Economy
Expected to slash profitability by a striking additional $500 million compared to last year, Fiddelke indicated that ‘theft and organized retail crime’ are ‘increasingly important drivers of the issue’. To combat this, Target is being compelled to invest significantly in strategies to safeguard its stores, guests, and team.
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Read MoreCharging an electric vehicle (EV) is a time-consuming burden — which is why the notion of battery swapping, dismissed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and many others as unworkable, is still percolating.
Why it matters: Many drivers won’t embrace EVs unless the refueling experience is as seamless as filling up a gas tank.
Driving the news: Ample, a California startup dedicated to battery swapping, is introducing a new streamlined station that cuts the process in half, to about five minutes.
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Read MoreFinance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday said federal debt charges are “absolutely handleable” but would not discuss the figure. Freeland testified for 90 minutes at the Commons finance committee to break a Conservative filibuster of her budget bill.
“It is so important that we work together to pass this legislation as quickly as possible,” testified Freeland. The finance minister had ignored three previous requests to appear for questioning.
“I’ll acknowledge the Minister is here after multiple requests that she has ignored even though the Governor of the Bank of Canada has come regularly at the committee’s request,” said Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn). The filibuster covering 23 hours over three weeks has prevented votes on Bill C-47 the Budget Implementation Act.
Conservative MP Adam Chambers (Simcoe North, Ont.) yesterday challenged Minister Freeland over ongoing deficits that raised the federal debt past $1.1 trillion, according to Public Accounts. “When you have a party you have to pay the band,” said Chambers.
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Read MoreA federal program offering homeowners “green” grants to refit their property is under-subscribed by almost 60 percent, records show. The Department of Natural Resources acknowledged “challenges.”
“The Canada Greener Homes grant aims to support up to 700,000 homeowners with grants of up to $5,000 for retrofits,” the department wrote in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons. “The department is confident the program will reach this target.”
Only 287,198 homeowners have applied to date since the program was launched two years ago, about 41 percent of the target. Of those a total 59,350 received a grant. Figures were released at the request of New Democrat MP Taylor Bachrach (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.) who asked, “With regard to homeowner applications received by the Greener Homes program since its inception, what percentage of applications have been approved?”
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Read MoreCanada has a prolific mining history.
The country is famous for its vast reserves of gold, copper, coal, iron ore and uranium. We are the third largest gold producer, and many of the world’s junior resource companies are listed on the TSX or the TSX Venture Exchange; most juniors are based in Vancouver.
World-famous area plays include the Abitibi Gold Belt in Ontario/Quebec, volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) copper-gold deposits around Snow Lake, Manitoba, Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin, and the Golden Triangle in BC.
The Abitibi Greenstone Belt, which stretches from Ontario to Quebec, has produced over 180 million ounces of gold, unparalleled anywhere on the planet except in the gold fields of South Africa.
The Abitibi spawned four of the greatest gold camps in Canada: Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Red Lake and Hemlo.
The Eskay Creek mine in northwestern BC was Canada’s highest grade gold mine and the world’s fifth largest silver producer, with production well over 3 million ounces of gold and 160 million ounces of silver.
While Canada is still known as a mining powerhouse (three provinces were in the top 10 jurisdictions for mining investment in the latest Fraser Institute rankings, the passage of recent legislation is concerning.
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Read MoreThe City of Toronto is facing a severe budget crunch.1 At the same time, Torontonians are understandably demanding more action on issues such as safety on the TTC subway and the growing mental health crisis. With increasing stresses on municipal services, Toronto City Council will need to find creative ways and make better choices to address these concerns in the future.
One of these choices should be to implement a fair, open, and competitive tendering process for Toronto’s infrastructure construction.
Prior to 2019, municipal infrastructure procurement in some Ontario cities was restricted to firms whose workers belonged to certain building trade unions, functioning effectively as an oligopoly on procurement in these municipalities. Previous Cardus research has demonstrated that these restrictions led to significant decreases in competition for taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects and resulted in significantly higher costs for taxpayers in these cities.2
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Read MoreAs China keeps trying to menace other countries into submission, the latest bully tactics could work out for Canada.
These are not good times for Canadian politicians or businesspeople with interests in maintaining the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” charade that has characterized Canada-China relations. If anything, Beijing — which declined an opportunity to defuse the latest crisis — seems primed for confrontation.
After Chinese government security agent Zhao Wei was outed in the Canadian news media for allegedly interfering with Canada’s affairs and harassing family members of MP Michael Chong, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave the Chinese Embassy a week to gracefully withdraw Zhao, who was based in China’s Toronto consulate.
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Read MoreThe Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is gave a failing grade to the Alberta NDP’s plan to hike taxes.
“This NDP plan would hike taxes on job creators and that’s a reckless thing to do in a province that’s booming and hiring thousands of people,” said Kris Sims, Alberta director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“People are flocking here in record numbers to work hard and pay lower taxes, this huge NDP tax hike would be a scarecrow for entrepreneurs.”
On Tuesday, the Alberta NDP announced it would hike the province’s general business tax rate from 8% up to 11%
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Read MoreOpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before members of the Senate on Tuesday about the risks from artificial intelligence advancements, encouraging lawmakers to implement regulations.
ChatGPT, a mass-market AI system developed by OpenAI, has gained widespread popularity over the last six months as knowledge workers use the tool to complete tasks such as writing code and drafting emails in a matter of seconds. Altman, who dined on Monday evening with five dozen lawmakers, said in opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning that he knows the firm’s technology will have “profound impacts” on the world.
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