News
Canadian military to provide air support as BC battles wildfires – Al Jazeera English
Authorities in western province of British Columbia are fighting large blazes that broke out after an historic heatwave.
Canada’s military will provide air support to the western province of British Columbia (BC) as it battles a series of massive wildfires that broke out after days of record temperatures.
In a statement on Sunday, the federal government said the army would help transport “personnel, supplies and equipment into and out of areas affected by fires” in the province, as well as aid in any emergency evacuations.
Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, said the military’s support would be available until July 19.
“Canadians can be assured that all orders of government are working together to keep British Columbians and their communities safe,” Blair said in the statement.
Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes due to the blazes, which come after a record-breaking heatwave is believed to have contributed to hundreds of deaths across the province, according to local officials.
Experts say climate change is worsening extreme weather events, such as the wildfires and heatwave seen in BC – and that has prompted calls for the Canadian government to move away from large fossil fuel projects, such as pipelines.
On Sunday afternoon, a BC Wildfire Service dashboard showed 184 fires were still active in BC, and authorities said they feared more could be ignited.
“Unfortunately, we are expecting another lightning event to move through areas of the southern interior,” said BC provincial fire information officer Jean Strong, as reported by CBC News. “And if we see that … I would expect to see more ignitions.”
Local media reported that at least two people died in the village of Lytton, about 275km (170 miles) northeast of Vancouver in the BC interior, after enormous fires and smoke overwhelmed the community and forced a rapid evacuation on Wednesday.
Lytton had earlier broken Canada’s highest temperature record for several days in a row.
Chief Matt Pasco of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council, which includes Lytton First Nation, condemned the evacuation in an interview with The Canadian Press this weekend.
Pasco accused the government of ignoring the community’s needs in the early hours of the emergency. “It was an abysmal attempt at the very thing they’re meant to do,” he told the news agency. “They had processes in places for our cattle but none for Nlaka’pamux people.”
The BC government acknowledged that “early communication” with Indigenous leaders “didn’t live up to expectations”, CP reported.
In a statement on Sunday, the province said Royal Canadian Mounted Police “continue to make every effort to ensure all residents and evacuees from the Village of Lytton and the neighbouring Indigenous communities are safe and accounted for”.
The government also urged residents who have been evacuated from their homes to register with the authorities “so loved ones and communities know where you are and that you are safe”.
It said emergency support services have been set up to provide evacuees with food, clothing and a place to stay, while reception centres also were established in several locations, including the cities of Kamloops, Chilliwack and Kelowna.
News
We're still stockpiling reusable bags. Big grocers have adopted solutions, but experts have concerns – CBC News
Canada’s plastic bag ban has had an unintended consequence: a proliferation of reusable bags piling up in basements, closets and, eventually, landfills.
“They’re everywhere,” said environmental researcher Tony Walker. “We’re drowning in them, and we shouldn’t be.”
To combat the problem, several of Canada’s big grocers have introduced solutions. Last week, Walmart launched a free national recycling pilot program for the retailer’s reusable blue bags. Competitors Sobeys and chains owned by Loblaw Companies Ltd. use recyclable paper bags for grocery delivery.
But some environmental experts argue that paper bags are also problematic and that the best solutions are those that help customers actually reuse their reusable bags.
“We just can’t keep giving [them] out,” said Walker, a professor at Dalhousie University’s School for Resource and Environmental Studies in Halifax. “We’re only meant to have a few of them, and we’re meant to use them until they fall apart.”
In late 2022, the federal government rolled out a ban on the manufacture, import and sale of several single-use plastics, including checkout bags. The regulations are being contested in court, but in the meantime, they remain in effect.
The regulations have made single-use shopping bags scarce in Canada, but they’ve also led to the proliferation of reusable bags, especially for grocery delivery.
“It just creates more waste, which is what we’re trying to avoid in the first place,” Walmart customer Udi Sela said in a CBC News interview in late 2022.
At the time, Sela, who lives in Maple, Ont., estimated his family had acquired about 300 reusable Walmart bags via grocery delivery.
“We can’t return them, we can’t do much with them.”
Now, a little more than a year later, Walmart has launched a pilot project to address the problem.
It allows customers to pack up their unwanted reusable Walmart blue bags and ship them — at no charge — to a facility where they’ll get a second life.
How it works
According to Walmart, bags in good condition will be laundered and donated to charity, primarily Food Banks Canada. Damaged bags will get recycled into other materials. Reusable bags typically can’t go in blue bins because they’re costly and difficult to recycle.
Customers must sign up for Walmart’s program, and enrolment is limited.
Jennifer Barbazza, Walmart’s senior manager of sustainability, said the retailer will fine-tune the details as the program progresses.
“[We] know that some customers have more reusable bags than maybe they need,” she said. “One of the things that we’re really excited to learn about from the pilot is customer acceptance and customer feedback.”
Udi Sela has already signed up.
“I definitely think it’s a step in the right direction,” he said in an interview on Friday. “It’s something that needed to be done a while ago. God knows we’ve got a ton of bags kind of piled up.”
He said he’s concerned that some customers may find mailing the bags a hurdle. However, it’s not deterring Sela, who soon plans to ship hundreds.
Passing the buck?
Not everyone is keen on Walmart’s project. Emily Alfred, a waste campaigner with Toronto Environmental Alliance, said donating the bags to the food bank is just passing on the problem.
“We need to remove waste from the system entirely, and just sending these somewhere else for someone else to deal with is not really a solution,” she said.
Alfred said a better option is a program Walmart piloted in Guelph, Ont., in 2022. For a fee, customers could check out reusable bags from an in-store kiosk and later return them to be cleaned and reused.
“That’s a real circular reuse system,” she said.
Walmart’s Barbazza said the retailer is continuing to explore different reusable bag programs, including ones placed in stores.
She also said she’s confident Canada’s food banks will make good use of the bags.
“There’s definitely a need for sturdy items to distribute materials to the food bank clients.”
The paper problem
Among Canada’s major grocers, only Walmart offers a reusable bag program for all customers.
Loblaw recently switched from reusable to recyclable paper bags for grocery delivery. Sobeys did not respond to requests for comment, but according to its website, the grocer also uses paper bags and “reusable options” for home delivery.
Several environmental experts say paper bags aren’t a good solution, because their production leaves a sizable carbon footprint.
“Paper bags are a problem,” Alfred said. “It takes a lot of energy to recycle paper, takes a lot of trees and energy to make new paper.”
Loblaw said it continues to explore a variety of more sustainable solutions. “It’s a challenge we’re committed to addressing,” spokesperson Dave Bauer said in an email.
Both Walker and Alfred applaud Metro for its grocery delivery program, because the grocer, which operates in Ontario and Quebec, reuses delivery materials.
Metro said customers can get their goods delivered in a cardboard box or reusable bags, which can be returned and used for another delivery. Or customers can opt for a plastic bin and remove their groceries from it upon arrival.
Metro does not offer similar programs for in-store shoppers.
Alfred said the federal government should introduce regulations that mandate retailers adopt effective reusable bag programs for all customers.
“It’s up to our governments and people to demand that these companies do better,” she said.
But Walker suggested that the regulations would be hard to enforce and that incentives could be a better tactic.
For example, if retailers increased the price of reusable bags, shoppers might be less likely to forget them when they head to the store, he said.
“When the cost is a disincentive to do an activity, people change their behaviour.”
News
CTV National News: Honda's big move in Canada – CTV News
[unable to retrieve full-text content]
CTV National News: Honda’s big move in Canada CTV News
Source link
News
Freeland defends budget measures, as premiers push back on federal involvement – CBC News
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she thinks unhappy premiers will come around on measures in the federal budget that touch on provincial legislation, even as they push back.
At an event in Toronto on Sunday, Freeland — who presented the federal budget on Tuesday — said the national government needs to push ahead on such issues as housing and she was “extremely optimistic” premiers would choose to co-operate.
“Housing is a national challenge, and the federal government needs to be leading the charge,” she said.
“My own experience has been when there are big issues that really matter to Canadians, after all the sound and the fury, people are prepared to roll up their sleeves and find a win-win outcome for Canadians.”
Several premiers have pushed back against the federal government in recent months and again after the budget was released on the grounds that some measures touch on provincial jurisdiction.
In a letter released Friday by the Council of the Federation, which represents the leaders of all 13 provinces and territories, the premiers said Ottawa should have consulted them more ahead of the budget.
Individual premiers have shared more pointed critiques.
“It’s a never-ending spending platform that we’ve seen now for the last 10 years,” New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said on CBC’s Power & Politics on Friday.
“My initial thoughts about the federal budget are that they are overtaxing, overspending, overborrowing and over interfering in provincial affairs,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said earlier this week.
Alberta has clashed with the government repeatedly over housing. Smith introduced legislation earlier this month that would require provincial oversight of deals made between municipalities and the federal government, including for future agreements around federal housing funds.
Freeland said on Sunday that, as an example, the federal child-care program negotiated through a series of deals with provinces and territories showed that co-operation was possible.
Capital gains tax changes criticized
The federal government has also faced some opposition on what was perhaps the most prominent measure revealed on budget day: changes to Canada’s capital gains tax rules. The government has proposed raising the inclusion rate to 67 per cent on capital gains above $250,000 for individuals.
“The 21st-century winner-takes-all-economy is making those at the very top richer, while too many middle-class Canadians are struggling,” Freeland said Sunday, adding the government was asking wealthy Canadians to pay their “fair share.”
“We do need to ensure that we have some revenue coming in. This is a very limited way of ensuring that that occurs,” Treasury Board President Anita Anand said in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday.
Critics have raised concerns that the changes could result in reduced investment or capital flight.
“The big concern right now … is this going to have a detrimental impact to the progress we’re trying to make in making Canada a hub for innovation,” said Kirk Simpson, CEO of the tech company goConfirm, in a separate interview on Rosemary Barton Live.
“With productivity the way that it is, we want more capital, not less, flowing into business innovation,” Simpson told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.
Freeland said Sunday that the changes will affect very few Canadian individuals — the government estimates 0.13 per cent — and the revenue will go to pay for investments in areas like housing.
-
Business11 hours ago
Honda to build electric vehicles and battery plant in Ontario, sources say – Global News
-
Science11 hours ago
Will We Know if TRAPPIST-1e has Life? – Universe Today
-
Investment14 hours ago
Down 80%, Is Carnival Stock a Once-in-a-Generation Investment Opportunity?
-
News16 hours ago
Honda expected to announce multi-billion dollar deal to assemble EVs in Ontario
-
Health11 hours ago
Simcoe-Muskoka health unit urges residents to get immunized
-
Business23 hours ago
Elon Musk comments on Tesla’s pricing strategy following cuts – TESLARATI
-
Art21 hours ago
‘Luminous’ truck strap artwork wins prestigious Biennale prize in first for New Zealand – The Guardian
-
Sports21 hours ago
Jets score 7, hold off Avalanche in Game 1 of West 1st Round – NHL.com