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It was a lengthy season for Sarah Mitton, but one that she considers both a success and a learning experience.

The 28-year-old shot putter checked some boxes with a list that includes her first world indoor title, a new personal best throw and first Diamond League title this past weekend. And while the Paris Olympics didn’t go as planned, she picked up some lessons along the way.

“I started my season in November this year competing at Pan Am. And so competing at Pan Am Games in November and finishing at the Diamond League in September, it was just a long, long season,” said the 28-year-old from Brooklyn, N.S. “When you do stuff like that, you’re going to have ups and downs.

“The season as a whole, … I consider it a success. Every year when we do our reflections, there’s always something new for me to add to the list of (things) I’ve never done and you know throwing further and further.

“So at the end of the day, despite my results in Paris, I think there’s a lot of learning and a lot of other things that you can still count the season as inherently positive.”

In what had been a shortened Olympic quadrennial, Mitton had developed into one of the world’s best shot putters.

She won silver at the 2023 worlds after missing the podium on a tiebreak in 2022. Mitton then went on to win Pan Am gold last November before winning the world indoor title in March. Her personal best of 20.68 metres on May 11 crushed her previous best of 20.33 from 2022.

At the Paris Games, she made her first Olympic final on her first qualifying throw. The following night came with some rain and Mitton went from gold-medal favourite — after back-to-back world champion Chase Jackson of the United States missed the final — to finishing 12th. She was eliminated when she failed to crack the top eight over her first three attempts with a top throw of just 17.48 metres.

Mitton was adamant about not shutting down her season after the “disappointing” showing in Paris, however. She competed in three meets between Aug. 16 to Aug. 22 before throwing 20.25 metres to defeat Jackson for the Diamond League title last Friday.

“The learning, it just happened so quickly,” Mitton said. “And I think after (the) Tokyo (Olympics), I kind of just let myself dwell in the stink a little too long and it affected my performances afterwards.

“The season I had after Tokyo was the best one of my life and if I let Paris hold me back then I’m just going to miss, all the opportunities, they’re still ahead. So I just kind of have to be, … have you watched Ted Lasso? The goldfish quote where it’s like, ‘You just have to be a goldfish,’ and kind of forget about it and move forward.”

While Mitton feels she does a good job of shaking off whatever happens and moving on, the passing of her father in May made that all the more difficult.

Although shot put served as an aid to her mental health, Mitton is currently enjoying time off back at home and getting herself together mentally.

“I remember after the Olympics just feeling this big relief,” she said. “And I thought the relief was going to be winning the Olympics and being an Olympic gold medallist and feeling like it all kind of worked out.

“Even when it didn’t pan out that way, I was like despite it all, at least now I have some time to get my mental health back together, see some family, you know, take a break. … So mentally, I think I’m doing a lot better that now that the Games are over. … I feel a lot more relaxed.”

With world championship and Olympic gold still on her list of aspirations, Mitton is excited to get back to work after her break. She spoke of a foul last Friday that she says was “upwards in the range of like 20.80 to 21 metres, something that I’ve never seen in my life before.”

“I think how awesome it is to leave the season and be in a spot mentally, you know, despite Paris, where I’m excited already to get back to training,” she said.

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

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SURREY, B.C. – British Columbia politicians are celebrating connecting more people with family doctors, but it comes as emergency room physicians at Surrey Memorial Hospital say conditions there continue to crumble.

A letter sent to the president of Fraser Health Authority Dr. Victoria Lee, and published online, warns that deteriorating conditions in the department are “unequivocally leading to substandard care” and creating an “increasingly toxic work environment.”

The letter calls for “new leadership,” saying wait times in the ER often exceed 12 hours and the rate of patients who leave the department without being seen has tripled to 8.4 per cent since 2020-2021.

Premier David Eby and Health Minister Adrian Dix were in Surrey, where a new hospital is being built, to announce that more than 248,000 people have been connected to a family doctor or nurse practitioner since a provincial registry was launched in July 2023.

Eby says the province is working on addressing health-care pressures by building the second hospital in Surrey and connecting more people with family doctors to reduce the need for them to go to the emergency room.

A statement from Fraser Health says it understands the seriousness of the concerns and it will be responding directly to the physicians “to address them comprehensively.”

“While we have more work to do, we are pleased to report that in addition to the thousands of staff already working at the hospital, since July 2023 we posted 575 net new positions for the Surrey Memorial Hospital and Surrey communities,” the statement says.

The letter from the doctors says that since 2021, staffing has increased eight per cent, while patient volumes have jumped 30 per cent.

The letter says doctors have tried dozens of times to declare a “Code Orange” when they believe the department is pushed beyond a safe level, but 24 of those 25 requests have been denied, making doctors reluctant to call for help.

“The combination of long shifts, overwhelming patient volumes, high acuity, inadequate support, compensation disparities and the invalidation of our lived experiences has contributed to significant burnout among our staff,” the letter says.

“Physicians are facing exhaustion, anxiety and an overall decline in their mental health, which ultimately compromises patient care.”

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

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

WASHINGTON – While Canada cannot escape the gravitational pull of an increasingly unstable United States, a new report is charting a path forward to ensure Canadian interests become more important to our closest neighbour.

“The world does need more of Canada. The United States does. Our other allies do,” said the report by Public Policy Forum, a non-profit group that brings together experts to advise on significant policy issues.

“But it is up to us to make it happen.”

The report, which will be released publicly Wednesday, suggests Canada should deepen co-operation with America in key sectors now.

Canadian officials and business groups have been pounding the pavement across the U.S. to connect with Democrats and Republicans about bilateral interests, making sure Canada is prepared for any outcome of the November election.

Top of mind for Canadians shaking hands with their American counterparts is the looming review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2026. Both presidential candidates are selling protectionist policies that could cause uncertainty for Canadian trade.

While the U.S. is Canada’s largest trade partner, the report notes that Canada is a “dwindling economy” in comparison and states like California, Texas and New York have economies the same size or bigger.

Others have warned the relationship between the two countries shifted from being strategic to transactional as Canada became less critical compared with other places in the world.

“We can’t coast,” said Edward Greenspon, one of the report’s co-authors. “Our allies need us and we have to fight for relevance in a world that is much more pressurized.”

The Public Policy Forum and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto partnered last year to explore how Canada could manage the risks.

The report found the situation is not dire. If Ottawa can align its national interests with those of its close partners, especially the U.S., there are opportunities that play to Canada’s strengths.

“We need to put ourselves on the agenda early, regardless of who wins the presidency and who controls Congress,” the report noted.

It suggested instead of putting “all our eggs” in the basket of the trilateral trade agreement, Canada should focus on four high-impact sectors: Arctic security, critical minerals, energy and the environment and technologies, like artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

The report suggests those sectors should be “continentalized,” requiring production and investment across both sides of the international border. Greenspon said it will get “sticks in the ground now” in areas that really matter domestically and abroad.

Arctic security is of increasing importance for Americans pushing back on Russian and Chinese activities in the North.

The report said increasing Arctic investment would demonstrate to Washington that Canada isn’t shirking responsibilities and would bring the country closer to its NATO target of spending two per cent of gross domestic product on defence.

After days of public pressure from U.S. politicians at this year’s NATO leaders’ summit in Washington, D.C., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada expects to hit that target for the first time in 2032.

The Public Policy report also points to Canada’s vast resources of critical minerals, which are needed for the green and digital economies. The U.S. is an eager market and other allies are looking to get away from China as their source for the materials.

“Where 20th-century geopolitics featured battles over access to crude oil, the 21st century might well be defined by a struggle over critical minerals,” the report noted.

Canada could also matter more for America’s electricity grid and environmental goals, whether through small modular nuclear reactors, uranium, natural gas or with experiences around carbon capture.

The U.S. will need to expand electricity transmission by roughly 60 per cent by 2030 and may need to triple it by 2050, according to research from Princeton University.

The report said Canada and the U.S. should work together to set standards for next-generation technology and create agreements to encourage companies build supply chains and procurement together across the border.

The first thing Ottawa has to do is be clear with Canadians that the situation globally poses challenges but also brings opportunity, Greenspon said.

“There’s always bumps in the road but we need to lay down as much pavement as we can and we have a lot of material with which to do that,” he said. “We have a lot going for us.”

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