Canadian First Nation, with rare sway over mining, puts Newmont on notice

In BC, the Tahltan First Nation calls the mining shots

By Jeff Lewis

© Reuters/ADAM AMIR

TORONTO (Reuters) - A First Nation group in Canada's British Columbia province has put top gold miner Newmont Corp on notice that it is unlikely to gain buy-in for a gold and copper project, amid concern that mining will encroach on a local town.

The pushback by the Tahltan First Nation carries extra weight due to the group's outsized influence in its territory, in contrast to similar groups who oppose mining elsewhere.

That authority may complicate efforts by U.S.-based Newmont to develop its early-stage Tatogga project, acquired in March in a $311 million buyout of GT Gold.

"It's going to be a sensitive discussion with the nation," Tahltan Central Government President Chad Day told Reuters.

Residents of nearby Iskut, about 1,600 kilometers north of Vancouver, worry the Newmont project will limit their ability to hunt caribou and bring more industry to an area that already includes Newcrest Mining's Red Chris copper and gold mine.

The Tahltan nation has unique powers due to a combination of land rights, legal clout, financial heft and the ability to conduct their own economic and environmental assessments on projects in their territory.

Miners from Teck to Rio Tinto have signed consent agreements with the nation, whose business arm spans aviation to mining.

"There’s no doubt that they have a very powerful say in whether or not projects proceed in their territory," said Merle Alexander, principal at with the indigenous law group at Miller Titerle and a hereditary chief of the Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation.

Tahltan territory covers about 11% of the Pacific province and sits on an estimated 50.6 million ounces of gold and 12.5 billion pounds of copper, according to data mapping provider DigiGeoData.

Like some other British Columbian groups, the Tahltan Nation never ceded territory to European settlers, in contrast to groups elsewhere who ended up relinquishing title to their lands through treaties.

Aboriginal claims to traditional territories in British Columbia were bolstered by a landmark 2014 Supreme Court ruling.

Newmont owns stakes in other undeveloped mineral deposits in Tahltan territory, which remain years from development.

"Clearly, if the community does not want the resource development, we're not going to be there," Newmont spokesman Nick Cotts said, adding the U.S. miner is committed to working with the Tahltan to address concerns.

NO 'CULTURAL SACRIFICES'

The Tahltan nation has not shied away from using its power in the past.

In 2012, the nation opposed a coalbed methane project proposed by oil major Royal Dutch Shell, prompting the company to relinquish land tenures.

Three years later, Fortune Minerals sold coal leases in the territory, after the group threatened the miner with expulsion.

Such clout is in sharp contrast to the experience of indigenous groups elsewhere. Last year, Rio Tinto destroyed Aboriginal cave sites, with the affected indigenous population having little recourse to block it.

To be sure, the nation, who historically mined obsidian for weaponry and tools, support some mining provided it is on their terms.

Exploration spending last year in the territory topped C$200 million ($162.40 million) with production from three active mines valued at more than C$1.2 billion, according to the nation. Many Tahltan work in the industry and the nation has revenue-sharing agreements with the government for projects.

That economic heft makes it difficult for other indigenous groups to emulate Tahltan's assertive approach to development, lawyers and First Nation leaders said.

"We don't have to make huge cultural sacrifices to have a thriving economic environment in our territory," Day said.

Last month the nation vowed "all actions necessary" to stop exploration by junior miner Doubleview Gold Corp on ancestral lands.

The dispute reflects long-standing grievances with the provincial government which grants mineral claims over the internet.

Legal experts said that approach is inconsistent with principles around getting First Nations consent. A similar approach in Yukon was found to breach the government's legal duty to consult indigenous groups.

British Columbia consults at a later stage of mine development, a spokesman for the provincial mines minister said.

Doubleview says it has valid permits but takes local concerns seriously. A study it commissioned found exploration would occur in an area of "low archaeological potential."

Day said the Tahltan are crafting a land-use plan to prohibit exploration in ecologically and culturally sensitive areas, giving the nation greater control over who can stake mineral claims and where.

"All of those resources belong to Tahltan," said elder Allen Edzerza, who leads efforts by the BC First Nations Energy and Mining Council advocacy group to reform the province's mining laws.

"It’s not (the province's) right to give those away.”

(Reporting by Jeff Lewis in Toronto; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

B.C. Supreme Court rejects Wet'suwet'en bid to toss LNG pipeline certificate

VANCOUVER — The British Columbia Supreme Court has rejected a bid to quash the extension of the environmental assessment certificate for the natural gas pipeline at the centre of countrywide protests in February last year.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Office of the Wet'suwet'en, a society governed by several hereditary chiefs, asked the court to send the certificate for the Coastal GasLink pipeline back to B.C.'s Environmental Assessment Office for further review.

Their lawyers argued in part that the office did not meaningfully address the findings of the 2019 report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls when it approved the extension.

They said Coastal GasLink's plan to mitigate potential socio-economic effects of the pipeline project did not address harms identified by the inquiry, which heard evidence linking the influx of temporary labourers for such projects with escalating gender-based violence.

Justice Barbara Norell disagreed, saying it's clear from an evaluation report that the assessment office did consider the national inquiry's report, and requested the company consider how such harms would be addressed.

She says in a decision released last week the assessment office also asked Coastal GasLink to consider how Indigenous nations would be engaged in identifying and monitoring potential social impacts of the pipeline project.

"These comments do not indicate a failure or refusal of the (assessment office) to consider the inquiry report, but the opposite," she says.

Opposition last year by Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs over the pipeline being built in their territory in northwestern B.C. set off Canada-wide rail blockades by their supporters that stalled parts of the country's economy.

The chiefs' lawyers argued Coastal GasLink's zero-tolerance policies for harassment and the possession of firearms, drugs and alcohol are focused on work camps, while the harms outlined by inquiry were not so limited.

Norell found the chiefs' argument "leads to the conclusion that nothing short of a gender-based impact assessment conducted by the (Environmental Assessment Office) ... would be reasonable."

But to establish that a decision was unreasonable, the petitioner must do more than allege a better analysis could have been undertaken, Norell says.

"I want to emphasize that this decision should not be taken as in any way diminishing the importance of the inquiry report," Norell adds.

The executive director of B.C.'s Environmental Assessment Office granted Coastal GasLink an extension in October 2019, nearly five years after a certificate was first issued for the 670-kilometre natural gas pipeline.

Lawyers for the Office of the Wet'suwet'en argued the office's records of the decision to extend the certificate also failed to address what they claimed was a track record of non-compliance by the company.

Norell disagreed, saying the office's evaluation report addressed both the frequency and nature of instances of non-compliance, and the company had either rectified or was in the process of rectifying those issues.

Hereditary chiefs with the Office of the Wet'suwet'en have opposed Coastal GasLink's project, while five elected Wet'suwet'en band councils signed agreements approving construction that's currently underway.

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

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

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

Workers at Massachusetts museum vote to join a union


NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Workers at a Massachusetts museum have voted to join a union.

Employees at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams approved affiliating with UAW Local 2110 by a 53-15 vote, according to a count conducted Wednesday by the National Labor Relations Board, The Berkshire Eagle reported.

The votes had been submitted by mail over the past three weeks.

“It’s extremely gratifying and fills me with hope and optimism about the future,” said Amanda Tobin, a museum employee.

Full-time and regular part-time workers who have been with museum since at least March 21 were eligible to vote. Ninety-three employees including curators, art fabricators, educators, and “front-facing” employees, were eligible.

The workers in March cited job insecurity, low pay, and layoffs during the pandemic as their reasons for filing for union representation.

“We respect the choice to unionize and look forward to working with UAW Local 2110 in continuing to cultivate an inclusive, diverse, and sustainable workplace,” Tracy Moore, the museum’s interim director, said in a statement.

The Associated Press

ALBERTA

Opposition to K-6 curriculum draft grows as 11,723 parents sign petition

Up to 41 school districts, representing nearly three-quarters of Alberta students, have now confirmed they will not pilot the UCP government’s K-6 draft curriculum, according to the Opposition NDP.

© Provided by Calgary Herald NDP Education Critic Sarah Hoffman, left, and concerned parent Taylor Schroeter with a petition calling on the UCP to scuttle its K-6 curriculum draft. The two appeared at a press conference in Edmonton on Wednesday, April 28, 2021.

Eva Ferguson

CALGARY HERALD

4/29/2021

At the same time, 11,723 signatures have been collected from parents across the province in a petition demanding a halt to the controversial draft, criticized for disrespecting Indigenous and Francophone histories while focusing on rote memorization and random facts.

“Albertans have spoken up loud and clear about this curriculum and they are giving it a failing grade,” said NDP Education critic Sarah Hoffman.

“School districts representing more than 70 per cent of Alberta students have decided not to pilot this curriculum. These are urban boards and rural boards, public, separate, Francophone boards. They’re in the north, the south and central regions of Alberta. And more are joining them every day.”

The Calgary Board of Education announced it would not participate in a pilot April 9, two weeks after the province released the draft in late March.

And the Calgary Catholic School District announced late Wednesday they will not pilot the draft curriculum after a unanimous vote at their board meeting.

In a letter sent to parents, chief superintendent Bryan Szumlas said “we recognize that this is not the right time to renew the curriculum. Thank you to our staff, parents/guardians and community partners for your feedback. We heard your concerns related to the draft (lack of Indigenous content, age appropriateness, inclusivity, inappropriate content, Eurocentric design . . .).”

Szumlas added it is the board’s hope that the province will “go back to the drawing board and better engage teachers in a future curriculum design.”

Hoffman added that both school boards in Red Deer, the home riding of Education Minister Adriana LaGrange, have also confirmed they will not participate in the pilot, including the Red Deer Catholic School District that voted unanimously Tuesday against piloting the draft.

Earlier this week, Edmonton Public Schools also agreed to call for a vote of no-confidence in the curriculum at the upcoming meeting of the Alberta School Boards Association.

The UCP government has defended the document as forward-thinking and without bias, with LaGrange saying it had input from hundreds of stakeholders in a transparent process that included educational leaders, subject experts, academics and teachers.

Meanwhile, Taylor Schroeter, a parent from Beaumont just south of Edmonton, has helped organize a petition against the curriculum, gathering 11,723 signatures from 95 communities across Alberta, including Calgary.

“We stand united together to demand a curriculum for our children that is inclusive, accurate, forward thinking, relevant and age appropriate,” Schroeter said.

“The 11,723 signatures on these pages represent Albertans across all political backgrounds who are calling on our government to do what’s right for our children. This draft is not it.

“We have heard from parents from all walks of life and across many ethnicities, religions and cultures who do not feel this draft accurately represents them or their children.”

Schroeter added that she is particularly concerned with what she sees as a lack of representation of LGBTQ people in the draft.

While Hoffman is set to table the petition in the legislature next week, the province has insisted the curriculum pilot will go ahead this fall, with full implementation for K-6 scheduled for the 2022-23 school year.

Alberta teachers have also voted overwhelmingly against the curriculum in a survey conducted by the Alberta Teachers’ Association. First Nations groups have also spoken out vehemently against the draft.

Nicole Sparrow, press secretary to LaGrange, said Wednesday that in-class piloting of the curriculum is only one of many ways the education system can provide feedback on the draft.

“Typically, a maximum of 10 per cent of classrooms around the province will participate in the pilot stage,” Sparrow said.

“Divisions may choose to pilot the entire curriculum, or specific grades or subjects. Alberta Education is working with divisions who have questions or have expressed interest to help them determine how best to be involved in the pilot.”

Sparrow added the province is committed to a transparent review process and encourages Albertans to review and discuss the draft curriculum.

“We appreciate parents’ interest in the draft K-6 curriculum and encourage an open dialogue. We are looking forward to hearing their feedback through the survey at Alberta.ca/curriculum.”

Over the next year, Alberta Education will also host formal engagement sessions with education partners and parents to gather further feedback.

eferguson@postmedia.com

Chipotle has been sued by New York City over claims it violated scheduling sick leave laws, and now owes over $150 million to workers

mmeisenzahl@businessinsider.com (Mary Meisenzahl) 

© Kris Mirasola West 169th Street Chipotle. Kris Mirasola

New York City is suing Chipotle over accusations of violating labor laws.

The complaint says Chipotle owes workers more than $150 million.

Chipotle called the case a "dramatic overreach."

New York City has sued Chipotle, accusing the restaurant chain of labor law violations regarding workers' schedules at dozens of stores, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The city is accusing Chipotle of hundreds of thousands of violations of the Fair Workweek Law, which mandates that workers must have 14 day advance notice of schedules or extra pay, and that workers must have a certain break period between shifts or receive an extra $100, Noam Scheiber at The New York Times first reported.

Chipotle failed to give New York City workers sufficient notice or extra pay, the Times said, citing the complaint. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearing officially filed the suit.

Chipotle confirmed to Insider that the city had filed the suit.

"We make it a practice to not comment on litigation and will not do so in this case, except to say the proceeding filed today by DCWP is a dramatic overreach and Chipotle will vigorously defend itself. Chipotle remains committed to its employees and their right to a fair, just, and humane work environment that provides opportunities to all," Laurie Schalow, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer for the company, told Insider in a statement.

This complaint is the largest ever brought by New York City under the Fair Workweek law, according to the Times. Workers are owed more than $150 million for the violations, plus more in legal penalties, the Times reported.

The lawsuit is over labor practices between November 2017 and September 2019. It says that Chipotle has attempted to comply with the law since 2019 but violations are ongoing.

"Since we first filed our case against Chipotle, we have unfortunately learned that those initial charges were just the tip of the iceberg," department commissioner Lorelei Salas said in a statement.

The lawsuit also accuses Chipotle of illegally denying requests for time off or not paying them for time that they took, a violation of New York City's paid sick leave law, the Times reported. All of the 6,500 Chipotle employees in New York City were affected by scheduling and sick leave violations, according to the complaint.

Chipotle continues to expand even as COVID hit the restaurant industry hard. In the first quarter of 2021, the chain opened 35 net locations, and digital sales exploded with 133% growth. Chipotle attributed much of its growth to Chipotlanes, the fast casual chain's version of drive-thrus. More than half of the new Chipotle locations had drive-thrus this quarter, and the company says they "perform very well and are helping enhance guest access and convenience, as well as increase new restaurant sales, margins, and returns."

U.S. solar industry unveils guidelines to free supply chain of forced labor
By Nichola Groom 

4/28/2021

© Reuters/Bing Guan FILE PHOTO: Arrays of photovoltaic solar panels are seen at the Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center South as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in this aerial photo taken over El Centro, California

(Reuters) - The top U.S. solar industry trade group on Thursday issued a set of voluntary guidelines to solar panel manufacturers that it said could help rid products installed in the United States of components built abroad with forced labor.

Some U.S. lawmakers have voiced gorwing concern that the industry is dependent upon products, specifically the raw material polysilicon, linked to work camps in China’s Xinjiang region. The U.S. State Department has made a determination that Chinese officials are perpetrating genocide there, and imports of cotton and tomato products from the region were banned this year.

China, the world's largest maker of solar products, denies all accusations of abuse.

In an effort to address the concerns, the U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association unveiled a 40-page document https://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-supply-chain-traceability-protocol that outlines measures companies should take to identify the sources of a product's input materials and trace their movements through the supply chain.

"We do not want any indication of forced labor in the solar supply chain," John Smirnow, vice president of market strategy for SEIA, said in an interview. "There were serious concerns raised and we are responding in a serious way."

The protocol, which does not mention China specifically, recommends that rigorous descriptions and documentation be included with products as they proceed through factories and are shipped to the United States.

For instance, for an ingot of silicon that is shaped into logs and then sliced into wafers, those individual wafers should be identified as having come from a particular log or batch. That way the wafer purchaser could trace the products back to a specific ingot, according to the document.

The protocol also recommends that companies have their implementation of the procedures audited by a third party.

SEIA late last year began urging its members to exit the Xinjiang region and has asked its member companies to be able to provide assurances by June that their products are free of forced labor.

U.N. experts and rights groups estimate over a million people, mainly Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, have been detained in a vast system of camps in Xinjiang in recent years.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; editing by Richard Valdmanis and David Gregorio)

These Ontario high school teachers are calling on their union to go beyond ‘lip service’ and dismantle anti-Black racism within the organization

After 14 years of teaching in Ontario high schools, it was in 2020 that Wonuola Yomi-Odedeyi got more involved in her teachers’ union.

She doesn’t recall any sort of union orientation when she first started teaching in Halton in 2007. But in November 2020, she was elected as a co-branch-president for the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF). Her job is to assist the branch president.

“I’m a small fry,” Yomi-Odedeyi laughed. But the role means she is one of about 500 members who can attend the OSSTF’s annual meeting and vote on policies.

And being more involved, Yomi-Odedeyi has started to question the lack of Black, Indigenous and racialized people involved in the union, and the impact it can have on teachers from those identities.

“Who are the people who are writing the policy? How many racialized people are writing the policies?”

Now she and a group of Ontario educators are calling on their union, the OSSTF, to start dismantling anti-Black racism within the union, in a public petition.

The saga has played out as a back and forth between these educators who want to see tangible change, while the OSSTF has put forth an equity plan that teacher Deborah Buchanan-Walford worries is “all lip service.”

“They say these things publicly — that they’re all about equity and addressing anti-racism, when it’s the complete opposite,” she said.

In a press release from members calling themselves “OSSTF Disruptors,” the educators accuse the union of failing to act, and resisting efforts to address anti-Black racism and oppression within the union.

“We had to resort to a public petition since no real change was being advocated by our leaders. They left us with no choice,” Gord Gallimore, a secondary school teacher in Peel said in the release.

The big picture is, these “disrupters” have seen how indifference to racism in the OSSTF has affected contract negotiations, led to a lack of diversity in union leadership and worry it could affect change in the education system as a whole.

“We want to make change — firstly, we have to start within ourselves,” Buchanan-Walford said. “If we’re not even willing, as a union body to bring equity to our own membership, how are we going to do that in our schools and in our classrooms, and in our communities?”

So, they want to see the OSSTF, which represents over 60,000 people working in the secondary school system, make dismantling racism a priority.

The group has circulated a petition calling for OSSTF leaders to meet with them and address their demands, some of which include creating a committee and budget line dedicated to dismantling racism within the union, and people dedicated to work with members of the Black and racialized school community, like parent groups.

So far, over 650 people have signed on in support.

Speaking to the Star, the current president of the OSSTF Harvey Bischof, outlined the union’s current plan for equity which was voted on at this year’s annual meeting in March, and added that more can certainly be done.

“I don’t think there’s going to be ever something that can be defined as enough,” said Bischof. “(There are) always going to be improvements that need to be made.”

Part of this year’s equity plan is creating separate advisory groups for the provincial executive with focus on marginalized groups including Black, Indigenous and racialized people, and equity overall.

He also added that over a decade ago they started collecting self-identification data to better understand their membership. Even with these moves, he said, “we’re far from done.”

Still, teachers like Yomi-Odedeyi and Buchanan-Walford worry that an advisory panel won’t matter much if they don’t have the power an executive member does.

Something Toronto and Peel delegates asked for specifically at the annual meeting in March, was to create a requirement that at least one elected vice-president and executive officer be Black or Indigenous.

The Peel motion asked that two new executive officer positions be created for people who are Black or Indigenous. These motions were “ruled out of order” by the steering committee because “they have already been dealt with.”

Mississauga teacher Ashoak Grewal tells the Star, it’s time equity issues were a given, and not voted on.

“We don’t vote on safety issues. It’s a worker’s right,” said Grewal. “We need to stop voting on equity motions. Equity is a right, human rights is a right.

“We should just have policies in place that protect Black, Indigenous and racialized members,” he added.

Teachers who spoke with the Star mentioned that “equity” and “racism” and measures to deal with these sorts of disputes, aren’t explicitly written into their teacher contracts — which they say again speaks to equity being ignored.

What experts say

Toronto-based lawyer Samantha Peters, agrees, it should be written into contracts.

“I think that there should be language explicitly on anti-Black racism, because you have to name it in order to meaningfully address it,” said Peters, who focuses on labour, employment and human rights.

But, she said, it would take a lot of pushing “beyond identifying statements, (unions) need to take action.”

And of course, Peters added, the onus is on the employers to agree to these changes, but “unions, I believe, can indeed play a significant role in effecting change across the system.”

And if anti-Black racism isn’t something that’s high on the to-do list, Peters worries about the ripple effects: we could lose more Black teachers to stress leave, the call for more Black teachers won’t be answered and in the end, students will suffer.

To achieve equitable change, more outside-the-box thinking may be needed, according to Carl James, a York University professor who focuses on racism in education and is currently a senior adviser on equity and representation. This includes adjusting what is considered democracy.

Usually, issues are put to a vote, and majority rules. But if the OSSTF is looking to make a change on race, and racialized educators are outnumbered in the organization as a whole, and as voting members, the traditional model becomes a barrier for equitable change.

“We have to start rethinking many of these things,” James said, as unions and organizations work to be more inclusive.

Peters agrees that a few speaking up will make change tough if the structure stays the same.

For instance, hiring and appointing one-off racialized people at unions won’t have the impact needed “if they’re still made to uphold the current system or are punished if they don’t,” she said.

“There needs to be a whole culture shift in union organizing.”

Angelyn Francis is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering equity and inequality. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach her via email: afrancis@thestar.ca

Angelyn Francis, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Toronto Star

US labor board to hold hearing on whether to redo Amazon union election based on evidence submitted by union

awilliams@insider.com (Annabelle Williams,Tyler Sonnemaker,Reuters) 

4/28/2021

© Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, voted against forming a union, but the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, under which they would have unionized, challenged the results. 

Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

The National Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing on whether to redo the Amazon union vote in Bessemer, Alabama.

Amazon employees there voted against unionizing, but the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union challenged the results.

The NLRB said the union's evidence warranted a hearing to consider whether Amazon acted illegally and whether a new election should be held.

Amazon has denied any wrongdoing.

The National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday said evidence submitted by the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union concerning Amazon's conduct during a union vote in Bessemer, Alabama, justified holding a hearing to review the evidence and determine whether to redo the election.

"The evidence submitted by the union in support of its objections could be grounds for overturning the election if introduced at a hearing," the NLRB said.

The NLRB's ruling clears the way for a hearing, which it plans to hold on May 7, where it will review the RWDSU's evidence. If the NLRB finds Amazon illegally interfered in the election, it can void the results and re-run the election.

Amazon has denied any wrongdoing.

The RWDSU, the union which Amazon's employees voted on whether to join, failed to secure enough votes from Amazon warehouse workers to form a union in a highly publicized election earlier this month.

When the NLRB publicly announced the vote count on April 9, the tally was 1,798 votes against unionizing and 738 votes for the union, with 505 ballots challenged and 76 ballots voided - 70.9% of valid votes counted were against the union.

But the RWDSU subsequently filed 23 objections against Amazon and how it acted during the contentious March election, claiming Amazon's conduct prevented employees from having a "free and uncoerced exercise of choice" on which way to vote. The RWDSU alleged Amazon's agents unlawfully threatened employees with closure of the warehouse if they joined the union and that the company emailed a warning it would lay off 75% of the proposed bargaining unit because of the union.

An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the NLRB's statement.

At the May 7 hearing, the NLRB would have the option to overturn the election results if any evidence of illegal action is ruled credible.

(Reuters reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese)
Read the original article on Business Insider

UCP IS ANTI CONSUMPTION SITES

Advocates raise concern over closure of Edmonton supervised consumption site: ‘It’s puzzling’

Caley Ramsay GLOBAL NEWS 4/28/2021

The supervised consumption site at Boyle Street Community Services in downtown Edmonton is being permanently shut down.

© Global News The Boyle Street Community Services building in downtown Edmonton.

In October 2020, Boyle Street shifted its supervised consumption services to the Edmonton Convention Centre, where a temporary shelter space has been in operation. With the Tipinawâw shelter at the convention centre set to close on April 30, the province has made the decision not to reopen the services at Boyle Street.


"That is a concern. Whenever you're reducing that capacity, particularly in the middle of an overdose crisis that we're facing, of course that's something that we worry about," said Jordan Reiniger, executive director of Boyle Street Community Services.

Read more: COVID-19 pandemic having ‘stark effects’ on opioid-related deaths in Alberta

Prior to the fall of 2020, supervised consumption services were offered at three sites in central Edmonton.

Boyle Street operated services from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., the George Spady Centre operated overnight from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., and Boyle McCauley Health Centre operated daytime support services.

When Boyle Street shifted services to the convention centre in October, the George Spady Centre began operating 24 hours a day, which will continue with the closure of the Tipinawâw shelter.

While service capacity at the George Spady Centre has been increased, overall capacity will be reduced.

"Despite those attempts to increase capacity, they won't be immediate and they will not match the existing capacity," said Dr. Ginetta Salvalaggio, a family physician and associate professor at the University of Alberta. "Effectively we're going from 15 booths down to nine booths.

"We ought to be doubling based on the rise in overdose cases over the past year."

In a statement, the Alberta government said there has been no reduction in funding for supervised consumption services in the Edmonton zone.

Video: Families write honest obituaries to speak truth about drug overdoses

Reiniger said Boyle Street will work with the community to ensure they know where they can go to receive support.

"Our concern generally is the overdose crisis is getting worse," he explained. "This overdose crisis is raging right now and we need to have the responses to ensure we can address it effectively.

"The thing with supervised consumption sites is you want to make sure you have booths available. People, if they're coming to use the site, they're usually not able to wait around for too long."

In 2020, 1,144 people died of opioid overdoses in Alberta. That's compared to 623 in 2019, 805 in 2018, 705 in 2017 and 553 in 2016.

In the first two months of 2021, 228 people died of opioid overdoses in the province.

In Edmonton specifically, 398 people died of opioid overdoses last year. In the first two months of this year, there were 72 opioid-related deaths in the city.

Read more: ‘It’s saddening. It’s heartbreaking’: Albertans discuss overdose deaths in the time of COVID-19

Learning the Boyle Street services would no longer be offered is concerning for Angela Welz. She lost her daughter in 2016 to a fentanyl overdose.

"More lives will be lost from this decision," said Welz, who is also the Alberta regional director of Moms Stop the Harm.

"She was 18 years old, a young female. I don't know if she would have used the centre at Boyle Street but it would have been option for her to be able to go somewhere, use her drugs in a safe manner where someone was there to help her to make sure that she stayed alive."

Hakique Virani is an associate professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in public health and addiction medicine.

He said right now is not the time to be shutting down services.

"It's puzzling," Virani said. "We're seeing the overdose epidemic scale in the shadows of COVID in a way that's horrific.

"This is not a time to scale back life-saving interventions. It's a time to broaden them."

The Alberta government said the previous government made the decision to place three consumption sites in close proximity of each other.

Justin Marshall, press secretary to the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, said the province is in talks with Boyle Street about potentially operating overdose prevention services in an under-serviced area of Edmonton.

With files from Chris Chacon, Global News.

French ex-Generals war-mongering will help push mainstream politicians into Macron's arms

Opinion John Hulsman

Thursday 29 April 2021 

French President Emmanuel Macro (Photo by Kay Nietfeld - Pool / Getty Images)

Unlike most of the developed world, France moves through history not via the serenity of political evolution, but rather through the dramatic lurch of revolution, as the country continues to eye-catchingly over-correct its political failings.

The last time this happened was in the heady days of 1958, when an army revolt against the chaotic, parliamentary-dominated Fourth Republic (resulting in the military take-over of Corsica), paved the way for the ascension of the monarchical Charles de Gaulle as the savior of the country, and the founding of the strong, executive-driven Fifth Republic in the same year.

But the wily de Gaulle, convinced that to be saved France had to extricate itself from the morass of North African colonialism, failed to do the generals’ bidding and instead proclaimed Algeria’s independence. There followed a dangerous few years, as the generals plotted a coup in 1961 to retain France’s empire, and later, an army-inspired right-wing terrorist group, the OAS, set out to assassinate de Gaulle himself.

All of this real-world historical tumult provided the ideal backdrop for Frederick Forsyth’s great spy thriller, The Day of the Jackal, which takes the historical failed OAS Paris assassination plot as its starting point, before heading off into heart-thumping fiction of the first order. In Fred Zinnemann’s spine-tingling movie version of the novel, ‘The Jackal,’ perfectly played by James Fox–a suave contract killer hired by the OAS to finally finish of de Gaulle—comes within a whisker of his task. While the story is purely apocryphal, the notion that the future stability of France hung by a thread perfectly encapsulates the sense of those uncertain times.

That is why my first reaction on hearing of the extraordinary open-letter in Valeurs Actuelles, a contemporary right-wing news magazine, was simply, “The Jackal is back.” Twenty retired generals (amongst others) have created a political tsunami, calling for “a military takeover” if besieged President Emmanuel Macron fails to halt the “disintegration” of the country at the hands of Islamists. Their charges carry even more popular resonance following the recent stabbing and death of a 45-year-old woman in Rambouillet, a Parisian suburb, by a Tunisian-born Islamist.

The letter, written sixty years to the day on from the army’s 1961 coup attempt against de Gaulle, was immediately condemned by Macron—hoping to once again rally “The Republican Front” of all mainstream French political parties against the far-right. Its aims, if not the coup itself, were rhetorically welcomed by far right’s once and future presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen.

This is quite an about-face for Le Pen, who since at least 2011 has worked to detoxify the far-right brand, moving it away from its martial and extra-constitutional past in an effort to win over enough mainstream voters to vault her into the Elysee Palace. However, such a political U-turn amounts to her Rubicon; her old mainstream strategy abandoned, Le Pen has, a year out from the presidential election, tacked decisively back towards the far right.

Is there method to her madness? Le Pen is currently only eight points behind Macron in the polls for the second round of voting for the French presidency in the Spring of 2022. The far-right Presidential hopeful is counting on a few big things going her way to make this supreme gamble work. First, Macron’s government must continue to vaccinate people at a glacial pace, leading to further start-and-stop lockdowns, social confusion, and economic peril.

Second, the contrast between France’s haplessness and the opening of the booming Anglo-Saxon world must become clear over the next months, heightening Paris’s sense of humiliating malaise and decline.

Third, the government must be blamed for all this dysfunction, along with France’s social divisions, especially involving Radical Islam and France’s immigration policy.

Fourth, Le Pen must cultivate the Gilets Jaunes movement, which in 2018-2019 initiated a series of massive, nationwide protests, a provincial cri di coeur by the country’s have-nots as to elite indifference to their economic plight.

Then and only then, is a victorious political fusion of these disaffected, disparate right-wing forces possible.

But, as The Day of the Jackal makes clear, it is far more likely radical rightism will fail in France. Following the explosive army letter and Le Pen’s general support for its authors, a backlash is not only possible, it is likely. The Republican Front that Macron has up until now been unable to muster to dent Le Pen in the polls has a new resonance; there is an actual, tangible, threat to the Fifth Republic that makes such a mainstream alliance vital. Look for the backlash to come as the Jackal is bested again.

Dr John C. Hulsman is senior columnist at City A.M., a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and president of John C. Hulsman Enterprises. He can be reached for corporate speaking and private briefings at www.chartwellspeakers.com