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December 2009

Ally

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News articles for December 2009.
 

Ally

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Push for Alternatives to Coal lights a fire under Wood-Pellet Industry

Replace coal with wood pellets to generate electricity?

Don`t laugh. The idea isn`t as implausible as it sounds. Use of the clean-burning renewable fuel as an alternative energy source--still in its infancy in Alberta--is already moving ahead in a big way elsewhere.

Ontario Power Generation--the provincially owned utility that generates 70 per cent of Ontario`s electric power--intends to convert one of its four coal-fired power plants to wood pellets by 2012.

OPG has already conducted smallscale test runs of the wood-waste fuel at its Atikokan and Nanticoke power plants, as part of Ontario`s drive to eliminate coal-fired power by 2014. Now, Atikokan is gearing up for full-scale conversion within three years.

In Sweden and Germany, several major power plants already run on wood pellets. Germany`s Novus Energy, for instance, generates heat for a Total refinery at a wood power plant near Hamburg.

South of the border, Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power-- the largest coal-fired electric utility in the U.S.--sees wood pellets as a promising way to curb emissions in what`s almost sure to be a carbon-constrained world.

As a result of these and other plant rollouts, there`s growing worldwide demand for wood pellets. Production is currently running at some 12 million tonnes on a global basis, and some forecasters say that figure could nearly double over the next five years.

Read the full article here.
 

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B.C should surface soon: Hansen

Finance Minister Colin Hansen kicked off the latest update on the provincial economy Friday with his version of the old good news/bad news joke.

"The analogy that I think of is that it`s like falling into a lake," Hansen told reporters. "There`s a point at which you stop going down, but you still can`t breathe until you get to the surface."

Gee, that`s a reassuring image, minister. B.C. has fallen into a deep forbidden lake, economically speaking. Tell us more.

"I think we`re at the point where we`re not going any deeper into the depths of that lake," he added.

So to recap: the good news is that we`ve stopped sinking and there do not appear to be any giant crocodiles or other nasties in the lake. The bad news is that we need to claw our way back to the surface, lungs bursting, before we drown.

As disturbing analogies go, there was no improving on it. Still, some of the details of Hansen`s presentation, covering the second quarter of the financial year (July-September) were discouraging as well.

Read the full article here.
 

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B.C. Economy is starting to level off, financial update shows

B.C.`s economy is showing signs of stabilizing after being rocked by the global meltdown last year, according to the province`s second quarterly budget report.

Housing starts, retail sales and employment all remain low, but the declines have leveled off and, in some cases, the numbers have started to improve.

Private forecasters now expect the provincial economy to contract by 2.3 per cent this year, slightly worse than they predicted a few months ago.

But Finance Minister Colin Hansen said Friday the bottom line remains unchanged since the last budget update in September. The province is still on target to post a $2.8-billion deficit, while other provinces have had to increase the size of theirs.

Read the full article here.
 

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Landlords Beware: Vancouver Residents face Tickets if they don`t shovel snow, says Council

Vancouver residents who don`t clear snow and ice off their sidewalks seven days a week face getting a ticket.

Neal Carley, assistant city engineer told council Thursday that communities should be encouraged draw up lists of neighbours, friends and organizations that will help those unable to shovel due to ill health or disability.

"Richmond and Coquitlam just implemented this," he said. "They call them `snow angels.`"

Carley asked council to approve city lawyers making an amendment to the city`s street and traffic bylaw to allow all residents to be ticketed for not clearing the sidewalks.

Previously, sidewalk clearing was only mandatory on streets in the downtown peninsular by 10 a.m. the next day and didn`t apply on Sundays.

Under the proposed changes, it would apply to all streets all the time.

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Vancouver Resale Home Market surges 252% in November over 2008

Vancouver led the Canadian housing market in November existing home sales with a 252-per-cent year-to-year surge.

Victoria (+116 per cent), Toronto (+105 per cent) and Calgary (+67 per cent) followed close behind as Canada as a whole saw a 73-per-cent increase in existing home sales, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Prices were also led last month by Vancouver`s 22-per-cent year-over-year rise in existing home prices.

Nationally, the 73-per-cent jump in November from a year earlier came as the real estate market continued to recover from the economic downturn.

CREA said that 36,383 residential properties were sold last month, with Ontario and Quebec setting sales records for November.

"The current strength of housing demand stands in sharp contrast to weak activity recorded one year ago," CREA said in its report, adding that activity was just 4/10 of a per cent below the highest level for the month recorded in November 2007.

"National home sales activity last month shows how strongly the housing market has rebounded since the beginning of the year," said CREA president Dale Ripplinger. "As we predicted last April, the rebound in resale housing activity led the overall Canadian economy out of recession."Read the full article here.
 

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Surrey finally tackles thorny Issue of Secondary Suites

Surrey is now seen by many as a progressive city often on the leading edge of civic innovation.

It led the way provincially several years ago by adopting Britain`s highly successful Crime Reduction Strategy, leading to a drop in some crime rates.

Surrey also set the bar higher on how municipalities promote their economic development by establishing an annual economic summit. Last fall, it drew former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as featured speaker.

Alas, there are some sectors in which Surrey is a regional laggard, not a leader. The issue of illegal secondary suites is one of them.

For more than 20 years, successive Surrey councils have tried to deal with the growing problem of single-family home owners turning their unfinished basements into illegal rental suites.

Rising housing costs and scarce rental accommodation encourage many home owners — especially younger ones with large mortgages — to build clandestine basement suites. Of course, they`re for the mother-in-law (wink, wink).

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Mill Towns may tax big industries what they want

The right of three more municipalities to tax a major industry to the hilt has been confirmed by B.C. Supreme Court.

Rulings by Justice Peter Voith were released Monday, dismissing almost all the points in three separate petitions where Catalyst Paper Corp. sought relief from high municipal taxes in Campbell River, Port Alberni and Powell River. Voith made a similar ruling concerning North Cowichan in October.

In each community, a Catalyst mill is far and away the largest employer. This year, the company paid each municipality just $1.5 million toward tax bills that added up to a total of $23 million in all four places.

Only one small portion of the most recent rulings favoured Catalyst. It set aside the tax rate imposed on mill property by the Regional District of Campbell River, although not the much larger amount imposed by the city.

Most costs of the Campbell River court case and all costs for the other two were awarded to the cities.

But Lyn Brown, Catalyst`s vice-president of corporate affairs, says it won`t end there. The company will appeal all four decisions. And Catalyst won`t — or it can`t — pay the outstanding tax bill while the court battles continue.

Brown echoed the call of her CEO, Richard Garneau, who has written letters to the media and the municipalities calling for Premier Gordon Campbell to show leadership in finding interim and long-term solutions to what the court agrees is a serious financial situation.

Read the full article here.
 

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Rise of EI claims in B.C. among the highest in Canada

The number of beneficiaries collecting employment insurance in B.C. in September jumped by 11,280, or 12.8 per cent, to 99,360. That total number of recipients is now 130 per cent above this time last year, the second-biggest rise in the country, according to a report released Tuesday by Statistics Canada.

By city, Vancouver now has 31,340 EI beneficiaries, 149 per cent more than in September of last year. Victoria`s total rose 134 per cent to 3,650, more than double the 1,560 on EI during the same month last year

Nationally, the number of people collecting EI jumped more than seven per cent in September, after declining in the previous two months, as the economy struggled to recover from the first recession since the early 1990s.

Regular EI recipients grew by 54,300 to 818,020 during the month, with biggest increases coming in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario. National and provincial data is seasonally adjusted, while data from cities is not.

The national September total is up 63.5 per cent since peak employment in October 2008.

Although the Canadian economy added jobs in September, the higher EI rolls during the month likely reflects "a lag" from previous employment declines, said Statistics Canada analyst Vincent Ferrao.

Read the full article here.
 
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