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De Grasse anchors Canada’s 4×100 squad to gold medal, ties Olympic record in Paris

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PARIS – Andre De Grasse equalled a Canadian standard for Canadian Olympic excellence on Friday, and, along with Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney, helped his country do the same.

Canada’s men’s 4×100 relay team sprinted to victory to give Canada its seventh gold medal at the Paris Olympics. That tied the record for a non-boycotted Games Canadian athletes first set in 1992 and equalled three years ago in Tokyo.

It also gave Canada 23 medals overall. With Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson set to play in the women’s beach volleyball later Friday, Canada was guaranteed to finish Day 14 of the games equal with the 24 medals won in Tokyo. That was also a record for a non-boycotted Games.

It was also a measure of redemption for De Grasse. The 29-year-old from Markham, Ont., is now tied with swimmer Penny Oleksiak as Canada’s most decorated Olympian with seven medals (two gold, two silver, three bronze).

De Grasse failed to qualify for the finals of either the 200 metres, which he won in Tokyo, or the 100 in Paris after not missing a final — or a podium — in any of his previous Olympic events.

But Canada has proven to be a well-oiled machine in the relay. The four sprinters combined to win the world championship in 2022 in Eugene, Ore., and De Grasse, Rodney and Brown were relay silver medallists in Tokyo.

“It feels pretty amazing. To be out with these guys, my brothers, I’ve been with them since the beginning of time, so it’s amazing,” said De Grasse.

“We talked about this moment for years. It feels good to bring it to fruition. I’m super grateful.”

De Grasse also moved past Carl Lewis for second overall in career sprint and relay Olympic medals and is one short of the all-time mark set by the legendary Usain Bolt.

It was Canada’s second medal of the day after Katie Vincent of Mississauga, Ont., teamed with Sloan MacKenzie of Windsor Junction, N.S., to take the bronze medal in the women’s sprint canoe double 500-metre final.

It’s Vincent’s second Olympic bronze in the event after finishing third with three years ago in Tokyo.

The Canadians lost the silver medal to the Ukrainians in a photo finish and posted a time of one minute 54.36 seconds. Liudmyla Luzan and Anastasiia Rybachok had a late burst to take silver with 1:54.30.

China’s Shixiao Xu and Mengya Sun won gold with a time of 1:52.81. The Chinese beat the Olympic record they set in the semifinals after Vincent and MacKenzie set the Olympic mark in the heats.

“Oh, man. That Chinese crew, they’ve got it all figured out,” Vincent said. “They have been pretty perfect for the last three years, haven’t had a slip. So I’m honestly just so proud to see our sport at that level.”

There was disappointment as well, as Sarah Mitton failed to add to Canada’s throwing success when she finished last in the 12-athlete final of the women’s shot put.

Mitton, from Brooklyn, N.S., won silver in the event at the 2023 world championships and was considered one of Canada’s strongest medal contenders entering the Paris Games.

Also Friday, Derek Drouin of Corunna, Ont., was presented a silver medal in high jump from the London 2012 Olympics in a ceremony featuring athletes receiving reallocated medals from previous Games.

In women’s golf, Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., had an impressive third round to give herself an outside shot of a medal. Henderson shot 5-under Friday to give her a combined score of 2-under heading into Saturday’s final round.

New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and Switzerland’s Morgane Metraux led at 9 under, two strokes ahead of Rose Zhang of the United States and Japan’s Miyuu Yamashita.

“I mean, I’m still pretty far back, but it was nice to get the jump that I did today and move up as much as I did,” said Henderson, who moved 16 spots up the leaderboard into a tie for 13th. “I feel like a lot can happen and (there could be) a lot of movement, especially on Sunday afternoon. So I feel like, right to the end, I’ll have a shot at it.”

In diving, Rylan Wiens of Pike Lake, Sask., was third in preliminaries and qualified for Saturday’s semifinal in the men’s 10-metre platform. Nathan Zsombor-Murray, of Pointe-Claire, Que., secured 10th place and also advanced.

The two Canadians teamed up to win the bronze medal in the synchro event earlier at the Games.

Drouin was among 10 past Olympians at the Trocadero who received new or upgraded medals in a ceremony. He originally finished third in London but was upgraded after Russia’s Ivan Ukhov was stripped of the gold for a doping violation.

Drouin said he didn’t have any negative feelings toward Ukhov, who he said was part of a Russian doping scandal that was “much more widespread than just any one individual athlete.”

“I don’t harbour any ill will toward him,” he said. “I don’t think really any individual athlete in this scenario can really be, or should really be, held accountable in the way that maybe other doping scandals have been.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2024.

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‘Do the work’: Ottawa urges both sides in B.C. port dispute to restart talks

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VANCOUVER – The federal government is urging both sides in the British Columbia port dispute to return to the table after Saturday’s collapse of mediated talks to end the lockout at container terminals that has entered its second week.

A statement issued by the office of federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon on Monday said both the port employers and the union representing more than 700 longshore supervisors “must understand the urgency of the situation.”

The statement also urged both sides to “do the work necessary to reach an agreement.”

“Canadians are counting on them,” the statement from MacKinnon’s office said.

The lockout at B.C. container terminals including those in Vancouver — Canada’s largest port — began last week after the BC Maritime Employers Association said members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship and Dock Foremen Local 514 began strike activity in response to a “final offer” from employers.

The union said the plan was only for an overtime ban and a refusal to implement automation technology, calling the provincewide lockout a reckless overreaction.

On Saturday, the two sides began what was scheduled to be up to three days of mediated talks, after MacKinnon spoke to both sides and said on social media that there was a “concerning lack of urgency” to resolve the dispute.

But the union said the talks lasted “less than one hour” Saturday without resolution, accusing the employers of cutting them off.

The employers denied ending the talks, saying the mediator concluded the discussions after “there was no progress made” in talks conducted separately with the association and the union.

“The BCMEA went into the meeting with open minds and seeking to achieve a negotiated settlement at the bargaining table,” a statement from the employers said.

“In a sincere effort to bring these drawn-out negotiations to a close, the BCMEA provided a competitive offer to ILWU Local 514 … the offer did not require any concessions from the union and, if accepted, would have ended this dispute.”

The employers said the offer includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term along with an average lump sum payment of $21,000 per qualified worker, but the union said it did not address staffing levels given the advent of port automation technology in terminals such as DP World’s Centerm in Vancouver.

After talks broke off, the union accused the employers of “showing flagrant disregard for the seriousness of their lockout.”

Local 514 president Frank Morena said in a statement on Saturday that the union is “calling on the actual individual employers who run the terminals to order their bargaining agent — the BCMEA — to get back to the table.”

“We believe the individual employers who actually run the terminals need to step up and order their bargaining agent to get back to the table and start negotiations and stop the confrontation,” Morena said.

No further talks are currently scheduled.

According to the Canada Labour Code, the labour minister or either party in a dispute can request a mediator to “make recommendations for settlement of the dispute or the difference.”

In addition, Section 107 of the Code gives the minister additional powers to take action that “seem likely to maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of industrial disputes,” and could direct the Canada Industrial Relations Board “to do such things as the Minister deems necessary.”

Liam McHugh-Russell, assistant professor at Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, said Section 107 “is very vague about what it allows a minister to do.”

“All it says is that the minister can refer a problem and a solution to the Labour Board. They can ask the Labour Board to try and solve the problem,” he said.

“Maybe the minister will try to do that. It remains to be seen.”

The other option if mediated talks fail — beyond the parties reaching a solution on their own — would be a legislated return to work, which would be an exception to the normal way labour negotiations operate under the Labour Code.

Parliament is not scheduled to sit this week and will return on Nov. 18.

The labour strife at B.C. ports is happening at the same time another dispute is disrupting Montreal, Canada’s second-largest port.

The employers there locked out almost 1,200 workers on Sunday night after a “final” offer was not accepted, greatly reducing operations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2024.



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Man facing 1st-degree murder in partner’s killing had allegedly threatened her before

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LONGUEUIL, Que. – A man charged with first-degree murder in the death of his partner in a Montreal suburb was out on bail for uttering threats against her when she was killed.

Shilei Du was charged today with the killing of 29-year-old Guangmei Ye in Candiac, Que., about 15 kilometres southwest of Montreal.

Sgt. Frédéric Deshaies of the Quebec provincial police says their investigators were called by local police to a home in Candiac at about noon on Sunday.

The charges filed at the Longueuil courthouse against 36-year-old Du allege the killing took place on or around Nov. 7.

According to court files, Du had previously appeared at the same courthouse for allegedly uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm against Ye on Sept. 7.

Du pleaded not guilty the following day and was released on bail one day later. He had been present in court on the uttering threats charges on Nov. 6.

Du, whose current address is listed in Montreal, was arrested on Sunday at the home where Ye was killed.

The case is scheduled to return to court on Nov. 19.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Wisconsin’s high court to hear oral arguments on whether an 1849 abortion ban remains valid

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday on whether a law that legislators adopted more than a decade before the Civil War bans abortion and can still be enforced.

Abortion rights advocates stand an excellent chance of prevailing, given that liberal justices control the court and one of them remarked on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights. Monday’s arguments are little more than a formality ahead of a ruling, which is expected to take weeks.

Wisconsin lawmakers passed the state’s first prohibition on abortion in 1849. That law stated that anyone who killed a fetus unless the act was to save the mother’s life was guilty of manslaughter. Legislators passed statutes about a decade later that prohibited a woman from attempting to obtain her own miscarriage. In the 1950s, lawmakers revised the law’s language to make killing an unborn child or killing the mother with the intent of destroying her unborn child a felony. The revisions allowed a doctor in consultation with two other physicians to perform an abortion to save the mother’s life.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion nationwide nullified the Wisconsin ban, but legislators never repealed it. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe two years ago, conservatives argued that the Wisconsin ban was enforceable again.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2022. He argued that a 1985 Wisconsin law that allows abortions before a fetus can survive outside the womb supersedes the ban. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.

Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a Republican, argues the 1849 ban should be enforceable. He contends that it was never repealed and that it can co-exist with the 1985 law because that law didn’t legalize abortion at any point. Other modern-day abortion restrictions also don’t legalize the practice, he argues.

Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled last year that the old ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. The ruling emboldened Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in Wisconsin after halting procedures after Roe was overturned.

Urmanski asked the state Supreme Court in February to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for lower appellate courts to rule first. The court agreed to take the case in July.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a separate lawsuit in February asking the state Supreme Court to rule directly on whether a constitutional right to abortion exists in the state. The court agreed in July to take that case as well. The justices have yet to schedule oral arguments.

Persuading the court’s liberal majority to uphold the ban appears next to impossible. Liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz stated openly during her campaign that she supports abortion rights, a major departure for a judicial candidate. Usually, such candidates refrain from speaking about their personal views to avoid the appearance of bias.

The court’s three conservative justices have accused the liberals of playing politics with abortion.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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