DYLAN JERVIS: On Monday, Toronto city council voted to bring bike sharing to the city. By a 33 – 8 vote, it authorized a deal with the Montreal company Bixi that will put 1,000 bicycles and 80 docking stations around Toronto.

For a fee of $78 a year, $28 a month, or $5 a day, members of the bike sharing program will be allowed to take out a bicycle from anyone of the 80 docking stations whenever they want, for up to 30 minutes at no extra charge, and then return it to whichever docking station they want. This will give Torontonians the option of hopping on a bike rather than waiting for a streetcar or paying for a cab.

Bixi has been a hit in Montreal, since it’s launch last year with 3,000 bikes and 300 stations. The bikes are Canadian made, rugged, not especially heavy, and come equipped with a rack that can handle groceries or a briefcase. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was in Ottawa this week, and he used the opportunity to criticise the Canadian government over its approach to climate change.

Speaking to about 600 members of civil society groups, Mr. Ban urged Canada to make good on its Kyoto Protocol targets, which the incoming Conservative government rejected in 2006. Canada’s current targets of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 are in line the United States, but significantly weaker than those agreed to under Kyoto. Mr. Ban further stated that “Canada has a special role and special responsibility to play” and promised to press the matter during a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Canada will be hosting meetings of both the G8 and the G20 in June. During his speech, the secretary-general stated that he sees climate change and international development as intertwined issues, and warned the G8 and G20 not to use the current global financial difficulties as an excuse to scale back on aid commitments. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: The Alberta government is delaying a decision that would protect the provinces Grizzly bear population, saying it wants feedback from Albertans in rural ridings first.

The government appointed Endangered Species Conservation committee recommended two months ago that the Grizzlies be listed as “threatened”, after they found that fewer than 700 bears are left in the province. No such listing has yet been made.

The committee includes strong representation from the energy, forestry and ranching sectors, so it remains unclear what additional wisdom the provincial government hopes to gain from canvassing more people from rural areas.

Phillip Penner, of Nature Alberta and also a member of the advisory committee, suggests that since “the listing of the bears creates legal responsibilities for the government. It is the fear of what happens if they list the species and how they are going to manage our resources”. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING: A Toronto Star investigation has revealed that Ontario’s new e-waste recycling program isn’t working as expected. Since the program’s inception last April, less than half of the target 42,000 tonnes of old electronics has been collected.

Under the program, electronics retailers are required to pay a fee for every item they sell to an organization called Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES). OES acts as a clearing house, collecting e-waste and distributing it to 8 registered recycling companies. These companies dismantle the equipment, re-sell what they can, and dispose of the toxic components in a safe manner, according to strict provincial guidelines.

One problem with the program is the existence of a number of unregistered recycling companies. These businesses extract only the most valuable components from the waste, then dispose of the rest in landfills or ship it to countries where laws against dumping toxic waste are less stringent.

Carol Hochu, executive director of OES, said in a statement on Monday that she is proud of her organization’s achievements to date and is working with the government to improve the effectiveness of the program. An overhaul of Ontario’s Waste Diversion Act will take place next month. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: The Ontario municipality of Markham voted on Tuesday to expand development outside the urban boundary in the municipality, onto 1,000 hectares of agricultural land. A further 1,000 hectares of agricultural land, currently a provincially protected Greenbelt, is to be assessed as to its suitability for future urban expansion requests.

This means that Markham will lose 1,000, and possibly 2,000 hectares of what many consider to be the best agricultural land in the country.

The urban expansion proposal has been debated in council over the last few years, with hundreds of presentations and meetings between such people and groups as David Suzuki and the Rouge Duffins Greenspace Coalition, and the Angus Glen Ratepayers Association.

The critical vote belonged to councillor Jim Jones, who stated that he was for a “balanced approach” to housing Markham’s expanding population. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING: This week, Quebec’s energy regulator ruled that power from the proposed Lower Churchill hydroelectricity project in Labrador cannot be sent through Quebec lines. Predictably, this infuriated the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, which owns own a majority stake in the project through the Crown energy corporation Nalcor.

If built, the Lower Churchill project could generate up to 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 1.5 million homes. However, the only way to get the power to hungry markets in Ontario, Atlantic Canada, and the northeastern U.S. is through Hydro-Quebec. On Wednesday, La Régie de l’énergie ruled that running the power through those lines would require $3 billion in upgrades, an investment it is unwilling to make.

The decision echoes the bad blood between the two provinces over the existing Upper Churchill project. A 65-year deal signed in the 1960s allows Quebec to buy power from this station at below-market prices. Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams estimates that this has cost his province billions of dollars over the years.

Nalcor is promising to appeal the decision. Meanwhile, Premier Williams says he favours the construction of a costly undersea cable to New Brunswick. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: “Progress is being made” in the fight to stop oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico says US energy secretary Stephen Chu. President Obama sent Mr. Chu along with other officials to Houston on Wednesday to hear from BP on how they plan to stop the leak. The latest plan, which involved lowering a 114-tonne steel containment chamber over the leak failed when the pipe that was supposed to lead oil out of the chamber and up to a surface tanker clogged with hydrates that spewed out of the well. Current plans under way include clogging the well with a “junk shot”, which was a technique used to cap wells following the Gulf War, as well as installing a second “blowout preventer” on top of the well to try and seal it. BP is also working on digging a second “relief well” to plug the existing well with cement. In the meantime, the leak continues to spew up to 5,000 barrels of oil per day into the gulf as surface crews scramble to prevent the oil from blanketing the Louisiana coastline. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: An offshore Natural Gas Platform sunk off the coast of Venezuela early Thursday morning. The platform, operated by the Venezuelan state energy company, began taking on water in the early morning, prompting the evacuation of most of the 95 workers on board. Three workers stayed behind to try and salvage the platform, but to no avail and evacuated before the platform finally sank around 2:20AM local time. Because of the advance warning, the crew was able to disconnect the platform from its gas pipes and shut the emergency valves. According to Venezuelan officials, the sinking therefore poses no threat of a spill. The platform sank in about 160 metres of water, which is about 10 times shallower than the Deepwater Horizon Oil rig which sank in the Gulf of Mexico last month. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: A new climate and energy bill is set to go before the US senate. The bill, sponsored Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman, has been in the works for almost 8 months and aims to revamp the country’s energy policy. Among its goals are to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 83% of 2005 levels by 2050, stimulating the clean energy industry, and reducing dependence on oil imports. The bill originally included measures to increase domestic oil production, including offshore drilling. Those measures were significantly altered in the last few weeks in light of the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The bill now seeks to limit offshore drilling by giving states the right to veto offshore projects in their waters. The bill, drafted primarily by democrats, has received no republican support thus far, and it remains to see whether the bill will pass or avoid a filibuster. [ index ]