Lobbying group backed by Apple, Google pushes for weaker U.S. privacy laws

MobileSyrup 

A lobbying group backed by tech companies including Apple, Google, Meta (Facebook), and Amazon has reportedly backed weaker privacy legislation in the U.S.

According to Axios (via 9to5Mac), tech lobbying group State Privacy and Security Coalition (SPSC) promoted an upcoming state privacy law in Utah as the model that other U.S. states should adopt. However, critics have called Utah’s legislation too weak.

Specifically, Axios reported that consumer groups said the Utah bill wasn’t clear about how much control consumers would have over whether their information was used for targeted advertising. Moreover, the groups said the bill’s enforcement mechanism is weak.

Utah lawmakers considered and passed a state privacy bill in under two weeks. The bill is currently awaiting the governor’s signature. Utah is set to become the fourth state with a privacy law, joining Colorado, Virginia, and California. 9to5 notes that California’s law is more along the lines of Europe’s GDPR.

States have begun stepping up to introduce privacy laws and regulations while the federal government’s attempts to do the same languish in Congress. However, there’s an incentive for a single, federal law over multiple state laws since it’s easier for tech companies to comply with one law instead of 50 individual laws. Moreover, one effective law is easier for people to understand.

Axios says that Iowa is considering a similar bill to Utah, and other states are also weighing their own privacy bills. Although the SPSC told Axios it’s trying to help align state privacy laws in the absence of federal law, it’s concerning that the lobbying group has chosen to promote alignment around weaker regulations.

Also concerning is Apple’s involvement, given the company’s strong messaging about its privacy commitments — commitments that may not actually help consumers that much.

Although U.S. state and federal regulation won’t apply to Canadians, it’s important to follow how the U.S. approaches privacy legislation as it could become a blueprint for other countries. On that note, Canada is in the process of updating some of its own tech legislation, including Bill C-10 and C-11. However, critics say C-11 doesn’t go far enough in curtailing tech companies’ ability to gather data on Canadians.

Source: Axios Via: 9to5Mac

Photographer Sergey Makarov recounts terrifying escape from Mariupol

By Sergey Makarov and Daria Tarasova 

Editor's note: Sergey Makarov, 34, a photographer from the city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, told CNN about his experience surviving the Russian siege and his eventual evacuation.

© Courtesy Sergey Makarov Sergey Makarov is a photographer from the besieged city of Mariupol, Ukraine.

On February 24, I woke up to a friend calling me. He said that the war had begun. He suggested I move with my family to Ivano-Frankivsk. I refused. It seemed to us that Mariupol was a safe place in this time. A lot of defense equipment and Ukrainian military had appeared since 2014.

Then on February 26, air raid sirens began to sound in the city. The suburbs came under fire, but in the city center where I lived it was quiet. I thought it would be like during the war in 2014 -- two houses would suffer and it would be over. In those days, many people left. You don't know how much I used to envy them.

Things had begun heating up. Every day got worse.

On March 1, I realized that it was becoming increasingly difficult to leave Mariupol. Russian troops began to take control of the roads from the city.

On March 3, electricity and water were turned off. I have not washed since March 4. Since then we have only been able to wash our hands in cold water. The mobile connection disappeared. We could not communicate. And we were forced to walk to each other on foot and share information.

Looting had already begun. In the first days of the war, I bought food and about 100 liters of gasoline. This is what ultimately saved us. In the early days, I helped people move from the outskirts of the city closer to the center.

On March 5, the gas supply to houses got turned off. It was the only thing we had left for light and heating. Before it was cut off, we could at least warm ourselves with tea. After that, the nightmare began. It was -9C (around 16F) outside at night. In the afternoon, -2 or -3C (28 or 27F). At the same time, we were hiding from bombs and air strikes in a bomb shelter. We cooked food on fires. Trees were sawn up in the yard. We couldn't get warm. No words can describe what it was like.

At first, there were only residents of our house in our shelter, but then more and more people arrived. There were 100 people in a space of 150 square meters, including young children.

It's a concrete basement without light and ventilation. As long as we could, we burned kerosene and candles. Fortunately we had a toilet.

All this time I was trying to contact people outside the city, charging my phone from the generator from the Red Cross. Many people accepted the fact that the connection was gone, but I was not ready to give up on it. From March 6-9 there was no connection at all. For a moment, I thought we had been forgotten.

On March 8, the worst began. Russia began to launch airstrikes. First with an interval of a couple of hours, and then every minute. Several times we did not have time to reach the shelter and fell to the ground to save ourselves.

I wanted to take my family out, but I would only get one try. If they stopped us and brought us back, there would not be enough gasoline to go out a second time. Those who went to the evacuation on March 5 spent the night in their cars and then came back to Mariupol. They returned and have been left without gasoline.

On March 13, my friends told me that it was possible to get out using the old road to Berdyansk. But there was a mined checkpoint and you had to drive around the mines. We decided we'd rather take the risk than stay to die in the city.

On March 14 at 12:45 p.m. we left in a column of eight cars. There wasn't any luggage, only people and animals. There were six people in our car. On the way we saw mines and carefully avoided them.

At one of the Russian checkpoints, the soldiers told us with a sneer: "It is your own fault that this happened to Mariupol. You didn't have to show off."

We had to spend the night in Berdyansk. The Russians at the checkpoint told us that the city was under a curfew, "Moscow time." So we didn't get to leave.

On March 15, we left Berdyansk for Zaporizhzhia. There were about 20 Russian checkpoints along the way. They checked our luggage, phones, messages, laptops.

In a couple of hours we reached the Ukrainian checkpoint and were free. Now we want to go as far west as possible.

See more photos from Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Multiple refugee crises across globe put pressure on Canada's immigration system

Raffy Boudjikanian 
CBC

© Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty Images

 Refugees from Ukraine wait for further transportation at the railway station in Przemysl, Poland, on March 17.

The war in Ukraine forced Lina Borets and her seven-year-old son, Tymur, to flee their home city of Dnipro on a commuter train earlier this month. When it skirted too close to Russian forces, she and other passengers were told not to use their cell phones and all the lights were turned off to avoid detection.

"I told him that it was time to sleep," she recalled in an interview from an apartment unit in Wroclaw, Poland, where they are currently sheltered by a Polish family. "He believed me because it was dark outside."

Borets has not explained anything about the war to her son, instead pretending they are on vacation.

"I didn't want him to pass through that trauma," she said, though she is sure he must have questions about why his father, who stayed behind in case he is called to fight, has not come along.

The pair applied for a tourist visa to come to Canada with the assistance of her husband's aunt, who lives in Vancouver and helped get important papers like birth certificates translated and certified. With their documents all submitted, they're now anxiously awaiting a response, which can take up to 36 days.

But there is a new process, which was introduced by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on Thursday, that would potentially allow Ukrainians to be in Canada in as little as two weeks. The emergency immigration program would let Ukrainian refugees stay here for up to three years, and apply for open working permits.

"It's actually a very exciting response that Canada is looking to offer visas, short-term visas, to Ukrainians," said Janet Dench, the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

But her organization is hoping some of these measures created by the Canadian government to help Ukrainian refugees could also be applied to the myriad other crises around the world.

Dench says it would be good for the government to have a framework with objective criteria for all refugees instead of "being responsive based on a criteria such as what gets most media coverage or who has the best political connections in Ottawa to get the government to respond."
Afghan families stuck waiting

The hope for more attention was echoed by several Afghan families stuck waiting in Islamabad, Pakistan, many since October. Thousands of Afghans fled after the Taliban took over when the U.S. withdrew its troops from the country last August. About 40 families are living in limbo in that city, waiting to come to Canada.

"Now we're having a bad time, and nobody's there for us," said Mohammad Nasimi, who is living in a single hotel room with his wife and six children.

Nasimi worked with a bomb-detection crew for Canadian Armed Forces for several years, sent ahead of diplomatic delegations on roads where the Taliban were likely to have laid explosives.

"Working with the Canadian Armed Forces and the International Security Assistance Force at that time was risking, every second, your life," he said, recalling that when he spoke with his parents at the time, they would tell him, 'We never, ever thought that you're going to come back home.'"
Web of red tape

Nasimi and his family crossed over into Pakistan in October, fleeing for their lives, fearful that the Taliban could seek revenge. But they and the other families don't feel safe in Islamabad, either.

"[Pakistan] was encouraging the world to recognize Taliban," he said. "Why would you say that? How can you recognize people who slaughtered human beings?"

Like many others, Nasimi's family has already completed much of his paperwork, and gotten mandatory fingerprint ID and retinal scans done. He said the Canadian embassy has referred him to Pakistani officials for exit interviews before he can fly to Canada.

It was the same for Asad Ali Afghan and his family, who are renting a small apartment unit in Islamabad, worried the scarce funds he escaped with will run out before authorities in Canada and Pakistan cut through the red tape.

"If you don't have a proper place to live, if you don't have proper food to eat, your kids will be sick."
Help on the way, Ottawa says

The federal government said it is not buckling under the strain of fulfilling obligations to Afghans and Ukrainians simultaneously.

But since August of last year, just 8,815 Afghans have arrived in Canada. And according to the immigration department, 9,000 Ukrainians have come to the country since just the start of January, more than a third of them since Russia's invasion.

"This is the kind of thing where the competing crises around the world demand that we respond to both," said Immigration Minister Sean Fraser in an interview with CBC News.

The department also pointed to differences between each group. In a statement, it said a number of factors are out of its full control on the Afghanistan matter, such as the lack of a safely functioning airport in Kabul.

Fraser also says there are difficulties in some of Afghanistan's neighbouring countries that can result in obstacles to helping people leave.

"To the extent we can continue to work with our partners in the region, be it Pakistan or others, we're going to continue."

Meanwhile, in a statement, the Canada Employment and Immigration Union, which represents Immigration Canada employees, also pointed out Ukrainians and Afghans are not necessarily using the same streams to arrive here.

"Whereas someone coming from Afghanistan was automatically filtered through the Refugee Program, Ukraine is seeing much more uptake of family reunification and temporary residency requests," it said.

It also noted Canada has the third-highest population of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine. "Thus many have visited family members or may have already been an applicant. These persons do not need to repeat the whole process, so the landing is much faster."

But the union warned of future bottlenecks once arrivals through these streams come to an end, and more Ukrainians start having to go through the refugee system.

"We may end up with a situation similar to the one that happened in Afghanistan," it said

BOURGEOIS ECONOMICS

What is stagflation? 

Understanding the economic phenomenon that stifled growth through the 1970s

insider@insider.com (Jean Folger) 

Stagflation took hold in the US in the 1970s and lasted for about a decade.

 Jose Luis Pelaez/Getty

Stagflation is an economic condition that's caused by a combination of slow economic growth, high unemployment, and rising prices.

Stagflation occurred in the 1970s as a result of monetary and fiscal policies and an oil embargo.

Concern about stagflation has emerged as economic growth cools and inflation remains high amid the COVID-19 recovery.

Stagflation is a combination of the words stagnation and inflation. It describes an economic condition characterized by slow growth and high unemployment (economic stagnation) mixed with rising prices (inflation).

The term appeared as early as 1965, when British Conservative Party politician Iain Macleod in a speech to the House of Commons said: "We now have the worst of both worlds — not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation and history in modern terms is indeed being made."

Initially, many economists believed stagflation wasn't possible. After all, unemployment and inflation rates generally move in opposite directions. However, as the "Great Inflation" period of the 1970s ultimately proved, stagflation is real, and it can have a devastating effect on the economy.
Stagflation vs. inflation

Stagflation and inflation are related, but they shouldn't be confused. The term inflation refers to a sustained increase in the average price level of all goods and services, not just a few of them, in an economy over time. Inflation happens when the money supply grows at a faster rate than the economy can produce goods and services.

Quick tip: You can have inflation without stagflation. But stagflation always involves inflation.

© Alyssa Powell/Insider Alyssa Powell/Insider

Stagflation happens when inflation exists in tandem with slow economic growth and high unemployment. 

Typically, these economic conditions don't occur together. Unemployment and inflation tend to be inversely correlated. So, as unemployment rates increase, inflation usually decreases and vice versa. Of course, as the stagflation of the 1970s illustrated, this relationship isn't always stable or predictable.

What causes stagflation?

Stagflation is a perfect storm of economic ills: slow economic growth, high unemployment, and high prices. The two root causes of stagflation economists generally agree upon are supply shocks and fiscal and monetary policies.

A supply shock is anything that reduces the economy's capacity to produce goods and services at given prices. For example, throughout the pandemic, there have been supply shocks in:
Labor, with fewer people working
Goods, for example, semiconductor shortages, which started even before the pandemic
Services, as people postponed elective surgeries and other health-care procedures

Poor fiscal and monetary decisions also prompt stagflation. "Many things contribute to stagflation, but excess growth in the money supply is most important," says Richard J. DeKaser, executive vice president and chief corporate economist at Wells Fargo & Co.

"During the 1970s, for example, Fed Chairman Arthur Burns responded to soaring commodity prices with inappropriately easy monetary policy that allowed inflation to persist and get firmly entrenched in expectations," says DeKaser. "The record now shows that, to some degree, this was because he succumbed to political pressure at the time."
What are the consequences of stagflation?

The trifecta of slow growth, high unemployment, and fast inflation puts significant pressure on the economy.

"Stagflation is unambiguously harmful to the economy, as high inflation and inflation uncertainty distort investment decisions," says DeKaser. "It is also damaging to-fixed income markets, as rising interest rates push bond prices lower and depress equity valuations."

For households, stagflation means people are earning less money while spending more on everything from food and medicine to housing and consumer products. As consumer spending slows, corporate revenue declines, exacerbating the overall effect on the economy.
Stagflation in the 1970s

By the late 1960s, the post-World War II economic boom began to fade. As the US faced greater international competition, a drop in manufacturing jobs, and a massively expensive war in Vietnam, unemployment rates and inflation climbed.

Then, in 1971, former president Richard Nixon undertook a series of measures intended to create better jobs, remedy inflation, and protect the US dollar:
A 90-day freeze on wages and prices
A 10% tariff on imports

The removal of the US from the gold standard

Now known as the "Nixon Shock," these moves ultimately became the primary catalyst for the stagflation of the 1970s. Federal Reserve attempts to fight stagflation using monetary policy only worsened it. Between 1971 and 1978, the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate to fight inflation, then lowered it to fight the recession. The stop-and-go measures confused households and businesses and ultimately drove inflation higher.

But the US had even more difficulties. An Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo on the US starting in 1973 caused prices to skyrocket. Businesses passed those costs on to consumers, but they also cut back on production (increasing unemployment) as the supply shock made goods more scarce. The price of oil per barrel initially doubled, then quadrupled, pushing inflation higher and further straining an already struggling US economy.

"The worst part of the experience from the 1970s was the aftermath," says DeKaser. "To reverse the momentum of ever-higher inflation, a severe recession was required (1981-82), and it took over a decade to wring out the fears of an inflation resurgence. It wasn't until the 1990s that investors began to seriously discount such a threat."

The bottom line

Stagflation weighed heavily on the US through the 1970s, and there have been concerns that it may reemerge as the economy recovers from the pandemic-induced recession.

Economists are closely watching the trends in growth, unemployment, and inflation along with the potential catalysts that could trigger stagflation including supply disruptions and central bank policies. Persistently high energy prices have caused particular concern among some.

While DeKaser says he's not especially worried about stagflation and sees the recent spike in inflation as temporary, he points to two main risks that could lead to it.

"First, if the Federal Reserve is too complacent about inflation, it may let the money supply get too big," he says. "Second, if the situation of temporarily elevated inflation persists for long — say, two years or more — they may get baked into expectations and lead to a cycle of self-fulfillment."

RBI wants to sell Burger King Russia stake after franchisee refused to end operations

TORONTO — Restaurant Brands International wants to sell its ownership stake in Burger King Russia after the business' main operator refused to suspend operations in the country.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

David Shear, RBI's international president, said in an open letter to employeesreleased today that the company has started the process to dispose of the stake and would like to do so immediately, but it's taking time because of the joint venture agreement.

He says his company wants to back out of the venture because of the "horrifying" attacks Russia is staging on Ukraine, but there are no legal clauses that allow RBI to unilaterally change the Burger King Russia contract or allow it to walk away or overturn the agreement.

RBI owns a 15 per cent stake in the joint venture. The other parties, who also hold minority stakes, are Investment Capital Ukraine, VTB Capital — one of Russia's largest banks — and Alexander Kolobov, who oversees the 800 restaurants in Russia.

Shear says any attempt to exit the business would require the support of Russian authorities and that "no serious investor" would agree to a long-term business relationship with flimsy termination clauses.

RBI, which also owns Tim Hortons and Popeyes, has been facing pressure to depart the country after Russia invaded Ukraine and other international brands such as KFC, McDonald's and Starbucks backed away from operating in Russia.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2022.

Burger King says Russia franchisee 'refused' to shutter restaurants

By Hilary Russ 

© Reuters/MAXIM ZMEYEV FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO:

 Women walk outside a Burger King restaurant in Moscow

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Burger King's parent company said on Thursday it has not been able to close its 800 restaurants in Russia because its independent operator there "refused" to do so.

Restaurant Brands International Inc said that to enforce its contracts with the franchisee, Alexander Kolobov, it would need the help of the Russian government, but "we know that will not practically happen anytime soon," according to a letter to employees from David Shear, president, international, of the company.

It was not immediately clear how to reach Kolobov for comment.

Shear's long letter highlights the many complications bedeviling some American fast-food brands as they try to halt operations in Russia following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

It also exposes what can become a point of weakness in international franchising, which is how most American restaurant brands expand overseas: the relationships with their independent operators.

On March 8, Starbucks Corp and a wave of other companies followed McDonald's Corp in saying they would suspend or limit operations in Russia.

Like Burger King, Starbucks does not own or operate its more than 100 cafes there.

But unlike Burger King, it had a willing partner - Kuwait-based Alshaya Group - that immediately agreed to shut its Starbucks' locations in Russia and support its 2,000 employees.

Restaurant Brands entered Russia a decade ago through a joint venture partnership with three entities: Kolobov, who controls day-to-day operations, private equity and asset management firm Investment Capital Ukraine, and Russia's state-owned VTB Bank, which has been hit by Western sanctions.

Restaurant Brands has started the process to dispose of its 15% ownership stake in the joint venture. It wants to do so immediately, Shear said, but it will take "some time" based on the terms of the agreement.

There are "no legal clauses that allow us to unilaterally change the contract or allow any one of the partners to simply walk away or overturn the entire agreement," Shear wrote.

"Would we like to suspend all Burger King operations immediately in Russia? Yes. Are we able to enforce a suspension of operations today?" he wrote. "No."

(Reporting by Hilary Russ in New York; Additional reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)

Turkey opens record-breaking bridge between Europe and Asia

President Tayyip Erdogan opened a massive suspension bridge across Turkey's Dardanelles Strait on Friday, the latest in a series of major infrastructure projects which he has prioritized during his two decades in power.

An aerial view of the 1915 Canakkale Bridge, connecting Lapseki district to the Gelibolu and to be opened on March 18, as preparations continue for its opening in Canakkale, Turkiye on March 14, 2022.

Connecting Turkey's European and Asian shores, the 1915 Canakkale Bridge was built by Turkish and South Korean firms with an investment of €2.5 billion ($2.8 billion). It has the longest main span -- the distance between the two towers -- of any suspension bridge in the world.

Such mega projects have been central to Erdogan's achievements since his AK Party first came to power in 2002, including a new Istanbul airport, rail and road tunnels beneath Istanbul's Bosphorus strait, and a bridge over it.

"These works will continue to provide profit for the state for many years," Erdogan said at an opening ceremony on the anniversary of a 1915 Ottoman naval victory against French and British forces in the Dardanelles during World War One.

"These projects have a large share in putting our country ahead in investment, workforce and exports," he said.

Last year he launched what he previously called his "crazy project": a $15 billion canal in Istanbul intended to relieve pressure on the busy Bosphorus Strait. However critics have questioned the project's viability given Turkey's economic woes, environmental risks and public opposition.

Costly venture

Ahead of national elections scheduled for 2023, opinion polls have shown a slide in the popularity of Erdogan and his AK Party, boosting the opposition's prospects of ousting him.

The main opposition CHP has criticised the potential cost of the bridge to the public purse, with media reports saying the build-operate-transfer agreement includes an annual payment guarantee of €380 million ($420 million) to the operators or a total €6 billion over the duration of the accord.

Erdogan said the price for passenger vehicles to use the bridge would be 200 lira ($13.50).

Work on the Dardanelles bridge project was launched in March 2017, with more than 5,000 workers involved in the construction.

The 2,023 meter (1.25 mile) length of its midspan is an allusion to the Turkish Republic's 100th anniversary in 2023.

It is the fourth bridge linking the European and Asian shores in Turkey, alongside the three built in Istanbul.

Its towers are 318 meters (347.8 yards) high and the total length of the bridge is 4.6 km (2.9 miles) including the approach viaducts.

Until now, vehicles travelling between Anatolia and the Gallipoli peninsula had to cross the Dardanelles in a one-hour ferry journey, which including waiting time amounted to as much as five hours. The journey will now take around six minutes.

Top image credit: Sergen Sezgin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

© Sergen Sezgin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images The aerobatic team of the Turkish Air Force perform at the inauguration of 1915 Canakkale Bridge.

© Ali Atmaca/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated the bridge, part series of major infrastructure projects.

PANDEMIC XENOPHOBIA

Hate crimes up 37 per cent in 2020, 

other crime down: Statistics Canada

OTTAWA — Canada saw a 37 per cent increase in hate crimes during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a statistic that advocates say shows the need for awareness of what racialized citizens face.

Statistics Canada said 2,669 hate crimes were reported to police in 2020 — the highest number since comparable data became available in 2009.

That's even as the report shows the overall rate of police-reported crimes, excluding traffic offences, dropped 10 per cent from 2019 to 2020.

Statistics Canada says police-reported hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity rose 80 per cent in 2020 compared with 2019 and accounted for the bulk of the national increase.

It says reported hate crimes targeting East or Southeast Asian people went up 301 per cent; those aimed at Black people went up 92 per cent; hate against Indigenous people was up 152 per cent; and those against South Asian people went up 47 per cent.

Queenie Choo, the chief executive officer of the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society in B.C., said she's concerned about the rise in hate crimes across population groups.

"It's not the theme of this week or month. It's an ongoing issue," she said in an interview.

The report notes that the COVID-19 pandemic "brought to light" how Canadians of different races viewed their safety.

"We're all Canadians. There's no one less Canadian than anyone else. (Race) shouldn't be an issue in our country," Choo said.

The highest increases in police-reported hate crimes were in Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, the report says.

Kasari Govender, B.C.'s human rights commissioner, said the report's findings are not surprising.

"It mirrors closely what community members across B.C. have been saying for nearly two years about not only hate crimes, but hate incidents more broadly," she said in a statement.

Govender's office launched a public inquiry in August 2021 into hate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she said "the pandemic has created a breeding ground for pre-existing hateful beliefs."

"We need to acknowledge the conditions under which hate flourishes in order to address it."

No rise was reported in Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick or Northwest Territories, but the report notes the relatively small population counts and number of hate crimes in the territories usually make year-over-year comparisons less reliable.

Both violent and non-violent hate crimes increased compared with 2019 and contributed “fairly equally” to the overall rise in hate crimes in 2020, Statistics Canada says.

Hate crimes targeting religion declined for the third year in a row following a peak in 2017, the report says. But the 515 incidents reported in 2020 are still higher than what was recorded annually before 2017, it notes.

The Jewish and Muslim populations continue to be the most common targets of religion-based hate crimes, it says.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, the president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in a statement that the report should be a "call to action" for Canadians.

“This is deeply alarming when balancing the number of hate-motivated attacks against the relatively small Jewish population," he said. "We are grateful that police services across the country take these incidents seriously, but more needs to be done to prevent them and protect vulnerable communities."

There was a two per cent decrease in hate crimes targeting sexual orientation in 2020, but the 259 incidents reported are the second highest since comparable data became available in 2009, the agency says.

Statistics Canada says the increase in hate crimes in 2020 may still underestimate the number of incidents, given that not all such crimes reported to police.

- By Nick Wells in Vancouver.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Hate crimes under-reported in Canada, say anti-racism advocates

While on his way to the park last April, at the “height of the pandemic,” Steven Ngo had stopped at a traffic light near his Vancouver home when passengers in a car that had pulled alongside threw garbage and hurled racial insults at him.

“It was a traumatic experience, but what happened next was even more troubling,” the Vancouver-based lawyer told New Canadian Media.

Ngo then worked to develop forms in multiple languages that are now on the VPD’s website to make reporting of hate crimes easier.

He is currently documenting his experience and findings to recommend tech solutions for easier reporting of hate crimes that will be delivered to the BC Humans Rights Commissioners office later the month.

“We must make reporting hate crimes as accessible as possible. There are thousands of cases that are not reported and that’s because it is nearly impossible to report a hate crime,” Ngo says.

“The status quo doesn’t work anymore. We cannot force victims to call a phone line that no one picks up…Vancouver has an online hate crime reporting system in place, but cities like Richmond, Burnaby and Surrey require residents to call a non-emergency phone line.”

But those numbers “don’t tell the whole story,” Ngo says while commenting on a new report by Statistics Canada showing that in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, police reported 2,669 hate crimes in Canada, up 37 per cent from 2019.

The report found that while the number of hate crimes rose sharply in 2020, this may still represent an underestimation.

Statistics Canada said the rate of hate crime was highest in British Columbia (10.1 incidents per 100,000 population), Ontario (7.9 incidents per 100,000 population) and Alberta (6.6 incidents per 100,000 population).

- Between 2019 and 2020, the number of police-reported crimes motivated by hatred of a race or ethnicity increased 80%, from 884 to 1,594. Much of this increase was a result of more police-reported hate crimes targeting the Black population (+318 incidents), East or Southeast Asian population (+202 incidents), the Indigenous population (+44 incidents) and the South Asian population (+38 incidents).

- Police-reported hate crimes targeting religion declined 16% from 613 incidents in 2019 to 515 incidents in 2020. This decrease was primarily due to fewer hate crimes targeting the Muslim population, which declined from 182 to 82 incidents in 2020 (-55%). Hate crimes against the Jewish population rose slightly in 2020, from 306 to 321 incidents (+5%).

- Hate crimes targeting the Black and Jewish populations remained the most common types of hate crimes reported by police, representing 26% and 13% of all hate crimes, respectively. These were followed by hate crimes targeting the East or Southeast Asian population (11%) and those targeting a sexual orientation (10%).

- Analysis of all police-reported hate crimes between 2011 and 2020 shows that victims of violent hate crimes committed on the basis of their perceived Indigenous identity or sexual orientation tended to be the youngest among hate crime victims and sustain the highest proportion of injury.

Gurpreet Singh, a South Asian radio broadcaster and journalist, agreed that the number of hate crimes is higher than the reported numbers released today.

Together with the CEO of Burnaby-based Spice Radio, Shushma Datt, they are staging the annual Hands Against Racism campaign tomorrow.

“The recent reports suggesting spike in hate crimes during the pandemic has made the Spice Radio campaign against racism even more relevant,” he said.

The campaign includes on air conversations every year on racism from Jan. 15 to March 21, which is the international day for the elimination of racial discrimination. The campaign was started in 2015 on the birth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.

The 2022 Hands Against Racism event can be watched live online at noon on March 19 on the Spice Radio Facebook page.

Fabian Dawson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

The Strike At 24 Ontario Colleges Has Officially Been Called Off & Here's Why


The impending strike of 16,000 Ontario college faculty members has been called off, and classes will stay as scheduled at all 24 colleges across the province.

© Provided by Narcity

On March 18, the College Employer Council stated that they had virtually met at the bargaining table with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union with a mediator appointed by the Ministry of Labour.

After engaging in a 12-hour discussion, both parties agreed to enter the binding interest arbitration, which was first offered up by the OPSEU.

"The CEC and OPSEU/SEFPO have reached an agreement to enter binding interest arbitration and the strike that was scheduled to commence at 12:01 a.m. on March 18, 2022, is called off. This also includes all work-to-rule strike activities," they said in a joint statement in the press release.

The OPSEU's college faculty and the CEC have not been able to make a collective agreement for the past few months, with 62% of faculty members who voted in contract negotiations having rejected an offer made by the CEC back in February.

"A strike is always the option of last resort," said OPSEU Vice-President/Treasurer Eduardo Almeida in a release on March 17.

"As long as the parties are talking, there’s hope an agreement can be reached at the bargaining table."

Now that the strike has been called off, college students can carry on with their schooling without a hitch.

"After all that students, faculty and the College community have been through over the past two years, we felt it was essential that we put our differences aside and conclude these negotiations without a strike," said Graham Lloyd, CEO of the CEC, in their announcement today.

Boston Dynamics Is Hoping Robot Dogs Are Less Creepy While Fighting Fire

Lucas Ropek 

“Spot,” the nascent Terminator on four legs invented by /Skynet/, er, I mean, Boston Dynamics, has landed its next public safety gig: firefighter.

© Photo: Alejandro Martinez Velez/Europa Press

The New York Times reports that the city’s fire department has procured two of the $75,000 quadrupeds and plans to deploy them “occasionally,” leveraging them in especially dangerous situations where it’s harder for human responders to deploy. The first fire agency in the country to do so, the FDNY wants to use the “dogs” on treacherous search and rescue missions, where they will allegedly help relay important situational data back to responders.

“I look forward to a positive and productive conversation with F.D.N.Y. leaders to ensure these robotic ‘dogs’ are only being used on rare, specialized, occasions with a goal of protecting our residents and first responders,” said Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson, in a statement provided to the newspaper.

If this all sounds very familiar it’s because we’ve been here before, albeit with a different city agency. Back in early 2021, the Times reported that the New York Police Department would be one of the first police agencies in the country to deploy Spot (which the NYPD had renamed “Digidog”) for selective law enforcement missions.

And yet, only a few months into Digidog’s tenure, the Times reported that public backlash had forced the NYPD to return the mechanical canine to its kennel at Boston Dynamics. Adjectives like “creepy” and “dystopian” had dogged the unfortunate product, and, as it turned out, a lot of New Yorkers were uncomfortable with the idea of a quasi-sentient robot stalking around their neighborhood—especially one that could quite easily be equipped with a remote-controlled gun turret.

Now, Boston Dynamics seems to be hoping that New Yorkers will find their metallic contraption more digestible if it’s assisting a different public agency—one with a decidedly better reputation.

But privacy advocates fear that deploying the robo-Rover—even in a limited capacity—could come with a slew of new concerns over how exactly it’ll be used. In an email to Gizmodo, Albert Fox Cahn, founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, all but called the dog an expensive, invasive toy, one that might never actually get out of the garage.

“This is a costly surveillance gimmick that New Yorkers never needed, and it’s unclear if this latest doggy drone will ever be used,” Cahn told Gizmodo. “The FDNY rank and file have been calling for a pay rise, not new surveillance tech,” he added. Cahn also worries that data collected by the robot could fall into the hands of other agencies: “While I’m more inclined to trust the FDNY with new surveillance gear, there’s nothing to stop the NYPD from taking the data it collects,” he said. “At most, data from other city agencies is just a court order away from the NYPD, and often they only have to ask. If the FDNY wants to have its surveillance tech treated differently, then we need real protections against NYPD access to that information.”

You can certainly see the appeal of having robots do dangerous, dirty work so that humans don’t have to. But fears over whether these dogs will just be creepy spies seems legitimate, given that we once considered flying robots to be a horrifying dystopian fantasy and now you can barely go to a public park without having some teenager’s drone whiz by your head. We reached out to the New York Fire Department for comment on its recent litter of robots but a spokesperson said nobody was immediately available for comment.

Power Corp. ends record year with profits flat in fourth quarter

MONTREAL — Power Corporation of Canada says it earned record profits last year as net income was flat in the fourth quarter.

The Montreal-based holding company said its earnings attributable to shareholders reached $2.92 billion last year, up from $1.99 billion in 2020, while adjusted profits increased 55 per cent to $4.77 per diluted share.

In the three months ended Dec. 31, Power earned $626 million or 93 cents per share, up from $623 million or 92 cents per share in the prior-year quarter.

Adjusted profits for the quarter were $676 million or $1 per share, in line with analyst forecasts and up from $627 million or 93 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2020.


The company says it has realized its $50-million targeted cost reductions from its reorganization completed in February 2020 in which it acquired the minority interests of Power Financial.

Power holds full control of Power Financial and with that majority stakes in Great-West Lifeco, IGM Financial and Wealthsimple Financial Corp., as well as a minority stake in Pargesa Holding.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:POW)

CANADIAN LIFE CO'S

GREAT WEST LIFE IS THIRD AFTER SUN LIFE AND MANULIFE