Canada Today: Energy Project Clash, Christmas Tree Scorn and Rules on Marijuana

View in [Browser] | Add [nytdirect@nytimes.com] to your address book. Saturday, December 17, 2016 [The New York Times] [NYTimes.com/Canada »] [Canada Today] Saturday, December 17, 2016 [Energy Project Clash, Christmas Tree Scorn and Rules on Marijuana] By IAN AUSTEN [Ken and Arlene Boon, farmers whose property is being expropriated for a Site C-related highway realignment. The Boons were among several landowners who filed legal challenges that were dismissed.] Ken and Arlene Boon, farmers whose property is being expropriated for a Site C-related highway realignment. The Boons were among several landowners who filed legal challenges that were dismissed. Andrew Testa for The New York Times The [expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline] is not the only energy mega-project attracting protests in British Columbia. Our Dan Levin [went to the Peace River Valley], where the provincially owned electrical utility in British Columbia plans to spend $7 billion to build a dam and flood about 51 miles of the valley within the decade. The project has raised environmental concerns and has been challenged on constitutional grounds by indigenous groups. But Mr. Levin also found that many people also think the dam, known as Site C, makes no sense when electrical demand is flat and alternative power sources are increasingly feeding the grid. “You don’t even have to think very much about the environmental and aboriginal costs of Site C because the economics are so awful,” said Harry Swain, a former federal deputy minister and the chairman of a government environmental panel appointed to review the project. Mocked With Montreal’s 375th anniversary approaching, a plan was hatched to put up a Christmas tree bigger and grander than the one at Rockefeller Center in New York. The tree that appeared at a downtown Christmas market is indeed tall. But when I spent most of a day this week hanging around it, [the scathing reactions] of passers-by proved the adage that everyone is a comedian. Dropping Out “Marijuana, Vietnam War draft dodgers and artists gave Nelson its tree-hugging, bohemian soul,” Mr. Levin wrote of British Columbia’s most famous counterculture community. [During a visit there], he found that Nelson is now welcoming a wave of urban dropouts who, in some cases, have abandoned high-paying jobs in search of a simpler way of life. “Nobody moves here to work their butt off,” Amy Bohigian, a 43-year-old filmmaker who moved with her wife to Nelson from Toronto 10 years ago, told Mr. Levin. Great Leaps Another installment of the long-term project looking at the experiences of Syrian refugees in [More news and information about Canada.] by Jodi Kantor and Catrin Einhorn is coming soon. It looks at the transformation of Bayan Mohammad, an 11-year-old who arrived last winter. They found that Bayan was outpacing her parents when it came to adapting to Canada: “She was going from child to adolescent, Middle Eastern to North American, and each shift seemed to add velocity to the other.” Legalization In a story which may be of great interest in Nelson, the federal government released a report by experts on [how marijuana should be grown, distributed, sold] and regulated when and if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fulfills his promise to legalize its recreational use. If the panel’s recommendations are adopted by the government, the resulting system will be as much about discouraging marijuana use as making the drug available. As The Globe and Mail [put it in an editorial], the report “wants people to have their pot and not smoke it, too.” Foggy Noah Kalina wanted to photograph landscapes shrouded in fog. [He went to Newfoundland], naturally. Deal making The meeting between Mr. Trudeau and the provincial and territorial premiers went into overtime. But, in the end, [a national pricing plan for carbon emerged]. As expected, Brad Wall, the premier of Saskatchewan, declined to sign on, so his province will most likely have a system imposed by the federal government. Manitoba’s premier, Brian Pallister, also refused to join. But it appears his signature will follow the resolution of a dispute over federal funding for that province’s health care system. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was on an official visit to Ottawa, also stopped by the meeting. He suggested that whatever approach the Trump administration takes to climate change, market forces will keep the United States moving toward lower carbon emissions. Pageantry Anastasia Lin, the Canadian contestant in the Miss World contest, [has been given permission] by organizers to speak to the news media about human rights abuses in China. The finals in the competition take place on Sunday in suburban Washington. Last year, Ms. Lin, who was born in China, was barred from competing in the competition’s finals, which were held in the southern Chinese resort city of Sanya. Here are some stories that appeared over the past week in The Times, not necessarily related to Canada, that I found interesting: —Google is making “[machine learning]” rather than traditional computer programming the basis of its future. The work of Geoffrey Hinton, a professor at the University of Toronto, is a key part of that effort. —“[Ice swimming],” competitive swimming in water that is 41 degrees Fahrenheit — 5 degrees Celsius — or colder actually has its own organizing body. It is also, not surprisingly, dangerous. — Britain’s tabloids are providing extensive, and critical, coverage of a pair of chic $1,250 [leather pants] owned by Prime Minister Theresa May. But some people are pointing out that the cost of male politicians’ suits have never been a subject of public debate. The trousers, by the designer Amanda Wakeley, are selling out. Canada Today is taking a holiday break on Dec. 24. But we’ll be back with a special edition reviewing the past year on New Year’s Eve. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for over a decade. Follow him on Twitter at [@ianrausten].  HOW ARE WE DOING? We hope you enjoyed this weekly roundup of Canada Today. Tell us what you think and what you’d like to see, at [CanadaToday@nytimes.com]. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here].  ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW NYTIMES [Facebook] [FACEBOOK] [Twitter] [@nytimes] Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »] | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps for just $0.99. 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