1. Bow tower opens in Calgary
Canada’s newest skyscraper, and the largest outside of Toronto, officially opened yesterday in Downtown Calgary. The 58-storey, 236 metre Bow Building will serve as the headquarters for EnCana Corporation and Cenovus Energy and heralds the start of redevelopment in Calgary’s Downtown East Village. The tower began construction in June 2007 and the final cost came in at $1.7 billion, according to building owners. [Calgary Herald]
2. Manitoba MPs to fight suspension request
Two Manitoba Tory MPs will fight the request from Elections Canada that they be suspended from their positions. Shelly Glover, MP for Saint Boniface, and James Bezan, MP for Selkirk-Interlake, face being blocked from the House of Commons over the dispute for failing to file complete election returns from the 2011 election. After auditors found problems and requested changes from the MPs’ returns, the campaigns refused to make the changes. Glover and Bezan will fight the allegations in the Court of Queen’s Bench in Manitoba. [Winnipeg Free Press]
3. Edmonton man on the lam arrested in U.K. by Interpol
A 37-year-old Edmonton man accused of stealing $700,000 from Rexall Place over several years has been arrested by Interpol in Manchester, England. Alvin Jackson Goh remains in custody in the U.K. while Edmonton police finalize their plans to bring him back to Canada to face the charges. The charges stem from over 200 incidents of theft from Dominion Sportservice Corp., the food service providers at Rexall Place, where Goh worked as a bartender and later, as an operations manager. Goh was initially charged in March 2012 and began posting photographs of U.K. tourist attractions in February 2012. [Edmonton Journal]
4. Manitoba lawn-care companies fight provincial pesticide ban
Landscape Manitoba will send out 150,000 direct mail advertisements intended for consumers to mail back to Premier Greg Selinger to voice their opposition to the NDP’s impending ban of chemical pesticides. The ban is expected to be announced in the coming days by Conservation and Water Stewardship Minister Gord Mackintosh. The lawn-care industry cites a poll from Ontario conducted two years after a similar ban was placed that revealed approximately half of all Ontarians wanted the ban repealed or diminished. Mackintosh said the government will unveil its phase-out plan and awareness campaign later this month. [Winnipeg Free Press]
5. San Francisco billionaire campaigns to block Keystone XL pipeline
Tom Steyer, a billionaire former asset manager, is targeting people who voted for Barack Obama through his political action committee, NextGen Action, to block the extension of TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline. The committee’s campaign launches on June 20 and will focus on American voters who supported Obama in last year’s election. Steyer, is worth an estimated US$1.4 billion and now devotes his time to climate change and NextGen Action. [Huffington Post]