Canada’s Stellato-Dudek, Deschamps win pairs event at figure skating Grand Prix

NEW YORK – Winnipeg Jets defenceman Neal Pionk has been fined US$5,000 by the NHL for clipping Florida Panthers forward Jesper Boqvist.

The offence took place at 14:36 of the third period in Winnipeg’s 5-0 loss to Florida on Saturday.

Boqvist was in the Jets’ zone and wrapped a pass around Pionk to teammate Anton Lundell.

The moment the puck came off his stick, Pionk hipchecked Boqvist, whose body spun in midair before hitting the ice.

Boqvist was down for some moments after the play and Pionk was not penalized for the play.

The fine is the maximum allowable under the collective bargaining agreement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

HACHINOHE, Japan – Ivanie Blondin led the way in a five-medal day for Canada at the Four Continents speedskating championships on Sunday.

The Ottawa native won gold in the women’s mass start with a time of nine minutes 23.28 seconds. It was the 34-year-old’s third individual distance medal of the weekend, having also captured bronze in both the 1,500 metres and 3,000.

In the men’s mass start, David La Rue of Saint-Lambert, Que., and Toronto’s Hayden Mayeur captured silver and bronze.

La Rue was leading entering the final lap, but a slight slip exiting the final corner allowed Kazakhstan’s Vitaliy Chshigolev to gain ground and outstretch him at the finish line.

“I am really happy to have reached the podium with Hayden today,” La Rue said. “It’s kind of funny because we were talking strategy before the race and told ourselves that we would stay behind to conserve our energy, but in the end that’s not at all what happened.

“There was an attack early in the race and the peloton didn’t react at all. I started accelerating on the outside and looked at Hayden, and we decided to go. We worked together until the end of the race so that the rest of the peloton couldn’t catch up. The Kazakh skater managed to close the gap.”

Mayeur also earned bronze in the men’s team pursuit, alongside teammates Connor Howe of Canmore, Alta., and Calgary’s Ted-Jan Bloemen. The new skater lineup crossed the finish line in 3:47.43, placing them behind Japan (3:44.47) and the United-States (3:43.13).

“We weren’t as quick as he had hoped to be, but this is a new team pursuit group,” Mayeur said. “Ted-Jan is back in the mix for these Four Continents and the upcoming World Cups, so we were just finding our bearings as a team skating together.

“All things considered; we really were not that far off from being competitive for the top spot. We were able to extract a lot of information from this first race together so that we improve and contest for a medal at the upcoming World Cup.”

Laurent Dubreuil of Lévis, Que., earned his second individual distance medal of the weekend, taking bronze in the men’s 1,000. The 32-year-old sprinter posted a time of 1:09.52.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

TORONTO – The latest inflation reading due out Tuesday from Statistics Canada is expected to show a slight uptick for the month of October — but economists say the measure is still on a longer-term downward trend.

Economists polled by Reuters expect the consumer price index to come in at 1.9 per cent for October, up from 1.6 per cent in September which was the lowest inflation reading since February 2021.

The price of gasoline was a key reason the September number came in so low, as oil dropped to a low of around US$65 per barrel at one point. It’s also expected to be a driver for the increase in October, when it crested US$75 per barrel.

“We’re expecting headline to go back up to two per cent, but just like how it dropped down to 1.6 per cent, it’s mostly an energy story,” said RBC economist Claire Fan.

The expected inflation increase is in part based on shifts in last year’s baseline and shouldn’t be seen as a move away from progress on getting the measure down, she said.

“The broad story really is that this low inflation, or progressively easing inflation pressure, it’s still very much the trend,” Fan said.

Excluding the volatile measures of energy and food — which Fan expects to remain steady at 2.8 per cent — core inflation should tick lower to 2.2 per cent in Octoberfrom 2.4 per cent in September, she said.

BMO Capital Markets sees headline inflation coming in at 1.9 per cent and core inflation at 2.4 or 2.5 per cent, said Benjamin Reitzes, its managing director of Canadian rates & macro strategist, in a note.

“October looks to be a bump in the road for the downward trend in inflation. Prices didn’t exactly surge in the month, but base effects are challenging, suggesting that headline and core inflation will accelerate modestly.”

Along with a mild increase in gasoline prices, he expects surging property taxes to be a key driver for the increase. Rising taxes will help push up shelter costs, but it will be offset from a smaller increase in mortgage interest costs after the Bank of Canada cut interest rates again in October.

High mortgage payments due to interest rates and a wave of mortgage renewals have been putting upward pressure on shelter inflation, but the downward trend in rates should start to relieve pressure on shelter inflation, said Fan.

“On a month-over-month basis, I think we are, if anything, very close to an inflection point.”

The Bank of Canada lowered its key rate by half a percentage point in October to 3.75 per cent, the fourth drop since June.

On the rental side, Desjardins economist Maëlle Boulais-Préseault said in a note last week that rental inflation averaged 8.3 per cent in the third quarter, the highest pace since the 1980s.

That’s in contrast to owned accommodation price growth, which decelerated to 5.5 per cent as borrowing costs continued to come down, she said.

Rent inflation, which aims to measure what Canadians actually pay in rent rather than just the cost of new rentals, is expected to come down, but not in a hurry.

“Our outlook is for a slowdown in the pace of rent inflation over the next few years, in line with a rising unemployment rate and weaker population growth,” said Boulais-Préseault.

The softening of the labour market is also expected to help reduce pressure on inflation, said Fan.

That’s in contrast to the U.S., where inflation rose 2.6 per cent in October from a year earlier, compared with 2.4 per cent in September, as higher government spending and a robust labour market are making inflation reductions a challenge.

The two countries are diverging on a range of key economic measures, including real GDP per capita that is the broadest spread on record, said Fan. In Canada, the measure is three per cent below where it was in 2019, while it’s eight per cent higher in the U.S.

As the two economies diverge, the Canadian dollar has been under pressure, trading at lows not seen since 2020.

The weaker loonie, a possible upward revision of GDP, and the slight increase in October inflation all leads BMO’s Reitzes to expect the Bank of Canada to opt for a milder quarter-percentage-point cut in the key rate at its Dec. 11 meeting.

RBC however is expecting another half-point cut from the central bank, given the struggling economy and the time lag for rates to have an effect.

“Given how weak current conditions are, and given the fact that even if you cut rates today, it won’t help with things until probably at least a couple quarters down the road, they really want to front load any amount of easing,” said Fan.

“If they think the economy needs the support, they want to do it as quickly as possible.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2024.