Food & Energy

On second longest day of the year, clouds reduce Alberta solar generation by half at noon

By Iron Will / June 20, 2023 /

Alberta has 1,209 megawatts of nameplate installed solar generation capacity. And at noon on June 20, the second longest day of the year, all of that solar generation was producing half of the rated capacity.

At 11:00 a.m. it was producing around 400 megawatts, according to the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO). That’s one-third of nameplate capacity. By 12:12 p.m., the number had risen to 590 megawatts – half of theoretical capacity.

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Millions Of Cars Unsafe: Feds

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

Millions of unsafe vehicles are on Canadian roads due to an odd gap in federal regulations, says the Department of Transport. It counted up to 6.6 million “unsafe vehicles” driven by unwitting owners.

“It is estimated up to one in five vehicles in use on Canada’s roads has an unresolved safety recall,” the department wrote Saturday in a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement. “Based on the 33.3 million registered vehicles in 2019 this means that approximately 6.6 million unsafe vehicles are still circulating on Canadian roads, potentially endangering not only the occupants but also other road users.”

Under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act automakers are required to notify dealers and buyers of safety recalls. “Many still go unresolved,” wrote staff, especially involving used vehicles with e

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US judge orders Enbridge to reroute Line 5 section, pay trespass fines

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

A Wisconsin judge has ordered Calgary-based Enbridge to reroute a section of its controversial Line 5 pipeline and pay a local Chippewa community more than $5.2 million for illegally trespassing on its traditional reserve lands.

US District Judge William Conley further ordered on Friday Enbridge to adopt a redevelopment plan and new route for nearly 20 km of the line that crosses the Bad River reservation within 21 days and remove it entirely within three years or forego a portion of the line’s profits for every day it remains in the ground.

Line 5 transports 540,000 barrels of oil a day into the Great Lakes region before coming back up into Canada near Sarnia.

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PBO warns recent corporate handouts set dangerous precedent

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

Following massive deals the Trudeau government signed with large corporations, which have seen taxpayers foot billions of dollars, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) warns that such instances of corporate welfare set a dangerous precedent.

“It leads to all kinds of behaviours we’ve seen in the past, and while it can also lead to the development of a strong ecosystem, it comes at a significant cost, and the risk established in a precedent like with Volkswagen is other companies will expect certain treatment,” PBO Yves Giroux told True North.

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Kelly McParland: Olivia Chow’s Toronto fantasy could bring progressive doom

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

Kelly McParland: Olivia Chow’s Toronto fantasy could bring progressive doom
Her platform is rife with plans to make an even harder to build housing

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Canadians Celebrate Tax Freedom Day on June 19, 2023

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

In 2023, the average Canadian family will earn $140,106 in income and pay an estimated $64,610 in total taxes (46.1%).
If the average Canadian family had to pay its taxes up front, it would have worked until June 18 to pay the total tax bill imposed on it by all three levels of government (federal, provincial, and local).
This means that Tax Freedom Day, the day in the year when the average Canadian family has earned enough money to pay the taxes imposed on it, falls on June 19.
Tax Freedom Day in 2023 comes one day earlier than in 2022, when it fell on June 20. This change is due to the expectation that the incomes of Canadians will increase faster than the total tax revenues forecasted by Canadian governments.
Tax Freedom Day for each province varies according to the extent of the provincially levied tax burden. The earliest provincial Tax Freedom Day falls on June 6 in Manitoba, while the latest falls on June 30 in Quebec.

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Tax bill for Canadian families higher now than before COVID

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

The cost of living remains top of mind for many Canadian families, particularly at the grocery store where prices have risen rapidly. But one growing expense for families has flown under the radar—taxes.

While it’s easy enough to check your income tax return or pay stub to see how much you pay in personal income taxes, it’s a much more difficult task to calculate your total tax bill because Canadians pay many different taxes. Not only do we pay income taxes, we also pay sales taxes, health taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes and many others. And while some of these taxes are visible, many are hidden, which only adds to the confusion.

To help clarify the situation, each year the Fraser Institute calculates Tax Freedom Day, which is the day of the year when the average Canadian family has earned enough money to pay all taxes levied by the federal, provincial and local governments. In other words, if Canadians were required to pay all their taxes up front, they would have to pay every dollar they earned to government prior to Tax Freedom Day.

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Buttigieg says US ‘green corridors’ initiative is key to cutting shipping industry emissions

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

An American push to establish “green shipping corridors” is key to reducing carbon emissions from the shipping industry, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday while touring the port of Yokohama near Tokyo.

Buttigieg was in Japan to attend a meeting over the weekend of transport ministers of the Group of Seven advanced economies, who reaffirmed a commitment to reducing emissions from the transport industry and to keeping navigation free and open in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Cruising to Nome: The first U.S. deep water port for the Arctic to host cruise ships, military

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

The cruise ship with about 1,000 passengers anchored off Nome, too big to squeeze into into the tundra city’s tiny port. Its well-heeled tourists had to shimmy into small boats for another ride to shore.

It was 2016, and at the time, the cruise ship Serenity was the largest vessel ever to sail through the Northwest Passage.

But as the Arctic sea ice relents under the pressures of global warming and opens shipping lanes across the top of the world, more tourists are venturing to Nome — a northwest Alaska destination known better for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and its 1898 gold rush than luxury travel.

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Over 100,000 B.C. households on the verge of homelessness

By Iron Will / June 19, 2023 /

The average rent in B.C. increased 30 per cent from 2016 to 2021 — the largest increase of any province — making B.C. one of the country’s most unaffordable place for renters to live, according to a new analysis.

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The latest findings from the Canadian Rental Housing Index, a national database of rental housing data, revealed a “staggering increase” in rental costs across the country, with B.C. and Ontario leading the country with the highest proportion of renters spending more than half of their gross income on rent and utilities.

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