Churches condemn Israeli police charge at Al Jazeera reporter's funeral
By REUTERS - 
© (photo credit: REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE)

An organization representing 12 Christian denominations on Monday condemned an Israeli riot police charge at the funeral of a Palestinian-Christian Al Jazeera journalist, describing the actions as a violation of freedom of religion.

Mourners, some carrying Palestinian flags, were escorting the coffin of Shireen Abu Akleh, a dual US citizen, from the convent-run Saint Joseph Hospital to the Greek-Melkite Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin when police charged.

Friday's incident, during which baton-wielding officers beat Abu Akleh's pallbearers, was broadcast live globally and renewed the anger at the reporter being shot dead during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.

The police actions constituted an "invasion and disproportionate use of force ... (and) a severe violation of international norms and regulations, including the fundamental right of freedom of religion," a hospital statement quoted the Christian Churches of the Holy Land group as saying.

While blaming violence by "hundreds of rioters" for the confrontation, police said they were investigating the incident.


© Provided by The Jerusalem PostSt. Andrew’s Church, Kyiv 

(credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Israel and the Palestinians remain at loggerheads over Abu Akleh's shooting in Jenin on Wednesday.

The Palestinians accuse Israel of assassinating her and have called for an international response. Israel has denied targeting her, saying she may have been shot accidentally by a soldier or a Palestinian gunman as they exchanged fire.

Now public, full report details anti-Black discrimination across City of Brampton departments

Now available on the City of Brampton’s website on an obscure page, the full independent report by Williams HR Consulting details specific concerns with anti-Black discrimination in City Hall including a lack of racial diversity in Fire & Emergency Services, and a fear of job security for racialized contract employees if they speak out about concerns.

The full report expands on the details discussed in the previously released summary version, which included a series of recommendations and discussed a “culture of fear” for Black employees.

Both reports detail Black and racialized staff being concentrated at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy and most Black and racialized participants sharing personal experiences of differential and discriminatory treatment.

According to the 2016 census, 73.3 percent of Brampton residents identified as visible minorities, and 13.9 percent identified as Black.

These numbers don’t translate to City Hall.

In 2019, a diversity and inclusion survey administered by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) found that the City’s workforce was predominantly White, with only 36.8 percent of respondent employees having identified as racialized, which dropped to less than 15 percent among the corporate leadership team.

It showed the vast majority of Brampton residents did not see themselves reflected inside City Hall, and among senior leadership roles the demographic disparity suggested willful intolerance to change.

According to the full Williams HR Consulting Inc. report, participant feedback indicated that diversity throughout the City’s departments and divisions was widely variable, with “pockets of diversity” present within the organization.

For the the Parks, Maintenance, and Forestry team within the Community Services department, the report noted that racialized staff, specifically Black staff, tend to be employed in temporary contract roles, with participants indicating that they were often afraid to speak up about discriminatory workplace experiences due to the precarious nature of their contracts.

This expanded on the previous summary report, which noted that “within certain departments,” Black and racialized employees are most often employed in precarious employment roles.

The report had positive notes, detailing that leaders in Transit made preliminary inquiries into removing potential barriers to increased diversity within their standard recruitment practices.

Participants described the general composition of certain departments, including Transit, as racially and ethnically diverse, although the number of Black employees in those departments was reportedly much smaller in comparison to that of other non-Black racialized groups.

In contrast, certain departments, such as Fire and Emergency Services, employed very few racialized employees.

Across different departments, participants had emphasized the need to focus equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training efforts on different groups.

Participants in Transit felt that more training should be provided to part-time and front-line staff, while participants in Planning, Building, and Economic Development stressed the need to provide more training to members of middle management.

One tactic endorsed across multiple departments was a “top-down” approach and suggested that members of senior leadership and management generally required EDI upskilling and should take more comprehensive and extensive training.

Participant feedback indicated that there are considerable inconsistencies among different departments regarding the extent to which the contents of the policies are socialized to employees.

In Transit, one employee described how senior leadership regularly sent out bulletins on the policies. Another in Fire and Emergency Services stated that the Respectful Workplace Policy may have been mentioned during their onboarding, but has not been talked about since then.

The summary report showed that some Black participants expressed their distrust of diversification efforts, which they perceived to be flawed, done for optics, and ultimately ineffective at yielding more Black hires.

In the full report, certain participants made reference to the results of the Fire and Emergency Services department’s 2020 firefighter recruitment.

At present, efforts to diversify through improved recruitment processes have been decentralized and limited to certain departments, most notably Fire and Emergency Services, the report states.

In 2020, the department had undertaken a systematic reformulation of its hiring policies and practices with the goal of reducing potential bias in decision-making and increasing the diversity of new hires by implementing standardized assessment tools, scoring systems, and metrics.

It was a complete failure, with the reformulation leading to the hiring of one successful Black candidate out of 800 applications.

Concerns were raised in the report that the new process was overly clinical, stripped away too much subjectivity, placed an outsized focus on credentials, and ultimately hindered its goal of yielding more racial diversity in new hires.

“Its focus on credentials was hypothesized by participants to have led to a net negative outcome for Black and racialized recruits, who often do not envision certain careers in public service, such as firefighting, as legitimate and/or realistic career paths and so may lack the necessary credentials to enter these fields,” Williams HR Consulting Inc. wrote.

Equity advocate David Bosveld previously raised the issue of discriminatory hiring practices at City Hall.

“It starts with barriers to education, it starts with barriers within education, resources when you know Black community members are starting behind their counterparts from other races,” Bosveld said. “When you post the job, at that point there’s a pool of people deemed qualified or eligible. If you include community members who are underrepresented in creating that job posting and going through the applications we can eliminate some barriers.”

When a posting has strict background requirements, such as “five years management experience, (or) master’s degree” Bosveld said potential applicants likely wouldn’t apply, even though the person may be completely qualified.

“They self-eliminate because the posting hasn’t been created to be inclusive of lived experience,” Bosveld said.

“For example there’s a guy that I know that built a youth football team from scratch… On his resume he won’t be able to fit the traditional criteria of five years of leadership experience, but we know in the community he has five years of leadership experience in spades. He’s actually built it, he’s done exactly what they’re asking for but they’re not asking for it in the application.”

The report noted a positive thing about Fire and Emergency Services' updated recruitment process in the review, which was that it included the option for applicants to self-disclose identity-based data. This was something that Williams HR Consulting Inc. recommended the rest of the City’s departments should collect moving forward.

“Having accurate data is fundamental to any EDI effort and, in particular, to the ability to measure and monitor progress towards established goals,” Williams HR Consulting Inc. wrote. “The compilation and communication of identity based data is critical to gain a more fulsome understanding of Black and racialized employees’ workplace experiences and enable leaders to establish objectives and address barriers to EDI goals more effectively.”

Williams HR Consulting Inc. recommended that the City should leverage the learning outcomes of the past efforts to level-up its recruitment and hiring practices to revamp, and ideally standardize, existing processes across all departments.

The consultant recommends the City adopt an equity-focused approach to diversity in recruitment efforts, which recognizes sociohistorical differences between Black communities and racialized groups that have resulted in material gaps in opportunity, advancement, and professional experience, rather than a strictly equality-focused approach.

Bosveld said that often having a community member or a panel of community members sit in on the hiring process can avoid these terrible outcomes.

“If you don’t have that in-house, build your hiring process and just have a community advisory panel,” he said. “Build your job posting, send it to them to have a look at, take some feedback, do some edits and create a posting that people generally feel is a bit more inclusive, a bit more open and a bit less restrictive.”

After the resumes are received, Bosveld said the community panel could help go through them and participate in the interviews themselves.

“The traditional HR person who doesn’t have this lens is going to skip over some because of bias or perception of lack of credentials or qualifications, when the community person might say, ‘Hey, let’s take a second look at this one’ or ‘Hey let’s bring this person in for an interview.’”

The review also recommended the City create pathways of career advancement and progression for Black employees, many of whom reported feeling “stuck” in their jobs.

One way mentioned is to develop formal training and mentoring programs to support professional development opportunities, noting a particular benefit in involving Black leaders, supervisors and managers as it would give value to Black participants who will have shared life experiences.

While the fire department made the effort to push for the reformulation in an attempt to tackle its noticeable lack of racial diversity, the report also noted concerns about hiring do not appear to reach the upper echelons of certain departments– although the names of specific departments weren’t listed.

Multiple senior leaders said they had not received or heard of complaints or concerns from employees within their departments about a lack of EDI in hiring processes, while participants belonging to their departments expressed such concerns to the review team.

Yet all senior leaders and Human Resource (HR) professionals who participated in the review recognized the need to diversify the workforce and have more equitable recruitment practices in place.

While leaders in certain departments, such as Transit, have made preliminary inquiries into removing potential barriers to increased diversity within their standard recruitment practices, the majority of departments have yet to undertake a thorough assessment.

Additionally, the extent to which hiring managers and other recruitment decision-makers receive training regarding fair recruitment processes and EDI considerations is unclear.

In HR, one participant told the reviewer that they did not receive training regarding hiring prior to acting as a hiring manager for a recruitment.

The participant assumed that this lack of training was due to assumptions made about their prior experience in recruitment, but questioned whether training would have been provided if they had not been an HR professional.

Participant feedback, including from members of senior leadership and management, made clear that there is a perception of significant nepotism throughout the City. Black participants cited experiences in which friends, family members, and personal contacts of existing employees—and particularly more senior members of management, who tended to be White—were hired over potentially more qualified candidates.

While not mentioned explicitly in the report, David Barrick, Brampton’s former CAO, who was fired in February was recruited through a process led by Mayor Patrick Brown. The pair had prior connections through PC politics before Barrick’s hiring. Barrick would then go on to hire a number of staffers he’d previously worked with in Niagara Region.

A participant raised that there have been attempts to curb nepotist practices, including through the use of a disclosure form, though feedback suggests that these attempts have not been widely socialized, consistent, or made clear to employees.

Many participants described an overarching culture of fear, oppression, and reprisal at the City with respect to bringing forward complaints in general, and specifically complaints regarding discriminatory conduct.

All participants agreed that employees do not trust HR or the investigation process, and believe their complaints will not be treated confidentially, and truly believe they will have reprisal brought against them for making complaints.

Suspicions of information leaks have arisen because of instances when confidential information has been shared with City employees in violation of confidentiality obligations, and are noted to be the primary cause of employees’ lack of trust in HR.

Most Black and racialized participants spoken to for the review were able to provide examples of racially discriminatory conduct or comments by colleagues that they recalled being personally witness to or hearing about.

The report noted a marked difference in perception between Black employees and senior members of leadership and management regarding the state of the workplace for Black and racialized staff.

Senior members of leadership and management who participated in the review process—all of whom were non-Black—spoke about the workplace environment and culture in far more positive terms, and were consistent in their belief that the departments they oversaw were supportive of Black and racialized staff.

Black and racialized participants didn’t agree.

This is in line with the previously released Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) 2019 survey which found that Black employees reported notably lower feelings of inclusion compared to non-Black employees.

Specifically, the CCDI found only 32 per cent of Black respondents agreed that all employees have equal opportunity to advance at the City, whereas 58.7 per cent of White respondents agreed. A similar finding was noted in the CCDI audit conducted for the Peel Regional Police.

Bosveld said that it’s clear current leadership in the City doesn’t grasp the issue that anti-Black community members have been excluded.

“This is the same argument we’re having at the school board, this is the same argument that we’re having with the police, this is the same argument that we’re having at the municipality,” Bosveld said.

“We’re not represented in positions of power as Black community members so our lens is missing largely from hiring positions, from leadership direction, we are excluded and as a result that exclusion is perpetuated ongoing and we don’t get the transformative change we’re fighting for and it’s exhausting, it’s frustrating.”

Bosveld said that with leaders being unable to acknowledge the issues, they can’t be the one to fix them.

“They need to go back, have another kick at the can, and… say, ‘Look, we don’t know how to do a good job at this, we don’t know how to get it done, we need Black folks in these conversations and in these reflections so that we can talk about this lens and where the community members are coming from and eliminating these barriers.’ Because this is not good enough.”

Participants in the review reported that they do not believe the City’s internal investigators understand or have any substantive knowledge about anti-Black racism, and that they fail to recognize discriminatory behaviours directed at Black employees as such.

Many participants expressed that the complaints they raised about potentially discriminatory conduct were not sufficiently addressed or investigated by their supervisors or HR.

In addition, union staff expressed frustrations related to not being adequately represented by their unions when they have brought forward allegations of anti-Black racism and discriminatory practices.

While there is a “Human Rights Advisor”, a new position created in 2021, which sits as part of the Employee and Labour Relations team within the Human Resources division of the Corporate Support Services department, accessing– or even trusting them– is another issue.

The review notes that there is no clear direction or understanding regarding how work should be delineated between HR professionals and the Human Rights Advisor.

There is currently no clear or written process in place that sets out how employees can access the Human Rights Advisor’s services. Additionally, to make a complaint or raise a concern with the Advisor, they will have to submit complaints to HR, at which point the HR Business Partner may exercise their discretion to refer a complaint.

The Human Rights Advisor has typically only investigated complaints that involve potential corporate liability, such as complaints that address the policies and the Code of Conduct.

Since there is a significant lack of confidence in HR among employees, the affiliation has led to some employees becoming similarly distrustful of the Human Rights Advisor’s ability to carry out fair and fulsome investigations.

Still, many employees expressed that they remain hopeful that the Human Rights Advisor can act as an avenue to direct complaints that were “sidelined” by HR and management.

The report said that investigations training was provided to HR Business Partners, HR Associates, Labour Relations Associates, and Senior Labour Relations Advisors over the course of only four days in 2020.

This was the first time training on conduct of investigations was provided, and participants responded to the training with some resistance because they felt “burdened by having to follow the processes covered in the training.”

It is unclear whether similar investigations training has been provided to supervisors and members of management, who may also act as investigators under the policies.

The training did not address how to triage complaints and investigate with an anti-oppressive approach.

Some HR professionals have been reported to prejudge allegations or hold adversarial attitudes towards complainants, to the extent that they may steer a complaint resolution process or investigation towards a particular conclusion. In one example given in the review, a participant in HR recalled HR Business Partners referring to certain employees as “problem employees” and saying things such as, “We can get them on X.”

Participants reported that HR professionals may have breached their confidentiality obligations regarding complaints, which may lead to reprisal against the staff who made them.

Williams HR Consulting Inc. stated that failure by the City to consistently prevent and address breaches of confidentiality and reprisal seriously undermines procedural fairness.

Participants reported that racialized employees are also more often subjected to excessive discipline where allegations against them have been substantiated, relative to non-racialized employees, suggesting that corrective action is not imposed in a fair and impartial manner.

The Pointer reached out to City Hall communications for interviews with Transit, Community Services, Fire and Emergency Services and the Equity Office, but did not receive a response.

Email: jessica.durling@thepointer.com

Twitter: @JessicaRDurling

COVID-19 is impacting all Canadians. At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories relating to the pandemic and those of public interest to ensure every resident of Brampton and Mississauga has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial HERE. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you

Jessica Durling, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

UN humanitarian official urges attention to drought in Kenya


TURKANA, Kenya (AP) — A top United Nations humanitarian official has raised concern about people going hungry in a remote part of northern Kenya, joining calls for the international community to commit more resources to address the wider region's drought crisis.

Martin Griffiths, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said he saw families in Kenya’s Turkana region that have nothing left after their animals starved to death. Turkana is an epicenter of the drought affecting parts of the East African country.

“The world's attention is elsewhere, and we know that,” Griffiths said during a visit to the region Thursday. “And the world's misery has not left Turkana, and the world's rains have not come to Turkana, and we've seen four successive failures of the rains.”

Griffiths and other humanitarian representatives visited a pastoralist community in Turkana’s Lomuputh area as part of efforts to draw attention to the humanitarian challenge stemming from the drought.

“Lomoputh deserves our attention," Griffiths said, noting that children scavenging for fruit to eat need help “to have the slightest possibility to survive to the next day.”

Related video: Horn of Africa drought drives 20 million towards hunger 


Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the drought conditions a national disaster in September 2021.

Some residents of Lomoputh spoke to The Associated Press of their desperate need for food aid.

“I have not received any help, and this child has not eaten anything since yesterday," Jecinta Maluk, a mother of five children, said. “This is the main problem.”

The extreme drought in Kenya, where 3.5 million people are affected by severe food insecurity and acute malnutrition, has excacerbated the factors causing people to go hungry.

The U.N. warned earlier this year that an estimated 13 million people are facing severe hunger in the wider Horn of Africa region as a result of persistent drought conditions. Malnutrition rates are high in the region, and drought conditions are affecting pastoral and farming communities.

Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya face the driest conditions recorded since 1981, the U.N. World Food Program reported in February.

Somalia is seen as particularly vulnerable. About 250,000 people there died from hunger in 2011, when the U.N. declared a famine in some parts of the country. Half of them were children.

Associated Press, The Associated Press

Electricians give Ford PCs full endorsement for re-election

 In this election, while public sector unions are backing the NDP and Liberals, building trades unions are moving to the PC Party.

Brian Lilley - 
© Provided by Toronto Sun

A major construction union that once fought the Progressive Conservative Party in multiple elections is now offering their full endorsement for the June 2 vote.

The IBEW Construction Council of Ontario, representing electricians across the province, has issued a statement saying Doug Ford and his team deserve to be re-elected.

It’s the third major construction union to endorse the PCs since the election began.

“Premier Ford has proven over the last four years that he not only supports and understands the needs of the electrical trades but has backed it up with positive and meaningful action that is unprecedented in our union’s history,” union executive James Barry said.

The union represents approximately 18,000 members in various locals across Ontario.

Barry cited the hard work of Labour Minister Monte McNaughton in the decision to endorse the PC Party. He said the government has put a tremendous emphasis on safety and training including for apprentices.

“The Ontario PC government not only gave us a voice, they also gave us a seat at the table and they actually listened,” Barry said.

The government has put a strong emphasis on getting more people into the skilled trade in Ontario including adding curriculum measures in high schools, bringing recruiters into schools for career day and helping people transition from social assistance with second career opportunities. The change in tone and attitude has led to a cooperative rather than confrontational relationship between the government and the building trades sector which is now bringing political rewards for McNaughton and Ford.

IBEW were once major funders of the Working Families Coalition, a collection of unions in Ontario that ran successful campaigns against the PCs in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2014. In the last election after backing the Liberals for so many years, the coalition stayed silent. In this election, while public sector unions are backing the NDP and Liberals, building trades unions are moving to the PC Party.

LiUNA, the labourers union, was the first to endorse and encourage their more than 80,000 members to help re-elect Ford. Last week, the Boilermakers, also former backers of Working Families, gave their support to a second Ford mandate.

HASSLE STUDENTS BUT NOT TRUCKERS

‘Aggressive’ Ottawa police response to high school dress code protest draws criticism

MY FIRST HS STRIKE  WAS OVER DRESS CODE
Sean Boynton - Friday

© Michaela Thivierge/Facebook

A still from social media video shows police at the site of a student protest outside Béatrice-Desloges Catholic High School in Ottawa on May 13, 2022.

Ottawa police are being criticized for their response to a student protest outside a Catholic high school over a dress code "blitz," particularly in contrast to how they responded to the "Freedom Convoy" blockade earlier this year.

Students held a large protest outside Béatrice-Desloges Catholic High School in Orléans during lunch break Friday, a day after students say teachers called several female students out of class for alleged violations of the school dress code.

Protesters said Thursday's "blitz" explicitly targeted females, who were taken to the principal's office to have their shorts and skirts measured by -- and in front of -- male and female staff members.

"They were getting us to bend over and touch our toes to prove our underwear wasn't showing, and were touching the inside of our thighs to measure us -- which is sexual assault, because we did not consent," said Cloé Dumoulin, a student at the school.


Dumoulin and another student, Cheyenne Lehouillier, said up to 60 students were told to change clothes or to go home and come back with a different outfit. None of the students targeted were male, they said, who were also wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts due to the 30-degree weather.

The pair were among more than 100 students who mounted a demonstration in front of the school Friday against staff's treatment of the students. Many wore shorts in protest.

Read more:

Ottawa police have not charged woman who danced on Tomb of Unknown Soldier

Police said in a statement they responded to what they called a "disturbance" at the school around 11:30 a.m. in order to assist staff. They said one person was arrested "for causing a disturbance and trespassing," but was later released without charges, adding that person was not a student at the school.

However, videos posted to social media showed police putting hands on more than one person as they responded to a group of students who were protesting across the street in solidarity, according to Dumoulin and Lehouillier.

Those students were seen in the videos yelling loudly at police, including one person who was seen being taken by officers to a police car where he was pushed up against the side of the vehicle and later handcuffed and placed inside the cruiser.

"He didn't even touch (the officer)," Dumoulin said. "(The officers) were being so aggressive, telling everyone if they crossed the street they would get a fine. It was way over the line."

The French Catholic school board, the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est, said they could not verify who called police.

A spokesperson confirmed none of the students who had altercations with police were from Béatrice-Desloges.

The police response quickly prompted outcry from social media users, as well as concern from elected officials in the city.

City Coun. Catherine Kitts, whose ward includes Béatrice-Desloges, questioned the police handling of the students and youth attending the protest in light of how police responded to the convoy that blockaded city streets for three weeks in January and February.

"After everything that our city has been through recently and to see a pretty hands-off approach to those protests, and then to see this happen, I absolutely think there should have been greater de-escalation," she told Global News.

"I think as long as there wasn't a threat to the safety of other students, it was not dealt with appropriately."

City councillors and residents admonished police during the "Freedom Convoy" protests for not doing enough to quell noise, including incessant horn blasts that lasted throughout the night and disturbed downtown residents.

Reports also emerged from local residents soon after the convoy's arrival on Jan. 28 describing encounters with participants that they said constituted abuse, harassment, intimidation and hateful conduct.

It took police an additional week after the federal government invoked the never-before-used Emergencies Act until the blockade was finally cleared in late February.

When pressed by Global News as to what necessitated their response to Friday's student protest, Ottawa police sent along the definition of a "disturbance" as outlined in the Criminal Code.

The Code defines a disturbance in part as "fighting, screaming, shouting, swearing, singing or using insulting or obscene language" -- a definition Kitts agrees applies as much to the convoy protests as it did to the student demonstration.

"If they were there (on Friday) to just control the crowd, then I don't understand why hands were placed on any individual," Kitts said.

Kitts said she has spoken with interim Chief Steve Bell and plans to raise the issue further with police and the school board.

The Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est said in a statement in French that it "takes very seriously" the allegations against teachers enforcing the dress code blitz, and has sent two officials to the school to meet with students and staff.

The spokesperson said the board and the school will "continue to dialogue" about the dress code to "ensure that a positive, healthy and safe learning environment is provided for all students."

Dumoulin and Lehouillier said while superintendent of education Jason Dupuis apologized to students for the way the blitz was conducted, school staff have yet to apologize.

The students say until an apology is made and meaningful changes to the dress code and its enforcement are announced, they and other schools are planning a walkout next Tuesday.

"We just want to know that our voices were heard, and that they're going to do something about it," said Lehouillier. "Because this was not OK."

-- with files from Global News' Amanda Connolly

To italicize or not to italicize? For an expert on religious creeds, that is a question

Joseph Brean - POSTMEDIA


“What’s In A Name? United Church Statements Of Faith Meet The Chicago Manual Of Style” is a pretty classic title for a presentation at the conference formerly known as the Learneds, the Superbowl of Canadian academia, which runs through next week.


© Provided by National Post

Grammatical style can affect how people think of religious creeds, and therefore, in a sense, what they are, according to United Church minister William Haughton.

For many years, the National Post has reported on research presented to learned societies at this Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences with an eye to the unusual, such as the the social history of shawarma poutine, the oppressive nature of dodgeball in gym class and the mysterious death of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s best friend.

Next week, for example, a professor and two students will detail their findings on digital communication habits during the pandemic among the people of East York, a Toronto neighbourhood, a sort of taxonomy of lockdown phone users, from FaceTiming grandmas to millennial doom-scrollers.

This is the ivory tower’s big show, with scholarly updates on matters that are variously hilarious and intriguing, sometimes painfully relevant, such as a keynote address on how the pandemic harmed civil and political rights, but also sometimes gloriously irrelevant to anything but educated curiosity, such as the question of how to properly style a creed.

From sociology to Slavic studies, presenters are as diverse as eager young post-docs fishing for teaching jobs with choice selections from their research to a university professor who declined an interview because she is using the conference to promote a book that is not yet for sale and doesn’t want to spoil the marketing plan.

So this one, to be presented next week to the Canadian Society of Church History by a United Church minister and historian from Barrie, Ont., promises a similar frisson of offbeat curiosity. Here we have arcane subjects brought together in folksy academic style enlivened with vintage humour, first a familiar Shakespeare quote, then a Monty Python bit.

When strangers interact in the Old Testament, women assume a lower status than men

Creeds are a tricky business.

They are not simply statements of belief or faith. They are political documents, historically contingent. This is as true for the Nicene Creed, which was drafted to settle a fourth century political controversy in the Byzantine empire about how Jesus relates to God, as it is for the four major statements of faith adopted by the United Church of Canada in the 20th century.

William Haughton, the minister who has just published the scholarly book The Search for a Symbol: A New Creed and the United Church of Canada, explains one problem he encountered in his writing by recalling Juliet’s question, about Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Her idea is that names could have been otherwise, but she applies this idea with an unstated premise, that the named thing would still be the same, like the smell of a rose. Is that true, though? Do names do nothing? Might Romeo have become a different person with a different name?

Juliet’s premise ignores the possibility of “nominative determinism,” a semi-serious hypothesis that people turn out like their name suggests, like the sprinter Usain Bolt, or the press secretary for the International Association of Fire Fighters, Tim Burn. More than just funny coincidences, this theory posits an actual causal relationship.

There’s a similar thing going on with creeds, according to Haughton. How scholars refer to creeds in print can affect how people think of them, and therefore, in a sense, what they are. Even something as simple as capitalization can carry vast connotations and implicit judgments about how popular, important and revered a religious statement seems to be. Style, he says, can affect substance.

This curious dynamic came up as he tried to write his book according to the gold standard for proper scholarly writing, The Chicago Manual of Style.

So how do you write the name of a creed? Italics? Quotes? Capitals?


The Search for A Symbol by William Haughton.

Those seemed to be the basic options, but choosing one got surprisingly tricky. There is no consistency in the existing literature. Other scholars have used every option and then some.

Haughton and his publisher had encountered what his paper describes as “unique ambiguities within this admittedly niche subject-area.”

Aha! A pitch-perfect paper for the Learneds.

Chicago says creeds, like named prayers, are “usually capitalized.” It’s the “usually” that is the problem.

“The question is inevitably raised about their renown: are they well-enough known to be treated stylistically as, say, the Shema, the Sermon on the Mount or the Nicene Creed?” Haughton writes.

Chicago calls for italics for titles of “major or freestanding works such as books, journals, movies, and paintings” but it wants quotations for “titles of subsections of larger works.”

On the other hand, it wants names of scriptures “and other highly revered works” to be capitalized “but not usually italicized (except when used in the title of a published work).”

So, is A New Creed “highly revered” and thus capitalized, or is it a freestanding work that wants italics, or is it is a sub-section of a larger work that calls for quotes?

Haughton is not the first person to inquire so deeply into the theological meaning of grammatical style. He referred, for example, to the New Testament scholar N. T. Wright, who prefers not to capitalize the G in “God,” not out of “deliberate irreverence,” but because the modern style of using “God” as if it is a proper name rather than a common noun is dangerous, and arguably implies both monotheism, which is not always the case, and that all monotheists recognize the same deity, which they do not.

In the end, Haughton submitted his manuscript using capitals, but his publisher decided the best stylistic choice was to also put them in quotes.

“I was OK with it,” he said.

“The consideration of such stylistic questions invites, for both United Church participants and observers alike, some surprisingly substantive reflection on what kinds of documents these statements of faith are,” Haughton writes. “This may not be earth shattering news, but it is interesting.”

For this Congress, that’s the sweet spot.

Congress is open for registration at www.federationhss.ca , with the promo code TRANSITIONS2022.

Extreme heat, overdoses contributed to excess deaths in Canada amid COVID-19: report

Sean Boynton and Jamie Mauracher - Friday, May 12,2022

© Provided by Global NewsA paramedic loads his stretcher back into the ambulance after bringing a patient to the emergency room at a hospital in Montreal, Thursday, April 14, 2022. Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have topped 2100 patients in Quebec.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Extreme heat in Western Canada last year and an escalating drug overdose crisis helped contribute to a nearly 6 per cent rise in deaths across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Statistics Canada.

Although the provisional excess mortality report released Thursday found COVID-19 accounted for a vast majority of the estimated 30,146 excess deaths from March 2020 through December 2021, it says the pandemic likely had "indirect consequences" that led to other excess deaths.

Those consequences include delayed health care response and increased substance abuse. But experts say addressing the underlying issues -- extreme heat and safe supply -- can help lessen those impacts and save lives.

Video: Excess deaths up during pandemic in Canada

Last summer, one of the most extreme heat waves in history led to more than 3,500 deaths in British Columbia and Alberta over a two-week period ending July 10, according to the report.


In B.C., much of the blame for heat-related deaths was put on long waits for paramedics, who told Global News that the health-care system — already strained by the pandemic — was stretched even further.

Read more:
2021 heat wave over B.C., Alberta was among most extreme since 1960s: study

BC Emergency Health Services did not activate its emergency coordination centre until the day the heat began to subside.

Dr. Blair Feltmate, a professor at the University of Waterloo and head of the school's Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, says extreme heat is the deadliest of all climate change impacts, often leading to dozens of deaths at least.

"When floods or fires occur, generally speaking, (we'll see) one, two, three, maybe four people die, which of course is four too many," he said. "With extreme heat, it's a whole other ballgame.

"This should be the code red of climate change," he said. "This is the silent killer. ... It's not just inconvenient, it can kill you."

Despite the issues with ambulance responses, the high number of deaths in Western Canada last year occurred under what Feltmate calls "good conditions," where electricity was still running and water was being pumped through taller apartment buildings.

Without air conditioning, working elevators and water, "people can easily die in the thousands" during a similar heat wave, he said.

‘They were pleading for help’: Impact of heat dome on B.C. ambulance and dispatchers

A study out of the United Kingdom released earlier this month projects that by around 2080, heat waves like last year's could have a one-in-six chance of happening every year in western North America as the effects of human-caused climate change worsen.

The projections are different depending on whether global climate change is contained, the researchers said.

Feltmate estimates the number of days per year when major Canadian cities see temperatures exceed 30 C will double or even triple within 30 years.

Subsequent heat events in B.C. last summer saw improvements to the emergency response. The province and BC Emergency Health Services have vowed to improve their systems to avoid what happened in June and July.

The Statistics Canada report found there were 4,494 excess deaths among Canadians younger than 45 between May 2020 through December 2021, 19 per cent more than if there had not been a pandemic.

Yet the report said most of those deaths were not caused by COVID-19, but rather other causes "such as overdoses."

It noted the number of deaths among younger Canadians due to accidental poisonings — which includes drug overdoses — rose 30 per cent in 2020 compared to the year before.

Read more:
B.C. coroner wants ‘urgent action’ on safer drug supply six years into overdose crisis

Several provinces shattered records for overdose deaths last year, including B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.

The Public Health Agency of Canada says deaths from illicit drug use nationwide jumped 95 per cent during the first year of the pandemic compared to the year before, and has continued to climb since. It says 20 people died per day during the first nine months of 2021, while more than 26,600 Canadians have died since 2016.

Mark Haden, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia who studies addiction and spent decades working in treatment, says the rise in overdose deaths during the pandemic has not been surprising.

"One of the things I say is that addiction is an attachment disorder," he said. "As we walk the path of addition, we become more and more disconnected.

"COVID as a whole has been a process of disconnection. ... We have become very socially isolated, and social isolation is directly and immediately connected to addictions."

The overdose crisis has worsened, have politicians noticed?

 

A recent report from the B.C. Coroners Service showed that between January 2019 and January 2022, more than half of illicit drug toxicity deaths happened at home.

Some Canadian cities and provinces are trying to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs in order to curb the number of deaths.

In November 2021, British Columbia became the first province to request the federal government to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs. Vancouver and Toronto have made similar requests, while Vancouver has also asked for approval to create a safe supply of drugs to counter toxic combinations of fentanyl found in the illegal market.

While decriminalization could help reduce the stigma that leads people to use drugs alone indoors, Haden says safe supplies could truly make a difference in saving lives.

"The reason why people are dying is not because they're accessing opiates," he said. "If they were accessing opiates through a medical system where they're given known dosages of known quantities of known products, they wouldn't die of overdose."

Read more:

There are growing calls for drug decriminalization. Could it solve Canada’s opioid crisis?

The federal government has provided funding to safe supply pilot projects in Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria, B.C. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has so far resisted calls to decriminalize personal supplies of illicit drugs.

Health Canada is currently reviewing B.C.'s decriminalization request, but has not yet issued a final decision.

Haden says it's critical officials act now to ensure those at risk of overdose aren't forgotten.

"If we were talking about teachers or politicians, what would be an acceptable number of deaths?" he asked.

"I think the baseline would be zero deaths for, say, kindergarten teachers. So why don't we apply the same rules (to drug users) that we apply to kindergarten teachers?"

— with files from the Canadian Pres

AUTOMATISM 

Supreme Court Blames Magic Mushrooms

(& BOOZE) For Calgary Man's Naked Attack On Professor

Canada Edition (EN) - Friday
 Narcity

Canada's top court has upheld the acquittal of a Calgary man that broke into a university professor's home and attacked her with a broom handle while naked and high on magic mushrooms.

Matthew Brown, a former Mount Royal University student, was charged with breaking and entering and aggravated assault after he attacked Mount Royal professor Janet Hamnett while intoxicated in 2018, and left her with broken bones in her hand.

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) was looking at three specific cases, including two from Ontario, to determine whether a defence of extreme intoxication to the point of automatism – a term for acts committed unconsciously – can be used for those who take drugs and end up committing acts of violence.

In its judgment, the court voted unanimously for the acquittal and said the piece of the Criminal Code that prevented the use of the defence was "unconstitutional".

While Brown could be criticized for his decision to drink alcohol and ingest magic mushrooms prior to the attack, he could not be blamed for the aggravated assault that "occurred while he was in a state of delirium," the court said.

Brown was acquitted at a trial in May 2020, but it was overturned months later by the Alberta Court of Appeal which said he must bear the consequences of taking illegal drugs "in reckless disregard of the possible risks," according to CBC.

According to the judgment, Brown had attended a friend's party on the evening of the attack, where he had several mixed drinks, beers, and several one-half grams or smaller portions of magic mushrooms.

At 3:45 a.m., Brown removed his clothing and left the house "in an agitated state," running into the street naked and barefoot. Hamnett was woken up around 4 a.m. to loud noise and was attacked when she went to investigate. She was repeatedly beaten by Brown with a broken broom handle before managing to escape to the bathroom and lock the door.

When Brown left, Hamnett fled to a neighbour’s house and the police were called. Hamnett was left with cuts, broken bones in her right hand, and psychological damage after the attack.

UNANIMOUS

Canada’s top court says voluntary extreme intoxication a defence in violent crimes

Amanda Connolly - Friday

The Supreme Court of Canada issued a major decision on Friday allowing criminal defendants in cases involving assault — including sexual assault — to use a defence known as self-induced extreme intoxication.

Effectively, it means defendants who voluntarily consume intoxicating substances and then assault or interfere with the bodily integrity of another person can avoid conviction if they can prove they were too intoxicated to control their actions.

"To deprive a person of their liberty for that involuntary conduct committed in a state akin to automatism — conduct that cannot be criminal — violates the principles of fundamental justice in a system of criminal justice based on personal responsibility for one’s actions," wrote Justice Nicholas Kasirer in the unanimous nine-judge ruling.

Under Section 33.1 of the Criminal Code, extreme intoxication — formally known as non-insane automatism — cannot be used as a defence in criminal cases where the accused voluntarily ingested the intoxicating substance.

Video: Supreme court ruling restores Calgary man’s acquittal in 2018 drug-induced break and enter

The court's ruling declares that section is unconstitutional.

Read more:
Thomas Chan gets new trial after Supreme Court rules extreme intoxication can be used as defence

The court found that, despite the "laudable purpose" of the criminal code provision, it runs afoul of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it is too broad.

"The legitimate goals of protecting the victims of these crimes and holding the extremely self-intoxicated accountable, compelling as they are, do not justify these infringements of the Charter that so fundamentally upset the tenets of the criminal law," the court said in the ruling.

"With s. 33.1, Parliament has created a meaningful risk of conviction and punishment of an extremely intoxicated person who, while perhaps blameworthy in some respect, is innocent of the offence as charged according to the requirements of the Constitution."

In a written argument presented to the court as part of its deliberations, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund had warned that allowing the defence to be used in cases of voluntary extreme intoxication would privilege "individual rights over those of vulnerable groups, including women and children who disproportionately bear the risks of intoxicated violence."

"The harm caused to women as a result of intoxicated violence is devastating and infringes on their right to security and equality," the group had argued in their factum.

"Holding individuals accountable for violent crimes committed in a state of self-induced intoxication is a pressing and substantial objective, given that a failure to do so excuses such violence and discourages reporting as an option for survivors."

Automatism in Canadian law is defined as "a state of unconsciousness that renders a person incapable of consciously controlling their behaviour while in that state."

AUTOMATISM OR SONABULISM, 

DR. CALGARI 1921 B&W

The same definition is used to support the defence of "insane automatism," which is what is used in criminal cases where the accused is found to be not criminally responsible.

The federal government had added the provision to the Criminal Code in 1995 specifically in recognition of concern "that self-induced intoxication may be used socially and legally to excuse violence, particularly violence against women and children."

Video: Are police mishandling sexual assault cases across Canada?

In the ruling, Kasirer noted that the court's decision striking down the provision "has no impact on the rule that intoxication short of automatism is not a defence to violent crimes of general intent, such as assault or sexual assault."

He also wrote that there are still other paths that the government can consider using to legislate around "extreme intoxicated violence."

"The sense that an accused who acts violently in a state of extreme self‑induced intoxication is morally blameworthy is by no means beyond the proper reach of the criminal law," he wrote.

"Protecting the victims of violent crime — particularly in light of the equality and dignity interests of women and children who are vulnerable to intoxicated sexual and domestic violence — is a pressing and substantial social purpose."

The decision went on to provide examples of ways that the government could legislate.

For example, Kasirer suggested one approach could be "if Parliament legislated an offence of dangerous intoxication or intoxication causing harm that incorporates voluntary intoxication as an essential element."

"Parliament may also wish to study and regulate according to the nature and properties of the intoxicant. The common effects of the intoxicant, its legality, and the circumstances in which it was obtained and consumed may be relevant to a marked departure standard."

Attorney General and Justice Minister David Lametti said his office is assessing the decision.

“Our Government is unwavering in its commitment to ensuring that our criminal justice system keeps communities safe, respects victims, holds offenders to account, all while upholding Charter rights," he said in a statement following the decision.

"We are carefully reviewing the decision to determine its effect on victims as well as the criminal law. It is critically important to emphasize that today’s decision does not apply to the vast majority of cases involving a person who commits a criminal offence while intoxicated.”

The court issued three rulings on self-induced extreme intoxication on Friday. The three cases involved individuals who faced criminal prosecutions after committing violence after using drugs.

One of those cases involved Thomas Chan, a Peterborough, Ont., man who was previously convicted of murdering his father in December 2015 after consuming magic mushrooms and having hallucinations.

The Supreme Court decision allows him to use the extreme intoxication defence at a new trial. Chan's lawyers had previously sought to use the defence during his initial trial.

The main decision was the case of an Alberta man named Matthew Winston Brown who was acquitted of violently attacking a woman inside a house that he had broken into after consuming alcohol and magic mushrooms at a party in 2018.

The Crown had appealed his acquittal.

The third case involved a Whitby, Ont., man called David Sullivan.

Sullivan, the court wrote, had "voluntarily taken an overdose of a prescription drug." While impaired, he "attacked his mother with a knife and injured her gravely."

He was charged with multiple offences and convicted, but his lawyers appealed.

A guaranteed basic income could end poverty, so why isn’t it happening?

Lorne Whitehead, Professor of Physics, University of British Columbia a

Jiaying Zhao, Associate Professor, Psychology, University of British Columbia - 

The Conversation

On April 27, Senator Diane Bellemare published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail opposing a proposal for guaranteed basic income where all Canadian citizens and residents over the age of 17 would receive unconditional guaranteed sufficient income.

One recent poll suggests nearly 60 per cent of Canadians support a basic income of $30,000. In another poll, 57 per cent of Canadians agree that Canada should create a basic universal income for all Canadians, regardless of employment.

Despite the strong public support, Bellemare argued that, “A basic income would be an unfair, complicated, and costly way to eliminate poverty.” As a social scientist who has researched cash transfers, and an entrepreneur and organizational leader, we challenge the view that basic income is “unfair”, “complicated” and “costly.” Instead, we argue that it can be fair, simple and affordable.
Basic income can be fair

Basic income can be fair to all Canadians, accommodating people with different needs. A system that includes basic income does not necessarily entail clawing back existing benefits and services.

Importantly, a gradually phased-in, carefully designed basic income program can be monitored and adjusted over time, to ensure that diverse individual needs are always addressed.

Research from Stanford University suggests that a basic income program can inspire meaningful social integration — greater participation in social and civic activities in the community — while also providing individuals with stability, safety and security.

An analysis of Ontario’s basic income trial illustrated that people with diverse needs reported better personal relationships with friends and family with basic income. In turn, their sense of social inclusion and citizenship improved.

Basic income can be simple

With careful planning, a basic income system could be designed to be simple, adaptable, reliable and fair. In other words, it could be a type of synergistic solution that involves an optimal mix of different policy programs that yield greater efficacy. For example, a basic income program could be combined with a wage subsidy program.

Contrary to Senator Bellemare’s assertion that “basic income would likely hamper participation in the labour market,” research has found that basic income has no negative impacts on the labour market. That is, basic income has no negative impact on employment rates or wages.

With a basic income program, recipients would be motivated to participate in the labour market and feel empowered to discover the most fulfilling way to work without fearing for their financial security.

Related video: Minister says new social programs will provide cost-of-living relief to Canadians (cbc.ca)

Basic income can be affordable

Recent cost-benefit analyses have demonstrated that carefully designed cash-based interventions can be cost effective and generate net savings for society. Recipients rely less on social services over time, meaning governments pay less to fund these programs.

While Bellemare’s analysis suggests there could be a cost problem, other, more thorough analyses have taken into account the true costs and benefits of basic income programs and rebuked that claim.

We caution against overly simplistic cost estimates and call for a more careful, thorough calculation of the true costs and benefits associated with of basic income programs. In fact, Canada can adopt a basic income program without increasing its fiscal debt.

Last year, the Parliamentary Budget Office of Canada estimated that a guaranteed basic income of $17,000 per individual would cost the government $88 billion.

This amount could be offset by scaling back tax credits that disproportionately benefit Canadians who earn higher incomes. In addition, a well-designed basic income program can provide non-monetary benefits that are typically not captured in cost-benefit analyses, such as improvements in health, education, social cohesion and productivity.

Read more: Giving people money with no strings attached is good for their health, dozens of studies indicate

Research supports basic income

There is a considerable amount of research that supports basic income around the world. It is prudent to carry out significantly enhanced research to reduce hesitations on basic income on social and economic grounds. Basic income can be a reliable, powerful component of a nationwide program to reduce poverty and enable all citizens to thrive.

Basic income should form part of a practical comprehensive plan for eliminating poverty in Canada. Indeed, there is emerging political will to push for a national strategy for a guaranteed basic income.

Last summer, Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz sponsored Bill C-273, the National Strategy for a Guaranteed Basic Income Act. It was the first time a bill about basic income was debated by Parliament. And in February 2021, four senators — three from Prince Edward Island, one from Ontario — published an open letter that called for nationwide guaranteed basic income.

This is essential, because poverty is an unnecessary, cruel abomination. Think of it this way: most Canadians probably have a close friend or family member who is impacted by poverty, since one in 15 Canadians still live in poverty.

Poverty touches us all — it is everyone’s tragedy, which is absurd because poverty can be affordably reduced as we have argued above. Hopefully, one day future Canadians will look back to 2022 and ask how a just society could ever have tolerated such needless suffering.

Read more:

How to build a better Canada after COVID-19: Transform CERB into a basic annual income program

The cancellation of Ontario’s basic income project is a tragedy

CANADA

'We just don't have enough workers:' Restaurants rocked by labour shortage, inflation

When a fried chicken chain opened its first location in Atlantic Canada, it was so popular it had to cut back hours.

The Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen that opened a few weeks ago in a Halifax suburb has reduced its schedule because of high demand that left staff scrambling as customers queued up for hours.

"Due to industry-wide staffing challenges, the store is open for one less hour than before," Popeyes spokeswoman Emily Ciantra said in an email.

"The restaurant aims to be back to its regular hours by early June."

The bizarre case of a restaurant so popular it needs to close early underscores a pervasive issue facing restaurants in Canada: A labour crunch.

"The new Popeyes that opened actually had to ... cut back hours just to give their people a rest," said Gordon Stewart, executive director at the Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia.

Restaurants across the country are reducing hours and condensing menus as persistent staff shortages and spiking costs threaten to derail the industry's comeback from crushing pandemic restrictions.

The decision by many restaurants to scale back operations comes despite an upswing in business as diners return to restaurants in full force.

"Customers are back. But when you don't have staff to work all the shifts, you start cutting back hours," said Stewart.

"There are very few restaurants now that are running seven days a week and full hours."

Canada's restaurant industry was slammed by two years of shutdowns, repeated layoffs and strict capacity limits. About 13,000 eateries across the country closed permanently.

The situation prompted an exodus of workers from the sector as people sought more steady incomes, switched fields or went back to school. Canada also welcomed fewer immigrants during the pandemic, newcomers that sometimes find work in the restaurant industry.

Compounding the issue now is Canada's rock-bottom unemployment rate, which Statistics Canada said hit 5.2 per cent in April.

As the lucrative patio season ramps up, the restaurant industry expects staff vacancies will rise to 210,000 across the country by this summer, said Olivier Bourbeau, vice-president of federal affairs with Restaurants Canada.

"It's extremely difficult for restaurants to find staff," he said. "We just don't have enough workers."

Job openings abound across the industry in both fast food and full-service restaurants.

But the problem is most acute in kitchens.

"Red seal chefs, sous-chefs, line cooks — that's where the shortage is really hurting restaurants," Stewart said.

During the pandemic some restaurant operators blamed government subsidies for the lack of staff, but the ongoing shortage suggests a more protracted and complex issue. Some workers in the industry have said the long hours, unstable schedules, low wages and gruelling conditions — especially in a hot, busy kitchen — are to blame.

Meanwhile, restaurants are also facing spiralling costs.

Statistics Canada reported the annual inflation rate hit 6.7 per cent in March, while food costs — a key input for restaurants — increased even more, with prices for dairy, pasta, meat and cooking oil all soaring.

"From gasoline to a steak, it’s all gone crazy," Stewart said. "Costs are up right across the board."

Some eateries are eliminating less profitable meals like breakfast or lunch, offering fewer menu items overall and closing during the slowest days of the week to cut down on waste. Others are offering smaller portion sizes, rethinking the so-called "centre of plate," typically beef, chicken or fish, or even just ordering less food at one time.

"If you don't sell something by its (expiry date) it's gone, you have to throw it out," Stewart said.

"So they're ordering less. They're watching the inventory, controlling it, watching the plate size and designing smaller tighter menus."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 14, 2022.

Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press