Opinion/Column

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Waymo and Cruise Receive CPUC Authorizations to Collect Fares for Autonomous Vehicle Rides in San Francisco

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP On August 10, 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted 3-1 to approve Resolution TL-19144 and Resolution TL-19145 (the “Resolutions”) authorizing Waymo LLC (Waymo) and Cruise LLC (Cruise), respectively, to collect fares for driverless AV rides in San Francisco, without time

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Guest CommentaryNewsOpinion/Column

Shocking audio recording played At Ottawa police detective’s trial

The first day of Ottawa Police Detective Helen Grus’s trial began with prayer outside the tribunal, and ended with many spectators saying they were shocked by an audio recording played by the prosecution. Detective Grus is charged with Discreditable Conduct under the Police Services Act for the ‘unauthorized’ re-investigation of nine sudden infant deaths (‘SIDS’), where she sought to know if the mothers’ vaccination status might have been connected with the deaths.

Monday August 14, 2023 was not the trial, but a pre-trial hearing where defense and prosecution debated the adequacy of disclosure and whether defense would be able to call and cross-exam a lengthy list of witnesses. The prosecution also played an almost three-hour recording of the the May 12, 2022 Professional Standards interview of Detective Grus that caused one retired RCMP observer to declare, “This is becoming a trial about Ottawa Police officers being in Neglect of Duty for failing to properly investigate Sudden Infant Deaths, and for obstructing Detective Grus’s investigations.”

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Guest ContributionsOpinion/ColumnTrucking

“You can interview that front tire”

During the three weeks Mark and his truck spent in Ottawa, the parking tickets and small acts of vandalism were minor matters. Wife Joanne describes him as a laidback guy who doesn’t talk much about feelings. But as they texted back and forth during those weeks, she says, he told her about the tears and the gratitude. People kept thanking him for taking a stand. “He said the love that was there, it was just unbelievable.”

Regular people would come by his truck offering submarine sandwiches and fried chicken. An Asian woman, Mark says, “was bringing us down Chinese food all the time. And Tim Horton’s. I don’t drink coffee myself, but they’d be bringing wagons full.” At random times of day, strangers would ask if he needed fuel. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”
After the police started cracking down on fuel deliveries, folks got more creative:

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Guest ContributionsNewsOpinion/ColumnTrucking

The Highway to Hydrogen: Recent Hydrogen Developments in Alberta’s Transportation Industry

Virtually every industry is looking to reduce carbon emissions in its development and operational life cycles. This has proven to be a particular challenge in the transportation industry, specifically heavy-duty transport where the industry has traditionally relied heavily on energy-dense diesel fuel to provide the torque necessary for heavy load transportation. However, Hydrogen may become an attractive zero-emission alternative for heavy-duty commercial vehicles. Unlike diesel which produces carbon dioxide and other harmful bi-products, hydrogen produces only water at the tailpipe.

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Guest ContributionsOpinion/ColumnTrucking

Every Beautiful Thing You’d Ever Seen

‘A thousand people standing on an overpass and you driving under it’ by Donna Laframboise Read Part One, here By the time Mark, a Nova Scotia commercial fisherman, joined the Freedom Convoy the pandemic had dragged on for nearly two years.

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Feature/ProfileGuest ContributionsTrucking

A Fisherman, a Truck & a Train Horn

Mark rescues old trucks. These days he owns 30 of them, the oldest being a green 1936 Maple Leaf, one of the earliest heavy duty pickups sold in Canada. “I get most of them outta California,” he says. “You start with no rust, so they’re a lot easier to restore.”

A commercial fisherman in Nova Scotia for 40 years, in the summer of 2023 he tells me scallops are doing well. Lobsters are another story. Market prices are “always up and down, they’re yo-yos. You never know.”

Back in January 2022, an Ontario friend told Mark he was heading to Ottawa to take part in the trucker protest scheduled for that weekend. Did Mark want to come?

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