Search Results for: pipeline

Saturday April 9, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 9, 2022

What Toronto wanted in the federal budget for housing — and what it got

April 7, 2017

One of the central pieces of the federal budget unveiled Thursday was affordable housing — $10 billion earmarked to tackle the crisis country-wide.

It’s a mix of funding for projects and policy changes aimed at making housing more affordable.

So what was Toronto looking for and what did it get?  And what will the budget mean for one of the least affordable cities in the country?

Much of the $10-billion investment focuses on boosting the supply of homes, something that is key for Toronto. 

February 1, 2017

The city was eyeing an extension of funding for a project it’s partnered on with the federal government: the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI).

That wish was granted. The budget proposes to extend the program, which creates new affordable rental housing for marginalized people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness, at a cost of $1.5 billion over two years.

May 7, 2014

The largest portion of the $10-billion budget pledge is $4 billion dedicated to what the government is calling a “Housing Accelerator Fund.” The money will be for municipalities like Toronto to speed up housing development by slashing red tape, and the federal government estimates it can create 100,000 new units over five years.

When it comes to speeding up development, Bailão says the city has projects on the go for which they’d like to partner financially with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) — mainly its Housing Now initiative, which activates city-owned sites for the development of affordable housing within mixed-income, mixed-use, transit-oriented communities.

November 20, 2019

“I think all orders of government need to work together because if they really want to build 100,000 units … we have 15,000 here in the pipeline that need their financing and we need to make sure that financing is there,” said Bailão.

The question among many advocates is how quickly some of these measures can be implemented in big cities like Toronto, and how much coordination there can be between different levels of government.

“For this city, what’s needed is significant amounts of money and funding that can be spent quickly,” said Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute and a professor of geography and planning at the University of Toronto.

“We’re in this crisis. We need all hands on deck, and we need that real coordination and we need a sense of urgency to back it up.” (CBC) 

 

Friday March 4, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 4, 2022

Could Putin Go Nuclear?

January 22, 2022

That escalated quickly.

Five days ago, it looked like the west’s response to Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression would be tepid. Its first round of sanctions was replete with loopholes large enough to jam gas pipelines through. But Ukraine’s resolve has proven contagious. The Ukrainians’ willingness to die in defense of their national sovereignty and their capacity to inflict casualties on Russia have outstripped the expectations of their friends and enemies alike. This demonstration seems to have stiffened spines in Berlin and Brussels. Over the weekend, Europe and the U.S. declared something close to financial war on the Russian state. The western powers announced they were freezing all Russian central bank assets held in the E.U., U.S., Canada, and Britain and evicting Russian banks from the international payments system known as SWIFT. As a result, the Russian people saw the value of their savings collapse over night.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and E.U. continued funneling weapons to Ukrainian forces.

Thursday November 18, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 18, 2021

Now it’s Biden, not Trump, giving Trudeau grief

The political bromance that was supposed to blossom between Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden has so far been a bust.

November 3, 2020

When Americans turfed Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election and sent Biden to the White House, you could almost hear a collective sigh of relief across Canada. A dark, dangerous cloud that had hovered over this country for four years had been blown away. With two progressive, seemingly compatible leaders at the helm of the North American neighbours a new era of amiable bilateral relations seemed guaranteed.

But that hasn’t come to pass. And so Prime Minister Trudeau will have his work cut out for him when he heads to Washington for Thursday’s summit with President Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Despite all his friendly smiles, Biden has yet to prove he’s a real friend to this country. Relations are strained and he’s making them worse. There’s an infrastructure bill packed with Buy American provisions that could bar Canadian businesses from bidding on billions of dollars worth of projects in the U.S. Biden loves it.

July 22, 2021

Another bill would offer huge incentives for American consumers to purchase made-in-the-U.S. electric vehicles instead of buying Canadian-manufactured models. Biden is all for it. If Congress passes the bill, car makers would obviously be more inclined to invest in American electric vehicle plants than Canadian ones. Then what will happen to all those dreams of a bright new Canadian electric-vehicle sector?

No wonder Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, says the proposed incentives are “a bigger threat than anything pointed at us by Donald Trump” — including all the tariffs he imposed and the disruptive free-trade battle he engineered.

Meanwhile, the State of Michigan is still trying to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline which transports vital supplies of Western Canadian petroleum to Ontario and Quebec. If this threat to Canada has caught Biden’s eye, he’s done nothing about it. And if the list of bilateral sore-points isn’t long enough already, the American government moved this spring to double tariffs on Canadian lumber.

April 30, 2021

Clearly American protectionism has again reared its ugly head. And this despite the years of struggles during the Trump era to reach the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement which, by the way, does not permit those American electric-vehicle incentives.

It should be a given that Trudeau will raise these issues with Biden this week. But the president will be more preoccupied with pressures coming from within his own deeply divided country. After just 10 months in office, his approval ratings have plummeted. The control his Democrats have over Congress is precarious and could be lost after next year’s mid-term elections. And those Buy American incentives are widely popular south of the border with progressive Democrats, unions, consumers and, when it comes to electric vehicles, environmentalists.

February 23, 2021

Trudeau will be swimming upstream against powerful currents to alter these trends. He does, however, have leverage. With an increasingly assertive China responsible for Biden’s biggest international headache, Trudeau should remind him Canada and Mexico can help build a “Fortress North America” as an economic and political counterweight to that rising superpower. With Canadian and Mexican co-operation, Biden could also have a better chance of successfully fighting climate change, which would thrill much of his voter base.

Beyond these measures, Trudeau should adopt a strategy that worked with Trump: start sending his federal cabinet ministers and Canadian business leaders to meet with and lobby their American counterparts.

Considering all the differences between them, it may be too much to hope for another “Three Amigos Summit” this week. We’d settle for a co-operative, congenial neighbourly get-together. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday October 28, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 28, 2021

New environment minister faces questions about past activism

Canada’s new environment minister says his past as an activist should not raise alarms in the energy industry or the office of Alberta’s premier.

April 20, 2019

“I don’t have a secret agenda as environment minister,” Steven Guilbeault said today after the first meeting in Ottawa of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new cabinet. “It’s a government effort to tackle … what many consider one of humanity’s greatest challenges, which is climate change.”

Guilbeault said the government’s plan to fight climate change is “very clear” and most of it — such as carbon pricing and the push for more public transit and cleaner energy sources — is “already known.”

January 26, 2021

The Trudeau government has committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Before entering electoral politics in 2019, the Quebec MP co-founded Équiterre, a Quebec-based environmental organization, and was the director of a provincial chapter of Greenpeace. He spoke out against pipeline projects, including the Trans Mountain expansion.

May 14, 2019

Guilbeault also took part in stunts to draw attention to environmental causes.

In 2001, Guilbeault was arrested after scaling Toronto’s CN Tower to raise awareness of climate change. In 2002, he was involved in a Greenpeace stunt that saw activists climb onto the roof of then Alberta premier Ralph Klein’s house to install solar panels.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Tuesday that Guilbeault’s appointment to the environment portfolio sends a “very problematic message” to the province.

April 11, 2018

“I certainly hope that [Guilbeault] … will quickly demonstrate to Alberta, and other resource-producing provinces, a desire to work together constructively on practical solutions that don’t end up killing hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Kenney said.

Asked about Kenney’s comments, Guilbeault said oil companies already recognize that more needs to be done to tackle climate change and that many already have agreed to hit net-zero emissions by 2050. He also noted that the new mayor of Calgary, Jyoti Gondek, wants the city to declare a climate emergency.

Canadians made it clear in the recent federal election campaign that they want “not just the federal government but all governments to do more” to address climate change, he said. (CBC) 

 

Tuesday October 26, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 26, 2021

Freeland positioning herself to take over as Liberal leader

August 24, 2021

A breathless account of Chrystia Freeland’s heroics in Ukraine published over the weekend must’ve put a smile on the face of our Deputy Prime Minister.

According to the American university professor who wrote the glowing article, she was so darn good at what she did that she had the grudging admiration of the KGB, that couldn’t keep up with her! The stuff of real-life Marvel heroes…

Let’s face it, Chrystia Freeland is positioning herself to take over as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and this type of publicity is tailor-made to help her achieve that ambition.

April 21, 2021

Much like Michael Ignatieff, Chrystia Freeland became almost famous south of the border with her writings and media savvy.

Unlike Ignatieff, she’s actually got some experience in government having ably run key ministries and, most admirably, outfoxed Donald Trump during the renegotiation of NAFTA.

If she succeeds, she’ll be taking over from one of the world’s major media figures, Justin Trudeau. A little bit of profile doesn’t hurt.

November 3, 2015

Trudeau’s inexplicable decision to disappear for a vacation on the very day he’d set aside to commemorate truth and reconciliation was more than just a heartless move. It was so hurtful to his brand that many are wondering if it isn’t also a sign that he’s had the biscuit.

We’ll no doubt have an avalanche of “progressive” promises as Trudeau swears in his new Cabinet and hands out mandate letters to the chosen few. It won’t really matter. Canadians have seen and heard enough.

From purchasing a pipeline, to continuing to subsidize oil and gas companies, to skipping out of town on a new national holiday, to complacency with sexual misconduct in the military, the lecturing and moralizing tone of Trudeau simply doesn’t carry much weight anymore. Key progressive issues such as climate change, reconciliation and women’s rights will need a new champion, one without the credibility issues that Trudeau now drags with him.

July 7, 2021

In fact, it’s Freeland’s presence during the worst of Trudeau, like the sacking of Jody Wilson-Raybould, that risks holding her back. She wasn’t content to just back Trudeau. When Wilson-Raybould resisted PMO interference in the prosecution of SNC Lavalin, Freeland attacked her for not being a team player

Freeland won’t get the top job without an examination of her role as Trudeau’s proxy and without a fight. There will be other contenders. (CTV)