Calgary Journal

The federal government and Alberta are pledging to build at least 1,460 affordable housing units across the province. Ottawa will provide up to $220 million through Build Canada Homes, a federal agency formed to speed up the delivery of the housing, while Alberta will pay up to $165 million. The governments are expecting to receive $238 million from other sources. A news release says the 21 planned housing projects will include supportive and transitional housing.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed new executive orders on Tuesday ramping up retaliation after Canada imposed its latest set of duties on the United States. The five orders, which will take effect later this month, will completely bar the import of certain Canadian goods, including motorcycles, some dairy products and alcoholic beverages. It comes after Ottawa’s tariffs — a response to the 50 per cent duties Washington hit Canada with last month — took effect just after midnight EDT.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is warning Canadians that the country’s pivot away from the United States will come at a cost, but that the alternative would be far worse. In a national video address set to be released Tuesday — hours after Canada’s retaliatory tariffs kicked in — Carney reiterated Canada’s plan to respond to the U.S. trade war by striking new trade deals with other countries to become less reliant on the U.S. “We have everything we need to pivot and prosper,” Carney said.

As the United States braces for pivotal midterm elections this November, there’s a new and unexpected issue on voters’ minds in many states: President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada. “Canada is our friend, our closest ally and our biggest trading partner,” Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins told Politico in an interview published last week. “This is not China that we are talking about. This is not an adversarial country.

When clinging to the side of a rock wall hundreds of metres in the sky, avoiding a single misstep can save your life. Turns out there’s an app to help with that. Ben Pearman, a rock climber since age 18, said the idea of the app came to him while his group was trying to determine the best way to climb the south face of Mount Yamnuska in southern Alberta’s Bow Valley.

A coalition close to 300 labour and community groups are calling on the federal and Alberta governments to halt the removal of 10 international students it says were singled out for enforcement at a protest. The Migrant Rights Network group makes the demand in a public letter sent this week on behalf of transnational groups, including Amnesty International, CUPE Ontario and Climate Justice Saskatoon.

The fourth annual Cranbrook Gravel Grind tested nearly 200 cyclists on Saturday with its challenging gravel trails surrounding the East Kootenay community. The bike race, held in the western slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, features two gravel road routes that incorporate the Cranbrook Community Forest, the Chief Isadore Trail Network, the Trans Canada Trail, and Mount Baker Forestry Service Roads.

The impacts of climate change in Canada are now largely irreversible and average temperatures are expected to rise by at least 3.5 C by the end of the century, a new government report warns. The report, published Thursday, is the second released by Environment and Climate Change Canada examining changes to Canada’s climate. It was authored by nearly two dozen government and climate science experts.

The federal Conservatives have launched a campaign to engage their supporters and encourage them to vote to stay in Canada in the upcoming Alberta referendum. Albertans are set to vote on Oct. 19 on whether they want to remain a province or begin the legal process to hold a binding referendum on leaving the country.

Jann Arden is set to join a cohort of Alberta performers for a free concert promoting national unity ahead of the province’s fall referendum on quitting Canada. The Forever Canadian campaign says its “Calgary Concert for Unity” is to be held Sept. 20 at The Confluence Historic Site, also known as Fort Calgary. Folk musicians Celeigh Cardinal, Reuben Bullock and John Wort Hannam, and jazz singer Caity Gyorgy are also set to perform.