Hard Numbers: Air Canada pilots hit eject button, empty homes “jeopardize” US-Canada ties, Gujarati smugglers charged in deaths, Canada's new methane migraine

4,500: Air Canada’s roughly 4,500 pilots metaphorically flung open the emergency exit this week by opting out of their current contract in order to force new wage negotiations this summer. The pilots at Canada’s largest carrier have gotten 2% annual raises since 2014, but their counterparts at several US airlines recently won far heftier raises.

1: A new 1% tax on vacant or underused housing in Canada is putting US-Canada relations “in jeopardy,” according to a bipartisan group of US lawmakers. The legislators want Ottawa to exempt US citizens from the tax, which imposes the additional levy on residential properties that sit unused for more than half of each calendar year.

3: Authorities in the Indian state of Gujarat have charged three human traffickers in the deaths of a family they tried to smuggle across the US-Canada border in January 2022. The victims, who froze to death in the province of Manitoba, included an infant, a teenager, and their parents.

0.2: Canadian energy firms may struggle to meet new US and EU regulations that require that only 0.2% of the methane produced during oil and gas production escapes into the atmosphere. Canada has ambitious targets for reducing methane overall, but experts say many of its energy companies would struggle to meet these particular “methane intensity” requirements. That could be a problem if the US and EU decide to demand that their energy trade partners, which include Canada, abide by the rules.