. . . Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger declared a province-wide state of emergency on Friday and asked the federal government to have Canadian Armed Forces soldiers in Manitoba to assist with flood relief efforts.
On Saturday, Selinger said upwards of about 400 troops could be on the ground, helping out with sandbagging and assisting homes in flooding hotspots.
Remember back in 2006 when Prime Minister Stephen Harper boasted confidently that Canada was about to become an “energy superpower?”
A February 2014 report by the International Monetary Fund shows that Canada never was and, probably now, never will be. The IMF report is similar to one by the Canadian Energy Research Institute in 2011. It found that 94 per cent of the economic benefits of expanding the oil sands remain in just one province, Alberta.
By 2012, the U.S. was awash in light sweet crude from (fracked) shale oil deposits in Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere. With Midwest and Gulf Coast refineries configured to take heavy oil, that light crude has been looking for a refining home.
Stephen Harper insists he won’t be pressured to alter his business-friendly climate-change policies, saying the Conservative government is simply more upfront than leadership in some other countries about its intention to avoid abatement measures that hurt jobs and economic growth. “No matter what they say, no country is going to take actions that are going to deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country. We are just a little more frank about that,” the Prime Minister said. This unapologetic tone comes as one of Mr.
The Peoples for Mother Earth march is nearing the end of its 34 day cross-province journey through towns and cities in Québec which would be affected by prospective Tar Sands pipelines. In the past month, as the marchers have made their way from Cacouna towards their end-goal of Kanehsata:ke, they have taken actions and seen concrete effects beginning to emerge already.
Canadian workers have been remarkably patient. For over three decades now—a generation—their wages have been restrained, workloads intensified and social benefits eroded, the promise being that this will ultimately bring security for themselves and their families. What they got was more of the same while class inequality reached the highest levels in over 80 years. Where is the anger? When the Great Financial Crisis hit, first and deeper in the US then in Canada, the Canadian state acted decisively to subsidize banks and imposed austerity on workers to pay for this. Where was the rage?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched into a full-on attack on the "evils of communism" at a fundraiser on Friday for a monument to its victims: "During the 20th century, communism's poisonous ideology and ruthless practices slowly bled into countries around the world, on almost every continent," Harper said. The evening's event aimed help raise money for Tribute to Liberty, which aims for a permanent memorial in Ottawa to communism's "hundreds of millions" of victims. You can hear the full speech below.
Canada must consider how Alberta’s oilsands contribute to global climate change and make moves to cut its carbon emissions before it's too late, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu told reporters in Fort McMurray. “Only those who don’t want to listen, only those who want to be blind can’t see that we are sitting on a powderkeg,” he said Friday. “If we don’t do something urgently, quickly, we won’t have a world.” Tutu is in the northern Alberta city for a two-day conference on oilsands development and aboriginal treaties, was hosted by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
Weather forecasters at Environment Canada aren’t supposed to discuss climate change in public, says a Canadian government spokesman.
Environment Canada made the comments in response to emailed questions about its communications policy.
. . . the department’s communications protocol prevents the meteorologists from drawing links to changing climate patterns following extreme weather events such as severe flooding in southern Alberta or a massive wildfire in Northern Quebec in the summer of 2013.
CALGARY - Ottawa wants the Commission for Environmental Co-operation to drop its investigation into whether laws are being properly enforced when it comes to oilsands pollution.
The CEC asked the federal government in December to respond to allegations that it has failed to enforce provisions in the Fisheries Act by allowing harmful substances to leak from tailings ponds into water sources downstream of mines in northeastern Alberta.
