January 7, 2012 – Republic of Mining

Ottawa backtracks on coal emissions – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – January 6, 2012)

January 7, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

The federal government is offering the provinces a way to avoid tough new regulations that would eventually force power companies to shut down the country’s fleet of coal-fired power plants.

Environment Minister Peter Kent and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have privately indicated they are willing to provide flexibility in how new power-plant emissions rules are implemented, provincial and industry sources said Thursday. Mr. Kent is expected to release the final version of the long-promised regulations in the coming months.

The change in stance by the federal government provides relief for some of the country’s biggest utilities. Alberta-based power generators such as TransAlta Corp., Capital Power Corp. and Atco Ltd. – as well as Nova Scotia’s Emera Inc. – have warned that a rigid approach to Ottawa’s plant-by-plant rules would increase costs, drive up electricity prices for consumers, and strand valuable assets by imposing arbitrary deadlines for power plant closings.

Much ado about Canada’s energy ‘strategy’ – by Andrew Coyne (National Post – January 7, 2012)

January 7, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Then we’re agreed. Canada needs a national energy strategy, says the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. Canada needs a national energy strategy, the Council of Canadians concurs. What this country needs is a national energy strategy, asserts the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, an industry group. Or what about a national energy strategy, counters the Alberta Federation of Labour, not an industry group. The country’s energy ministers discussed the need for a national energy strategy at their meeting last summer, since which time not a week has passed without someone demanding to know why we have not yet got one.

Given the idea has such universal support across the land, it might seem strange to find the prime minister, of all people, in some uncertainty as to its meaning. Asked his views on a Calgary radio show, Stephen Harper confessed, “the honest truth is I don’t know precisely what it means. I’m looking forward to having some discussions with some provinces to find out what they have in mind.” But in fact the prime minister’s confusion is entirely appropriate.

Tiny port, new energy battleground – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – January 7, 2012)

January 7, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

CALGARY — In a remote Aboriginal recreation centre on the shore of the Douglas Channel in British Columbia’s North Coast, Canadian regulators are kicking off historic hearings on Tuesday on the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline. By the time they are finished in two years, thousands of Canadians will have had their say on the giant project.

The three-member Joint Review Panel will travel across Western Canada on behalf of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to hear views about the environmental impact of the 1,172-kilometre project, starting with oral testimony from the elders of the Haisla Nation.

The 700-member community hosting the event’s high profile first days is located 12 km south of the city of Kitimat, the end point of the Enbridge Inc. project that would carry 550,000 barrels of oil a day from the Alberta oil sands to markets around the Pacific coast.

The region’s few hotels are stretched to the limit to accommodate the influx of visitors, including observers for the green lobby and the energy industry, the media, and the usual coterie of lawyers.

Lots to celebrate in [Timmins] 1912 – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – January 7, 2012)

January 7, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Karen Bachmann is the director/curator of the Timmins Museum and a local author.

HISTORY: Newspaper articles highlight the unbridled enthusiasm seen in the early days of the Porcupine Camp

OK, I’m feeling the pressure. This is the first article I get to pen for Timmins’ 100th anniversary, and it has to be special – so, of course, I’m frozen at my keyboard, awaiting Divine Intervention (or a third cup of coffee).

How to begin? What is there to be said?

Sadly, the stuff I should be writing about I am afraid to say, I have already written – the beginnings of the camp, the development of Northern Ontario, etc. … So, I pray your indulgence as I present to you a small piece based on the items from the front page from the very first Porcupine Advance newspaper, published on March 28, 1912 (Vol. 1, No. 1).

I have chosen to do this because the tone of that first newspaper and the articles presented back then really do illustrate the unbridled enthusiasm that was rampant in those early days of the Porcupine, and of the Town of Timmins.