Jul 24 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Climate change and human impacts on the land are behind a growing number of encounters between people and polar bears around the Arctic, new research concludes. "What we have seen is an increase in intensity (of encounters) and increased occurrences in places where polar bears don't normally occur," said Geoff York, a researcher with Polar […]
Jul 24 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Climate change and human impacts on the land are behind a growing number of encounters between people and polar bears around the Arctic, new research concludes. "What we have seen is an increase in intensity (of encounters) and increased occurrences in places where polar bears don't normally occur," said Geoff York, a researcher with Polar […]
Jul 22 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — It won't be easy for Peter Irniq, a residential school survivor, to meet Pope Francis in Iqaluit next week. "It's going to be scary," said Irniq, who was abused by a nun at the age of 11 as a student at the school in Chesterfield Inlet in what is now Nunavut. "It's going to be […]
Jul 19 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Canadian lakes are in hot water over climate change, a new research survey has concluded. "Canadian lakes are warming twice as fast as the rest of the lakes globally," said York University biologist Sapna Sharma, a co-author of a paper published in the journal Bioscience. Sharma and her colleagues pored over 143 studies from around […]
Jun 25 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Tanya Ball began her career as a social worker for the Kaska Dene First Nation. Now she runs a land guardian program, working to monitor and protect a vast stretch of the band's northern British Columbia wilderness. But she's still a social worker, in a way. "Land guardians can help the land heal," she said. […]
Jun 15 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — The United States government, including President Joe Biden's White House, has joined calls for Canada to participate in a probe of cross-border pollution coming from coal mines in southern British Columbia. In a statement released last week, the U.S. State Department said Biden supports a joint investigation of selenium coming from Teck Resource's Elk Valley […]
Jun 9 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Companies touting their use of renewable energy may be overstating their contributions to the fight against climate change, new research suggests. "There's a big role for scrutiny of companies' claims about use of renewables," said Anders Bjorn, a researcher at Montreal's Concordia University School of Management who just published a study in the journal Nature […]
Jun 8 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — EDMONTON — Several Alberta First Nations have told the province's government and energy industry that they must be consulted and share in the benefits of carbon capture projects near their lands that are crucial to making the oilsands more climate friendly. "(The companies) want to work together to reduce climate effects," said Cameron Alexis, head […]
Jun 7 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — A defrocked Oblate priest who was convicted of dozens of horrendous sexual crimes against Inuit children has been granted parole. Eric Dejaeger, 75, was sentenced to 19 years for crimes committed between 1978 and 1982 in the Nunavut community of Igloolik, where he was a missionary. The offences included indecent assault, unlawful confinement, buggery, unlawful […]
Jun 4 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — The future of a lawsuit seeking to hold Canada accountable for the loss of Métis lands is in doubt after about a third of the plaintiffs asked to withdraw from the action when their legitimacy was questioned. The Métis Nation of Alberta says the move proves that it speaks for Alberta's Métis and that the […]
Jun 1 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — The agency that mediates disputes between Canada and the United States over shared waters is pleading with the federal Liberals to join an investigation into contamination from British Columbia coal mines before the Americans move on their own. In a May 13 letter, the International Joint Commission asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to commit Canada […]
Jun 1 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Ottawa, the Northwest Territories and Indigenous governments are in discussions with a group of large American charities about permanent funding for a program that puts First Nations people in charge of looking after parks and other conservation areas on their traditional lands. Representatives from all the groups have agreed to try to work out a […]
May 31 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — EDMONTON — New Alberta legislation aimed at reducing red tape could do just the opposite while threatening parks and protected areas, say legal and environmental critics. "It further centralizes authority with the minister and the higher echelons of the bureaucracy," said Nigel Bankes, professor emeritus of resource law at the University of Calgary. "It actually […]
May 12 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Some environmental safeguards built into British Columbia mine approvals are being gradually whittled away without enough public or scientific oversight, says new university research. A recently published paper from researchers at Dalhousie University's School for Resource and Environmental Studies concludes that mining companies have been able to amend their original operating conditions in ways that […]
May 11 2022 — Bob Weber, The Canadian Press — The Canadian Press — Inuit hunters fear an upcoming ruling on an Arctic mine expansion could hasten the ongoing decline of a narwhal population that they rely on for food. Harvesters from Pond Inlet on the northern coast of Baffin Island say numbers of the iconic, single-tusked whale are already a small fraction of what they were before the […]