RENTIER CAPITALI$M

'Great for landlords, horrible for renters': How a runaway rental market has become Toronto's latest housing nightmare

 RENT INCREASES CREATE INFLATION
Denise Paglinawan -  Financial Post

The average rents for one- and two-bedroom apartments in Toronto are now both at record levels.

Shivin Kaul and his three friends have been looking for a house to rent in Toronto since July. The group of young professionals has found several that fit their needs, the only problem is they keep getting outbid — three times in a single week, at one point.

“(We’re) getting tired of viewing about 10 houses, liking a couple of them and then losing out on the ones you like to someone who outbid you for $300 or $400,” Kaul said, explaining that he and his friends have started to overbid listings in an attempt to secure a place they can move into by September.

Last week, Kaul’s group told a landlord they’d be willing to pay $4,000 for a three-bedroom house that’s listed for $3,600 plus utilities per month after being asked for their “best offer.” The rental ended up going to someone who offered $100 more.

Overbidding for rent is not new but it has become more common with the current hot market , in which rents have surged by more than 20 per cent in some cases since this time last year.

Conrad Rygier, a Toronto real estate broker with Right At Home Realty, said in the past month he’s seen overbidding for rental properties “at least 90 per cent of the time.”

Market watchers, such as Rygier, say that with interest rates rising, many Canadians who were planning to buy homes are now either thinking twice due to market uncertainty or realize they can no longer afford to buy and are flooding back to the rental market. This surge in demand has caused “absolute havoc” in the rental market, Rygier said.

“What I’ve seen in 14 years of doing this, these last couple of months have been the worst, craziest (time) to represent a renter,” said the broker, who works with both renters and landlords. “It’s been great for landlords, horrible for renters.”

Rygier called it a “frustrating period” for renters, who are being forced to take risks by submitting offers based on photos — without even seeing the property in person — because so many get rented on the same day they are listed. Often, they are competing against a number of different offers for the same property.

“Landlords are being super, super picky on who they accept because it’s a landlord’s market,” he said, adding that he’s represented “excellent tenants” who were rejected because the landlord was looking for “something else.”


© REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

Investors were also starting to shun the condo market because of higher interest rates and the potential for negative cash flows.

Often, that means tenants with six-figure incomes and impeccable credit scores, leaving those with less-than-perfect credit and even high five-figures incomes — not to mention those with pets — in the lurch.

Picky landlords aren’t the only hurdle facing tenants: they also have to pay the rent.

The average rents for one- and two-bedroom apartments in Toronto are now both at record levels, while average condo rents are up by double digits annually for all bedroom types, according to recent rental market data released by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB). Meanwhile, rental listings on the board’s MLS system have dropped by almost 30 per cent year-over-year, giving renters less choice.

Those looking to rent a bachelor or one-bedroom apartment in the Greater Toronto Area have to pay at least 20 per cent more than they would have a year ago. The TRREB report found that rent for bachelor apartments now averages $1,829, up from $1,462 a year ago, while one-bedroom apartments average $2,269, up from $1,887. This rate of increase surpassed the previous peak in the third quarter of 2019.

Agents with Royal LePage Real Estate Services, which is owned by Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc., have also been watching the rental market tighten, chief operating officer Karen Yolevski said in an interview.

“The prices seem to be going up every month,” Yolevski said.

She added that the company’s list calculations show an over $400-per-month increase in Toronto rental prices on all types of properties this year — not far off from the real estate board’s numbers in June.

Yolevski said there are more renters than properties on the market. She attributed the increase in demand to the number of people returning to major urban centres as they go back to working in the office, as well as immigration numbers rebounding after tight COVID-19 restrictions.

While demand is surging, there seems to be little hope that supply will fill the void.


© Postmedia

Urbanation found that out of about 35,000 new condo units that were supposed to launch in the Greater Toronto Area this year, at least 10,000 units will instead be put on the shelf.

A recent report from CIBC Capital Markets, citing data from real estate market research firm Urbanation Inc., found that project delays and cancellations amid the rapid increase in interest rates, surging construction costs and a lack of available labour were actually reducing the pipeline of potential units.

Urbanation found that out of about 35,000 new condo units that were supposed to launch in the Greater Toronto Area this year, at least 10,000 units will instead be put on the shelf.

“So, when the fog clears, the units that were supposed to be built now will not be available — making a tight rental market even

tighter,” CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal wrote in the report. “And that’s the opposite direction of where we should be heading.”

In an interview, Tal said investors were also starting to shun the market because of higher interest rates and the potential for negative cash flows. Declining ranks of investors can limit or even eliminate the supply of new rental units, especially in markets such as Vancouver and Toronto, where about half of new condo sales go to investors who then rent out those units, he said.

“I think rent inflation will continue to be a major factor,” Tal said.

Trouble in ‘mortgage land’ as higher borrowing rates weigh and refinancings dry up

Prices are falling but rents are rising in Canada's paradoxical housing market

Toronto rents soar 20% to record amid high demand, fewer listings

With rent controls in provinces such as Ontario tied to inflation rates, Tal said the central bank’s efforts to control inflation will be “extremely important” to keeping the rental market from becoming less affordable.

For many renters, like Kaul, purchasing a house instead of renting would be preferable if it wasn’t so out of reach. For now, they’ll have to compete in the tight rental market until they’re able to save enough to buy.

“I don’t see myself buying a house for the next seven or eight years considering how the prices are going up,” Kaul said. “Just trying to rent a house is the goal for all of us.”

• Email: dpaglinawan@postmedia.com | Twitter: denisepglnwn

In fight against Bay du Nord oil project, environmental groups turn to courts and Norwegian public

Inayat Singh - CBC

Months after the Bay du Nord offshore oil project in Newfoundland was approved by the federal government, environmental groups are continuing their campaign against the project, taking their fight to the courts and the company's offices in Norway.


© Ted Dillon/CBC

A group of demonstrators outside Equinor's offices in Newfoundland and Labrador in May protest the approval of the Bay du Nord oil project.

Opponents of the project hope that Equinor, the company leading the project (oil major BP has a minority stake) will be especially sensitive to growing climate concerns over fossil fuel production, because it is a state-owned Norwegian company accountable to the country's citizens.

Equinor has yet to make a final investment decision on moving ahead, and environmental groups are focusing their efforts on that upcoming milestone. Led by environmental law charity Ecojustice, they have gone to federal court for a review of its environmental approval of the project.

"Our federal government says that it understands climate science," said Ian Miron, staff lawyer at Ecojustice. "So it should understand that Canada can't be a climate leader and approve fossil fuel infrastructure projects like this one."

Lawsuit focuses on downstream emissions

Equinor and the federal government say that Bay du Nord's operation will have a low carbon intensity, especially when compared to other oil projects in Canada and abroad.

With demand for oil continuing even as the world decarbonizes, they say it makes sense that that oil comes from projects like Bay du Nord. The project has a requirement of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, a first for a Canadian oil and gas project and an indication that the government will seek similarly stringent climate conditions on future environmental approvals.

But these conditions focus on emissions from the operation of Bay du Nord, and not the emissions from when that oil is burned in power plants or vehicles after it is extracted and exported.

Ecojustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of climate advocacy groups Sierra Club Canada and Équiterre in May. Its main argument is that the government failed to consider the emissions from when the oil produced at Bay du Nord is actually used — also called downstream emissions.

Emissions from the actual operation of Bay du Nord — about 177,000 to 309,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the environmental assessment — would amount to a tiny fraction of Canada's annual emissions. But the environmental groups say 90 per cent of a project's lifecycle emissions can be downstream emissions, which need to be accounted for.

"I think if the minister had looked at the downstream emissions, it would be very difficult to come to a conclusion that this project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects," Miron said.

The groups say the government "ignored all downstream emissions, and unlawfully restricted the assessment artificially to consider only the emissions from the extraction facility itself."

In June, eight Mi'kmaw communities in New Brunswick joined the lawsuit, saying that the government did not consider how the shipment of the oil could threaten species of animals they rely on for food and cultural reasons, and fell short of its duty to consult and accommodate those First Nations.

Groups take fight to Stavanger

While the government and Ecojustice's lawyers exchange documents and evidence, the environmental groups are applying pressure on Equinor elsewhere. In May, the groups protested at Equinor's annual general meeting in Stavanger, Norway, projecting slogans and videos onto the company's head office and local landmarks.

"We hope that we can actually convince Equinor and its majority shareholders, which are the people of Norway, that this project is dangerous," said Gretchen Fitzgerald, national programs director for Sierra Club Canada, who also travelled to Stavanger for the demonstrations.

It's a strategy that was followed by environmental groups opposed to another Equinor project halfway across the world. In 2020, Equinor backed out from an offshore oil exploration project in the Great Australian Bight, the large open bay of rugged ocean off the southern coast of Australia.

The company said that the project was not commercially competitive, but it had also faced years of opposition from local groups intent on protecting the remote patch of ocean, an important habitat to a wide range of sea animals, many of which are not found anywhere else in the world.

"The situation in the Bight, they couldn't have picked a worse place to propose what they were trying to do," said Peter Owen, director of the Wilderness Society in South Australia, an environmental advocacy group that campaigned against Equinor's project.

"But also, they couldn't have picked a worse time in history to be pushing to expand the fossil fuel industry, now that the climate is collapsing before our eyes."

Lessons from Australia

There are many parallels between what happened in the Bight and Bay du Nord. Owen's organization is part of the Great Australian Bight Alliance, which brought together local conservation groups and Indigenous groups that opposed oil drilling in the region.

Australian regulators conditionally approved an exploration well from Equinor in December 2019 in the Bight. The Wilderness Society took the government to court to challenge the approval, but Equinor announced it was pulling out by February 2020.

"Not only did we have a responsibility to stop this [project] because of the direct risks that it brought to the communities of southern Australia, but we had a responsibility globally to stop this carbon going into the atmosphere," Owen said.

"That was something that we could do in our jurisdiction, on our watch, as part of a global effort that we have to all embark on now — to stop these types of projects."

Campaigners with the alliance held demonstrations across Australia and in Norway, where they went to Equinor's annual general meetings in Stavanger and spoke directly to its board and executives.

"We went to Norway looking for friends, recognizing that this fossil fuel company, Equinor, was essentially the Norwegian people," said Owen.

"The community was being made aware that there was this amazing place on the other side of the world, that the community who lived there didn't want to be put at risk through oil drilling."

In an email statement, Equinor did not address the lawsuit against the Bay du Nord project, but said that a final investment decision is "anticipated within the next couple of years." The project, if it goes ahead, will start producing oil by the end of the decade — and continue until 2058.

Bay du Nord could produce up to 200,000 barrels per day, and up to a billion barrels of oil over its lifetime. That would release about 400 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.

"Canada's committed to be net zero by 2050," said Fitzgerald. "You can't keep approving new oil and gas projects if you're serious about that commitment."

Foreign-trained nurses frustrated with delays in being recognized

Scott Laurie - Yesterday

© Provided by Toronto SunShara Buenaventura

Shara Buenaventura became so frustrated while trying to have her ICU nursing credentials recognized in Ontario, she returned to the Philippines for nine months — mid-pandemic — to keep her skills sharp.

“I went back as an ICU nurse and I came back here again with the hope that I will be assessed. But until now, I didn’t get any answer,” said Buenaventura.

She now works part-time in non-ambulatory care, helping to transfer non-urgent patients from one hospital to another.

“Some of my days I get into the hospital and I just really feel sad. I know I can do more. I know I can help. I know what to do. And it’s frustrating. I feel sad, and it’s kind of depressing because your hands are tied.”

After working for years in ICUs in the Philippines and in the Middle East, she says she could easily step into a similar role in Canada.

She’s been trying for three years to have her skills recognized, after arriving in Canada a decade ago.

Buenaventura is part of the Integrated Filipino Canadian Nurses Association (IFCNA), which advocates for nurses who wish to return to their specialty.

“It’s very frustrating. Some have already given up. Some have now settled to be a personal support worker where in fact their skills are taken for granted,” said IFCNA President Jennifer Lopez.

Her rough estimate: there are some 2,000 members in her organization who are not practising nursing.

“I don’t know why we are subjected to so much strain as we want to step in to help the health-care system which is in dire need of nurses,” said Lopez, who works in a hospital now.

“If the Minister of Health is leaning toward public safety, where is the public safety when patients are there in Emergency waiting longer, and paramedics are waiting longer to off-load because there are not enough nurses?”

In its latest jobs report, Statistics Canada said there were 23,620 vacant nursing positions nationally in the first quarter of 2022.

It also said nursing vacancies in early 2022 “were more than triple (+219.8%) the level of five years earlier, illustrating the extent to which longer-term trends may be contributing to the current challenges facing hospitals and other health-care employers.”

Given that shortage, Buenaventura doesn’t understand the many years of delay in recognizing foreign-trained nurses like her.

“Until now I didn’t get any answer. So that’s how frustrating it is,” she said.

“Some of them have lost their hope and some of them are working in a warehouse or factory. Some of them have chosen a different career path.”

slaurie@postmedia.com

@_ScottLaurie

Jaida Lee becomes first female to pitch in Canada Games men's competition

WELLAND, Ont. — Jaida Lee made history at the Canada Games on Monday, becoming the first female to play in the male baseball competition since it began in 1967.

Lee pitched 1 1/3 innings for Newfoundland and Labrador in a 17-7 loss to Alberta to kick off the day's slate of games.

The 16-year-old from St. John's, who was Newfoundland and Labrador's flag-bearer in the opening ceremony, pitched a scoreless fourth inning, but Alberta came back with a six-run fifth to put the game away.

The baseball she threw will be enshrined in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont.

In other results at the Games held in Ontario's Niagara region, Quebec's Mathis Beaulieu won the men's sprint triathlon, with Daniel Damian of British Columbia taking silver and Tristen Jones of Ontario picking up bronze.

Colette Reimer of B.C. won the women's event, with Ontario's Anja Krueger second and Alberta's Sophia Howell third.

Ontario's Ava Holmgren won the women's cross-country mountain bike, followed by B.C.'s Marin Lowe and Quebec's Marie-Fay St-Onge.

Mia West of Winnipeg was thrilled to win Manitoba's first gold of the Games, as she swam to victory in the 200-metre butterfly event. Teagen Purvis of Selkirk, Man., captured silver in the Special Olympics 50-metre breaststroke, and Halle West of Winnipeg won a bronze in the 50-metre breaststroke event.

Maxime St-Onge and Charles-Antoine St-Onge took the top two podium spots for Quebec in the men's event, with Ontario's Matthew Leliveld finishing third.

British Columbia, on the strength of one gold, eight silver and four bronze, leads the medal standings with 13. Ontario, with a Games-high nine golds, is next at 12. Alberta and Quebec each have eight medals, followed by Manitoba with four.

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador each have one medal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 8, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Alberta girls' softball team thrilled to represent Canada at Little League World Series

Anna Wdowczyk 

For the first time in more than two decades, an all-girls team from Alberta will compete at the Little League Softball World Series in Greenville, N.C. — kicking off their opening game on Tuesday night.


© Submitted by Dianna Jordison

Ella Stranaghan, a 13-year-old pitcher for the St. Albert Angels, says she's excited to represent Canada at the 2022 Little League Softball World Series in Greenville, N.C.

Aged 13 and under, the St. Albert Angels will represent Canada in a game against a team from the Philippines on Aug. 9.

"We have to prove ourselves every single game," said Ella Stranaghan, a 13-year-old pitcher for the Angels.

The U13 St. Albert team won gold at the Canada Little League Softball Championships over the Heritage Day weekend in Victoria, B.C. With an undefeated track record for every game at nationals, the team managed to snag a final spot in the global tournament.

According to the Little League Softball World Series, the St. Albert group is the first Alberta team to play for the global title since 2000, when Calgary's Sunridge Little League competed.

"It's kind of overwhelming," Stranaghan said.

Stranaghan said she was inspired to try softball less than a year ago, after watching many videos of the game online.

But when Stranaghan tried to talk about the sport at school, she said boys in her class would often taunt her by saying, "that's not a real sport."

Stranaghan said being chosen to play for Canada internationally was gratifying — convincing her and her teammates that girls have a place in competitive sports.

She said she still can't believe she will be competing at the event she used to watch for hours.

"We're representing all of Canada. It's huge for everyone," she said.

"It just kind of shows you that you can go somewhere with this."

For head coach Dianna Jordison, the world championship event will mark her international debut.

"I'm hoping that it opens the doors and lets other teams know that this is a possibility, so that we can get bigger competition within Little League in Canada," she said.

"You can build dreams out of this and have goals and aspire to have a future in sport."

According to Jordison, players and softball fans wish the championship event would be live-streamed across Canada, like the boys' tournament.

The St. Albert Angels will play a team from the Philippines at 5 p.m. on Thursday. The Little League Softball World Series runs until Aug. 15.

Sabrina Maddeaux: How did a misogynistic screed place third in Alberta's female-empowerment essay contest?

Sabrina Maddeaux - NATIONAL POST


The following is a tale of political folly that is exceptional, even by today’s standards.


© Provided by National Post

Imagine for a minute you’re a member of Alberta’s United Conservatives — a party that habitually suffers from being accused of seeking to restrict abortion and dismissing women in the workplace . You want to put these allegations to rest ahead of the upcoming provincial election, so one of your caucus members proposes an essay contest.

Run by the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, it encourages young women to submit visions for the province’s future and what they would do as MLAs. It even has an appropriately feminist-sounding name: “Her Vision Inspires Essay Contest.” But somehow, somewhere along the way, someone forgets one crucial thing: the winning essays of this female-empowerment exercise should not explicitly argue against said empowerment. D’oh.

And so, the Her Vision Inspires third-place prize went to a screed that opens with, “Women have a unique strength: our ability to give birth,” and goes on to argue that, “To promote that women break into careers that men traditionally dominate is not only misguided, but it is harmful. Such a focus distracts from the languishing unique strength and the truly important role that women have in the preservation of our community, culture and species.”

For good measure, it also promoted replacement theory: “While it is sadly popular nowadays to think … Albertan children are unnecessary as we can import foreigners to replace ourselves, this is a sick mentality that amounts to a drive to cultural suicide.”

This prize-winning essay was proudly posted for all to read on the legislative assembly of Alberta’s website. Naturally, the public had some feelings — and they weren’t feelings of empowerment.

Screenshots of the essay circulated on Twitter and multiple NDP MLAs demanded answers, particularly from the MLA who launched the contest, Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk, Alberta’s associate minister for the status of women.

It wasn’t long before the entire Her Vision Inspires page was scrubbed from the assembly’s website. If you try to visit it now, you’ll encounter an error message that says the page does not exist.

And so far, there have been no answers. Who judged the contest? Why did they pick this essay as a winner? Why were no red flags raised before it was publicly posted — an act that would’ve required it to pass through multiple people? Was the contest always little more than a rushed PR exercise?

Armstrong-Homeniuk did provide Edmonton Journal reporter Lisa Johnson with a statement that can be summed up as inadequate. It opened by conceding that the essay “has gathered negative attention on social media” — as if that were the problem, rather than the essay itself.

She went on to say that, “The essay contest was intended to reflect a broad range of opinions from young Alberta women on what democracy means for them. While the essay in question certainly does not represent the views of all women, myself included, the essay in question should not have been chosen.”

That’s a big, lingering “while” in that last sentence, one that could be read to suggest an earlier draft attempted to legitimize the essay’s views. Moreover, the real questions of who judged the contest and why this particular piece was crowned a winner went unacknowledged and unanswered.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Speaker and UCP caucus member Nathan Cooper issued a statement that said the contest was “conceived and administered by the chair of Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Canadian Region Alberta branch” and neither the “Speaker’s Office nor the Legislative Assembly office were involved.” While he accurately called the essay’s content “abhorrent,” he stopped short of explaining how exactly it came to win third place or naming the MLAs who judged the contest.

This was followed by Armstrong-Homeniuk herself issuing a statement apologizing for the essay being selected for third place, but didn’t elaborate further on how it happened.

It’s clearly too late to put the misogynistic, racist essay back in the box, but the public does deserve to know what happened. There should be an explanation. Refusing to provide one will only prolong the pain of this entirely unprovoked and supremely silly act of self-immolation.

National Post

Alberta awards prize to essay that argues women should pick babies over careers


EDMONTON — Alberta has awarded a prize to an essayist who argues the sexes are not equal and that women should pick babies over careers to avoid the province having to import more foreigners and risk “cultural suicide.”


© Provided by The Canadian PressAlberta awards prize to essay that argues women should pick babies over careers

The United Conservative government removed the essay from its legislature website on Tuesday following a wave of social media condemnation.

Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk, Alberta’s associate minister for the Status of Women, was the contest organizer and the head of the judging panel.

She initially distanced herself from the affair then, as criticism mounted, took responsibility without explaining which judges decided to award the prize and why.

“The essay contest was intended to reflect a broad range of opinions from young Alberta women on what democracy means for them,” Armstrong-Homeniuk said in a statement Tuesday morning.

“While the essay in question certainly does not represent the views of all women, myself included, the essay in question should not have been chosen.”

Later in the afternoon, Homeniuk issued an updated statement saying some of her caucus and cabinet colleagues had raised concerns.

“It’s clear that the process failed, and I apologize for my role in that," she said.

“The selection of this particular essay and awarding it with third prize was a failure on my part as the head of the judging panel.”

Armstrong-Homeniuk had been the face of the contest since it was introduced in February.

The “Her Vision Inspires” contest challenged women ages 17 to 25 to describe their ideas for a better Alberta.

The contest advertised that essays would be judged by Armstrong-Homeniuk and other legislature members but did not specify the names of the other judges. The Opposition NDP said it did not participate.

The top two essays suggest ways to get more women, and the public in general, involved in public life.

The third-place winner — identified only as S. Silver — won a $200 prize to be spent at the legislature gift shop.

Silver's essay posits that the governing mission of humanity is to reproduce itself, but that Alberta has lost its way to instead pursue “selfish and hedonistic goals.”

The solution, she argues, is to acknowledge that “women are not exactly equal to men.”

Society, she writes, should celebrate and embrace the birthing role of women and stop pushing them to put off prime procreation years while they “break into careers that men traditionally dominate.”

She says the idea that Alberta can put off procreation and instead “import foreigners to replace ourselves … is a sickly mentality that amounts to a drive for cultural suicide.”

NDP critic Rakhi Pancholi said Armstrong-Homeniuk owes the public a full explanation of how this view was not condemned, but honoured and rewarded.

“Sexism, racism, hate — this is not what any government should be celebrating, yet increasingly these views are becoming acceptable in this UCP government, and even now applauded,” Pancholi told reporters.

Pancholi zeroed in on the "cultural suicide" reference, likening it to 1930s Nazi Germany urging women to be baby vessels to propagate the Aryan race.

“This is an absolutely reprehensible claim. It is a nod to the racist replacement theory that drives white nationalist hate,” she said.

The contest was run through the legislative assembly office, which is headed by Speaker Nathan Cooper.

Cooper’s office, in a statement, said the contest was conceived and administered by Armstrong-Homeniuk in her role as regional chair of the Commonwealth Women’s Parliamentarians group. It added that neither the Speaker's nor the legislative assembly office were involved in picking the essays "in any capacity."

“As soon as the content of the third-place winner was brought to the Speaker’s attention, he immediately made the decision for the content to be removed," said the statement.

Three candidates in the race to replace Premier Jason Kenney as party leader and premier also took to Twitter to criticize the award.

“It’s a disgrace that an essay saying women are not equal to men won an award sponsored by government. Women, and their contributions, are equally valuable and amazing whether we are moms or not. Can’t believe this needs to be said,” wrote Rebecca Schulz.

Rajan Sawhney followed up: “Agree, Rebecca. Same goes for the comments about 'foreigners.' Alberta is the proud home of people from all over the world — from Ukraine, to the Philippines, and everywhere in between.”

Leela Aheer said: “Well, I read 1st and 2nd place (essays). Those were great! I’m not sure how the 3rd essay elevates women."

Lise Gotell, a women’s and gender studies professor at the University of Alberta, said the essay perpetuates an essentialist, sexist and racist point of view stemming from the long discredited and outdated concept that a women’s role is to reproduce as a bulwark against immigration.

“The fact that it was chosen says a great deal about the views on appropriate gender roles being advanced by this government,” said Gotell.

“This essay reads like something that quite frankly could’ve been written in the 19th century.”

— With files from Angela Amato in Edmonton

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Defence lawyers begin work stoppages to protest ‘perpetual underfunding’ of Legal Aid Alberta

Emily Mertz - 9h ago


Criminal Defence Lawyers in Alberta have started job action to demand a provincial government response to what they call its "perpetual underfunding of Legal Aid Alberta."


© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

A woman wears a mask as she enters the Calgary Courts Centre during COVID-19 restrictions in Calgary, Monday, May 17, 2021.

Between Aug. 8 and 19, members of the Criminal Defence Lawyers Association (Calgary) (CDLA), the Criminal Trial

Lawyers Association (Edmonton) (CTLA) and the Southern Alberta Defence Lawyers' Association (SADL) will not accept any legal aid files that require:

bail only services

courtroom duty counsel services

complainant counsel services (pursuant to s. 276 of the Criminal Code)

cross-examination of complainant services (in cases where an accused is otherwise self represented).

Danielle Boisvert, a criminal defence lawyer in Edmonton and the president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association, said that means lawyers started refusing duty counsel certificates (per-service contracts) from Legal Aid this week.

Boisvert said Tuesday that she estimates between 450 and 600 lawyers are taking part in the job action -- about half of Legal Aid Alberta's overall roster.

Read more:
Legal aid lawyers step up job action in Alberta

Boisvert added that a fourth group has also joined the cause: the Red Deer Defence Lawyers Association.

Effective Aug. 4, the lawyers withdrew their representatives from the Legal Aid Tariff Modernization Committee.

All three groups are asking Justice Minister Tyler Shandro to consider increasing Legal Aid's budget and reviewing the current financial eligibility guidelines for applications.

Read more:
Legal aid lawyers reach breaking point, request more funding from province

A meeting with the province on Monday was "disappointing," Boisvert said.

"As someone who's never gone to one of these political meetings, it was both enlightening and frustrating," she said Tuesday morning.

She said the two parties were at an "impasse" -- there was no recognition from the province of the need for immediate funding, nor were any solutions presented.

"There was only discussions of why there could not be solutions," Boisvert said.

There was a commitment to review Legal Aid funding and eligibility in the 2023 budget, she said.

"They heard our concerns and they did give us a lot of their time yesterday, which we appreciated."

Plans were made to meet again in the next few weeks, Boisvert said.

Video: Ask a lawyer: Navigating the court system for the first time

Meanwhile, the four lawyer groups will reconvene Wednesday evening to update members and discuss potential future steps. She said it's possible, if members desire, the current job action could last beyond Aug. 19 or additional steps could be taken.

"If the government's neglect of Legal Aid Alberta continues, our members will withdraw all duty counsel services provided to the Justice of the Peace Bail Office between Sept. 1-15," the groups said in an Aug. 3 news release.

"Our members have been clear: if Minister Shandro persists in his failure to ensure equal access to justice for all Albertans, further services will be withdrawn."

Global News has reached out to Legal Aid Alberta. This article will be updated when a response is received.

In a news release shared on its website, Legal Aid Alberta explained Albertans can continue to access legal aid support in provincial courts but there may be some delays.

"We're making efforts to ensure a duty counsel lawyer will be available either in person or virtually at all courthouses.

"We are committed to taking all reasonable steps to minimize service disruptions and to prioritize those who are in the most disadvantaged situations."

Read more:
A ‘broken’ system: Canadians can’t afford lawyers but don’t qualify for legal aid

The organization said roster lawyers who do legal aid are not employees of Legal Aid Alberta; but rather contracted by LAA "to provide legal advice and representation services in the areas of criminal and family law. The three criminal defence organizations that voted in favour of withdrawing duty counsel services do not represent all roster lawyers.

"Roster lawyers are integral to Legal Aid Alberta. While LAA is unable to change the rate of pay for roster lawyers, we are included in the discussions with them. We are hopeful a solution can be reached soon. We will continue to press forward with modernizing the tariff structure and remain committed to delivering a proposal to the ministry by budget time in October."

Video: Ask a Lawyer: Duty Counsel Day and the importance of the role

A spokesperson for Alberta Justice told Global News on Aug. 5 that a review of Alberta's Legal Aid program is underway "to address administrative efficiencies for billing, block fees, and other simplifications of the tariff system."

Joseph Dow said Alberta is willing to consider increasing Legal Aid's operating budget and eligibility guidelines but "that work must be done after the current review is complete and must be done through the development of the 2023 budget."

Alberta Justice said: "publicly funded and affordable legal services are critical to ensuring that every Albertan has fair and equitable access to the legal system. We appreciate the work that all criminal lawyers undertake on the behalf of Albertans and their advocacy to increase funding for Alberta's Legal Aid program."

On Aug. 8, Dow said work is already underway "to modernize the legal aid tariff in our province.

"The government will be able to explore potential changes to tariff rates and the current financial eligibility guidelines as part of the development of the 2023 budget."

Read more:
Alberta’s Crown prosecutors consider walking off the job

The justice department says Alberta ranks sixth provincially for the hourly tariff rate for roster lawyers with 10 years experience ($92.40/hour).

"Throughout this process, Alberta's government will continue to engage our justice partners, including these organizations, to ensure we continue to prioritize the accessibility and long-term sustainability of legal aid in our province."

According to Alberta Justice, the province has increased funding to Legal Aid Alberta by 47 per cent since 2015.

'A vehement backlash': North Carolina senators blasted by constituents for opposing $35 insulin cap

AlterNet - 13h ago
By Alex Henderson



On Sunday, August 7, the U.S. Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a $750 billion package addressing energy, climate change, health care and taxes. The bill passed 51-50 via the process known as budget reconciliation, allowing the Senate’s narrow Democratic majority to bypass the 60-vote rule of the filibuster. Now, the bill will go to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration, and Democrats are optimistic that it will pass in the House and make it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

Both of North Carolina’s Republican U.S. senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, voted against the bill. Journalist Danielle Battaglia, in an article published by the Raleigh News and Observer on August 8, stresses that they are facing a “vehement backlash” in their state for, during debates on the bill, opposing a proposal to limit how much private insurance companies can charge for the insulin used by diabetics.

“Debate on the bill began Saturday morning and stretched into Sunday,” Battaglia explains. “Senators went back and forth on numerous amendments, but one subjected Burr and Tillis to vehement backlash from their constituents: a $35 cap on insulin from private insurance companies…. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough — who serves as the chamber’s official adviser and rule keeper — deemed an insulin price cap for private insurers a violation of the Senate’s rules for the reconciliation process to pass the bill on a bare majority. Senate Democrats sought to overrule MacDonough’s decision in a vote that needed 60 supporting members.”

READ MORE: Economist Paul Krugman explains why Democrats’ climate bill could be a 'major step toward saving the planet'

Battaglia adds, “The New York Times reported that, despite the rule violation, Democrats ‘dared’ Republicans to vote against the cap by keeping the provision in the bill. Tillis and Burr rarely cave to such political pressure. Both voted against capping insulin costs along with 43 other Republicans, forcing the provision to fail.”

Senate Democrats forced Burr, Tilllis and other Republicans to go on the record about whether or not they believed a $35 insulin cap should be part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — and both of them are being lambasted for, critics say, throwing diabetics under the bus.

“Several people took to social media Sunday and Monday ridiculing the North Carolina Senators for their ostensible apathy toward insulin users,” Battaglia reports. “The posts and tweets were laced with profanity. North Carolina’s Democratic Party spokeswoman Ellie Dougherty capitalized on the social media climate.”

Battaglia quotes Dougherty as saying, “While President Biden and Democrats are working day in and day out to lower the cost of prescription drugs, reduce the deficit and fight rising costs without raising taxes a single penny on middle class families, Burr and Tillis’ vote underscores the GOP’s commitment to protecting Big Pharma and special interests over easing costs for North Carolina families.”

READ MORE: 'A Bernie Sanders acolyte': Why Republicans went from praising 'wildcard' Joe Manchin to hating him

Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee in North Carolina’s 2022 U.S. Senate race, was quick to lambast Burr and Tillis on Twitter. On August 7, Beasley tweeted, “Both NC senators just voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which would lower costs at a time when millions of families are struggling. North Carolinians deserve more. As Senator, I will always fight for the people — not cower to corporate special interests…. Senator Burr and Tillis’ votes today were inexcusable.

READ MORE: What is the Inflation Reduction Act?

Researchers 'revive' organs in dead pigs, raising questions about life and death

Sharon Kirkey - Wednesday

© Provided by National PostYale University team restored blood circulation and other cellular functions in multiple porcine organs an hour after pigs (not this one) died from cardiac arrest.

Scientists have rebooted vital organs of dead pigs in an experiment bioethicists say may force a rethink of how the body dies, and that further blurs the boundaries between life and death.

Using a system dubbed “OrganEx” that uses special pumps and a cocktail of chemicals to restore oxygen and prevent cell death throughout the body, the Yale University team restored blood circulation and other cellular functions in multiple porcine organs an hour after the pigs’ deaths from cardiac arrest.

Electrical activity was restored in the heart, for instance. The muscle was contracting.

The study “reveals the underappreciated capacity for cellular recovery after prolonged whole-body warm ischemia (loss of blood circulation, and thus oxygen) in a large mammal,” the team r eports in the journal Nature .

The experiments also bolster findings from another Yale-led project three years ago that involved disembodied pigs’ brains. Using a similar perfusion system called BrainEx, researchers restored some functions in brains taken from pigs four hours after they were killed in a meatpacking plant.

That was an isolated organ. The team wondered, could they apply a similar approach on a whole-body scale?

Together, the research challenges old thinking that the body’s cells and organs begin to be irreversibly destroyed within minutes of the heart stopping. Instead, “cellular demise can be halted, and their state (can) be shifted towards recovery at molecular and cellular levels,” the Yale team writes in Nature.

The work has the potential to help reduce the amount of damage that is done to people’s brains after a stroke, or repair heart function after a heart attack.


© David Andrijevic, Zvonimir Vrselja, Taras Lysyy, Shupei Zhang; Sestan Laboratorydrawing showing the difference between pigs put on the OrganEx system versus those put on ECMO.

But the greatest benefit might come in expanding the supply of donor organs for transplant. And there’s where things get ethically complicated.

Donor organs can be retrieved from people who are declared brain-stem dead. They’re medically and legally dead, but their hearts are still beating. But seat belt and helmet laws and advances in treating brain injuries means fewer people are dying from brain death.

A trend now is to retrieve organs from “donation after circulatory death” donors, typically people on life support with such a bleak prognosis the decision to remove life support is made. Once the heart stops beating and doctors wait the obligatory five minutes before declaring death, the donor organs are retrieved. But surgeons must move quickly. The organs deteriorate once starved of a blood supply and oxygen.

OrganEx has the potential to give doctors more time to retrieve the organs after life support has been switched off.

But that approach would also require the “obligatory” clamping of the main arteries supplying blood to the brain to prevent any blood reaching the brain of the deceased organ donor, the Yale team notes.

In both the BrainEx and OrganEx experiments, the researchers, who did continuous EEG (electroencephalography) monitoring of the animals’ brains, found cellular activity in some areas of the brain had been restored. At no point did they see the kind of electrical activity that would indicate consciousness or awareness, they said.

However, the anesthetized pigs treated with OrganEx did jerk their heads and necks when injected with a contrast dye used for imaging. The EEG patterns were flat immediately before and after the movements. But the movements indicate some “preservation” of motor functions, the researchers said.

The OrganEx system works much like a heart-lung bypass machine. The perfusion device is connected to the pig’s circulatory system. A synthetic fluid that contains Hemopure, a blood-like product, and a dozen other chemicals that suppress cell death and inflammation is pumped throughout the pig’s body.

The researchers anesthetized the animals and then stopped their hearts. An hour after they were dead, the pigs were connected to the OrganEx system. The animals were compared to a group of pigs placed on ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a machine that pumps the pig’s own oxygenated blood throughout the body.

After six hours of treatment, the scientists saw decreased cell death, less swelling and restored activity in the heart, liver, kidneys and pancreas in the OrganEx group. The chemical solution seemed to trigger genes involved in cell repair. Unlike the ECMO pigs, “we could see the heart was beating,” said first author David Andrijevic, an associate research scientist in neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine. It doesn’t mean the organs were functionally normally. There were no details on what the electrical activity might mean. “It was beating,” Andrijevic said. “The quality of this beating is debatable.”

“The next step is that we’re hoping to see complete tissue and organ recovery and, of course, eventually, to transplant these organs,” he said.

But the team was surprised by how much they were able to restore blood flow and deliver adequate levels of oxygen to the whole body throughout the entire experiment. This wasn’t a 200-gram pig brain but 30-35-kg swine, Andrijevic said. Six hours later, there were no signs of rigor mortis in the OrganEx-perfused pigs.

“The implications are just so phenomenal as I see it,” said University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman.

“With heart attack and stroke, I say, hallelujah, because so much harm is done so quickly and if something like that is going to help, that would be wonderful.”

He’s also pro-transplant — “I’m not anti-transplant in any way, shape or form.” However, “what hits me like a tonne of bricks is that you are really manipulating the boundary between life and death.”

It’s like throwing a switch, he said. Living, dead, living, dead. “If you can restore a lot of these organs, how dead is the person?”

“What they are proposing here is that a person would be taken off life support, declared dead, perfuse them with OrganEx and then insert a balloon to block access to the brain,” Bowman said. “And the reason for that is you would not want any brain activity, because that would raise questions as to whether this person was truly dead or not.”

“Once you’ve been declared dead you would kind of reanimate aspects of this person to use their organs, while blocking their brain,” Bowman said.

“There is no indication that if you didn’t do that, that this person would recover or have any level of consciousness. (But) we simply don’t know those things…. I think we need a lot more clarity as to where this is going.”

Restoring cellular activity isn’t the same as coming back into human existence, said Arthur Caplan, a medical ethics expert at NYU. The experiment is important for “trying to figure out what can be restored, what can be resuscitated, what can be partially restored after death.”

However, “if you can get biological activity in cells, in muscles, and they’re moving and you seem to see signs of what I’ll call ‘life’ in a body, in an animal that’s been dead for an hour, do we need to rethink how we understand cardiac death, not brain death.”

“If you could get some function back by putting in this OrganEx solution, would that mean that should be tried on people whose hearts have stopped before we pronounce them dead?”

It may be possible to use the technique to put people who have suffered a catastrophic injury into a “suspended animation kind of situation” long enough to perform emergency surgery, he added.

Doctors harvesting organs from Canadian patients who underwent medically assisted death

Life — after life: Does consciousness continue after our brain dies?

The experiment is further reminder that death is a process, rather than an abrupt event, Caplan said. “Yes, your brain my stop, your heart may stop but other parts of the body may peter out as opposed to all shutting down” within minutes or seconds.

“I think a lot of people are likely to assume that when you’re dead, everything is dead all at once. This experiment suggests to me that isn’t true.”

A lot more animal work would be needed to be absolutely certain “that you couldn’t get meaningful brain activity back,” Caplan said. “What I personally believe to be true, watching a lot of organ procurement over the years, and a lot of dying, is that the brain is much more vulnerable.”

“When we see someone whose heart hasn’t worked for five minutes, we know their brain is gone,” even if it means getting something in their liver to work, Caplan said. “Tying off flow to the brain would not be trying to fudge the definition of death.”

National Post

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster are STILL present, study says

Jonathan Chadwick For Mailonline - Yesterday 

Traces of oil from BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster are still present more than 10 years after the devastating spill, a new study reveals.

Researchers have looked at the long-lasting effects of the explosion in April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect.

They say small amounts of 'highly weathered oil residues' from the disaster were still present in the surroundings as recently as 2020.

Oily layers coated grasses along the shorelines and some particles even sank to the seafloor, staying there for a decade.

After the Deepwater Horizon spill on April 20 2010, 210 million gallons (795 million litres) of live oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of 87 days.


Small amounts of highly weathered oil residues from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster were still present in the surroundings ten years later, a study shows. 

This photo taken on April 21, 2010 by the US Coast Guard shows fire boat response crews as they battle the blazing remnants of the BP Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico


Tendrils of crude oil cover the waters of the Gulf of Mexico following the explosive sinking of the BP operated Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig on April 26, 2010

The glove-covered hands of Dan Howells, deputy campaign director with Greenpeace, are coated with a layer of oil after he dipped them in oil floating on the surface in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill near Grand Isle, Louisiana, June 10, 2010

Oil slicks covered an estimated area of 57,500 square miles (149,000 square km) – an area the same size as England and Wales combined.

Staring on April 20, 2010 and lasting 84 days, it was the largest, longest lasting and deepest oil spill accident in US waters.

The new study has been led by Edward Overton, a professor at Louisiana State University's Department of Environmental Sciences in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

'The better we understand the chemicals and their chemical reactive properties as well as their physical properties, the better we will be able to mitigate oil spills and understand and detect environmental damages from oil spills,' he said.

Related video: How to clean the world's most polluted rivers (CNBC)

Duration 13:59   View on Watch

THE DEEPWATER HORIZON DISASTER: WHAT HAPPENED?

On the night of April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a rig owned by Transocean Ltd., burst into flames after drilling a well for BP PLC, killing 11 workers on or near the drilling floor.

The rest of the crew evacuated, but two days later the rig toppled into the Gulf and sank to the sea floor. The bodies were never recovered.

Over the next 85 days, 206 million gallons of oil - 19 times more than the Exxon Valdez spilled - spewed from the well.

In response, the nation commandeered the largest offshore fleet of vessels since D-Day, and BP spent billions of dollars to clean up the mess, saving itself from collapse.

BP was suspended from performing any new government work in America in November 2012, after it agreed to plead guilty and pay a $4.5billion fine (£2.8billion) for criminal charges over the disaster.

But it left lingering oil residues which have altered life in the ocean by reducing biodiversity in sites closest to the spill.

'Our paper describes the most abundant chemicals that make up typical crude oil and their potential fates in the environment.'

Overton and his collaborators focused on the components that were present at the highest concentrations in spilled oil and those that are the most toxic, as listed on the US Environmental Protection Agency's priority list.

By collecting and analysing samples from the water, seafloor and surrounding shorelines in numerous response studies, they followed 'chemical transformations' that occurred in the following months and years.

Once released into the environment, significant portions of the oil evaporated into the air (between 30 per cent and 40 per cent), they found.

Oil covered brown pelicans found off the Louisiana coast and affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wait in a holding pen for cleaning at the Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Buras, Louisiana, June 11, 2010

Water-soluble chemicals dissolved relatively quickly into the sea and were biodegraded by marine organisms.

However, this was not true for all of the spilled oil's components, as oily layers coated the shorelines grasses and some particles even sank to the seafloor.

Large portions of the spill also underwent sun-dependent chemical transformations or were degraded by microbes.

Workers are seen as they use a vacuum hose to capture some of the oil washing on to Fourchon Beach from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on June 28, 2010 in Port Fourchon, Louisiana

'Oil's compounds are a type of material that can be degraded by sunlight and marine bacteria (biodegradation), in contrast to other types of pollutants such as the chlorinated pesticides like DDT,' said Professor Overton.

'Oil spills release lots of chemicals quickly and most damage from oil spills occurs fairly soon after the spill.'

The team also said oil goes through transformations that are dependent on the local conditions and weather, which makes them difficult to predict for future spills.

'Environmental circumstances surrounding specific spills greatly affect how quickly the compounds can react, what they cover or coat and how much oxygen can be taken up in critical habitats,' said Professor Overton.

The study has been published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. Read more