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Montreal Gazette
2 days ago
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Hanes: Disinformation and hate threaten to drown out lessons of history
Heidi Berger has spent the better part of the last decade trying to get Quebec to make education about genocide compulsory in schools. Now she finds herself caught between the lessons of history and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, in a polarized political climate where the word genocide has been weaponized. 'It's tough times,' said Berger, founder of the Montreal-based Foundation for Genocide Education. 'It's very, very tough.' Inspired by her late mother's commitment to sharing the story of surviving the Holocaust, Berger started the organization to promote teaching young people about some of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century in order to prevent such mass murders from ever happening again. After much lobbying and nudging, a tool kit was developed three years ago for the Quebec Ministry of Education by pedagogical experts to help teachers delve into the difficult topic of genocide. It covers those that occurred in Armenia, Namibia, Rwanda and Bosnia, as well as the Holocaust, the Holodomor, when the Soviet Union starved millions of Ukrainians, and crimes against Indigenous Peoples. Although the guide remains optional in schools, it was nevertheless a major breakthrough in Berger's quest. Then Oct. 7 happened and put everything the foundation had accomplished to the test. 'What has really been so heavy on my heart is the obstacles to teaching about the Holocaust and genocide after Oct. 7,' she said. 'It's been challenging to give our presentations by children of Holocaust survivors to schools which previously welcomed us. I have to be honest: There are a number of schools who have cancelled scheduled presentations because they cite concerns that discussing the Holocaust or genocide in general may trigger emotions in their students. There's also a fear of reprisals from parents. And there's also a basic lack of training in how to mediate discussions on the topic.' Teaching about a subject as painful, sensitive and complex as genocide has never been easy, but it has become all the more difficult since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 and taking 250 hostage. The word genocide went from being an obscure term to a ubiquitous accusation chanted at protests against Israel for its ongoing bombardment of Gaza. Rhetoric has hardened on both sides, with some now referring to Hamas not just as a terror group but a 'genocidal' terrorist organization due to its explicit goal of wiping Israel off the map. Support for Israel's right to defend itself has waned as the war drags on and two ceasefires have faltered. More than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza health ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants. Apartment blocks have been levelled, millions of Palestinians have been displaced inside Gaza and there are frequent warnings that Israel restricting aid is pushing the population toward starvation. There's no doubt the human suffering is awful. But is it unlawful? South Africa brought a complaint of genocide against Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The ICC cautioned Israel about committing genocide and issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, as well as the masterminds of the Hamas attack, who have since been assassinated. History will ultimately judge whether this is genocide. But in the meantime, the public has formed its own opinions, as sympathy for Palestinians grows and shock over the tragedy of Oct. 7 fades. In a new online poll by Léger conducted in early June, almost half of 1,100 Canadians surveyed — 49 per cent — agreed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. And those views were solicited before Israel started bombing Iran to contain the existential threat of its nuclear program in a dramatic escalation of already tense hostilities in the Middle East. A closer look at the Léger poll shows that over 60 per cent of respondents who identify as Liberal, New Democratic, Bloc Québécois or Green party voters hold the view that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, compared to 37 per cent who declared themselves Conservatives. There is a deep split in public opinion despite the fact 46 per cent of respondents told pollsters they barely understood or had a poor understanding of the conflict. These findings illustrate the strong emotions surrounding Israel's pulverization of Gaza, but also the fallout from a social media shadow war playing out since Oct. 7. On Thursday, the Foundation for Genocide Education is hosting a fundraiser where journalist and author Warren Kinsella will speak about propaganda and hate in an age of disinformation. Kinsella, who recently returned from Israel, is writing a book and producing a documentary on the digital campaign 'to shape history, sway public opinion, and control the narrative surrounding one of the world's most polarizing conflicts.' Iranian-funded propaganda against Israel began well before Hamas's 2023 attack. But in November 2023, the New York Times uncovered a 'deluge of online propaganda and disinformation' spread by Iran, Russia and to a lesser extent China 'that is larger than anything seen before.' 'It's fascinating and surprisingly sophisticated what they did,' Kinsella said in an interview. Kinsella's talk will look at how anti-Israel attitudes, once the domain of the far right, have now been adopted by the progressive left. They have been strongly embraced by younger generations, who tend to see Israel's actions through the lens of their post-colonial, anti-racist values. Israel, meanwhile, has failed to tell its own story effectively, said Kinsella, once an adviser to prime minister Jean Chrétien, resulting in the Jewish community writ large being blamed for Netanyahu's war. 'Israel has done a really, really crummy job of communications,' said Kinsella. 'Israel needs to tell a better story about itself.' Legitimate criticism of Netanyahu's merciless bombing of Gaza is sometimes misconstrued as antisemitism. But it shouldn't be. Even within Israel, there is visceral opposition and loud dissent. 'Enough is enough. Israel is committing war crimes,' former prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote in Haaretz on May 27. And in an interview with Israeli public radio, Yair Golan, a retired general and leader of Israel's Democrats party, said: 'Israel is on its way to becoming a pariah state among nations, like South Africa was, if we don't return to acting like a sane country. And a sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations.' But this range of opinion is rarely heard outside Israel. Instead, practically the entire Jewish diaspora has been painted with the same brush — vilified, discredited and scapegoated. The conflict has unleashed an alarming tidal wave of hate toward both the Jewish and Muslim communities in Canada and around the world. But the scourge of antisemitism, which the New York Times editorial board recently characterized as 'the oldest hate,' has been particularly vicious. While Israel was still mourning its dead and counting the numbers of hostages taken, Hamas supporters celebrated the attack in the streets of Montreal and other Canadian cities. In Montreal, bullets have been fired at Jewish schools and firebombs tossed at synagogues. College and university campuses have become battle zones where Jewish students feel intimidated for showing visible signs of their identity, daring to defend Israel's right to exist, or demonstrating for the return of the hostages. In recent weeks, antisemitism has reached dangerous new levels. A young Jewish couple who worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., were shot to death leaving an event at the Holocaust museum there. An arsonist firebombed the home of Pennsylvania's Jewish governor on Passover. An assailant in Boulder, Colo., attacked a crowd of protesters rallying for the release of Israeli hostages, injuring 15, including a Holocaust survivor. This violent turn is not only worrisome for the Jewish community, which was already feeling unsafe in Montreal as elsewhere, but also for democracy and society as a whole. As has often been pointed out when it comes to dark chapters in history: It starts with the Jews, but it doesn't end with the Jews. This is why education about genocide is so important. It teaches critical thinking skills and helps students identify the warning signs that lead to mass murder, which are classification, separation, stigmatization, dehumanization, justification and elimination. The foundation relies on the United Nations' 1948 definition of genocide, which is 'acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,' including killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction; imposing measures intended to prevent births; and forcibly transferring children. There is certainly room for discussion about how these criteria apply to both history and current events. But rational debate has become a struggle, Berger said. There were complaints after a recent presentation at one school where the foundation has long been sending the children of Holocaust survivors to speak. 'There was a small cohort of very vocal Arab-Palestinian parents who accused us and the principal and the board of governors of the school of us sending in representatives to platform pro-Israel views and to weaponize the Holocaust as a justification for Israel's actions in Gaza,' Berger said. 'We spoke to the principal after and we don't know if they're going to invite us back next year. Are they going to be afraid?' Other schools have also stopped calling or are saying 'no thanks' when the foundation gets in touch. Most painful of all, there has been a schism in the ranks of the survivors of other genocides who the foundation sends to schools as speakers. 'We had an Armenian presenter that we'd trained who went into schools to talk about her grandparents and the Armenian genocide. It was the only presentation of that kind anywhere. And she quit. She didn't want to be associated with us,' Berger said. 'We also had a Rwandan quit on us. Also a young Rwandan survivor himself, who quit on us, because we didn't want to say that Israel is committing a genocide because we don't believe it. In the meantime, we had a presenter who wanted us to remove the word genocide from our name.' Instead of bringing people together to connect the dots of the hate and discrimination that can lead to genocide, the Jewish community, which forged the template for 'never again,' is once again ostracized. Out of both necessity and circumstance, the foundation's focus has narrowed somewhat. 'We've had to shift more of our focus to educating about the Holocaust. Because when we go into schools to give presentations about the Holocaust, we talk about the history of antisemitism. And this is directly tied to the students' understanding of why and how this hate is resurfacing under the guise of anti-Israel protest and hate,' Berger said. 'What the problem is now in schools, we're told by teachers it's very cool for kids to be antisemitic. It's a very cool thing. And genocide is a very hot, controversial word now. It wasn't before, but it is now.' As disinformation, discrimination and hate threaten to drown out the lessons of history, Berger remains steadfast in her goal of making education about genocide mandatory in Quebec schools to honour her mother's legacy. 'Still to me that is the most powerful tool we have,' she said.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Extensive Greenland Lithium Exploration Campaign Launched by Brunswick Exploration
MONTREAL, June 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brunswick Exploration Inc. (TSX-V: BRW, OTCQB: BRWXF; FRANKFURT:1XQ; 'BRW' or the 'Company') is pleased to announce it has launched an aggressive regional-scale prospecting and mapping initiative on its sizeable Greenland portfolio that contains hundreds of untested targets using 4 crews and 2 helicopters for six weeks. Initially, one team will focus on detailed mapping and sampling around the Ivisaartoq spodumene discovery and surrounding areas while the other will focus on the expanded Nuuk and Paamiut licenses as well as the historical spodumene showing at Paamiut. Starting in July, one team will focus on follow-up prospecting at the Nuuk and Paamiut projects based on results from June while the other team will focus on the Disko Bay and Uummannaq projects. Results from the first six weeks will be used to plan advanced exploration programs in August and September 2025, including first pass prospecting across its recently acquired Hinksland project in East Greenland (See new Release of March 13th, 2025). Killian Charles, President & CEO, commented: 'This is a very exciting step for Brunswick Exploration as we look to significantly increase our exploration initiative in Greenland alongside our Quebec projects. As a reminder, we have consolidated nearly all accessible lithium targets in Greenland following our first mover advantage. There is substantial exploration potential in Greenland and BRW is one of the few companies actively exploring in the country. Over the last four years, we have built an internal lithium expertise for grassroot exploration that is unique across the sector and our peers. There are many more opportunities that exist as BRW is best positioned to uncover new discoveries across our portfolio and beyond.' Qualified Persons The scientific and technical information related to Greenland has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Charles Kodors, (Manager, Atlantic Canada). He is a Professional Geologist registered in the provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Quebec. About Brunswick Exploration Brunswick Exploration is a Montreal-based mineral exploration company listed on the TSX-V under the symbol BRW. The Company is focused on grassroots exploration for lithium, a critical metal necessary to global decarbonization and energy transition. The company is rapidly advancing one of the extensive grassroots lithium property portfolios in Canada and Greenland, including the Mirage Project. Investor Relations/information Mr. Killian Charles, President and CEO (info@ Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; changes in equity markets; inflation; fluctuations in commodity prices; delays in the development of projects; the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry; and those risks set out in the Corporation's public documents filed on SEDAR at Although the Corporation believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Montreal Gazette
4 days ago
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Opinion: Quebec Liberals pick Pablo Rodriguez. Brace for a return to sovereignty battles in Quebec
It was far from the spectacular coronation some were expecting. On Saturday, Pablo Rodriguez became the new leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, securing just over 52 per cent support on the second ballot against runner-up Charles Milliard. That's quite a short margin — light years away compared to Mark Carney's stunning 86 per cent majority on the first ballot just a few months ago on the federal stage. After a leadership race that lasted nearly a whole year, Justin Trudeau's former lieutenant inherits a party that is deeply divided. Results show that close to one in two Liberal members (47.7 per cent) didn't make him either their first or second choice in this preferential voting system. As a matter of fact, the 'Anyone but Pablo' movement nearly cost him the victory at the finish line. So his first task, before he can begin persuading voters to trust him in the next election, will be to unite his own party — and his caucus at the National Assembly — around his leadership and vision for the QLP's future. Time will tell whether a staunch Montreal-based federalist like Rodriguez can bring nationalists and rural voters back into the Liberal fold. Milliard, the former CEO of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, was the surprise of the race, finishing second on the first ballot and beating high-profile contender Karl Blackburn. Many saw in him as a breath of fresh air — a younger political outsider akin to Paul St-Pierre Plamondon for the Parti Québécois. For some, the choice of a seasoned politician like Rodriguez is seen as a missed opportunity for the party's renewal and for reconnecting with younger generations of Quebecers. One thing is for sure: After an impressive campaign in which Liberal members and the broader public got to know him better, Milliard has proven his high potential and shown what he's capable of. As he confirmed again this weekend his intention to run in the next provincial election as a Liberal candidate, there's little doubt we'll soon see him again on the political stage. Rodriguez's arrival in provincial politics also signals a potential revival of the sovereignty debate. He referenced it in his victory speech, already wielding the spectre of a third referendum on Quebec independence to dissuade voters from supporting the PQ. After an eight-year hiatus during which Quebecers embraced the so-called 'third way' offered by the nationalist-but-not-separatist Coalition Avenir Québec, it seems like the next election will likely revolve around the question of sovereignty. Yes, again. And the PQ is certainly thrilled at the idea of going back to these 'glory days'. Following five decades in which provincial politics were dominated by the debate over whether Quebec should secede from Canada, many believed François Legault's rise to power in 2018 had opened a new chapter — and perhaps even put the sovereigntist movement to rest for good. I must admit that I was one of them. And that we were probably wrong about it. With the ultra-federalist Rodriguez now facing off against hardline sovereigntist St-Pierre Plamondon — who is openly committed to holding another referendum in his first term if he becomes the next premier — Quebec appears to be poised to return to the good old quarrels about the province's future within Canada. And in this world of wedge politics and picking sides, this divisive question may serve well both the Liberals and the PQ, eclipsing in the process other, more pressing issues such as the economy, the management public finances, health, and education, to name just a few. All that, despite polls suggesting that roughly two-thirds of Quebecers are simply not interested in reopening this never-ending debate. It's almost as if we're moving backwards.
National Observer
5 days ago
- Business
- National Observer
Could Canada's carbon capture ambitions catch a chill from Iceland's struggling Mammoth project?
Iceland and Canada lie over 4,500 kilometres apart on a world map, yet news that a pioneering carbon removal project near Reykjavik is falling well short of expectations a year after its launch has hit home with some North American sector skeptics closely watching the climate technology's progress. Switzerland's Climeworks, which has raised US $800 million, opened the world's largest operational direct air capture (DAC) plant, known as Mammoth, to global fanfare in May last year. But the facility, which uses what look like walls of giant fans to capture CO 2 directly from the air and then pumps it deep underground, has not measured up to expectations. The pilot project pulled just 105 tonnes of CO 2 from the air in its first 12 months of operation, a fraction of its projected annual capacity of 36,000 tonnes, according to a report by Iceland's Heimildin newspaper last month. 'That is less than the annual emissions of a dozen long-haul trucks,' said Michael Barnard, a prominent clean energy technology analyst and self-styled debunker of greenwashing technologies. Climeworks has not responded to the news report or to requests for comment from Canada's National Observer. But the slow start at Mammoth has sparked discussion in clean energy circles over the wisdom of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in similar CO 2 removal projects in Canada. 'We don't need a billion-dollar vacuum cleaner for the sky,' Barnard said in a LinkedIn post. 'We need heat pumps, EVs, and clean electricity. DAC might serve as niche cleanup after 2050 — maybe.' Canada was already betting on direct air capture before the Iceland setback. The Trudeau government supported DAC development through tax credits covering 60 per cent of construction costs, a $10 million commitment to carbon removal service purchases, and a draft federal offset protocol allowing DAC companies to generate tradeable carbon credits. These incentives and guaranteed demand aim to lure private investment in DAC and potentially boost the Liberals' faltering pledge to reach net-zero emissions in Canada by 2050. Following his April election, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada could be a leader in carbon capture and storage as part of a controversial effort to decarbonize oil and gas, including extending tax credits and setting carbon dioxide removal targets. Canada is taking the opposite approach to the United States, where Trump administration budget cuts could eliminate up to US $1 billion in Department of Energy (DOE) funding for two direct air capture demonstration projects in Texas and Louisiana. Nevertheless, DAC is gathering pace elsewhere, with roughly 150 companies working on projects around the world. Eight companies are located in Canada, including Montreal-based start-up Deep Sky's Alpha project — a first-of-its-kind solar-powered DAC technology hub in Alberta partly backed by Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Catalyst fund. Deep Sky Alpha, on track to bring the first of as many as 14 different DAC plant concepts online this summer, is expected to cost over $110 million over the next decade. Whether any will make the leap to commercialization remains a question mark, said Phil De Luna, Deep Sky's chief carbon scientist and head of engineering. 'In the current geopolitical climate, with the US Trump administration cutting DOE funding for key DAC projects, there are understandably some concerns about development of the technology,' he told Canada's National Observer. 'But this only makes the industry more focused — and the scrutiny being shown [to projects like Mammoth] is overall a healthy thing and helps all of us in learning as we go in developing DAC technologies.' Trials of a 'first of a kind' technology Where industry observers like Barnard see an expensive technology failing to live up to its hype, De Luna remains optimistic. He said only a 'subsection' of the Mammoth plant was fully commissioned, and despite the low carbon capture rate, the results show the technology works, he said. 'I think the marketing [by Climeworks on its Iceland project] and the attention generated has been a little premature,' said De Luna, who toured the facility during a recent holiday in Iceland. 'This is first-of-a-kind technology, and it's tremendously positive that we know the technology is working,' he said. Jorden Dye, director of the Carbon Dioxide Removal Centre, a Calgary-based think-tank, said the poor results from Iceland were 'nothing more than a bump in the road' and direct air capture could be a viable technology for climate mitigation in the years to come. 'If we are not developing DAC now — working through the prototypes, getting it deployed at ever-larger scale, commercializing it — then we won't have it ready when we need it by mid-century,' he said. Barnard, a former IBM troubleshooter who now consults on energy transition technologies for industrial conglomerates, said DAC 'does work and will work better' as it is developed, but it would not be economically scalable by 2050, if ever. 'DAC is economically non-viable. It's a dead technology walking,' he said. The current uses for captured CO 2 — such as injecting carbon dioxide into aging oil and gas reservoirs to boost pressure and production, as well as into concrete, plastics or biofuels — account for a very small percentage of the 35-45 billion tonnes of CO 2 added to the atmosphere each year, he said. 'So the 'U' in CCUS [carbon capture, utilization and storage], for instance, will never become material," Barnard said. If captured CO 2 isn't being used, he said it only makes sense to build DAC plants where it's possible to store large volumes in geological structures like depleted fossil fuel reservoirs or rock formations deep underground. 'Carbon capture, if it can be made to pencil out at all, only does so in a very limited number of places,' Barnard said. To make sense from a climate and economic point of view, any new carbon removal technology would need to capture around 100 million tonnes annually, according to Barnard's calculations. Achieving this scale would require hundreds of kilometres of so-called 'extractor walls' made of porous materials to absorb CO 2. Nature-based alternatives — from reforesting denuded lands and planting tree farms, to restoring waterways and wetlands — are a better investment, Barnard said, as well as stepping up the electrification of industries and transportation. Canada "well positioned" Despite the economic and technological hurdles, proponents point to DAC's key role in Canada's carbon management strategy to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. 'Canada is incredibly well-positioned to lead in advancing this technology — which will take time to develop, but which we are definitely going to need due to climate change,' Dye said. "Carbon capture, if it can be made to pencil out at all, only does so in a very limited number of places. Canada has two advantages for DAC projects. First, 80 per cent of the country's electricity comes from renewable sources, primarily hydroelectric power that provides the clean, affordable energy that carbon removal plants need. Second, Canada's underground geology can store about 678 gigatonnes of CO 2 — nearly equal to the country's entire emissions in 2023 and more than twice Canada's objective of carbon removal by 2050, according to Carbon Removal Canada. The industry lobby group projects that a full-scale DAC industry could create 300,000 jobs and add $143 billion to Canada's GDP by 2050. 'DAC needs the intersection of renewable power and geologic storage and there are very few places on the planet that have these in the abundance we do here in Canada,' De Luna said. The global DAC market could exceed US $1 trillion by 2050, according to projections from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and McKinsey & Company. Still, the disappointing news from Mammoth could affect investor perceptions of direct air capture projects, said Na'im Merchant, Carbon Removal Canada's CEO. 'There are well over 100 companies around the world that are doing 'something new and difficult for the first time' to develop these technologies,' he told Canada's National Observer. 'Some might outperform expectations, some might underperform, but we haven't yet made the kind of investment needed to help commercialize these technologies to let up now," he said. "I do worry public perception of a project like Mammoth could affect investor perception [of the viability of DAC]." Multiple pilot projects could help to identify scalable technologies worthy of the major investment needed to build carbon removal plants that can benefit from economies of scale, he said. Barnard disagrees. While Wright's Law — which says the cost of manufactured items gets cheaper for every doubling of units produced — explains a 90 per cent plunge in solar panel prices in the past decade, DAC will not see such cost reductions, he said. 'Solar got cheap because [the industry] had billions of units, huge consumer markets, and steep learning curves and [photovoltaic panels] were relatively simple objects to make,' he said. DAC involves industrial-scale infrastructure moving huge volumes of air through kilometres of fan walls. 'Only thousands of units will be manufactured per type of DAC and most of the components are already bog-standard and cost-optimized,' he said. "Creating the right policy environment, so investors feel DAC is sufficiently derisked must ultimately be more important than early results from a first-of-its-kind carbon removal technology like Climeworks" The technology faces other challenges. 'It takes energy to separate dilute CO 2 from air and then separate the CO 2 from whatever captured it — lots of it. There's no magic breakthrough coming,' Barnard said. DAC's development is also a policy puzzle. "Creating the right policy environment, so investors feel DAC is sufficiently derisked must ultimately be more important than early results from a first-of-its-kind carbon removal technology like Climeworks," Merchant said. He sees the US policy retreat as Canada's opportunity to accelerate the development of demonstration-scale plants capturing hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually. Environment and Climate Change Canada spokesperson Samantha Bayard said in an emailed statement that Ottawa was 'still consulting' on the draft offset protocol for using direct air capture that qualifies for federal offset and pricing systems, as well as clean electricity regulations. The federal government supported DAC because it was 'recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency that there is no credible path to net-zero emissions without [these] carbon management technologies," she said. Canadian 'DAC Olympics' Deep Sky Alpha, being built in Innisfail, AB, will play a central role in growing small-scale pilots to mid-size demonstrators. Start-ups such as ReCarbn, Carbyon, Carbon Atlantis, and Skyrenu are already queuing up for construction and commissioning. 'We see Alpha as the DAC Olympics,' De Luna said, adding the project will help identify what technologies work best for Canada's climate and inform investor decisions on whether to invest the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to scale up the technology. Other Canadian projects are moving ahead as well, including a maiden DAC plant in Fermont, northern Quebec, developed by Ottawa-based TerraFixing and partner Tugliq Énergie, a green energy supplier in Montreal. 'This project will take full advantage of Quebec's clean hydroelectricity and huge wind power resource, so it will point the way toward developing more renewables in the province as well as proving our technology on the way to commercialization,' TerraFixing CEO, Vida Gabriel, told Canada's National Observer. The Fermont project, expected to go online later this year, comprises a pair of TerraFixing DAC units powered by wind and backed up by hydro. Each unit aims to capture up to 1,000 tonnes of CO 2 per year. Industrial-scale demand needed The federal government's carbon removal strategy envisions deploying a range of technologies that will spur the development of a 'world class, multi-billion-dollar carbon management sector.' While it concedes that DAC is 'less mature' than CCUS, it believes direct air capture holds 'significant' potential for current climate action plans. Ottawa's carbon removal procurement plans are an important first step, Merchant said, but federal purchases need to increase tenfold now and another tenfold after 2030, given that industrial demand for carbon credits will drive DAC growth. 'We need to create the demand for DAC across government, the corporate sector, from heavy-emitting industry — we won't get to gigatonne-scale [carbon removal] plants without it,' he said. Corporate early adopters are already emerging. Shopify, an online marketplace platform, last year founded a group called Frontier alongside Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, and McKinsey Sustainability, with plans to spend US $925 million on carbon removal. Separately, RBC and Microsoft have signed deals with Deep Sky to buy DAC carbon credits over the next 10 years. Climate change won't wait, however. DAC proponents argue technologies must be developed now to be ready to capture and store legacy emissions in the decades ahead, regardless of how quickly the world decarbonizes. 'We have to factor in 'pipeline warming,'' De Luna said, adding that even if all emissions ceased immediately, global warming would persist for decades and require removing at least a decade's worth of CO 2 already in the atmosphere. 'The criticism of DAC — it's too energy intensive, too costly, too hard to scale up — overlooks this," he said. "Clean energy, yes, it is absolutely what we should do, but there are still emissions to be dealt with and DAC will be a big part of the solution there.' Carbon cost disincentive One issue is that Canadian companies are reluctant to pay the price of carbon credits. The federal carbon levy, launched at $20 per tonne in 2019, rises $15 annually and is expected to reach $170 per tonne by 2030. But De Luna believes 'over time this willingness to pay will change' as carbon removal gets cheaper and companies face intensifying pressure to decarbonize. Today, the cost of pulling CO 2 from the atmosphere is around US $1,000/tonne — what Climeworks has paid to capture emissions at its Mammoth facility. The Swiss company has said its Generation 3 technology aimed to reduce costs to US $250-350/tonne of CO 2 captured, and achieve a total cost of US $400-600/tonne removed by 2030. Deep Sky sees a route over the next three to five years to reduce their costs to $400/tonne and then 'in the 2030s' closer to $200/tonne. 'We are never going to get the cost down to as low a level as we need if we don't start building now,' said De Luna. 'We are never going to get the cost down to as low a level as we need if we don't start building now." 'We are already seeing precipitous cost reductions between the technologies we are piloting at Alpha and the next-generation technologies that we are evaluating for our next projects there," he added. Barnard argues climate action investments by governments and industry should be directed solely at clean energy — solar power, battery technologies and electric vehicles. 'If we electrify as fast as we might, we will not have anywhere near the demand for technologies like DAC,' he said. 'DAC is not going to help us in Canada or on this planet with our 2050 emissions reduction targets. Renewables, led by solar and batteries, will.' 'Co-opted' by Big Oil? Without wider public support, Merchant warned, DAC risked becoming a 'fig leaf' that allows fossil fuel companies to continue business as usual. US oil giant Occidental is an example of this concern. Its Stratos facility in Texas will be the world's largest DAC plant, capturing 500,000 tonnes of CO2 yearly and, according to the company, help preserve its core oil and gas business. 'This gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the 60, 70, 80 years that I think it's going to be very much needed,' Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub told a Houston oil and gas conference in 2023. Investor sentiment for DAC is also highly dynamic, with feverish interest in the technology in the early 2020s giving way to greater investor wariness. That could shift again. 'The carbon removal investor 'gold rush' we saw a few years ago is over. This is a time of stress for the sector,' Gabriel said. 'Canada can seize the opportunity to rapidly advance DAC and move past this phase.' DAC proponents want to reframe the conversation about climate change and the role that carbon removal technologies can play in reducing emissions along with other mitigation efforts. As the climate crisis deepens, 'we will realize we didn't do enough to develop carbon removal technologies so that we have the tools we need to help ourselves," Merchant said. De Luna said he hoped 'ingenuity and innovation' would get the energy transition back on track and DAC could be part of the climate action solution. "With climate change, things are going to get worse before they get better. But will we be able to make things better with DAC and other carbon removal technologies? Yes, absolutely.'
Hindustan Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Gold Card or pipe dream? Expert exposes gaps in Trump's immigration overhaul
Talks of the ultra-rich gaining fast-track passageway entry into the world of US residency have long been going around town. President Donald Trump introduced his new Gold Card program as a method to attract the wealthy and successful to the shores of America and stimulate its economy through creating jobs and investing capital. Be it Russian oligarchs or Middle Eastern oil tycoons, the administration is ready to serve them permanent residency free of international taxation for a barter trade of $5 million. We've heard the President call it 'the Green Card but better' and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick promise the release of an official website in 'about a week' on loop for a while now. Three weeks have passed since Lutnick's statement. Any concrete sign signaling a possible release anytime shortly appears to be invisible at the moment. David Lesperance, JD Founder and Managing Partner of Lesperance and Associates- a Montreal-based immigration and international taxation advice agency, calls the program a 'concept of a plan" that will be this term's 'infrastructure week.' Given his 35 years of experience in his role as an advisor to Ultra High Net Worth (UNHW) families from the US and beyond, Lesperance points out the gaping holes that still threaten Trump's 'wild card' from ever manifesting into reality. How attractive is the proposal to its target audience? What is the impending future of the EB-5 Program? Has the Congress approved any relevant legislative change in this regard? Does a market for this program even exist? Lesperance lays it all bare in a candid conversation. In an appearance on the All-In Podcast on March 21 of this year, Lutnick claimed to hosts Chamath Palihapitiya and David Friedberg that 37 million people across the globe had the fiscal capacity to buy a gold card; 'And by the way, yesterday I sold a 1000,' he added. Lesperance questioned the potential market of 37 million individuals as claimed by Lutnick by saying: 'One does not spend their entire fortune on a donation to the US government for a Gold Card. In reality, one would only spend 1/6th of their wealth (i.e., +$30M net worth), and there are only 395,070 such individuals in the world. Since 225,000 of them are already Americans, there is only a possible total market of 170,000 individuals.' If this program were to ever materialize, he professes a 'negligible impact on wealth in the US' and downs the sales numbers from millions to mere hundreds. As part of the 'privileges plus' feature of the program, the Trump administration aims to shield cardholders from paying dues on income earned from foreign sources. Lesperance, however, questions the legal feasibility of this feature: 'To actually make this happen would require a change to the definition of being a US person for Tax Purposes in the Internal Revenue Code. There would need to be a new category that outlines how Gold Card holders' tax obligations are completely different from the worldwide tax obligations of Citizens, Green Card Holders, and those who trigger the Substantial Presence Test.' He further pointed out that the ultra-rich can easily gain the same benefits through other measures like an L-1, E1/E2, or O-1 visa and burn fewer holes in their own pockets. 'If they either spend less than the time allotted under the Substantial Presence Test or have either a Closer Connection or Treaty Election to overcome the SPT, they will not become US taxpayers subject to US global taxation,' he adds. 'So as the weeks go by either the Trump Card will be properly legally created with the promised feature of territorial tax and I will have egg on my I will be labelled "NostaLesperance" for being the first to point out the Trump Gold Card Emperor has no clothes.' Drifting from the aspect of the existence and likelihood of UNHW families, Lesperance echoes a common concern that has been stated by multiple Senators in the past few months regarding the legal implications of executing such a massive change to immigration policy. The current investment-based immigration scheme in the US, called the EB-5 Program, requires foreign investors to create 10 full-time jobs for American workers and contribute either $800,000 in specified 'high-unemployment' sectors or $1,050,000 in a non-targeted area. Although the president intends to exercise his executive powers to pass the legislation, many, including Lesperance, foresee the difficulties in doing so. 'The EB-5 program has been approved by the US Congress until the end of 2027. Even though the Gold Card was proposed in late February, no legislation has even been proposed to either eliminate or compete with the EB-5 program. This is despite the fact that major immigration proposals are part of the Big Beautiful Bill.' Moreover, shifting from the EB-5 to a Gold Card would replace the concept of investments with donations; an idea the ultra-rich aren't exactly pouncing on in a flash. The possibility of the program being 'introduced by a sharpie signature on an executive order' remains under question by legal loopholes. According to data published by the Center for Immigration Studies, 20% of all workers in January 2025 were immigrants from foreign nations, accounting for a staggering 31.7 million individuals. But, Lesperance points out how the program might just help the country shoot itself in the foot: 'For the stated Gold Card target market of international UHNW "Golden Geese" it is a place to leave rather than fly to. In the future if the political pendulum swings towards the Democratic party's prior "Tax the Rich" proposal the current record wave of departing wealthy will become a tsunami.
