WHY JOE MANCHIN IS A DICK 

BIG OIL FRACKS HIS STATE

Shale natural gas production in the Appalachian Basin sets records in first half of 2021

Source: Graph by U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on state administrative data collected by Enverus Drillinginfo Inc.

---

Dry natural gas production from shale formations in the Appalachian Basin that spans Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio has been growing since 2008, and monthly production has recently set new record highs. Production in the region reached 32.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in December 2020, and it averaged 31.9 Bcf/d during the first half of 2021, the highest average for a six-month period since production began in 2008. The Appalachian Basin contains two shale formations, Marcellus and Utica, which accounted for 34% of all U.S. dry natural gas production in the first half of 2021. On its own, the Appalachian Basin would have been the third-largest natural gas producer in the world the first half of 2021, behind Russia and the rest of the United States.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. state-to-state pipeline capacity

---

Record-high dry natural gas production in the first half of 2021 was made possible by growth in pipeline takeaway capacity that allows natural gas produced in the Appalachian Basin to reach other demand markets, especially in the Midwest. From 2008 to 2020, total pipeline takeaway capacity from the Northeast increased from 4.5 Bcf/d to 24.5 Bcf/d, alleviating some congestion and supporting higher wholesale natural gas prices in the region. Most of the increase in takeaway capacity happened between 2014 and 2020, when pipeline capacity increased by 16.5 Bcf/d, much of which was directed to the Midwest.

Pipeline takeaway capacity from Appalachia to Canada and to the Southeast has also increased. Recent expansions of pipeline capacity in the Southeast are supporting growth in exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas.

Although natural gas pipeline capacity out of the Northeast has grown every year since 2014, the rate of increase has slowed and recently has not kept pace with growth in regional production. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is the largest natural gas pipeline currently being constructed in the region and is targeted to enter service in 2022. The pipeline will move natural gas from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, extending the Equitrans transmission system to the Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company’s Zone 5 compressor station 165 near Gretna, Virginia. It is designed to move 2.0 Bcf/d of natural gas and is intended to further alleviate pipeline congestion. Pipelines tend to be most full in the region during the late summer when consumption of natural gas within the region is typically at its lowest.

Principal contributors: Corrina Ricker, Warren Wilczewski

COMPANIES LOBBYING AGAINST INFRASTRUCTURE TAX INCREASES HAVE AVOIDED PAYING BILLIONS IN TAXES

Executives at JPMorgan Chase, FedEx, and others have spoken out publicly against Biden’s proposed tax increases.


President Joe Biden participates in a virtual meeting on Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Aug. 11, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images


Akela Lacy
September 6 2021, 

AN INFRASTRUCTURE PROPOSAL that would raise the corporate tax rate is facing opposition in Congress from companies that have dodged tens of billions of dollars in taxes over the last decade. Several such companies are lobbying against corporate tax increases and measures designed to crack down on tax havens in President Joe Biden’s economic proposal.

Biden’s American Jobs Plan would raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent to help fund projects to rebuild highways and roads, expand high-speed broadband, build and renovate schools, and expand and upgrade power lines. Meanwhile, his American Families Plan would allocate $1.8 trillion over 10 years for education, child care, and national paid leave. To help fund those programs, he proposed a 39.6 percent capital gains tax for millionaires — almost double the current rate of 23.8 percent — and an increase in the marginal income tax rate for the top 1 percent, from 37 percent to 39.6 percent.

Highway construction on Interstate 285 near the interchange with State Road 400 in Sandy Springs, Ga., on July 14, 2021.
Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Companies that use such practices to avoid taxes and lobbied earlier this year on issues related to tax rates in Biden’s American Jobs Plan include Walmart, Oracle, Accenture, Bristol Myers Squibb, Shell, and Walgreens. Executives at companies that have historically avoided paying taxes, like Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, FedEx, and DuPont, have spoken out publicly against Biden’s proposed tax increases.

Shell and Walgreens lobbied earlier this year on corporate tax issues in the American Jobs Plan. Walmart hired a lobbying firm tasked with “monitoring of tax proposals related to infrastructure” in the plan and proposed legislative efforts related to Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Accenture hired another firm to “monitor the American Jobs Plan as it relates to corporate taxes.” Oracle and Bristol Myers Squibb, a multinational pharmaceutical company, used the same firm hired by Accenture to monitor and lobby on similar issues in the proposal. Oracle also used that firm to monitor the American Rescue Plan, Biden’s first Covid-19 relief package, for provisions related to corporate taxes. Oracle spokesperson Jessica Moore said the company “has not lobbied on Corporate Tax issues since the new Administration.”

Nonprofit and media reports in recent years have found that those companies are among dozens of multinational corporations that have avoided tens of billions of dollars in taxes in recent years, and have used a variety of tax evasion mechanisms both in the U.S. and overseas, leading some to face fines and even criminal charges.

A Reuters report last year found that from 2018 to 2019, Shell reported $2.7 billion through offshore tax havens and avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. In 2019, Australia charged Shell $755 million for six years’ worth of taxes the company did not pay. The company reported that after getting tax refunds related to the closure of oil platforms, it paid no corporate income tax in the U.K. in 2018 on $731 million in profits. In 2013, India alleged that Shell had evaded taxes by underpricing a transfer of shares in 2009 by $2.8 billion.

A 2016 report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Citizens for Tax Justice, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Bristol Myers Squibb held $25 billion across 23 tax haven subsidiaries. In 2012 the company set up a tax haven subsidiary in Ireland, which the IRS later described as an “abusive” tax shelter that could allow the company to avoid paying $1.4 billion in taxes.

Between 2008 and 2014, Walmart held more than $23.3 billion in offshore accounts and avoided paying more than $4.59 billion in U.S. taxes, according to a 2016 Oxfam report. In an arrangement internally known as “Project Flex,” the company routed money through an allegedly fictitious Chinese subsidiary, Quartz reported, which allowed it to avoid paying $2.6 billion in U.S. taxes between 2014 and 2017. The 2016 report from the U.S. PIRG, CTJ, and ITEP also found that Walmart reported zero tax haven subsidiaries despite having as many as 75. A 2013 report from CTJ found that the company held $19.2 billion in profits in offshore tax havens and did not disclose the U.S. tax rate it would pay if that money were repatriated.



Related
Race and Taxes


A 2015 report from Americans for Tax Fairness found that Walmart put $76 billion of assets in 78 subsidiaries across 15 tax havens where the company did not have stores. The report found that in 25 of 27 countries where Walmart has stores, the company operates through shell companies held in tax havens. In Luxembourg, where Walmart does not have stores, the company has 22 shell companies to which it transferred ownership of more than $45 billion in assets since 2011. The report claimed that in 2014, Walmart took $2.4 billion in low-interest loans from its tax haven subsidiaries, allowing U.S. affiliates to access foreign earnings without paying U.S. taxes, which the report said “may transgress the intent of U.S. law.” A 2014 analysis by the same group found that Walmart avoids paying $1 billion a year in taxes by exploiting U.S. tax loopholes, and that the company used various methods to dodge paying taxes on $21.4 billion in offshore profits in 2013 — more than double the profits it dodged taxes on in 2008. A 2011 report from Good Jobs First found that Walmart used tax avoidance schemes, including deducting rent payments to itself, to avoid $400 million in local and state taxes each year.

Walgreens is among several major retailers that have been accused of using a legal tactic to reduce their property taxes by pursuing reductions in the assessed value of their properties. After public outcry, the company backed off a decision in 2014 to move its U.S. headquarters overseas, a change that would have allowed the company to avoid some $4 billion in taxes. The 2016 report from U.S. PIRG, CTJ, and ITEP found that Walgreens had 71 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 23 in Luxembourg alone.

Buildings stand at the Oracle Corp. headquarters campus in Redwood City, California, on March 14, 2016.
Photo: Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images


A 2016 Oxfam report found that Oracle held more than $38 billion in offshore accounts between 2008 and 2014 on which the company avoided paying $8.3 billion in U.S. taxes. The 2016 U.S. PIRG, CTJ, and ITEP report found that the company held $42.6 billion in five subsidiaries in offshore tax havens on which the company paid a 3.8 percent tax rate. The 2013 report from CTJ showed that in that fiscal year, Oracle held $20.9 billion in offshore tax havens on which if paid a 30 percent tax rate while the U.S. tax rate was 35 percent.

In 2019, Oracle Corporation Australia was charged more than $300 million for avoided, withheld, and backed taxes. Oracle Korea was fined $275 million in 2017 for alleged tax evasion that allowed the firm to dodge taxes for seven years by using tax havens abroad. A 2012 study commissioned by a member of the British Parliament found that Oracle had paid nothing in corporate taxes in the U.K. that year on a projected 446 million pounds in profits. Oracle declined to comment on these findings.

In 2019, Accenture paid $200 million in a settlement following reporting from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on leaked documents — the 2014 “Lux Leaks” scandal — revealing that major multinational companies avoided global taxes by entering into secret tax agreements with the government of Luxembourg. In 2010, acting through PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Accenture processed a transfer of intellectual property rights from Switzerland to Ireland through Luxembourg. Documents obtained as part of Lux Leaks showed that the value of the assets rose almost 600 percent in 48 hours from $1.2 billion to $7 billion, zero of which was taxed in Luxembourg. The company successfully lobbied the U.S. government in the early 2000s to move its place of incorporation to Bermuda to avoid taxes. When the government planned to change tax policies that would jeopardize Bermuda’s tax haven status, the company — which says it has no headquarters — moved its place of incorporation to Ireland. Accenture did not provide comment by the time of publication.

A 2012 report by the Sunday Times found that Accenture was able to lower its tax rate in the U.K. to less than 3.5 percent, while the nation’s standard rate was 24 percent.

Frederick Smith, chair and CEO of FedEx, speaks during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Aviation Summit in Washington, D.C., on March 7, 2019.
Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Bloomberg via Getty Images


CONGRESS HAS BEEN struggling to pass the much-awaited bipartisan bill, and negotiations are ongoing (the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops last month put talks somewhat on hold). It’s unclear whether the measure will have enough support to pass. Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress but have had little luck moving forward on a number of Biden’s administrative goals even as calls to abolish the filibuster gain support.

Meanwhile, executives at other major companies that have reportedly dodged billions of dollars in taxes around the world have also spoken out against Biden’s plan to increase their taxes.

In April, Joseph Wolk, Johnson & Johnson’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, criticized the proposed corporate tax increase because it would make the U.S. “the highest-rated developed country in the world with respect to tax rates,” and said that the issue is something “we need a little more fact-based dialogue on and making sure that we remain competitive.” Following news of Biden’s proposal, strategists at JPMorgan Chase said the administration’s policies were “no longer so unambiguously positive.” Asked about Biden’s plan in May, JPMorgan Chase Chair and CEO Jamie Dimon said, “We already waste tremendous sums of money,” and the “notion that you can have uncompetitive corporate taxes and you can be a competitive nation is a little crazy.” FedEx Chair and CEO Fred Smith came out against Biden’s proposal in April and wrote in an email to staff that it would “reduce capital investment and significantly degrade U.S. competitiveness.” The same month, DuPont EVP and CFO Lori Koch said the proposed changes would put companies based in the U.S. “at a disadvantage” because they “would be subject to higher tax rates on their foreign earnings than their foreign competitors.”

Between 2013 and 2015, Johnson & Johnson reportedly dodged more than $1.7 billion in global taxes, including more than $1 billion in the U.S. alone, according to a 2018 Oxfam report. A 2016 report from the same group found that the company had avoided paying more than $16 billion in taxes between 2008 and 2014 by housing some $53 billion in offshore accounts. Johnson & Johnson did not respond to requests for comment.



Related
Tax Havens and Other Dirty Tricks Let U.S. Corporations Steal $180 Billion From the Rest of the World Every Year


JPMorgan Chase avoided $12 billion in U.S. taxes between 2008 and 2014 by holding more than $31 billion in offshore accounts, according to a 2016 Oxfam report. Another Oxfam report that year found that 96.8 percent of the bank’s foreign subsidiaries were housed in tax havens and that it only reported 0.9 percent of those on its 2014 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The report also noted that the bank estimated its deferred tax bill from offshore accounts at $7 billion. A 2013 report from CTJ found that in that fiscal year, the bank disclosed that it held more than $25 billion in offshore tax havens on which it paid a 23 percent tax, 12 points below the 35 percent corporate tax rate that year.

In 2015, French prosecutors filed criminal charges against a unit of the bank for “alleged complicity in tax fraud,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The case was later thrown out because of “clerical errors.” According to the 2014 Lux Leaks report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, JPMorgan Chase and FedEx were among companies that secured lucrative secret tax deals with the Luxembourg government that allowed them and other major companies to largely avoid global taxes. Members of the European Parliament subsequently investigated the country’s tax code and money-laundering schemes, and later took action to force Luxembourg to change its tax laws and follow new rules approved following the scandal. In 2012, the bank was in talks with the U.K. government to pay a 500 million pound settlement after it was found that the company used a tax-avoidance scheme there. The bank declined to comment.

FedEx used tax avoidance strategies that allowed the company to pay a negative 4.6 percent tax rate in 2018, according to a 2019 ITEP report. The same report showed that DuPont used government subsidies and tax avoidance strategies to pay a negative 54.8 percent tax rate in 2018 and avoided paying $119 million in taxes that year.

DuPont paid no net state income tax from 2008 to 2010, a net negative of $12 million, according to a 2011 report from ITEP and CTJ. A 2013 report from the same group found that the company held more than $13 billion in offshore tax havens. Before Dow Chemical and DuPont split in 2019, the merged companies agreed to pay a $1.75 million fine to the SEC after failing to disclose $3 million in perks given to Dow’s former chief executive.

The net effect of these tax dodges is catastrophic. According to a 2016 report by Kimberly Clausing, the Eric M. Zolt Chair in Tax Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law who was appointed in February as deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the Treasury’s office of tax policy, the U.S. loses more than $111 billion each year due to tax dodging by multinational corporations.

“Lobbyists have already created so many loopholes in our tax code that help the rich and powerful and big corporations,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, said in a statement to The Intercept. “The American people understand what’s going on here and this is our opportunity to put a stop to it. [Maine Sen.] Angus King and I are pushing for a corporate profits tax that is essentially a minimum tax for the richest companies — no loopholes — that will allow us to increase tax revenue and help pay for these infrastructure investments we badly need.”

 

Electoral reform: Is Trudeau's broken promise on any party's agenda?

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

NDP, Green Party have included electoral reform in their platforms

Avneet Dhillon · CBC News · Posted: Sep 06, 2021 

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh casts his ballot for the federal byelection in Burnaby South at an advance poll in 2019. Supporters of electoral reform want to change Canada's first-past-the-post voting system. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

This story came from audience members, like you, who got in touch with us. Send us your federal election questions and story tips. We are listening: ask@cbc.ca.

Not much has been said about electoral reform during this federal election campaign, six years after Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised to replace the first-past-the-post voting system.

But Canadians from across the country have emailed CBC News to express their frustration with an elections system they say still doesn't properly reflect how people vote.

• Use Vote Compass to compare the party platforms with your views.

Under first-past-the-post, voters pick one candidate in their riding and the person with more votes than any other candidate wins the riding. The successful candidate doesn't need to win a majority of votes to take the riding.

Advocates of electoral reform want this changed to some other voting system, such as proportional representation, which they say would reduce the practice of strategic voting and more accurately reflect voters' views.

What are the main party platforms on electoral reform?

Liberals

The Liberal Party's 2021 election platform makes no mention of electoral reform. When CBC News asked about the party's current stance on the issue, a Liberal spokesperson did not answer the question and instead offered this statement: 

"We all have a shared responsibility to protect and promote our democracy. This means working every day to engage and involve Canadians from all walks of life in our electoral process and democratic institutions."

"It looks like we're going to be stuck with first-past-the-post under a Liberal government," said political scientist Stéphanie Chouinard, an assistant professor at Canada's Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.

Conservatives

The Conservative Party's platform also does not include electoral reform.

One section of the platform states that the party "will end Trudeau's practice of … treating provinces differently based on whether they think they can win their votes."

CBC News reached out to the Conservative Party to ask whether this promise would embrace electoral reform. The party did not respond.

NDP

The NDP has committed to replacing our voting system with mixed-member proportional representation. The party has promised to make it part of their first mandate if elected.

Under mixed-member proportional representation, voters have to make two choices on a ballot: one for a candidate to represent them locally and one for a party.

The NDP's election platform states the party would establish an independent citizen's assembly to recommend the best way to put this voting system in place for the next election. After Canadians have had the chance to experience it, the party said, a referendum would be held to confirm the choice.

Green Party

The Green Party supports proportional representation but is not advocating for a particular model. 

"So long as they respect the principle of proportionality ... Mixed-Member Proportional, Rural-Urban Proportional, and more, could meet this criteria," a party spokesperson told CBC News in an email.

The Greens also support establishing a citizen's assembly on electoral reform.

• How would proportional representation have shaped the 2019 election results?

Is a referendum required for electoral reform?

No. Canada can replace its voting system without a nationwide referendum.

"This is not a constitutional change," said political scientist Max Cameron, a professor at the University of British Columbia who has advised policymakers on electoral reform.

Cameron added that he's in favour of holding a referendum only if it's well-designed.

• Find out who's ahead in the latest polls with our Poll Tracker.

"Here in B.C., we've had badly-designed referendums and that's killed electoral reform," Cameron said. "Every time we've had good citizens' assemblies and we've had three terrible referendums."

Provincial referendums on electoral reform have taken place in B.C. and on P.E.I. in recent years. Canadians in both provinces voted to keep the first-past-the-post system.

WATCH | Max Cameron on why Trudeau failed to implement electoral reform:

Political scientist on Trudeau's broken promise of electoral reform

4 days ago

0:57

Max Cameron, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, explains why Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's 2015 promise of electoral reform was abandoned. 0:57

Has anything changed since the 2019 election?

In June, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs passed a motion to establish a national citizen's assembly on electoral reform.

The Liberals and NDP both voted in favour of the motion (the Green Party supports establishing this assembly as well, but Greens didn't have a seat on that committee). The Conservatives voted against the motion.

• Compare the party platforms and see where the parties stand on the issues important to you.

"This isn't going to bind the next Parliament," Cameron said.

"But it indicates that even among the political parties, when you get them in a committee to look at the issue, they can see some reason for actually going forward with a citizen's assembly."

Living in her car: Utility bills pushing some working Calgarians over the edge

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

Jade Cromwell had her life in order, then the pandemic hit and costs increased

Elise Stolte · CBC News · Posted: Sep 01, 2021 9:50 AM MT | Last Updated: September 1

Jade Cromwell has been living in her car, campgrounds and couchsurfing at friends houses since June because she couldn't afford to pay her utility bills. (Jade Cromwell)

Jade Cromwell had her life in order. 

At 34, she had her own landscaping company, a house on a rent-to-own contract and three roommates to help pay the bills. But each time COVID-19 cases surged in Alberta, the economic impact fell like a hammer and cracked her carefully arranged life a little more. 

Last fall, her company folded; her roommates also lost jobs and had to move out. Even when she got a new job in forestry education, it wasn't enough. Her utility bill was the final blow.

"I'm pretty conscious about my eco-footprint. But the bills just seem to stay at this steady $500 a month," she said. "That was pretty extreme. I didn't know how they were that high and it didn't seem to make sense, but it was mostly service fees.

"If they weren't there, I probably would still have my home. The utilities just destroyed it and wrecked my credit on top of it."

Cromwell broke the contract on her house and spent the summer living in a tent in a Bragg Creek campground. She's now living in her car and on friends' couches, trying to find something more secure before the winter hits.

Higher bills

She's not alone. Utility bills have been increasing across the province for several reasons, including the phase out of coal and a provincial decision to end the electricity rate cap.

The Trellis Society normally sees a spike in calls for help each spring as energy companies start trying to collect on outstanding bills from peak winter months, said Angela Clarke, Chief Strategy Officer with the organization that helps people access resources.

Normally, those calls dwindle by summer as utility bills take a dip. This year, they did not. 

"With COVID, we saw that everyone was home far more than they probably anticipated because of restrictions and things," Clarke said.

"People are spending more time in their homes. And so then what we're seeing is the unexpected impact of that. People saw an increase in their utility bills because their usage went up in a time when normally it wouldn't."

Jade Cromwell washed her clothes in the river while living at a campground this summer, hanging them to dry on a clothesline. (Jade Cromwell)

Unfortunately, Clarke says there's little they can do to help as there are limited funds available in the system to support with utility bills. 

"What we often find is if someone hasn't paid their utility bill for whatever reason, they maybe also haven't paid rent," Clarke said.

• Market watcher says multiple factors behind Albertans' surging power bills

"Maybe their phone bills have been disconnected, maybe they're short on groceries, maybe they haven't been able to pay school fees. So we're trying to look at it from a holistic view while assessing what the most urgent need is."

From campgrounds to parking lots

Cromwell said living in a campground for $200 a month this summer wasn't bad. But now that it's colder, she finds a Wal-Mart parking lot, folds the back seats down on her Chevy Cruze and sleeps with her feet in the trunk. It's not comfortable, but even in this, she's not alone.

She says there were probably four other people staying in the campground for similar reasons and there are others staying in the Wal-Mart parking lots. There's a Facebook page dedicated to what's called Vanlife and many have joined not because it's trendy, but a necessity. 

"They're like, well, at least I'll have a community," said Cromwell.

"Many people are in their cars now because they can't afford the way the world is going."

Cromwell said her boss at her new job has been extremely supportive. She's now hoping to work with a financial advisor to pay off the outstanding $1,200 debt and rent a warmer place soon.

"This isn't really living. It's just kind of surviving," she said. "My plan is to just, bit by bit, work with my bank and a financial adviser … so I can move forward and make sure that my credit isn't damaged too bad.

"And I guess try to make more conscious decisions when it comes to my utilities. I wasn't aware it was going to be so high. My strategy is just to find a better strategy and stay a bit more stable. The old way doesn't work anymore."

Clarke says she believes Calgary has hit a crisis tipping point with the volume of people struggling to pay their utility bills, but is hopeful from conversations she's had with utility companies saying they want to be part of the solution to the problem.

"Looking at distribution rates, services, maybe alternate options for people who are struggling with poverty or people who are accessing other types of support," Clarke said. 

Alberta’s use of British COVID-19 data was a miscalculation


SEPTEMBER 6, 2021

The Alberta government’s recent approach to COVID-19, ending nearly all public-health measures over the summer and refusing to change course as infections rose, was based on an optimistic principle: that vaccines changed the pandemic so dramatically. Given that the province could withstand a season. Significant increase in new cases without worrying about hospitals being overwhelmed.

Premier Jason Kenney and his chief medical officer of health, Dina Hinshaw, pointed to figures out of Britain as evidence that infections were “disrupted” with dire consequences; In other words, the spike in COVID-19 cases will no longer result in the same increase in hospitalizations. But Mr Kenny was forced to admit last week that those predictions did not come to pass in Alberta – a miscalculation that is now pushing hospital admissions to the peak of any previous wave and putting the health care system in a shambles. Threatens to bring it close to breaking point.

Experience in Alberta, where the government prides itself on imposing fewer pandemic restrictions than other provinces and recently urged the public to stop viewing COVID-19 as an emergency, has prompted other governments to take public-health measures. can serve as a warning for thinking of giving up altogether. . Experts say too few people have been vaccinated – not only in Alberta, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, but elsewhere in Canada – to skip public-health measures and act like that the pandemic is over.

Canada urged to increase vaccination rate, maintain public health measures, to avoid 15,000 daily COVID-19 cases next month

Kryderman: Alberta government’s lack of foresight has them stumbling block to halt fourth wave of COVID-19

In Alberta, that realization prompted the government to act on Friday, announcing the return of a provincewide mask mandate and a curfew on the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants. The government is also paying anyone who hasn’t yet received their first or second dose of the vaccine $100 so they can eventually get a shot. The government previously delayed plans to end widespread testing, contact tracing and mandatory isolation.

The condition of hospitals in the province is deteriorating rapidly. Hospital and intensive care admissions have more than doubled in the past two weeks, and newly released modeling suggests these numbers could surpass their previous peak within weeks. On Friday, the province’s ICU beds were 95 percent full. Alberta has the highest rate of COVID-19 infections and hospital admissions per capita in the country.

Mr Kenny had repeatedly pointed to Britain defending Alberta’s approach. When infections spiked in Britain over the summer, hospital admissions did not increase as much. Hospital admissions rose in the UK in July and August, but government data shows they have been far below any previous peaks.

“Unfortunately, this has not been the Alberta experience,” Kenny said on Friday.

“Vaccines isolate individuals from severe outcomes dramatically at the individual level, but because of the large group of people who have no vaccine protection, we have seen the delta variant spread widely and in unvaccinated adults. gives serious results at very high rates.

Dean Carlen, a professor at the University of Victoria who is part of the BC COVID-19 Modeling Group, said hospitalizations in Alberta are rising slightly faster than in previous waves. The modeling group, which is also releasing estimates for Alberta, was warning that this would happen.

“There was really no basis to believe that this would be decoupling,” Prof. Carlen said.

He said it had been clear for some time that Britain was an outsider. He said there is significant and predictable pressure on their health care systems after a surge in infections in other jurisdictions in Europe and the United States.

Pro. Karlen also pointed out that most new infections are in unvaccinated people, so there was no reason to believe they wouldn’t end up in the same hospital as before.

“The situation has not really changed dramatically in any way to suggest that the demand for hospitalization will not be as high as it was before,” he said.

‘We're flying blind’: Contact tracers in Alberta concerned about province's approach as cases surge

'The (case) numbers that we're seeing in the news, you can triple it'

Author of the article: Brittany Gervais
Publishing date:Sep 05, 2021 • 

Health-care workers at the Richmond Road Diagnostic and Treatment Centre COVID-19 testing location. Friday, April 23, 2021. 

PHOTO BY BRENDAN MILLER /Postmedia

Contact tracers in Alberta are speaking out against the province’s decision to stop doing full investigations of COVID-19 transmission in the province, which they say is resulting in higher infections and more pressure on an already overwhelmed health-care system.

Among other responsibilities, contact tracers file lab tests of positive cases of COVID-19 to the province’s database, follow up with close contacts to ensure those who were exposed get tested and isolate, and notify schools and other organizations of reported outbreaks.

But on July 29, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced Alberta Health Services (AHS) scaled down case investigation and contact tracing teams, and that contact tracers no longer notify close contacts about exposure to COVID-19.

Since then, Alberta has seen case counts skyrocket from 1,626 to 13,495 cases. R-values between Aug. 16 and 22 range from 1.16 to 1.23 provincewide, meaning every infected person will infect at least one other person.

Of the new cases reported from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, about 83 per cent are classified as “unknown,” meaning contact tracers have not determined how they were spread.

Calgary emergency room physician Dr. Joe Vipond has been contacted by several contact tracers in Alberta in recent weeks, all voicing their frustration with not being able to collect more information from positive cases.

About 50 per cent of transmission from COVID-19 occurs with asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people, Vipond said. That’s one of the reasons why this is such a difficult disease and why contact tracing is essential.

“Even in Alberta in the first wave, contact tracing was an incredibly important part of the disease management and it seems to be given up here,” Vipond said.

According to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which studied how Taiwan did so well triumphing over COVID-19, case-based policies like contact tracing and quarantining, in combination with population-based approaches, led to that country’s success. As of Sept. 3, the island nation of 23.5 million had 106 active cases.

In Alberta, close contact information is no longer collected as part of the standard case investigation, unless the case is connected to such high-risk settings as acute and continuing care facilities.

The contact tracing workforce has decreased, with redeployed staff returned to original positions and some temporary contracts ended early, according to AHS. As of Aug. 31, there were approximately 1,300 case investigators and contact tracers.

Currently, investigators only ask about the person’s demographics, details about their employment, school or daycare, whether they attended these places in their incubation or infectious period, and whether the virus was acquired in the community or from a hospital, according to AHS.

“In recent weeks COVID-19 cases in Alberta have increased and we have scaled back up accordingly, with current and casual staff,” wrote AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson in an email to Postmedia.

“Many staff who have temporary positions ending this fall have been receiving offers to extend their positions. We have been and will continue to extend temporary positions, as needed.”

The consequences of the policy decisions made by the province will mean COVID will spread rapidly through Alberta’s unvaccinated population, which includes kids under 12 years old, Vipond said.

“What possible reason could the province have to allow this to happen to the poor citizens of Alberta that, unfortunately, trusted them to govern?”

‘People need to know’

Postmedia was contacted by two contact tracers who wanted to speak out against the way Alberta is handling contact tracing amid the fourth wave of COVID-19. The identities of the tracers have been changed because they were not authorized to speak publicly about their experiences.

Angela has been working on the case investigation side of contact tracing for about a year. Most investigators from the past year are gone now, and work has become “very, very hectic,” she said.

“Pretty much everyone is burnt out, and I know a lot of cynicism has set in for a lot of people,” Angela said. “I feel like I’m working for the bad guy, it doesn’t feel right. People need to know.”

Even if information about close contacts is offered to investigators — if they attended a wedding or visited a family member, for example — tracers can’t collect that information.

If someone tested positive after coming back from a vacation, she can’t notify airlines about potential exposure. A parent is concerned that they’ve exposed their young daughter to the virus, but since she doesn’t have symptoms, she can’t be tested and doesn’t have to be kept home from school.

The province has ended its isolation hotels program, so tracers don’t have any resources to help people isolate, she said.

“Anything that is not in our script, we’re not supposed to write down. It’ll be deleted during the review process. I’ve heard of flight attendants who worked while infectious but there’s nothing we can do with that information,” she said.

“It’s driving me absolutely bonkers that it’s this weird secrecy thing, where we’re just calling and asking three questions and people think that we’re still tracing, and that they have all the information.”

Alberta Health confirmed that as of mid-August, travel information is no longer collected routinely as part of case investigation and therefore, flight information is not available to report to the federal government.

“The government has put a blindfold on us and we’re literally flying blind.”

Rachel works on the administrative end of contact tracing efforts, triaging data submitted from local and provincial labs, and filing reports into the province’s database.

Since the province’s announcement, she said her team has been cut down by half. Her contract ends this fall and she said she still doesn’t know if her contract will be extended. AHS has also advised contact tracers to look at other job postings within the organization.

“They’re encouraging us to go elsewhere. That’s really dangerous to me,” she said. “Do you think that if we lose all our tracers, and they go work elsewhere, do you think they’re going to be able to come back with all the shortages that we’re seeing everywhere else?”

Almost 80 per cent of the current active cases are linked to COVID-19 variants, most are linked to the Delta variant, Rachel said. Delta causes more infections and spreads faster than early forms of the novel coronavirus.

“I’m telling you right now, at 1,200 new cases a day, normally, there would be one or two more close contacts that end up being positive that follow from that. The (case) numbers that we’re seeing in the news, you can triple it,” she said.

The only reason tracers are able to keep up with their workload now is because they are only collecting basic information, she said. Unless there’s an outbreak, the province isn’t tracing cases in schools, in workplaces, or close contacts.

“I think a lot of people are going to get sick. There are going to be a lot of unnecessary illnesses, and we’re going to really overwhelm the ER and ICU,” she said. “We just threw the masks away and said, ‘To hell with everything.'”

On Friday, AHS CEO and president Dr. Verna Yiu said the province is postponing some non-urgent surgeries and procedures across all five health zones. In Alberta, 95 per cent of ICU beds are occupied, Yiu confirmed.

bgervais@postmedia.com
Twitter: @BrittGervaisAB

Dread at 9,000 metres: Inside the increasingly violent world of U.S. flight attendants

Francesca Street
CNN Digital
Sunday, September 5, 2021 

This summer, unruly passenger behavior seems to have reached new heights.

In one incident, a passenger punched a Southwest flight attendant and knocked out two of their teeth.

Video also circulated of a passenger getting taped to their seat after they reportedly punched and groped Frontier Airlines flight crew.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it has issued more than US$1 million in fines to unruly airline passengers so far in 2021.

U.S. flight attendants tell CNN Travel say the stress of the situation is taking its toll,

Susannah Carr, who works for a major U.S. airline, says unruly incidents used to be "the exception, not the rule." Now they're "frequent."

"I come in expecting to get push back. I come in expecting to have a passenger that could potentially get violent," she says.

Amirzadeh says flight attendants across U.S. airlines are just "over it."

Allie Malis, a flight attendant for American Airlines, says air crew are "exhausted -- physically and emotionally."

"We've gone through worrying about our health and safety, worrying about our jobs -- now [we are] worrying about our safety in a different way."
THE RISE OF AIR RAGE

Pre-pandemic, the issue of unruly passengers was becoming increasingly omnipresent -- data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suggested incidents rose from 2012 to 2015, while whole conferences were dedicated to the problem.

This increase was often linked to cabins getting fuller, with increased security checks and processes adding to tension.

In 2019, Malis, who is also the government affairs representative at the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, a union representing American Airlines air crew, spoke to CNN Travel about the decrease of personal seat space.

She said her union believed it is "strongly correlated and in a large part to blame" for the rise in incidents.

Alcohol is also an often cited contributing factor -- travelers drink at the airport and board the plane without crew realizing how inebriated they are. When it all kicks off at 30,000 feet, it's too late.

That said, it has always been hard to get an exact handle on whether passengers have actually become more unruly.

Not every airline that's part of IATA submits data, and not every airline records every instance of unruly behavior, while separate FAA data recorded oscillating numbers of investigated incidents between 1995 and 2019.


There have been suggestions that incidents just started to feel more ubiquitous in recent years because social media means videos of badly behaved passengers spread like wildfire.

But while FAA data might show fluctuating figures for much of the past 20 years, in 2021, incidents seem to have skyrocketed. In 2019, 146 investigations were initiated by the FAA. So far in 2021 that number is 727.

COVID-19 seems to have exacerbated an already existing issue to an unprecedented degree, at least in the US.

Amirzadeh recalls the silent flights of spring 2020.

People were too fearful to even look at other passengers or air crew, she says, let alone cause conflict.

By summer 2020, travel had recommenced and reports of in-flight disruptions were back. Masks -- not yet mandated by the FAA, but enforced by some airlines -- were becoming a sore topic among some travelers.

In recent months, unruly behavior has reached new heights.

"It just seems like every next incident is getting a little bit more extreme, things you just would have never imagined last year," says Malis.

"As a flight attendant, it's really hard to imagine yourself being in a position that requires duct taping a passenger to their seats for the safety of everyone else on the plane, yet this is something that has happened numerous times in the last few months."

Malis says she feels like incidents have been on a steady rise since the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

It also involved disruptive behavior on planes and led to the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) International -- which represents American flight attendants at 17 airlines -- stating rioters should not be allowed on flights home.

"I think the insurrection was kind of an eye-opening experience," Malis says. "What do you do when you have multiple incidents happening on the plane at the same time with only four crew members?"

A survey by the AFA released in July of this year found that, of the 5,000 flight attendants surveyed, 85 per cent said they'd dealt with unruly passengers in 2021.

Disruptive passengers had used sexist, racist and/or homophobic language, according to 61 per cent, while 17 per cent said they'd been victim of a physical attack this year.

"I thought I had seen or done or heard at all," says Amirzadeh, who has flown for six years and previously worked in customer service.

"But as I've learned the past 18 months, that is definitely not the case, I am seeing, hearing and doing things I never thought in my life I would ever be doing."
FLYING DURING COVID-19

Many incidents are linked with mask non-compliance, which the flight attendants who spoke to CNN Travel say has been an issue throughout the pandemic.

Even though it's now FAA-mandated and federal law, the wearing of masks remain the cause of the majority of inflight issues. In a press release dated August 19, the FAA says it had received approximately 3,889 reports of unruly behavior by passengers since January 1. Of those reports, 2,867 were passengers refusing to comply with the mask mandate.

"In the beginning, I would sympathize and say, 'Hey, you know, I get it, it's hot, I'm hot. I'm wearing it too -- I need you to wear it too. Can we please work together?'" says Amirzadeh.

"But here we are, it's been a year and a half, you're wearing them everywhere. And we're not the only ones that are asking you to wear them -- every train station, every bus, every airline..."

Carr says she thinks the problem is that mask-wearing is sometimes viewed as a political issue in the United States.

"The mask issue was less about public health and it was more politicized in the beginning. And that is something we're still dealing with today," she says.

Amirzadeh says fraught mask-related interactions often come as a result of passengers removing their face covering to eat or drink, and then keeping it off. It's one of the reasons she thinks alcohol shouldn't be served on planes currently.

Carr agrees and also questions the availability of to-go drinks at the airport.

Still, not serving alcohol can be the cause of issues too -- as Malis has found on board American Airlines, which continues to ban alcohol in its main cabins on board most flights.

"On some of my flights it's caused people to get upset, because they do want to feel like they have a right to have a drink -- but at the same time [...] if you're getting so upset because you can't have a drink right now, that's the exact reason we're kind of afraid to give you one, that kind of erratic behavior," says Malis.

For some passengers, travel may feel more stressful and anxiety-inducing in the age of COVID-19 Carr suggests this -- and the stresses we've all been under during the pandemic -- are a contributing factor to the rise in incidents.

"We've been isolated for the last 18-plus months," she says. "So I think some of the social graces have kind of been put on the back burner, as far as what's acceptable in public and on an airplane."

Malis wants passengers to realize that the stresses and anxieties they might be feeling about traveling in the age of COVID-19 are also shared by many crew, even if they seem like "a very accessible punching bag."

"We've been putting ourselves on the front line, and quarantining from our families," she says. "We're doing our job, we're not the reason your flight got canceled, we're not the reason you're frustrated."

The ubiquity of events on social media also leads Malis to suggest there could be a "copycat factor."

To reverse this, Amirzadeh says it's important for people to realize that the passengers who've gone viral are paying the price.
DEALING WITH INCIDENTS

Flight attendants are safety professionals trained in dealing with everything from a medical emergency to a potential terrorist incident.

"We're not here to serve you a Coke, we're here to save your life," is how Amirzadeh puts it.

But there's the concern, she says, that dealing with unruly passengers could prevent crew from dealing with other issues on board.

"We are the people that are going to give you CPR, we're the people that are going to give you the Heimlich maneuver, we are the people that are going to put out the fire. But we might miss those things if we're too busy arguing with someone else about putting their mask on."

Malis says dealing with unruly passengers is a team effort -- if a passenger seems to have taken against a particular flight attendant, another crew member stepping in could calm them down.

Carr says she keeps tabs on mask-wearing from the moment travelers step onto the plane, and will first offer a friendly reminder.

If someone continues not to comply, there are several warning steps culminating in the traveler getting handed a card stating that if they continue, they'll be reported to the airline and could lose travel privileges.

As Amirzadeh points out, a flight attendant can't force someone to wear a mask.

"But I can let him know that if he doesn't, then I hope that wherever we're landing is his final destination, because his return ticket's going to be canceled, we're going to file a report with the FAA, and you could face fines, and other legal ramifications."

Flight attendants are also able to take self defense classes organized via the Transportation Security Administration.

"I think more and more flight attendants need to start taking some self defense classes and need to be prepared to protect themselves and that's a sad thing," says Amirzadeh.

On January 13, 2021, the FAA signed an order directing a stricter legal enforcement policy against unruly airline passengers, promising a zero-tolerance campaign.

Any passenger who "assaults, threatens, intimidates, or interferes with airline crew members" could face fines of up to US$35,000 and prison time.

The FAA also recently launched a public awareness campaign, which includes a video, as well as some social media memes.

The agency has also asked U.S. airports to ensure law enforcement on the ground deals with reported inflight incidents, as well as consider issues associated with to-go alcohol.

The AFA flight attendant union is pressing for the zero tolerance policy to become permanent.

"It's also important that the Department of Justice is prosecuting some of these events," says Carr. "These unruly passenger events have been so egregious, flight attendants have been attacked, and injured [...] in situations like that, it's important that they're facing criminal prosecution and that's something that needs to be publicized as well."

Malis also suggests there should be further coordination between airlines to ensure passengers banned from one airline can't board other U.S. carriers.

Carr and Amirzadeh are both members of the AFA flight attendant union, while Malis is involved in the American Airlines' union.

They say flight attendants have been sharing stories with their unions and their private networks -- across carriers -- providing support and solidarity.

The AFA union is offering employee assistance via therapy sessions.

"There are certainly flight attendants that definitely need a break physically, mentally, and emotionally. But right now, the staffing is not there to support any type of voluntary leave option," says Malis.
STATE OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY

After a difficult year of furlough and redundancies, flight attendants are concerned that the dual effect of COVID-19 and unruly passengers could see aviation grind to a halt again.

Carr says one of the joys of her job has always been supporting passengers on their travels -- whether they're heading on a long-dreamed-of vacation, traveling under difficult circumstances or anything in between.

"I love this industry and my coworkers and having the traveling public back is wonderful," she says. "But the pandemic is far from over. That is a reality. COVID-19 and the variants are still taking lives."

The last thing Carr and her colleagues want to see is travel stalling again.

"We are doing everything we can to keep passengers safe on board and keep travel going, but without the support of the traveling public -- without people taking those necessary steps to mitigate the spread, and help get a handle on this pandemic -- we could be facing travel closing again, which would be horrible."