Canada news digest: short-track speed skating returns to the arena of its 2010 Olympic triumph, Vancouver heads toward a municipal election with a fractured protest vote, and British Columbia debates secret ballots in union certification.
Canadian Speed Skaters Return to the Arena of Their 2010 Olympic Triumph
Short-track speed skating in Canada is more than just a sport; it is part of the national identity, built on dramatic finals, milestone medals and tactical schemes with memorable names. The upcoming World Tour season promises to bring fans back to familiar surroundings: for the first time in sixteen years, international short-track competition will be held at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum—the same arena where Canadians produced one of the brightest performances in their Olympic history in 2010. According to a press release from the Canadian Olympic Committee, the team selected for the first two events of the 2026–27 season combines experienced champions with bold newcomers.
The team known as the “Canadian Ice Maples” on the World Tour has won the Crystal Globe as the overall best team in each of the past two seasons. Six medalists from the 2026 Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo will compete for Canada in Vancouver and Montreal. The biggest stars are Courtney Sarault, who won four Olympic medals in February and was named the top female skater of the 2025–26 season, and Steven Dubois, the reigning Olympic and world champion in the 500 metres. They will be joined by recent national champions Florence Brunelle and Félix Roussel, as well as Maxime Laoun and Danaé Blais, who were members of Italy’s medal-winning relay teams. Claudia Gagnon, Anne-Sophie Bachand and Mathieu Pelletier are returning to the elite level, while Victoria Jean-Baptiste, Alexandre Minier and Antoine Gagnon-Lamarché will make their international debuts.
The notable exception is William Dandjinou, the top male skater of the past two seasons. In September, he announced on Instagram that he would miss the first two events to recover after his Olympic debut. “This season will be different. I won’t be everywhere. I’m not chasing the past. I’m returning to the ice one step at a time,” the athlete wrote. His break is a rare public signal in professional sport that even Crystal Globe winners need time to reset, adding intrigue to the season: can the team retain its team trophy without its leader? The question is especially significant because the Ice Maples are building their season on the momentum of Olympic success, meaning expectations will be at their highest.
The return to Pacific Coliseum is all the more symbolic because it was the setting for an almost theatrical drama in 2010. Marianne St-Gelais opened Canada’s medal tally with silver in the 500 metres—and did so on her 20th birthday. A week later, she added another silver in the 3,000-metre relay alongside Jessica Gregg, Kalyna Roberge and Tania Vicent. But the real fireworks came on the final evening: Canada won three medals in thirty minutes, including two golds. First, Charles Hamelin and François-Louis Tremblay finished first and third in the 500 metres. They then joined François Hamelin and Olivier Jean to win the 5,000-metre relay, using an unconventional tactic they called Operation Cobra. For context, “Operation Cobra” was a coordinated manoeuvre in which one skater deliberately stayed out of the spotlight to set up a teammate’s decisive surge; in short track, where fractions of a second and positional battles determine everything, such improvisation borders on a chess match on ice.
The season schedule looks like a genuine world tour: after Vancouver (October 23–25) and Montreal (October 30–November 1), the athletes will travel to Seoul (November 20–22), Shanghai (November 27–29) and Beijing (December 4–6), followed in winter by Gdańsk (February 5–7) and Tilburg (February 12–14). Tickets for the Canadian events are still on sale, giving fans on the West Coast a rare chance to see the world’s best skaters in person. The main takeaway is simple: Canadian short track is undergoing a generational transition without losing its ambition. Olympic medalists set the standard, young skaters are being given an opportunity, and Dandjinou’s absence will test the team’s depth. If the team succeeds, talk of a third consecutive Crystal Globe will be more than a dream—it will be a practical plan.
A Fractured Protest: Why Most Vancouver Residents Want a New Mayor but May Get the Incumbent
Four days before Vancouver’s municipal election, an opinion poll paints a paradoxical picture. Nearly two-thirds of the city’s residents—62 percent—believe it is time for a change in mayor. Yet incumbent Mayor Ken Sim still has a realistic chance of winning a second term. The reason is simple and familiar to political scientists around the world: the opposition is divided, and dissatisfied voters are splitting their support among several candidates instead of uniting behind one.
A poll conducted by Canada Pulse Insights for CityNews OMNI TV shows that only 38 percent of respondents believe Sim deserves re-election. Among decided voters, however, Green Party candidate Pete Fry leads the race with 28 percent, just one percentage point ahead of Sim. Karim Allam, representing the Vancouver Liberals, is in third place with 19 percent. He is followed by Colin Hardwick of TEAM for a Livable Vancouver with 13 percent, Rebecca Bligh of Vote Vancouver with seven percent and Muhammad Ahmad of Bright Future Vancouver with three percent.
Canada Pulse Insights president John Wright offers a straightforward explanation for the phenomenon: dissatisfaction with the mayor has not translated into consolidated support for any one of his challengers. In comments to CityNews, he said most residents believe the mayor is disconnected from city council or from Vancouver residents themselves, and that view is shared even by many people prepared to vote for Sim. According to Wright, the incumbent is focusing on issues that mobilize his electorate: taxes and a “simple, down-to-earth” approach to fighting crime. Fry’s supporters, by contrast, are focused on environmental issues, government accountability and ethics.
The split is particularly clear among those who want a new mayor. Fry leads that group with 34 percent, while Allam and Hardwick share second place at 16 percent each. Twelve percent of this group remain undecided. As Wright explains, this fragmentation is precisely what prevents the demand for change from being realized: when the candidate field is divided, the call for change cannot be fulfilled by one or two people—it is spread across a group of contenders, each receiving only part of the protest vote.
Sim’s approval rating is also notably contradictory: half of residents view his performance positively, while the other half view it negatively. At the same time, 53 percent believe Vancouver is moving in the wrong direction, while 47 percent hold the opposite view. Such polarization is a typical sign of an electorate tired of the current administration but unable to see a convincing alternative.
A few points should be clarified for readers unfamiliar with Canadian municipal politics. In Vancouver, mayoral and city council elections are conducted in a system in which candidates run not only under federal or provincial parties but also under local political organizations such as TEAM for a Livable Vancouver and Vote Vancouver. This creates a broad but highly fragmented field in which even a modest share of the vote can determine the outcome. In addition, the Vancouver Liberals are not the federal Liberal Party of Canada but an independent municipal organization—a distinction that often confuses voters.
The poll surveyed 500 adult Vancouver residents between September 28 and October 6. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. With 10 percent of voters still undecided and support for the challengers dispersed, the result is extremely difficult to predict. Voting will take place on Saturday, October 17, and according to the poll published on the CityNews Vancouver website, the outcome could be decided by just a few percentage points.
The key lesson is universal for any democracy: dissatisfaction with the government in power does not by itself guarantee a change of direction if the opposition cannot unite behind a single candidate. Vancouver has fallen into precisely that trap—the city appears to want change, but a fragmented protest vote is benefiting the very person it seems to oppose.
Secret Ballots for Union Certification in British Columbia: A Debate Over Democracy and Transparency
A debate is intensifying in the Canadian province of British Columbia over how workers should decide whether to form a union. In 2022, the provincial government eliminated the mandatory secret ballot for union certification, replacing it with a membership-card verification system. Under the new rules, a union can be certified automatically if enough employees have signed membership cards. The decision, intended to simplify and speed up the unionization process, has drawn criticism from the business community, which is calling for the return of secret ballots. The article’s author, Greg Wilson, director of the Retail Council of Canada in Vancouver, sets out the case for restoring the previous system, citing concerns about transparency and signature verification.
Wilson notes that the number of union-certification applications in British Columbia rose sharply after the 2022 reform. According to the province’s Labour Relations Board, the accuracy of membership cards—not voting—has become the central element of the process. This raises the question of how rigorously those cards are checked. The author argues that verification is discretionary: some applications are audited, while others are not. In his view, that inconsistency should concern everyone invested in the integrity of the system. If a bank or an electoral commission discovered that much of the contact information in an application was invalid, it would trigger a thorough investigation. In union certification, however, there is no clear threshold defining when inaccuracies become serious enough to justify rejecting an application. The situation is further complicated by the fact that employers are prohibited from reviewing signed membership cards. Although employee privacy must be protected, the result is a system in which the certifying body does not always examine every application, while the party most familiar with employees’ employment status cannot review the evidence. Confidence in any process depends on verification, not assumptions.
Technology makes the situation even more complicated. In the past, unions submitted original paper cards bearing employees’ physical signatures, which could be examined for discrepancies. Today, electronic signatures are increasingly common. Digital systems improve efficiency but raise legitimate questions: How is identity confirmed online? How does the board ensure that the process was completed by the employee rather than someone else with access to the account or device? Are the verification standards the same for every application? The author emphasizes that these are not anti-union questions. British Columbians routinely verify their identities when voting, conducting banking transactions, signing legal documents or accessing government services. Verification is not considered a barrier to participation—it gives the process credibility. Workplace representation should be no exception.
The British Columbia Labour Relations Board acknowledges that audits help maintain confidence in the card-verification system. However, trust cannot be based on random checks conducted only when resources are available. It requires clear standards, transparent procedures and consistent application. The 2022 reforms placed enormous importance on collecting and verifying membership cards, but the safeguards supporting that process have not kept pace with the growing reliance on them. If the province intends to retain a card-based certification system, every application should undergo reliable and systematic review. Authentication of employees’ identities should be mandatory. Error thresholds should be publicly defined. The board should have the resources needed to conduct inspections.
In the spirit of the provincial election scheduled for this fall, British Columbia’s business community is calling for a return to the principle that governed certification decisions for decades: a secret ballot overseen by an independent body, allowing every worker to make a private choice free from pressure. If that is not possible, the new government should ensure consistent review of the card system. Major workplace decisions deserve transparency, verification and democratic legitimacy. British Columbia’s certification system should meet no lesser standard. The article’s author is Greg Wilson, director of the Retail Council of Canada in Vancouver, a national nonprofit association representing small, medium-sized and large retailers. The full text is available here.
Key points to highlight: eliminating the secret ballot for union certification in 2022 led to a sharp increase in applications; membership-card verification is inconsistent and lacks clear criteria; employers are unable to check signatures, making errors harder to identify; electronic card signing creates additional risks around identity authentication; and the business community is calling either for a return to secret ballots or for strict, transparent verification procedures. These arguments reflect a broader conflict between the desire to make unionization easier and the need to maintain confidence in the process through independent oversight and democratic procedures.
