Two Nuclear Regulatory Commission specialist inspectors will join the on-site NRC inspectors “to assess the circumstances surrounding the discovery,” the agency said in a news release.

Plant operator Duke Energy said last week it found a quarter-inch mark of corrosion and cracking in the covering of the reactor vessel, which contains heat produced by the nuclear core’s energy. The crack did not penetrate the vessel head and there was no evidence of radiation leakage, the NRC and Duke Energy said.

“There was no immediate threat to the public or plant workers, but because the discovery is on the vessel head and was not seen in the original review, we are sending specialists from our Atlanta office to further evaluate the issue,” said Victor McCree, the NRC’s Southeast regional manager. “The special inspection team will work to analyze and understand all the details.”

Duke Energy has started the repair process, the agency said. The company expects to have the reactor back in production within weeks, Duke Energy said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

Charlotte-based Duke Energy took over the Harris plant after it acquired Raleigh-based Progress Energy last year, which made it the country’s largest electric company. The utility is co-operating with the NRC inspection, Duke Energy spokeswoman Rita Sipe said in an email.

“We have a team that is also performing our own evaluation to determine why this was not identified in previous reviews,” Sipe said.

The shutdown came as plant operators prepared for an upcoming refuelling outage by reviewing results from ultrasonic testing gathered during a refuelling outage last spring.

The on-site portion of the inspection at the southern Wake County nuclear plant is expected to take about a week and a half, with a report to be issued within 45 days after the inspection is completed, the NRC said.

The inspection team will review Duke Energy’s actions leading up to the discovery of the problem, examine the previous ultrasonic testing records, evaluate the company’s repair plans, and decide whether the discovery highlights any broader issues that other nuclear plant operators should be aware of, the regulatory agency said.

Progress Energy was cited last year for two safety violations at the Harris plant considered to be of low to moderate significance, which an NRC spokesman said last week has since been corrected. Regulators found problems with ventilation systems that would be needed if there were a nuclear emergency.

The LEED certification program is a globally recognized process that uses common standards to define “green buildings.” Its goal is to support the design and construction of buildings that reduce or eliminate their impact on the environment and promote sustainable design and construction practices.

The ATC includes research and development, advanced design, vehicle engineering, powertrain engineering and telematics laboratories. The first phase opened in September 2011 and the second phase in November 2012.

The ATC has adopted a series of green building best practices and technologies that include:

• Interior and exterior lighting design to reduce light pollution
• Paving and roofing materials to reduce the heat island effect
• Water use design to save up to 30% of water used
• Optimizing energy usage with energy efficient strategies for glazing, lighting and HVAC
• Enhanced refrigerant material usage
• Use of recycled and regional material content for construction
• Increased building air ventilation
• Use of low-emitting materials such as adhesives, sealants, paints, coatings, and carpets
• Indoor chemical pollution control
• Controllability of lighting for energy savings

The GM International Operations and GM China Headquarters in Shanghai, which are adjacent to the ATC, were awarded LEED Gold Certification in December 2010. GM’s home in China was recognized for its high level of energy efficiency and environmentally friendly design and construction.

GM recycled or reused 2.5 million metric tons of waste – the equivalent of 38 million garbage bags – at its plants worldwide in 2011.

In China, GM has 10 landfill-free facilities. Seven are operated by Shanghai GM and three by SAIC-GM-Wuling. These facilities, which include stamping, assembly and casting operations, reuse, recycle or convert to energy all manufacturing waste from their daily operations. They are among GM’s 105 landfill-free facilities worldwide.

EDC’s Chief Economist, Peter Hall, predicts the province’s exports will grow by 4% in 2013 and 2% in 2014.

“This year’s gains come from a broad range of sources, and would be much stronger were it not for the closing of the Brunswick Mine after 50 years of production,” said Hall. “Next year, growth will be held back by flat energy exports. Take energy exports out of the equation, all other sectors are rising by a respectable 6% in 2014 on gains from forestry, agri-food and industrial goods.”

Energy accounts for a dominant 72% of New Brunswick’s international exports. Hall predicts that provincial exports in this sector will grow by 4% in 2013 before sliding towards zero growth in 2014.

“Energy exports will get some lift from a double-digit increase in natural gas prices this year,” said Hall. “Modest increases in LNG export volumes are included in our forecast, but with prices heading up, volumes could be stronger. Production of refined petroleum products should hold steady, getting a slight lift from a weaker Canadian dollar. A full year of production at the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant could bring a significant increase in electricity exports.”

The forestry sector accounts for 10% of the province’s total international sales. EDC’s forecast predicts the sector to grow by 9% this year and another 8% in 2014.

“Wood product exports will receive a major boost from positive momentum in US housing, with starts expected to rise nearly 34% this year and another 24% in 2014,” said Hall, who is bullish on the US economy. “Some previously closed mills have reopened, but capacity constraints are likely to limit the province’s ability to take full advantage of stronger US demand. Unfortunately, the outlook for the rest of forestry isn’t as good, with modest declines expected for both newsprint and pulp this year and next.”

Closure of the Brunswick mine will weigh on the industrial goods forecast (6% of total exports), but hidden in the numbers is significant positive offset as production ramps up at the Sussex mine.

EDC’s forecast also noted that the US recovery that is taking shape will mean solid growth for the province’s machinery and equipment producers and agri-food sales through 2014.

New Brunswick’s exports to emerging markets account for 7% of the province’s total, unchanged from 2008. Brazil tops the list of emerging market destinations, followed by China, India and Turkey.

Nationally, Canadian merchandise exports are forecast to rise 8.6% in 2013 and 5 per cent in 2013, while economic growth (GDP) is expected to rise 2.2% this year and 1.9 next year. EDC is forecasting global growth of 3.6% in 2013 and 4.2% in 2014.

Click here to read EDC’s Global Export Forecast.

EDC’s semi-annual Global Export Forecast addresses the latest global export conditions including market- and sector-specific insights to help Canadian exporting companies grow their international and minimize risk. It also analyzes a range of risks for which exporters should be prepared.

AXION International Holdings, based in New Providence, N.J., says it has received a purchase order from the city for an undisclosed number of the company’s 100 per cent recylced plastic ECOTRAX rail ties.

The composite ties will be used at crossings where the LRT tracks intersect with roads.

According to AXION, Edmonton becomes the third major Canadian city to install its ECOTRAX product.

The composite rail ties will not rot or absorb moisture, the company says, and they are impervious to insect infestation.

They are also safe from salt and freeze-thaw damage that typically plagues traditional wooden rail ties.

AXION says the purchase order from Edmonton will divert more than 150,000 pounds of plastic from the landfill stream.

The investments will support small- and medium-sized businesses in areas ranging from ocean technology and natural resources to life sciences and advanced manufacturing. RDC’s investment is more than $1.8 million in the 12 R&D projects and the total project costs are more than $4.9 million, co-funded by the participating companies and other partner organizations.

The RDC is a provincial crown corporation responsible for improving Newfoundland and Labrador’s research and development performance. RDC works with research and development stakeholders including business, academia and government agencies and departments to make strategic research and development related investments in people, research opportunities and infrastructure.

Some of the projects include:

ExtremeOcean Innovation Inc.
ExtremeOcean Innovation Inc. is a marine technology start-up company formed in 2010 and located in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. The aim of this project is to advance the development of a unique vessel for accessing offshore wind turbines known as the TranSPAR Craft (TranSPAR). The TranSPAR is a propelled spar marine vehicle. It was created due to a need defined by a consortium of energy companies through the UK-based Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator Access global design competition. RDC’s investment is $250,000 of a total project cost of $607,300.

eSonar Inc.
Based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, eSonar Inc. was incorporated in 2008 to service, develop, manufacture and market electronic and acoustic products for the marine and ocean technology markets. eSonar Inc. is using RDC funding to develop an integrated purse seining system that will transmit data to aid in the launching and retrieving of a purse seine to improve the purse seine fishing market by providing vessel captains with a monitoring system for launching and retrieving the seines. RDC’s investment is $250,000 of a total project cost of $445,713.

Kraken Sonar Systems Inc.

Kraken Sonar Systems Inc. is based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador as a developer, manufacturer and marketer of sonar devices for the deep sea commercial fisheries, defence and ocean sciences sectors. Through this project, the company has developed a program to create a bathymetric synthetic aperture scanning sonar product. This product would be deployed on unmanned underwater vehicles, as well as untethered and tethered towed bodies/equipment and could capture a higher resolution than the most advanced side scan sonars. DC and NSERC funding will enable the company to hire Dr. Jeremy Dillon as an industrial R&D fellow for two years. Dr. Dillon is a PhD graduate from Memorial University’s Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography, Faculty of Science. RDC’s investment is $60,000 of a total project cost of $155,000.

Click here for to view all the projects receiving RDC funding.

Blue Wolf Capital Partners and Atlas Holdings announced they expect to close the deal with Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management Inc. in about three weeks.

Financial details were not disclosed and Brookfield, which confirmed it owns 51 per cent of Twin Rivers, declined to comment further.

The New Brunswick government is a general partner and creditors of the company that emerged in 2010 from the bankruptcy filing of Fraser Paper own a minority interest.

Twin Rivers, with about 1,200 employees, is an integrated specialty paper company that manufactures packaging, label and publishing products with mill operations in Madawaska, Maine, and Edmundston, N.B.

It also has a lumber sawmill operation in Plaster Rock, N.B.

New Brunswick Premier David Alward said the province was “excited to have new partners such as Atlas and Blue Wolf invest in the province and commit to growing this operation and working with us as we continue to rebuild our economy.”

“The local communities and our entire forest sector value the jobs and role that Twin Rivers plays,” Alward said.

The New York-based investment firms have already invested jointly in a pulp mill in Pictou, N.S., and in an integrated pulp and paper business in Glens Falls, N.Y.

Separately, Atlas employs about 5,000 people at 30 locations in North America, Europe and Asia while Blue Wolf owns seven U.S. companies.

“Twin Rivers produces specialty papers and lumber products that are well regarded throughout the industry,” Blue Wolf managing partner Adam Blumenthal said in a statement.

“Our plan is to build on these strengths as we seek to position the operations for long-term success and as a key contributor in the revitalization of the forest products sector in Maine and New Brunswick.”

Tim Fazio, managing partner of Atlas Holdings, said that with the support and guidance of his firm and Blue Wolf, “we believe we can provide Twin Rivers with additional resources to address its capital needs, cost structure, market exposure and other critical operational challenges presented by the highly competitive forest products industry.”

Dave Coles, president of the Canadian Energy and Paperworkers Union, which represents workers at Twin Rivers operations in Edmundston and Plaster Rock, praised the development.

“We have long represented workers at companies owned by Atlas and Blue Wolf and we know them to be thoughtful and creative investors who are committed to the industry,” Coles said.

“We will work with the new ownership to protect jobs and pensions for our active and retired members.”

Among the big five banks, the Bank of Montreal (BMO), and Scotiabank were tied with the highest overall scores while CIBC received the lowest.

“Banks need to pay close attention to the report’s findings if they are serious about serving the small business market,” said CFIB vice president of research Doug Bruce. “Overall, credit unions do the best job of serving entrepreneurs, while Scotiabank and BMO are tied in receiving the highest overall scores among the big banks. CIBC is the worst big bank for small business – that’s the same as it was in 2010, when we issued our previous banking report.”

In addition to providing bank scores by size of business, CFIB’s Battle of the Banks includes a wealth of information including SME market shares of the banks, and policy recommendations. The bank scores are based upon nearly 13,000 survey responses from small business owners on four key issues: financing, fees, experience with account managers, and service.

Battle of the Banks shows a disturbing trend: the smaller the business, the lower the overall bank score.

Compared to larger businesses, smaller firms have a tougher time getting the financing they need from their bank.

Under the amended and restated JDA, CO₂ Solutions’ proprietary enzymatic method to capture of carbon dioxide from power plants, oil production operations and other large sources of emissions will continue to use Codexis’ directed enzyme evolution technology and enzyme production capabilities.

CO₂ Solutions’ technology uses the natural enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, to enhance the efficiency of CO₂ capture from industrial emission sources, at lower cost than conventional carbon capture technology. Codexis’ technology has dramatically improved this enzyme’s ability to function in harsh industrial conditions. Codexis’ carbonic anhydrase is now suitable for pilot and demonstration testing in CO₂ Solutions’ carbon capture projects.  Carbonic anhydrase is found in humans and other living organisms and is critical in the efficient management of CO₂ during respiration.

Codexis, Inc, based in Redwood City, CA, engineers enzymes for pharmaceutical, biofuel and chemical production.

CO₂Solutions Inc. was founded in 1997 in Quebec City. The develops technology to reduce carbondioxide (CO₂) using the enzyme carbonic anhydrase.

CEO Louis Chenevert told analysts airline profitability looks better for 2013 than in recent years.

And he said the Hartford, Conn., conglomerate’s $18.4-billion purchase of Goodrich Corp. and a $1.5-billion deal by Pratt & Whitney to buy out Rolls-Royce from a joint venture that makes engines for the Airbus A320 are paying off.

Chenevert said North American commercial construction is improving—good news for its Carrier heating and ventilating business.

And orders were up 22 per cent in emerging markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Chenevert said United Technologies expects to pay down $2-billion in debt this year and set aside $1-billion for acquisitions.

“We’re in a stronger relative position compared to other advanced economies today than we were in 2008 but we’re in a tougher world,” he said after making his final speech as governor before departing for the Bank of England next month.

Rejecting suggestions of being a “rock star central banker,” Carney credited a team of people that made crucial decisions.

“I really don’t think you should judge your own legacy,” he said, adding it will take time for a full evaluation to emerge.

Carney described his tenure during the financial crisis as being “very intense for a very long period of time.”

“I think by and large the right decisions were made.”

The central banker said Canada can seize opportunities to build a better future more than other countries because it doesn’t have to repair the economy or worry about getting out of trouble.

But, he said, Canada is less well-oriented to the sources of global growth than it has been in the past.

It must focus more carefully on exports and business investment, Carney said.

He calculated that exports are currently $130 billion less than would have been the case in a typical postwar recession. That represents about 8% of gross domestic product.

Carney said the Canadian government is correct in seeking out new trade deals, particularly in emerging economies, because they represent one half of the world’s imports growth and also are essential to securing a position in global supply chains.

“To find and compete in new markets will require a concerted, multi-year effort by workers, firms and governments.”

Carney has long stressed the need to transition Canada’s exports-based industries from reliance on slow-growing economies like the US and Europe to fast-growing markets in China and Asia in general.

But the advice took on added currency as it was likely the last time he will pronounce generally on the Canadian economy for at least the next five years, the term of his posting in London.

Canada coped relatively well to the financial crisis, he said, noting that by the start of 2011 the country had recovered to the GDP level it held prior to the recession and that as of now, there are 480,000 more Canadians working than in the fall of 2008, when the slump began.

It has been able to make the adjustments because fundamentally the Canadian system works, Carney said.

Despite criticism, Canada’s labour market is relatively flexible, with labour mobility similar to that in the United States and about four times as flexible as in Europe.

“Canadians are going where the jobs are,” he said. “Last year, there was a net inflow of more than 40,000 people into Alberta from the rest of Canada, a level of mobility that approaches its previous peak.”

Carney said Canada also has a functioning monetary union despite the lament about provincial trade barriers and the two-speed economy caused by high commodity prices.

He also praised what he calls “fiscal federalism,” the often maligned system of wealth transfers from have to have-not regions. Rather than a weakness, the system helps stabilize localized “asymmetric shocks” and share the risks, he said.

Lastly, the central banker said Canada has been well-served by a sound and regulated banking sector, as well as low government debt that allowed policy-makers room to borrow on global markets to stimulate the economy.

Carney said Canada cannot rest on its laurels, however.

“In a rapidly shifting world, only sustained education, ingenuity and investment can maintain competitiveness,” he said. “This means we must continuously invest in our workforce. With technology and trade transforming the workplace, the need to improve skills across the spectrum of work has never been greater.”

©The Canadian Press

The official Xinhua News Agency said 19 others were injured by the explosion, which ripped through the plant in Shandong province May 20.

The blast was so strong that 10 of those killed could only be identified by their DNA.

Experts from the State Administration of Work Safety have been sent to the factory and are investigating the cause of the explosion.

China has sought to tighten access to explosives used for quarrying following a series of attacks by people using homemade bombs.

However, safety rules are often ignored and industrial accidents remain common.

Nearly 700 residents from Hippo district in Miyagi prefecture, just northeast of Fukushima, filed a claim Tuesday with a government arbitration office demanding that they be given the same compensation as residents of Fukushima.

The government’s basic compensation scheme only covers Fukushima residents, which critics say is an attempt to minimize costs.

The Hippo residents said some radiation levels in their area exceeded those in Fukushima towns. Hippo district is about 50 kilometres northwest of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

They demanded that the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), pay them an additional 70 million yen ($690,000) in damages.

Due to the huge costs of compensation and clean-up of the plant, Tepco has declared bankruptcy and is under state control. The compensation money paid by Tepco actually comes from the government.

Radiation levels in Hippo district are comparable to areas in Fukushima subject to voluntary evacuation, where residents are entitled to receive up to 720,000 yen ($7,000) for every child and pregnant woman, and up to 120,000 yen ($1,180) per adult. After months of negotiations, Tepco has agreed to pay Hippo residents about half the Fukushima amount.

Residents of areas just outside of Fukushima say they also face discrimination in legal protection. They say health checks, radiation monitoring and clean-up projects in most cases do not go beyond the prefectural border.

“Damages from the nuclear accident do not stop at the border. We hope that the compensation program is carried out in a way that reflects the reality of people’s lives,” said Koji Otani, a lawyer representing the residents.

Although the amount sought by each resident is small, the group hopes to be able to set a precedent, he said.

A massive earthquake and tsunami hit the Fukushima plant, knocking out its cooling systems and causing the cores of three reactors to melt and release radioactivity into the air and water. The radiation level in Hippo exceeded the annual limit for nuclear workers.

So far, Tepco has paid 2.3 trillion yen ($22.5 billion), about half of it to companies and business owners. That amount includes 1.6 million individual claims, mostly from voluntary evacuees. Because the amount of claims is expected to exceed the initial estimate of 3 trillion yen ($29 billion), the government has injected an additional 154 billion yen ($1.5 billion) into the compensation fund.

About 150,000 Fukushima residents are still displaced. Hundreds have filed claims seeking greater compensation.

Copyright © The Associated Press.

Wholesale natural gas prices have been climbing substantially from their record lows. Oil prices have only recently cooled slightly after reaching nearly $100 a barrel (WTI) earlier this year. That makes it that much more important to minimize costs to retail buyers, wherever possible.

But in a regulated system, profits for utilities must remain healthy too if we expect them to stay active in the market, according to a report by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

“Regulators would be wise to put significant effort into scrutinizing all new investment made by the firms they regulate,” writes author Kent Fellows, Phd candidate in the university’s economics faculty, who adds that there is little room in the energy network for unnecessary costs.

The way that government agencies regulate pipelines in Canada appears to be increasing costs beyond where they need to be in order to fairly serve both utilities and customers. By relying on traditional rate-of-return regulation models, which calculate price-rates based on the regulated firm’s cost of capital (that is, how much it costs the company to finance its operations), regulators, including the National Energy Board and the Alberta Utilities Commission, reward firms for over-investing in their operations instead of reducing costs.

Utilities are motivated to prolong the period in which they can earn a return on their capital, since it is one of the few opportunities they have to increase profits under the widely used rate-of-return regulatory model. That results in utilities keeping assets on the books — and paying for them — longer than they might otherwise need to. The end result is a distortion of the decisions made by regulated firms and, ultimately, higher prices for consumers.

Regulators that take a passive role in setting the rate of return for their industries, ironically, are likely to see their idleness pay off. Firms with a freer hand will seek to accelerate the depreciation of capital assets, reducing costs more quickly. The result is that consumers pay more in the short term, but substantially less over the long term.

Click here to read: Not so fast: How slower utilities regulation can reduce prices and increase profits.

According to GM, the money will be used to build a “logistics optimization centre” at its Lansing Grand River plant.

The 400,000-square-foot building will be located adjacent to the site’s automotive assembly plant, allowing the automaker to sequence and assemble parts on site.

“This project is the latest example of how we’re doing business differently in GM today,” GM North America manufacturing manager Christine Sitek said in a statement.

“We’ve developed an innovative material strategy that increases efficiency and improves quality to benefit our customers, employees and the bottom line.”

This investment will save money and improve efficiency by leveraging available plant real estate and streamlining the flow of materials, GM said.

It is also aimed at reducing transportation times and improved quality by reducing handling.

The project is expected to create approximately 200 jobs at the plant, which is home to Cadillac’s ATS and CTS models.

Created in association with SME’s Tooling U, Knowledge Edge features 16,000 technical papers, more than 1,200 e-books and 700 videos in a web-based encyclopedia that makes access to peer-reviewed manufacturing know-how a click away.

“While (online) searches yield a wealth of information, there is little standard as to what’s posted and what can be trusted,” SME director of professional development Jeannine Kunz said in a statement.

“Knowledge Edge relies on SME members, longstanding industry professionals and SME’s trusted manufacturer customer base to provide a reliable source of manufacturing information online.”

To learn more about Knowledge Edge, log on to the Tooling U website and request a demo of the subscription-based service.

“The Challenger 350 jet will take our existing Challenger family to new heights,” Bombardier business aircraft president Steve Ridolfi said in a statement.

The eight-passenger jet will be able to ascend up to 43,000 ft., according to Bombardier, with a range of 5,926 kilometres.

The Challenger 350 jet will be powered by new twin Honeywell HTF7350 engines.

Deliveries of the aircraft are expected to begin in 2014.

Released by industry association Sous-Traitance Industrielle Québec (STIQ), the Baromètre industriel québécois study found 56 per cent of small- and medium-sized manufacturers in the province experienced revenue growth of at least five per cent last year.

Those numbers matched the study’s 2011 results, according to STIQ.

The study found 36 per cent of SMEs increased their respective number of employees by five per cent in 2012.

2012 was a very active year for many Québec-based prime contractors, especially in industries with highly-structured supply chains, such as aeronautics, transportation, mining and electrical energy.

The study shows manufacturers were able to capitalize on this dynamism and increase their sales volumes with prime contractors.

In 2012, 44 per cent of SMEs attributed more than 25 per cent of their sales to prime contractors, compared with 36 per cent in 2011.

Meanwhile, 49 per cent of respondents saw at least a five per cent rise in sales attributable to prime contractors, against 44 per cent in 2011.

Despite the solid numbers, SMEs in Québec could have sustained even higher growth in 2012 by investing more in research and development and acquiring advanced equipment, according to STIQ.

Only 55 per cent of firms invested more than two per cent of their revenues in R&D, while 68 per cent spent more than two per cent on equipment purchases.

The Pacific Alliance was formed by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in 2011 and Canada took a spot on the sidelines the next year, along with several other countries as observers.

This week, alliance leaders will meet in Cali, Colombia, and be joined by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as well as leaders from other observer nations.

“This will be the first time the prime minister has had the opportunity to participate in this forum, to experience the forum, to see what it has to offer,” said Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for the prime minister.

The goal of the nascent alliance is to tear down what economic borders remain between their countries, creating an integrated market to rival and compete both internationally and regionally with that of Mercosur, the trading bloc created in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Alliance countries are already an economic powerhouse: according to the World Trade Organization, together they exported about $534 billion in 2011, compared to about $355 billion from Mercosur.

Bilateral merchandise trade between Canada and the four alliance countries totalled $39 billion in 2012, compared with $9.7 billion the year before in trade with Mercosur.

The Conservative government declared a stronger relationship with the Americas as a foreign policy priority in 2007 and has been wooing them ever since, ramping up its enthusiasm for ties with the region since its economies sailed through the global economic downturn in 2008.

But Canada already has free trade agreements with all four alliance countries and is involved in negotiations for the much broader Trans Pacific Partnership, which includes them as well as Asian countries, New Zealand and the US.

That’s raised questions about why joining this new alliance is something that Canada needs and has the resources to tackle.

Even pro-trade Tories raised this question at recent hearings on the alliance in the House of Commons.

“Where I’m coming from is that we already have relationships with all of these countries,” said Tory MP Ed Holder in March. “We don’t need to do this, but maybe we do. What I’m looking for is the argument for Canada to do more than just sit at the table and watch.”

Harper’s participation in the meeting is about figuring that out, said MacDougall.

“From our perspective, there is no point picking one over the other, it’s a question of pursuing on all avenues and all fronts,” MacDougall said. “We do have strong relationships with the four original members, and with some of the other observer countries so it makes sense for us to explore more ways to further strengthen that relationship while we’re also pressing on the Trans Pacific Partnership, which includes another set of countries.”

Among the issues being explored by the alliance are the removal of visa requirements for is members, something that would pose a challenge to Canada’s ongoing efforts to tighten up borders by imposing visa restrictions on many countries, including those in the alliance.

The alliance also wants to strengthen security co-operation.

Canada has tried this once before with Mexico, in the form of the security and prosperity partnership with the US, a deal that collapsed in 2009 to be replaced by the bilateral Beyond the Border plan with just the US.

Canada’s relationship with the Americas has been framed mostly in economic terms, though Canada insists part of its Americas strategy is also increasing democratic governance and security in the region.

©The Canadian Press

The contract includes a firm order of 22 buses with options to purchase an additional 58.

Financial terms were not immediately available.

Production of the buses is expected to be start in the third quarter and be completed by the end of the year.

New Flyer builds heavy-duty transit buses in Canada and the United States.

Rescuers were taking care to avoid setting off additional explosions as they searched the site of the explosion in Shandong province’s Caofan township, the China News Service said.

The company website said the factory, run by the Baoli group, manufactures 10,000 tons of industrial explosives annually.

The force of the blast flung broken glass, smashed concrete and other debris as far as 200 metres, reports said.

Walls in outlying buildings were flattened and glass shattered.

A total of 34 people were inside the factory at the time of the blast, and survivors were rushed to a hospital.

The cause of the blast and condition of those injured were not immediately known.

A government spokesman for the surrounding city of Zhangqiu said a full accounting of the dead and injured was being compiled and would be released.

Like many Chinese bureaucrats, he would only give his surname, Cao.

China has sought to tighten access to explosives used for quarrying following a series of attacks by people using homemade bombs.

However, safety rules are often ignored and industrial accidents remain common.