Mi’kmaq death: First Nation wants Indigenous representation on N.B. police watchdog

TORONTO – Sun Life Financial Inc. says it earned $1.35 billion in the third quarter.

That’s up from $871 million during the same quarter last year.

The insurance company says diluted earnings per share were $2.33, up from $1.48 during the third quarter of 2023.

Sun Life says underlying net income for the quarter was $1.02 billion, up from $930 million a year earlier.

The company says the higher income was driven by strong business growth in group and individual benefits as well as higher fee income in several areas.

Sun Life increased its dividend by three cents to 84 cents per common share.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SLF)

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EDMONTON – The Alberta government has introduced legislation that will, if passed, enable provincially regulated banks to offer halal home financing products.

Paying and receiving interest is prohibited in the Islamic faith under Shariah law, which means traditional interest-based mortgages aren’t an option for many Muslims in Canada.

A few private lending firms, such as the Edmonton-based Canadian Halal Financing Corp., do currently offer alternative financing plans that don’t include interest payments, but these alternatives aren’t available through any of Canada’s larger banks.

These alternative financing plans include a program where a financial institution buys a home on behalf of a client and charges fixed monthly payments, which includes a profit margin for the institution, until the client’s home is paid off.

Another existing option involves a financial institution and prospective homeowner becoming co-owners of a home, and the client eventually buys out the company’s stake in the home.

Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner says the legislation enables credit unions and ATB Financial, a Crown corporation, to offer halal mortgages, but these banks won’t be required to do so.

“We are not requiring any financial institutions to implement alternative financing models, but clearing the way for any who wish to offer these models to do so,” Horner said at a Monday press conference.

Horner said he expects these financial institutions to develop their products in short order as the changes embodied in the legislation were sought by the industry.

“They came to us in a large way,” he said. “There’s already been some investments made in IT and systems that would be required, so I think that shows that they’re very committed to this process.”

In an emailed statement, ATB Financial said it’s open to offering such products, though it would need to do significant consultations before it does.

“ATB Financial is committed to understanding the diverse needs of our clients, including those seeking halal financing options,” the statement reads.

“We recognize the complexities involved in developing such specialized products and are dedicated to actively listening to our clients to ensure any future offerings align with market demand.”

Horner said these alternative financing options, if eventually offered by credit unions and ATB Financial, would be open to all Albertans regardless of faith.

Sharif Haji, the Opposition NDP’s shadow minister for affordability and utilities, told reporters that, on paper, the legislation looks like a good first step, but he questioned whether or not the UCP did enough consultation on the changes.

“What I’m hearing from the communities is that they haven’t been consulted, whether it is faith-based institutions or whether it is individuals and experts that have been working, developing, and have knowledge around the products like this,” Haji said.

The omnibus bill tabled by Horner on Monday also amends the Fuel Tax Act to set the stage for the implementation of the government’s planned $200 annual tax on electric vehicles sometime next year, as well as a change to how provincial social benefits such as Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH), are funded each year.

Horner said that moving forward, annual funding increases for AISH and other social benefit programs, by default, will either be two per cent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.

Horner told reporters that this new default calculation isn’t final, as the government could set a different rate higher than two per cent if it wanted to.

He said this change is being made to ensure that each benefit program is calculated the same way, as currently the fiscal year for some programs are different, which means it’s possible some programs are seeing bigger increases than others.

“This is just the default,” Horner said. “It has to be looked at every year (and) if no decision is made, this is the default that applies.”

In 2019, the UCP government under former premier Jason Kenney de-indexed programs like AISH to inflation, arguing the province couldn’t afford the cost increases.

Last year, that decision was reversed by the UCP and the programs were re-indexed to inflation, but advocacy groups argued at the time that since the re-indexation wasn’t retroactive, the roughly 300,000 people who receive these benefits were still being left behind.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

OTTAWA – Oil and gas producers in Canada will be required to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about one-third over the next eight years under new regulations published Monday.

The government is also going to establish a cap-and-trade system that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said will reward lower-emitting producers and incentivize higher-polluting ones to do more.

The regulations, which are still only in draft form and about two years behind schedule, were met with dismay from industry leaders and are further straining relations between Ottawa and the Alberta government.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the measures “unrealistic targets” and said her government would act quickly to challenge the regulations in court. She accused Guilbeault of having a vendetta against Alberta.

For the Liberals, the regulations fulfil a 2021 election promise to force the energy sector to pull its weight in the fight against climate change.

“We’re asking the oil and gas sector to invest their record profits into pollution-cutting projects. Projects that can create and keep good jobs,” Guilbeault said at a press conference in Ottawa.

He said the oil and gas industry is a major source of emissions, but it has done less than most other sectors to reduce them.

“I think most Canadians — even those that aren’t my biggest fans — would agree that it’s not OK for a sector to not be doing its share, and that’s mostly what this regulation is about,” Guilbeault told The Canadian Press in an interview ahead of the announcement.

Upstream oil and gas operations, including production and refining, contributed about 31 per cent of Canada’s total emissions in 2022.

The regulations propose to force upstream oil and gas operations to reduce emissions to 35 per cent less than they were in 2019, by sometime between 2030 and 2032.

Emissions from the sector already fell seven per cent between 2019 and 2022 — the most recent year that statistics are available — with similar levels of production.

The cap does not dictate what companies must do to meet the target, but Guilbeault said the government’s modelling suggests about half the cuts will come from reductions to methane. Those cuts are already happening as oil producers install equipment to prevent the leaks of methane that were a major contributing source of emissions.

The rest will be divided between various technologies, including carbon capture and storage. Ottawa is expected to spend about $12.5 billion on a tax credit to encourage and assist companies to invest in those systems that trap carbon dioxide and return it to underground storage.

Under the proposed cap-and-trade system, each company will be given an emissions allowance equating to one unit per tonne of carbon pollution.

Companies that pollute less will be able to sell their leftover allowance units for profit, while companies that don’t reduce their emissions enough will have to buy allowance units from other companies to stay in compliance.

The idea is to get companies to invest in carbon-reduction technologies in order to curb their emissions without having to reduce their production.

But Monday’s announcement was met with skepticism from industry stakeholders who warned such a measure would harm the sector.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers — which represents companies responsible for three-quarters of Canada’s annual oil and natural gas production — said the proposed changes would deter investment and negatively impact jobs in the sector.

“Our members believe the draft emissions cap regulations, if implemented, are likely to deter investment into Canadian oil and natural gas projects,” said the association’s president Lisa Baiton.

“The result would be lower production, lower exports, fewer jobs, lower GDP, and less revenues to governments to fund critical infrastructure and social programs on which Canadians rely.”

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the government’s modelling shows the plan is both feasible to hit emission targets, and viable for the sector.

“When we brought in the initial methane regulations, the industry also said ‘This isn’t very good’ and what it did was it actually created a lot of jobs in technology development and deployment,” Wilkinson told The Canadian Press.

“Alberta now exports that technology to other countries around the world that are following in Alberta’s footsteps.”

Guilbeault said federal modelling shows even with the regulations, oil and gas production will rise 16 per cent by 2032, compared with 2019. He said the government landed on the cap’s amount based on extensive discussions about what was possible to regulate without forcing down production.

He also said reducing emissions from Canada’s oilpatch is the only way Canadian oil will remain competitive in a world that is increasingly looking for the greenest option available.

“In a carbon-constrained world, people who will still be demanding oil will be demanding low-emitting oil,” he said. “And if our companies and our oil and gas sector isn’t making the investments necessary to do that, they won’t be able to compete in this world.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has vowed to scrap the emissions cap regulations. In a statement Monday, the Conservative Party said the measures would “raise the cost of energy and send billions of dollars to dictators overseas.”

Senior government staff, however, emphasized oil prices are subject to global markets and insisted the measures will increase the demand for Canadian oil as markets seek cleaner products.

The regulations won’t be finalized for months and are expected to come into force in 2026 — after the next federal election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.