Month: June 2013

Friday, June 28, 2013

Friday June 28, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday June 28, 2013

Ahoy, tall ships arriving

If you hear cannons blasting on the bay Friday afternoon, don’t be alarmed.

It will be friendly fire to signify the start of an amazing weekend of maritime history.

Between 2 and 4 p.m., six majestic tall ships from around the world will sail into and around Hamilton Harbour in a stunning display of marine history to officially begin the Tall Ships Hamilton event.

As each vessel enters the bay, those with armaments will fire their cannons in salute and the Haida, a Second World War destroyer permanently docked at Pier VIII, will blast return charges from its four-inch guns to welcome the arrival.

Unfortunately, rain is expected during the Parade of Sail, but officials say they plan to continue with as much of the ceremony as possible. The ships will be on display Saturday and Sunday at Pier 8. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday June 27, 2013

Thursday June 27, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 27, 2013

Obama muddies the debate on Keystone Pipeline

Observers are trying to figure out just what President Barack Obama is signalling when it comes to the Keystone XL pipeline, but some still expect it will get the go-ahead.

What the president said yesterday is that the massive project will be approved only if it “does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

What he meant depends on who you listen to, given that supporters and opponents alike said they were buoyed by his comments on the proposed pipeline, which would carry some one million barrels a day of Alberta crude to the Gulf coast.

Which suggests, of course, that the situation remains as confused as it ever was.

“In short, the speech raised more questions than it answered about a piece of infrastructure that is undoubtedly of tremendous importance to the Canadian economy and to ongoing U.S. energy policy – and one whose future is still a matter of public policy debate in the U.S.,” said economists Derek Holt and Dov Zigler of Bank of Nova Scotia.

As The Globe and Mail’s Paul Koring and Steven Chase report, Keystone XL figured prominently as the president unveiled his climate change policy in Washington.

A decision on the TransCanada Corp. project is expected later this year. It has already been rejected once, forcing the Canadian company to change the planned route to skirt an environmentally sensitive region in Nebraska.

Analysts say the project is crucial for Canada amid stubborn pipeline constraints. Economists at CIBC World Markets calculate that Canada would lose out on a potential $50-billion over a three-year period because of those troubles. (Source: The Globe & Mail)

Wednesday June 26, 2013

Wednesday June 26, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 26, 2013

McGuinty comes out swinging at gas plant inquiry

Former premier Dalton McGuinty dismissed a government committee investigating the $585-million gas plants scandal as too “partisan” to have any value.

McGuinty went on to criticize his own recordkeeping law as too vague, and in response to the deletion of e-mails by his senior staff, suggested that most government conversations should be private.

McGuinty adopted a more aggressive tone Tuesday in the second of two appearances before the Standing Committee on Justice Policy which is investigating the cancellation of gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga.

“This is not a determined effort to pursue the truth. This committee is a partisan exercise, and I think we need to be honest about that,” McGuinty said. “If you go to the Oxford dictionary and look up ‘partisan,’ it defines it as ‘prejudiced in favour of a particular cause.’

“This committee, dominated as it is by the opposition, is prejudiced in favour of the defeat of a government, and that colours everything that they do,” he said.

Former Liberal finance minister Dwight Duncan has taken to tweeting that the committee is a “kangaroo court.”

McGuinty was brought back to committee to explain why his most senior political staff deleted all e-mails that might have shed light on the decision to cancel the gas plants, one cancellation announced during an election campaign.

The opposition say the Liberals axed the plants at a potential cost of up to $1 billion to save their political seats, and then tried to cover up the electronic trail. (Source: Sun News)

Tuesday June 25, 2013

Tuesday June 25, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 25, 2013

Edward Snowden not spotted on flight to Cuba

Confusion over the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden grew on Monday after a jetliner flew from Moscow to Cuba with an empty seat booked in his name.

Aeroflot said earlier that Snowden had registered for the flight using his U.S. passport, which the United States recently annulled.

The founder of the WikiLeaks secrets-spilling organization, Julian Assange, insisted he couldn’t go into details about where Snowden was, but said he was safe.

Snowden has applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries, Assange said. An Aeroflot representative who wouldn’t give her name told The Associated Press that Snowden didn’t board Flight SU150 to Havana, which was filled with journalists trying to track him down. Two AP journalists on the flight confirmed after it arrived Monday evening in Havana that Snowden wasn’t on the plane.

A member of the Aeroflot crew spoke briefly to reporters gathered outside Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport, but would not give his name. “No special people on board,” he said, smiling. “Only journalists.”

Security around the aircraft was heavy prior to boarding in Moscow and guards tried to prevent the scrum of photographers and cameramen from taking pictures of the plane, heightening speculation that Snowden might have been secretly escorted on board.

But about two dozen journalists who made the flight searched up and down the plane after boarding in a fruitless hunt for Snowden. One increasingly desperate Russian television reporter was briefly convinced that AP reporter Max Seddon might be the NSA leaker. (Source: CBC News)

Monday June 24, 2013

Monday June 24, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday June 24, 2013

Kathleen Wynne backing away from Ontario Green Energy Act

It’s always instructive to see how a government frames an announcement that is backtracking on one of its own initiatives.

Conveniently for the Ontario Liberals, they are amassing considerable experience in this regard.

So, when the government on Thursday dropped the news that it was restructuring its 2010 wind-power deal with Samsung, it presented it in terms of extended job commitments and savings to electricity ratepayers. Samsung was guaranteeing jobs until 2016, instead of 2015, and the government was now only committing to buy $6-billion of Samsung’s renewable power at well above market rates, down from $9.7-billion in the original contract. Hooray for savings!

Those extended job commitments, though, are a result of Samsung’s having missed targets in the original contract; it now has more time to meet them. And that reduction in spending? It comes as Samsung, which won the original contract absent a competition, agrees to drop its own investment in the province from $7-billion to $5-billion, with projects expected to generate 1,369 megawatts of energy, down steeply from 2,500 megawatts in the first deal.

Ontario will be paying less, and receiving less. This is probably not the result of a particularly hard-fought negotiation.

What’s more notable are the things that the announcement from Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli did not mention, for example the 16,000 jobs that the original contract was said to create when it was announced in 2010. (Source: The National Post)