In megaproject-weary Newfoundland, a massive hydrogen operation has some on edge

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press

A multibillion-dollar megaproject in Newfoundland is one step closer to becoming Canada’s first commercial green hydrogen operation, but some in the country’s easternmost province wonder whether their government has learned from its mistakes.

World Energy GH2, the company leading the project, is aware there are concerns about Project Nujio’qonik, said chief executive Sean Leet. But he said there are reasons for people to have faith in the company.

"We're from here," he told reporters on Wednesday. "We're here to build a project that the community and the province will be proud of."

The Liberal Newfoundland and Labrador government approved the US$12-billion project's environmental assessment on Tuesday, as companies in Atlantic Canada race to become the country's first exporter of hydrogen developed with renewable energy. The province of about 530,000 people is home to four offshore oilfields, and advocates have long called on the government to wean itself off oil royalties and instead turn the province's famously ferocious winds into power — and revenue.

But Project Nujio’qonik has been controversial almost since it was first proposed. The first two phases of development would involve windfarms of at least 150 turbines built on Newfoundland's Port au Port Peninsula and in the nearby Codroy Valley, on the island's west coast. Those turbines would power a hydrogen and ammonia production plant, to be built in Stephenville, N.L., located about 145 kilometres northeast of Codroy.

The experimental project would exploit a massive rural area of Newfoundland as a testing ground for the benefit of a private company, said Nick Mercer, an assistant environmental science professor at the University of Prince Edward Island. 

Mercer, who grew up in Newfoundland and Labrador, is a member of Enviro Watch N.L., a group that has been vocally opposed to World Energy's proposal. He said they worry Project Nujio’qonik doesn't come with enough benefits or control for the communities it will impact.

A transition away from oil is "inevitable" for the province, Mercer said in an interview.

"Just transitions, however, are not inevitable," he said. "If we build the renewable energy future with the same capitalist and extractive values of the fossil fuel era, we're going to end up with the exact same social and economic inequity."

Bill Montevecchi, a seabird scientist at Memorial University in St. John's, said he's concerned about the impacts the project will have on an ecologically sensitive area.

Project Nujio’qonik is just too big, he said. The province's troubles with the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam have shown that "bigger is better" has not proven true for Newfoundland and Labrador, he added.

"It's clear when you look at these megaprojects, in terms of economics, bigger is always more risky," Montevecchi said in an interview. "And there's no question that we're probably in a high risk situation right now."

The Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam was greenlit in 2012 by the province's then-Progressive Conservative government, with an estimated price tag of about $7.4 billion. Its cost has since ballooned to more than $13 billion.

Though it was finally declared to be in working order last year, there are persistent problems with some of its components, and its staggering cost has loomed large over the province's finances for years.

As he spoke to reporters Wednesday, Leet appeared unfazed by the criticisms that have plagued Project Nujio’qonik. There will be "questions" about any megaproject, he said.

"We appreciate that dialogue, so we continue to engage with those folks that have questions or concerns," he said. "I think we enjoy a great amount of support in the local area."

He said the company has already invested about $100 million into the project and would likely make a final decision in early 2025 about whether it will proceed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2024.

Wind, solar operators urged to invest now to protect infrastructure from climate risk

The Canadian Press

Wind and solar operators in Canada are being urged to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic grid outages by making their infrastructure more resilient to climate change.

Renewable energy operators from across the country gathered at a conference in Calgary this week to discuss the growing risk that climate change-related extreme weather poses to their industry.

Vittoria Bellissimo, president and CEO of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, said all types of power generation, including those using fossil fuels, are vulnerable to damage or outages in the event of natural disasters such as wildfire, flooding and severe storms. 

But she said as renewable power grows to make up a greater proportion of this country's overall electricity generation, the industry will need to consider whether their infrastructure is prepared for a changing climate.

"There is a worst-case scenario, but we’d be speculating to guess at what it is, because we don’t know yet," Bellissimo said in an interview on the sidelines of Wednesday's conference. 

"If you look back at the major events that we’ve seen in the past decade and a half, even just in Alberta, we had floods in 2013 — that was something people weren’t expecting. Fires in Slave Lake and Fort McMurray, people weren’t expecting those ... So we are going to have to manage in uncertain conditions going forward.”

In an extreme example of what severe weather can do to renewable energy infrastructure, a 2019 hailstorm that hit a solar farm in Texas damaged 400,000 of the site's 685,000 panels, resulting in losses estimated at more than US$70 million.

Just last month, another major hailstorm damaged a 3,000-acre solar farm near Houston, shattering hundreds of panels.

George Fan, national natural catastrophe and climate leader for insurance company Marsh Canada, said the 2019 Texas storm was a wake-up call for the industry.

"For (solar farm) operators and asset owners, it resulted in significant rises in insurance premiums," Fan told conference delegates Wednesday.

"Insurance is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change.”

For its part, the renewable energy sector knows it will be more vulnerable to extreme weather in years to come. For the fast-growing solar sector, it is worrisome that climate models show Western Canada will likely see a significant increase in the number of large hailstone-producing storms as the planet warms.

Wildfire, which is also expected to become more common, poses a direct threat to renewable energy infrastructure in its path, but it can also reduce the generating capacity of solar facilities when smoke in the atmosphere obscures sunlight.

Fan said there are many things renewable energy operators can do to make their assets more climate-resilient, from investing in thicker, less breakable solar panels to creating fire buffer zones by clearing nearby vegetation.

Avoiding building renewable energy infrastructure in areas particularly prone to natural disasters is also important, he said.

The conversation comes as debate rages across the country about how quickly the shift to renewable energy can be accomplished without jeopardizing the stability of the grid.

In Alberta in particular, an explosion of growth in the renewable electricity sector together with the rapid phaseout of coal power has put pressure on grid reliability. During a deep freeze in January of this year, the province was forced to declare an emergency grid alert when its power system — under pressure from a number of natural gas plant outages as well as wind that was not blowing — came close to buckling.

The province also saw electricity shortages last week, with a brief period of rolling blackouts due to multiple fossil fuel generators being offline, as well as low wind and solar generation.

Matt Côté, operations program director for the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, acknowledged that grid reliability is a growing concern, and climate change risks only exacerbate that. But he said one form of generation is not more vulnerable than any other to severe weather.

"Hail is worse for solar than it is for wind. Icing is worse for wind than it is for solar," Côté said in an interview.

"And then things like that (Alberta) cold snap — it was the intakes on gas plants that had problems ... It's the system as a whole that is vulnerable, for different reasons."

Making Canada's grid more resilient in the face of climate change requires financial investment by developers and utilities, and ultimately those costs will be borne by consumers in the form of higher power bills, Côté said.

But he said resiliency investments across the entire grid are what will ultimately guard against costly system outages in the face of Mother Nature's wrath.

“You can pay up front, or pay when your power’s out and it’s minus 40. I’d rather pay up front, personally," Côté said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2024.

Energy producers say they are prepared, ready for 2024 drought, wildfire risks

The Canadian Press

Canadian energy producers say they are prepared and ready for what could be another spring and summer of drought and wildfires in Western Canada.

Many of this country's largest conventional oil and gas drillers operate in regions which last year were affected by severe hot, dry weather conditions. 

As early as the start of last May, oil and gas companies in northwest and central Alberta as well as northeast B.C. found themselves temporarily halting production as wildfires raged across key fossil fuel-producing regions.

Most of the curtailments were done on a precautionary basis and no significant damage to energy-producing infrastructure occurred. 

Now, as this year's snow melts and spring-like conditions return to Western Canada, oil and gas producers are prepared for what could be another fiery year. In late February, Alberta's government declared an early start to wildfire season, warning of unusually dry conditions and low snow cover.

"I think we're paid to worry about everything on behalf of the shareholders, and we do. But you know, we manage these things," said Jonathan Wright, CEO of NuVista Energy Ltd., in a phone interview Tuesday from Toronto, where he was attending the annual Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers conference.

NuVista, a Calgary-based company, temporarily shut down all of its facilities in the Grande Prairie, Alta. area last May when fires made it impossible to access the company's sites by road.

The precautionary shutdown resulted in a temporary production impact to NuVista of about 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day for much of the month of May, or about 43 per cent of the company's overall production.

While no one knows what will happen this year, Wright said NuVista will "absolutely stay ahead" of the wildfire situation at all times — both through regular emergency response drills at work sites, as well as the use of satellite imagery to track the course and progression of any blazes.

"We quickly learned (last year) when there were fires coming into the area that we need to track those fires," Wright said. 

"And so there is a NASA fire-tracking website which our field operations folks watch very closely whenever there's fire risk ... That allows you to predict well ahead of time if and when you need to shut in any facilities."

Many of the fires that burned last year in Western Canada remained smouldering as sub-surface hot spots throughout the winter, and are now igniting as the snow melts and temperatures heat up. 

A provincial government map shows 51 active wildfires in Alberta as of this week, though all are listed as either under control or being held.

Dean Setoguchi, CEO of Keyera Corp. — which provides pipelines, processing, storage, and marketing services for the energy industry — said the company has expanded the vegetation-free wildfire buffer zones around its sites since last year, when it had to shut some operations in the Drayton Valley, Alta. area temporarily as flames roared in the region.

"You know, we've gone through it once already. We didn't sustain any material damage last year, and we're even more prepared this year," Setoguchi said.

"It's something that we always have to be mindful of and be careful, but I think we're very well positioned to mitigate that risk."

Drought is also expected to be a risk for energy producers this year, particularly in the Montney region of northeast B.C. and northwest Alberta, where natural gas operators use large amounts of water for hydraulic fracturing.

As of March 31, the federal government's drought monitoring website classified the bulk of the Montney's oil-and-gas producing areas as either under "extreme" or "severe" drought conditions.

"It's dry conditions up there and they didn't get the snowpack they usually do," said Chris Carlsen, CEO of Birchcliff Energy Ltd., which has operations in the Montney.

But Carlsen, speaking by phone Tuesday from the CAPP conference, said his company has built its own system of water storage reservoirs over the years and is confident it has enough water saved to execute its 2024 drilling program.

"Specific to Birchcliff, we've got 30 wells this year, so we need 600,000 give-or-take cubic meters (of water) and we've got that stored ourselves," Carlsen said.

He added once that stored water is used, though, additional drought in 2025 and beyond could become significantly more challenging. 

"I think it's a question of what will happen this spring? Are we going to have a wet spring where we're going to be able to collect some water for our 2025 program? I think that's more of a concern from our point of view," Carlsen said.

Brad Wells, head of energy for BMO Capital Markets, said while weather is unpredictable, both drought and wildfires are significant risks that Canada's energy sector needs to be prepared for this year.

"I think there's the potential for water restrictions to impact (well) completions activity, and water draws from the Athabasca River for the oilsands. So (drought) is definitely something we're watching," Wells said from Toronto, where BMO is sponsoring the conference.

"And I think wildfires are absolutely a risk that energy producers may have to deal with. Ultimately these things are hard to predict ... But it's definitely a risk that needs to be considered."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 9, 2024.

 

Walmart Canada says robots are coming to two Ontario warehouses, but jobs not at risk

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

In a Calgary warehouse almost as big as eight football fields, an army of robots whir about, carrying massive quantities of merchandise bound for Walmart Canada customers.

Some of the robots zip around the hulking facility transporting pallets of merchandise fresh off delivery trucks. Another resembling a giant arm moves the pallets onto conveyor belts. A third group are labellers.

Together, they shave down the time it takes to get products from trailers into the facility by 90 per cent — and their overlord, Walmart Canada, hopes this is just the start. It plans to bring robots to Mississauga and Cornwall, Ont., distribution centres over the next five years.

"We're super excited about what we've done in Calgary and we're super excited to scale that and get it into our other sites," said Matt Kelly, Walmart Canada's vice-president of supply chain.

It's not hard to see why companies including Walmart are enamoured with robots.

Robots won't grumble about tasks and aren't subject to union or government policies restricting working hours or the heft of the loads they can carry. Though they can have downtime for upgrades, maintenance and recharging, there's no need to offer them overtime, vacation or benefits.

Kelly's staff say robots have sped up their ability to throw freight — warehouse lingo for moving merchandise — and boosted safety and ergonomics by reducing repetitive strain and injuries.

"Every associate within our supply chain has the right to go home to their families at the end of the day with no injuries, no cuts, no grazes, no scrapes, nothing more serious," Kelly said.

Liza Amlani, co-founder of the Retail Strategy Group, sees perks for shoppers too.

"Customers today expect a lot more from the brands they buy," she wrote in an email.

"Implementing the right technology could save the retailer a lot of money which could be passed down as savings to the customer."

Yet experts have long prophesied the rise of robots puts jobs at risk.

Statistics Canada estimated in 2020 that 10.6 per cent of Canadian workers were at high risk of seeing robots transform their jobs or even replace them in 2016, with 29.1 per cent facing moderate risk.

The risk was even higher for those over 55, without post-secondary credentials or with low literacy and numeracy proficiency.

Kelly maintains Walmart's robots haven't nixed the need for workers. In fact, when it announced plans to build the $118 million Calgary distribution centre in 2022, it said the facility would create 325 new jobs.

"We need the human element for oversight and from a safety perspective," Kelly said.

"What we want our associates to focus on is the problem solving and the critical thinking elements that are always there to run a good, safe supply chain."

Some companies similarly leaning on robots have even increased their ranks. Statistics Canada found firms that invested in robots between 1996 and 2017 employed more, not fewer, workers.

Businesses already invested in robotics include grocer Sobeys Inc., which runs a Vaughan, Ont., facility where robots deliver bins of merchandise to workers who scoop out the right number of products.

Pizza Hut has also dabbled with autonomous robots to make Vancouver deliveries and RC Coffee robots pump out espressos and lattes in under two minutes in Toronto.

Stratview Research projects rising adoption will push the value of the global retail robotics market to US$105.95 billion by 2029.

Some of that value could be derived from camera-guided drones and smart glasses directing warehouse workers to goods, mused McKinsey & Co. in a 2020 report.

Kelly didn't say what other innovations are on his radar, but before Walmart implements technologies, it spends months, if not years, rigorously researching and testing devices to ensure they can handle a dizzying array of products.

"(There's) a lot of different types, shapes, sizes. It comes in different flows," Kelly said. "It has different temperatures and different regimes that we need to adhere to."

Even though he insists Walmart doesn't benchmark its technology to competitors, rivals using robotics loom large.

"Amazon is a great example of being a testing ground for driving efficiencies by leveraging tech," Amlani said.

"Robots are used in warehouses for restocking and inventory management. Drones are being used for delivery and in-store robots are used for product information and discovery."

With such competition, complacency isn't an option for Walmart. The company teased more robots will follow its forthcoming Ontario outfits.

But ask Kelly what technology he dreams of having on hand, he demurs, saying instead "the Holy Grail is that we will continue to innovate."

"We are always looking for the technologies in the supply chain that will allow our associates to ensure that product is on the shelf at the right time in the right quantities in the right place," Kelly said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2024.

 

Microsoft-backed self-driving startup Wayve expands to Vancouver

Thomas Seal, Bloomberg News

British autonomous-driving startup Wayve Technologies Ltd. is opening a research center in Vancouver, adding its second location in North America to accelerate its growth.

The company’s chief scientist Jamie Shotton, who previously helped to develop Microsoft Corp.’s body-tracking tool Kinect, will move from the U.K. to lead the R&D-focused office, Wayve’s third location after London and Mountain View, California.

“We are in a growth phase,” Shotton said in an interview. “It’s just about expanding our reach, expanding our access to talent.”

Going up against the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, Wayve’s artificial intelligence aims to learn driving rules and patterns by itself, rather than needing them to be programmed in, so it can intuit how to respond to new places and unpredictable scenarios. The company’s route to market is to get automakers to integrate its software into their cars, Shotton said.

The expansion is a vote of confidence for Vancouver, an aspiring tech hub. A reasonable drive from Seattle, the Canadian city has major offices for the likes of Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc. as well as a healthy startup scene.

“Vancouver is obviously a very international hub for North America, and highly attractive for businesses through favorable immigration policies,” Shotton said. It has a “pro-innovation, pro-AI policy environment that gives us the confidence to invest.”

Wayve was founded by PhDs from the University of Cambridge in 2017. It’s raised more than US$258 million from investors including Microsoft, Eclipse Ventures LLC, Balderton Capital, Baillie Gifford & Co., D1 Capital Partners, Moore Strategic Ventures LLC, Virgin and Ocado Group Plc. The Vancouver office will hire about 10 researchers this year and expand from there, Shotton said, adding to Wayve’s about 240 employees.

U.K. filings show individual investors in Wayve include Meta Platforms Inc.’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun and OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. Last year, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates publicly tested the Wayve system in central London with Wayve co-founder Alex Kendall.

 

Federal government used AI in hundreds of initiatives, new research database shows

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press

Canada's federal government has used artificial intelligence in nearly 300 projects and initiatives, new research has found — including to help predict the outcome of tax cases, sort temporary visa applications and promote diversity in hiring. 

Joanna Redden, an associate professor at Western University, pieced together the database using news reports, documents tabled in Parliament and access-to-information requests. 

Of the 303 automated tools in the register as of Wednesday, 95 per cent were used by federal government agencies.

"There needs to be far more public debate about what kinds of systems should be in use, and there needs to be more public information available about how these systems are being used," Redden said in an interview.

She argued the data exposes a problem with the Liberal government’s proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, the first federal bill specifically aimed at AI. 

"That piece of legislation is not going to apply to, for the most part, government uses of AI. So the sheer number of applications that we've identified demonstrates what a problem that is."

Bill C-27 would introduce new obligations for "high-impact" systems, such as the use of AI in employment. That’s something the Department of National Defense experimented with when it used AI to reduce bias in hiring decisions, in a program that ended in March 2021. 

A spokesperson said the department used one platform to shortlist candidates to interview, and another to assess an "individual's personality, cognitive ability and social acumen" and to match them to profiles. The candidates provided explicit consent, and the data informed human decision-making.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said two pilot projects from 2018 to help officers triage temporary resident visa applications have become permanent. The department uses "artificial intelligence tools to sort applications and determine positive eligibility."

The register also says the department employs AI to review study permit applications by people from other countries, though a spokesperson said it does not use AI for "final decision-making." 

The department's automated systems can't reject an application or recommend a rejection, the spokesperson said.

Not all experiments become permanent initiatives. 

The Public Health Agency of Canada said it discontinued a project analyzing publicly available social-media information to look for warning signs of suicide, due to factors including cost and "methodologies."

Health Canada, on the other hand, continues to use a social listening tool with a "rudimentary AI component" to search online news for mentions of incidents related to a consumer product, a spokesperson said.

Some of the experiments would be familiar to Canadians — the Royal Canadian Navy, for example, tried out a system similar to Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa to verbally relay commands to ships. 

A spokesperson said efforts to integrate voice-activated technology in warships continue, but "information security concerns" have to be "considered before such technology could be used."

AI is also put to work for legal research and predictions. 

The Canada Revenue Agency said it uses a system that allows users to input variables related to a case that will "provide an anticipated outcome by using analytics to predict how a court would likely rule in a specific scenario, based on relevance and historical court decisions." 

And the Canadian Institutes of Health Research uses labour relations decisions software. It compares a specific situation to previous cases and simulates how different facts might affect the outcome, the register outlines.

At the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, AI flags anomalies in estate filings. 

A spokesperson said the system detects "potential debtor non-compliance based on key attributes found in insolvency filings." Cases flagged by the system are evaluated by analysts.

The register also includes examples of AI being employed by the RCMP. A spokesperson confirmed the RCMP has used AI to identify child sexual assault material and to help in rescuing victims. 

A "type of facial recognition technology called face matching" has been used on lawfully obtained internal data, the spokesperson said. 

Facial recognition is also used by the Canada Border Services Agency. A spokesperson said the agency uses the technology on a voluntary basis to "help authenticate the identities of incoming travellers" though kiosks at some airports. 

Redden said there are a lot of reasons to ask questions about facial recognition, including examples in the United States where it has led to wrongful arrests.

More broadly, she argued that the government should be keeping better track of its own uses of AI. 

The federal government said that in cases where AI use "can have significant impacts," such as in helping make administrative decisions, its directive on automated decision-making requires an algorithmic impact assessment. 

Those assessments are then published in a public register, the Treasury Board outlined in an email.

The register currently only has 18 entries. 

Asked why the number is so much smaller than Redden’s total, a spokesperson said the directive and the register are "specifically focused on uses of AI with direct impact on individuals or businesses. Many AI applications in the federal government do not fall under this category."

One such example: the tech that is used to keep tabs on nature. 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency employs machine learning to track invasive plants, insects and molluscs, the registry outlines. 

A spokesperson said the agency uses an AI tool to scan a social network crowdsourcing observations of plants and animals. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says it uses AI to "detect marine mammals from aerial, drone and satellite imagery." 

It took Redden two years, with some assistance, to compile the data based on limited information from a variety of sources.

The information available often doesn't indicate when an AI system was introduced or why, whether it is still in place, what data is being used or if there have been any issues with the system, she said.

"It's very difficult for those on the outside to do this kind of work."

It's unclear what happened to some of the pilot projects Redden documented. 

A January 2023 document tabled in Parliament shows the Canada Border Services Agency said it was developing an algorithm for postal X-rays to automatically detect guns and gun parts, while Global Affairs Canada was experimenting with AI-generated briefing notes.

Global Affairs didn't respond to a request for more information, and CBSA declined to provide an update on those efforts.

"While we can tell you that the CBSA is currently closely following the development of machine learning algorithms for X-rays to automatically detect items of interest, we do not disclose details of specific targeting, enforcement or intelligence as it may render them ineffective," the agency said. 

What the register demonstrates, Redden said, is "how widespread use of AI is across government bodies in Canada" — and how little we know about that use. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2024.

 

RBC faces questions on climate, Indigenous rights at annual general meeting

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

Royal Bank of Canada faced a steady stream of questions about the bank's climate and Indigenous rights track record at its annual general meeting Thursday. 

"We're bringing a voice of nature," said Tara Houska of the Couchiching First Nation, as she pushed the bank to use its position to accelerate the energy transition.

"Are you actually committed towards moving away from fossil fuels, moving away (from) something we know is killing us, towards a different way?" she asked.

In response, chief executive Dave McKay said the bank does need to keep evolving, while also defending past decisions and pointing to several major policy rollouts.

“I couldn't agree more that we need to continue to evolve our energy strategy. We can continue to, need to, evolve towards a net-zero future," said McKay.

“We know there's an urgency to that as well, we see the climate around us, we see the climate volatility."

In recent months, the bank has released an early outline of how it plans to work with clients to reduce their emissions — or potentially cut ties with clients who don't respond — along with a commitment to triple renewable energy funding and other measures aimed at speeding up the transition.

The bank has also agreed to disclose in its next climate report how its fossil fuel funding compares with its clean energy funding after pressure from shareholders.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander had led a shareholder resolution pushing the bank to release the funding ratio, something the bank had rejected until an about-face last week, thereby avoiding a vote on it at the AGM. 

Critics in the room though said the bank is still not doing enough as it continues to lend billions of dollars to oil and gas companies and to projects that damage the environment.

Many questions were focused on having RBC ensure there is proper Indigenous consent for projects that it funds, an issue that has been contentious for pipeline projects like Coastal GasLink and Trans Mountain.

McKay said the bank has a detailed risk assessment method that follows the guidelines of the Equator principles, a global baseline for the finance industry.

"We feel confident that this framework allows us to decide which projects do deserve our support, and which don't," he said. 

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said he appreciates the banks' efforts, but that they don't go far enough to line up with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

"As long as RBC continues to fund controversial projects that don't enjoy free prior and informed consent, we're going to have troubles, cost overruns, TMX, Coastal GasLink, billions and billions of dollars, litigation, fees and chaos and disruption."

McKay said the bank also factors in the economic participation of communities as part of its assessment, and that Coastal GasLink has seen significant buy-in from First Nations, but that the bank will also continue to evolve its framework over time.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2024.

Shock exit of CFO Ahn comes at crucial time for Canada's largest bank

Christine Dobby, Bloomberg News

The sudden exit of Royal Bank of Canada’s chief financial officer comes at a “critical juncture” for the lender as it tries to absorb the biggest acquisition in its history, a leading Wall Street analyst says. 

Canada’s largest bank fired CFO Nadine Ahn on Friday, saying she’d violated its code of conduct by having an undisclosed “close personal relationship” with a colleague who was given preferential treatment, including promotion and pay increases. 

The news landed barely a week after Royal Bank closed its $13.5 billion purchase of HSBC Holdings Plc’s Canadian assets, including its portfolio of commercial loans, mortgages and more than 100 branches. On top of the “ambitious integration” of those two entities, Royal Bank has been trying to rein in costs and improve risk controls at its Los Angeles-based City National subsidiary, Jefferies Financial analyst John Aiken said. 

“Given the importance of the CFO role in managing operational efficiency, we believe that there will be an even greater investor focus on the HSBC integration and improvements in City National’s operations,” Aiken said in a note to clients published Sunday.

“We maintain that the following several months are a critical juncture for the bank and the loss of a key senior executive team member at this time is a material loss, regardless of the pedigree of her successor.”

Royal Bank said it sacked Ahn and the other employee, whom it didn’t name, after an internal review and an investigation by outside legal counsel.

Other market watchers said the departure may dent Royal Bank’s reputation but is unlikely to drag the lender down in a major way. The shares closed up 0.6 per cent on Monday at $139.95 in Toronto, better than the 0.3 per cent gain for the S&P/TSX Composite Commercial Banks index.

“It sounds like a messy departure and certainly not something that investors would be happy about — abruptly losing your CFO is never a good thing,” said Mike Rizvanovic, an analyst with Keefe Bruyette & Woods, noting that he was surprised by the level of detail the bank shared in its press release about the reasons for Ahn’s departure.

There shouldn’t be any major disruption in the bank’s day-to-day operations, but employee morale could be damaged, he said, adding that Ahn was respected as a woman in finance in a very senior role. She was named CFO in 2021. 

“I do think it’s a bit of a hit to Royal’s reputation in terms of the management team,” said Rizvanovic, who has an outperform rating on the bank’s shares. “But it’s not like my view on Royal has changed significantly.” 

The CFO’s departure is a surprising and “completely unnecessary blemish” for Royal Bank, said Dan Rohinton, a portfolio manager at iA Global Asset Management Inc. But the bank still has a strong business with a diversified earnings stream, he said. “In the grand scheme of banking, this barely registers.”

Katherine Gibson is filling in as CFO on an interim basis, and there are numerous internal candidates who could succeed Ahn, Rohinton said.

While CFOs are sometimes considered to be candidates to become chief executive officer, Rohinton said he “didn’t have a strong view” on whether Ahn was in the race to replace current CEO Dave McKay.

BMO drops anti-coal policy amid Wall Street rebuke of ESG

Bloomberg News | April 8, 2024 |


BMO Bank quietly dropped its policy restricting lending to the coal industry in late 2023, helping it avoid being labeled an energy “boycotter” in West Virginia.


The change came to light Monday after West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore took a victory lap in an announcement of the financial firms it was adding to its boycott list, which doesn’t include BMO. In late February, the bank received a warning that it could be put on a state list of companies that Moore’s office considers to boycott the fossil fuels industry. BMO is the US subsidiary of Toronto-based Bank of Montreal.

In response to that February notice, Timothy Cox, US general counsel for BMO, said in a March 25 letter to the state treasurer’s office that it removed a statement detailing its restrictions on lending to the coal industry as a result of policy changes in November 2023. Cox’s letter was obtained by Bloomberg News via a public records request.

“As a result of policy changes made in November 2023, we removed a Coal Statement from BMO’s websites as it did not fully reflect our current policies,” Cox’s letter to Moore’s office said. “After receipt of your letter, we realized that a cached version of the statement remained on our websites and took it down. We have no plans to republish the Coal Statement.”

Banks and investment firms have been less vocal about their climate efforts after Republicans have spent more than two years attacking the environmental, social and governance strategy that the finance industry embraced. UBS Group AG chief executive officer Sergio Ermotti last month said policymakers shouldn’t rely on banks as a de facto “climate police.”

BMO’s fundamental approach to the coal industry hasn’t changed despite taking down the public-facing statement, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. Its approach to coal is still based on individual risk-based assessments of companies and taking down the statement doesn’t signal an intention to boost exposure, the person said.

Bank of Montreal in 2021 announced a coal lending policy that said the firm will not provide financing as a lender where the proceeds are known to be primarily used to develop a new greenfield coal-fired power plant, thermal coal mine or significant expansion of such plants or mines, according to its 2022 sustainability report. It also said it wouldn’t lend to new clients that operate significant thermal coal mining or coal power generation assets.

The statement on coal lending used to be included on a website that details the bank’s policies on human rights, political contributions and anti-money laundering measures.

On Monday, West Virginia’s Moore said that BMO worked with his office and “removed an offending policy” on its website. That helped BMO avoid being placed on West Virginia’s list that now comprises nine different financial services firms.

“BMO Bank removed an offending policy published on their website after receiving our letter and subsequently demonstrated other existing policies had been revoked,” Moore said in the statement.

Jared Hunt, a spokesperson for the West Virginia treasurer’s office, said that company representatives met with their office to commit that the company’s previous statement on coal lending was no longer part of their lending policies.

BMO spokesperson Scott Doll said in an emailed statement that the bank’s policies “represent a comprehensive, risk-based approach that underscores our commitment to sound and prudent business practices while complying with the laws and regulations of the markets we serve.”

(By Amanda Albright)

 

Canada to allow 30-year amortization for first-time buyers' mortgages on new homes

The Canadian Press

The Canadian government will allow 30-year amortization periods on insured mortgages for first-time homebuyers purchasing newly built homes.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made the announcement in Toronto today, saying it would take effect Aug. 1. 

The Canadian Home Builders' Association has advocated for longer amortization periods, saying five more years would help with affordability and spur more construction.

Freeland also said the government will nearly double — to $60,000 — the amount first-time homebuyers can withdraw from RRSPs to buy a home.

That's up from $35,000, to take effect April 16, the day the federal budget is set to be released.

People who make such withdrawals between Jan. 1, 2022, and Dec. 31, 2025, are also getting more time to begin repayment — up to five years in total rather than two. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2024. 

 

Entry to housing market feels out of reach for 76% of non-owners: CIBC poll

The Canadian Press

Three in four Canadians who don't own a property say buying a home feels out of reach, a new poll shows. 

A CIBC survey, published Thursday, shows 76 per cent of Canadians who haven't yet entered the housing market feel homeownership is a far-off dream, but more than half of them are holding on to their goal of one day owning a home. 

At least 70 per cent of non-homeowners said they were priced out of the market while 63 per cent said it is hard to save for a down payment, the survey shows.

The survey comes on the same day the federal government announced longer amortization periods for certain first-time homebuyers.

The federal government will allow 30-year amortization periods on insured mortgages for first-time homebuyers who purchase new builds, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Thursday.

Freeland also said the government will nearly double the amount first-time homebuyers can withdraw from RRSPs to buy a home to $60,000. That's up from $35,000, to take effect April 16, the day the federal budget is set to be released.

As well as prospective homebuyers feeling priced out of the market, the CIBC poll also shows many homeowners have been cutting back on expenses amid high interest rates. 

Half of homeowners with a variable-rate mortgage say they've been cutting back on everyday expenses, while 21 per cent have put a lump sum amount toward their mortgage.

At least 45 per cent of homeowners with fixed-rate mortgages anticipate they'll cut back on daily expenses as their loans come up for renewal in the next two years.

The poll also found that 55 per cent of non-owners said they'll only be able to afford a new home with an inheritance or gift from their family.

One in every four non-homeowners also said they're considering buying a home with friends to afford homeownership.

The poll was conducted for CIBC in February by Maru Public Opinion. It was conducted in two waves among a random sample of Maru Voice Canada panelists.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2024.

Canada needs to build 1.3M additional homes by 2030 to close housing gap, says PBO

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

The parliamentary budget officer says Canada would need to build 1.3 million additional homes by 2030 to eliminate the country's housing gap.

The newly released report looks at how many more homes would need to be built restore Canada's vacancy rate to the historical average. 

The report by Yves Giroux's office also accounts for the number of additional households that would form if sufficient housing were available. 

Based on those benchmarks, the PBO estimates that Canada would need to build 181,000 more homes a year than it currently does. 

The report does not take into account recent federal efforts to bolster housing supply or Ottawa's newly imposed cap on temporary residents.

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. says Canada needs to build 3.5 million more homes by 2030 to restore affordability to 2003-04 levels.

Giroux says his estimate is much lower than that of the CMHC because he looked solely at closing the gap between demand and supply. 

The Liberal government has made a string of housing announcements ahead of the federal budget, largely aimed at increasing housing supply. 

The proposed measures include billions of dollars in low-cost loans to spur more rental construction, as well as infrastructure funding for provinces and municipalities. 

The government is trying to win back favour with young voters who are increasingly pessimistic about their homeownership prospects and are facing skyrocketing rental costs. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2024.

 

Survey finds majority of Canadians think federal Liberals are overspending

Jordan Fleguel, BNN Bloomberg

Most Canadians think the federal government is overspending, according to a new survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute, whose president says it signals a big shift in public sentiment from when the Liberals were first elected.

The survey, conducted last month among a random sample of Canadian adults, asked for perspectives on the federal government's spending and deficit ahead of its 2024 budget, set to be released next week.

It found that 59 per cent of Canadians believe the federal Liberals are spending too much, while 18 per cent said they think spending is within an acceptable range. Just eight per cent of respondents said they believe the federal government is underspending.

“The Liberals, politically, have always been a pretty ‘spend-y’ gang,” Angus Reid president Shachi Kurl told BNN Bloomberg in a Thursday television interview.

“(That’s) going all the way back to the 2015 election, where (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau really broke through and had his moment after years of austerity and fiscal restraint under the (former Prime Minister Stephen) Harper years, saying: ‘Guess what, I'm going to run a deficit.’”

Kurl said that went against the “political orthodoxy” at the time, but the promise of increased spending on things like social programs struck a chord with many Canadians and helped propel the Liberals to a majority government.

Eight years later, Kurl said many Canadians have shifted their views.

“What you're seeing now is some concern, some fatigue, and Canadians wondering how all of this is going to get paid for,” she said.

“Does it mean new taxes for me? Does it mean less tax relief for me, or will it mean taxes at a corporate or a higher level, and what does that mean for my job and my work? (There’s) lots of concern there.”

Budget announcements 'not pleasing a lot of people'

Kurl said Trudeau’s Liberals have put a renewed focus on communicating their spending plans to Canadians, with the aim of taking back control of the fiscal narrative before budget day.

In recent weeks, Trudeau and his senior ministers have made numerous pre-budget announcements related to housing, childcare and artificial intelligence.

Prior to these announcements, Kurl said Pierre Poilievre and the federal Conservatives had dominated the news cycle around government spending by criticising many of Trudeau’s economic policies, most notably the carbon tax.

Kurl said the Liberals’ recent announcements have bought them time, and demonstrate that they “understand the assignment” in terms of political strategy.

“If the assignment was to do a better job communicating, that's what they're trying to do,” she said.

“It's going to please some people, (but) it's not pleasing a lot of people, and I think it's leaving some folks skeptical as to whether they'll even follow through on some of these promises.”

Methodology

The data featured in this article is drawn from a survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute from March 20 to 22, 2024, within a random, representative sample of 1,602 Canadian adults. The institute notes that for comparison purposes only, a sample of that size carries a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Totals may not add up to 100, due to rounding.

With files from CTV News