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.
Last week, Microsoft highlighted its Ratepayer Protection Tariff (RPT) proposal, a framework designed to ensure datacenters bear the costs associated with required grid improvements rather than shifting those costs to residential customers. Developed in response to growing energy demand in Nevada, the proposal aims to support grid expansion and reliability while providing a model that could inform broader discussions about how states manage rising electricity demand. Read more here.
Why is a man wearing a trash can on his head polling nearly as high as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage? Rory Stewart explains.
Ten years after Brexit, former UK cabinet minister Rory Stewart joins Ian Bremmer to examine the referendum's lasting impact on Britain's economy, politics, and place in the world—and why the UK is still grappling with the consequences today.
A decade after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Ian Bremmer breaks down what Brexit changed, and whether it delivered on its biggest promises.