Latest news with #WesternUniversity
CTV News
a day ago
- General
- CTV News
Medical students learn in small communities
A sign for the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University in London, Ont. is seen Tuesday, March 16, 2021. (Jordyn Read / CTV News) Medical students are partaking in the 27th annual Discovery Week, learning the field in parts of rural Ontario. Almost 200 first year students at Western University's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry are doing work placements in 30 small communities from Strathroy to Owen Sound, and beyond. In nearly 30 years, 3,700 students have partaken in Discovery Week.
Global News
2 days ago
- Climate
- Global News
2 tornadoes damage home, down trees northeast of Edmonton
Two weak tornadoes touched down in a rural area northeast of Edmonton on an evening when a severe thunderstorm swept across Alberta. The storms on Monday, May 26, started in the Alberta foothills before moving northeast across the Prairies. It rolled through Edmonton around the supper hour and moved north, where two twisters touched down in the Lac La Biche region near Plamondon. Both tornadoes travelled northeast, leaving two long, narrow paths of damage that included a partial roof removal from a home and many snapped and uprooted trees. According to Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project, the first EF1 tornado touched down around 7 p.m. near Atmore. Damage to homes near Atmore and Rossian (north of Plamondon) along with tree damage was reported after a storm passed through the area. No injuries were reported. Story continues below advertisement A Northern Tornadoes Project crew did a ground and drone survey the next day, documenting the weak damage. It's estimated the EF1 tornado came with wind speeds of about 175 km/h, left a path of damage about 300 metres wide and 21 km long. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy That twister ripped off part of a home's roof and flattened trees. View full screen View full screen View full screen Previous Image Next Image Close Modal Gallery The second EF1 twister touched down around 7:25 p.m. near Avenir. Story continues below advertisement The Northern Tornadoes Project said satellite imagery review revealed a narrow path of tree damage near Avenir. That twister wasn't as strong: it had an estimated maximum wind speed of 150 km/h. It's path of damage was about 370 metres wide and 6.43-kilometres mong. View image in full screen Flattened trees from a weak EF1 tornado near Avenir, Alta. on Monday, May 26, 2025. Courtesy: Western University Northern Tornadoes Project At the time, Environment Canada said the severe thunderstorms in Alberta were capable of producing up to toonie-size hail and heavy rain. This is not the first twister of the season in Alberta — Canada's first tornado of 2025 touched down near Brooks, Alta. on Saturday, April 12. Unlike the dozens of devastating supercell tornadoes that have struck the U.S. in this spring, Environment Canada said the one in southern Alberta saw was a landspout — which is a much weaker type of tornado and the most common type in Alberta. Story continues below advertisement There were 129 tornados across Canada in 2024, according to NTP, with 60 of those occurring in Ontario.
National Observer
2 days ago
- Business
- National Observer
Solar panels are more affordable than ever - but it can depend on where you live
When she looked into installing solar panels on her roof, Heather McDiarmid came across an unexpected hitch. 'We realized we'd have to tear out the panels again a few years after we put them in because our roof was getting old, and it was going to need new shingles. So we got our roof redone — but with metal shingles. That way it would last longer. And then we got our PV (photovoltaic) system,' said McDiarmid, a climate change mitigation consultant. Solar panels have never been cheaper, and the lower upfront cost means homeowners can recoup their investment more quickly, with savings on electricity bills. But experts say where buyers live plays the largest role in how long they'll need to break even. Location plays into factors ranging from how much electricity the home consumes to how much sun it receives, what incentives are available and even whether foliage obstructs the sunlight — or if roof renovations are needed. Across Canada, the average installation cost for solar panels was $3.34 per watt as of fall 2023, or $25,050 for a typical 7.5-kilowatt system, which covers most of an average household's electricity needs, according to But the price can range widely, sitting as low as $2.42 per watt in Ontario but double that in Nunavut. In Ontario, the average homeowner with a bigger installation — 10 kW — enjoys annual electricity bill savings of about $1,584 when charged at time-of-use rates, according to a report McDiarmid authored for the Ontario Clean Air Alliance last year. That means an Ontarian, drawing on a new provincial grant of up to $5,000 plus an interest-free federal Greener Homes loan, might effectively pay $25,000 for a 10 kW system. If their electricity bill comes to $100 a month — $1,200 a year — the panels would pay for themselves in 16 years. Solar panels have never been cheaper, and the lower upfront cost means homeowners can recoup their investment more quickly, with savings on electricity bills. 'Many single-family home rooftops can accommodate a 10 kW solar array or more, which is enough to generate as much electricity as the home uses over a year,' McDiarmid writes. Solar panels convert sunlight directly into electricity, which then flows through an "inverter" to be used in the home, with excess electricity spilling onto the broader power grid. Savings come not just from consuming less energy from the local utility but from "net metering," which allows homeowners to receive credits for the extra electricity they feed back onto the grid. Banking electricity daily, monthly and often yearly is typical, said Joshua Pearce, a Western University professor specializing in solar photovoltaic technology. 'People go to their cottage during the summer, they generate a huge amount of solar power that then lasts them through the winter. They've banked that electricity,' he said. Other key questions include how much electricity your household uses — higher consumption builds a bigger case for solar — and how much that costs, with rates varying from region to region. Another factor to consider: electric heaters suck up much more electricity than gas-heated homes. 'Essentially, everywhere that breaks the 12-cents-per-kWh bar, it probably makes sense to put in solar,' said Pearce. All provinces except Quebec charge a higher rate on average, according to Also pertinent is not just where your home sits within Canada, but within the property itself. A roof that faces south soaks up more rays, while a flatter pitch further improves efficiency. 'I've got half my garage covered (with solar panels) because that's the south-facing roof, and then a third of my main roof covered, that's my southwest-facing side of the building. That's what captures the most amount of sun, so you get the most bang for your buck,' said Phil McKay, a senior director at the Canadian Renewable Energy Association. Installers can help with assessing where branches might need to be cut to absorb more light — though not all trees are yours to prune. 'I'm talking to you from the Forest City, and I love trees as much as the next guy, but not when they're partially shading my roof,' said Pearce from London, Ont., noting that many of those trunks are owned by neighbours or the city. Another key variable in solar energy production is just how sun-kissed your corner of the country is. The Prairie provinces enjoy the most hours of 'equivalent full sunlight hours' — a metric to quantify the amount of solar radiation for a given area in a year — followed by Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. British Columbia, the Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador rank last. Cost differences to link up to the power grid also vary widely. In Ontario, for example, the Ottawa utility charged $1,449 to connect panels with its grid in 2023, while in Sudbury, the charge was only $548, according to McDiarmid. Jurisdictions offer an assortment of financial incentives. BC Hydro and Ontario give residential users rebates of up to $5,000 on grid-connected solar panels and up to $5,000 for battery storage systems. Nova Scotians can tap into rebates of up to $3,000, Prince Edward Island residents $10,000 (the program is on hold for a review, but is expected to resume in the coming months). Many municipalities have rebates for various home energy upgrades as well. A checklist to run through if you're considering rooftop solar: - Check your utility bill to tally how much you spend on electricity each year. In general, the more you shell out, the greater the possible savings from a photovoltaic system. - Check the average rate your utility charges for electricity. Again, the higher the rate, the more potential savings accrue. - Shop around for quotes from at least two or three installation firms. If their estimates on the long-term savings roughly align, those projections are probably not far off the mark. - Make sure the size of the installation matches your electricity demands. Don't splurge on a system that exceeds your needs. - Ask how efficient your system will be due to the slant of your roof and the directions it faces. - Research how much sun and snow your region receives. - Find out whether your municipality requires building and electrical permits to install solar panels. Many cities do, with the combined cost often topping $1,000.
CBC
2 days ago
- General
- CBC
Should childhood vaccinations be mandatory? Almost 70% of Canadians think so, according to a new poll
Social Sharing Measles cases are surging across Canada, so it might not come as a surprise that nearly 70 per cent of Canadians surveyed recently agreed that childhood vaccinations should be mandatory. The Angus Reid Institute polled nearly 1,700 Canadian adults online between May 20 and May. 23, asking them if proof of immunization should be required for kids to attend daycare or schools. Sixty-nine per cent said yes — an increase from last year, when only 55 per cent of respondents agreed that vaccinations should be mandatory for kids. Maxwell Smith, a bioethicist and associate professor at Western University's School of Health Studies, says the figure suggests mandating childhood vaccinations is not as divisive as once thought. "Given what we just experienced with COVID and controversies around vaccine mandates, I think this is why this figure is quite striking," he said. Canada is in the midst of the worst measles outbreak since the virus was declared eliminated back in 1998. Ontario remains the heart of the outbreak: Public Health Ontario said 1,938 people have gotten sick with measles so far in 2025. Smith says those numbers may have changed peoples' minds. "In these circumstances, where you have an unprecedented measles outbreak and you have the lives of children on the line, sometimes, that's the tipping point," he said. In Ontario and New Brunswick, proof of vaccination is already required for children to attend school. But parents can get an exemption in both provinces for medical, religious or philosophical reasons, as long as they fill out a form. In Ontario, they also have to watch a vaccine education video. Parents who sign an exemption must also agree to pull their kids out of school or daycare if there is an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease. When asked if the government should rethink this policy as measles burns through pockets of unvaccinated communities, Premier Doug Ford said he can't make parents vaccinate their children. "How do you force someone? Do you grab their kid and start jabbing them with a needle?" he told reporters earlier this month. The Angus Reid poll also asked respondents how confident they were that their provincial governments could handle a measles outbreak. It found that 27 per cent of those surveyed in Ontario said they had no confidence at all. Respondents in Alberta had even less trust: 37 per cent of respondents said they had no confidence in their province's ability to respond to a measles outbreak — even as cases continue to climb in that province. So far this year, 628 Albertans have been diagnosed with measles. The survey only polled people in the 10 provinces and did not cover Nunavut, Northwest Territories or Yukon. Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population, but a randomized sample of the size of the Angus Reid poll would yield a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. WATCH | What you should know about measles: Measles: Understanding the most contagious preventable disease | About That 1 year ago Duration 10:16 There are early signals that measles — one of the world's most contagious but preventable diseases — may be spreading in parts of Canada. Andrew Chang breaks down the way the virus attacks the body and what makes it so contagious.
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Are solar panels worth the investment? Yes — usually — but it depends where you live
MONTREAL - When she looked into installing solar panels on her roof, Heather McDiarmid came across an unexpected hitch. 'We realized we'd have to tear out the panels again a few years after we put them in because our roof was getting old and it was going to need new shingles. So we got our roof redone — but with metal shingles. That way it would last longer. And then we got our PV (photovoltaic) system,' said McDiarmid, a climate change mitigation consultant. Solar panels have never been cheaper, and the lower upfront cost means homeowners can recoup their investment more quickly, with savings on electricity bills. But experts say where buyers live plays the largest role in how long they'll need to break even. Location plays into factors ranging from how much electricity the home consumes to how much sun it receives, what incentives are available and even whether foliage obstructs the sunlight — or if roof renovations are needed. Across Canada, the average installation cost for solar panels was $3.34 per watt as of fall 2023, or $25,050 for a typical 7.5-kilowatt system, which covers most of an average household's electricity needs, according to . But the price can range widely, sitting as low as $2.42 per watt in Ontario but double that in Nunavut. In Ontario, the average homeowner with a bigger installation — 10 kW — enjoys annual electricity bill savings of about $1,584 when charged at time-of-use rates, according to a report McDiarmid authored for the Ontario Clean Air Alliance last year. That means an Ontarian, drawing on a new provincial grant of up to $5,000 plus an interest-free federal Greener Homes loan, might effectively pay $25,000 for a 10 kW system. If their electricity bill comes to $100 a month — $1,200 a year — the panels would pay for themselves in 16 years. 'Many single-family home rooftops can accommodate a 10 kW solar array or more, which is enough to generate as much electricity as the home uses over a year,' McDiarmid writes. Solar panels convert sunlight directly into electricity, which then flows through an 'inverter' to be used in the home, with excess electricity spilling onto the broader power grid. Savings come not just from consuming less energy from the local utility but from 'net metering,' which allows homeowners to receive credits for the extra electricity they feed back onto the grid. Banking electricity daily, monthly and often yearly is typical, said Joshua Pearce, a Western University professor specializing in solar photovoltaic technology. 'People go to their cottage during the summer, they generate a huge amount of solar power that then lasts them through the winter. They've banked that electricity,' he said. Other key questions include how much electricity your household uses — higher consumption builds a bigger case for solar — and how much that costs, with rates varying from region to region. Another factor to consider: electric heaters suck up much more electricity than gas-heated homes. 'Essentially, everywhere that breaks the 12-cents-per-kWh bar, it probably makes sense to put in solar,' said Pearce. All provinces except Quebec charge a higher rate on average, according to . Also pertinent is not just where your home sits within Canada, but within the property itself. A roof that faces south soaks up more rays, while a flatter pitch further improves efficiency. 'I've got half my garage covered (with solar panels) because that's the south-facing roof, and then a third of my main roof covered, that's my southwest-facing side of the building. That's what captures the most amount of sun, so you get the most bang for your buck,' said Phil McKay, a senior director at the Canadian Renewable Energy Association. Installers can help with assessing where branches might need to be cut to absorb more light — though not all trees are yours to prune. 'I'm talking to you from the Forest City, and I love trees as much as the next guy, but not when they're partially shading my roof,' said Pearce from London, Ont., noting that many of those trunks are owned by neighbours or the city. Another key variable in solar energy production is just how sun-kissed your corner of the country is. The Prairie provinces enjoy the most hours of 'equivalent full sunlight hours' — a metric to quantify the amount of solar radiation for a given area in a year — followed by Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. British Columbia, the Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador rank last. Cost differences to link up to the power grid also vary widely. In Ontario, for example, the Ottawa utility charged $1,449 to connect panels with its grid in 2023, while in Sudbury, the charge was only $548, according to McDiarmid. Jurisdictions offer an assortment of financial incentives. BC Hydro and Ontario give residential users rebates of up to $5,000 on grid-connected solar panels and up to $5,000 for battery storage systems. Nova Scotians can tap into rebates of up to $3,000, Prince Edward Island residents $10,000 (the program is on hold for a review, but is expected to resume in the coming months). Many municipalities have rebates for various home energy upgrades as well. A checklist to run through if you're considering rooftop solar: - Check your utility bill to tally how much you spend on electricity each year. In general, the more you shell out, the greater the possible savings from a photovoltaic system. - Check the average rate your utility charges for electricity. Again, the higher the rate, the more potential savings accrue. - Shop around for quotes from at least two or three installation firms. If their estimates on the long-term savings roughly align, those projections are probably not far off the mark. - Make sure the size of the installation matches your electricity demands. Don't splurge on a system that exceeds your needs. - Ask how efficient your system will be due to the slant of your roof and the directions it faces. - Research how much sun and snow your region receives. - Find out whether your municipality requires building and electrical permits to install solar panels. Many cities do, with the combined cost often topping $1,000. - Consider a battery for power outages to keep lights, internet, sump pumps and fridges working. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2025.
