Tausi Insider

An electricity pylon with high-voltage power lines in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Nov. 7. VALENTYN OGIRENKO/Reuters With Ukraine’s power grid coming under almost daily attack by Russian forces, the country’s main energy company has expressed interest in electrical equipment produced by a Canadian firm. Tower Solutions has factories in Granby, Que., and in Brechin, Ont., producing transmission towers that the company says could be exported to Ukraine and rapidly installed to restore power in the war-ravaged country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said recently Russia had damaged 40 per cent of his country’s energy infrastructure, and on Tuesday, Russian air strikes targeting energy and other facilities caused broad power blackouts. During a press briefing last month, a Tower Solutions representative pitched the company’s emergency replacement pylons to Maxim Timchenko, the president of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company. The representative noted the towers c...

Travellers wait in the terminal as an Alaska Airlines plane sits at a gate at Los Angeles International Airport, on Jan. 11. STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images A computer outage at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration brought flights to a standstill across the U.S. on Wednesday, with hundreds of delays quickly cascading through the system, including at Canadian airports. The White House initially said that there was no evidence of a cyberattack behind the outage that ruined travel plans for millions of passengers. President Joe Biden said Wednesday morning that he’s directed the Department of Transportation to investigate. Whatever the cause, the outage revealed how dependent the world’s largest economy is on air travel, and how dependent air travel is on an antiquated computer system called the Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM. Before commencing a flight, pilots are required to consult NOTAMs, which list potential adverse impacts on flights, from runway construction to the potent...

The United States Embassy in Ottawa says it has concerns that the federal Liberals’ controversial online streaming act could discriminate against American companies. In a statement to The Canadian Press, an embassy spokeswoman said U.S. officials are holding consultations with businesses about how Bill C-11 could affect their operations. “We have … concerns it could impact digital streaming services and discriminate against U.S. businesses,” Molly Sanchez Crowe said in the statement. The bill aims to update Canada’s broadcasting law so it reflects the advent of online streaming platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and Netflix. If the bill passes, such platforms would be required to contribute to the creation of Canadian content and make it accessible to users in Canada – or face steep penalties. The proposed law has come under intense scrutiny amid accusations from companies and critics who said it left too much room for government control over user-generated content and social-media a...

Cenovus CEO Alex Pourbaix announces a multi-year initiative focused on Indigenous communities near the company's oil sands operations in northern Alberta, at a news conference in Calgary, on Jan. 30, 2020. Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press The CEOs of some of the biggest oil sands companies in Alberta say transitioning their work force for a net-zero emissions future isn’t about cutting jobs, but is about creating them. Cenovus CEO Alex Pourbaix CVE-T says the consortium of oil sands behind an alliance to decarbonize their companies estimates that reaching their goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 will create 35,000 jobs. Derek Evans, CEO of MEG Energy MEG-T, says he is actually worried that Canada doesn’t have the labour force needed to get the decarbonizing job done. Their comments in an interview with The Canadian Press this week come as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is pushing back against Ottawa’s plans to introduce “just transition” legislation to oversee the move to cut car...

A Flair Airlines plane takes off from Vancouver International Airport, in Richmond, B.C., on Oct. 28, 2022. Bayne Stanley/The Canadian Press With their promise of cheaper fares and no unnecessary frills, a flurry of so-called discount airlines has burst onto the Canadian scene in the last few years. But experts say the low-cost airline model is exacerbating an already existing pilot shortage that could become an even bigger problem for this country’s aviation industry in the years to come. Start-up discount airlines – such as Edmonton-based Flair Airlines, Calgary-based Lynx, and WestJet subsidiary Swoop – have been rapidly expanding across Canada since the COVID-19 pandemic, gambling that there’s enough pent-up demand from budget-conscious travellers to support additional capacity. While each operates slightly differently, the basic premise of a low-cost airline is that travellers receive stripped-down service in exchange for low basic fares. Things like carry-on and checked bags, s...

Oil sands executives insist they are all in on cutting emissions and will make big investments in green technology, but they maintain there isn’t a place to invest that money yet. Many companies are coming off a year of windfall profits not because they pumped out more product, but because the war in Ukraine and global supply chain crunches pushed world oil prices way up. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has said repeatedly over the last year that the companies need to prove their commitment by putting some of that cold hard cash into climate initiatives. But in an interview with The Canadian Press, Cenovus CVE-T CEO Alex Pourbaix said the companies are moving “as aggressively as (they) can.” “We’re not yet at the point where we can invest billions in these projects,” Pourbaix said. Cenovus is one of six oil sands companies in the Pathways Alliance, a consortium created to work together to decarbonize their production entirely by 2050. The companies are looking to spend $24 bil...

A security guard stands by the front reception desk at Postmedia's Toronto headquarters on March 12, 2018. Chris Young/The Canadian Press A Postmedia Network Corp. PNC-B-T memo obtained by The Canadian Press shows the newspaper publisher has shuffled editors of its Prairies papers a day after it announced 11 per cent of staff would be laid off. The memo says Lorne Motley, vice-president of editorial for the west and editor-in-chief for the Calgary Herald and Sun, will become a regional editor-in-chief. The new position will put him in charge of the Calgary Herald and Sun, Edmonton Journal and Sun, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Regina Leader Post and Winnipeg Sun. Under Motley, Monica Zurowski will serve as a deputy editor in Calgary, while Dave Breakenridge in Edmonton, Ashley Trask in Saskatoon and Mark Hamm in Winnipeg will be managing editors. Colin McGarrigle, editor-in-chief of the Edmonton Journal, will move to become a managing editor in Regina under Motley. The memo also sh...

A Home Depot location in Whitby, Ont., on May 28, 2020. Christopher Katsarov/Tausi Insider Retailer Home Depot HD-N shared details from electronic receipts with Meta, which operates the Facebook social media platform, without the knowledge or consent of customers, the federal privacy watchdog has found. In a report released Thursday, privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne said the data included encoded email addresses and in-store purchase information. The commissioner’s investigation discovered that the information sent to Meta META-Q was used to see whether a customer had a Facebook account. If they did have an account, Meta compared what the customer bought at Home Depot to advertisements sent over the platform to measure and report on the effectiveness of the ads. Meta was also able to use the customer information for its own business purposes, including user profiling and targeted advertising, unrelated to Home Depot, the commissioner found. It is unlikely that Home Depot custom...