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Canada’s efforts to reduce emissions from industries that produce or heavily use fossil fuels has been dealt a blow after an Edmonton-based company has scrapped plans for one of the country’s largest carbon-capture projects.
Capital Power Corporation announced yesterday that it is discontinuing pursuit of the $2.4-billion project because it does not work financially. The company earlier said that the proposal would annually capture up to 3 million tonnes of emissions from natural-gas units at its Genesee generating station in Alberta.
The decision relates at least in part to continuing tensions between industry and the federal government about the extent to which public dollars will be used to provide revenue certainty for this form of decarbonization.
Capital Power’s Genesee Power Plant is seen near Edmonton, Oct. 19, 2022.Jimmy Jeong/The Canadian Press
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As immigration debate heats up, Windsor’s refugees find warm welcome
A year ago, politicians and pundits warned that the sudden influx of asylum seekers to Canada was a full-blown crisis and that our immigration system was broken.
Officials in Toronto and Montreal said that their shelters and services were at capacity, with refugee claimants camped out in winter weather, on sidewalks and outside of shelters, turned away for lack of beds. The City of Niagara Falls, with its population of 94,000, was particularly vocal about challenges it faced as a result of the nearly 6,100 asylum seekers who had been bussed there.
But there’s little sign of that crisis in Windsor, where more than 1,400 asylum seekers live in a shelter hotel. Rima Nohra, manager of the Settlement Workers in School program, says that’s because the work of resettling newcomers “is nothing new to this region.” More than 23 per cent of Windsor’s population was foreign-born as of 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
Palestinian, Israeli students look to campus protests with gratitude, worry
From the nearly deserted al-Quds Open University in Ramallah, a group of Palestinian students have been watching the spreading protests at universities in North America with a mixture of gratitude and envy.
Grateful for the students speaking out against Israel’s war in Gaza and speaking up for Palestinian rights. And envy at the fact that they don’t have the same freedom of speech living and studying in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Barely 60 kilometres away, students at Tel Aviv University are observing the same protests with rising alarm. In the short term, the Israeli students worry about the current rise of antisemitism they see among the demonstrators. In the longer view, there’s concern that the next generation of U.S., Canadian and European leaders may see Israel as an aggressor state, rather than a democracy.
- Police removing barricades at UCLA as hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters defy order to leave
- Judge rejects injunction request to force McGill protesters to leave
- Four protesters who unfurled keffiyehs inside Ontario’s legislature banned from Queen’s Park
- Opinion: Police crackdowns won’t bring order to campuses
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Also on our radar
First report on foreign interference to be released: Justice Marie-Josée Hogue is set to release the first of two reports into meddling by other countries in Canada’s democracy. This first report will also look at the flow of foreign-interference assessments to senior government decision-makers, including elected officials, during the 2019 and 2021 general-election periods.
Speaker won’t step down amid calls for resignation: A day after he kicked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre out of the House of Commons for calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “wacko,” Speaker Greg Fergus ignored calls from the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois to resign.
- Konrad Yakabuski: Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre are both playing a dangerous game
U.S. Fed keeps interest rate steady: The U.S. Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate at a two-decade high of roughly 5.3 per cent and said that it doesn’t plan to cut rates until it has “greater confidence” that inflation will drop to its 2-per-cent target. Several hotter-than-expected reports on prices and economic growth have recently undercut the Fed’s belief that inflation was steadily easing.
TD investors concerned with lack of details about probe: Toronto-Dominion Bank investors are concerned with the lack of details about an investigation by U.S. regulators into the bank’s anti-money-laundering practices. The probe threatens to stunt growth after the lender disclosed it is setting aside US$450-million to cover penalties.
Mentally ill prisoner dies after vicious beating: A Toronto family is demanding answers from Ontario corrections officials after their schizophrenic relative died from a severe beating at Toronto South Detention Centre. The case raises new questions about the jail, which has been criticized by judges, and bears troubling similarities to another recent provincial prison death.
Morning markets
World markets were sluggish after U.S. stocks swung to a mixed finish yesterday with the Federal Reserve delaying cuts to interest rates, while the Japanese yen backtracked after another suspected bout of foreign-exchange intervention.
European markets opened mixed ahead of another busy day for corporate earnings, including Apple. In early trading, Britain’s FTSE rose 0.31 per cent, Germany’s DAX edged 0.08 per cent lower and France’s CAC 40 lost 0.8 per cent. Wall Street futures pointed higher.
Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.1 per cent lower at at 38,236.07.
The dollar traded at 72.89 U.S. cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Editorial: “Corporate subsidies are the potato chips of fiscal policy. Each one might seem like a fine enough idea. But once you start, it’s hard to stop. And then what started as a smallish snack (or industrial investment, if you prefer) turns into a habit. And a habit turns into a problem. The Liberals have indulged their taste for “investments” – or, stripped of euphemism, corporate subsidies – ever since they came to office.”
Cathal Kelly: “The thing that really links Leafs fans isn’t a shared love of Dave Keon, but a long, prideful streak of masochism. Admit it – you like the Leafs bad. It reassures you that in the midst of a disorienting world, one thing can be counted on to stay the same. The sun comes up and the Leafs lose.”
Today’s editorial cartoon
Illustration by David Parkins
Living better
The joys of growing your own food
Whether you have a large outdoor space or a windowsill, you can grow vegetables to eat. If you have a green thumb or taking your first shoe at gardening, check out Rosie Daykin’s The Side Gardener: Recipes & Notes from My Garden, a stunningly photographed bestselling cookbook, and try your hand at her wilted greens tart recipe.
Moment in time: May 2, 1964
Northern Dancer ridden by Bill Hartack (right) hits the finish wire winning the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.Bettmann/Getty Images
Northern Dancer wins Kentucky Derby
Canadian-born thoroughbred Northern Dancer was expected to be an also-ran. He was dismissed by the horse racing community as too small, certainly not able to go the distance with taller, sleeker competitors. But Northern Dancer loved to compete. He was also powerfully built and moved over the turf like a torpedo on four legs. All doubters were left gasping this day in 1964 when Northern Dancer came from back in the field and galloped down the stretch to victory in the prestigious Kentucky Derby. It wasn’t a fluke: The three-year-old bay set a track record of two minutes flat. Two weeks later, Northern Dancer claimed the Preakness Stakes, but his reach for the coveted Triple Crown fell short when he finished a disappointing third in the Belmont Stakes. He was the favourite for the Queen’s Plate later that year and thrilled Canadian hearts with another convincing win. Retirement from racing ushered in a much more lucrative career for Northern Dancer and owner E.P. Taylor. The horse was in great demand as a sire and fathered several champions. On his death in 1990, Northern Dancer was buried outside the barn where he was born at Windfields Farm, in Oshawa, Ont. Bill Waiser
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