In an effort to show North Americans that train travel can be both good for the environment and getting around Alstom has sent a train to Quebec. The train company has been making a hydrogen powered train to replace diesel engines on routes that don’t support electric operations. Hydrogen isn’t
Continue readingTag: quebec
Things Are Good: How Quebec Will Defeat AirBnB
The global housing crisis has numerous causes, and one of them is AirBnB. Of course there are competitors to the short term rental company but the impact of their presence on the housing market has been staggering in places with high level of tourism like Montreal. Back in March people
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Labour Day reading. – David Macdonald offers a reminder that any difficulty employers are having finding workers is a result of their failing to pay wages to even match, let alone stay in front of, the cost of living. And Trish Hennessy takes a look at
Continue readingThe Maple Monarchists - Blog: How historical happenstance resulted in the Québécois being ruled by the same monarch they would have had anyways if they had never left France
The Québécois are, as a rule, not fond of the monarchy. Poll after poll bear this out. Its not so much that Québécois dislike the Queen or, arguably, even the institution of monarchy. Instead, the monarchy is a convenient symbol of the conquest of the colony of New France by the British and the subsequent second class
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Schadenfreude, Hydro-Québec and the Maine referendum
It’s called schadenfreude, the satisfaction you get from someone else’s misfortune. Some Albertans may be feeling it this week after the referendum in Maine that rejected a Hydro-Québec transmission line through their state. Projected to generate $10 billion US for Hydro-Québec over 20 years, the project, known as the New
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Ian Austen takes Alberta’s shame to the international stage by pointing out how the UCP’s “best summer ever” has given rise to the fourth wave of COVID-19. Adam Hunter points out how similarly disastrous pandemic mismanagement hasn’t yet produced the same political
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On narrow targets
At this stage of the federal election campaign, the seemingly wide range of outcomes is entirely an artifice of a first-part-the-post system with multiple parties contending for seats. Barring a drastic change in the last week of the campaign (which will likely need to overcome votes already locked in as
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The bloc québécois’ housing platform
With Canadians heading to the polls in a federal election this month, I’ve written a 600-word overview of the Bloc Québécois’ housing platform. It’s available here: https://nickfalvo.ca/ten-things-to-know-about-the-bloc-quebecois-housing-platform/
Continue readingThings Are Good: Quebec Cancels Planned LNG Operation to Protect the Environment
The waters of the Saguenay and the St. Lawerence have avoided great harm thanks to the cancellation of a massive natural gas facility in the area. People had been protesting the development for years and the government finally listened. The project would have taken bitumen from the tar sands in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Homelessness planning during covid
The Calgary Homeless Foundation has just released a 12-city scan of homelessness planning during COVID. It’s a national study (which I authored). My ‘top 10’ overview of the study can be found here.
Continue readingKersplebedeb: Joyce Echaquan’s treatment wasn’t an isolated incident
Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman died at Joliette hospital after she posted a video of slurs said by staff right before her death. This Op-Ed appeared in the Montreal Gazette on September 30th, 2020. Samir Shaheen-Hussain published Fighting for a Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism against Indigenous Children
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bigotry is blooming early in Quebec.
It seems to come each year with the spring flowers. Bigotry is the passion of Quebec nationalists. They care less that people recognize them for what they are: small-minded, intolerant, ignorant and ungracious people who want to inflict children and youth with their narrow and harmful parochialism. They want to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Sarah Schulman discusses the importance of sleep as a determinant of health, arguing that a safe bed is the first step toward addressing all kinds of social ills. – Laura Lynch interviews Adria Vasil about the massive amount of avoidable waste generated
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On unreliable suppliers
There’s been plenty of bluster between Jason Kenney and Yves-Francois Blanchet over equalization and its relationship to the oil industry. But it’s worth pointing out that to the extent Quebec (or any other province or jurisdiction) currently relies on fossil fuels from Alberta, Kenney himself has gone out of his
Continue readingCarbon49 – Sustainability for Canadian businesses: How A Liberal Minority Government Might Impact Corporate Environmental Outlook
The 2019 Canadian election resulted in a Liberal minority government led by Justin Trudeau. How might it impact your corporate environmental policy? To help guide your outlook we highlight notable analyses and predictions from CNN, Globe and Mail, CBC, Financial Post, Calgary Herald, Toronto Sun, Climate Home News, EnergyNow, and The Narwhal. On overall Canadian sentiments,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Canada 2019 – Election Notes
With Canadians going to the polls tomorrow, I’ll offer a few thoughts on what to watch for on election day and beyond in a campaign whose early stability seems to have given way to some late shifts. First, a minority Parliament seems likely. But of all the predictions and expectations
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Apparently I’m a Quebecker
Vote Compass recently published a survey of Canadians’ attitudes toward a variety of issues. The results were broken down by province, scaling how much respondents agreed or disagreed with different propositions. Not surprisingly, the survey found that Albertans and Quebeckers frequently have widely divergent views. On the spectrum of agree
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Damian Carrington reports on the Global Commission on Adaptation’s research showing that we’re woefully unprepared for catastrophic climate change – and that prevention today will far more than pay off in the future (except for those who consider climate apartheid to be
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Seth Klein summarizes new polling showing that Canadians are eager for far stronger action to fight climate change than the Libs or Cons will even consider. And Andrew Leach points out that the Cons’ excuse for a climate plan is a study
Continue reading