Doctors frustrated with 'selfishness' of unvaccinated people, protesters



© Provided by The Canadian Press


Some doctors and nurses are frustrated with large groups of anti-vaccination protesters outside hospitals in cities across the country and say limited health-care resources are being used to save the lives of those who decided not to protect themselves against COVID-19.

Dr. Steven Fedder, who works in the emergency room of a hospital in Richmond, B.C., said he has run out of patience for people whose stance against vaccines has larger societal implications.


"I think it's the ultimate selfishness that individuals choose not to vaccinate themselves. And I think they don't realize they are too arrogant to understand that we live in a society where we all have to make sacrifices," he said.

It's time that more employers, including all levels of governments, started mandating vaccines to send a strong message to those ignoring the science behind vaccination, Fedder said, adding the potential of losing a job may be the jolt people need to get immunized.

Patients suffering from other serious illnesses are affected when the health-care system starts to "grind to a halt" from the number of unvaccinated patients being hospitalized and occupying intensive care beds, Fedder said, noting people with chronic conditions often avoid going to emergency departments when cases spike, sometimes worsening their health.

"For the staff, it's exhausting. It's challenging when you have somebody come in who is there when there was a simple route to preventing what they came in with — a COVID infection. Our job is to be professional and not to be judgmental, but it's very trying for nurses and doctors and all the other health-care professionals to look at somebody who made a conscious decision not to get vaccinated."

Anti-vaccination sentiments have intensified since some provinces announced plans to require so-called vaccination passports to access places like restaurants, movie theatres and gyms. Quebec and Ontario began their programs this week and British Columbia residents will be expected to provide proof of vaccination in the coming weeks.

Over a dozen hospitals in Ontario have issued vaccine mandates for health-care staff. British Columbia's provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, has said the province is considering plans for a similar policy at acute-care settings. B.C. has already announced that staff at long-term care facilities will need to be fully vaccinated by mid-October.

Dr. Amit Arya, a palliative care physician at Kensington Health in Toronto, said rallies outside health-care facilities have been emotionally draining for him and other physicians who are burnt out from working long hours.

He denounced a group of protesters outside the University Health Network earlier this week, and said they were disrupting patients and staff from entering the hospital.

“It's really hard to grasp why any group of people would be protesting outside of hospitals, where we have vulnerable people coming in to seek medical care," said Arya, adding he has endured several months of online harassment and hate mail because of his pro-vaccine stance.

“I think people are getting really aggressive about the vaccine issue and I’m scared. I'm scared for my family, I have little children as well and I know many other colleagues in the same sort of boat as me have faced a lot of pushback.”

Vancouver police Const. Tania Visintin said a crowd of about 5,000 people rallied outside Vancouver General Hospital on Wednesday. The protests coincided with others at health-care facilities elsewhere in the province, prompting Premier John Horgan to say the targeting and harassment of health-care workers was "completely unacceptable."

On Friday, the Canadian Medical Association and the Ontario Medical Association issued a joint statement, saying health-care workers have exposed themselves to risks during the pandemic to serve others.

"Unfortunately, anti-vaccine messaging has escalated in recent weeks; and, in certain cities and communities, we are seeing mounting protest which is precluding access to much needed health-care settings and demoralizing health-care workers," it says.

"The health-care workers who have worked tirelessly for months on end are being bullied and harassed for doing their jobs. This is wrong and unacceptable – full stop. We are in a health crisis of unprecedented proportion."

Both the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association support mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for health-care workers as a way to protect their front-line staff and patients as well as communities, especially as cases climb around the country.

Michael Villeneuve, CEO of the nurses association, said a very small but vocal percentage of nurses, perhaps three per cent, appear to be against vaccination, especially as a condition of employment, but everyone in the profession should know COVID-19 vaccines have been rigorously tested.

"We base our decisions on science. Nursing as a science is not a collection of opinions. If we adapted care based on what (my) opinion is today versus someone else's, it would be complete chaos out there."

However, Villeneuve, a registered nurse, said it's not always clear that those protesting against vaccines and claiming to be nurses on social media in particular are actually part of the profession.

He said a national response to the public health emergency is needed instead of a patchwork of policies on vaccination in various jurisdictions, which has led to confusion.

"The frustration is, how do you bring people to see the value of the solution," he said of vaccines. "There are always people who say it's a rights-based response, with no responsibility."

— With files from Rhythm Sachdeva in Toronto.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2021.

Camille Bains, The Canadian Press

Why Canada could be burning coal well beyond the 2030 deadline set by the Liberals

Brian Hill - Yesterday 

© Troy Fleece/CP


Despite what Canadians have been told, some parts of the country could be burning coal well beyond the 2030 deadline set by the Liberals in 2016.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and a number of high-profile Liberal candidates running in the 2021 federal election have reiterated the promise that Canada will “phase out” or “power past” coal by the end of this decade.

Read more: Wildfires, drought and record heat: Why climate change matters in Election 2021

On Aug. 29, the Liberals took this pledge one step further, promising to end exports of thermal coal — the kind used to generate electricity — by 2030. This promise, the Liberals said, will align Canada’s international trading practices with its domestic climate change policies.

Canada exports about 30 million tons of coal each year from ports in British Columbia, including several million tons of thermal coal, which is either mined domestically or in the United States and then sent across the border on trains because coastal communities in California, Oregon and Washington state have deemed it too dangerous to ship.

On the surface, the Liberal promises make it seem like Canada will be done with coal in the very near future.

Read more: O’Toole doubles down on promise to return Canada to old emissions target — despite experts’ warnings

But both promises — the pledge to stop burning thermal coal by 2030 and the promise to stop exporting it — may be difficult to achieve based on current government commitments and the plans of some provinces.

At the same time the Liberal government was working on its plan to phase out coal by 2030, it was quietly negotiating an “agreement in principle” that allows Nova Scotia to keep its coal-fired electricity plants open until 2040.

This deal was announced in November 2016 at a joint press conference held by former Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna and former Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil.

Video: McNeil praises PM’s willingness to compromise on coal power targets for Nova Scotia

Then, in July of this year, New Brunswick, which also burns coal for electricity, asked the federal government if it could keep one of its coal-fired plants open until 2040 because it would be too expensive to replace in time to meet the federal deadline.

When New Brunswick made this request, Liberal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, who’s seeking re-election in B.C., said “I certainly understand” the province’s position and suggested the federal government was considering it.

"I'm not in a position yet to make a determination one way or another,” Wilkinson told the CBC in July. “It's certainly something that's under discussion.”

Right now, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia use coal to make electricity. Alberta is on track to phase out coal by 2023, largely because of natural gas, and it’s unclear what the other provinces will do.
Plants to operate ‘beyond 2030’

In an interview with Global News on Sept. 1, Wilkinson said the Liberal Party’s position is that no one should be burning coal in Canada past 2030 — although he wouldn’t definitively say whether the Liberals, if re-elected, will reject New Brunswick’s proposal to burn coal beyond that date.

“Our position hasn’t changed. We have committed to phasing out the use of thermal coal domestically by 2030,” Wilkinson said.

“The focus for us is on working collaboratively with provinces and territories on solutions that will ensure the electricity generating system will be robust — it will be affordable.”

Read more: Feds announce new rules to phase out coal, reduce natural gas

Wilkinson also insisted that there are no “equivalency agreements” in place that enable Nova Scotia or any other province in Canada to burn thermal coal past the 2030 federal deadline. An equivalency agreement allows provinces to emit more carbon dioxide — usually by burning coal — in the future in exchange for reducing carbon emissions from other sources now.

But Wilkinson’s position, which is based on the fact that equivalency agreements like the one signed with Nova Scotia expire every five years and must be renegotiated, directly contradicts remarks made by Nova Scotia’s government when it signed the agreement in principle with the federal government in 2016.

“Nova Scotia and Canada will also establish a new equivalency agreement that will enable the province to move directly from fossil fuels to clean energy sources but enable Nova Scotia's coal-fired plants to operate at some capacity beyond 2030,” a statement from McNeil’s office published in July 2016 said.

Wilkinson’s remarks also appear to contradict statements published by the government in the Canada Gazette in 2018, which said the equivalency agreement with Nova Scotia was based on the assumption that seven of the province’s coal-fired electricity plants would continue operating “beyond 2030.”

And the equivalency agreement itself contains a provision that says the federal and provincial governments are “committed to negotiating” a new or amended deal for the period 2015-2040.

“I have much respect for Minister Wilkinson, but in this regard, he is being disingenuous regarding the spirit and intent of these agreements,” said David Khan, a lawyer with Ecojustice Canada and the former leader of the Alberta Liberal Party.

Wilkinson is “splitting hairs” and “using technicalities” to justify his position that there are no deals in place that enable Nova Scotia to burn coal beyond 2030, Khan said.

Read more: Trudeau vows to regulate oil and gas emissions, electric car sales

As for the Liberals’ pledge to stop exporting thermal coal, that promise is a work in progress, Wilkinson said, that will require discussions with coal producers and exporters if the Liberals are re-elected.

That could mean different rules for thermal coal mined in Canada versus coal mined in the United States, Wilkinson said, but the proposed ban will eventually apply to everyone.

“It will ensure that there are no thermal coal exports by no later than 2030,” Wilkinson said.

Global News asked the Conservative Party and the NDP to explain their positions on thermal and metallurgical coal. Global News also asked both parties if they’d ban thermal coal experts and whether they’d uphold recent policy decisions aimed at stopping future thermal coal development in Canada.

Neither party responded to these questions by publication.

The Green Party, meanwhile, said it supports a complete ban on the production and export of thermal coal. Paul Manly, the party’s candidate in the B.C. riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith, said Canada should also end coal-fired electricity now — not 10 or 20 years in the future.
Push to ‘phase out’ coal

The big push to phase out coal in Canada started in the mid-2000s, when the Liberal government in Ontario decided to replace coal-fired electricity with renewable energy, such as wind and solar.

While Ontario’s efforts to eliminate coal were a huge success — the province went from making a quarter of its electricity with coal in 2006 to none by 2015 — they were enormously expensive.

Read more: Ontario hydro prices are going up and there’s not much anyone can do about it

By some estimates, the coal phase-out in Ontario and other costs associated with upgrading the province’s electricity grid will cost taxpayers and electricity ratepayers in Ontario more than $200 billion by 2045 if all debt and hydro-related subsidies are considered.

Both former premier Kathleen Wynne and former environment minister Glenn Thibeault acknowledged the way Ontario went about procuring green energy — by offering long-term contracts to wind and solar producers that guaranteed above-market rates — was a “mistake.”

Other provinces, meanwhile, haven’t had to deal with the same green energy transition. B.C., Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador have vast supplies of hydro electricity — more than they can use, in fact.

But that doesn’t mean these provinces haven’t experienced cost overruns or opposition to renewable energy projects.

Read more: Liberals ignored green energy advice that could have saved Ontarians billions -- lead engineer says

Indigenous communities and environmental groups in each of these provinces have opposed certain hydroelectric projects due to the widespread devastation they have on wildlife and local ecosystems.

The Muskrat Falls hydro dam in Labrador was recently completed years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. And just weeks before the 2021 federal election got underway, Trudeau promised $5.2 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout funds for the way-over-budget project and the financially struggling province that built it.

When Alberta decided it was time to stop using coal, the government created a competition where companies bid for contracts, rather than the government offering whatever rates it thought were fair.

Alberta’s Renewable Electricity Plan, created by the government of former NDP premier Rachel Notley, resulted in more than a dozen companies getting contracts for wind power at rates that were roughly a third of what Ontario paid in 2010.

Despite these results, Alberta’s United Conservative government scrapped the program in 2019, saying it offered unnecessary and wasteful “subsidies” to renewable energy companies.

Read more: Alberta legislation would unplug NDP plan to change electricity power market

But critics of this decision said it was made because Alberta’s government favours natural gas over wind and solar.

“Alberta will be fully transitioned from coal-powered electricity by the end of 2023, six years ahead of the federal target,” said Margeaux Maron, a spokesperson for Alberta’s associate minister of natural gas and electricity.

“Alberta is committed to its fair, efficient and openly competitive electricity market that is driven by private investment. Renewables can clearly compete in the market on their own, without government subsidy.”
A tale of two coals

The most recent statistics from Natural Resources Canada show Canadian mines produced 57 million tons of coal in 2019. This is slightly less than what was produced in 2018 and continues the downward trend that began in 2016.

About 27 million tons of the coal produced in 2019 was thermal coal, most of which was used to generate electricity in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The remaining 30 million tons was “coking” or “metallurgical” coal, which is used in steel making because of the extreme heat it generates when burned.

In July, the Liberal government released a policy statement that said all new thermal coal projects, including plans to expand any existing mines, would likely cause “unacceptable environmental effects” and are therefore not aligned with Canada’s climate change objectives.

Even though companies can still apply to start new thermal coal projects, Wilkinson said, this policy, if kept in place, essentially means the end of any future thermal coal development in Canada.

Read more: Coal companies hope to move forward with mines in Alberta despite roadblocks

But no such declaration was made about metallurgical coal. Instead, the government said new metallurgical coal mines — there are four projects currently being considered in B.C. — will have to submit to a federal environmental impact assessment.

Khan, the lawyer with Ecojustice Canada, believes this doesn’t go far enough. He thinks the government should set a firm deadline for phasing out all forms of coal because of its effect on the global climate and because of the clear links between carbon emissions and extreme weather events, such as wildfires, flooding and drought.

“We think that an ambitious target for phasing out metallurgical coal could be 2035,” he said.

Although steel is an old technology, it’s essential to global efforts to tackle climate change. That’s because it’s used to manufacture wind turbines, electric vehicles, solar panels, and many other green inventions.

But steel is also responsible for roughly eight per cent of global carbon emissions, according to a recent report from the World Steel Association. The report, published in May, discusses new technologies that use far less metallurgical coal to make steel. This includes hydrogen and electric-arc furnaces — both of which are being developed internationally and in Canada.

In July, about a month before the federal election was called, the Liberals announced up to $420 million in funding for Algoma Steel to convert its Ontario production facility to electric-arc technology. Trudeau, who made the announcement in Sault Ste. Marie, said the shift away from coal will cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to three million tons a year by 2030, roughly the same as removing 900,000 gas-burning cars from the road.

Read more: Trudeau pledges $420M to phase out coal at Algoma Steel in campaign-style visit

The Liberal election platform also talks about an $8-billion government fund — $5 billion of which was promised in the most recent budget — to “decarbonize” heavy industries, such as steel and aluminum manufacturing.

The party’s platform also mentions the Atlantic Loop, a project that, if completed, would connect Quebec’s hydro power to the electricity grids of Canada’s easternmost provinces. But the platform doesn’t provide any specific details of how or when this project would be completed, nor does it say how much money it would cost.
Backlash against coal

B.C. and Alberta are by far the two largest producers of coal in Canada. Combined, the provinces account for 83 per cent coal production.

The Vista mine, located on the eastern slopes of the Rockies in Hinton, Alta., is Canada’s largest thermal coal mine. This site can produce roughly six million tons of thermal coal a year.

In May, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada announced that Vista had submitted an application to expand the mine and called for public input. If approved, this expansion could double Vista’s annual output.

But in July, Vista was told the government’s new policy aimed at curbing thermal coal production would also apply to the Vista project. This was despite the fact that Vista submitted its proposal to the government before the revised policy was announced.

“Eliminating coal-fired power and replacing it with cleaner sources is an essential part of the transition to a low carbon economy,” Wilkinson said in July.

Video: Protesters breathe sigh of relief as review panel denies Grassy Mountain coal project applications

But a June 2020 order issued by Wilkinson that said the Vista expansion must undergo a federal environmental assessment was quashed by a Federal Court judge on July 19.

The judge said Wilkinson and the government failed to consult with the Ermineskin Cree Nation, which has an agreement with the owners of the Vista mine.

“Not only was there no consultation at all, but I find Ermineskin was inexplicably frozen out of this very one-sided process,” Judge Henry Brown wrote in his decision.

Read more: Ottawa blocks development of controversial proposed Alberta coal mine

Regardless of whether the Vista project is subject to a federal environmental assessment, many Albertans are opposed to coal mining in the Rockies.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenny was forced to backtrack on a decision about metallurgical coal mines along the eastern slopes of the Rockies after intense public outcry. Environmentalists and others denounced the decision to lift the province’s 1976 coal policy as an affront to nature and as a threat to wildlife.

“With respect to the Rockies and the foothills, we're talking about a landscape that is iconic not just for Albertans, but I think it's an important part of the Canadian identity as well,” said Ian Urquhart, a political scientist and the executive director of the Alberta Wilderness Association.

“We’re talking about introducing coal mines into a landscape that's already prone to drought and water shortages. You’re robbing ecosystems of the lifeblood they need in order to live.”
The future of coal

New Brunswick’s request to continue burning coal until 2040 means the future of thermal coal in Canada remains uncertain.

“We’re pursuing an equivalency agreement with the federal government that would allow the Belledune Generating Station (which burns coal) to continue to operate at a reduced capacity to the end of its scheduled operating life in 2040,” said Mike Holland, the province’s minister of natural resources and energy.

“We believe the equivalency agreement will give us the necessary time to develop non-emitting electricity generating options.”

Read more: New Brunswick clean energy targets coming ‘before the snow hits’: minister

Saskatchewan, meanwhile, has its own equivalency deal with the federal government. The province also completed a $1.5-billion carbon capture and storage project at its Boundary Dam 3 coal-fired electricity plant, which the government says will allow it to operate beyond 2030. If a similar system isn’t built at Saskatchewan’s remaining coal-fired plants, the government will have no choice but to shut them down by 2030 in order to comply with federal regulations.

Video: How the Nova Scotia cap and trade program works

Nova Scotia said it’s committed to making sure 80 per cent of its electricity comes from renewable sources by 2030. At present, about half of the province’s electricity is generated by coal.

Peter Gregg, the president of Nova Scotia Power, the province’s only electricity utility, said the company has permission to burn coal until 2040. But, he said, it plans to phase it out sooner.

“Our customers know and are telling us that coal is not part of our future. It can't be,” Gregg said. “Our plan is to do that — to accelerate getting off coal — but to do that in a way that is also affordable for our customers.”

This means drastically increasing the supply of wind, hydro and solar power, Gregg said, plus building links with other provinces to connect their clean electricity with homes and businesses in Nova Scotia.

“(This) would be the most affordable option,” Gregg said.

Coal committee hears Albertans want overall policy on Rocky Mountain development


EDMONTON — Albertans want to talk about a lot more than coal when it comes to development in their beloved Rocky Mountains, says the head of the committee charged with collecting public opinion on the issue.

"There was such a dam of public sentiment built up behind this issue, it's like opening a sluice gate," Ron Wallace, chairman of the province's coal policy committee, said in an interview.

His group has just wrapped months of meetings with industry, environmental groups, municipalities and individuals.

As the public comment period closes, he said the group has collected 605 emailed submissions and held 59 meetings. On its website, it has published 16 technical papers and 36 meeting submissions.

If there's one theme that has emerged, Wallace said, it's that people don't want a coal policy that only deals with the how and where of mining. They want a broad policy that balances economic, environmental and recreational needs over an entire landscape.

"While our terms of reference are clearly focused on a modernized coal policy, we are recognizing that any factors that are going into that modernization are going to have to take account of these broader issues," he said.

Coal development has been controversial in Alberta since spring 2020 when the United Conservative government suddenly revoked a policy that had protected the summits and foothills of the Rockies from open-pit coal mines since 1976. Within weeks, thousands of hectares were leased for coal exploration on those landscapes — the headwaters for most of the province's drinking water and one of its favourite travel destinations.

After an intense public outcry, Energy Minister Sonya Savage restored the protections, paused the sale of new leases and struck Wallace's committee to get advice on how to proceed.

Water concerns were prominent, Wallace said. Albertans were concerned about the amount of water the industry would need in an already water-challenged region as well as about selenium contamination, an element common in coal seams and toxic to fish.

"Water has become a major theme. The great majority of Albertans are concerned primarily about water."

Others wanted to ensure that the area's recreation potential isn't impaired, especially as Alberta's population continues to grow. Some were concerned about coal's impact on endangered animal and fish species.

Others wanted to express their concerns over how the province regulates and manages energy development. Wallace pointed to a survey conducted early in the committee's consultations that suggested 85 per cent of Albertans didn't trust the province's energy regulator.

"The briefs that have come in have expanded on and confirmed those early indications from the public about their concerns over everything from regulatory enforcement all the way through to application of regional plans," Wallace said.

Some submissions supported mining.

"Those people have a great deal at stake," said Wallace. "It's their jobs, it's their welfare, it's their economy."

But most have wider concerns, including 25 municipalities that signed a letter from the Town of High River that said "the inherent value of the eastern slopes only exists with the landscape remaining intact."

Wallace points out the original 1976 coal policy was developed in conjunction with an overall policy for the eastern slopes. A modern coal policy can do no less, he said.

"A modern coal policy is going to have to be structured to take these concerns into consideration."

Wallace praised the quality of the submissions the committee received. He said the committee's public registry has become a "farmers market" for much of the best and latest research on coal, coal markets and coal's environmental impacts.

"This is a gold mine of advice for the government," he said.

He promised it will be faithfully reflected in the first volume of the committee's report. He said it will come out early this fall, with the final report due Nov. 15.

Wallace said the government will have to listen.

"People were searching for opportunities to engage. I don't see any way the government could ignore the message that's been brought forward here."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2021.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Drug users group files decriminalization lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court

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VANCOUVER — A group representing drug users has filed a lawsuit against the federal government in British Columbia Supreme Court seeking to decriminalize the possession of illicit drugs, arguing criminalization during the overdose crisis violates charter rights.

The statement of claim filed Tuesday by the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs and four individual plaintiffs says drug dependence is well recognized as a medical condition, but criminalization means the toxic illicit market is the only source of most drugs.

It says the illicit drug supply has become increasingly contaminated with the powerful opioid fentanyl and related substances since 2016, fuelling the drug poisoning and overdose crisis that's killing thousands of Canadians every year.

The lawsuit argues criminalization has also created a high degree of stigma, leading many people to use drugs alone and in secret, heightening the risk of overdose.

A statement of defence has not been filed in the court's online search system.

Health Canada spokesman Mark Johnson said that Justice Canada is reviewing the claim.

"Tragically, the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the ongoing overdose crisis, with many jurisdictions having reported record high rates of harms, including deaths, throughout 2020 and into 2021," he wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.

The lawsuit challenges drug possession offences in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, asserting that they breach charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person, equality rights and the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment.

The civil claim, among other things, asks the court to strike down all drug possession offences, as well as certain drug trafficking offences related to subsistence.

More than 21,000 people died of drug overdose in Canada between 2016 and 2020, the lawsuit says. It asserts that many of the deaths could have been prevented with a combination of decriminalization, a safe drug supply and harm-reduction services.

The City of Vancouver has requested an exception to federal law to decriminalize the possession of particular amounts of certain drugs for personal use, but Health Canada has yet to approve the request. The City of Toronto and the B.C. government have also backed decriminalization, while the lawsuit seeks an end to the prohibition across the country.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2021.

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

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

Disorganized elder care in Quebec contributed to COVID-19 death toll: report


QUEBEC — A disorganized and poorly evaluated health system for seniors contributed to the high COVID-19 death toll in the province, according to Quebec's health and welfare commissioner.

Joanne Castonguay released her preliminary report Thursday about the state of the health and social services network for seniors on the eve of the pandemic.

During the first months of the health crisis, from March to August 2020, no fewer than 5,157 elderly Quebecers died, accounting for 90 per cent of total COVID-19 deaths in the province at the time.

"This is probably one of the worst crises that modern Quebec has ever known, if not the most serious of all," she said in the report.

A combination of several factors, she said, led to an unprecedented crisis for seniors in long-term care and other residences across the province. There was no comprehensive strategy to offer a uniform quality of care, services were disorganized and poor data collection prevented care providers from making timely and correct decisions, she said.

Tasked in August by the government to look at the province's COVID-19 response, Castonguay spoke to about 100 health workers who experienced the situation first-hand. She said based on her interviews, it became clear "the management of the first wave of the pandemic has seriously undermined the dignity and integrity of the elderly, leading to a worsening of their physical and psychological health."

Castonguay said there was no official body tasked with compiling results of the evaluations conducted in long-term care homes, adding that the government didn't evaluate the care given to seniors in private residences that had contracts with the province.

As a result of the lack of proper evaluations, it was difficult to hold health-care providers accountable for their conduct during the pandemic, she said.

She said the problems in the network had been well-known under several governments and numerous reports had been produced on the shortcomings, but little had been done. The COVID-19 crisis exacerbated existing problems and the responsibility for the fiasco should be "collective," she said.

"The governance of long-term care and services has received little attention in the major concerns of successive governments," she noted. "We also observe that no mechanism has been provided to ensure the capacity of the state to finance long-term care and long-term services."

The commissioner wrote that she wanted to understand why Quebec had not been able to better protect vulnerable seniors at the height of the pandemic and will provide solutions to prevent a repeat.

Castonguay's final report is due at the end of December.

Health Minister Christian Dubé said in a statement Thursday that several elements raised in the report had been addressed during the last two waves of COVID-19.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2021.

Jocelyne Richer, The Canadian Press

Guion Bluford's astonishing career — first African American to go to space

Randi Mann - 

On Tuesday, August 30, 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to go to space. Bluford was one of five people on the STS-8 mission. It was NASA's eighth mission to space and the Space Shuttle Challenger's third. The shuttle launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission was overall successful, but Bluford really put it on the map.

Bluford was born on Nov. 22, 1942, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His tenure of education includes a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Aerospace Engineering (with a bonus minor in Laser Physics), and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston–Clear Lake."Bluford on STS-8 in 1983." Courtesy of Wikipedia

Bluford joined the Air Force and received his pilot wings in Jan. 1966. In 1967, he was assigned to the Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas as an instructor pilot. In 1971, Bluford became an executive support officer to the Deputy Commander of Operations.

In 1974 Bluford was assigned to the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory and served as the staff development engineer. By the time he was recruited by NASA in 1978, he logged over 5,200 hours of jet flight time.

Bluford was a part of NASA astronaut group 8. By Aug. 1979, he was officially an astronaut. Bluford's assignments included working with the Space Station operations, the Spacelab systems and experiments, and the Space Shuttle systems.


© Provided by The Weather NetworkGuion Bluford's astonishing career — first African American to go to spaceSTS-8 launch. Courtesy of Wikipedia

The STS-8 was NASA's first night launch and landing. During the mission, the crew tested the Canadarm (the Canadian robotic arm), deployed the Indian National Satellite, conducted experiments to better understand the biophysiological effects of space flight, and executed other tasks.

The mission completed 98 orbits around Earth in six days, one hour, eight minutes and 43 seconds before landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on Sep. 5, 1983.

Bluford completed four flights with NASA, logging more than 688 hours in space. Bluford has been inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame, the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, and the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

‘The Nanny’ Star Fran Drescher Elected President Of SAG-AFTRA Labour Union

© Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images



After a hard-fought and contentious campaign, Fran Drescher was elected Thursday to become the new president of the acting union SAG-AFTRA.

According to Variety, the former star of "The Nanny" won election against rival Matthew Modine, beating the actor by a vote of 52.5 per cent to 47.5.

The two candidates ran on opposing slates, with Modine's running mate, actress Joely Fisher, winning her race for secretary-treasurer against Anthony Rapp.

SAG-AFTRA was previously led by Gabrielle Carteris, who was aligned with Drescher on the union's moderate Unite for Strength slate, which has controlled the union since 2009.

In a statement Thursday night upon her victory, Drescher said, “Together we will navigate through these troubled times of global health crisis and together we will rise up out of the melee to do what we do best, entertain and inform,” she said. “Only as a united front will we have strength against the real opposition in order to achieve what we all want: more benefits, stronger contracts and better protections. Let us lock elbows and together show up with strength at the negotiating table!”

Fisher, who had criticized Drescher during the campaign, said in her own victory statement, “I will hold Fran Drescher to her promise to us to protect the members and put more money in our pockets through stronger contract negotiations."

Fix broken Access to Information law, public tells federal review



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OTTAWA — Civil society groups, journalists and members of the public are telling the federal government it is time to fix Canada's broken transparency law.

Written and oral submissions to a federal review call for expansion of the Access to Information Act, removal of numerous loopholes in the law, strict timelines for responding to requests and more resources to make the system work.

The issue has received scant attention on the election campaign trail, but whichever party forms government will get a clear message: the 38-year-old access law, drafted in the pre-internet era of metal filing cabinets, is in desperate need of reform.

The law allows people who pay $5 to ask for a range of federal documents — from internal emails to policy memos — but it has long been criticized as antiquated and poorly implemented.

The federal review is focusing on the legislative framework, opportunities to improve proactive publication, and assessing processes to improve service and reduce delays.

The Centre for Free Expression at Toronto's Ryerson University says in its submission that the review launched in June last year is an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to transparency and accountability.

"Today we have an Act with exceptions and exemptions that have been stretched beyond recognition to prevent disclosures, a critically under-resourced access system not equipped to keep up with requests, and a culture of secrecy within government that views access as a threat rather than a right of all Canadians," says the brief.

The centre is the co-ordinator of the Right to Information Alliance Canada, composed of 17 organizations including News Media Canada, the Centre for Law and Democracy, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Greenpeace Canada.

In its submission to the review, the group World Press Freedom Canada says that during the COVID-19 pandemic — a moment when Canadians required access to a stream of government information for their safety — the pipelines were rusted and clogged from years of deliberate neglect.

"The numerous flaws in Canada’s access-to-information regime can be reduced to just two: the law provides far too many reasons to keep information secret, and releasing information takes far too long."

A shift in culture is also needed, says Vincent Gogolek, former executive director of the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.

"When estimated time to complete an ATIA request is measured in years, when records either disappear or are never created, and when officials seek to prevent requesters from exercising their rights on the flimsiest of pretexts, these are signs that the problem is not just with laws and regulations, but with policies and with the basic culture of the institutions subject to the Act," says his submission.

"That has to change."

During a series of public consultation sessions this year as part of the review, attended by a total of about 200 people, participants advocated:

— Expanding the right of access under the Canadian law to anyone in the world;

— narrowing exceptions in the law with the guiding principle of releasing as much information as possible; and

— a requirement that government information be disclosed in all cases unless there are valid reasons not to publish it.

A report from the government review is to be submitted to the Treasury Board president by Jan. 31 next year — perhaps a reason the Liberals are not binding themselves to any Access to Information promises in their platform.

The NDP platform is also silent on the access law, though leader Jagmeet Singh expressed a need for more openness when asked about it this week.

"I think transparency is incredibly important and we've seen for a while that it's been difficult to obtain information, and it's something we absolutely believe in," he said in Montreal.

The Conservatives promise to review the access law and to give the information commissioner, an ombudsman for users, the power to order departments to "release information promptly" to end "the current government’s practice of endless delays that makes a mockery of the law."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

Climate science teaches us to love insects. Horror films tell us to hate them. Who will win?

Dominique, the giant housefly in Mandibles, a French-Belgian comedy film written and directed by Quentin Dupieux. Photograph: Lifestyle pictures/Alamy


Creepy-crawlies usually signify death, decay and evil in films – there’s a vast canon going back decades. But has the ‘When Insects Attack’ sub-genre had its day?


Anne Billson
Fri 3 Sep 2021

In Quentin Dupieux’s Mandibles, a pair of chuckleheads called Manu and Jean-Gab (think Dumb and Dumber, but French) steal a Mercedes and find, in the boot, a housefly the size of a pitbull. They name it Dominique and train it to rob banks. At no point do they find it scary, even after it eats a dog. It’s so endearing, you will share their feelings.

This is a turn up for the books, since flies in cinema are more usually signifiers of death, decay and evil. Sometimes, as when Annie Graham goes up to the attic in Hereditary, their presence presages the discovery of a cadaver. They buzz symbolically around the grubby cheesecloth-wrapped bundle in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, while Father Delaney’s attempts to bless the cursed house in The Amityville Horror are thwarted by demonic bluebottles. In Phenomena, Jennifer Connelly plays a schoolgirl insect-whisperer who can summon flies for protection, but that doesn’t save her from getting submerged up to her neck in maggots. In the bonkers Indian action-fantasy Eega, a man murdered by his love rival is reincarnated as a vengeful housefly, but fusing your molecules with those of a Musca domestica is more likely to end in loss of vital anatomical parts, as happens in both the 1958 and 1986 versions of The Fly. (Help meeee!)

At best, insects in films are pesky. At worst, they can be downright malevolent, reflecting western society’s attitude to creepy-crawlies in general. It’s estimated that 6% of humans suffer from some form of entomophobia – and for the purposes of this article I am grouping arthropods (spiders, centipedes), gastropods (slugs, snails) and non-arthropod invertebrates (worms) under the broader entomological banner. In the immortal words of the tagline on Shaun Hutson’s novel Slugs: “They ooze. They slime. They kill.” Depending on number of legs or wings, they also creep, hop, scuttle and dive bomb. They can be trained to kill, like the lethal lepidopterans in Tsui Hark’s directing debut, The Butterfly Murders, which behave more like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds than the colourful flitterers we know and love, while The Abominable Dr Phibes manoeuvres a biblical mini-plague of locusts into gnawing the flesh off one of his victims by dripping mashed-up Brussels sprouts over her as she sleeps.

The Xenomorph in Alien (1979) exhibits insect characteristics: egg-laying queen, parasitic behaviour and metamorphic lifecycles. 

Photograph: 20th Century Fox/Allstar

Why do insects make our skin crawl? Perhaps because they are hard to anthropomorphise. They are not furry and you don’t want them sleeping on your bed, though I daresay there are plenty of phasmid fanciers who have formed close relationships with their pets. With their bug eyes and exoskeletons, insects already look semi-alien, so it’s little wonder that film-makers regularly depict our planet attacked by creepy-crawlies from outer space or alternative dimensions, in films such as The Mist or the horror-comedy Infestation (which featured alien insectoids using sound to home in on their prey a decade before A Quiet Place). The Xenomorph in the Alien franchise exhibits insect characteristics (an egg-laying queen, parasitic behaviour, metamorphic life cycles), and the Martians in Quatermass and the Pit, at first mistaken for the devil, are glimpsed in atavistic memory clips hopping around like giant locusts, which ought to be funny – but somehow isn’t, especially once you learn they are engaged in a form of ethnic cleansing. As Seth Brundle says in The Fly: “Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I.”

Creature features are usually constructed around the premise that hey, if people are freaked out by woodlice and earwigs, imagine how scared they’ll be if those critters are mutated by radiation or pollution into colossal versions that can decapitate you with one swipe of a mandible (Starship Troopers) or use brutish giant cockroach strength to fold you in half, like Ivan the luckless waiter in Men in Black. And, of course, you wouldn’t want to run into Shelob, the giant spider from Lord of the Rings, or The Deadly Mantis, Tarantula, the giant bees from Mysterious Island or the enormous parasites from Cloverfield that can make your head explode with just one bite.

But I would contend that giant insects aren’t nearly as scary as normal-sized ones. The ants from Them! are too big to crawl into your ear, the way an ant once crawled into mine as I was gardening. (I sluiced it out with a wet cotton bud, but worried it might have laid eggs in my brain.) The gigantic Eight Legged Freaks in the film of the same name are nowhere near as creepy as the normal-sized spiders in Arachnophobia and the slow-but-deadly tarantulas that interrupt William Shatner’s attempts to chat up a comely arachnologist in Kingdom of the Spiders. Giant worms such as the ones in Dune, Beetlejuice and Tremors, and the bloodworm that slurps up Andy Serkis in King Kong are obviously best avoided, but for that extra-creepy skin-crawling factor they can’t hold a candle to the regular-sized annelids in Squirm, which ooze from showerheads and burrow into people’s faces.

William Shatner succumbs to a tarantula in Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). 

Photograph: Dimension/Allstar

Insect eco-horror peaked in the 1970s with exploitation entrepreneurs such as William Castle, whose final production, Bugs (1975), features mutant cockroaches that set fire to people’s hair and spell out “WE LIVE” on the wall, and Irwin Allen, whose The Swarm proclaims patriotically: “The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no resemblance to the industrious, hardworking American honey bee.” Damn migrant bees; coming over here and killing off beloved Hollywood veterans such as Olivia de Havilland and Henry Fonda!

But the insect threat is treated more seriously in the 1971 faux-documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle, which intersperses fascinating real footage of insect life with “Dr Nils Hellstrom” (played by an actor) predicting the rise of species such as the African driver ant, “a mindless unstoppable killing machine dedicated to the destruction of everything that stands in its way”. More alarming, albeit more obviously fictional, is the only feature directed by legendary credits designer Saul Bass: in his film Phase IV (1974), two scientists investigating unusual ant activity in the Arizona desert find themselves under siege when the colony’s hive mind fights back. Ants clearly appeal to the mindset of surrealistically inclined auteurs, pouring out of a hole in the palm of a hand in Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou, crawling over a severed ear in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and – in Bass’s original ending to Phase IV, rejected by the studio for being too weird – taking over the world. Bow down to your insect overlords!

Olivia de Havilland as a schoolteacher attacked by killer bees in The Swarm (1977). Photograph: Warner Bros./Allstar

It’s possible that the “When Insects Attack” sub-genre has had its day, given recent developments on the ecological front. As Dr Hellstrom says: “In fighting the insect we have killed ourselves, polluted our water, poisoned our wildlife, permeated our own flesh with deadly toxins. The insect becomes immune, and we are poisoned. In fighting with superior intellect, we have outsmarted ourselves.” Even more troubling than the thought of being overrun by creepy-crawlies is the emerging information that, in the last two decades, three-quarters of the world’s insects have simply disappeared. This might be encouraging news for entomophobes, but it’s a terrible portent for the future of humanity, which has not only failed to acknowledge the importance of insects to the eco-system, but looks set to carry on trashing their natural habitats and spritzing them with ecologically unsound insecticides until every last one is gone.


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While recent eco-horror cinema has focused on climate change, film-makers still seem squeamish about insects; see Wounds, for example, or Mosquito State, or the 2020 French film The Swarm. Perhaps a few more adorable giant critters like Dominique wouldn’t go amiss, so we could start swapping our entomophobia for entomophilia, or we could put Godzilla on pause and start celebrating Mothra, a gentler, kinder sort of kaiju.

And perhaps we should emulate the 80% of the world’s population that regularly eats insects. Crickets, for example, are a rich source of protein and emit less than 0.1% of the greenhouse gases produced by cows. So let’s hope we’ve seen the last of dinner scenes like the one in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, in which the heroine turns up her nose at the crunchy beetles. It’s time now to adopt as a gourmet role model Renfield from Dracula (1931) who has no compunction about tucking into spiders and flies.

Mandibles is released in the UK on 17 September.

#AppleToo: employees organize and allege harassment and discrimination

Group of workers launched campaign to gather and share experiences of inequity, intimidation and abuse at company

‘For too long, Apple has evaded public scrutiny,’ the workers said in a public statement. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Dani Anguiano
@dani_anguiano
Fri 3 Sep 2021 

A group of Apple workers is organizing to fight against what it says are patterns of discrimination, racism and sexism within the company and management’s failure to address them, in a rare public display of dissent within the notoriously secretive company.

Last week, a group of employees launched #AppleToo, a campaign to gather and share current and past employees’ experiences of inequity, intimidation and abuse. The group hopes to mobilize workers at a time when workers across the tech industry are calling for greater accountability from their employers, and to push Apple to more effectively address such complaints.

“For too long, Apple has evaded public scrutiny,” the workers said in a public statement. “When we press for accountability and redress to the persistent injustices we witness or experience in our workplace, we are faced with a pattern of isolation, degradation, and gaslighting,” they added.

The initiative on Monday released five accounts from employees who say they were subjected to discrimination and sexual harassment at work, allegations they say they shared with management but were left unaddressed. The accounts were anonymous, and did not share what department or city the employees worked in.

“There was [an] employee, who was actually someone in an elevated position, who was constantly predatory. Constantly sexually harassing our team members, and nothing was done about it until it became impossible to ignore,” one of the five employees wrote.

“There were several instances where leadership would not let certain employees of color interview for positions that they were very deserving of,” they added.

The initiative comes after workers tried to address complaints with Apple leadership internally, organizers say, to little avail. Apple reportedly has put a stop to surveys from employees that sought to gather data related to pay. Earlier this week, it barred workers from creating a channel on the communication platform Slack to discuss pay equity, the Verge reported, claiming the topic didn’t meet Slack’s terms of use, though it allows channels dedicated to dogs, cats and gaming.

Since launching, organizers say, the initiative has received hundreds of stories from workers across the company. Seventy-five per cent of them involved discrimination of some sort, and almost half involved sexism, retaliation and dismissed HR reports.



The effort has also prompted an outpouring of response on social media from former Apple employees detailing their experiences with discrimination and retaliation.

Cher Scarlett, an Apple security engineer and #AppleToo organizer, said hundreds of people have come to her looking for support. “I can’t even keep track anymore of the number of people who’ve shared their stories with me. These are people’s lives. They are human beings,” Scarlett told Protocol. “What else do you do when hundreds of people you don’t know are coming to you with all of these different issues?”

Scarlett said she had filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the company stopped her effort to conduct pay transparency surveys. She said she had been doxxed by a colleague for pushing for pay transparency, and had been told she was “ruining the company”.

The initiative marks a new phase of employee organizing at Apple. Until recently, the company had largely escaped some of the increased scrutiny faced by other major tech companies. Employees of Activision Blizzard, the video game company behind Call of Duty, staged a walkout in July to call for better working conditions amid allegations of a “frat boy” culture at the company and severe harassment and discrimination against female workers.

Google in 2018 faced global protests from workers over claims of sexual harassment, gender inequality and systemic racism.

Timnit Gebru, a former Apple employee and AI scientist at Google who was fired from Google after the company attempted to suppress her research and she criticized its diversity efforts, has offered her support to those sharing their stories.

“Apple HR and lawyers have the sickest retaliatory tactics I have seen so far,” she said on Twitter. “[Apple] how long do you think you can keep doing these horrible things to people under the radar?”

In response to the workers’ claims, Apple said: “We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.”