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Ontario cities seek ways to fight increasingly visible rats

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Efforts are underway to combat growing rat populations in two of Ontario’s largest cities, as the rodents that typically lurk underground become more visible thanks to a combination of construction and climate change.

In Toronto, the municipality’s infrastructure committee recently adopted a motion asking city council to direct staff to craft an “action plan” to reduce rats in the city.

The motion, put forward by Coun. Alejandra Bravo and Deputy Mayor Amber Morley, is a response to residents’ concerns about a rise in visible rats in local neighbourhoods, Bravo said.

“People were talking about this in 2022 as sort of a growing problem. And then last year, last year and a half … it’s been something that’s bubbling and growing,” said Bravo, noting that residents of her ward have found themselves “overrun” by the rodents.

“It’s a really critical quality-of-life problem when people have all of a sudden been confronted with rats coming into their home or into their business or their place of work … a bunch of factors (have) come together to create this kind of perfect rat storm.”

A sharp increase in construction in the city, due to transit projects and housing development, has disrupted rat habitats deep underground, driving them into open spaces where people can see them, Bravo said.

Longer stretches of warmer weather due to climate change have also enabled the rodent population to flourish by extending their mating periods, she said.

“Cold winters helped us because that interrupted the breeding of rats,” Bravo said. “But with winters not being cold enough, that means that every two months (the rats) can breed.”

The motion put forward by Bravo and Morley – which will go to city council for a vote later this month – also seeks to have council ask the city manager to consult other communities in North America on their approach to rat reduction.

In Ottawa, the city is exploring a form of rat birth control that is not yet legal in Canada.

Local council recently supported a motion brought by Coun. Laine Johnson that asks Health Canada to expedite the review of a product called ContraPest, which is already being deployed in Seattle.

ContraPest works by inducing early menopause in female rats while reducing sperm production in males.

Johnson called it a better solution than rat poison because rats have the ability to “learn” which food sources are bad for them and adjust their behaviour.

A trial of the oral contraceptive was conducted in Washington D.C. in 2019, but the Department of Health said“the results proved inconclusive” and stopped using the product.

Meanwhile, the province of Alberta says it has been a rat-free zone for about 70 years, adhering to a zero-tolerance policy that even prohibits residents from keeping the rodents as pets.

The province says it does not allow rat populations to establish themselves and while small infestations might occasionally occur, those rats are isolated and eradicated when found. Public vigilance, prevention of rat infestations by efforts like rat-proofing structures and removing food sources, are key, the province says.

Karen Wickerson, the province’s rat and pest specialist, doubts whether the humane birth control strategy suggested by Ottawa would be enough to fight the problem plaguing North American cities by itself.

“They have to continuously eat (the birth control) for (population reduction) to continue, so I think there’s a lot kind of missing from that strategy,” she said.

Wickerson has been at the helm of the province’s rat control program for four years, and says that a multi-pronged approach is necessary, but ultimately the province prescribes to a strategy of elimination based on vigilant citizen reportage.

The project that began in the 1950s has been so successful that many Albertans don’t even know what a rat looks like anymore, Wickerson said, sometimes sending pictures of tree squirrels to the official government reporting email.

“If you’ve never lived outside of Alberta, you may never have seen a rat before and so they’re often misidentified,” she said, adding that muskrats make up about 50 per cent of the 400-500 yearly reports of alleged rat sightings.

Along with public education and participation, Alberta has established a veritable rat exclusion zone. The Rocky Mountains to the west and co-ordination with neighbouring Saskatchewan to the east have fortified the rat-free borders, something that might be difficult to establish in Ontario’s urban centres.

“For the province of Ontario, that rat is out of the gate,” said Johnson, the Ottawa councillor. “So we unfortunately have to work reactively instead of proactively as Alberta was able to back 70 years ago.”

Ontario isn’t alone in its struggle.

New York City’s mayor will be hosting the Urban Rat Summit in September, with expected participation of experts from cities like Boston, New Orleans, and Seattle.

The inaugural conference aims to bring together experts in pest control, academic researchers, and politicians in order to share best practices for rat population control in North American cities.

Bravo, the Toronto councillor, said knowledge sharing and co-ordination across regions is key to the fight.

“We’re part of a huge, continuous megalopolis here, and collaboration is always important,” she said. “If there’s good things being done in Peel or in Ottawa or in Chicago, we want to know about that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 10, 2024.

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Canada’s Denis Shapovalov wins Belgrade Open for his second ATP Tour title

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BELGRADE, Serbia – Canada’s Denis Shapovalov is back in the winner’s circle.

The 25-year-old Shapovalov beat Serbia’s Hamad Medjedovic 6-4, 6-4 in the Belgrade Open final on Saturday.

It’s Shapovalov’s second ATP Tour title after winning the Stockholm Open in 2019. He is the first Canadian to win an ATP Tour-level title this season.

His last appearance in a tournament final was in Vienna in 2022.

Shapovalov missed the second half of last season due to injury and spent most of this year regaining his best level of play.

He came through qualifying in Belgrade and dropped just one set on his way to winning the trophy.

Shapovalov’s best results this season were at ATP 500 events in Washington and Basel, where he reached the quarterfinals.

Medjedovic was playing in his first-ever ATP Tour final.

The 21-year-old, who won the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF title last year, ends 2024 holding a 9-8 tour-level record on the season.

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

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Talks to resume in B.C. port dispute in bid to end multi-day lockout

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VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.

The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.

The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.

The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.

The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.

MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.

In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.

“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.

“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”

In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.

“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.

The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.

“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”

The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.

The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.

A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.

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

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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The Royal Canadian Legion turns to Amazon for annual poppy campaign boost

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The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.

Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.

Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.

Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.

“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.

“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”

Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.

“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.

Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.

“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”

But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.

Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.

“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.

Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.

The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.

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

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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