79.5 LBS TOO MUCH
Gender reveal party using 80 pounds of explosives sets off earthquake reports

A GENDER REVEAL PARTY IS A BABY SHOWER THAT INVITED THE GUY'S, SAY NO MORE

Helen Sullivanand

 Associated Press 

A New Hampshire family’s gender reveal party was such a blast that it set off reports of an earthquake, and could be heard from across the state line, police said.

Police in Kingston, a town not far from the Massachusetts border, received reports of a loud explosion Tuesday evening. They responded to Torromeo quarry where they found people who acknowledged holding a gender reveal party with explosives.

The source of the blast was 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of Tannerite, police said. The family thought the quarry would be the safest spot to light the explosive, which is typically sold over the counter as a target for firearms practice, police said.

© Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images These still images taken from a video provided by the US Forest Service show the moment a gender-reveal party sparked a wildfire in Green Valley, Arizona, in April 2017. A New Hampshire family have caused reports of earthquakes by setting off 80 pounds of explosives as part of their gender reveal display.

Nearby residents said the blast rocked their homes and some reported property damage, NBC 10 Boston reported.

“We heard this God-awful blast,” Sara Taglieri, who lives in a home that abuts the quarry, told the television station. “It knocked pictures off our walls … I’m all up for silliness and whatnot, but that was extreme.”



Video: New Hampshire gender reveal explosion party explosion rocks towns miles away (FOX News)


Related: I started the 'gender reveal party' trend. And I regret it

Taglieri’s husband, Matt, told the TV station that neighbours reported cracks in the foundation of their homes from the explosion.

No injuries were reported, police said. The person who bought and detonated the explosives has turned himself into police. He was not identified.

Police said an investigation is ongoing and they will make a determination on charges. It is unknown whether the child was revealed to be male or female.

The blast was the latest in a series of dramatic and hazardous gender reveals. The practice, during which expectant parents announce the sex of their soon-to-be-born infants in elaborate ways, became popular about a decade ago.

In March, two pilots were killed when their plane crashed into the waters off Cancun while it was streaming a pink substance as part of a gender reveal, Fox News reported.

In 2020, smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used as part of a California gender reveal party caused a fire that damaged more than 7,000 acres (2,800 hectares) of land. In April 2017, an off-duty US border patrol agent, Dennis Dickey, caused $8m of damage to 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) of Arizona forest when he shot at a target full of blue-coloured explosive as a means of announcing the gender of his unborn child.

In July 2019, one of the pioneers of the gender-reveal movement – Jenna Karvunidis – said it was time to “re-evaluate” the practice, and that her own daughter, announced to friends via a cake with pink icing inside, had begun to explore her gender and defy gender norms.

MORE DUMB IDEAS FROM WHITE MIDDLE CLASS SUBURBAN AMERICANS

Indigenous women hope to connect their communities with traditional birth practices

Four local First Nation and Métis women are completing a traditional birthwork course that returns Indigenous birth teachings to their communities.


The 13-month course is offered through Indigenous Birth of Alberta. Students learn how to share Indigenous culture throughout the pregnancy and birthing process, run prenatal and postnatal programs, community outreach and postpartum support.

Graduates of the program can also lead community parenting courses reflect their culture. Elders can be included in birth ceremonies and parenting techniques.

Maddie Amyotte, a registered nurse with McMurray Métis and a student in the program, said the Indigenous birthwork program focuses on the individual and pregnancy needs.

“We’re now dealing with a crisis of the last several generations of babies being taken from homes for reasons that are not right,” said Amyotte. “New parents don’t really have anybody to teach them how to be a parent because they weren’t raised by their parents and haven’t witnessed it firsthand.”

Throughout the 20th century, Indigenous languages, culture and ceremony were forbidden by the Canadian government. This included midwifery and birth celebrations practiced in Métis and First Nation communities. Amyotte said tackling many of the cultural traumas in Indigenous communities can begin at birth.

“A lot of Indigenous families have been taught that they don’t know the right way to care for their babies,” she said.

The Indigenous Birth of Alberta website explains how many Indigenous people have reported negative birth experiences, such as travelling long distances for basic care or incidences of racism from hospital staff.

“It can be a very emotional, difficult and scary time for people in hospitals in particular and the best way to go about that is to have a buffer there,” said Amyotte. “Someone to just act as a support person to minimize whatever trauma is potentially going to come.”

Sheena Bradley of McMurray Métis said some ceremonies during and after birth are culturally important for families. Traditional birthworkers can organize smudging ceremonies, for instance.

“When a baby is brought into the world with a song and drum and they’re being spoken to in their language, it can create an immediate attachment to their culture and their people,” said Bradley. “There’s a natural comfort level where they know that we’re here to keep them safe.”

Bradley said another important part of Indigenous birthwork is helping with home births on traditional lands, instead of having families spend money on travel costs to give birth elsewhere.

“There’s been traditional midwives in our culture since the beginning of time,” said Bradley. “Being able to give birth surrounded by community and support can help rebuild our knowledge after the criminalization of our traditional practices and attempted genocide of our nations.”

Shelby Weiss, a member of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation living in Fort McMurray, is studying to be a psychologist but hopes to apply what she learns from the birthwork course to her career. Weiss also hopes to use this knowledge to support her family and friends through pregnancy and parenting.

“It’s not just one person who can do all these things and know all this information,” said Weiss. “All of us working together to help other people and make connections, that’s how we strengthen our community.”

swilliscraft@postmedia.com

Sarah Williscraft, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Fort McMurray Today

4/21/2021

The Senate strongly condemns anti-Asian hate crimes by passing new bill

In a surprisingly bipartisan vote, lawmakers passed legislation to improve hate crime tracking.

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN UNANIMOUS BUT FOR ONE VOTE AGAINST, SEN (R) JOSH HAWLEY

By Li Zhouli@vox.com Apr 22, 2021, 

Young participants are seen holding a placard near NYC City Hall during Stop Asian Hate demonstration to show support to Asian community in New York City. Ryan Rahman/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images

The Senate — in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on Thursday — sent Congress’s strongest message yet condemning anti-Asian hate crimes by passing a bill aimed at improving data collection.

The legislation, while somewhat narrow, intends to bolster hate crime tracking by designating a Justice Department official to specifically review potential hate crime incidents, providing grants for regional law enforcement agencies to set up reporting hotlines, and offering training to police on how to handle hate crime response.

It ultimately passed 94-1 with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) as the lone vote against it. Hawley has previously said he opposed the measure because it was too “broad” even though the changes it proposed were relatively modest.

Despite its limited scope, the bill is significant in that it marks a notable denouncement of anti-Asian racism, which has surged in the last year as Asian Americans have been scapegoated for the spread of coronavirus and as public officials including former President Donald Trump have used racist terms.

According to a tracker from Stop AAPI Hate, nearly 3,800 incidents involving everything from verbal abuse and shunning to physical assault have been reported. Shootings in Georgia, which killed six women of Asian descent in March, as well as violent attacks on Asian American elders, have also renewed focus on the issue.

The passage of this bill acknowledges this reality and makes some inroads to gathering better information about hate crimes in general: Currently, thousands of hate crimes go unreported each year, and federal data is also lacking since local law enforcement agencies don’t always keep tabs on or communicate their numbers.

As ProPublica’s Ken Schwencke reported in 2017, there are serious gaps in the records that law enforcement agencies keep:

The evidence suggests that many police agencies across the country are not working very hard to count hate crimes. Thousands of them opt not to participate in the FBI’s hate crime program at all. Among the 15,000 that do, some 88 percent reported they had no hate crimes. According to federal records, the Huntsville Police Department has never reported a hate crime.

Local law enforcement agencies reported a total of 6,121 hate crimes in 2016 to the FBI, but estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the federal government, pin the number of potential hate crimes at almost 250,000 a year — one indication of the inadequacy of the FBI’s data.

“At a time when the AAPI community is under siege, this bill is an important signal that Congress is taking anti-Asian racism and hatred seriously,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), a lead sponsor on the bill, said.
What this bill will do

This legislation is primarily focused on making it easier for people to report hate crimes by opening up more channels to do so and supporting better training for law enforcement officers. Additionally, by naming a specific Justice Department official to review anti-Asian hate crimes, it hopes to heighten federal focus on such incidents.

Below are some of the key components of the bill:

Designates a DOJ official to expedite the review of anti-Asian hate crimes, both to improve tracking and help with potential prosecution

Calls on the DOJ to offer guidance to local and state law enforcement agencies about setting up online hate crime reporting platforms and public education campaigns

Urges HHS and the DOJ to remove any discriminatory language in how agencies talk about the pandemic

Provides grants to local and state law enforcement agencies so they can set up hotlines for reporting hate crimes and get training for reporting data about hate crimes to the federal government

Pushes judges involved in sentencing for hate crimes to include community service and education about the group that was affected as part of the penalties they assign

All of these efforts are focused on getting a better understanding of just how expansive the problem with hate crimes is, though as one legal expert told Vox, they likely won’t be effective at fully addressing the root causes of such attacks.

“Enhancing criminal prosecutions of and requiring greater reporting on hate crimes are interventions that take place after bias incidents have taken place,” Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke told Vox. “Education, public messaging — particularly from elected officials — and other community-based programs aimed at reconciliation and repair are more likely to reduce the incidence of hate crimes.”

The legislation presented a unique opportunity for bipartisanship

The bipartisan passage of this legislation was ultimately somewhat surprising, including to Democrats who came in thinking Republicans would block the legislation from being debated. “We passed the first hurdle, which I didn’t think we would pass,” Hirono told HuffPost’s Igor Bobic after a procedural vote.

Given how divided the Senate has been on most measures until now, it is a relatively rare occurrence, and a welcome joint effort, for legislation to endure debate and pass with support from both sides of the aisle on a problem that’s been broadly criticized. A major component of the bill that ended up garnering both Democratic and Republican backing was the Jabara-Heyer No Hate Act — an amendment led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Jerry Moran (R-KS), which included the grants to regional law enforcement.

In the end, lawmakers in both parties agreed that the issue of racism and hate crimes warranted a collective policy response, even though it’s still a limited one.

Upcoming votes, including one on HR 1, Democrats’ sweeping voting rights reform bill, are unlikely to pass as smoothly.

If a bill is blocked, or filibustered, by even one member, after all, it will need 60 votes to pass, a tough threshold for Democrats to meet given the Senate’s current 50-50 breakdown. If the filibuster stays intact, a number of Democratic priorities — including gun control, police reform, and the $15 minimum wage — probably won’t pass.

Like the hate crimes bill, these coming votes will further test the chamber’s potential for bipartisanship — and likely play a role in whether Democrats end up deciding to blow up the filibuster down the line.

8 in 10 Asian Americans say violence against them is rising—yet support is lacking
Jennifer Liu 

CNBC

4/22/2021

A vast majority of Asian American adults, 81%, say violence against them is rising in the U.S., according to a new survey from Pew Research Center. The findings come after more than a year of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the racial stigma and xenophobia against Asians that's followed.

© Provided by CNBC People participate in a protest to demand an end to anti-Asian violence on April 04, 2021 in New York City.

The Pew survey of 352 Asian adults, conducted in English from April 5 to 11, came shortly after the fatal shootings of eight people, including six Asian women, in the Atlanta area on March 16.

By comparison, 56% of all U.S. adults believe violence against Asian Americans has risen in the last year.

Overall, 45% of Asian adults say they've experienced at least one of five racist incidents, as defined by Pew, since the start of the pandemic, including 32% who said they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them; 27% who say people acted as if they were uncomfortable around them; 27% who have been subject to racial slurs or jokes; 16% who have been told to go back to their home country; and 14% who were blamed for the coronavirus outbreak.

Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition started to document anti-Asian discrimination during the pandemic, said it received 3,795 self reports of anti-Asian hate incidents between March 2020 and February 2021.

It's crucial to consider the context of these incidents and resulting public perception, says Manjusha Kulkarni, the executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council and co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate.

Because the group's data is limited to the beginning of 2020, and hate incidents generally go underreported, Kulkarni tells CNBC Make It that it's hard to say if new reports of hate are rising due to increased incidents, improved reporting systems or even just better awareness of the issue that empowers victims to report.

With that said, Kulkarni stresses the importance of collecting this data to begin with, and that any reports are certain to be "the tip of the iceberg."

"It's important to have research and surveys, like the ones by Pew, AAPI Data and others," Kulkarni says. "That helps us to better understand the issue of underreporting and address it. It enables us as Americans, and also policymakers, to better understand frequency and severity of this problem."

Respondents to the Pew survey gave many reasons for why they think there's been an increase in anti-Asian racism and violence in the last year, including former President Trump's racists characterization of the origins of the coronavirus. Others cited ongoing racism, a general rise of violence during the pandemic and a history of scapegoating Asians in the U.S.

Notably, while the number of hate crimes against Asians increased by 150% in 2020, total hate crimes in the U.S. decreased by 7% overall, according to a March analysis released by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
The limits of bystander intervention trainings

Pew data shows a majority, 71%, of U.S. adults say they've witnessed discrimination against Asian people — a share similar to the public's assessments for Black people and Hispanic people.

Meanwhile, from the April Pew survey, only 32% of Asian adults reported that someone had expressed support for them and their racial or ethnic group since the coronavirus outbreak.

"To me, that means only one in three of us has had someone recognize our personhood or Americanness," Kulkarni says. "One in three is not a lot. Why isn't it three out of three? Why isn't every one of us supported by our neighbors, friends and community members?"

The majority of documented hate incidents occurred at businesses and in public, according to Stop AAPI Hate data. Many advocacy groups have encouraged people to participate in free bystander intervention trainings that teach individuals how to respond to hate incidents in the moment.

But individual actions have their limits.

"Bystander intervention can be one tool," Kulkarni says, "but we need broad-based solutions to what's happening. We need to change the dialogue in our understanding of what it means to be an American, what it means to have civil rights, what it means to have all the protections of a personhood and citizenship in the U.S."
Employers have a responsibility to stop Asian racism

In April, a national coalition of Asian American chief executives and business leaders publicly committed $10 million to justice groups and implored allies in corporate America to do more to support their AAPI workforces, such as by creating and funding AAPI employee resource groups, and ensuring better representation at their companies at all levels of the organization.

Beyond financial commitments, Kulkarni says businesses can go a long way in making sure their employees don't perpetuate any kind of racism, discrimination or bias, and that if it happens, workers know how to stop or report it.

In an office setting, for example, employees should be trained on what kind of behavior is and isn't allowed, and what actions bleed into racist or discriminatory territory; managers should be trained on how to handle concerns when they happen, like if their employee receives a racist email from a coworker. A retail store worker, meanwhile, might be trained on the consequences of refusing service to a customer based on a protected class.

Duration 2:04 This millennial activist is calling out anti-Asian racism

Employers should also provide a way for individuals to report concerns, and a process for addressing them, without fear of retaliation.

Kulkarni says racist and discriminatory behavior at work is "happening all the time," and employers should be thinking "are we doing anything to encourage or discourage reporting? Do we have anything in place that's keeping people from getting promoted, or raising concerns of retaliation? There's a whole host of steps that can be taken in the HR arena that serves to support employees to encourage and enable them to work in a safe environment."

Addressing anti-Asian racism will require systemic change

Though anti-Asian racism has gained national attention in recent months due to increasingly violent and fatal attacks, discrimination against the racial group is not new. About 3 in 4 Asian Americans say they've personally experienced race-based discrimination as of April, according to Pew; the share remains unchanged from June 2020 and February 2019 surveys that asked the same thing.

Addressing anti-Asian racism, and how it's perpetuated through countless policies and institutions, will require systemic change.

At the national level, President Biden signed an executive order on Jan. 26 targeting xenophobia against Asian Americans. During his first national televised remarks, Biden denounced anti-Asian racism, calling hate incidents "un-American," saying that they "must stop."

In March, the White House announced several initiatives to address anti-Asian violence, including reinstating and expanding the White House Initiative on AAPIs, improving data-collection efforts to study national hate crimes statistics and funding training for state and local law enforcement agencies to promote accurate reporting of hate crimes.

Kulkarni says increased policing won't address the root of the problem, given 89% of reported hate incidents are not physically violent (they include verbal harassments, deliberate shunning, civil rights violations and online harassment). But increased law enforcement could impact those disproportionately harmed by police violence, including Black Americans and individuals who are undocumented.

She offers LA vs. Hate as a model for an alternative — a phone line that can be used to report hate incidents, no matter the race of the victim, and connects residents with community organizations with resources for immediate care, mental health support, coalition building, leadership development and more.

"Action must be taken now," Kulkarni says. "We don't want to essentially neglect the opportunities this moment offers, not only to support AAPIs but also Latinx and African American community members. All these groups have experienced varying levels of marginalization and discrimination. We have to be prepared to tackle white supremacy — that's really essentially the foundational issue here."

Check out:

How to support Asian American colleagues amid the recent wave of anti-Asian violence

How millennial Nobel Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen's viral video sparked coverage of anti-Asian racism

'The model minority myth is killing us': Facebook exec calls public to confront anti-Asian racism

Searing Romanian Oscar contender tackles botched response to nightclub fire

By Luiza Ilie 

4/22/2021

© Reuters/INQUAM PHOTOS Narcis Hogea, father of a victim of Colectiv fire, reacts during interview in Sinaia

SINAIA, Romania (Reuters) - For Romanian father Narcis Hogea, who lost his son Alexandru in a Bucharest nightclub fire in 2015, the botched response to the disaster shown in the Oscar-nominated documentary film "Collective" remains an open wound.


Alexandru, a 19-year-old computer science student, was among 65 people who died as a result of the blaze at the Colectiv nightclub, a tragedy that exposed incompetence and corruption in Romania's healthcare system.

The film, which follows a team of investigative journalists as they uncover deeply ingrained problems in hospitals, has resonated with audiences at a time when healthcare or the lack of it have been on everyone's mind because of COVID-19.

Directed by Romanian Alexander Nanau, it is in the running for Oscars in two categories: International Feature Film and Documentary (Feature).

For Hogea, who is seen at his son's grave in the film, the events shown could not be more painful. He remembers Alexandru as an affectionate young man, always ready for a hug with his parents or his sister, and the life and soul of every party.

Hogea says he is still living in fear because of what happened to his son, who was among victims rushed to hospitals that turned out to be unable to care for them adequately.

"We have changed completely," Hogea said. "When you go through a tragedy like this, you start being afraid and it's a feeling that never goes away, coupled with the fact that you cannot be happy."

The documentary focuses on the then editor of the Gazeta Sporturilor newspaper, Catalin Tolontan, and his team, as they reveal shocking failings, such as the use of diluted disinfectants to treat burn victims.

LEGACY OF FEAR, DISTRUST

Potentially life-saving transfers of patients to hospitals in other countries were delayed after the fire because Romanian officials claimed they had everything they needed to handle the situation, which was not true.

Follow-up investigations uncovered corrupt procurement practices involving politically-appointed hospital managers. Most of the court trials that followed resulted in convictions, although appeals are still pending.

"Certainly, justice takes longer, and should, than journalistic investigations. But it is true that after five years not having a final ruling is too much … and this unfortunately fuels people's distrust," Tolontan said.

The bungled response to the fire sparked nationwide protests against corruption in Romania, a European Union member which has one of the least developed healthcare systems in the bloc, and currently one of the highest coronavirus death rates.

Many fear not enough has changed since the Colectiv disaster. Two more recent fires, as well as an oxygen tank malfunction affecting hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, have left dozens dead or injured. Reform-minded health officials face obstruction.

Tolontan said some changes did happen, including double-digit rises in healthcare workers' wages, stemming an exodus of medical staff.

"If we didn't have the intensive care doctors we have today, we would have felt the pandemic much harder than we are already feeling it," he said.

Mihai Grecea, a Colectiv survivor who became an activist for patients' rights and now advises the health ministry, said there had been limited progress, but the state of the nation's hospitals remained concerning.

"I am nervous when I enter Romanian hospitals because the level of control authorities can exercise over what happens there is very low," said Grecea.

(Reporting by Luiza Ilie, editing by Estelle Shirbon)

Many People WOMEN Are Experiencing Escalating Domestic Abuse In The Wake Of COVID

Illustrated By Jackson Joyce, Lauren Krouse  

© Jackson Joyce Many people are experiencing intimate partner violence or abusive relationship behavior in the wake of the pandemic. Here's how to help a loved one safely.

The saying“timing is everything” has particular significance when it comes to getting out of a relationship involving emotional or physical abuse. An abuser’s tactics, a survivor’s complex feelings of shame or guilt, and factors like children or finances, or even pets, can all impact when and why someone feels ready to make their exit.


It’s a process that friends and family and the person in the difficult situation can’t rush—or craft a completely flawless plan—to fix.

Still, when you hear or suspect someone you care about is in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, the knee-jerk reaction is often“Why can’t you just leave?” or“We’re ending this now.” Despite your best intentions, experts caution that what your instincts tell you to do is not always the most effective route in the long run. Especially in uncertain times like the present, when there are even more hurdles complicating the road to safety and healing.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is about one person in the relationship (or a former significant other) trying to take control and power away from the other. And abusers use a slew of strategies to do that, from threats to digital harassment.“A victim is experiencing a lack of control over their own decisions,” says Deborah J. Vagins, president and CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).“The last thing you want to do is take more power away from them by making choices on their behalf.”

In the wake of COVID-19, many are experiencing escalating violence or abuse for the first time for a variety of reasons, including skyrocketing stress, financial struggles, unemployment, and alcohol use, says Nancy Glass, PhD, a community-based intervention researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and associate director of the university’s Center for Global Health. While rates of IPV are notoriously difficult to track—those impacted may forgo seeking outside help in order to stay safe, or carefully weigh the pros and cons of asking—calls to help lines and the police have recently gone up in many U.S. cities and around the world, per a study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. (Right after states across the country issued shelter-in-place orders last year, however, many hotlines reported an initial downtick in calls, likely because survivors stuck at home had fewer opportunities to seek help.)

But experts say this data is the tip of the iceberg. After all, emotional abuse is the most common form of IPV—and it’s challenging to chart. The initial signs are easy to minimize, like increased isolation, personal jabs (being called names as a“joke”), tests of loyalty (such as insistence that passwords be shared), or gaslighting.

Worse yet, it’s hard to identify and address what’s going on from the outside, even if you suspect something’s amiss. While at home,“if a survivor wants to connect, they aren’t able to do that easily without their abusive partner knowing about it,” says Katie Atkinson, director of survivor services for LGBTQ people of all genders at The Network/La Red in Boston. The people they confide in most often are friends and family, though, so it’s critical to think proactively. (This is especially true for multiracial, Black, Native American, disabled, low-income, bisexual, and trans women, who face higher rates of domestic violence and greater barriers to receiving aid.)

One of the most helpful things you can do is help someone recover a sense of agency over their life. But you have to step up to the plate carefully. This advice from advocates with decades of know-how will guide you to get it right.© Jackson Joyce jackson joyce
© Hearst Owned type
Research on Your Own First

“The more you understand the dynamics of intimate partner violence, the better able you will be to offer support,” says Anna Nicolosi, operations manager at StrongHearts Native Helpline. Expressing concerns about someone’s relationship is super-dicey territory, so learn the red flags and the different forms of offense before starting a conversation. This will help you avoid common mistakes that could jeopardize the situation. (Not what you want.…)

How to do this? Contact a trained advocate via the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) or live-chat at thehotline.org. Or find contact info for a local organization and give them a rundown of the situation. A common misconception is that hotlines are *only* for the person in the situation—but Glass says family and friends often call in too. Take a few notes about the nature of the relationship and any concerning behaviors you’ve witnessed or heard about so you’re ready to share them when asked why you’re calling. Also, make a list of questions you want to cover, says Atkinson, such as“Is it okay if I say or do X?” and“What local resources are available if they want to leave, find housing, or get legal aid?” And to ensure they’re comfortable potentially calling on their own behalf in the future,“How do you handle confidentiality?” Clarifying what you should (and shouldn’t) do in your role can give you the confidence you need to tackle what comes next.

© Hearst Owned tip© Jackson Joyce jackson joyce© Hearst Owned find

 

A Way to Connect One-on-One

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Ask your loved one if you can chat sometime (but don’t mention abuse, and do let them choose how to connect—socially distanced in person, over the phone, via Zoom, or on FaceTime, for example—since their partner could be monitoring communications). Start with not-so-invasive questions such as“Where’s so-and-so today?” or“I want to talk to you about something personal—can we chat privately?” suggests Atkinson.

Then, when you’re sure you’re both in a safe place, simply ask how they feel about the relationship. Let them know you’re concerned about something you’ve witnessed or heard about, and encourage candidness by listening reflectively. For example:“I’m worried when [name] says things like that to you. How does it make you feel?” or“What you’re describing sounds like an example of gaslighting. What do you think?” Prime questions with phrases to emphasize that they’re in control (e.g.,“There’s no pressure to answer any of my questions”) and be truthful about your own uncertainties (“I don’t know exactly what to say, but I want to support you however you need. May I ask you some questions about this?”).

You might feel the urge to disparage their partner, but this can backfire fast. The person is still a key part of their life and someone they may love deeply. They might become defensive, blame themselves, or stop confiding in you entirely. Focus on behaviors and their impact instead, says Nicolosi. At the same time, be firm, emphasizing that it’s never okay to treat someone that way, no excuses. If they don’t want to talk to begin with? Do not push it. Let them know you care about them very much and are concerned, and that you respect their boundaries and are available anytime they want to discuss. Then let them change the subject.

© Hearst Owned provide

No-Strings-Attached Support

While it’s important to be honest about your concerns, keep your tone calm and avoid gushing about how worried you’ve been (experts call this centering your own feelings), which could cause unnecessary drama or fear, says Nicolosi. Thank them off the bat for trusting you with this information.“What survivors need most is someone who will believe them and listen to them,” says Linley Beckbridge, communications and outreach director at Doorways, a domestic violence shelter in Arlington, Virginia. Let them know you’re in their corner, and never give ultimatums or unsolicited advice.

Also good to know: Going back to the relationship is a normal part of the process. They might be facing obstacles they can’t tell you about, like feelings of denial or guilt. Pressuring them to“get out” before they’re ready is dangerous. The hope is that *they* know best how to stay safe until they can carefully exit.






Once they’re (possibly) ready to move forward, you can help sort priorities with an open-ended question like“Are there any options you’ve been thinking about?” Assure them, once they’re on board, that there are people who care and programs that can help, says Doreen Nicholas, survivor engagement and systems change specialist at the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence (ACESDV).

Know of a service for their needs? Offer to set it up for them. For example, if they are interested in connecting with an affordable or free therapist, support group, or other mental health service in the area so they can talk through coping methods or have an objective person help unpack an upsetting interaction, search for professionals who are trained in trauma-informed care and regularly work with survivors of sexual and domestic violence, says Nicholas. In that case, you would search their state or city and“Coalition Against Domestic Violence” to find the local coalition. (Call or email; a rep should be able to direct you to mental health resources.)

If they’re not there yet, don’t jump into problem-solving mode; continue to lend an ear and unconditional support, says Nicolosi. Money troubles are one of the most common reasons victims stay or return to partners. (The majority experience financial abuse—e.g., their person controls all finances or prevents them from working.) What you can do is spot them on childcare, necessities, or an Airbnb.

Pro tip: Advocacy centers sometimes help cover immediate needs or can point them toward other opportunities.

 

© Jackson Joyce jackson joyce

Abusers of any kind use isolation to deepen their control, dominating a person’s time to keep them from spending it with loved ones. So continue to reach out, offering a space to talk, to feel validated, or to just know they’re not alone. Ask how they prefer to stay in touch and check in often-—as long as it’s safe for you both, says Nicolosi. Connect over phone calls, texts, video calls, virtual games—even grocery deliveries or socially distanced meetups.

Just be sure to find ways to maintain your comforting presence and encouragement, even if you have to get creative. It may be lifesaving.

D.C.’s Lack Of Statehood Is An Issue Of White Supremacy. Here’s How It Could Change.

Natalie Gontcharova  

4/22/2021

For Ty Hobson-Powell, his hometown of D.C. means go-go music, basketball culture, and mumbo sauce. The city is not the monuments or what you see on CNN for natives like him; it’s the Black-owned businesses on U Street, from Ben’s Chili Bowl to Lee’s Flower Shop, it’s Moechella, the go-go festival, recently held in front of the historic Howard Theatre, it’s the distinct way some natives talk. But ever since Hobson-Powell was old enough to be aware of it, D.C. has also been a place where he and his family and friends are disenfranchised because of a centuries-long practice, rooted in white supremacy, through which 700,000 residents — who, until recent waves of gentrification, were predominantly Black — pay taxes every year but don’t have representation in Congress.

“At first, it was seeing the reminders that we don’t have statehood, one just being the tags on the cars here that say ‘Taxation Without Representation,’” Hobson-Powell tells Refinery29. “You get online, you go shopping for something, you’re placing an order, and you notice that D.C. doesn’t come up in the state section. It was that kind of elementary exploration that I experienced in my younger days around D.C. statehood.”

Hobson-Powell became involved in the statehood movement shortly after graduating college at 15 years old, hoping to advance the rights of the residents of the place where he grew up. He is now an outreach strategist and issue advocate at 51 for 51, an organization that advocates for making D.C. the 51st state, and the founder of Concerned Citizens D.C.

Statehood has more momentum now than at any other point in recent history. Today, the Democratic-led House is expected to pass H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which has 220 House and 44 Senate cosponsors. President Joe Biden’s administration this week officially supported statehood by issuing a policy position, which is the strongest backing the issue has ever gotten from the White House. And 54% of voters nationwide agree with making D.C. a state, according to a new national poll. This is the highest level of documented support to date.

In contrast with the ‘90s during the Clinton presidency, when more than 100 Democrats joined Republicans in opposing a D.C. statehood bill, almost every Democratic member of the House has co-sponsored D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s H.R. 51, which passed the chamber for the first time last year on a party-line vote. The legislation, however, does not have enough votes to clear the narrowly Democratic-led Senate, where the archaic filibuster rule means it needs 60 votes to pass. But many prominent senators are behind statehood, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised to bring the issue to the floor.

“Congress can no longer exclude D.C. residents from the democratic process, forcing residents to watch from the sidelines as Congress votes on laws that affect the nation or votes even on the laws of the duly elected D.C. government,” Norton, who is allowed to propose legislation but not vote on it, said last week, when the House Oversight and Reform Committee voted to advance the bill. “Democracy requires much more.”

While some lawmakers — particularly Republicans — in the Capitol treat statehood as a removed, theoretical issue, the city’s disenfranchisement has affected residents in very real and tangible ways. After violent white supremacists stormed the Capitol on January 6, Mayor Muriel Bowser didn’t have full power to protect residents. And during protests for racial justice last summer, Trump commanded national forces to tear gas protestors on D.C.’s streets. “We saw the deployment of the National Guard against peaceful protestors back in June, just for a photo op by President Trump at the time, against the will of local leadership,” says Hobson-Powell. “We saw January 6 and how D.C.’s lack of statehood left Washingtonians held hostage to white supremacy as requests were being made from the Mayor’s office to activate the National Guard because she needed permission to do the things she was already empowered to do when elected.” Hobson-Powell himself was on the forefront of the Black Lives Matter protests in D.C., and was arrested in August with over 60 other protestors who were seeking justice for Breonna Taylor.

© Provided by Refinery29

Demi Stratmon, also an organizer for 51 for 51, says, “This system in place has always made D.C. residents and our communities not secure. We were always in a position where if something like [January 6] happened, we were at risk. Trump is an example of [how politicians] can make D.C. a photo op and place the residents here at risk for political gain.”

Stratmon says she first became involved in this issue while attending Dartmouth College, where she started traveling around the country with political campaigns and seeing how voters in states like Iowa and New Hampshire were treated versus people in her home city of D.C. in terms of the value of their vote. While at college, she also noticed that when students were encouraged to contact their representatives on issues, she was left out.

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Aside from security, there are countless other ways in which residents have been affected by the lack of statehood. “Coronavirus recovery and how D.C.’s lack of statehood led to us being shorted hundreds of millions of dollars in relief funds from the CARES Act” is a major issue, says Hobson-Powell. “And as a result, we were left in a position that was less than adequate to provide services for a pandemic that we’ve seen has claimed a lot lives here that have been majority Black and brown.”

Jamal Holtz, another organizer at 51 for 51 and a commissioner on the D.C. Mayor’s Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform, says for him, it was about healthcare.

“It was 2014 when there was a huge discussion around the Affordable Care Act,” Holtz tells Refinery29. “That was something that was groundbreaking for me and my family, for my mom who didn’t have access to health insurance or preventative care. [It] shaped my family’s medical stability. So I started to advocate for it, and there was a lot of conversation about ‘call your senator and tell them to vote for the Affordable Care Act’ because it was a close vote. At that point I realized my advocacy ended at the mayor’s office, that I wasn’t able to go to the Hill and talk to my shadow senators, who didn’t have a vote on these issues.”

The issue is tragically reflected in gun violence, too. “D.C. is, as far as laws on the books are concerned, one of the most progressive locales in America, but because of a lack of representation and inability to vote on issues like red-flag laws and background checks, there are still guns from other states with laxer regulations that are coming into our streets, wreaking havoc on our young men and young women, causing violent deaths, oftentimes in young people under the age of 25 and Black and brown youth,” Hobson-Powell says. Too often, the guns discovered at homicide scenes in D.C. are found to have been illegally brought in from neighboring states like Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. D.C. police recovered 1,000 illegal guns in the city in 2019, the year 11-year-old Karon Brown was gunned down.

Washington, D.C., was created at the beginning of the 19th century as a concession to Southern, slave-holding states, whose representatives wanted to move the capital, which was then in Philadelphia, further south. At first, its residents were able to vote for their own local government, and during Reconstruction it became the first place in the U.S. to grant suffrage to Black residents.

Soon after, however, formerly enslaved people coming from the South began to populate the city, and pushback from conservatives took away residents’ rights to choose their own local government by the end of the 1800s. It wasn’t until 1973 that Home Rule, or the right to elect the mayor and City Council members, was restored. In 1980, 60% of D.C. voters supported a referendum to establish a state constitution, which was a big step for statehood. But the statehood movement stalled in the next decades, and presidents including Clinton and Obama voiced support for the issue, but never did much outright to make statehood viable. In 2016, Mayor Bowser called for a new referendum on statehood, and this time it was backed by 86% of voters, in part thanks to the advocacy of organizations like 51 for 51.

But statehood still faces fierce opposition from Republicans, who argue it is unconstitutional because the Constitution called for the creation of a federal district. Sen. Mitch McConnell, not a D.C. native, called the prospect of D.C. statehood “full-bore socialism.” Democrats, however, say that Norton’s bill would not eliminate this district but only change its borders. Additionally, advocates believe Republicans oppose D.C. statehood so vehemently because it is such a heavily Democratic area, with 92% of voters backing Biden over Trump last year; if D.C. becomes a state, it would certainly give Democrats two more Senate seats. The fact that D.C. would be the first plurality Black state if it became the 51st state is no coincidence here, either.

“I remember hearing commentary from Republicans throughout the course of this that said D.C. doesn’t have ‘real people,’” says Hobson-Powell. “It feels a lot like dog-whistling to me, because I feel pretty real myself, and the over 700,000 majority Black and brown residents here feel pretty real as well.”

With Republicans unlikely to come around, Stasha Rhodes, the campaign manager at 51 for 51, says the only way to make statehood a reality is to eliminate the filibuster (that said, there are plenty of other good reasons to get rid of the filibuster).

“The filibuster is an arcane Jim Crow relic that makes the Senate more undemocratic,” Rhodes tells Refinery29. “It has a long history of blocking civil rights bills, including over 200 anti-lynching laws. We must abolish the filibuster if we plan to enact structural change and uplift the voices of Black and brown folks. The Senate is unequal and undemocratic in that it over-represents smaller, white states.” She adds, “And, there’s only been 11 Black senators — [Raphael] Warnock’s the 11th.”

Despite the renewed energy around D.C. statehood, it seems unlikely that it can become a reality absent major filibuster reform. However, advocates are optimistic that the tide has turned, and the time has finally come to recognize D.C. as a state.

“Yes, I absolutely think it will happen,” says Stratmon. “Right now, Democrats are in control of Congress, the Senate, and we have, in the White House, two leaders who supported 51 for 51, who supported D.C. becoming the 51st state with 51 votes or less in the Senate. So I think the time is now — it’s inevitable. And we have to make sure we don’t waste any more time.”

The fight for DC statehood gets its best chance yet

Jerusalem Demsas 

4/22/2021

It’s difficult to walk around Washington, DC, without spotting at least one car with a license plate reading “taxation without representation.” The callback to the American Revolution’s rallying cry is also a reference to the reality that the roughly 700,000 people who reside in the nation’s capital have no representation in Congress despite paying federal taxes

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© Alex Wong/Getty Images A Washington, DC, “Taxation Without Representation” license plate is seen in 2013 on the limousine of then-Vice President Joe Biden in Washington, DC.

Now, in a party-line vote, Democrats have approved DC statehood, sending the bill to the Democratically controlled Senate — where even a party-line vote would still not be sufficient to send the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk. And that itself isn’t guaranteed; according to reporting by POLITICO, not even all 50 Democratic Senators have signaled their support for the bill (the five outstanding are Sens. Angus King (I-VT), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)).

The vote came just days after the White House put out an official statement of support for the bill, arguing “for far too long, the more than 700,000 people of Washington, D.C. have been deprived of full representation in the U.S. Congress.”

This is not the first time statehood has made it to the House floor. Just last year, House Democrats voted 232-180 in favor of statehood, making it “the first time in the nation’s history that either house of Congress approved legislation granting full statehood and congressional representation” to the District, Vox’s Ian Millhiser reported at the time.

But, the best chance yet still isn’t much of one: The bill — like last time — is likely to join countless others languishing under the might of the Senate filibuster.


While the debate over statehood has centered largely on how it would affect the political composition of Congress (92 percent of DC voters selected Biden in 2020), the district’s lack of statehood and limited control of local affairs has led to tangible policy harms for its residents — from being unable to enact locally popular health care policies to losing out on over $700 million in CARES Act relief funding last year.

“Most people, when they find out that their own nation’s capital [doesn’t] have the same rights they have — they’re ashamed,” the district’s non-voting delegate, Eleanor Norton Holmes, told Vox. “Ashamed to live in the only country which does not give the residents of their nation’s capital the same rights that everyone else in the country has. No American wants to have that distinction.”

That’s not exactly right. A Data for Progress poll conducted in February found that while a majority (54 percent) of voters agree with making DC a state, 35 percent of voters oppose it, including 56 percent of Republicans. In a March Rasmussen poll, only 29 percent of adults favored statehood with 55 percent against. FiveThirtyEight looked at both polls and noted that Data for Progress’s question primed voters to support statehood, and in the Rasmussen poll, the wording primed them to oppose it. That could indicate the majority of Americans don’t have a strong opinion on DC statehood one way or the other, so how pollsters frame the question matters a great deal.
What is DC losing out on without statehood?

Proponents of statehood point to several ways DC residents have lost out under the current paradigm — most recently, while trying to weather the pandemic.

“In the first Covid relief package we were shortchanged millions of dollars,” Stasha Rhodes, campaign manager of 51 for 51, an organization fighting for statehood, told Vox.

The $2 trillion CARES Act, which provided relief last March as Covid-19 began to ravage the nation, classified DC as a territory rather than a state. As such, instead of being granted the minimum of $1.25 billion guaranteed to each state, it would receive only $500 million, the Washington Post reported. DC has a larger population than both Vermont and Wyoming, which received $1.25 billion in aid, each.

“Arbitrary and out of the norm,” is how DC Vote’s Executive Director Bo Shuff described this classification. “It is typical in spending bills that we’re categorized as a state.”

It wasn’t until Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act under President Joe Biden and a Democrat-controlled Senate that DC received the money it would have if it had been classified as a state originally.

Timothy Noah recently argued in the Atlantic that because DC isn’t a state, it is losing out on tens of thousands of vaccine doses that go to federal agencies within DC’s borders: “The upshot is that DC’s population-based vaccine allotment — 44,440 this week [week of March 29], the third-smallest allocation in the country, after Wyoming and Vermont — likely falls short by one-third to one-half,” Noah writes.

Covid-19 is only the tip of the iceberg, Shuff tells Vox. As Vox’s German Lopez has explained, DC has only had a sitting local government since 1973, when Congress passed the Home Rule Act. And even that amount of local control is somewhat constrained:


Prior to the Home Rule Act, Congress set DC’s laws. The Home Rule Act made it so the local government could approve its own laws, although only after 30 or 60 days of congressional review depending on the type of policy. Congress can also block DC’s laws through budgetary requirements.

Shuff said that congressional oversight has led to DC’s inability to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana; the congressional prohibition against using local funds for abortion care for low-income women is also a sore subject.

“But the biggest one that stands out in my head goes all the way back to the ’80s and early ’90s when we were banned and prevented from implementing a needle exchange program to reduce HIV and AIDS transmission amongst intravenous drug users,” Shuff explained.

The ban was lifted, and Vox’s German Lopez reports the city “adopted a needle exchange program to combat its HIV epidemic [and] needle-caused HIV cases dropped by 80 percent, from 149 in 2007 to 30 in 2011, according [to] a report from the DC Department of Health.”

“So now we’re dealing with two instances where lack of statehood has killed Washingtonians,” Shuff said.
How DC statehood would work, briefly explained

HR 51, the Washington, DC, Admission Act, would create the state of Washington, DC, but instead of DC referring to “District of Columbia,” it would come to be known as Douglass Commonwealth, in honor of Frederick Douglass.

The bill states that the commonwealth wouldn’t encompass federal buildings and monuments including the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court.

© New Columbia Vision, 2016 The red boundaries demarcate the boundaries of “Douglass Commonwealth,” and the white boundaries contain the federal buildings and monuments that would remain under federal jurisdiction. The blue is the Potomac River.

As a state, DC would then have two US senators, and a number of representatives in the US House commensurate to its population. And, like every other state, it would be able to pass laws in accordance with its legislative and executive bodies without undue interference from the federal government.

As Vox’s Ian Millhiser has reported, there are constitutional questions that Congress will need to address on the path to statehood: “The 23rd Amendment effectively grants three Electoral College votes to ‘the District constituting the seat of Government of the United States.’ Under this amendment, which was ratified in 1961, DC has as much say in presidential elections as the ‘least populous State.’”

While some conservatives have argued this means that DC cannot be admitted without a new constitutional amendment, Millhiser points out that since the district is still an entity (albeit a much smaller one), Congress can simply pass a law giving the district’s electoral votes to “whichever presidential candidate would otherwise win the Electoral College — or, even better, Congress could award these three votes to the national popular vote winner.”

But answering these technical questions is putting the cart before the horse. For now, the biggest obstacle to DC statehood is the US Senate.

It’s a hard road ahead for proponents of DC statehood

Democrats’ narrow majority was able to pass statehood legislation when it came to the House floor but now it goes to the Senate — where bills go to die via filibuster.

Despite the myriad ways statehood would benefit DC residents, the political debate has been defined by the reality that two more Democratic senators would likely be added to the Senate if DC were to become the 51st state. According to the Brookings Institution, since 2000, the Democratic presidential nominee has captured, on average, over 89 percent of the vote in Washington, DC.

The political stakes of this were laid bare in 2009 when the Senate struck a deal to add a DC House seat in exchange for another House seat in a Republican part of Utah. The proposal died in the House.

As Alan Greenblatt has reported for Vox: “Republicans weren’t too happy [with this deal] either.” Jason Chaffetz, then a representative from Utah, complained, “This whole thing strikes me as political bribery. If Washington, DC, is due representation, make that case. ... Don’t try and dangle a carrot out there.”

Rep. James Comer (R-OK) who sits on the House Oversight Committee, argued this point at a hearing last week: “Let’s be very clear what HR 51 is all about. It’s all about creating two new Democrat US Senate seats.”

Rhodes, of 51 for 51, pushes back on this point: “I think most importantly, this fight is about democracy and the fact that all American citizens deserve participation in democracy. Our country takes a step back to talk about racism mostly in the context of policing and criminal justice, but we really want to ensure that we’re talking about racism that’s rooted in our democracy.”

51 for 51 is beginning an ad campaign targeting Democratic members of the Senate Rules Committee. The ads frame the issue as a racial justice and civil rights issue and ask viewers to call their senators to “prioritize DC statehood.”

That the fight is both a civil rights fight and a partisan fight would align with US history, whether lawmakers from either party want to acknowledge it or not. As Greenblatt notes, “political bribery is what the creation of states has all been about ... states have historically entered the union in pairs, with lawmakers using new states to maintain the balance of partisan power — or at least try to.”

With the filibuster in place, it’s not just all 50 Democrats who have to get on board; advocates will have to convince 10 Republican senators that the case for statehood trumps their current partisan incentives.

While progressive hopes for filibuster reform spiked with the victories of Georgia Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) recent op-ed in the Washington Post threw cold water over these talks, stating baldly: “I will not vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster.”

The fight for statehood has been ongoing since the capital’s creation. In 1801, a prominent judge wrote in favor of representation, proposing that DC “be entitled to one Senator ... and to a number of members in the House of Representatives proportionate to its population.” Still, last year was the first time the measure passed in the House, showcasing the slow progress statehood advocates have made over the centuries.

“The most important thing is to see the progress we’ve made.” Holmes said. “It would make a real difference [for DC residents] to have two senators.”

Opinion: Saskatchewan can be a STEM destination with the right direction

Patrick Thera 

4/21/2021

The Avro Arrow was one of the most innovative aircraft of its time, establishing Canada as a global leader in aerospace research and development. In what has been deemed the closest thing Canadian industry has to both a love story and a murder mystery, the program was cancelled by the Diefenbaker government in 1959. The shuttering of the Arrow program resulted in the loss of at least 25,000 jobs.

© Provided by Leader Post SED Systems' satellite dish in Argentina. SED Systems, now Calian, constructed three 35-metre wide satellite dishes in Australia, Spain and Argentina.

It was the ultimate brain drain. More than 33 senior Canadian engineers left for NASA and made an indelible mark on the manned space program and lunar landing 10 years later. Among them was Canada’s Owen Maynard, who oversaw NASA’s Lunar Module Program and played a key role in the design of the module.

The first successful moon landing was nothing short of momentous. Roughly 650 million viewers watched those first few steps on their television screens, cementing the United States as the winner of the global space race. However, underpinning the moon landing is a lesser-known Canadian contribution.

The move south by Maynard and others, while an immense gesture to Canadian ingenuity, was a significant exodus of Canada’s brightest minds. This has since become an unfavourable trend, not just for the aerospace industry, but from our country’s science and engineering ranks more broadly. A recent study found that one-in-four STEM graduates from three leading Canadian universities opted to work outside Canada. Eight-in-10 chose the United States.

Meanwhile, technology for space exploration has gained momentum and public attention in recent years, providing Canadian companies with the opportunity to re-assert themselves as global leaders. As NASA signals its intention to return to the moon and sends new vehicles to Mars, companies on our home soil are thriving, innovating and delivering key technologies for space exploration, sensing and communication.

There is great potential to make Saskatchewan the Canadian destination for STEM talent. Our goal is to create and maintain highly skilled jobs in the province and across the country, especially in the area of science, technology and engineering.

Yet sustaining local and national competitiveness relies on innovation and bringing the right solutions to market. Government support can help accelerate innovation and commercialization of space and satellite communications, bolstering Saskatchewan’s position domestically and abroad. Canada’s space companies, including Calian, are already providing solutions here on Canadian soil and are generating export sales from foreign clients.

In Saskatchewan, there are opportunities to invest in a future where talent thrives over the long-term, enticing highly-trained professionals and thus enhancing the long-term sustainability and diversity of the economy. Telesat LightSpeed is developing Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites that will provide high-speed broadband internet to many remote, rural and First Nations communities. These satellites will improve internet connectivity speeds, giving Saskatchewanians greater prospects of job advancement and better access to healthcare and education.

The barriers to good rural connectivity were recently identified by the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan. Its task force report offered a series of recommendations to remove the barriers. These include ensuring government funding to regain Canadian excellence, taking a leadership role to build long-term sustainability, and achieving universal connectivity to realize the societal and economic benefits.

Saskatchewan has a chance to secure its future as a leader in a highly competitive global market. The province can deliver an all-Canadian solution for the Telesat LEO program, increasing accessibility for these underserved communities all while creating and sustaining local jobs.

Government must support the domestic space supply chain and help engineer Saskatchewan’s social, cultural and economic fabric.

-based Patrick Thera is president of Calian, Advanced Technologies, formerly known as SED Systems, which provides infrastructure for satellite ground systems across the aerospace and defence, satellite and nuclear industri

Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre workers seek third-party review of 'toxic' workplace

Jonny Wakefield 

4/21/2021

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Exterior of the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre.

Staff at Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre are demanding an independent review after a survey found most employees feel their workplace is “toxic.”

Seventy per cent of respondents to a recent survey reported feeling bullied at work, according to results released Wednesday by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE).

Eighty-five per cent said the work environment has taken a toll on their mental health, while around 75 per cent reported negative consequences to their physical health. More than half believed managers would retaliate if they raised concerns.

Ninety-five per cent of employees want the provincial government to order a third-party review of the workplace, AUPE said in a news release, saying relations between managers and staff have broken down.

“It’s a very hard job,” said Susan Slade, AUPE vice-president. “And it’s a very trying job, dealing with, you know, criminals. But at the end of the day, you should still be able to have a healthy work environment.”

FSCC was built in 1988 . It can house 546 prisoners , including pretrial inmates and those serving sentences. It has averaged fewer than 300 inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AUPE represents the majority of workers at the facility, including correctional officers, licensed practical nurses and administrative staff. Around 80 per cent filled out the AUPE survey.

Slade said the current issues go back at least five years. In October, staff presented managers with a list of issues, but were “brushed off.”

“(Staff) feel that management just doesn’t want to listen,” said Slade.

The pandemic has increased tensions. In December, correctional peace officer Roger Maxwell died of COVID-19. Slade said his passing is now considered a workplace death. Forty-seven per cent of respondents said the centre’s COVID response was among their biggest concerns, “second only to the issue of bullying, harassment, and intimidation,” AUPE spokesman Jon Milton said.
Other jails flagged after ‘toxic’ workplace complaints

FSCC is the latest Edmonton-area correctional facility to report toxic workplace concerns.

In 2019, the province released the results of an independent workplace review of the Edmonton Remand Centre (ERC), which compared the workplace culture to a “high school” riven with cliques, bullying and immature behaviour.

In response to the report, then-Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer announced unspecified “staffing changes” at the management level.

The federal, maximum-security Edmonton Institution, meanwhile, has long been plagued by complaints about the workplace culture.

In 2019, Postmedia obtained a workplace review which found numerous allegations of sexual assault and harassment involving co-workers at Edmonton Institution. Canada’s correctional investigator has repeatedly highlighted bullying, harassment and intimidation issues at Edmonton Institution, which fired, suspended or forced out 11 staffers in 2018.

Slade said the ERC review resulted in positive changes, but stressed that the workplace is still “not a perfect scenario or anything like that.” She hopes to see similar action at Fort Saskatchewan.

In a statement, justice ministry spokeswoman Katherine Thompson said the government “takes concerns about workplace culture very seriously, and that is why plans continue to be developed to enhance collaboration and the workplace culture among the staff and leadership at Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre.”

“Management or staff who don’t support a professional and respectful work environment are not meeting expectations, whether those of their colleagues, this department, or Albertans at large,” she added.

Slade said correctional facilities should not be inherently toxic workplaces.

“We need to stop that kind of culture, and we need to stop that kind of (belief), that it’s OK to not feel mentally healthy because you work in corrections,” she said.

jwakefield@postmedia.com

twitter.com/jonnywakefield

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