Environmental disasters are fuelling migration — here's why international law must recognize climate refugees

Daniel L. Huizenga, Postdoctoral Fellow, Human Geography, University of Toronto 


When hurricanes Eta and Iota barrelled into Central America in November 2020, they flooded towns and cities, caused catastrophic losses in the agricultural sector and contributed to food insecurity. In all, 4.7 million Hondurans were affected, and tens of thousands decided to leave, forming migrant caravans in a desperate attempt to rebuild their lives in the United States.

© (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) A woman wades through mud to collect items from her home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The devastation brought by hurricanes Eta and Iota in Honduras in November 2020 contributed to a sharp rise in northward migration.

Scientists ultimately linked that record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season to climate change, making it clear that climate change is already influencing migration.

My research studies the relationships between law, people and the environment. In refugee law, people become refugees when they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their country of origin. Persecution is currently limited to grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. That means when people move due to environmental degradation or disaster, they are not, in the legal sense of the word, “refugees.”

But international refugee and human rights law can no longer place the focus solely on social and political persecution. It must be overhauled to consider climate change and include “deadly environments” as a form of persecution.

The concept of deadly environments accounts for the social, political and ecological conditions that force someone to move. Including it in legal definitions would establish the environment as contributing to conditions of human rights deprivation and persecution.

Deadly environments absent in refugee law

The World Bank estimates that without radical and concerted efforts to slow climate change, 216 million people will be displaced within their own countries by 2050. With the scale of climate-induced migration, it’s inevitable that millions will seek refuge across borders, even if they are invisible to refugee law.

Migration researchers agree that it is often inaccurate to link migration choices to a single event. It has become common to examine climate change as one in a nexus of factors, including violence, conflict and disaster.

The uncertain speed of climate disruptions complicates matters further. Their onset can be slow, like ongoing droughts that cause food insecurity, or fast, like hurricanes and floods that destroy homes and crops.

© (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) Residents of a drought-affected region of China were relocated to new homes in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region in October 2015.

Given this, how can we define people who have been displaced by climate? There is no internationally accepted definition of climate-impacted migrants.

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers uses the term “climate migrant,” whereas a report by the White House uses “climate change related-migration” as an umbrella term. Some use the term environmental migrants, others use environmentally displaced peoples. Like some other adamant outliers, I use the phrase climate refugees to underscore the agency of those seeking refuge.

The debate over definitions misses the point. As British geographer Calum T. M. Nicholson explains, “the key issue is not the cause of movement, but the rights violations suffered by migrants.”

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, climate change impacts the human rights to life, self-determination, development, health, food, water and sanitation, adequate housing and cultural rights. One only need to think about the 400,000 livestock herders in Southern Ethiopia who were displaced by climate-related drought between 2015 and 2019. They continue to require assistance for food, water and shelter.
Deadly environments and border practices

Shifting the focus to deadly environments makes it clear that they are produced not only by climate change, but also by the practices upheld along borders.

The Transnational Institute, an international research and advocacy institute, reports that the world’s wealthiest countries spend more on militarizing their borders than they do on responding to the climate crisis. This often includes building walls, developing surveillance technologies and hiring armed border guards. According to the institute, rich countries are building a “global climate wall” to keep out people forced to migrate due to climate change with deadly consequences.

In her book The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago, Alison Mountz, a geographer at Wilfrid Laurier University, describes the steady development of asylum processing in places far away from physical borders, such as Australia’s offshore processing camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Mountz argues that the growth of offshore detention centres contributes to the physical deaths of asylum-seekers, as well as their political deaths, as news of drowned migrants becomes mundane and normalized.

© (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia) A pair of migrant families from Brazil passes through a gap in the border wall to cross from Mexico into Yuma, Ariz., in June 2021.

The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) has documented the deaths of nearly 46,000 migrants en route to safety since 2014. An estimated 23,000 have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

The border-crossing between the United States and Mexico is particularly deadly, with 2,980 deaths recorded since 2014. According to the IOM, the “main direct causes of death identified in this area are drowning … and deaths caused by harsh environmental conditions and lack of shelter, food and water.”

International refugee and human rights law must be urgently overhauled to recognize deadly environments as sites of persecution.
Towards a new protection regime

The United Nations Refugee Agency has already established links between climate change and persecution. It finds that when a state is unwilling to respond to humanitarian needs that are the result of climate change, there is a “risk of human rights violations amounting to persecution.”

Deadly environments, including those transformed by climate change whether suddenly or over long periods of time, need to be considered sites of persecution. Their presence should trigger state obligations to provide protection for peoples forcibly displaced by climate change.

Central to this effort is establishing relationships among law, humans and the environment. This is one step towards recognizing that people displaced by climate change are, in fact, refugees.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:

UN ruling could be a game-changer for climate refugees and climate action

Understanding the human side of climate change relocation

Daniel L. Huizenga receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

S.African singer Msaki's new electro album recalls mine massacre

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Backed by silky synthesizers and down-tempo electronic beats, South African singer Msaki's new Afropop album revisits the 2012 killing by police of dozens of striking mine workers that she says inspired her to protest against social injustice.

© Reuters/SIPHIWE SIBEKO FILE PHOTO: Boys play soccer in Marikana's Nkaneng township in front of the Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine in Rustenburg

Singing in her Xhosa mother tongue, Msaki's lilting voice aims to capture the sadness and disappointment felt by many after the showdown between police and strikers at the Marikana platinum mine 110 kms (68 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.

Forty-four people died there in the most violent police crackdown since the end of white minority rule.

'Platinumb Heart Beating' was released at the end of last year. The title is a play on words, referring to South Africa's platinum belt but also to "the emotional state of numbness" that many felt after witnessing such police brutality, she said.

"The first song I wrote was 'Blood, Guns and Revolutions' which was about Marikana and the platinum belt," she told Reuters TV in an interview. "It seemed fitting. That was the moment that got me moving to make an album of protest."

Among those killed in what has become known as the "Marikana massacre" were 34 miners whom police shot dead at the Lonmin mine. For many South Africans, it seemed to dash hopes that the violent state repression of protests had been relegated to their ugly apartheid past.

August this year marks the 10th anniversary of the massacre.

An investigation into the deaths released by then President Jacob Zuma blamed Lonmin, the police and trade unions for the killings.

Msika's songs also feature some household names in South Africa's dance music scene, including DJ Black Coffee, Kabza De Small and rapper Focalistic.

(Reporting by Taurai Maduna,; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

 Twitter@SAMusicTV

COLD WAR 2.0
Exclusive-U.S. bill would block defense contractors from using Chinese rare earths

By Ernest Scheyder

 Reuters/China Stringer Network FILE PHOTO: Workers transport soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang

(Reuters) - A bipartisan piece of legislation to be introduced in the U.S. Senate on Friday would force defense contractors to stop buying rare earths from China by 2026 and use the Pentagon to create a permanent stockpile of the strategic minerals.

The bill, sponsored by Senators Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, is the latest in a string of U.S. legislation seeking to thwart China's near control over the sector.

It essentially uses the Pentagon's purchase of billions of dollars worth of fighter jets, missiles and other weapons as leverage to require contractors to stop relying on China and, by extension, support the revival of U.S. rare earths production.

Rare earths are a group of 17 metals that, after processing, are used to make magnets found in electric vehicles, weaponry and electronics. While the United States created the industry in World War Two and U.S. military scientists developed the most widely-used type of rare earth magnet, China has slowly grown to control the entire sector the past 30 years.

The United States has only one rare earths mine and has no capability to process rare earth minerals.

"Ending American dependence on China for rare earths extraction and processing is critical to building up the U.S. defense and technology sectors," Cotton told Reuters.

The senator, who sits on the Senate's Armed Forces and Intelligence committees, described China's evolution into the global rare earths leader as "simply a policy choice that the United States made," adding that he hoped fresh policies would loosen Beijing's grip.

Known as the Restoring Essential Energy and Security Holdings Onshore for Rare Earths Act of 2022, the bill would codify and make permanent the Pentagon's ongoing stockpiling of the materials. China temporarily blocked rare earth exports to Japan in 2010 and has issued vague threats it could do the same to the United States.

To build that reserve, though, the Pentagon buys supply in part from China, a paradox that Senate staffers hope will abate in time.


The rare earths production process can be highly pollutive, part of the reason why it grew unpopular in the United States. Ongoing research is attempting to make the process cleaner.

Cotton said he has talked to various U.S. executive agencies about the bill, but declined to say if he had talked with President Joe Biden or the White House.

"This is an area in which Congress will lead, because many members have been concerned about this very topic, regardless of party," he said.

ENCOURAGE DOMESTIC OUTPUT

The bill, which the sponsors expect could be folded into Pentagon funding legislation later this year, offers no direct support for the nascent U.S. rare earths sector.

Instead, it requires Pentagon contractors to stop using Chinese rare earths within four years, allowing waivers only in rare situations. Defense contractors would be required to immediately say where they source the minerals.

Those requirements "should encourage more domestic (rare earths) development in our country," Cotton said.

The Pentagon has in the past two years given grants to companies trying to resume U.S. rare earth processing and magnet production, including MP Materials Corp, Australia's Lynas Rare Earth Ltd, TDA Magnetics Inc and Urban Mining Co.

Kelly, a former astronaut and a member of the Senate's Armed Services and Energy committees, said the bill should "strengthen America's position as a global leader in technology by reducing our country's reliance on adversaries like China for rare earth elements."

The bill only applies to weapons, not other equipment the U.S. military purchases.

Additionally, the U.S. trade representative would be required to investigate whether China is distorting the rare earths market and recommend whether trade sanctions are needed.

When asked if such a step could be seen as antagonistic by Beijing, Cotton said: "I don't think the answer to Chinese aggression or Chinese threats is to continue to subject ourselves to Chinese threats."

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; editing by Amran Abocar and Richard Pullin)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Lawsuit: Google, Facebook CEOs colluded in online ad sales

Newly unredacted documents from a state-led antitrust lawsuit against Google accuse the search giant of colluding with rival Facebook to manipulate online advertising sales. The CEOs of both companies were aware of the deal and signed off on it, the lawsuit alleges.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The original, redacted lawsuit, filed in December 2021, accused Google of “anti-competitive conduct” and of teaming up with the social networking giant. But the unredacted version offers details on the involvement of Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in approving the deal. Facebook has since renamed itself Meta.

According to the lawsuit, Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, was “explicit that ‘this is a big deal strategically’" in a 2018 email thread about the deal that included Facebook's CEO. While the names of the Facebook executives are still redacted in the suit, their titles are visible.

When the two sides hammered out the terms of the agreement, “the team sent an email addressed directly to CEO” Zuckerberg, the lawsuit states.

“We’re nearly ready to sign and need your approval to move forward,” the email read, according to the complaint. Zuckerberg wanted to meet with Sandberg and his other executives before making a decision, the complaint states.

In a statement, Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said the lawsuit is “full of inaccuracies and lacks legal merit.”

In September 2018, the complaint says, the two companies signed the agreement. Sandberg, who was once the head of Google's ad business, and Pichai personally signed off on the deal, per the states' complaint.

Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said Friday that the company's ad bidding agreement with Google and similar agreements it has with other bidding platforms “have helped to increase competition for ad placements.”

“These business relationships enable Meta to deliver more value to advertisers while fairly compensating publishers, resulting in better outcomes for all,” Sgro said.

Internally, Google used the code phrase “Jedi Blue” to refer to the 2018 agreement, according to the lawsuit. Google kept this code phrase secret.

Google's Schottenfels said the lawsuit's allegation that Pichai approved the deal with Facebook "isn't accurate.”

“We sign hundreds of agreements every year that don’t require CEO approval, and this was no different,” he said, adding that the agreement “was never a secret.”

The lawsuit is led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and was joined by the attorneys general of Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

The Associated Press

Celebrated Greek painter Alekos Fassianos dies at 86

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Alekos Fassianos, one of the most important modern Greek painters, died Sunday at his home after a long illness, the state news agency ANA reported. He was 86.

 

Alekos Fassianos was born in Athens on Dec. 16, 1935. He studied violin at the Athens Conservatory and painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1955 to 1960.

Shortly after his first exhibition in the early 1960s, he went to Paris on a French state scholarship to study lithography at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He ended up staying in Paris for 35 years.

Although some of his paintings, especially the early ones, were in a contemporary style, he mostly drew inspiration from Greek popular art and Ancient Greek mythology. He was also inspired by Byzantine themes, although his colorful paintings have little to do with Byzantine austerity. Besides painting and lithography, he also illustrated books, designed theater costumes and settings and dabbled in sculpture.

Fassianos was widely celebrated in Greece and many of his works adorn public spaces, including a mural at an Athens subway station. In France, he was made a commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and an officer of the Legion of Honor. He exhibited widely in Europe and Latin America. His last major exhibition was a 2004 retrospective in Athens.

Fassianos is survived by his wife, Mariza, and two daughters.

The Associated Press

Home - Fassianos Alekos (alekosfassianos.gr)

Fassianos himself relates: “For five years I applied myself to drawing ancient heads and nude models. I can’t say I didn’t learn anything from this – quite the opposite.

Our teacher Moralis had an influence on us both as an artist and as a human being. We learned to observe the effects of darkness on light and vice versa as well as how objects changed shape as the light changed. We also learned to compare things. But I was always thinking of saints with their haloes, their staffs, their swords, their varied attire, and the red or white horses that jumped over flame-blowing dragons.

I was thinking less of the Cycladic figurines at the time.

I also liked Japanese art and Indian tantric painting. But I never felt the mysticism. I started painting people again in uniforms and ornaments in gardens. They were unmoving, they were expressionless and held flowers.

Later these small figures of people that I painted in uniforms began to dissolve, to become colored beings with flowers all around, sometimes pleasant looking, sometimes terrifying

And now the ones I paint hold flaming swords like the Byzantine saints. But they are untainted creatures from my imagination, just as they first issued from dark churches. I like red and blue volumes, but not abstraction.

Color should always have meaning!

-Alekos Fassianos, Athens 1964

Prominent Greek artist Fassianos laid to rest


Fassianos spent some of his formative years studying in France (AFP/LOUISA NIKOLAIDOU)

Chantal VALERY
Tue, January 18, 2022

Greek painter Alekos Fassianos, one of the country's greatest 20th century artists, was laid to rest Tuesday at a funeral in an Athens suburb attended by the prime minister, senior officials and hundreds of mourners.

The artist, who died at the age of 86, was buried in the cemetery of Papagou, the northern Athens district where he lived out his final years.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Culture Minister Lina Mendoni were among a few hundred people who attended the ceremony.


"He is with us. He will always be there," the artist's wife Mariza told AFP, standing next to her children Viktoria and Nikola.

"Alekos Fassianos was the painter of Greece, of Greek colour, of Greek authenticity," Mendoni told AFP at the funeral.

In a tribute to the artist Sunday, Mitsotakis said Fassianos had "generously given colour to (Greek) daily life" and that his work was "always balanced between realism and abstraction."

- Known around the world -

Born in Athens in 1935, Fassianos was best known for his distinctive brightly coloured cherubic figures, inspired by ancient Greek heroes and angels, and mostly done in blue and red.

"I like red and blue, but not in abstract form. Colour should always have meaning!" he wrote in 1964.

The grandson of a parish priest and son of a composer, Fassianos initially studied violin for 12 years.

He then enrolled at the Athens School of Fine Arts of the National Technical University of Athens under famed Greek master Yiannis Moralis.

In 1960 he received a scholarship from the French government to study lithography at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Described by some admirers as a modern-day Matisse and by others as the Greek Picasso, his works, which included paintings, lithographs, ceramics and tapestries, have been shown around the world.

He also created costumes for the Greek national theatre and the ancient theatre of Epidaurus.

And Mendoni, in her tribute Sunday, noted that he had sold his works to fund archaeological excavation in the Cycladic island of Kea, his personal summer retreat.

While Fassianos resisted comparison with Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, he admired both artists, but insisted he had drawn on many different influences.

"Greekness has always been his inspiration, from mythology to contemporary Greece," his wife Mariza told AFP in an interview last month.

- A 'painter-philosopher' -

Oscar-winning French-Greek director Costa Gavras, a lifelong friend of the artist, remembered Fassianos was an "exemplary" artist and "painter philosopher", in comments to AFP.

The artist would "always be with us with his unique body of work", he added.

"He will always be present...in the hearts of all Greeks who loved him, and whom he loved back.

"To those who knew and loved him, he will always be remembered as a warm and luminous friend," Gavras said, remembering him as a gracious host.

He recalled how Fassianos enjoyed serving his guests sea urchins that he had collected from the beach and prepared himself "with the skill of a Greek fisherman".

But the artist was also a resolute critic of idiocy and vulgarity, Gavras added.

Fassianos was awarded France's Legion of Honour and was also an honorary member of the Russian academy of arts.

A museum dedicated to his work is to open in Athens this autumn.

chv/jph/jj

US denies Syria-Lebanon-Israel gas deal; was it ever going to happen?

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN 

JERUSALEM POST

© (photo credit: MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS) DEMONSTRATORS TAKE cover this week during clashes with security forces during a protest near Beiruts’s parliament, as Lebanon marks the one-year anniversary of the explosion in the city.

The US State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs has denied a claim there was a secret deal that would see Israel supply gas to Lebanon. “Media reports that the United States has brokered an energy deal between Israel and Lebanon are false,” it said on its official Twitter account.

This leaves many questions because the media had not reported that the US had brokered a deal between Israel and Lebanon; reports had merely indicated that Israel could supply gas to Jordan and that gas would find its way onward, perhaps to Syria or Lebanon in some complex arrangement.

The overall perception is that this deal might not be happening. It is also unclear to what extent it was real in the first place. The deal always had too many moving parts.

It might have seen gas go to Jordan – a country that does not have large energy supplies – and then flow to Syria and then Lebanon. Some reports said a gas line would take years to be repaired from Syria to Lebanon; others said an energy swap might be involved.

Who would come up with a complex deal involving transporting gas from Israel to a pipeline through Egypt, Jordan and Syria? The whole concept was supposed to help Lebanon by not letting Iran blackmail it into taking Iranian energy exports.

© Provided by The Jerusalem Post A crew member raises the Iranian flag on Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, as it sits anchored after the Supreme Court of the British territory lifted its detention order, in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, August 18, 2019. (credit: JON NAZCA/ REUTERS)

Lebanon is in the middle of a financial and energy crisis. This is caused partly by Hezbollah’s stranglehold on the government and that wealthy Lebanese keep their money abroad and don’t pay taxes. Like many countries, Lebanon has plenty of wealth but wants other countries to foot the bill so its elites can enjoy sports cars and restaurants in Paris.

Lebanon probably has more fancy villas, sports cars, servants and maids for its middle and upper class than Israel does, but the country is “poor” because too much of the money has been siphoned off and sent abroad.

This is a traditional model of governance in some kleptocracies in the Global South: Ship the money abroad and then demand that the US and others pay for everything.

Meanwhile, American taxpayers who can’t afford the sports cars and servants that are common in Beirut have to pay for Lebanon’s army because the billionaires and millionaires who run Lebanon’s sectarian feudal political system are too busy partying with supermodels and sailing their yachts.

This isn’t conjecture. One Lebanese political leader who doesn’t seem to pay any taxes in Lebanon gave $16 million to a model, according to The New York Times. But Americans, Israelis, Jordanians and others who work for a living and see their earnings evaporate due to inflation are being asked to “save” Lebanon from Iran so that its upper class can continue the good life. Is this really a realistic plan?

THE IDEA of bailing out Lebanon’s elites to keep Iranian gas off the streets of Beirut may not come to pass because of its complexity, not because people in the US, Israel and elsewhere might think the idea is boorish and crass. Washington has slapped sanctions on Damascus, but media reports have asserted that the Syrian regime might benefit from the gas deal by positioning itself to supply Lebanon’s energy needs.

The Assad regime, which floods the region with narcotics, hosts Hezbollah and is an ally of Iran, was supposed to be a conduit for the energy needs of Lebanon, ostensibly to counter the Islamic Republic. This is like the proverbial “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” where you work with one Iranian ally to supposedly counter another.

If the Syrian regime and Hezbollah benefit, why were the US, Israel and Jordan or Egypt supposed to be involved in the deal?

That the US has denied the reports might indicate they were leaked to scuttle the deal. Lebanon’s ruling elite officially dislikes Israel, and they are held hostage by Hezbollah, which threatens anyone who has any contact with the Jewish state. Lebanese law even makes it illegal to send an email to or converse with Israelis.

If Beirut hasn’t been able to sort out a maritime dispute with Jerusalem, how can media reports indicate that Israeli gas might somehow benefit its northern neighbor? The concept seems far-fetched. Even if the plan was floated as some kind of energy swap – where gas flows to one country, then that country swaps it for gas from a third country, and that goes to Lebanon – the whole idea would require more regional stability than currently exists.

Smugglers from Syria gunned down a Jordanian soldier and wounded other Jordanians over the weekend. The idea that Amman would agree to work with a Syrian regime that is empowering drug smugglers might not be a reality.

While it is true that Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf states and Russia want a more stable Syrian regime – and it’s also true that Israel has interests in not having Lebanon become poorer and more chaotic – the ability to get all these interests aligned seems extremely difficult. If the US could pull it off, it would be a significant accomplishment for the Biden administration.

The question is whether the deal would actually reduce Iran’s role in Lebanon or simply give Tehran breathing space to spend resources on Hezbollah’s arsenal, rather than see Iran trying to sort out Lebanon’s gas and electric mess. Perhaps Iran will benefit either way.

'Never' or just 'not yet?' How timing affects COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy

Eric B. Kennedy, Assistant Professor, Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, Canada, 

Vivian Harbers, Project Manager, COVID-19 Canadian Social Impacts Research Study, University of Guelph, 

Jean-François Daoust, Assistant Professor, University of Edinburgh 

As COVID-19 case counts continue to rise across Canada, it is clear that we’re far from “out of the woods” with this pandemic. While much is still unknown about the Omicron variant, it seems very likely that existing vaccines will offer protection against severe cases of COVID-19, and Canada is rapidly administering booster shots in an effort to help to bolster immunity

.

© (Shutterstock) Researchers sought to understand how thinking about COVID-19 vaccine availability along different timelines might influence a person’s vaccine decisions.

While vaccination coverage against COVID-19 is relatively high (76.49 per cent of the total population is fully vaccinated at the time of writing), there remains a substantial group of Canadians who are either unvaccinated, or only partially vaccinated against COVID-19.

At this point in the pandemic (more than six months after most Canadian adults became eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine), should we declare this level of vaccination coverage as the “vaccine ceiling?” Our research suggests the answer is no.
Vaccine hesitancy in a COVID-19 world

As defined by the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), the term “vaccine hesitancy” is used to describe “a delay or refusal of vaccination, despite availability of vaccination services.” The range of reasons why some Canadians remain unvaccinated is wide, including (but not limited to) concerns about “personal freedom,” health concerns and the belief that COVID-19 is not as serious a health threat as it’s made out to be.

© (Pixabay) Timing plays a role in decisions, so vaccine hesitancy may not mean that a person will never choose to be vaccinated.

Much of the existing research on vaccine hesitancy has focused on identifying personal or demographic factors associated with vaccine hesitancy, such as age, gender and socio-economic status. Our research investigated the role of timing in vaccine uptake.

Given the unique nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and its vaccines, not all Canadians gained access to a vaccine at the same time — and many around the world are still waiting for access. As a result, people had to start thinking about their vaccine decisions in hypothetical or future contexts. Because of this, we sought to understand how thinking about COVID-19 vaccine availability along different timelines might influence a person’s vaccine decisions.
Survey results

In December 2020 (just prior to broad vaccine availability in Canada), we asked Canadian survey respondents about their impending vaccine decisions. Each participant was presented with one variation of the question:

“If a coronavirus vaccine was available to you (today, or in one month, or in six months, or in one year), would you get vaccinated, or not?”

In analyzing results from this experiment, we found that the proportion of most enthusiastic participants (those who selected “Yes, as soon as possible” as a response) increased substantially as the proposed date of vaccine availability became more distant.
Even more interesting was our finding that the proportion of hesitant people decreased as the proposed date of vaccination moved further into the future. The proportion who responded that they would “Wait some time” before vaccination, and the proportion who responded, “No, I would not get a coronavirus vaccine,” both decreased as vaccine availability became more distant in time.

© (Shutterstock) While the swift uptake of a COVID-19 vaccine might be the ideal scenario for squashing case counts, those who are hesitant aren’t guaranteed to refuse the vaccine altogether.

This has important implications for Canadian policy-makers. While the swift uptake of a COVID-19 vaccine might be the ideal scenario for squashing case counts, these findings suggest that those who are hesitant aren’t necessarily going to refuse the vaccine altogether.

This finding may also be useful for countries that are much further behind on mass vaccination efforts, as it suggests a delayed vaccine rollout might encounter less hesitancy and have faster uptake.
What are they waiting for?

We also asked open-ended questions about what Canadians would wait for, before getting the vaccine. What we found is that many Canadians who said they were waiting for “some time to pass” were couching their true concerns (for example, waiting for a certain number of other people to be successfully vaccinated first) within the more broad category of “timing.”

It may be useful to remember this finding when having conversations with folks who might be vaccine hesitant. Offering space for people to elaborate on their vaccine concerns might help bypass default responses and reveal alternative reasoning that has the potential to be addressed.

In some cases, these concerns might even be addressed with empathetic listening, by input from trusted experts or from evidence that speaks to the values and beliefs of those who have questions.

Read more: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy can be overcome through relatable stories and accessible information

As recent Omicron surges remind us, vaccination alone is not a silver bullet in the fight against COVID-19. However, it remains an important tool in mitigating the spread and severity of the disease, and the United Nations Foundation still positions vaccine equity as our best exit strategy for the pandemic.

It seems nearly certain that there will remain a group of Canadians who choose to never receive a COVID-19 vaccine. However, our findings suggest that it is unwise to assume that all Canadians who have not yet been vaccinated will never do so. They may just be waiting.

Do you have a question about COVID-19 vaccines? Email us at ca-vaccination@theconversation.com and vaccine experts will answer questions in upcoming articles.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Answers from COVID experts: How do you talk to family members who aren’t

 vaccinated? How can the vaccines be safe if they were developed so quickly? Is natural immunity better than being vaccinated?

How to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake and decrease vaccine hesitancy in young people

This project was funded by a grant awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Eric B. Kennedy has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the BC Ministry of Health, and the National Science Foundation.

Jean-François Daoust does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

CANADA

NASA predicts more extreme weather events but ‘we can stop making it worse’

Aya Al-Hakim 

GLOBAL NEWS

Since record-keeping began in 1880, 2021 recorded the sixth-highest global surface temperature — a trend that experts say will continue and bring forth extreme weather events impacting infrastructure and agriculture in the future.

In a virtual briefing Thursday, climate researchers from NASA said that over the past five years, there has been "no shortage of extremes" and they predict that more extreme heatwaves, intense rainfall, and more coastal floodings will continue.

According to NASA's annual Global Climate Report published Thursday, Canada and the rest of North America had their seventh warmest year on record in 2021 with a temperature that was 1.40 C (2.52 F) above average.

Read more:
‘Losses are enormous,’ says plaintiff in class action lawsuit filed over B.C. flood damage

In an interview with Global News' Jackson Proskow, Gavin Schmidt, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said that the world has reached a plateau of warming that's actually part of an ongoing continued warming. This is because of the increases in greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane, he said.

"We're seeing global warming...having impacts directly on weather extremes (as shown by) the heat waves in Western Canada last summer, changes in coastal flooding, and changes in intense precipitation," said Schmidt.

"All of these things are now being more and more strongly tied to the fact that we have warmed the planet by more than a degree Celsius over the last 100 years," he added.

Overall, the February 2021 temperature departure for North America was -1.34 C (-2.41 F) — North America's coldest February since 1994, according to the NASA report on how a warmer climate has impacted the weather.

According to the Government of Canada, the Prairies had maximum temperatures that were as high as -34.0 C (-29.2 F) and nighttime wind chills between -45 C to -55 C (-49 F to -67.0 F), setting many new record temperatures going back 50 years.

"The extreme cold temperatures caused ruptures in water mains and cracked rail lines and set records for energy demand," the report stated.

Of note, June 2021 was North America's warmest June on record, said NASA. During the last week of June, an extreme heat wave affected much of the northwestern contiguous U.S. and Western Canada, with maximum temperatures surpassing 38.0 C (100 F), which is not typical for the region.

Read more:
Canada needs a national tracking system to better fight climate change. Here’s why

According to the World Meteorological Organization, Lytton, B.C., set a new national maximum temperature record for three consecutive days. The latest record was 49.6 C (121.3 F) set on June 29 in 2021, which is a maximum temperature more typical of summer temperatures in the Middle East.

The NASA report stated that "the intense heat was blamed for close to 800 reported deaths and hospitalizations related to the heat across Western Canada. In the U.S., preliminary reports stated that the heat affected crops such as berries and wheat."

A professor of earth sciences at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, John J. Clague, said Canada will need to improve public infrastructure amid a warmer climate, which comes with extreme weather, such as flooding and droughts.

"I think people...particularly in British Columbia, realize that we are entering a new world. It's not going to be the old normal. So they're really beginning to recognize that we do have to adapt," said Clague.

As of Jan. 11, British Columbia has again extended its provincial state of emergency, stating some highways are still damaged from November’s flooding and mudslides, along with the potential for further flooding this week.

Read more:
B.C. extends state of emergency; cites potential flooding, ongoing highway damage

Clague explained that people in British Columbia can see the devastation caused by flooding and that's why the province needs to improve the public infrastructure that supports the economy.

"The Ministry of Transportation maintains our highway system and the rail lines, but fundamentally they were built at a time and didn't have these extreme conditions. And I think we need to rethink...the way they engineer them," Clague said.

Video: Flood concerns at Similkameen River due to ice jams

He said that it's worth spending money to improve existing infrastructure because if that doesn't get done, extreme weather events like flooding can cause economic damage that might cost billions of dollars.

"The key to moving forward is that people have to recognize and support actions to adapt better. Some of those are governmental responsibilities, but they have to be driven by public support," said Clague.

According to Schmidt, the only way to get global warming to slow down is to stop emitting greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide.

"We're not going to go back to the temperatures that we had in the 1980s. That ship has pretty much sailed, but we can stop making it worse," said Schmidt.

He also pointed out that there are a lot of governments that are working towards reducing their emissions.

"One piece of science that's helpful and I think gives us a little bit of hope is that...the increases in temperatures that we may see are almost entirely due to the future emissions that we're going to make...so we are in control of our destiny," said Schmidt.

Read more:
Seawall damage a sign of things to come amid sea level rise and climate change, experts warn

A professor at The George Washington University teaching courses on sustainable energy, Scott Sklar, said one of the problems in convincing people to prioritize the climate is that too much is being thrust on people.

"It becomes sort of overwhelming. And then they shut down and then we're stuck. So my view is there are some simple personal choices people can make in their homes and their businesses on how they operate," said Sklar.

"The first one is energy efficiency...so everything from LED light bulbs and when you buy office machines and appliances, get more efficient ones and obviously turn off lights," he added.

He also suggested that when people get new cars, they should focus on getting more efficient ones, like electric vehicles, so there are options and reasons for optimism.

"I do believe in this interconnected world that now with all these horrendous patterns we've seen from forest fires and hurricanes that the majority of the people on the planet do get it, but we have to make sure there are achievable tools for them," said Sklar.

-With files from Global News Jackson Proskow.

MANITOBA

Nurse in Lynn Lake fired for reasons outside her practice, says union

Peggy Lam 

CBC

© Radio-Canada Darlene Jackson is president of the Manitoba Nurses Union

The Manitoba Nurses Union said a nurse who recently moved to work in Lynn Lake, Man., was terminated by the Northern Regional Health Authority for reasons outside of her practice.

"We're in a situation where we need to be retaining every nurse possible in the system, so it's worrying that employers are not doing everything they can to retain nurses," said Darlene Jackson, president of Manitoba's Nurses Union.

Lynn Lake is a town of approximately 675 residents, located around 1,100 km northwest of Winnipeg.

Jackson said she can't disclose more details about the incident because the union has filed a grievance on this person's behalf and the case will be going to arbitration.

But the nurse was following standards of the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba and the termination "had nothing to do with her ability to practice," Jackson said.

CBC requested comment from NRHA and a spokesperson says the authority does not speak to personnel issues publicly as a matter of policy.

Jackson said the nurse who was fired had moved her family from Ontario to work as a public nurse in Manitoba.

"She had worked some shifts in Lynn Lake, and really enjoyed the hospital, and enjoyed the atmosphere in the town and moved there," Jackson said.
Northern hospital closed because of no staff

The termination came in the middle of a critical nursing shortage in the north, in which the health authority had to close a hospital — Leaf Rapids Health Centre — multiple times due to not having enough staff.

Since the Leaf Rapids Health Centre closed on Dec. 27, all clinical care and support services have been directed to Lynn Lake or Thompson.

Jackson said in the midst of a pandemic with COVID cases skyrocketing, employers should be keeping nurses in the public system.

"We need those individuals to keep facilities open," she said. "In this case, to keep facilities running at full speed."

RCMP's new harassment process hampered by lack of independent investigators: union head
Christopher Nardi 

© Provided by National Post Members of the RCMP stand at attention during a Remembrance Day ceremony in Iqaluit, Nunavut, on November 11, 2021.

OTTAWA – The head of the RCMP’s union says there are still significant challenges and delays with the new harassment investigation process because the government is struggling to find enough independent investigators.

“The new harassment process under the Canada Labour Code is showing to be a challenge with respect to timeliness of investigation. There are not enough independent investigators,” Brian Sauvé, head of the National Police Federation (NPF), told National Post in an interview.

“We have a (memorandum of understanding) with the RCMP which details some of the qualifications of those investigators, but they haven’t been able to find enough to deal with the number of files coming in.”

On Jan. 1, 2021, Bill C-65 regarding workplace harassment and violence prevention came into effect, imposing a series of new rules and procedures on all federally-regulated workplaces that are meant to speed up and better protect victims during internal harassment or violence complaints.

Among them, complaints must be resolved within one year and, in the case of the RCMP, will now be handed over to independent investigators (instead of other police members or forces) to ensure that the process is “fair and impartial”.

Allegations of rampant bullying and harassment have plagued the federal police force for decades as victims and experts called for an overhaul of the RCMP’s complaint system.

Court approves settlement for women suing RCMP over discrimination

Whopping $1.1B sought in lawsuit over RCMP culture of workplace bullying

In 2020, a federal court certified a $1.1 billion class action lawsuit alleging “systemic negligence” in how the force handled those types of complaints.

But one year after the reform entered into force, the government has only found about 45 of the “60 to 70” approved firms needed to make sure complaints are heard and resolved in a timely manner, Sauvé says.

Though he’s certain the new system is better for his members, Sauvé says there have been some frustrations tied to “growing pains”. The continuing delays in handling harassment complaints is certainly frustrating impacted RCMP members.

“One file (can take) considerable amount of resources for a firm,” he explained, noting that the government has been actively working to boost those numbers as quickly as possible.

“The sales pitch was: ‘This will be fantastic, this is great, this is new, it’ll be done faster.’ And now we’re starting to realize that oh, it might take another year before we have capacity to live up to our sales pitch,” Sauvé said. “But we’re moving in the right direction.”

Another issue related to internal complaints within the police force is the grievance process.

“We have a number of challenges internally with the grievance process, which takes forever if a member has an individual grievance,” Sauvé said.

The force is also facing an increasingly fractured relationship with many indigenous communities, namely in Western Canada.

The head of the RCMP members’ union also said cultural changes are happening — albeit slowly — within the force, namely to address issues such as systemic racism. He also says he was “surprised” when RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki at first hesitated in 2020 to recognize it was a problem in the force.

“I think it’s an issue in Canada and we can’t escape that. Racism or systemic racism is something that is abhorrent and should be abhorrent to any Canadian,” Sauvé said. “I think the RCMP is quite receptive and responsive to changes and the priorities of Canadian communities.”

Last year was a busy one for the NPF, which just finished its second year of existence last summer. One of its biggest mandates was to sign members’ first ever collective bargaining agreement, which included significant pay hikes for a majority of members.

National Post reported last July that constables would receive a $20,000 hike to their top salary beginning in April, which the union argues brings them in line with provincial and municipal police service pay levels.

Though the increased pay may help the RCMP address its staff attraction and retention issue that has plagued it for years, it may have the perverse effect of making it less attractive to provinces and municipalities — such as Alberta or Surrey, B.C. — who are respectively considering or actively creating their own police forces.

“Is there a risk that we will price ourselves out of market? That’s a good question. I don’t think so, mainly because of the surge capacity and the critical mass ability of the RCMP” which has access to resources all over the country, Sauvé said.

But he also thinks that questions about the RCMP’s value as a local police force are pushing the organization to do some tough but important introspection about its service offer.

“I like the idea of renewing our service delivery. I like the idea of provincial and municipal leaders questioning how the services are delivered, because it puts us and the organization into a position where they have to reassess and they have to self-assess,” he said.

“Perhaps they haven’t done the best job in advertising how good they are within Alberta, within Surrey, within New Brunswick. So we’re trying to help them along and show citizens that we believe that this is a really good police service and you can’t do much better elsewhere.”

• Email: cnardi@postmedia.com | Twitter: ChrisGNardi