Jagmeet Singh says the Canada Health Act could be used to challenge private health care. Could it?

CHA needs to be used more aggressively by the federal government, Singh says


Mark Gollom · CBC News · Posted: Feb 01, 2023 

The Canada Health Act, enacted in 1984 after being passed unanimously in the House of Commons, laid out criteria to ensure 'reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers.' That meant Canadians would have access to medically necessary services without being directly charged for those services (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been sounding the alarm about privatization creeping into the public health-care system.

Recently, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced he wanted to give a greater role to privately run for-profit clinics. These facilities are clinics operated by the private sector that receive public funding from the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) to perform medically necessary procedures.

But Singh says he's worried that trend of using public money to fund procedures in private clinics will take resources from the public system.

He said the federal government needs to utilize the Canada Health Act (CHA), which he said has significant powers to challenge for-profit privatized care.

Canada's health-care system under threat from both Liberals and Conservatives: Singh

Ontario expanding number and range of surgeries offered at for-profit clinics

"And it should be used more regularly and more aggressively to protect public health care," Singh said Monday, speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill.

But what exactly does the CHA do, how is it used and is it a tool that those who oppose health-care privatization can rely on to stop that trend? CBC News explains:
What is the Canada Health Act?

The Canada Health Act, enacted in 1984 after being passed unanimously in the House of Commons, laid out criteria to ensure "reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers."

That meant Canadians would have access to medically necessary services without being directly charged for those services. All such services would be covered through the province or territories' health-care insurance plan, according to the act.

WATCH | Singh accuses Trudeau of health-care flip flop:

Singh accuses Trudeau of a 'flip flop' on health-care privatization in Ontario
Duration1:06

During the first question period of the year, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh went after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for calling Ontario's recent moves on health care an 'innovation.'

It also established a number of conditions related to health-care access that the provinces and territories had to fulfil in order to receive transfer payments from the federal government, known as the Canada Health Transfer (CHT). One of those conditions stipulated that patients couldn't be charged an extra fee for medically necessary services, also known as "extra-billing."
What restrictions are there on private health care?

Singh said he wants the government to use the CHA to challenge for-profit care. But there are no restrictions on private delivery inside public health-care systems, said Colleen Flood, director of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics and University Research Chair at the University of Ottawa.

"So what Ford has proposed, with private for-profit clinics, is perfectly fine under the Canada Health Act," she said.

The CHA does not forbid the provision of health services by private companies, as long as residents are not charged for insured services, according to the federal government website.

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"In fact, many aspects of health care in Canada are delivered privately. Family physicians mostly bill the provincial or territorial health-care plan as private contractors. Hospitals are often incorporated private foundations, and many aspects of hospital care (e.g., lab services, housekeeping, and linens) are carried out privately," the website states.

"Lastly, in many provinces and territories, private facilities are contracted to provide services under the public health-care insurance plan."

It's the finance side of the CHA where restrictions are imposed that disallow patients to be charged out of pocket for medically necessary hospital and physician services, Flood said.

WATCH | Ford government unveils plan for reducing surgical wait-lists:

Ontario to expand surgeries available at for-profit clinics
16 days ago
Duration3:58

Ontario is significantly expanding the number and range of medical procedures performed in privately run clinics. Premier Doug Ford says the move is necessary to improve surgery wait times.

"What is medically necessary and how those rules are fixed are determined province by province."

No province or territory totally prevents a two-tier system — they just try to make it less appetizing for doctors, she said.

"Almost all provinces have this rule which says, 'look, if you want to bill the public system, then you have to only bill the public system. If you want to opt out, opt out.'"

Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at The Fraser Institute, said one problem with the CHA is that the conditions imposed are "remarkably vague," which create a risk-averse environment in terms of health-care policy.

"Because of that risk aversion, a lot of provinces actually go beyond what's explicitly required by the CHA so that they don't accidentally get hit by by the federal government's interpretation of it," he said.

"We don't see the sort of experimentation with policies that are proven elsewhere, to work in most other universal health-care systems."
What happens if a province or territory violates the Act?

As the CHA states, if hospitals and doctors charge fees for medically necessary services, then the federal government is supposed to deduct $1 from the province or territories' annual grant or CHT for every dollar assessed of the so-called extra billing.
Has the federal government gone after provinces for violations?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, responding to Singh's concerns about the enforcement of the CHA, said Monday that his government will continue to defend the Canada Health Act and can pull back money from provinces that violate it.

"In the past, this government has pulled back money from provinces that haven't respected it. We will continue to do that."

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he's worried more provinces will start using public money to fund procedures in private clinics and take resources from the public system. He's urging the federal government to utilize the Canada Health Act to halt the trend. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

According to the 2020-2021 Canada Health Act Annual Report, for the most part, provincial and territorial health-care insurance plans met the requirements of the Canada Health Act. But there were some instances when the federal government said it had to withhold funds.

A deduction of $4,521 was taken from the March 2021 CHT payments to Newfoundland and Labrador for charges at a private ophthalmological clinic. Both New Brunswick and Ontario were dinged around $65,000 and nearly $14,000 respectively for charges at private abortion clinics.

The biggest violator, according to the report, was British Columbia, which submitted a financial statement of extra billing and user charges for fiscal year 2018–2019, in the amount of nearly $14 million. A deduction in the same amount was taken from British Columbia's March 2021 CHT payments. (The federal government has reimbursed the province in recognition for its Reimbursement Action Plan).

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The province has been the centre of a legal battle waged by private health-care advocate Dr. Brian Day, the owner of the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, who argues that patients should have a right to pay for services if wait times in the public system are too long.

But Dr. Michael Rachlis, a public health physician and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health, says that for the most part the federal government has not gone after provinces or territories for contravening the ban on extra billing for medically necessary services.

"The way the act is enforced — it's not like there's federal inspectors," he said. "The provinces are asked to investigate themselves. There is no real enforcement mechanism."

Rachlis says he also believes that there are lots of private clinics across Canada charging for medicare-covered services or up-selling services, citing a Globe and Mail 2017 investigation and work done by the Ontario Health Coalition.

"And the feds aren't doing anything."

Science of sediment transport key to river conservation & protection: Researchers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have devised a better way to measure how fast sediment flows in rivers—information that can help scientists and planners better prepare for flooding and weather-related events, understand salmon activity and even restore rivers.

Their solution, outlined in a new paper in Nature, all boils down to the shape and particular features of a sediment grain.

“Sediment transport controls the morphology of the Earth's surface—that includes the physical environments of all ecosystems, the beds of rivers and the ocean, and even terrestrial environments,” says SFU professor Jeremy Venditti, founding director of the School of Environmental Science, whose team carried out the study’s research activities in SFU’s River Dynamics Lab.

“Despite this, accurately predicting sediment transport remains a stubbornly difficult problem. Our work examines the granular dynamics of sediment transported by fluid flows, and shows that grain shape plays an important role in sediment transport rates. The model we developed substantially improves our ability to predict sediment transport.”

Bed load sediment transport involves wind or water flowing over a bed of sediment, causing grains to “roll or hop” along the bed. The researchers say sediment is critically important to the life cycle of rivers and understanding its movement has been “notoriously imprecise.”

Researchers decided to look beyond size and density and focused on two particular properties connected to a grain’s shape – its resistance to flow, or its drag, and its internal friction, which plays a part in its ability to slip past other grains.

Both factor into a new mathematical formula which provided predictions that were successfully matched during a series of flume experiments in the SFU lab. 

During the experiments a current of water was pumped into a small wooden flume to flow over a bed of sediment with various grain shapes, from round glass beads and chips, rectangular prisms and natural gravel. Measurements of sediment transport, drag, and internal friction of the bed were recorded.

In their paper, the research team notes: "Sediment transport is a part of life on Earth's surface, from the impact of storms on beaches to the gravel nests in mountain streams where salmon lay their eggs. Damming and sea level rise have already impacted many such terrains and pose ongoing threats. A good understanding of bed load transport is crucial to our ability to maintain these landscapes or restore them to their natural states."

Venditti has been leading research into the 2018 Big Bar Landslide that prevented salmon from getting to their Fraser River spawning grounds, to map its effects and mitigate future risks.

---

JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-022-05564-6 

ARTICLE TITLE

Grain shape effects in bed load sediment transport

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2023

New discovery of sunscreen-like chemicals in fossil plants reveals UV radiation played a part in mass extinction events

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

 

IMAGE: ALISPORITES TENUICORPUS THE POLLEN GRAIN USED IN THIS WORK. NOTE A HUMAN HAIR IS APPROXIMATELY 70M SO THE SAMPLES ANALYSED ARE ABOUT HALF THE WIDTH OF A HUMAN HAIR. view more 

CREDIT: PROF LIU FENG FROM NANJING INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY

New research has uncovered that pollen preserved in 250 million year old rocks contain compounds that function like sunscreen, these are produced by plants to protect them from harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation. The findings suggests that a pulse of UV-B played an important part in the end Permian mass extinction event.

Scientists from the University of Nottingham, China, Germany and the UK led by Professor Liu Feng from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology have developed a new method to detect plant’s sunscreen-like compounds in fossil pollen grains. The research has been published today in Science Advances.

The end-Permian mass extinction event (250 million years ago) is the most severe of the big five mass extinction events with the loss of ~80% of marine and terrestrial species. This catastrophic loss of biodiversity was a response to a palaeoclimate emergency triggered by the emplacement of a continental-scale volcanic eruption that covers much of modern-day Siberia. The volcanic activity drove the release of massive amounts of carbon that had been locked up in Earth’s interior into the atmosphere, generating large-scale greenhouse warming. Accompanying this global warming event was a collapse in the Earth’s ozone layer. Support for this theory comes from the abundant occurrence of malformed spores and pollen grains that testify to an influx of mutagenic UV irradiation.

Professor Barry Lomax from the University of Nottingham explains “Plants require sunlight for photosynthesis but need to protect themselves and particularly their pollen against the harmful effects of UV-B radiation. To do so, plants load the outer walls of pollen grains with compounds that function like sunscreen to protect the vulnerable cells to ensure successful reproduction.” 

Professor Liu Feng adds: “We have developed a method to detect these phenolic compounds in fossil pollen grains recovered from Tibet, and detected much higher concentrations in those grains that were produced during the mass extinction and peak phase of volcanic activity.”

Elevated UV-B levels can have even further-reaching and longer-lasting impacts on the entire Earth System. Recent modelling studies have demonstrated that elevated UV-B stress reduces plant biomass and terrestrial carbon storage, which would exacerbate global warming. The increased concentration of phenolic compounds also makes plant tissue less easily digestible, making a hostile environment even more challenging for herbivores.

Summarising the groups findings Dr Wes Fraser based at Oxford Brookes University commented: “Volcanism on such a cataclysmic scale impacts on all aspects of the Earth system, from direct chemical changes in the atmosphere, through changes in carbon sequestration rates, to reducing volume of nutritious food sources available for animals.”

  

Photograph of the field area the fossil samples come from.

CREDIT

Prof Liu Feng from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology

JOURNAL

Science Advances

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Dying in the Sun: direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at 2 the end-Permian mass extinction

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Jan-2023

Fossil pollen 'sunscreen' proves role of ozone depletion in largest mass extinction

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

 

IMAGE: THE IMPACTS OF OZONE DEPLETION AND ELEVATED UV-B LEVELS ON THE TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEM view more 

CREDIT: CONOR HAYNES-MANNERING, UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

Scientists from China, Germany and the UK led by Prof. LIU Feng from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) have revealed that pollen preserved in 250-million-year-old rocks contains abundant compounds that function like sunscreen but are produced by plants to protect themselves from harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation.

The presence of these compounds suggests that a pulse of UV-B played an essential role in the end-Permian mass extinction event.

The study was published in Science Advances on Jan. 6.

The end-Permian mass extinction event (250 million years ago) is the most severe of the big five mass extinction events, with the loss of ~80% of marine and terrestrial species. This catastrophic loss of biodiversity resulted from a palaeoclimate emergency triggered by continental-scale volcanism that covers much of modern-day Siberia. The volcanic activity drove the release into the atmosphere of massive amounts of carbon that had been locked up in Earth's interior, thus generating large-scale greenhouse warming.

Accompanying this global warming event was a collapse of the Earth's ozone layer. Support for this theory comes from the abundant occurrence of malformed spores and pollen grains that testify to an influx of mutagenic UV irradiation.

Plants require sunlight for photosynthesis but need to protect themselves and particularly their pollen from the harmful effects of UV-B radiation. "To do so, plants load the outer walls of pollen grains with compounds that function like sunscreen to protect vulnerable cells to ensure successful reproduction. Without the 'sunscreen' compounds, forests could have been sterilized, leading to the collapse of the terrestrial ecosystem," said Prof. Barry Lomax from the University of Nottingham.

"We have developed a method to detect these phenolic compounds in fossil pollen grains (Alisporites-type) recovered from southern Tibet and detected much higher concentrations in those grains that were produced during the end-Permian mass extinction and peak phase of volcanic activity," said Prof. LIU.

The researchers found an increase in UV-B-absorbing compounds (UACs) that coincided with a spike in mercury concentration and a decrease in carbon isotopes in the latest Permian deposits, suggesting a close temporal link between large-scale volcanic eruptions, global carbon- and mercury-cycle perturbations, and ozone-layer disruption.

Elevated UV-B levels exerted far-reaching and long-lasting impacts on the entire Earth system. Recent modelling studies have demonstrated that elevated UV-B stress reduced plant biomass and terrestrial carbon storage, thus exacerbating global warming.

In addition, increased concentration of phenolic compounds also makes plant tissue less easily digestible, making a hostile environment even more challenging for herbivores.

"Volcanism on such a cataclysmic scale influences all aspects of the Earth system, from direct chemical changes in the atmosphere, through changes in carbon sequestration rates, to reducing the volume of nutritious food sources available for animals," said Dr. Wes Fraser from Oxford Brookes University.

---

JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abo6102 

ARTICLE TITLE

Dying in the Sun: direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Jan-2023

Indigenous conservation funding must reflect Canada’s true debt to First Nations, Inuit and Métis

Story by Zoe Todd, Associate Professor, Department of Indigenous Studies, Simon Fraser University • Yesterday 


The United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) wrapped up in Montréal on Sunday. The ratification of the so-called 30x30 proposal to protect 30 per cent of the Earth’s territories by 2030 was a central focus during the 12 days of negotiations at the international summit.


Protesters interrupt a speech by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — demanding that the government stop invading Indigenous land — during the opening ceremony of COP15, the UN conference on biodiversity, in Montréal, on Dec. 6, 2022.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Canada is an enthusiastic supporter of the global 30x30 plan, which is championed by a host of nations and international environmental NGOs like The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund.

However, in order to achieve its national targets, Canada is relying heavily on Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) — all under the guise of “federally-supported Indigenous-led conservation”.

As a Red River Métis person and a researcher on freshwater fish futures and Indigenous sovereignty, I believe that these top-down targets and public-private partnerships could do more harm than good to First Nations, Inuit and Métis here, who deserve honest and true recognition of our sovereignty across Canada.

Funding with strings attached

In a report titled We Rise Together, the Indigenous Circle of Experts define IPCAs as “lands and waters where Indigenous governments have the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems through Indigenous laws, governance and knowledge systems.”

According to the report, IPCAs can be governed under a spectrum of approaches ranging from one that fully affirms the sovereignty of First Nations, Inuit and Métis as sole rights-holders of a territory to so-called partnership approaches that include hybrid, crown-Indigenous or industry-Indigenous partnerships.

At COP15, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $800 million in funding for four Indigenous-led conservation projects over seven years to signal Canada’s commitment to Indigenous-led conservation. This is in addition to $340 million in funding for Indigenous-led conservation announced in 2021.

This federally sanctioned Indigenous-led conservation work — championed to help Canada meet its 30x30 targets — relies heavily on partnerships between Indigenous nations, industry and environmental NGOs.



Behind the scenes

Canada’s combined funding of $1.14 billion for Indigenous-led conservation — and its vocal support of the 30x30 plan — seems progressive, until we look at the federal government’s other investments.

The federal government has simultaneously invested billions in resource extractive industries in Canada, including the $4.5 billion spent to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018.

Internationally, $188 billion of Canada’s $273 billion in mining assets support extensive resource extraction abroad, including mining in Indigenous lands in the Global South.

Canada also works closely with industry to criminalize Indigenous land defenders who are fighting resource extractive projects across the country.

The Cash Back report published by the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led research and education centre, revealed Alberta’s $200 billion debt to the First Nations in the province. This shows that the federal and provincial debt owed to First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Canada far outpaces the pittance offered to support their land protection and to remunerate Indigenous land protectors.

Conservation at a cost

Canada’s heavy reliance on officially-supported Indigenous-led conservation to meet its targets further complicates things as these targets could significantly impact human rights.



Some of the world’s most marginalized communities, including Indigenous and local communities in Africa and Asia, face threats of dispossession, lack of access to their rightful natural resources and further impoverishment.

Canada’s reliance on IPCAs to meet its 30 per cent targets, could risk aiding land grabs and human rights violations in the Global South.

On the eve of COP15, a consortium of non-governmental organizations representing Indigenous Peoples in the Global South issued a damning plea about the 30x30 plan, urging policymakers not to fetishize a quantified protected area approach. They pointed out that this would come at the cost of addressing the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss, including colonial capitalist extraction and overconsumption.

Tackling the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss

IPCAs in Canada are a potential antidote to the traditional fortress conservation or protected area model employed by eurocolonial parties here in the past. According to these models, biodiversity protection can be achieved only by creating protected areas where ecosystems can function in isolation from human disturbance, thus resulting in the eviction of forest-dwelling communities and Indigenous Peoples.

This being said, we must ensure that these IPCAs are not weaponized by states and environmental groups to silence the concerns about the 30x30 plan from Indigenous communities in the Global South who are not necessarily guaranteed the same legal protections that the federally-supported Indigenous-led conservation in Canada pledges.

At a time when public-private partnerships are facing scathing scrutiny in Canada and internationally, the conservation approaches and policies offered to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities by the government also need to be scrutinized.

These approaches and policies should fully acknowledge the sovereignty of Indigenous communities without pressure to exchange autonomy for limited funding and partnership support.

Canada is built on lands and waters procured through dispossession and displacement of First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The government must, therefore, compensate our communities for the losses incurred across every stretch of this country.

We deserve better than 30x30. We deserve our land back. We deserve honest and true recognition of First Nations, Inuit and Métis sovereignty across Canada.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Views from COP27: How the climate conference could confront colonialism by centring Indigenous rights

COP15’s Global Biodiversity Framework must advance Indigenous-led conservation to halt biodiversity loss by 2030

 

Canadians are waiting longer than ever for medical treatments, data reveals

Yahoo Canada
December 9, 2022

A nurse tends to a patient in the Intensive Care Unit at the Bluewater Health Hospital in Sarnia, Ont., on Tuesday, January 25, 2022. Personal support workers in Ontario hospitals were promised last spring that a wage increase introduced during the pandemic would remain permanently on their paychecks. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young (The Canadian Press)

An annual survey of physicians reveals that Canadians have waited longer than ever before for medical treatment this year.

A study from the Fraser Institute, with data collected between Jan. 10 to Sept. 15, 2022, from 855 respondents across 12 medical specialties, found that the median wait time for medical procedures was 27.4 weeks, the longest ever recorded.

Ontario had the shortest wait time at 20.3 weeks while Prince Edward Island had the longest wait time in Canada at 64.7 weeks.

“Excessively long wait times remain a defining characteristic of Canada’s health-care system,” a statement from Mackenzie Moir, Fraser Institute policy analyst and co-author of the report reads.

“They aren’t simply minor inconveniences, they can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, a decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death.”

It's estimated that across the 10 provinces the total number of procedures people are waiting for in 2022 is 1,228,047.

"This means that, assuming that each person waits for only one procedure, 3.2 per cent of Canadians are waiting for treatment in 2022," the report states. "Physicians report that only about 11.03 per cent of their patients are on a waiting list because they requested a delay or postponement."

October data released by Health Quality Ontario (HQO) on Thursday reveals that patients spend an average of 2.2 hours waiting for their first assessment by a physician in provincial emergency departments.

For patients with a low-urgency medical condition, 72 per cent finish their emergency visit within the target time of four hours. For high-urgency patients, 88 per cent finish their emergency visit within the target time of eight hours.

MINING IS NOT GREEN

Canada’s mining minister wants minerals projects built within a decade
Bloomberg News | December 12, 2022 | 

Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson.

(Image courtesy of Province of British Columbia.)

Canada’s mining minister wants critical minerals projects built in less than a decade — spurred on by government efforts to cut red tape.


“We need to get to the point where we can get these mines from concept to production certainly within a decade, and ideally less than that,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a Monday phone interview.

Wilkinson’s comments come days after his ministry published a critical minerals strategy that pledged to review Canada’s approval process for developing mines. Government estimates show it can take up to 25 years for a mining project to become operational. Wilkinson said he expects policy recommendations on streamlining processes within the next 12 months.

The time it takes to build a mine has been a source of concern for mining companies worldwide, given that lengthy approval processes pose investment risks and heightened costs, and is top of mind for many mining CEOs. The head of Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd., for instance, said last week that the Canadian government could help the industry with an approval process that ensures projects get done in a timely fashion.

“If we are going to bring supply online at the pace that the world needs to electrify, we need to shorten those timelines,” Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Price said in a Thursday interview. “Getting the approvals pathway right is very important, but we have to look for opportunities to accelerate so we can bring new production to market more quickly.”

(By Jacob Lorinc)

Western countries forge green alliance for getting electric vehicle minerals

Reuters | December 12, 2022 | 

The founding members of the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance. Credit: Jonathan Wilkinson’s official Twitter page

The United States and other western countries on Monday announced an alliance to produce and buy critical minerals from countries with stronger environmental and labor standards, a move that could reduce business with market leader China.


Announced at the COP15 talks on biodiversity in Montreal, the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance would support these standards for elements like lithium, cobalt and nickel, Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said.

“Unless China and Russia are willing to put in place … measures required to be able to legitimately say that they are supporting these kinds of standards then it would essentially mean … we will be buying alternatives as we can,” Wilkinson said in an interview.

Wilkinson acknowledged that the voluntary alliance of the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom would not shun China which dominates the market for the minerals used in EV batteries.

“Obviously right now there are some critical minerals that are processed in large measure in China so this will be something that will need to happen over time,” he said.

Western countries have been trying to wean themselves from dependence on authoritarian regimes for strategically important materials. Canada last week unveiled a strategy to ramp up production and processing of critical minerals. In June, the United States and allies set up a partnership aimed at securing supplies.

China said it has taken steps to curb pollution in its mining sector, but has faced criticism.

Mining, along with other sectors are under scrutiny at the Montreal talks due to their impact on nature.

“China is actually free to up its game with respect to environmental standards and with respect to labor standards and eventually join the alliance,” Wilkinson said. “But it would have to make those kinds of changes.”

A strategist from environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the alliance’s support for higher environmental, indigenous rights and labor standards but questioned how it would be enforced.

“Will there be teeth to that? For the moment it’s more like a memorandum,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist, Greenpeace Canada.

(By Allison Lampert; Editing by David Gregorio)

Canada has dozens of critical minerals. Here are the key ones and how they are used

By Sean Boynton Global News
Posted December 10, 2022 

WATCH: Canada eyes 'generational opportunity' with new critical minerals strategy

Canada’s new billion-dollar plan to boost its critical minerals sector will focus on six particular materials that are crucial components of electric vehicles, clean energy technologies and more.

While the strategy unveiled Friday lists 31 minerals it classified as “critical,” the six that are under the spotlight — lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements — hold “the most significant potential for Canadian economic growth,” according to the federal government.

READ MORE: Canada unveils new critical minerals strategy eyeing ‘generational opportunity’

Those mining sectors will also be the initial focus of the nearly $4 billion in federal investments under the new plan.

Here’s a closer look at those materials, what they’re used for, and where Canada currently stands with each of them.

Lithium

Lithium is currently one of the most sought-after materials in the world. Not only is it a key component in rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, smartphones and computers, it is also contained in metal alloys used in military armour, aircraft, and train components, as well as hydrogen fuel storage containers.

But its use in batteries makes lithium a key mineral for the global clean energy transition.

4:56 Canada eyes ‘generational opportunity’ with new critical minerals strategy

Although Canada does not produce lithium, it has “large hard rock spodumene deposits and brine-based lithium resources,” from which lithium can be extracted. The new strategy seeks to introduce domestic production facilities that take advantage of those resources.

Canada’s lithium reserves were the sixth-largest in the world as of 2020, but they only account for 2.5 per cent of the global supply. Australia and Chile lead the world in both reserves and production.

“We shouldn’t get too excited that we’re going to be one of the big producers around the world when it comes to mining,” said Jack Mintz, who heads the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

“Hopefully we’ll have enough production that will just satisfy our own needs, but we’re certainly not a big producer by any means compared to other countries like Australia.”

The strategy identifies other ways to extract lithium, including through recycling of lithium-ion batteries via domestic recycling facilities.

READ MORE: Canadian critical minerals will be ‘key’ amid pivot away from China, Russia: minister

Graphite

Graphite is found in rechargeable battery anodes as well as electric vehicle fuel cells and vehicle brake linings. It is also used in electrical motor components and frictionless materials — key components of wind turbines and other clean technologies.

Canada is among the top global producers of graphite, with several mines in Quebec and Ontario either running, newly approved or under environmental assessment. The Black Crystal Quarry and Plant in British Columbia also mines graphite.

Nickel

Another rechargeable battery component, nickel can also be found in solar panels as well as aerospace and military aircraft.

Canada has nickel production facilities in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, making the country one of the leading global producers and suppliers. The country is home to nearly 3 million tonnes of nickel reserves.

2:07 Wilkinson comments on critical minerals strategy and foreign investment

Cobalt

Cobalt is primarily found in battery electrodes but is additionally used in turbine engine components, vehicle airbags and magnets. Along with lithium, graphite and nickel, cobalt is among the four main minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries.

The mineral is actually mainly produced as a by-product of nickel mining in Canada, but new projects seek to change that and ramp up production, including a primary cobalt mine in the Northwest Territories and North America’s first cobalt refinery in northern Ontario.

Canada is already a top-five cobalt producer globally, according to the government.

1:03 Canada can contribute global minerals, metals, energy in place of Russia, China: Freeland

Copper

A key wiring material, copper is essential for powering buildings, vehicles, telecommunications and other electrical components. It’s also used in solar panel cells and electric vehicles.

Copper is produced in provinces across the country, unlike many other critical minerals that are primarily found in Quebec and Ontario. Canada is a leading global producer, accounting for nearly three per cent of all copper production in 2020.

Rare earth elements

A group of 15 elements known as lanthanides, rare earth elements are found in some of the most widely-used electronics in modern society, including touch screens, televisions, LED lights and speakers. They are also a key component of permanent magnets, including those used in electric vehicle motors and wind turbines.

Canada has some of the largest known reserves and resources rare earth elements in the world, according to the government, estimated at over 14 million tonnes as of 2021.

In addition to boosting production, the new strategy is also eyeing the potential to extract rare earth elements from recycled magnets.

READ MORE: Trudeau sees ‘real opportunity’ for collaboration with U.S. on electric vehicles, critical minerals

What other minerals are important?

Although these six minerals will be focused on first, the strategy also mentions a series of other materials that “present notable prospects for the future.”

Those minerals — including vanadium, gallium, titanium, scandium, magnesium, tellurium, sinx, niobium and germanium — can all be found in various clean technologies and other modern equipment. Potash, uranium and aluminum are also highlighted.

The government says the list of 31 minerals will be reviewed and updated every few years.

— With files from Global News’ Saba Aziz and Bryan Mullan

Supreme Court admissions case could upend environmental justice laws

by Alex Brown

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

In recent years, more states have crafted environmental justice policies to help communities of color plagued by polluted air and water, poor health outcomes and limited access to green space.

But now they fear that work could be upended by a pair of pending U.S. Supreme Court cases examining affirmative action admissions policies at universities. If the court strikes down affirmative action, many state lawmakers believe, the ruling could open legal challenges to "race-conscious" laws that seek to help marginalized communities.

"State laws are very explicitly self-aware in acknowledging the past explicit racism that underlies the environmental injustice that we continue to see," said Emily Hammond, an environmental law expert and professor at the George Washington University Law School. "That's heartening, but it's worrisome to see those on a crash course with a different policy agenda to make race neutrality the explicit law of the land."

State lawmakers who have backed such measures say they're carefully watching the Supreme Court cases, and many Democrats worry they'll have to revise a whole slew of state laws to help them survive legal challenges. There's not yet a clear consensus on whether the environmental justice proposals that legislators will consider in their 2023 sessions should be written to exclude race.

"Do I think our environmental justice law hangs in the balance? I do," said New Jersey state Sen. Troy Singleton, a Democrat. "This could have a seismic impact on how public policy is crafted. I would be naive to tell you I'm not concerned about it."

Singleton was among the sponsors of a law, passed in 2020, that requires New Jersey state regulators to consider the environmental and public health effects of facilities proposed in overburdened communities. Among the qualifiers for the "overburdened" label are communities with 40% of residents who are racial minorities or tribal members.

Republicans have largely opposed efforts to address environmental issues through the lens of race, with many characterizing systemic racism as a thing of the past.

"It's just a dangerous trajectory for us to continue to force this conspiracy of racism on all of these decisions," U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, a Louisiana Republican, said last year during a hearing on a federal environmental justice bill, E&E News reported.

Environmental justice advocates note that communities of color face numerous health disparities and outsize exposure to pollution, because of the racist legacy of practices such as housing segregation and the siting of highways, industrial facilities and waste dumps. They've pushed state lawmakers to address those imbalances with investments in air quality monitoring, permitting safeguards, regulatory changes and funding to prepare for the effects of climate change.

Many of those policies, which have passed largely in Democratic-led states in recent years, target such efforts at communities with large minority populations or tribal membership, among other factors such as income and health disparities.

"If you look at which communities are getting dumped on, getting the greatest share of pollution impacts, race is the most potent predictor," said Robert Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University who has been dubbed the father of the environmental justice movement. "If somehow you don't take race into account, you are not creating a tool that can get at the heart of the problem."

Legal challenge

The Supreme Court is expected to rule next year on a pair of cases questioning admissions policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Opponents of the policies argue that race-conscious admissions violate the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Supporters of affirmative action counter that the 14th Amendment was crafted to secure equality for victims of discrimination, noting that the same Congress that drafted the amendment passed its own race-conscious legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration released its Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool to steer federal funding to disadvantaged communities. The tool's 21 indicators notably omit race, Grist reported, a calculation that seeks to protect the effort from legal challenges.

Administration officials argued that the factors it included would still send money to communities of color without explicitly naming them. Grist's analysis confirmed that, noting that "many of the criteria that the tool uses—proximity to hazardous facilities, linguistic isolation, and proximity to traffic, among others—are effectively functioning as proxies for race."

A similar approach has been taken in California, which is bound by a 1996 ballot measure that bans affirmative action and considerations of race in public employment and contracting. The state requires that 35% of the revenue raised under its cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases be reinvested into disadvantaged communities, but does not use race in its methodology to identify those communities.

The ballot measure did not explicitly outlaw race considerations in environmental law, said Alvaro Sanchez, vice president of policy at the Greenlining Institute, an inequality-focused nonprofit, but the "shadow" of a potential lawsuit caused its omission. He said the state's screening tool has largely been able to steer funding to communities of color.

Lawmakers prepare

In other states, Democratic lawmakers said they intend to defend the legality of the environmental justice laws they've passed. But some also plan to begin working on alternative wording if race-conscious language becomes unviable.

"Proxies may be the only approach, because it's dead on arrival otherwise," said Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, a Democrat. "It's infuriating, because there should be no dispute that racism is at the heart of this inequality. When you look at where investment and divestment happens, it's overwhelmingly along racial lines."

Pennsylvania Democrats will take a narrow majority in the state House next session, but with Republicans holding the Senate, it will be an uphill battle to pass environmental justice legislation, Rabb said. Still, he pointed to proposals, such as a bill to require environmental impact assessments for facility permits in burdened areas, that may stand to get more consideration in the House.

Washington state lawmakers passed a pair of laws last year that require state agencies to factor environmental justice into their strategic plans and set up an air monitoring network in overburdened communities. The state's new cap-and-invest program for carbon emissions requires that 35% of revenue be directed to projects in overburdened communities, and 10% of projects must have tribal support.

Democratic state Rep. Debra Lekanoff, a member of the Tlingit tribe and a key backer of the state's environmental justice efforts, said the Supreme Court cases could threaten a broad swath of state laws, as well as tribal sovereignty.

"It just affects every policy across the state that we've developed that targets those who are in critical areas," she said. "We think it's scary for the state of Washington. There will be a heavy lift of going through all of these policies and making proxies to ensure that these laws can still move forward, but if this goes a bad way, that is a step we'll have to work on."

In Maryland, Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, a Democrat who serves on the Environment and Transportation Committee, is working on legislation related to air quality monitoring, electric school buses and equitable access to electric vehicles. The pending court decision could affect how those bills are written.

"The last thing you want to do on the state level is pass a bill and have it declared unconstitutional," he said. "From the drafting perspective, you're going to have to very closely define economically challenged as opposed to losing X number of years going through the process and then starting all over again."

Some lawmakers remain hopeful that their policies will hold up.

"I'd like to think that we're going to be OK, but I can't really say," said Maine state Rep. Vicki Doudera, a Democrat and member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee. Doudera helped pass a bill earlier this year that requires state regulators to incorporate equity considerations into their decisions, and to define "environmental justice populations" with factors that include race and ethnicity.

In North Carolina, state Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat who serves as vice chair on the House Environment Committee, plans to propose legislation that would require state regulators to analyze whether permits related to solid waste, air emissions, water quality and animal waste would have a disproportionate impact on communities of color and low-income communities. While the bill is unlikely to earn support from the Republicans who control the statehouse, Harrison said the bill still will be written with the legal threats in mind.

"If the Supreme Court undermines the ability to take race considerations into account when engaged in government action, that's a real problem," she said. "We'll make sure to put protections in place in case the court does something."

Looking ahead

As states begin their 2023 legislative sessions, policy trackers again expect environmental justice proposals to be a major area of focus. Some legal experts think lawmakers should craft those bills with an eye toward potential court challenges.

"The United States Supreme Court has steadily, over decades, limited government power to define harms in race-conscious ways and remediate them in race-conscious ways," said Toni Massaro, constitutional law professor at the University of Arizona. "The legally safest path for states today is to craft laws that redress environmental harms without using race or even tribal status per se."

But Bullard, the environmental justice icon, called on states to redress environmental racism explicitly until a court rules otherwise. And he expressed hope that states would carry on the work even if a ruling went against them.

"I applaud those states that have stepped up to really capture what's happening on the ground," he said. "I'm hoping they will be adaptive and creative and try to get at these problems in some way and not just throw it out the window."

2022 The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Sean Fraser: 'Unacceptable' that immigrant surgeons are working as taxi drivers

Story by Naimul Karim •  Financial Post

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser says Canada’s new immigration plan aims to accept in a record 1.45 million newcomers in the next three years.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said changes to Canada’s immigration program next year will rebalance the world’s “most powerful economic migration system” in a way that will help hospitals, builders and other employers address chronic labour shortages, as opposed to focusing mainly on “highly skilled workers.”

Fraser revealed that he plans to introduce new selection tools earlier this month while unveiling Canada’s new immigration plan , under which the government aims to accept in a record 1.45 million newcomers in the next three years. This is linked to a change in rules made under the express entry system through the Budget Implementation Act that was adopted in the House of Commons in June.

“This is a completely different approach than what has been the case historically, which simply did a draw for the highest scoring people in the system regardless of which sector they were going to work in or which region they are destined to,” Fraser said in an interview on Nov. 23.

The new selection tools will allow Fraser and future ministers to select immigrants to fill job gaps in specific industries and regions. By way of example, Fraser said he can now sift through applications to address New Brunswick’s shortfall of French language educators, Nova Scotia’s chronic lack of nurses, or Ontario’s constant struggle to find enough carpenters.

Economists and business associations mostly lauded Ottawa’s pledge to use immigration to address the labour crisis, as employers went into the summer with a record one million job vacancies, according to Statistics Canada.

Tiff Macklem, the Bank of Canada governor, said earlier this month that if Canada’a labour pool was larger, he probably wouldn’t have needed to raise interest rates as aggressively as he has this year to contain inflation. That’s because the shortage puts upward pressure on wages and hinders the ability of companies to keep up with demand.

The issue is bigger than volume. While technology companies are generally complimentary of Ottawa’s immigration efforts, other industries complain that the government became too enamoured with recruiting coders and software engineers. At the same time, non-tech immigrants who make it to Canada struggle to have their skills recognized by various professional associations, which hurts productivity because workers are blocked from meeting their full potential.

Fraser vowed to resolve both problems.

“The idea that we have neuro and dental surgeons who are working as taxi drivers … is unacceptable,” the minister said. “It’s really frustrating for me when I meet talented people who have arrived in Canada but are not able to contribute at their full potential.”

One of the professions most in need of workers is home builders, which according to BuildForce Canada , a national organization representing all sectors of the construction industry, are in high demand. The Ontario government last month said the province will need about 100,000 more construction workers this decade to meet its goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031.

An argument against elevated immigration levels is the strain an influx of people could put on cities that are already short of housing stock. Critics argue that increased targets should align with infrastructure plans to ensure that the necessary services are in place to welcome everyone.

Fraser makes the point that by recruiting more construction workers, he can help accelerate the building of more homes, describing the labour shortage in the trades as “greatest bottleneck” to more supply.


A new Canadian attends a citizenship ceremony in Vancouver. New selection tools will allow Canadian officials to select immigrants to fill job gaps in specific industries and regions.© Darryl Dyck

When asked about specific plans on the roadmap that links immigration to Canada’s housing growth in the near future, the minister said that would be revealed by the housing ministry and that he didn’t want to “broadcast decisions” that the government hasn’t formally disclosed as yet.

There’s a risk that worries about whether communities can handle a sharp increase in newcomers will test favourable attitudes about immigration. A survey conducted by researchers Leger and the Association of Canadian Studies on 1,537 Canadians two weeks after the release of the government’s immigration plan said about 75 per cent were either somewhat or very concerned about the impact of the increased targets on the housing sector, which saw a steep rise in prices in the last three years, and social services.

A poll conducted by Environics Institute for Survey Research prior to the release of the new immigration plan, however, said that 85 per cent of its respondents felt that welcoming newcomers would lead to economic benefit, which is the highest number recorded by the group in 30 years.

Fraser, who has seen schools and mental health units close down in his home province of Nova Scotia due to depopulation, said he believes that most Canadians support immigration.

“I have seen a number of different polls that indicate a variety of different outcomes,” Fraser said. “Despite the fact that we need to continue to watch closely things like housing and the capacity of our … public services, we also need to be live to the fact that there are very real and severe economic and demographic consequences to not continuing to grow our population.”

Fraser added that aside from the housing and healthcare industries, technology firms were also “singing the same song” of needing more labour. “There is not a tech company that is positioned for growth in this country that I have spoken to, who has access to all of the talent that they need to grow,” said Fraser.

Aside from tackling labour shortage the minister pointed out that there are just three workers for every retiree today, compared seven about 50 years ago, a number that’s likely to decline if Canada doesn’t pursue growth through immigration.

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To be sure, that argument is contested by some economists, including Mikal Skuterud, a professor at the University of Waterloo, who said the number of retirements impacting the labour pools has been “overplayed” and that the impact of aging was more of a trend line that led to tighter market conditions rather than a sudden glut of grey-haired workers leaving the workforce in droves. According to Skuterud, immigration is an effective way to dampen the nominal wage growth to keep the wage pace from accelerating too quickly and triggering a wage-price spiral.

Fraser, though, said that at a macro level across the economy, there’s an urgent need to embrace immigration. “T he cost of choosing not to fill those vacancies is enormous to the Canadian economy,” he said.

• Email: nkarim@postmedia.com | Twitter: naimonthefield