Some Prairie politicians are taking Ottawa to task over its green-energy plans amid bone-chilling low temperatures, claiming on social media that electricity grid alerts in Alberta show renewables can’t be depended on when temperatures plunge. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks to delegates at the Global Energy Show in Calgary, Alta., Tuesday, June 13, 2023. . THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshJeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Some Prairie politicians are taking Ottawa to task over its green-energy plans amid bone-chilling low temperatures, claiming on social media that electricity grid alerts in Alberta show renewables can’t be depended on when temperatures plunge.
“Right now, wind is generating almost no power. When renewables are unreliable, as they are now, natural gas plants must increase capacity to keep Albertans safe,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith posted on social media Friday, shortly after the province’s grid operator issued an appeal for consumers to conserve electricity to protect the system.
A day later, following a second grid alert that warned of potential rotating blackouts, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe posted that surplus power it was sending Alberta’s way was coming from natural gas and coal-fired power plants.
“The ones the Trudeau government is telling us to shut down (which we won’t),” Moe said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The Alberta Electric Systems Operator said no blackouts were required following an emergency alert that was sent to people’s phones shortly before 7 p.m., noting Albertans responded right away.
At the time, temperatures in much of the province were approaching -40 C.
Randy Boissonnault, the only federal cabinet minister from Alberta and one of only two Liberal MPs from the province, called the statements from the premiers “a petty, untrue and partisan attack.” He blamed part of the issue on “decades of under investment in the electricity grid.”
“Rather than tweeting nonsense about Canada’s plans to tackle climate change, perhaps the premiers can focus on the current emergency, and afterwards work with the federal government to deal with climate change,” the Edmonton MP wrote in an e-mail.
Alberta’s grid operator has partially pinned the crisis on two natural gas generators that weren’t operating, as well as a lack of renewable energy being produced due to low winds and a shortage of daylight at this time of year.
Smith has threatened to use the province’s Sovereignty Act to challenge the federal government’s clean electricity regulations over the Liberal’s deadline to achieve a net-zero power grid by 2035, calling the target “unachievable.”
Michelle Rempel Garner, a Conservative MP in Calgary, posted on her blog that if the electric system is already buckling under pressure, it won’t likely be able to handle “further extreme demand created by Liberal regulations.”
But a spokesman in Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s office said the federal government has always said “reliability, along with affordability, is one of the driving forces behind how the regulations will be designed.”
“The regulations would never put the province in a situation where they did not have a reliable baseload, and it is why we are making provisions so that fossil fuel burning plants can run without carbon capture technologies during peak usage or in situations of emergency,” read an e-mailed statement.
“To say we want to ’shut down plants’ is simply not the case.”
University of Alberta energy economist Andrew Leach said Smith and Moe appear to be framing the debate as an either/or choice between natural gas and renewables. In reality, he argues, there needs to be a mix of energy sources, including better tie-ins with other jurisdictions.
Modellers know there will be days when demand will be high and generation from renewables is low, he said. Planning for backup needs to happen in advance, he noted, and it’s the system operator’s job to do that.
Jason Wang, senior analyst on energy policy at clean-energy think tank the Pembina Institute, said Alberta needs to move ahead with changes to its market regulations so that energy storage from renewables can play a larger role.
Wang said that on Saturday, batteries were able to supply power for the first time during a grid event.
“Storage was able to basically buy us a few more hours of not needing a grid alert,” Wang said.
Wang said natural gas generation also faces limits during extreme cold, though he said Alberta’s generators are better prepared for that scenario than facilities in Texas that came under strain when a cold snap caused blackouts in 2021.
AESO Spokesman Leif Sollid said consumption dropped 100 megawatts within seconds of people receiving alerts on Saturday evening, and demand declined another 100 MW within a few more minutes.
“That was enough to make up the shortfall that we were facing and that prevented rotating outages,” Sollid said in an interview Sunday.
The AESO declared another grid alert on Sunday afternoon, urging Albertans to reduce electricity consumption to essential use only until 8 p.m. to avoid the possibility of rotating outages.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
