Category: 3. Business

Press Release:
09:57 CET • 31 Dec 2025

News release from Vestas-American Wind Technology
Portland, 31 December 2025

Vestas is proud to have received orders for 574 MW in the USA and Canada for undisclosed projects.

For more information, please contact:
Matt Copeman
Lead Specialist, Marketing & Communications
Mail: mtcoe@vestas.com
Tel: +1 (503) 475-6428

About Vestas
Vestas is the energy industry’s global partner on sustainable energy solutions. We design, manufacture, install, and service onshore and offshore wind turbines across the globe, and with more than 197 GW of wind turbines in 88 countries, we have installed more wind power than anyone else. Through our industry-leading smart data capabilities and unparalleled more than 159 GW of wind turbines under service, we use data to interpret, forecast, and exploit wind resources and deliver best-in-class wind power solutions. Together with our customers, Vestas’ more than 37,000 employees are bringing the world sustainable energy solutions to power a bright future.

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With transit fares on the rise in a number of Canadian cities, some experts say it’s time to rethink how we fund public transportation.

Calgary hiked fares from $3.80 to $4 per ride earlier this month, and Ottawa just approved an increase of 10 cents, to $4.10. 

Earlier this year, Edmonton raised cash fares from $3.50 to $3.75 in February, while Victoria jumped from $2.50 to $3 in March and Vancouver went up from $3.20 to $3.35 in July.

The rising fares are a reflection of mounting pressures on transit systems.

Energy, maintenance and labour costs are up, while gas tax revenues that help fund public transit are declining, due in part to more electric and energy-efficient vehicles.

Meanwhile, transit organizations are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, when ridership and fare revenues plummeted. Emergency government funds have dried up and ridership hasn’t fully returned to pre-pandemic rates — in April, it had rebounded to 84.2 per cent of April 2019 numbers, according to Statistics Canada.

While this is a global problem, experts say Canada has additional challenges with urban sprawl and generally low population densities making it hard to keep routes in the black.

But while transit operators are feeling the pinch, Canadians are also struggling with rising costs of living, and the more fares go up, the more people can’t afford to get around their own cities. 

“The easiest thing to do is to raise your fares to increase your revenue, but what that does structurally to society is really bad,” said Lawrence Frank, urban studies and planning professor at the University of California, San Diego, and president of Urban Design 4 Health, a research and consulting firm that works with government agencies.

Frank says some transit operators in Canada don’t really have a choice under current funding models, because they have to fund a certain percentage of their operations through fares. Passenger fares cover an average of 59 per cent of public transit costs in Canada.

But he says hiking fares threatens to reduce ridership and “price people off the system,” which predominantly impacts people who are low income and have no other options.

Frank, who studied the links between transit use and health at the University of British Columbia, says it’s time to change the framework we use to assess the value of transit, so it factors in health and social benefits that come from greater equity, reduced sedentary behaviour and less air pollution.

His research has found that using transit instead of driving reduces likelihood of obesity and other health concerns. 

“We simply can’t have and create sustainable, healthy communities without transit,” he said.

“If we just isolate its economic value to what the fare box generates, you’ve completely eliminated the major economic benefits that come from a healthier workforce.” 

More funding could be tough sell

Advocacy organizations have been pushing for governments to reframe how they view public transit, arguing it’s an essential service and requires more stable funding.

A 2024 Leading Mobility Canada report found Canada’s major cities are struggling to keep their transit systems running, and “a downward spiral” in service is “inevitable” without major new streams of operating revenue.

But in practice, making that shift is not likely to be politically popular. 

“What I’ve long been arguing is we need a dedicated revenue source for public transportation systems,” said Jeff Casello, a professor with the University of Waterloo’s school of public planning.

Casello notes that public transit currently competes against other essential services for property tax dollars, which makes it hard to argue for increased spending through taxes.

Internationally, he says places like London, New York City and Singapore have implemented road tolls to raise funds for improving public transportation systems.

Citing successes from some of these programs, including a measurable decrease in pollution and congestion in New York, he suggests Canadian cities could similarly impose tolls for driving into downtown areas — though he acknowledges this would also be a tough sell.

“It’s politically unpopular, for sure,” he said.

To ensure transit users aren’t priced out of the system in the meantime, Casello says it’s important to focus on subsidizing costs for the lowest-income riders. This is something Canadian cities do in various ways, but he suggests something akin to the food stamp system in the U.S. He also cites a Philadelphia pilot program that gives key cards for free transit to people living near or below the poverty line.

Canada’s federal government used to offer a tax credit for public transit passes, but eliminated it in 2017, which Casello says was a “mistake.” 

Some cities cap fares, so people who spend a certain amount on single fares ride free after hitting a monthly limit. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow recently floated a 47-rides-a-month cap in Canada’s biggest city — amounting to about $156, or the cost of a monthly pass. A global study from 2023 found Toronto’s monthly pass is the fourth most expensive among major cities as a percentage of average net wage, behind only Sao Paolo, Istanbul and London.

How about $0 fares?

In Durham, Ont., and starting Jan. 1 in Gatineau, Que., riders pay $4.75 cash to take the bus. Halifax has the cheapest single-fare price among Canada’s major cities at $3.

But some smaller municipalities have made public transit free entirely, deciding the extra municipal spending is a net benefit for residents.

Orangeville, Ont., saw ridership jump by 150 to 160 per cent in 2024 in the first year of eliminating fees, and the town’s mayor previously told CBC News the move had a positive impact on the whole community. Lisa Post said some residents in the town of 30,000 said free fares made “the difference of being able to get bread and milk.” 

Canmore, Alta., a mountain town of 17,000, has offered free transit since 2022.

But while this could be harder to scale up for a city the size of Toronto or Vancouver, American cities as big as Albuquerque, New Mexico (population roughly 560,000) offer free municipal public transit.

New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has pledged free bus service for the city of 8.5 million, saying he would fund it in part by raising taxes on the wealthiest corporations and individuals.

Sprawl strains the system

Thiago Carvalho, a PhD student in McGill University’s school of urban planning, says rising transit costs are a global issue — very few public transit systems actually turn a profit — but the urban sprawl and lower density of most Canadian cities makes it especially hard to keep costs down.

“The more sparse your transit system is, usually the more expensive it is … because you need to provide more service,” he said. 

In extremely dense Tokyo, Carvalho says developers have essentially constructed an entire “downtown” around most metro stations. Private companies often own the line and the land around their stations, so revenue from real estate, retail and other commercial properties helps sustain and expand the routes.

Carvalho says Canadian cities could do this on a smaller scale, and cities do typically factor in transit-oriented development when building out new rail routes, which can help keep transit costs down in the long term.

Ultimately, experts who spoke with CBC News say fares are likely to keep increasing and funding is likely to remain unstable without a shift in the way we view the role of public transit in Canadian society. 

“Transit’s not supposed to be for profit. It is an essential service. It has a very important social function of bringing people to work and bringing people to their desired destination,” Carvalho said. 

“We need to define the secure streams of funding that are going to allow this service to be sustainable and going to allow service to thrive. And the better the service, more people are going to be using transit.” 

It’s been a long time since many Canadians have felt the burn. That familiar aromatic, spicy and sometimes smoky flavour of a smooth, Kentucky bourbon has been but a memory for consumers in this country for much of the past year.

Ever since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his tariff war and began threatening to make Canada the “51st state,” angry consumers and lawmakers have united behind a “Buy Canadian” movement and bourbon was caught in the crossfire.

“People didn’t want to to lose their bourbon and neither did I,” said Ottawa-based whisky expert Davin de Kergommeaux. But he, like so many other consumers, supports the boycotts of American products in favour of Canadian alternatives.

Canada had been a key market for the bourbon industry and major brands like Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark for quite some time. But despite his desire to see bourbon back on shelves and behind the bar, de Kergommeaux — who literally wrote the book of Canadian Whisky — believes the liquor landscape here may have changed for good.

Souring on American whiskey

Bourbon really began to boom in Canada a little over a decade ago, de Kergommeaux says, thanks to aggressive marketing campaigns and consumers looking for something a little different from what they were used to.

“It doesn’t taste like traditional Canadian whisky at all,” de Kergomeaux said. “It’s a big, bold whisky, and quite bright, quite sweet.”

Craig Peters, founder and CEO of Maverick Distillery in Oakville, Ont., says what makes bourbon unique is that it’s distilled and aged in new oak barrels that are only used once, which is what gives the liquor its darker colour and rich caramel and vanilla flavours.

In addition to the oak barrels, for bourbon to be called that, it has to be made using at least 51 per cent corn mash and, most importantly, experts say, it has to be produced in the U.S.

But Peters says it still “holds its own special place with consumers” in Canada, either sipped neat or on the rocks, or mixed into cocktails like Manhattans, paper planes and the classic old fashioned.

But as a result of the cross-border animosity, exports of bourbon to Canada from January to September dropped about 60 per cent compared with a year earlier, going from 41.3 million to 16.4 million units according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

Bourbon producers have been pleading with provinces to resume stocking U.S. booze — Saskatchewan and Alberta have done so, while Nova Scotia and Manitoba are selling off existing stock — and with the Trump administration to ease trade tensions. However, that’s not the only challenge the industry is facing.

Whisky sales globally were already slumping and Peters says there’s been a glut of bourbon as a result of overproduction in the past few years.

But he says all of this has created the perfect opportunity for distilleries like his to stir things up in the Canadian whisky world.

Bourbon by any other name

Maverick Distillery had already been importing barrels of bourbon from the U.S. to produce a line of its own blended whisky, but Peters says the company is now also bottling “straight up 100 per cent bourbon.”

“Although we can’t call this baby bourbon,” he said, holding up a bottle, which is labelled Kentucky whisky, “it is actually a five-year Kentucky bourbon bottled here in Canada.”

The federal Spirit Drinks Trade Act of 2006 restricts the use of names of alcohol produced in specific geographic areas in foreign countries.

Aside from bourbon, other examples of such spirits include scotch (Scotland), cognac (France) and tequila (Mexico).

Peters says consumer demand for bourbon was high enough that he didn’t feel it was contrary to the “Buy Canadian” sentiment to have staff at his Ontario distillery bottle what is truly an American product.

De Kergommeaux says what Maverick is doing is “kind of out of step” with efforts to prioritize Canadian products over U.S. imports.

“This is not anti-American, this is buy Canadian,” he said.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not looking forward to cracking open his own bottle of Maverick’s Kentucky whisky at some point soon.

De Kergommeaux says he’s not aware of any producer in Canada that is bottling actual bourbon other than Maverick, and he’s not expecting many others to start.

That Canadian spirit

Although he notes some other distillers across the country have begun blending bourbon-style whisky variations, with names like BRBN and Berbon, to cater to those still craving that taste of Kentucky, where the majority of U.S. bourbon is produced.

While he says these kinds of subsititutes don’t taste quite the same, he suggests many are quality whiskies that can be used in a Manhattan or sipped straight up with a couple drops of water, as he does.

And it’s not just U.S. tariffs contributing to what industry watchers say is a global downturn in whisky and liquor sales overall — in general, more people are eschewing alcohol, while sales of cannabis beverages are also rising.

Which is why de Kergommeaux is excited to see a Canadian product back in the spotlight and thriving.

He says that rather than worrying about a downturn, Canadian producers big and small are having trouble keeping up with demand.

“I think that people have been trying to find bourbon and trying to find Canadian whisky that tastes like bourbon,” he said, “and in the process, they have been tasting a lot of Canadian whiskies and wishing they had given them a chance sooner.”

Wall Street drifting lower before the opening bell, heading for the fourth day of losses, on the final day of trading for 2025, a banner year for markets that was driven by both optimism and uncertainty.

Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each ticked down 0.1% early Wednesday. Nasdaq futures were off 0.2%.

Institutional investors are largely closed out of their positions for the year, so trading is expected to be extremely light. U.S. markets will be closed on Thursday for New Year’s Day.

The S&P 500 is up more than 17% this year as investors embraced artificial intelligence technology, both in the sector and its potential across almost all other sectors.

The AI frenzy that drove markets in 2025 did not come without concerns. Chief among them is the worry that artificial intelligence technology may not produce enough profits and productivity to make all the investment worth it. That could keep the pressure on AI stocks like Nvidia and Broadcom, which were responsible for much of the market’s gains this year.

And it’s not just AI stocks that critics say are too pricey. Stocks across the market still look expensive after their prices climbed faster than profits.

On top of concerns that stocks are overvalued, the ongoing impact of a wide-ranging U.S.-led trade war threatens to add more fuel to inflation in the U.S. While the Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark lending rate three times to close out the year, inflation remains solidly above the central bank’s 2% target.

Fed officials have cited concerns over a weakening labor market as their motivation for cutting rates. Arriving later Wednesday is the Labor Department’s most recent data on weekly jobless claim applications, which are viewed as a proxy for layoffs.

The Fed has signaled more caution moving forward. Minutes from its December meeting reflect the divisions within the central bank as it deals with uncertainty about the threats facing the economy.

Wall Street is betting that the Fed will hold interest rates steady at its next meeting in January.

Sung Won Sohn, professor of finance and economics at Loyola Marymount University, believes uncertainty is brewing for global markets because of inflation, labor shortages and questions about where interest rates might be headed.

“Central banks must tread carefully, and financial markets will likely experience continued volatility as expectations shift,” he said.

“For businesses, investors, and policymakers alike, flexibility, risk management, and close attention to economic signals will be essential in navigating the challenges ahead.”

Trading in precious metals continued to be volatile as the year winds down. Silver swung back to a big loss, giving back more than 8% early Wednesday after Tuesday’s gain of more than 10%. Following Friday’s 7.7% jump, silver lost nearly 9% on Monday. It’s still up more than 140% this year.

Gold fell 1.5% Wednesday morning but is still up 66% in 2025.

Elsewhere, global stock markets including Germany, Japan and South Korea were closed Wednesday for the New Year’s holidays, while trading was mixed in those that remained open.

France’s CAC 40 lost 0.5% by midday, while Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.2%.

Earlier in Asia, the Hang Seng index dipped 0.9% to 25,630.54, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.1% to 3,968.84. The Taiex in Taiwan jumped 0.9% to 28,963.60. In Australia, Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped less than 0.1% to 8,714.30.

Tokyo trading was set to be closed for the New Year’s holidays on Thursday and Friday and scheduled to reopen on Monday. In South Korea, trading was scheduled to be closed on Thursday.

U.S. crude picked up 31 cents to $58.26 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added 28 cents to $61.61 per barrel. Yet crude, unlike some other commodities this year, has been falling in prices. A barrel of crude costs 19% less today than it did at the start of the year, and gas prices are down 6% to 7% nationally, or about 20 cents per gallon.

HONG KONG — State-backed property developer China Vanke, once the country’s largest homebuilder by sales, narrowly avoided defaulting on a 2 billion yuan ($284 million) bond last week as the painfully slow recovery in China’s property market drags on.

The Chinese developer also was seeking to delay repayment of another 3.7 billion yuan ($530 million) of onshore debt due on Dec. 28, with bondholders agreeing to extend the deadline to February.

Years after the downturn in the housing market began, Chinese developers are still struggling to regain their footing, despite a slew of government policies meant to revive the industry. Weak investment and housing prices have shaken investor confidence, spilling into the broader economy since millions of homeowners are stuck with apartments worth far less than what they paid for them.

Instead of the huge driver of prosperity that it once was, the property market is weighing on the economy.

Although Vanke’s bondholders have approved extensions for repayments of its debt, the risk of a default remains.

About a third-owned by Shenzhen Metro, a state-owned railway, publicly listed Vanke’s finances are a mess. Its revenue fell 27% from a year earlier in the latest July-September quarter, and several of its onshore bonds were suspended from trading after prices plunged.

The developer owes more than $50 billion, less than the more than $300 billion in debt racked up by China Evergrande, one of the first property dominos to fall when it defaulted in 2021 after the government cracked down on excessive borrowing in the industry.

Analysts say Vanke, founded in the 1980s in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, may be testing the limits of state support for property developers in reviving the industry, which once accounted for more than a quarter of total economic activities in China.

More than four years after the downturn began, China’s property sector has yet to recover. The situation varies from city to city, but overall home prices have fallen by 20% or more from their peak in 2021.

The decline has continued, with new home sales falling 11.2% by value year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2025, according to official statistics. Property investments fell nearly 16% from a year earlier.

The slump has caused massive layoffs, hurting overall consumer confidence and spending.

“The continued slide in the property market remains one of the most significant risks to China’s efforts to shift to a domestically demand-driven growth model,” wrote Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank, in a recent commentary.

China Evergrande, once deemed “too big to fail” as one of the country’s largest developers, ran into trouble in 2021 and eventually was forced into liquidation. Many other Chinese developers also defaulted and in some cases were restructured. Tough measures to fight Covid-19 during the pandemic took a toll as construction projects were suspended.

Restoring confidence in the property sector may take years, economists at Morgan Stanley say, and Vanke’s woes will only further weigh on its real estate market outlook. Economists at Morningstar say home prices are unlikely to rebound until 2027 due to excess supply, despite repeated pledges by regulators to stabilize the real estate market.

While Vanke’s debt is way smaller than Evergrande’s was, a default would sting: It had been considered one of the financially sounder real estate developers in China.

Shenzhen Metro Group, which is controlled by the Shenzhen government, has provided more than 29 billion yuan ($4 billion) in shareholder loans to Vanke so far this year to help with its debt repayments, according to S&P Global.

That’s not enough to repay its full obligations. Vanke reported 60 billion yuan ($8 billion) of cash by the end of September 2025, against short-term debts of about 151 billion yuan ($21 billion), Fitch Ratings said.

“This is one of the most significant, quasi state-backed developers that may be defaulting (on) their repayment,” said Foreky Wong, a founding partner at Fortune Ark Restructuring.

S&P Global, one of the world’s main rating agencies, recently downgraded Vanke to “selective default,” saying it viewed the extension of its bond repayment period as a distressed debt restructuring “tantamount to a default.” Fitch Ratings also downgraded Vanke’s rating to “restricted default”.

Vanke — which employed more than 120,000 people as of last year — still faces hundreds of millions of dollars more of debt repayments in 2026. S&P said it faces more than 9.4 billion yuan of bonds maturing over the next six months.

A default by Vanke could spill over into the wider real estate sector, making it more difficult for non-state owned developers to get help, said Jeff Zhang, an analyst at Morningstar.

“Without a strong commitment by the Shenzhen government on the bailout, we think Vanke’s liquidity profile should remain fragile,” Zhang said.