The Atlantic Momentum Newsletter, Jan. 10, 2024: This week: Horrendous wait times and container ships that really sail
PPF’s Atlantic Canada Momentum Index offers proof that the region is on the upswing, outpacing the rest of the country in several key economic indicators. Each week, this newsletter looks at factors either driving or impeding that momentum.
Here’s everything you need to know:
No holiday for health care
The holidays put predictable pressures on hospital emergency rooms in Atlantic Canada and sparked more calls for increased staff and resources. P.E.I.’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the province’s largest, saw ER wait times of 10 hours or more — one woman with abdominal pain said it took more than 32 hours to get treatment. Hours of operation were cut back at other hospitals, and two saw their emergency rooms closed on the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s Day because of staff shortages.
In New Brunswick, patients at Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton were told to expect 18-20-hour waits. One ER doctor said the department was operating at 360 percent capacity, with patients lining the hallways waiting to be seen.
The holiday season is particularly hard on emergency rooms. Not only does it coincide with flu (and now COVID) season, but some family physicians close their offices and fewer walk-in clinics are offered. The shortage of health-care workers has only exacerbated the situation. A consultant’s report for Health PEI obtained by CBC said the province’s system has been “backed up and overburdened,” and called its health care “more reactive than preventative.” As of December, the number of Islanders without a family doctor stood at 35,145, or 20 percent of the population.
Nova Scotia, meanwhile, released its annual emergency department report just before Christmas. It showed that 19 of the province’s 31 ERs had unplanned closures due to staff shortages in the year ending March 31, 2023, and the number of hours they were shut was up 32 percent compared to the previous year.
The ups and downs of tidal power
Efforts to tap the powerful Bay of Fundy tides to produce clean energy are foundering as regulators try to sort out how to proceed without harming marine life. The not-for-profit Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE) was meant to host five trial projects at a test facility near Parrsboro, N.S. But that shrunk to three, and two of those “have now suspended operations or are at risk of doing so,” according to a briefing note for the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources obtained by The Logic. Their failure could “deal a decisive blow to the industry,” the note warned, saying Canada needs to “address the urgency of these issues.”
One of the companies involved, Scotland-based Sustainable Marine Energy, put its Canadian operation into bankruptcy last summer, blaming regulatory delay and confusion for its struggles. The company had received $28.5 million in federal funding, but has now walked away, having “burned through” about $20-million in taxpayer money and $20-million in investor capital, according to its CEO.
The problem is that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans wants to know how tidal energy projects will keep fish from swimming into turbines. It wants companies to take a “staged approach,” starting with a small number of devices and carefully monitoring their effect. But a go-small, go-slow approach is not economical and discourages investors. FORCE told the federal government last year that the $200 million that’s been invested in tidal energy so far was “at risk of being stranded” because of regulatory uncertainty.
The power potential is staggering. About 160 billion tonnes of water flow through the Bay of Fundy twice a day, more than four times the combined flow of every freshwater river in the world. The tides that squeeze into the Minas Basin near Parrsboro could theoretically generate about 7,000 megawatts of power, or double the amount produced by all other sources in Nova Scotia, though tidal energy is very much in the development stage.
Ottawa has put a task force in place to “clarify requirements for fish protection and reduce turnaround time for regulatory decisions for tidal energy projects in the Bay of Fundy.” It’s expected to report in a few weeks.
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The eco-friendly seas
A Lunenburg, N.S. shipbuilding start-up says it has secured a $73-million letter of intent from an unnamed European backer to finance construction of its first two eco-friendly vessels. Veer Group hopes to start building hydrogen- and wind-powered container ships later this year.
The first ship is planned to be 100-metres in length, equipped with a green-hydrogen power plant and 62.5-metre carbon fibre masts. It will be able to carry up to 160 containers. That’s a fraction of the 24,000 containers today’s biggest carbon-belching behemoths can haul, but they are promising to be just as fast, and able to travel 1,200 nautical miles using only green hydrogen, with an extended range provided by modern sail technology.
Superyacht salvo
In other shipping news, Sydney, N.S.’s plan to bring in tourist dollars by attracting more superyachts to its harbour came under attack over the holidays. Destination Cape Breton, the region’s tourism marketing agency, has hired the consulting firm Superyacht East Coast to help pull in more luxury boats like the Silver Shalis, a 175-foot floating palace — complete with lap pool and elevator — owned by real estate mogul Larry Silverstein, which spent time in Sydney last summer. Not only do superyachts and their passengers spend thousands on fuel, food, tours and entertainment when they tie up, said Superyacht CEO Adam Langley, they draw curious onlookers to the docks, who spend money there as well as they mill about and covet.
All this has annoyed Tom Urbaniak, a professor at Cape Breton University, who cited the carbon footprint left by superyachts and objected to using public money to market to an “infinitesimally small group of oligarchs, the uber-rich, hyper-celebrities and the people who swoon around them …. This is a celebration of almost unimaginable excess.”
Well, not quite, counters Langley. For one thing, he says yacht builders are increasingly looking to electric and hydrogen power, and the boats that typically come to Canada aren’t the 600-foot giants owned by oligarchs: “These are usually 200 feet and less, and they’re usually owned by people who are very sensitive to where they are going and operated by captains who are respectful [of the environment].”
Two tiny homes/one stone
In a prime example of two birds/one stone problem solving, P.E.I. is tackling the affordable housing crisis by building tiny homes using workers enrolled in training programs for new immigrants and for youth pursuing apprenticeships in the building trades. So far, three houses have been built, two at 300-square-feet and one 500-square-footer. They are taking a bit longer than expected to build, but that’s because the students are rotating through to get eight weeks of on-the-job training.
“We’re not speed building here,” said Sam Sanderson, general manager of the Construction Association of P.E.I., which hopes the program can help alleviate the shortage of construction workers in the province. The province hopes to place the first few of the 35 planned tiny homes, meant to function as social housing, on appropriate sites this spring.
Mine your step
A junior mining company looking for copper in Cape Breton faces growing opposition from a local community group determined to stop it. Nova Copper had been looking to buy 400 hectares of land north of Coxheath Hills for a possible copper mine, but pressure from the group, Keep Coxheath Clean, led the regional council to delay a vote on the sale. The group hired an American geophysics expert who advised against the deal last week, citing concerns about groundwater contamination and the company’s plans to manage tailings.
Copper is a critical mineral for renewable energy, required for batteries and electric motors, and Nova’s CEO Harry Cabrita has emphasized the importance of developing domestic sources. The local councillor has expressed a hope that all stakeholders can meet to discuss the matter before a final decision on the sale. So far, the company and its opponent had shown no interest. “We don’t see any value in us reaching out to them,” Laura MacNeil, president of Keep Coxheath Clean said last week. “We have two very different agendas. They want to go ahead with developing a mine and we do not want any mining.”
Internet liftoff?
Xplore Inc., the satellite internet service provider based in Woodstock, N.B., is up against Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the fight for a lucrative contract to provide internet service to 43,000 remote homes and businesses in Ontario. The contract is part of a $4-billion plan to bring high-speed internet access for rural and remote areas in the province.
The contract isn’t won yet, but the announcement that Xplore was one of only two companies who met the requirements to bid came as some welcome news for the company. Formerly known as Xplornet Communications Inc., it has struggled since being acquired by a New York private equity firm in 2020. It faces growing competition from established telecoms upgrading their services in rural areas and last summer, Moody’s downgraded its outlook from stable to negative, citing “continued weak operating performance, which has led to elevated financial leverage.” Xplore says the launch of Jupiter 3, a new satellite sent aloft by SpaceX competitor Hughes, will mean the company could offer faster “next-generation” internet service starting this month.
On the horizon
Releases:
Monday, Jan. 15. MLS Home sales (December)
Tuesday, Jan. 16. Housing starts (December)
Wednesday, Jan. 31, GDP (November)
Events:
Halifax Chamber Business Awards, Jan. 25
Sea Farmers Conference, Jan. 25
Atlantic First Nations Health Conference, Feb. 13-15
Society of Canadian Aquatic Sciences Annual Conference, Feb. 21-24
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