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(Courtesy of CBC Montreal)

West Island green space sale raises concern The wooded area extends from Cap-Saint-Jacques nature park in Pierrefonds alongside the l'Anse-a-l'Orme Park to Angell Woods in Beaconsfield. (CBC)A call for tenders for green space on Montreal's West Island has caught both environmental activists and government officials by surprise. Quebec's industrial development corporation, the Société générale de financement, which owns the land, has published ads in local papers seeking bids for the 98 hectares of land. The ads announce opportunities for residential and industrial construction. The wooded area extends from Cap-Saint-Jacques nature park in Pierrefonds alongside the l'Anse-a-l'Orme Park to Angell Woods in Beaconsfield. David Fletcher of the Green Coalition said he's worried the land - home to beavers, a herd of deer and rare species of plants and trees - will be spoiled. "We already have enough development," said Fletcher. "We already have enough strip malls. We don't have enough areas conserved." Local environmental groups and officials at the city of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue said they had been told at one time the land would be turned into a conservation area. "When we saw the ad in the paper, we thought, obviously we've been lied to perhaps," said Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Coun. Ryan Young.David Fletcher of the Green Coalition says the land should be preserved.David Fletcher of the Green Coalition says the land should be preserved. (CBC) The city had been planning to change zoning bylaws on its portion of the land this fall, said Young. But some worry it could be too late. A spokesperson for Quebec Environment Minister Line Beauchamp confirmed the ministry had hoped to turn the land into a conservation area. He said she is not happy about the decision to sell it. "I think that speaks volumes," said Young. "I've been speaking to activists inside Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and there's a move afoot to demonstrate … public support [to save the land]. Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/06/16/mtl-west-island-woods.html#ixzz0r77Ccrlu

Solar shingles from Dow Chemical make Top 10 tech list By Jeff Kart | The Bay City Times October 12, 2009, 2:44PM The Saginaw News A concept illustration of the Dow Chemical solar shingle. A clean tech blog called CleanTechnica has a post up on the "Top 10 Solar Technologies to Watch Out For." Coming in at No. 3: "Solar Roof Shingles, Printable and Paintable Solar Panels ... Solar shingles, by Dow Chemical, should be available in limited supply by mid 2010 and then readily available by 2011, says the company." Dow officials showed off the company's solar shingles to Gov. Jennifer Granholm in Midland earlier this month. The company launched a $53.5 million solar shingle initiative in 2008, with help from a $20 million U.S. Department of Energy grant. http://www.mlive.com/mudpuppy/index.ssf/2009/10/solar_shingles_from_dow_chemic.html

(Courtesy of Bloomberg Media)

Gretzky confirms Coyotes in trouble MATTHEW SEKERES January 16, 2009 VANCOUVER -- Phoenix Coyotes head coach Wayne Gretzky confirmed yesterday that the troubled NHL franchise requires financial assistance and is seeking an investor who could help keep the team in Arizona. The Coyotes could lose as much as $45-million (all currency U.S.) this season, including interest payments, and owner Jerry Moyes is looking for a partner. He also is speaking to city officials in Glendale about the lease arrangement at the community-owned Jobing.com Arena. Yesterday, when Gretzky was asked whether the owner could continue to operate the club, given its losses, he deferred queries to Moyes. But Gretzky, the club's coach and managing partner, also signalled that Moyes requires investment in the franchise and financial relief from the city of Glendale. "I don't think it is any big secret that Mr. Moyes has asked for new partners or investors," Gretzky said. "Mr. Moyes is doing the best he can in working with the city and city officials. Our responsibility is to come, show up and play, and play the best we can." Since The Globe and Mail began documenting the Coyotes' economic woes last month, no one from the club's management had confirmed that it was seeking financial help. A TSN report on Wednesday said that as much as 80 per cent of the team is expected to be sold in the next two months, and that Moyes would retain as much as 20 per cent. Barring a sale, the club could be forced into bankruptcy proceedings. It is possible the Coyotes could be disbanded or moved out of Phoenix before next season. The Coyotes entered a game against the Vancouver Canucks last night in seventh place, a playoff spot, in the Western Conference. The team is trying to snap a seven-year postseason drought behind a youth movement that features seven players who are 22 or younger. "The older players definitely don't let [the financial trouble] be a distraction, but the younger players don't understand it, maybe," said defenceman Derek Morris, the team's union representative. "We realize that things aren't good, but they are still treating us first-class here. They're allowing us to play hockey."

Couillard pushed Quebec City project to Tories after firm lost Montreal bid DANIEL LEBLANC AND INGRID PERITZ With reports from Tu Thanh Ha in Toronto and Rhéal Seguin in Quebec City June 13, 2008 OTTAWA AND MONTREAL -- The Kevlar Group was losing out on a major federal contract in Montreal in early 2007 at the same time as Julie Couillard started lobbying two senior Conservative officials in favour of another one of the company's projects in Quebec City, according to government records and sources. Kevlar wanted to spend up to $25-million to develop a large swath of land that belonged to Canada Post on the Montreal harbourfront. However, another Crown corporation, Canada Lands, used its right of first refusal and snagged the 60,000-square-metre property in a deal that was officially announced on May 2, 2007, a spokesman for Canada Lands confirmed. Kevlar was believed to be unhappy in Montreal when its postal-site bid was rejected, according to a real-estate consultant. "They [Kevlar] probably invested a lot of time, money and energy in their building proposal, which they thought was the best," said a source familiar with the project. "Then Canada Lands turned around and said, 'We'll develop the site.' " Print Edition - Section Front Enlarge Image More Front Page Stories Couillard pushed Quebec City project to Tories after firm lost Montreal bid About the same time, Kevlar was bidding on another federal project worth about $30-million for a building in Quebec City to house 750 bureaucrats. In the House yesterday, the Opposition expressed clear concerns that the company used Ms. Couillard to infiltrate the government in an attempt to ensure it would win that contract. Ms. Couillard was finishing her training as a real-estate agent at the time, and had obtained an affiliation with the firm's real-estate branch. In the spring of 2007, she started dating, in succession, two senior Conservative officials: Public Works adviser Bernard Côté and industry minister Maxime Bernier. According to senior federal officials, Ms. Couillard directly discussed Kevlar's bid in Quebec City with Mr. Bernier and Mr. Côté. Mr. Bernier has since resigned after classified documents were left in April at the home of Ms. Couillard, who had lived with two men with ties to the Hells Angels in the 1990s. Mr. Côté resigned this week after telling his superiors about Ms. Couillard's lobbying efforts and acknowledging he should have recused himself from the file to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. As The Globe and Mail reported yesterday, Kevlar co-chair Philippe Morin introduced Ms. Couillard and Mr. Bernier to one another in April in a restaurant in Montreal. A source added yesterday that Mr. Bernier and Mr. Morin might have known one another through their respective involvement in a group called the Young Presidents' Organization. Mr. Morin is the son of a well-known book publisher in Quebec. Kevlar officials refused repeated requests for comment yesterday, and did not expand on their previous statement that their link to Ms. Couillard was simply related to her real-estate licence. In the House of Commons, the Liberals accused Ms. Couillard of attempting to "infiltrate the Conservative government." "She tried to influence real-estate contracts at Public Works," said Montreal Liberal MP Marlene Jennings. According to news reports, Kevlar was founded by president René Bellerive in 1996, with Mr. Morin becoming a partner in 1999. The firm has acquired and built a number of commercial buildings and condominiums in Montreal and Quebec City, often with other financial partners. Kevlar and its owners have also donated thousands of dollars to federalist and separatist parties, in Ottawa and Quebec City, with the first recorded pledge to the Conservative Party, for $1,000, coming in the months after the Tories were elected to office. The government did not directly address the opposition's concerns in the House yesterday, except to say there has been no decision on the Quebec City project, on which Kevlar is one of about two dozen bidders. Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan accused the opposition of wasting time by holding a parliamentary inquiry into the matter. "It is about finding sordid stories that can make for good news for those who are into gossip and that sort of stuff, but it is not about the important questions of public policy," he said. Regarding the Montreal project, Kevlar submitted an initial $25-million bid for the site in 2006. After several extensions to conduct due diligence, the firm submitted a lowered offer for the property on Feb. 28 of last year. Kevlar's deal fell through when Canada Lands matched its $18-million offer. "The company that bid on the site put in an offer, and we matched it," said Gordon McIvor, vice-president of Canada Lands.

Cash-strapped Quebec Liberal wing warns of closing CAMPBELL CLARK From Thursday's Globe and Mail September 27, 2007 at 5:07 AM EDT OTTAWA — The Liberal Party's Quebec wing has warned Leader Stéphane Dion that it needs a quarter-million-dollar cash injection by Friday or it will have to close its Montreal office and lay off staff. The threat is not a sign of a financial crunch but part of an internecine battle between the party's national headquarters, run by officials close to Mr. Dion, and its Quebec machine over the transfer of funds, according to party officials. The Montreal office will remain open, Liberal officials said, but the dire warning has piled onto a run of troubles for Mr. Dion. It all seems to be centred in Quebec, where grumbling about his leadership has been loudest since last week's poor showing in three by-elections, including the loss of the party's traditional safe seat of Outremont. Mr. Dion yesterday lost potential star candidate Marc Garneau, the former astronaut, who said he was frustrated by the leader's delay in appointing him to run in the safe Liberal seat of Westmount-Ville Marie. And even an MP who leapt to his defence, Raymonde Folco, of the suburban Montreal riding of Laval-Les Iles, appeared to damn him with faint praise and conceded that Mr. Dion was "not getting through" in Quebec. At his age, Ms. Folco told reporters, the leader is not going to be able to change radically, so strong players in the party might have to travel with him in the province. Former Liberal cabinet minister Jean Lapierre said on CTV-Newsnet that the party's Quebec director-general, Serge Marcil, told Mr. Dion "that if [the Liberals] don't deposit a quarter of a million dollars by Friday, they probably will have to close down the office in Montreal and they can't even honour the payroll." When reached by telephone, the president of the party's Quebec wing, Robert Fragasso, said he would call back, but he did not. A spokesman for the Liberal Party in Ottawa, Elizabeth Whiting, said that the party's Montreal office will not close. She said that a request for funds came from Quebec, but did not discuss the details, although she acknowledged that Ottawa and the Quebec Liberals disagree over money. The public departure of Mr. Garneau was another blow to Mr. Dion yesterday. The former head of the Canadian Space Agency had wanted to carry the party's banner in Westmount Ville-Marie, but decided to give up on running for the party because he doubted Mr. Dion would choose him. The Liberal Leader has said he will name a candidate in the riding, but, having been passed over for an appointment in Outremont, Mr. Garneau said he decided he will no longer try to run.