BlackRock goes against BP board in climate resolution vote

By Simon Jessop and Ron Bousso 

REUTERS MAY 28,2021

© Reuters/CARLO ALLEGRI The BlackRock logo is pictured in New York City

LONDON (Reuters) -The world's biggest asset manager and top BP investor BlackRock said on Friday it had backed a shareholder resolution calling for faster climate action which the energy company's board opposed.

BlackRock's vote at BP's annual general meeting earlier this month points to growing pressure on both major oil companies and investors to accelerate efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions. BlackRock holds a 6.8% stake in BP, according to Refinitiv data.

"While recognizing the company's efforts to date and direction of travel, supporting the resolution signals our desire to see the company accelerate its efforts on climate risk management," BlackRock said in a vote bulletin.

The asset manager said, however, that it voted in favour of Total's energy transition strategy at the company's AGM on Friday, which won over 90% of shareholder support.

It also supported management at Royal Dutch Shell in a non-binding vote on the company's energy transition strategy at its AGM this month. Refinitiv data showed BlackRock is also the biggest investor in the company.

Managing $9 trillion in assets, BlackRock's vote has been a key focus for campaigners and investors alike, as pressure builds on the world's biggest oil companies to put in place a plan aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

BlackRock said it had backed the BP shareholder resolution put forward by activist group Follow This, which asked for the company to set deeper climate targets.

Although the Follow This resolution was rejected, the 20% support it won was seen as a signal that a growing number of investors want CEO Bernard Looney to accelerate his plan to cut BP's emissions from its oil and gas production to net zero by 2050, which will see it reduce oil output by 40% by 2030.

BlackRock said it supports BP's climate strategy but that it also supported the Follow This resolution "because we see it as a means to reiterate our expectation that BP progressively refine its GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions reduction targets."

BP declined to comment on BlackRock's vote.

Criticised by campaigners for too often siding with management, BlackRock has toughened its stance with some companies in recent months, and this week backed boardroom change at Exxon Mobil over its climate inaction.

With Total's annual meeting bringing an end to the European oil majors' AGMs for this year, BlackRock released voting bulletins for all four, detailing how it voted and why.

Before the AGM season began, BlackRock had warned companies it wanted to see them set climate related targets and report against them, or they could vote against the board. They also flagged a willingness to support more shareholder resolutions.

In the case of Royal Dutch Shell, BlackRock said it supported a non-binding resolution filed by the company on its energy transition strategy and also voted against a shareholder resolution calling for Shell to set deeper short- and medium-term carbon reduction targets.

BlackRock said it backed the company because "it meets our expectations that companies have clear policies and action plans to manage climate risk and provides a roadmap towards the company’s stated climate ambitions and targets."

"We prefer the annual 'say on climate' advisory vote offered by management as a mechanism for shareholders to give feedback on the company’s climate strategy," it said.

At Norway's Equinor, the asset manager backed two shareholder proposals, against the advice of management, one calling for the company to set short-, medium- and long-term targets for greenhouse gas emissions, and one to report on climate and nature risk.

With regard to the targets, BlackRock said it backed the resolution in the hope that it would further speed up the company's progress on climate risk management.

(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Three Exxon refineries top the list of U.S. polluters
By Tim McLaughlin 

© Reuters/KATHLEEN FLYNN Exxon's U.S. oil refineries pump out more soot than rivals' plants

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil's U.S. oil refineries pump out far more lung-damaging soot than similarly-sized facilities operated by rivals, according to regulatory documents and a Reuters analysis of pollution test results.

The Texas-based firm's three largest refineries - two in Texas and one in Louisiana - are the nation's top three emitters of small particulate matter, according to the analysis of the latest tests submitted to regulators by the nation's 10 largest refineries.

The three Exxon refineries together averaged emissions of 80 pounds per hour, eight times the average rate of the seven other refineries on the top-ten list, some of which are larger than Exxon's plants, the analysis shows. The top polluter, Exxon's Baton Rouge refinery, averaged 138 pounds per hour. See graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3i4mU9j

The performance reflects the firm's inadequate spending to cut emissions, said Wilma Subra, a Louisiana-based scientist who formerly served on the Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

"Exxon has all the resources in the world to lower its pollution rates dramatically," she said.

The company has taken heat for years for its environmental performance. This week, Exxon lost at least two seats on its board of directors to an activist hedge fund seeking to force the firm to reckon with climate change.

Exxon said in a statement that it tries to comply with environmental laws and has invested billions of dollars to reduce emissions over the last two decades.

Oil-and-gas pollution has a disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities, which are often located near industrial sites. Reuters interviewed nearly three dozen residents in the predominantly Black neighborhoods near Exxon's Baton Rouge refinery. About a third said they either had breathing problems or knew someone who did.

Small particulate matter is among the most harmful pollutants. Made up of particles 50 times smaller than a grain of sand, it can bond with other toxins, infiltrate the blood stream, and damage the heart, lungs and nervous system. A small increase in long-term exposure to small particulate matter also leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rates, according to a recent Harvard University study.

"Particulate matter pollution is deadly, but you're not going to see it written on anyone's tombstone," said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group.

The EPA requires plants to restrict small particulate matter emissions to 1 pound or less for every 1,000 pounds of coke burned in a refinery's catalytic cracking units.

But Exxon's Baton Rouge plant is the only major U.S. refinery that doesn't have to meet that standard because of an EPA rule that exempts "cat crackers" that were built before 1976 and haven't been modified since.

Refineries also have to meet state standards for particulate-matter pollution. But those limits can vary widely among states - and among different facilities within states - based on the strictness of state regulators and whether a refinery has agreed to tighter limits to settle lawsuits. And Louisiana regulators allow much higher pollution levels at Exxon's Baton Rouge plant than at other state refineries.

“There is a surprising amount of unevenness among states" in enforcing pollution limits, said Philip Mattera, research director at Good Jobs First, a Washington-based watchdog group. “People don’t realize how much the EPA delegates responsibility on big environmental laws to state agencies.”

OLD POLLUTION SCRUBBERS

Exxon’s two big oil refineries in Texas – in Beaumont and Baytown – are also among the top three polluters identified by Reuters. But Exxon's 517,000-barrel-per-day Baton Rouge plant produces far more soot.

The plant's emissions of small particulate matter hit a peak of 350 pounds per hour during an independent test conducted in January 2020 by an engineering firm Exxon hired to demonstrate its regulatory compliance.

Emissions averaged 255 pounds per hour during the test. That exceeded a limit, imposed on the refinery by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ), of 234 pounds per hour – one of the highest limits in the country, according to regulatory documents. Other similarly-sized refineries in Louisiana and other states have state soot emissions limits closer to 50 pounds per hour.

The LDEQ declined to comment on the pollution limits it sets for Exxon's Baton Rouge plant.

Exxon officials blamed the refinery's high emissions on low water pressure in its 1970s-era wet gas scrubber, according to company correspondence with the LDEQ. Exxon told the state it had since resolved the issue.

Maintenance on such scrubbers, commonly used to control pollution, can lower emissions but requires shutting down a cat cracker for several weeks, hurting profitability, according to Exxon disclosures to the LDEQ. Completely new systems can cost more than $1 billion.

Because the Baton Rouge refinery's two catalytic crackers were built during World War Two – among the first such units in the country – they are exempt from federal EPA standards.

'GIVE US GOOD AIR'

The Baton Rouge refinery, more than a century old, borders neighborhoods with sky-high rates of childhood asthma.

Seabell Thomas, 77, whose home is separated from the refinery by Interstate 110, said her son's asthma was so bad that he routinely visited the emergency room as a child. She has since been campaigning to pressure Exxon to clean up.

"When I wake up each morning, I have to confront two demons: pollution from the highway and the Exxon refinery," she said. "We, as Black people, ask, 'God, how long can you allow this? Please, give us good air to breath.'"

In a group of census blocks that includes Thomas' home, childhood asthma rates were more than double the statewide average, according to a 2019 report by the Louisiana Health Department. Emergency-room visits for childhood asthma in the area also more than doubled the statewide rate.

"I grew up thinking asthma was an African-American disease because so many kids in the neighborhood had inhalers," said Sonyja Renee Thomas, the daughter of Seabell Thomas. "Only later, as an adult, did I realize how much pollution factored into it."

EXXON RIVALS RUN MUCH CLEANER

Big refineries run by Exxon's rivals are doing much better at controlling soot. Ironically, many of them are using technology invented and licensed by Exxon, according to disclosures by Exxon and environmental regulators.

Specialists in industrial pollution say the differences in performance can be attributed to any of a number of factors: rivals' equipment could be newer; maintenance schedules may be more frequent; and refining processes before wet gas scrubbing may also be optimized to reduce soot.

All of that takes money. In many cases, it also takes lawsuits.

Companies such as BP plc, Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66 and Valero Energy Corp have made agreements with the EPA in recent years to slash emissions below federal standards to help settle pollution-related litigation, regulatory disclosures show.

These more restrictive limits are laid out in so-called consent decrees, which cover the operations of scores of U.S. refineries and influence permitted pollution levels set by states.

For example, Marathon's refinery in Garyville, Louisiana, operates an Exxon scrubber which has undergone numerous upgrades since being installed in 1979, company spokesman Jamal Kheiry said. The refinery's permit limit, set by the state, is 0.6 pounds per 1,000 pounds of burned coke, well below the EPA limit of one pound. During its latest test, Garyville's small particulate matter emissions were just 0.11 pounds. The plant is slightly larger than Exxon Baton Rouge.

"The low emissions numbers reflect robust emissions controls we have implemented," Marathon's Kheiry said.

Exxon's three largest refineries also operate under a consent decree, signed with the EPA in 2005 after the company was sued by the EPA and Justice Department for alleged Clean Air Act violations. But the agreement includes only a voluntary target for Exxon to limit soot emissions to half the EPA standard, which it has not done.

For locals around the Baton Rouge refinery, pushing for Exxon to reduce pollution can be difficult given its economic and political clout as a major Louisiana employer.

Sidney Poray, 60, has lived near the refinery for nearly 30 years and has worked with activist groups to monitor the refinery's emissions. But he's not optimistic their work will make much difference.

"Of course, I care about pollution," Poray said. "But what am I going to do? We're talking about Exxon."

(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot)

EPA shut down St. Croix refinery after oil rained on homes

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN 

TODAY

The stench permeated Dyline Thomas' St. Croix home for weeks, she said, upsetting her stomach, making her nose run and her throat sore.

 Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/Getty Images The EPA shut down the Limetree Bay refinery in St. Croix after it rained oil on nearby neighborhoods in mid-May.

"The smell was so strong, like sulfur, like rotten eggs," the 58-year-old homemaker recalled.

Then oil was discovered in her yard in mid-May. Two days earlier, a flare incident occurred at the Limetree Bay refinery upwind of Thomas's home. As flames and smoke billowed out of the flare stack, oil droplets were launched into the sky, carried west by the wind and rained down on nearby homes.

This month the US Environmental Protection Agency took a rare and extreme step: It ordered an emergency, 60-day shutdown of the plant, citing an "imminent risk" to public health. The agency, which has jurisdiction over territories such as the U.S. Virgin Islands, reported several incidents that released oil into the environment and sent sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide into the air, both of which cause respiratory illness.

© Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/Getty Images The Limetree Bay refinery is seen from above in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Thursday, March 18, 2021.

In a statement sent to CNN, Limetree Bay said it intends to cooperate with the EPA and the local government in "preparing for a safe and compliant restart of the refinery."


Now St. Croix, a majority Black community in the Caribbean, is weighing its economic future against the health and environmental impacts of betting big on oil.

The refinery has been a key source of jobs and revenue for an economy battered by hurricanes and the pandemic. But some of the islands' 50,000 residents are questioning whether the price is too high, particularly for a community on the front lines of the climate change crisis in the form of sea level rise and increasingly powerful storms.

"We are at a crossroads," said Jennifer Valiulis, the executive director of the St. Croix Environmental Association, who has been critical of the plant's operation. "We have an opportunity to examine what we want our economy to look like, what we want St. Croix to be in a world that's moving away from fossil fuels as its primary energy source."

For decades, residents of this 84-square-mile island, the largest of the three major U.S. Virgin Islands, have co-existed with major industrial production. The refinery first opened in 1966, and -- under the management of Hess Corporation and then Hovensa -- boosted its Virgin Islander workforce into the middle class.

But the environmental and health tolls grew. In 2011, the Hovensa petroleum refinery -- at the time the county's second-largest -- reached a settlement with the EPA to pay more than $5.3 million for environmental violations.

The plant later closed and filed for bankruptcy. With its shutdown went more than 2,000 jobs.

Earlier this year, the facility -- backed by private equity firms -- resumed operations as Limetree Bay under a permit granted by the Trump administration with a plan to produce some 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

Virginia Clairmont, who runs a nonprofit working to revitalize the town of Frederiksted on the island's western end, told CNN she had misgivings about the refinery restarting in the first place. After multiple incidents, she wants it closed.

But, she said, "if you talk about it, you'll be attacked for trying to deprive other people of jobs."

The coronavirus pandemic only added to the islands' economic woes, shutting down a cruise industry that brings in more than 1.4 million tourists per year. Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the Virgin Islands in 2017, and the islands still bear the scars: a sailboat tossed like a toy on the shore; a tattered blue tarp over a missing roof, disintegrating in the relentless tropical sun.

On St. Croix, the plant restart created some 400 full-time jobs. Government officials estimate the operation could generate about $7 million in annual tax revenue.

Nellie Rivera-O'Reilly, a jewelry store owner on St. Croix and former legislator, was among the local senators who voted to approve the plant's reopening. "As a business owner now, I see the benefits of the refinery, or any employer of that magnitude, remaining viable on the island of St. Croix," she said.

Lawmakers were particularly concerned about health and safety, she said, and allocated money for rigorous environmental monitoring.

"These things happen in these types of industries," Rivera-O'Reilly added. "The thing to do is to make sure we learn and put in place measures to prevent this from happening.


EPA officials say they have received hundreds of calls and emails complaining about the plant since February. Tysha Henry, who grew up on St. Croix, was among the callers.

Henry, an HR manager in Atlanta, was visiting her mother on the island in May when she said an overpowering gasoline smell jolted her awake in the middle of the night.

"It felt like I was going to asphyxiate or something," she said. The smell abated within an hour but the next morning, she said, her eyes and face were swollen and puffy.

"I will not be going back home as long as this smell is there," said Henry.

Lawsuits representing hundreds of residents have been filed against the refinery in recent weeks.

The EPA's shutdown order, which was handed down at a moment environmental advocacy groups are pressing the Biden administration to bring environmental justice to communities of color, is just the fourth time the agency has used its emergency powers to temporarily close a plant.

It came two days after the refinery announced it was halting production on its own after the May 12 flare incident that spewed oil on homes west of the facility -- homes where residents catch rainwater on their roofs and store it in below-ground cisterns for drinking, bathing and cooking. The order calls for independent audits of the refinery's operations and its ability to comply with "environmental, health and safety limits."

"This already overburdened community has suffered through at least four recent incidents that have occurred at the facility, and each had an immediate and significant health impact on people and their property," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement announcing the emergency action.

Limetree CEO Jeffrey Rinker described the federal order as unlawful and "unnecessary" because the plant already had idled operations voluntarily. The company argues there's no proof that their plant is the source of some of the noxious odors, noting that a government-run landfill due west of the refinery had caught fire in early May and could have contributed to the foul smells.

In the statement sent to CNN, Limetree Bay officials said: "We have no plans to restart the refinery before it is safe to do so."

"Notwithstanding some of our struggles during this restart period, we remain committed to being a good neighbor and responsible member of the St. Croix community," they said.

When the refinery reopened as Limetree in February, Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan, Jr., a Democrat, heralded it as a "big victory for St. Croix" and the broader US territory.

"In these difficult economic times, I am very pleased that the Refinery is creating hundreds of well-paying, quality jobs," he said in a statement.

Aides to Bryan did not respond to requests for an interview, but Bryan called the flare incident "totally unacceptable."

He expressed hope, however, that the plant officials "can rectify whatever the issues are and resume operations."

Thomas, the woman who had oil in her yard and said she had a reaction to noxious fumes, said the smells that bothered her for weeks have eased, since the closing of the refinery.

Since then, she said, the refinery operators have washed her vehicles, given her three cases of bottled water and promised to get back in touch about oil that may have contaminated her cistern.

As unsettling as the incidents have been, Thomas said she doesn't want the plant to shut down permanently. It "brings a lot of jobs here," she said. "I would not want them to close."

"But I want them to take more precautions," Thomas added. "You can have all the money in the world, but you can't enjoy it if you have no health."

#FIGHTFOR15
Universal Studios Orlando Raises Wages To $15, Putting Pressure On Other Theme Parks

Bruce Haring 

DEADLINE

55/29/2021

© AP

Minimum pay rates for workers at the Universal Studios Orlando theme park will rise to $15 an hour next month, the company has confirmed. That puts pressure on rival attractions in the increasing struggle to find workers in the post-pandemic revival.

Universal Orlando is the first Florida theme park to raise wages. The company called it the largest single wage increase ever made by its theme park, and it is the first major attraction in Central Florida to offer $15 an hour to starting workers.

The pay hikes will begin June 27 for more than 18,000 employees, which includes full-time and part-time hourly jobs, as well as entry-level salaried positions,

Some employees above the $15 rate could also get paid more, depending on service time with the company.

“This is about taking care of both our current team members and those who will be joining our team,” Universal spokesman Tom Schroder said in a statement. “In addition, we are actively recruiting new team members and we are working hard to be the best employer in the marketplace when it comes to wages, benefits and work environment.”

Universal hopes to fill 2,000 summer jobs. The new wage level is a bump from the previous $13 an hour starting pay. Universal is now constructing its third theme park near the Orange County Convention Center. It is targeting 2023 to open.

Walt Disney World plans on raising its pay rates to $15 an hour by October.

The moves come as theme parks, restaurants and other businesses are increasingly finding it difficult to find an adequate number of workers for lower-wage jobs.

In Florida, the state will end the $300 per week federal unemployment supplemental payments starting June 26. It joins at least 22 other states in ending the federal add-on to state compensation.

Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park earlier this week took things one step further, offering starting pay of $20 per hour. The theme park has reduced its opening days because of worker shortages.

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CANADA'S SHAME

Why so many children died at Indian Residential Schools

Tristin Hopper 

POSTMEDIA

29/05/2021

© Provided by National Post Historical photo of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, once the largest facility in the Canadian Indian Residential School system. Already known to have been the site of 51 student deaths, recent radar surveys have found evidence of 215 unmarked graves.

This week saw the discovery of something outside Kamloops, B.C., rarely seen in North America, much less in any corner of the developed world: Unmarked and previously forgotten graves, all belonging to children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School

In a Thursday statement , Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said that a preliminary survey using ground penetrating radar had found evidence of 215 graves. Opened in 1893, Kamloops Indian Residential School had once been the largest residential school in Canada. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has officially confirmed 51 deaths at the school , but the radar survey points to a mass of previously unrecorded fatalities.

Casimir called the discovery an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School,” adding that her nation is now working with the Royal B.C. Museum to seek out records of the 215

National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation A 1931 photo of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

As a child, Chief Harvey McLeod of the Upper Nicola Band attended Kamloops Indian Residential School stud. He told CTV this week that when schoolmates disappeared, they were simply never spoken of again. “I just remember that they were here one day and they were gone the next,” he said.

One of the most painful tasks of Canada’s seven-year Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an attempt to quantify the sheer number of Indigenous children who died at an Indian Residential School.

The commission ultimately determined that at least 3,200 children died while a student at a Residential School; one in every 50 students enrolled during the program’s nearly 120-year existence. That’s a death rate comparable to the number of Canadian POWs who died in the custody of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

The result is that many of Canada’s most notorious residential schools sit amid sprawling cemeteries of unmarked children’s graves.

The Battleford Industrial School in Saskatchewan has 72 graves that lay forgotten until rediscovered by archaeology students in the 1970s. In 2001, heavy rains outside High River, Alta., exposed the coffins of 34 children who had died at nearby Dunbow Residential School. In 2019, archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar found the crudely dug graves of as many as 15 children surrounding the former site of Saskatchewan’s Muskowekwan Residential School.

 Handout/Katherine Nichols A cemetery north of the former Brandon Indian Residential School. Eleven children are known to be buried here.

More than 2,800 names are logged on a memorial register maintained by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. The chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Justice Murray Sinclair, has said the true number of deaths could be as high as 6,000 .

But a true figure will never be known for the simple fact that death records – if they were kept at all – were often lacking even basic personal information. “In many cases, school principals simply reported on the number of children who had died in a school, with few or no supporting details,” reads the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission .

© FindaGrave.com A memorial erected in 2001 to commemorate the previously forgotten graves of children who died at the Dunbow Industrial School in Alberta.

One third of children who died at a residential school did not have their names recorded by school administrators. One quarter were marked as deceased without even their gender being noted. Among the 2,800 names on the official memorial register are children known to recorded history only as “Alice,” “Mckay” or “Elsie.”

Bodies of children were not returned to families, and parents rarely learned the circumstances of a child’s death. Often, the only death notification would be to send the child’s name to the Indian Agent at his or her home community

.

© Archives Deschâtelets Residential school students at a cemetery in Northern Quebec in November 3, 1946.

“It’s staggering to think that families would not have known what happened to a child that was sent off to the residential schools,” Ontario Chief Coroner Andrew McCallum said in 2012 as his office began an inquest into unrecorded residential school deaths.

In 1938, after one mother near Cornwall, Ont., learned of her son’s death at residential school due to meningitis, she was denied a request to return his body home for burial. “It is not the practice of the Department to send bodies of Indians by rail excepting under very exceptional circumstances,” read a response from the Department of Indian Affairs, adding that it was “an expenditure which the Department does not feel warranted in authorizing.”

The main killer was disease, particularly tuberculosis. Given their cramped conditions and negligent health practices, residential schools were hotbeds for the spread of TB.

The deadliest years for Indian Residential Schools were from the 1870s to the 1920s. In the first six years after its 1884 opening, for instance, the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School saw the deaths of more than 40 per cent of its students. Sacred Heart Residential School in Southern Alberta had an annual student death rate of one in 20.

NOT JUST CULTURAL BUT VERY REAL GENOCIDE

© National Truth and Reconciliation Commission Graphic showing the death rate at Canadian Indian Residential Schools. Right up until the 1950s, the schools were seeing a rate of fatalities well beyond anything seen among the non-Indigenous community.

But despite occasional efforts at reform, even as late as the 1940s the death rates within residential schools were up to five times higher than among Canadian children as a whole.

The deadly reputations of residential schools were well-known to officials at the time. Kuper Island Residential School, located near Chemainus, B.C., saw the deaths of nearly one third of its student population in the years following its opening in 1889. “The Indians are inclined to boycott this school on account of so many deaths,” wrote a school inspector in 1922.

© National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Kuper Island Residential School. The school would come to be nicknamed “Alcatraz” for its remote location and appalling conditions. At least 121 are known to have died there, including two sisters who drowned while attempting to escape.

Exacerbating the death rate was the absence of even the most rudimentary medical care. Survivors described classmates becoming increasingly listless with TB until they were quietly removed by authorities.

James Gladstone, who would later become the first Status Indian appointed to the Senate of Canada, in his memoirs described a fellow student who died after school administrators failed to find him medical care for stepping on a nail. “I looked after Joe for two days until he died. I was the only one he would listen to during his delirium,” wrote Gladstone.

Accidents were the next big killer. Firetrap construction and the non-existence of basic safety standards frequently hit residential schools with mass-casualty incidents that, in any other context, would have been national news. A 1927 fire at Saskatchewan’s Beauval Indian Residential School killed 19 students. Only three years after that, 12 students died in a fire at Cross Lake Indian Residential School in Manitoba

.

From a Calgary Herald report of the 1927 fire at Beauval Indian Residential School.

Despite this, “for much of their history, Canadian residential schools operated beyond the reach of fire regulations,” wrote the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

But probably the most resonant of residential school deaths was the number of children who froze or drowned while attempting to run away. Several dozen children would die this way, with schools routinely making no attempt to find them and failing to report their disappearances for days.

One particularly notorious incident occurred on New Year’s Day, 1937, when a group of four boys ranging in age from 7 to 9 ran away from Fraser Lake Indian Residential School intending to reunite with their families at the Naldeh reserve seven miles away.

The school didn’t bother to assemble a search party until the boys had been missing for more than 24 hours. When they did, they found all four frozen to death less than a mile from home.


• Email: thopper@postmedia.com | Twitter: TristinHopper

 

Harris is 1st woman to make Naval Academy commencement speech: 'Our world is fragile'

Vice President Kamala Harris made history once again on Friday as the first woman to deliver the keynote commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy, telling graduates the country faces a "significant turning point."

A WOMAN OF COLOUR AS WELL AS OF INDO SOUTH ASIAN ORIGIN

"Midshipmen, we are now entering the next era. A new age. A new epoch, with its own challenges, and with its own opportunities," Harris began, speaking at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.

"The global pandemic, you see, of course, has accelerated our world into a new era," she said. "If we weren't clear before, we know now: Our world is interconnected. Our world is interdependent. Our world is fragile."

© Julio Cortez/AP Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the graduation and commission ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., May 28, 2021.

In her nearly 20-minute speech, Harris addressed challenges facing the nation and its service members, citing cybersecurity threats and climate change, as well as COVID-19.

"A deadly pandemic can spread throughout the globe in just a matter of months. A gang of hackers can disrupt the fuel supply of a whole seaboard. One country's carbon emissions can threaten the sustainability of the whole Earth," she said.

© Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Vice President Kamala Harris gestures as she delivers remarks at the graduation and commissioning ceremony for the U.S. Naval Academy's Class of 2021 at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., May 28, 2021.

"The challenge before us now is how to mount a modern defense to these modern threats," she continued.

"The ransomware attack by criminal hackers earlier this month -- well, that was a warning shot," she said. "In fact, there have been many warning shots. So we must defend our nation against these threats."A day after Microsoft said Russian hackers had again targeted a U.S. government agency, Harris referred to the recent Colonial Pipeline cyberattack as an example of new threats ahead.

It has been only 46 years since Congress required service academies to admit women in their ranks -- and Harris took the opportunity to highlight the growing number of female officers even as she tied that to the Biden agenda.

"Just ask any Marine today, would she rather carry 20 pounds of batteries or solar panels, and I am positive, she will tell you a solar panel -- and so would he," she said to applause.

© Susan Walsh/AP Vice President Kamala Harris displays her U.S. Naval Academy jacket at the graduation and commission ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., May 28, 2021. 

MORE: Vice President Kamala Harris: We must 'speak truth' about history of racism in America

Harris, the first Black woman to be elected vice president, gave a shoutout to a new midshipman making history of her own -- the first Black woman in the school's almost 175-year history to serve as brigade commander, who oversaw roughly 4,000 students this year.

"My ceremonial office was once occupied by the Secretary of the Navy, and displayed there, I have placed the shoulder boards of your brigade commander, Midshipman Sydney Barber," Harris said to roaring applause.

© Brian Witte/AP Midshipman Sydney Barber, who served as the first Black female Brigade commander at the U.S.Naval Academy this year, poses for a photo while gathering with other graduating midshipmen, May 28, 2021 in Annapolis, Md.

Harris concluded by sharing that she stopped by the United States Naval Academy Cemetery ahead of her speech to pay respects to her former colleague in the Senate -- "a great and courageous American" -- GOP Sen. John McCain.

"Most people don't know, he wanted to be buried next to his best friend, who he met on the yard, Admiral Chuck Larsen. That is the ultimate example of what I mean, in it together," she said.

"You are the next links in the chain," she said.

© Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Vice President Kamala Harris puts her hand to her heart during the graduation and commissioning ceremony for the U.S. Naval Academy's Class of 2021, at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., May 28, 2021.

Presidents and vice presidents deliver graduation speeches at the nation's five military service academies each year on a rotating basis.

President Joe Biden delivered the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy last week, telling graduates to "go out and be the future."

© Shutterstock Midshipmen stand at attention during a Blue Angels fly over prior to Vice President Kamala Harris delivering an address for the U.S. Naval Academy graduation and commissioning ceremony in Annapolis, Md., May 28, 2021.

Biden spoke at the U.S. Naval Academy in 2015, as did former President Donald Trump in 2018, when he said, "We are not going to apologize for America."

MORE: Trump delivers commencement at Naval Academy, declares 'America is back'

After holding its first-ever virtual ceremony for the first time last year due to the pandemic, the academy brought back the Blue Angels flyover tradition to kick off the socially distanced event -- timed with the unofficial start of summer.

CANADA
Nearly 75 per cent of federal prisoners have been vaccinated against COVID-19

John Paul Tasker 

CBC 

28/5/2021

© Lars Hagberg/Canadian Press Correctional Service Canada (CSC) has vaccinated 74.9 per cent of all federal prisoners as of May 24.

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has administered COVID-19 vaccine shots to nearly 75 per cent of all federal prisoners — a vaccination rate that is much higher than the rate for the general population.

The federal government has been leading vaccine procurement efforts on behalf of the provinces and territories — but it also has held back a number of shots for its own purposes.

While health care is generally provincial jurisdiction, Ottawa alone is responsible for two groups: active Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel and federal inmates.

Of the 25 million COVID-19 doses that have been delivered to Canada, 157,080 have been reserved for the "federal allocation," which also includes shots earmarked for the Public Health Agency of Canada and Global Affairs Canada.

The number of prisoners who have been vaccinated is high but, according to statistics released to CBC News by the Department of National Defence (DND), the number of CAF personnel who've had at least one dose is even higher.

More than 90 per cent of all eligible CAF members, including regular force and full-time reservists who serve more than 180 days a year, have had one dose and 20 per cent of them are fully vaccinated — a second dose vaccination rate that is nearly four times higher than what has been reported among the general population.

Less than 55 per cent of the broader Canadian population has had a first dose, while roughly 5 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Some CAF members have been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19; personnel have been deployed to hard-hit long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec and others have been sent to short-staffed intensive care units.

A DND spokesperson said the exact number of CAF personnel who have had first or second doses could not be released for "operational security reasons" but they did say more than 70 per cent of the 115,000 Moderna doses allocated to the armed forces have been administered.

"CAF members continue to show their dedication in the fight against COVID-19 in Canada by voluntarily being vaccinated to help stop the spread of this deadly virus," the spokesperson said.

More than 10,000 shots administered in prisons

According to data provided by CSC, 9,613 prisoners have received at least one dose of the Moderna vaccine, with 1,266 having been fully vaccinated with two doses.

The vaccine coverage rates are significantly higher among white (80.2 per cent) and Indigenous inmates (75.9 per cent) than they are among other racial groups.

Fewer than 60 per cent of non-Indigenous people of colour in federal prison have had a shot, according to the CSC data, which is current as of May 24.

Incarcerated women are slightly more likely to have been vaccinated; 77.6 per cent of prisoners at female sites have had a shot, compared to 74.7 per cent among those at male institutions.

Women in federal penitentiaries in the Pacific region (B.C. and Yukon), however, reported the lowest prisoner vaccination rates nationwide, with fewer than 63 per cent having had a shot compared to 85 per cent of female prisoners in Quebec.

While the Atlantic provinces have so far posted some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country — federal data show fewer than 60 per cent of adults in those four provinces have had a first dose — 76 per cent of CSC prisoners in the region have had a shot.

Justin Piché is a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa and a director at the Carceral Studies Research Collective.

Since the early days of the pandemic, Piché and other prisoners' rights advocates have been calling on the federal government to reduce the inmate population to stop the spread of COVID-19 behind bars.

'No political will'

There have been more than 2,100 cases reported in CSC facilities — 1,530 prisoners and 607 staff — since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. While numbers vary greatly, as many as 14,000 prisoners are in custody nationwide at any given time.

Piché said Ottawa has largely ignored demands to release some offenders to reduce crowding — "There was no political will," he said — and instead chose to focus on an aggressive vaccination campaign that now appears to be working reasonably well.

(The number of federal inmates has dropped by some 13 per cent over the last year but Piché attributes that decline to court delays that have resulted in fewer people sentenced.)

"The federal government has done far too little during the course of this pandemic to reduce the number of prisoners living in the biggest congregate settings in the country. Instead, they made the choice that vaccinations were the way to quell the heat they were getting from advocates," he said.

"Even though they got some flack from Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole for offering vaccines to prisoners, that heat was probably less than what they would've gotten if mass releases had happened."

© Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole was highly critical of the government's plan to accelerate immunizations in prisons.

Late last year, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended prisoners be among the first groups to get vaccinated because they live in relatively cramped conditions where it may be easier to contract the virus.

Ottawa followed that advice when it began part of the prison vaccination program in early January.

O'Toole subsequently criticized the plan to vaccinate 600 elderly prisoners, saying it was unfair to give criminals vaccines before other groups. "Not one criminal should be vaccinated ahead of any vulnerable Canadian or front line health worker," he said in a Jan. 5 tweet.

A spokesperson for Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs, the party's public safety critic, did not respond to a request for comment on the robust CSC vaccination rates.

Piché said reducing COVID-19 transmission in prisons is important to the broader community because CSC workers can act as vectors, spreading the virus in the cities and towns that surround these institutions. And prisoners who are released after serving their sentences pose a risk as well.

"What happens behind the walls doesn't stay there. There are ramifications for all of us. It's not just about incarcerated people. It's about everyone," he said.

"It's great that CSC has gotten first doses to so many prisoners but we know that the first dose isn't enough to curb it altogether. They need those second doses. We need to address the vaccine hesitancy that some of them still have."

He attributes the comparatively high vaccination rates to CSC efforts to disseminate information about the safety and efficacy of shots to family members of prisoners.

CSC also works with Indigenous elders and liaison officers to offer culturally sensitive programming to First Nations, Metis and Inuit prisoners.

As for the lower vaccination rates among visible minorities, Piché said it's likely attributable to racialized groups being more distrustful of the health care system, given the legacy of racism in this field. "Something is definitely amiss here," Piché said.

A spokesperson for CSC said staff "continue to engage with anyone who has refused a vaccine," reminding them of the benefits of getting immunized.

Shots are still available for those who have skipped getting a shot and new admissions will also have a chance to be vaccinated, the spokesperson said.