Tag: Canada

North American Battery Supply Chain Emerging

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Despite having all of the critical ingredients for lithium-ion batteries — nickel, cobalt, lithium, graphite — Canada doesn’t have any EV cell or component manufacturing; and it has only about 10% of the battery demand of the U.S. Combined with a lack of government support for the battery supply chain, it had seemed that Canada was destined to lose the value-add of its raw materials as they are exported to countries that had invested in battery production…

Despite the promising foundations for Canada to be a cornerstone of the North American battery supply chain, until recently it had appeared that there was a lack of support at the government/policy level to attract the industry. This is no longer the case, in just the last two weeks two cell manufacturers have been enticed to set up shop in Canada, with plans to build gigawatt-hour scale cell manufacturing facilities in the country.

Once a country has cell manufacturing capacity, the rest of the component manufacturing industry tends to follow as suppliers move close to their customers. So, Canada is now on course to create a strong domestic battery supply chain…

As EV growth continues in North America, a new supply chain super-hub is growing to challenge the dominance of China, and it is quickly catching up with the growing industry in Europe.

Since the GOUSA is the earliest, potentially-growing EV market, we may wake up some morning and learn the folks smart enough to bankroll electric cars and trucks have decided it’s worthwhile playing in every portion of this 21st Century marketplace.

Pope apologizes for many religious crimes…excepting abusive church-run schools in Canada

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Few leaders have embraced the power of an apology for historical wrongs quite as enthusiastically as Pope Francis and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The former has apologized for the “grave sins” of colonialism in Bolivia, the persecution of Italian Pentecostals and the church’s “failings” during the Rwandan genocide. The latter has said sorry for the execution of six indigenous chiefs by the colonial government of British Columbia, as well as decades of government-sanctioned discrimination against Canada’s LGBT civil servants.

But now, the two are at odds over an apology — or, rather, the lack of one…

“Hearing an apology directly from Pope Francis would have a profound impact for many of our people and would be an important act of healing and reconciliation, much like the apology delivered to the indigenous peoples of the Americas in 2015,” said Perry Bellegarde, the current national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Want to wear that silly little hat…you have to talk the talk and own up for the past.

Canada’s legalization of cannabis is a success story

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A highly regarded British think tank focused on reforming drug laws thinks Canada’s legalization and regulation of cannabis has gone well.

Transform has been monitoring Canadian reform efforts for some time, and advised the Canadian government and some provinces on how to develop regulations prior to legalization. Its positive views of Canada’s initiatives is a significant contribution in assessing our journey away from criminalization of simple possession and use of recreational drugs…

Transform also raised the need for amnesty for those convicted of simple possession and use when cannabis was illegal.

Criminal records dog these individuals, affecting everything from employment opportunities to travel to foreign countries.

While there have been some few pardons, the process is erratic, bureaucratic and doesn’t erase records causing follow-on negatives. Amnesty across the board would erase a problem past it’s sell-by date.

18-Year-Old Canadian Develops App for Detecting Alzheimer’s

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❝ Kai Leong, an 18-year-old graduate from Killarney Secondary School, Vancouver, B.C., has just developed a new smartphone app that measures and analyzes a person’s gait to help detect whether someone might have Alzheimer’s disease…

❝ In an interview with CBC’s Early Edition Renée Filippone, Leong explained that most seniors do not realize that walking patterns are validated markers of neurodegenerative diseases. “They’re often overlooked because of how expensive and how inaccessible current walking analysis or gait analysis is,” he said…

Leong says that although his app cannot replace a gait lab which conducts tests in an official medical setting, it does offer an accessible and affordable option for early detection.

Kai Leong is one of two Canadian students representing the country at the China Adolescent Science and Technology Innovation Contest. Helluva start, kid. Keep on rockin’.

Canadian permafrost thawing 70 years earlier than predicted

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Landscape near Mould Bay. Canada — Louise Farquharson

❝ Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared…

❝ A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilized the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia…

❝ Scientists are concerned about the stability of permafrost because of the risk that rapid thawing could release vast quantities of heat-trapping gases, unleashing a feedback loop that would in turn fuel even faster temperature rises.

All the worst of what has been predicted by climate science is coming home to roost – just earlier. The ignorant and backwards naysayers will have to put both hands over their eyes, now.

The fossil fuel era is coming to an end and…

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❝ “Coal is dead.”

These are not the words of a Greenpeace activist or left-wing politician, but of Jim Barry, the global head of the infrastructure investment group at Blackrock — the world’s largest asset manager. Barry made this statement in 2017, but the writing has been on the wall for longer than that.

❝ Banks know it, which is why they are increasingly unwilling to underwrite new coal mines and power plants. Unions and coal workers know it, which is why they are demanding a just transition and new employment opportunities in the clean economy. Even large diversified mining companies are getting out of the business of coal.

The only ones who seem to have remained in denial are President Donald Trump and non-diversified mining companies like Westmoreland Coal. The Denver-based firm made a bad bet in 2013 when it purchased five coal mines in Alberta. Now it wants Canadian taxpayers to pay for its mistake.

This is becoming a battleground, many ways and means, many reasons. Workers who need retraining and creepy investors trying to get out of foolish contracts do not have common cause.

Canada’s government pledges $600M for media transition/training to digital

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Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the government wants to protect the “vital role that independent news media play in our democracy and in our communities.”

❝ The plan in the government’s fiscal update allows non-profit news organizations to accept donations and issue tax receipts to donors…

The plan also includes a new refundable tax credit for labour costs at both for-profit and non-profit news organizations. To determine eligibility for the credit, the government plans to create an independent panel drawn from the “news and journalism community,” which will also “define and promote core journalism standards (and) define professional journalism.”

Further South, in the Land of the Free Press…the meathead-in-chief characterizes our Free Press as the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.