Canada continues to have very low unemployment rate – Canada Immigration News

TORONTO – The Boston Red Sox kept their slim playoff hopes alive with a come-from-behind 6-5 victory in 10 innings against the fading Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night.

Red Sox reliever Chris Martin earned his third win of the season. Blue Jays’ reliever Tommy Nance took the loss, dropping him to 0-3.

The Red Sox, who have won four games in a row, improved to 80-78, while the Blue Jays dropped their fifth straight game and are now a season-high 12 games below .500 at 73-85.

“The boys did an amazing job of fighting all the way to the end,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “We used everybody. It was one of the most gratifying wins since I’ve been here.”

Blue Jays starter Bowden Francis was his typically dominant self to begin the game, striking out the first two batters he faced before retiring first baseman Triston Casas with a weak fly out.

The 28-year-old continued his dominant second half by pitching five shutout innings on Tuesday, allowing just three hits and one walk while striking out four.

“Just another outstanding effort,” said Blue Jays manager Schneider of his starter. “Just filling up the zone, locating well. I can’t really say enough about how he finished up the season.”

Shortstop Trevor Story began the game’s offensive festivities with a double to lead off the second inning and then advanced to third on a groundout by left fielder Masataka Yoshida. But Francis would work himself out of trouble soon after, eliciting soft fly-outs from second baseman Vaughn Grissom and right-fielder Wilyer Abreu to keep the Red Sox off the scoresheet.

Stepping to the plate as an opponent for the first time at Rogers Centre, Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen grounded out to third to begin the third inning. Jarren Duran would reach base with a single shortly after, but Francis would manage to escape, as he did many times on the evening, by striking out third baseman Romy Gonzalez to retire the side.

Centre-fielder Joey Loperfido walked to begin the bottom of the third and then stole second to give the Blue Jays their first runner in scoring position. Left fielder Nathan Lukes walked as well shortly after, giving way to star slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who ripped a double off the centre field wall to score both runners and give the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead.

Guerrero Jr. earned RBI No. 102 on the season, making him one of just 11 MLB players with over 100 in 2024.

Right-hander Lucas Sims came out of the bullpen to relieve Brayan Bello in the sixth, giving up a leadoff walk to second baseman Davis Schneider. The Blue Jays would add to their lead as George Springer doubled off the wall in left-centre one batter later before Nathan Lukes would score Schneider with a sacrifice fly, putting Toronto ahead 3-0.

Boston would not go away quietly, however, as the Red Sox started the sixth inning by loading the bases on right-handed reliever Ryan Burr, placing the leading run at the plate in Ceddanne Rafaela. Rafaela then singled through the gap at short to score two runners and cut the Blue Jays’ lead to one. Burr would limit the damage on the next at-bat, though, striking out Duran swinging.

The Blue Jays’ bullpen continued its woes in closing out games, as left-hander Genesis Cabrera would play setup role for Toronto heading into the eighth inning and proceeded to give up back-to-back singles to put runners on first and third. Yoshida wasted little time tying the game in the next at-bat, bringing Gonzalez home on a forceout.

The run marked Cabrera’s third blown save of the season and gave way to closer Chad Green entering the game soon after and keeping the game tied by getting pinch-hitter Nick Sogard to fly out to left field.

With their post-season fate hanging in the balance, the Red Sox sent out Martin to pitch the ninth for the second consecutive night. After walking Addison Barger, Martin got Clement to ground out into a double play and Davis Schneider to strike out swinging to send the game to an extra inning.

“It’s just a testament to who we are as a group, that we’re never out of a fight,” said Grissom of the Red Sox’ comeback.

“That’s what you need. The best teams are never out of the fight. That’s huge.”

Right-hander Tommy Nance entered the game for the Blue Jays in the 10th inning and immediately found himself in trouble, as Story doubled to bring home two runners and give the Red Sox their first lead of the game. Grissom would add an insurance run on a single to left field as the Red Sox held off a surge by the Blue Jays in the bottom half of the 10th to secure the win.

UP NEXT

Toronto RHP Kevin Gausman (13-11, 3.91 ERA) is scheduled to make his final start of the season in Wednesday’s series finale. Red Sox RHP Richard Fitts (0-0, 0.00) is set to make his fourth career start.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2024.

OTTAWA – The federal Liberals are creating a new agency to beef up Canada’s ability to handle rapidly spreading infectious diseases and protect from future pandemics.

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the agency is meant to preserve the “top-gun team” of public servants that helped steer Canadians through COVID-19.

Health Emergency Readiness Canada is being tasked with boosting Canada’s life-sciences sector and ensuring Canadians get faster access to vaccines, medical therapies and diagnostics by accelerating the transition from research to commercialization.

“The danger would have been (that) if we don’t have a permanent agency sitting somewhere, that collective knowledge that we have accumulated during COVID would even be dispersed eventually, perhaps even lost within the civil service,” Champagne told reporters on Tuesday.

“We’re pulling them together in a team so that when people are talking about health, emergency readiness, they know where to knock.”

The new agency will be based in the Industry Department but include staff from the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada. Champagne said it requires no new legislation and is based on spending Parliament already approved through this year’s budget.

“We want to keep a very close nexus with industry,” Champagne said.

The agency will co-ordinate efforts between Canadian industry and academic researchers as well as with international partners.

This follows a similar move by the European Union to create an agency in 2021 that not only tries to prepare the continent for pandemics, but seeks to learn from mistakes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Canada was not adequately prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic with an outdated and understocked emergency stockpile, and a virtually non-existent vaccine production industry.

Last year, the British Medical Journal called out Canada’s “major pandemic failures” such as jurisdictional wrangling and a high death rate in long-term care homes.

Yet the Trudeau government has resisted calls from medical experts and the NDP to follow countries like the U.K. in having an inquiry into how governments handled the COVID-19 pandemic and how they could better manage a future pandemic.

When asked about an inquiry, Champagne said the announcement is focused on having the right materials and researchers on hand when needed.

“We all hope that there be no other pandemic. But the responsible thing to do is to make sure that you have the team stand by and ready,” he said.

Champagne told a biotechnology industry gathering on Friday that officials found Canada was not ready in co-ordinating “health emergency readiness” when peers started looking into preparing for future events.

“We realized that things were scattered,” he said.

He said Canada faced the danger of being the only G7 country “without a dedicated team” for pandemic preparedness.

Once fully operational, the agency will have an “industrial game plan” to move quickly on research and industrial mobilization if another health emergency like a pandemic is declared.

Champagne said the pandemic and investments in personalized medicine have made the public enthusiastic about the biotechnology sector.

“If there is one industry that I think Canadians have fallen in love again with, it’s certainly that industry,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – Zack Ostapchuk’s short-handed goal at 12:36 of the third period snapped a 1-1 deadlock and lifted the Ottawa Senators to a 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in NHL pre-season action on Tuesday night.

This was the second game of a home-and-home between the two teams with Ottawa taking Sunday’s game 6-5 in overtime.

Jake Sanderson also scored for Ottawa (2-0-0), while Anton Forsberg — who played the whole game — made 20 saves.

Alex Steeves scored the lone goal for Toronto (0-2-0). Anthony Stolarz started the game for Toronto and allowed one goal on 16 shots, while Dennis Hildeby took over midway through the second and gave up one goal on 11 shots.

Ostapchuk’s winning goal came after he stole the puck from Nicolas Mattinen.

The game was tied 1-1 after 40 minutes.

Ottawa failed to capitalize on a pair of power-play chances, while the Leafs were unable to take advantage of their lone opportunity with the man advantage.

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk seemed unfazed by the fact that it’s just the pre-season and was in the middle of every scrum.

The teams exchanged goals in the opening period.

Toronto opened the scoring at 6:09 off a faceoff battle. Steeves was able to dig out a loose puck and fired a shot to beat Forsberg.

Ottawa tied it at 16:27 when the Senators were able to control the puck down low and Claude Giroux found Sanderson at the top of the slot.

Ottawa’s Ridley Greig drew two penalties in the first period, but suffered an upper-body injury and missed the remainder of the game.

NOTES

Ottawa goaltender Linus Ullmark has yet to play a pre-season game, with the team revealing he tweaked “something” and are being extra cautious with his recovery.

UP NEXT

Maple Leafs: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

Senators: Host the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.