Few athletes understand the value of a hundredth of a second better than Aaron Brown. A four-time Olympian, Olympic medallist across gold, silver and bronze, World Champion, and one of the few Canadians ever to break both 10 seconds in the 100 metres and 20 seconds in the 200 metres, Brown has spent more than a decade competing against the fastest people on earth.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has designated a new West Coast pipeline project as being in the “national interest,” paving the way towards approval for a project to ship an additional one million barrels of crude oil daily to Asian markets.

It would be the first project to receive the designation since Ottawa passed Bill C-5 more than a year ago. The act gives Ottawa the power to issue special conditions for projects covering a dozen federal laws in order to help them proceed.

The partners behind Canada's first liquefied natural gas export terminal are proceeding with a project that would double its capacity as countries around the globe clamour for reliable sources of energy.

The federal government has deemed the proposed pipeline to the West Coast as a project in the national interest, and Alberta experts largely see it as a victory for the oil industry — as well as the cause of federalism, which has come under fire through the ongoing separation referendum.

Few people will ever face the kinds of decisions that Lisa Blair has faced. An Australian solo sailor, adventurer, environmental advocate, and holder of eight world records, Blair has sailed through some of the most hostile waters on Earth, including becoming the fastest person to solo sail, nonstop, and unassisted around Antarctica. She has survived towering waves, freezing isolation, and perhaps most remarkably, a catastrophic dismasting more than 1,000 nautical miles from land that could easily have ended both her expedition and her life.