Backgrounder 138
Backgrounder
Why We Should Be Skeptical Of The Hydrogen Economy
At first glance, using highly variable, intermittent, inexpensive renewable energy to produce hydrogen for energy supply stabilization seems logical. However, renewable energy is not always readily available. The concept of hydrogen as a ‘buffer,’ akin to a battery,...
Residential School Recrimination, Repentance, and Reality
Allegations of widespread abuse against children who were said to have been forced to attend Canada’s Indian Residential Schools were uncommon before the last of them was shuttered in 1996. That was the year the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples...
ESG And The New Eco-Colonialism
ESG investing standards have become all the rage around the world. Big institutional investors and pension funds now race to outdo their competitors in meeting nebulous and politically charged criteria. ESG—which stands for Environment, Social, and Governance—asks...
Featured News
There’s Nothing Fair About Canadian Health Care
For the past 14 years, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day has led the charge for health-care reform, pushing for the right of patients to pay for private care if their health and well-being are threatened as a result of waiting in a stagnant and overburdened public...
Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
The path to net zero, based on the much disputed belief that carbon dioxide is a pollution, is more steep and impractical than most people realize. Replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity will require much more power generation and a greatly upgraded grid to...
Calgary City Council: Reimagining the CBD
In a previous post, I commented on the difficulties faced by the Calgary CBD (downtown), with its huge office vacancies resulting from the mid-decade oil bust, along with the rise of remote and hybrid working accelerated by the pandemic. Calgary (metropolitan area...
Manitoba’s Public Sector Swells While the Private Economy Dwindles
Executive Summary Since 2015 Manitoba has restrained the growth in provincial government administration to a relatively modest 7.9 percent, which is slightly below the growth in the population. Restraint at the provincial level has allowed Manitoba to do slightly...
Suburbanizing Canada: 2021 Census
Canada continues to move to the suburbs, as the 2021 census data shows. This is based on a Statistics Canada analysis on metropolitan (Census Metropolitan Areas, or CMAs) population and change since the 2016 Census. Statistics Canada (Statscan) divides the CMA...
Comparing Urban Densities: Winnipeg and New York
Following a recent newgeography.com column “Toronto Solidifies Highest Density Ranking in North America,” I received comments of disbelief, at the fact that the urban density of the Winnipeg urban area is above that of the New York City urban area. This is based on...
Backgrounder – A Crown Corporation’s Failure to Safeguard Assets: National Capital Commission
The National Capital Commission (NCC) is a Crown corporation owned by the Canadian government. The NCC owns and manages over 10 percent of the lands in the National Capital Region. Moreover, the corporation owns and manages several properties, including Canada’s six...
The Great Myth of Lockdowns
In January and February, the Canadian public watched as COVID-19 was announced in China. It spread to Italy, then to Germany, Spain, France, and then to the UK. The media, fascinated by the ratings they were receiving by covering the disease, relentlessly extolled the...
Canada’s Indigenous Policy – The Failing Buffalo Jump Policy? Or a New Idea That Could Work Right Now
The Indigenous policy, being advanced by the Canadian government in a suite of legislation in the fall of 2018, is supposed to mark at new turn in the relationship between the Crown and Indigenous people. It appears, however, that the new policy is merely a tweaking...
Indigenous Affairs Plus: Canada’s “Super-Province”
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) did not become as stand-alone federal government department until 1966. Since then, it has ballooned in size to become a vast department with jurisdictional reach over 90 percent of Canada’s land mass. INAC, which is in...
The Silence of the People
The federal government is moving full-speed ahead to dramatically reform the relationship between the Crown and Canada’s Indigenous people through a new Indigenous Rights, Recognition and Implementation Framework and through a suite of legislative changes. However,...