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Alberta

Future of junior football murky as Covid-19 forces cancellation of season

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4 minute read

This simple equation is perhaps the easiest way to enter a description of the Wednesday decision, and Thursday public announcement, that the Canadian Junior Football League has dropped all plans for games this year.

CJFL president Jim Pankovich made it clear that the decision by the Prairie Junior Football Conference and allied leagues in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia supported the decision unanimously.

“Canadian junior football has 18 teams with 18 different ideas — no, make it 18 teams with about 50 ideas — but this was a combined decision and every organization had a chance to provide input,” Pankovich continued. “It has been a long process.”

The Edmonton Huskies, Edmonton Wildcats and Calgary Colts are affected by the decision. All teams were part of the national negotiation.

Coupled with a previous USports decision to wipe out university football across the country in 2020, the junior move leaves only the Canadian Football League as an option for players and fans, with a decision due from the struggling CFL soon, after a bid for $30 million in federal support money is evaluated.

Pankovich, Prairie Football Conference leader Curtis Craig and Edmonton Huskies owner Bob Bula mentioned in separate telephone conversations Thursday afternoon that the COVID-19 regulations made it impossible to consider a 2020 season. All three mentioned the importance of keeping players involved .

“:Small-group sessions and skill-specific training” were mentioned by Pankovich as a necessity for all teams. He and others mentioned that the game is as important for the lessons it provides to young males as it is for the actual on-field competition.

As soon as the announcement became public, there was serious suggestion that high school players hoping to move into junior ranks and current juniors designing their athletic future around possible participation in university programs.may run into traffic jams because eligibility issues are more complicated than before.

Huskies head coach Iain MacLean agreed fully with the decision: “it’s about the safety of our players and all the others who would have to work with us during the virus.”

He lamented that “this will be the first year of my life without a football season since I was 10 years old” and suggested there will be less pressure than anticipated on young players competing against more potential teammates than usual.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few of the young guys just stop playing,” he added, “and I think a lot of coaches will be considering the same thing.”

Bula insisted that there was no opposition to government regulations that limit the number of persons — 50 in any on-field cohort at one time — able to participate in games. “We might need as many as 100 or more, including other staff.”

Craig, who also is vice-president of the national governing body, said no Prairie team has the potential to develop a “hub” similar to those now employed by the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association.

For CFL fans the last refuge is always hope

Alberta

Upgrades at Port of Churchill spark ambitions for nation-building Arctic exports

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In August 2024, a shipment of zinc concentrate departed from the Port of Churchill — marking the port’s first export of critical minerals in over two decades. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

‘Churchill presents huge opportunities when it comes to mining, agriculture and energy’

When flooding in northern Manitoba washed out the rail line connecting the Town of Churchill to the rest of the country in May 2017, it cast serious questions about the future of the community of 900 people on the shores of Hudson Bay.

Eight years later, the provincial and federal governments have invested in Churchill as a crucial nation-building corridor opportunity to get resources from the Prairies to markets in Europe, Africa and South America.

Direct links to ocean and rail

Aerial view of the Hudson Bay Railway that connects to the Port of Churchill. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group

The Port of Churchill is unique in North America.

Built in the 1920s for summer shipments of grain, it’s the continent’s only deepwater seaport with direct access to the Arctic Ocean and a direct link to the continental rail network, through the Hudson Bay Railway.

The port has four berths and is capable of handling large vessels. Having spent the past seven years upgrading both the rail line and the port, its owners are ready to expand shipping.

“After investing a lot to improve infrastructure that was neglected for decades, we see the possibilities and opportunities for commodities to come through Churchill whether that is critical minerals, grain, potash or energy,” said Chris Avery, CEO of the Arctic Gateway Group (AGG), a partnership of 29 First Nations and 12 remote northern Manitoba communities that owns the port and rail line.

“We are pleased to be in the conversation for these nation-building projects.”

In May, Canada’s Western premiers called for the Prime Minister’s full support for the development of an economic corridor connecting ports on the northwest coast and Hudson’s Bay, ultimately reaching Grays Bay, Nunavut.

Investments in Port of Churchill upgrades

Workers at the Port of Churchill. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group

AGG, which purchased the rail line and port from an American company in 2017, is not alone in the bullish view of Churchill’s future.

In February, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced an investment of $36.4 million over two years in infrastructure projects at the port aimed at growing international trade.

“Churchill presents huge opportunities when it comes to mining, agriculture and energy,” Kinew said in a release.

“These new investments will build up Manitoba’s economic strength and open our province to new trading opportunities.”

In March, the federal government committed $175 million over five years to the project including $125 million to support the rail line and $50 million to develop the port.

“It’s important to point out that investing in Churchill was something that both the Liberal and Conservative parties agreed on during the federal election campaign,” said Avery, a British Columbian who worked in the airline industry for more than two decades before joining AGG.

Reduced travel time

Freight safety check at the Port of Churchill. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group

The federal financial support helped AGG upgrade the rail line, repairing the 20 different locations where it was washed out by flooding in 2017.

Improvements included laying more than 1,600 rail cars worth of ballast rock for stabilization and drainage, installing almost 120,000 new railway ties and undertaking major bridge crossing rehabilitations and switch upgrades.

The result has seen travel time by rail reduced by three hours — or about 10 per cent — between The Pas and Churchill.

AGG also built a dedicated storage facility for critical minerals and other commodities at the port, the first new building in several decades.

Those improvements led to a milestone in August 2024, when a shipment of zinc concentrate was shipped from the port to Belgium. It was the first critical minerals shipment from Churchill in more than two decades.

The zinc concentrate was mined at Snow Lake, Manitoba, loaded on rail cars at The Pas and moved to Churchill. It’s a scenario Avery hopes to see repeated with other commodities from the Prairies.

Addressing Arctic challenges

The Port of Churchill. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group

The emergence of new technologies has helped AGG work around the challenges of melting permafrost under the rail line and ice in Hudson Bay, he said.

Real-time ground-penetrating radar and LiDAR data from sensors attached to locomotives can identify potential problems, while regular drone flights scan the track, artificial intelligence mines the data for issues, and GPS provides exact locations for maintenance.

The group has worked with permafrost researchers from the University of Calgary, Université Laval and Royal Military College to better manage the challenge. “Some of these technologies, such as artificial intelligence and LiDAR, weren’t readily available five years ago, let alone two decades,” Avery said.

On the open water, AGG is working with researchers from the University of Manitoba to study sea ice and the change in sea lanes.

“Icebreakers would be a game-changer for our shipping operations and would allow year-round shipping in the short-term,” he said.

“Without icebreakers, the shipping season is currently about four and a half months of the year, from April to early November, but that is going to continue to increase in the coming decades.”

Interest from potential shippers, including energy producers, has grown since last year’s election in the United States, Avery said.

“We’re going to continue to work closely with all levels of government to get Canada’s products to markets around the world. That’s building our nation. That’s why we are excited for the future.”

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Alberta

OPEC+ is playing a dangerous game with oil

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This article supplied by Troy Media.

Troy Media By Rashid Husain Syed

OPEC+ is cranking up oil supply into a weak market. It’s tried this strategy before, and it backfired

OPEC+ is once again charging headfirst into a market share war—a strategy that has repeatedly ended in disaster. Despite weak global demand, falling prices and rising output from non-OPEC countries, the cartel has chosen to flood the market. History shows this tactic rarely ends well for
OPEC+ or oil producers worldwide, including Canada.

OPEC+, a group of major oil-exporting countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, works together to manage global oil supply and influence prices. Its decisions have far-reaching consequences for the global energy market—including for Canadian oil producers.

Last Saturday, eight leading members of OPEC+ announced, after a virtual meeting, that they would increase production by 548,000 barrels per day starting in August. That is significantly more than the group’s recent additions of 411,000 bpd, and it puts them on track to fully unwind their
previous 2.2 million bpd in cuts a full year ahead of schedule.

It is a bold move, but it comes at a questionable time.

There is little geopolitical premium built into current oil prices, and the global market is already oversupplied. Brent crude futures are down more than six per cent so far this year. Analysts estimate inventories have been climbing by a million barrels per day in 2025 due in part to cooling demand in China and rising output from countries outside OPEC.

S&P Global Commodity Insights forecasts a supply surplus of 1.25 million barrels per day in the second half of the year. Brent crude stood at about US$68 per barrel on Friday, but S&P says it could fall to between US$50 and $60 later this year and into 2026. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, is also at risk of dropping below US$50 per barrel.

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, with most of its output coming from Alberta’s oil sands. Though Canadian producers have higher costs than some OPEC+ members, their innovation and access to U.S. markets have made them increasingly competitive.

While the seasonal demand boost might justify a modest increase, OPEC+, especially Saudi Arabia, appears primarily motivated by market share concerns. With U.S. shale and countries like Canada, Kazakhstan and Guyana gaining ground, the cartel is falling back on its old tactic of flooding the market to squeeze out competitors.

Some observers, including Stanley Reed in The New York Times, have suggested that the move may be designed to please U.S. President Donald Trump, who “has made courting Saudi Arabia and regional allies like the United Arab Emirates a priority of his foreign policy.” But even geopolitical gamesmanship has not shielded OPEC+ from the consequences before—and likely will not this time either.

Back in 2014, fed up with the U.S. shale boom, OPEC opened the taps. The goal was to drive prices low enough to force out higher-cost producers. Instead, oil plunged into the US$30 range. According to the World Bank, the 70 per cent drop during that period was one of the three biggest oil crashes since the Second World War and the most prolonged since the supply-driven collapse of 1986. Saudi Arabia’s respected oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi, lost his job in the aftermath.

Then, in April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic loomed, OPEC and Russia launched a production war that sent oil prices into freefall, briefly into negative territory. Trump had to broker a ceasefire to rescue the U.S. shale industry, forcing Riyadh and Moscow to pull back. Both sides suffered significant economic damage.

For Canada, especially Alberta, the current fallout could be severe. The province is home to most of the country’s oil sands production. Cheaper global crude undercuts Canadian prices, squeezes royalty revenues, chills investment and puts jobs at risk across Canada. And this comes as governments are already grappling with fiscal pressures.

The oil market does not reward short-term thinking. If OPEC+ continues down this road, history suggests the outcome will be painful for them and the rest of us.

Toronto-based Rashid Husain Syed is a highly regarded analyst specializing in energy and politics, particularly in the Middle East. In addition to his contributions to local and international newspapers, Rashid frequently lends his expertise as a speaker at global conferences. Organizations such as the Department of Energy in Washington and the International Energy Agency in Paris have sought his insights on global energy matters.

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country

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