Renewable diesel boom highlights challenges in clean-energy transition

By Rod Nickel, Stephanie Kelly and Karl Plume 

3/3/2021

© Reuters/JENNIFER GAUTHIER Parkland Fuel's refinery in Burnaby

(Reuters) - For 17 years, trucker Colin Birch has been hitting the highways to collect used cooking oil from restaurants.

He works for Vancouver-based renderer West Coast Reduction Ltd, which processes the grease into a material to make renewable diesel, a clean-burning road fuel. That job has recently gotten much harder. Birch is caught between soaring demand for the fuel - driven by U.S. and Canadian government incentives - and scarce cooking oil supplies, because fewer people are eating out during the coronavirus pandemic.

"I just have to hustle more,” said Birch, who now sometimes travels twice as far across British Columbia to collect half as much grease as he once did.

His search is a microcosm of the challenges facing the renewable diesel industry, a niche corner of global road fuel production that refiners and others are betting on for growth in a lower-carbon world. Their main problem: a shortage of the ingredients needed to accelerate production of the fuel.

Unlike other green fuels such as biodiesel, renewable diesel can power conventional auto engines without being blended with diesel derived from crude oil, making it attractive for refiners aiming to produce low-pollution options. Refiners can produce renewable diesel from animal fats and plant oils, in addition to used cooking oil.

Production capacity is expected to nearly quintuple to about 2.65 billion gallons (63 million barrels) over the next three years, investment bank Goldman Sachs said in an October report.

Rising demand is creating both problems and opportunities across an emerging supply chain for the fuel, one small example of how the larger transition to green fuels is upending the energy economy. A renewable diesel boom could also have a profound impact on the agricultural sector by swelling demand for oilseeds like soybeans and canola that compete with other crops for finite planting area, and by driving up food prices.

Local and federal governments in the United States and Canada have created a mix of regulations, taxes or credits to stimulate more production of cleaner fuels. President Joe Biden has promised to move the United States toward net-zero emissions, and Canada's Clean Fuel Standard requires lower carbon intensity starting in late 2022. California currently has a low-carbon standard that provides tradable credits to clean fuel producers.

But the feedstock supply squeeze is constraining the industry's ability to comply with those efforts.

‘SPINNING FAT INTO GOLD’

Demand and prices for feedstocks from soybean oil to grease and animal fat is soaring. Used cooking oil is worth 51 cents per pound, up about half from last year's price, according to pricing service The Jacobsen.

Tallow, made from cattle or sheep fat, sells for 47 cents per pound in Chicago, up more than 30% from a year ago. That's boosting the fortunes of renderers such as Texas-based Darling Ingredients Inc and meat packers such as Tyson Foods Inc. Darling shares have about doubled in the last six months.

"They're spinning fat into gold," said Lonnie James, owner of South Carolina fats and oil brokerage Gersony-Strauss. "The appetite for it is amazing."

Clean fuels could be a boon for North American refiners, among the pandemic's hardest-hit businesses as grounded airlines and lockdowns hammered fuel demand. Refiners Valero Energy Corp, PBF Energy Inc and Marathon Petroleum Corp all lost billions in 2020.

Valero’s renewable diesel segment, however, posted a profit, and the company has announced plans to expand output. Marathon is seeking permits to convert a California refinery to produce renewable fuels, while PBF is considering a renewable diesel project at a Louisiana refinery.

The companies are among at least eight North American refineries that have announced plans to produce renewable fuels, including Phillips 66, which is reconfiguring a California refinery to produce 800 million gallons of green fuels annually.

Once new renewable diesel production capacity comes online, feedstocks are likely to become more scarce, said Todd Becker, chief executive of Green Plains Inc, a biorefining company that helps produce feedstocks.

Goldman Sachs estimates that an additional 1 billion gallons of total capacity could be added if not for issues with feedstock availability, permitting and financing.

"Everybody in North America and around the world are all trying to buy low carbon-intensity feedstocks," said Barry Glotman, chief executive of West Coast Reduction.

His customers include the world's biggest renewable diesel maker, Finland’s Neste. A spokesperson for Neste said the company sees more than enough feedstock supply to meet current demand and that development of new feedstocks can ensure supply in the future.

SOYBEAN, CANOLA BOOM

Renewable diesel producers are increasingly counting on soybean and canola oil to run new plants.

The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) is forecasting record-high soybean demand from domestic processors and exporters this season, largely because of soaring global demand for livestock and poultry feed.

Crushers who produce oil from the crops are also scouring Western Canada for canola, helping to drive prices in February to a record futures high of C$852.10 per tonne. Soybeans reached $14.45 per bushel in the United States last week, the highest level in more than six years.

Rising food prices are a concern if the predicted demand for crops to generate renewable diesel materializes, said USDA Chief Economist Seth Meyer. U.S. renewable diesel production could generate an extra 500 million pounds of demand for soyoil this year, Juan Luciano, chief executive of agricultural commodities trader Archer Daniels Midland Co, said in January. That would represent a 2% year-over-year increase in total consumption.

Greg Heckman, CEO of agribusiness giant Bunge Ltd, in February called the renewable diesel expansion a long-term "structural shift" in demand for edible oils that will further tighten global supplies this year.

By 2023, U.S. soybean oil demand could outstrip U.S. production by up to 8 billion pounds annually if half the proposed new renewable diesel capacity is constructed, according to BMO Capital Markets.

That same year, Canadian refiners and importers will face their first full year complying with new standards to lower the carbon intensity of fuel, accelerating demand for renewable diesel feedstocks, said Ian Thomson, president of industry group Advanced Biofuels Canada.

Manitoba canola grower Clayton Harder said it is hard to envision a vast expansion of canola plantings because farmers need to rotate crops to keep soils healthy. Farmers may instead have to raise yields by improving agronomic practices and sowing better seed varieties, he said.

British Columbia refiner Parkland Corp is hedging its bets on feedstock supplies. The company is securing canola oil through long-term contracts, but also exploring how to use forestry waste such as branches and foliage, said Senior Vice President Ryan Krogmeier.

The competition to find new and sustainable biofuel feedstocks will be fierce, said Randall Stuewe, chief executive at Darling, the largest renderer and collector of waste oils.

"If there is a feedstock war, so be it," he said.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Stephanie Kelly in New York and Karl Plume in Chicago; editing by David Gaffen, Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot)

FedEx is going all-electric. It will invest $2 billion in a zero-emissions delivery fleet and other carbon-cutting measures by 2040, it said.

insider@insider.com (Grace Dean) 9 hrs ago

© GM FedEx will be the first customer for GM's new electric delivery vans. 

FedEx said Wednesday it planned to replace its entire parcel pickup and delivery fleet with electric vehicles by 2040.

This is part of the company's plans to make its global operations carbon-neutral by then.

FedEx would invest $2 billion into electric vehicles, sustainable energy, and carbon sequestration, it said.

FedEx's entire parcel pickup and delivery fleet will be zero-emission electric vehicles by 2040, the delivery giant said Wednesday, as it announced plans to make its global operations carbon-neutral.

The company planned to invest $2 billion into vehicle electrification, sustainable energy, and carbon sequestration, it said.


FedEx would replace existing vehicles over the next 19 years, it said. It said that by 2025, half of all its FedEx Express global pickup and delivery purchases would be electric, rising to 100% of all purchases by 2030.

FedEx is set to be the first company to take delivery of General Motors' EV600 vans, and is due to receive its first vehicles in late 2021.

FedEx also said it would continue to invest in alternative fuels to reduce aircraft and vehicle emissions. It would also work to reduce fuel consumption in its aircraft, it said.

The delivery company would also give Yale University $100 million to help establish the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture, it said.

The center is designed to research methods of carbon sequestration to remove and store the Earth's excess carbon, with an initial focus on helping offset greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to current airline emissions, FedEx said.

FedEx also said it would offer carbon-neutral shipping and sustainable packaging solutions.

"While we've made great strides in reducing our environmental impact, we have to do more," Mitch Jackson, FedEx's chief sustainability officer, said.

"The long-term health of our industry is directly linked to the health of the planet, but this effort is about more than the bottom line - it's the right thing to do."

New definition of hate to be included in Liberal bill that might also revive contentious hate speech law

Anja Karadeglija 

POSTMEDIA

3/3/2021

Federal legislation expected to be tabled within weeks will see a new statutory definition of hate and could also see the reincarnation of a controversial hate speech law

 

© Provided by National Post It’s expected that Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault could table the new hate speech legislation in the next few weeks.

The new definition, part of legislation aimed at tackling online hate content, will be based on previous court decisions and how the Supreme Court has defined hate, said Arif Virani, parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister David Lametti.

But the government has also not ruled out introducing a form of a controversial hate speech law that was widely criticized over free speech rights. The law, Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, was repealed in 2013 after critics said it amounted to censorship.

Section 13 was “something we consulted on,” said Virani. “We heard feedback on both sides of the ledger. That’s something we’re examining.”

Christine Van Geyn, litigation director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, an organization devoted to defending constitutional freedoms, said the previous civil remedy under Section 13 was “widely seen as highly politicized and discretionary.”

Bringing it back is not the way to tackle online hate, she said. She’s also concerned any new regulator created under the legislation would “use their discretion in a politicized way.”

“Expanding the administrative state and creating new regulators and tribunals with large discretionary authority isn’t the right approach,” Van Geyn wrote in an email.
Chris Selley: Free speech is free, even on social media
'Weaponization' of free speech prompts talk of a new hate law

The bill will include the creation of a new regulator who will be responsible for enforcing the new statutory definition of hate, including requiring online platforms to take down illegal content within 24 hours.

Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said he expects to table the legislation in weeks.

The bill will set out a legal framework for “illegal content” covering five categories: hate speech, terrorist content, content that incites violence, child sexual exploitative content and non-consensual sharing of intimate content. The new regulator will then “develop the how” of putting that framework into practice, Guilbeault said.

The new regulator will be tasked with enforcing transparency, including about the platforms’ algorithms. It will also be responsible for enforcement, with the power to levy significant fines.

Guilbeault’s office confirmed the bill won’t expand the definition of illegal content beyond what’s already in the Criminal Code.

A spokesman for Virani said the new definition of hate will be informed by past court cases including the Supreme Court’s Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission v Whatcott case. The Whatcott decision invoked case law involving a list of “hallmarks of hatred” which, according to University of Windsor professor Richard Moon, is a list of indicators that give reason to regard that speech as hateful.

“Among the hallmarks of hatred were things like identifying the group as subhuman or animalistic, or as unclean or carrying disease or as inclined to engage in violence or things of that nature,” Moon said.

Moon said in the 1990 Supreme Court R. v Keegstra decision the court “talked about hate speech as speech that expressed that detestation towards the group, the vilification of the group.”

Virani held consultations last year with about 75 different groups and individuals, which included asking whether the government should bring back Section 13.

© Ian MacAlpine/Postmedia/File “Expanding the administrative state and creating new regulators and tribunals with large discretionary authority isn’t the right approach,” says Christine Van Geyn of the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

Prior to 2013, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal could issue cease-and-desist orders and impose fines up to $10,000 in response to complaints from individuals about matters likely to expose them “to hatred or contempt” for the reason of those individuals being “identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association was among the groups that opposed Section 13 and cautioned the government not to bring it back, arguing human rights tribunals aren’t an appropriate mechanism for addressing hate speech. Cara Zwibel, the director of the CCLA’s fundamental freedom’s program, said in an email that having the new regulator, instead of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, in charge of addressing online hate does “address some of the group’s concerns.”

But she said it “would not address all of the concerns and could give rise to new ones,” including questions about due process.

“There is a general concern with regulating hate speech which is that, despite the definition that courts have developed, the concept is fundamentally subjective. This is one of the concerns that is not addressed even if a new regulatory mechanism is used,” Zwibel said.

The CCLA also told the government that it was not necessary to develop a new definition of hate. Zwibel said in an interview that having hate content codified in legislation doesn’t allow that definition to “grow and evolve.”

The concern for the CCF’s Van Geyn is that that any definition of hate “will be inherently subjective and prone to an expansive interpretation that could improperly capture all kinds of expression that the government has no business censoring.”

But Evan Balgord, the executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said in an interview there is a need for a civil remedy because the current system, in which hate speech is dealt with through the Criminal Code, isn’t working. So few people end up charged with hate speech that the prospect of criminal charges doesn’t act as a deterrent, he said.

Balgord said the definition of hate found in previous court decisions offers a good basis for a regulator to be able to tackle the problem of online hate, as long as the regulator is able to keep up to date with constantly changing code words used by neo-Nazi and other hate groups.

“We need a good solution now, we don’t need a perfect solution in two years,” he said. Sticking to what the court has previously defined as hate allows the government to defend itself against criticism that the government is attacking free speech, Balgord said.

Virani acknowledged that when it comes to the definition, “there may be concerns that it is not broad enough for some people. There may be concerns that it is too broad for others.”

The role of the new regulator will be to give clarity on the new definition to the online companies and ensure they are taking appropriate action, Virani said.

The new legislation will also force online platforms to take down illegal content within 24 hours. Virani couldn’t specify whether the regulator will be the one determining what content has to be taken down within the 24 hours, or if that initial decision will be left to the companies, with the regulator responsible for complaints after the fact. He said it will be a combination of those scenarios, but there’s no “one straight answer to that question. It’s still being worked out.”

That 24-hour takedown period could also create a potential for a constitutional challenge. If platforms have to make the call about whether something is illegal, and they face penalties for failing to do so, that creates the incentive to err on the side of taking content down, said Vivek Krishnamurthy, director of the University of Ottawa’s Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC).

“And that can have an impact on free expression,” he said. “We know that some things are very clearly illegal, but there’s a lot of grey.”

A spokesperson for Google also flagged the same issue, saying the company remains “uneasy” about any law that “prioritizes speed where decisions require careful consideration, which in turn will likely lead to over-removal of legitimate expression and have a negative impact on diversity of voices.”

Balgord said it’s not feasible for the regulator to decide what is or is not hate content before the platforms have to take it down, given the sheer volume of hate content that is posted online. “My question is, have they been on the internet? If you’re going to hold a little adjudication every time there is hate speech, it’s impossible… there’s simply too much of it.”

The government didn’t hold public consultations while developing the legislation, but Guilbeault conducted his own in parallel to Virani’s. He said he consulted “far and wide,” speaking to platforms, academics, researchers and not-for-profit groups, who deal with issues like child sexual exploitation, Canada’s democratic institutions, freedom of speech, and “people who are very concerned with how equity seeking groups are being targeted.”

Like Virani, Guilbeault wasn’t concerned about a constitutional challenge to his new legislation.

“The beauty of living in a democratic society” is that people have the ability to challenge laws using the justice system, he said.

“I think we are working really hard to ensure that we are very on solid legal ground. Is it something that could happen? Absolutely. But I’m not worried about it.”

'A healing journey:

' Confronting gender-based violence in Saskatchewan

Amanda Short 

POSTMEDIA

3/3/3032

© Provided by Star Phoenix

 Jess Fisher is OUTSaskatoon's Gender-Based Violence project coordinator.

While advocates say that it’s impossible to ‘end’ an issue as pervasive as gender-based violence, they agree now is the time for Canada, and Saskatchewan, to work at making an overarching cultural shift.

At the end of January, the federal, provincial a nd territorial ministers responsible for the status of women endorsed a declaration to make Canada free of gender-based violence, through the creation of a national action plan. The ministers set a 10-year timeline for the work.

Jess Fisher, gender-based violence education coordinator with OUTSaskatoon, said Canada’s history is built upon the introduction of gender-based violence — it’s ultimately a colonial construct, Fisher said.

“The idea of not accepting gender and sexual diversity was introduced to Turtle Island because of colonization, and that kind of sets a foundation for violence for anybody who doesn’t exist within that very limited framework,” Fisher said.

“Inequity and gender-based violence isn’t just happening at a personal level; it’s been built into the systems that we live in, operate within.”

Nationally, the issue disproportionately affects Indigenous women and rural and remote residents. It’s additionally challenging in Saskatchewan because of the province’s high populations of those demographics, said Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan (PATHS) executive director Jo-Anne Dusel.

She hopes the declaration will bring national consistency to how the issue is addressed. She’s currently working with Women’s Shelters Canada to put together a national framework — work enabled by the declaration.

According to Statistics Canada’s annual family violence report, Saskatchewan continues to lead the provinces in rates of police-reported intimate partner violence. Released Tuesday, the report says that in 2019 the province’s rate was 724 per 100,000 people. The national rate was 347.

“It’s sad, because that is so consistent year over year; we have fallen behind in this province in taking proactive measures, in having public awareness campaigns, in having an actual provincial action plan to address the issue that is monitored and evaluated,” Dusel said.

Clare’s Law and the province’s interpersonal violence and abuse awareness campaign, released in December, are positive actions, but currently Saskatchewan doesn’t show any changes related to them — “we’re just so far behind other jurisdictions,” Dusel said.

She sits on the committee that reviews Clare’s Law applications, which she noted are consistently coming from people starting to get involved with “ serial abusers.”

Aside from ongoing supports and services for victims, interventions for perpetrators are needed in order to stop that pattern from continuing, she said.

The office of Minister for the Status of Women Laura Ross declined an interview. In a prepared statement, the office said creating a national framework means taking a preventative approach, “create(ing) cultural and behavioural change through education around the root causes, risk factors and impacts of violence,” instead of only responding to individual instances.

Aboriginal Friendship Centres of Saskatchewan (AFCS) program manager Alicia Buckley said making the work relevant and applicable to everyone is a matter of taking an intersectional approach, ensuring the voices and experiences of Indigenous and 2SLGBTQ people are respected.

“Without having culturally safe measures or inclusive measures put in place, it’s just another act that’s being forced upon us,” Buckley said. “We need to have that grounding, we need to have that way of connecting in a culturally relevant space.”

While changes need to take place at every level, AFCS’s focus is on changing policy to reflect those populations and support them, Buckley said. Most recently, AFCS developed with Honouring Her Spark, a first-of-its-kind framework for supporting economic security and prosperity of Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQ people in Saskatchewan.

In 2019, OUTSaskatoon started work on its gender-based violence project, looking at how 2SLGBTQ communities experience violence. The project has been hosting regular workshops and launched a website with resources earlier this year.

Education is the first preventative step, Fisher said, especially considering how deeply-entrenched violence is in Canada’s systems.

“When governments are saying ‘we are going to end violence within 10 years,’ you’ve got to look at the hundreds of years that it was perpetuated, and how people are still struggling to recognize past harms, people are still grappling with the legacy of our province,” she said.

In the classroom, that looks like sexual health education that includes a focus on healthy relationships, Dusel said, noting that even with everything in place it will likely take a generation for a broad shift in attitudes to occur.

Buckley just wants to ensure she’s leaving a better place for her daughter.

“It’s already taken seven generations of trauma to get here, which is about 100 years. That ripple effect may take another seven generations to heal,” she said. “I really think that our generation needs to make that shift, we need to be the ones to say ‘this is enough’ and start working toward a healing journey.”

Estevan invites Elon Musk to view carbon capture technology

Gillian Francis POSTMEDIA

If the City of Estevan has its way, Elon Musk’s next business trip could take him to the community in southeast Saskatchewan

.

© Provided by Leader Post Estevan's mayor Roy Ludwig wants Musk to tour their carbon capture and storage facility.

Estevan’s mayor Roy Ludwig wrote a letter to Musk, inviting him to the city to tour their Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) facility at Boundary Dam Power Station.

Ludwig’s proposal was in response to one of Musk’s tweets , which detailed the business mogul’s plans to donate $100 million dollars towards a prize for best carbon capture technology.


“When we first saw the tweet and heard about the XPRIZE contest, we knew we had an opportunity to showcase this world class technology and promote the environmental and economic benefits that this facility has brought to our city,” said Ludwig, in a news release issued this week.

Musk actually has ties to Saskatchewan. His grandfather settled in this province in the early 1900s, and its where Musk’s mother Maye was born. In 1989, Musk, himself, spent the summer working on a cousin’s farm, near Waldeck, in the Swift Current area.

Estevan, some 20 kilometres north of the Canada-U.S border, is known as the energy capital of Saskatchewan. Their economy is defined by power generation, as well as by coal mining, agriculture, manufacturing, and oil and gas drilling.

Their $1.5 billion CCS facility, which is attached to SaskPower’s Boundary Dam 3 (BD3), opened in 2014 has garnered a reputation for being the first of its kind. It is capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to one million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, which is the equivalent of removing 250,000 cars from the road. It is known as the world’s first fully-integrated and full-chain carbon CCS facility on a coal-fired power plant, although it has also been plagued by challenges meeting its yearly carbon capture targets.

THE REALITY IS THAT CCS IS NOT GREEN NOR CLEAN IT IS GOING TO BE USED TO FRACK OLD DRY WELLS SUCH AS IN THE BAKAN SHIELD IN SASKATCHEWAN

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html

© Don Healy SaskPower Boundary Dam Carbon Capture plant just outside of Estevan on December 07, 2015.

It started as a pilot project, but gradually expanded to become a full-time endeavour. The CCS facility set the bar for other organizations, including Estevan’s Shand Power Station, which functions as a test facility where international clients can analyze their carbon capture and storage systems commercially.

“Industry and government officials from across the globe have toured and researched this facility and it has been the blueprint for other CCS projects in the world,” said Ludwig.

In the statement, Ludwig stressed the importance of community support. He encouraged residents to further the conversation by retweeting Musk’s message and tagging him in posts online. He also stressed the importance of sharing the letter he wrote to Musk, which can be found on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and LinkedIn .

Tech giant Infosys to expand to Calgary; promising 500 new jobs over three years

Amanda Stephenson, Calgary Herald 

A major global IT company is expanding to Calgary, pledging to bring 500 jobs to the city over the next three years.

© Provided by Calgary Herald Infosys office in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Infosys — a New York Stock Exchange-listed global consulting and IT services firm with more than 249,000 employees worldwide — has chosen Calgary for the next phase of its Canadian expansion. The company already has offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa, and is planning to double its current Canadian workforce to 4,000 employees by 2023.

The Calgary expansion will enable Infosys to scale and work with clients in Western Canada, the Pacific Northwest and the central United States across various industries, including natural resources, energy, media, retail and communications, Infosys president Ravi Kumar said in an interview. He said Calgary was a logical choice not just because of its proximity to the company’s client base, but also because of the size of the available workforce.

“There is a large pool of talent locally,” Kumar said. “We do want to tap into that pool, and that’s why we are in Calgary.”

While Calgary has been keen to grow and develop its local tech sector as a way of diversifying its resource-based economy, industry insiders often identify the city’s lack of tech talent as an impediment. Calgary has a highly educated workforce — however, the skills developed in the oil and gas industry are not always the skills in demand by tech employers, who have bemoaned the lack of software developers and programmers in this city.

But Infosys works using a different model. The company plans to establish Calgary as one of its “tech and innovation hubs” (it already has six such centres in the U.S.), meaning it will use the city as a base to develop its own talent pool. The company will work directly with the city’s post-secondary institutions to invest jointly in training programs that will create a stream of graduates Infosys can hire.

“One of the reasons we chose Calgary is because of the extraordinary academic ecosystem out there,” Kumar said. “We have had conversations with SAIT, with the University of Calgary, about how we could build a pipeline of talent from their schools.”© Supplied by Infosys Infosys president, Ravi Kumar.

Infosys also has a “re-skilling” program for individuals looking to make a mid-career shift from more traditional industries. The company starts these people in less specialized positions, and then — through an internal training and apprenticeship program — transitions them into more core, digital positions.

“We have successfully created thousands of jobs in the U.S. using this model. These pathways are open for anyone in industry who has the potential . . . even if they do not know anything about technology and digital infrastructure,” Kumar said. “We invest in their training and get them ready for these jobs.”

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home phenomenon, Infosys has not yet settled on a physical location for its Calgary hub, though Kumar said that is something the company will pursue in the future. He added that 500 jobs over three years is a minimum target — if the Calgary expansion goes well, it could be more.

Kumar said he is bullish on Calgary and its ability to diversify and adapt to a changing economy — in part because its low cost of living and good quality of life make it an attractive jurisdiction for tech companies to set up shop, but also because of the city’s solid foundation as a hub for more traditional industry.

“The energy sector is going to go through a transition, and they’re going to go through digitization as well,” he said. “So this is a great time, and pivoting to the future of digital is, I think, the need of the hour. I’m very hopeful that Calgary can emerge out of this very successfully.”

In a news release, Premier Jason Kenney said he was pleased not just by the announcement of 500 new jobs for Calgary but by the re-skilling opportunities Infosys promises to bring to the local workforce.

“This announcement is a testament to the talent and opportunity that exists in Alberta as we continue our progress toward economic recovery and growth,” Kenney said.

“This is the latest proof that the plan to diversify our city’s economy is working,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi said in a news release. “We are focused on making sure that Calgary is a great place to make a living and a great place to make a life. That benefit stood out to Infosys, and we are excited to be partners in their Canadian growth plans.”

Infosys was founded in Bangalore, India, in 1981. According to the company’s website, it has grown to become a US$13.15-billion company with a market capitalization of approximately US$72.2 billion. It is the second largest Indian IT company after Tata Consultancy Services and its employee stock options program created some of India’s first salaried millionaires.

Infosys has offices in 46 countries around the world and was recently recognized with a Best Place to Work in Canada — Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award. It has also been named a Global Top Employer by the Top Employers Institute.

astephenson

Conservation officer fired for refusing to kill bear cubs sues to get his job back

Yvette Brend CBC

© Submitted by Bryce Casavant Bryce Casavant and his daughter Athena. Casavant, who made headlines in 2015 after he refused to kill two orphaned bear cubs, has sued to get his old job with the B.C. Conservation Officer Service back after a legal battle that went all…

A former B.C. conservation officer who made international headlines in 2015 for refusing to kill two orphaned bear cubs is suing to get his job back and his lost pay returned.

In a new civil lawsuit and affidavit filed in late February, Bryce Casavant — who has spent five years fighting his union and employer to return to his job with the B.C. Conservation Officer Service — argues his dismissal has now been proven to be invalid.

The Port Alberni, B.C., man filed a petition to the B.C. Supreme Court on Feb. 23 asking that it force the province and conservation service to restore his employment.

"I just want to go back to work — it's that simple," said Casavant, 37, in an interview Tuesday.

He has always argued that a superior's order for him to shoot two orphaned cubs was not legal.

Casavant received the emailed order on July 5, 2015, after he found the cubs in a tree.

It came after their mother had to be shot because she was raiding an outdoor freezer and entered a home near Port Hardy, B.C.

Instead of killing the eight-week-old cubs, Casavant took them to a vet.

Casavant said he was required to shoot the sow because it had entered a residence looking for food and garbage — but he argued he had discretion whether to kill the cubs or not, as there was no evidence they had been similarly habituated.

The cubs were transferred to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre and were named Jordan and Athena. They were later released into the wild.

Casavant was initially suspended, then dismissed and reassigned as a natural resource officer.

He challenged the initial arbitration settlement and the appeal of that ended up at B.C. Labour Relations Board, where it was argued that the arbitrator lacked jurisdiction in his case.

The case ended up in judicial review in the B.C. Supreme Court, and then the B.C. Court of Appeal, which ruled that Casavant was improperly dismissed from his job.

In late January, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed an application by the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union to appeal the B.C. Court of Appeal ruling.
'A constable cannot be ordered to kill'

Casavant's lawyer says his client is legally entitled to reclaim his position — with a salary of approximately $55,000 to $75,000 — along with back pay.

"The process used to take his job was unlawful, so there is no reason not to give him his job back now," said Arden Beddoes, adding that he can't believe the fight has dragged on for so long.

The Ministry of the Environment — which oversees the B.C. Conservation Officer Service — said it was unable to comment on Casavant's attempt to get his old job back, as the matter is currently before court.

Although he described the legal ordeal as "gut wrenching," Comox, B.C.-born Casavant said he wouldn't change his actions.

"I have always maintained that a constable cannot be ordered to kill — it's an illegal order," he said.

Casavant was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and served as a military police officer in Afghanistan, but he retrained as a conservation officer so he could stay in B.C. after his daughter Athena was born with a serious medical condition in 2012.

Casavant said Athena, now 8, still recalls when her dad was an "animal police officer."

In recent years, Casavant says he's been working with a special Members of Legislative Assembly committee to reform and modernize the B.C. Police Act.

Last July he earned a doctorate for his research on the history of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service.

Michelle Obama Urges Youth To Fight Injustice:

 ‘We Gotta March, We Gotta Protest & We Have To Vote’

Shakiel Mahjouri 4 hrs ago

Michelle Obama is putting her hope in today's youth.

© Provided by ET Canada Michelle Obama. Photo: Getty Images

Obama appeared on "Good Morning America" to promote her book, Becoming. The former first lady touched on how she wants to see young people advocate.

“We gotta march, we gotta protest and we have to vote. Young people are starting to put those pieces together and understand that, you know, it’s not either/or. It’s all of it," Obama said, and that includes her daughters. “Who they are right now is enough. I always have wanted them to start practising the power of their voices very early on."

"I know there are many, many Amanda Gormans," she said of the National Youth Poet Laureate. "I’m just proud when one of ’em gets a chance to be seen and the rest of the nation and the world gets to see... a lot of Black folks have made this country what it is today.”

Obama, 57, also touched on her book and the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Good Morning America

@GMA

“That’s the point of #Becoming. If you are lucky ... you will constantly grow and evolve until the day you cannot breathe anymore. We are all learning and becoming something better and greater.” — @michelleobama to @robinroberts on how younger generations give her “hope.”

SEE

Michelle Obama Urges Youth To Fight Injustice: ‘We Gotta March, We Gotta Protest & We Have To Vote’ (msn.com)

 MAOIST CULTURAL REVOLUTION REDUX

If the others go I'll go': Inside China's scheme to transfer Uighurs into work

By John Sudworth
BBC News, Beijing

Published

20 hours ago

image captionBuzaynap, 19, appeared in a 2017 state media report on labour transfer

China's policy of transferring hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang to new jobs often far from home is leading to a thinning out of their populations, according to a high-level Chinese study seen by the BBC.

The government denies that it is attempting to alter the demographics of its far-western region and says the job transfers are designed to raise incomes and alleviate chronic rural unemployment and poverty.

But our evidence suggests that - alongside the re-education camps built across Xinjiang in recent years - the policy involves a high risk of coercion and is similarly designed to assimilate minorities by changing their lifestyles and thinking.

The study, which was meant for the eyes of senior officials but accidentally placed online, forms part of a BBC investigation based on propaganda reports, interviews, and visits to factories across China.

And we ask questions about the possible connections between transferred Uighur labour and two major western brands, as international concern mounts over the extent to which it is already ingrained in global supply chains.

In a village in southern Xinjiang, hay is being gathered in the fields and families are placing fruit and flatbreads on their supas, the low platforms around which Uighur family life has traditionally revolved.

But the warm wind blowing across the Taklamakan desert is bringing with it worry and change.

The video report, broadcast by China's Communist Party-run news channel, shows a group of officials in the centre of the village, sitting under a red banner advertising jobs in Anhui Province, 4,000km away.

After two full days, the reporter's narration says, not a single person from the village has come forward to sign up, and so the officials begin moving from house to house.

What follows is some of the most compelling footage of China's massive campaign to transfer Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities in Xinjiang into factory and manual labouring jobs, often considerable distances from their homes.

A 2017 TV report from China's state broadcaster illustrates how the policy works in practice

Although it was broadcast in 2017, around the time the policy began to be intensified, the video has not featured in international news reporting until now.

The officials speak to one father who is clearly reluctant to send his daughter, Buzaynap, so far away.

"There must be someone else who'd like to go," he tries to plead. "We can make our living here, let us live a life like this."

They speak directly to 19-year old Buzaynap, telling her that, if she stays she will be married soon and never able to leave.

"Have a think, will you go?" they ask.

Under the intense scrutiny of the government officials and state-TV journalists she shakes her head and replies, "I won't go."

Still, the pressure continues until eventually, weeping, she concedes.

"I'll go if others go," she says.

image captionThe video has not featured in international news reporting until now

The film ends with tearful goodbyes between mothers and daughters as Buzaynap and other similarly "mobilised" recruits leave their family and culture behind.

Professor Laura Murphy is an expert in human rights and contemporary slavery at the UK's Sheffield Hallam University who lived in Xinjiang between 2004 and 2005 and has visited since.

"This video is remarkable," she told the BBC.

"The Chinese government continually says that people are volunteering to engage in these programmes, but this absolutely reveals that this is a system of coercion that people are not allowed to resist."

"The other thing it shows is this ulterior motive," she said, "that although the narrative is one of lifting people out of poverty, there's a drive to entirely change people's lives, to separate families, disperse the population, change their language, their culture, their family structures, which is more likely to increase poverty than to decrease it."

A marked shift in China's approach to its governance of Xinjiang can be traced back to two brutal attacks on pedestrians and commuters - in Beijing in 2013 and the city of Kunming in 2014 - which it blamed on Uighur Islamists and separatists.

At the heart of its response - in both the camps and the work transfer schemes - has been a drive to replace "old" Uighur loyalties to culture and the Islamic faith with a "modern" materialist identity and an enforced allegiance to the Communist Party.

This overarching goal of assimilating Uighurs into China's majority Han culture is made clear by an in-depth Chinese study of Xinjiang's job-transfer scheme, circulated to senior Chinese officials and seen by the BBC.

Based on field work conducted in Xinjiang's Hotan Prefecture in May 2018, the report was inadvertently made publicly available online in December 2019 and then subsequently taken down a few months later.

Written by a group of academics from Nankai University in the Chinese city of Tianjin, it concludes that the mass labour transfers are "an important method to influence, meld and assimilate Uighur minorities" and bring about a "transformation of their thinking."

Uprooting them and relocating them elsewhere in the region or in other Chinese provinces, it says, "reduces Uighur population density."

image captionA dormitory building at the Huafu Textile Company, where Buzaynep was taken to work

The report was discovered online by a Uighur researcher based overseas and an archived version (Chinese) was saved before the university realized its error.

Dr Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, has written his own analysis of the report which includes an English translation of it.

"This is an unprecedented, authoritative source written by leading academics and former government officials with high-level access to Xinjiang itself," Dr Zenz said in a BBC interview.

"The excess surplus population that somehow has to be dealt with, and labour transfers as a means to reduce the concentration of those workers in their own heartlands is, in my opinion, the most stunning admission of this report."

His analysis includes a legal opinion from Erin Farrell Rosenberg, a former senior advisor to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, that the Nankai Report provides "credible grounds" for the crimes against humanity of forcible transfer and persecution.

In a written statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said, "The report reflects only the author's personal view and much of its contents are not in line with the facts."

"We hope that journalists will use the authoritative information released by the Chinese government as the basis for reporting on Xinjiang."

The Nankai report authors write glowingly of an effort to combat poverty underwritten by a "guarantee of voluntariness" in the work placements, and with the factories allowing the workers to "leave and return freely."

But those claims are somewhat at odds with the level of detail they provide about the way the policy works in practice.

There are "targets" to be reached, with Hotan Prefecture alone - at the time the study was undertaken - having already exported 250,000 workers, one fifth of its total working age population.

There is pressure to meet the targets, with recruiting stations set up "in every village" and officials tasked to "mobilize collectively" and "visit households," just as in 19-year-old Buzaynap's case.

• Who are the Uighurs?
• Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape
• China's 'tainted' cotton

And there are signs of control at every stage, with all recruits put through "political thought education," then transported to the factories in groups - sometimes as many as hundreds at a time - and "led and accompanied by political cadres in order to implement security and management."

Farmers unwilling to leave their lands or herds behind are encouraged to transfer them to a centralized government scheme that manages them in their absence.

And once they arrive in their new factory jobs, workers themselves are put under the "centralized management" of officials who "eat and live" with them.

But the report also notes that the profound discrimination at the heart of the system is getting in the way of its effective functioning, with local police forces in eastern China so alarmed by the arrival of trainloads of Uighurs, that they are sometimes turned back.

In places, it even warns that China's policies in Xinjiang may have been too extreme, for example, stating that the number of people placed in the re-education camps "far exceeds" those with suspected connections to extremism.

"The entire Uighur population should not be assumed to be rioters," it says.

The Huafu Textile Company is located on the edge of a grey industrial estate in the city of Huaibei, in China's eastern province of Anhui.

It was to this factory that Buzaynap, featured in the state-TV report, was sent.

When the BBC visited, the separate, five-story Uighur dormitory showed few signs of habitation apart from a pair of shoes placed by an open window.

At the gate, the security guard said that the Uighur workers "have gone back home," adding that it was because of the country's Covid controls, and in a statement Huafu told us that, "the company does not currently employ Xinjiang workers."

The BBC was able to find pillowcases made with Huafu yarn on sale on Amazon's UK website, although it is not possible to confirm if the product is linked to the particular factory we visited, or one of the company's other facilities.

Amazon told the BBC that it does not tolerate the use of forced labour and that where it finds products that do not meet its supply chain standards, it removes them from sale.

The BBC worked with a group of international journalists based in China, visiting a total of six factories between us.

IMAGE COPYRIGHT

image captionThe entrance to the Dongguan Luzhou Shoes factory in Guangzhou

At the Dongguan Luzhou Shoes factory in Guangzhou Province, one worker said the Uighur employees used separate dormitories and their own canteen, and another local told reporters that the company makes shoes for Skechers.

The factory has previously been linked to the US company, with unverified social media videos purportedly showing Uighur workers making Skechers product lines, and references to a relationship in online Chinese business directories.

In a statement, Skechers said it had "zero tolerance for forced labour," but did not answer questions about whether it used Dongguan Luzhou as a supplier.

Dongguan Luzhou did not respond to a request for comment.

Interviews recorded at the scene suggest the Uighur workers were free to leave the factory during their leisure time, but at other factories visited for the research, the evidence was more mixed.

In at least two cases, reporters were told of some restrictions, and at one facility in the city of Wuhan a Han Chinese employee told the BBC that his 200 or so Uighur colleagues were not allowed out at all.

image captionA dormitory building at the Dongguan Luzhou Shoes factory

Three months after Buzaynap was shown leaving her village to begin her political education training, the Chinese state-TV crew meet her again, this time in the Huafu Textile Company in Anhui.

The theme of assimilation is, once again, central to the news report.

In one scene, Buzaynap is close to tears as she is scolded for her mistakes, but eventually, a transformation is said to be taking place.

"The timid girl who didn't speak and kept her head down," we are told, "is gaining authority at work."

"Lifestyles are changing and thoughts are changing."

Producer: Kathy Long