‘In Search of the Great Beast 666’ 

‘In Search of the Great Beast 666’ evokes the chilling life and journey of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), one of the most controversial and mysterious characters of the 20th Century and known to the press as ‘The Wickedest Man in the World’.

Voiced by acting legend Joss Ackland (Watership Down, Lethal Weapon 2, White Mischief & The Hunt For The Red October), this vivid portrayal unearths the barely believable and shocking facts surrounding this infamous Occultist, Spy, Poet, Dark Magician, Hedonist, Writer and accomplished Mountaineer.  Was he related to US President George Bush? How was he connected to Scientology, NASA, Jack the Ripper, Winston Churchill, and Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond)? How did this man come to know so many remarkable people and why did he become the subject of fascination for generations of world-class musical icons?

Through dramatically reconstructed period scenes, this biographical film explores the boundaries of a man who is not only said to have inspired the free-love movement but, through his literature, is notorious for replacing the Ten Commandments with just one “do what thou will"

SOUNDTRACK BY RICK WAKEMAN 

DOWNLOAD OR VIEW ONLINE

“Captain Burton's Oriental Muck Heap”: 

The Book of the Thousand Nights 

and the Uses of Orientalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Dane Kennedy
  

Extract

In the final decade of his remarkable life, the Victorian explorer and linguist Richard Francis Burton made a daring bid to provoke a confrontation with those forces in British society that he identified with moral intolerance and intellectual pedantry. Unlikely though it might seem, the instrument of this provocation was a work widely regarded as children's literature—the tales of the Arabian Nights. In 1885–86, Burton published a ten-volume translation of the tales, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, followed in 1886–88 by an additional six-volume Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. The mammoth scale of the endeavor was matched by its audacity. Burton not only offered an English reading public the first frank and unexpurgated translation of the tales themselves; he also peppered the text with footnotes about esoteric aspects of Islamic culture, especially sexual customs, and closed the tenth volume with a “Terminal Essay” that included a lengthy discourse on pederasty. This quixotic enterprise thrust Burton into the middle of an intersecting network of debates about sexuality and purity, state regulation and personal freedom, the Occident and the Orient. To examine the intentions that motivated Burton's translation of the Nights and the reception it received is to explore some of the crucial elements of the late Victorian crisis of identity.

While the crumbling of a Victorian cultural consensus has long been a matter of interest, only recently has attention turned to the role that non-Western influences played in this process.

---

Type

Research Article

Information

Journal of British Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , July 2000 , pp. 317 - 339

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/386222[Opens in a new window]

Copyright

Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2000

THE GRANDADDY OF THE SUV

This 1950 Ford Woodie 

Is a Barn Find Goodie


The Ford-powered wagon went from stalled Pro Street project to award-winning custom in 16 short years.

BY FAR, MY ALL TIME FAVORITE CAR

 

© Eric Geisert 001-1950-ford-woodie-tidwell

Before they became valued as cool restos and street rods, woodies were regarded as utilitarian workhorses, popular as shuttle vehicles for hotels or as sensible family cars. It was their practicality that made them popular with surfers—and their popularity with surfers that finally made them cool with everybody else.

That combination of practicality and coolness is the reason why Greg Tidwell of Modesto, California, bought and built this 1950 Ford woodie. His wife, Penni, was pregnant at the time, and Greg wanted a street rod to drive to car shows that was big enough to fit the family and all of the accompanying child gear like strollers. "I decided that a woodie would do the trick," he said. "It was also easier to convince my wife that we needed another street rod." As it turned out, the project took a little bit longer than anticipated and ended up a lot better than expected.


Bona Fide Barn Find

© Eric Geisert

Greg located and purchased a wagon that looked promising but turned out to be farther gone than it first appeared. Ron Wright, a woodie enthusiast and builder, and the owner of Campbell Ford Performance in Campbell, California, had been working on the car and found the right replacement down the road in Gilroy. The 1950 Ford had been sitting in a barn and from the looks of it and was being built as a Pro Street car before progress stalled. Most of the parts were missing, but a brand-new set of wood, carefully wrapped in shipping blankets, was stored near the car.




The car was purchased and delivered to Campbell Ford Performance, where it became the raw material for Tidwell's custom, with the first car retained for parts. The stock chassis was modified with a Fatman Fabrications Mustang II-style front clip, including tubular A-arms and dropped spindles, coilovers, and a 7/8-inch sway bar. The Ford 9-inch rear is suspended with tubular gas shocks and parallel leaf springs.

The overall theme is something along the lines of traditional with a twist and, to our eyes, Greg's wheel and tire choice is right on. Mike Stallings at Circle Racing Wheels came up with the custom design, brought to life by the 17x7 and 18x8 custom wheels. Bridgestone Ecopia tires measure 215/55R17 and 235/55R18. Baer brakes with 13-inch front discs and 12-inchers in the rear have no problem slowing things down.

The Perfect Paint

During his search for a wagon, Greg had met Terri Hollenbeck, whose husband, Darryl, is one of the best-known painters in the country. Darryl's talent has helped earn big awards for many hot rods, in addition to an America's Most Beautiful Roadster award for his own '32 Ford highboy.

At Vintage Color Studio, Hollenbeck's shop in Concord, California, Greg asked for a color that looked stock but a little different—something timeless that would stay in style. "Darryl sprayed out a sample of early Ferrari Burgundy, a rich British racing green, and a special blue that he'd come up with," Greg said. "I took the samples home with me and asked Penni and our son Wyatt to choose. They both agreed on the blue, although there is still disagreement as to who picked it first."








32 SLIDES © Eric Geisert


Ford in a Ford

Under the hood, that blue paint meets Blue Oval power in the form of a Ford 302 engine. A FAST fuel injection system and Inglese 8-stacks provide reliable, up-to-date performance with a retro-inspired appearance. An MSD ignition fires the mixture, with gases drawn out by custom headers and exhaust pipes, corked with Magnaflow mufflers. The Ford AOD transmission delivers torque to 3.73:1 gears in the Ford 9-inch.

South City, Here We Come

By the time the wagon was painted, Ron Wright had retired. Darryl recommended Bill Ganahl at South City Rod & Custom in Hayward, California, for continuing the work on the woodie. "I met with Bill and told him my vision for the car. He gave me a budget and a time line. I stuck to neither." Greg told us.

Ganahl and the fabricators at South City made exterior modifications that retained the classic look, but they also customized it and cleaned it up. They refined the hood trim and swapped the grille for a simpler 1949 version, frenched the headlights, modified the tailgate, and added 1951 quarter windows. Ganahl fabricated a pair of custom taillights, a scaled-down version of the originals, which were mounted on the rear sheetmetal, a change from the stock location on the tailgate.


Exotic Timber

© Eric Geisert

The wood that had come with the car was no longer up to the standards of the project and needed to be upgraded. A replacement set was built, but not to the expected quality. Ultimately, Rick Mack at Rick Mack Enterprises in Tacoma, Washington, came through with some outstanding exterior and interior wood. The exterior combines bird's-eye maple frames, with pommele sapele panels from Africa. The dark brown pommele sapele continues on the interior. The wood was varnished by Bob Johnson for a golden patina, then taken to Joe Compari at Compari Color for the final sanding of the varnish and a coat of PPG clear.

Interior Attention

With the wood finished and installed, the wagon was delivered to Plante Interior in Santa Rosa, California. Chris Plante built the custom seats, using a Glide Engineering split-back bench frame for the front, and upholstered them in beautiful double top-stitched leather. The upholstery is a similar in color to the pommele sapele wood and has the rugged but elegant look that Greg was after. Oatmeal-colored high-quality square weave carpet covers the floor. The instruments in the 1951 Ford dash have been converted to 12-volt and updated with modern movements. Leather pouches were added just rear of the doors. Those, along with a 12-volt plug and USB ports provide more of the practicality that Greg always wanted. A vintage heater box was added that houses vents for the Vintage Air A/C plus more USB ports. A Bluetooth Harmon Infinity Kappa 5 amplifier is located out of sight underneath the front seat, with JBL coaxial speakers installed in the rear seat. Back at South City Rod & Custom, Bill Ganahl added the finishing touches with some low-key chrome trim for the interior panels and a reproduction Ford Crestliner steering wheel mounted on an ididit tilt column.

About 16 years had passed between the day that Greg bought his work-in-progress woodie out of a barn in Gilroy and the day that his beautifully finished 1950 Ford wagon started grabbing up car show prizes, including Outstanding Custom awards at the Grand National Roadster Show and Sacramento Autorama, Builder's Choice at the Goodguys West Coast Nationals, and the Woodie Owners' Favorite trophy at the Woodies on the Wharf show in Santa Cruz. By then, practical considerations like space for a stroller were no longer a priority. If the street rod gene has been inherited by Greg's son Wyatt, the next practical consideration might be another set of keys.


10 Details That Got This 1950 Ford Woodie Into the Hot Rod Photo Studio

Custom Washington Blue-inspired paint
Beautiful exotic wood panels
Elegant heavy-duty leather upholstery
Frenched headlights
Custom wheels
Sanitary body lines
8-stack injected Ford engine
Ford Crestliner steering wheel
Vintage heater box
It's a woodie

 

Several little clear orbs called sea gooseberries were seen at Crystal Cove State Beach on Dec. 19, 2020, a rare sight off Southern California beaches. (Photo courtesy of Crystal Cove State Park) 

By LAYLAN CONNELLY | Southern California News Group

PUBLISHED: December 28, 2020

Rare sight: Tiny mysterious clear orbs wash up at California beaches (mercurynews.com)

SNOW ON THE BEACH IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

By LAYLAN CONNELLY | Southern California News Group
PUBLISHED: December 28, 2020 .

It’s not often the sandy beaches turn into a winter wonderland in Southern California.

A cold storm that blew through Sunday night and into early Monday morning brought a rare sight to South Bay beaches on Monday: hail that pelted down and created what looked like a blanket of snow on the sand.

Pono Barnes, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department Lifeguards, noticed the icy sand early morning in Manhattan Beach and El Segundo, taking images and posting them on social media.

Los Angeles County Fire Department, Lifeguard Division

16 hours ago

Snow Day at the Beach?! As a coastal storm moves through the Los Angeles area today, we have already begun seeing impacts at the beach. The overnight precipitation left us with a rare site of slush/hail on the beach. With precipitation we also see significant beach erosion happening as storm water from all over the county makes through storm drains onto the beach and into the ocean. With the storm water comes pollutants, debris, and trash that all adversely impact our beach ...

See More

“It wasn’t technically snow, but it’s snow to us at the beach,” he said.

It wasn’t the first time Southern California’s coastline has turned into a winter scene. Back in 2015, a cold winter storm in March blanked the sand in areas such as Huntington Beach and the South Bay with hail, which stuck around for hours, long enough that beachgoers made snowmen just steps away from the ocean.

By late Monday morning, the clouds were parting for blue skies and the “snow” on the sand quickly melted away.

 

Back on track: Sales of vinyl records hit levels not seen since heady days of Britpop

Tuesday 29 December 2020, 

Not just a Rumour: Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac has driven vinyl sales.Credit: PA

Vinyl sales grew to their highest level since the Britpop era this year, as consumers turned to the format during the coronavirus pandemic.

Some 4.8 million vinyl albums were purchased in the UK over the past 12 months, up nearly a tenth on sales in 2019, according to figures from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

This marks the 13th consecutive year of growth for the format since 2007.

Vinyl sales boom on back of surge in streaming

It is also the highest total since the early 90s, when bands such as Blur and Oasis dominated the charts.

Sales initially dipped during the first lockdown but by September had began showing positive year-to-date growth.

Campaigns such as LoveRecordStores, the postponed Record Store Day and National Album Day also helped rally sales for independent record shops and specialist chains.

The end-of-year figures, released by industry body BPI using Official Charts Company data, indicate vinyl albums now account for nearly one in five of all albums purchased (18%).

Back in the 90s, Blur featuring frontman Damon Albarn, shared a rivalry with Oasis.Credit: AP

The BPI expects to announce classic albums Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis and Back To Black by Amy Winehouse as among the year’s best-selling vinyl albums as part of its annual report.

It also projects that some 157,000 cassettes have been purchased in the past 12 months, double the total of the year before and the highest number since 2003, when 243,000 tapes were sold and Now 54 was the biggest seller on the format.

This would mark an eighth year of consecutive growth for the format, which has returned to fashion in recent years and is now available on many major label album releases as standard.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI, said: “In a year when all our lives have changed, music’s power to inspire has never been more evident. The immediacy and convenience of streaming make it the go-to audio format for most of our listening, but more and more fans choose to get closer to their favourite artists and albums on vinyl.

“It’s remarkable that LP and audio tape sales should have risen at all given the challenges we’ve all faced. The surge in sales despite retail closures demonstrates the timeless appeal of collectable physical formats alongside the seamless connectivity of streaming.”

The BPI will report its final music consumption figures on January 4 2021.

ONTARIO

Dividends still went out even after soldiers marched in to long-term care homes

© Provided by National Post A staff member escorts members of the Canadian Armed Forces in to a long term care home, in Pickering, Ont. on Saturday, April 25, 2020.

OTTAWA – In the spring, Sienna Senior living needed military support in two of its overwhelmed long-term care homes where COVID-19 was surging, but even though soldiers were marching in, the company still paid out $45 million to its shareholders.

Siena is a publicly traded company that runs dozens of long-term care homes and retirement residences in Ontario and British Columbia. During the spring, two of its homes required military support; Altamont Care Community where 53 people have died and Woodbridge Vista Care Community where 31 people died.

In a report that was made public in the spring , military officers detailed appalling conditions at Altamont, including patients receiving meals late and not receiving three meals a day. When the military first arrived, they reported, some residents had been bed bound for weeks. Staff were overworked and under-resourced with personal support workers expected to cover 30 to 40 patients each on evening shifts.

The military pegged the overall cost of its COVID operations at $418 million, but that includes support for the public health agency’s warehouses, as well as the deployment to dozens of long-term care homes, seven in Ontario and another 47 in Quebec.

According to a spokesperson, for the complete operation the forces called up 9,711 reservists, at a cost of $207.8 million. The military spent another $34.2 million on travel, medical equipment, PPE and training.

Some of the costs would have been paid regardless of the pandemic, like the salaries of military doctors and nurses. Some operations that had been planned were cancelled leading to savings, but the forces’ estimate for the additional costs is still $255 million.

When the crisis hit, Sienna’s stock price plummeted, losing nearly half its value in early March. Since then, however, it has regained about half of its losses. It has also continued to pay out dividends to shareholders. The dividends were $15.6 million in the first three quarters of this year and it is likely to continue into the final quarter.

In a response, the company said the dividends were necessary and it has invested $20.5 million above and beyond any government support to improve the care homes.

“Dividends are similar to interest costs on loans — dividends are paid to shareholders who have provided the capital necessary to invest in the maintenance, upgrading and building of new long-term care residences,” the company wrote in a statement to the National Post.

 “At no point has the payment of dividends taken away from front-line care.” BULLSHIT

In addition to the military’s support, Sienna’s fiscal statements reveal the company received $21 million from the Ontario government for staffing and PPE and $4 million for capital spending to improve infection control.

The financial statement mentions the company has also applied to the government to expand the Altamont Care facility, redeveloping the 159 beds and adding 161 new ones.

Three of the company’s homes were overseen by hospitals during the pandemic and Sienna paid those hospitals $1.9 million in management fees. Long-term care homes are generally paid on an occupancy basis, but the provincial government is covering lower occupancy rates for now. Sienna is also facing several lawsuits, from patients and their families, over its handling of the pandemic.

The company said it’s offering more employees full-time hours to keep them. But a note in the financial statements reveals, while it brought on 1,400 full-time and 1,100 part-time workers between March and October, it has also lost 1,700 people for a net increase of 800 people.

The company said staffing was an issue across the long-term care sector and it struggled just as other companies did.

“Given the intensity of the pandemic, many front-line workers chose to leave the field. At the same time, COVID-19 created an intense demand for registered staff across the LTC sector, as well as from hospitals, schools and other workplaces.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked about the company’s decision to pay out dividends, but didn’t weigh in on the issue.

“I know over the coming months there will be many reflections by Canadians and others on that.”

The federal government put no financial conditions on companies receiving military assistance. It also did not prevent companies that received the government’s wage subsidy from paying out dividends to shareholders. Sienna did not receive the wage subsidy, but others in the long-term care sector did.

He said with the situation deteriorating so drastically in the spring, the government only wanted to do what it could to help.

“Our focus from the very beginning, was to just be there for Canadians who needed help.”

Public ownership

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who has frequently called for long-term care homes to be put into public ownership, said the company’s behaviour is reprehensible.

“A pandemic is happening, people are dying, there are horrible conditions, the military is called in all that on one side and on the other they’re paying out dividends.”

The federal government is expected to be asked to spend more money in the coming years on long-term care homes and is pushing for national standards. Singh said all of that should happen, but that renewed funding shouldn’t become profit.

”I don’t think many Canadians would feel comfortable that if we transfer money to take care of seniors, which we should, if we transfer more money to long-term care which we should, if that money went to paying shareholder dividends, or if that money goes to, to the bonuses for executives,” he said. “If we’re spending public money to help seniors that doesn’t actually end up caring for seniors, no one would think that’s a good idea.”
are cared for.”

Singh said the government could buy out the for-profit long-term care homes, starting with Revera, a company that is already owned by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board

“If we could do it with a pipeline — which I think was a bad decision — we could absolutely do it to ensure seniors 

UPDATED

Japan’s asteroid probe grabbed a ton of material 

on its second attempt

© Provided by BGR asteroid samples

The asteroid probe Hayabusa2, sent by the Japanese space agency JAXA, made two attempts to collect material from the surface of the space rock Ryugu.

As the now-returned samples reveal, the initial attempt gathered fine particles and sandy material, but the second attempt was much more impressive.

JAXA describes the second sample as including rocks as large as nearly half an inch, and they’re very hard.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 asteroid probe mission took a long, long time. Flying to and from the asteroid Ryugu took many months, and the time the spacecraft spent in orbit around the asteroid was lengthy in its own right. The biggest risk for the spacecraft — and one of the most important objectives of the mission — was to bring asteroid samples back to Earth.

It completed that task just a couple of weeks ago, and Japan slowly began to reveal information about the samples that the probe gathered. The first reveal was somewhat underwhelming, revealing some black, charcoal-like dust and small pebbles from the first sample collection attempt. Now, after JAXA showed off its second batch of asteroid sample material we can say with certainty that the mission was an absolutely huge success.

As Komo News reports, the most recent release of images of the asteroid samples offers us a much clearer picture of what Japanese scientists will be working with in the coming months and years. The second sample in particular looks quite promising, with larger chunks of rock that are apparently very hard, according to JAXA.

The differences in the sample material have been attributed to the very different circumstances under which they were collected. The first sample was snatched when Hayabusa2 made a brief touchdown on the asteroid, so it was mostly dust and smaller pebbles from the surface. For the second sample, the JAXA team actually used Hayabusa2 to launch a projectile at the asteroid, blowing a hole in the surface so that material could be collected from within the rock.

The fact that the second sample includes rocks both large and small suggests that the bedrock of the asteroid varies in terms of hardness, according to JAXA space materials scientist Tomohiro Usui. The asteroid samples are being studied in a somewhat casual way at the moment, with observations being noted, but the much more in-depth studies into the material and what the rocks may contain will happen over the course of many months and perhaps even years.

Meanwhile, the asteroid probe itself isn’t done with its work. after dropping the samples off on Earth, the probe cruised back out into space. It’s headed for another asteroid that JAXA wants to study, but this one will take a bit longer to reach. The journey to the asteroid will take 11 years, so we won’t be hearing much about that for some time.

Feast your eyes on the space rocks 

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 mission harvested

 from asteroid Ryugu

Devin Coldewey@techcrunch / •December 28, 2020


Image Credits: JAXA

Japan’s ambitious second asteroid return mission, Hayabusa 2, has collected a wealth of material from its destination, Ryugu, which astronomers and other interested parties are almost certainly champing at the bit to play with. Though they may look like ordinary bits of charcoal, they’re genuine asteroid surface material — and a little something shiny, too.

Hayabusa 2 was launched in 2014 and arrived at the asteroid named Ryugu in 2018, at which point it deployed a couple landers to test surface conditions. It touched down itself in the next year, blasting the surface with a space gun so that it could collect not just the surface gravel but what might lie beneath it. After a long trip home it reentered the atmosphere on December 5 and was collected in the Australian desert.

Although everything worked perfectly, the team could never really be sure they would truly get the samples they hoped for until they opened the sample collection containers in a sealed room back at headquarters. The materials inside have been teased in a few tweets, but today JAXA posted all of the public images along with some new explanations and discoveries.

For one thing, the “sample catcher” itself had grains of sediment from Ryugu. Perhaps this material, exposed to different conditions than that of the containers, will prove different when analyzed.



Image Credits: JAXA

For another, sample container C appears to have an “artificial object” in it! But don’t get excited — as the team writes on their blog, “the origin is under investigation, but a probable source is aluminium scraped off the spacecraft sampler horn as the projectile was fired to stir up material during touchdown.”

In other words, it’s probably a bit of the probe that came off during the not-so-gentle process of shooting the asteroid and crashing into it.




Image Credits: JAXA

But the most important bit is all the rocks collected as planned. As you can see by the scale bar, these are little more than pebbles, but they’re large enough to show evidence of all kinds of processes leading to their particular shape and makeup. There’s also plenty of smaller-scale dirt and dust from below the surface that scientists hope could show signs of organic materials and water, the building blocks of life as we know it.

The success of the mission is worth celebrating, and the team has only just begun studying the materials brought back from Ryugu — so we can expect more information soon as they perform the painstaking work of analysis on these priceless samples. The Hayabusa 2 Twitter account is probably the best way to stay up to date day to day.

Stolen jade boulder found and returned, 

says B.C. gift shop owner

© Provided by The Canadian Press

CACHE CREEK, B.C. — The owner of a gift shop in British Columbia's southern Interior says a jade boulder stolen from outside the store earlier this month has been found.

Heidi Roy says the nearly 1,300-kilogram slab of jade stolen from outside Cariboo Jade and Gifts in Cache Creek was spotted by a member of the public who recognized it from the publicity the theft received.

Roy says in an email the slab has a few scars from its "adventure," but she's thrilled to have it back in once piece.

A photo provided by Roy shows the jade slab covered in dirt, lying in a tangle of brush and snow in the location she says it was found.

Roy says details are sparse so far and the RCMP are expected to release a statement Tuesday about their investigation into the theft.

Previously, an older grey and gold Dodge pickup truck pulling a trailer with an excavator was captured on surveillance video carrying the boulder off.

Police later found the trailer abandoned, without the jade, and the truck thought to have been used in the theft was found empty in another location.

Roy says the metre-wide slab has been displayed in front of Cariboo Jade and Gifts since she bought the store in 1985, and while it's become a tourist attraction, it is low-grade jade and worthless as semi-precious stone.

Roy is thanking people who sent words of encouragement from across the country, saying it's clear "this stone meant a lot to many more than we realized."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 28, 2020.

The Canadian Press

CANADA

 National daycare system will need funding to lower fees, expand spaces, Hussen says


OTTAWA — The federal minister in charge of the government's push on child care says bringing down fees parents pay is a key ingredient in the Liberals' design for a national system.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen also says that just as critical will be to expand the number of affordable daycare spaces across the country for parents who want them.

He says the two issues have come up in his conversations with his counterparts in other countries that have created national child-care systems.

He also says the two issues are key take-aways from Quebec, which is the lone province with such a system.

Hussen said that driving down fees and ramping up the number of spaces would likely require a sizeable influx of federal funds.

He added the government expects the already high demand for daycare spots to increase once the pandemic is firmly in the country's rear-view mirror.

"We have to work hard together to decrease fees substantially, to make it more affordable for parents, but we also have to make sure that there is an increase in the number of spaces," Hussen said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"Otherwise, we'll have a situation where you make it more affordable, but only for those who can access it. And for those who just can't find a space, they're out of luck."

The Liberals pledged to create a universal child-care system in their September throne speech as a way to help more women return to and enter the workforce as their numbers fell during the pandemic.

Along with longtime advocates, business groups have also become more vocal supports of the idea, something Hussen and other Liberals now cite when discussing child care.

November's economic statement pledged money to help provinces and territories hire, train and retain early childhood educators, as well as build the necessary government infrastructure to guide policy development.

"You can't talk about a national system, more affordability, more quality and an expansion of spaces without hiring more workers," Hussen said.

"Without increasing the number of early childhood educators, then you're not really delivering on those increased spaces."

The total spend on child care in the fall statement amounted to $585 million in new money, some of it spread over five years.

In their consultations with experts, the Liberals have been told that federal funding would be need to make spaces more affordable.

In some cities, a daycare space can cost more per month than rent or mortgage payments.

On the other side, covering the cost of spaces is also seen as a way to help child-care centres rely less on steep fees that dried up when lockdowns forced them to close. Some closed for good and others were pushed to the financial brink because they often run on tight margins.

To build the kind of system nationally that Quebec has provincially could cost Ottawa upwards of $11 billion annually by some estimates once fully in place.

Child care is a provincial responsibility and a change in federal government could also shift priorities away from a plan that would take years to implement.

Hussen said the government will be looking to "generate early momentum" with provinces and Canadians to prove the Liberals are serious about the child-care promise.

He also said the government would bring "resources and political will" to the table in talks with provinces.

Hussen said similar efforts will take place with Indigenous groups to co-develop a daycare system that is culturally appropriate.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 28, 2020.

Jordan Press, The Canadian Pres