Are Ontario's transportation plans the rotary phone of infrastructure?

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Are Ontario's transportation plans the rotary phone of infrastructure?

The future of transportation is coming more quickly than we think.

Hyperloop One, a company developing technology to move people and cargo at tremendous speeds through low-pressure tubes, expects to build a commercial track and have paying passengers somewhere in the world by 2021.

A trip between Toronto and Montreal in a pneumatic tube transportation system would take just 32 minutes, Rob Lloyd, chief executive officer of Hyperloop One, told the International Economic Forum of the Americas conference in Toronto last week.

But it doesn’t appear the technology will be coming to Ontario, or even Canada, quite yet. Lloyd says his company has had a few exploratory discussions about bringing his technology to Ontario, but he wants the regulatory process to move faster.

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North America Works -- Part III: Detroit/Windsor border-hopping nurses

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North America Works -- Part III: Detroit/Windsor border-hopping nurses

Lee Anne Raper is living the North American life along another border, the one that separates Canada and the U.S. A nurse at the Henry Ford Hospital close to downtown Detroit, Raper doesn’t live in Detroit. Actually, she doesn’t even live in the United States. For the past 19 years, she has driven to work every day across the Ambassador Bridge from her home in Windsor, Ontario, a trip of only about six miles.

“I can see where I live from the 17th story of the hospital,” she says. “I actually know some of the (border) guards. They call me by name and ask me if I’m going to work.”

Raper is just one of about 800 Canadian nurses who cross the border every day to work in the U.S. These border-hopping nurses highlight some of the similarities but also the differences between the economies of the two North American neighbors that share a 5,525-mile border and enjoy one of the world’s longest-standing and most amicable relationships.

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Canada trade deal faces the lawyers: Germany builds its case against CETA with 70 bankers’ boxes

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Canada trade deal faces the lawyers: Germany builds its case against CETA with 70 bankers’ boxes

The documents arrived at the Bundesverfassungsgericht on Wednesday: 70 bankers’ boxes containing more than 125,000 signed powers-of-attorney, passed from person to person along a human chain to the doors of the courthouse. The BVerfG, as it’s known for short, is Germany’s highest constitutional court, and the NGOs that delivered the documents to the court were filing what they claim is the largest constitutional challenge in the country’s history. Its goal is to stop the proposed free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union.

September could prove the pivotal month for the Canada and European Union Comprehensive Economic and Free Trade Agreement (CETA), and Germany could be the key battleground as the treaty’s fate is decided.

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Anti-trade rhetoric is key to U.S. electoral success, study shows, but rarely translates to action

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Anti-trade rhetoric is key to U.S. electoral success, study shows, but rarely translates to action

Bashing trade has always been assumed to be good politics, never more so than during this U.S. election cycle. However researchers at Georgetown University have done the math, showing exactly how anti-trade rhetoric translates into victory at the voting booth.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have said they would significantly alter – or even rip up – key agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That kind of rhetoric resonates with a segment of voters – low-skilled, highly paid manufacturing workers, whose jobs are at the highest risk of being outsourced to lower cost jurisdictions overseas – that have an extraordinary amount of influence when it comes to Electoral College votes.

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Reinstate top regulatory cooperation official, say business groups

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Reinstate top regulatory cooperation official, say business groups

Canadian and American business groups are calling on Ottawa to reinstate a senior official, arguing regulatory cooperation might be in jeopardy without him.

Sixteen business groups, including the Canadian and U.S. Chambers of Commerce and Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, sent a letter to David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador in Washington, D.C. last Friday. They asked for Robert Carberry, formerly assistant secretary for the Regulatory Cooperation Council secretariat at the Privy Council Office, to be put back in his role. 

“More than any single individual on either side of the border, Mr. Carberry’s leadership and dedication to regulatory cooperation between our countries and the many disparate agencies of our governments has been essential to the success of [this] key bilateral initiative,” the letter says.

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The Great Lakes need a new maritime strategy — and fast

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The Great Lakes need a new maritime strategy — and fast

Untapped economic potential and environmental concerns are the driving forces behind a new maritime strategy for the Great Lakes, the first of its kind.

“In order to remain competitive in today’s global markets, we need to improve and expand the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence maritime transportation system,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said when she announced the strategy along with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on June 15.

The Great Lakes regional economy was worth US$5.8 trillion in 2015 and would be the third largest economy in the world if it were a country, according to a recent BMO report. “The economic importance of the region can’t be overstated,” it says.

But not enough is being done to promote maritime transport in the region, says the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers, the organization that produced the maritime strategy. The conference brings together the leaders from Ontario, Quebec, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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Lessons for Canada from New Zealand’s dairy industry

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Lessons for Canada from New Zealand’s dairy industry

Tiny New Zealand, with a population just one-eighth that of Canada, is on a quest to quench the world’s thirst for milk. Today milk is the country’s biggest export, and 95 per cent of what Kiwi farmers produce goes abroad, mostly to China.

Compare that to Canada, where dairy farmers keep fighting to protect their supply management system, which means higher milk prices for consumers and puts a strain on Canada’s trading relationships. Only five per cent of what Canada produces is exported.

While Canada is wringing its hands about what to do about the dairy sector, the question to ask is: Will ending supply management spell doom for Canadian dairy farmers?

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The financial consequences of a European Union without Britain

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The financial consequences of a European Union without Britain

Banking, insurance and pension firms based in the Greater Toronto Area and elsewhere in Canada would be left scrambling for solid ground if Britain decides to exit the European Union next month.  

If the vote were held today, 40 per cent of Britons would vote to leave the EU, according to the Financial Times poll tracker.

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The consequences of Justin Trudeau’s Chinese trade decision

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The consequences of Justin Trudeau’s Chinese trade decision

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a tough decision on Canada’s relationship with China: Will Ottawa agree to Beijing’s demand that Canada stop treating China as a “non-market” economy under the World Trade Organization?

The stakes are high. Refusing the Chinese would likely end the chances of a far-reaching trade deal with Canada’s second-biggest trading partner. A recent report puts the value of a Chinese trade deal at $7.8 billion in new economic activity for Canada. But experts say China will come to the table only if Canada first grants it market economy status.

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App aimed at easing border congestion takes top prize at Canada-U.S. hackathon

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App aimed at easing border congestion takes top prize at Canada-U.S. hackathon

A two-member team of young professionals from Chicago has a new idea for unclogging the Canada-U.S. border: an app for importers and exporters based on the popular TurboTax program that many taxpayers use to fill out their annual tax forms.

The Chicago team, called TradeSherpa and made up of Steve Martinez and Price Shoemaker, emerged this past weekend as the winner of a two-day “hackathon” sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Global Affairs Canada, at which 23 teams were challenged to produce the most useful app for cross-border trade.

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