Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
The end of Canadian COVID-19 border restrictions means it's back to business as usual for Major League Baseball and the Toronto Blue Jays, just in time for the playoffs.
The pandemic rules, which expire on Oct. 1, kept unvaccinated players from facing Canada's only MLB team at home.
"The previous vaccination laws did prevent numerous teams from bringing their entire rosters to Toronto, which did benefit the Blue Jays in that other teams had to either rely on inexperienced players in a full-time role or opposing teams had to restructure their rotations accordingly," Tyson Shushkewich, co-editor of the Jays Journal fan site, told CTVNews.ca.
Affected players were put on the restricted list, essentially meaning they were excused from games but not paid. While this usually only impacted a few players for most teams during the 2022 season, the Jays' advantage was clear in July when 10 members of the Kansas City Royals skipped a four-game series in Toronto, which the Jays won 3-1.
Unlike the Blue Jays, the Royals are not contenders in this year's playoffs, which begin Oct. 7. The Jays, who currently lead the race for an American League wild-card spot, were MLB champions in 1992 and 1993. They last won a post-season game in 2016.
"There are a few unvaccinated players on playoff teams who wouldn't have been able to come to Toronto under the previous rules," Cameron Lewis, editor-in-chief of the Blue Jays Nation fan site, told CTVNews.ca. "The only one who's really a stand-out player is Robbie Ray of the Seattle Mariners."
The left-handed pitcher was with the Jays for part of 2020 and all of the 2021 season, when he won the Cy Young award as the American League's top pitcher. In the subsequent offseason, Ray signed a five-year deal with the Mariners; Lewis believes his vaccination status may have played a role. As a Mariner, Ray skipped a three-game series in Toronto in May; the Jays won two games. When the teams met again in Seattle in July, the Mariners swept the Jays in four games.
"Having to face Ray would be challenging, as he has become one of the Mariners' top arms amongst a very strong rotation," Shushkewich explained. "Ray also spent the past 1.5 seasons with the Jays, which would be an excellent matchup to see but one that might be difficult for the Jays hitters given his familiarity with the Jays roster and having pitched very well at the Rogers Centre."
Because of Canadian pandemic restrictions, the Blue Jays also spent 2020 and much of 2021 playing home games in Dunedin, Fla., and Buffalo, N.Y., before returning to their Rogers Centre roost on July 30, 2021 – 670 days after their last game in Toronto.
"This was a disadvantage in that the club could not play in front of a home crowd compared to their counterparts and oftentimes had a healthy amount of opposing fans at their dedicated home ball games," Shushkewich added.
The lifting of restrictions also means the Jays could have more freedom to both sign and trade for players who aren’t vaccinated going forward.
"Many have said that the border rules have been an advantage for the Blue Jays all season because some teams have to leave some players behind, but it's actually been somewhat of a disadvantage to them because it added another obstacle to who they can acquire," Lewis explained. "With the rule gone, the Blue Jays will be able to go about signing free agents, trading for players, etc., normally without worrying about who can and can't cross the border."
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.