Latest news with #IanStewart
CTV News
2 days ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Submerged cars, backed-up traffic, overflowing parks: Calgary drenched in rain
A soaking rainstorm that drenched Calgary from Sunday night into Monday caused flooding across the city, with emergency crews responding to submerged cars, backed-up traffic and overflowing parks. A soaking rainstorm that drenched Calgary from Sunday night into Monday caused flooding across the city, with emergency crews responding to submerged cars, backed-up traffic and overflowing parks. In the 7200 block of 36th Street N.E., a giant puddle swallowed a car, fully submerging it. Firefighters were called around 10:30 a.m. Monday and waited more than an hour for a tow truck to pull it to higher ground. Further west on John Laurie Boulevard, city crews rushed to clear another flooded stretch before it could begin swallowing vehicles. Traffic was backed up around the corner onto McKnight Boulevard as workers struggled to unclog a storm drain. At Confederation Park, the parking lot near 7th Street and 30th Avenue N.W. filled with water, attracting curious onlookers. 'Where'd everything go?' said Ian Stewart, standing near the flooded lot. 'It's all underwater. … Just surprised to see how much it has backed up.' While the rainfall snarled traffic and soaked playgrounds, it also posed problems in Calgary's gardens and yards. 'We look for balance. Too much of anything can be a bad thing,' said Colin Hayles of Golden Acre Home and Garden. 'Right now, we do have way too much rain. The last stat I saw this morning, the monthly average for July is about 60 millimetres, and we're already at 143.' Hayles said excess rain is encouraging mushrooms, slugs, snails and a surge in fungal and bacterial diseases—especially powdery mildew on plants like zucchinis, tomatoes and cucumbers. 'Powdery mildew is a fungal disease. … The problem is, the way we treat it is with a broad-spectrum fungicide, which washes off in the rain. You haven't done anything,' he said. 'You have to wait for a dry period and spray the plant. You can't cure it, but you will inhibit the spread.' Mushrooms are also flourishing in the saturated soil, but Hayles said they're not harmful. 'All of that rain is sinking deep, deep, deep into all of the layers of soil beneath us. … They're hitting this wood or organic material and they're feeding off them,' he said. 'They're not bad at all—they're feeding what they call the mycelium network and a lot of people will say when they see the mushrooms, they notice the grass around it is doing good, and that's because of what the mushrooms are bringing.' Even trees could face risks—not from rotting, Hayles said, but from shifting in the softened ground. 'If your tree doesn't have a deep root system, that ground is now soft and muddy. We get a big windstorm; that's when we can see trees come over,' he said. Despite the downpours, hydrologists say the rain won't erase Alberta's long-term drought problem. 'It's the most (rain) I can remember for a very long time,' said John Pomeroy, Canada research chair in water resources and climate change at the University of Saskatchewan. 'Some of the stations have had 250 millimetres since late June, which is really exceptional, but stream flow is most efficiently generated by snowmelt.' Pomeroy said rivers like the Bow and Oldman suffered from a low snowpack this past winter—about two-thirds of normal—and an early melt, leaving them well below average for much of the year. 'The Bow has picked up to above normal flows. … The Oldman has not. It will take more than just a few weeks of rain to move out of the long-term hydrological drought,' he said. And while trees and crops benefit from summer rain, it comes at the least effective time for recharging deep water supplies. 'Trees can evaporate about 10 millimetres a day. … The reason that snowmelt is so effective is that the trees aren't transpiring any water,' Pomeroy said. 'We need quite a bit more to make up for that.' Pomeroy added it would take hundreds more millimetres of precipitation to restore depleted mountain reservoirs. 'I was just up looking at the ones in the Kananaskis area, and they're still many, many metres below normal levels now,' he said. Even with the puddles, soggy lawns and garden woes, Calgarians likely haven't seen the last of the rain. And for now, Hayles recommends turning off the sprinklers. 'Right now, I think we're good to put the sprinklers and the irrigation systems away for a bit,' he said.
CTV News
5 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Graduation Day for over two dozen peace and transit officers in Calgary
Friday was Graduation Day for over two dozen peace officers in Calgary Loading the player instance is taking more time than usual Loading the player instance is taking more time than usual Friday was a proud day for more than two dozen Calgary peace officer recruits. After training for months, Friday was their graduation day. 'It's incredibly rewarding to see officers from different communities come together, learn from one another and build lasting connections,' said training sergeant Ian Stewart. 'This class brought a wide range of experience and perspectives, and we're proud to have helped prepare them for the important work ahead.' Twenty seven of the 29 graduates will serve to help keep Calgary safer, either in the community or on Calgary Transit. The other two graduates will serve in Wheatland County and Banff. One of those new graduates, transit peace officer Zach Dorscheid, served as class valedictorian. This career allows me to be out in the public, solving problems and helping people every day,' said Dorscheid. 'I'm especially proud to be part of a team that's working to make transit feel safer and more welcoming for everyone.' Next for the new graduates is on-the-job field training before they begin patrols on their own.
Fashion Network
21-07-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
UK consumer confidence dips for first time since Q3 2022, but June fashion spending leads
But back to that worrisome confidence dip, driven by a decline in all six measures of confidence in the Deloitte Consumer Tracker index, which is based on responses from 3,200 UK consumers aged 18+ between 13-16 June. Sentiment towards job security saw the biggest decline (-4.8 percentage points) as well as confidence about job opportunities and career progression (-3.9 percentage points) following the increase in employer costs and weakening of the labour market. Consumers' confidence about their level of debt also fell (-3.7 percentage points), although remains above levels seen at the same time a year ago, the report said. However, confidence towards the state of the UK economy, not included in the main confidence index, improved by 3.9 percentage points. However, it remains a significant 18.4 percentage points lower than the same period a year ago. Spending remained relatively subdued in the second quarter. While essential spending dropped by 4.6 percentage points due to the seasonality of lower utility bills, this only translated into a marginal 1.5 percentage point uptick in discretionary spending. Céline Fenech, consumer insight lead at Deloitte, said: 'For the last few years we have seen consumer confidence remain relatively resilient despite several economic challenges, geopolitical uncertainty, and the increased cost of living. After recovering from its lowest level on record in the third quarter of 2022, when inflation peaked to a historic high, our consumer confidence index has declined for the first time in almost three years. 'This drop in confidence signals a weakening of consumers' resilience, as concerns of a slowing labour market have left consumers worried about job security and income growth prospects, while persistent inflation and a high cost of living have negatively impacted sentiment towards personal debt.' However, she added: 'We have seen how the mood of the consumer can change and adapt to new circumstances. If an uptick in both economic growth and business sentiment reduces pressures on the job market and on earnings, a return to positive confidence could still be on the cards.' Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, added: 'Higher inflation – which is well above levels in the US and EU – coupled with a weaker jobs market is weighing on consumer sentiment. The UK is unlikely to see inflation returning to the 2% rate that prevailed last summer until well into 2026, so the UK consumer will have to navigate several months of uncomfortably high inflation.'
Fashion Network
21-07-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
UK consumer confidence dips for first time since Q3 2022, but June fashion spending leads
Already fragile, UK consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level for a year, down 2.6 percentage points in the second quarter of 2025, according to the latest figures from Deloitte. It's the lowest confidence level since Q1 2024 and the first marked decline in since October 2022, when inflation peaked at its highest rate in 40 years, the report showed. There was, however, one bright spot to the report that showed 'significant boosts' to discretionary spending were led by clothing and footwear (+6.6 percentage points) as the important summer holiday period kicked into gear. But back to that worrisome confidence dip, driven by a decline in all six measures of confidence in the Deloitte Consumer Tracker index, which is based on responses from 3,200 UK consumers aged 18+ between 13-16 June. Sentiment towards job security saw the biggest decline (-4.8 percentage points) as well as confidence about job opportunities and career progression (-3.9 percentage points) following the increase in employer costs and weakening of the labour market. Consumers' confidence about their level of debt also fell (-3.7 percentage points), although remains above levels seen at the same time a year ago, the report said. However, confidence towards the state of the UK economy, not included in the main confidence index, improved by 3.9 percentage points. However, it remains a significant 18.4 percentage points lower than the same period a year ago. Spending remained relatively subdued in the second quarter. While essential spending dropped by 4.6 percentage points due to the seasonality of lower utility bills, this only translated into a marginal 1.5 percentage point uptick in discretionary spending. Céline Fenech, consumer insight lead at Deloitte, said: 'For the last few years we have seen consumer confidence remain relatively resilient despite several economic challenges, geopolitical uncertainty, and the increased cost of living. After recovering from its lowest level on record in the third quarter of 2022, when inflation peaked to a historic high, our consumer confidence index has declined for the first time in almost three years. 'This drop in confidence signals a weakening of consumers' resilience, as concerns of a slowing labour market have left consumers worried about job security and income growth prospects, while persistent inflation and a high cost of living have negatively impacted sentiment towards personal debt.' However, she added: 'We have seen how the mood of the consumer can change and adapt to new circumstances. If an uptick in both economic growth and business sentiment reduces pressures on the job market and on earnings, a return to positive confidence could still be on the cards.' Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, added: 'Higher inflation – which is well above levels in the US and EU – coupled with a weaker jobs market is weighing on consumer sentiment. The UK is unlikely to see inflation returning to the 2% rate that prevailed last summer until well into 2026, so the UK consumer will have to navigate several months of uncomfortably high inflation.'
Fashion Network
21-07-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
UK consumer confidence dips for first time since Q3 2022, but June fashion spending leads
Already fragile, UK consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level for a year, down 2.6 percentage points in the second quarter of 2025, according to the latest figures from Deloitte. It's the lowest confidence level since Q1 2024 and the first marked decline in since October 2022, when inflation peaked at its highest rate in 40 years, the report showed. There was, however, one bright spot to the report that showed 'significant boosts' to discretionary spending were led by clothing and footwear (+6.6 percentage points) as the important summer holiday period kicked into gear. But back to that worrisome confidence dip, driven by a decline in all six measures of confidence in the Deloitte Consumer Tracker index, which is based on responses from 3,200 UK consumers aged 18+ between 13-16 June. Sentiment towards job security saw the biggest decline (-4.8 percentage points) as well as confidence about job opportunities and career progression (-3.9 percentage points) following the increase in employer costs and weakening of the labour market. Consumers' confidence about their level of debt also fell (-3.7 percentage points), although remains above levels seen at the same time a year ago, the report said. However, confidence towards the state of the UK economy, not included in the main confidence index, improved by 3.9 percentage points. However, it remains a significant 18.4 percentage points lower than the same period a year ago. Spending remained relatively subdued in the second quarter. While essential spending dropped by 4.6 percentage points due to the seasonality of lower utility bills, this only translated into a marginal 1.5 percentage point uptick in discretionary spending. Céline Fenech, consumer insight lead at Deloitte, said: 'For the last few years we have seen consumer confidence remain relatively resilient despite several economic challenges, geopolitical uncertainty, and the increased cost of living. After recovering from its lowest level on record in the third quarter of 2022, when inflation peaked to a historic high, our consumer confidence index has declined for the first time in almost three years. 'This drop in confidence signals a weakening of consumers' resilience, as concerns of a slowing labour market have left consumers worried about job security and income growth prospects, while persistent inflation and a high cost of living have negatively impacted sentiment towards personal debt.' However, she added: 'We have seen how the mood of the consumer can change and adapt to new circumstances. If an uptick in both economic growth and business sentiment reduces pressures on the job market and on earnings, a return to positive confidence could still be on the cards.' Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, added: 'Higher inflation – which is well above levels in the US and EU – coupled with a weaker jobs market is weighing on consumer sentiment. The UK is unlikely to see inflation returning to the 2% rate that prevailed last summer until well into 2026, so the UK consumer will have to navigate several months of uncomfortably high inflation.'
