White House adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks on MAGA 'hate-filled' agenda


Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defended President Joe Biden's prime-time address on Thursday, warning of the threat "MAGA" Republicans pose to American democracy on "This Week," saying Biden spoke "optimistically" about the country, but also said that the nation needs to "call out hatred."

MAGA agenda has 'no place in our democracy': White House senior adviser
View on Watch    Duration 6:16

"This 'MAGA' Republican agenda, this hate-filled agenda ... we saw incite violence on our nation's Capitol, has no place in a democracy. And if we are not ... calling it out, which is what the president did, then our country, everything that our country is built upon is in danger," Bottoms, now a senior adviser for public engagement for the White House told co-anchor Martha Raddatz Sunday morning.

In his remarks, Biden used some of his harshest language to date to criticize former President Donald Trump, and his supporters, saying they "represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic" -- a notable shift for Biden, who ran on a message of uniting the country after Trump's four years in office.

The speech, delivered just months before the midterm elections, was seen by many as an effort to help frame the November elections as a referendum on Trump, and was heavily criticized by Republicans as divisive, saying it disparaged the 70-plus million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020.



Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and members of the Atlanta Braves team speak following the World Series Parade at Truist Park, Nov. 5, 2021 in Atlanta.© Megan Varner/Getty

A new analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks hate speech, said after the Biden speech, there was a surge online in conversations that said Biden's remarks singling "MAGA" Republicans were interpreted as a declaration of war against conservatives and Trump voters.

Bottoms stressed that Biden was not speaking about all Republicans, but those who supported the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"The president has not called out all Republicans. He's been very specific about this 'MAGA' agenda," she said. "I'll just remind you of the words of Martin Luther King Jr. when he said that, 'it's not the words of our enemies that we will remember. It's the silence of our friends' and what the president has said, is that mainstream Republicans, Independents, Democrats, can all come together, we've seen us come together, to do what's right on behalf of the American people," Bottoms said to Raddatz.

While Biden criticized "MAGA" Republicans for supporting candidates who deny the outcome of the 2020 election, there has also been criticism of Democrat groups who have been accused of bolstering far-right Republican candidates in races, in hopes of increasing Democratic odds in November.

Raddatz asked Bottoms about those claims and whether Biden should address them.MORE: Not every Trump supporter threat to nation, Biden says

"I think what the president will continue to do is encourage people to go out and vote their conscience, whatever their conscience may be, and what the president will continue to do, which what we saw him do just this week, is to remind people who we are as a country, who we are as a nation," Bottoms said.

"So does he support that? Does he support supporting those extreme candidates?" Raddatz pressed.

"I cannot speak to what the president supports. I can speak to what he has said publicly and what he has said publicly is that we are a nation that values the rule of law, that we are a nation of peace, that we are a nation that values that peaceful transition of power, and this MAGA agenda has no place in our democracy," Bottoms said.

Accidental cannabis poisoning is on the rise among Canadian kids. What can be done?

Heidi Lee - Yesterday 

With some Canadian provinces seeing an increase in accidental cannabis poisoning among children, experts are stressing the need to make edibles look less appealing to kids.


A variety of cannabis edibles are displayed at the Ontario Cannabis Store in Toronto on Friday, January 3, 2020.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin

A recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine on Aug. 25 found that there has been a 6.3-fold increase in hospitalizations for unintentional cannabis poisoning among the under-10 age group in Canada since the legalization of recreational cannabis in October 2018.

Dr. Daniel Myran, the lead author of the study, said the average age of poisoning in kids is three and a half years old.

“These are busy preschoolers who are getting into places that, ideally, they shouldn't be (at). They're finding something that looks very appealing to eat with no understanding of the fact that it contains cannabis,” said Myran.

Myran said edibles in the form of gummies, chocolates, or even cookies can seem very tempting to children because they look similar to their everyday snacks and candy.

He said these edibles should always be kept “out of reach of children, locked up.” Legal products which are originally sold in child-resistant packaging should be retained in their kits until the time that they're going to be consumed.

Video: Increased hospitalizations for unintentional cannabis poisoning for children under 10 since legalization, study finds

“There's a variety of different ways that (adult consumers) can consume cannabis,” said Myran. “For people who are looking to consume higher quantities of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), there are potentially other ways that they could ingest that THC. It doesn't need to be in the form of a sugar-coated gummy.”

According to Health Canada, legal edible cannabis has a limit of a maximum of 10 mg of THC per container.

THC is responsible for the way an individual's brain and body responds to cannabis, including the high and intoxication, Health Canada states on its website.

Although THC has some therapeutic effects, it also has harmful effects which may be greater when the strength of THC is higher.

Video: More British Columbia residents using cannabis products: survey

To further reduce the risk, Myran said markets can design and reformulate edibles to make them less appealing to children in an effort to avoid such accidents..

“There are just certain products that no matter how you package them, no matter how you present them, (they will look appealing). Candy is candy, and kids will be interested in that,” said Myran. “And we don't think this is a good idea to sell.”

However, Myran noted that events of accidental cannabis poisonings among children in Canada are “still relatively rare.”

Canada has had 581 hospitalizations from cannabis poisoning in children over a seven-year period, which represents a wider base of less severe poisonings, said Myran.

The New England Journal report, titled "Edible Cannabis Legalization and Unintentional Poisonings in Children," compared three provinces in Canada — Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta -- against a fourth province, Quebec, which had a ban on edibles at the time when the study was conducted.

Before legalization in 2018, hospitalization rates were similar across provinces. However, hospitalization rates in Ontario, B.C., Alberta and Quebec jumped 2.6 times during the first period of legalization between October 2018 to December 2019.

During the second period of legalization between January 2020 to September 2021, the hospitalization rates in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta were 7.5 times higher than before. Whereas, the hospitalization rate in Quebec was three times higher — largely due to the fact that edibles were not legalized at the time in the province, according to the study.

Myran said it can be argued that more parental education is needed but the responsibility doesn’t solely fall on parents or caregivers.

“I don't think that you ever want to look at a problem like this and say the only response here is for more parental education and responsibility,” he said.

Current government policies are “doing a fairly good job at making this problem not worse,” said Myran.

Read more:
B.C. cannabis use increases ‘responsibly’ three years after legalization: survey

According to Health Canada, Cannabis products must be packaged in a child-resistant container and the label should contain the standardized cannabis symbol, the mandatory health warning message and include specific product information— such as the brand name, class of cannabis, (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) information.

“These measures aim to reduce the risks of accidental consumption and overconsumption as well as reduce the appeal of cannabis products to young persons while providing consumers with the information they need to make informed decisions before using cannabis,” the advisory on Health Canada's website says.

Zach Walsh, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, said besides securely storing cannabis products away from children, parents should also have clear communication with their kids about cannabis consumption when they are old enough.

He said keeping an open and honest line of communication with children about cannabis and drug use throughout their life could prevent adolescent substance abuse in the future.

Although the overall percentage of people in Canada reporting cannabis use decreased from 2020 to 2021, more youth than adults who use cannabis reported changing their patterns of use during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addition's (CCSA) Cannabis Legalization Observations 2021–2022 report.

CCSA's report stated that there is also an increase in youth and young adults using cannabis vaporizers.

Video: Parents should keep an open and honest line of communication with children on drug use, expert recommends

Walsh said parents often hide their cannabis use from children, but "the kids still know they're using it," and this "secrecy further stigmatizes the use of cannabis."

“That's not where we need to be when we're dealing with ... adolescents and substance use, particularly at this time when the stakes are so high with some of the white powder drugs and opioids,” said Walsh.

Walsh also warned of the over-regulation of cannabis, which could lead to “far worse consequences than the direct effects of cannabis.”

“One thing that we want to be cautious of, given the history of cannabis, is that it doesn't turn into a sort of drug hysteria,” said Walsh. “Because as we've seen in the past with criminalization, promoting panic and overregulation haven't protected children or anyone from cannabis.”

Myran said young children who have ingested cannabis would be uncoordinated and have trouble sleeping in severe cases.

He said people should seek prompt care at the emergency room or by calling a regional poison control center.

“Because when young children ingest large quantities of cannabis, they can actually stop breathing,” said Myran. “And these are kids who need to be supported in their breathing with breathing tubes and ventilators while the cannabis is metabolized or processed out of their system.”

He added that parents or caregivers should disclose the situation to health-care providers if they suspect their kids may have ingested cannabis.

A cannabis poisoning event can look like a variety of other serious medical conditions and health-care workers need to “do other types of invasive procedures to rule them out,” cautioned Myran.

Is Ukraine’s nuclear plant safe? UN inspector worried as fighting intensifies

Eric Stober - Friday

Fighting is intensifying in the region that hosts Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a trend that has the UN's chief nuclear inspector worried about possible collateral damage.


In this handout photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Friday Sept. 2, 2022, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Rafael Grossi, the mission leader, left, and other members of the IAEA, inspect the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar, southeastern Ukraine Thursday Sept. 1, 2022.© Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) completed an initial inspection of the nuclear plant on Friday, in which the inspectors said they witnessed "impact holes" and markings on buildings from shelling related to the war in Ukraine waged by Russia.

2 UN inspectors to stay at Ukraine nuclear plant as fighting goes on

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told reporters Friday after leaving the war zone that it was clear the physical integrity of some buildings had been "violated" several times.

Recommended video: UN inspectors head to Ukraine nuclear plant despite fighting

Duration 3:00  View on Watch

"The kinetic power of what you're throwing at the plant is unacceptable," he said.

Then, there is the off-site power supply that helps keep the reactors cool to avoid a Chernobyl-esque meltdown, units that Grossi said are an area of enormous concern.

The inspection was meant to gauge the impact of the war on the nuclear power plant after a fire broke out in its vicinity in March when it was seized by the Russians.

However, Grossi said shelling in the area is actually a more recent trend that began in August.

"Military operations are increasing in that region," he said. "This worries me a lot."

Video: IAEA inspectors arrive in Zaporizhzhia to inspect nuclear plant, chief says mission is ‘technical’

Both Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations that each other are shelling the plant, with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu saying it raises the risk of a nuclear catastrophe.

One of the plant’s reactors was forced to shut down on Thursday due to shelling.

In an effort to promote stability at the plant, two UN nuclear specialists will stay there permanently to keep eye on the present dangers, and a report should be available early next week, according to Grossi.

He said that during the tour, no details were obscured to sway the final assessment, although Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom argued otherwise.

The company said the UN watchdog had not been allowed to enter the plant's crisis centre where Russian troops are allegedly stationed, and said that a partial look at the plant does not allow for an impartial assessment.

Grossi, though, was satisfied with the level of inspection.

"We saw everything," he said.

Fifty years after major Montreal art theft, trail has gone cold and nobody's talking

MONTREAL — Fifty years after what has been described as the biggest art heist in Canadian history, the thieves’ identity remains a mystery, and nobody is keen to talk about it.



From the Montreal police to the art museum that was burgled, from Canadian Heritage to the Quebec Culture Department, mum’s the word on the Skylight Caper.

It was in the early morning hours of Sept. 4, 1972 that three men rappelled from a skylight down a nylon rope into the second floor of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. They had selected the one skylight for which the alarm hadn’t been set, and once inside, the armed trio quickly overpowered the museum’s few overnight guards.

Blindfolded, gagged and bound in a first-floor lecture hall, the guards could only provide the most basic of descriptions—the two men they actually saw were of average height and build, wore ski masks and had long hair. Two of the thieves spoke French and one spoke English. A fair chunk of the city’s male population could fit the description.

It is not altogether surprising the case faded quickly from memory, as the 1972 Labour Day weekend was particularly eventful. On Friday, Sept. 1, three men who were refused entry to Montreal’s Wagon Wheel, a country and western bar, set fire to a rear staircase. The blaze ultimately consumed the entire building, killing 37 people.

The next day Canada lost the opening game of the 1972 Summit Series to the Soviet Union at the Montreal Forum.

And by the time news of the Skylight Caper began hitting national newswires, international attention had been drawn to the unfolding Munich Olympics hostage crisis, soon to degenerate into one of the most appalling acts of terrorism the world had seen.

To this day, the Montreal theft – which the journal Canadian Art in 2019 called the largest in the country’s history — remains remarkably obscure.

For about half an hour the trio went about selecting the paintings, small objects and pieces of jewelry they intended to steal. Evidence from the scene suggested to investigators that the thieves attempted to rig a pulley system to haul themselves, and the precious art and artifacts they had stolen, back through the skylight. Later reports on the theft indicated the thieves abandoned their initial pulley scheme and opted to use the museum’s panel van instead.

One of the thieves inadvertently tripped the alarm on a side door leading out to the street, in the process eliminating the suspicion it had been an inside job.

Investigators later determined that the thieves panicked, grabbed what they could carry -- 18 paintings and 39 small objects -- and took off on foot. Among the stolen items were paintings by Delacroix, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Millet, Rubens and Rembrandt.

What had been left behind was even more surprising: masterpieces by Goya, El Greco, Picasso, a Renoir and another Rembrandt.

Police later concluded that what connected the stolen pieces was their size -- all were small enough to be easily stacked together.

At the time, the museum estimated it had lost $2 million in stolen property -- nearly $14 million in today’s dollars. Later estimates indicated the Rembrandt alone may have been worth that much.

Only two of the stolen items have ever been recovered -- a pendant and a painting attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder -- both during ultimately failed ransom efforts.

As the 50th anniversary approached, the Montreal police department was asked for comment about the unsolved mystery. Spokesperson Anik de Repentigny said the case is still considered open and offered no further comment.

But long-time art crime investigator and retired Montreal police detective Alain Lacoursière — a man whose talent for solving art crimes earned him the nickname the Columbo of art — doesn’t believe Montreal police are actively investigating the theft because no one is familiar with the file.

Lacoursière has also previously told both the Journal of Art Crime and Canadian Art that he believes the investigation was flawed from the beginning, alleging files were mishandled and investigators gave up too soon.

Though the museum’s media relations department put together a collection of files about the case, they were reluctant to discuss it in any depth. The theft is for all intents and purposes a cold case, the paintings and objects are now the stolen property of the insurer and the affair dealt an embarrassing blow to the museum’s prestige and collection.

“Any artwork's theft is a tragedy, as it deprives society of the benefits of art and knowledge,” Maude Béland, media relations officer for the museum, said in an email. “Of course, we would love to have them back! Unfortunately, we do not have any new information.”

When contacted by The Canadian Press for comment on the anniversary of the theft, spokespeople for representatives at three levels of government declined all comment.

The Skylight Caper is unique among high-profile art thefts, as the paintings have both increased and decreased in value. After the Brueghel was returned unscathed in a show of good faith during ransom negotiations, it was re-assessed by a prominent art historian and determined unlikely to have been painted by the great master.

Subsequent review of the museum’s files on the stolen paintings, as reported in the Journal of Art Crime in 2011, revealed that doubts had been cast on the authenticity and/or attribution of about seven paintings, in some cases dating to six years before the heist. Adding insult to injury, a Rubens purchased by the museum with the insurance payout was also later determined to be misattributed.

What seemed like the biggest break in the case came about 30 years after the theft at a small art gallery in Montreal’s east end. Lacoursière struck up a conversation with a man he would subsequently nickname Smith who seemed to know everything about the case, including details that weren’t commonly known to the public.

The man was an avid art collector, independently wealthy and had been an art student in Montreal in 1972. “Smith” indicated he might have been part of a group of art students Montreal police suspected in the weeks after the theft.

Lacoursière at one point showed up at the man’s home and asked him — perhaps hoping to throw him off — where in his backyard they should start digging. “Smith” just laughed it off.

Lacoursière says the man he dubbed Smith died in 2017 or 2018.

“He was certainly well versed in the details of the theft," Lacoursière said in an email exchange, "but I think this was either from newspapers or from friends.”

The retired detective spent a good part of his career investigating the case but still has no clear idea of what happened to the paintings aside from a hope that they still exist somewhere.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2022.

Taylor Noakes, The Canadian Press

“Radical decentralisation” needed in Iran to allow Kurdish communities to benefit from natural resources, study argues

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

A radical decentralisation of politics and decision-making in Iran is needed to allow Kurdish communities to benefit from natural resources, experts have argued.

Kurdish regions in Iran have rich minerals, dense forests and massive surface and underground water deposits.

But deforestation, exploitation of the environment and the irregular and unconsidered extraction of gold and aluminium has resulted in environmental and health issues among the Kurdish people as well as droughts and water shortages.

The study outlines how many Kurds view the Iranian state’s economic and development policies in Kurdistan as unsustainable, discriminatory and colonialist. Kurdish environmental groups have been highly targeted by Iran’s security and judicial systems.

Researchers say water management is seen as destructive and mismanaged because it is transferred from Iranian Kurdistan to other regions. This threatens to bring desertification and land subsidence. As part of the Turkish state’s Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) 22 dams have been constructed in Kurdistan is another form of exploitation of Kurdistan’s natural resources. This has had an adverse impact on the landscape and culture in the region.

The study says the Kurdish people could benefit from Kurdistan's natural human resources if there was a radical form of decentralization of the political and decision-making system so they could participate in different aspects of political and economic activities determined by their cultural and national values, needs and preferences.

The study, published in the Journal of World Systems Research, was conducted by Dr Allan Hassaniyan, from the University of Exeter and Mansour Sohrabi, an independent researcher.

Dr Hassaniyan said: “In recent decades, Kurdistan’s natural environment has been subject to massive degradation, and Kurdistan’s natural resources—which should have been the source of wealth and prosperity of the region’s population—have been comprehensively exploited by different state institutions, among them the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its sub-organisations and contractors.

“People face drought, soil erosion and deforestation. Damage to the natural environment in Kurdistan is caused by climate change and human activities, including the government’s mismanagement of environmental issues and catastrophes.”

Dr Sohrabi said: “The Iranian state’s economic and developmental approach to Kurdistan’s natural resources, and the extraction and exploitation of these resources, have resulted in extensive environmental degradation, affecting public health.

“The state-centric approach to socioeconomic development, exemplified through dam construction, water transportation, deforestation, the location of polluting industries such as oil refineries in or close to natural sites, are among the governmental initiatives that pose an extensive threat to environmental sustainability and the socioeconomic integrity of different communities in the region.”

 

---

DOI

10.5195/JWSR.2022.1081 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Colonial management of Iranian Kurdistan; with emphasis on water resources

Families and former patients seek access to federal 'Indian hospital' records


OTTAWA — Georgina Martin says she is still searching for answers about the treatment of her mother.


Martin was born at the Coqualeetza Indian Hospital in British Columbia after her mother was confined there with tuberculosis. Martin grew up with her grandparents in Williams Lake First Nation, or T'Exelc, in that province, while her mother remained hospitalized.

The professor and chair of Indigenous/Xwulmuxw studies at Vancouver Island University says she does not have a complete picture of her past, despite asking repeatedly for records.

“My birth in an Indian hospital was my first experience of trauma, which was then compounded by being reared without the closeness of a mother,” Martin wrote in a coming memoir.

“There is no information in the limited literature available about the effects of these hospitals on the Secwépemc people in my community," wrote Martin, whose research focuses on intergenerational trauma linked to both residential schools and the health-care system

"What I am aware of is that I was born there. I made some effort to obtain my birth records; so far I have not been able to locate where I can find them or know if they even exist.”

The federal government established "Indian hospitals" across Canada from the 1930s, expanding them widely after the Second World War. They were originally created to treat Indigenous Peoples who contracted, or were suspected of having contracted, tuberculosis.

They later became segregated hospitals for Indigenous Peoples that treated all manner of conditions, including pregnancy, burns and broken bones. They had all closed or amalgamated into the mainstream health system by 1981 after concerns were raised over how the patients, including children, were forcibly confined and treated within their walls.

Some patients who died at the hospitals were buried in unmarked graves because the government often refused to pay the costs of sending their bodies home to their families.

Now communities are looking for answers.

The Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has signalled it would be willing to open the records related to the former "Indian hospitals" as part of any response to a $1.1-billion class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 on behalf of Indigenous Peoples who received treatment at those institutions.

A Federal Court judge certified the class-action lawsuit in January 2020.

“Survivors recount stories of sexual violence, physical abuse, forced confinement, including being tied to a hospital bed for prolonged periods, forced isolation from families, surgeries without anesthesia,” said Adam Tanel, a lawyer with Toronto-based Koskie Minsky, one of two law firms involved in the action.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

“First Nations people deserve an effective and reliable method to access their own historical records — both on an individual and a community level,” Tanel said.

Kyle Fournier, a spokesperson for the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations, said Ottawa is “working collaboratively with the parties toward a meaningful resolution” to the class-action lawsuit. Fournier suggested the federal government would be willing to provide access to the long-sought files.

“Ensuring the availability of records to former patients and their families will be considered as part of any resolution discussions,” said Fournier.

“Research to collect relevant documents from various archives is ongoing.”

Academics who have had limited access to the records through access-to-information requests say many Indigenous tuberculosis patients received outdated treatment for the disease compared to the non-Indigenous population.

Laurie Meijer Drees, who is also a member of the Indigenous/Xwulmuxw Studies faculty at Vancouver Island University, recorded testimonies of Indigenous Peoples who were treated in these institutions for her 2013 book, “Healing Histories: Stories from Canada's Indian Hospitals.”

She said the collective understanding of how patients were treated there is incomplete.

“Oral histories are helpful, but institutional policy documents would reveal administrative directives,” she said.

Documents she has found through her research suggest a cavalier attitude toward consent from parents of children with tuberculosis.

“I do not think consent of parents for open T.B. cases should be stressed too much. It should be taken for granted,” said a March 1946 memo, seen by Meier Drees, that the Department of National Health and Welfare sent to officials at what was then the Department of Indian Affairs.

By 1953, an amendment to the Indian Act meant those subject to it could be prosecuted if they refused to go to hospital or comply with a doctor’s orders.

Maureen Lux, who teaches the history of Indigenous-government relations and the social history of medicine at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., also wants the records made available.

“I’ve been trying to get at all the records of the Indian hospitals for 10 years,” said Lux.

“Lately, it has proved very difficult to get anything.”

Lux wrote a book on the subject in 2016, “Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s,” in which she shared the story of a young boy who arrived at the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton after being sent there alone from his home in the Arctic.

She said none of the staff in the facility could pronounce his name, so he was referred to as "Harry Hospital." He spent most of his childhood there and was then sent by train to Ottawa, without being able to say goodbye.

Lux said many families still do not know where loved ones who died in the hospitals are buried.

“It’s important that the hospitals open up their records, especially for families so they can find their loved ones,” she said.

In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized in Iqaluit for the federal government’s mid-century policy on tuberculosis, which included separating thousands of Inuit from their families and sending them to be treated in institutions in Southern Canada. Many never came home.

As part of the apology, the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations set up the Nanilavut Initiative, a database to help families access information about Inuit who were sent South for treatment of tuberculosis from the 1940s to 1960s, including where they were buried.

Claudette Commanda, an elder from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg in western Quebec who will become chancellor of the University of Ottawa in November, said several members of her family were sent to "Indian hospitals" — some for years.

“In my father’s case he was shipped out to one of these Indian hospitals. I was about 13 years old, he was there for at least a year or two years," she said. "My husband, his mother was put in an Indian hospital. They removed her lung.”

She said people in her community returned with scars from operations they had not been properly informed about.

“There is no reconciliation without the truth,” she said. “They need to open up these documents."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2022.

Marie Woolf, The Canadian Press

21 deaths a day: Families hit by opioid crisis want Parliament Hill flag lowered

Rachel Gilmore - 

Opioid toxicity deaths have skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting calls for the flag at Parliament Hill to be lowered to half-mast in honour of those who have died.


Moms Stop the Harm advocates and supporters gather at Centennial Square on the sixth anniversary of a public health emergency due to the opioid-related deaths across British Columbia, in Victoria on April 14, 2022. B.C. says it has suffered more than 10,000 overdose deaths since the province declared a public health emergency in April 2016.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

That call is coming from Sen. Vernon White, a former Ottawa police chief, as well as family members who have lost loved ones to the ongoing opioid crisis.

"There are 30,000 reasons to half mast the Canadian Flag," Steve Smith, who lost his step-daughter to an opioid overdose this past summer, told Global News in a statement.

"Because 30,000 victims should be remembered. Show the families they are not alone. That Canada does care. It may stop someone from doing drugs or motivate people in recovery."

Between January 2016 and December 2021, there were more than 29,000 opioid toxicity deaths across the country, according to Health Canada. One day of flying the flag at half-mast in recognition of those lives, Smith said, "should not be too much to ask."

"Families live with their loss every day," the statement said.

While White and the Smith family have both had conversations with the government about the issue, their request has not yet been granted.

Their wish was, initially, to see the flag lowered on International Overdose Awareness Day. But that day passed on Aug. 31 -- with no sign of the flag being lowered.

"I don't hold a lot of hope," White told Global News in an interview.

"I think, actually, that and many are afraid to talk about it."

In a statement sent to Global News, Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett's office defended the decision not to lower the flag.

Government buildings across the country were flooded with purple light on Overdose Awareness Day, they said, and the minister spent the day meeting with families in Sudbury, Ont., who have been impacted by the issue.

"This trip was a heart-breaking reminder of the work that lies ahead in our fight to end this crisis and save more lives," said a spokesperson for Bennett.

"We are grateful to all those who met with us, and to the heroic individuals and organizations across Canada who continue to fight for better services for people who use drugs in honour of all those lost to overdose."

The government did not say whether it remains open to lowering the flag.

In the years prior to the pandemic, there were between eight and 12 opioid toxicity deaths per day in the country, according to Health Canada. But in 2021, a staggering average of 21 people died from opioid toxicity each day.

That’s more than 7,500 people’s lives ending in 2021 alone, in what Health Canada has characterized as an "overdose crisis."

Relative to the year before, there was a 96 per cent increase in opioid-related deaths after the COVID-19 pandemic began – something Health Canada says may be attributable to a number of factors, including an "increasingly toxic drug supply, increased feelings of isolation, stress and anxiety, and changes in the availability or accessibility of services for people who use drugs."

The opioid crisis is also swallowing different demographics. While Health Canada says young to middle-aged males continue to be the most heavily impacted, White warned that opioids are indiscriminate with their victims.

"I don't think we understand completely who is being impacted by this. I mean, I know easily 10 or 15 families who have lost somebody as a result of an accidental drug overdose," he said.

"We're talking about average, normal families ... a husband and wife in North Vancouver who both had good middle-income jobs and a child at home, who both overdosed after purchasing counterfeit drugs and (died) at night."

Wendy Muckle is the CEO of Ottawa Inner City Health, an organization that provides health-care services to the homeless and street communities in Ottawa. It also operates a safe consumption site for people who use drugs.

As a community, she says, people who use drugs -- and those who live and work alongside them -- feel "very much alone."

"It's impossible, any day of the week, to not hear about somebody else who has died ... people who you have known for many, many years and know extremely well," Muckle said.

"We're in a war inside this whole other world, and nobody else really knows that we're at war.... We're grieving all of the time, and nobody seems to be grieving with us."

Chad Bouthillier works at the safe consumption site that Ottawa Inner City Health operates. He supports calls to lower the flag as a symbolic move in support of those impacted by the opioid crisis -- but he warned that the gesture alone won't solve the problem.

"Lowering a flag is not going to stop people dying. I think a lot of things have to happen," he said.

"And I know it's difficult to get all those things rolling."

Addiction, Bouthillier said, comes from "pain." Abuse, mental health issues and housing instability all contribute to the kinds of pain people feel. Drug use, he added, fills that "void."

"Once they get on to a certain type of drug, such as (an) opioid, it becomes a physical need where their body depends to be on that drug," Bouthillier explained.

That's why abstinence-only approaches don't work, according to Bouthillier, and harm-reduction approaches need to be prioritized.

There are a number of things the government can do to start to reduce harm and tackle the opioid crisis, Muckle said.

Decriminalizing simple possession of drugs would be a good first step, according to Muckle, as well as ensuring housing is available to all Canadians. Providing access to a safer supply of drugs could also help reduce the harm caused by the opioid crisis, she added.

"It's very hard for the government to sort of swallow that whole long list of demands," Muckle said.

"But unless we can actually make all of those changes happen, we're not going to get ahead of this. And that's the problem ... everybody is trying their best and everybody thinks that they're doing what they can do -- but we're actually not making progress."

As for the push to have the flag lowered, Smith and White aren't relenting. It's about awareness, White said.

"It could happen to anybody. And the families that I know, they were just like me, (it) could have been me just as easily, could have been my kids," he said.

"So I think that's the recognition we have to bring home to people."

Meanwhile, as advocates await government action, more and more Canadians continue to die from opioid toxicity with each passing day.

"It's hard to imagine any other condition in Canada where 21 people a day were dying -- every single day -- and the government and the public were not taking it seriously," Muckle said.

"When you think that 21 people per day in this country are dying from an entirely preventable situation, it's frankly disgraceful."

Recent Suncor fatalities 'devastating' for survivors of other workplace tragedies


CALGARY — When Alyssa Grocutt's father died, the funeral home engraved his fingerprints onto a necklace for her to keep as a memento.

Recent Suncor fatalities 'devastating' for survivors of other workplace tragedies© Provided by The Canadian Press

Thirteen years later, Alyssa still wears the necklace daily. It's the only physical object she now carries with her to remind her of her dad, but in 2008 — in the immediate aftermath of his death at an oilsands site in northern Alberta — her grief was so raw that she clung to anything he had once touched or used.

"There was one screwdriver he had that for the longest time I slept with. I slept in hisT-shirts," says Alyssa, who was 11 years old at the time.

Kevin Grocutt was 40 years old and had been working for 10 months as a heavy duty mechanic contracted to Suncor Energy Inc. when the broken-down haul truck he was trying to fix rolled, catching him under the tire.

Alyssa was at homewith her mother, who was preparing dinner, when a police officer knocked on the door.


"It certainly made me grow up faster than a lot of my peers," Alyssa says. "It was very challenging."

Kevin Grocutt was one of 1,035 people in Canada who died of work-related causes in 2008, according to statistics from the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada.

Since then, 945 people, on average, have died from workplace injuries or illnesses every year in this country, according to the same source.Though the exact number fluctuates up and down slightly, it has not declined in any meaningful way over the years despite Canada having some of the most stringent occupational health and safety laws in the developed world, according to some experts. It's also in spite of ever-increasing awareness campaigns, improved technology and corporate protocols.

“I often hear people say, ‘Oh, with new technologies, we must be seeing these numbers go down.' But we’re not," says Alyssa, who is now a PhD candidate at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., where she researches the impact workplace injuries and fatalities have on the victim's family, colleagues, and supervisors.

"When we look at it over time, we’re seeing these numbers either stable or increasing."

In recent months, a high-profile string of workplace deaths at Suncor, and the resulting criticism of the company by well-known U.S.-based activist investor Elliott Investment Management, has thrust the issue of workplace safety back into the spotlight.



Since 2014 alone, the Calgary-based company has had at least 12 fatalities at its oilsands facilities in northern Alberta, more than all of its industry peers combined. Former CEO Mark Little pledged earlier this year to address the problem, and the company carried out an independent safety review. Yet in spite of these efforts, in July, another Suncor contract worker died on the job. The company announced Little's resignation the next day.

Kris Sims, who has been named interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found, told analysts last month that the company already knows what it must do to improve its safety performance and now must "execute." He didn't provide details, but the company is set to hold an investor presentation this fall to update the financial community on its plans.

“Suncor, a large company, is continually looking at quality control and improvement and yet there continues to be tragedies," says Shirley Hickman, founder and executive director of Threads of Life, a non-profit organization that aims to support families affected by workplace fatalities, injuries and occupational diseases.

"So what happens to the small employer who doesn’t have the same resources as a Suncor? There's more and more promotion around workplace safety, so what is that puzzle piece that we're missing?"

Hickman — whose own son Tim was about to turn 21 and was working part-time for the City of London, Ont. in March of 1996 when he was fatally injured in an arena explosion — said she believes many organizations are still struggling with embedding safety in the workplace culture. They may have all the proper rules and procedures down on paper, but shortcuts are still being taken on the job.

"If a worker sees something that they feel is unsafe, they have to feel free to bring that to their supervisor," Hickman said, adding she believes many workers are still reluctant to be the "squeaky wheel."

"And if they’re not being heard, they have to have the confidence to step aside – or, if necessary, leave their job. But that is hard to do."

Wynny Sillito of Calgary says she wishes more people were aware of the ripple effects of workplace accidents and injuries. In 2011, she was a 23-year-old paramedic, part of a team who responded to reports of an accidental chemical release at an oil and gas site near Grande Prairie, Alta. While attempting to assist the worker who had been injured, Sillito herself was exposed and suffered chemical burns all over her upper body.

She recovered from her injuries, but Sillito's mental and emotional journey was gruelling. She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which she still deals with to this day.

“You don’t have to be the one who loses a limb or loses a piece of themselves to have your life forever changed," Sillito said.

Because she herself was injured on an oil and gas site, Sillito said she's found the headlines about Suncor and its string of tragedies "devastating."

"Oil and gas is this big, broad industry and so many people are connected to it in some way," she said. "Every time there's a fatality, it doesn't matter what caused it — anyone who loves someone who works in oil and gas will end up feeling that stress."

That's certainly true for Alyssa Grocutt. Every time a workplace death makes the news, she flashes back to that day in 2008 that changed her life forever.

“It’s hard hearing of another fatality, especially when it's in a similar location to where my dad was. Some are even in similar situations," she said. "Always, I think about the families that are left behind and also the co-workers who had to witness it."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2022.

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

B.C. scientists hopeful in fight against mites that puncture and kill honeybees


SURREY, B.C. — Chemistry professor Erika Plettner gestures towards beehives surrounded by tall, dry grasses as she explains the multiple pressures facing honeybees worldwide.



Pesticides, pathogens and the effects of climate change are putting bees and their role as pollinators of the world's food crops in peril, she says.

So Plettner and her team of researchers are working towards mitigating one tiny yet deadly risk factor — the varroa mite.

The team at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia's Lower Mainland is testing a chemical compound that appears to kill the mites without harming the bees, in hopes it could one day be widely available as a treatment for infested hives.

Varroa mites kill bees by puncturing their cuticle, or exoskeleton, creating a wound that doesn't close, Plettner said.

That leaves an opening for disease and weakens bees' immune systems, she said in an interview at the researchers' experimental apiary outside Surrey, B.C.

"That's what then ultimately makes (the bees) collapse during wintering," she said.

Plettner and her team are testing the safety and efficacy of the compound identified in her lab some years ago, which appears to paralyze and then kill the mites.

The bees involved in the experiment fly in and out of their hives as Plettner explains that the researchers don't yet understand exactly how the compound works.

"We don't know the actual protein in the mite to which the compound binds, or a collection of proteins. We know that paralysis usually involves the nervous system of the mite," she said.

Her team recently obtained funding from Genome British Columbia, a non-profit organization, to work with researchers at the University of British Columbia to investigate how the compound affects the mites, she added.

The researchers place a sheet of sticky paper beneath the hives to collect the dead mites for analysis in their lab, she said.

So far, the chemical compound looks promising as a potential treatment alongside five or six others currently available, Plettner said.

It's important to rotate through different treatments from year to year, she said, because the mites are starting to show resistance to what she called the "gold standard" of existing treatments.

The varroa mite originally parasitized honeybees in Asia before spreading to Afro-European honeybee populations about 100 years ago, she said.

"In terms of evolutionary time, this is relatively short. And that's why our bees are so affected by this, because ... in an evolutionary sense, they haven't had a chance to develop, through selection, natural defences."

Efforts are underway to find bees that are more naturally resistant to the mites, said Plettner, noting one of her own hives at her home has had no mites this summer, while the neighbouring hive was "boiling over" with the pests.

"Every once in a while, you get a hive that is quite resistant to the mite, and this is a subject of very intensive research and bee breeding efforts."

It will take some years to commercialize the compound, making it available as a treatment, Plettner said.

The researchers still need to understand how it works and demonstrate that it's safe for bees, beekeepers and the surrounding environment, she said.

It's especially important to mitigate varroa mite infestations given the range of environmental pressures bees are facing, Plettner said.

Climate change is affecting the ecology of honeybee habitat, changing the availability of the flowers and plants they need to survive, she said.

Moreover, bees are part of a system of intensive agricultural practices that employ pesticides and herbicides across Canada and worldwide, she said.

"Even if near the apiary is not sprayed, bees will fly quite far, up to two kilometres, to seek flowering plants and food," she said. "So they can get accidentally contaminated with substances that are harmful."

At the same time, many plants that are considered weeds and targeted with herbicide by agricultural operators are important for bees, Plettner said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2022.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

Turn of the tide: Authoritarian regimes' influence waning around the world

A decade ago, the influence of China and Russia was expanding and authoritarianism appeared to be spreading worldwide. But Bulgarian political scientist Evgenii Dainov believes the tide has now turned.

The political future is bleak for Russia's Vladimir Putin (left) and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, thinks Evgenii Dainov

There are different ways of looking at the world. One is to see it as a batch of things arranged in a certain manner. Another is to see it as a cluster of processes that are always on the move, creating what Shakespeare called "tides in the affairs of men."

Back in 2016, there were several authoritarian populist regimes in Europe. In a fit of extraordinary levity, the United Kingdom voted for Brexit, and the US voted for Donald Trump. Further east, Russian President Vladimir Putin was tightening his grip on Europe's economy and its elites, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping was quietly increasing his Communist Party's control over everyday life. The future looked distinctly authoritarian.

Tourists watched a Chinese military helicopter fly by in massive military drills off Taiwan in August

That tide is now beginning to turn. Three almost simultaneous events in recent weeks are clear indicators.

First came the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, which Beijing failed to stop, despite making a great deal of noise about it. Official China was reduced, as the Russian saying goes, to "swinging its fists in the air after the fight has ended" by conducting military exercises around the island. By that point, Pelosi was long gone.

Then came the explosions at the Russian military air base Saky, in Crimea. The third event was the FBI search of Trump's home in Florida.

Beijing's response to Pelosi visit

No serious observer expected China to start making warlike noises because of an American politician's visit to Taiwan. Even Chinese commentators — insofar as they managed to make themselves heard on the other side of the "bamboo curtain" — seemed flabbergasted by Beijing's haste and rashness. Such behavior is atypical. After all, those in the Forbidden City have a habit of planning generations in advance.

China has built much infrastructure around the world, including the Bar-Boljare highway in Montenegro

Just 10 years ago, while the West was trying not to drown in its financial and sovereign debt crises, China was being painted as the economic "model" of the future. Moreover, its economic "soft power" seemed to be gradually taking over Asia, Africa, Latin America — and even the Balkans.

Decline in China's prosperity and influence

But any historian worth his or her salt will tell you that dictatorship, economic prosperity and growing international influence cannot exist side by side for long. Either the dictatorship has to go, or the prosperity and influence begin to dwindle. This is what has happened to China. As the dictatorship has grown stronger, the country's prosperity and influence have waned.

Today, China admits to a debt that is over 250% of its GDP — Greece was declared bankrupt at 127%. China experts have warned that there is additional hidden debt, which is around 44% of the admitted debt. Add all this up and we are talking about a total debt in the region of 350% of GDP — a completely incredible and totally untenable situation.

Security personnel scuffled with demonstrators in July after some rural-based banks in Zhengzhou froze deposits

When dozens of provincial banks became unable to serve their customers recently, tanks were sent in to protect the banks from the incensed population.
Mobilizing support with belligerent behavior

Xi Jinping wants to be reelected general secretary of his party. Yet he cannot afford to stand in that election as the man on whose watch the economy went "belly up," as the Americans say. He has obviously decided to "do a Putin," in other words to mobilize support with belligerent behavior.

We no longer see a China that is confident that the future is hers. We see a failing authoritarian regime on the verge of panic.

BRICS fails to reach stated aims

The blowing up of the Saky air base in Crimea tells us something similar — this time about Russia.

Ukraine's air force said on August 10 that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions

Only 10 years ago, while China looked like the great economic power of the future, Russia seemed to be a hegemonic geopolitical power in the making. Back in 2006, it had even cobbled together an international alliance called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China, joined by South Africa in 2010), the stated aim of which was to end global American hegemony in the field of advanced technology.

The original BRIC states also vowed to undermine the international standing of the US dollar by producing their own BRIC currency. In Europe, Russian hybrid "soft power" was taking over politics, culture and the media.

Putin attended the 2022 BRICS Business Forum in June via videoconference

By 2020, however, it was becoming clear that the BRICS alliance had been unable to achieve any of its stated aims. BRICS had not superseded the Americans in the field of advanced technology, nor managed to dent the US dollar.

Russia's soft power on the wane

Meanwhile, Russia's version of "soft power" was also beginning to fizzle out. Trump lost the presidential election in the US in 2020, and in Europe, authoritarian and populist parties sustained and (in some cases) financed by Putin were rapidly losing ground.

In 2017, Emmanuel Macron won the French presidential election against Putin ally Marine Le Pen, running on a modern, progressive, non-nationalist platform. In the Bavarian election of 2018, the far-right Alternative for Germany party, instead of sweeping the board as expected, was undermined by the Greens, which became the second-most powerful party.

Three-time French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has enjoyed friendly relations with Putin in the past

In 2019, the Strache scandal decapitated the Austrian far right. In Poland and Hungary, the regimes began losing control of big cities in local elections. Finally, despite much pre-election bombast, the European far right did not win the 2019 elections to the European Parliament.

Europe: Putin's allies begin to lose sway

Europeans were turning Putin's friends out of power, replacing them with centrist-liberal-green coalitions. In 2021, the far right was thrown out of parliament in Bulgaria, as people elected to power a progressive center-green coalition. Two months previously, Germany had elected a left-green-liberal coalition government.

As he saw his "soft power" taking hits throughout the civilized world, Putin saw that "hard power" was his only remaining option to influence the course of geopolitical events. On February 24, 2022, he used that hard power.

Putin's use of Russia's 'hard power' has left behind devastation in Ukraine

The plan was obvious: Putin expected to subjugate Ukraine in a matter of days, whereupon he would move further West to begin redrawing the borders of European states. He planned to attain with tanks what he had failed to attain with "hybrid" weapons.

No quick victory for Russia

But the Ukrainians did not share Putin's faith in his tanks. By August 2022, Moscow's army had lost the initiative and was reduced to taking up defensive positions. In this context, the explosions in Crimea have demonstrated that Russia's defensive positions are not easily tenable and that Russia is likely to lose this war — and after that, everything. Its "hard power" has become the laughing stock of the world. It no longer has "soft power." It also no longer has a viable economy.

We are witnessing the end of the ideologies of the "Russian world" and of the "Chinese model." It is becoming clear that we in the democratic world are not doomed sooner or later to live under such "models." They are no longer advancing. They are retreating.
Trump facing criminal charges

The FBI's search of Trump's home, in turn, signals the waning of the threat of authoritarianism within the democratic world.

Many confidential documents were seized by the FBI during its search of former president's home in August

Ten years ago, America, that bastion of democracy, seemed to be teetering on the brink. By 2016 it had elected a president who was openly in awe of dictators around the world. People worried that America was on the road to its own authoritarian "model." Today, Trump is no longer president and instead may soon face criminal charges.

Serbia and Hungary

The nations of Europe have also grasped the connection between authoritarianism, criminality and ultimately, war — as in the case of Putin. Europe today has only two surviving authoritarian regimes, those in Serbia and Hungary. In Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic is visibly trying to wriggle out of Moscow's embrace and doesn't appear to be on the ascendant at all.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban is no longer propagating his model of an "illiberal state" as the future, having been reduced to acting as the foreign sales manager for Gazprom in Europe. That is not a good position for an autocratic strongman to be in, and his nation will turn her back on him, as the Bulgarians did in similar circumstances, abandoning "strongman" Boyko Borissov after 12 years.

Orban (left) has maintained close ties with Putin over the years

In any case, nobody looks up to Hungary and Serbia as models of a desirable future. On the contrary, both regimes seem like rusted wreckage from a dark, bygone age.

Tide has turned

Against this backdrop, the FBI raid on Trump's home is a signal not only that the political time of such men (why does it always seem to be men?) has passed, but also that, as their political futures disappear, what awaits them are criminal charges.

People like Putin, Xi Jinping and their imitators will be around for a long time. But theirs is not the future. The "tide in the affairs of men" has turned. Now it is our job to take it "at the flood," securing a future in which government of the people, by the people, for the people remains dominant.

Bulgarian academic, author and political analyst Evgenii Dainov is professor of politics at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia.

Edited by: Rüdiger Rossig and Aingeal Flanagan