A look at selenium as exploratory drilling gets green light
Calgary Watch
Recent approval for exploratory drilling at the Grassy Mountain coal mine has brought a lot of public debate, specifically over the potential for selenium.
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CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Sudbury appoints 3 new GMs, streamlines city structure
The City of Greater Sudbury announced the appointment of three new general managers and a revised organizational structure on Thursday, marking a shift in municipal leadership aimed at improving efficiency and service delivery. The appointments follow a national search led by Odgers Canada. Shari Lichterman, the city's chief administrative officer, hired in February, also announced structural changes, including consolidating two divisions, eliminating three director roles, and creating a new Community Services department. The revisions are expected to yield cost savings while separating the fire chief and paramedic chief roles. City of Greater Sudbury's New Organizational Structure Effective July 7, 2025, the City of Greater Sudbury is implementing a new organizational structure that marks a shift in municipal leadership aimed at improving efficiency and service delivery. The structural changes include consolidating two divisions, eliminating three director roles, and creating a new Community Services department. (Supplied/City of Greater Sudbury) Planning and Growth Kris Longston An undated promotional photo of Kris Longston, the City of Greater Sudbury's new General Manager of Planning and Growth. (Supplied/City of Greater Sudbury) Kris Longston, promoted to General Manager of Planning and Growth, brings 23 years of municipal experience – including 16 with the city, most recently as director of planning services. In that role, he led initiatives such as the Housing Supply Strategy and Climate Action Plan. Community Well-being Tyler Campbell An undated promotional photo of Tyler Campbell, the City of Greater Sudbury's new General Manager of Community Well-being. (Supplied/City of Greater Sudbury) Tyler Campbell, the new General Manager of Community Well-being, has worked with the city since 2011, previously serving as director of children and social services. His leadership includes projects like the rollout of the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care program. Community Infrastructure Antti Vilkko An undated promotional photo of Antti Vilkko, the City of Greater Sudbury's new General Manager of Community Infrastructure. (Supplied/City of Greater Sudbury) Antti Vilkko, joining as General Manager of Community Infrastructure on July 28, has over 25 years of engineering management experience, including seven years as general manager of facilities and energy management for the City of Guelph. Exciting changes Shari Lichterman An undated profile photo of Greater Sudbury CAO Shari Lichterman. (LinkedIn) 'I'm excited to welcome Kris, Tyler and Antti into their new roles and to fill these important leadership vacancies, building on our strong staff team here at the City,' said Lichterman, in a news release. 'The changes demonstrate our commitment to finding efficiencies and ensuring our resources are focused on delivering the services our community needs.' Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre An undated profile photo of Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre. (File photo/City of Greater Sudbury) Mayor Paul Lefebvre praised the appointments, stating, 'Each brings valuable experience and perspective to our executive leadership team. As the structure evolves to meet the changing needs of our community, I remain optimistic about what we can achieve together in building a city where people want to live, work, play and invest.' The new structure takes effect July 7.
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
GTA elementary school teacher making $120K a year says that she ‘had better expectations' for her finances. Here's what happened
Christine Miller has been a Grade One teacher with the Peel District School Board for the better part of a decade and while she earns close to $120,000 annually, she says she is living pay cheque to pay cheque. Miller belongs to a rising number of middle-income households making up to $125,000 a year that are at risk of being squeezed out of the region, according to a report released by Civic Action this week. Many members of the group, like Miller, have healthy salaries well over the median income for Toronto but are still struggling to stay afloat and have essentially become 'the invisible poor,' Civic Action says. Miller, 56, lives alone in a one-bedroom 650-square-foot condo in Etobicoke, which she bought for $505,000 in 2019 with some help from her mother for the downpayment. Miller says she bought at a time when borrowing rates were low but the payments on her variable rate mortgage spiked as the Bank of Canada began to hike its key overnight lending rate in response to runaway inflation in 2022. While she loves her neighbourhood, with its lush gardens and the lake right in view, she says it has become increasingly difficult to pay her mortgage each month, even with a series of recent rate cuts from the central bank. 'I'm up to my eyeballs in the mortgage,' Miller said. 'When the rates went up, I was paying over $3,000 a month.' Miller says that she was already directing a significant portion of her income to her mortgage but is now spending more than half of everything she earns on her condo after taking a leave of absence to care for her 94-year-old mother and temporarily replacing her salary with employment insurance benefits. On top of her living expenses, Miller says her monthly bills also include car insurance, phone and internet, and groceries, for a rough total of $1,500. 'I don't have cable TV, so I watched the Stanley Cup on TikTok. I don't buy clothes, I don't go on trips,' Miller said. 'I have to get my hair cut every six weeks, but I don't go to a gym, I don't do my nails, I don't buy clothes unless I absolutely have to.' While Toronto's housing market has softened significantly in recent years, a report released by in April that you still need an annual household income of more than $217,000 to be able to afford an average-priced home in the city. Not having the means to be able to spend on anything outside of necessities really, Miller says she feels disappointed with where she's at. The elementary school teacher compared her life to what it was like for her mom and aunt, as they were also educators. She shared how her parents owned a four-bedroom home on a one-acre lot with a pool in the yard, had a vacation home in Florida and had the ability to help Miller throughout university. 'I had better expectations for where I would be at this point in my life and earning what I earn—because I'm earning close to $120,000 a year—I'm at the top of the pay scale,' Miller says, adding today's economy and her divorce set her back financially. 'I am not going to recover from that hit, like, I won't.' 'Prevention is better than cure' Miller is just one of many middle-income workers strapped on their monthly bills. Earlier this week, CTV News Toronto reported on CivicAction's housing crisis report which highlighted the struggles middle-income households in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area face as they don't qualify for traditional housing supports and are often forced to choose between lengthy commutes or out of reach living expenses. About two dozen readers from households making between $40,000 and $125,000 annually wrote into CTV News Toronto sharing what their day-to-day life is like working in various industries, from healthcare to policing to the skilled trades. Some wrote in sharing how they frequently commute to Toronto from places like the Niagara Region or Oshawa, incapable of finding work close to home, while some working parents described the challenges they face trying to provide their children with adequate daycare or a stable home. When asked whether she was surprised to hear the responses, CivicAction CEO Leslie Woo says their stories show what's currently at stake for the region. 'The situation is here and we're already paying a serious price, and every day that goes by that we're unable to sort of drive better collaboration to find solutions we're falling further and further behind,' Woo said. In CivicAction's report published Tuesday, researchers said that essential workers—those who make the region run, like nurses and teachers, for example—are increasingly being squeezed out of the GTHA because they're reaching their financial breaking point. The fact that these middle-income workers cannot qualify for housing supports—despite spending between 43 and 65 per cent of their monthly income to cover their mortgage or rent—should, in a way, act as a red flag for policy makers, Woo said. 'Our definitions of what and who qualifies for the kinds of supports are inadequate. It also means that how we're thinking about and the sort of old ways of providing support for those that are in need are also inadequate,' Woo said. It goes beyond empathy and pity, Woo says, as systemic adjustments need to be made to curb the long-term risks that can hinder the GTHA—from economical to social and even environmental standpoints. For its part, the city says it is 'aware' of the various pressures Torontonians are facing, from housing affordability to the rising cost of living, adding that it has implemented several policies to assist residents with 'varying income levels to ensure Toronto's long-term vibrancy, livability, and diversity.' A spokesperson for the city told CTV News that Toronto`s budget for 2025 including money to expand school food programs, freeze TTC fares and waive development charges to accelerate the construction of 6,000 rental units. The city says it also introduced a new action plan for the local economy to create quality jobs and has a goalpost of delivering 65,000 new rent-controlled homes by 2030, including 41,000 affordable rentals. Woo hopes policymakers—from all levels of government to employers and non-profits—act swiftly to address the region's housing issues. 'There's an old adage, prevention is better than cure,' Woo said. 'There are a lot of people for whom we could put preventative measures if we act swiftly.' Miller, however, isn't so sure that relief is on the horizon. 'It's like, you're working just as hard, you followed all the steps, right? You're making the money, and you're making the money, but it's not panning out in your life, in my life,' Miller said.
CBC
3 hours ago
- CBC
Researchers discover ancient predatory, fanged fish that swam in Nova Scotia waters
Researchers have discovered a new species of ancient fish with hooked front fangs that made them a fearsome and effective predator. A paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology this week says the long, curved jaw of the animal sheds light on how fish were evolving smaller, front teeth that acted like fishing hooks, about 350 million years ago. Meanwhile, the centimetre-long back fangs were used to chew the catch before digestion into a body that may have been almost a metre long. They hunted for prey in the inland waters of Nova Scotia, in what was likely a vast inland lake. Lead author Conrad Wilson, a doctoral candidate in paleontology at Carleton University in Ottawa, said in an interview Friday that the fish has been named Sphyragnathus tyche, with the first phrase meaning "hammer jaw." "I would say it's a fairly fearsome looking fish. If its mouth is open, you would see those fangs in the jaw," he said But the fossil is also significant for the clues it offers to the evolution of ray-finned fish — a huge and diverse vertebrate group that occupies a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic environments around the globe. "These fish were the last major group of vertebrates to be identified and we still have big gaps in our knowledge about their early evolution," Wilson said, who published his paper with Chris Mansky, a fossil researcher at the Blue Beach Fossil Museum in Hantsport, N.S., and Jason Anderson, a professor of anatomy in the veterinary faculty at the University of Calgary. "The fossils are telling us about what the fish existing right after a mass extinction looked like," said Wilson, referring to the transition from the Devonian to the Carboniferous periods. Wilson said paleontologists have wondered how ray-finned fish recovered from the extinction period as other groups of fish, such as the heavily armed category referred to as placoderms, were disappearing. "The beach where this fossil was discovered tells us ... this is a group of animals that is doing well, pretty quickly, after a mass extinction," he said. The paper theorizes that the feeding methods of the evolving teeth may have played a role, creating an evolutionary advantage for the species. Wilson noted "that particular feature of the curved and pointy fang at the front and processing fangs at the back became a feature of many species in times to come." The area where the fossil was found — at Blue Beach on the Minas Basin, about 90 kilometres north of Halifax — was believed to be part of a vast freshwater lake not far from the ocean. The research team's paper credits Sonja Wood, former director of the Blue Beach Fossil Museum, for finding the fossilized jaw by urging Mansky to check along a creek that flowed onto the beach. Wood, who died last year, was in a wheelchair and had urged her colleague to search the area. "She had a good feeling about what could be found ... and she said he should go and have a look," said Wilson. "He went down and sure enough it [the jaw fossil] was sitting right there," he said, adding that Mansky managed to recover the fossil before a storm rolled through that night. Wilson said more discoveries are possible as examination of the fossils from the Blue Beach area continues. "We have lots of different anatomies that simply haven't been described yet. And we'll be working on that in a paper that's coming up in a few months," he said.
