MANITOBA

More people relying on food banks

In the face of rising food prices, one Westman food bank is experiencing usage levels it has never seen before.

Amanda Naughton-Gale runs the food bank at the Salvation Army in Neepawa, 74 kilometres northeast of Brandon. In a phone interview with the Sun, she said food bank usage normally drops in summertime due to people gaining seasonal employment and gardening, but this year there has been a marked increase, likely related to the high cost of living.

"The cost of gas, the cost of food … just everything in general. It’s harder to stretch your dollar as much as you were able to before."

Naughton-Gale said the food bank is having trouble keeping up with demand, though it did receive help from the federal government, which in 2020 announced up to $100 million through the Emergency Food Security Fund to distribute to Canadian food banks and other national food rescue organizations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Thank goodness we had [that] funding," she said. "That’s basically something we haven’t needed to do before."

Typically, the community’s food drive, held in May, would have provided enough donations to last the food bank through the summer. It’s not that people in Neepawa aren’t donating, it’s just that the dollar doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.

"Our community is super generous, but everybody’s feeling the pinch," Naughton-Gale said. "If you would typically set aside $20 to help support the food bank, that $20 is now getting you a few items as opposed to a bagful of items."

Last year the food bank experienced a 60 per cent increase in usage, and this year it’s up 30 to 40 per cent from that. Naughton-Gale said it’s an alarming trend to see.

"We will do the best that we can to ensure that nobody goes hungry in our community, but it is concerning."

Linda Bertram, who helps run the Minnedosa United Church’s food bank, located 48 kilometres north of Brandon, also said usage has grown at their location. Thankfully, donations are still coming in.

Local businesses are also doing their part to alleviate the situation. The Minnedosa Co-op grocery store currently has prepared bags of non-perishable food for sale that go directly to the food bank.

"People are buying those bags, but not to the same degree they would have done it around Christmas," Bertram said.

At the Wawanesa Food Bank, located 53 kilometres southeast of Brandon, Shirley McBurney is doing her best to facilitate food for those in need. She has been running the food bank from her business, Lucy’s Flowers and Gifts, for nearly 10 years. This summer, she said, more people are using the service than ever before.

"Usage has definitely gone up. Even since COVID — it went up during that, and with the prices going up, we’ve seen quite a rise."

Fortunately, people in Wawanesa have been quite generous with donations of food and money.

Guy Smith, a volunteer with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in Brandon, said he has noticed a distinct uptick in the number of people who use the service over the last 24 months.

The organization would normally distribute 25 to 50 hampers per week, and now it’s somewhere between 50 to 75.

"We’re still getting significant donations. Obviously we need more … because the cost of the products has gone up dramatically, and also our numbers have gone up dramatically. But we are getting very good support."

The food bank run by the Salvation Army Brandon Corps has been closed since Monday and won’t reopen until July 25. Maria Ducharme, business administrator at the church, said this is because three of the organization’s four employees are on two-week holidays.

Miranda Leybourne, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brandon Sun

Long lines are back at US food banks as inflation hits high

By ANITA SNOW and EUGENE GARCIA

yesterday

1 of 12

A volunteer fills up a vehicle with food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in Phoenix. The food banks are struggling to meet the growing need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute, grocery store donations wane and cash gifts don’t go nearly as far. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

PHOENIX (AP) — Long lines are back at food banks around the U.S. as working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turn to handouts to help feed their families.

With gas prices soaring along with grocery costs, many people are seeking charitable food for the first time, and more are arriving on foot.

Inflation in the U.S. is at a 40-year high and gas prices have been surging since April 2020, with the average cost nationwide briefly hitting $5 a gallon in June. Rapidly rising rents and an end to federal COVID-19 relief have also taken a financial toll.

The food banks, which had started to see some relief as people returned to work after pandemic shutdowns, are struggling to meet the latest need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute, grocery store donations wane and cash gifts don’t go nearly as far.

Dozens of vehicles line up to get food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Tomasina John was among hundreds of families lined up in several lanes of cars that went around the block one recent day outside St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. John said her family had never visited a food bank before because her husband had easily supported her and their four children with his construction work.

“But it’s really impossible to get by now without some help,” said John, who traveled with a neighbor to share gas costs as they idled under a scorching desert sun. “The prices are way too high.”

Jesus Pascual was also in the queue.

“It’s a real struggle,” said Pascual, a janitor who estimated he spends several hundred dollars a month on groceries for him, his wife and their five children aged 11 to 19.

The same scene is repeated across the nation, where food bank workers predict a rough summer keeping ahead of demand.

The surge in food prices comes after state governments ended COVID-19 disaster declarations that temporarily allowed increased benefits under SNAP, the federal food stamp program covering some 40 million Americans .

“It does not look like it’s going to get better overnight,” said Katie Fitzgerald, president and chief operating officer for the national food bank network Feeding America. “Demand is really making the supply challenges complex.”


(AP video by Eugene Garcia)

Charitable food distribution has remained far above amounts given away before the coronavirus pandemic, even though demand tapered off somewhat late last year.

Feeding America officials say second quarter data won’t be ready until August, but they are hearing anecdotally from food banks nationwide that demand is soaring.

The Phoenix food bank’s main distribution center doled out food packages to 4,271 families during the third week in June, a 78% increase over the 2,396 families served during the same week last year, said St. Mary’s spokesman Jerry Brown.

More than 900 families line up at the distribution center every weekday for an emergency government food box stuffed with goods such as canned beans, peanut butter and rice, said Brown. St. Mary’s adds products purchased with cash donations, as well as food provided by local supermarkets like bread, carrots and pork chops for a combined package worth about $75.

Distribution by the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Northern California has ticked up since hitting a pandemic low at the beginning of this year, increasing from 890 households served on the third Friday in January to 1,410 households on the third Friday in June, said marketing director Michael Altfest.

Volunteers position grocery carts to fill up vehicles with food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

At the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the U.S. where food distribution levels earlier in the pandemic briefly peaked at a staggering 1 million pounds a day, an average of 610,000 pounds is now being given out daily.

That’s up from about 500,000 pounds a day before the pandemic, said spokeswoman Paula Murphy said.

Murphy said cash donations have not eased, but inflation ensures they don’t go as far.

Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand caught them off guard.

“Last year, we had expected a decrease in demand for 2022 because the economy had been doing so well,” said Michael Flood, CEO for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. “This issue with inflation came on pretty suddenly.”

“A lot of these are people who are working and did OK during the pandemic and maybe even saw their wages go up,” said Flood. “But they have also seen food prices go up beyond their budgets.”

A volunteer fills up a vehicle with food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix.

The Los Angeles bank gave away about 30 million pounds of food during the first three months of this year, slightly less than the previous quarter but still far more than the 22 million pounds given away during the first quarter of 2020.

Feeding America’s Fitzgerald is calling on USDA and Congress to find a way to restore hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commodities recently lost with the end of several temporary programs to provide food to people in need. USDA commodities, which generally can represent as much as 30% of the food the banks disperse, accounted for more than 40% of all food distributed in fiscal year 2021 by the Feeding America network.

“There is a critical need for the public sector to purchase more food now,” said Fitzgerald.

During the Trump administration, USDA bought several billions of dollars in pork, apples, dairy, potatoes and other products in a program that gave most of it to food banks. The “Food Purchase & Distribution Program” designed to help American farmers harmed by tariffs and other practices of U.S. trade partners has since ended. There was $1.2 billion authorized for the 2019 fiscal year and another $1.4 billion authorized for fiscal 2020.

Another temporary USDA “Farmers to Families” program that provided emergency relief provided more than 155 million food boxes for families in need across the U.S. during the height of the pandemic before ending May 31, 2021.

A USDA spokesperson noted the agency is using $400 million from the Build Back Better initiative to establish agreements with states, territories and tribal governments t o buy food from local, regional and underserved producers that can be given to food banks, schools and other feeding programs.

For now, there’s enough food, but there might not be in the future, said Michael G. Manning, president and CEO at Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank in Louisiana. He said high fuel costs also make it far more expensive to collect and distribute food.

The USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which included Farmers to Families, was “a boon” for the Alameda County Community Food Bank, providing 5 billion pounds of commodities over a single year, said spokesman Altfest.

“So losing that was a big hit,” he said.

Altfest said as many as 10% of the people now seeking food are first timers, and a growing number are showing up on foot rather than in cars to save gas.

“The food they get from us is helping them save already-stretched budgets for other expenses like gas, rent, diapers and baby formula,” he said.

Meanwhile, food purchases by the bank have jumped from a monthly average of $250,000 before the pandemic to as high as $1.5 million now because of food prices. Rocketing gasoline costs forced the bank to increase its fuel budget by 66%, Altfest said.

Supply chain issues are also a problem, requiring the food bank to become more aggressive with procurement.

“We used to reorder when our inventory dropped to three weeks’ worth, now we reorder up to six weeks out,” said Altfest.

He said the food bank has already ordered and paid for whole chickens, stuffing, cranberries and other holiday feast items it will distribute for Thanksgiving, the busiest time of the year.

At the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in Montebello east of Los Angeles, workers say they are seeing many families along with older people like Diane Martinez, who lined up one recent morning on foot.

Some of the hundreds of mostly Spanish-speaking recipients had cars parked nearby. They carried cloth bags, cardboard boxes or shoved pushcarts to pick up their food packages from the distribution site the Los Angeles bank serves.

“The prices of food are so high and they’re going up higher every day,” said Martinez, who expressed gratitude for the bags of black beans, ground beef and other groceries. “I’m so glad that they’re able to help us.”

Volunteers fill up grocery carts with food for distribution into drive through vehicles at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix.

—-

AP video journalist Eugene Garcia contributed from Montebello, California.

CANNABIS CANADA
One third of budtenders hired in the last year already left their job: study

Yesterday 

TORONTO — Nearly one third of Canadian cannabis retail employees hired over the last year already left their jobs and 24 per cent didn't even make it past their first month, a new study says.

The data from marijuana analytics firm Headset released Thursday shows 56 per cent of these employees, known as "budtenders," who worked at any point in the last 12 months have left their jobs.

The report covers workers in Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan between June 2021 and May 2022 — a period when cannabis businesses were carrying out layoffs and facing stiff competition as the number of pot shops soared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jennawae McLean, the co-founder of Calyx + Trichomes, a cannabis store chain in Kingston, Ont. said budtenders leave their jobs for a variety of reasons.

Many are drawn to the sector because they think cannabis has a "cool factor," but later realize the job can be as tedious and public-facing as other retail positions.

"It can sometimes feel like putting lipstick on a pig," McLean said.

"It's still retail at the end of the day. You still have to do customer service, and customer service is a very demanding job. Not everybody's cut out for customer service."

On top of the usual retail demands, cannabis workers also have to contend with additional regulations, checking customer identification and working in an environment that necessitates high security.

These sectors have long been known for high turnover and often attract students and other workers prone to swapping roles after shorter tenures.

"I don't think that people start working in retail and expect that they're going to retire there," said McLean.

Now, they're facing even more struggles when hiring new workers and trying to hang onto existing ones because the pandemic empowered people to seek more flexible jobs and roles where it is easier to work from home.

For every batch of 10 employees McLean hires, three stick around for a long time, but the remaining seven often leave after six months.

The Headset report said about seven per cent of Canadian budtenders hired between June 2021 and May 2022 quit during between their 30th and 59th day, six per cent departed between their 60th and 89th day and 10 per cent made it no further than 180 days.

Roughly seven per cent of people hired within that time frame left after the 180 day mark but before they reach one year and almost 46 per cent stayed.

The Headset report showed Alberta retailers tend to have slightly better retention among new employees, but lost a higher number of tenured employees than Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

The report also offered a glimpse at how turnover in the four provinces studied compares to the U.S., where Headset examined patterns in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Washington pot shop workers.

It concluded Canada's 56 per cent turnover rate was one per cent higher than the U.S.'s.

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

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

The co-founder of a major crypto wallet says 'putting your money in cryptocurrencies is gambling

insider@insider.com (Katie Canales) -

© Provided by Business InsiderPeople stand by a Metamask billboard in Times Square during an NFT conference in New York City. Noam Galai/Getty Images

Aaron Davis, co-founder of a popular crypto wallet, says investing in crypto is "gambling."
It's a rare remark from a founder of a major crypto player — MetaMask boasts 30 million users.
The co-founder said it's "extremely dangerous" to say today's crypto is the future of finance.

A co-founder of a popular crypto wallet said investing in digital assets amounts to gambling.

In an interview with Vice, Aaron Davis of MetaMask — which has allowed crypto users a place to store their holdings for six years now — warned people against staking their life savings in cryptocurrency, especially as the industry faces a months-long selloff that's showing few signs of stopping.

"It feels too little too late, but putting your money in cryptocurrencies is gambling," Davis told Vice. "I'm not saying what we have right now is the future of finance and [you should] move your life savings over. A lot of people are advocating that and I think that is extremely dangerous behavior."

It's a rare admission from someone who has founded or leads a major crypto company.

More Americans are buying and spending crypto-currency, leading to a big spike in crypto-crime
View on Watch

Crypto critics have long likened crypto investing to gambling, dubbing the market an unregulated casino. Others have labeled it a Ponzi scheme, arguing it relies on recruiting new investors to repay early ones that already coughed up the cash.


A former employee at the now-bankrupt crypto lending platform Celsius is suing his former employer, similarly calling it a "Ponzi scheme." The lawsuit alleges Celsius failed to hedge against risk, resulting in a liquidity crisis and a suspension of withdrawals that trapped its users' holdings.

Davis's fellow MetaMask co-founder David Finlay said there may be bad actors in the crypto world, but there is only so much MetaMask can do about it.

"We can't stop people from making Ponzis on blockchains," Finlay told Vice. "It's by definition impossible for us to wrap the whole thing into one unified bow and enforce it in a direction."

"One of the ways that we help the ecosystem keep momentum towards better uses is to make the information they're exposed to increasingly consensual," he continued, "so that as there are better, more credible use cases, people have an opportunity to be exposed more exclusively to those. We can't ban ponzis but we can deprive them of the precious oxygen of exposure."

Davis and Finlay also discussed with Vice their company turning six and boasting 30 million monthly active users, the ongoing storm raging in the crypto market and its many failures, and the hope that despite that fact, it may have a bright future.

"We will know that maybe we or somebody else did something right, when we have addressed climate change or there's better social equality," Finlay said. "Those are my two longest term hopes for the ecosystem."

Toronto filmmaker receives backlash, death threats over Hindu goddess poster

Lisa Xing - Yesterday 
This story contains an image of the film poster.

A Toronto-based filmmaker from India is facing death threats and police investigations after sharing a poster for her documentary on Twitter that depicts the Hindu goddess Kali holding a Pride flag and smoking a cigarette.

Earlier this month, filmmaker and York University international graduate student Leena Manimekalai shared the poster to promote a screening of her film Kaali at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

She told CBC News she never expected the poster for the film — which uses an alternate spelling of the goddess's name — to garner this much attention.

"Any artist would expect a discussion, a discourse post her work being exhibited. But I never thought I would be attacked by this type of organized violence," she said.

The post sparked heated debate among politicians and religious leaders in India, including those who support Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindutva, a right-wing ideology that seeks to transform India from a secular democracy into an ethno-religious country.

Some researchers and groups, including Human Rights Watch, say the ideology has led to discrimination and violence against minority groups in India, like Muslims and Christians. They say it is also used to silence academic criticism of Indian politics in Canada.

In less than two weeks, Manimekalai said she and her family have received thousands of messages of hate through her social media pages, including rape and death threats.

She wrote on Twitter that she was thrilled to share the launch of her film, which was hosted by Toronto Metropolitan University and presented at the Aga Khan Museum as part of a larger screening of films on multiculturalism.

The tweet received immediate backlash, prompting the Indian High Commission in Ottawa to urge Canadian authorities to "take action" against what it called a "disrespectful depiction of Hindu gods" after it said it received complaints from leaders of the Hindu community in Canada.

The Aga Khan Museum apologized for screening the film, saying the presentation is "no longer being shown" and it "deeply regrets" that one of the short videos and "accompanying social media post have inadvertently caused offence."

Toronto Metropolitan University distanced itself from Manimekalai as well.

When asked whether it received any correspondence from the Indian High Commission about its concerns with the film and poster, Global Affairs Canada would only say in a statement that "diplomatic correspondences are confidential" and "Canada will always uphold freedom of expression."

Laura Scaffidi, press secretary for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, also responded in a statement: "Threatening to commits acts of violence or rape against someone online is unacceptable and should never happen. We know that what happens online doesn't stay online.… Canadians want social media companies to do more to fix this."

According to local reports in India, there are several police cases against Manimekalai in various states for her depiction of Kali and a lawyer in New Delhi filed a court case, asking the filmmaker and her company be stopped from promoting the poster or videos from the film. The New Delhi court issued a summons to the director and her company, which Manimekalai said she will respond to.

Chandra Arya, a Liberal MP representing the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean, also weighed in. He said it was "painful" to see the poster and welcomed the apology from the Aga Khan Museum. In the past few years, "traditional anti-Hindu and anti-India groups in Canada have joined forces," he wrote, "resulting in Hinduphobic articles" and "attacks on our Hindu temples."

Manimekalai disputes that characterization. "I have a right to claim my text, my cultures, my gods, my sexuality and my knowledge from the fundamentalists."

The filmmaker said the version of Kali in the film is based on the Kali in her southern state of Tamil Nadu — an Indigenous feminist spirit that renounces patriarchy and accepts meat, alcohol and smokes from villagers.

In the short film, Manimekalai embodies Kali herself, as she wanders the streets of Toronto at night searching for belonging. At one point, she accepts a cigarette from a man on a park bench.

It is her take on multiculturalism in Canada and a celebration of its diversity, she said.

"It is my ode to Kali," said Manimekalai.

"I also feel the gaze of brown skin being constantly exoticized, so [the film] is a parallel commentary on what I feel as a brown, queer person living in Toronto and what other people from various cultures feel seeing a person like this."
A sacred figure

While supporters say Manimekalai has every right to her artistic freedom, critics argue the director's portrayal of Kali is disrespecting a sacred figure.

For Arti Dhand, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's religious studies department, specializing in South Asian religions, including Hinduism, seeing the poster was "a little bit personally jarring, but not in a terribly offensive way," because she said she hasn't seen the goddess depicted smoking before.

But, she said, she also doesn't have a problem with the representation, because Kali is a "counter-normative figure" who drinks alcohol and dances naked in the streets.

Hinduism has historically allowed for a considerable amount of flexibility on the images of deities and has been inclusive of various representations, Dhand said. People taking offence is a recent trend.

"There are people more sensitive now about this kind of thing than they would be in the past," she said, adding there are different standards for what deities can do in mythology compared with real women.

"Things like [women] smoking are still shocking in some circles in Indian society."

According to some cultural experts, many of those critical voices are part of an organized political movement that's eroding people's freedom of expression, even beyond India's borders.

"The government in power … uses all kinds of mechanisms — whether it's law, whether it's censorship — to stop any kind of conversation," said Chandrima Chakraborty, an English and cultural studies professor at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Chakraborty said she understands some of the backlash to the film and adds "creative choices have consequences."

However, she said, the political pressure and the calls for violence are a concerning trend. "It is ironic that you are so concerned about protecting the sanctity of goddesses, but you are not protecting the sanctity of living, breathing women."

Chakraborty said the appropriation of Hindu gods to drive a political agenda has become the norm in recent years.

"A number of gods have been remade in order to meet the agenda … the manifest of this majoritarian Hinduism. It's a huge concern," she said. "There does not seem to be a space where you can be a nationalist, but you can also critique."
'Deeply troubling'

Since the controversy erupted, several Hindu groups have also come out in support of Manimekalai. including U.S.-based Hindus for Human Rights, which issued a statement Monday saying the filmmaker has "every right to explore these [Hindu] traditions through her art."

It called the apologies by Toronto Metropolitan University and the Aga Khan Museum "deeply troubling." The organization wrote a letter to the museum, urging it to consider the "broader social and political context" and explained how the apology feeds into the "Hindu far-right's disturbing and utterly false narrative of a homogenized, monolithic Hindu identity."

Despite the support, Manimekalai said she doesn't feel safe returning home to India until her legal battles are resolved.

However, she said this experience won't stop her from making art.

"I will die if I don't make films I believe in. I will die if I can't defend my films."

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for KALI 

Russia acquits feminist artist on trial for pornography

Tsvetkova said that “my life has been destroyed completely.” “It's not a metaphor, it's reality,” she told British broadcaster the BBC.


MOSCOW (AP) — A court in Russia's far east on Friday handed a rare acquittal to a feminist artist who was charged with disseminating pornography after she shared artwork online depicting female bodies.


The charges against activist Yulia Tsvetkova, 29, in the far eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur had elicited international outrage, with human rights groups linking her prosecution to the Kremlin's aggressive promotion of “traditional family values.” Russia's most prominent women's rights groups have faced crackdown in recent years.

In a 15-month trial that went on behind closed doors, the prosecution had sought a prison sentence of three years and two months on the charges of disseminating pornography. The charges are reportedly related to Tsvetkova's group on the popular Russian social media network VKontakte, where stylized drawings of vaginas were posted. Tsvetkova is not allowed to disclose details of the criminal case against her.

The judge acquitted the artist on Friday.

“We're glad, but not completely,” Tsvetkova's mother, Anna Khodyreva, wrote on Facebook after the ruling was announced, adding that the prosecution still has 10 days to appeal the verdict.

An acquittal in a criminal case is a rare occurrence in Russia. According to Russia's Investigative Committee, less than 1% of defendants in criminal cases were acquitted by courts last year.

Tsvetkova's trial started in April last year, eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed constitutional amendments that outlawed same-sex marriage and tasked the government with “preserving traditional family values.”

Tsvetkova ran a children’s theater and was a vocal advocate of feminism and LGBT rights. She founded an online group called Vagina Monologues that encouraged followers to fight the stigma and taboos surrounding the female body, and posted other people’s art in it.

She was detained in November 2019 and spent the next four months under house arrest. Her home was raided, along with her mother’s education studio for children. The activist was fined twice for violating Russia’s law against disseminating gay “propaganda” to minors and has been declared a “foreign agent” — a designation with strong pejorative connotations that implies additional government scrutiny and aims to discredit the recipient.

Tsvetkova has maintained her innocence. Khodyreva, her outspoken mother, told The Associated Press last year that “Yulia has always been against pornography. … Feminists are against pornography because it’s exploitation of women’s bodies."

The case against Tsvetkova took a severe toll on her and her family. Khodyreva said that, on top of pressure from the authorities, she and her daughter have received death threats and were repeatedly harassed by strangers. Khodyreva’s education studio for children has lost many clients. Tsvetkova’s children’s theater, Merak, no longer exists — frequent visits from law enforcement were too distressing for the children so it shut down.

In a rare interview last month, a distraught Tsvetkova said that “my life has been destroyed completely.” “It's not a metaphor, it's reality,” she told British broadcaster the BBC.

Many public figures have spoken out in Tsvetkova’s support. Activists all across Russia have protested her prosecution, artists dedicated performances to her and an online petition demanding that the charges be dropped gathered over 250,000 signatures.

Russia’s prominent human rights group Memorial had declared Tsvetkova a political prisoner.

The Associated Press

CANADA

10/3 podcast: The undoing of Patrick Brown in the Conservative leadership race

Shawn Knox - Yesterday 

The race to replace Erin O’Toole as leader of Canada’s Conservatives took a surprising turn with the party’s leadership committee removing Patrick Brown as a candidate.


© Artur WidakConservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown answers journalists' questions at the end of the Conservative Party of Canada English leadership debate in Edmonton, Alta.

It’s alleged that a private corporation had paid members of Brown’s campaign staff, which would be a violation of Canadian election law.

National Post political reporter Ryan Tumilty joins host Dave Breakenridge to discuss how these allegations came to light, whether Brown has any recourse, and how this changes the race in the remaining two months.

Background reading: Patrick Brown disqualified from Conservative leadership race

Patrick Brown whistleblower comes forward, claims Brown knew of improper payments

Related video: Patrick Brown blames ouster on Conservative establishment

‘Bown campaign knew full well’ the allegations, Tory officials say in letter to members

CANADA

Drop time limit for Hong Kong graduates, urges NDP critic

An open letter from the NDP immigration critic is urging the federal government to drop a requirement for Hong Kong applicants looking to become permanent residents which she says is already excluding many.

“I urge that you amend the temporary public policy to drop the 5-year limit on the graduation requirement for Stream B (Canadian work experience) applicants and include all persons who hold an eligible education credential without the 5-year graduation limitation,” MP Jenny Kwan wrote on June 22 in an open letter addressed to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.

The letter was sent just days ahead of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from British control to Chinese jurisdiction on July 1, 1997 under what is known as the “one country, two systems” arrangement. Though Hong Kong is slated to officially become part of China in 2047, pro-democracy protests broke out in 2019, followed by government crackdowns that culminated in China’s national security law implemented on June 30, 2020.

In response to that in November 2020, Canada’s government began attracting Hong Kong students and youth through open work permits “and broadening their pathways to permanent residency” as a way to help those trying to leave, according to a press release. Read the press release here:

 https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2020/11/canada-announces-immigration-measures-supporting-hong-kong-residents-and-canadians-in-hong-kong.html

This year, beginning on June 21 until August 31, 2026, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) established two pathways to permanent residency for those already in the country. In-Canada graduates can apply under Stream A, while those with Canadian work experience can do so under Stream B.

Kwan’s letter takes issue with the fact that, among other things, all Stream B applicants must meet a requirement to have graduated with certain educational credentials in the immediate five years preceding the date when the application is received.

But that specific and “narrow” window of time leaves many out of the race altogether who would otherwise be eligible, says Kwan, who was born in Hong Kong and is currently MP for Vancouver East, in British Columbia.

“Simply put, there are many Hong Kongers who were active in the pro-democracy movement that have graduated more than five years ago,” she writes. “None of them will be eligible for this Lifeboat Scheme.”

Major barrier

Additionally, even those who do meet the five-year graduation timeline when applying for an open-work permit may become ineligible to apply for permanent residence “by the time their work permit is received and they have fulfilled the hours of work requirement,” Kwan states in her letter.

“This is just one example of why the 5-year graduation criteria is too narrow to affect the goals of the Lifeboat Scheme. I am deeply concerned that limiting the program to only apply to people who have graduated within five years of the application date excludes far too many Hong Kongers who are desperately concerned about their safety given their involvement in the pro-democracy movement.”

To accentuate her point, Kwan also quoted Mr. Hui, described as a former pro-democracy legislator who fled Hong Kong and who served as an expert witness during a standing committee on the matter at the last Parliament.

“Many young protesters who now urgently need a safe place away from Hong Kong are in their twenties and thirties, just like me,” Hui is quoted as saying. “They’ll be barred from the scheme totally, even with having Canadian qualifications.”

In a phone conversation, Kwan told New Canadian Media many of her constituents in the Vancouver East riding in B.C. have pointed to the five-year requirement as a “major barrier” blocking them from the program, including people who’ve graduated as little as six years ago.

Even people in Hong Kong have contacted her letting her know that they won’t even try to apply because “it’s already clear to them they’re not going to meet the five-year requirement because they graduated six or seven years ago.”

Others have had trouble securing employment for the additional one-year work requirement, which means by the time they secure a job, they may have gone over the five-year graduation requirement.

“So, practically, on the ground, the program doesn’t work and is fraught with challenges, and that poses barriers for the applicants,” she told NCM.

“If the government’s intention is really to provide support to Hong Kong learners, they need to lift the five-year requirement…. It’s an easy fix.”

Other measures

IRCC did not respond to direct questions about dropping the five-year graduation requirement. However, in an email statement, a spokesperson said those who are not eligible under the two streams can apply to one of the government’s other “existing immigration programs.” They also said applicants can use the Come to Canada Tool, an online portal that helps determine people’s eligibility.

The statement further said that while the government can’t “speculate on future policy decisions,” it will “continue to monitor developments and take action where needed to support those affected by the situation in Hong Kong.”

Finally, it said that in addition to the two streams to permanent residence in question, the government has put in place measures to “allow eligible Hong Kong residents in or outside Canada with recently completed post-secondary studies to apply for an open work permit, enabling individuals to work anywhere in Canada for a period of up to three years. As of April 30, IRCC had issued 10,469 open work permits and extensions under this policy.”

Kwan says while her constituents have come to her seeking answers, many are reluctant to take the issue publicly out of fear of repercussions against their applications from IRCC, while others fear family members back home may be targeted.

The solution, Kwan reiterates, is an easy one.

“If the government lifts that (five-year education) requirement, a great number of people will be able to qualify, and they will also be able to take the time that’s necessary to meet that one-year work requirement,” she says. “So, it’s a win-win solution for all of us.”

Kwan states that her letter has not received a response as of yet.

________________________________

Additional data reporting and visualization by Daphné Dossios

Fernando Arce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

U.S. mining giant purchasing Yukon's Alexco Resources

Yesterday 


Yukon’s Alexco Resources is about to be purchased by America’s largest silver producer, Hecla Mining.

The news came in a July 5 press release.

“There are no changes at Keno Hill in terms of day-to-day operations,” said Brad Thrall, president of Alexco Resources, in an email on July 7. “There are no changes to any of the plans or agreements.”

Both streams of Alexco Resources’s business activities — mine development and operations, along with their reclamation and remediation side through Elsa Reclamation and Development (ERDC) — will be acquired by the Hecla Mining Company.

“Since Hecla Mining is purchasing the outstanding shares of the corporate entity (Alexco) everything remains in place,” explained Thrall.

Alexco has a lot of moving parts. The property spans 17,000 hectares with leaky old mine entrances, also known as adits, historical buildings and many claims, some exhausted and others promising. The company is engaged in a complicated mix of active mining and concurrent remediation on sites that are scattered and sometimes adjacent. Licences for the active sites are different than for the historic sites, but staffing is optimized between the two.

Decisions pending

Decisions are expected on ERDC’s application to renew its water licence for the major remediation on the historic United Keno Hill Mine (UKHM) properties, and on Alexco’s remediation and closure plan for its active mining properties.

ERDC’s water licence is set to expire on Aug. 8. Their application for a 20-year renewal for remediation is before the Yukon Water Board. The complex water treatment plan was 15 years in development and cost the federal government $34 million.

The required remediation work and construction is estimated to take 15 years with a price tag of over $100 million to be paid by the federal government. Following that, the water that springs from UKHM’s historic audits will still need to be treated in perpetuity.

Alexco also has its remediation and closure plan before the Yukon Water Board. The public comment period recently closed and the board has sent a letter to Alexco requesting more information and flagged some items for potential lack of adherence to water licence conditions. These are the same type of plans that resulted in financial security increases for Minto and Victoria Gold mines recently.

Alexco has estimated their financial security deposit at $8.5 million, which is less than the $10 million already reserved with the government.

Operations temporarily suspended

On June 22, the company announced a temporary shutdown of its milling operations. The company said in its news release that it could not produce enough ore from its underground sources to adequately sustain the mill operations.

“Mill operations were temporarily suspended for five to six months so the company could focus all efforts on advancing underground development,” reads the release.

The stock price of Alexco Resource Corp. (AXU on the stock market) dropped on this announcement from .81 cents on June 21 to .48 cents the next day, according to Yahoo Finance.

Last year the company also announced a temporary shutdown of the company’s Bellekeno property so they could focus their efforts on other deposits. Mines can be placed in temporary closure for up to five years before needing to formally shut down operations.

A myriad of reasons

In the news release about the sale, Clynton Nauman, chairman and CEO of Alexco said, “There is no doubt that we have fallen well behind the development and production plan at Keno Hill — and our original estimate of achieving commercial production in early 2022.

“There are myriad reasons for those challenges, but fundamentally, they all led to an increasing level of stress across our business, which was having a negative impact on the share price, our finances, our employees and other stakeholders.”

This is why the purchase is viewed in a positive light by the company. And, with nothing bound to change on the ground and the operations manager staying in place, Thrall believes that the relationships that have been established and fostered by the company over the years will endure. It is only the ownership that will change.

“Keno Hill will be in excellent hands to unlock the full potential of the district and maximize benefits to NND [First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun] and local communities including Keno City,” he told the News.

Hecla Mining said in the release that it had been eyeing the Keno Hill project for many years.

The transaction provides Hecla with “a fully permitted property with infrastructure that includes a 400 tonne per day mill, on-site camp facility, all-season highway access and connection to the hydropower grid.” It also “increases Hecla’s silver exposure by increasing proven and probable silver reserves” and could enable the company to be not just America’s largest silver producer, but Canada’s as well.

But the deal is not done yet. The terms that are proposed include a combination of a US$30 million operating loan and share purchase at 50 cents, and a yet to be determined number of Hecla shares.

The acquisition transaction will need to be implemented by a court-approved plan, and some regulatory approvals are required. A special meeting will be held in late September and the acquisition is expected to close later that month.

“Hecla has the organizational expertise and financial strength to build Keno Hill to the level and capacity required,” said Nauman.

“[They will be] able to continue to invest in exploration across the district, something that we, as Alexco, independently would likely struggle to achieve."

Lawrie Crawford, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Yukon News

No bed of roses for Ecuador's flower industry

The pandemic, the war on Ukraine, and more than two weeks of ruinous protests over soaring living costs -- Ecuador's flower industry has recently had to surmount one obstacle after another.

© Rodrigo BUENDIAEcuador is the world's third-biggest flower exporter after the Netherlands and Colombia


© Rodrigo BUENDIARose exports are Ecuador's fourt-biggest income generator

The country's fourth-largest income-generator in terms of sales, roses alone earned nearly a billion US dollars in 2021 -- a record haul of $927 million to be exact.

With hundreds of companies growing 450 rose varieties, Ecuador is the world's third-biggest flower exporter after the Netherlands and Colombia.

But this year's prognosis is unclear after 18 days of sometimes-violent mass protests against rising fuel prices that included burning roadblocks and arson, and resulted in six deaths.


© Rodrigo BUENDIARussia was Ecuador's second-biggest country client for flowers in 2021, behind the United States

"The protests meant much larger losses than all that was lost during two years of pandemic," said Marcelo Echeverria, Ecuador commercial representative for the Dummen Orange international flower firm.

"That has slowed down a lot of things that were planned, a lot of projects that were planned for the second half of the year."

The protests, led by a powerful Indigenous people's group, saw cut flowers among the export products targeted by arsonists.

"They are BURNING our flowers," the Expoflores association of producers and exporters exclaimed on Twitter as the contents of delivery trucks were being set on fire last month.

"They are burning our income and that of our families."

Expoflores said other flowers rotted as they could not be harvested and moved for export, and ended up in "the garbage."

The government estimated the cost of the uprising at about $1 billion -- some two-thirds of it borne by the private sector, including the flower industry.


Related video: Rising prices cause 'inflation rebellion' in Ecuador


"There were innumerable losses in terms of flowers that could not be exported (and) damage to private property," said Socorro Martinez, Ecuador's Dummen Orange boss.

"It was a very sad issue because... it widened the gap between some producers and ordinary people who were part of the community, people who we considered very close to us."

- Necessity -

But those who are part of it say the industry is a resilient one, with flowers never going out of fashion, whether it be for happy events or sad ones.

"We have experienced many local and international crises. We live in crisis, but we know how to manage them," said Eduardo Letort, manager of the firm Hoja Verde, which produces about 35 million stems of 120 rose varieties each year.

"It’s been a tough few years, but... we have managed to adapt" by looking for new markets or making better use of dwindling fertilizer stocks as shortages bit during the pandemic and more recently with the war in Ukraine, he told AFP on his farm in the Andean town of Cayambe.

In 2020, Ecuador's flower industry recorded sales of $827 million -- a smaller decline than had been expected from pre-pandemic 2019 when it was $880 million.

"We saw that flowers... became a product of necessity. People wanted to have colors, scents in their homes" during lockdown, said Letort.

There was also a sharp rise in demand for flowers for pandemic funeral wreaths.

- More complicated -

Between January and May this year, flower exports brought in $432 million, compared to $417 million in the same period of 2021.

The rest of the year "had looked very good despite Russia (and its war on Ukraine) with forecasts for a dip followed by a recovery by year end," said Expoflores president Alejandro Martinez.

"But with the protests, things now seem more complicated," he added.

Russia was Ecuador's second-biggest country client for flowers in 2021, behind the United States.

Since the start of the war, Russia's share of the market fell from 20 percent to 10 percent, said Letort, who is also president of Expoflores in Cayambe.

"The flower business is already complicated, it does not need protests, pandemics or wars to make it complicated," said Marco Penaherrera, who sends about 120,000 roses to the United States every week.

"It is good business, but it is complicated."

sp/vel/mlr/caw

THE GREAT GAME

The Red Sea islands caught between Egypt, Saudi and Israel


By AFP
Published July 14, 2022

This handout satellite image made available by the European Space Agency and captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on July 9, 2022 shows the islands of Tiran and Sanafir - Copyright Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery/AFP -

As US President Joe Biden visits the Middle East this week, one issue on the table will be the status of two small Red Sea islands that are uninhabited but of key strategic value.

Resolving the tricky status that stems from their location and turbulent history would help build trust between Israel and Saudi Arabia, two US allies now taking gradual steps that Washington hopes could one day lead to diplomatic ties.

For now, the two barren desert islands — Tiran and Sanafir — are home only to some soldiers of a decades-old multinational peacekeeping force, their waters occasionally visited by divers for their coral reefs.

But the islands have been fought over in the past, thanks to their key location at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, on which Jordan’s only seaport of the same name, and Israel’s Eilat harbour are located.

Egypt ceded the islands, located east of its resort town Sharm El-Sheikh, to Saudi Arabia in 2016. But the deal still requires Israel’s green light, at a time when the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia have no formal ties.

A senior Israeli official said late Thursday Israel would have “no objection” to greenlighting Egypt handing over the islands to Saudi Arabia as a step towards any normalisation of ties between Riyadh and the Jewish state.

The issue is set to be on the agenda Friday when Biden, after his Israel visit, meets Gulf leaders in Jeddah for a conference where Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is also expected.

Tiran — which hosts a small airport for the peacekeepers — measures about 61 square kilometres (24 square miles), while Sanafir, to the east, is only about half that size.

The islands were under Egyptian sovereignty from 1950, but invaded by Israeli troops during the 1956 Suez Crisis that came after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the canal that is key to trade between Europe and Asia.

– Deal in the making? –

Nasser’s 1967 closure of the Strait of Tiran, which cut off maritime access to Eilat and Aqaba, precipitated the Six Day War, after which Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula and the two small islands.

In 1979, the landmark Camp David peace agreement provided for Egypt to recover the territories.

As part of the Sinai’s demilitarisation, Cairo was not allowed to station troops on the islands, where only peacekeepers were based for the so-called Multinational Force and Observers.

In 2016 a Cairo-Riyadh agreement ceded the islands to Saudi Arabia in a controversial decision that sparked nationalist protests in Egypt, which were quickly stifled.

Critics accused Sisi of ceding the islands in return for Saudi aid and investment largesse. The government argued the islands were originally Saudi but leased to Egypt in the 1950s.

Egyptian courts handed down a series of contradictory rulings before the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the handover.

But because the issue is governed by the Camp David agreement, the status of the islands has yet to be finalised, requiring Israel to ratify the transfer of sovereignty.

It is this final hurdle that Biden could negotiate with Israeli, Saudi and Egyptian leaders this week, observers say.

The Israeli press has reported that Riyadh has pledged to keep the islands demilitarised, and to allow Israeli vessels to keep traversing the strait.

Experts have pointed to the significance of a potential deal as a step towards official normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, who along with the United States are fierce enemies of Iran.