Food & Energy
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How many new jobs do you have to create to transition a workforce?
It depends who you ask.
But the answer is at the heart of an intergovernmental spat with significant implications for the economy, employment and the environment.
About 138,000 people work in oil and gas in Alberta, per Statistics Canada. A federal ministerial briefing note put the number at 187,000.
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For the first time, Canada’s national energy regulator has looked at how oil and gas production will change in a net-zero world, where countries hit their climate goals — and it shows a future without much demand for Canadian fossil fuels.
In its widely read annual report on the country’s energy future, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) modelled scenarios where the world and Canada successfully head toward net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which is seen as key to limiting global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels — the goal of the international Paris Agreement.
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Read MoreThe Bank of England is expected to raise the base rate for the 13th time in a row
Interest rates remaining stubbornly high has been attributed to the “mad” push for Net Zero by Reform UK leader Richard Tice.
On Thursday, the Bank of England is expected to raise the base rate for the 13th time in a row, having already increased it from 0.1 per cent in December 2021 to 4.5 per cent, where it currently stands.
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Read More‘Support local’: Young mom launching rural farmers market
Kaitlyn Stoddart, joined here by her two young boys, is the lead organizer of Dutton’s new artisan and farmers market inside the local community centre at 1 Scotland St. beginning Saturday, June 24. (Submitted)
Young mom launches farmers market in rural community
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Read MoreMayor Valérie Plante says she doesn’t want Montreal to become like Toronto or Vancouver — cities where only rich people can afford housing.
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She made the comment as she dismissed Premier François Legault’s contention that higher housing prices are an inevitable side effect of rising salaries.
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Read MoreIronside Energy on a pipeline project near Lampman in 2021. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
OTTAWA – The report’s name may not include the term “just transition,” but the House of Commons Natural Resources Committee report released on June 19 was all about it. And the report means to change Canada in almost every manner imaginable, from powering vehicles and heating homes, to largely winding down one of our nation’s largest industries – oil and gas. Hence, the need for a “just transition” to other jobs.
Just before Parliament rises for the summer, the Natural Resources Committee came out with it’s “just transition” report. Expect it’s not called that now. Now it’s “energy transformation.” It just talks and awful lot about “just transition.”
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Read MoreSwedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg made a dire prediction on June 21, 2018. On that day she tweeted, “A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.”
Bjorn Lomborg, author of ‘Best Things First’, ‘False Alarm’, and ‘Skeptical Environmentalist’ and president of the Copenhagen Consensus: smart solutions through economic prioritization, made light of Thunberg’s dire warning on Twitter on June 21, 2023. He pointed out Greta’s tweet “is now deleted.”
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Read MoreCanada Bread has agreed to pay $50 million after admitting to colluding with competitors in Canada’s bakery industry to fix bread prices.
“Fixing the price of bread—a food staple of Canadian households—was a serious criminal offence,” said Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell in a June 21 release. “Our continuing investigation remains a top priority. We are doing everything in our power to pursue those who engage in price-fixing.”
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Read MoreThis commentary is based on a speech given at the Council for Clean and Reliable Energy in Banff, Alberta, May 15th, 2023.
The public conversation around energy has shifted tremendously since Russia invaded Ukraine last February. In practical terms it has raised – or rather returned – deliberations on energy systems from a subordinate of climate policy to a focus on its own merits. This begs the question: how did energy security ever become a secondary issue in Canadian public policy?
The holy trinity of energy is reliability, affordability, and sustainability. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 adds “modern” to the list, an acknowledgement that for about 40% of the world’s population, wood and dung are still the primary sources of household energy. But for the western world it’s the trifecta that matters.
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Read MoreAfter controversy surrounding Apeel — a Gates-funded synthetic fungicide and fruit coating — sparked concern over how chemicals are approved in organic products, agribusiness watchdog OrganicEye this week demanded the U.S. Department of Agriculture break Big Food’s stranglehold on the process for approving certified organic foods.
Agribusiness watchdog OrganicEye this week petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to establish formal regulatory oversight for the public and private organizations that determine what products can be labeled organic.
The request comes after a recent social media controversy surrounding a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded synthetic fungicide and fruit coating — Apeel — sparked public debate about potentially dangerous synthetic products and herbicides that make it into the food system under the “organic” label.
“The conflicts of interest in this process are mind-boggling,” said Mark Kastel, executive director of Wisconsin-based OrganicEye. “It’s time for the USDA to change direction to comply with the intent of Congress and save the value of the organic label for ethical farmers and their loyal customers.”
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