Noah Zivitz

Managing Editor, BNN Bloomberg

Archive

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley will criss-cross the country later this month to tout the merits of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. And as far as Notley is concerned, all Canadians need to show their gratitude for the oil patch. “There is not a school, hospital, road or bike lane anywhere in the country that doesn’t owe something to oil and gas,” she said in a press release late yesterday announcing her roadshow. Her tour will include stops in Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, and Vancouver – where she’ll face her biggest challenge. We’ll assess whether this is enough to overcome opposition to the controversial project.  

OIL BUILDS ON GAINS

The price of oil is inching ahead in early trading, reaching a high of US$57.69 after rising more than three per cent yesterday on the back of the crackdown in Saudi Arabia. Still plenty of runway for us to explore the outlook for doing business in the kingdom. And we await another potential catalyst later this morning, with OPEC scheduled to release its world oil outlook.  

SCOTIA CHAIR DEFENDS CEO PAY

BNN's Paige Ellis touched on a bunch of hot-button governance topics with Bank of Nova Scotia Chair Tom O’Neill yesterday afternoon: women on boards (“it just makes common business sense”), dealing with harassment in the workplace (people aren’t “treated like pariahs if they talk”), activism (“best defence … is delivering against what you promised in the first place”), and CEO Brian Porter’s $10M+ compensation package last year (“The CEO of a bank is one of the toughest jobs you’re going to have anywhere in the world. And if anybody deserves that kind of remuneration, it’s the CEOs of our Canadian banks.”) See the full interview here.  

OTHER NOTABLE STORIES:

-BCE is staking its ground in the connected home business with a friendly deal to buy AlarmForce. It’s an all-cash offer of $16/share, with a provision that allows AlarmForce shareholders to take BCE stock instead -- up to a limit of 49.5 per cent of the deal’s $184-million equity value.

-Canadian Natural Resources has set a $4.3-billion capex budget for 2018 – half a billion dollars less than this year.

-The Globe and Mail is reporting Stratford, Ontario, is going to be the province’s testing ground for autonomous vehicles – with a big cash injection expected to be announced Wednesday. We’ll chase the city’s mayor.

-Tahoe Resources has revealed more details on the “increasingly violent” protests it faces in Guatemala, including shots fired at a helicopter that was on a fuel-delivery mission.

NOTABLE RELEASES/EVENTS

-Notable earnings: Agrium, Linamar, Spin Master, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Cineplex, Finning International Iamgold, Intact Financial

-12:00 p.m. ET: Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa delivers speech at Toronto Board of Trade event

-1:00 p.m. ET: Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz delivers speech in Montreal (remarks on BoC site at 12:45 p.m. ET; news conference at 2:00 p.m. ET)

-2:30 p.m. ET: University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs presents award for ethics in government to Janet Yellen

-OPEC expected to release World Oil Outlook report

-Microsoft releases Xbox One X

Every morning BNN's Managing Editor Noah Zivitz writes a ‘chase note’ to BNN's editorial staff listing the stories and events that will be in the spotlight that day. Have it delivered to your inbox before the trading day begins by heading to www.bnn.ca/subscribe.