Business
Ongoing water crisis is a national embarrassment
From the MacDonald Laurier Institute
By Matthew Cameron and Ken Coates
Cameron and Coates call for an increased sense of urgency from government and offer several policy initiatives to improve water access for First Nations communities.
Access to clean drinking water is a necessity, yet delivering it to all 40 million Canadians, particularly Indigenous communities, has proven to be elusive. Successive federal governments have both acknowledged the problem, yet have failed to fully eradicate drinking water advisories, which remain in place in at least 27 Indigenous communities.
In a new paper, The water conundrum and Indigenous communities in Canada, Matthew Cameron and Indigenous Program Director Ken Coates shed light on the water insecurity crisis on Canada’s reservations and recommend a number of multijurisdictional policy initiatives, urging policymakers adopt an increased sense of urgency in systematically address the problem – not just throwing money at it.
The authors identify several key barriers to resolving the water insecurity crisis:
- Community location: some communities are located too far away from freshwater reserves; many of these places were settled in the 1950s and 1960s, without scientific study of the suitability of their locations for water purposes;
- Long-term maintenance: trained personnel often work in stressful conditions with little or no local backup, making it difficult to find and retain these workers;
- Little margin for error: nationally determined Canadian water quality standards are, appropriately, difficult to meet, setting a high bar for small, isolated communities;,
- Poor national understanding of the challenges: Canadians who live off reservation are largely unaware of the urgency of the crisis in Indigenous communities.
Cameron and Coates recommend the following policy initiatives to address the crisis:
- Continuous transparency; authorities should make information about water delivery systems and water treatment facility down-times available to the public;
- Region-wide water management systems: these would provide for a sharing of personnel, professional backup, and collective learning about water systems maintenance and treatment facilities, thereby creating a maintenance economy;
- Option of relocation: in extreme cases, where water supplies are unacceptable and alternatives too expensive, communities could be given the option of voluntary relocation and rebuilding in a location with better access to potable water;
- More attention to remote solutions: giving agency to local Indigenous governments and/or companies to resolve the crisis;
- Increasing urgency: Indigenous Canadians wonder if the country cares or even knows about their lack of access to clean water– greater awareness among Canadians can push politicians to seek policy alternatives.
“Understanding the challenges in full, handling emergencies expeditiously, developing and implementing long-term solutions, and committing publicly to providing First Nations with adequate and appropriate water supplies is not an act of generosity or an optional exercise. Maintaining safe drinking water is a foundational responsibility of government,” conclude Cameron and Coates.
“Further delays should not be acceptable.”
To learn more, read the full paper here:
Matthew Cameron is a Yukon-based researcher and academic. He is an Instructor at Yukon University, where he has taught in the Liberal Arts, Indigenous Governance and Multimedia and Communications programs since 2016.
Ken Coates is a Distinguished Fellow and Director of Indigenous Affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a Professor of Indigenous Governance at Yukon University.
Business
Parliamentary Budget Officer forecasts bigger deficits for years to come
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Franco Terrazzano
“Every penny collected from the GST will now go to cover interest charges on the Trudeau government’s credit card”
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to cut spending and balance the budget following today’s Parliamentary Budget Officer report forecasting higher deficits.
“Budget 2024 was bad, but the PBO report forecasts the Trudeau government will be running even bigger deficits,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “This PBO report should be a wake-up call for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: get a hold of your spending or interest charges will keep ballooning.”
The PBO projects a $46-billion deficit this year. Budget 2024 projected a $40-billion deficit.
“PBO’s projected budgetary deficits are $5.3 billion higher annually, on average, over 2023-24 to 2028-29,” according to the report.
In Budget 2023, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government would find “savings of $15.4 billion over the next five years.”
However, “in Budget 2024, the government announced $61.2 billion in new spending,” according to the PBO. “Since Budget 2021, the government has announced a total of $251.6 billion in new spending measures.”
Interest charges on the debt are expected to cost taxpayers $54 billion this year, according to Budget 2024.
“Every penny collected from the GST will now go to cover interest charges on the Trudeau government’s credit card,” Terrazzano said. “Trudeau must balance the budget, cut spending and stop wasting more than $1 billion every week on interest charges.”
Automotive
Canadian interest in electric vehicles falls for second year in a row: survey
From LifeSiteNews
Canadians’ disinterest in electric vehicles comes as the Trudeau government recently mandated that all new light-duty vehicles in Canada are zero emission by 2035.
Research has revealed that Canadians are increasingly unwilling to purchase an electric vehicle (EV).
According to an April 22 survey from AutoTrader, Canadians remain skeptical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s electric vehicle mandate and ongoing advertisement surrounding electric vehicles, as interest in owning one dropped for a second year in a row.
“Overall, while almost half of non-EV owners are open to buying an EV for their next vehicle, interest in EVs has declined for the second year in a row,” reported Tiffany Ding, director of insights and intelligence at AutoTrader.
In 2022, at least 68 percent of Canadians were interested in buying an electric vehicle. However, by 2023, the number declined to 56 percent. So far in 2024, there is even less interest, with only 46 percent saying they were open to purchasing one.
“AutoTrader data shows a direct correlation to gas prices and EV interest, and since gas prices have normalized from their peak in 2022, EV interest has also dropped,” a summary of the survey explained.
However, Canadians did show a slight increase of interest in hybrid vehicles, with 62 percent of those looking to purchase an electric vehicle saying they would look at a gas-electric hybrid, compared with 60 percent in 2023.
The survey also questioned Canadians regarding Trudeau’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which requires all new light-duty vehicles in Canada are zero-emission by 2035, essentially banning the sale of new gasoline/diesel-only powered cars.
The mandate comes despite warnings that it would cause massive chaos by threatening to collapse the nation’s power grids.
“Over 75 percent of respondents are aware of the federal government’s ZEV mandate, which requires all new light-duty vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission by 2035,” the survey found.
However, the respondents revealed that they believe it’s “unlikely that Canada will be able to meet the federal government’s ZEV target due to the current inadequate charging infrastructure or a change in political power that could revoke or amend the ZEV mandate timeline.”
Canadians’ concerns in buying an electric vehicle include limited travel range/distance, inadequate availability of charging stations, higher purchasing costs, and concerns that they do not perform well in cold weather.
Indeed, this winter, western Canadians experienced firsthand the unreliability of Trudeau’s “renewable” energy scheme as Alberta’s power grid nearly collapsed due to a failure of wind and solar power.
Trudeau’s plan has been roundly condemned by Canadians, including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. In 2022, Smith denounced a federal mandate that will require all new cars sold after 2035 to be “zero emission” electric (EVs) vehicles and promised that Albertans will always have the choice to buy gasoline-powered cars.
Since taking office in 2015, Trudeau has continued to push a radical environmental agenda similar to the agendas being pushed the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals.”
The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.
The Trudeau government’s electric vehicle plan comes despite the fact Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world. Electric cars cost thousands more to make and buy, are largely considered unsuitable for Canada’s climate as they offer poor range and long charging times during cold winters and have batteries that take tremendous resources to make and are difficult to recycle.
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