MPs unite to call for total ban on ‘wicked’ foie gras

 in the UK

James Tapper 

THE GUARDIAN

3/28/2021

Foie gras has been served in one form or another at the banquets of the pharaohs and the court of Louis XIV.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Tim Graham/Getty Images

But present-day fans are losing the battle to keep foie gras on the menu in Britain, after years of campaigning by opponents appalled at its production by force-feeding ducks and geese.

The latest attack comes from a cross-party group of MPs who have written to ministers urging them to make good on a pledge to ban sales of foie gras in the UK.

MPs from all political parties in Great Britain have signed the letter, coordinated by the campaign group Animal Equality, to George Eustice, the environment secretary, and Lord Goldsmith, the animal welfare minister.© Photograph: Tim Graham/Getty Images A flock of grey geese being reared for foie gras near Sarlat, in the Perigord region of the Dordogne, France.

This month, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that it was “exploring further restrictions” to the delicacy following reports that Lord Goldsmith was determined to ban sales in the UK.

It came after Fortnum & Mason finally decided to stop stocking foie gras after more than a decade of lobbying by animal welfare groups, celebrities and, in 2013, Lord Goldsmith as the then editor of the Ecologist.

“Although we are thrilled to see this recent development, the longer we wait, the more these animals will suffer. Over the coming months, thousands more ducks and geese will endure torturous treatment for this cruel product,” the letter states. “We … urge you to confirm specifically when and how you plan to write this legislation into law.”

Foie gras is made by force-feeding ducks or geese, a process known as gavage, where grain is poured into a funnel or tube that has been thrust down the bird’s neck. After two weeks, the liver has swollen to many times its normal size.

Foie gras gourmands enjoy the liver’s resulting buttery texture. Campaigners say the process is barbaric and painful for the birds, who experience great suffering.

Two figures who back the letter will be familiar to Lord Goldsmith: Conservative MPs Sir David Amess and Henry Smith, who, like the minister and the prime minister’s fiancee Carrie Symonds, are patrons of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation.

© Provided by The Guardian Foie gras gourmands enjoy the buttery texture that results from force feeding. Photograph: Getty Images

Other MPs signing the letter are Labour’s Hilary Benn, the SNP’s Lisa Cameron, Lib Dem Wera Hobhouse, Ben Lake of Plaid Cymru, Green MP Caroline Lucas and Jim Shannon of the DUP.

Abigail Penny, executive director of Animal Equality UK, said: “It’s a travesty that these birds are confined in filthy cages and painfully force-fed until their livers become diseased. Their brief existence makes for a real-life horror film.

“Foie gras is the definition of animal cruelty and people are clearly united in their hatred for this wicked product. We simply cannot tolerate this any longer. A ban can’t come soon enough.”

Cameron said: “Foie gras is an immensely cruel product which causes a huge amount of animal suffering. We cannot rightly think of ourselves as a nation of animal lovers while still selling foie gras.”

British farmers have been forbidden from producing foie gras under animal welfare legislation since 2006, but the UK continues to import the product.

An outright ban was impossible under EU single-market rules, even though countries within the bloc have been able to restrict sales of some foods – Marmite cannot be marketed in Denmark without permission since it is considered to be a fortified food.

Related: Post-Brexit deals must not compromise UK food standards, says trade body

Being outside the EU will make it easier to introduce a ban, although there may still be some challenges at the World Trade Organization if that were to happen, according to some trade experts.

David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political Economy, said that a foie gras ban would be similar to restrictions on chlorinated chicken.

“You need to have a good non-discriminatory reason for the ban, and it can be challenged [at the WTO],” he said. “It would have to be a policy to ban products produced in that way, not just to ban French foie gras.”

Quite how popular foie gras is in the UK is uncertain. Most estimates suggest Britons import 180 tonnes a year, much of it from France, but the French trade body Cifog said that in 2019 only 94 tonnes of raw and processed foie gras was exported here.

Restaurants have become reluctant to stock foie gras in the face of pressure and campaigns, although some chefs have spoken out against the prospect of a ban.

Richard Corrigan, who runs several Mayfair restaurants, has said that a ban was “nanny state territory” while George Pell, the co-owner of L’Escargot, said there was a “paradox between people happily eating industrially farmed food products and advocating the ban”.

Foie gras is banned already in many places, including India and New York.

Britain’s ‘brutal’ cuts to overseas aid put African science projects in peril

For two years, the Rwandan-born scientist Anita Etale has been leading efforts to develop cheap methods to clean contaminated water supplies, a widespread problem in Africa.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Based at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, Etale had a £300,000 grant from Britain’s Royal Society in 2019 to build a team of researchers, who went on to develop cleaning filters using maize and sugarcane stubble. “Finding cheap source materials is crucial to make affordable filters,” Etale said

They published several papers about the technology and were preparing to make prototype filters with a further £450,000 pledged by the Royal Society. But two weeks ago, Etale was told abruptly that all future funding had been cancelled. “My reaction was one of bitter disappointment, grief and disbelief that Britain could do something this brutal,” Etale told the Observer.

Nor was she alone. A host of other researchers working in Africa – on projects aimed at helping the continent battle the climate emergency, develop renewable energy sources and fight biodiversity loss – were also told, without warning, that their promised funding had been cancelled. This was a direct result of Britain’s decision this month to slash overseas aid, leading to a 70% cut in foreign research grants provided by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and distributed by the Royal Society. One of the first victims was the society’s Future Leaders – African Independent Research (Flair) scheme, which funds scientists like Etale.© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Children in northern Kenya dig a hole in a river bed to retrieve water. A Rwandan scientist has found a cheap way to make it safe to drink.

The funding cutback has shocked scientists across Africa and dismayed Royal Society officials. “The cuts we were forced to make have been brutal,” said Richard Catlow, the society’s foreign secretary. “We have seriously damaged our reputation as trusted partners in future collaborations. The relationships that we have built up have been badly and, I fear, permanently weakened.”

The business department’s abrupt action means that Flair fellows – who were expecting three years of support – will have their funding halted with only two weeks’ notice, obliging the Royal Society to use its own funds to pay for another three months to soften the blow.

The impact of cuts was also highlighted by Gift Mehlana of Midlands State University in Gweru, Zimbabwe. Flair funds had allowed him to find promising ways to exploit porous materials which could absorb carbon dioxide from the air and help convert it into formic acid. Mehlana and his colleagues hoped this would help to provide developing nations with new, clean sources of fuel and chemicals while also tackling global heating.

“We were beginning to see light. Then we were told there would be no more money and our dreams were shattered,” said Mehlana.

“There are very few sources for funding research in Africa, and this scheme not only provided funds but also allowed us to link up with researchers in Britain,” he told the Observer. Now he and his colleagues are struggling to continue. “At best, our work will be slowed down significantly – and that is serious. Time is the one thing we don’t have when it comes to climate change,” he added.

Researchers also point to growing Chinese influence in Africa and warn that when scientists seek funds for promising research in future they will remember Britain’s behaviour and look elsewhere for international collaborators, a point stressed by Royal Society president Sir Adrian Smith.

The cuts “will be noted by other ­science powers seeking to reinforce their research relationship with sub-Saharan Africa”, Smith argued in a letter to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary.

For its part, the BEIS said the UK remained a world-leading aid donor. “This year alone, we will spend more than £10bn to address poverty, tackle climate change, fight Covid and improve global health, and we are working with our delivery partners, including UK Research and Innovation, to implement a new research and development settlement for 2021/22,” said a spokesman.

However, researchers point out that the population of Africa is expected to double by 2050, growing faster than on any other continent, while some of the worst impacts of climate change will be felt there – from droughts to heatwaves and intense storms.

One scientist directly involved in this work is Chris Trisos, at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Armed with a Flair grant, his team has developed ways to track how climate change will affect different species each year for the rest of this century. Results were published in the journal Nature.

Related: Leak reveals UK Foreign Office discussing aid cuts of more than 50%

“We were about to start a new project to forecast how climate change will affect wild harvested food plants,” Trisos said. “In Africa, millions of people rely on picking wild fruits and berries, but we know very little about how climate change might affect this essential nutrition source. We were going to study that. Then our grant was axed. I felt it like a physical blow when I was told. My group’s future now looks very uncertain.”

The cuts could have implications for the whole world, said Etale. “I am trying to find ways to provide clean drinking water for people because that is basic requirement of life. And if people cannot get that, then don’t be surprised when you see refugees and migrants arriving on your shores.”

Canadian firm's proposed gold mine in Amazon rainforest a step closer to reality, CEO says
Chris Arsenault 

CBC 3/28/2021

© Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters Sunlight is seen over the lake of Samuel Hydroelectric Dam in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil, in 2019. A Canadian mining company is one step closer to building a gold mine in Brazil's…

A Canadian company is one step closer to building a controversial gold mine in the Amazon rainforest, after its study on how the development would impact remote Indigenous people was approved by Brazilian officials, the CEO of Belo Sun Mining told CBC News.

FUNAI, the Brazilian government body responsible for handling issues related to Indigenous people and their land rights, has approved the company's consultation plans for the Volta Grande gold project, said CEO Peter Tagliamonte.

The approval is the most recent salvo in a series of long-running disputes between different Brazilian authorities and the Toronto-based company over what Belo Sun calls the largest undeveloped gold project in Brazil.

The proposed project in one of Earth's most biodiverse regions has long been a flash point for environmentalists.

They say the proposed mine in northeastern Para state is likely to contaminate the rainforest with cyanide and other toxic chemicals from its tailings dam — a problem that has ravaged other Brazilian mining regions in recent years, killing hundreds of people.

"We have the risk of contamination of the river with heavy metals and cyanide," Rosana Miranda, a Sao Paulo-based campaigner with the environmental group Amazon Watch, said in an interview.

She said the company could be "prompting the last stages of ecocide" in the Xingu River, a tributary in the world's largest rainforest.

Belo Sun maintains it will operate to high environmental standards, pay more than $170 million in taxes and create hundreds of good paying jobs for local people in the traditionally poor region.

"The Volta Grande Project will be a very positive economic driver," Tagliamonte said via email. "I have been involved with building and operating a number of mines and have seen first-hand how well-paying jobs positively impact a region."

© Ricardo Moraes/Reuters Residents look down on their homes, covered in mud and tailings, after a tailings dam burst at an iron mine in central Brazil in 2015.

The project is "fully permitted," Tagliamonte said, and the company is in the process of consulting with local Indigenous groups. In-person meetings won't recommence until it's safe to do so, given Brazil's dire COVID-19 situation, he added.
Consultations suspended for COVID

Last month, FUNAI said consultations with local residents about the project could go ahead, after the agency approved the company's study on how the mine would impact Indigenous people living nearby.

FUNAI's initial approval for consultations came despite protests from other Brazilian government agencies, including the federal Public Defender's Office, who said in-person meetings aren't safe given the pandemic.

More than 300,000 Brazilians have died from COVID-19, the second highest death count globally after the U.S., and hospitals across the Amazon have faced oxygen shortages. Morgues have filled beyond capacity.

"There are so many red flags here I can't even count them," said James Bosworth, a political risk consultant with the firm Hxagon, who advises companies doing business in Latin America.

That FUNAI authorized a company to conduct public consultations with remote Indigenous communities in the middle of a pandemic is "not a good sign," Bosworth said in a phone interview.

The approval shows how regulators responsible for safeguarding Indigenous rights and the environment have been undermined by Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, he added.

© Andre Penner/The Associated Press Cemetery workers carry a coffin that contains the remains of a person who died from complications related to COVID-19, as a bulldozer moves earth to prepare more burial sites at the Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on March 11.

Bolsonaro is keen to open the Amazon to more farming, mining and other business interests. Bosworth said FUNAI is run by one of the president's supporters.

Tagliamonte stressed Belo Sun will only hold consultations in Indigenous communities where residents have been fully vaccinated and meetings will only happen when they can be conducted "safely following best-practice health-and-safety protocols."

The company has a good relationship with local Indigenous communities, he said.

If Belo Sun's consultations are approved, Tagliamonte said, it will take about two years to build the mine. He could not give a timeline on how long the consultations are expected to last.

© Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro reacts during a ceremony to expand the ability of the government to purchase vaccines against COVID-19, in Brasilia, Brazil, on March 10.

The proposed mine site contains proven and probable reserves of 3.8 million ounces of gold, according to Belo Sun, worth more than $8 billion at current prices.

The company's stock is traded for less than a dollar on the Toronto exchange, indicating that a decade since it was first proposed some investors aren't convinced the project will be viable.

Water contamination fears

Biviany Rojas Garzon, a lawyer working with the Brazilian campaign group Instituto Socioambiental, said environmental impact studies of the proposed mine have shown plans for the tailings dam to store waste don't take into account seismic activity in the region.

"The dam is very likely to fail and tailings can reach the Xingu River in just seven minutes," Garzon said via email.

The proposed dam would be 44 meters high, according to a technical analysis of the project commissioned by environmentalists. It would contain more than 35 million cubic meters of mine tailings, including cyanide used to extract the gold — enough toxic material to fill 14,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

"A leak of that magnitude would mean the death of the river," said Miranda from Amazon Watch.

© Leo Correa/Associated Press Firefighters are resupplied as they search for victims of a dam collapse in Brumadinho, Brazil, in 2019. Hundreds of people died in the disaster.

Even if the dam does not leak, Miranda asked, "What will happen to all the waste after two decades," when the mine ceases operations?

Collapsed tailings dams containing waste from mining have been deadly in recent years in Brazil. In 2019, at least 240 people were killed when a tailings dam operated by miner Vale SA burst in central Brazil, washing away homes and covering swaths of land in sludge.

In 2015, another larger tailings dam collapsed in the same region, killing 19 and creating an environmental disaster.

"The situation around tailings dams in Brazil is far more sensitive after the recent accidents," said Bosworth, the risk consultant. "Any company that wants to operate a tailings dam at this point needs to be prepared to have extra scrutiny on their operations."

Belo Sun said no water will be taken or discharged into the Xingu River and its operations will be conducted in a safe, sustainable manner.

"Belo Sun's approach is to always proceed in a low-key, responsible, and thoughtful manner and to develop the Volta Grande Project by listening to all stakeholders and adhering to local and international regulation," the company's CEO said.

Mining company Teck Coal fined $60M for contaminating B.C. rivers

FERNIE, B.C. — A Canadian coal-mining company faces the largest fine imposed under the Fisheries Act after pleading guilty to contaminating waterways in southeastern British Columbia

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Teck Coal, a subsidiary of Teck Resources, is to pay $60 million after a judge on Friday agreed to a joint submission from Environment Canada and the company.

"Teck did not exercise all due diligence to prevent the deposit of coal mine waste rock leachate into the Fording River from settling ponds," federal prosecutor Alexander Clarkson, reading from an agreed statement of facts, said in B.C. provincial court.

Coal has been mined in B.C.'s Elk Valley for decades. Teck Coal purchased the mines in 2008.

By then, court heard, there was already 2.2 billion cubic metres of associated waste rock in piles as high as 100 metres.

The rocks leach selenium and calcite.

Essential to life in small doses, the element selenium in large amounts can cause fish deformities and reproductive failures. Calcite is a mineral that destroys the habitat that trout need to reproduce by coating stream bottoms.

"Prior to 2009, Teck Coal was aware selenium and calcite could be environmentally harmful," Clarkson said. "Teck Coal did not have a comprehensive plan to address the deposit of coal mine waste."

Environment Canada investigators found in 2012 that selenium concentrations were as high as 90 micrograms per litre in the Fording River and up to 177 micrograms in settling ponds at the mines. Both figures are many times higher than levels considered to be safe for river ecosystems.

Upstream of the mines, selenium concentrations were about one microgram per litre.

In 2020, investigators concluded Teck hadn't done enough to fix the problem and issued charges in October.

The Fording River and other streams in the area are home to westslope cutthroat trout, a native species considered endangered. By 2020, Teck's own research showed those fish populations had almost collapsed.

Vickie Thomas of the local Ktunaxa First Nation said her people continue to use and value the area. But the contamination has taken a toll.

"Knowing that fish habitat is impacted by these polluted waters leads to concern for the safety of all the fish as well as for Ktunaxa," she said in court. "The result is an alienation of our people from our lands and waters.

"Fish and fish habitat are critical to the maintenance of Ktunaxa rights. The ability to drink confidently from a mountain stream is an aspect of Ktunaxa rights that all future generations should enjoy."

Teck Coal told court it has spent nearly $1 billion since 2011 in an effort to bring selenium under control and plans another $655 million in spending over the next four years.

It said it has expanded and upgraded water treatment facilities that can handle up to 20 million litres of water a day and remove 95 per cent of the selenium.

"To the Ktunaxa First Nation ... and to our communities in the Elk Valley, we deeply regret these impacts and we apologize," said an open letter from Teck Resources president Don Lindsay.

"You have my commitment that we will not waver in our focus on addressing this challenge and working to ensure that the environment is protected."

Almost all of the fine, $58 million, is to go to the federal Environmental Damages Fund to support projects that benefit the environment. The remaining $2 million is to go to general revenues.

Teck Coal must also remove selenium before it reaches the Fording River and follow requirements on water diversions, mine planning, fish monitoring and calcite prevention.

Lars Sanders-Green of Wildsight, an environmental group that has been following the issue, pointed out that Teck Coal has taken billions of dollars out of the Elk Valley.

"What Teck and other mining companies have learned is not to worry about Environment Canada," he said.

"This is a problem that's been known since 1995. Now it's 2021 and the problem's getting worse."

Sanders-Green said most of the water that flows through the mines is untreated and passes through old piles of waste rock that aren't part of the new system. He noted that Americans are growing increasingly impatient with Canadian regulators allowing selenium to enter water that flows into the United States.

Sander-Green wonders what will happen when coal mining ends.

"We're putting a Band-Aid over it with water treatment. If Teck's spending a lot of money every year to operate a water treatment plant, there's no way they're going to continue doing that once the coal's gone."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2021.

— By Bob Weber in Edmonton. Follow him on Twitter at @row1960.

The Canadian Press

Violence breaks out in fresh Bangladesh protests

AFP 20 mins ago

At least a dozen people were reported injured in clashes between police and Islamist demonstrators in Bangladesh on Sunday, the third day of protests against the visit of India's Hindu-nationalist leader.

© Munir Uz zaman Human rights groups have criticised the government for growing authoritarianism, including forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings

Five people died on Friday, and another six the next day, after police shot at demonstrators in several major districts across the Muslim-majority nation of 168 million people.

The protesters -- mostly from the hardline Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam -- were angry at the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Bangladesh marked 50 years of independence, accusing him of stoking communal violence against Muslims in his country.

© Munir Uz zaman Protesters are demonstrating against police violence and a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

At one new protest in Narayanganj just outside the capital Dhaka, Hefazat supporters chanted "action, action, direct action" as they blocked the key highway linking Dhaka with the port city of Chittagong.

© Munir Uz zaman The protesters are mostly from the hardline Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam

Hundreds of demonstrators burnt furniture and tyres on the roads as they chanted anti-Modi slogans and called on authorities to investigate the shootings.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets after the protesters barricaded parts of the highway. A police spokesman told AFP they had since left the road.

© Munir Uz zaman After a third day of protests, Islamists and police clashed in Bangladesh, with at least a dozen people reported injured

Prothom Alo, the country's biggest Bengali-language daily, said at least 15 people were injured in the Narayanganj clashes.

Hefazat spokesman Jakaria Noman Foyezi told AFP thousands of its supporters joined demonstrations at its headquarters at Hathazari outside Chittagong, which is home to a top Islamic seminary.

The Islamist group has a nationwide network, and it has held large protests in the past demanding that Bangladesh introduce blasphemy laws.

Protests were also held in the northeastern city of Sylhet, the eastern district of Brahmanbaria and in Bosila, a Dhaka suburb, but there were no reports of violence, local media reported.

As Bangladesh celebrated independence, human rights groups criticised the government for what they described as growing authoritarianism, including forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Other groups -- including students, leftists and other Islamist outfits -- had also staged protests against Modi's visit on Friday and Saturday.

sam-sa/grk/qan/reb

CP Rail's purchase of U.S. rival is a bet on production moving out of China in COVID-19 aftermath

The reshoring phenomenon in global manufacturing is often exaggerated.

© Provided by Financial Post The Canadian Pacific railyard is pictured in Port Coquitlam, B.C. The proposed merger of CP and Kansas City Southern is being touted as a 'stabilizing' deal for the sector.

The Bank of Canada surveyed business leaders last fall and policy-makers heard that “having shorter supply chains with localized parts closer to Canada is an ongoing topic of discussion,” but the majority were focused on adopting digital technology to stay competitive.


“In the near term, most firms do not expect to pivot away from their existing processes and relationships,” the autumn Business Outlook Survey reported in October.

The findings were out of step with headlines about embarrassing shortages of personal protective equipment and other vital goods in Canada and other rich countries that had allowed their manufacturing bases to erode over the past few decades as production shifted to China and other low-cost jurisdictions.

Clearly, there was a disconnect between opinion writers and politicians talking about “shock-proofing” the economy and those who actually had skin in the game. It will take more than the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, four years of Donald Trump at the White House, and a global pandemic to reverse decades of rapid globalization.

Still, there might be something to all the hype. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.’s purchase of Kansas City Southern is a US$25-billion bet that the future of trade in North America is north-south, not east-west.

Canadian oil producers see new route to Gulf Coast refineries coming from CP Rail deal

CP deal could be easier sell in wake of continental trade deal and pandemic's economic shifts

The combined company would still be the smallest of the six big North American railways, but it alone would be able to offer a direct link from the northern reaches of British Columbia and Alberta to ports in southern Mexico, while at the same time touching the Pacific via the Port of Vancouver and the Atlantic through Saint John, N.B.

“The pandemic has taught us that global, extended supply chains involve greater risk than perhaps a lot of industrial companies are willing to take,” KCS chief executive Patrick Ottensmeyer said on a conference call with analysts on March 21. “There is a trend in supply-chain strategy to shrink and de-risk those supply chains and North America is going to continue to be a very attractive source of investment and growth, particularly in manufacturing and industrial activity.

He added: “This network is not only going to be in a position to benefit from those trends, but to help drive those trends.”

There isn’t much data evidence yet of such a shift. The United States posted a record trade deficit in goods in 2020, despite the former president’s aggressive use of tariffs and his bully pulpit.

Something similar happened in Canada. The value of goods imported from China increased to an unprecedented $76 billion in 2020, while exports to China jumped eight per cent to $25.1 billion, the second-highest on record, according to customs data collected by Statistics Canada . The tightening of the two countries’ commercial relationship occurred while they were engaged in a tense diplomatic feud over the jailing of each other’s citizens, showing that economic forces are a match for political headwinds.

Still, backward-looking data might not be the best guide of where trade is headed, given all the questions raised by the COVID-19 crisis and the unpredictable state of play between the U.S. and its allies and China, which appears ready to punish any country that does something its government dislikes.

As the pandemic drags on, the value of a resilient supply chain could be rising. CP Rail chief executive Keith Creel, who will lead the combined railway if regulators approve the purchase of KCS, told analysts last fall that his customers weren’t talking about “near-shoring.” Less than six months later, he was back on the phone with analysts, justifying a multi-billion-dollar cash outlay on the prospect of factory production returning to North America from Asia.

Mark Barrenechea, chief executive of Open Text Corp., the Waterloo, Ont.-based maker of information-management software, said a resetting of trade patterns is already showing up in his company’s order book. Open Text sells technology that helps companies keep their supply lines straight, and it seems its customers are attempting to become less reliant on a single source.

“We predicted that the pandemic, and the shortages, and the disruptions would lead to localized supply chains and we are seeing the work begin now,” Barrenchea said in an interview earlier this month. “We’re seeing work in Germany around auto. We’re seeing work in the U.S. around raw materials. We’re seeing in China, if you manufacture for China, you are staying in China, but if you manufacture in China for non-China, work is migrating out.”

All this change could be an opportunity for Canada. Policy-makers and think-tankers like to point out how trade agreements with the U.S., Europe and much of Asia could make Canada an ideal place to supply the world. A shift in emphasis from cost to stability in production would work in our favour.

But it probably won’t be as easy as that. Manufacturing has suffered a long decline and Canada may now lack the required talent and infrastructure. The country’s inability to manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine was a reminder of what happens when you ignore erosion.

“Canada has really decreased its finished-goods manufacturing and outsourced it,” Barrenechea said. “Some of those fissures have shown themselves over the last year.”

Kevin Carmichael

3/23/2021
Email: kcarmichael@postmedia.com | Twitter: carmichaelkevin

NY Times estimates wealthy Americans are refusing to pay $1.4T in uncollected taxes

By Joseph Guzman | March 22, 2021

The New York Times editorial board laid out a plan for how the U.S. could recover $1.4 trillion in taxes that would otherwise go uncollected. 

The Times op-ed notes that the W-2 reporting system has largely prevented American workers from lying to the federal government about their income, while there’s been no comparable system for verifying income from businesses. 

The piece cites a 2019 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) analysis that estimates less than half of all income that is not subject to third-party verification, like a W-2, gets reported to the agency. Meanwhile, more than 95 percent of wage income is reported. Unpaid federal income taxes could amount to more than $600 billion this year and more than $7.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

“The result is that most wage earners pay their fair share while many business owners engage in blatant fraud at public expense,” the op-ed said. 

To address this, the editorial board put forth a proposal from Charles Rossotti, who led the IRS from 1997 to 2002, that would increase the amount of taxes paid by those who are currently cheating the system. 

Rossotti argues Congress should create a third-party verification system for business income, where banks would be required by the federal government to provide “an annual account statement totaling inflows and outflows, like the 1099 tax forms that investment firms must provide to their clients.” 

“Individuals would then have the opportunity to reconcile what Mr Rossotti dubs their ‘1099New’ forms with their reported income on their individual tax returns. One might, for example, assert that a particular deposit was a tax-exempt gift,” the piece states. 

The piece cites an analysis done by Rossotti, Harvard economist Lawrence Summers and University of Pennsylvania law professor Natasha Sarin published in November that argues investing $100 billion in the IRS to shore up technology, personnel and other resources over the next 10 years, coupled with increased transparency on business income, would result in the collection of $1.4 trillion in taxes that would have otherwise gone uncollected. 

“There are many proposals to raise taxes on the rich. Let’s start by collecting what they already owe,” the editorial board said.

B.C. mining laws raise questions as province looks to implement UN declaration


VANCOUVER — The relationships between Indigenous nations and British Columbia's mining sector are set to change as the province works to match its laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Mining Minister Bruce Ralston says B.C.'s "formal relations" with Indigenous nations and their participation in the sector are already a "strong asset" for companies and investors considering mineral operations in the province.

"Investors are looking for signs that things are being done right, things are being done fairly," he told a news conference earlier this month.

However, details of when and how B.C.'s mining laws may change because of the declaration aren't yet known. It's expected to take years to fully implement the act adopting its 46 different articles, which was passed in the legislature in November 2019.

In the meantime, companies must chart their own path to comply with the declaration or risk legal uncertainty, said Merle Alexander, a Vancouver-based lawyer whose work focuses on Indigenous nations and resource-based sectors including mining, forestry, oil and gas, and hydropower.

Under B.C.'s Mineral Tenure Act, for example, it costs just $1.75 per hectare to register a mineral claim through an online portal.

"I could go and just randomly choose 50 different territories to stake claims in right now and I would have never even had any engagement with any First Nation, and I'd already have an interest in their land," Alexander said.

"You get the ability to sort of literally go out there and start, like, digging holes and trenching without really any consultation whatsoever."

The UN declaration requires governments to obtain free, prior and informed consent before taking actions that affect Indigenous Peoples and territories.

"You'd be pretty hard pressed to argue that this online click of a mouse exploration mining tenure system ... is somehow compliant with a free, prior and informed consent process," said Alexander, who is a member of the Kitasoo/Xai'xais First Nation on B.C.'s north coast.

Once companies decide a mineral claim is worth exploring further they usually recognize the importance of engaging with First Nations, he said.

The Supreme Court of Canada has already established the duty to consult, meaning lawmakers must have dialogue with Indigenous governments about proposed decisions that could negatively impact their rights and title.

But Alexander likened the Crown to an absentee parent, often leaving it up to First Nations and companies to figure out consultation processes and agreements before the province approves permits for proposed projects.

"Most companies have advanced to at least realize that they have to sort of pick up the ball where the Crown has left it," he said in an interview.

"They take the delegated duty to consult and they get into the community and start fulfilling it themselves," he said, pointing to contractual solutions to legal uncertainty such as benefit agreements with First Nations.

The Crown's failure in its duty to consult affected First Nations can sink a project, said Alexander, noting that's what sent Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline back to square one in 2016 before it was shelved permanently by the federal government later that year.

But the duty to consult leaves room for interpretation, he said, while the declaration is a statutory requirement for the province to ensure its laws align with the different articles in the UN Indigenous rights declaration.

Designed to facilitate consent-based agreements between the province and Indigenous nations whenever their rights are affected, B.C.'s act will likely lead to clearer and stronger standards around obtaining consent, he said.

It should create a path to greater certainty — one that's outside the courts — for industries, such as mining, forestry, and natural gas, he said.

B.C.'s environmental assessment process for mines and other major proposed projects is further along than the mineral tenure and exploration system for compliance with the UN declaration, Alexander noted.

But it's not in complete compliance, he said, because the 2018 Environmental Assessment Act requires that officials seek to achieve "consensus" with affected nations rather than work toward consent.

Under the act, the government is required to consider a nation's consent or lack of consent and must publish its reasoning for issuing an environmental assessment certificate for a project if a nation does not consent.

The Mining Association of B.C. issued a statement when B.C.'s declaration act was tabled in legislature, saying it was optimistic that with proper implementation, adoption of the act would "support and advance reconciliation and may lead to greater certainty on the land base."

B.C. is currently in talks with Indigenous groups about the implementation of the declaration act. The province aimed to release a plan identifying priority areas for legal reform last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic has caused some delay and it now expects to have a draft ready for feedback this spring, Indigenous Relations Minister Murray Rankin said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2021.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

UK retail now employs just over 3m people – 67,000 fewer than before the Covid-19 pandemic started

23 Mar 2021by Chloe Rigby

Image: Adobe Stock
UK retail now employs just over 3m people – 67,000 fewer than before the Covid-19 pandemic started

The retail industry now employs just over three million people – 67,000 fewer than at the same time last year, according British Retail Consortium analysis of official statistics.

The Labour market overview UK: March 2021 from the Office for National Statistics, estimates that the UK unemployment rate stood at 5% in the three months to January 2021 – 1.1 percentage points (pp) higher than a year earlier. At the same time, 75% of UK adults are employed – 1.5pp lower than a year earlier. The UK economic inactivity rate stands at 21%(+0.6pp). The analysis found that there are now 693,000 fewer people on payrolls in February 2021 than in February 2020, although there are 68,000 more people employed than in January – showing that a recovery may be in progress as non-essential retailers approach reopening April 12.

The BRC analysis of supplementary information on employee jobs by industry found that 2.9m are employed in the retail trade, while 0.2m are self-employed in the retail industry. Of those three million retail jobs that still exist, 600,000 retail workers are now furloughed – 200,000 more than in December, according to the BRC. It adds that while jobs have been created in online delivery and distribution over the last year, there were fewer people working in retail in the final quarter of last year than at any time since 1999.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, says: “While the second wave of the pandemic swept away tens of thousands of retail jobs, many more were saved by the government’s furlough scheme, which is now providing support for 600,00 retail workers, a rise of 200,000 since December. This is likely to get worse if the third lockdown wears on, and while new jobs were created, focused in grocery and driving online capacity across the market, as well as many temporary jobs in the run up to Christmas, town and city centre stores continue to employ fewer and fewer people.”

She says the biggest potential threat to jobs and to shops would be if the economy returns to lockdown after April 12 - and that the government must take “all necessary precautions” to ensure that does not happen.

“Any delays to the Prime Minister’s roadmap will undoubtedly result in more store closures and threaten the livelihoods of the retail workers currently furloughed. Retailers are working incredibly hard to ensure stores and operations are safe and ready for reopening, and it is essential that all retail is open and remains open if it is to unlock the demand that will kickstart our economic recovery.”

Climate change activists shut down major Vancouver roadways

Duration: 02:08 5 hrs ago


Vancouver's Cambie street bridge was temporarily shut down this afternoon, as about 150 environmental activists took over the span. They then moved on to block a major intersection. As Emad Ahahi reports, six people were arrested for their attempt to protect BC's old-growth forests.