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Work pauses on Calgary water pipe after injuries; consumption continues to rise

CALGARY (CP) – Repair work on a fractured Calgary water pipe has been paused after two workers were injured at the site.

The workers were taken to hospital shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday and remain there, although neither are in critical condition.

Work isn’t expected to resume on the pipe until this afternoon at the earliest. 

Meanwhile, Mayor Jyoti Gondek is warning Calgarians that their water use continues to creep up.

She says water use increased by another eight million litres Wednesday.

She says that’s now at a level where the city of 1.6 million people could have trouble getting water to all its neighbourhoods and keep a reserve for essential services, including firefighting.

Pro-Palestinian encampment members say McGill’s latest offer is ‘laughable’

MONTREAL (CP) – Members of a pro-Palestinian encampment who have been occupying part of McGill University’s downtown Montreal campus since April say the school’s latest offer falls far short of what’s needed to get them to leave.

Several groups involved in the encampment issued a joint statement describing the latest offer as “laughable” and an “immaterial response” to their demands.

McGill issued a new offer on Monday that included a proposal to review its investments in weapons manufacturers and grant amnesty to protesting students.

The university said it also offered to disclose more investments to include holdings below $500,000 and to support Palestinian students displaced by the war in the Gaza Strip.

The encampment members say the administration continues to delay taking substantive action on divestment and that the university’s latest offer contains no concrete plan to cut ties with Israeli institutions. 

They say their demands are straightforward, beginning with the immediate reallocation of funds from investments in companies tied to Israel’s military.

Feds release carbon pricing impact data ahead of Conservative motion demanding it

OTTAWA (CP) – Newly released federal modelling data suggest that carbon pricing for consumers and big industry will together lower greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 12 per cent a year by 2030 and shave 0.9 per cent off the national GDP. 

The government has been reluctant to share the data because the numbers don’t factor in comparisons including the cost of climate change or the potential for economic growth from climate investments.

The numbers are being published today just as the House of Commons is set to debate a Conservative motion calling for the information to be released.

The existence of the data became known last week when parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux said Environment Canada provided it so he could update his own analysis.

Giroux was recently forced to admit that his analyses in 2022 and 2023 were flawed because they claimed to examine only the impact of consumer carbon pricing when they also included the costs of the industrial price.

The data show that carbon pricing — both the consumer levy and the industrial system — contributed to lowering emissions by 25 million tonnes last year. 

That number is projected set to rise each year until 2030, when the carbon price is set to rise to $170 a tonne and emissions cuts attributed to it will hit 78 million tonnes. 

Total emissions would be 12 per cent lower than they would be without carbon pricing, and account for one-third of the total cuts Canada needs to make to meet its 2030 target.

The data also show the country’s GDP is expected to be about $25 billion lower in 2030 due to carbon pricing than it would be otherwise, or 0.9 per cent below what it is expected to be without carbon pricing. 

B.C. premier repeats call for more federal cash, calls Ottawa’s claims ‘disingenuous’

By: Ashley Joannou

VANCOUVER (CP) – Premier David Eby is expanding his criticism of what he says is an unfair share of federal funding being given to Western Canada.

Eby says Ottawa’s “special treatment for Quebec and Ontario” eventually gets “to be too much” and it’s “disingenuous” for federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller to suggest that B.C.’s concerns are simply about asylum seekers.

Eby and Miller have traded comments this week since the premier suggested at the Western Premiers’ Conference on Monday that Ottawa was “showering” Ontario and Quebec with money, after offering Quebec a $750 million deal to help with immigration concerns.

Miller responded that British Columbia needs to step up and take in more asylum seekers who come to Canada.

Political-watchers say the premier’s tough talk is likely linked to the upcoming provincial election and a desire to be seen as separate from the unpopular federal Liberals.

Eby said in a statement Wednesday that it was “disingenuous to say this is about asylum seekers.”

“Ottawa is spending billions to build car factories in Ontario and Quebec, but has so far refused to put in their fair share to replace the Massey Crossing,” Eby said.

The province is in the process of replacing the George Massey Tunnel under the Fraser River between Richmond and Delta by 2030, with an estimated price tag of $4.15 billion. Provincial officials have said they hope Ottawa will contribute to the bill, but no specific figure has been set.

— With files from Laura Osman in Ottawa

‘Run and gun’: Undercover officer says accused at Coutts spoke of killing police

By: Bill Graveland

LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA (CP) – An undercover police officer told court Anthony Olienick characterized Mounties as the “arms” of Canada’s “devil” prime minister and said if police tried to break up the border blockade at Coutts, Alta., he would kill them. 

“If (police) come into Coutts, he said that he will slit their throats,” the officer testified Wednesday.  

“(He said) this was his destiny and the war he was supposed to fight in.

“He once again said that he knows he’s going to die for this fight. 

“Then he said he wants to kill them all.”

Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial in Lethbridge, Alta., charged with conspiring to murder police officers at the blockade. 

The blockade ran for two weeks in early 2022, tying up traffic at the busy Canada-United States border crossing for two weeks to protest COVID-19 restrictions and pandemic vaccine mandates. 

The two men were arrested after Mounties found a cache of guns, body armour and ammunition in trailers in the area. 

LeBlanc stops short of directing commission of inquiry to name meddling MPs

By: Jim Bronskill

OTTAWA (CP) – Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc affirmed a plan Wednesday to have an ongoing commission of inquiry delve into allegations about MPs colluding with foreign meddlers.

But LeBlanc stopped short of accepting a demand from one senator to give commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue the power to publicly name MPs involved in interference.

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians said in a public report last week that some MPs wittingly assisted the efforts of foreign states to interfere in Canadian politics.

Under questioning at a committee from Sen. Claude Carignan, LeBlanc said the government would give Hogue the “appropriate mandate” to examine the issue of possible meddling by MPs.

But LeBlanc said in French the notion of the commission publicly disclosing names is “an issue of law,” adding he did not want to “advance an opinion to a judge as important” as Hogue, who sits on the Quebec Court of Appeal.

Carignan said Hogue must be given “the power to name people if violations, or offences, have been committed,” along with the power to refer matters so that criminal investigations can take place.

— With a file from Stephanie Taylor

Canadian Press

The Canadian Press is Canada’s independent national news agency.

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