Ottawa signs memorandum of understanding with Germany for Canadian hydrogen

HALIFAX – Canada and Germany signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday for the future sale of hydrogen produced from proposed projects in Atlantic Canada.

The agreement signed in the northern German city of Hamburg by federal Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck is aimed at securing early access to the German market for Canadian hydrogen producers.

“Hydrogen represents a multi-billion-dollar opportunity for Atlantic Canada,” Wilkinson told reporters during a conference call from Hamburg. “These actions underline that Canada intends to be a key supplier to provide Germany and Europe with the clean energy it needs to achieve its climate and energy security goals.”

The minister said the agreement builds on the Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance that was signed in Stephenville, N.L., in August 2022, with the intention of permitting the export of Canadian hydrogen by 2025. That alliance was signed several months after Russia invaded Ukraine, which forced German leaders to rethink their energy dependence on Russia and search for new sources of cleaner fuel.

As things stand, World Energy GH2’s proposed wind-to-hydrogen project on Newfoundland’s Port au Port Peninsula is awaiting approval under a provincial environmental assessment. In Nova Scotia, EverWind Fuels and Bear Head Energy have plans, which have received provincial approval, for hydrogen plants in Point Tupper.

The projects in both provinces would use wind power to create hydrogen and ammonia. That ammonia would be shipped to Germany, where it can be used as fuel to replace natural gas, or converted back into hydrogen. |Read more https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/atlantic/ottawa-signs-memorandum-of-understanding-with-germany-for-canadian-hydrogen/article_86b3b7b8-6461-58fa-950f-e5da6297845d.html| thecanadianpressnews.ca/atlant…

#cdnpoli #nspoli #PointTupper #AtlanticCanada #Hydrogen #Germany #mou

Budget 2024 should have ‘substantial’ measures to tackle housing, minister says

Canada faces a housing affordability crisis as a rapidly increasing immigrant population has far outpaced the number of available homes.

Stubbornly high inflation and interest rates at their highest in 22 years have also driven up rent and mortgage costs.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is expected to present her budget in the Parliament on April 16.

As housing affordability emerges as a hot-button issue ahead of next year’s election, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s main opponent, has blamed the Liberal government for the crisis.

The government has responded with a series of measures to boost supply over the last year, but it has said they will not provide immediate relief.

To keep pace with the rising population, Canada needs to build 315,000 new residences every year between now and 2030, or more than a third above the pace of current housing completions, according to Robert Hogue, assistant chief economist at RBC. |Read more https://globalnews.ca/news/10368010/canada-housing-budget-2024/| globalnews.ca/news/10368010/ca…

#cdnpoli #housing #government #Freeland #budget #population #affordability

An RCMP Report Warns That Canada Faces Major Threats in the Coming Years. No Kidding.

Hidden in the tumult of the news cycle, an internal RCMP report last week about medium-term risks facing Canada should have generated more attention. On March 10th, the CBC reported on the document after Matt Malone of Thompson Rivers University obtained it through an access to information request.

The report warns of various crises shaping life in Canada now and in the years to come, including climate change and extreme weather, political polarization, geopolitical conflict, an increasingly polluted information space, and economic decline — not the least of which is the fact that home ownership is increasingly out of reach for so many of the country’s younger population.

According to the report “The coming period of recession will also accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations.” A growing wealth gap has long been a gathering storm, and that storm is now making landfall in full-effect. It will bring nasty outcomes.

Writing in Better Dwelling, Stephen Punwasi argues “The transfer of housing from end users (or even “mom & pop” landlords) to institutional investors results in communities being reduced into yield generating assets. As a consequence, prioritization of wealth extraction occurs without regard for long-term sustainability, leaving communities vulnerable to shock.” He reminds us that such shifts have been central to political instability and even collapse in the past. And some tend to imagine we are infinitely resilient, or such things could never happen to use — even after the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc — the compounding weight of crises is a potential Voltron of doom. |Read more https://www.davidmoscrop.com/p/an-rcmp-report-warns-that-canada| davidmoscrop.com/p/an-rcmp-rep…

#cdnpoli #housing #recession #regression #instability #Volatile #communities

Canada’s Right Is Moving Further Right—And Closer to the U.S.

…As Mulroney’s government worked closely with U.S. Republicans, they still remained ideologically distant on many issues. Mulroney, for instance, drew criticism from Reagan for imposing sanctions against South Africa during apartheid. But in the 1990s and early 2000s, conservatives in Canada—and particularly conservative leaders in Alberta—pushed the Progressive Conservative Party further right. In 2003 it joined with another conservative party, creating what is now the Conservative Party of Canada.

As politicians on the right in the United States and Canada worked to strengthen diplomatic relations between the two countries, far-right activists and organizations have also strengthened cross-border ties. Ben Klassen, for instance, was raised in Canada, but founded the Church of the Creator—a white supremacist church—once he moved to the U.S. Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, moved from Canada to the U.S. in 2001, when he began to embrace far-right ideology.

Now, as the Canadian far right has gained more power domestically, these connections have deepened. In 2022, a trucker convoy took over the downtown of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, to protest the vaccine mandate for truck drivers crossing the Canada-U.S. border. The trucker convoy itself seemed to signal how the ideologies of the U.S. and Canadian right had converged.

It also strengthened financial ties between far-right conservatives in both countries. Many who donated to the trucker convoy through crowdfunding websites had U.S. addresses. When GoFundMe took down the convoy’s donation page, U.S. Republicans such as Ron DeSantis and Jeff Landry protested the move, demanding immediate refunds to U.S. donors. In a sample of a 12-hour period, where donations totaled over half a million dollars, one news agency estimated that over half of identifiable donations came from south of the border.

In this way and others, the far right in the United States is helping to empower the far right in Canada. The ideological gap between the Liberals and Conservatives in Canada is growing larger as the far right gains more influence in the Conservative Party. All the while, despite significant differences (such as their positions on abortion and gun control), the Conservative and U.S. Republican Parties grow closer together, a move that is being championed by the far right on both sides of the border. |Read more https://time.com/6696097/canadian-far-right/| time.com/6696097/canadian-far-…

#cdnpoli #abpoli #extremeRight #supremacists #fascism capitalists #conservatives #republicans