Finding local alternatives to 'red-state' American liquor
A spirited B.C. boycott of U.S. liquor in response to U.S. tariffs is creating a bit of a stir as "red-state" products get yanked from local shelves. Industry expert Robert Simpson suggests local alternatives to some American favourites.
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National Observer
36 minutes ago
- National Observer
Continued failure to consult on uranium exploration is a harmful mistake: Mi'kmaw Chiefs
Nova Scotia's continued failure to consult with First Nations on uranium exploration is a mistake that will further erode the province's relationship with Mi'kmaq communities, says the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Chiefs and a lawyer from Sipekne'katik First Nation. Pictou Landing First Nation Chief Tamara Young said the Mi'kmaq people were neither consulted nor notified when Nova Scotia introduced then passed a bill that opens the province up to potential uranium mining and fracking. 'The lack of consultation is unacceptable and goes against the UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples),' Young said in a statement to The Canadian Press on Wednesday. The assembly has said they will continue to oppose both uranium exploration and hydraulic fracturing until their environmental concerns have been addressed. The provincial government added uranium to its list of priority critical minerals May 14, and it issued a request for exploration proposals for three sites with known deposits of the heavy metal. Interested companies had until Wednesday to submit their proposals. Premier Tim Houston has said the legislative changes are needed to help the province withstand economic challenges from American tariffs. 'We recognize there are international pressures and influences affecting our economy, but any resource development in Mi'kma'ki must include our consent and participation as we are the rightful owners of these lands, waters and resources,' Young said in the statement, speaking as co-lead of the environment, energy and mines portfolio on behalf of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Chiefs. Rosalie Francis, a Mi'kmaq lawyer whose firm is based out of Sipekne'katik First Nation, said the province risks further damaging their relationship with Mi'kmaq communities and sabotaging the potential uranium industry by failing to consult adequately and early. 'By choosing not to consult, it scares away investors, destroys the relationship and gets us back to starting at zero,' Francis said in an interview Tuesday. 'It all comes down to trust, and this completely diminishes any kind of trust that's essential to the relationship between the first for the Mi'kmaq and the province.' Nova Scotia has opened up three plots of land for uranium project proposals: an 80-hectare site in Louisville in Pictou County; a 64-hectare site in East Dalhousie in Annapolis County; and a 2,300-hectare site in Millet Brook in Hants County. Much of this is on private land. The government has previously said companies selected by the province would have to seek permission from landowners to explore. However, Section 26 of the province's Mineral Resources Act allows the natural resources minister to intervene if there is a stalemate. A spokesperson with the Department of Natural Resources said if a company decides it wants to develop a mine on one of these sites, then there is duty to consult with Mi'kmaq communities. Francis said that position is backwards, and is not in line with case law on the matter. 'It's been clear that duty to consult begins when, in the minds of government, they're anticipating activity that will affect rights,' Francis said, adding that should happen before a company has made a decision on the site. The lawyer said it would appear the province has not learned from the fall out of the Alton Gas cavern project, which was officially scrapped in fall 2021. The Alberta energy company abandoned its plan to create huge salt caverns north of Halifax to store natural gas more than 13 years after starting construction. The company said at the time the project experienced challenges and delays, referring to opposition the project faced from Indigenous protesters and allies who opposed the company's plan to remove large, underground salt deposits by flushing them out with water from the nearby Shubenacadie River. The plan also called for dumping the leftover brine into the tidal river, where it would flow into the Bay of Fundy. In March 2020, a decision by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ordered the province to resume consultations with Sipekne'katik First Nation on the matter and determined the former environment minister was wrong when she concluded the province had adequately consulted with the First nation about the project. 'The province should have walked away from that decision and said: 'OK, lesson learned.' The project never went forward. All the gas investors looked at it and said: 'This is just a mess now. Let's just walk away,'' Francis said. The lawyer said it will be telling in the coming weeks if the province chooses to engage with Mi'kmaq communities or "if the province will march along in the same way it did before." "Either we'll have a success story or we'll have another Alton Gas play out," she said. Shiri Pasternak, a criminology professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and co-investigator of a research project called Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism, said the situation in Nova Scotia mirrors the expedited extraction movement that's happening across the country. "What's happening to the Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia is really proliferating as an attack on Indigenous and environmental rights across the country right now," she said in an interview Tuesday. Pasternak said Nova Scotia is one of several provinces working to speed up extraction and development projects — moves that are supported by the federal government. "We have this sweep of fast-tracked legislation and policy changes to the Environment Assessment Act, both provincially in Nova Scotia and in other places, but also federally in terms of the Impact Assessment Act in order to expedite development and extraction — most of which will be against the desires and the consent of Indigenous people across the country."
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
The number of Americans filing for jobless claims last week remains at the highest level in 8 months
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. filings for jobless benefits were unchanged last week, remaining at the higher end of recent ranges as uncertainty over the impact of trade wars lingers. New applications for jobless benefits numbered 248,000 for the week ending June 7, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts had forecast 244,000 new applications. A week ago, there were 248,000 jobless claim applications, which was the most since early October and a sign that layoffs could be trending higher. Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and have mostly bounced around a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy five years ago, wiping out millions of jobs. In reporting their latest earnings, many companies have either trimmed their sales and profit expectations for 2025 or not issued guidance at all, often citing President Donald Trump's dizzying rollout of tariff announcements. Though Trump has paused or dialed down many of his tariff threats, concerns remain that a tariff-induced global economic slowdown could sabotage what's been a robust U.S. labor market. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said the potential for both higher unemployment and inflation are elevated, an unusual combination that complicates the central bank's dual mandate of controlling prices and keeping unemployment low. Powell said that tariffs have dampened consumer and business sentiment. In early May, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark lending rate at 4.3% for the third straight meeting after cutting it three times at the end of last year. Last week, the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers slowed their hiring in May, but still added a solid 139,000 jobs despite uncertainty over Trump's trade wars. In a separate report last week, Labor reported that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in April, but other data suggested that Americans are less optimistic about the labor market. The report showed that the number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects — fell, while layoffs ticked higher. In another sign the job market has cooled from the hiring boom of 2021-2023, the government reported one job for every unemployed person. As recently as December 2022, there were two vacancies for every jobless American. The government has estimated that the U.S. economy shrank at a 0.2% annual pace in the first quarter of 2025, a slight upgrade from its first estimate. Growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the U.S. tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump's massive tariffs went into effect. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Trump is attempting to reshape the global economy by dramatically increasing import taxes to rejuvenate the U.S. manufacturing sector. The president has also tried to drastically downsize the federal government workforce, but many of those cuts are being challenged in the courts and Congress. On Wednesday, Google confirmed that it had offered buyouts to another swath of its workforce in a fresh round of cost-cutting ahead of a court decision that could order a breakup of its internet empire. Other companies that have announced job cuts this year include Procter & Gamble, Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft and Facebook parent company Meta. The government's report on Thursday also showed that the four-week average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the weekly ups and downs during more volatile stretches, rose by 5,000 to 240,250. The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of May 31 jumped by 54,000 to 1.96 million, the most since November of 2021.
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Montreal Gazette
2 hours ago
- Montreal Gazette
Canadian Grand Prix is about ‘selling the city'
The Corner Booth Locals might be a little jaded about the return of the Canadian Grand Prix, but for the city's tourism industry, race weekend remains an economic powerhouse. With 2024's gaffe-filled edition firmly in the rear-view, there's optimism abound for this year's Formula One pit stop in Montreal. To drive home the importance of the annual event on the city's cultural and business calendar, Yves Lalumière, president and CEO of Tourisme Montréal, and Andrew Torriani, CEO and general manager of Ritz-Carlton Montreal, joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand for a special edition of The Corner Booth at the headquarters of all things razzle and dazzle for Grand Prix, the Ritz-Carlton Montreal on Sherbrooke St. W. 'The team has worked really hard since the end of the last Grand Prix,' Lalumière said. 'We feel very reassured. Tourisme Montréal has been part of the committee to oversee the situation, and I can tell Bell took this very seriously after last year's difficult Grand Prix.' One potential crisis averted is the current STM maintenance worker strike. Lalumière called the Grand Prix a 'lever' for negotiations, and here's a good example: normal bus and métro services will be provided all weekend. For the hotel business, Torriani said that with increased interest in Formula One down south in recent years, the diversity of tourists flocking to the city has grown far beyond the old Eurocentric stereotype to include more American, Asian and South American fans. It's a major boon for a country where Torriani said 'one in 10 people directly or indirectly' work in tourism. The Corner Booth is also available on The Gazette's YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.
