Archive for December, 2010
The oil sands: ‘The risks will endure’
For more than 40 years, the Alberta oil sands mining industry has produced bitumen — a mixture of heavy hydrocarbons that can be upgraded and refined into petroleum products. With each barrel of product, the industry also produces more than 1.5 barrels of a persistent waste with the consistency of yogurt. Mature Fine Tailings (MFT), […]
The all-important boreal forest
The number of birds breeding in North America’s boreal forest region is estimated at between 1.65 and 3 billion. Of these, landbirds are by far the most numerous, making up 97 percent of all birds breading there. The importance of the boreal forest region as a breeding ground for many bird groups is staggering. Estimates […]
Danger in the Nursery
The Canadian boreal forest is one of the world’s most important breeding areas for migratory birds, with 1 billion to 3 billion individual birds from at least 300 species known to regularly breed there. Approximately 30 percent of all shorebirds (7 million) and 30 percent of all landbirds (1 billion to 3 billion) that breed […]
Lost legacy
Ontario’s official watcher of the woods says we need to plant billions of trees in southern Ontario alone. Why? Beginning in the 1990s, the province presided over a calamitous decline in the number of trees it plants every year. By Donna Jacobs When their sheer beauty is not enough, trees more than earn their right […]
Winning ground — and holding it — in Afghanistan
Canadian Forces’ Chief of Defence Staff, General Walter Natynczyk, grew up in Winnipeg and had jobs as a paperboy and burger flipper before joining the military in 1975 and rising through the ranks to the top job, which he did in 2008. For the past four years, he has skipped Christmas with his family — all […]
New Zealand: A vital trade partner for Canada
Before I left New Zealand to take up my role as high commissioner in Canada, I spoke with my prime minister, the foreign minister and the head of the New Zealand foreign service. The theme from those conversations was how we could further strengthen our trade and economic relationship. While two-way trade in goods is significant, […]
France invests in Canada’s success
My focus, as ambassador of France to Canada, is to take the historic France-Canada partnership to a new level with enhanced strategic priorities. After Canada’s hosting of the G8 and G20 Summits, France took over the presidency of the G20 from South Korea in November and will take over the presidency of the G8 from […]
Australia and New Zealand bid to host astronomy’s next big — one square kilometre — thing
Star gazers, both professional and amateur, are closely following progress in one of the great global science projects of the 21st Century, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). It’s a radio telescope being developed by a global collaboration of 20 countries, including Canada, and it promises to revolutionize our understanding of the universe through new insights […]
Helping Ottawa’s ‘hidden poor’
When the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade asked Ottawa’s foreign diplomatic community to help out by donating food to its second annual food fair, the diplomats responded enthusiastically. Robert Peck, outgoing chief of protocol, explained that the idea was to create a lunchtime international buffet that would raise money to contribute to […]
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia: East confronts West
The South Caucasus has historically been an arena of conflict. Much like the Balkans, it is a region where East and West meet and three great empires — the Russian, the Ottoman, and the Safavids (Persians) — clashed in earlier times. Today, it is a region where other fires burn. These are the fires of economic […]
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