Highway 407 ETR is about to get more expensive for drivers - Global News

Drivers using Highway 407 ETR will soon see tolls increase.

The privately owned 108-kilometre stretch of roadway will have a new rate schedule take effect on Feb. 1, 2024.

All other fees will remain unchanged.

407 ETR said in a news release that the change comes after a four-year rate freeze that began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For light vehicles, the change will mean an increase of one to 11 cents per kilometre, depending on the time of day and stretch travelled.

“The majority of 407 ETR’s personal customers can expect a monthly bill increase of less than $5,” the release said.

Rates are higher for heavy single-unit vehicles and heavy multiple-unit vehicles.

To see a full breakdown of 407 ETR rates and to compare the new schedule to the previous one, visit the highway’s website.

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More Albertans are buying entire cows to fill their freezers, say cattle ranchers - CBC.ca

Tim Hoven, who raises cattle near Red Deer, says more people are buying beef in bulk from ranchers across the province. 

His family, which he says has been farming the same land for more than a century, sells different bundles including the meat of an entire cow, or half a cow, cut and wrapped for families to fill their freezers. 

"People are really wanting to spend a larger amount of money and buy larger beef packages and our smaller beef packages have kind of dropped off in sales," said Hoven. 

"I attribute that to [the fact that] the economy is slowing down a little bit and the cost of living is increasing." 

Hoven believes fewer people are buying organic beef, but those still in the market are buying more of it at once, to boost food security and avoid any spikes in beef prices.

A whole beef ordered from his farm is around 400 pounds of meat, he said. 

He charges $5.55 per pound for whole beef orders, plus processing costs. 

Hoven believes fewer customers are ordering his organic beef, but those still doing it are buying larger amounts. (Submitted by Tim Hoven)

Expensive, niche market

It's uncommon for farmers to offer direct-to-consumer beef sales, according to the Alberta Beef Producers. 

Vice-chair Sheila Hillmer says creating a small meat-processing facility from scratch requires heavy investment and government-inspected operations.

"The challenge is always finding that small abattoir that will allow you to process your own," she said. "It's a very expensive business. You know, labour shortages are hard … it's a niche market."

Hillmer added that cattle producers in the province are already facing lean times and severe cost pressures brought on by drought conditions, forcing many ranchers to downsize their herds. 

Multiple Alberta municipalities where ranchers raise beef cattle declared agricultural disasters this year, including the County of Stettler, Vulcan County and Wheatland County, due to an extreme lack of moisture. 

Despite industry strain, Hillmer said there's a growing demand for direct-to-consumer beef and she hopes more ranchers can take advantage of the interest spike. 

"More and more people want to know where their food comes from, and not just go to a store and buy it," she said. 

"That's a movement probably in the last ten years that's getting stronger, for sure." 

Barry Doerksen said his business is seeing higher demand for bulk beef packages, which can often fit in a nine or 10 cubic foot freezer. (Submitted by Barry Doerksen)

Bulk orders booking months in advance

Gemstone Grass Fed Beef uses a family-owned slaughterhouse in Brooks, Alta., to process its meat, said owner Barry Doerksen.

The business is also seeing higher demand for bulk beef orders, from animals raised on the farm in Gem, Alta., near Red Deer. 

"[Customers] used to maybe order like 15 pounds of ground beef at a time," said Doerksen. "Now [they're] ordering 60 or 90 pounds at a time." 

Half-cow or quarter-cow packages make up around 20 per cent of the farm's total sales, he said, and some families place several massive beef orders every year. 

"Right now we're booking a few months out," said Doerksen. 

"I get a few animals a week booked as quarters … We are definitely not seeing the demand for it slowing down."

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World population will be more than 8 billion people on Jan. 1 - CTV News

The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year's Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.

The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1 per cent. At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.

The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53 per cent, about half the worldwide figure. The U.S. added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year's Day of 335.8 million people.

If the current pace continues through the end of the decade, the 2020s could be the slowest-growing decade in U.S. history, yielding a growth rate of less than 4 per cent over the 10-year-period from 2020 to 2030, said William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.

The slowest-growing decade currently was in the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s, when the growth rate was 7.3 per cent.

“Of course growth may tick up a bit as we leave the pandemic years. But it would still be difficult to get to 7.3 per cent,” Frey said.

At the start of 2024, the United States is expected to experience one birth every nine seconds and one death every 9.5 seconds. However, immigration will keep the population from dropping. Net international migration is expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 28.3 seconds. This combination of births, deaths and net international migration will increase the U.S. population by one person every 24.2 seconds. 

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Kiner-Falefa deal raises floor for Blue Jays, who have more work ahead - Sportsnet.ca

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Kiner-Falefa deal raises floor for Blue Jays, who have more work ahead  Sportsnet.ca
Kiner-Falefa deal raises floor for Blue Jays, who have more work ahead - Sportsnet.ca
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LETTER: Collingwood's waterfront needs more public access - CollingwoodToday.ca

CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via our website. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication. The following letter is in response to a recent article reviewing the progress on the Terminals development in 2023.

Once again Collingwood has managed to keep one of the most wonderous elements of the town from everyone but the wealthy.

First, nearly all of the lakeshore has been covered by private properties including the once famed Shipyards, and now the landmark Terminals will be home to those that can afford it.

Don't we all have a right to access to at the very least a view of the bay, other than one park? Agree, the Terminals need work and should remain but tacking on a "tacky"-for the wealthy only living space is not the answer (and it certainly does not help our housing crisis).

This needs a re-think by town planners and sincere reflection on the locals' thoughts.

Corinne Bassett
Collingwood, Ont.

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Swedish ‘Spotify of heat pumps’ hopes to reach more UK homes - The Guardian

Britain’s plan to wean homes off fossil fuels has had a tepid start, but despite its lukewarm beginning, the market for heat pumps is hotting up.

The Swedish clean energy company Aira is leading a new wave of companies preparing to harness the growing interest in low-carbon home heating, and is positioning itself as the “Spotify of heat pumps”.

The company’s chief executive, Martin Lewerth, believes its subscription service could soon help 5m households across Europe – including 1m in the UK – turn their back on gas boilers for good.

Aira hopes to counter the nagging concerns that have hampered Britain’s take-up of heat pumps by offering an end-to-end subscription service. For a monthly payment and no upfront charge, its engineers will install and then service the kit.

“The number one hurdle for many consumers is the high upfront costs of buying and installing a heat pump. So we’re removing that,” he said. “We don’t want to help affluent households only – we want to make heat pumps available to many households across Europe.”

Aira was founded last year in Stockholm with the backing of the Swedish impact investor Vargas, but it has its sights set on European countries where the heat pump market is preparing to grow at pace. It began a pilot scheme in Italy earlier this year, and plans to launch in Germany as well as the UK.

As part of this plan, it will invest £300m in the next three years in a series of academies across the UK, which it predicts will produce an 8,000-strong army of skilled installers to fit the heat pumps, manufactured at its factory in Poland. Its first two UK academies will be based in Sheffield and London.

This workforce will underpin Aira’s commitment to complete each installation within 30 days of order, and provide a 10-year service guarantee that households will enjoy 20C comfort on even the coldest day of the year.

Aira customers typically choose to pay back the cost of the heat pump, and its installation, over 10 years, or half the expected lifespan of the heat pump. If a customer moves house, they are able to pass the contract to the next owner, or pay the balance of the deal off with the proceeds from the sale.

“We’re providing a hassle-free, one-stop shop experience. It’s a confidence guarantee. If the heat pump doesn’t work, or if you need to repair or maintain it, it’s on us,” Lewerth said. The company will even fill out the paperwork required to access the government’s gas boiler replacement scheme.

Official figures released late last week revealed that the government’s recent decision to increase the size of the grants available towards a new heat pump to £7,500 had ignited a surge in demand.

The number of households applying for a grant, which goes towards the cost of a new heat pump, reached 1,150 in the first week at the more generous level – more than three times higher than the average weekly rate before the change. In the three weeks that followed, new applications remained almost 60% higher, according to the government.

Lewerth acknowledges that, though he is offering a novel business model for Britain’s heat pump market, it is unlikely to remain unique to Aira for long. He expects others to follow suit, and has already been approached by energy suppliers potentially interested in partnering with the company to bring the offer to their customers. It is likely to become a crowded marketplace, but gaining even a small foothold in the UK could prove lucrative.

The UK still relies on 25m gas boilers to heat homes, which make up about 16% of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions. In the coming decades these will need to be replaced by low-carbon alternatives.

The government hopes that as many as 600,000 electric heat pumps will be installed every year as part of the drive to decarbonise.

Lewerth has only ever used heat pumps for his home and said he found the “unfair myths” circulating in some of Britain’s newspapers about the technology “amusing”.

“If it works in Scandinavia, which is not known for its mild winter climate, then it will work in other markets. Some people will say that heat pumps won’t work for every house … but honestly, I think the important thing to remember is that they already work for the majority of UK households. And I don’t know a single technology or product that would be able to serve 100% of Europe’s households. I look at opportunities, not problems.”

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In Northern Ireland, a Couple Grapples With Renovating a Run-down Victorian - The New York Times

In Northern Ireland, one couple grappled with a problem familiar to families everywhere: How to get more space without spending too much money.

As they awaited the arrival of their third child in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Kerri and Neil Beggs encountered a problem familiar to families everywhere: They needed more space, but didn’t have the budget for the kind of house they wanted.

“What we found was that we were in a certain price bracket, and it was quite a large leap in price for the size of house we wanted,” said Ms. Beggs, 44, a health care professional. She and Mr. Beggs, 47, who runs a plumbing supply company, had been renting a narrow, four-story townhouse that sometimes felt like more of a big staircase than a home, and they wanted more space indoors and outdoors.

Fortunately, they had met Craig Hutchinson, the founder of the London architecture firm Hutch Design, through a mutual friend, and he offered to help them assess various properties.

Kerri and Neil Beggs transformed a run-down Victorian in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with help from their architect, Craig Hutchinson.Helen Cathcart for The New York Times

When they visited a rundown 1907 Victorian that had been divided into three dank apartments and had outhouses in the backyard, it seemed too far gone to consider. “I was quite overwhelmed by it,” Ms. Beggs said, “even though I’ve always had a passion for older houses.”

Mr. Hutchinson agreed. “It was really in a terrible state,” he said. “There were holes in the roof, and on the ground floor there was rising damp.”

But that’s what made it ideal, he insisted.

“Craig was saying, ‘Well, there’s huge potential — you just have to knock it out and redesign it,’” Ms. Beggs recalled.

The couple decided to take a chance and bought the house for about 475,000 British pounds (about $600,000) in 2019. Then Mr. Hutchinson got to work.

The house is in a conservation area, so he planned a faithful restoration of the brick-and-lime-render exterior, with new double-glazed windows that resembled the drafty old single-pane ones. Inside, he was free to create an interior that blended modern and traditional elements.

A sitting room on the ground floor was one of the few spaces that had original details intact.Craig Hutchinson

“In Victorian times, it was a lot of closed-off, separate rooms,” Mr. Hutchinson said. But he knew the Beggses wanted something more open.

“Because their kids are quite young, they wanted to be able to see the kids from everywhere,” he said — especially when the parents are working in the kitchen and the children are playing outside.

As a result, the primary living space of the three-story, 4,100-square-foot house is now one large room that contains the living room, kitchen and dining area. Besides knocking down walls, Mr. Hutchinson cut through the floor above to create a soaring, 23-foot ceiling over a low-slung limestone fireplace. Along with a pair of French doors that open to the generous front yard, the cutout helps funnel light from the second-floor windows down into the living room.

The walls and ceilings are finished in chalky lime paint.Craig Hutchinson

Although most of the original architectural details were lost long before the couple arrived, Mr. Hutchinson aimed to play up the home’s age by installing traditional elements: arched and paneled doors, crown molding and chair rails, and jib doors that almost disappear into walls.

“Because we had lost so much of the Victorian decorative detail, we wanted to introduce some things to replace it,” he said.

To counter Belfast’s frequently overcast weather, three skylights help bring in natural light, which bounces off walls and ceilings finished in chalky lime paint. One skylight pulls sunlight into a mezzanine connecting the second and third levels, which Mr. Hutchinson created by cutting open a section of floor. Another illuminates a new curving staircase. The third is a round window directly above a walk-in shower, designed as a spiral of green tile.

Large glass sliders open the home to the backyard.Craig Hutchinson

To complete the house, Mr. Hutchinson redesigned the front and rear yards — yes, he removed the outhouses — adding plantings selected with the landscape architecture firm FFLO that provide a sense of lush green and privacy. He also helped the couple furnish the home with sculptural pieces: Chandigarh chairs by Pierre Jeanneret and a steel coffee table by Vogel Studio in the living room; art and decorative accessories by Irish artists and craftspeople; and shaggy wool rugs and nubby linen drapery and bedding.

The project took about a year and a half to design, including securing the necessary permits, and another year and a half to build. The family moved into their completed house last February. The construction cost was about €178 a square foot (about $227).

“It was a long process, and very stressful at the time, but worth it in the end,” said Ms. Beggs, who loves that the home has the character of an old house but the convenience of a new one. “It sounds cheesy, but it just makes me smile. It’s a restful, relaxing house to be in.”

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