Quebec daycare workers' union votes overwhelmingly in favour of unlimited general strike


The Canadian PressStaff
Friday, November 26, 2021 

MONTREAL -- The CPE union affiliated with the CSN has voted 92.1 per cent in favour of a mandate for an unlimited general strike.

The Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (FSSS-CSN) said Friday morning that its strike mandate will start Dec. 1 if negotiations with the government do not improve by then.

Representative Stéphanie Vachon points out the result of the vote sends a clear message.

"The government can try to beat the unions over the head all it wants, but ultimately, it is the members who decide," she said. "By voting so overwhelmingly in favour of a strike, and thus accepting to lose days, even weeks of wages, these already underpaid workers have just told the government that they are ready to fight to the end to get a fair deal for all employees."

Wednesday, workers with the CSQ-affiliated Fédération des intervenantes en petite enfance (FIPEQ) also voted, with more than 91 per cent, in favour of an unlimited strike mandate.

The QFL-affiliated Syndicat québécois des employés de service (SQEES) has begun voting on its own strike mandate and will continue until next Tuesday.

PREMIER BELIEVES NEGOTIATED AGREEMENT POSSIBLE

While Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel raised the possibility of special legislation on Thursday, saying it was "very definitely part of the tools available," Premier François Legault did not want to go down that road for the time being, even suggesting that he was ready to intervene personally.

"I can't believe, when I look at the issues on the table, that we are not able to agree," he said. "It's common sense. I'm going to see how Sonia (LeBel) can get involved, how I can get involved, but it seems to me that common sense says: it's pretty well settled on the educator side.

"What I want is a negotiated settlement."

Legault cited the fact that "we are very close to the union's demands for child care workers. That's not where the problem lies, it's more on the side of the support staff, those who do the cleaning, those who do the food, etc."

However, he also made it clear that he has no intention of aligning government offers to support staff with those made to educators, as the unions are demanding.

"We have a duty as a government to maintain fairness," said Legault. "Someone who cleans in a school must be paid relatively the same as someone who cleans in a daycare. The support staff must have salaries that are comparable to other support staff in other networks. It seems to me that this is common sense."

On Thursday, Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel expressed her exasperation at the possibility of a strike.

"It's time to be reasonable," she told the workers at the childcare centers. "We have lost sight of the reality of parents."

Her colleague, Mathieu Lacombe, added: "The unions must listen to reason."

LeBel also said she still believed that an agreement was possible with the unions.


-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 26, 2021.

  

Quebec hardens tone as daycare workers poised for unlimited strike

Treasury Board president Sonia LeBel said back-to-work legislation "is certainly part of the tools that are available" when it comes to breaking the deadlock.

La Presse Canadienne
Lia Lévesque
Publishing date:Nov 25, 2021 

Daycare workers demonstrate to push lagging contract talks Tuesday, November 23, 2021 in Montreal. PHOTO BY RYAN REMIORZ /The Canadian Press


The Legault government hardened its tone toward Quebec’s unionized daycare employees on Thursday as workers represented by the CSN prepared to vote on an unlimited strike mandate after those represented by the CSQ had already done so .

Members of the CSQ voted over 91 per cent in favour of an indefinite strike mandate on Wednesday, while those affiliated with the CSN were set to vote all day on Thursday.

Results of the CSN’s vote won’t be known until Friday morning, but a previous strike mandate of 10 days was adopted at 97 per cent.

The union affiliated to the FTQ, for its part, has also begun to vote on a strike mandate. That vote will continue until Tuesday.

Even if no strike date has been mentioned thus far, Treasury Board president Sonia LeBel made her exasperation clear on Thursday, saying “it is time to be reasonable” and acknowledging that back-to-work legislation “is certainly part of the tools that are available” when it comes to breaking the deadlock. LeBel added, however, that she still believed a negotiated settlement is possible.

Family Minister Mathieu Lacombe made a similar statement, asking that the unions “listen to reason.”

Asked about the possibility of back-to-work legislation, Lacombe did not rule it out, saying it was “certainly one of the tools available,” but he said he still believes in a negotiated settlement.

Meanwhile, negotiators for workers represented by the CSQ were back at the bargaining table on Thursday, while CSN representatives reported “little progress” in their contract talks.

Stimulus not the cause of Canada's inflation problem, says former Bank of Canada governor

Jordan Gowling

Associate Producer, Question Period

Published Sunday, November 28, 2021 7 

OTTAWA -- Former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz says government spending and stimulus are not to blame for increased inflation.

"I think that's not right," he said during an interview on CTV's Question Period airing Sunday. "In fact, what the stimulus did was to keep the economy from going into a deep hole in which we would have experienced persistent deflation."

Inflation has reached 4.7 per cent, according to the latest numbers released by Statistics Canada in October. The Bank of Canada expects it to peak at the end of this year and start to decline in the latter half of 2022.

"We have to accept the fact that policy [stimulus] response was in the right time, well intended and it did avert all the worst calls that people were making at that time," he said.

In response to affordability concerns, the federal government has repeatedly referenced their national childcare program, as a means to combat higher costs of living. Nine provincial and territorial governments have signed childcare deals with the federal government, while Ontario and New Brunswick have yet to sign on.

Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould said in a separate interview that the inflation problem is not a uniquely Canadian issue and can be attributed to global supply chain problems.

Conservative Finance Critic Pierre Poilievre says the federal government's fiscal spending is to blame for inflation.

The average inflation rate for member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is currently at 4.3 per cent but Poilievre says the problem is only a global issue as a result of other central banks around the world taking a similar approach to Canada on fiscal stimulus.

"I think those are the countries that did the best job of countering the downside risk that everybody was facing," said Poloz. "Read a book or two about the Great Depression in the 1930s and realize what was averted when we went through this."

Poloz says that while governments can try to address affordability concerns in the short-term, any government policy normally takes a year or two to have any effect on inflation.

But he expects housing inflation to persist and says those rising costs can be something the federal government can address immediately.

"What they can do there is get all the levels of government together and figure out a list of things that they should be doing in order to promote supply of housing, we're clearly short of supply and housing," he said.

Want to solve the housing crisis? Address super-charged demand

A house in Ottawa that sold over the listing price. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

November 25, 2021 

A recent news item about New Zealand’s radical new housing law and whether such measures could work in Canada implies that soaring home prices are due to a lack of supply.

In its election platform, the Liberal party proposed to invest $4 billion in a municipal supply accelerator aimed at building more housing. This is the wrong approach.

If policy-makers and the newly re-elected government want to improve housing affordability and the ability of young families to become homeowners, they need to turn their attention to the primary driver of price increases — super-charged demand, abetted by the sacred cow of non-taxation of capital gains on a principal residence.

A chorus of voices, from bank economists to the real estate industry, perpetuate the argument that the primary cause of skyrocketing house prices is lack of supply. This view has been reinforced in media reporting, and was emphasized in recent election platforms.

This “lack of supply” view draws on basic Economics 101 textbooks, where using the example of widgets and a simple supply and demand curve, an increase in supply causes a reduction in price.

But houses are not widgets. They are unique entities, both a basic need and, increasingly, an investment commodity. They are also fixed in location and their values reflect the attributes of the locales that purchasers value and are willing to pay a premium for.

Read more: Federal election 2021: More supply won't solve Canada's housing affordability crisis

Homes outpace households

Nationally between 2006 and 2016, Canada added 1.636 million households and built 1.919 million new homes, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Census data. So, on average, almost 30,000 extra homes were constructed each year compared to the increase in the number of households.

Homes versus households in major Canadian cities between 2006 and 2016, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Census data. (CMHC/Census data), Author provided

In Vancouver, new construction exceeded household growth by 19 per cent. In Toronto it was one per cent, and Ottawa fell short of household growth by four per cent.

So, in theory, between 2006 and 2016, we should have seen the greatest price growth in Ottawa and less price pressure in Vancouver. But prices increased by 93 per cent and 96 per cent in Vancouver and Toronto respectively, but by only 47 per cent in Ottawa.

Insufficient supply may be a contributing factor, especially in cities where household growth exceeds new home construction, but it’s not the primary or most important cause.

The more significant cause is demand — and not just the quantity of demand, but the quality of demand.

Over the last few decades we have seen a new phenomenon of super-charged demand created by households that have substantial accumulated equity from persistent appreciation in their home values, combined with strong income growth and declining and historically low mortgage rates.
Homeowners trade up

In Canada, we sell approximately 700,000 homes per year via resales plus newly constructed homes. There are 14 million households, so this represents only five per cent of all households.

New homes are built in a housing construction development in the west end of Ottawa in May 2021. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Many of these buyers are existing owners who are trading up. Only a quarter to one-third of buyers are first-time buyers (most in higher income brackets and with parental help). It’s the larger group — buyers who are trading up — that has the capacity to pay these high prices. Certainly a small percentage of them may also be foreign buyers and some are investors, but most are just regular households.

Many existing owners have incomes well above the median. They also have substantially increased purchasing power from historically low interest rates, and substantial wealth from unearned windfall gain created by years of rising prices.

More significantly, they undermine the concept that added supply will stall or slow the rate of pricing increases. All cities have coveted properties in desired neighbourhoods — often modest, older dwellings on sizeable lots. Because of the prime location, homes for example in inner-city Vancouver might sell for between $2 million to $3 million or in Ottawa perhaps for $800,000.

Developers often buy those lots, demolish the existing home and replace it with two or three contemporary new homes. The pricing will reflect the values that consumers attribute to that area, inevitably exceeding the original home price.
The role of developers

In central Ottawa, for example, existing modest homes are being purchased for $600,000 to $700,000, demolished and replaced with a semi with each side selling for $1.2 to $1.4 million.

The same thing is occurring all across the country, with new homes priced well over — as much as double — what the price would have been for the existing house. That older house would have been moderately affordable to a young family if they hadn’t been outbid by the developer.

Builders work on a new home build in North Vancouver, B.C.

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Clearly this form of intensification (the rezoning the exclusive single-family neighbourhoods) and expanded supply will do nothing to stall or slow price growth, especially given the demand from buyers with accumulated wealth seeking properties in these locations. More supply, therefore, doesn’t mean lower prices.

So if super-charged home purchasing power is driving up home prices, not insufficient supply, then the necessary policy response must aim to stall or suppress this demand by confiscating part of the windfall gain of accumulated appreciation.

This means taking on the sacred cow taxation of capital gains on homes — younger Canadians will thank them for it, and may even vote for the party that has the guts to do it.

Author

Steve Pomeroy
Industry Professor, Department of Health Aging and Society, McMaster University
Disclosure statement
Steve Pomeroy is affiliated with the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) at McMaster, which is funded under a SSHRC/CMHC grant.

Investment properties are driving up Toronto real estate prices: report

Bank of Canada says buyers are making the housing market more vulnerable to a correction

BY RADHEYAN SIMONPILLAI
Nov 27, 2021


Homeowners purchasing investment properties are driving up prices in Toronto real estate and making the housing market even more vulnerable to a correction, according to the Bank of Canada.

In a November 23 speech summing up a trend across Canada but especially felt in Toronto and Montreal, Bank of Canada’s deputy governor Paul Beaudry says investors are flocking to buying secondary or multiple homes with expectations for future price increases, which he says can become “self-fulfilling” in the short term but catastrophic later.

The damage from a drastic fall in house prices can “spread far beyond the investors” because so for many households have their wealth tied to low-mortgage rates and the value of their home.

“A key concern here is that financially stretched households have little breathing room to absorb any disruption to their income,” Beaudry says.

Beandry’s speech comes as more and more homeowners are witnessing massive real estate price gains, particularly over the past year, experiencing FOMO and jumping into the investment property game, seizing on every available listing and pre-construction condo opportunity up for grabs. They’re able to scoop up properties by leveraging the equity amassed on their homes from those very same price gains, which leaves first-time homebuyers in the lurch.

According to Teranet’s market insight report, 25 per cent of the people purchasing a home between January 2011 to August 2021 were multi-property owners, competing against roughly the same number of first-time home buyers.

A chart provided by the Bank of Canada shows the year-over-year growth in investors buying homes surged 100 per cent compared to just over 40 per cent among first-time home buyers. The growth between these demographics were roughly in line in the past, so the extremely wide gap in the past year is a jarring indication of the imbalance in the housing market.

According to Teranet, most multi-property owners were gen-Xers (32 per cent) and generational households with multiple buyers (26 per cent). Millennials only made up 22 per cent of that demographic. And the sales data indicates that most people multi-property real estate in owners in Toronto are flocking towards purchasing condos as investment units since they are the more affordable option.

Beaudry reminds that investment buyers expectations for price gains are predicated on the current situation, where supply is short. He says the expectations are “becoming extrapolative, which could create “a disconnect between actual home prices and their more fundamental levels.”

At this point, most buyers seeking investment properties owners are relying on future immigration to drive Toronto real estate prices further up from their current sky-high levels. Meanwhile they’re driving those prices up themselves.

Gold rush

“Buyers beware,” says Odeen Eccleston, broker at WE Realty. We’re discussing recent trends with Toronto real estate agents selling pre-construction condos as investment properties, after a recent sales pitch I encountered.

A realtor I spoke to, who did not want to identified in this story, has been heavily marketing new sales of pre-construction condo units at the edge of eastern edge of Scarborough. Two-bedroom condos were selling for approximately $700,000, which is roughly the current market rate, though not really in that relatively untapped area.

The realtor dismissed any concerns I had about not being able to secure a big enough mortgage that would cover that unit and my current home when it would be ready to close in four years. The realtor also vaguely promised being able to secure an adequate mortgage for me or an easy re-assign, which means I could simply sell the property to a new buyer in a tight window before closing, provided there’s interest.

“Better hurry up, lay down that deposit before the opportunity is gone,” was the vibe of our conversation and the mantra for the Toronto real estate market. “We could sort out the actual finances later.”

“It makes me extremely nervous,” says Eccleston about that attitude among realtors when it comes to handling transactions worth nearly a million dollars. “A lot of times people are overly confident.”

I personally decided to opt-out. Why deal with real estate fees and taxes, while stressing that this condo unit needs to gain value at the rate that condos have been gaining value over the past few years to make that investment worthwhile. I could just purchase stocks in Lowes or Home Depot instead. If real estate is doing well, then surely those businesses must. And that investment takes much less effort and has been growing at a faster rate than real estate.

Of course, some people don’t have the stomach for stocks. Eccleston notes that she doesn’t always have the stomach for these extrapolative real estate investments, warning that counting on major price gains in the condo market is still a risk.

“At the same time, I was saying that five years ago,” says Eccleston. “I was apprehensive then as well. All of those agents pressured their clients to buy something five years ago are winning big time.”


Radheyan Simonpillai
Radheyan's first assignment for NOW was reviewing the Ice Cube heist comedy First Sunday. That was back in January 2008. Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Scarborough, Rad currently lives in Leslieville with his wife and two adorable kids.

Why Big Oil's Pivot to Carbon Capture and Storage—While It Keeps on Drilling—Isn't a Climate Solution

No carbon removal approach—neither mechanical nor biological—will solve the climate crisis without an immediate transition away from fossil fuels.

View of the Tesoro Anacortes oil refinery in Skagit County, Washington on January 15, 2017. (Photo: Linda, Fortuna future/Flickr/cc)

JUNE SEKERA, NEVA GOODWIN

November 26, 2021 by The Conversation

After decades of sowing doubt about climate change and its causes, the fossil fuel industry is now shifting to a new strategy: presenting itself as the source of solutions. This repositioning includes rebranding itself as a “carbon management industry.”

This strategic pivot was on display at the Glasgow climate summit and at a Congressional hearing in October 2021, where CEOs of four major oil companies talked about a “lower-carbon future.” That future, in their view, would be powered by the fuels they supply and technologies they could deploy to remove the planet-warming carbon dioxide their products emit – provided they get sufficient government support.

That support may be coming. The Department of Energy recently added “carbon management” to the name of its Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management and is expanding its funding for carbon capture and storage.

But how effective are these solutions, and what are their consequences?

Coming from backgrounds in economics, ecology and public policy, we have spent several years focusing on carbon drawdown. We have watched mechanical carbon capture methods struggle to demonstrate success, despite U.S. government investments of over US$7 billion in direct spending and at least a billion more in tax credits. Meanwhile, proven biological solutions with multiple benefits have received far less attention.

CCS’s troubled track record

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, aims to capture carbon dioxide as it emerges from smokestacks either at power plants or from industrial sources. So far, CCS at U.S. power plants has been a failure.

Seven large-scale CCS projects have been attempted at U.S. power plants, each with hundreds of millions of dollars of government subsidies, but these projects were either canceled before they reached commercial operation or were shuttered after they started due to financial or mechanical troubles. There is only one commercial-scale CCS power plant operation in the world, in Canada, and its captured carbon dioxide is used to extract more oil from wells – a process called “enhanced oil recovery.”

In industrial facilities, all but one of the dozen CCS projects in the U.S uses the captured carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery.

This expensive oil extraction technique has been described as “climate mitigation” because the oil companies are now using carbon dioxide. But a modeling study of the full life cycle of this process at coal-fired power plants found it puts 3.7 to 4.7 times as much carbon dioxide into the air as it removes.

Facility	Location	Start date	Industry	Maximum CO2 /year	Storage type
Terrell Natural Gas Processing Plant	Texas	1972	Natural gas processing	0.5 Mt 0.5 Mt	EOR
Enid Fertilizer Plant (Koch Industries)	Oklahoma	1982	Fertilizer production	0.2 Mt 0.2 Mt	EOR
Shute Creek Gas Processing Plant (Exxon)	Wyoming	1986	Natural gas processing	7.0 Mt 7.0 Mt	EOR
Great Plains Synfuel and Weyburn-Midale	North Dakota	2000	Coal gasification	3.0 Mt 3.0 Mt	EOR
Core energy CO2-EOR	Michigan	2003	Natural gas processing	0.4 Mt 0.4 Mt	EOR
Arkalon CO2 Compression Facility	Kansas	2009	Ethanol production	0.3 Mt 0.3 Mt	EOR

Mt = million metric tons. Data as of October 2021

Table: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND  Source: Global CCS Institute  Get the data

The problem with pulling carbon from the air

Another method would directly remove carbon dioxide from the air. Oil companies like Occidental Petroleum and ExxonMobil are seeking government subsidies to develop and deploy such “direct air capture” systems. However, one widely recognized problem with these systems is their immense energy requirements, particularly if operating at a climate-significant scale, meaning removing at least 1 gigaton – 1 billion tons – of carbon dioxide per year.

That’s about 3% of annual global carbon dioxide emissions. The U.S. National Academies of Sciences projects a need to remove 10 gigatons per year by 2050, and 20 gigatons per year by century’s end if decarbonization efforts fall short.

The only type of direct air capture system in relatively large-scale development right now must be powered by a fossil fuel to attain the extremely high heat for the thermal process.

A National Academies of Sciences study of direct air capture’s energy use indicates that to capture 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide per year, this type of direct air capture system could require up to 3,889 terawatt-hours of energy – almost as much as the total electricity generated in the U.S. in 2020. The largest direct air capture plant being developed in the U.S. right now uses this system, and the captured carbon dioxide will be used for oil recovery.

Another direct air capture system, employing a solid sorbent, uses somewhat less energy, but companies have struggled to scale it up beyond pilots. There are ongoing efforts to develop more efficient and effective direct air capture technologies, but some scientists are skeptical about its potential. One study describes enormous material and energy demands of direct air capture that the authors say make it “unrealistic.” Another shows that spending the same amount of money on clean energy to replace fossil fuels is more effective at reducing emissions, air pollution and other costs.

Several CCS plans for US power plants have been scrapped

The U.S. government has approved hundreds of millions of dollars for developing commercial-scale power plant CCS projects in the U.S. that ultimately were withdrawn, canceled or shut down. Only one power plant is currently operating with commercial-scale CCS worldwide: Canada's Boundary Dam.

Opinion | Why Big Oil's Pivot to Carbon Capture and Storage—While It Keeps on Drilling—Isn't a Climate Solution | June Sekera (commondreams.org)

The cost of scaling up

A 2021 study envisions spending $1 trillion a year to scale up direct air capture to a meaningful level. Bill Gates, who is backing a direct air capture company called Carbon Engineering, estimated that operating at climate-significant scale would cost $5.1 trillion every year. Much of the cost would be borne by governments because there is no “customer” for burying waste underground.

As lawmakers in the U.S. and elsewhere consider devoting billions more dollars to carbon capture, they need to consider the consequences.

The captured carbon dioxide must be transported somewhere for use or storage. A 2020 study from Princeton estimated that 66,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines would have to be built by 2050 to begin to approach 1 gigaton per year of transport and burial.

The issues with burying highly pressurized CO2 underground will be analogous to the problems that have faced nuclear waste siting, but at enormously larger quantities. Transportation, injection and storage of carbon dioxide bring health and environmental hazards, such as the risk of pipeline ruptures, groundwater contamination and the release of toxins, all of which particularly threaten the disadvantaged communities historically most victimized by pollution.

Bringing direct air capture to a scale that would have climate-significant impact would mean diverting taxpayer funding, private investment, technological innovation, scientists’ attention, public support and difficult-to-muster political action away from the essential work of transitioning to non-carbon energy sources.
A proven method: trees, plants and soil

Rather than placing what we consider to be risky bets on expensive mechanical methods that have a troubled track record and require decades of development, there are ways to sequester carbon that build upon the system we already know works: biological sequestration.

Trees in the U.S. already sequester almost a billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. Improved management of existing forests and urban trees, without using any additional land, could increase this by 70%. With the addition of reforesting nearly 50 million acres, an area about the size of Nebraska, the U.S. could sequester nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. That would equal about 40% of the country’s annual emissions. Restoring wetlands and grasslands and better agricultural practices could sequester even more.

Storing carbon in trees is less expensive per ton than current mechanical solutions.

Lisa-Blue via Getty Images

Per ton of carbon dioxide sequestered, biological sequestration costs about one-tenth as much as current mechanical methods. And it offers valuable side-benefits by reducing soil erosion and air pollution, and urban heat; increasing water security, biodiversity and energy conservation; and improving watershed protection, human nutrition and health.

To be clear, no carbon removal approach – neither mechanical nor biological – will solve the climate crisis without an immediate transition away from fossil fuels. But we believe that relying on the fossil fuel industry for “carbon management” will only further delay that transition.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

JUNE SEKERA
June Sekera is a Visiting Scholar at The New School for Social Research, a Senior Research Fellow at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London.

NEVA GOODWIN
Neva Goodwin was hired by Tufts University in 1991, and in 1995 joined with Bill Moomaw to found the Global Development and Environment Institute.

Gitxsan hereditary chiefs issue northwest B.C. MLA eviction notice from territory


A group of Gitxsan hereditary chiefs, matriarchs and elders issued an “eviction notice” to Stikine MLA Nathan Cullen on Saturday (Nov. 27), citing failure to ensure the safety of his constituents including the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en.

Members of the Gitxsan Huwilp Government posted the notice of eviction outside the NDP MLA’s office in Hazelton and said they were evicting him under Gitxsan law, Section 35 of the Canadian constitution and the 1997 Delgamuukw decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The Stikine MLA’s Hazelton office is one of the two constituency offices he has in the northwest with the other situated in Smithers.

In a phone interview from Smithers, Cullen said that he will be meeting with the chiefs to talk about a way forward in the coming days as the Hazelton constituency office serves an entire community.

“I’m sure we can come to some kind of understanding so that we’re not denying people services that they need, because that doesn’t really help anybody from my perspective,” said Cullen.

Cullen’s eviction comes a week after 29 Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline opponents were arrested by the RCMP near Houston between Nov. 18-19. All those arrested were subsequently released with conditions in court last week.

“You failed to ensure the safety of your constituents, including Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people from the violence and excessive force used by overly armed RCMP at or near Houston B.C. and New Hazelton B.C. during the months of October to November 2021,” read the statement of eviction issued Nov 26.

Cullen, who is also B.C.’s Minister of State for Lands and Natural Resource Operations, was also accused of failing to properly represent the causes and concerns of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people in the legislative assembly.

Failure to leave would lead to Cullen being considered a “trespasser, without permission” on Gitxsan land, said the office of the hereditary chiefs in the statement.

Chiefs of the Gitxsan Huwilp Government claimed that Cullen had not fulfilled any of the promises he made to the Huwilp “directly” during his campaign.

“We’re here to evict Nathan Cullen, the representative of the Stikine region from Gitxsan territory because he failed to stand up for the poor people… Everybody is getting rich from our land and we remain poor,” said a Gitxsan chief from outside Cullen’s Hazelton office.

The group also said that the eviction applies to all “corporations” on their lands, referring to CGL.

“We’re not going to stand by when our land is being poisoned by the pipeline. We are not going to stand by as big corporations come out from other countries and take all our resources while our future generations are going to suffer.”

In 2020 when opposition to the CGL pipeline escalated, Cullen (then federal MP for Skeena — Bulkley Valley) was appointed by B.C.’s Premier John Horgan to play an intermediary role between the provincial government and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs,” said the notice.

The notice also comes in the wake of heavy police presence in the Gitxsan communities following the arrest of one of its members near the CN rail tracks on Nov. 21. Denzel Sutherland-Wilson was arrested for a blockade set up near the tracks in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en pipeline opponents. He was released the same day with charges of mischief.

Cullen said that this incident has led to a great deal of stress and strain in the community.

Cullen said group of Gitxsan chiefs (the same ones who issued the eviction notice) reached out to him on Wednesday asking for a meeting with the RCMP, which was arranged. Cullen was to meet with the chiefs on Friday but had to reschedule the meeting to next week, due to a delayed flight back from Victoria.

Further responding to the chiefs’ allegations of inaction against him, Cullen said that he communicates the concerns of his constituency members to the provincial government “each and every day.” He also said that there has been constant dialogue with the chiefs in northwest region about these issues which are “complex,” and “layered.”

“A lot of my work does not take place on Twitter… A lot of it is very sensitive and important and discreet. So I understand that people haven’t seen as much with me making big speeches and tweeting about issues but these are very complex and sensitive issues,” said Cullen.

Binny Paul, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Terrace Standard

Omicron response should focus on global vaccine equity, not travel bans: scientists

A British Columbia-based researcher says banning travelers from southern African countries in an effort to stop the importation of a new COVID-19 variant is an example of "wishful thinking" that could do more harm than good.

Caroline Colijn, a mathematician and epidemiologist at Simon Fraser University, says the omicron variant has already been detected in countries outside of the targeted region and it's only a matter of time before it's found in Canada.

She says South Africa is to be commended for sequencing the omicron variant and for sharing its data with the rest of the world.

Colijn says she worries countries such as Canada, that responded by imposing travel bans on southern African nations, risk disincentivizing that kind of transparency in the future.

Zain Chagla, an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University, agrees that "blind closures of borders" don't make sense.

He says the omicron variant shows it's time for a more coordinated global response to the COVID-19 pandemic focused on ensuring every person in every country has ample access to vaccines.

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

The Canadian Press

Another pulse crop option for growers?
Lupins offer high protein and resistance to aphanomyces root rot

By Treena Hein
Published: November 26, 2021

Seed multiplication will continue in 2022, with a goal of crop commercialization in 2023. 

Photo: Lupin Platform

Move over soybeans, canola and yellow peas — another high-value crop is in development in Canada to meet the demands of the rapidly evolving plant-based food product market — lupin. It may also represent a strong option for the local and export livestock feed markets.

Grown in ancient times for both food and feed, today lupin is almost all grown for livestock feed, mostly in Australia. Only four per cent of the global 2020 crop was consumed by humans. But recently, in Canada and beyond, lupin flour (made from the high-protein seeds) has begun to be included in baked goods and snacks. Loblaw’s President’s Choice brand has offered a lupin-wheat pancake mix, and in late August 2021, Nabati Foods Global of Edmonton launched a plant-based liquid “egg” product that contains lupin and pea protein. “Nabati Plant Eggz” will soon be available at Sobeys in Quebec and Whole Foods across B.C. and Ontario.

Even if market demand is not yet strong in Canada, lupin’s future looks rosy. It’s a nitrogen-fixing pulse crop that produces comparable yields to peas, with a protein content of 35 to 40 per cent compared to an average of 24 per cent for peas, says Tristan Choi, director of Lupin Platform, an Alberta-based lupin development firm. In addition, the company’s two varieties (bred in Europe) are resistant to aphanomyces root rot, which can reduce yield in some other pulse crops. Lupin Platform has registered a white lupin (Lupinus albus) called Dieta, and a blue (L. angustifolius, also known as narrow-leaved lupin) called Boregine.

The Lupin Platform team plans to market both varieties for food and feed, but each has a focus related to market access. Dieta production will be focused in Manitoba due to its longer growing season and proximity to initial industry customers in Canada and the U.S. Boregine, which has undergone trials involving Alberta Agriculture for most of the last decade, is well-adapted to various areas of Alberta. However, the Parkland areas will be the focus in order to keep transport costs low to the main market livestock feed in Asia.

Crop requirements

Gordon Butcher, CEO Of AgCall, a firm contracted by Lupin Platform to assist with research and commercialization, says a soil pH at or below 7.2 is needed for their blue lupin and less than 7.8 for their white. This is based on information provided by the breeders in Europe.

“Soil pH is considered a default indicator for soil calcium level, with calcium being higher the higher the soil pH. High soil calcium levels negatively affect nodule formation and if high enough, will cause iron deficiency in lupin. And high iron levels in the soil will not compensate or prevent this deficiency.”

A 10-per cent higher protein content may make the lupin price competitive with peas. photo: Lupin Platform

Dieta should be planted the last week of April up to the end of the first week in May and needs about 125 days to maturity, similar to soybean. Boregine’s planting window is similar to Dieta but it matures in 110 to 115 days. Nitrogen requirement is low when the proper inoculant is applied to the seed. A liquid inoculant is now registered because the equipment of Prairie growers is set up for liquid and because it provides improved seed coverage over powder.

Regarding weed control, Butcher says “Registered broadleaf herbicides are still an issue but research is underway and will continue next year. We hope to have a number of new options of registered products when large-scale commercial production gets underway in 2023. With respect to crop insurance, we’re working with insurance companies, but it will take a couple of years of commercial production for crop insurance to move forward.”

Butcher adds that “We know we need to be competitive with peas in order for farmers to be interested. Because lupins have about 10 per cent higher protein than peas, we expect the price to be higher than peas when we get commercial production.”

Outlook for 2022

Butcher says that due to the severe drought in Manitoba this year, Lupin Platform’s seed multiplication has been low and hopefully will increase in 2022.

Next year, a few commercial farmers in Manitoba will also grow a limited acreage of 20 to 40 acres each. Due to the drought, there will not be any certified seed for Alberta growers in 2022.

This year in Manitoba, Red River Seeds and JS Henry and Son Ltd. are multiplying Dieta, and in Alberta, Galloway Seeds, Lindholm Seed Farm and Brian Ellis Seed are doing the same for Boregine.

Lupin Platform is also partnering with Hensall Co-op and two farmers in Ontario to investigate agronomic/economic fit for Dieta.

Grown in ancient times for both food and feed, lupin today is grown almost entirely for livestock feed, and mostly in Australia. photo: Lupin Platform

Although 2021 has been challenging, Choi, Butcher and their colleagues say they are excited about continued development of the value chain from variety development and seed and grain production to the development of value-added processing technologies and end-use markets. “We want Canada to be the supplier of choice for the highest-quality lupin available worldwide,” says Choi.

For more information visit lupinplatform.com.

A grower’s experience

Dane Lindholm of Lindholm Seed in New Norway, Alta., grew 88 acres of Boregine for Lupin Platform this year.

It was the first year for lupins on the farm, and the area had below-average rainfall and extreme heat in the early part of the growing season. The seed was treated with Vibrance Maxx and powdered inoculant (which is being replaced by liquid). Lindholm says there was quick emergence, and “You want to have it in early. We planted April 27. And you don’t want to seed too deep.”

For harvest, Lindholm says the best desiccation timing needs to be worked out so that the stalk and pods are ready at the same time.

“Overall, we were happy with how the plants looked, and there’s definitely a fit for them here,” Lindholm sums up.“Lupins are going to work ... harvest stability is the main issue at this point in my view.”

The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing

Since the 1980s, fossil fuel firms have run ads touting climate denial messages – many of which they’d now like us to forget. Here’s our visual guide

Illustration: Guardian Design
Climate crimes

by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes

Supported by

Thu 18 Nov 2021

Why is meaningful action to avert the climate crisis proving so difficult? It is, at least in part, because of ads.

The fossil fuel industry has perpetrated a multi-decade, multibillion dollar disinformation, propaganda and lobbying campaign to delay climate action by confusing the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions. This has involved a remarkable array of advertisements – with headlines ranging from “Lies they tell our children” to “Oil pumps life” – seeking to convince the public that the climate crisis is not real, not human-made, not serious and not solvable. The campaign continues to this day.

As recently as last month, six big oil CEOs were summoned to US Congress to answer for the industry’s history of discrediting climate science – yet they lied under oath about it. In other words, the fossil fuel industry is now misleading the public about its history of misleading the public.

We are experts in the history of climate disinformation, and we want to set the record straight. So here, in black and white (and color), is a selection of big oil’s thousands of deceptive climate ads from 1984 to 2021. This isn’t an exhaustive analysis, of which we have published several, but a brief, illustrated history – like the “sizzle reels” that creatives use to highlight their best work – of the 30-plus year evolution of fossil fuel industry propaganda. This is big oil’s PR sizzle reel.
Early days: learning to spin

Humble Oil (now ExxonMobil) was not self-conscious about the potential environmental impacts of its products in this 1962 advertisement touting “Each day Humble supplies enough energy to melt 7 million tons of glacier!”

Life Magazine, 1962
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The truth behind the ad: Three years earlier, in 1959, America’s oil bosses had been warned that burning fossil fuels could lead to global heating “sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York”.

Their knowledge only grew. A 1979 internal Exxon study warned of “dramatic environmental effects” before 2050. “By the late 1970s”, a former Exxon scientist recently recalled, “global warming was no longer speculative”.’
‘Reposition global warming as theory (not fact)’

In 1991, Informed Citizens for the Environment, a front group of coal and utility companies announced that “Doomsday is cancelled” and asked, “Who told you the earth was warming … Chicken Little?” They complained about “weak” evidence, “non-existent” proof, inaccurate climate models and asserted that the physics was “open to debate”.




Both ads from the Informed Citizens for the Environment, 1991

The truth behind the ads: Instead of warning the public about global heating or taking action, fossil fuel companies stayed silent as long as they could. In the late 1980s, however, the world woke up to the climate crisis, marking what Exxon called a “critical event”. The fossil fuel industry’s PR apparatus swung into action, implementing a strategy straight out of big tobacco’s playbook: to weaponize science against itself.
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A 1991 memo by Informed Citizens for the Environment made that strategy explicit: “Reposition global warming as theory (not fact).”
‘Emphasize the uncertainty’

Mobil and ExxonMobil ran one of the most comprehensive climate denial campaigns of all time, with a foray in the 1980s, a blitz in the 1990s and continued messaging through the late 2000s. Their climate “advertorials” – advertisements disguised as editorials – appeared in the op-ed page of the New York Times and other newspapers and were part of what scholars have called “the longest, regular (weekly) use of media to influence public and elite opinion in contemporary America”.

Left: New York Times, 1984. Right: New York Times, 1993

Between 1996 and 1998, for instance, Mobil ran 12 advertorials timed with the 1997 UN Kyoto negotiations that questioned whether the climate crisis is real and human-made and 10 that downplayed its seriousness. “Reset the alarm,” one ad suggested. “Let’s not rush to a decision at Kyoto … We still don’t know what role man-made greenhouse gases might play in warming the planet.”

Left: New York Times, 1997. 

Right: New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other publications, 2000

The truth behind the ads: “Exxon’s position”, instructed internal strategy memos from 1988-89, was to “extend the science” and “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions” about the climate crisis. Or as a 1998 “Action Plan” by Exxon, Chevron, API, utilities companies and others declared: “Victory will be achieved when average citizens” and the “media ‘understands’ (recognizes) uncertainties in climate science”.

ExxonMobil continued to fund climate denial through at least 2018. One of their 2004 advertorials claimed “scientific uncertainties” precluded “determinations regarding the human role in recent climate change”. That was untrue. Nine years earlier, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had concluded a “discernible human influence on global climate”. ExxonMobil’s chief climate scientist was a contributing author to the report.
Economic scaremongering

“Don’t risk our economic future,” implored the Global Climate Coalition, a front group for utility, oil, coal, mining, railroad and car companies. This 1997 ad also targeted the Kyoto negotiations and was part of a $13m campaign that was so successful that the White House told GCC: President Bush “rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you”.

Global Climate Coalition, 1997
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The truth behind the ad: Put “emphasis on costs/political realities”, instructed a 1989 Exxon strategy memo. Just as the fossil fuel industry funded contrarian scientists to deny climate science, it also touted the flawed economic analyses of industry-funded economists.

The best predictors of fossil fuel industry ad spending are media scrutiny and political activity. Today, economic scaremongering has gone digital, with huge spikes in television and social media ad spending by oil lobbies each time climate regulations loom. In the runup to the 2018-20 US midterm and presidential elections, ExxonMobil spent more on political advertising on Facebook and Instagram than any other company in the world (except Facebook itself).
It’s not our fault, it’s yours

From 2004 to 2006, a $100m-plus a year BP marketing campaign “introduced the idea of a ‘carbon footprint’ before it was a common buzzword”, according to the PR agent in charge of the campaign. The targets of this campaign were the “routine human activities” and “lifestyle choices” of “individuals” and the “average American household”. In 2019, BP ran a new “Know your carbon footprint” campaign on social media.




Both ads were published in various publications from 2004 to 2006.
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The truth behind the ads: Big oil’s rhetoric has evolved from outright denial to more subtle forms of propaganda, including shifting responsibility away from companies and on to consumers. This mimics big tobacco’s effort to combat criticism and defend against litigation and regulation by “casting itself as a kind of neutral innocent, buffeted by the forces of consumer demand”.
Greenwashing: talk clean, act dirty

“We’re partnering with major universities to develop the next generation of biofuels,” said Chevron in 2007. This is also a top talking point of BP, ExxonMobil and others.

The New Yorker, 2007
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ExxonMobil has been trumpeting its research into algae biofuels for more than a decade – from black-and-white print ads (2009) to digital commercials (2018-21).



New York Times, 2009


New York Times, 2018

The truth behind the ads: Greenwashing confers companies with an aura of environmental credibility while distracting from their anti-science, anti-clean energy disinformation, lobbying and investments. The goal is to defend what BP calls a company’s “social license to operate”.

One way fossil fuel companies give themselves a green sheen is to establish – then boast about – what a 1998 API strategy memo termed “cooperative relationships” with reputable academic institutions. Big oil’s colonization of academia is pervasive. Shell’s ongoing sponsorship of the London Science Museum’s climate exhibition comes with a gagging clause prohibiting the museum from discrediting the company’s reputation.

As for algae: America’s five largest oil and gas companies spent $3.6bn on corporate reputation advertising between 1986 and 2015. ExxonMobil has spent more on advertising than on algae research.
‘We’re part of the solution!’

BP “developed an ‘all of the above’ strategy” for marketing energy from 2006 to 2008, “before any presidential candidates spoke of the same”, according to BP’s PR lead.

Big oil continues to promote this narrative of “fossil fuel solution-ism’, including its “all of the above” language, on social media, in Congress and in paid-for, pretend editorials in the Washington Post. To make this spin stick, fossil fuel companies have been calling methane “clean” since at least the 1980s. “Natural gas is already clean,” said API Facebook ads and billboards last year.

One of BP’s many ‘all of the above’ ads grouping oil and natural gas with renewable sources


American Petroleum Institute native advertising in the Washington Post, 2021
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The truth behind the ads: In contradiction to the science of stopping global heating, big oil asserts that fossil fuels will be essential for the foreseeable future. The “all of the above” energy mantra was – as BP’s advertising creative put it – “co-opted by politicians in 2008” and became a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s energy policies. The campaign also positioned methane as a “clean bridge” fuel.

Like “clean coal”, calling methane “clean”, “cleanest” or “low-carbon” has been deemed false advertising by regulators.

Distorting reality in the 2020s and beyond

A Shell TV ad last year featured birds in the sky, fields of wind and solar farms, the CEO of a Shell renewables subsidiary saying she’s “made the future far cleaner and far better for our children”, and not one reference to fossil fuels.

The truth behind the ad: Between 2010 and 2018, 98.7% of Shell’s investments were in oil and gas. Such misrepresentations are industry-wide.

Today, we’re all inundated with ads that leverage a combination of narratives, including those illustrated above, to present fossil fuel companies as climate saviors. It’s way past time we called their bluff.

The narratives highlighted here are a selection of “discourses of climate denial and delay” previously identified by the authors and other researchers. The advertisements selected to illustrate these discourses were identified by the authors based on a review of dozens of peer-reviewed studies, journalistic investigations, white papers, ad libraries, newspaper archives, social media reports and lawsuits.