Federal government offers grants for small businesses in fire-stricken Jasper, Alta.

Premier Doug Ford’s government has signed a $100-million deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to deliver high-speed internet to remote residents in rural and northern Ontario.

The new program called ONSAT — which stands for Ontario Satellite Internet — will bring SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet system to 15,000 premises, said Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma.

“These communities will gain access to high-speed satellite internet capable of supporting streaming video calls, online gaming and more activities that have become second nature to so many of us,” Surma said.

The service will be used to connect people in the hardest-to-reach areas of the province to the internet, she said.

The system will go live next June with eligibility and registration starting in the spring.

The province will cover equipment and installation costs, but not monthly fees.

“It is an investment of close to $100 million,” Surma said.

Ford highlighted the investment in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Cool,” replied Musk, who also owns X.

SpaceX won after a “robust and transparent and competitive and fair technical and financial evaluation of multiple qualified parties,” said Michael Lindsay, CEO of Infrastructure Ontario.

Indigenous “engagement and participation” is part of the contract Infrastructure Ontario signed with SpaceX, he said.

“SpaceX is going to engage directly with Indigenous communities to ensure equal access to the program and to create socio-economic opportunities through employment contracting and training opportunities,” Lindsay said.

Installation is relatively straightforward and fast, said Joel Cherkis, who runs the business operations for Starlink.

They saw early success in 2020 when they rolled out the Starlink system to the people of Pikangikum First Nation in northwestern Ontario. The remote community is only accessible by air or an ice road in the winter.

“The Starlink team that was working with them found that within 15 minutes of getting the Starlink kit off of the charter flight that arrived at the First Nation, they were able to be online and actually connecting users to high-speed broadband,” Cherkis said.

SpaceX launches about 40 satellites per week into the lower orbit, about 550 kilometres above Earth, he said.

The move is part of the province’s $4-billion plan to deliver high-speed projects to every corner of Ontario. It has so far invested $2.5 billion in 270 projects, Surma said. That has connected 100,000 Ontarians to high-speed internet, and there are plans to connect 450,000 more.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

CALGARY – The massive price discount on Canadian oil and gas assets compared with those south of the border was likely a major factor behind Ovintiv Inc.’s multi-billion-dollar move to snap up assets in Alberta’s Montney region, according to one analyst.

“Ovintiv appears to have found a bargain,” said Andrew Dittmar, principal analyst at Enverus Intelligence Research, on Thursday.

“With the value disconnect between inventory pricing in the lower 48 (U.S. states) compared to the Canadian resource plays, more U.S.-focused companies should consider acquisitions in Canada.”

Dittmar made the comments just hours after the Denver-based energy giant announced it was paying about $3.3 billion in cash for 44,110 hectares in the Montney from Calgary-based Paramount Resources Ltd.

Ovintiv, formerly known as Encana Corp., also said it was selling about 51,000 hectares of largely undeveloped land in Utah’s Uinta Basin for $2.8 billion.

In a news release, the company said the new assets will add about 900 total well locations and 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production, while the Uinta holdings produce about 29,000 barrels of oil and condensate production per day.

It said the new assets are strategically located near its current Montney operations and have access to already existing storage and transportation infrastructure.

“The Montney is the second largest undeveloped oil resource in North America, and with this acquisition, we have solidified our position as the premier operator in the play,” said Ovintiv chief executive Brendan McCracken in a statement.

Ovintiv moved its headquarters from Calgary to Denver in 2020, a change it said at the time would give the company access to larger pools of investment in U.S. index funds and passively managed accounts, as well as better align it with its U.S. peers.

The company has significant assets in Texas’ Permian Basin, the largest oil-and-gas-producing basin in the U.S., but as of 2022 was also the largest operator in the Montney region, with an extensive land base in both northwest B.C. and northeast Alberta.

While Utah’s Uinta basin has seen increasing interest from oil and gas producers, Ovintiv didn’t view it as competitive for growth capital with its Montney and Permian assets, Dittmar said.

He added given the current sky-high pricing of inventory in the Permian compared with relative discounts in the Montney, it was likely an easy decision for Ovintiv to jump on the opportunity to acquire the Paramount assets.

“That deal was acquired for less than $1 million per undeveloped location, while comparable quality inventory in the Permian is likely to cost four times as much,” Dittmar said.

On a conference call with analysts Thursday to discuss the deal, McCracken acknowledged the price differential between U.S. and Canadian assets made the Montney deal appealing. But he declined to speculate when asked whether the attractive pricing could lead Ovintiv to pursue further acquisitions north of the border.

“Clearly we’ve put ourselves in a position of strength, both here and in the Permian … and we’re just going to be extremely disciplined stewards of our shareholder capital moving forward,” McCracken said.

Ovintiv said following the closing of the transactions, it plans to run an average of three rigs across its combined Montney acreage, five rigs on its Permian acreage and one to two rigs on its Anadarko acreage in Oklahoma. Approximately 85 to 90 per cent of its 2025 total capital is expected to be allocated to the Permian and the Montney, the company said.

The company expects capital spending of about $3.1 billion next year and production to average about 205,000 barrels per day of oil and condensate.

Thursday’s deal also includes Ovintiv transferring its Horn River assets in B.C. to Paramount and taking possession of Paramount’s Zama assets in Alberta.

The streamlining will lead to about $175 million in annual cost synergies, the company said.

The sale of the Uinta holdings will go toward covering the cost of the Montney acquisition, while Ovintiv has also suspended its share buyback program until it has paid back the cash borrowed for the deal.

For its part, Paramount said it will now be well-positioned to continue the development of its assets in the Duvernay formation in west-central Alberta.

The company said it intends to use a portion of the proceeds from the Ovintiv deal to provide a “meaningful return” to shareholders.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:OVV, TSX:POU)

TORONTO – Ontario’s plan to remove bike lanes on three major roads in Toronto will cost more than $48 million and likely lead to only minimally faster commutes for drivers, city staff say in a new report.

The Progressive Conservative government is fast-tracking legislation that would require municipalities to ask the province for permission to install bike lanes when they would remove a lane of vehicle traffic.

It also plans to go one step further and remove sections of Bloor Street, Yonge Street, and University Avenue bike lanes and restore them as lanes for vehicle traffic.

But Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, an avid cyclist herself, asked city staff to look into what can be done because she says the legislation will overturn the decisions and work of a democratically elected council at “tremendous” cost to the taxpayer.

The subject of bike lanes has sparked heated debate in recent weeks, but Chow told her council colleagues at a meeting Thursday it doesn’t matter what side of the issue they fall on — they should stand up for local democracy and municipal jurisdiction.

“Whether you support bike lanes or you don’t support bike lanes, I think it’s important that this council and the people of Toronto have the respect they deserve,” Chow said.

“Once a decision is made we deserve the respect because we are a level of government. Each … councillor is duly elected by your constituents.”

Chow said she wants to know if there are grounds for litigation, and the city solicitor will look at that once the province’s regulations are finalized and the bill passes.

Staff say in their report that the estimated cost of over $48 million includes road reconstruction and road resurfacing.

Provincial officials disputed that estimate, but did not provide their own. They noted that previous bike lane removals in the city cost far less, including about $300,000 for bike lane removals on Jarvis Street.

“Toronto is the one of the economic drivers of this country, but we are losing more than $11 billion every year to gridlock and congestion,” Dakota Brasier, a spokesperson for Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria wrote in a statement.

“Bike lanes should only go where they make sense. It’s clear that the city’s approach isn’t working and we encourage them to listen to the thousands of common sense drivers to help clear our major roads and get people out of traffic.”

Premier Doug Ford has cited traffic congestion as the reason for removing the bike lanes, but city staff say travel times will get worse during that construction work and there will likely be “minimal improvements in travel time once lanes are removed.”

“When a motor vehicle lane is considered for removal, traffic analysis is completed and staff work to mitigate impacts in the design, such as managing traffic capacity at intersections through the inclusion of turn lanes,” staff wrote.

“The experience in Toronto has been that while travel times for people driving are sometimes found to increase immediately following the installation of bike lanes that impact motor vehicle lanes, once further adjustments are made to optimize operations, the long-term impacts to travel time for drivers are generally minor.”

Chow suggested that if the province is concerned about congestion, they should ensure the long-delayed Eglinton LRT opens.

The estimated price tag doesn’t include any potential costs associated with changing or cancelling existing construction or maintenance contracts, staff said.

The bike lanes have also led to large increases in cyclists along those roads, staff wrote, and have led to decreases in collisions and injuries to cyclists, pedestrians and drivers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.

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