam, noting that in recent decades people have come to recognize rivers as the “unique, irreplaceable riches” that they are.

Legault’s visit to northern Quebec came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.

The book, published in 2022 along with Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Nemaska community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, Wapachee said.

In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.

“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”

Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.

Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.

Earlier Sunday, Legault was in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro complex in honour of former premier Bernard Landry. At the event, Legault said he would follow the example of his late predecessor, who oversaw the signing of the historic “Paix des Braves” agreement between the Quebec government and the Cree in 2002.

He said there is “significant potential” in Eeyou Istchee James Bay, both in increasing the capacity of its large dams and in developing wind power projects.

“Obviously, we will do that with the Cree,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.



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Quebec premier visits Cree community displaced by hydro project in 1970s

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NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.

François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.

The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.

George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”

“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”

The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.

In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.

“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”

Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.

Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.

Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.

Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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