 Good morning! This is Hanna Lee.
Western secession appears to be all the rage these days. But is it actually feasible? We'll get into that. Then, some small relief for the auto industry, and a couple's multi-year showdown with Air Canada.
And today: Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. ET in Ottawa, his first time taking media questions since winning the election. | | | Western secession is all the rage. How would an independent West fare economically?
| | |  | Talk of western secession has ramped up since the Liberal Party won the federal election this week. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
| With the Liberals winning the election, a now-familiar call has re-emerged: that of western secession. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has tabled legislation that would make it much easier to call a referendum on the issue. But what would an independent West actually look like?
A lower standard of life: Serious talk of separation would likely cause people and companies to flee, said Trevor Tombe, a University of Calgary economist. The tax base would shrink, and at the same time, the new country would have to increase taxes, given the massive new administrative burden it'd be shouldering. Ottawa could also make life difficult for the new country — it would be blocked from trade agreements that Canada is part of.
Other issues: Alberta is landlocked, and those countries tend to have lower productivity and higher trade costs due to lacking access to trading ports. Meanwhile, the West relies heavily on oil and gas and mining, which are prone to fluctuation, and hasn't used that money to build up significant reserve funds the way a country like Norway has.
Another scenario: Of course, the West could also join the U.S. in becoming the 51st state. But that would come with its own problems — the new state would be in a poor bargaining situation, and with a volatile nation. It could possibly only be accepted as a territory and wouldn't have federal election voting rights. | | | | | | | | | | | CUSMA-compliant auto parts won't be hit with tariffs
| | |  | Employees work on the production line at the Martinrea auto parts manufacturing plant in Woodbridge, Ont., on Feb. 3. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
| Automobile parts compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement will not be hit with tariffs, U.S. Customs and Border Protection guidance said Thursday.
What that means: It's some relief for the North American automobile industry, which is deeply integrated and has already been besieged by multiple levels of tariffs. U.S. President Donald Trump had put a 25 per cent tariff on all vehicle imports last month but made a carveout for American-made parts compliant with the trade agreement.
The issue with the carveout: Finding out a way to only tax non-American components was going to be extremely complicated, experts said. And auto parts can also cross the border multiple times between Canada and the U.S. before a vehicle is finished, further entangling the tariff process. The auto industry has been warning for months that Trump's tariffs as planned would decimate the sector and trigger supply-chain shocks and higher prices. | | | | | | | | | | | | | Air Canada compensates couple for flight delay after 4-year battle that wound up in court
| | |  | Air Canada took this B.C. couple to court instead of paying them $2,000 in compensation as the Canadian Transportation Agency ordered it to do. It's now dropping the effort to have that ruling overturned. (Submitted by Andrew Dyczkowski)
| A B.C. couple's more than four-year battle with Air Canada over compensation has finally ended. And the airline said it relented, in part, because it felt badly for the couple.
What happened: Andrew and Anna Dyczkowski had a 24-hour flight delay from Vancouver to Costa Rica in January 2020. Air Canada denied their initial compensation claim, and they filed a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency, which ordered the airline to pay them $2,000 in compensation. Instead, it took them to court to try and overturn the ruling. More than a year later, without explanation, Air Canada abandoned the case.
Air Canada's take: Bad weather was the main reason for the couple's flight delay, it said, and that was out of the airline's control. The CTA disagreed, ordering the airline to pay up. An Air Canada spokesperson told CBC that it dropped the case after getting clarity on the CTA process and because the legal process "can create unease" for customers.
The Dyczkowskis' lawyer's take: Lawyer Peter Choe believes a mechanical issue was the reason for the delay — something within the airline's control — and it dropped the case to avoid a public defeat. Andrew agrees and said he wishes Air Canada hadn't dropped the case so that he could find out what really happened.
| | | | | | | | | And, in today's good news...
| | | Watch these bobcat sisters being released into the wild in B.C., 10 months after they were found orphaned
| | |  | Just look at this adorable bobcat. If I had picked it up, I'm not sure I'd be able to let it go. (Ken & Kathie Pritchard/PROWLS)
| Last July, two orphaned bobcat sisters were found on the side of the road in B.C. They looked to be about two weeks old, and their mother had been killed a day or two prior. They were eventually taken in by the Northern Lights Wildlife Society in Smithers, B.C., which held them in an enclosure for the next 10 months.
Recently, they were ready for release. The group took them back to Powell River — a lengthy three-day trip — and opened up their crates. The bobcats hesitated for a bit, then scurried off.
| | | | | | | | | | | Today in History: May 2
| | | 1939: The National Film Board of Canada is founded.
1972: J. Edgar Hoover dies in Washington at age 77. He served as the head of the FBI for 48 years.
1991: The Supreme Court of Canada strikes down a law forcing people found not guilty by reason of insanity to be automatically committed to a mental institution.
| | | (With files from The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and Reuters)
Thanks for reading! Have a good weekend.
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