Tag Archives: Gov of Canada

Energy, Environment

Oil and gas, transportation remain biggest obstacles in Canada’s quest to cut emissions

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada’s progress on significantly cutting pollution by 2030 is being undermined by growing emissions from the country’s oil and gas industry, according to the federal government’s annual emissions report to the United Nations.

Overall, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. However, the federal government was quick to note emissions that year were still lower than before the pandemic.

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Rivers & Oceans

‘Shockingly huge’ steelhead salmon escape fish farm, threatening B.C.’s Lois Lake

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Most B.C. fishing guides would be thrilled if a client pulled a 30-pound rainbow trout from the lake during an expedition.

But the scenario is cause for concern on Lois Lake, said Pat Demeester, who has been an angler and guide in the Powell River region on the Sunshine Coast for decades. 

Massive farm-raised rainbow trout — marketed as sustainably raised Lois Lake steelhead — have been escaping from the AgriMarine aquaculture site into Lois Lake and adjoining Khartoum Lake, southeast of Powell River, he said. 

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Rivers & Oceans

DFO ‘responds’ to shellfish growers concerns

On March 27 Cortes Currents published some of the concerns shared by many Cortes Island shellfish growers. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) did not have adequate time to respond, which it eventually did by email on April 6, 2023. Cortes Currents was hoping to secure an interview and sent DFO a list of topics to be covered. The most important was ‘the problems of liveaboards and recreational boaters coming too close to shellfish growing sites.’

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Animals

Provincial Biologist visits Cortes Island; Second Western Screech Owl discovered

A provincial biologist visited Cortes Island over the weekend. Emily Upham-Mills is an ecosystems biologist with the Ministry of Water, Lands and Natural Resource Stewardship and an important member of the team working with the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) on the Western Screech Owl Project. 

Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI, explained, “Emily very kindly came up on the weekend to talk to the community. This project is really important for FOCI. We’re doing really interesting scientific work and that data is going back both provincially and federally. It puts us in the spotlight with this particular species. It’s a project that’s running for three years. We’re in the second year of trying to discover whether there are Western Screech Owls on Cortes Island.” 

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Environment

Canada’s Environment Minister says the federal government will take a ‘long, hard look’ at upping its climate target following IPCC report

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As the world stares down an ongoing and rapidly worsening climate crisis, wealthy countries like Canada must hit the “fast-forward button” and push up their net-zero emissions deadlines to 2040, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said Monday.

Guterres’ remarks accompanied the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the last of this decade — which shows the goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 C “is achievable,” he said. “But it will take a quantum leap in climate action.”

Continue reading Canada’s Environment Minister says the federal government will take a ‘long, hard look’ at upping its climate target following IPCC report →