The Globe and Mail - 13.10.2026 — 2026-10-13

THE GLOBE AND MAIL\*

OTTAWA/QUEBEC EDITION ■ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2026 ■ GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

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Alberta recommended builder linked to Mraiche, lawyer alleges

TOM CARDOSO TORONTO

CARRIE TAIT CALGARY

The Alberta government recommended a company linked to businessman Sam Mraiche to build a \$35-million addiction recovery centre on a First Nation near Calgary, according to the community's former lawyer.

Tsuut'ina Nation, which broke ground on its recovery centre in 2024, is one of several Indigenous communities building addiction treatment facilities funded by the provincial government.

Terry Braun, the nation's former lawyer, alleges in a court document that the government of Alberta played a role in Tsuut'ina's selection of Melewka Homes Ltd. The builder has been linked in court filings to Mr. Mraiche, who is a central figure in a health care procurement controversy in the province and has connections to powerful figures in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government.

While Mr. Braun's filing does not detail who made the recommendation, his assertion is the first indication that Ms. Smith's government suggested a candidate to build Tsuut'ina's health care facility.

"The Government of Alberta recommended Melewka Homes Ltd. for the construction of the Project as Melewka Homes was constructing comparable recovery facilities elsewhere in Alberta as part of a broader recovery model within the province," Mr. Braun said.

MRAICHE, A6

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Days before referendum, Carney makes direct appeal to voters

IAN BAILEY

A week before Albertans vote on whether to stay a part of Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney made a Thanksgiving pitch on Monday for residents of his home province to cast ballots against taking the process of separation to the next step.

The succinct video of Mr. Carney speaking from a classroom of his former high school in Edmonton was released online, a day before advance polls open for the Oct. 19 referendum. Voters will be asked whether Alberta should remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on leaving the country.

Although he was born in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Carney was raised in the Alberta capital and attended St. Francis Xavier Catholic High School.

“I grew up in Alberta,” he said. “I’m back home a lot these days because we are building big things in Alberta.”

In particular, Mr. Carney cited new homes, high-speed rail and a new pipeline to the West Coast.

But the Prime Minister said Canada can't build big things if it is divided, and that the country is facing threats to its economy, security and way of life.

“We are stronger together,” he said.

REFERENDUM, A7

Mr. Carney also added that Albertans have a stake in the country.

U.S. POLITICS

In Wisconsin, many young voters have soured on Trump

Republicans hope to recapture President's supporters in midterms

NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT

PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, MADISON AND MILWAUKEE, WIS.

Kyle Hough could not muster much enthusiasm for Donald Trump. But two years ago, when it came time to mark a ballot for U.S. president, he chose the Republican candidate.

"I never went out and rattled the sabres for Trump or anything. But I voted for him because I thought his policies – at least at the time, what he said he was going to do – made more sense for me."

Mr. Hough, 30, is a lawyer who works with veterans. Some weekends, he drives across Wisconsin to the Mississippi to hunt ducks, rising before dawn to target them from the placid waters that wend through the river's braided channels.

He has been a registered Democrat since he was old enough to vote, though he has never felt wedded to any party. So it was no great stretch to support the man who promised to “Make America Great Again,” in part by making life more affordable for all Americans.

“A lot of Trump’s campaign this last time around was aimed at trying to get young people out to vote,” he said.

■ WISCONSIN, A7

Kyle Hough, who voted for Donald Trump in 2024, stands beside the Mississippi River near Prairie du Chien, Wis., after a morning of duck hunting. NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Critics warn against deepening ties between Mounties, FBI

COLIN FREEZE

Canada's national police force says it will continue to strengthen ties with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, even as experts warn against deepening the relationship at a time of growing divergence between the neighbouring countries.

This year, RCMP-FBI co-operation has been credited for dismantling gangs such as Ryan Wedding's alleged drug-trafficking organization, with Mountie Commissioner

Mike Duheme appearing alongside Trump administration officials to announce these takedowns.

“Given the shared border between Canada and the United States, the RCMP works closely with U.S. law enforcement partners,” RCMP spokeswoman Jessica Kingsbury said in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, adding that “expanded operational collaboration with U.S. agencies has enhanced threat identification, information sharing, and contributed to high-profile arrests.”

However, in a new book, Kent Roach, a law professor at the University of Toronto who chaired the RCMP's management advisory board in 2023, argues that the Mounties have grown too dependent on the FBI.

Prof. Roach writes that the Mounties have relied on the bureau's tips to learn about impending terrorist attacks and other national-security threats to Canada, and they are also embracing FBI-led partnerships to put some of Canada's most wanted criminals before U.S. courts.

■ MOUNTIES, A15

FOLIO

Tracking the final mountain trek of B.C. skyrunner Kalie McCrystal ■ A8

INSTAGRAM

Explore our national database of freedom of information requests SecretCanada.com

MANITOBA Brandon's derelict buildings loom large as Wheat City residents prepare for election ▪ A5

REPORT ON BUSINESS

Toronto startup has high hopes for robotic surgical tool after successful test ■ B1

INSIDE

FOLIO....A8-9

EDITORIAL & LETTERS....A10

OPINION....A11

LIFE & ARTS....A12

WEATHER & FIRST PERSON....A13

PUZZLES....A14

REPORT ON BUSINESS....B1

OPINION & ANALYSIS....B4

GLOBE INVESTOR....B9

SPORTS....B11

COMICS....B12

OBITUARIES....B16

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MADE IN CANADA

TAU LEWIS'S SYMPHONY

TAU LEWIS, SYMPHONY, 2020-2021, VARIOUS RECYCLED AND HAND-DYED FABRICS, RECYCLED LEATHER, COTTON BATTING, BEADS, ACRYLIC PAINT, PVA GLUE, METAL HOOP SKIRT, PIPE, SEASHELLS AND WIRE, INSTALLATION DIMENSIONS VARIABLE. NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA, OTTAWA. PURCHASED 2021. © TAU LEWIS. PHOTO: NGC

For October, we are featuring works from the National Gallery of Canada, one of the world's most respected art institutions. Founded in 1880, the Ottawa-based gallery has played a key role in Canadian culture for more than a century. The NGC works to develop, preserve and present more than 90,000 pieces, representing one of the most comprehensive collections of Indigenous and Canadian art, major works from the 14th to 21st centuries, as well as extensive library and archival holdings. www.gallery.ca

Towering above viewers with open arms, Tau Lewis's Symphony is a monumental “soft portrait” made using reclaimed clothing and textiles sourced from places the artist has lived or visited, including her ancestral home in Jamaica. Surrounded by cascading garlands of individually crafted flowers, the figure at the centre inhabits a fantastical world. Painstakingly hand-dyed, sewn and assembled, the repurposed materials carry their own histories, reflecting Ms. Lewis's belief in the storytelling and healing potential of artistic labour.

TYLER

DAWSON

COLUMNISTS

OPINION

The separatists saying Alberta's referendum is about leverage should be ignored ▪ A11

FIRST

PERSON

Doug Ronson reflects on why he rented a stall at his local farmer's market to hawk his book ■ A13

GUS

CARLSON

OPINION

Despite rising gas prices, EVs are still feeling the chill of lacklustre buyer interest ■ B4

The Globe and Mail is committed to maintaining the highest ethical, legal and editorial standards. SANDRA E. MARTIN, STANDARDS EDITOR, standardiseditor@globeandmail.com

Nobel prize in economics awarded to Hall, Woodford for work on stabilizing economies

SIMON JOHNSON

JOHAN AHLANDER STOCKHOLM

Robert Hall, left, and Michael Woodford. GETTY IMAGES

U.S. academics Robert Hall and Michael Woodford won the 2026 Nobel economics prize on Monday for decades of work developing ground-up models currently used by central banks and finance ministries across the world to stabilize economies.

"With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume," John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a statement.

Prof. Woodford and Prof. Hall are frequently name-checked by the world's top central banks which, after a 2022 inflation surge in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, are currently grappling with the energy shock triggered by the Iran war.

One of the laureates' key insights is that economies could only be kept on an even keel by taking into account the millions of decisions made at a micro level by households and businesses, rather than by using top-down theories of how economies work.

“… Authorities shouldn’t view stabilization of the economy as an exercise that is simply conducted by people pulling levers to control the economy independently of what people in the economy understand about this,” Columbia University’s Prof. Woodford, 70, told a news conference.

In contrast to the oil shocks of the 1970s, when central banks struggled to combat sky-high inflation, Prof. Woodford said the new framework was useful during the global financial crisis of the late-2000s to bolster traditional tools of monetary policy.

“Making more explicit statements about the likely future path of interest-rate policy, as opposed to relying on simply being able to cut interest rates further immediately, that was an important part of the policy response in the years from 2009 onward,” he said.

Beyond so-called “forward guidance” on the future path of monetary policy, the work of Prof. Woodford – and Prof. Hall, 83, at Stanford University – promoted other concepts used today such as the idea of “sticky” inflation when price changes lag changes in demand.

Another is the “output gap,” a measure of demand pressure building up in an economy and how efficiently resources are being used – the goal of stabilization policy being to steer that gap

toward zero.

Prof. Hall has served as adviser to the U.S. Treasury Department, the Justice Department and the Federal Reserve Board.

His insight in a 1978 paper that household decisions on consumption are a perfect indicator of their expectations was used by Prof. Woodford in a model on how consumption is determined.

Prof. Woodford also showed that central banks can stimulate or suppress economic activity by adjusting interest rates, rather than just by the amount of money in circulation.

Such concepts remain core to central banking today. Forward guidance became especially important after the 2008 financial crisis, when rates were near zero or even negative and standard monetary policy seemed to be out of ammunition.

REUTERS

Raid launched on Democrat Omar's home

there is no way of enforcing the policy.

Police with Homeland Security Investigations, a part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, search the home of Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar on Monday in Washington. ANDREW LEYDEN/GETTY IMAGES

Source says probe is related to Somali-born lawmaker's immigration paperwork, filled out by her late father

NOLAN D. McCASKILL

ANDREW GOUDSWARD

DOINA CHIACU WASHINGTON

U.S. authorities conducted a predawn raid on Monday on the Washington-area home of Democratic U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, an outspoken critic of Donald Trump who has been the target of political insults by the Republican President, as part of a continuing investigation, the Justice Department said.

A person familiar with the investigation said it is related to alleged immigration fraud, and part of the probe concerns the Somali-born lawmaker's immigration paperwork, which was filled out by her late father when she was a child.

Ms. Omar wrote in a social-media post that the U.S. government is being weaponized to target a political enemy of the President.

“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns,” Ms. Omar said. “This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”

Other Democrats accused Mr. Trump and his administration of abuse of power. Ms. Omar, 44, is seeking a fifth two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm elections on Nov. 3.

In announcing the raid, a Justice Department spokesperson said: "Today in the Washington, DC area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal

investigation."

Homeland Security Investigations is part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Tom Homan, the Trump administration's border czar, told Fox Business Network that the Justice Department is leading the investigation with the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Homan declined to get into the specifics of a continuing criminal investigation.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a Trump appointee, said last month that “something’s going to happen” in the investigation into Ms. Omar’s family’s entry into the United States.

"If we can prove that you shouldn't have been here in the first place, we'll deport you," Mr. Mullin told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson at the time.

Monday's raid was carried out a little more than three weeks before the midterms, with Mr. Trump's party seeking to retain control of Congress. Ms. Omar, a prominent progressive, represents a safe Democratic district. She won re-election in 2024 by a margin of 50 percentage points.

In a joint statement, U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of the party's leadership in the chamber said the raid was “deeply disturbing and raises serious questions about the” weaponization of the federal government against Mr. Trump's enemies.

Republicans have “relentlessly targeted” Ms. Omar, said Mr. Jeffries, joined by Representatives Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar. Mr. Trump’s “mass deportation machine has descended upon the home of a duly elected Member of Congress and her family,” they added, and they vowed to “deliver full accountability” for what they called a “rogue abuse of power.”

Minnesota Democrats also condemned the raid.

“Americans see this for what it is,” Minnesota Governor Tim

Walz, a Democrat, wrote on social media. “President Trump is abusing his power to go after political opponents weeks before an election.”

Few Republican lawmakers publicly commented. One who did, Representative Nancy Mace, wrote online: "If the fraud is proven, she should be denaturalized and removed from this country. NO ONE is above the law."

Justice Department policy bars federal prosecutors and agents from timing any action to affect an election's outcome or benefit a candidate or party. It historically has avoided taking investigative steps against political candidates within about 60 days of an election.

George Washington University law professor Randall Eliason, a former U.S. public corruption prosecutor, said the raid appears to be a break with past Justice Department practice of avoiding investigative steps likely to become public close to Election Day. But Prof. Eliason noted

"The idea is to avoid even the appearance of any kind of interference by the Department of Justice with the political process," Prof. Eliason said. "It's not surprising that they wouldn't really care about violating this policy because they've shown they don't really care about politicizing the Justice Department in many other ways."

A person familiar with the investigation said the Justice Department consulted with its Public Integrity Section, a unit that has historically advised and approved investigations of members of Congress, and acting deputy attorney-general Trent McCotter prior to the search. The Trump administration has reduced the Public Integrity Section to about two lawyers and curtailed much of its authority.

The Justice Department during Mr. Trump's second term in office has investigated and brought charges against a range of Mr. Trump's perceived political enemies.

It has charged former FBI director James Comey, New York Attorney-General Letitia James and Mr. Trump's former national-security adviser turned critic John Bolton. It also has investigated Democratic lawmakers who urged the U.S. military not to follow illegal orders, Democratic senator Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve officials Jerome Powell and Lisa Cook.

The case against Ms. James and one of two brought against Mr. Comey were thrown out by a federal judge. Mr. Bolton pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month. Grand juries and federal judges have stymied several other probes.

Ms. Omar has faced political insults from Mr. Trump, who has cast the Somali-American community as a threat to Minnesota in a burst of anti-Somali and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

REUTERS

[ UNITED STATES ]

It's the Great Pumpkin

People pose with the winning gourd, owned by Travis Gienger of Anoka, Minn., at the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, Calif., on Monday

JEFF CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Most Canadians back closer ties with EU: poll

Based on a randomized hybrid telephone and online survey of 1,057 Canadians conducted from Sept. 27–29. Weighted to the true population proportion. Numbers do not add up to 100 because of rounding.

Based on a randomized hybrid telephone and online survey of 1,057 Canadians conducted from Sept. 27–29. Weighted to the true population proportion.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: NANOS RESEARCH

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: NANOS RESEARCH

Based on a randomized hybrid telephone and online survey of 1,057 Canadians conducted from Sept. 27–29. Weighted to the true population proportion.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: NANOS RESEARCH

What Canadians say should be priority for an international trade strategy

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: NANOS RESEARCH

Based on a randomized hybrid telephone and online survey of 1,057 Canadians conducted from Sept. 27–29. Weighted to the true population proportion. Numbers do not add up to 100 because of rounding.

Approval ratings for the idea were highest in British Columbia and lowest in the Prairies

JESSE WINTER

Canadian support for more formal ties with the European Union appears to be growing, a new poll suggests.

Nearly eight in 10 respondents were supportive or somewhat supportive of Canada becoming an associate member of the EU so long as the agreement increased co-operation on trade and defence, but stopped short of full membership.

The poll, which surveyed 1,057 Canadians, was conducted for The Globe and Mail by Nanos Research in late September. It suggests a slight uptick from earlier figures released in April, which showed three in five Canadians supported the country gaining full membership in the EU.

The idea for associate membership was raised by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who said in mid-September that Canada should become the EU's first associate member.

That move came after Prime Minister Mark Carney spent months working to strengthen ties with European countries, in an attempt to diversify Canada's trading partners amid the continuing tariff war with the U.S.

Various versions of an associate-type of membership have been floated by the bloc over the years, but there is no such legal category currently. The EU has 27 member countries.

While the poll's numbers appear to show growing support for the idea, UBC political science professor Kurt Heubner said he believes the results speak more to Canada's anger at U.S. President Donald Trump than to a real desire to join the European bloc in a formal capacity.

"I see it actually as a signal, a sign of ongoing deeper frustration with our neighbour in the south," Prof. Heubner said. "It's an expression of the frustration with what's going on."

Many Canadians do not fully appreciate the kind of sovereignty trade-offs that typically come with EU membership, Prof. Heubner said.

“You have a deliberate decision to give up political power and decision-making in key areas. That’s just the price … to become a member,” Prof. Huebner said.

Pollster Nik Nanos agreed.

“My sense is that Canadians do not want to give up sovereignty to diversify the economy,” he told The Globe. “Hence the view of closer co-operation with Europe being more popular than full membership.”

Support for Canada gaining associate membership was highest in British Columbia, with more than 84 per cent of respondents saying they either supported or somewhat supported the move. It was lowest in the Prairie provinces where 70.4 per cent said they would support or somewhat support the idea.

In mid-September, Mr. Trump said that any move by Canada toward becoming an associate EU member could be seen as a “hostile act” that might trigger more tariffs.

The Nanos poll appears to show that, rather than discouraging Canadians from pursuing that course, it has emboldened some of them.

Half of Canadians who were surveyed said Mr. Trump's comments would have no impact on their opinions, while one in three said the comments made them more likely or somewhat more likely to support EU membership.

Mr. Nanos said a key question remains: whether these shifts represent frustration with Mr. Trump alone, or a broader paradigm shift that will outlive the current U.S. administration.

What was clear from the survey is that Canadians don't want the Prime Minister to unilaterally sign a deal on his own. Mr. Carney has said any new alliance with Europe would be debated and voted on in parliament.

Half of those polled said a House of Commons vote was enough to proceed, while 21 per cent said such a move should require a public referendum. Seven per cent said the potential of a new EU alliance would require calling a federal election. About 19 per cent said the government should be able to enter into such an agreement without doing any of the above and 4 per cent were unsure of what the government should have to do.

Regardless of Canada's potential membership status, four in five Canadians told Nanos Research this country should pursue much closer (60 per cent of respondents), or somewhat closer (23 per cent) ties with the EU, including partnerships that go

beyond trade.

Roland Paris, a University of Ottawa international affairs professor, said the specific name of a partnership matters less than how the relationship would function.

"There's an element of Mark Carney wanting to build new wiring into the economic relationship between Canada and the European Union that goes beyond simply increasing the amount of trade," Prof. Paris said.

Speaking to The Globe while on a research sabbatical travelling through Europe, Prof. Paris said what struck him was that the desire to grow closer isn't just one-directional.

“Enthusiasm for this partnership is shared on this side of the Atlantic,” he said.

The poll, which surveyed randomly selected Canadians online and by phone between Sept. 27 and 29, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Canadian composer Davachi wins Silver Lion award at Venice Biennale

ERIC REGULY

EUROPEAN BUREAU CHIEF

ROME

Canadian musician Sarah Davachi, a composer and organist who straddles the electronic and acoustic music spheres, has been awarded the Silver Lion award at the Venice Biennale.

On Monday, the Biennale judges called Ms. Davachi, 39, who was born and raised in Calgary, “one of the most interesting and coherent voices in the contemporary musical landscape.”

The Silver Lion is considered the second-most prestigious award at the Biennale, the high-profile, cross-cultural exhibition hosted in Venice every two years. The award is usually given to promising young artists in film, architecture, theatre, dance and music, whereas the top award, the Golden Lion, is for best film, best arts pavilion or lifetime achievement.

Only a few Canadians have won the Silver Lion – Leone D'Argento in Italian – since it was first handed out in 1953. Among them are Quebec actor Micheline Lanctôt for best first film in 1984 and Ottawa-born Dana Michel in 2017 for dance innovation.

"This is a prestigious recognition for an innovative Canadian artist in the midst of her career,” said Canada’s ambassador to Italy, Elissa Golberg, who was at the awards ceremony. “Few Canadians have received Biennale Lions.”

Ms. Davachi said she was thrilled to receive the sliver statuette at a ceremony Monday. “It was unbelievable for me,” she told The Globe and Mail. “Holding the award was so exciting.”

The award is particularly significant because it is for a body of work, not an individual composition, album or performance. “In that sense, it was for my career,” Ms. Davachi said.

The award recognized her long compositions known for their delicate, seemingly indistinct changes in tone and texture that allow listeners to immerse themselves in the music. “My music tends to be for people who like to have a quasi-spiritual experience,” she said.

The Biennale judges called her music structural, not decorative. “Davachi’s work occupies a territory in which the structures of minimalism, early music concepts of intervallic relation and affect, and the experimental production practices of the studio environment converge, often centred on the use of analogue electronic instruments and the pipe organ,” they said in their statement.

Ms. Davachi has been attracted to unusual sounds and instruments since her youth in Calgary. “I always like certain kinds of sounds. They intrigued me, like the sound of a vacuum cleaner,” she said.

She nurtured her love of what she calls “minimalist, reduced-form compositions” as a researcher and interpreter of the collection of acoustic and electronic keyboard instruments for a decade at the National Music Centre, a museum, performance venue and recording studio in Calgary.

After receiving a master's degree in electronic music at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., and a PhD in musicology at UCLA, she turned her music approach into a career that involves concerts around the world. Some are solo performances, during which she plays the pipe organ; others are with large ensembles. She is performing at two concerts in Venice over the next week and in Montreal next month.

In 2020, she founded Late Music, her record label, which is an imprint of Warp Records. She has collaborated with some of the world's best-known orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Brussels Philharmonic.

She lives in Los Angeles and is working on a new album. “I never really stop,” she said.

RUSSIA STRIKES UKRAINE'S ENERGY FACILITIES DESPITE TRUMP'S CEASEFIRE, ZELENSKY SAYS

KYIV Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that while Ukraine is willing to halt attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure, Moscow has continued to strike his country's energy sites despite U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that the warring countries had agreed to cease such attacks.

Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had been “horribly surprised” that Moscow struck a power plant in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, as well as a gas production facility and a civilian gas station hours after Mr. Trump announced the purported “energy ceasefire” in the 4½-year-old war.

Later on Monday, during an interview on Fox News Channel's America's Newsroom, Mr. Zelensky said his government had refrained from striking Russian energy sites since Mr. Trump's announcement Sunday, and was ready to honour an energy ceasefire as “a good first step” toward closing the war. But, he said, “I’m not sure that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is ready.” AP

Brandon wants to fix its derelict buildings. But how?

Abandoned properties are an issue for both rural and urban voters in Manitoba's municipal elections

TEMUR DURRANI BRANDON

LOCAL MATTERS

Dozens of pigeons perch atop the abandoned McKenzie Seeds building on any given day. When the flock departs, this historic structure built more than a century ago in Manitoba's second-largest city is virtually a lifeless void.

But the seven-storey, red-brick and ferroconcrete building and its signature clock tower continues to loom over downtown Brandon, as though it is a ghost from the city's agricultural heyday.

Over the years, several housing projects and commercial ventures – including one touted as recently as this past summer – have tried to revitalize or redevelop the 120,000-square-foot former headquarters of the seed and grain powerhouse. None have been successful. The building – with its marble flooring, metal staircase, freight elevator, concrete seed bin, terrazzo hallways and mushroom-shaped columns – has been vacant since the 1980s.

Derelict buildings like this, dotting downtown cores across the country, create both an eyesore and a hazard. Some communities have worked to deal with the problem through municipal bylaws, but the issue persists and has grown after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Debates around ownership, municipal responsibility and a lack of funding have created roadblocks to solutions. And as cities and towns in multiple provinces hold elections this fall, the issue of vacant properties is becoming an increasingly important concern for both rural and urban voters.

At McKenzie Seeds, lewd graffiti is emblazoned on the walls outside, with holes smashed in the windows above, almost resembling gun shots but likely caused by thrown rocks.

“Because it’s still one of our tallest buildings and it’s located so centrally that you can see it from quite afar, it’s certainly a sad sight,” says Murray Fischer, the lead safety manager with Brandon’s planning and buildings department. “I will admit it’s a blight on our city. It’s an issue we have to keep coming back to,” he says.

“And if we don’t find a way out of this, by next year, we’ll be forced to think of more drastic steps.”

Unused buildings – residential and commercial – face a high risk of arson, structural collapse, and toxic contaminants such as asbestos or lead when left to the elements for far too long.

If they're boarded up improperly, they tend to become makeshift shelters, especially during harsh winters, with the lack of affordable housing and encampment shutdowns displacing thousands of Canadians. "So, if someone who is homeless comes in there and wants to keep warm, they're not an arsonist, but that's usually how fires there can start," Brandon Fire and Emergency Services Chief Terry Parlow says.

As long as a property owner continues to pay taxes, most Canadian municipalities have little recourse to deal with vacant buildings.

In the Wheat City, as Brandon is colloquially called, the largest of these derelict structures are commonly owned by numbered companies, many with offices outside of Manitoba, Mr. Fischer says.

Some vacant residential properties have similar ownership structures, but more often, they have been passed down from a deceased family member, with the new owner absent from Brandon.

“It’s made our job very difficult from a safety perspective,” Mr. Fischer says.

“We’ve definitely had to put on our sleuth hat a lot of times to find out who the real owner is behind these numbered companies in order to get in touch with them.”

However, in late 2023, after a string of costly fires, Brandon made significant changes to its bylaws. Under the new rules, city staff are allowed to pro-actively identify and address the issues of vacant properties rather than relying on public complaints or emergencies such as fires.

Annual fees for unused properties were also raised by hundreds of dollars, motivating some owners to either demolish unsafe structures or restore and reoccupy them.

Chief Parlow says the amendments are working. The measures have led to a dramatic decrease in fires and lowered the number of “problem properties” from about 100 to around 10, the fire chief added.

But tending to these properties can be costly, says Jeff Fawcett, the incumbent mayor who is running for re-election. Last year, Mr. Fawcett helped pass a resolution with the Association of Manitoba Municipalities that called for the provincial government to establish its own penalties for neglected properties and to provide municipalities with financial assistance to remove or repair them.

“We need the province’s help on this,” Mr. Fawcett says, pointing to the buildings behind him, as he sipped coffee at Chez Angela Bakery and Café downtown. “But as of now, I haven’t heard from Premier Wab Kinew's government on this yet."

Unused buildings in Brandon, including the empty McKenzie Seeds facility, seen above last week, face a high risk of arson, structural collapse, and toxic contaminants such as asbestos or lead.

PHOTOS BY SHANNON VANRAES/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

At an unrelated event late last month, Mr. Kinew was asked whether he would change provincial legislation to impose time limits on unused properties. "It's a civic election question – I'm sorry," he told reporters, declining to weigh in on the matter.

A short drive around the small city – population 54,000 – will show many such properties sitting empty, such as a former bottling plant, boarded-up bungalows and a fenced-off bus depot. None are quite as glaring as McKenzie Seeds.

Len Isleifson, who is also running for mayor in Brandon, agrees with his opponent. “This isn’t exactly a partisan issue. And it’s not the first thing I hear as the biggest concern when I go speak with voters here,” he says from his office at Assiniboine College.

“But downtown Brandon is struggling with this cycle. We should definitely be doing more to attract businesses, to uplift the vibrancy and improve the quality of life for our residents. And yet, we can’t attract that sort of attention when these buildings are still a constant problem, so it’s just a cycle that's continuing."

A short drive around the small city - population 54,000 - will show many such properties sitting empty, such as a former bottling plant, boarded-up bungalows and a fenced-off bus depot. None are quite as glaring as McKenzie Seeds. "I see that sad building every day on my way to work, and it's like this reminder of the potential of our city," says Janet Friesen, who works at a salon.

“You can see the Seeds building from here, across the train tracks,” says Brandon resident Honeybun Desmarais.

“But even in my cul-de-sac, we also have another handful of abandoned houses. They’ve become sort of these local ghost stories. It’s a safety issue for everyone.”

This past May, Paul Souque, president of Blackbird Housing, a Brandon-based real estate development company, purportedly purchased the McKenzie Seeds building.

He told multiple local media outlets that his proposed development would include 130 residential suites, medical and wellness spaces and a 10,000-square-foot rooftop deck.

Mr. Souque's developers appear to have been exploring partnerships for senior housing, and he insisted that construction would begin this year for the ostensibly \$20-million project.

But Mr. Fischer says the City of Brandon has not seen any plans from Blackbird yet – “nothing concrete on design, architecture, construction or anything like that.”

Property records suggest ownership of the building only changed from one numbered company to another in late September. “Blackbird’s media blitz appears to have been just another way of getting further investors on board,” Mr. Fischer says.

When reached for comment, the director of Blackbird's parent company, Braden Bjornson from Alberta-based Fotonara Inc., responded via e-mail: "The project is 100% reliant on private investment. Capital formation has been the priority. City permits and design plans are secondary to that. No construction has started. We are not describing an approved, fully financed project."

In the meantime, McKenzie Seeds has deteriorated to the point of structural collapse, Mr. Fischer says. "We're going to have to bring this to council next year. Whether we demolish it or come up with something else, it's something that the city will have to inevitably decide on. It's only getting worse – and it's going to be costly."

About this series: The Globe is reporting from cities and towns in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia to hear from residents about the issues affecting their communities and their votes in the municipal elections.

Last year, incumbent mayor Jeff Fawcett helped pass a resolution with the Association of Manitoba Municipalities that called for the provincial government to establish its own penalties for neglected properties.

[ QUEBEC ]

Season's greetings

People take pictures of the fall colours at Pink Lake in Gatineau Park on Monday in Gatineau. Temperatures in the city reached as high as 16 C on Thanksgiving

KEITO NEWMAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Mraiche: Businessman has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in connection with controversies

FROM A1

A lawyer representing Mr. Braun declined to comment on the filing, and a lawyer for Melewka Homes did not respond to a request for comment.

Three Indigenous communities collectively received more than \$100-million in grants from the province to build their respective recovery centres. Each awarded its contract to Melewka Homes Ltd., a company with a history of residential construction that is mired in litigation and allegations that subcontractors on its recovery centre projects have gone unpaid.

Ms. Smith has repeatedly told the public that the three communities – Tsuut'ina Nation, Enoch Cree Nation and the Métis Nation of Alberta – were responsible for selecting Melewka Homes.

“We know nothing about them,” she said of the company during a session in the legislature in late March, “which is why we rely on the First Nations and the Métis, when we give them a grant, to manage their own contracts.”

In November, 2025, while responding to an NDP statement alleging that companies owned or affiliated with Mr. Mraiche had received contracts to build recovery centres, Ms. Smith told the legislature that purchasing decisions were left up to Indigenous communities.

"The way we operate with our partnership with Indigenous communities," she said, "is that we give them a grant, and they do the procurement."

Spokespersons for Ms. Smith and the Alberta government did not respond to messages from The Globe and Mail seeking comment. A lawyer for Mr. Mraiche also did not respond to a request for comment.

Tsuut'ina sued Mr. Braun in July, alleging negligence, breach of contract and other wrongdoing in connection with the procurement process for its unfinished recovery centre, which it says was sole-sourced and has been marred by "red flags." The Dene community of roughly 2,500 citizens also alleged that Mr. Mraiche – a medical-supply executive and entrepreneur whose business and government contracts are part of an RCMP investigation – played an undisclosed role in the construction project.

Mr. Braun has denied any wrongdoing, and denied any knowledge that Mr. Mraiche would benefit from the project. He also said he had no dealings of substance with the businessman and “only interacted with Mraiche on a single occasion.” Mr. Mraiche is not a party to Tsuut’ina’s lawsuit.

The United Conservative Party government has been entangled in a purchasing controversy since early 2025 after the province fired Athana Mentzelopoulos as the chief executive of Alberta Health Services, a health care agency that employed more than 100,000 people.

After her termination, Ms. Mentzelopoulos sued the government for wrongful dismissal and alleged that government officials had pressed her to shut down an internal investigation she had been conducting into potential conflicts of interest in the purchasing decisions made by senior procurement officials at her agency. Ms. Mentzelopoulos's investigation did not focus on recovery centres, which are under the purview of the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction.

Her investigation focused, in part, on contracts awarded to Mr. Mraiche's company, MHCare Medical Corp., which had received roughly \$614-million in business from Alberta Health Services since 2020; Mr. Mraiche is also connected to companies that were vying for an estimated \$430-million in contracts for private surgical facilities.

The government says it fired Ms. Mentzelopoulos because she failed to execute its vision for the health care system. Neither party's allegations have been tested in court.

---

“

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A recovery centre is a godsend. I actually have a good team now that's overseeing the project in a responsible way. And we're moving forward. We're not mothballing anything.

ELLERY STARLIGHT

TSUUT'INA NATION CHIEF SINCE 2025

The Globe has reported that Mr. Mraiche hosted the Premier, cabinet ministers and senior staff at NHL hockey games; that he joined Ms. Smith's inner circle in a hotel suite in May, 2023, to watch the province's election results; that he was under an election-finance investigation by Elections Alberta around the time his long-time friend and relative, Justice Minister Mickey Amery, tightened the regulator's timelines for issuing sanctions for violations; and, earlier this year, that the RCMP searched the offices of MHCare and an accounting business owned by an MHCare executive and Alberta government appointee.

Mr. Mraiche has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection with the controversies.

The recovery centres being built by Tsuut'ina, Enoch and the Métis Nation of Alberta are part of a broader provincial response to the opioid epidemic. That strategy was championed by Marshall Smith, the Premier's former chief of staff, who The Globe reported lived in a \$1.6-million home owned by Mr. Mraiche's sister while he was one of Ms. Smith's top aides. Lawyers for Mr. Smith did not respond to a request for comment.

In March, 2025, the Alberta government inquired into how the three Indigenous communities awarded the construction contracts for their recovery centres, documents tabled in the legislature show.

"If you could also please confirm how Melewka was selected to perform the work, we will update our files accordingly," Yvonne Carignan, an executive director at the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction – which paid out the grants for the three recovery centre projects – said in an e-mail to the Enoch Cree Nation.

"The Nation followed its own internal procurement process, soliciting bids from potential vendors in the Edmonton-area," the Indigenous community replied. In an e-mailed statement to The Globe, Enoch spokesperson Erin Stroud said that Melewka Homes' "existing design and relationship with other First Nations added strength to their proposal," and that the nation expects to open its recovery centre in early December.

When Tsuut'ina's then-chief Roy Whitney responded to Ms. Carignan, he said the nation had chosen Melewka Homes based on “a review of construction companies that were familiar with the construction of recovery facilities in Alberta.”

The nation entered into a contract with Melewka Homes in February, 2024, court filings show. At the time, Melewka had one other recovery centre contract, with the Métis Nation, which it had signed a month prior.

Ellery Starlight, who was elected as Tsuut'ina Nation's chief in late 2025, said in an interview that his community is still investigating how its recovery centre contract was managed.

"The whole project – as positive as it is sounding, everybody was in the dark of the process," he said.

Mr. Starlight estimated Tsuut'ina's recovery centre is about 80-per-cent complete, and he wants to see its doors open.

“A recovery centre is a god-send,” he said. “I actually have a good team now that’s overseeing the project in a responsible way. And we’re moving forward. We’re not mothballing anything.”

The projects at Tsuut'ina, Enoch and the Métis Nation fell into a legal morass after a dispute emerged between Melewka Homes and a business development partner, the similarly named Melewka Construction Management Services Ltd., owned by Mohamed Eldassouki, an MHCare executive and Mr. Mraiche's brother-in-law.

Mr. Eldassouki alleges that Melewka Homes president Lewis Semashkewich took control of his business and bank account by using a forged share sale agreement. Mr. Semashkewich, meanwhile, alleges that Mr. Mraiche was the undisclosed “directing mind” of Melewka Construction and that he had worked with others to withhold payments on various projects, including the recovery centres, until Melewka Homes agreed to pay him.

While the two Melewkas continue their court battle, The Globe has reported that subcontractors allege they have gone unpaid, and some have taken to placing liens or suing to recoup their costs. None of the allegations in those proceedings have been proven in court.

Mr. Mraiche has denied any wrongdoing in his court filings and said his involvement in Melewka Construction was limited to providing “casual, unofficial and informal business advice.” Lawyers for Mr. Eldassouki and Mr. Semashkewich did not respond to a request for comment, and the litigation continues.

Sheinbaum buying time in her dealings with Trump

Mexican President takes on balancing act of trying to placate Washington while also vying to reach trade deal

DAVID AGREN BUENOS AIRES

The recent appearance by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico at a ceremony to lay the first stone of a new police academy in Querétaro state seemed perfunctory enough, given the increasing security co-operation between the two countries.

But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum questioned the visit by Ambassador Ronald Johnson, criticized the state's governor – a member of an opposition party – for failing to seek federal authorization for a security project with a foreign government and took issue with comments from the state's security officials that the academy would provide training by U.S. agents.

“We have a good relationship with the United States government regarding security and other matters,” Ms. Sheinbaum said last week.

“What we ask of state governors, the ambassador and the U.S. government is simply that Mexican laws be complied with in everything related to international co-operation.”

The episode demonstrates the challenges facing Ms. Sheinbaum as she seeks to placate the Trump administration on security matters while trying to reach a trade deal to reduce or remove U.S. tariffs on Mexican autos, steel and aluminum.

The United States is increasingly targeting Ms. Sheinbaum's ruling Morena party for alleged ties to drug cartels.

The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted a Mexican governor and senator, and Washington has revoked the travel visas of dozens of Mexican politicians.

Ms. Sheinbaum's complaints regarding the U.S. ambassador's appearance at the police academy exposed a pattern of opposition governors demonstrating a willingness to work with the U.S. government on security matters in a way that Ms. Sheinbaum and her party consider violations of Mexican sovereignty.

In April, two Central Intelli-

An analysis by the political consultancy Spin found that Ms. Sheinbaum has increased her use of words such as 'sovereignty,' 'foreign,' 'independence,' 'homeland' and the 'United States' in her major 2026 speeches.

gence Agency officials died in a car crash in northern Chihuahua state after accompanying state police in the dismantling of a methamphetamine lab. The incident drew the ire of Ms. Sheinbaum because neither CIA official was accredited to work in Mexico.

“Defending sovereignty is not mere rhetoric – it is part of our history, and we must always defend it,” the President said at her Friday news conference.

Sovereignty has long underpinned Ms. Sheinbaum's discourse.

But an analysis by the political consultancy Spin found that she has increased her use of words such as “sovereignty,” “foreign,” “independence,” “homeland” and the “United States” in her major 2026 speeches.

And she has shot back at Mr. Trump's claims that the country is controlled by drug cartels by demanding U.S. action on gun smuggling and telling the U.S. to address its own drug consumption problems.

“Where is the work being done to stop all the cartels or drug distributors in the U.S.?” she quipped in September.

Her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, recently spoke of sovereignty, too, while avoiding any mention of Mr. Trump, with whom he famously got along while president. He said of Mr. Johnson, “He’s not a diplomat nor a politician. He acts instead as a meddling cop.”

But analysts say the U.S. accusations of narco-politics implicate close allies of the former president.

The sovereignty discourse “is the only way to turn the tide regarding the credible accusations against key figures in Morena,” said Bárbara Gónzalez, a political commentator in Monterrey, Mexico.

“Abandoning them is not an option” for Ms. Sheinbaum, she added. “Wrapping herself in the flag helps her buy time.”

Despite the sharpening discourse, Ms. Sheinbaum still expresses optimism about reaching a deal on tariffs with the U.S. Analysts expect the terms of any potential agreement with Mexico to resemble the deal Canada walked away from in August.

Mexico has continued making concessions. Ms. Sheinbaum addressed U.S. concerns about Chinese investments in Mexico by proposing an amendment to the country's foreign investment law to create a review mechanism to screen for national-security concerns.

The Financial Times reported Friday that Mr. Trump urged Ms. Sheinbaum in a call to shrink Mexico's US\$155-billion trade surplus with the U.S. by purchasing more U.S. natural gas.

He also proposed more partnerships and deals between U.S. and Mexican energy companies.

Analysts differ on the efficacy of making concessions – which have included sending 92 suspected drug cartel bosses to the U.S., settling a water debt and allowing drones to fly over Mexican territory – while seeing the stern sovereignty talk as a response to the Trump administration's rising demands.

It is “a symptom of her realizing that those tactical concessions are not going to be enough,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States, adding that many in Washington want to see Ms. Sheinbaum “taking on the connective tissue between organized crime and politics.”

Others see Ms. Sheinbaum drawing from an old political playbook.

"The goal is to eventually move past this administration. And with Trump, the only way to do that is by making concessions, not by constantly confronting him, but by drawing a line so that we are respected," said Raúl Zepeda Gil, a professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

“That is a very Mexican way of doing politics – one that works very well with Trump in that it isn’t a functional politics based on rules, visions or ideologies.”

Special to The Globe and Mail

Wisconsin: Both parties fighting for younger voters in the swing state

FROM A1

Dylan Finger, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wis., is leaning toward voting Democrat in November's midterm elections. PHOTOS BY KAYLA WOLF/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

A pedestrian walks past the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, Wis. The swing state is a battleground for young voters.

Then came the tariffs. Then the war in Iran. Then rising fuel prices. Then more tariffs and more high prices. Then higher mortgage rates, which will inflate the monthly payment for the home he will soon buy by US\$700 a month.

Then, too, the things that did not happen, like a promised increase to the child tax credit. Mr. Hough has a daughter who will soon turn two.

“I don’t think he’s done any of the things that he promised which made me want to vote for him the first time,” he said.

An unusual throng of voters propelled Mr. Trump to victory in 2024. People in lower-income brackets shifted his way, as did Muslim Americans and those of Latino descent. But in places such as Crawford County, which occupies a fertile quadrant between the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, poll watchers also noticed dozens of younger men coming in to vote, many for the first time.

In the state's college towns, voting wards packed with young people counted a surge in ballots for Mr. Trump: a nine-point rise around Marquette University; a 9.5-per-cent increase around the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse; a seven-point gain around the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

Even in Madison, the state's famously liberal enclave – alumni include Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson and Tammy Baldwin, a pioneering gay politician who is now a U.S. senator – Mr. Trump saw a lift in support.

“That voting data doesn’t have gender in it,” said John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University who has studied the voting data. But he has little doubt “that this was young men moving in that direction.”

Now, traces of the affection and adulation – or even faint hope – the President once commanded are hard to find.

Mr. Trump is not on the ballot in the midterm elections next month. But whether Republicans can recapture the ranks of his 2024 supporters will determine how much, if at all, midterm voting this year reshapes American power. In Wisconsin, voters will determine who controls the governor's office and a state legislature that has been dominated by Republicans since 2011.

Both parties are fighting for young voters in the Midwestern swing state, which had the highest turnout in the country in 2024. Next year, Republicans and Democrats will hold duelling youth conventions in Milwaukee.

Nick Jacobs, who chairs the state's college Republicans, sees echoes of 2024 on campuses this year. Students are knocking on doors, volunteering at phone banks and taking intern positions with Republican candidates. Even at University of Wisconsin-Madison, young anti-abortion activists held signs saying, “Babies are Not Body Parts” on a recent weekday.

“People are incredibly, incredibly active on the ground,” Mr. Jacobs said. It reminds him of the energy Mr. Trump inspired two years ago.

Some supporters, meanwhile, find it hard to lay economic problems entirely at the feet of the man they voted for.

The cost of fuel? “I think a lot of it is that there’s greed in the oil industry,” said Braden Horstman, a 25-year-old farmer and churchgoer who was raised in a conservative home.

“I never necessarily was a 100-per-cent fan, but I thought, in my opinion, he was the better alternative,” Mr. Horstman said.

Whatever has happened, “I’m not changing the way that I vote,” he added.

Yet there is reason to question whether the young men who came out just to vote for Mr. Trump will remain in the Republican fold.

A vote last year for a Wisconsin

Supreme Court justice drew national attention, including heavy spending by tech trillionaire Elon Musk, who handed out several US\$1-million cheques – one of them to Mr. Jacobs, the college Republican chair.

Yet the votes around Wisconsin campuses were no more conservative than before.

Mr. Trump's success in Wisconsin is among the reasons he occupies the White House today. He won the state with the greatest percentage of the vote for a Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984. He saw his greatest gains among younger voters and his worst among the oldest, an analysis by Mr. Johnson found.

But in subsequent votes, “there was no durable shift,” Mr. Johnson said.

Instead, the shortfall between what Mr. Trump pledged and what he delivered has spoiled the appetite of many young men for the politics this President has brought to the country.

Dawson Nickels liked the opening acts of Mr. Trump's second term: a hardened southern border, pledges to slash government spending. Plus, “the Venezuela thing was cool,” said Mr. Nickels, 27, who raises competition jersey cows near Watertown, Wisc., and works in real estate development.

The abduction of Nicolás Maduro was a lightning-speed demonstration of U.S. power, removing a dictator and giving American companies new access to the world's largest crude reserves.

“But the Iran thing ...” Had that conflict also ended quickly, “we’d be perfectly fine,” Mr. Nickels said. Instead, war continues with no sign of resolution. “There’s always a price to pay, and we’re paying it.”

Not only has the cost of fertilizer and diesel struck particularly hard at agricultural communities, but U.S. debt has climbed over US\$40-trillion. No politician who oversees that kind of borrowing should be allowed back into office, Mr. Nickels said.

Two years ago, he voted for the first time to mark a ballot for Mr. Trump.

In November, he expects to sit out the midterms at home.

Younger Democrats, meanwhile, have found new arguments to support their cause. In the state's contest for governor, the Republican candidate, Tom Tiffany, has raised nearly three times more money than his Democratic opponent, David Crowley. (Both men have been funded by ultra-wealthy donors, including from neighbouring Illinois.) But 93 per cent of the Republican's cash has come from just three billionaires, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.

“They do not care about the working class in the slightest,” argued William Walter, a Wisconsinite who sits on the steering committee for Young Progressive Democrats of America. His party, he said, is “focused on the issues that actually resonate with young

voters."

The party hasn't always found that easy. In Crawford County, the local Democratic Party is chaired by Jon Sutton, who is 65. "And I'm, like, practically the youngest person involved," he said.

They have tried new ways to reach younger audiences, relying on one woman – she is nearly 50 – to post pictures and videos to TikTok, accompanied by a soundtrack. But they don’t do much door-knocking, in part because “our old people can’t walk very well any more. And they don’t see or hear very well,” Mr. Sutton said.

But at a moment when the high-volume politics of the White House have drowned out many other political conversations, it may not matter.

Dylan Finger, a 21-year-old premed student at UW-Madison, was among those who voted two years ago for Mr. Trump, whom he saw as a rupture from politics as usual.

“I was like, ‘Hey, I want something new,’” he said.

The idea of reviving old industries resonated in a Great Lakes state that had, until recently, remained one of the few places in the country where manufacturing was the most important industry. Today, more Wisconsinites work in health care and social assistance than in factories.

“I would love to see some of those companies, some of those factories, come back to life,” Mr. Finger said. The Trump administration has pointed to statistics showing Wisconsin has added 30,000 jobs this year alone. But it shed 9,500 manufacturing jobs in 2025. Mr. Finger can’t understand the White House argument that tariffs will help.

Not only have foreign-made goods increased in price, so have domestic alternatives.

“Consumers are inherently forced to buy a more expensive product,” Mr. Finger said. It means “you’re not really boosting the local economy.”

It all means that, come November, he is leaning toward marking a ballot for Democrats.

"At this point, I would consider changing. I'm definitely more up in the air than I was two years ago."

Jacob Boggs, 21, is making a change of another kind. In 2024, he didn't bother casting a ballot.

“I didn’t think my vote would mean anything,” he said. “And I was sorely mistaken.”

Two years later, politics was on his mind, even as he arrived at American Family Field to watch a Milwaukee Brewers playoff game. He is unhappy about tariffs, fuel prices and the state of an economy he called “terrible.”

He will not sit out another elec-

tion.

This year, “I’m going to vote. I’m definitely voting Democrat,” he said.

He is done with Republican leadership.

“Things need to change.”

Referendum: Pollster says there are a number of wild cards at play

FROM A1

“A week from today, Albertans will have the opportunity to make an important decision about their future – whether to remain part of Canada or begin a long and uncertain process through which Alberta could separate from Canada,” Mr. Carney said.

“Generations of Albertans helped build this country. It’s yours. It’s ours. And it’s worth fighting for.”

Although Mr. Carney's government has prioritized major projects in Alberta in the run-up to the vote, it has been criticized for not taking a more active role in mobilizing support for the remain side, leaving the campaign mostly to citizen groups and Alberta's political parties.

Polls suggest 70 per cent or more of Albertans want to remain a part of Canada. However, former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, the head organizer of Forever Canadian, a group that is making the case against separation, cautioned against overconfidence based on those numbers.

“Polling that tells you that you’re on the winning side is actually your biggest enemy because it breeds complacency,” Mr. Lukaszuk said on Monday.

"The best example of that is probably Brexit, where the majority of Brits did not want it," he said, referring to the 2016 referendum on whether Great Britain should leave the European Union. Voters supported the exit.

out," Mr. Lukaszuk said.

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney said that a strong showing for the separatists could have long-lasting negative political consequences.

Mr. Kenney said his sense is that the number of committed separatists in Alberta is at or below 10 per cent. He thinks that other supporters of separation are merely intent on sending a message to the federal government. They cannot win, he said, unless there is very low overall turnout, at or below 40 per cent.

“I hope that we’ll get 70 per cent or better turnout, but that’s not certain,” he said. “I’m not nervous. I’m optimistic, but prepared to be surprised.”

He said that separatists could potentially use momentum from this vote to claim they're a mainstream movement. "The separatists will see anything north of 10 per cent as material progress, as encouragement to carry on."

"They were so sure they were going to win, they chose not to vote and that's how they lost. I'm always worried about voter turn-"

The result, he said, could sow more division in Alberta politics and might be particularly worrisome for conservative parties, because the separatist pressure is almost entirely on the right.

“This will play out in nomination and leadership contests ... for many years to come,” he said.

Pollster Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research Corp., said there are a number of wild cards to consider as the referendum vote looms. He added that the closing week of any referendum is a particularly vulnerable time.

When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced the referendum in May, she said in a televised address to the province that it was time to have a vote on the issue, understand the will of Albertans on the subject, and move on. She has said that she and her United Conservative Party support staying in Canada.

Mr. Lukaszuk, asked about Mr. Carney's video, said the Prime Minister's messaging has been helpful.

"Our Prime Minister has been doing a good job in this particular campaign. This campaign

“All it takes is for someone outside of the province to say something sensational and it can shape the final outcome,” he said.

was not in a traditional style of 'Rah, rah. Go out and vote and let me tell you what's good for you.' Instead, he has been showing how Canada can work, and how our federalism can be collaborative."

On Sunday, Ms. Smith's press

Mr. Carney will be in Alberta this week to make the case for remaining in Canada. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and other leaders are also scheduled to speak in the province. Mr. Kenney and former NDP premier Rachel Notley, are scheduled to speak on Tuesday in Edmonton.

Dorothy Knowles October 8 - November 5

secretary, Sam Blackett, said the province will continue its advertising campaign urging Albertans to vote in support of a strong and sovereign Alberta in a united Canada.

384 Eglinton Ave W Toronto ON M5N1A2 Est. 1981

Rukaj Gallery

He said Ms. Smith will be holding town halls, public events and media interviews, with the focus this week on southern Alberta.

“We will continue to work to get a strong mandate from Albertans for more sustainable immigration policies and to pursue constitutional reforms that increase our province’s sovereignty within Canada,” Mr. Blackett said.

'She wouldn't let anything hold her back': The last mountain run of Kalie McCrystal

The prolific Canadian skyrunner vanished without a trace on the Matterhorn on Sept. 1. Here's what we know

ERIC REGULY

BREUIL-CERVINIA, ITALY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FABRIZIO TROCCOLI

The video that shows Kalie McCrystal near the very top of the Matterhorn, the sixth-highest peak in the sixth highest peak in the Alps and one reserved for the most daring and skilled mountaineers, is thrilling and unnerving.

The 1:26-long clip was shot by a climber who was part of a small group of female climbers from Poland on Sept. 1 – a Tuesday. They encountered Kalie, 38, a lawyer and formidable skyrunner from Squamish, B.C., on her way to the Matterhorn's crest at about 3:20 p.m. as they were on their way down.

The video starts close to the rugged rock face on the Italian side of the mountain. It shows the shadow of the climber, then pans to the left, revealing a near-vertical drop to the base of the Matterhorn. The camera picks up a figure below her, ascending with no climbing gear. She is wearing a black helmet, wrap-around sunglasses, a white vest over a black jacket, and black shorts. It is Kalie.

“How many people is with you?” the Polish climber asks as she descends, breathing heavily and dangling from multicoloured ropes.

"Just me," Kalie says.

The video jerks around for a few seconds, then shows Kalie on a narrow ledge close to the woman. There are a few indistinct words, but Kalie apparently asks how close to the peak she is.

“Ah, it’s close, but it’s late a little bit,” the Pole says. “But I think without the equipment it’s faster.”

The video shows Kalie above the climbers, pressing into the blue sky. She tells them that she will descend on the same route.

“So maybe see you, and good luck,” the Polish woman says.

“Thank you,” Kalie says.

The images of Kalie were the last recorded in her life. She went missing less than half an hour later that day.

In mid-September, after two weeks of searching, her younger sister, Jody McCrystal, and their mother, Wendy Cooper, declared her dead, though rescue searches had not been able to find her remains.

The Italian mountain-rescue teams know she made it to the peak and started her descent on the Italian side. They estimate that she fell a few minutes before 4 p.m., probably somewhere between 4,250 metres and 4,100 metres – not far below the 4,478-metre peak. She vanished without a trace, leaving behind a mystery of what caused her fall, its direction and where her body landed.

The other mystery: How could a champion skyrunner make a fatal mistake? “It’s strange that someone with so much experience fell and disappeared,” Lucio Trucco, a seasoned mountain guide and member of the regional mountain-rescue service, Soccorso Alpino Valdostano, told The Globe and Mail in late September.

But his colleague, Paolo Comune, director of the service and the helicopter-rescue technician who was on the search flights for Kalie, said that the Matterhorn can be unforgiving for even the best mountaineers. “She was in a place where you can’t make mistakes,” he said.

Four mountaineers, including Kalie, have died on the Matterhorn this year. Since records began after the first-known ascent in 1865, about 600 climbers have not returned from the mountain alive.

Kalie's disappearance came as a shock to Jody and Wendy, especially given her expertise in negotiating mountain trails and ridges at high altitudes.

What does not surprise them is that Kalie took calculated risks on risky mountains; she had an apparently unquenchable thirst for adventure. She had taken up paragliding over the past couple of years and competed in races called hike-and-fly, where athletes hike up a mountain with a paraglider chute in their backpack, unpack it at the peak and fly down.

Kalie was born in Nova Scotia and moved with her parents to

Mission, B.C., just east of Vancouver, when she was two years old. She was raised by her mother, who was a teacher and later a school counsellor. From the onset, Kalie had a passion for sports, was highly competitive and loved her independence. "Any sport or activity she did to a high level," said Jody, who lives in England, working as school counsellor in East London. "And she knew from an early age that she wanted to get out of our small town and see the world."

Kalie excelled at swimming, volleyball, soccer, cross-country running, track and field, and snowboarding. She lived in Mission until age 18, and studied sports psychology at the University of British Columbia before pursuing a law degree, specializing in international arbitration and intellectual property. During her high school and university years, she kept her sports devotion intact and saved money for travel. At about age 20, she worked as a shepherd in New Zealand. "She was incredibly driven and was always working towards something," Jody said. "If she wanted to do something, she wouldn't let anything hold her back."

At some point after her university years, she discovered trail running. “This sport brought a lot of things together for her,” Jody said. “She was always searching for a sport that she could excel in and trail running brought together her endurance with technical ability. But I think it was the friendship and community she found in trail running that really drew her in. She was among people who understood her and shared her drive.”

Kalie moved to Squamish in her early 30s. Some time later, she discovered a spin-off sport called skyrunning, which took trail run-

ning to a more intense level.

In her 30s, Kalie McCrystal became one of the top-ranked skyrunners in the world. In 2025, she made mountain sports her priority by pivoting from a senior associate role at Vancouver's Borden Ladner Gervais law firm to become a consultant. MARGAUX COHEN VIA THE CANADIAN PRESS

Skyrunning was pioneered in Italy in the early 1990s. It is a running discipline that favours endurance athletes skilled enough to handle twisty, steep, rock-studded routes. The races are generally run at elevations of 2,000 metres or higher, with at least 5 per cent of the course having an incline of 30 per cent or more – the upper stretches of the Matterhorn are 35 to 45 degrees before going nearly vertical. The races are usually 20 to 45 kilometres long and usually take three to eight hours to complete. The finishing time must be less than 16 hours.

Unlike traditional mountain climbers, to save weight, skyrunners climb without ropes or belaying equipment – a mechanical device attached to a rope that acts as a friction brake. They rely on chains and ropes already attached to the mountain to tackle the steepest parts. The downside is that they are not protected from falls if they make a wrong move.

Jody never considered Kalie a thrill seeker in spite of her pursuit of sports that, to an outsider, seem crazy dangerous. “She just never shied away from sports that were a challenge,” she said. “She believed in herself and kept testing herself.”

In her 30s, Kalie became one of the top-ranked skyrunners in the world. In early 2025, she, in effect, made mountain sports her priority by converting her senior associate role at Vancouver's Borden Ladner Gervais law firm to consultant. "She reassessed her life," Jody said. "She realized that being a corporate lawyer was not her whole purpose. She wanted more time for adventure."

Kalie's Instagram feed is full of images of her training, racing and outright beaming at high altitudes. She typically ranked among the top five in races in the Skyrunner World Series, including first place this summer in Argentina's 4 Refugios Non-Stop, a gruelling event with about 3,500 metres of elevation gain; and fourth place in the Trofeo Kima

Far left: A valley sits at the foot of the Matterhorn, which is the sixth-highest peak in the Alps.

Left: The church in the centre of Breuil-Cervinia is a traditional marker for trails leading toward the Matterhorn. It was also Kalie's starting point.

Below: The majestic summit of the Matterhorn has steep rock faces and pale scars left by rockfalls.

Left: Members of the Aosta Valley Alpine Rescue Service conduct a search on Sept. 24.

race in northern Italy, which covered 52 kilometres and 4,200 metres of elevation gain.

On Aug. 7, she posted a photo of herself atop the Matterhorn, after a training run aimed at setting a record for a woman's skyrunning climb and descent. She is wearing a green windbreaker. It's a wild, beautiful image. The peak protrudes into the sun and the clouds. Her left hand holds the frame of the tall metal cross attached to the peak; her right arm is outstretched in the other direction in a gleeful victory pose as she arches her body away from the cross. If she had lost her grip, there is little doubt she would have plummeted straight down.

Next to the image, she set out her goal, which was, she said to "go up and down the Matterhorn in under 5 hours via Lion's Ridge," referring to the normal route taken by climbers on the mountain's Italian side. By tradition, the route starts at the distinctive white church in the centre of Breuil-Cervinia and passes over Pic Tyndall, a secondary peak about 230 metres below the Matterhorn's crest.

She assured her Instagram followers she was being careful. The day before, she aborted a practice run after an overnight storm. “I was not about to solo a new route on wet rock and zero vis and a real risk of rock fall,” she wrote. “So I bailed. Even I have limits.”

Kalie was determined to take another practice run up the Matterhorn. On Sept. 1, she went out of her way to do so, as if breaking the women's skyrunning record for the mountain had become an obsession. She had spent the night in Milan, rode a bus for three or four hours to Breuil-Cervinia and checked into her hotel, the Petit Palais, probably in the late morning.

Instead of unpacking and

calling it a day, she changed into her athletic gear, found the church and began her climb. She ran into the Polish climbers near the peak and kept going. At the summit, she was spotted by a Swiss mountain-rescue team, which kept a telescope trained on the Matterhorn as a matter of routine. She was seen again by the Polish climbers at about 3:45 p.m., by which time she was descending quickly, about 200 metres below the summit. The weather was near perfect at the time.

Then nothing.

Two days later, on Sept. 3, Jody received a call from Kalie's close American-French friend, Hillary

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAP; GOOGLE EARTH

Gerardi, a well-known skyrunner who sometimes trained and competed with Kalie.

“Hillary asked me if I had heard from my sister,” Jody said. “I hadn’t. We thought that maybe she had just lost her phone, or was in bed sick in her hotel room.”

Gerardi later told The Globe that she and Kalie were supposed to do a long-distance trail-running race in Corsica called the GR20. Kalie's silence worried her and she called the Guardia di Finanza, the semi-military Italian finance police that operates a mountain-rescue service and works closely with the regional mountain-rescue team in the Matterhorn area.

On Sept. 4, Jody, from England, and her mother Wendy, from B.C., were on flights to Italy. By sheer coincidence, they found a room at the Petit Palais, the same hotel Kalie had checked into three days earlier. The Guardia di Finanza investigators had entered Kalie's room before Jody and Wendy arrived and found her luggage on the bed, unopened, and her Canadian passport. "We saw the enormous Matterhorn peak right in front of the hotel and it looked terrifying to us," Jody said. "We were still clinging to the hope that she was alive but injured."

The Italian rescue service began helicopter missions. They started with a big helicopter, then used a small one capable of hovering closer to the mountain face. They later used drones, which could get within a metre or so of the rock face and the deep crevices to look for scraps of clothing or traces of blood. Both the Italian and Swiss sides of the Matterhorn were searched.

On Sept. 6, Jody and her mother took a flight on one of the small helicopters. “They offered to take us up to give us an understanding of how hard it was to find someone who had fallen,” Jody said. “The sheer drops, we just felt sick looking at them.”

Above: Valerio Segor, left, and Paolo Comune of the rescue service discuss her disappearance.

By then, Kalie's family had pretty much lost hope that she would be found alive. The Guardia di Finanza, with the help of the RCMP officer at the Canadian embassy in Rome, tried to find her last location using data from her phone. Valerio Segor, director of civil protection for the Aosta Valley, said that “triangulation” from the Italian and Swiss cellphone towers indicated that Kalie probably fell on the Italian side, but there was insufficient data to reveal her precise location. Her phone last pinged a cell tower at 4:18 p.m., though it’s entirely possible that she fell before that time.

Rescue teams know that the vast majority of climbers who fall near the peak get killed, and that their bodies often go unrecovered. The sheer speed and length of the fall over jagged rocks means the bodies can get ripped apart. Only a piece of the arm of the Finnish mountain guide who vanished on the Matterhorn at the end of July – his name has never been published – was found.

Still, the mystery of what happened to Kalie remains. “Normally, we find a jacket, a shoe, a trace of blood, something to indicate where they fell,” said Comune, the director of the local rescue service. “This time we found nothing, and she could have fallen on either the Italian or Swiss side from a ridge.”

Kalie's family was grateful for the rescue team's thorough search effort and their empathy. They had hoped to bring her back to B.C. Gerardi called Kalie "an exceptional person and I feel so lucky to have known her."

Jody and her mother are grieving and have launched the Kalie McCrystal Memorial Fund at UBC to help students, possibly athletic ones (the McCrystal family is still working out the parameters). “We take comfort that she died in the mountains, doing what she loved doing,” Jody said.

EDITORIAL

The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures - Junius

In B.C., a dose of judge-made drug policy

The death toll from toxic street drugs in British Columbia and much of the rest of the country is both astonishing and horrifying. But even in the context of a public-health emergency, a judge's ruling striking down the federal law of possession for the purpose of trafficking in hopes of reducing the death toll is misbegotten – the latest example of judges dressing up political decisions as legal or constitutional ones.

The case before Justice Catherine Murray of the B.C. Supreme Court focused on two people who bought street drugs such as methamphetamines, cocaine and heroin from the dark web, tested them for fentanyl and other impurities at university labs and sold them at cost to drug users.

In essence, Justice Murray found that drug users have a constitutional right, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to be exempted from federal possession and trafficking laws in B.C., so they may receive a “safer supply.”

It's worth elaborating on what Justice Murray is asking Ottawa to do. People who use drugs must be permitted a source of drugs not overseen by the medical profession. Such is their need to avoid withdrawal, they need near-instant access, and medical supervision doesn't work for them. They cannot be denied what she frames as a non-medicalized supplier.

This is an extreme ruling, by any measure. To Justice Murray, it is justified by the extreme times in which drug users find themselves – 2,585 deaths in British Columbia in 2025, or seven a day. She has given Ottawa six months to make legislative reforms, which would necessarily apply across Canada. For what, exactly? Is she demanding Ottawa also allow exemptions for people who promise to test drugs purchased from organized crime? If the federal government proves unwilling to accept the cartels' involvement, should it instead create a public-private partnership of some kind that would provide pharmaceutical-quality drugs to so-called compassion clubs for distribution? Would the simplest answer be to decriminalize possession? Make methamphetamine available without regulation?

It's not hard to see that each of these solutions would also bring serious problems. And that is what happens when judges take it upon themselves, as Justice Murray did, to make policy decisions better left to government – though to be fair, governments and health regulators have not done a good job on the drugs crisis. For instance, the widespread distribution of hydromorphone, a safer alternative to street drugs, led to large-scale diversion, with the cash used to buy even more fentanyl. It was a well-intentioned disaster.

In reaching her conclusions, Justice Murray held a mini-inquiry of the street drug-using environment, assessed facts and came to certain judgments. It is challenging terrain, and some of her factual assessments are shaky. For instance, more than half of users who purchased the drugs went on to divert them to others. Did they use any resulting cash to buy other drugs, perhaps because they sought the fentanyl high? To what extent did this program simply add to the street drug supply? The judge's answer, that any diversion may have actually enhanced public safety, seems speculative at best.

And what of the fact that drug-testing kits, which allow anyone to test drugs within five minutes, are widely available for free? Justice Murray accepted the view that drug users don't like showing up at medical-related institutions (not even the downtown pharmacies where the kits are placed conveniently on the counter) because of “stigma,” which she says federal law has helped create. Yet thousands of these kits are in circulation each year in Vancouver.

We've seen other rulings in which various groups accuse government of putting their lives at risk. In Toronto last year, a judge effectively declared a constitutional right to bike lanes – a right mercifully tossed aside by an appeal court. Three years ago, the then chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court, Christopher Hinkson, blocked B.C.'s law keeping drug users away from playgrounds and child-care spaces, during a period when normally illegal use was exempted from federal drug laws; his thought was that using drugs in public could save lives. These are extreme rulings that turn judges into policy makers, and ignore legislators' role in addressing social problems. (More on that later in the week.)

Fentanyl and other impurities have made street drugs more potent and deadly. But inventing a constitutional right to the non-medicalized provision of dangerous drugs has its own dire risks.

JAMES KELLER

NATIONAL EDITOR

CHRISTINE BROUSSEAU

MANAGING EDITOR, PRIORITIES

ANDREW SAUNDERS

PRESIDENT AND CEO

DAVID WALMSLEY

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

David Parkin 52026

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

TRUMP EFFECT

Re “Trump didn’t intimidate Canadians – he empowered Canadians” (Opinion, Oct. 10): Far from punishing allies, Donald Trump is doing Canada, NATO countries and Western Europe a big favour. What is happening to Western countries is the establishment of new alliances, new open markets and new friends.

Canada is most certainly finding new customers for products once sold to the United States in large quantities. Although it will take time, these new alliances should be strong and steadfast.

This leaves the U.S. in a quandary. Even once the Trump era is over and (hopefully) cooler heads prevail, previous suppliers will likely have no need for the U.S. market. New markets and alliances would not change; even if the U.S. needs our aluminum, for example, we would have none left to sell.

The shoe would be on the other foot, as the saying goes. God bless America may be apt as well.

■ Ted Parkinson Toronto

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AND THE AWARD GOES TO...

Re “A Nobel Prize for Mark Carney? Premature. Person of the Year award? Thumbs-up” (Oct. 8): Either honour would be a disaster for this country.

Mark Carney may well deserve Time Magazine's Person of the Year award for 2026, but Donald Trump would go ballistic and likely lash out further against Canada. We don't need to poke the bear at this time or incur his wrath.

SINCLAIR STEWART

DEPUTY EDITOR

ANGELA PACIENZA

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Almost certainly, Mr. Carney will earn many prestigious awards in due course. Let's get on quietly with building our economy, infrastructure and national pride.

Joyce Rowlands Toronto

I'm afraid I don't agree when it comes to awarding Mark Carney Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

Under his watch, I believe the Canadian economy is in severe tank mode. However, if the award is given for ruinously pushing Canada's total debt to \$2.4-trillion and its deficit to more than \$110-billion, I wholeheartedly agree.

■ Nancy Marley-Clarke

Cochrane, Alta.

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TEMPERATURE CHECK

Re “Canada is at risk of missing its emission goals, climate report says” (Report on Business, Oct. 8): The Canadian Climate Institute’s latest report confirms a dismal pattern: Canada has never met an emissions reduction target, remaining an outlier among G7 nations as the only country whose emissions rose.

While the new heat pump rebate program is a welcome step (“Ottawa to launch \$2-billion heat pump rebate program early next year” – Report on Business, Oct. 9), its gains risk being erased as fossil fuel companies expand production capacity to fill a taxpayer-subsidized pipeline.

To turn the tide, provincial and federal leadership should act decisively. Halt the expansion of natural gas infrastructure in new subdivisions and mandate heat pumps instead. Simultaneously, clean up our power grid by ending our reliance on gas-fired "peaker" plants, which increasingly run continuously, and replacing them with cheap, clean renewables and battery storage.

If we hope to leave a liveable future for our children, stop building out pipelines and propping up unproven fossil fuel workarounds such as carbon capture. Invest in renewables and electrify everything in sight.

Ray Nakano Toronto

Most people's response would be to call the government hypocrites. Research on climate hypocrisy offers a better approach: While the government is both trying to solve climate change and causing it, our lifestyles also involve contradictions owing to the way society is structured, from gas-heated homes to an economy dependent on big projects.

Conversations should start by noticing this gap, rather than laying blame. Governments have backtracked, and that calls for scrutiny. But so too does our own reliance on fossil fuels.

A change in Canada would require collective action to close the gap.

■ Simisola Pelemo Priscilla

Charlottetown

PRAIRIE PRECEDENT

Re “The PQ is back in office without a lot of people power behind the next premier” (Oct. 7): People who love Canada may take comfort in the extreme narrowness of the Parti Québécois victory. They shouldn’t.

Here in Alberta, we're getting a powerful lesson in how a party, once it gets its hands on power, has at its disposal the entire system of government, including taxpayer money, to pull strings and levers to get what it wants.

The referendum includes nine other questions that I would describe as anti-immigrant and anti-federal government. Each one basically presents an argument for why it should be answered in the affirmative.

"manufacturing consent."

The government has also launched a media campaign – a propaganda campaign, I'd call it – to persuade people to give it justification for making life more difficult for newcomers and trying to wrest more power from the federal government. This sort of thing has been called, astutely,

Let's see how Paul St-Pierre Plamondon uses his grip on the reins of government to move public opinion in Quebec toward an approval of separation. Frank Burgess Edmonton

LONG MEMORY

Re “Ontario cancer patient who was denied coverage for U.S. treatment dismayed by province’s revised rules” (Oct. 8): So the Ontario government shifts the administrative goalposts with respect to drug coverage and I believe essentially condemns a young man and father of two daughters to certain death.

Ontarians are a kind and compassionate people and come the next election should not forget this hateful act.

Alan Drummond MD, Perth, Ont.

FIGHT ON

Re “Decades after her diagnosis, Adrienne Clarkson calls for better endometriosis care” (Oct. 6): I can offer a story of hope to Canadian women quietly suffering with endometriosis.

My story includes a misdiagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome and several trips to emergency over years of suffering. The final trip was in an ambulance and, on arrival, I insisted on being seen by an obstetrician/gynecologist. That doctor's compassion and determination led to a diagnosis that still requires laparoscopic surgery today.

There should be better diagnostic options, better education for doctors and women and earlier detection to prevent infertility. My story continues as a mom of two great kids.

It was a worthy battle, but one that would have been unnecessary with the right investment in research and education.

■ Alison Pidskalny Calgary

HEAR THAT?

Re “As hearing aid technology improves, issues of accessibility and stigma persist” (Oct. 6): It is beyond frustrating that those with hearing loss are denied access to low-cost solutions owing to provincial government inaction, leaving them with no alternative but expensive traditional hearing aids.

For those with hearing loss who might be self-conscious about using such devices, Apple's AirPod hearing technology, which is not available yet in the country, would allow them to appear no different from the myriad Canadians who walk the streets daily, talking on their phones or listening to music or podcasts.

■ Victor Nerenberg

Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que.

DENNIS CHOQUETTE

DEPUTY EDITOR, REPORT ON BUSINESS

GARY SALEWICZ

EDITOR, REPORT ON BUSINESS

PATRICK BRETHOUR

EDITORIALS EDITOR

NATASHA HASSAN

OPINION EDITOR

MATT FRENCH

HEAD OF VISUALS

MATT FREHNER

MANAGING EDITOR,

PRODUCTS AND PLATFORMS

MELISSA STASIUK

HEAD OF NEWSROOM DEVELOPMENT

Alberta's referendum isn't about leverage

It's about secession, plain and simple, and leaders' rhetorical pirouettes should be ignored

TYLER DAWSON EDMONTON

OPINION

Edmonton-based editor for The Globe and Mail's Opinion section. He is the author of The Republic of Alberta: An Idea That Won't Go Away.

The moment for voting approaches on the Alberta referendum, and the separatists, having seemingly largely failed to convince a critical mass of Albertans to adopt their millenarian view of the province's place within Confederation, are now putting an awful lot of weight in an alternate way to make their case – namely, that this is all about leverage.

Leverage, you see, holds a somewhat hallowed position in Alberta's political culture. For those who see Albertans as beleaguered, beaten down by ravening political elites in Ottawa and Toronto, the idea that the province needs to find leverage to fight back against this is critical.

Just look at Quebec, they'll say, and the generous terms of the equalization system. It has its own pension plan, it has its own police force, it has some control over its immigration and it's allowed a system of scandalous institutionalized racism that persists with nary a peep from the political class, something that would be unthinkable anywhere else in the country.

Alberta, the argument goes, must find leverage of its own. Only then will it be able to protect itself from the supposed migrant hordes, defend the sacred oil and gas sector and gain its deserved political and constitutional clout.

In the past, there have been a few varieties of this line of thinking, including not just finding ways to exert leverage, but ways to protect Alberta from the federal government. The Firewall Letter, penned in 2001 by, among others, future prime minister Stephen Harper, argued that Alberta could protect itself by wrestling power from the federal government. This all came to its apex – or perhaps nadir – in the form of the Free Alberta Strategy, partly written by the man who is now Premier Danielle Smith's chief of staff, and its central concept, the Alberta Sovereignty Act. This, in turn, became Alberta legislation, which theoretically allows the province to decline to enforce federal rules and regulations.

Which brings us to the separatists.

Keith Wilson, an Edmonton-area lawyer, is the besuited front man of Let Alberta Decide, a pro-separatism group, and has made the case simply and clearly: "A lot of people assume Option 2 = vote for independence. That's not how I see it. Option 2 is how Albertans reject the status quo and arm the Premier for real negotiations." Option 2 is the one in

Ms. Smith's double-barrelled referendum question that would compel the government to “commence the legal process” to hold an actual secession referendum.

Jason Stephan, a sitting UCP MLA, has said he voted by mail-in ballot for Option 2 “because I want Ottawa to be compelled to fix the things that are broken, and they will not change things unless they are compelled to do so.”

The idea is that if the Alberta government can go to the federal government with some variety of “well, see here Mr. Carney, we have a huge proportion of Albertans who want to make for the exits, you better hand over some concessions,” then Alberta, the reasoning goes, will secure those concessions. In other words, it’s the Quebec playbook – Quebec having made aborted dashes for la porte in 1980 and 1995.

What those concessions might be – what negotiations anyone's even talking about – are less clear than the strategy itself. Besides, would the tactic even work? And would such blackmail even be a worthy strategy for a proud province? But more to the point, in this precise moment, is the question of whether or not Mr. Wilson and his fellow travellers are selling Albertans nonsense.

Because of course the vote for Option 2 is not about leverage. As is spelled out quite clearly in the text of the question noted above, it's about next steps on secession. It is possible that leverage could be secured by means of a vote to move toward a secession question, it's true, and an astute provincial government might just try to use it. But that's not what the question is asking at all.

It's saying: Should we hold another vote to leave?

The leverage pirouette, accordingly, is a potent rhetorical gambit for the separatists. But that's all it is. A vote for Option 2 is a vote for allowing a largely far-right movement the institutional legitimacy to foist an even more divisive and damaging referendum process upon Albertans. Any assertion to the otherwise is simply dishonest. And nobody should buy it.

Plague fears show we still need accounting of our COVID-19 response

ADRIAN LEVY

Migrant workers from Mexico maintain social distancing as they wait to travel to Quebec farms after arriving at Trudeau Airport in Montreal in April, 2020. RYAN REMIORZ/THE CANADIAN PRESS

OPINION

Professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Dalhousie University

More than a week after a potential death from the plague in Russia made the news, the Public Health Agency of Canada said “at this time, no risk to Canada has been identified” and that it was “closely monitoring the situation.”

But as we wait for more information about a potential health emergency, it's worth noting that more than six years after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, there is still no national accounting of what transpired in Canada.

In July of this year, a largely unnoticed order from the Government of Canada required most federal public servants to go to the office at least four days a week. It may prove to be the removal of the last bureaucratic vestige of COVID-19 – the closing of the chapter that began on March 18, 2020, when Canada imposed border measures and restrictions on international travel.

We all remember what came next. Provinces and territories then imposed social distancing, masking, shutdowns of non-essential services and stay-at-home orders. We reorganized our lives around the virus. We learned to fear a cough, to greet one another through Plexiglas, to attend funerals on Zoom. Then, remarkably quickly, we stopped talking about it, which is curious, because governments promised they would learn from the experience. While two federal health ministers committed to an inquiry into

Canada's response to COVID-19, neither the Trudeau nor the Carney governments have taken steps to fulfill that promise.

Britain has taken a different approach. Its COVID-19 inquiry into the country's handling of the pandemic has been running for more than four years and has cost more than £200-million. That country decided that a national trauma deserved a national accounting.

For Canada, the case for an inquiry reaches further back than the decisions made once COVID-19 arrived.

After SARS in 2003, Ottawa created the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) while Ontario and British Columbia rapidly strengthened their public-health legislation. After the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, the Agency published its “lessons learned review” within 18 months.

Then came COVID-19.

In early 2020, governments relied on PHAC to assess the threat posed by the new coronavirus. The Global Public Health Intelligence Network, the early-warning system for detecting emerging biological health threats, detected the danger.

The agency faced the question: How serious was the threat to Canadians?

The answer, repeatedly, was: not very serious.

Between detecting the novel coronavirus and introducing federal border controls over three months later, and while COVID-19 caseloads grew exponentially in Asia and Europe, PHAC's risk-assessment process rated the threat to Canada as "low" multiple times. The Auditor-General of Canada identified the failure in March, 2021. Remarkably, the agency's methodology remained in a pilot stage as of January, 2020, and focused primarily on pandemic influenza; it was not designed to assess the likelihood of future spread or the potential impact in Canada of a respiratory disease such as COVID-19.

Over those crucial weeks after the virus was identified, when risk assessments should have tracked upward, they did not budge.

That is precisely the kind of failure a Royal Commission is designed to uncover and prevent from recurring. Yet by its own calendar, PHAC is already late. It has missed its two-year deadline to brief Parliament on the changes made responding to the Auditor-General's report. It has also failed to comment publicly on the 36 recommendations made by an independent panel reviewing the Global Public Health Intelligence Network.

Today, PHAC offers no description of the risk assessment process it intends to deploy when facing the next pandemic threat. Instead, it frames risk assessment for biological threats within an all-hazards approach – along with chemical, radiological and nuclear threats – even though mitigating a fast-spreading emerging infectious disease with pandemic potential requires a far more rapid response.

Though plague is unlikely, there will be a next pandemic. When that day comes, we will all depend critically on how quickly authorities notice and respond.

COVID-19 exposed weaknesses in the structures and processes Canadians rely on to detect and respond to rapidly emerging biological threats. Some of those weaknesses were identified during the crisis itself.

The bill was enormous, tabulated in lives, livelihoods, disrupted education, public money and public trust. Canadians are owed an accounting. Parliamentarians should demand one. The end of an emergency should not mean the end of government's obligation to explain what happened and fix obvious shortcomings.

The next pandemic will begin, as this last one did, before we are ready. Whether we recognize it in time may depend on whether we are willing, now, to understand what went wrong last time.

Canadians should prepare themselves for non-violent resistance

RICHARD SANDBROOK

OPINION

Emeritus professor of political science at the University of Toronto and vice-president of Science for Peace. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Citizen's Guide to Nonviolent Defence: How Canadians Can Deter Invasions, Defeat Tyranny and Build Democracy.

Prime Minister Mark Carney claimed, in an interview on Sept. 23, that it would be “irresponsible” for Canada not to prepare for the “extreme tail risk” of U.S. military action against Canada. He refused, however, to provide any details.

How would Canada respond to an invasion? A Globe and Mail article from Jan. 20 provides the answer. The military has apparently developed a contingency model for the unlikely event of a U.S. invasion. Canada would mount a military defence, but it would be breached within two to seven days. Resistance would then shift to an insurgency on the Afghan model, intended to impose high costs on the invading force. Insurgents would engage in hit-and-run tactics, sabotage, ambushes and planting improvised explosive devices.

Chief of Defence Staff General Jennie Carignan authorized a mobilization plan for a supplementary volunteer reserve force that would eventually number 300,000, according to reports in October, 2025. The volunteers would receive training in basic emergency and combat skills such as the use of firearms, communication systems and drones.

Presumably, this force would form the backbone of guerrilla warfare.

This contingency planning takes us in the wrong direction. First, modern warfare is enormously destructive, as the Ukraine war attests. Aside from the devastating impact on Canadian cities, the violent confrontation would make it difficult for Canada's friends and allies in the United States to organize a powerful internal resistance. Such action might be construed as treasonous.

Second, Canadians possess neither the culture nor history of insurgent struggle, unlike the Afghans whose example is cited in the Globe's report. What proportion of the Canadian public would become guerrillas, undertaking ambushes and hit-and-run raids? Even if such a guerrilla force did emerge, its actions would justify, in the enemy's eyes, a repressive response.

The alternative strategy is hiding in plain sight: non-violent civilian defence in the cities of southern Canada.

Non-violent defence offers Canada a potentially efficient and effective deterrence and defence, at a relatively low cost in terms of casualties and infrastructural damage. The case for civilian defence is pragmatic.

What is non-violent defence, and how would it work? It is a strategy of deterrence and resistance in which unarmed civilians play a major role, either alone or in co-ordination with the armed forces. The civilian volunteers employ their training in non-violent methods to make their country ungovernable by the occupier and to undermine the pillars of support on which the invader depends.

Civilian defence does not mean the displacement of the Canadian Armed Forces, though it does require that the two forces, obeying conflicting logics, co-ordinate their activities. Joint deployment demands geographical separation. Non-violent defence would operate in the populated southern band of Canada; the CAF would be responsible for security in the remainder of Canada, in areas in which population is too limited and dispersed to allow for civilian defence. The armed forces would also provide services to the civilian defenders, including intelligence and protection from cyber-attacks and drone attacks.

The volunteer civilian force would be inexpensive, so the reduced role for the military would allow for smaller defence budgets: not the 5 per cent of GDP planned for by 2035, but perhaps no increase above the current 2 per cent. Other priorities could then be funded.

Is it realistic to expect unarmed Canadians to confront a heavily armed invading force?

Yes, though obviously, it will take courage. It has often happened elsewhere. And in an Environics poll in April, 55 per cent of a sample of 1,800 Canadians stated they would resist an invasion or occupation. Fifteen per cent would resist with armed force. Yet 40 per cent (or as many as 14 million Canadian adults) said they would resist in a non-violent manner.

Even if only half or a quarter of this number showed up, it constitutes a substantial force. But people need to learn how to resist non-violently.

Why not train the new supplementary force in the strategy and tactics of civilian defence and empower its recruits to return to their communities to train volunteers in local chapters? If successful, non-violent defence would never need to be used. Its existence would act as a powerful deterrent. An additional benefit would be the rebuilding of networks of trust and co-operation at the local level. Non-violent defence is inherently democratic.

ANDRÉ PICARD will return.

LIFE & ARTS

OPINION | PUZZLES | WEATHER

Slo Pitch doesn't hit it out of the park – yet

Jess Salgueiro, centre, stars as Joanne in Crave's new series Slo Pitch. Salgueiro's character is the captain of the Brovaries, a queer slo-pitch team in the Mississauga Slo-Pitch League. CRAVE/THE CANADIAN PRESS

You might enjoy the bro-like comedy, but first, you need to overlook the blunders

AMBER DOWLING

REVIEW

Softball is a game of errors. If you get on base three times out of 10, you're a successful hitter. Top fielders still make throwing errors. Pitchers are expected to make the occasional wild pitch.

If you apply the same mentality to Crave's new series Slo Pitch, you may find enough successes to enjoy the bro-like comedy. But first, you need to overlook the blunders.

The mockumentary is developed from the 2020 digital short-form series and introduces audiences to the Brovaries, a queer slo-pitch team in the Mississauga Slo-Pitch League. Jess Salgueiro stars as Joanne, the captain, whose ex-girlfriend Leanne (Emily Hampshire) has joined another team. To recoup, Joanne convinces the Brovaries that this is the season they will actually try.

The major problem is that the team comes up short, literally. There are a handful of players featured in every episode, along with the team sponsor Barb (Emma Hunter). That's not enough to fill all of the positions on the diamond, let alone provide the coveted bench relief – a must for any softball team, let alone one with players of a certain age.

The resulting games are shot from tight angles and pass too soon, while the clubhouse chats lack that team camaraderie you'd expect from a series about women who play a sport to escape their lives and drink beer together on Sunday afternoons. It's such a missed opportunity to capture what's special about adult league slo-pitch. You don't have to be any good and you can drink beers in between innings, but you also need to field an entire team. Other sports shows on the streamer always have full benches, why not this one?

Instead, the series uses the game as a backdrop for obvious gags and over-the-top humour typical of frat boy movies in the 1970s and 1980s. Here, the women are the ones to hunt for hidden beer in the outfield or put moves on the captain to get her horny enough to lift the team's no-dating policy. It could feel fresh, but the gender swapping alone isn't enough to elevate the tropes. Instead it feels like a recreation of things we've seen before, with cartoonish extremes and tired jokes.

There are larger-than-life personalities you'd expect in any mockumentary, and each is introduced in the credits as their trope: the stoner, the German beer hound, the sweet angel, the virgin, the ex-pro and the straight one. Everyone but the coach seems to be fighting for screen time, which should make Joanne the every woman who relates back to audiences and reins it all in. Unfortunately, she's too caught up in her breakup and becomes a woman obsessed. The series leans so far into the chaos of it all that you're not sure where to focus.

The format gives the characters opportunities to talk directly to viewers, but if those moments don't reveal anything beneath their assigned archetypes, what is the mockumentary actually adding? Why are the cameras there in the first place?

---

It's a disappointing debut for a series that has had so much fanfare behind it and has attracted the likes of Elliot Page as an executive producer and women's softball legend Ayami Sato as a guest star.

In real life, the beauty of a slo-pitch team is that all of these personalities can come together and play ball and somehow get along, when on paper the friendships make no sense. That's the magic of the diamond. In Slo Pitch, the action often veers off the field and out of the clubhouse. Viewers follow the gang to Joanne's office, to the bar that sponsors them and to Barb's campaign trail, as she is also mounting her own political career. Rather than homing in on the actual premise, the first four episodes are all over the place. It's okay to have messy, fun, ridiculous characters. The problem is that the chaos isn't stemming from the world it's depicting.

As a result, the story is also far-reaching. In the first two episodes, which debuted in September, the series establishes the team and the breakup. Then in Episode 3, the Brovaries are suddenly without a sponsor and introduce a storyline about bringing Barb onto the team, even though she's been there the whole time. It reads like a failed pilot that was pushed back and then forgotten about, and gives a piecemeal effect rather than a serialized comedy.

It's a disappointing debut for a series that has had so much fanfare behind it and has attracted the likes of Elliot Page as an executive producer and women's softball legend Ayami Sato as a guest star.

With some focus, there is potential. The actors lean into their characters and given time can gel. Comedy always takes time to settle, particularly mockumentaries, where the extreme characters such Dwight Schrute from

The Office or Phil Dunphy from Modern Family often become fan favourites. Here, Boris (Karen Knox) is a lot in the first couple of episodes, but Knox's commitment to the character could make her the one to watch by the finale. We just need to see the person underneath the mask.

Salgueiro also has a lot of potential to be the leader the show claims she is and is immediately watchable. The breakup holds her character back, not just because Hampshire plays an extremely unlikeable ex, but because viewers were never invested in the relationship; it was dead upon arrival.

One of the strongest moments in the first few episodes is the game between the Brovaries and Leanne's new team, because the emotions translate on the field. This team still stinks, but now they have stakes, which makes it worth the watch. They aren't the underdogs of sports stories past, and that works for them. That's the new component here that's worth exploring: What happens when the underdogs don't succeed, and they're totally okay with it?

That's where adding more softball would help ground these characters, because that's the thing that makes the show relatable to anyone who has ever stepped into this world, even as a sub. The knee braces, the struggle to get to the diamond from work, the warm beer you forgot to throw in the cooler are all small moments that bring relatability. To hypothetically have the ex-pro be frustrated by the Brovaries losing streak in a future episode? Who hasn't played with or against one of those people who take it way too seriously. To have a player so injured but committed that they bat but can never run? Every team has one of those.

When you add truth to the extremes, it becomes something to watch. The personal lives of these players can absolutely take over what's happening on the field, but the foundation also needs to be there. In other words, Slo Pitch is hitting singles, but until it can consolidate these characters with the world of softball, no one is smacking it out of the park.

Self-help author Ben Gustafson shares tips to implement when you're feeling overwhelmed

GRAHAM ISADOR

HEALTHY LIVING REPORTER

Many self-help challenges claim that to make meaningful changes in your life, you need a complete overhaul of any unwanted behaviours. The 75 Hard challenge asks participants to work out twice a day and follow a diet with no cheat meals. To complete the 30-Day Minimalism Game, you'd need to get rid of 465 possessions by the end of the challenge.

Those kinds of sky-high standards can set people up for failure. Ben Gustafson, a Vancouver Island, B.C.-based author, addictions counsellor and personal trainer, offers a different approach in his new book, 2 Things to Do Today: Healing Without the Hustle. The premise is simple: Every day, take a breath and do one action, for example adding a nutritious vegetable to your meal, taking a 20-second dance break or feeling grateful for something.

The goal isn't to fix everything at once. It's giving yourself the time and space to make a number of small, manageable improvements and focus on what you can do right now. It's a strategy that's worked for Gustafson. After entering treatment for addiction in 2009, he used small steps to help him get sober. Today he applies those same methods when working with clients.

The Globe and Mail recently spoke with Gustafson about the new book and habits people can implement if they're feeling overwhelmed.

Can you talk a little bit about your background and why your book's mantra of 'one breath, one kind action' has proved so impactful?

I was in active addiction for quite some time.

I got into treatment. I remember the first 30 days being really overwhelming. I felt like I had destroyed my life. One of the counsellors came in and I was sobbing.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do. And the counsellor told me all I needed to do that day was clean my room and go to a meeting. That was the start of it. Those small actions got me through the next year. It alleviated the pressure of needing to do more.

Eventually I went to school to become a counsellor myself. I became all about simplifying the process for young people that I worked with. How do we create life skills and keep it simple? How do we do treatment in a simple way? Later, when I got into nutrition and personal training, it was the same approach. A lot of people get caught up in chasing somebody else's idea of help, but they're often overwhelmed. So can we break things down to a manageable level? And that can take 10 minutes of your day.

With self-help and wellness, many experts sell an all-or-nothing approach. Why do you think that framework is so prevalent?

I've definitely fallen into those pitfalls. I want to get fitter. I want to write these pieces. I want to eat healthier. I want to be there now.

Self improvement can feel like a full-time job that we're failing at. We need to pick things that are within our actual capacity. I like to start small with people and get them to notice where they're at.

That awareness is the key to all change.

The 'start small' approach can also build momentum to bigger things.

For sure. It helps people keep rhythm and take consistent actions. Imagine there's somebody who says I'm going to do six workouts this week that are all an hour long, meditate every day for an hour and eat perfectly. Then there's another person who says I'm going to check in with my breath for two minutes today, and move for 10 minutes.

I would pick the second person to be more consistent over time.

What do you do if your kid is suddenly home sick when you had plans to do an hour work-out? Often you end up not doing anything.

People plan too much and end up shutting down. They're over-budgeted on time and energy. But the small things feel doable. And those little wins, that momentum, can carry over to a lot of areas in your life.

What would you suggest to try in a moment of feeling overwhelmed?

First, do not try to solve the whole day. Let your exhale become a little slower than your inhale for a few comfortable breaths. Do not force it. Then ask yourself: What is one kind thing I can do for myself in the next few minutes? That action might be drinking some water, stepping outside, sending one honest message or deciding that something can wait.

The goal is not to instantly make everything feel good. It is to give yourself enough space to choose the next thing.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Yes, your kids are already using AI. No, it doesn't replace parenting

KATHERINE MARTINKO

Parents are right to be scared of AI, not only because it's developing so rapidly that we can scarcely keep up, but because many children and teens are already using it more than we realize. In fact, many parents don't know that their kids are using it at all.

Several recent studies reveal that young people have adapted quickly to AI and now rely on it to provide support in various ways. According to Common Sense Media, a U.S.-based nonprofit, 86 per cent of kids ages nine to 17 have used or interacted with AI, and a majority does so at least weekly. It's used for schoolwork, entertainment and emotional support, each of which carries different risks.

Many kids use AI to complete school assignments. Common Sense Media found that 85 per cent of young AI users rely on it for homework help, with one in five using it daily. When a child uses AI for homework, it prevents them from grappling with complex concepts and retaining knowledge. The point of education is to establish a cognitive foundation, but when problem-solving is offloaded to AI, that ability is never learned. It's like taking a forklift into a gym and having it lift weights for you; the workout happens, but you gain nothing.

AI's most popular use by young people, perhaps surprisingly, is for entertainment. Common

AI's most popular use by young people, perhaps surprisingly, is for entertainment. Common Sense Media reports that 89 per cent of young AI users use it "just for fun," with 75 per cent employing it to make images, videos and music.

Sense Media reports that 89 per cent of young AI users use it “just for fun,” with 75 per cent employing it to make images, videos and music. Many young people are entertained by AI chatbots, which some may view with simple curiosity but to which others develop a troubling attachment.

Emotional support is another way in which young people use AI. Hopelab interviewed young people who said AI chatbots allow them to “avoid overburdening other people” with their problems, spare them vulnerability, provide instantaneous support and offer “unbiased” advice.

Another paper, from the University of North Carolina, currently under review, looked at the rapid spread of AI use among middle-schoolers and found that a substantial number of kids (two to four per classroom) now prefer interacting with chatbots over humans, despite any AI use being associated with higher social anxiety and depressive symptoms. ■ AI, A13

Bookselling at the local farmer's market

FIRST PERSON

ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX CHEN

While some people sell fruits and veggies, I'm renting a stall to hawk my novel, Doug Ronson writes

As I sat at my market stall, I pondered how in the exact same spot in the early 1800s, you could purchase venison from a local hunter, fresh fish from Lake Ontario and hay to feed your livestock.

I didn't have any of those items on sale at Kingston Public Market – or anything remotely similar. I was there to promote my new novel.

“Selling books at a farmers’ market? What a ridiculous idea,” scoffed one friend.

Turns out he was wrong. Very wrong.

Kingston's market has a rich history. Established in 1801, it is the oldest in Ontario, serving the community continuously for more than two centuries. When it started, butchers and farmers operated from poorly constructed wooden stalls, so ramshackle that the area was called “the market shambles.” On July 1, 1867, Canadian Confederation was proclaimed in the market square. It has always been a gathering point for people to socialize and catch up on the latest news and gossip.

Of course, the vendors have changed. There are still farmers who get out of bed at 4 a.m. to load their trucks and get to the market in the early morning hours. Current sellers include a

Canadian newcomer barbecuing Syrian-style corn and other delights. There are organic farmers and artists selling photographs.

Early on Saturday mornings, I arrive at my spot overlooking the British Whig building, where I had once happily toiled as a reporter and editor. Just like the market, it's changed. The Whig-Standard's handful of remaining employees all work from home and the paper that once proudly proclaimed to be Canada's oldest daily now appears just four times a week. The British Whig building currently serves as an office for city employees.

At the market, I was given a hearty welcome by people at the adjacent stalls. One was an expert on growing succulent plants and was happy to share her knowledge with curious market-goers.

---

In the 19th century, books were mostly published by local newspapers who wanted to keep their presses running after the papers were on the streets.

Another had beautiful handcrafted glass on display. She promised to buy The Admiral's Daughter – as soon as she made enough sales to pay for my book. Sure enough, within an hour she was back at my stall to obtain a copy.

Market vendors embrace the spirit of co-operation, not competition. If a customer is looking for zucchini, everyone knows how to guide them. The spouses of some vendors hang around for the entire day, ready to watch the stand during the inevitable washroom breaks. At lunch, my neighbour complimented my use of chopsticks as I struggled to eat my Thai noodle lunch – I had forgotten to ask the takeout joint for a fork.

On this particular day, tourists and locals were flocking through the aisles. When they stopped to talk with me, people were fascinated by the fact that the book was based on the true story of my father moving from Canada to Washington to take a position with the British embassy in 1941. He handled top secret cables as Winston Churchill desperately begged the United States to join the war against Hitler.

At the market, I had the chance to chat with visitors from across Canada, the U.S. and Europe. They told me their own stories of family members' experiences in the war – one woman's father served in Europe in an artillery unit from Newfoundland. People liked the fact that the book is partly set in Kingston, with the hockey-playing protagonist skating on Lake Ontario.

As it turns out, bookselling is not new at this market. In the 19th century, books were mostly published by local newspapers who wanted to keep their presses running after the papers were on the streets.

The Kingston Gazette set up stalls adjacent to the market to hawk their books.

I'm simply following in the lead of another local author who has been offering his Viking-era novels for several years here. When I recently published my historical thriller, he kindly suggested that I rent a stall. It proved to be a fabulous idea.

Holding court at my stall during the summer and fall, I'm proud to be part of this tradition.

Doug Ronson lives in Kingston.

First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

AI: Nearly half of kids have never had a conversation with their parents about safety, according to Common Sense

FROM A12

Study co-author Mitch Prinstein described it to The Wall Street Journal as “a pretty existential concern for this generation.”

The fact that so many young people are turning to AI for homework help, entertainment, and emotional support speaks less to the versatility of the technology than to the tragic inadequacy of the human support systems in their lives.

I can't help but wonder, where are the adults? Why have the children, the most vulnerable members of society, been so recklessly surrendered to the machine while struggling with their math questions, or wanting something fun to do, or just feeling lonely?

Their needs aren't complicated; they're perfectly normal, and they deserve the presence of a patient parent, teacher or friend, not a computer program. If we are too busy or distracted to notice how untethered and alone our children feel, then we adults are failing in our most fundamental duty.

Interacting with AI is poor preparation for relationships with real people, in the real world – and isn't that the point of childhood? It's not good if a child gets nothing but positive affirmation.

Friction is not a bad thing when it challenges us and promotes the inner growth we need to become resilient, empathetic humans. Furthermore, if a child always gets simulated friendship from AI, they may never learn how to be a friend to someone else.

As parents, we must take a stand against the presence of AI in our children's lives. We should insist that they be fully “human-raised,” to use author and pediatrician Dana Suskind's term. This means strictly limiting interactive screen time, where kids are likely to encounter chatbots. It means cracking down on screens in the bedroom at night. It means demanding a moratorium on the use of AI in schools, particularly before high school.

It means talking to our children about AI, even when we feel woefully uninformed. Nearly half of kids have never had a conversation with their parents about AI safety, according to Common Sense.

Just as we saw with smartphones and social media, conversations about safety are lagging behind the technology's rapid development. We cannot make that mistake again.

Finally, we must be present for our children. We must model for them a deep love and appreciation for a life rooted in reality.

That, I believe, is the most powerful parenting tool when it comes to protecting childhood from tech takeover.

TODAY'S SUDOKU SOLUTION

TODAY'S KENKEN SOLUTION

WORLD FORECAST | TODAY | TOMORROW | THURSDAY | AMSTERDAM | 19/11 | SH | 18/10 | S | 19/13 | S | ATHENS | 21/15 | R | 17/15 | R | 19/13 | PC | BANGKOK | 31/24 | T | 30/24 | T | 31/25 | T | BEIJING | 21/11 | S | 22/13 | S | 26/15 | S | BERLIN | 15/11 | PC | 16/7 | PC | 15/7 | PC | BRUSSELS | 19/10 | SH | 18/10 | PC | 19/12 | PC | COPENHAGEN | 13/12 | PC | 14/10 | S | 14/11 | PC | FRANKFURT | 13/10 | PC | 16/5 | PC | 17/5 | PC | HONG KONG | 29/25 | SH | 29/26 | SH | 27/26 | SH | JERUSALEM | 25/18 | PC | 26/17 | PC | 23/15 | S | LAS VEGAS | 15/12 | SH | 21/13 | S | 24/16 | S | LONDON | 20/10 | SH | 18/13 | PC | 20/15 | PC | LOS ANGELES | 23/14 | S | 28/16 | S | 32/22 | S | MADRID | 26/16 | S | 26/16 | S | 25/15 | S | MIAMI | 32/24 | S | 31/26 | SH | 32/26 | T | MOSCOW | 11/9 | SH | 10/8 | R | 10/8 | R | NEW DELHI | 33/23 | S | 34/24 | S | 33/23 | T | NEW YORK | 22/17 | S | 25/15 | S | 18/13 | S | NICE | 23/17 | S | 24/17 | PC | 24/17 | S | ORLANDO | 30/21 | S | 30/22 | SH | 31/23 | S | PARIS | 23/11 | SH | 19/10 | S | 21/13 | S | PHOENIX | 24/16 | SH | 25/17 | S | 30/21 | S | ROME | 22/11 | S | 22/12 | S | 23/9 | S | SAN FRANCISCO | 19/13 | S | 19/13 | S | 23/15 | S | SEOUL | 21/10 | SH | 18/11 | S | 21/14 | S | SINGAPORE | 30/26 | T | 31/26 | T | 30/25 | T | SYDNEY | 22/14 | R | 18/14 | PC | 16/15 | SH | TOKYO | 25/21 | S | 27/18 | SH | 22/18 | S | WASHINGTON | 26/19 | S | 29/17 | S | 20/17 | PC | NATIONAL FORECAST

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LEGEND

Daytime high, overnight low, and conditions | C CLOUDY | RS RAIN/SNOW | FG FOG | S SUN | FR FREEZING RAIN | SN SNOW | HZ HAZE | SF SNOW FLURRIES | NA NOT AVAILABLE | SH SHOWERS | PC PARTLY CLOUDY | T THUNDERSTORMS | R RAIN | W WINDY | The Globe and Mail is a Woodbridge owned property. | TODAY | TOMORROW | THURSDAY | BANFF | 9/1 | PC | 13/0 | PC | 13/2 | PC | BARRIE | 20/10 | T | 13/6 | SH | 12/8 | S | BRANDON | 6/0 | PC | 12/4 | S | 11/0 | S | CALGARY | 12/1 | S | 18/1 | PC | 12/2 | S | CHARLOTTETOWN | 9/6 | PC | 12/8 | R | 8/6 | SH | CHICOUTIMI | 6/4 | PC | 7/4 | SH | 8/0 | PC | CHURCHILL | 7/3 | PC | 4/1 | PC | 4/2 | SH | CORNER BROOK | 4/2 | S | 8/6 | SH | 8/3 | R | CORNWALL | 9/7 | R | 12/6 | C | 12/5 | S | EDMONTON | 12/3 | S | 15/2 | PC | 11/1 | PC | HALIFAX | 10/8 | PC | 15/9 | R | 11/5 | PC | HAMILTON | 25/11 | T | 17/9 | PC | 13/10 | PC | HUNTSVILLE | 17/8 | R | 12/5 | C | 12/7 | S | IQALUIT | 3/2 | RS | 3/0 | RS | 1/2 | PC | JASPER | 10/4 | PC | 12/0 | SH | 13/3 | PC | KELOWNA | 12/5 | PC | 17/6 | PC | 17/6 | S | KINGSTON | 18/9 | R | 15/9 | C | 13/9 | S | LONDON | 25/11 | SH | 17/9 | PC | 15/10 | PC | MONTRÉAL | 10/7 | R | 11/7 | C | 12/4 | S | NIAGARA FALLS | 25/13 | T | 18/10 | PC | 14/10 | PC | NORTH BAY | 9/6 | R | 10/3 | C | 10/5 | S | OTTAWA | 9/7 | R | 11/6 | C | 12/5 | S | PRINCE GEORGE | 8/5 | R | 14/3 | SH | 14/8 | PC | PETERBOROUGH | 20/10 | T | 15/7 | C | 13/8 | S | QUÉBEC | 4/3 | R | 9/6 | C | 11/1 | S | REGINA | 7/2 | PC | 13/5 | S | 10/1 | PC | SASKATOON | 11/1 | S | 13/5 | PC | 10/1 | PC | SAULT STE MARIE | 13/8 | R | 11/5 | C | 11/8 | S | SAINT JOHN | 9/7 | PC | 14/7 | R | 11/4 | PC | SEPTÈLES | 5/3 | S | 5/4 | R | 8/2 | S | ST JOHN'S | 5/1 | PC | 9/7 | PC | 11/5 | R | SUDBURY | 10/7 | R | 11/4 | C | 11/6 | S | THUNDER BAY | 9/6 | SH | 11/3 | PC | 12/6 | SH | THOMPSON | 6/1 | PC | 7/3 | S | 4/0 | R | TORONTO | 25/13 | T | 17/9 | PC | 12/11 | PC | VAL-D'OR | 10/4 | R | 8/2 | SH | 8/2 | PC | VANCOUVER | 14/10 | C | 15/10 | SH | 18/11 | PC | VICTORIA | 14/11 | PC | 14/11 | C | 18/11 | PC | WHISTLER | 12/8 | PC | 14/7 | PC | 18/8 | PC | WHITEHORSE | 6/4 | PC | 6/0 | S | 5/2 | SN | WINNIPEG | 9/2 | C | 12/6 | S | 10/3 | PC | YELLOWKNIFE | 4/0 | PC | 6/1 | S | 5/3 | PC |

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UNIVERSAL CROSSWORD PRIMARY SCHOOL BY AIDAN DESHONG AND KEN STERN

ACROSS

1 Sign of the future

5 Like some stuffed animals

10 "Dancing Queen" band

14 Five-star review

15 Main artery

16 Left on \_\_\_\_ (ghosted)

17 College sweetheart?

19 Vow or vulgarism

20 Judicial nonet, for short

21 LGA gate guess

22 Tritons' Golden State sch.

23 Number of even prime numbers

24 Notre Dame's Fighting \_\_\_\_

26 Capital \_\_\_\_ tax

29 College essay?

33 Baby back bones

34 Black and \_\_\_\_ (two-tone drink)

35 Italian sub meat

36 "\_\_\_\_ to Joy"

37 Husk-y Mexican dish

39 With 50-Down, went wild

40 Thoroughbred's gait

42 Pick me!

43 "Correct!"

44 College tuition?

46 "Gangnam \_\_\_\_"

47 Dasani competitor

48 Jost's "SNL" co-anchor

49 Greeting gesture

51 Super Mario Bros. console

53 Room service?

57 College merch?

60 Android counterpart

61 Goodwill transaction

62 Staple of African cuisine that's poisonous when raw

63 Boxing result, briefly

BRIDGE

BY STEVE BECKER

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2026

North dealer.

Both sides vulnerable.

The bidding:

North East South West

1 [C] Pass 1 [S] Pass

4 [S]

Opening Lead – four of clubs.

64 Corn cakes stuffed with cheese

65 Showbiz achievement for Steven Spielberg, as of Feb. 2026

DOWN

1 Spheres

2 Ecko or Jacobs of fashion

3 Balsamic accompaniment: Abbr.

4 Treats with a fig variety

5 Outmoded

6 Gehrig or Grant

7 Yen

8 Clingy phenomenon

9 Complete wipe

10 Awakening

11 Event with suits but not ties?

12 Only mammals that fly

13 Diagnosis for a Ritalin prescription

18 Religious sisters

25 Hoppy brews

26 Creature aka "Baby Yoda"

27 Actor Quinn

28 "That's what they tell me"

29 Aries in the sky

30 Silly

31 "This meeting could have been an\_\_\_\_"

32 Step between lather and repeat

34 Performer such as Gregory Hines

37 Beloved "Beloved" author Morrison

38 Fleur-de\_\_\_\_\_

41 Juliet, to Romeo

43 Repeat

45 Anxiety

NORTH

♠ AK J 4

♥ 9 7 2

♦ A 5

♣ AK 7 2

WEST

♠ 9 6 2

♥ K 10 6 5

♦ K J 8 4 3

♣ 4

EAST

♠ 3

♥ Q J 4

♦ Q 10 9 6 2

♣ Q J 9 8

SOUTH

♠ Q 10 8 7 5

♥ A 8 3

♦ 7

♣ 10 6 5 3

EDITED BY DAVID STEINBERG

46 Send overnight, perhaps

48 "Not all heroes wear \_

49 Serve ... or the time it takes to be served

50 See 39-Across

52 Character on a Rice Krispies box

Declarers who rely on percentages often are disappointed when things don't go in accordance with the odds. The proper approach to sound declarer play is to anticipate bad breaks and do everything in advance to overcome them.

Consider this deal where West led a club against four spades. Declarer saw that if the missing clubs were divided 3-2, he would lose at most two hearts and a club.

But if the clubs were divided 4-1 – a possibility made likely by West's lead of a club even though North bid that suit – the contract

54 "Not to \_\_\_\_, but ..."

55 "Fiddling" emperor

56 Ink stain

58 Lyricist Gershwin

59 \_\_\_\_ mode

was in jeopardy. South took steps to deal with that.

He won the club with the king, drew three rounds of trump, cashed the ace of diamonds and ruffed a diamond. He played the ace and another heart.

East won the heart with the jack and continued with the queen, but the defence was helpless. If East remained on lead with the queen, he would have to return a diamond, allowing South to discard a club while ruffing in dummy, or else lead a club from the Q-J-9. In this latter case, South would score a trick with the 10 regardless of which club East returned.

If West overtook East's queen of hearts with the king, he would be forced to yield a ruff-and-discard on his next play. The outcome would be the same if West started with four clubs originally.

The key to the winning line of play was South's foresight in eliminating all the diamonds and hearts from both hands i to force a losing lead from the defenders at the end of the play. Had the clubs been divided 3-2 all along, South's method of play would have proved a useless exercise.

©2026 King Features Syndicate Inc.

---

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

© News Licensing/Times Media Limited

SUDOKU DIFFICULTY RATING: ★★☆☆☆

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill in the grid so that each row of nine squares, each column of nine and each section of nine (three squares by three) contains the numbers 1 through 9 in any order. There is only one solution to each puzzle.

ACROSS

SOLUTIONS

1 A purge devastated European city (6)

4 Metric unit largely forced on golf (6)

8 When exposed, press pool react (7)

10 Bowl or field? (5)

11 Periodic features of Neptunian volcano (4)

12 Sinner always embracing false idol (8)

14 Dreary game on board accommodating new roller periodically (9)

18 Legal representative announced a medieval tournament (8)

20 Enormous stone rolling with acceleration (4)

22 Group of soldiers sacked Porto (5)

23 Live TV broadcast about a city (3,4)

24 Connect engineers behind schedule (6)

25 Essentially accept sponsors adjusted official count (6)

© 2026 Andrews McMeel Syndication

DOWN

1 Player about to negotiate with opposing side (6)

2 Element in charge replacing aluminium in weaponry (7)

3 Supported by university, finally limp to graduation (4)

5 Rejected red lentil possibly splits (8)

6 Too much included in flash slogan (5)

7 Strongly advise X to stop other broadcast (6)

9 Cheating footballer and decent chap tending to differ (9)

13 Feeble daughter lost receipt (8)

15 Delays: they hold things up (7)

16 Buffet, regrettably, only partially taken up (6)

17 Preserve most of huge painting surface (6)

19 Charge to cross river that lurks beneath bridge? (5)

21 Escape insect in auditorium (4)

KENKEN

©2026 KENKEN Puzzle LLC. KENKEN is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. Dist. by Andrews McMeel www.kenken.com

---

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Each row and each column must contain the numbers 1 through 6 without repeating.

2. The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, must combine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners.

3. Freebies: Fill in single-box cages with the numbers in the top-left corner.

Solutions to today's Sudoku and Kenken can be found in the Life & Arts content area of the A section. Crossword solutions will be with tomorrow's puzzles.

Mounties: Canada needs a radically reformed national police force, law professor says

FROM A1

He argues, however, that this is not addressing the obstacles in the Canadian criminal-justice system against tackling complex crime and also exposes Canadian police to U.S. administrations who are being accused of politicizing policing.

“We have to imagine a world where the Americans, and specifically the FBI, may be less reliable partners,” Prof. Roach said in an interview. “We need to be able to do these complex national security, and also financial crime and organized crime prosecutions, as part of our sovereignty.”

In Prof. Roach's book, Red Alert, he says U.S. law enforcement agencies are being politicized. He adds that Canada's federal government has yet to address longstanding calls for structural RCMP reform, which has left the FBI filling gaps in Canadian law enforcement. A 2023 report from a committee of parliamentarians said the Canadian government might need to strike up a new national police force entirely, if it could not better enable the RCMP to tackle transnational crime.

Prof. Roach also criticizes the response of former prime minister Justin Trudeau to U.S. President Donald Trump, who imposed emergency tariffs on Canada in 2025 over concerns that fentanyl was flooding from this country into the U.S. (A Globe investigation found Mr. Trump was using misleading data about drug seizures at the border to justify the tariffs.)

Mr. Trudeau promised to be a better security partner to the United States, with his government pledging hundreds of millions in new funds to hire more Mounties and also leasing Blackhawk helicopters to patrol the border.

“I think Trudeau was panicking over Trump,” Prof. Roach said in an interview.

Over the past two years, the RCMP has unveiled operational partnerships with the California FBI that are now being credited for taking down transnational gangs.

Mr. Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder, was among the FBI's most-wanted fugitives when he was arrested in Mexico in January on multiple charges of drug trafficking and murder conspiracy. He had spent more than a decade on the run and is now set to stand trial in Los Angeles, where he has pleaded not guilty.

About 30 individuals tied to his gang have been arrested under U.S. laws, according to indictments filed in California. At least 12 of those accused have been arrested by police in Canada and most are fighting extradition.

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme, right, speaks while standing next to FBI Director Kash Patel during a press conference in Ontario, Calif., in January.

MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS

Canada's top police official was in California as FBI Director Kash Patel escorted a shackled Mr. Wedding off a U.S. plane after he was apprehended in Mexico. "This is a great day for public safety in Canada," Commissioner Duheme said in January, adding the RCMP supplied crucial information to the FBI to help dismantle the gang.

Court documents filed in California allege Mr. Wedding and his Canadian co-conspirators trafficked tonnes of cocaine by truck and hired gunmen to kill Canadian citizens.

In another operational partnership announced in July, the California FBI and RCMP highlighted U.S. charges against 37 people allegedly tied to gangs – including ones connected to India's most notorious crime lord, Lawrence Bishnoi.

The U.S. Department of Justice now alleges Mr. Bishnoi personally directed political assassinations, murders and shootings, including the slaying of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen shot dead in Surrey in 2023.

Commissioner Duheme was quoted in the U.S. DOJ statement announcing the arrests, saying that “together, we disrupted the operations of organized criminals.”

The close ties have persisted despite an apparent threat from Mr. Patel on X in late August to withdraw from the FBI's relationship with Canada. The threat was over an internal CBC/Radio-Canada guideline about removing the word “terrorism” from coverage of the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11. It prompted the RCMP to make inquiries about whether the U.S. agency had halted intelligence sharing.

Three national-security sources with direct knowledge of the probe previously told The Globe and Mail that the RCMP had not found any indication that intelligence sharing from the FBI had been interrupted. The Globe did not name the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the probe. (The public broadcaster subsequently reversed the policy.)

In late September, the FBI and the Mounties held a joint press conference in Los Angeles to announce a US\$1-million reward for information leading to the arrest of an Indian gangster allegedly tied to the assassination of Mr. Nijjar. And on Oct. 6, representatives from the B.C. RCMP were present with FBI officials in Seattle to announce the arrest of a 30-year-old in Washington State who authorities allege provided advice, money and technical assistance to the teenager who perpetrated the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., earlier this year.

Cases such as these show Canadian police are getting better at leveraging vital U.S. relationships, said Peter German, a retired former RCMP deputy commissioner.

"The United States is 10 times larger than us, it has a 10 times larger law enforcement footprint around the world," Mr. German said. He added that U.S. laws make it easier for the FBI to obtain evidence and prosecute complex transnational crime cases. "The U.S. is much more agile at conducting a criminal investigation than we are in Canada."

However, RCMP critics are wary of the close relationship.

"The FBI has bailed out the RCMP many times," Prof. Roach writes in Red Alert, noting that FBI intelligence tips have kickstarted several of Canada's most urgent national security investigations.

Ms. Kingsbury, the RCMP's spokeswoman, said the Mounties maintain “full independence” while accepting tips about threats from foreign agencies.

Such exchanges, she said, have saved Canadian lives. "There is no doubt that the RCMP benefits from its international partnerships, including those in the United States," she said. "The RCMP rejects the suggestion that it was 'bailed out.'"

Other observers, however, say the Trump administration is changing U.S. law enforcement in ways which may make close Canadian partnerships fraught.

Wesley Wark, a Canadian security expert at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, agrees that the Mounties may need to be rapidly bolstered. “Acceptance of a significant degree of dependency and reliance by the RCMP on intelligence flows from the FBI now looks untenable,” he said.

Canadian police cannot be “subcontracting out our criminal prosecutions to a foreign jurisdiction,” said Paul Cavalluzzo, a Toronto lawyer. “If you become reliant on Big Brother, so to speak, you do not hone your own skills.”

After 9/11, Mr. Cavalluzzo served as commission counsel on the Arar commission, a judicial inquiry that unearthed how RCMP intelligence exchanges with more aggressive U.S. security agencies led to several innocent Arab Canadian citizens being secretly flown to Middle East jails where they were imprisoned and tortured by foreign agencies backed by the CIA.

Several strictures guide the RCMP's security partnerships with international partners, said Ms. Kingsbury. The Mountie spokeswoman said the RCMP regularly runs risk assessments and also abides by the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act.

That federal law, she said, precludes Canadian officials from exchanging any information where “doing so would create a substantial risk of mistreatment abroad, including circumstances involving capital punishment.”

However, Prof. Roach, who has contributed research to most major Canadian judicial inquiries into policing failures over the past 25 years, says such guardrails may now be insufficient.

"The Trump administration loves the death penalty," he said. He argued that Mr. Wedding's apprehension circumvented international extradition norms, leaving the Canadian citizen exposed to potential capital punishment if convicted in California.

Prof. Roach says what Canada needs now is a radically reformed national police force better able to push its own complex cases through Canada's courts. "We should be able to prosecute these cases," he said.

Ready, Set, Invest

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OCTOBER 17 | OCTOBER 24

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---

Bay Street caught up in debate over future of British utility

STEFANIE MAROTTA

BANKING REPORTER

Canadian financial institutions have landed in the crosshairs of a major nationalization debate in Britain, raising concerns among creditors over the fate of the country's largest water provider.

Thames Water, which serves about 16 million customers in England, has been teetering on the edge of collapse for years. Large Canadian banks, pension funds and asset managers have grappled with managing their links to the flailing utility, and business leaders have warned that public ownership of the utility could harm investment in Britain.

The Canadian companies that have had exposure, or are currently exposed, to Thames Water include the country's largest lender, Royal Bank of Canada, pension funds Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), asset manager Fiera Capital Corp., and Export Development Canada (EDC).

Thames Water is wrestling with £20-billion in debt and has faced mounting public outrage over sewage spills. Its management has been attempting to restructure its operations.

■ THAMES, B3

---

Miners could benefit from possible Canada-Angola trade deal

GEOFFREY YORK

AFRICA BUREAU CHIEF

JOHANNESBURG

Canadian mining companies could be among the beneficiaries of the Carney government's push for an economic agreement with resource-rich Angola, one of the first African targets in Ottawa's global trade diversification campaign.

Prime Minister Mark Carney met last month with Angolan President João Lourenco, inviting him to Canada and announcing progress in their economic negotiations. Deeper collaboration in mining and critical minerals is a top priority for both countries, Mr. Carney's office said after the meeting.

The two leaders, who met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, discussed an economic co-operation agreement and “agreed to work toward its conclusion,” Mr. Carney’s office said in a statement.

The agreement would be a memorandum of understanding – a broad framework for talks on future deals – rather than a detailed blueprint. But it could put Angola ahead of most other African countries, which have not received the same level of attention from the Carney government since the beginning of its trade diversification efforts.

MINING, B6

COMPANIES

INTACT FINANCIAL ....B9

NATIONAL BANK ....B9

PET VALU ....B9

PREMIUM BRANDS ....B9

TECHNOLOGY

Dr. Joao De Rezende-Neto, who has given advice to the Revolve team for years, performed the first human surgery – an appendix removal – with the robotic arms on Oct. 1. EDUARDO LIMA/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Startup aims to bring robotic precision to surgical procedures

Revolve says device makes it easier to perform delicate tasks

CHRIS HANNAY

Trauma surgeon Joao De Rezende-Neto stands by an operating table in the simulation area of St. Michael's Hospital in downtown Toronto.

On the table in front of him is a silicone replica of part of a human abdomen. His eyes remain fixed on the screen above the table, showing the view of a camera inside the abdominal cavity.

In Dr. De Rezende-Neto's hands are the controls for slim robotic arms that are, currently, inside the abdomen and grabbing at a fake gall bladder. With the twist of a wrist, the roll of a thumb or the pull of a trigger, the surgeon can use the tiny grabbers at the ends of the robotic arms to perform delicate tasks, such as stitching up an incision.

The makers of the device – Toronto startup Revolve Surgical Inc. – hope to bring it to hospitals across Canada and the United States in the coming years.

They say the tool makes it easier for surgeons to conduct laparoscopic procedures, in which a surgeon makes small incisions in a patient's abdomen and inserts tools and a camera. The company says its device expands options for these procedures, which improve patient outcomes, at a price that is far more affordable for cash-strapped hospitals than other robotic aids.

The team recently celebrated a major milestone: bringing the device from simulations to a real operating table. Dr. De Rezende-Neto performed the first human surgery – an appendix removal – with the Revolve arm on Oct. 1.

The road to that first real human operation has been a long one for the co-founders. Matthew Kang and Peter Francis first met during placements working on surgical tools at the Hospital for Sick Children in the summer of 2015, while they were graduate students in engineering at the University of Toronto. (Another co-founder, Alex Gordon, left Revolve this summer to join another company.)

Mr. Kang said their goal was to create and commercialize a new surgical device that helped patients. "We wanted to make something that would have a real, truly positive impact on people," he said.

Quebec businesses brace for renewed sovereignty debate

NICOLAS VAN PRAET MONTREAL

Quebec premier-elect Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is vowing to push ahead with his promise to hold a sovereignty referendum by 2030, setting the clock ticking on a potential breakup of Canada that could affect business confidence and investment.

The mere spectre of a referendum could weigh on corporations' decisions to invest in Quebec, whether it be a new factory in the province's hinterland or a hotel in downtown Montreal. It could also weaken Canada at a time when the country is staring down a barrel of threats from the White House.

But another thing could put his minority government on a more immediate collision course with corporate leaders: immigration. Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to drastically cut immigration, despite warnings from business people that such tightening could make it harder to meet labour needs.

The former lawyer, who studied at McGill University and later played as a goalie for the varsity hockey team while at Oxford, confirmed in his first postelection news conference on Tuesday that he intends to move forward with a vote on independence, though recent polls show 70 per cent of Quebeckers don't want to separate. He plans to wait until U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office, however, saying there are more urgent matters to deal with.

"The commercial conflict with our neighbours to the south will take up an enormous amount of our time and space over the next several weeks," Mr. St-Pierre

Plamondon said, adding that his other priorities include addressing Quebec's public finances, providing some cost-of-living relief and launching a secretariat for government efficiency and regulatory streamlining.

The PQ Leader wants to bring the general corporate tax rate down to 9.5 per cent from 11.5 per cent, funded by a revamp of business assistance programs. Cuts to the provincial bureaucracy should bring in \$6.3-billion over five years, the party estimates.

Many Quebec business leaders are optimistic about the PQ government's economic agenda but note Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon will need support from other parties to pass legislation, which won't be guaranteed.

PERSONAL FINANCE

Why so many apprentices are struggling to complete their trades programs

B2

OPINION

Housing policy

wants you to live

in a shoebox

in the middle

of nowhere

B4

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Rise of Canadian

single-stock

ETFs brings

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B9

SOCCER Loss to Denmark leaves the Canadian women's team with much to work on ■ B11

BASEBALL ABS system challenges are having a strong debut in MLB playoffs ■ B11

Why are so many trades apprentices struggling to complete their programs?

Red Seal electrician Justin Santos works at a job site in Kelowna, B.C. on Saturday. The designation allows a tradesperson to practise across the country. ARTUR GAJDA/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Canada has big ambitions to build major infrastructure projects – and those plans require skilled tradespeople

KELSEY ROLFE

Justin Santos, a traffic signal electrician who lives in Kelowna, B.C., got his Red Seal electrician designation this spring. But completing the four-year program stretched him financially.

Apprentices alternate between on-the-job training with an employer, during which they have to complete a certain amount of work hours, and short stints in the classroom to prepare for the next level.

Although Mr. Santos earned money working for stretches of time with an employer, the challenge was going back to school: Once in the classroom, apprentices receive employment insurance, which is about half of their salary up to a maximum of just more than \$600 a week. Mr. Santos's first job paid him \$16.50 an hour. (Typically, apprenticeships take two to five years to complete, with apprentices alternating between about a year of paid work and eight to 12 weeks of classroom training.)

“I was taking care of my grandmother and myself, I didn’t have a lot to fall back on,” he said. “A lot of apprentices that I’ve met are 30 and above and are wanting to get into the trades but they’re struggling with it. They can’t afford to go into school for a two-month period.”

Canada has big ambitions to build major infrastructure projects – and those projects require skilled tradespeople. But despite substantial demand for these workers, the country remains in a significant skilled-trades deficit: The federal government estimates Canada will need 1.4 million new trades workers by 2033 to replace retiring workers and meet project demand.

The government is trying to close that gap with a handful of measures to make it more financially feasible for Canadians to finish their apprenticeship programs.

Starting in the spring of 2027, apprentices will receive a top-up of \$400 a week for in-class learning. The government is bringing back a \$5,000 apprenticeship completion bonus for Red Seal trades that was scrapped at the beginning of 2025. It will also give small and medium employers up to \$10,000 for every first-year apprentice in a Red Seal trade they hire.

The Red Seal designation allows a tradesperson to practise across the country and covers 54 professions, including agricultural equipment technicians, aircraft maintenance engineers, carpenters, industrial electricians, millwrights and ironworkers.

Statistics suggest a growing number of Canadians are choosing trades. Apprenticeship enrolments hit a record high of more than 101,500 in 2024, according to Statistics Canada, but completions of these programs have remained below prepandemic levels. Almost 47,000 apprentices received certification that year, or a rate of 19.9 per cent. In comparison, a decade prior, 93,500 Canadians enrolled in a skilled trade and 59,400 received their certifications.

Professions that require certification to be able to legally work in the trade, such as electricians and automotive service technicians, generally have higher completions than voluntary-completion trades such as cooks, hairstylists and construction workers.

The percentage of apprentices who had not yet become certified at the expected completion of their program in 2024 remained elevated at 49.2 per cent. Statistics Canada noted the pandemic could be partly to blame.

Experts say financial challenges can be a barrier for apprentices trying to complete their programs.

Anna Lary, master electrician and the project lead of British Columbia Institute of Technology's ConnectHer Hub, pointed out that many apprentices are facing a combination of lower entry-level wages and a high cost of living.

First-year apprentices start at roughly 50 per cent of a certified journeyperson's rate, and the wages progressively increase.

In 2022, newly certified journeypersons made a median income of just more than \$56,500 one year after the completion of their apprenticeship, according to Statistics Canada. Emily Arrowsmith, director of research and programs at the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, noted this varies significantly by trade, with apprentices in professions such as heavy-duty equipment operators or carpenters making higher first-year wages.

The average age of apprentices registering for a Red Seal trade was 25 in 2023, according to Statistics Canada. In Ontario, the average age of a level-one apprentice is 29, said Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario.

That means new apprentices often have financial obligations such as mortgage payments or are coming to the trades after years in low-wage occupations. It can make in-class learning on EI difficult to afford, said Sean Strickland, executive director of Canada's Building Trades Unions, an alliance of 14 unions in construction, maintenance and fabrication.

“A lot of apprentices will stretch that out, they’ll defer, they won’t go until they’re financially stable,” he said.

He said the federal EI top-up is a “significant lift to help apprentices complete the in-school portion of their training.”

Mr. Santos said the apprenticeship completion bonus, which will be available retroactively to newly certified journeypersons who completed their apprenticeship as of April, 2025, is also a meaningful financial incentive. He said it will cover the roughly \$4,000 he spent to purchase the tools he'll need.

New apprentices can also struggle to find their first employer. Employers that teach tradespeople have to follow a curriculum established by their province, which sets certain skills an apprentice must learn at each level, and report their apprentice's hours.

That can be a significant expense for employers, particularly smaller ones, said Mr. Strickland.

“It’s hard to get a first-year and sometimes a second-year onto a job site, because the contractor really has to take a lot of time, effort and care to make sure that they’re producing in a way that helps the contractor meet the deliverables for the project,” he said. The \$10,000 incentive should help to address some of those hurdles, he added.

Ms. Arrowsmith said the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum surveys apprentices regularly about barriers to completion. Respondents often say their employer won't release them to attend school because they're too busy, or the employer is providing insufficient training and they're unable to advance.

"If you take on an apprentice you're obligated to do certain things, but some employers are like, 'I don't like the curriculum, I just want to teach them how to frame.'

Financial constraints are far from the only roadblock to higher completion rates. RESCON's Mr. Lyall said young people don't get much exposure to the trades in school and the pathways for people to begin an apprenticeship are often hard to navigate, which contributes to the higher average age of new apprentices. Apprentices in voluntary-completion trades may opt to discontinue if they're earning a good enough wage, he said.

Ms. Lary noted that women and gender-diverse people face additional challenges, including alienation and harassment on job sites, that can discourage them from certifying.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Robot: Human testing is team's first pilot project

FROM B1

They founded Revolve in 2019, and went through two startup programs shortly after: the Creative Destruction Lab at U of T in 2020 and the famed Y Combinator in Silicon Valley in 2021.

Since then, Revolve has held some early fundraising rounds and continued to iterate and improve the technology. Its surgical arm received investigational testing approval from Health Canada and premarket clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year.

The human testing at Unity Health Toronto is the team's first pilot project. It began this year with a goal of using the device in three patients who needed their appendix removed and met certain eligibility criteria.

Dr. De Rezende-Neto, who has given advice to the Revolve team for years, says their device fills a gap in the market that few other technologies can fill in North America right now.

At the low end of the market are regular laparoscopic procedures that allow the surgeon to operate without needing to open larger holes in the patient, greatly improving recovery.

But Dr. De Rezende-Neto says that traditional laparoscopic tools have limited range of motion. The robot-assisted Revolve system can do much more, which opens up options for procedures that can be performed laparoscopically. “This, to me, is the main advantage of this robot,” he said.

At the high end of the market are remote-controlled robotic systems that can be operated from a console at a further distance. Revolve's system is not as advanced as those options, but also not nearly as expensive. Mr. Kang said Revolve is hoping to price its system to be a fraction of the seven-figure cost of the more advanced robotics – such that a hospital could stock all their operating rooms with Revolve systems at the price of one advanced

Joseph Kim, product manager at Revolve Surgical, the company that developed the robotic arm system used at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, uses the technology in the operating room.

EDUARDO LIMA/

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Dr. De Rezende-Neto says that traditional laparoscopic tools have limited range of motion. The robot-assisted Revolve system can do much more, which opens up options for procedures that can be performed laparoscopically.

system.

The team is also building capacity into the Revolve system to eventually integrate AI, Mr. Kang said, with the hopes it will assist surgeons with precise movements. Developing the technology has been slow in some ways because of the need to be careful and keep patients safe, he said.

But “truthfully, some of the harder challenges are working within systems that move maybe at a different pace than we’re used to,” he said.

Medical technology companies founded in Canada have long said it is hard to build a sustainable business selling to Canadian hospitals and health authorities because of limited budgets and risk aversion.

Mr. Kang said Revolve's main market for selling devices will be U.S. health care providers.

“While we are so proud to be Canadian and love our health care system here, the truth is just that the American market is more primed for innovation and adopting newer technologies earlier,” he said.

Even so, the Revolve team has been making the devices in-house so far, and is in talks with local manufacturers to continue making them in Canada when they are ready to build at scale, Mr. Kang said. The team hopes to make its official commercial launch next year.

Americas have glut of heavy oil as freight rates stifle exports

GEORGINA McCARTNEY

ARATHY SOMASEKHAR HOUSTON

Dense heavy crude, which oil refiners around the world favour for its typically low cost, is piling up in the Americas as soaring freight rates have stifled exports and United States refiners have been running close to their limits.

The glut in North and South America has opened an unusual split in the global oil market, as buyers in Asia and Europe struggle with supply shortages and benchmark prices hold above US\$100 a barrel.

Heavy crude is a denser type of oil that Asian, many U.S., and some European refineries are typically configured to process. It is usually cheaper than light crude, offering refiners better margins, when shipping costs are affordable.

“It’s all freight,” said Scott Shelton, an energy specialist at TP ICAP. Venezuela, the U.S. and Canada all produce more oil than they consume, he said, so they rely on exports to Asia to balance their crude markets.

With U.S. diesel prices soaring, the cheap, stranded barrels should be getting snapped up in a diesel-starved market, since heavy crude yields more of the fuel than lighter grades. But Gulf Coast refiners have already bought as much as they can process, analysts and traders said.

Venezuelan exports have surged since the U.S. captured former President Nicolás Maduro in January, then started pushing to reactivate the country's oil sector. Canadian output is at a record and Washington has released more than 130 million barrels from its emergency reserve.

The cost of hiring a supertanker from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia, meanwhile, has more than quintupled since February, as ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman tie up vessels worldwide.

“You need a ship and the price of ships are going up, and the availability of ships are going down,” Mr. Shelton said.

Flagship Canadian, Colombian and Ecuadorian heavy crude grades have all eased more than US\$10 a barrel to trade at their lowest level in six weeks, according to price reporting agency Argus Media. Prices for Western Canada Select, excluding shipping or insurance costs, was around US\$74 on Thursday; Colombia's main grade Vasconia was trading at around US\$84; and Ecuador's Oriente was trading at around US\$76, Argus said.

Venezuelan crude excluding shipping costs was trading around US\$74.50 a barrel on Thursday, two traders said.

Shipping oil on a supertanker from the US Gulf Coast to Europe was estimated to cost around US\$46-million, or US\$24.50 a barrel, last week, including ship-to-ship transfer and other costs, according to Georgios Sakellariou, a Signal Maritime analyst. That compares with US\$6.5-million or around \$4 a barrel before the Iran war broke out in late February.

REUTERS

France open to defence deals with Canada: envoy

Ambassador says she thinks it's ‘a very good thing’ Ottawa joined EU loan program, Security Action for Europe

DYLAN ROBERTSON OTTAWA

France's new ambassador in Ottawa says her country is open to working closer with Canada on defence procurement, despite its push for Europe to develop a fully autonomous arms industry.

“In the defence sector and in other equally strategic sectors, France advocates for a European preference in procurement,” French Ambassador Hélène Farnaud-Defromont said in a French-language interview.

"The ideal for us would be to achieve 100-per-cent European content but, once again, we're being realistic. We know we're all going to need a bit of time to reach that goal."

Ms. Farnaud-Defromont said France can help Canada build up its defence base by sharing best practices.

“France is the only member state of the European Union today to have retained a comprehensive defence industrial and technological base,” she said. “We have some really interesting ideas to put forward and develop together.”

In February, Canada became the first non-European partner in an EU loan program for joint defence projects called Security Action for Europe, or SAFE. Only one contract for Canada has emerged from the program so far.

The program allows EU countries to access low-interest loans to buy military gear and weapons. It's part of an initiative called ReArm Europe aimed at weaning the continent off its

French Ambassador to Canada Hélène Farnaud-Defromont, seen during an interview at the French Embassy in Ottawa on Friday, says France can help Canada build up its defence base by sharing best practices.

KEITO NEWMAN/

THE CANADIAN PRESS

reliance on American weapons.

"The fact that Canada has joined SAFE, I think that's a very good thing," she said.

“We now need to see things come to fruition. We need this partnership to actually take shape.”

Much of Canada's defence industrial base is made up of branches of American corporations. Ms. Farnaud-Defromont would not speculate on how that continental integration might affect Canada's participation in SAFE.

The ambassador said 65 per cent of the components in each piece of defence equipment France procures are of European origin – a threshold the EU is trying to apply to SAFE projects.

Ms. Farnaud-Defromont said the people of France are “extremely concerned and worried” about the war in Ukraine and its implications for freedom across Europe.

Canada's strong support for Ukraine is deeply appreciated across the continent, she said.

“We are in fact facing an all-out war on European soil following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Ms. Farnaud-Defromont said.

"The front line is just a few hundred kilometres from Paris. It is not that far away."

She said France is still trying to work toward peace through multilateralism, despite dozens of armed conflicts that – like those in the Middle East – have implications far beyond one region.

"The international order has been profoundly disrupted," said Ms. Farnaud-Defromont, a career diplomat for 32 years.

"The environment in which I work today as a French diplomat bears no resemblance to the one I knew."

While France is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it has always maintained some autonomy.

France pulled out of NATO's command structure for most of the Cold War and advocated for nuclear energy autonomy to avoid relying on others for electricity.

The country has for years advocated a vision of European collective security that runs at odds with American leadership. France ramped up its push for continental autonomy after U.S. President Donald Trump's demands for control of Greenland.

“We have long been committed to developing, within the European Union and within NATO, a European pillar, and within the European Union a community that is also strategic,” Ms. Farnaud-Defromont said.

“We are by no means pleased with the situation within NATO, which is, to say the least, very confused.”

Kerry Buck, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO, has warned that Ottawa would be less safe if the alliance turned its focus more to the defence of Europe.

“Canada had long resisted the creation of a European pillar within NATO for fear of being sidelined, and because we didn’t want the EU exercising ‘strategic autonomy’ in decision-making, or otherwise competing with NATO,” she wrote in a June, 2025, commentary in Policy Magazine.

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Thames: Credit-rating agencies track Canadian pension funds' exposure to U.K. utility

FROM B1

Earlier this year, Andy Burnham, just before he became Prime Minister, said Thames Water should be nationalized. In September, he said he would introduce legislation to repeal a ban on the public ownership of water companies.

Canada's largest lender is among the consortium of more than 100 financial institutions that proposed a £16-billion rescue package for Thames Water.

RBC chief executive officer Dave McKay credited Prime Minister Mark Carney for his plans to implement tax deductions for capital investments, and urged Britain to follow suit while warning against nationalizing the water utility.

"When the U.K. flirts with nationalizing your Thames Water, with putting on a bank tax, with putting a capital tax on the wealthy or housing, it sends a signal you want to harvest your economy, not grow it," Mr. McKay said in an interview with the Sunday Times in September.

During the bank's third-quarter earnings release in August, RBC set aside \$120-million in provisions – money that banks set aside to cover potential defaults – on a single loan, which CIBC analyst Paul Holden said in a research note may be related to Thames Water.

TD analyst Mario Mendonca noted that RBC's impaired provisions for credit losses rose \$85-million from the previous quarter, and said the increase is likely linked to the water utility.

RBC declined a request for comment.

As Britain contemplates nationalizing its infrastructure, Mr. Carney has been advocating for opening up Canada's four largest airports to private investment in a bid to raise tens of billions of dollars.

Mr. Carney said that the potential nationalization of Thames Water could result in losses for oversees investors and warned Britain that it could harm foreign investment in the country, according to a report from The Telegraph Sunday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The Prime Minister's Office did not respond to a request for comment from The Globe and Mail.

In July, Thames Water said it could continue for about 12 months but cautioned that there is “material uncertainty” over its long-term future.

A group of distressed debt investors and financial institutions, known as London & Valley Water, is attempting to take control of the utility to avoid nationalization.

London & Valley Water did not respond to a request for comment from The Globe.

Credit-rating agencies have been monitoring the exposure of Canadian pension funds to the water provider. OMERS and BCI invested in Thames Water in 2017 and 2006, respectively.

OMERS took a 31.8-per-cent stake in the company and BCI took a position with 8.7 per cent. Then, between 2021 and 2023, OMERS continually marked down the value of its investment in Thames Water.

The pension fund ultimately wrote off Thames Water in May, 2024.

It is unclear whether BCI has maintained its stake.

The water provider “has been struggling under the weight of excessive debt. With shareholders declining to inject additional capital, the company appears close to defaulting on its debt payments," credit-rating agency DBRS Morningstar said in a 2024 note assessing OMERS and BCI's links to the utility.

“Thames Water’s failure has highlighted the level of complexity and risk considerations that can affect a seemingly safe investment.”

In 2017, Fiera Capital Corp., through its infrastructure arm, increased its equity investment in Thames Water and took a seat on the board.

Canadian export agency EDC booked losses after lending hundreds of millions of pounds to Thames Water. In its 2024 annual report, EDC said it had provided a total \$1.1-billion to the utility. Its provisions for credit losses that year included about \$630-million in losses in the utilities sector from its exposure to Thames Water.

“Due to deteriorating business and financial conditions, combined with the fact that the Canadian entity that we were supporting had exited the investment, we recorded a provision for credit losses in 2024 and subsequently sold the loan assets,” the EDC said in the report.

An employee at Mogden Catchment looks at settlement tanks used to process sewage water from over two million people. The plant, seen last year, is operated by Thames Water in London. TOBY MELVILLE/REUTERS

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Heidi

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PROCUREMENT NOTICE REQUEST FOR PARTNERS (RFP)

Reference: RFP-HH-2026-CANADA

Issued: By Heidi

Subject: Bringing relief to Canadian clinicians

Closing date: December 31, 2026

Every day, thousands of clinicians are buried under a Mount Logan-sized stack of paperwork. Not literally, of course. Regardless, this Request for Partners comes at a pivotal time for Canadian healthcare.

We know you see it, because you're a healthcare leader with one of the hardest jobs in the country: prioritizing innovation while protecting patient data. That's why we want to partner with you to accelerate AI adoption and extract our dedicated healthcare workers from this administrative avalanche.

SECTION 1.0: MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS (GO / NO-GO) | REF | REQUIREMENT | RESPONSIBILITY | STATUS | 1.1 | Data Residency & Security: Patient health information for Canadian deployments is stored exclusively in Canada. Built to support compliance with PIPEDA and applicable provincial privacy and health-information laws, including PHIPA and HIA. | The Issuer (Heidi) | [ IN PLACE ] | 1.2 | Clinician Wellbeing: A formalized belief that 5:00 PM is a perfectly reasonable time for doctors to go home. | The Proponent (CA Healthcare) | [ MUTUAL PRIORITY ] | 1.3 | Innovation Mandate: Desire to be the facility that others look to as the gold standard for clinical AI adoption. | The Proponent (CA Healthcare) | [ OPEN TO LEADERS ] | 1.4 | Strategic Action: Organization is prepared to safely pilot AI and give their doctors their time back without a 12-month delay. | The Proponent (CA Healthcare) | [ FAST-TRACK READY ] | Respond now · heidihealth.com/en-ca/rfp

We've completed the foundational security and privacy requirements so your procurement teams can proceed with confidence. If your organization is ready to bring secure, responsible AI to your clinical staff, we invite you to respond to this notice.

Housing policy wants you to live in a shoebox

Canadian governments often measure quality of housing by number of units produced, rather than livability

JOHN

TURLEY-EWART

OPINION

Jane Jacobs was wrong. So suggests the drift in government housing policy toward community-killing high-rises. The urbanist who fought for low-rise living in townhouses and apartment blocks didn't believe livable communities existed high in the sky. Today's decision-makers beg to differ.

Passé are eyes on the street, as is economically mixed and human-scaled density, defined by street-centric neighbourhoods where residents easily walk to local shops, entertainment, transit and civic spaces.

Tall sprawl is today's preference, with vertical cities comprised of massive towers that house thousands and sit on podiums, circled by small patches of grass with a sprinkling of trees and the odd bench or two. Too often, governments measure the quality of housing by the number of units produced, rather than the livability of the communities being built.

The consequences, if governments are wrong and Ms. Jacobs is proven right, will scar the Canadian housing landscape for generations.

For Ms. Jacobs, who died in 2006, livable communities thrived on diversity: Old buildings mixed with new ones; renters beside owners; singles, couples, families with children and seniors; and small builders alongside larger developers capable of more complex projects.

Her classic work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is a community-building blueprint. Yet, the livable density it points to is too often ruled out by

A pedestrian passes by

signage around new

condo buildings in

Vaughan, Ont., in August.

The boom in the

condominium market

burned itself out when

interest rates rapidly rose

in 2022 and sales slowed

through 2023 and 2024.

SAMMY KOGAN/

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

zoning restrictions, making towers the more viable option for developers tasked with building housing quickly and for many.

Ms. Jacob's work didn't suit the times when the economic reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 set off a housing boom.

Real interest rates reached historic lows, while condominium unit sizes continued to shrink in size, keeping booming prices per square foot in reach for first-time buyers and mom-and-pop investors.

That boom peaked in 2021 and began petering out in late 2022. In 2024, Toronto brought a record 25,572 condominium units to market, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC). In Vancouver, that number was 12,442.

Developers chased profits and rushed completions to move on to their next towering project. Planning offices and the municipal officials behind them chased their version of profits, too - development charges.

In Toronto, those charges were more than \$120,000 per condominium unit by 2025, according to a CMHC report from last December.

No government took tall sprawl more to heart than Doug Ford's in Ontario. It sees merit in extreme density. The Bridge Station project, located north of Toronto, is an example. It proposes 20,490 apartments, housing more than 43,000 people in towers as high as 80 storeys on just 63 acres of land.

Ontario has many more Bridge Stations in its housing plans.

Such projects are pitched as the future of communities, despite severing people from street-level sidewalks in skyscrapers jammed with small units unsuited to family life and community building.

They come with overcrowding, long waits for elevators, elevated amenity decks far from the street, and, if any, monoculture chain stores that are most capable of paying the high commercial rents demanded in new builds.

The boom in the condominium market burned itself out when interest rates rapidly rose in 2022 and sales slowed through 2023 and 2024.

Today, the consequences of the condominium bust are stark. Cancelled projects are common, new builds are almost non-existent, prices are materially lower for resales, and developers are converting tall-sprawl condominium plans to the new money-maker – purpose-built rentals.

In its Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report, the CMHC notes that “purpose-built rental housing now accounts for two-thirds of all apartment starts in key markets.”

These projects are viable because of \$55-billion in taxpayer-subsidized low-cost CMHC loans with long amortization periods that make them profitable for developers. An Urbanation report from last October found that in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area, 61 condominium projects had been converted to purpose-built rentals last year. More will follow.

Tall sprawl is finding a second coming in purpose-built rentals. It may be the housing that most Canadians turn to in the future. CMHC says “the greater long-term risk” in the Canadian housing market is the “insufficient condominium and ground-oriented housing supply that leaves too few ownership options when demand strengthens again.”

Such construction has “weakened sharply in major cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal.” Using a 2.5-per-cent annual inflation rate, the typical detached house in Toronto will cost about \$1.6-million in 2036. In Vancouver, that price is likely to be roughly \$2-million.

Squeeze supply, too, and the cost will be higher.

By favouring tall sprawl, purpose-built rentals over communities with a diverse mix of street-focused housing, planners and policy makers are betting Ms. Jacobs's warning about the dangers of vertical cities is bunk.

If they're wrong, a decade from now, many Canadians will have few options beyond a unit in a tower they would rather leave than live in.

The Iran oil shock should mean EV sales are surging – so why aren’t they?

OPINION

U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail

To the casual observer, it would seem to make sense that rising gas prices linked to the war in Iran should be a ray of sunshine for the North American electric-vehicle sector.

After all, with prices at U.S. pumps recently averaging more than US\$4 a gallon, buoyed by oil prices yo-yoing in and around the US\$100-a-barrel mark, the argument for EVs should be stronger than ever.

That would seem especially true in the domestic market, where legacy automakers have backed away from EV and hybrid production in favour of upping their commitments to gas cars and trucks. In Canada, look no further than Ford Motor's decision to stop the conversion of its Oakville, Ont., assembly plant for

EV production and retool it to produce heavy-duty gas-powered trucks, its best-selling models.

But seven months into the conflict, EVs are still feeling the chill of lacklustre buyer interest. Even the market leader Tesla reported last week that its third-quarter sales fell 2 per cent from a year ago.

It seems counterintuitive. But like so many products, EVs are stalled at the intersection of opportunity and affordability. High sticker prices, slow introduction of new models, and lack of charging infrastructure continue to dog the sector's ability to take advantage of what should be ideal conditions for a comeback.

Since the war started, only hybrids are seeing healthy sales. And with North American automakers effectively out of the hybrid arena, Asian carmakers are hogging the market. Sales of hybrid models from automakers such as Toyota, Hyundai and Honda are up sharply, as the flow of oil has been choked at the Strait of Hormuz, driving up prices.

EV sales have shown no such signs of reinvigoration. Sticker prices are still high compared to hybrid models and conventional gas vehicles.

The average price of a new EV is now more than US\$55,000, according to the American Automobile Association. That compares with a price of about US\$48,000 for the average gas vehicle.

A used EV will set you back more than US\$37,000, on average, compared with US\$33,000 for a used gas vehicle.

The price delta between new EVs and hybrids is even wider. Base model hybrids run between US\$24,500 and US\$29,500. For example, the Toyota Corolla Hybrid starts at just under US\$25,000, the Hyundai Elantra Hybrid is just a few hundred dollars more, and the Toyota Prius starts around US\$28,500.

In the U.S., other factors have chilled EV sales. The sector has yet to recover from the elimination of the US\$7,500 credit per vehicle late last year by the Trump administration.

Charging infrastructure remains an issue. Despite a 2021 Biden administration-era pledge of US\$7.5-billion to build a nationwide network of 500,000 charging stations by 2030, only a handful were completed by the time he left office in 2024.

While that has expanded slowly since then, there are still fewer than 90,000 charging locations in the U.S., and the Trump administration's lack of enthusiasm for EVs is unlikely to accelerate the pace of installation any time soon.

New model introduction - especially at affordable prices - remains an Achilles' heel for the EV sector.

Rivian, for example, said recently it would delay the rollout of its R2 base model, a US\$45,000 variant of its pricier R2 SUV, for more than a year.

That leaves the California-based EV-maker dependent on vehicles priced between US\$80,000 and US\$122,000 - prices that are out of reach for many already cash-strapped consumers.

To be sure, the picture outside of North America is somewhat rosier for EVs, mainly because of the success of high-quality, affordable models made in China not available here. Sales continue to grow in many foreign markets as value-priced alternatives to gas vehicles hit the showrooms.

But the EV faithful should be careful about believing the trends – many reporting agencies include hybrids in the statistics for EVs. With brisk hybrid sales driving the results, it is often difficult to determine exactly where pure EVs stand.

If ever there were a time for the EV argument to be made – and the promise fulfilled – it is now, especially if the war continues to prop up prices at the pumps.

The question is whether EV makers can move quickly enough to overcome the many hurdles they face, and in particular bring lower-priced models to market fast enough to take advantage of the window. When it comes to defining moments for the sector, this is a big one.

Jarislowsky was a patriot and the da Vinci of Canadian business

JOE MARTIN

OPINION

President emeritus of the Canadian Business History Association

Stephen Jarislowsky, whose death was announced on Thursday, was the Leonardo da Vinci of the Canadian business world, a true polymath. Mr. Jarislowsky, aged 101, had arrived in Montreal at an early age and created a powerful financial firm, but his interests were not limited to making money.

He had a deep interest in corporate governance. And once firmly established, he turned his attention to giving his money away in an intelligent fashion, primarily to institutions of higher learning. He spoke openly against Quebec separatism. Ultimately, Mr. Jarislowsky was always a patriot before a businessman.

His firm, Jarislowsky Fraser, was founded in Montreal in 1955 as an investment boutique, based on Mr. Jarislowsky's belief that a company's entire business – for example, the three Cs of customers, competition and the corporation itself – must be considered in making investment decisions. That belief was key to quality, lower-risk investing in the long run. The firm conducted more than 100 annual visits, interviewing management teams to ascertain the quality and growth prospects of their companies.

His approach proved highly successful. When the firm was sold in early 2018 to Bank of Nova Scotia, it had more than \$40-billion in assets under management and sold for just under \$1-billion, a remarkable payoff for a 63-year-old company that he had started from scratch. The acquisition made Scotiabank the third-largest investment management firm in Canada at the time.

Mr. Jarislowsky was also an early and consistent leader in calling for the highest standards of corporate governance. An advocate for shareholder rights, Mr. Jarislowsky co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance and was also instrumental in the creation of the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations of Quebec. He was recognized for his leadership on corporate governance in 2023, when he was elevated to a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Having achieved a remarkable degree of financial success, Mr. Jarislowsky established the Jarislowsky Foundation in 1991, which championed causes such as fine arts, literacy and health care for children. The initial capital of the foundation was \$20-million and has subsequently grown to between \$350-million and \$400-million. Annually, the foundation distributes \$15-million.

Andrew Carnegie, the late 19th- and early 20th-century Scottish-American industrialist, is famous for saying that giving away money wisely is more difficult than accumulating it. Mr. Jarislowsky thought the same way, but he had the benefit of observing a century's worth of foundation giving and so was better prepared to be an effective donor to worthy causes.

University research chairs were his highest priority, and to date the foundation has helped establish 50 university chairs in both large and small universities across Canada and in various disciplines. Examples include the Urology Chair at McGill, the Natural Systems Agriculture for Climate Solutions Chair at the University of Manitoba and the Japan Chair at the University of Victoria's Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives.

If we must remember Mr. Jarislowsky, the Renaissance man, for only one aspect, he'd no doubt want it to be his love for this country. A staunch federalist, Mr. Jarislowsky stared down two Quebec referendums and faced the looming spectre of a third, but never left Montreal for Toronto or elsewhere in Canada. He spoke out against separatism and once compared Parti Québécois politicians of his time to fascists. What would he say about their successors today?

Pharmaceutical research & medical innovation

Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Produced by Randall Anthony Communications. The Globe's Editorial Department was not involved.

How Ontario slashed wait times for cancer treatments

BY DR. BETTINA HAMELIN, President & CEO of Innovative Medicines Canada, the national association representing Canada's innovative pharmaceutical industry

One year ago, the Ontario government made a decision: Patients shouldn't have to wait up to a year to access cancer treatments. This week, the results of that decision are in, and they're impressive.

Since launching on October 7, 2025, Ontario's Funding Accelerated for Specific Treatments (FAST) program has fast-tracked 10 new life-extending cancer treatments to patients. The data is striking. Patients who accessed cancer treatments through FAST waited an average

of 55 days in 2026, compared with patients who waited approximately 300 days outside the program in 2025. That's five times faster.

For anyone with a cancer diagnosis, that difference isn't abstract. It's a chance to access novel treatments with better outcomes.

Here's how Ontario did it: Instead of waiting two to three years for drug pricing negotiations to conclude before new treatments are added to the province's public drug plan, FAST makes eligible medicines available to patients as soon as they have received Health Canada approval and a positive recommendation from Canada's Drug Agency. The pricing negotiations continue in parallel, while patients are receiving treatment.

Ontario didn't cut corners. It simply stopped making patients wait for a lengthy bureaucratic process that has nothing to do with the safety or efficacy of a drug. That's what makes this milestone so significant. It proves that speed and rigour don't have to be in conflict.

FAST's first year makes a compelling case for two things: making the program permanent in Ontario and expanding it beyond cancer treatments to a broader range of new medicines.

But the bigger opportunity is national.

Currently, Ontario is the exception, not the rule. Patients in other provinces and territories wait up to four months longer for high-priority cancer treatments. Four months is a lifetime, especially when it comes to cancer treatments.

Each province and territory faces its own realities: different resources, systems and capacity. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. But FAST's success offers something valuable to all of them – a working example and important lessons learned, as they each grapple with how to accelerate access to new, innovative medicines for their own populations.

Innovative Medicines Canada says Ontario's FAST program, which accelerated patient access to new life-extending cancer treatments, offers "lessons learned" with potential application more broadly in Canada. O2O CREATIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES

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BRINGING INNOVATION TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL SUPPLY CHAIN

When Canadians pick up their prescription drugs at their local pharmacy, they are likely unaware of the complex chain of events and the collaboration of multiple partners that led to that moment. Every medication dispensed through pharmacies, hospitals and other points of care is made possible by a highly interconnected system whose members prioritize safety, reliability and efficiency so Canadians can receive the medicines they need, when and where they need them.

That system is the pharmaceutical supply chain: the manufacturers, distributors, service providers and other partners that together form a vital component of Canada's health-care infrastructure.

Although the supply chain is well established, it operates in a continually changing environment that requires adaptation and innovative approaches. Vital, Canada's Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Alliance, is the organization that brings together leaders from across the supply chain to develop solutions to new demands and pressures.

"Today, we're navigating a combination of growing health-care demand, increasing product complexity, global disruptions, geopolitical uncertainty and evolving patient needs," says Angelique Berg, president and CEO of Vital.

"With the challenges we face, there is no single organization acting alone that can ensure medicines reach Canadians," Ms. Berg says. "Our role is to provide a platform where stakeholders can share expertise and collaborate on solutions to ensure this system remains resilient and adaptable as pressures continue to evolve."

A recent example of the value of collaboration is the work undertaken to address drug shortages. Vital members joined representatives from pharmacy and peer associations, governments, academia and healthcare organizations to identify the root causes of drug shortages and then developed several practical recommendations to strengthen drug supply in Canada.

Helping Canadians access the medicines they need begins with a resilient pharmaceutical supply chain strengthened by collaboration and innovation. ORGANIC MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

"As Canada places greater emphasis on health security, economic resilience and pharmaceutical sovereignty, the supply chain must be recognized as critical infrastructure," Ms. Berg says. "Sovereignty is not only about where medicines are manufactured. It also depends on the capacity and systems required to move medicines safely and reliably from domestic and global sources to patients across the country.

"Distribution centres, temperature-controlled storage and transportation services are all critical to supply resilience, as are the procedures that protect product integrity and support timely delivery. By bringing supply chain partners together, Vital is helping ensure this infrastructure continues to evolve alongside Canada's health-care system."

Ontario's

FAST

program is working

10 medicines

Five times

faster

Life-saving potential

Funding Accelerated for Specific Treatments

INNOVATIVE MEDICINES CANADA

President of Angola João Lourenço, left, and Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney shake hands on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in September. JUSTIN TANG/CP

Mining: Oil wealth places Angola in the ranks of Africa's six biggest economies

FROM B1

Its oil wealth has placed Angola in the ranks of Africa's six biggest economies, but its mineral deposits are emerging as a new focus for investment. The country is considered to be underexplored – especially in comparison with neighbouring Zambia, where Canadian companies are major investors in the copper sector.

“Angola has the resources and is actively trying to broaden its mining investor base, and Canada has the companies, capital markets, technical expertise and mining-services ecosystem, so there is a fairly natural complementarity,” said Marisa Lourenço, a Johannesburg-based regional analyst.

She predicted that mining will be central to the Canada-Angola economic deal and will be the “most obvious anchor” in their emerging relationship.

“Angola has been trying for years to reduce its dependence on oil, and the government is increasingly pitching minerals such as copper, lithium, niobium and rare earths as part of that diversification strategy,” she told The Globe and Mail.

Canadian officials, including Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, have held several meetings with top Angolan officials over the past year, with mining usually on their agenda. The two countries are also negotiating a second deal: A Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.

“Canada has historically been relatively underengaged commercially in Africa, particularly compared with some of its G7 peers," Ms. Lourenço said. "It wants to move from a relatively cautious and fragmented commercial presence in Africa towards a more deliberate economic strategy."

Until recently, Angola did not appear to be a top Canadian priority. Canada does not have a full embassy in Angola, covering it instead from its high commission in Mozambique, another former Portuguese colony.

Canada imported \$16-billion in oil from Angola in the years before 2015, but trade between the two countries has been relatively small since then. There was an uptick in trade last year, however, when Angola imported about \$200-million in goods from Canada – mainly in the aircraft sector – up from \$85-million in the previous year.

Angola has strategic importance to the mining sector because its Atlantic Ocean port of Lobito is the terminus of the multi-billion-dollar Lobito Corridor. The railway, supported by the United States and Europe, is expected to boost exports from the copper and cobalt region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the eastern end of the railway.

Stronger collaboration on the Lobito Corridor was one of the subjects of discussion when Ms. Anand met her Angolan counterpart, Tete António, in June.

Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., which has a copper project in Congo, has been among the early beneficiaries of the Lobito Corridor, although the railway needs upgrading and is not yet operating at full capacity. Ivanhoe is also exploring for cop-

per in Angola.

Global Affairs Canada has not provided any specifics on what the Angola economic co-operation agreement could include. "While mining and critical minerals are among potential sectors of mutual economic interest, work is continuing on the details of the proposed MOU," department spokesperson Aditee Kissoon said in response to questions.

An assistant deputy minister in the Global Affairs department, Cheryl Urban, met the Angolan secretary of state for mineral resources, Jânio Correia Victor, in the Angola capital, Luanda, in February. They discussed “how to identify and promote new investment opportunities in the mining and energy sectors,” the Angolan government said in a statement after the meeting.

This meeting, along with earlier talks at an Africa mining conference in Cape Town in February, helped to lay the groundwork for the current economic negotiations, Ms. Lourenço said.

Chris Roberts, an Africa specialist at the University of Calgary, says Canada is “finally playing catch-up” to the investments that other Western countries – along with China and Gulf states – have been pouring into Angola in recent years. “Canada-Angola relations are significantly underdeveloped,” he told The Globe.

He noted that Canada's new Africa Strategy, released last year, contains multiple references to critical minerals as a priority. Ottawa is working with other Western countries to diversify the global supply chain of critical minerals, and the Lobito Corridor is part of that strategy, he said.

Europeans have a love-hate affair with Chinese cars

JAMES PATON BERLIN

BYD, China's dominant maker of electric vehicles, aims to open so many outlets in Germany that no one has to travel more than 20 minutes to buy one of its cars. One of its Chinese rivals, Xiaomi, sees Germany as the foundation of its European expansion plans, after selling 700,000 cars back home.

Germany is the birthplace of the automobile and the home of Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. These days, it is also a top destination for Chinese companies selling cars at a considerable discount to European vehicles.

“Customers don’t care if it’s a Chinese car or a German car,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a German auto analyst and former executive at Porsche and other companies. What they do care about, he said, is the price.

Shut out of the United States by tariffs, Chinese automakers have focused on other overseas markets – and Europe is a prime target. Low-cost Chinese car brands are enticing customers across the Continent as surging gasoline prices drive interest in electric vehicles. Chinese cars account for about one in every 10 cars sold in Europe, up from one in 100 five years ago.

Chinese brands are rapidly gaining ground on leaders like Volkswagen. BYD's sales in Europe have more than doubled this year. Sales of another popular Chinese manufacturer, Chery, have grown even faster. The company's Jaecoo 7, known as the "Temu Range Rover" in a nod to the Chinese bargain-shopping app, was Britain's bestselling vehicle in September. Xiaomi plans to add to the competition after teaming up with eight dealers in Germany.

It's a love-hate relationship, however. Consumers increasingly want to buy Chinese cars. Policy makers are trying to stem the flow. The European Union reached a deal with Beijing on Friday that European officials said could halve the number of hybrid gasoline-electric cars that China sends to the bloc in the next four years.

The agreement could help ease the pain for European car-makers, though much about implementation remains unclear. Cheaper imports from China are threatening the industry, which contributes about 7 per cent of the EU's economic output. The EU industry chief, Stéphane Séjourné, has warned that the sector is in “mortal danger.” Germany's auto industry group has predicted the loss of up to 225,000 jobs by 2035.

The EU has faced growing pressure to impose tougher measures to shield industries from what companies see as unfair competition. Left unchecked, Chinese carmakers could triple their share of the European auto market to as much as 30 per cent by 2035, said Harald Hendrikse, a managing director at Citi Research.

In taking on China, Europe faces a conundrum: How can the region protect its industries while keeping prices affordable? Efforts to insulate the sector would come with a cost.

“There’s no free lunch in protectionism,” said David Bailey, a professor and industrial policy expert at University of Birmingham. “European and British automakers may gain some breathing room, but consumers could face higher prices and less choice, especially at the lower end of the market.”

In 2024, the European Union imposed tariffs as high as 45 per cent on Chinese electric cars to try to counter Beijing's subsidies. But the bloc spared hybrid vehicles, which were then still a small segment of the market. Chinese manufacturers pivoted, boosting exports of hybrids, which are subject to only a 10-per-cent tariff.

Chinese hybrids have since poured into Europe, accounting for more than a fifth of the category's total sales and pushing policy makers to consider wider trade restrictions. In Poland, Hungary and Romania, Chinese companies have gained more than half the plug-in hybrid market, according to Dataforce, which tracks the auto sector.

History shows restricting supplies of those Chinese cars would probably increase prices, which over time could benefit the country's manufacturers in Europe. In 2013, China agreed to reduce the number of solar panels that it shipped to Europe. In turn, Chinese manufacturers raised prices, pulling in larger profits that they could invest in research and new factories.

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Quebec: PQ says province would have own currency, small army if it were a country

Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon speaks to supporters after winning the provincial election in Montreal on Oct. 5.

GRAHAM HUGHES/THE CANADIAN PRESS

FROM B1

The party's fragile minority – it won a mandate with just 28 per cent of the vote, the lowest share for any government in Quebec's history – has also calmed bond markets as investors see the PQ struggling to set the conditions for a secession vote.

"The threat of a referendum, a winning referendum, is not felt by the business community right now," said Eric Boyko, chief executive of Montreal media company Stingray Group Inc. "That could change in a year but right now, nobody sees it."

In its blueprint detailing the steps toward national sovereignty, the PQ says “independence is not a leap into the unknown but an essential condition for transforming Quebec’s potential wealth into real wealth and for ensuring its linguistic and cultural sustainability.”

The party says the province would have its own currency and a small army if it were a country.

An independent Quebec “would be poorer” and bleed up to \$65-billion in economic activity during the first five years after a yes vote, Quebec’s outgoing finance minister, Eric Girard, has warned, comparing the situation to Brexit in the U.K. The PQ counters that independence would yield billions in savings by scrapping or merging the roughly 230 federal agencies now operating in the province.

Quebec's next bond offering should provide a fresh indication of how investors assess its political and finance risks over time, said Desjardins Group chief economist Jimmy Jean. The strength of the order book, pricing relative to Ontario and the size of any extra yield the province will have to offer will all be closely watched, he said.

Alain Bouchard, chairman and co-founder of multinational Alimentation Couche-Tard, told reporters last week that angst over sovereignty is nothing new. He said he's more preoccupied with the need for the Quebec government to radically rethink its approach to economic growth, calling for an end to overregulation and business subsidies.

“If it happens, it happens. It’ll create uncertainty. Whatever,” he said of a possible plebiscite. “I’ve voted ‘yes’ before, and I’ve voted ‘no.’ If it happens again, we’ll see but it’s not my main concern.”

Many businesses big and small, however, are at odds with the PQ on the thorny question of how many people to let into the province.

Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon has said Quebec has “completely lost control” of its immigration system and that new lower targets should to be set that mesh with the capacity of institutions to welcome new arrivals and the wider imperative of protecting the French language. During a campaign stop in Quebec City, he said schools were “overflowing everywhere” in the province, and linked the situation to strains on public infrastructure and immigration mismanagement.

Some business leaders have pleaded for more immigrants to be let in to meet labour needs, noting Quebec is already in a natural demographic decline. Executives with pork producer Olymel are among those who have spoken out, warning that tighter rules could threaten their operations.

“We probably have members who voted for the PQ,” said François Vincent, who leads the Canadian Federal of Independent Business in Quebec. But if the government decides to reduce the number of immigrants, that’s going to “increase the pressure” on smaller companies that need employees to run their business, he said.

The PQ wants to limit the number of permanent immigrants to 35,000 people a year, far less than the roughly 60,000 newcomers that settled in the province last year. And it wants to cut in half the quota for temporary immigrants, from the 530,000 people registered as of July to between 200,000 and 250,000.

The party says certain sectors of the economy will get precedence in temporary immigration permits, namely agriculture and manufacturing, as well as certain sectors in outlying regions and those providing a direct service to the population, such as health care. It wants companies using temporary foreign workers to present business optimization plans so that these workers “are really temporary.”

Quebec holds special powers over immigration under a 1991 Canada-Quebec Accord negotiated with the federal government. The province has exclusive authority to select all of its economic immigrants, such as entrepreneurs and skilled workers, and sets its own annual targets for admissions.

"The facts are clear. If we don't increase immigration levels, we'll have a demographic decline, and therefore an economic decline" in the wider urban region, said Isabelle Dessureault, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal. "We're sounding the alarm."

Quebec has experienced flights of capital and talent in the past in the lead-up to separation votes.

Sun Life, Cadbury Schweppes Powell and Sheraton Hotels were among 368 registered companies to move their head offices out of Quebec in the 26 months after René Lévesque's PQ election win in 1976, according to federal data reported at the time. Other firms stayed but some stripped the guts out of their operations and shifted them elsewhere, often west to Toronto.

By the time the second referendum came in 1995, general anxiety had replaced the moving trucks. That year, former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau's government set aside \$17-billion to buy up Quebec bonds it anticipated would be dumped on the market by nervous investors after a referendum victory.

Referendum uncertainty also affected the short-term stock returns of Quebec-based companies in 1995, according to research published in the Canadian Journal of Economics. The effect varied according to their exposure to political risk, notably the size of their international footprint and the structure of their assets, the research found.

Montreal billionaire Andrew Lutfy told The Logic in an interview earlier this year that when he pitched a new shopping centre in Montreal to a private equity firm partly owned by LVMH boss Bernard Arnault in 2018, its board had only one major “made-in-Quebec” concern. Was the risk of Quebec separation still on the table?

The PQ was in a downward spiral at the time as François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec commanded the spotlight with its "third way," a brand of national autonomy within Canada. But it still took directors for the French firm nine months to get comfortable with the idea of putting money into the project, which they did. In the shifting political sands since then, Mr. Lutfy said he wouldn't bother trying to pitch them again.

Inspired leadership. Enduring legacy.

We honour the life and legacy of Stephen A. Jarislowsky, founder of Jarislowsky, Fraser Ltd., a renowned investor, entrepreneur, advocate, and philanthropist. He left a lasting impression in the world of finance, in Quebec, and across Canada.

From the equity research boutique he established in 1955, Mr. Jarislowsky built one of Canada's largest independent investment management firms, leading it as CEO for 63 years.

A tireless advocate for minority shareholders, he championed good governance and helped establish organizations dedicated to protecting investors and strengthening institutions.

Through his philanthropy and generosity, he established the Jarislowsky Foundation, supporting countless charities and causes, including the promotion of excellence through education.

We mourn his passing with gratitude for his many contributions, and we are honoured to carry on his legacy through Scotia Jarislowsky Fraser.

World's energy order tested as Iran war's reach extends

Iranian-backed Houthi militia attacked an airport in Saudi Arabia's capital, injuring hundreds and killing at least 12 people

LISA FRIEDMAN

RIYADH

The intensifying war in the Middle East threatens to further strain a weary energy industry that has already endured waves of disruptions and could test a market resilience built on a series of extraordinary government and private-sector measures.

Over the weekend, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia attacked an international airport in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, including one strike that killed at least 12 people and injured hundreds. It was the deadliest attack in a Gulf Arab country since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began in February and brought the war to the centre of the Middle East's oil industry.

The attack forced the temporary suspension of operations at the airport just as energy executives and government officials were set to arrive in Riyadh for a major business and policy conference. The event, the World Petroleum Congress, proceeded as planned, although some attendees were diverted to other airports and others, including U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and ministers from Italy and Japan, addressed the conference by video link.

Many oil industry leaders – including the CEOs of Exxon Mobil and BP – cancelled their trips to Saudi Arabia, according to two industry officials who were not authorized to discuss executive schedules.

In remarks Monday, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi energy minister, acknowledged that recent attacks had “tested our infrastructure, our institutions, our people and our resilience.”

Meanwhile, oil tankers are facing persistent peril while attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow passage between Iran and Oman that was a fairly uncomplicated excursion before the war. At least 16 vessels have been attacked this month.

The widening of the fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi militia in Yemen, amid no public signs of a diplomatic resolution between the United States and Iran, underscores the potent two-front threat facing energy infrastructure in an area crucial to global supplies of crude oil and its many by-products like diesel and gasoline.

Just last month, oil exports from the region started increasing to nearly their prewar levels. More ships were getting out of the Strait of Hormuz, close to the Oman coast, through the protection and guidance of U.S. forces.

It is not yet clear if the most recent attacks on tankers around the strait will cause a notable

Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud speaks at the 25th WPC Energy Congress in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, on Monday. The minister acknowledged the attacks 'tested our infrastructure, our institutions, our people and our resilience.' 25TH WPC ENERGY CONGRESS/VIA REUTERS

The price of diesel has become a global flashpoint. Diesel is essential to global commerce, and a dearth of refineries has driven its price to record highs in many parts of the world, including the United States.

drop in exports as ship operators recoil from the risk. Regardless, the U.S. military effort is a costly endeavour that experts say can't last forever.

Before the Riyadh airport came under attack, an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq had already targeted a critical Saudi pipeline, which the kingdom was using to export oil instead of going through the Strait of Hormuz.

All told, the rebound in crude exports masks headwinds that could keep prices elevated, oil executives and analysts say. The benchmark global oil price was trading at about US\$104 a barrel Monday, up from just under US\$70 on the eve of the war.

“We are in a permanently changed energy world right now,” said David L. Goldwyn, a former State Department energy envoy. “We are entering an age of prolonged insecurity.”

And the world's crude cushions are being drained. The use of reserves of unrefined petroleum held by oil producers and governments has helped stabilize the market. Dozens of countries came together in March for the largest-ever co-ordinated release of stockpiles. But those reserves are beginning to have limited effect, in part because the world's capacity to refine oil is stretched to the max.

The price of diesel has become a global flashpoint. Diesel is essential to global commerce, and a dearth of refineries has driven its price to record highs in many parts of the world, including the United States. Facing political pressure, U.S. President Donald Trump has allowed imports of diesel from Russia, undercutting U.S. sanctions for a measure that experts say will have a negligible impact on global prices.

The world's reserves have reached “scarily thin” levels, Amin Nasser, the CEO of Aramco, Saudi

Arabia's national oil company, said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London last week.

In another potential weight on the energy market, there are signs that China, the world's biggest buyer of oil, is starting to buy more again. Earlier in the war, China had slashed its imports to, at the lowest point, around 7.1 million barrels a day from about 11.6 million barrels.

And Iranian crude - 90 per cent of which once went to China - has virtually disappeared from the market since the United States imposed a naval blockade on the country's exports.

Oil executives say they expect the turmoil in the oil market to last well into next year if not longer.

“I think it is going to be bedlam for the bulk of the end of the year and maybe 2027,” Tengku Muhammad Taufik, the CEO of Petronas, Malaysia’s state-owned oil and gas company, said last week.

For decades, the Strait of Hormuz was the most effective commercial route to send crude east across the Indian Ocean to Asian markets. Countries like Kuwait and Iraq used it for virtually all of their oil exports, while Saudi Arabia used it for about 80 per cent.

When Iran effectively blocked the strait in March, Saudi Arabia, the region's largest producer, leaned heavily on its other door to the world: the Red Sea. Each day, it sent 4 million to 5 million barrels of oil through the 720-mile East-West Pipeline to deliver crude from eastern oil fields to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. From there, ships would move its oil through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Asia.

Over the summer, the Houthi militia made that path dangerous when it threatened to effectively block any ships carrying Saudi oil. Then in September, the

Houthis attacked the East-West Pipeline, forcing it to shut down temporarily.

“Ultimately, the resilience of the international system can only hold up for so long, and we're fast moving toward that target,” said Shaikh Nawaf S. Al-Sabah, the deputy chair and CEO of the Kuwait Petroleum Corp.

Mr. Al-Sabah said that before the war, Kuwait was exporting about 2.6 million barrels a day. Production has recovered to about 2 million barrels a day, about 75 per cent of prewar levels, because more tankers are taking the risk of transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Also notable was the warp speed at which Saudi Arabia worked to fix the East-West Pipeline after it was damaged. Nasser said Aramco had more than 10 teams, each with thousands of contractors and engineers, that repaired pumping stations in a matter of days.

Yet the region clearly remains heavily exposed.

“Producers still need a safer route, they need tankers, they still need buyers who are willing to accept the risk,” said Aaron Brady, vice-president of energy oil market services at S&P Global, a research firm, at an S&P energy briefing in London this month.

Mr. Brady added, “A lot of oil is getting out in the Middle East, but there’s no longer that sort of secure workaround.”

The bottom line, Mr. Brady said, is that even though oil is getting to the countries that want it, the routes are more complicated and the costs continue to rise. He called it an “improvised” system.

"The flows are improving, but I wouldn't characterize this as a normally operating system," he said.

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Meta unveils new advanced AI models called Muse Wonder, Muse Wonder Full

ELI TAN

Meta on Monday unveiled a new series of advanced flagship artificial-intelligence models, as it tries to catch up to rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI in the AI race.

The two new models, called Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, scored nearly as well as Anthropic's most advanced models on tests that measure reasoning, writing and coding, according to data provided by Meta.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, revamped his company's AI division last year after setbacks in developing the technology. He has since made progress with new AI models and other AI products for the company's 3.5 billion users across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Muse, Meta's AI agent app that can operate software and apps on behalf of users, climbed to the top of the App Store in the weeks after it was released last month.

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Meta's two new advanced flagship AI models scored nearly as well as Anthropic's most advanced ones on tests that measure reasoning, writing and coding, according to data from Meta. DADO RUVIC/REUTERS

Muse Wonder arrives amid growing concerns over advanced AI models and agents, some of which have gone rogue, hacking into companies and meddling with government websites. Mr. Zuckerberg has tried to market Meta's technology, which is built in a similar way to Anthropic's and OpenAI's models, with a different message than its rivals, saying that AI is meant to be useful and empowering, not dangerous.

Meta began developing Muse Wonder after hiring Alexandr Wang, a founder of AI startup Scale AI, to be its chief AI officer in June, 2025. Muse Wonder is the second series of AI models released under Wang's AI division and is the first that Meta has said is meant to compete with other cutting-edge "frontier" AI models, which typically require the most computing power to run.

Muse Wonder will soon power parts of Muse, the company said.

Muse Wonder Full is the more powerful model and will be available only for users who subscribe to Meta's premium AI coding tool, Muse Code.

The new models, which were internally referred to as Watermelon, are also significantly better at coding than Meta's previous models. The AI coding market is dominated by Anthropic and OpenAI, though Meta has been trying to grow its business selling AI services to other companies.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)

Muse Wonder faced some setbacks during development. In July, Meta paused a stage of AI development called “pretraining,” which delayed the release of the models until this month, the Times previously reported.

In a livestream on Instagram over the weekend, Mr. Zuckerberg teased the new AI models while barbecuing meats. Also on the menu, Mr. Zuckerberg said: "A big watermelon."

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Growth in single-stock ETFs brings risks

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TD SECURITIES

Global X to introduce six new leveraged single-stock exchange-traded funds on Wednesday

ANDREW GALBRAITH

Most Canadian exchange-traded funds are designed to track a broad index and hold a basket of different assets. But Canadians looking to fine-tune their investment portfolios are driving interest in a different kind of product: ETFs built around a single stock.

Billed by issuers as offering investors greater choice in their investments, single-stock ETFs often use leverage and other investment strategies to amplify share price moves or generate income. Total assets under management, or AUM, of Canadian single-stock ETFs have grown steadily, reaching \$6.35-billion at the end of September, according to TD Securities data, up nearly 72 per cent over the past year.

Not everyone is convinced that's a good thing.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Benjamin Felix, chief investment officer and a portfolio manager at PWL Capital, called single-stock ETFs "tools for speculation."

Citing a working paper from Harvard University researchers Chris Murray and Marco Sammon, Mr. Felix said that in the

U.S. ETF market – which he called “a decent analogy for the Canadian market” – leveraged single-stock ETFs tend to be launched based on “volatile recent winners.”

“More volatile stocks tend to attract more AUM from investors. So to me, that says these are really being used for gambling and performance chasing,” he said. While the working paper showed money in leveraged single-stock ETFs had done “reasonably well,” Mr. Felix said this reflected the exceptional performance of a small number of stocks.

A recent Morningstar analysis found that the median U.S. single-stock ETF had lost 38 per cent in the four years ending in July, 2026.

“They’re, to me, lottery tickets,” Mr. Felix said.

Canadian issuers are present-

A recent Morningstar analysis found that the median U.S. single-stock ETF had lost 38 per cent in the four years ending in July, 2026.

ing them in a different light. On Wednesday, Global X Investments Canada plans to launch single-stock ETFs starting with six major U.S. companies – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, SpaceX and Tesla – using what Chris McHaney, Global X's head of investment management and strategy, said in an interview was an approach “more attuned to a buy-and-hold investor.”

These “PowerStock” ETFs will give investors leveraged exposure to the underlying stocks, hedged into Canadian dollars, without the addition of options strategies. That makes them different from existing Canadian single-stock ETFs, which have tended to combine a small degree of leverage – often around 25 per cent – with strategies like covered call writing. That approach is designed to pay ongoing income streams, but Mr. Felix said investors sacrifice upside in exchange.

Flows into covered call and lightly leveraged ETFs have accounted for more than 93 per cent of total flows into single-stock ETFs this year, said Casey Yang, director of ETF sales and strategy at TD Securities. Global X sees that shifting.

"The majority of investors that are interested in something like a single-stock ETF are probably more geared to a growth objective than an income objective," Mr. McHaney said. He added that the underlying stocks chosen for the new ETFs are "the ones that are most popular with Canadian investors at the current time."

Unlike U.S. single-stock ETFs, which have been characterized by heavy leverage that gives investors exposure to two or three times the daily performance of a given stock, the new Global X ETFs have a target leverage of 33 per cent, which doesn't reset each day. Mr. McHaney called that leverage level “moderate.”

Leverage - borrowing money to increase exposure to an investment – can boost gains, but can also amplify losses.

“For compound returns, which is what matters to investors, volatility has a really, really big impact,” said Mr. Felix. “And when you’re levering up a single stock, the volatility that you’re going to induce by doing that is just enormous.”

Leverage may make more sense for broader index ETFs for Canadian and U.S. markets, he said, adding that while such products are “interesting,” he would hesitate to recommend them to all investors.

Single-stock ETFs remain a relatively small part of Canada's \$934-billion ETF market. The Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF, the country's biggest, has more than \$36-billion in assets under management.

But Paul MacDonald, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Harvest ETFs, said that single-stock ETFs are a useful tool for investors with particular conviction around individual companies to boost their exposure. Innovation within ETFs, he said, “has opened up a wide array of new opportunities and options for investors.”

Mr. Felix said that despite his views on single-stock ETFs – he struggles to see how they fit into a “sensible portfolio” – the interest from investors is clear.

"As long as there's demand, of course companies are going to come to the market to meet that demand, unless regulation tells them not to."

Why this money manager is buying Intact and selling National Bank

BRENDA BOUW

ILLUSTRATION BY JOEL KIMMEL

THE MOVER

Like many investors these days, money manager Paul Carter believes stock market valuations are pretty expensive, but he still sees good value in a handful of Canadian companies.

"This is an environment in which, if you own good Canadian businesses and pay reasonable prices for them – and then wait for the market to recognize their value – you should be well positioned for the long term," says Mr. Carter, chief investment officer at Langley, B.C.-based Capstone Asset Management Inc., which oversees about \$700-million in assets. He's also lead manager of Capstone's Canadian equity accounts.

Although U.S. tariffs remain a risk for some Canadian companies, Mr. Carter says many are benefiting from increased spending in areas such as infrastructure and defence and in resources such as energy and critical minerals.

He says his “dividend-income focused, value-oriented” investing style is guided by Capstone’s Christian principles. For example, his team doesn’t invest in alcohol, gaming, tobacco or adult entertainment stocks and looks for companies with “responsible business practices.”

Capstone's Canadian equity composite – which he says represents a group of Canadian equity accounts rather than a single fund – returned 16.9 per cent year-to-date, while its one-year return was 23.7 per cent. Its annualized three-year return is 26.9 per cent. Since inception on Nov. 1, 2022, the annualized return is 22.3 per cent. Performance is as of Sept. 30 and is based on total returns, gross of fees. The standard fee is 1.5 per cent.

As of Sept. 30, his firm's top five Canadian holdings were B2Gold Corp., Bank of Nova Scotia, Power Corp. of Canada, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and OpenText Corp.. His three largest sector weights were financials, at 29 per cent, energy, at 17 per cent, and industrials, at 11 per cent.

The Globe spoke with Mr. Carter about three Canadian stocks he bought recently and one he sold:

Name three stocks you've been buying recently.

Premium Brands Holdings Corp., the Richmond, B.C.-based specialty foods company, is a stock we started buying in March. We believe it has a good underlying business, with more than 100 brands across categories such as meat, seafood, baked goods and prepared foods.

The stock has been held back by some near-term issues, such as higher beef costs, weaker lobster volumes and the costs of integrating some of its recent acquisitions. Still, we like the business's long-term economics, particularly its ability to grow both organically and through acquisitions.

We believe the company is currently trading below its underlying value and that now is a good time to buy the stock. We think investors could see a very good return over the next several years.

Pet Valu Holdings Ltd., a leading Canadian specialty pet retailer, is a stock we started buying in July after it had fallen substantially. I thought the market was becoming too pessimistic about a very good business.

Although same-store sales have been soft, the company is still growing revenue, EBITDA and earnings, generating strong free cash flow and opening new stores.

It also has a strong loyalty program and much of what it sells is driven by recurring consumer demand. Even when the economy gets tough, people aren't going to stop feeding their pets.

So, although it's not growing at the same rate it has in the past, we think it's a stable business. At current levels, we believe we're paying a modest price for a high-quality business with several ways to grow in the coming years.

Intact Financial Corp., the Toronto-based property and casualty insurance company, is a stock we bought in August. The shares came under pressure after its second-quarter results were hurt by higher catastrophe and large losses.

Intact also recently estimated approximately \$660-million of catastrophe losses for its third quarter, net of reinsurance, reflecting severe weather events including flooding, wind damage and wildfires. Still, we don't believe the business economics have changed.

Intact has an exceptional underwriting franchise, a strong balance sheet and significant opportunities to reinvest capital. While the stock is still under pressure, especially as bond yields have gone up, our process isn't about trying to pick the exact bottom.

We're willing to buy a very good business when we believe the market is overemphasizing short-term earnings volatility and we still think long-term earnings power remains. We saw an opportunity to buy it at an attractive valuation and a good entry point for longer-term shareholder growth.

---

Name one stock you sold recently.

National Bank of Canada is a stock we sold in August to buy Intact. For background, we bought Canadian Western Bank (CWB) in 2022, when the stock was out of favour. Then, National Bank bought CWB in early 2025 in a share-for-share transaction. We decided to hold the investment as National Bank realized the synergies of buying CWB. We then sold National Bank shares at more than \$200 each, more than quadrupling our investment over about four years.

We sold when we did because we'd been getting a little concerned for a while about overall bank stock valuations. Also, National Bank isn't one of Canada's top five banks. We hold Bank of Nova Scotia and Royal Bank of Canada (RY-T), so we've narrowed it down to two Canadian banks from three.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Nasdaq ends lower as oil prices surge ahead of earnings, economic data

SINÉAD CAREW NEW YORK

DANILO MASONI MILAN

The Nasdaq composite closed lower on Monday as oil prices jumped nearly US\$2 a barrel after attacks on a Saudi airport, and investors waited for banks to kick off the third-quarter earnings season and for economic data this week.

The S&P 500 closed nearly flat while the Dow was higher. Oil futures rallied after deadly strikes on Riyadh's international airport over the weekend. The attacks overshadowed the prospect of increased supplies after U.S. President Donald Trump hailed fresh Russian diesel exports and talked about a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire on energy targets.

In coming days, U.S. investors will focus on corporate earnings, with major U.S. banks including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase reporting early on Tuesday. Analysts were expecting S&P 500 earnings to surge 30.6 per cent in the third quarter, according to LSEG IBES data.

Also due out this week are September readings for U.S. consumer and producer inflation data as well as retail sales data. While the U.S. Treasury market was closed on Monday for Columbus Day, stock investors have been wary of bond yields' recent advance to 24-year highs as elevated energy prices have stoked inflation concerns.

“Looking out further in the week, we have some big economic reports,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. He said investors were cautious due to a lack of direction from bonds.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 3.75 points, or 0.05 per cent, to end at 7,807.79 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 120.17 points, or 0.44 per cent, to 27,246.00.

“We’re also waiting on earnings and that’s significant. The four large banks reporting on Tuesday can have a big impact,” he said.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 3.75 points, or 0.05 per cent, to end at 7,807.79 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 120.17 points, or 0.44 per cent, to 27,246.00. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 198.22 points, or 0.38 per cent, to 51,853.17.

"There's a lot to be wary of," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut, pointing to upcoming data and earnings along with rising oil prices.

“You’re walking down a train line and you don’t know, because it’s dark, if a train is coming and so, you know, you’re just being real careful,” he said.

With oil prices rising, energy outperformed the S&P 500's major industry sectors during Monday's session. The S&P 500 communication services index also rose with a boost from Meta.

Technology and consumer discretionary were laggards. Technology's weakness was most pronounced among chip stocks with the Philadelphia semiconductor index losing ground and hitting a three-week low.

In consumer discretionary, Chipotle Mexican Grill shares fell after Starbucks said it was not buying the burrito chain.

Microsoft was up 0.9 per cent. Earlier, its market capitalization rose above US\$4-trillion for the first time in a year after it announced plans for major deployment of its own AI chips.

Salesforce shares rose after BofA Global Research upgraded the stock to “buy” from “underperform.” Also eBay rose after Morgan Stanley added the stock to its top-pick list.

Meanwhile, Cleveland Federal Reserve President Beth Hammack said the U.S. central bank should move “relatively quickly” to a more restrictive monetary policy stance to fight inflation, which she feels has become more broad-based and is starting to influence firms’ price-setting plans.

Traders were pricing in a less-than-22-per-cent chance the U.S. Federal Reserve will hike interest rates this month, according to CME's FedWatch tool, up from 17.7 per cent on Friday.

REUTERS

Her brother left her 500,000 Aeroplan points. Here's what she did with them

Annabelle used the points to offset more than a dozen flights with her partner around Southeast Asia

ROSEMARY COUNTER

INHERITED

The beneficiary: “Annabelle” is a 58-year-old policy manager who just retired. She lives in a city on the East Coast with her long-term, common-law partner. Five years ago, her older brother died unexpectedly, leaving a detailed will with impressive thought and foresight – plus some serious subtext for Annabelle to ponder.

The inheritance: Meticulous and organized, Annabelle's brother had considered and listed everything you can think of (property, assets, investment accounts, bank account numbers) and some things most of us probably wouldn't: In an addendum, he listed his Aeroplan number and points balance, which had climbed to more than 500,000.

"My brother travelled so much for work that, even though he loved travelling, he didn't want to fly even more when he finally had some time off," Annabelle

Aeroplan, like most rewards programs, doesn't ask for a beneficiary when you sign up. But forward-thinkers can e-mail the company with their would-be beneficiary's name, e-mail, mailing address, etc.

says. Since she similarly loves travel and had long revelled in his stories from Ecuador, Italy and Peru, the points felt like a poignant gift with a not-so-subtle message to pack her bags and get on a plane already.

What she learned: Whatever her brother's will said, Aeroplan points are not officially "willable" like the rest of a person's estate, though the points can be transferred.

Aeroplan, like most rewards programs, doesn't ask for a beneficiary when you sign up. But forward-thinkers can e-mail the company with their would-be beneficiary's name, e-mail, mailing address, etc. (Even still, an e-mail from Aeroplan proclaiming anyone bequeathed you a fortune in points is almost certainly a phishing scam.)

Ultimately, inheritors of points (or the will's executor on their behalf) need to e-mail the company themselves like Annabelle did. It will want the late member's complete name and address plus Aeroplan number – in Annabelle's case, listed conveniently in her brother's will – plus a scanned copy of the death certificate and the will. "Not the entire will," Annabelle says, "just the page that shows you're the heir." If there are two or more beneficiaries, they'll also need a document from the others relinquishing – or, more likely, also claiming – their share.

The entire claiming and collecting process was done electronically and the points landed in her Aeroplan account three weeks later, a speed that surprised and impressed Annabelle. "I thought it would take a while, so three weeks seemed pretty fast to me."

It's worth noting that if an Aeroplan account is inactive for 18 consecutive months, whether the member is alive or not, accumulated points expire no matter how much they're worth. (There are no official stats on annual unclaimed points and corresponding cash that goes right back to Air Canada, but surely it's lots.)

What she did with them: Having always wanted to visit Asia, Annabelle decided to honour her brother with the trip she thought he would have chosen for her. “I imagined him saying, ‘Don’t stay in Canada. Don’t go somewhere you’ve already been. Don’t waste this,’ ” she says. Moreover, rather than squeeze a rushed visit into her regular vacation weeks, she booked six whole weeks off work.

With her partner in tow, Annabelle used her brother's points to offset what became more than a dozen flights to and through Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. By doing her research and booking strategically, half of the flights, including a splurge on business class for the long-haul legs from Canada and back, were covered entirely with her brother's points. "I would certainly have never flown like that without them," she admits, and in fact she probably wouldn't have taken the bucket-list trip at all.

"The sudden abundance of points I had was the impetus I needed," says Annabelle. With his seeming blessing in hand, she wanted to "use the points very intentionally in his memory."

Throughout her trip, Annabelle visited many places and temples where she stopped to think of her brother. “There were many moments when I was able to take the time to remember him and be really appreciative of the kind of man and brother that he was to me,” she says.

While the points facilitated the process, the real gift was a wake-up call about living to the fullest that Annabelle heard loud and clear. Upon returning home, she rejigged her finances to take an early retirement. She's already planning her next overseas adventure.

Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the person profiled. Have you recently received an inheritance and would like to participate in Inherited? Send us an e-mail.

For this senior, retirement is ‘a fantastic job’

BRENDA BOUW

Rick Evans relaxes at his home in West Kelowna, B.C., in July. Mr. Evans retired in 2022 at the age of 70. AARON HEMENS/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE

In this series, retirees talk about their spending, savings and whether life after work is what they expected.

Rick Evans, 74, West Kelowna, B.C.

I retired in 2022 at the age of 70 after a decades-long career in the railway industry. Early in my career, I worked for Canadian Pacific Railway in various maintenance and operations management roles. At 49 years of age, I started my own railway operations management consulting business. I semi-retired in 2020, when I was 68, and stopped working two years later.

I worried I might be bored in retirement, but that hasn't happened so far. I have time to putter around the house and yard. I have a long list of tasks I enjoy doing at my own pace. For example, I recently refinished our large oak kitchen table. I also refinished our garage door. We have a backyard pool that needs regular upkeep in spring and summer.

I'm also a car guy and like to attend car shows and follow the automotive market. I have a rare, modern collectible sports car – a 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport, the car that started the EV transition – that I enjoy driving and maintaining to keep it looking good.

My wife, a former teacher and librarian, retired five years before I did. We travel a lot, including a recent trip to Portugal and Spain. We also golf regularly, both together and separately, in different leagues. We walk almost daily and occasionally snowshoe in the winter.

We don't worry too much about money in retirement, but we're aware of how inflation can affect our cost of living. However, we tend to spend less in retirement because we no longer have work-related expenses such as commuting, work clothes and eating out.

We don't eat out very often in retirement, except on special occasions, simply because we enjoy cooking and can eat at home for a fraction of the cost. We also shop wisely for groceries and have more time to research prices.

We manage our own investments, which saves money on investment fees. And now that our children are grown and have moved out, we have more discretionary income.

If I had to do it over again, I might have retired five years sooner, at the same time my wife did, but we're happy with how it worked out. It took a year or so to adjust fully to the new reality of having so much more time for non-work-related things, but it has been a nice problem to have.

My advice to others considering retirement is to do it as early as you can because it's a fantastic job. That said, make sure you have a financial plan that accounts for inflation because it can have a big impact, depending on your lifestyle.

Also, stay physically active. Strength and balance are critical as you get older (as my kinesiologist daughter likes to remind us). I recommend playing a sport if you can; it's good for your health and keeps you socially active, too.

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Special to The Globe and Mail

This interview has been edited and condensed.

The Globe is seeking participants for its Tales from the Golden Age feature. If you're interested in being interviewed for this feature and agree to use your full name and have a photo taken, please e-mail us at: goldenage globe@gmail.com. Please include a few details about how you saved and invested for retirement, and about how you spend your time.

Little-known feature of cash accounts could amplify losses in case of fraud

ERICA ALINI

PERSONAL ECONOMICS REPORTER

ANALYSIS

A recent case of fraud perpetrated against a TD Direct Investing customer highlights a little-known risk for do-it-yourself investors with basic investing accounts.

Ray Politeski, a retired teacher in Lloydminster, Alta., said criminals took over his account in mid-February, liquidated his holdings and bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of a thinly traded Chinese stock, as previously reported by The Globe and Mail. The transaction pattern matched that of a sophisticated and increasingly common form of fraud in which scammers steal an investor's log-in credentials, then use the stolen funds to help push up the price of a stock in what is likely a pump-and-dump scheme.

The financial losses for victims can be amplified when they have margin accounts, which allow the criminals to borrow funds to buy even more of the targeted stock. This can leave investors facing negative account balances and interest charges.

But what stands out in Mr. Politeski's case is that fraudsters were reportedly able to place a stock purchase that was more than \$100,000 larger than the value of the funds in his account – even

The financial losses for victims can be amplified when they have margin accounts, which allow the criminals to borrow funds to buy even more of the targeted stock. This can leave investors facing negative account balances and interest charges.

though it was a cash account.

Retail investors are typically told that, with a cash account, they can only use the cash in their account to buy investments. Less well-known is that brokerages may allow purchases whose value exceeds that of the available funds, provided clients pay off the balance in full on or before the day the trades settle.

This means that even DIY investors who don't have access to margin borrowing may see their accounts driven into the red if they fall prey to online scams, which are becoming increasingly elaborate and hard to detect.

When investors place a trade, such as a stock purchase, the transaction typically takes one business day to be finalized, or settled. Some investment dealers allow clients to proceed with a buy order even if they don't have enough funds in their account, with an expectation that they will deposit additional funds to cover the trade by the settlement date.

Investors can also sell some of their securities to fund a purchase that is larger than the amount of cash in the account, as long as the sale settles on or before the day the purchase transaction is finalized. For example, suppose a client has \$4,000 in cash in their account but would like to buy \$6,000 worth of a stock. Certain brokerages allow such a purchase order if the investor sells enough of their holdings to cover the \$2,000 difference and any commissions by the day the buy order settles.

Investment dealers do this so investors can move fast to seize opportunities in the market, said Jean-Paul Bureau, president and chief executive officer at Fair Canada, which advocates for the rights of individual investors.

“It’s largely about efficiency, because clients may want to purchase something and they’re moving money into the cash account, but it hasn’t hit the account yet,” he said.

But that flexibility can work against investors in cases of fraud, Mr. Bureaud added.

The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, the investment industry regulator, said its rules simply require that any purchase in a cash account be paid in full by the time it settles.

“Within that requirement, dealers set their own limits on the size of trades they permit during this period as part of managing their credit risk,” Ariel Visconti, a spokesperson for the organization, said in an e-mail.

Those limits vary from brokerage to brokerage. TD, for example, may allow trades of up to twice the value of the equity in a cash account, subject to certain restrictions, according to information available on its website.

At Scotia iTrade, the Bank of Nova Scotia's online brokerage, how much investors can purchase depends on the cash and equity in the account, according to information available online.

At RBC Direct Investing, the amount available to complete a trade is calculated in real time based on intraday activity, the Royal Bank of Canada said. At Qtrade Direct Investing, a division of Aviso Financial, clients can place a purchase of up to the value of certain securities they already own, but they can also ask to limit trading to available cash, the company said.

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce said its online brokerage, CIBC Investor's Edge, requires full funding of a trade before it is placed.

Questrade said investors can only buy securities with the funds they have in the account, while Wealthsimple said it limits buy orders based on the available cash balance.

BMO did not directly answer questions from The Globe and Mail. Interactive Brokers did not respond to a request for information, while Desjardins declined to comment.

Fair Canada's Mr. Bureaud said investment dealers should clearly disclose to clients what the limits are for cash accounts and give them the option to restrict trades to the funds immediately available. “People should have a choice,” he said. “They can view it as a way to mitigate potential losses in a fraud.”

SPORTS

Flyers' rebuild hits a speed bump with slow start to the season ■ B12

Brewers defeat

Dodgers to take 2-0

lead in NLCS ■ B14

[ SENATORS VS. DEVILS ]

Threading the needle

Ottawa Senators forward Tim Stützle, right, tries to make a pass around New Jersey Devils defenceman Dougie Hamilton during the first period of Monday's game in Newark, N.J. For the game story, go to ■ GLOBESPORTS.COM

SETH WENIG/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Canada forward Olivia Smith, right, shoots the ball past Denmark defender Sara Thrige, centre, in the first half of an international friendly match at BMO Field on Monday. Smith scored a goal in the second half of the game, in which Denmark defated Canada 4-3. DAN HAMILTON/IMAGN IMAGES

Canada falls to Denmark in finale of two-game friendly series

NEIL DAVIDSON

With Olympic and World Cup qualifying looming next month, the ninth-ranked Canadian women clearly have some work to do.

A messy 4-3 soccer friendly loss to No. 12 Denmark on Monday produced plenty to ponder for Canada coach Casey Stoney, both good and bad. But a nine-minute stretch in the first half that yielded three Danish goals off Canadian defensive blunders is a cause of concern.

“We’re scoring more goals but we’re giving up more opportunities,” Stoney lamented. “This team is normally hard to beat, so that’s something I need to take responsibility for.”

In saying that, the former England captain was taking one for the team. She was not on the pitch giving the ball away at BMO Field.

After going ahead early on D.B. Pridham's first international goal, the Canadians shot themselves in the foot repeatedly. And Denmark, showing its class, made them pay to build a commanding lead.

Olivia Holdt scored twice with Pernille Harder and Janni Thomsen adding singles for the Danes.

Substitute Évelyne Viens and Olivia Smith also scored for Canada, which now turns its attention to next month's CONCACAF W Championship in Texas, with World Cup and Olympic qualification on the line.

Canada opens Nov. 28 against No. 56 Panama in quarter-final play. The good news is a win will secure qualification for the 2027 World Cup and likely the 2028 Olympics, providing the host U.S. make the semi-finals, as expected.

The Canadian women have won all three previous meetings with Panama, prevailing 1-0 the last time they met at the 2022 CONCACAF W Championship. The other victories were more lopsided -7-0 and 6-0 in 2018 and 2004, respectively.

But while the numbers favour Canada, there is little room for error at the CONCACAF tournament,

“We have to keep context here and not panic,” cautioned Stoney. “Because we got a very good performance the other night [in Montreal].

“There were some off moments tonight that cost us dearly.”

Trailing 4-2, Canada was thrown a lifeline in the 70th minute when Danish 'keeper Freja Thisgaard let Smith's heavy shot dribble through her. It was the Arsenal star attacker's sixth strike for Canada.

But the Canadians will rue defensive blunders.

“That’s not us today. … We need to defend better,” said Viens.

The four goals are the most conceded by the Canadian women since they crashed out of the 2023 World Cup in a 4-o loss to co-host Australia.

■ SOCCER, B14

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Hitters are winning more ABS challenges in the postseason, and teams are challenging more overall

RONALD BLUM NEW YORK

Batters have been more successful on robot umpire challenges in the playoffs than during the regular season, and teams are utilizing the Automated Ball-Strike System more overall in its postseason debut.

Seventy-one of 121 overall challenges under ABS prevailed during the 25 games of the wild card series and Division Series. The 59 per cent success rate was up from 54 per cent during the regular season. That includes an improvement for batters to 57 per cent (29 of 51) from 49 per cent.

It's not that hitters are necessarily being more conservative, either. Teams are challenging more in the postseason overall, with 4.8 per game compared to 4.3 during the regular season. Batter challenges are up to 2.04 per game from 1.96.

Teams exhaust their challenges when they are unsuccessful twice in the game, so the more times they win appeals the more opportunities they can have.

Catchers had won 60 per cent (42 of 70) of challenges, just above their 59 per cent during the regular season. Pitchers were 1-for-1, with Tampa Bay's Griffin Jax making the only challenge.

“Maybe a little more cautious,” Rays catcher Liam Hicks said. “It’s more just in the back of your head, you’re like, you want to save these for a meaningful situation.”

Among the four teams advancing to the League Championship Series, Cleveland won 7 of 13, Milwaukee 8 of 16, Tampa Bay 3 of 5 (with no tries by batters) and the Dodgers 2 of 6.

Atlanta had the most challenges, winning 14 of 22 over seven games and the White Sox 12 of 31.

Among batters, Milwaukee's Jake Bauers and Atlanta's Austin Riley won both their challenges.

Munetaka Murakami of the Chicago White Sox went o for 2 and the Braves' Ronald Acuña Jr. had the most challenges, splitting on four.

“It’s a new muscle for these guys to instinctually have, so I think if this is the route we go for the next few years guys will get more and more instinctually,” New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Some guys have been really good and really adept at it early on. Other guys have been more of a work in progress. Some guys have struggled with it.”

Braves catcher Sean Murphy was 4 for 4 and the Phillies' J.T. Realmuto won 5 of 6. Realmuto had the first game-ending ABS challenge in postseason history in Game 2 of Philadelphia's wild card series against Atlanta.

Kyle Teel of the White Sox had the most challenges, winning 8 of 12, and the Guardians' Patrick Bailey was second, succeeding on just 4 of 10. The Brewers' William Contreras won 4 of 9.

"Some of the first-inning challenges, 1-o counts, it's like, let's let those go and save them for when we might need them later in the game," Realmuto said. "With that being said, we have a lot of guys that know the strike zone really well."

Just 17 challenges were defined by Statcast as in high-leverage situations, and eight of 17 were successful.

■ ABS, B14

Struggling Flyers search for answers, sitting at 0-5-2

PACIFIC DIVISION

Flyers goaltender Joseph Woll, left, and defenceman Oliver Bonk, right, react following a Carolina Hurricanes goal during the second period in Philadelphia on Sunday. Carolina won the game 4-1. ERIC HARTLINE/IMAGN IMAGES

Seven-game winless stretch to open the season is the team's worst start in franchise history

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DAN GELSTON

Tyson Foerster slid headfirst on the ice chasing a puck in a scoreless game and got tangled with Carolina's Jordan Martinook.

Martinook did to Foerster what the Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes and the rest of the NHL have done to the Flyers.

Used him as a punching bag.

Bam! One shot to the left side of Foerster's face. Wham! A second shot to the left side of Foerster's face.

Foerster had little fight and neither did the Flyers.

The Hurricanes scored moments later – there was no penalty called on the blows to the head – and went on to beat the Flyers 4-1 on Sunday night.

After teasing Flyers fans last season that perhaps a rebuild was yielding a promising future after they won their first playoff series since 2020, coach Rick Tocchet's team is 0-5-2 and the only winless one in the Eastern Conference.

In the waning moments of the loss, pockets of fans that stuck around for another anemic loss chanted “Fire Tocchet! Fire Tocchet!” The rest simply booed the team off the ice.

“I think we go off the rails at certain points of the game,” Tocchet said. “I don’t know if it’s experience, pressure, I don’t know.”

The Flyers weren't quite ready this season – especially after Anaheim matched Philadelphia's five-year, US\$90-million offer sheet to Leo Carlsson – to move into the Stanley Cup conversation.

But play this poorly?

Flyers general manager Danny Briere told reporters over the weekend in Boston that “it’s not the time to panic because of a bad stretch.”

It's getting close.

The Flyers were crushed by Pittsburgh 7-0 on opening night and have been outscored 28-8 this season en route to the worst start in franchise history. The Flyers had twice before – in 1999-00 and 2008-09

\- gone six straight winless games to open a season. Both of those teams rebounded to make the playoffs.

Since taking a 3-0 series lead in the opening round of the playoffs against the Penguins, the Flyers have lost 13 of 14 games – including a 4-0 sweep in the second round to the Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes' social media team even rubbed it in the Flyers' faces with a post Sunday night that read, "We've won more games in Philly in the last nine days than the Flyers, Eagles, and Phillies combined this month."

"There's still a lot of hockey left," Flyers captain Sean Couturier said. "Of course, if we don't figure this out soon, we'll be chasing and it's going to be too late. But yeah, there's no quitting."

The Flyers are playing undermanned with forward Travis Konecny and defence-men Cam York and Rasmus Ristolainen out with injuries. Even with all three healthy, don't expect the Flyers to suddenly turn the season around.

The Flyers signed forward Trevor Ze-gras to a four-year, US\$36.5-million extension after he had a career-high 26 goals and 67 points last season, the second-most on the team. He's been perhaps the biggest disappointment this season, with just two points and no goals.

Zegras said Sunday night the Flyers were “fully behind” Tocchet, who played parts of 11 seasons across two stints with the franchise and became one of its most beloved and gritty figures. That goodwill could be diminished as the losses pile up and the Flyers show little spirit in the blowout losses.

They have four losses by three or more goals.

“You start thinking about the long term, then you’re really going to be in trouble,” Tocchet said. “You’ve got to try to win. How you win the next game.”

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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NHL

EASTERN CONFERENCE

ATLANTIC DIVISION | GP | W | L | OT | GF | GA | Pt | Ottawa | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 19 | 12 | 10 | Tampa Bay | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 16 | 12 | 8 | Boston | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 20 | 13 | 8 | Toronto | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 20 | 18 | 7 | Buffalo | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 16 | 22 | 6 | Florida | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 17 | 6 | Montreal | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 19 | 5 | Detroit | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 15 | 3 | METROPOLITAN DIVISION | GP | W | L | OT | GF | GA | Pt | Carolina | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 27 | 17 | 11 | N.Y. Rangers | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 23 | 13 | 10 | Pittsburgh | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 22 | 17 | 7 | Washington | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 17 | 14 | 6 | Columbus | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 14 | 4 | N.Y. Islanders | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 16 | 13 | 4 | New Jersey | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 18 | 4 | Philadelphia | 7 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 28 | 2 | WESTERN CONFERENCE

CENTRAL DIVISION | GP | W | L | OT | GF | GA | Pt | Utah | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 22 | 15 | 8 | Minnesota | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 9 | 7 | Winnipeg | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 15 | 7 | Colorado | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 26 | 17 | 6 | Nashville | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 14 | 14 | 6 | Dallas | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 5 | St. Louis | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 16 | 5 | Chicago | 6 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 26 | 2 | GP | W | L | OT | GF | GA | Pt | Vegas | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 23 | 14 | 10 | Edmonton | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 25 | 17 | 9 | Anaheim | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 13 | 8 | Seattle | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 26 | 17 | 8 | San Jose | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 17 | 6 | Vancouver | 7 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 24 | 35 | 4 | Los Angeles | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 17 | 2 | Calgary | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 27 | 0 | ---

Monday

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Buffalo 5 Florida 3

Buffalo 5 Florida 3

Ottawa 4 New Jersey 1

Vegas at Minnesota

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Sunday

Seattle 5 Washington 3

N.Y. Rangers 6 Vancouver 2

Carolina 4 Philadelphia 1

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Tuesday

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All Times Eastern

New Jersey at Detroit, 6 p.m.

Florida at Columbus, 6:15 p.m.

Buffalo at Montreal, 6:30 p.m.

Washington at Carolina, 6:45 p.m.

Seattle at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.

Tampa Bay at N.Y. Rangers, 7:15 p.m.

St. Louis at Ottawa, 7:30 p.m.

Vancouver at N.Y. Islanders, 7:45 p.m.

Pittsburgh at Chicago, 8 p.m.

Minnesota at Winnipeg, 8:15 p.m.

Colorado at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.

Vegas at Nashville, 8:45 p.m.

Toronto at Utah, 9 p.m.

Calgary at Anaheim, 9:45 p.m.

Edmonton at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.

Boston at San Jose, 11 p.m.

Wednesday

Montreal at Washington, 7:30 p.m.

Dallas at Colorado, 8:30 p.m.

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U SPORTS FOOTBALL

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Thursday

Thursday

All Times Eastern

Alberta at Regina, 9 p.m.

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MLB PLAYOFFS

(Best-of-7. All Times Eastern)

AMERICAN LEAGUE

TAMPA BAY (1) VS. CLEVELAND (2)

Monday

Cleveland at Tampa Bay

Tuesday

Clevelandat Tampa Bay, 8 p.m.

Thursday

Tampa Bay at Cleveland, 6 p.m.

Friday

Tampa Bay at Cleveland, 6 p.m.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

MILWAUKEE (1) VS. L.A. DODGERS (2) (Milwaukee leads series 2-0)

Monday

Milwaukee 7 L.A. Dodgers 4 Sunday

Milwaukee 2 L.A. Dodgers 1 Wednesday

Milwaukee at L.A. Dodgers, 8 p.m.

Thursday

Milwaukee at L.A. Dodgers, 9 p.m.

CFL

EASTERN CONFERENCE

EAST DIVISION

WESTERN CONFERENCE | GP | W | L | PF | PA | Pt | y-Montreal | 16 | 13 | 3 | 579 | 444 | 26 | x-Toronto | 16 | 9 | 7 | 462 | 455 | 18 | Hamilton | 17 | 5 | 12 | 408 | 501 | 10 | Ottawa | 16 | 0 | 16 | 375 | 599 | 0 | x — clinched playoff berth

WEST DIVISION | GP | W | L | PF | PA | Pt | x-Edmonton | 16 | 12 | 4 | 497 | 394 | 24 | x-B.C. | 16 | 10 | 6 | 493 | 418 | 20 | Saskatchewan | 16 | 8 | 8 | 454 | 452 | 16 | Winnipeg | 16 | 8 | 8 | 416 | 447 | 16 | Calgary | 17 | 8 | 9 | 600 | 574 | 16 | x — clinched playoff berth.

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WEEK 19

Bye: Toronto | GP | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pt | x-Vancouver | 28 | 15 | 7 | 6 | 61 | 30 | 51 | St. Louis | 28 | 14 | 6 | 8 | 54 | 38 | 50 | Dallas | 28 | 13 | 7 | 8 | 52 | 45 | 47 | San Jose | 28 | 13 | 8 | 7 | 50 | 40 | 46 | Houston | 28 | 13 | 9 | 6 | 36 | 34 | 45 | L.A. F.C. | 29 | 11 | 9 | 9 | 44 | 31 | 42 | Seattle | 28 | 11 | 9 | 8 | 38 | 35 | 41 | Colorado | 28 | 11 | 13 | 4 | 39 | 39 | 37 | L.A. Galaxy | 29 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 39 | 50 | 36 | Portland | 28 | 9 | 13 | 6 | 51 | 54 | 33 | Salt Lake City | 28 | 9 | 14 | 5 | 41 | 46 | 32 | San Diego | 28 | 8 | 12 | 8 | 48 | 51 | 32 | Austin | 28 | 7 | 11 | 10 | 36 | 51 | 31 | Minnesota | 28 | 7 | 12 | 9 | 42 | 51 | 30 | Kansas City | 28 | 6 | 18 | 4 | 35 | 68 | 22 | St. Louis 6 L.A. Galaxy 2

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Monday

Montreal 44 Saskatchewan 24

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NBA PRESEASON

MLS | GP | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pt | x-Nashville | 28 | 19 | 3 | 6 | 59 | 22 | 63 | Miami | 28 | 13 | 5 | 10 | 68 | 50 | 49 | Chicago | 28 | 14 | 8 | 6 | 51 | 40 | 48 | New England | 28 | 14 | 10 | 4 | 45 | 39 | 46 | Charlotte | 28 | 13 | 8 | 7 | 50 | 40 | 46 | Philadelphia | 28 | 12 | 10 | 6 | 56 | 45 | 42 | Orlando | 28 | 11 | 13 | 4 | 51 | 66 | 37 | Cincinnati | 27 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 58 | 65 | 36 | N.Y. Red Bulls | 28 | 10 | 12 | 6 | 38 | 52 | 36 | N.Y. City F.C. | 28 | 8 | 11 | 9 | 42 | 38 | 33 | Toronto | 28 | 7 | 10 | 11 | 41 | 52 | 32 | D.C. | 27 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 34 | 46 | 30 | Columbus | 28 | 8 | 15 | 5 | 41 | 46 | 29 | Atlanta | 28 | 7 | 15 | 6 | 33 | 48 | 27 | Montreal | 28 | 6 | 16 | 6 | 35 | 56 | 24 | Sunday

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Monday

Portland 119, London Lions 66

Brooklyn 131, Washington 122

Atlanta 113, Oklahoma City 110

Minnesota at New York

San Antonio at Utah

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Sunday

Dallas 132, Houston 115

Cleveland 119, Orlando 105

Denver 133, Chicago 128

Charlotte 105, Milwaukee 90

Tuesday — All Times Eastern

Cleveland at Orlando, 7 p.m.

New York at Toronto, 7 p.m.

Indiana at Oklahoma City, 8 p.m.

Golden State at L.A. Lakers, 10 p.m.

Portland at Sacramento, 10 p.m.

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Wednesday

Brooklyn at Miami, 7:30 p.m.

Charlotte at Boston, 7:30 p.m.

Chicago at Milwaukee, 8 p.m.

Detroit at Minnesota, 8 p.m.

New Orleans at Dallas, 8 p.m.

Phoenix at San Antonio, 8 p.m.

Denver at L.A. Clippers, 10:30 p.m.

Coventry 4 Newcastle 1

EPL | GP | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts | Man City | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 5 | 18 | Arsenal | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 5 | 15 | Brighton | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 5 | 13 | Brentford | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 10 | Everton | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 5 | 10 | Chelsea | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 15 | 13 | 10 | Leeds | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 9 | Hull | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 9 | Liverpool | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 9 | Ipswich | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 9 | Newcastle | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 13 | 8 | Crystal Palace | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 7 | Man United | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 9 | 6 | Coventry | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 6 | Nottingham Forest | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 5 | Aston Villa | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 5 | Sunderland | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 12 | 4 | Bournemouth | 6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 13 | 3 | Tottenham | 6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 3 | Fulham | 6 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 2 | ---

Monday

---

Sunday

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FRIENDLY

Crystal Palace 3 Nottingham Forest 1

Hull 2 Everton 2

Man City 3 Liverpool 0

WOMEN'S SOCCER

---

Monday

At BMO Field, Toronto

Denmark 4 Canada 3

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AHL

---

OHL

---

Monday

Sunday

Cleveland 5 Lehigh Valley 2

Bakersfield 5 Calgary 4

Toronto 5 Hamilton 2

Laval 5 Hartford 2

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 6 Providence 2

Charlotte 2 Springfield 1

Grand Rapids 5 Chicago 1

Utica 4 Belleville 2

Hershey 6 Texas 1

Ontario 3 Coachella Valley 2

Wednesday

All Times Eastern

Calgary at San Jose, 1:30 p.m.

Lehigh Valley at Hartford, 6:30 p.m.

Coachella Valley at Henderson, 10 p.m.

Ontario at San Diego, 10 p.m.

Saginaw 3 Windsor 2 (SO)

North Bay 3 Peterborough 1

Ottawa 4 Brantford 3

---

Tuesday

All Times Eastern

London at Kitchener, 7 p.m.

Wednesday

Guelph at Sarnia, 7:05 p.m.

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QMJHL

Blainville-Boisbriand 6 Victoriaville 2

Shawinigan 7 Newfoundland 4

Rouyn-Noranda 5 Charlottetown 3

Chicoutimi 3 Gatineau 2

Saint John 4 Drummondville 3 (SO)

Sherbrooke 4 Cape Breton 3 (OT)

Sunday

Val-d'Or 6 Gatineau 3

Chicoutimi 6 Quebec 7

Wednesday

All Times Eastern

Val-d'Or at Charlottetown, 6 p.m.

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WHL

---

Monday

Victoria 5 Calgary 2

Red Deer 4 Edmonton 0

Kamloops 3 Portland 2 (SO)

---

Sunday

Friday

Swift Current 3 Prince George 2 (SO)

Tri-City 4 Wenatchee 1

Tuesday — All Times Eastern

Vancouver at Seattle, 10:05 p.m.

Everett at Spokane, 10:05 p.m.

Wednesday

Victoria at Lethbridge, 9 p.m.

Portland at Penticton, 9:35 p.m.

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

---

LEAGUE PHASE

---

Tuesday — All Times Eastern

Lens vs. Sporting CP, 12:45 p.m.

Sabah vs. Slavia Prague, 12:45 p.m.

Inter Milan vs. Club Brugge, 3 p.m.

Arsenal vs. Lille, 3 p.m.

Atletico Madrid vs. Man. United, 3 p.m.

RB Leipzig vs. PSV Eindhoven, 3 p.m.

Villarreal vs. Napoli, 3 p.m.

Galatasaray vs. Barcelona, 3 p.m.

Viking vs. Bayern Munchen, 3 p.m.

Monday

CPL | GP | W | L | T | GF | GA | Pt | x-Calgary | 26 | 16 | 4 | 6 | 53 | 21 | 54 | x-Hamilton | 26 | 16 | 4 | 6 | 46 | 20 | 54 | x-Ottawa | 26 | 13 | 9 | 4 | 40 | 41 | 43 | Vancouver | 26 | 9 | 10 | 7 | 37 | 35 | 34 | Quebec | 26 | 9 | 12 | 5 | 40 | 47 | 32 | Halifax | 26 | 7 | 12 | 7 | 40 | 44 | 28 | Toronto | 26 | 6 | 11 | 9 | 40 | 61 | 27 | Victoria | 26 | 2 | 16 | 8 | 30 | 57 | 14 | ---

WNBA PLAYOFFS

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FINALS

(Best-of-7. All Times Eastern)

GOLDEN STATE (2) VS. ATLANTA (4)

Saturday

Atlanta at Golden State, 3:30 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 19

Atlanta at Golden State, 8 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 22

Golden State at Atlanta, 8 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 24

Golden State at Atlanta, 3:30 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 26

x-Atlanta at Golden State, 8 p.m.

x — played only if necessary

---

TELEVISION

TUESDAY (ALL TIMES EASTERN)

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BASEBALL

MLB: Cleveland vs. Tampa Bay, SN East, Ontario, 8 p.m.

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BASKETBALL

NBA: New York vs. Toronto, SN 1, 7 p.m.

NBA: Cleveland vs. Orlando, TSN 1, 7 p.m.

NBA: Golden State vs. Los Angeles

Lakers, TSN 1, 10 p.m.

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CURLING

Grand Slam of Curling Invitational, SN Ontario, East, West, Pacific, 3 p.m. Grand Slam of Curling Invitational, SN 360, West, 6:30 p.m.

Grand Slam of Curling Invitational, SN 360, 10 p.m.

---

GOLF

NCAA: St. Andrews Links Collegiate, Second Round, Golf Channel, 9 a.m.

HOCKEY

NHL: Buffalo vs. Montreal, TSN 2, 6:30 p.m.

NHL: Vancouver vs. N.Y. Islanders, SN Pacific, 7:30 p.m.

NHL: St. Louis vs. Ottawa, TSN 5, 7:30 p.m.

NHL: Minnesota vs. Winnipeg, TSN 3, 8:15 p.m.

NHL: Toronto vs. Utah, TSN 4, 9 p.m.

NHL: Calgary vs. Anaheim, SN West, 9:30 p.m.

NHL: Edmonton vs. Los Angeles, SN 1, Pacific, 10:30 p.m.

---

TENNIS

ATP: Shanghai Masters, TSN 5, 6 a.m.

WTA: Wuhan Open, TSN 2, 7 a.m.; TSN 5, 11 p.m.

ATP: Shanghai Masters, TSN 3, 12 a.m. (Wednesday)

NFL

AMERICAN CONFERENCE | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Buffalo | 3 | 1 | 0 | .750 | 127 | 107 | New England | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 110 | 94 | N.Y. Jets | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 93 | 96 | Miami | 0 | 5 | 0 | .000 | 70 | 132 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Jacksonville | 4 | 1 | 0 | .800 | 123 | 70 | Indianapolis | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 124 | 138 | Houston | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 110 | 112 | Tennessee | 0 | 5 | 0 | .000 | 58 | 109 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Baltimore | 4 | 1 | 0 | .800 | 146 | 119 | Cleveland | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 93 | 112 | Pittsburgh | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 111 | 109 | Cincinnati | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 128 | 109 | WEST | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Kansas City | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 118 | 77 | Denver | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 97 | 111 | Las Vegas | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 132 | 129 | L.A. Chargers | 0 | 5 | 0 | .000 | 84 | 129 | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | N.Y. Giants | 3 | 1 | 1 | .700 | 109 | 106 | Philadelphia | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 92 | 112 | Dallas | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 138 | 136 | Washington | 1 | 3 | 1 | .300 | 115 | 149 | SOUTH | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Carolina | 2 | 2 | 0 | .500 | 121 | 109 | Atlanta | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 | 119 | 122 | Tampa Bay | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 100 | 112 | New Orleans | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 118 | 151 | NORTH | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | Minnesota | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 109 | 64 | Green Bay | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 104 | 112 | Detroit | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 164 | 148 | Chicago | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 119 | 96 | WEST | W | L | T | Pct | PF | PA | San Francisco | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 154 | 93 | Seattle | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 | 134 | 105 | L.A. Rams | 2 | 2 | 0 | .500 | 85 | 83 | Arizona | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 108 | 162 | Buffalo at L.A. Rams

---

Sunday

Cincinnati 31, Miami 24

Green Bay 31, Chicago 7

Houston 26, Tennessee 3

Minnesota 23, New Orleans 13

N.Y. Giants 27, Washington 27 (OT)

N.Y. Jets 17, Cleveland 12

New England 45, Las Vegas 17

Pittsburgh 34, Indianapolis 22

Denver 23, L.A. Chargers 17

Detroit 45, Arizona 21

San Francisco 32, Seattle 29

Baltimore 30, Atlanta 23 (OT)

At London

---

At London

Jacksonville 19, Philadelphia 17

WEEK SIX

RESULTS AS OF MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 9:40 P.M.

CORNERED

OFF THE MARK

"I'm sorry, your request to borrow a student to paint your house has been denied."

SPEED BUMP

BIZARRO

PONCE de LEON'S QUEST COMES TO A DISAPPOINTING CONCLUSION

Saskatchewan sliding after dropping fourth in a row

Alouettes' QB Alexander breaks 5,000-yard passing mark in win over Roughriders

DANIEL RAINBIRD MONTREAL

Trevor Harris has heard enough talk about what the Saskatchewan Roughriders need to do to turn things around.

The veteran quarterback says it's about time his team showed it on the field.

The defending Grey Cup champions suffered their fourth straight loss amid a tight West Division playoff race Monday afternoon, falling 44-24 to the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL's Thanksgiving Day Classic.

“It’s about sticking to the work and doing what our process is ... but it’s enough talking about it. We’ve got to do it,” Harris said. “The things that we’re saying we need to do, we need to do them and not just talk about it.”

The loss ensured the Roughriders (8-8) won't host a playoff game. Even qualifying for the postseason, which looked all but certain a month ago, is now at risk.

With two weeks remaining in the regular season, Saskatchewan is tied with Winnipeg (8-8) and Calgary (8-9) for third in the West Division at 16 points – and both the Blue Bombers and Stampeders hold the season-series tie-breaker over the Roughriders.

Saskatchewan could still benefit from the CFL's crossover rule, which will allow a fourth West Division team to qualify for the playoffs ahead of the third-place team in the East, currently Hamilton (5-12).

The Roughriders close out the regular season with home games against the first-place Alouettes and West-leading Edmonton Elks, though both opponents could opt to rest key players ahead of the playoffs.

Defensive back Marcus Sayles said the Riders remain full of be-

Alouettes running back Stevie Scott III, centre-left, is tackled by Roughriders defensive back Tevaughn Campbell during the first half in Montreal on Monday.

GRAHAM HUGHES/

THE CANADIAN PRESS

lief despite the slide.

"I've been with this team for three years and we're not breaking for anything," Sayles said. "We just won a Grey Cup last year, and I'm not trying to bank on that, but at the same time we got the same players, dang near.

“We know we can make those plays, because we’ve made them already.”

Davis Alexander eclipsed 5,000 passing yards on the season for the Alouettes (13-3), joining Anthony Calvillo as the only quarterbacks in franchise history to reach the mark.

The 27-year-old from Gig Harbor, Wash., threw for five touchdowns, one interception and 403 passing yards on 26-of-33 completions. He also rushed for 40 yards on three carries as Montreal finished undefeated at home in the regular season for the third time.

Jerreth Sterns added eight receptions for 124 yards, while Charleston Rambo and Tyler Snead made two touchdown catches apiece before a sellout of 23,035 at Percival Molson Stadium.

“It feels kind of like having a cheat sheet to the test,” Alexander said of playing in the prolific Alouettes’ offence. “Most of the time we have an answer for everything within our one play.”

Montreal, which clinched first place in the East Division last week, returns home to host the Eastern final on Nov. 7.

Harris also hit the 5,000-yard mark for the second time of his career, finishing with two touchdowns, one interception and 243 yards on 23-for-33 passing. Kian Schaffer-Baker caught two touchdowns for Saskatchewan in the rematch of last year's Grey Cup.

After an evenly matched first half, the game swiftly fell apart for the Riders.

CFL receiving-yards leader Tyson Philpot gave the Alouettes a

24-16 lead with a spectacular catch six minutes into the second half, diving into the end zone to haul down Alexander's 46-yard bomb. Alexander then dodged multiple tackles before launching a 51-yard pass up the middle to Rambo, giving the Alouettes a 31-16 advantage.

The Alouettes extended that lead four minutes into the fourth quarter, when Alexander hit Snead for his second touchdown on a five-yard throw.

“Before we knew it, boom, it's 38-16,” Harris said. “Two offensive possessions and three touchdowns for them, that's where it kind of just unravelled for us.”

Montreal linebacker Geoffrey Cantin-Arku then picked off Harris and returned the ball 32 yards to the Saskatchewan 31, setting up an insurance field goal.

“We’re just not playing in unison,” Sayles said. “I don’t know exactly why we’re not playing in unison, but at the same time we just got to figure out a way. We only got two games left, and everything is in our control.

"We just got to figure out how to finish these games."

Sayles opened the game by picking off Alexander on the first drive after the Alouettes QB stoked the crowd with a 30-yard run up the middle.

Montreal answered a field goal with a touchdown on the next drive, as Alexander completed four passes to Sterns, then found Snead on a nine-yard TD with 6:33 left in the first quarter.

Schaffer-Baker gave the Riders a 10-7 advantage to end the first quarter when he caught a pass from Harris and powered through Montreal's defence for a 27-yard touchdown.

But that was the last time Saskatchewan would lead.

“We understand the situation that we’re in,” Riders coach Corey Mace said. “We knew it was gonna be a challenge.

“We got another opportunity against them next week and then follow that up with Edmonton.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS

THE STADIUM AT TD PLACE, OTTAWA

Contreras delivers as the Brewers take 2-0 lead over Dodgers in NLCS

Milwaukee Brewers catcher William Contreras connects for a home run during the fifth inning of Game 2 of the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday in Milwaukee. KAYLA WOLF/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Yamamoto-Henderson pitching duel doesn't materialize, but Brewers' offence steps up

STEVE MEGARGEE

MILWAUKEE, WIS.

William Contreras hit a tying homer in the fifth and singled home the go-ahead run an inning later as the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-4 on Monday in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.

Four relievers combined to retire the last 15 Dodgers batters in order as the Brewers took a 2-0 lead over the two-time defending World Series champions in this best-of-seven series, which heads to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday.

The Brewers are chasing their second pennant and first in the NL. They made their lone World Series appearance in 1982, when they were in the American League.

Los Angeles is trying to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series. The Dodgers last rallied from a 2-0 deficit to win a series in 2020, when they beat the Atlanta Braves in a seven-game NLCS before going on to win the World Series.

The Dodgers will need more punch from their lineup to have a chance at getting back to the Fall Classic. They mustered just three hits Monday and went 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position to drop to 2 for 26 in those situations this postseason.

Los Angeles couldn't even get a boost from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who entered 8-1 with a 2.14 ERA in 11 career playoff appearances. Yamamoto lasted just 2 2/3 innings for his shortest postseason start.

The Dodgers took the lead on three occasions in the first five innings. Milwaukee responded each time, the last coming when Contreras tied the game with a 436-foot homer to centre off Kris Bubic in the fifth.

That turned the game into a battle of the bullpens, where the Brewers again had the edge.

Dustin May, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby combined to shut down the Dodgers after Logan Henderson's early ex-

it.

The score was tied 4-all when Milwaukee's David Hamilton was hit by a pitch from Brock Stewart to lead off the sixth. Stewart attempted a pickoff throw that went off the glove of first baseman Freddie Freeman and into foul territory for an error, advancing Hamilton to second.

After Jackson Chourio grounded out, the right-handed Stewart walked the left-handed-hitting Brice Turang to face the right-handed Contreras, who had homered in his previous plate appearance.

Contreras singled to left this time to bring home Hamilton with the go-ahead run.

Turang and Jake Bauers added RBI singles in the eighth to extend Milwaukee's lead.

---

NEITHER STARTER LASTS LONG

The anticipated pitchers' duel between Yamamoto and Henderson didn't work out according to plan.

In three previous playoff starts following Dodgers losses, Yamamoto had gone 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA. When he faced the Brewers in last year's NLCS, he threw the first playoff complete game since Justin Verlander did it in 2017.

This time, Yamamoto couldn't even make it out of the third inning before leaving with the

Dodgers behind 3-2.

Henderson entered Monday having not allowed more than three runs in any of his 24 career starts (including the postseason). That streak ended when he allowed four runs over four innings.

Because Henderson committed two errors – matching his previous career total – only two of the runs were earned.

Milwaukee trailed 2-1 in the third when Bauers capped a 12-pitch plate appearance by taking a 3-2 offering in the dirt to load the bases with a walk. Christian Yelich followed by lining a single up the middle that brought home two runs and knocked Yamamoto out of the game.

Los Angeles bailed out Yamamoto by scoring twice in the fifth.

After Kyle Tucker hit a leadoff double, Tommy Edman sacrificed him to third. Henderson fielded the bunt and made a wild throw to first, enabling Tucker to score and moving Edman to second.

Edman advanced to third when Mookie Betts grounded out, and scored on Freeman's sacrifice fly.

Henderson also had made a wild throw to first on a pickoff attempt in the third inning that allowed Edman to score from third.

UP NEXT

Robert Gasser (5-5, 3.87 ERA) is expected to start for Milwaukee in Game 3. Gasser allowed one run over four innings when the Brewers won 3-1 at San Diego to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers hadn't announced their Game 3 starting pitcher.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

How the Atlanta Dream finally broke through to the WNBA finals

DOUG FEINBERG

Atlanta general manager Dan Padover built the Dream into a title contender through shrewd trades, a little bit of luck and patience from the team's ownership group.

All that has paid off as Atlanta is headed to the WNBA finals for the first time since 2013 when the Dream play the Golden State Valkyries in the best-of-seven series that begins Saturday.

“I give the ownership group a lot of credit for having the patience to have this thing get where it is today,” Padover said in a phone interview. “A lot of times in sports, teams get broken up too early. Letting them grow together gives a continuity that is a huge competitive advantage. You’re seeing it now.”

Putting this team together started soon after Padover came to the franchise in 2021 from Las Vegas.

“We never got lottery luck or many free agents really, so we had to do it through trades,” said Padover, who was with the Aces when they drafted Jackie Young with the No. 1 pick. “That’s definitely the hardest way to build a franchise.”

ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo has been impressed with what Padover has done with the Dream.

“They put everything together. If they don’t have Angel [Reese] this year they aren’t in the finals. They got the gift of DeWanna Bonner at end of season. They picked her up for nothing. I think it’s twofold: A GM who has done an extraordinary job finding the right pieces and a team that’s come together at the right time.”

---

GETTING STARTED THROUGH THE DRAFT

The three-time WNBA executive of the year's first big move was acquiring the No. 1 pick from Washington in 2022 to draft Rhyne Howard and then taking Naz Hillmon 15th that year through another traded draft pick.

“None of it gets off the ground without Rhyne and Naz,” he said. “They had a belief in each other and that we could try to build something here.”

SOLIDIFYING THE CORE WITH TRADES

The next season Padover traded for Allisha Gray for two draft picks, giving the Dream a solid foundation with Gray, Howard and Hillmon.

“Got to give credit to Lish,” Padover said. “She was on [the] trade market, but she circled this as a place she wanted to go to. It worked out for all parties involved.”

The team was lacking a true point guard though, so Padover went out and got Jordin Canada from Los Angeles in 2024.

The biggest move though came this past year. After being upset by Indiana in the first round of the playoffs last season, Padover knew they needed Angel Reese to contend for a title. A few months later, Padover made the move.

“I think she was looking at a few different places, but given our group, given our organization, our market, we were a natural fit for her,” he said.

---

ADDING THE FINAL PIECE IN FREE AGENCY

The final piece to the puzzle involved signing Bonner right at the end of the regular season when the Phoenix Mercury let her go to make one more run at a

championship.

"It happened that Phoenix and her worked out a deal to allow her to make a run in the postseason and that turned into a mini-free agency with a bunch of teams that went after her," Padover said.

“We were fortunate that we had made a run at her the last few free agencies. She has a great relationship with our players, which helped.”

---

FINDING THE RIGHT COACH

Padover decided after the 2024 season that it was time to move on from coach Tanisha Wright after she had led the team to consecutive playoff appearances. The team hired a search firm and the biggest thing that the franchise wanted was a basketball purist who aligned with the core values of the organization. The answer was long-time Florida Gulf Coast coach Karl Smesko.

“Karl was born to be a basketball coach. He’s extremely humble and hard working and just a phenomenal basketball mind,” Padover said. “To be in his second year in this amazing league that is ultra competitive from a player and coaching standpoint. To have

30 wins his first two years and then make the WNBA finals in Year 2, puts him up there in elite, elite company."

BRINGING THEM ALL BACK

With the condensed free agency period this off-season because of the new collective agreement, Padover had little time to re-sign Howard, Gray, Canada, Hillmon and the others.

In the span of two days he was able to get them to all want to come back.

"To lock up five players in 48 hours is crazy, usually you don't lock up one that quickly," Padover said. "It's a two-week process in a normal year."

Padover said the work began well before he was able to talk to them.

“It was so important to have done your work earlier and them knowing who are and that you care,” he said. “We knew speed was important because people were out there making them good offers. We made them feel whole as quickly as possible and showed them how much we wanted them.”

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Soccer: Canada's wonky defence was exposed by the Danes

FROM B11

Stoney made seven changes to the starting lineup she fielded Friday in Montreal, where Canada downed the Danes in a penalty shootout (4-2) after Smith's 84th-minute goal tied the score at 1-1. Smith was one of 10 Canadian second-half subs used at Saputo Stadium.

Stoney opted for a more senior squad Monday, albeit with a new-look strike force with the 24-year-old Smith alongside Northern Super League attacking talent in 18-year-old Kaylee Hunter (AFC Toronto) and the 29-year-old Pridham (Ottawa Rapid).

Only goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan, captain Jessie Fleming, fullback Janine Sonis and defender Jade Rose retained their spot in a starting 11 that came into Monday's contest with a combined 867 caps.

The series with Denmark, which marked the Canadian women's first home games since June, 2025, drew disappointing crowds.

The Montreal gate was announced at 10,161 while Toronto's attendance was 12,112, on a sunny 20 C Thanksgiving afternoon.

Canada looked wobbly on defence in the early going but the Danes could not take advantage. And Canada went ahead in the 10th minute after Denmark failed to deal with a corner.

After Thisgaard's punched clearance, the ball came right back into the box where Hunter headed it over to Pridham who beat two defenders to hook the ball into the goal.

Canada kept tightening the screws, with Thisgaard pushing a Smith shot to safety off the goalpost in the 18th minute.

Denmark answered in the 23rd minute with Holdt dispossessing Julia Grosso after the Canadian midfielder was left trying to corral an awkward pass from Kadeisha Buchanan.

Crossing midfield, Holdt saw Sheridan out of her goal and floated a long shot over the Canadian ‘keeper.

The visitors went ahead in the 27th minute. After Sofie Bredgaard rattled a shot off the crossbar, Canada failed to clear and Harder beat Sheridan for her 87th goal in Danish colours.

Holdt made it 3-1 in the 32nd minute, taking advantage of another Canadian turnover. Rose could not deal with an Ashley Lawrence pass, allowing Denmark to win possession and find Holdt alone in front of the goal.

Stoney hopes there are lessons learned. "This is why we play these games," said

This is why we play these games. We know that they [the

Danes] are a transition side. We know that that's a weakness for us at the moment.

CASEY STONEY

TEAM CANADA HEAD COACH the coach. “We know that they [the Danes] are a transition side. We know that that’s a weakness for us at the moment.”

Canada cut the deficit to 3-2 in the 49th minute when Smith found Viens in the penalty box. Viens's deflected shot found the top corner for her 11th Canada goal.

Canada then found itself trying to break down a disciplined Danish defence. The Danes, meanwhile, held fast and looked to counter-attack.

The Danish strategy paid dividends in the 61st minute with Thomsen padding the lead to 4-2 with the Canadian defence found wanting.

Veteran fullback Allysha Chapman came off the bench in the 89th minute to earn her 100th cap in her international swan song. The 37-year-old from Courtice, Ont., who made her senior

debut in October, 2014, last played for Canada in the 2023 World Cup.

Chapman, currently with the NWSL's Houston Dash, hopes to continue playing at the club level.

A cold one was in her immediate future.

"I'll be throwing back a few brews," Chapman said after the game.

ABS

FROM B11

“You’ve got to be careful trying to script it or dictate the perfect situation for it. You don’t know what it’s going to lead to, even if it’s early,” Atlanta manager Walt Weiss said. “My message has always been, the lower the leverage, the more certainty you need to have and vice versa. But at the end of the day, trust your eyes.”

Among 25 umpires who worked the first two rounds, four had perfect rates and were confirmed on all challenges. Tripp Gibson, James Hoye, Nic Lentz and Gabe Morales all were challenged twice and confirmed twice. Lance Barrett was overturned on 10 of 12 challenges during Milwaukee's Game 2 Division Series victory over San Diego and Adam Beck on seven of 10 during Philadelphia's Game 2 wild card series win over Atlanta.

Roberto Ortiz was overturned on 6 of 9, Jansen Visconti and Todd Tichenor on 4 of 7, Shane Livensparger on 5 of 6, Cory Blaser and Chris Guccione on 4 of 5 and Alex MacKay on 4 of 6.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Michael Jordan jersey sells for record \$14-million, auction house says

The Michael Jordan jersey recently sold for \$14-million is the one Jordan wore in Game 2 of the 1998 NBA finals on June 5, 1998. Jordan and the Chicago Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz that night to even the series at one game apiece. JEFF HAYNES/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Sale is at least the third time a Jordan jersey from 1998 finals fetches at least \$10-million

TIM REYNOLDS MIAMI

A game-worn, autographed Michael Jordan road jersey from the 1998 NBA finals has been privately sold for US\$14-million, an auction house announced Monday, calling it the highest price ever paid for a piece of basketball memorabilia.

Pennsylvania-based Hunt Auctions announced the private treaty sale and identified the buyer as Miami real estate investor Ron Firman. The red jersey is the one Jordan wore in Game 2 of that series on June 5, 1998; he and the Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz that night to even the matchup at a game apiece.

Jordan and the Bulls would go on to win the series in six games, the sixth and final title of his Hall of Fame career. That 1997-98 season was the subject of the 10-episode Last Dance documentary series that was released in 2020.

“While Michael Jordan’s importance within the sports memorabilia marketplace has long been established it has now escalated to an elite asset class more typically reserved for iconic works of art,” said David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions. “We are very pleased to have been able to facilitate this historic sale which serves as another benchmark for our industry.”

The US\$14-million price would be the second-biggest known cost for a game-worn jersey, behind the US\$24.12-million paid in 2024 for the jersey worn by Babe Ruth of the New York

Yankees when he hit the “called shot” home run against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series.

This sale becomes at least the third time a Jordan jersey from that 1998 finals has fetched at least US\$10-million. A jersey from Game 1 was sold at auction for about US\$10.1-million in 2022 and a jersey from Game 3 was auctioned last month for about US\$12.3-million.

“Michael Jordan was an incredibly talented player who is admired around the world,” Firman said in a news release distributed by the auction house. “I’m very excited about the purchase.”

European tour says anyone signing with LIV Golf need not apply to play both circuits

DOUG FERGUSON

The European tour has delivered an ultimatum to players contemplating the new version of LIV Golf, saying anyone who joins will not be allowed to be European tour members.

“Players need to make a choice,” Guy Kinnings, CEO of the European tour, said in a statement Monday first reported by the BBC.

The DP World Tour, as it is commercially known, previously let LIV players to keep their European membership as long as they paid fines for playing LIV events that conflicted with the tour.

It extended an olive branch earlier this year to nine players, allowing them to play LIV events without sanctions provided they settled all previous fines and agreed to add European tour events to their 2026 schedules.

Kinnings delivered a far stronger message – us or them – as LIV is trying to emerge from bankruptcy stemming from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund cutting off the financial support. LIV has spent more than US\$5-billion since its launch in 2022.

LIV has the backing of up to

US\$300-million from BC Partners as it leans into a 10-tournament season with a focus on team competition and players owning equity in LIV 2.0. Players have until Oct. 25 to decide whether to stick with LIV, which could determine whether the beleaguered circuit can move forward out of bankruptcy.

The European tour, however, is requiring anyone seeking to join to disclose where they intend to play in 2027. The tour said it would terminate membership if the disclosures prove false.

"As we have said for many years, we have rules and regulations which are there to protect our tour and which our members must all abide by," Kinnings said. "Players who are not willing to comply with our rules and regulations should not be seeking to join our tour."

Players must be European tour members to compete in the Ryder Cup next September, adding pressure to the likes of Tyrrell Hatton of England, Tom McKibbin of Northern Ireland, Adrian Meronk of Poland and Thomas Detry of Belgium.

An attorney for Jon Rahm said last week in a bankruptcy hearing for LIV that the former No.1 wanted to terminate his LIV contract. The question for Rahm, a two-time major champion, is how he works his way back to the PGA Tour.

Sergio Garcia also asked to end his LIV contract, and David Puig of Spain has indicated he is ready to take on a European tour schedule.

The European tour is negotiating a renewed alliance with the PGA Tour, which involves commercial opportunities and a path for the leading 10 players on the Race to Dubai to get PGA Tour cards.

Patrick Reed and Eugenio Chacarra, who both previously played for LIV Golf, are a lock to earn PGA Tour cards this year off the European tour points list. Bernd Wiesberger of Austria, another player who signed early with LIV, also has a chance at a tour card.

The plan of LIV 2.0 is to have such a streamlined schedule to allow players to compete elsewhere. But the PGA Tour bans LIV players for at least one year dating to their last LIV appearance, and now the European tour is demanding them to pick a tour.

NEW-LOOK GRAND SLAM OF CURLING BROADCAST TEAM IN PLACE FOR OPENER

The Grand Slam of Curling will kick off Tuesday with a new-look broadcast booth after an off-season overhaul.

Long-time Sportsnet curling host Rob Faulds retired last summer and veteran analysts Kevin Martin and Mike Harris are not returning to their previous roles.

The Curling Group brought in relative curling newcomer Darren Dupont to join John Cullen for host/play-by-play duties this season. Jennifer Jones returns as an analyst on a crew that also includes Joanne Courtney, Brad Gushue and Brent Laing.

Sportsnet returns as the main domestic rights-holder with CBC now on board for coverage of some Saturday draws and select Sunday finals. Morning weekday draws and tiebreakers will be streamed on Rock Channel for subscribers.

Outside of Canada, there will be coverage on the ESPN+ streaming service in the United States this season and internationally on DAZN. A Thursday game between American Danny Casper and Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone will be available in the U.S. on ESPNU, a channel that primarily features college sports.

Play on the five-event GSOC circuit begins Tuesday morning at the Co-op Invitational in Victoria and continues through Sunday.

Also on the calendar this season are the Nov. 3-8 GSOC Masters in Medicine Hat, the Nov. 17-22 GSOC National in Sydney, N.S., the Dec. 1-6 GSOC Open in Thunder Bay, and the Dec. 15-20 GSOC Players' Cup in Kingston.

Jones has worked on the Grand Slam broadcast team since retiring in 2024 while Courtney has served as an analyst on TSN since 2023. Both also have experience calling Olympic curling action.

Gushue, meanwhile, retired earlier this year and now serves as USA Curling's high-perform-

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RUTH EHRLICH

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Ruth on October 11, 2026. Beloved wife of Robert. Loving mother and mother-in-law of Tom and Karen, Peter and Debbie, David and Rebecca, and Jonathan and Johanna. Dear sister and sister-in-law of the late Hanna and Harry Shlesinger. Devoted grandmother of Jennifer and Jonathan, Adam and Lauren, Rachel and Daniel, Daniel and Katy, Benjamin and Laura, Joshua and Jenna, Nicole, Michelle, Ryan, Tessa, Matthew, and Jackson. Devoted great-grandmother of Jake, Zachary, Micah, Charlie, Jack, Lily, Jackson, and Hazel. At Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel, 2401 Steeles Avenue West (3 lights west of Dufferin) for service on Tuesday, October 13th at 12:00 pm. Interment to follow at Pardes Shalom Cemetery, in the Holy Blossom Temple section. Memorial donations may be made to Indigo Love of Reading Foundation, https://www.indigoloveofreading.org or the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care c/o Mount Sinai Hospital, 416-586-8203, https://www.tlpc.org

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MARGARET MILLINGTON (née Reilly)

Passed away peacefully at the Belleville General Hospital on Thursday, October 8, 2026, at the age of 92. Devoted wife of the late Michael John "Bill" Millington. Cherished mother of Patrick, Ann Lupenette (Andy), Catherine Phillips (Terry) and Michael (Tracy). She will be forever missed by her 14 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. Beloved sister of Gerard (late Rita), Joseph (Alison) and Thomas (Betty). She will be lovingly remembered by her nieces, nephews, friends and many other relatives. Predeceased by her parents, Patrick and Catherine Reilly. Her son, John as well as her siblings, Michael (late Margaret), Maureen (late John) and Patrick (late Isabel). A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Joseph's Catholic Church on Friday, October 16, 2026 at 1:00. Cremation to follow and interment will be held at St. James Cemetery, Belleville in the spring. The family invites you to join them for a time of fellowship and refreshment at the Bay of Quinte Yacht Club immediately after the Funeral Mass. Memorial donations made to the Charity of Your Choice would be appreciated by the family.

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