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Alberta

NEW Edmonton Baseball Mystery

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NEW Edmonton Baseball Mystery

Unless there’s a sudden burst in the amount of information being released by those who speak for the Edmonton Prospects and the still-unnamed baseball team recently established as the new operators of Re/Max Field,  a lot of guessing will be going on for at least a little longer.

The mystery: will there really be two university-level baseball teams in the Edmonton area next year?

Up to this point, Pat Cassidy’s Prospects have received most of the public attention after being ousted from their previous home in an apparent ‘hostile takeover” engineered by Randy Gregg and his followers. Cassidy’s biggest announcement came with details and probable pictures of what a new stadium will look like when it opens as the Prospects’ home in nearby Spruce Grove. The Gregg group, as usual, stayed silent.

On Thursday, however, entrepreneur Dale Wishewan, founder of the powerful Booster Juice franchise, went public. He is part of the group – also including Gregg’s brother Gary – that outlasted the Prospects in a fierce confrontation over which organization would receive city council blessing to operate at Re/Max.

Wishewan promised quick and positive news about where the new team would find a home. One unconfirmed guess: the 12-team Western Baseball Association, which has two teams — Kelowna and Victoria – opposing foes from Washington and Oregon.

A call to one number on the WBA website was not answered.

The Prospects are part of the Western Canada Baseball League, based entirely in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Operators have determined, so far at least, that there is no room for any newcomer intruding on the space of current members.

Wishewan, one of several minority owners tied to the NHL’s Vegas Knights, has been a lifetime baseball fan. At a young age, he played in and around tiny Waskatenau and Smoky Lake County, about 90 miles from Edmonton, then progressed to college ball in Oregon.

His interest in baseball became obvious at least a year ago when an Edmonton lawyer organized a meeting for discussion of some small hope that Edmonton might rejoin the Triple-A Pacific Coast League and let participants know that Wishewan was among those likely to attend. He did not appear, but his recent comments reaffirm his love of baseball.

“There’s a pretty big announcement that we want to make in the next few weeks,” he said. “It’ll be the best calibre of baseball that’s come to Edmonton in years.”

If in fact the Western Baseball Association heads this way, plenty of positive noise can be expected. One WBA player, a Washington product, was taken in the first round of the recent Major League draft. The website says it is common for WBA players to go in high rounds of the MLB selection process.

Cassidy, careful once again to avoid more heat on the Re/Max issue that forced the Prospects to find a new home, refused to comment on Wishewan’s statement.

 “There is nothing I can say that will affect what will or will not happen,” he said. “It would be interesting to see the difference in the fans’ approach – Canadian teams playing here with a lot of Canadian content, or American cities that may have no Canadian kids at all.”

As always in conflicts such as this, hard feelings can be expected to linger on all sides. One welcome possibility comes to mind: over time, how attractive would a western college playoff – WCBL vs. WBA – become in the public’s view?

Neither Cassidy nor Wishewan was asked for an answer to this hypothetical question.

Fast Action, And Fair So Far

Alberta

Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.

An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.

On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.

“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.

Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.

“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”

After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.

Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.

He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.

In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”

“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.

Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.

Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.

The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.

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Alberta

Heavy-duty truckers welcome new ‘natural gas highway’ in Alberta

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Clean Energy Fuels CEO Andrew Littlefair, Tourmaline CEO Mike Rose, and Mullen Group chairman Murray Mullen attend the opening of a new Clean Energy/Tourmaline compressed natural gas (CNG) fuelling station in Calgary on Oct. 22, 2024. Photo courtesy Tourmaline

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

New compressed natural gas fueling stations in Grande Prairie and Calgary join new stop in Edmonton

Heavy-duty truckers hauling everything from restaurant supplies to specialized oilfield services along one of Western Canada’s busiest corridors now have more access to a fuel that can help reduce emissions and save costs.

Two new fuelling stations serving compressed natural gas (CNG) rather than diesel in Grande Prairie and Calgary, along with a stop that opened in Edmonton last year, create the first phase of what proponents call a “natural gas highway”.

“Compressed natural gas is viable, it’s competitive and it’s good for the environment,” said Murray Mullen, chair of Mullen Group, which operates more than 4,300 trucks and thousands of pieces of equipment supporting Western Canada’s energy industry.

Right now, the company is running 19 CNG units and plans to deploy another 15 as they become available.

“They’re running the highways right now and they’re performing exceptionally well,” Mullen said on Oct. 22 during the ribbon-cutting ceremony opening the new station on the northern edge of Calgary along Highway 2.

“Our people love them, our customers love them and I think it’s going to be the way for the future to be honest,” he said.

Heavy-duty trucks at Tourmaline and Clean Energy’s new Calgary compressed natural gas fuelling station. Photo courtesy Tourmaline

According to Natural Resources Canada, natural gas burns more cleanly than gasoline or diesel fuel, producing fewer toxic pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

The two new CNG stops are part of a $70 million partnership announced last year between major Canadian natural gas producer Tourmaline and California-based Clean Energy Fuels.

Their deal would see up to 20 new CNG stations built in Western Canada over the next five years, daily filling up to 3,000 natural gas-fueled trucks.

One of North America’s biggest trucking suppliers to businesses including McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Subway and Popeye’s says the new stations will help as it expands its fleet of CNG-powered vehicles across Canada.

Amy Senter, global vice-president of sustainability with Illinois-based Martin Brower, said in a statement that using more CNG is critical to the company achieving its emissions reduction targets.

For Tourmaline, delivering CNG to heavy-duty truckers builds on its multi-year program to displace diesel in its operations, primarily by switching drilling equipment to run on natural gas.

Between 2018 and 2022, the company displaced the equivalent of 36 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of diesel that didn’t get used, or the equivalent emissions of about 58,000 passenger vehicles.

Tourmaline CEO Mike Rose speaks to reporters during the opening of a new Tourmaline/Clean Energy compressed natural gas fuelling station in Calgary on Oct. 22, 2024. Photo courtesy Tourmaline

Tourmaline CEO Mike Rose noted that the trucking sector switching fuel from diesel to natural gas is gaining momentum, notably in Asia.

A “small but growing” share of China’s trucking fleet moving to natural gas helped drive an 11 percent reduction in overall diesel consumption this June compared to the previous year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“China’s talking about 30 percent of the trucks sold going forward are to be CNG trucks, and it’s all about reducing emissions,” Rose said.

“It’s one global atmosphere. We’re going to reduce them here; they’re going to reduce them there and everybody’s a net winner.”

Switching from diesel to CNG is “extremely cost competitive” for trucking fleets, said Clean Energy CEO Andrew Littlefair.

“It will really move the big rigs that we need in Western Canada for the long distance and heavy loads,” he said.

Tourmaline and Clean Energy aim to have seven CNG fuelling stations operating by the end of 2025. Construction is set to begin in Kamloops, B.C., followed by Fort McMurray and Fort St. John.

“You’ll have that Western Canadian corridor, and then we’ll grow it from there,” Littlefair said.

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