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Thursday September 18, 2014

Thursday September 18, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 18, 2014

U.S. Steel Canada files for bankruptcy protection

U.S. Steel Canada is under court-ordered protection from its creditors.

The move, announced Tuesday, sat well with investors on U.S. markets on Wednesday. U.S. Steel was up 12 percent at $46.34 at 9:04 a.m. in New York. The stock (X:US) gained 40 percent this year through Tuesday’s close, Bloomberg reported.

In announcing the move, the company’s American parent said the Hamilton and Nanticoke plants have lost more than $2.4 billion over the last five years and the bleeding has to stop.

Michael McQuade, president and general manager of the former Stelco, said in a statement that financial restructuring is the only way to improving chances for the future.

“Despite substantial efforts over the past several years to make U.S. Steel Canada profitable, it is clear that restructuring … is critical to improving our long-term business outlook,” he said.

Canadian spokesperson Trevor Harris said it will be “business as usual and status quo for the time being” as restructuring negotiations get started.

The news release from the parent company noted pension costs as one of its major hurdles, saying the Canadian operation accounts for about $1 billion of its employee benefits liability. For 15,000 pensioners, that is a warning they could lose a chunk of their retirement income.

Pensioners would be out of pocket if the company wound up its Canadian pension plans in the current underfunded state. Some estimates have said that loss could be as high as 30 per cent.

That pension statement echoes claims Stelco made in 2004, when it sought protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangements Act (CCAA) saying the cost of topping up its badly under-funded pension plans was driving it out of business. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

 

OTHER MEDIA

Posted to Yahoo News Canada

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Tuesday, July 29, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Ontario’s battle over 3-litre milk jugs on grocery shelves

A spat over milk containers is souring relations between dairy farmers and manufacturers.

For months, Ontario’s milk bureaucracy has been battling over whether you should be able to buy 3 litres of milk in the grocery store.

On one side are the milk processors, represented by the Ontario Dairy Council, who want to open up the market entirely to 3-litre milk containers.

On the other is the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, which is concerned that 3 litres of milk will prove so popular that the 4-litre option disappears off shelves entirely.

“Our interest is only in ensuring that consumers are protected, and we are of the view that the 4-litre containers are essential, and we want to make sure that they continue with respect to the plastic bags,” said Graham Lloyd, general counsel for the DFO.

The dispute started last December, when Ontario’s farm products marketing board gave Mac’s Convenience Stores permission to sell 3-litre plastic milk jugs — only jugs, not bags — on a one-year pilot program.

The Ontario Dairy Council appealed, arguing that such a limited program would give some processors an unfair head start in the 3-litre field. It favours a general ruling with no restrictions on container type or retailer.

After initial arguments over jurisdictional rights and access to redacted documents, the issue is now heading for the quasi-judicial Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal. (Source: Toronto Star)

OTHER MEDIA

This cartoon was posted on Yahoo News Canada and the Ottawa Citizen.

 

Friday July 11, 2014

Friday July 11, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 11, 2014

Ontario Government vows to reintroduce crackdown on distracted driving

Premier Kathleen Wynne says she’s concerned that Ontario teens are forming bad habits when it comes to texting while driving, after a new survey suggested an alarming number of students are typing while behind the wheel.

Thursday, February 27, 2014“It’s very worrisome to me because when young people start to have a habit of driving and texting, that’s harder to break,” she said.

Her re-elected Liberal government will bring back legislation that would toughen penalties and add demerit points for distracted driving, Wynne said.

“These machines are so ubiquitous in their lives that they just have them with them all the time, and so we need to break that cycle,” she said.

The survey conducted for the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health found that more than one-third of licensed Ontario students in Grades 10 to 12 — an estimated 108,000 teens — reported having texted while behind the wheel at least once in the past year.

Among Grade 12 students alone, 46 per cent of those who drive say they also texted at least once while operating a vehicle, according to the 2013 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey.

Yet the student surveys have found that the percentage of students who reported drinking and driving has declined dramatically over the past 20 years, it said.

There are more deaths as a result of texting while driving than drunk driving, Wynne said.

“It’s a real problem and that’s why we’ll be reintroducing the legislation.”

The previous bill, which would impose three demerit points in addition to increasing the maximum fine for distracted driving to $1,000, died when the June 12 election was called. (Source: Toronto Star)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Posted to Yahoo News Canada. Ran in Thunder Bay Chronicle, St. John’s Telegram, Ottawa Citizen, Nanaimo Daily News, Prince George Citizen, Brandon Sun, and Regina Leader Post

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Thursday, May 8, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, May 8, 2014

Death of an Original Hipster

Farley Mowat, one of Canada’s best-known authors and a noted environmentalist, has died at age 92.

Mary Shaw-Rimmington, the author’s assistant, confirmed his passing to CBC News on Wednesday afternoon. Mowat died at his home in Port Hope, Ont.

Mowat, author of dozens of works including Lost in the Barrens and Never Cry Wolf, introduced Canada to readers around the world and shared everything from his time abroad during the Second World War, to his travels in the North and his concern for the deteriorating environment.

Pierre Berton 1920-2004

More than 17 million copies of his books, which have been translated into dozens of languages, have been sold worldwide. The gregarious writer was a consummate storyteller, whose works spanned non-fiction, children’s titles and memoirs.

Describing Mowat as “a passionate Canadian,” Prime Minster Stephen Harper touted the writer as “a natural storyteller with a real gift for sharing personal anecdotes in a witty and endearing way.” (Source: CBC News)

Meanwhile, we may have reached “peak beard frequency,” according to research published in the journal Biology Letters recently.

Men’s facial hair trends may be guided by Darwinian selection, researchers hypothesized. So they asked women and men to rate different faces with “four standard levels of beardedness.” The faces that were rarer were rated as more appealing. It’s an evolutionary phenomenon known as “negative frequency-dependent sexual selection.”

“The idea is that perhaps people start copying the George Clooneys and the Joaquin Phoenixs and start wearing those beards, but then when more and more people get onto the bandwagon the value of being on the bandwagon diminishes, so that might be why we’ve hit ‘peak beard’,” study author Prof Rob Brooks told the BBC.

“Peak beard” is reached when the most men in professions not usually associated with facial hear sport beards. The BBC suggests that may have happened in January when a Newsnight

Some say the Rubicon was crossed in January when Jeremy Paxman, the BBC Newsnight presenter, shaved his beard off, saying “beards are SO 2013.”

When “peak beard” frequency is reached, the pendulum swings back toward lesser-bristled chins — a trend we may be witnessing now, the scientists say. (Source: Discovery.com)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Tuesday, October 8, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Stephen Harper to boycott Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka

The Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, has said he will not attend a November summit of the Commonwealth in Sri Lanka because of what he called human rights abuses on the island.

“We remain disturbed by ongoing reports of intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances, and allegations of extra-judicial killings,” he said in a statement on Monday.

The UN’s human rights chief said last month Sri Lanka could be sliding toward an authoritarian system as the country’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, gathered power around him.

Harper is the only leader from the Commonwealth, which groups Britain and many former colonies, to announce he will boycott the November summit. Britain also has criticised human rights in Sri Lanka.

Harper said it was unacceptable that Sri Lanka had yet to investigate allegations of atrocities during and after a long civil war with Tamil rebels, which ended in 2009. Sri Lanka has denied allegations its troops committed major crimes.

“It is clear that the Sri Lankan government has failed to uphold the Commonwealth’s core values, which are cherished by Canadians … I will not attend the 2013 Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Colombo,” said Harper.

Canada will be represented by Deepak Obhrai, the parliamentary secretary to the foreign minister, John Baird. (Source: The Guardian)

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This cartoon is featured in a gallery of editorial cartoons at Yahoo! Canada News and posted to the Yahoo! Canada News Facebook page. It’s also found at Cagle Cartoons.