Canadian News

OTTAWA — The federal government will apologize to Inuit in Quebec's Nunavik region for the killing of sled dogs between the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. Read More

A former senior Canadian Security Intelligence Service official has denied claims that the spy agency intervened to keep Abousfian Abdelrazik, then a terrorism suspect, in Sudanese detention in the early 2000s.

A settlement agreement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit against a deceased Greenfield Park hockey coach accused of sexually abusing youths under his watch for decades. Read More

The B.C. NDP has held onto its majority following the completion of a judicial recount in the tight race in Surrey-Guildford.

Express your opinions at your own risk in the Parti Québécois. The separatist party may be leading the polls in Quebec, but internally, one of its members and potential candidate has been suspended because he is a dissident. Read More

Visits to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) websites soared in the aftermath of the U.S. election, according to data shared by the government department. Read More

The province is on the right track in trying to make transit operators more efficient, but there needs to be a long-term vision on transit, the city's mayor said Friday. Read More

Canada Soccer says an independent review has confirmed the Paris Olympics drone-spying scandal was not an isolated misstep.

Leaders within the Jewish community are calling on the city of Montreal and its police force to take more forceful action against antisemitic attacks amid an increase in violent incidents in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Read More

Eastway Tank will be allowed to proceed with its application to quash Ottawa police search warrants and have documents and electronic storage devices returned to company owner Neil Greene, according to a judge's ruling Friday. Read More

The employers' association is threatening to lock out workers at 9 p.m. Sunday if a deal isn't reached.

The Montreal police investigative crimes unit seeks help identifying two suspected individuals who threatened citizens with a firearm after breaking into their home. Read More

The Ottawa Police Service says a 36-year-old Moncton woman has been charged with human trafficking and related charges. Read More

Money earmarked for homelessness can't be sitting around lying unspent, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said Friday. Read More

It's way too early to be pushing the panic button, but you can't blame the Ottawa Senators fan base for having a high level of anxiety. Read More

In 2011, the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute released a report analyzing whether “natural” gas could be considered a “bridging fuel” during the necessary transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. It concluded that Canada should focus on developing more renewable energy, not fossil fuels, including gas. Yet, after many years, as prices for renewable energy drop and technologies continue to improve, some are still touting fossil gas as a “bridge fuel” — or even a climate solution.

A couple of new reports, including one prepared for the David Suzuki Foundation, show that fossil gas is actually a costly bridge to more pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Since 2011, we’ve learned more about fossil gas problems, especially considering that most is now obtained from “unconventional” reserves. That means hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for shale gas, in which difficult-to-extract gas is released and brought to the surface by pumping massive amounts of pressurized liquids and chemicals into the ground to break up rock and rock formations. It’s a relatively expensive process and uses enormous amounts of water.

One new report finds not only that fossil gas isn’t an adequate “bridge fuel” but that exported gas also has a greater climate impact than coal over a 20-year period. Production and liquefying shale gas to make liquefied natural gas, or LNG, uses a lot of energy. The gas is mostly methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over the short term. Leaks, deliberate venting and incomplete combustion during extraction, production and transport can cause significant climate impacts. Studies, including some by the David Suzuki Foundation, have found that methane leaks are far higher than industry and governments estimate.

The Cornell University report, published in Energy Science & Engineering, found that burning the gas accounts for 34 per cent of its greenhouse gas footprint, while “upstream and midstream” methane emissions make up 38 per cent. Including the energy required to produce LNG brings it to 47 per cent. The liquefaction process and tanker transport add to the total. The global warming potential of LNG as a fuel is 33 per cent greater than that of coal over a 20-year period (and is still equal to or greater than coal over a 100-year period), the report concludes.

“To think we should be shipping around this gas as a climate solution is just plain wrong,” report author Robert Howarth, an environmental scientist, told the Guardian. “It’s greenwashing from oil and gas companies that has severely underestimated the emissions from this type of energy.”

Focusing on timelines through the lens of election cycles, unimaginative politicians often see gas production as a quick and easy economic boost, and so they buy into industry propaganda and greenwashing. That’s led to support and subsidies to propel a possible LNG-for-export boom in British Columbia.

A new report from Carbon Tracker with the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute shows that’s not a viable solution. “Turning Tides: The economic risks of B.C.’s LNG expansion in a changing energy market” finds that continuing and expanding B.C.’s LNG-for-export industry is a risky investment. The International Energy Agency reports that LNG export capacity will exceed demand, which will “depress international gas prices and set the stage for fierce competition between suppliers.”

Whether the transition is fast or slow, returns will be minimal. As for global markets, large volumes can be supplied at lower prices from producers including Qatar, Australia and Mozambique. Asian markets are uncertain and appear to be contracting. That means the four LNG terminals in B.C. waiting for investment decisions will likely not be able to compete with lower-cost suppliers on global markets.

No matter how hard the fossil fuel industry and its supporters try to keep their destructive, outdated industry alive, it’s time to face reality. Fracking for more climate-altering gas is not a solution, for the climate or economy. We have cheaper, cleaner and healthier ways to produce energy. We also need to redouble efforts to improve energy efficiency, doing more with less and saving money in the process. There’s no room for more fossil fuel development — whether it’s coal, oil or gas — on a rapidly overheating planet.

It’s time to leave all fossil fuels in the ground — including gas!

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

The post Fracking LNG is a washed-out bridge to nowhere appeared first on rabble.ca.

The moustache has returned to Cody Fajardo's face — partly because it's Movember and he wants to bring awareness to cancer — but the Alouettes quarterback also admits to being superstitious. Read More

With its surprise decision to cashier the entire board and the top executive of the supposedly independent Alberta Investment Management Corp., we see once again that the United Conservative Party (UCP) is determined to control everything, everywhere, all at once. 

And if you’re an Albertan, that includes your retirement savings in the Canada Pension Plan Investment Fund.

Indeed, we can be certain this shocking announcement has something to do with that scheme, because chronic underperformance by AIMCo, as the provincial Crown investment corporation is commonly known, has been a frequent target of critics of the UCP’s planned pension grab. 

Under the headline “Restoring confidence in AIMCo,” the government said in a terse and unexpected news release yesterday that “after years of AIMCo consistently failing to meet its mandated benchmark returns, the Minister of Finance will be making changes to restore confidence in Alberta’s investment agency.”

But why now?

The release complained about a 96-per-cent increase in management fees at AIMCo between 2019 and 2023 and a 29-per-cent increase in the number of employees while the Crown corporation managed a smaller percentage of funds internally – although the news release made no effort to explain exactly what that last point meant. 

“Alberta’s government has decided to reset the investment corporation’s focus,” the news release said mildly. “All board appointments have been rescinded and a new board will be established after a permanent chair is named.” That, according to the release, is supposed to take place within 30 days. 

“In the interim, President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance Nate Horner has been appointed the sole director and chair for AIMCo, effective immediately” – which is not really reassuring for a supposedly arm’s length company managing $169 billion in pension investments. 

Notwithstanding the 30-day promise, a cabinet order set Horner’s term as chair of the AIMCo Board to run until the end of September 2025. 

Accusing the UCP of wanting to control everything, everywhere, all at once was a clever tribute to the 2022 comedy-drama movie of the same name first used by NDP Opposition Justice Critic Irfan Sabir last spring to describe the UCP fiddling with its own fixed election date law to give itself a little extra time in office. 

“Danielle Smith said during the election that Albertans were her bosses,” added Rachel Notley, who was leader of the Opposition at the time, “but it is clear now that she intends to be the boss of everyone.”

Those lines could certainly be applied with similar effect to yesterday’s bombshell. 

A comprehensive article in The Globe and Mail – which, sorry, is located behind a paywall – revealed that in addition to the 10 board members referred to but not named in the news release, Chief Executive Officer Evan Siddall and three other unnamed executives had been canned. 

Siddall, who was appointed CEO on July 1, 2021, with a mandate to turn the company around after its big trading losses during the pandemic, had been the long-time president and CEO of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Judging from his Wikipedia biography, he seems to have attended meetings of the World Economic Forum and the Bilderberg Group, which must have made certain MAGA-minded members of the UCP Caucus feel as if they had ants in their pants. 

Or maybe it was Siddall’s decision to let Alberta’s teachers have a limited role in the management of their pension fund, which had been grabbed by the UCP in 2019 and handed over to AIMCo amid great controversy. Indeed, some of those additional pension employees the government was complaining about likely came from the management arm of the teachers’ pension fund. 

Whatever happened, NDP Finance Critic Court Ellingson told the Globe that Siddall and some of his colleagues showed up at a public meeting of the standing committee on the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund on Wednesday and there was no hint anything was afoot. 

Ellingson said in a statement sent to media yesterday afternoon that firing the entire board and the CEO is too drastic a measure for this just to be about AIMCo salaries “when this government passed legislation to remove the caps on salaries for board members.”

“The premier herself appointed some of these AIMCo directors,” he said. “The finance minister himself said this spring that AIMCo was doing a good job.”

He also argued that even in a temporary role, having a partisan politician at the helm of a supposedly arm’s length agency investing 375,000 Albertans’ retirement savings is troubling.

It certainly seems to have unsettled some in investment circles. The Globe quoted the director emeritus of the International Centre for Pension Management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, Keith Ambachtsheer, saying the move “should be construed as a government takeover of (an) asset pool that belongs to the people of Alberta.”

Ellingson argued “AIMCo’s poor returns are a clear reflection of the UCP’s incompetence.”

“We have raised concerns about their poor returns for years, and we’ve noted AIMCo’s returns have been below that of the Canada Pension Plan,” he said. “Until now, the UCP even proposed using AIMCo to manage the proposed Alberta Pension Plan. Any such APP scheme should now be completely off the table.”

Count on it, though, the opposite is true. If this indicates anything, it’s that the UCP still covets the CPP’s investment funds and saw AIMCo’s returns as an impediment to that ambition. Nor does the party value independent minds in positions of oversight. 

Interestingly, another Order in Council published yesterday “approves the incorporation of a Provincial corporation for the purpose of managing and investing all or a portion of Crown assets.”

The post Firing of AIMCo CEO and entire board another sign UCP is determined to control everything appeared first on rabble.ca.

Rebecca Leslie is to the Ottawa Charge what Jamie Baker, Jim Kyte and Rob Murphy were to the Senators 32 years ago. Read More

Whoever forms the next Canadian government, no matter how sympathetic they may be right now to next January’s MAGA Restoration south of the Medicine Line, the next four years at least are bound to be interesting ones for Canada. 

Interesting, that is, in the sense of that famous folk curse.

This also goes for provincial governments like Alberta’s, whose leaders may think that with Donald J. Trump in the White House again it’ll be smooth sailing for oilsands bitumen all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Alas for all of us, the next president of the United States, just as when he was the next to last president of the United States, is a fellow who believes that every game must be a zero-sum game, with a clear winner and a clear loser. Every. Single. Time. 

And so Canada, and Alberta too, are sure to be cast in the role of losers, even if Trump didn’t mean that stuff he said about bitumen on Super Tuesday last spring. “I call it tar. It’s not oil. It’s terrible. … So for all of the environmentalists, you ought to look at that because all of that tar is going right up into the atmosphere!”

Yes, Alberta may finally get its Keystone XL Pipeline, but we’ll have to pay for it. Again. 

As for that billion and a half Loonies former Alberta premier Jason Kenney gave away to get it built almost five years ago, you can count on it to stay gone. Remember where you heard it first. 

Anyway, as the author of The Art of the Deal no doubt understands better than most, fanboys and girls who just can’t walk away from a deal make lousy negotiators. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party are straining like greyhounds in the slips to prove that all over again. 

We may have the longest undefended border on earth, but we can no longer assume for at least as long as Trump is president that the United States will automatically be our ally. Both our increasingly unpopular Liberal prime minister and his Conservative rival will try to persuade us that they have the secret sauce required to deal with Trump’s next administration. Neither is likely to have gotten that right. 

We can probably blame former PM Brian Mulroney for tying our economy so closely to the United States 36 years ago, and we will now have to live with the consequences of a relationship gone bad that critics of the deal warned us about. 

Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and, in truth, there might not have been much alternative even then. Why speak ill of the dead? Mulroney may have bought us some time. Too bad we didn’t use it very well. 

Trump’s planned 10-per-cent tariff may not do much good for the U.S. economy either, but it’s bound to do more harm to ours. That may just be fine with Trump’s supporters Stateside, as long as someone else is hurt even more than they are. Indeed, understanding that is the key to understanding Trump’s unlikely and undeniable success. 

Where there were once many guardrails to keep Trump from running off the road, now there will be none for the life of what numerous commentators are calling Trump 2.0.

So let’s just say Stephen Harper’s oft-reviled 2012 trade deal with China, despite the current brouhaha about foreign interference in Canadian elections and the former prime minister’s recent endorsement of Trump, may soon start to look wise and far-sighted!

I know, dear readers, that some of you don’t like it when I venture into geopolitics, but here are a few more hot-take predictions about the second Trump presidency in the aftermath of yesterday’s US presidential election.

First, there’s no need to do an Andrei Amalrik and wonder if the United States can survive another 15 years. It will certainly celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2026, despite the dire warnings made by Trump’s opponents in the leadup to Tuesday’s vote, and will likely last another half-century or so without changes to its borders. But there is no way Trump is going to make it great again. The U.S. is in an irreversible post-imperial slide, and we are living in a multi-polar world again. 

If you doubt me, watch what happens under the next Trump presidency to the carefully curated international agreements and institutions that did make America great. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example, sure feels like it’s done for. Now, a great bureaucracy like NATO will never just disappear – but it may have to turn its headquarters in Brussels into a tourist attraction to justify its existence. The Wittelsbach monarchy of Bavaria is long gone, too, but you can still visit their Residenz in Munich. 

Letting the United States blow up the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022 is going to start to look like a hell of a mistake to Europe, and especially Germany, now that Old Unreliable is back in the White House. Will the Europeans take control of their own fate now that the U.S.A. is folding into itself, or will they fall to squabbling amongst one another like 1914? My crystal ball is cloudy, but change there will have to be over there if there is no change over here. 

How long will it take for the AUKUS nuclear sub scheme to fall apart, by most accounts a spectacularly terrible deal for Australia, now that the Biden Presidency is fading into history? Trump is no friend of China, but in addition to the costs and loss of Australian sovereignty, one imagines that the Aussies will realize that in a crunch it may be more dangerous to be America’s friend than it is to be its enemy, just as Henry Kissinger famously pointed out. (Or didn’t. The provenance of almost all great lines is disputed.) We’ll soon realize we were lucky not to get caught in that expensive trap. 

International courts? Currency trading deals? Your Visa card that works in Europe? All these things were designed in part to ensure the economic primacy of America and the status of the Greenback as the world’s reserve currency. Under Trump, all are likely to be at risk. 

And in what form will Trumpism survive when the undeniably charismatic Trump fails from dementia or dyspepsia before the end of his second term? In that event – quite likely, it is said here – his automatic replacement is scheduled to be the utterly uncharismatic J.D. Vance. Or will Ivanka step forward to be America’s first electable female president? 

One final prediction, hordes of disillusioned progressives are not likely to stream across the border to escape Trump, despite pre-election warnings, but enough well-heeled liberal Americans will buy a pied- à-terre in one of Canada’s nicer coastal cities to keep the housing and cost-of-living crisis here at a boil. They’ll come not just because the next president is an autocrat, or even a fascist, but because he’s an embarrassment.

The post Some post-election-night hot takes on the coming MAGA Restoration appeared first on rabble.ca.