ISLAMOPHOBIA

French bill banning hijabs in sports events moves to National Assembly

PHOTOS © Reuters/PASCAL ROSSIGNOL
By Elizabeth Pineau - Yesterday

PARIS (Reuters) - A draft bill that would ban the wearing of the hijab in sporting competitions will pass on to France's National Assembly after the Senate on Wednesday declined to vote on the legislation.

The broader bill is devoted to "democratising sport", including how the big sporting federations are governed. But it includes a clause, previously attached as an amendment by the conservative-dominated upper house, stipulating that the wearing “of conspicuous religious symbols is prohibited” in events and competitions organised by sports federations.


Supporters of Muslim women soccer players protest against French hijab ban in sports, in Lille

The move is, however, opposed by President Emmanuel Macron's centrist government and its allies who command a majority in the National Assembly, which has the final vote.



The place of religion and religious symbols worn in public is a long-running matter of controversy in France, a staunchly secular country and home to Europe's largest Muslim minority.

Identity and Islam's place in French society are hot-button issues ahead of April's presidential election, with two far-right candidates whose nationalist programmes question Islam's compatibility with the Republic's values polling nearly 35% of voter support between them.



Elsewhere, divisions over the hijab - the traditional covering of the hair and neck worn by Muslim women - have fanned protests in the Indian state of Karnataka after authorities there banned the garment in school classrooms.


© Reuters/PASCAL ROSSIGNOLSupporters of Muslim women soccer players protest against French hijab ban in sports, in Lille

Macron's government had been swift to denounce the amendment. Given the majority wielded by his party and its allies in the lower house, the amendment is likely to be removed from the broader bill.

"Our enemy is radical Islamism, not Islam," Marlene Schiappa, junior minister for citizenship, said on Tuesday.

France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024 and critics of the legislation have questioned how it would affect protocol at the Games, whose participants will include conservative Muslim countries, if it were adopted.

Right-wing Senator Stéphane Piednoir said the Olympic Charter provided for political and religious neutrality.

"We cannot compromise secularism and France cannot undercut the Olympic movement," Piednoir told the upper house.

He said the bill was designed to allow "all women to participate in sports competitions without any differentiation, without any sign of discrimination, without any symbol linked to the veil which we know is a political tool".

The Olympics charter states that "no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."

(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; writing by Richard Lough, editing by Tassilo Hummel)

Lions become first CFL team to hire full-time female coach by adding Walter to staff

The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — Tanya Walter is used to pushing her way into unusual spaces.

The former linebacker broke a whole new barrier Tuesday when she was named defensive assistant for the B.C. Lions, becoming the first full-time female coach in CFL history.

“In my mind, there’s nothing that is off limits if I put in the time and put in the effort," Walter said on a video call. "I’ve never been one to think, ‘maybe that’s not for me’ or ‘maybe that opportunity’s not there.’”

Walter, 30, knows she's making history and that her new job will have a big effect on future generations, but she's staying focused on the responsibilities of her new role.

"Obviously, yes, being the first female is a huge win. But myself, I look at it as the job is the job and I’m here to coach," she said.

“It’s great to be the first and I’m honoured to be the first, but to really measure the success, I think it’s about what happens next.”

Walter began playing football in 2013 with the Edmonton Storm of the Western Women’s Canadian Football League.

But growing up in Forestburg, Alta., she played basketball and was repeatedly told she was too loud and too aggressive on the court, and that she took the game too seriously.

“I didn’t have female role models and I looked up to a lot of male athletes, so really, I was just doing what they did," Walter said. "And it wasn’t until later on when I got into football that I realized there was a space for an athlete of my mindset."

She didn't watch football growing up and didn't know much about the sport when she got on the field.

“It took, honestly, probably two or three years of being a player before I actually fully understood the game," said Walter, who also played for Alberta's provincial squad and the Canadian women's team that won a silver medal at the 2017 IFAF women’s world championship.

Once she felt she had a solid grasp on the X's and O's, Walter turned to coaching.

She started at Edmonton's St. Francis Xavier High School in 2017 and continued through last season. A guest coaching spot with the Canadian Junior Football League's Edmonton Huskies followed, as did an assistant's role with the West Edmonton Raiders girls tackle football squad.

The coaching spots were volunteer gigs, so Walter spent 10 years working full time as a personal trainer. In 2020, she took on a role with a minor football association in Edmonton and later started working for a non-profit organization that helps kids play sports.

When B.C. Lions head coach and co-general manager Rick Campbell spoke with Walter about the defensive assistant job, he liked her passion for the game and her work ethic. Working in football takes someone with experience and the right demeanour, he said.

“You kind of have to have the right frame of mind and I think she has all those things," Campbell said.

“The thing I really like about football is you can’t hide. You’re either contributing to the team or you’re not. I fully anticipate her contributing in a big way.”

Walter said she's spoken with a number of female friends who are already working in professional football, including Katie Sowers (who worked for the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs), Phoebe Schecter (a former coach for the Buffalo Bills) and Lori Locust (assistant defensive line coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers). Their advice has been helpful, she said, as she prepares to take on this new challenge.

"(They said) 'Yes, in the beginning you’ll have to show you’re there, you know what you’re doing,'" Walter said. "And when it comes down to it, it’s just allowing people to judge you on your abilities. And the gender part doesn’t matter.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2022.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press

US women's soccer coach earned 28% 

of US men's coach pay

NEW YORK (AP) — Vlatko Andonovski earned $357,597 over his first full year as U.S. women’s soccer coach, less than 28% of the $1,291,539 that went to men’s coach Gregg Berhalter.

The figures were revealed in the U.S. Soccer Federation’s tax filing for the year ending on March 31, 2021, which was released Wednesday.

Berhalter’s salary was roughly the same as the $1,294,871 he earned in the previous 12 months. He was the USSF's highest-paid employee.

Andonovski, hired in October 2019, earned about half of the $718,352 made by his predecessor, Jill Ellis, in the year ending March 31, 2020, but that fiscal year included the Women’s World Cup, where the Americans won their fourth title. U.S. coaches' contracts contain large bonuses for World Cup performance.

Ellis, listed as an ambassador and former key employee, earned $413,440 in the latest fiscal year under a contract that ended in March 2021.

Former men’s player Earnie Stewart, promoted in August 2019 to federation sporting director from men’s national team general manager, earned $799,699, up from $731,261. Brian McBride, a former men’s player who replaced Stewart as GM in January 2020, earned $338,417.

Women’s team general manager Kate Markgraf earned $500,000. She also has the title of head of women's football and her duties include interacting with FIFA, CONCACAF and national associations.

Will Wilson, hired as chief executive officer in March 2020, earned $414,270. His predecessor, Dan Flynn, was listed at $242,353 as an ambassador and former officer.

Cindy Parlow Cone, the USSF president, does not receive a salary. A bylaw amendment proposed by the federation's rules committee would establish a $125,000 annual salary for the federation president. The amendment is to be considered during the federation's annual general meeting, scheduled for March 3-6 in Atlanta.

John Cone, her husband, received $112,606 as payment and expense reimbursement for his work with the USSF coaching education team.

Brian Remedi, fired as chief administrative officer after Wilson was brought in, earned $457,949.

Jay Berhalter, brother of the men’s coach, earned $209,385. He was the USSF’s No. 2 as chief commercial and strategy officer before leaving in February 2020. He earned $614,054 in the previous fiscal year.

Linda Wahlke, who resigned as chief legal officer in May 2020 after a backlash against legal filings the USSF made in the lawsuit filed by women soccer players, was at $323,271,

Earnings were listed for several of the players on the U.S. women team, including Alyssa Naeher ($255,783), Julie Ertz ($254,945), Becky Sauerbrunn ($254,533), Abby Dahlkemper ($253,283) and Crystal Dunn ($253,283).

Eligible players for the women’s national team are guaranteed a $100,000 salary plus bonuses for appearances, wins and draws. The fiscal year included bonuses for Olympic qualifying and the SheBelieves Cup.

___

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Ronald Blum, The Associated Press

New NBPA head Tamika Tremaglio: 'Next generation leader' for a complicated time

Scooby Axson -USA TODAY SPORTS

In February for Black History Month, USA TODAY Sports is publishing the series 28 Black Stories in 28 Days. We examine the issues, challenges and opportunities Black athletes and sports officials continue to face after the nation’s reckoning on race two years ago.

Michele Roberts, near the end of 2019, let coworkers know that she planned to retire and to start looking for her replacement as executive director of the National Basketball Players Association.

Roberts had led the union in her seven-plus years through relatively quiet labor peace with the league, and expertly guided the players through a 2020 season that was cut short because of the coronavirus pandemic. Games were restarted under less-than-ideal conditions in the bubble in Orlando, and Roberts partnered with the league to further social justice platforms after the murder of George Floyd.

The pandemic made the process of finding Roberts’ replacement a challenge. That didn’t mean, of course, the NBPA wasn’t going to try.

"We had people from the highest echelons of politics, business, sports, labor" apply for the position, said Ron Klempner, Senior Counsel of the NBPA.

"But then when you add in the social justice component and everything that had been done," he said, "forget about it. Everyone wanted in."

It turns out the union didn’t have to look far to choose its next leader.

Last September, the NBPA announced it hired 51-year-old Tamika Tremaglio, who for

the past 11 years was a managing principal at Deloitte, a London headquartered professional services firm with more than 14,000 employees in the Washington, D.C. area.

Opinion: Where are the people of color at the Winter Olympics?

More: Howard's Kenneth Blakeney, like Deion Sanders in football, wants to reawaken HBCU basketball

Familiarity with the league’s inner workings was crucial to her landing the job. Tremaglio, a 1992 graduate of Mount St. Mary's, has law degrees from University of Maryland and an MBA from University of Baltimore. She had a hand in the WNBA’s labor discussions and also worked on a team that probed the union’s practices and possible business improprieties under then-director Billy Hunter. She also has more than a quarter century of consulting experience, including the NBPA for the past 10 years.

It was clear what the union was looking for in Tremaglio: a person savvy enough to get business deals done, but also someone with a forensic mindset to keep the money flowing and an awareness to capitalize on the opportunity of future revenues.

"Tamika has been by our side for many years, advising us on the best practices and policies needed for our organization to operate more like a successful business," New Orleans Pelicans guard and NBPA President CJ McCollum said at the time of her hiring. "Given Michele’s strong leadership and guidance that have brought us to where we are today, we were looking for a next generation leader, who has the skills, vision, and credibility to pick up where Michele will leave off and to elevate our union to even greater heights."

For Tremaglio, who also is known to her colleagues for her immaculate style, her basketball journey started with observation. Her father and uncle played the game in St. Mary’s County, Maryland and grew up with Tubby Smith, who was the coach at Kentucky when it won the NCAA championship in 1998 and is now the head coach at High Point University in North Carolina. Tremaglio was also a basketball cheerleader in high school and college.

"Unfortunately, I did not play basketball," Tremaglio said, who is married with two teenage sons. "But it was the center of many things that I did growing up. It’s always been something near and dear to our heart."

During the ongoing pandemic, Tremaglio began to reflect on her next steps and how she wanted a new challenge after the success at Deloitte. She suddenly thought about the impact COVID had on her, and set out to do something about it.

"I felt like I made a difference at Deloitte, but it was time to move on and do that somewhere different and quite frankly to do it in a place that I could help," Tremaglio said. "And to say I can officially retire.

"I have less days left of my life unfortunately, and that sounds kind of morbid at 51 years old but it’s the truth. And given that, I always thought, ‘What do I want to do that is going to be impactful? What’s going to be significant?' Living a life of significance, that was something that I really reflected upon during COVID."

In the early days of the pandemic while still at Deloitte, Tremaglio and her fellow executives were at a loss for what to do concerning the health and safety of their employees.

Information about COVID and masks were scarce. The issue became political.

"I recognized very early on that there was an exponential amount of people of color who were dying from COVID as opposed to those who were not," Tremaglio said. "That was a rude awakening to me."

She drove to a New Jersey warehouse by herself in April 2020 with a hazmat suit borrowed from a neighbor that worked in an emergency room to buy 350,000 masks, costing Deloitte $1 million, to give to people in the Washington D.C. area that did not have access to any personal protective equipment.

"It was one of my proudest moments. Because I was scared to death. I saw the world very differently then," she said. "COVID impacted everyone different. Even in the NBA world. I lost family members and it was a very challenging time."

The NBPA hopes Tremaglio can bring that level of empathy, awareness and efficiency to her new job.

While there is no set job description of the executive director, labor peace is obviously first on the list.

The union and the league have enjoyed labor peace since the 2011 lockout. Klempner and Tremaglio don't see that changing anytime soon, though the current collective bargaining agreement runs through the conclusion of the 2023-24 NBA season. Both sides can mutually opt-out of the deal at the end of next season.

"The respect, the credibility and trust does exist. It’s done with a good amount of vigilance. You’re always going to be weary of someone who you’re bargaining against," Klempner said. "So, we are very careful and mindful. These are successful businessmen that we are dealing with on the other side. All billionaires. And they got that way for a reason."

Tremaglio says nothing has really surprised her in the first month on the job (her four-year term started Jan. 10), but she did have time to reflect on the things she hopes to accomplish.

Furthering social equity and continuing to protect players during the pandemic were her top priorities. There was something else.

"While we are always concerned from a health perspective physically, we often times are not thinking about the mental health concerns," she said. "We know mental health is really critical. We stop and we pause quickly every time someone breaks a leg or ankle, but we quite don’t understand as a society, the impact that could occur from losing a loved one or someone close to you."

Her transparency and honesty with her staff and those she comes into contact with has been hailed as another Tremaglio trademark.

An unhurried person by nature, she is measured in just about everything she does, whether it’s sleeping with an Oura ring to help regulate her sleep, or sporting a Fitbit to measure a 10,000 step-a day goal.

"In some ways, it’s a good thing, in other ways I would bet it’s a little OCD. It is something that I consider really important," Tremaglio said. "I think the players deserve me at my best so if that means I have to pause for a moment, then that’s what I’ll do."

And one of her main beliefs?

"Never to become comfortable," she says. "When you are comfortable, you are not growing. You have to do something to take a risk and do what you would do if you weren’t afraid."



This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New NBPA head Tamika Tremaglio: 'Next generation leader' for a complicated time

A new discovery could help save this 10-foot-long 'living fossil' fish

The alligator gar is a snaggle-toothed fish longer than a park bench and heavier than a mountain lion. Bony scales covering its body make it look like an armored dinosaur, and for good reason: North America’s second-biggest fish has been thriving since the late Jurassic period, 157 million years ago.


© Photograph by Charles Carpenter/Field Museum Library/Getty Images

Richard Raddatz, of the Field Museum, stands next to an alligator gar in Chicago, Illinois, in 1905.

Jason Bittel - Yesterday 
National Geographic

Many don’t realize that the 10-foot-long alligator gar still exists, but when they do, their first thoughts often turn to fear, says Solomon David, a fish ecologist at Nicholls State University in Louisiana.

But “they’re not like alligators, lions or other animals that can tear off pieces of prey,” says David. “They have to swallow their prey whole, so they’re harmless to humans.”

Alligator gar, which can weigh more than 300 pounds, are like their namesake in one way: They’re apex predators, which means they provide critical ecosystem services to their home habitats—which is mostly the middle and lower Mississippi River watershed in the U.S. The freshwater species keep prey populations in check by hunting smaller fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds, David says. (Learn more about freshwater fish.)

But their role as top hunter has earned alligator gar a bad reputation with anglers and even state wildlife managers, who sometimes tried to exterminate the animals, thinking they were competitors to game fish. In the 1930s, the Texas Game and Fish Commission even built a boat that discharged electric volts into the water. They called it the Electrical Gar Destroyer.


© Photograph by JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO ARK

Alligator gars have a wide range that includes Central America and Cuba.

Combine those direct threats with habitat loss due to dam construction and floodplain draining, and alligator gar are now extremely rare in the upper river systems of America where they were once common. In some states, such as Ohio and Illinois, the species has disappeared completely and is considered locally extinct or extirpated. Alligator gar, found as far south as Central America, are more common in the southern parts of their range, especially in U.S. states such as Texas and Louisiana—which is why they’re listed as of least concern by IUCN.


© Photograph by Kent Ozment/Solomon David

The GarLab team—from left, Audrey Baetz, Solomon David, and Derek Sallmann—measures a large alligator gar at the St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi in 2021. All fish are safely released after data collection.

“It’s a matter of scale. What might be of ‘least concern’ globally is definitely not the case on the local scale,” says David.

That’s why David and his colleagues are trying to reverse the fish's decline, for instance by breeding them in captivity and devising ways to learn more about the creatures without harming them. In a January study in the journal Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, David and colleagues showed that instead of cutting into the fish’s flesh to gather samples, taking small clips of fin can provide the same information.

“Just the sheer size of these animals blows you away when you're in their presence,” David says. “These are river giants.”
Fin clips, for the win

To protect gar, scientists first need to know basic information, such as where the behemoths roam and what they’re eating. To do that, they’d normally need to take a nickel-size sample of the fish’s tissue, which contains traces of elements scientists can use to track the fish’s whereabouts.

However, because gar have scales like medieval chain mail, the time-consuming and traumatic practice of extracting that amount of tissue can cause stress on the animal, says Thea Fredrickson, an aquatic biologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority in Texas.

“It can definitely be lethal. There’s no way around it.”

Fortunately, in their new study, Fredrickson and David have just proven that fin clipping is much easier on the gar.

“It also allows us to sample organisms repeatedly,” says David, who notes the fins grow back quickly. “Let’s say we catch the same fish a month or two later, or maybe a year later. We can see how that fish might be changing with its growth.”

“I found the results [of] the paper very promising,” says Zeb Hogan, a research biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who was not involved in the study.

Some alligator gars live to be 95 years or more, Hogan says, making each individual precious. (Read about Hogan’s quest to find the world’s biggest fishes.)

“We need to understand their biology and their ecology, but you don’t want to sacrifice a fish that’s that old or that grows so slowly,” says Hogan, who is also a National Geographic Explorer.

Though the fin-clipping technique has been shown to work for other fishes, no one had ever tried it with alligator gar. Now that it’s been proven, the scientists have already started using the technique at St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi.

In February, David and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their gar biologist, Kayla Kimmel, caught numerous gar at the refuge, including a massive specimen longer than David is tall. They tagged the animals and captured 10 individuals to be used in a captive-breeding program at the wildlife service’s Private John Allen National Fish Hatchery. If all goes well, the offspring of these 10 fish will be reintroduced into U.S. areas where gar have disappeared.
Evolutionary wonders

There are seven species of gar found worldwide, and all have changed relatively little over time, which is why they’re known as “living fossils.” (Go underwater into the underlooked world of freshwater animals.)

“They found a body plan that worked, and they’ve stuck with it,” says David, explaining that the fish’s long, narrow shape allows them to lunge quickly at their prey.

Alligator gars can also breathe air, allowing them to survive in hot, low-oxygen environments, including brackish estuaries or even salt water.

Another useful adaptation? Poisonous eggs. Interestingly, alligator gar eggs don’t seem to be lethal to other fishes—only mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and especially arthropods, such as crustaceans. This may mean they evolved the poison specifically to protect their eggs from crabs and crayfish, says David.

“But ‘don’t eat gar caviar’ is the take-home message for people,” he laughs

Save the freshwater giants

Freshwater megafauna, loosely defined as species that weigh over 66 pounds on average, are among the most endangered animals on Earth. Global populations have declined by almost 90 percent since 1970—twice as much as the loss of vertebrate populations on land or in the oceans, according to a 2019 study in Global Change Biology.

Large fish, such as sturgeons, salmons, and giant catfishes, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, have experienced even higher declines, because of overfishing, pollution, and dams. 

(Read more about how dams in Southeast Asia are threatening megafish.)

This is why David is trying to change the perception of these animals any way he can. Sometimes it’s making gar puns on social media, and other times it’s testifying before the Minnesota Legislature in favor of a new bill that would provide gar and other so-called “rough fish” with some protections, rather than allowing them to be killed indiscriminately.

“It's a privilege to work alongside the growing number of conservationists garnering more respect for these charismatic megafish,” David says.

Of course, when he says “garnering,” the emphasis is on the gar.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FOSSIL FISH 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for STURGEON 

University of Lethbridge student solidarity groups show support for faculty association amid job action

Quinn Campbell - Tuesday 
Global News

Two groups representing University of Lethbridge students say they are concerned about the ongoing faculty strike at the post-secondary institution.


© Global NewsThe University of Lethbridge

Faculty took to the picket line last Thursday and the student organizations are accusing the university's board of governors of using "aggressive tactics."

Read more:
U of L Faculty Association begins strike

"We demand that the board and upper administration start putting actions behind their words and put students first," said Angie Nikoleychuk, a third-year undergraduate student in the department of psychology. She is also an executive with the U of L Student Solidarity and Action Council and the U of L Student Action Assembly.

The student-led organizations said they feel the University of Lethbridge's board of governors are putting out misinformation about bargaining and trying to create a rift between faculty and students.

"They have used what appears to many students to be dishonest framing of the faculty, threats and political theatre to win points at the bargaining table and in the public eye," Nikoleychuk said


University of Lethbridge faculty vote 92% in favour of strike, negotiations continue

The student organizations said the U of L board and administration have interfered with the pay of some student employees and failed to provide students with practicums currently in place with solutions.

Karina Almeida, another executive with the student groups, said the board is also impacting critical research projects by locking faculty out of their emails and the facilities.

"They are preventing faculty from continuing their research, which can cause unnecessary and likely irreparable damage to the university's reputation as a research facility."

Read more:

U of L Faculty Association initiates strike vote following prolonged negotiations

The university responded in a statement, saying "it would be unfair for ULFA (University of Lethbridge Faculty Association) members to engage in non-essential research for professional and academic benefit, while at the same time withholding instructional services from students.

"Regarding critical or time-sensitive research, faculty members through ULFA can request access either physically or electronically to their research," the university said.

Students are still able to access the campus, however, the university formally closed all workplaces to ULFA members Friday morning.

U.K. company’s monopoly on B.C. wood pellet industry is costing Canadians jobs

A U.K. company with a growing monopoly over British Columbia’s wood pellet industry must be forced to divest some of its holdings to protect the province’s forests and the jobs of forest industry workers, a coalition of unions and environmental and public policy groups say.

On Feb. 16, four organizations sent a letter to the Competition Bureau of Canada to request the department investigate the Drax Group, a U.K.-based renewable energy company and operator of the world’s largest wood-fired thermal electricity plant.

The plant’s primary feedstock is wood pellets, which the company must source from countries like Canada and the U.S. due to the U.K.’s lack of forest cover.

The groups estimate Drax currently controls 44 per cent of Canada’s pellet mill output and 82 per cent of Alberta’s, and that it will soon control over two-thirds of B.C.’s wood pellet output.

The letter points out that Drax gained whole or partial ownership of seven of the province’s 14 wood pellet mills when it purchased British Columbia’s largest wood pellet maker, Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc., last April.

In December, Drax bought the pellet sales contracts of B.C.’s second-largest wood pellet producer, Pacific Bioenergy, which then announced it will shut down in March. This closure will cost 55 manufacturing jobs and an undisclosed number of logging and log hauling jobs, according to the letter.

The Public and Private Workers of Canada, which represents workers at the Pacific Bioenergy plant, sent the letter expressing concern over the way Drax’s “stranglehold” on B.C.'s wood pellet industry and the imminent plant closure will impact union members and their families.

“It looks like there's going to be more and more control of forest resources in the hands of this one company, ultimately at the expense of forest industry jobs and … the forests themselves,” said Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, one of the groups behind the letter.

Early last year, these four groups — including Unifor and Conservation North — voiced concerns about a proposal to build a massive wood pellet mill in Fort Nelson, B.C., because it would be “purpose-built to turn whole trees directly into chips that would then be made into pellets.” Typically, wood pellets are created from leftover wood scraps at sawmills, which is what Drax claims to do, said Parfitt.

But, he says: “That is proving to be not the case. More and more whole trees are being logged to feed the pellet industry because the pellet industry has grown dramatically in size over the last little while.”

The letter reiterates the organizations’ opposition to the proposed project because “it will generate very few jobs relative to what is logged” and accelerate the logging of B.C.’s already diminished primary forests.

If built, the Fort Nelson facility would be the largest wood pellet mill in Canada, and the groups worry Drax would acquire the mill and urge the bureau to consider this “eventuality.”

“We believe that's simply too much and that the Competition Bureau should be looking at that and considering whether that results in a lack of competition,” said Parfitt.

He is hopeful the Competition Bureau will intervene as it did in 2021 when Paper Excellence agreed to purchase Domtar. As two of the largest pulp and paper manufacturers in Canada, the bureau was concerned the transaction would “substantially lessen or prevent competition” in the sale of pulp and paper in Canada and required Paper Excellence to sell one of its mills to an independent purchaser approved by the commissioner.

“Allowing a foreign producer to monopolize the pellet industry and then to cut down trees directly to make pellets threatens both our forests and forest industry workers,” said Scott Doherty, executive assistant to Unifor’s national president, in a press release.

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Canadians want companies to do more to tackle climate change, wealth inequality

TORONTO — Canadians do not believe businesses are doing enough to address the societal challenges of our time and want more engagement from their business leaders, a new survey has found.

More than half of respondents, at 56 per cent, say businesses aren't doing enough to combat climate change, while 49 per cent and 48 per cent respectively say more work needs to be done to re-skill workers and to tackle economic inequality.

A yearly report from public relations consultancy firm Edelman come as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on and inflation continues to rise, while the labour market shows signs of shifting in employees' favour rather than the entities they work for.

The 2022 survey also revealed that 50 per cent of respondents think it is imperative, even mandatory, for CEOs to help shape conversations and policies around job creation and economic growth. The same percentage of respondents feel this way about the issue of wage inequality as well.

Edelman Canada president and CEO Lisa Kimmel says there is an expectation that business leaders engage more and that their role is to be a societal leader rather than a corporate leader only.

This data is part of the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual online survey examining the trust society has in business, government, non-governmental organizations and media. The latest version was conducted between Nov. 1 and Nov. 24 of last year and polled 1,500 individuals in Canada.

In addition, 78 per cent of respondents believe CEOs should be personally visible when public policy or work they have done to benefit society is discussed with external stakeholders.

“It’s not about just simply delivering strong quarterly financial earnings anymore,” Kimmel said. “What made for a successful leader historically may not cut it today based on the expectations that stakeholders have of business leaders.”

The survey also included perspective from institutional investors around Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards. Eighty-eight per cent of respondents said they subject companies to the same scrutiny on ESG as operational and financial considerations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 16, 2022.

Adena Ali, The Canadian Press

In Silicon Valley, Big Tech Gets Bigger but Leaves Many Behind

The report found that the region's richest 25% holds 92% of the wealth, while the top 10% holds 75% of the wealth.

Stephen Shankland - CNET

Silicon Valley is emerging from the pandemic stronger than ever, according to a new report, with employment, venture capital, real estate and market capitalization among the benchmarks indicating the tech industry's growing power -- even as many in the region struggle.

Tech industry employment in the region, which had steadily stood at about 25% for years, has risen to 29%, according to the 2022 Silicon Valley Index, an annual report. The jump was caused by tech hiring that contrasted with cuts in the retail, services, hospitality, and arts and culture industries, which let people go as the pandemic weighed on business

Employment was dominated by two giants, Apple and Alphabet, Google's parent company. Together the two companies employed 13% of Silicon Valley's workers, a consolidation of power the report's authors noted.

"We used to be lots of techies spread over small and medium companies," Russell Hancock, CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, which runs the annual report. Now Silicon Valley employment is concentrated in "some really, really big companies."

The annual report comes after a year in which technology played a more central role in our lives as work and school moved online for many people during COVID. The report paints a picture of remarkable business success that chiefly benefits those in the tech sector. It sold more hardware, software and services, but often left others behind. The findings reflect a profound change within Silicon Valley and the broader San Francisco Bay Area, where people who aren't in tech jobs didn't benefit from the rapid shift to work and school from home.

Wealth inequality

The report found that the region's richest 25% holds 92% of the wealth, while the top 10% holds 75% of the wealth.

"If Silicon Valley were a country, that kind of wealth disparity would be considered politically unstable," Hancock said. "We're the most bifurcated economy in the United States. The income divide and the wealth gap is just mind boggling," Hancock said in a press briefing Tuesday, adding that the region's wealth disparity would be politically unstable for a country. "The pandemic only amplified these trends."

Joint Venture Silicon Valley, which tracks trends to help governments and businesses, is scheduled to release the annual index on Wednesday. The report covers Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, as well as parts of adjacent counties. It generally excludes San Francisco, though it offers some data from the city for comparison.

The report found that a third of Silicon Valley households can't get by without financial help from friends, family, churches or the government. It used the University of Washington's self-sufficiency standard to determine poverty.

The situation is worse for minorities. The figure increases to 61% for Latinos and 46% for Blacks.

In contrast, big tech generates incredible wealth. Tech companies in Silicon Valley and San Francisco saw their total market worth drop to $6 trillion when the pandemic hit, but quickly rebounded to $14 trillion. Apple, Alphabet, Tesla and Meta (formerly Facebook) account for nearly half (48%) of that value.

Venture capital provided $95 billion, an all-time high, to startups last year, with 257 deals for more than $100 million. San Francisco startups garnered a further $50 billion in 2021.

Ontario’s 'affordable housing' task force report does not address the real problems

Brian Doucet, Canada Research Chair in Urban Change and Social Inclusion, University of Waterloo - 
The Conversation

The province of Ontario’s task force has released 55 recommendations to address the growing housing crisis. But if an affordable housing report explicitly states that building affordable housing is outside its mandate and never once mentions the term “rent control,” is it really an affordable housing report?

While there are some important ideas within this report, particularly to aid middle-class households that have recently become victims of a housing crisis, it is unlikely to make housing more affordable for those on low and moderate incomes who have struggled to find adequate shelter for decades.

The report is what you would expect if you brought together a group of bankers, developers and home builders and asked them to solve the housing crisis. The emphasis is on how to increase the supply of market-rate housing, while largely ignoring other issues central to making housing more affordable.
Housing needs

The report outlines that 1.5 million new homes are needed over the coming decade. There are two issues with this. The first is whether all these homes are actually necessary to keep pace with growth. The report claims that Ontario is 1.2 million houses short of the G7 average. This is based on data showing that Canada has the lowest number of houses per 1,000 people of any G7 nation.

But the number of dwellings per 1,000 people is not a very useful metric, particularly for comparisons between places, because people reside in households. If all 1,000 people live alone, then 1,000 dwellings are required. But if they all reside in households of five, then only 200 dwellings are required.

Dividing those 1,000 people by the average household size of the jurisdiction where they live paints a very different picture about housing needs and can help to interpret differences in rates of housing supply between cities, provinces and countries. These differences in average household size mean those same 1,000 people require an average of 507 dwellings in Germany and 441 in Japan. In Canada, because of our larger average household size of 2.47 people, this figure is only 405.

It should also be noted that Ontario’s average household size is significantly larger than the Canadian average — at 2.58 people per household, it is the second-highest in the country after Alberta.

Between 2006 and 2016, the number of households in Ontario rose by 614,415. During that same 10-year span, there were 689,625 new occupied dwellings. Some of these replaced existing homes, but most condos, apartments and new developments constituted significant net gains.

While we will need to wait for further data from Statistics Canada on the actual number of households in 2021, Ontario’s population grew by an average of 155,090 per year between 2016 and 2021.

If the average household size remains similar, this is roughly 60,000 new households per year, well short of the 150,000 annual new dwellings the report calls for. It is also lower than the average of 79,085 housing starts per year between 2016 and 2021.

But an “average” household doesn’t actually exist. Within these averages, there are a growing number of one-person households, as well as many families who have to move far away from jobs to find appropriate and affordable housing. All this relates to the second issue: the report gives no guidance as to what kind of housing this should be. How many one- or three-bedroom units are required? How many rentals are needed, and where?

The implicit message is that the market knows best. The reality is that, in urban areas, the market produces a lot of small units popular with investors, and suitable for one- and two-person households, but very few dwellings large enough for families.
Changing zoning rules

Within this report, there are some important and long overdue recommendations. The task force suggests eliminating single-family zoning. As I and others have previously articulated, there are many good reasons to do this.

Read more: Urban planning as a tool of white supremacy – the other lesson from Minneapolis

In around 70 per cent of Toronto, it is impossible to construct town homes, duplexes or triplexes (as is common in Montréal), small apartments or anything else that can increase the number of people living in these areas. This is partly why many neighbourhoods are losing population.

The report recommends permitting four units (and up to four storeys) on any residential parcel in the province. Ontario would be joining places like Minneapolis, California and New Zealand in doing away with this restrictive land-use zoning. Within Ontario, Kitchener has been allowing up to three units on most properties since 2020.

Other positive recommendations include permitting the conversion of underused or vacant commercial properties into residential ones, and allowing secondary suites and multi-tenant housing. Eliminating minimum parking requirements near transit and reducing taxes on purpose-built rental properties are also good ideas.

Importantly, the report stresses intensification within existing built-up areas as the priority, rather than developing new housing on greenfield lands. This is a big step towards curbing automobile-dependent sprawl and is in line with the recent decision in Hamilton to stop its urban boundary expansion.
What’s missing

Equally important is what’s not in the report. There were no housing advocates, people with lived experiences of poverty or non-profits working with those struggling with eviction, foreclosure or homelessness on the task force. Incorporating their knowledge is important — for example, intensification can lead to an erosion of housing options for those on low incomes.

It is troubling that this report explicitly states that building new affordable housing was not part of its mandate.

Also absent from this report is any mention of rent control. In Ontario, sitting tenants enjoy some degree of rent control, but when a new unit is built or an existing one becomes vacant, landlords can charge whatever they like. This creates huge incentives to evict sitting tenants via “renoviction.”


© (Marcos Paulo Prado/Unsplash)Investors favour small or one-bedroom units over larger family-sized housing.

It is also worrying that there is no discussion of the role that investors play in fuelling the housing crisis. The report simply dismisses any attempts to cool the market by reducing demand from speculators. In Ontario, a quarter of all home buyers are investors, up from 16 per cent a decade ago.

Instead of incorporating a range of ideas and approaches, the report reads like a blueprint for how to build more market-rate housing. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence to indicate that on its own, market-driven upzoning, laneway housing or mixed-use zoning produces the kind of housing that is accessible to households on low and moderate incomes.
Middle-class solutions

We talk a lot about housing today not because of some newfound concern for the poor, who have been suffering through a crisis for generations, but because it has now become a middle-class problem.

The tasks force’s recommendations are squarely aimed at this middle-class interpretation of the housing crisis. Policies to encourage the construction of $1 million townhomes to help those priced out of $1.5 million semis will assist some people to find a home. But these measures will do very little for those on low and moderate incomes.

Instead, a range of policies are needed to curb speculation, increase the supply of non-market, genuinely affordable housing and ensure tenants have adequate protections through strong rent-control policies.

Market-rate housing that meets residential demand and keeps up with growth is important, but this supply is no panacea. An affordable housing strategy focused primarily on adding more of this housing without critically asking who it’s for and implementing policies to match housing supply with housing need is unlikely to resolve the housing problem any time soon.

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

Read more:

The Ontario government’s shameful snub of affordable housing 

Giving developers free rein isn’t the solution to the GTHA housing challenges

Brian Doucet receives funding from SSHRC and the Canada Research Chairs program. Some of his research is conducted in partnership with the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region. He has co-written reports on housing and mobility for local governments in Ontario.