TORONTO —
The sky cleared across some parts of Canada early Wednesday and conditions were expected to improve further as the day progressed, amid warnings that the wildfire-induced haze will likely return before long.
“I think … the story, for the rest of the summer into August, is ‘smoke, smoke, smoke from coast to coast,'” Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips told CTV’s Your Morning.
There were no air quality alerts in place for southern Quebec or southern Ontario as of 9:30 a.m. EDT on Wednesday – a starkly different picture than 24 hours earlier, when most inhabitants of both regions were warned of potentially dangerous smoke and haze.
In the East, all of New Brunswick remained under an air quality advisory, with Environment Canada reporting that smoke from the wildfires in northern Ontario should leave the area later Wednesday.
The situation was very different in the West – though there, too, air quality was generally a little bit better than it was on Tuesday. Advisories remained in place for parts of northwestern Ontario, most of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Fort Chipewyan area in northeastern Alberta, and Thebacha Region in the Northwest Territories. In B.C., the air quality advisory expanded to include more of the province’s interior, including the Fraser Canyon.
“There’s still a huge area that is affected by this,” Phillips said.
Environment Canada’s Air Quality Health Index listed Winnipeg as the only major city in which air quality posed a high risk to human health as of 9:30 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. That category had included Edmonton, Regina, Montreal and Quebec City 24 hours earlier, while Winnipeg was at that time listed under very high risk.
The poor air quality was caused by drifting smoke from forest fires in the West and Ontario. The arrival of southerly winds had done much to improve the air quality situation, Phillips said, by pushing that smoke northward, away from major cities.
Meanwhile, parts of the North were under extreme heat warnings as a warm airmass brought unusually hot weather to some regions. Environment Canada was warning of daily highs just below 30 C for both Wednesday and Thursday in such communities as Old Crow, Yukon and the Northwest Territories’ Inuvik Region.
A typical late-July high in Old Crow is barely above 20 C; Wednesday’s forecast high of 28 C is higher than any temperature ever recorded in the community on any July 21.
The abnormal heat has also left Yukoners preparing for unprecedented flooding, as snowpacks are melting more quickly than normal under the stress of the sun. Sandbagging operations are underway along the Yukon River in Whitehorse, and evacuation orders have been issued for a handful of low-lying properties elsewhere in the territory.
Projections from Yukon Energy show that by August, water levels in the Southern Lakes Region will be 20 to 80 centimetres above where they were in 2007, which is the record high-water mark.
EXPECT MORE HEAT, DROUGHTS AND SMOKE
In most parts of Canada where smoke and haze continued to fill the sky, Environment Canada forecasts that conditions should clear by Thursday.
Phillips warned, however, that as long as fires continue to burn – there were nearly 900 of them across the country, as of Tuesday night – a change in weather could bring the smoky conditions right back.
“There may be a reprieve in one day, or two days – but hey, it’s coming back. You can’t extinguish those fires overnight,” he said.
More concerning, Phillips said, is how many fires are burning so early in the year. Wildfire activity in Canada tends to peak later in the summer – and with Environment Canada’s forecast showing warmer-than-normal temperatures for the rest of July and into August, conditions could be ripe for more fires to be sparked.
“My sense is [that] this is a story that is going to carry on, and we could see it maybe into September,” Phillips said.
Of course, heat alone does not cause wildfires or create the conditions for them to spread. There’s also the matter of moisture. A forest that has regularly been rained on doesn’t burn nearly as easily as one that hasn’t had a drop to drink in weeks.
That’s why the wildfire season in Western Canada has gotten off to such a busy start: lengthy spring drought left forests tinder-dry. When rain finally arrived, it also brought lightning – the spark that was needed to start the blazes.
The combination of heat and drought has had other consequences, too, including leaving Prairie farmers facing a difficult growing season.
“It’s deteriorating here rather quickly … almost to the point of having no production,” Brad Erb, a grain farmer in Oak Bluff, Man., told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday.
Erb said that he has not seen a summer this dry in more than 30 years. Most of his canola crop has been ruined; he hopes there will be enough rain to salvage the corn and soybeans.
Some ranchers have even run out of feed for their cattle, unable to bale a sufficient amount of hay.
“The situation there is pretty dire in terms of getting feed and water to the animals,” Erb said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
