More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Solar-powered homes, electric tractors and hydrogen-cell trucking fleets: Canada has big net-zero ambitions, but getting there will require trillions of dollars in investment and will likely fuel hotter inflation for years to come, economists said.
Over the last decade, Canadian business investment has sagged, running well below historic levels and leading to excess supply in the economy, which pushed down inflation and allowed for structurally lower interest rates.
But that trend is set to reverse, said David Dodge, an economist and former Bank of Canada governor, as spending ramps up during the so-called green transition.
"We have major investment efforts to deal with climate change and to convert everywhere from the use of fossil fuel," Dodge said in an interview with Reuters.
This spending will lead to a "tendency for prices to have some upward pressure rather than some downward pressure" starting as soon as next year, said Dodge, who headed Canada's central bank from 2001 to 2008.
Economists around the world already are warning of greenflation, higher energy prices and consumer costs as the global economy shifts to cleaner energy sources. Stronger business investment, demand for skilled higher-wage workers, and more innovation spending will also fuel price increases.
But hotter inflation will lead to higher interest rates, a worrisome risk for Canada's highly-indebted households, which are weighed down by $2.5 trillion in debt, more than the country's annual output.
Canadian inflation is at an 18-year high of 4.7%, while the Bank of Canada's key interest rate has been at a record low of 0.25% since March 2020. The central bank has signaled it could hike as soon as April, but money markets are not ruling out an increase as soon as this month.
Canada, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, has pledged to reduce emissions 40%-45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Royal Bank of Canada says getting to the net-zero target will cost $2 trillion over three decades. Ian Lee, a professor in the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa, thinks it could cost more, pointing to the sheer prevalence of natural gas as a heating and industrial fuel.
"We're talking about rebuilding the entire energy-based economy, from oil and gas to electric, and so it's going to be at a scale never before experienced," Lee said.
"I have no doubt it will be inflationary," Lee added. "You do anything at that scale, and it's going to be inflationary."
Roughly 54% of Canadian homes are heated with fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, with 40% of them using electric heat, according to official data. Fossil fuels - mostly natural gas and coal - are used to generate 18% of Canada's electricity.
Homes, schools, businesses and industrial complexes will need to run on renewable electricity rather than gas. Cars, trucks, farm equipment and entire transport and industrial vehicle fleets will need to make the shift to electric.
Heightened demand for electricity will also require a major expansion of the power grid.
But some economists argue it is not clear the inflation bump will be persistent, pointing to how rapidly energy costs can fall once renewables are in place.
"Germany came in and basically subsidized everyone to put solar panels on their roof. That had a large negative impact on inflation because, obviously, it brought down power prices," said Stephen Brown, senior Canada economist at Capital Economics.
Ultimately, the climate-related restructuring may in the short term feel "hard to swallow," Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle said during a panel at the COP26 climate change conference in November.
"But in the long term, you have actually a lot more jobs, you have an economy that's much more flexible ... It's a win-win at the end of the day," he said.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”