It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, September 07, 2022
Energy majors exaggerating green performance: analysis
The analysis found that Shell had the largest disparity between its green talk and actual low-carbon investment. Patrick GALEY Wed, September 7, 2022
Energy majors are exaggerating their green credentials in public messaging while continuing to allocate the majority of new investment to oil and gas projects, according to an industry analysis released Thursday.
Campaigners say this "significant misalignment" between communication strategies and business plans could allow five of the biggest privately-owned energy firms to continue to delay the decarbonisation needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Industry watchdog InfluenceMap analysed the content of more than 3,400 public communications from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies in 2021, from press releases, speeches and company and CEO social media accounts.
They found that 60 percent of all messages contained at least one "green" claim -- such as emissions reduction targets, transitioning the energy mix, or promoting fossil gas as part of a clean energy solution.
These public communications were found to contrast with the five's planned capital expenditure for 2022, with just 12 percent of new investments earmarked for low-carbon activities.
"You can see this real difference between a high use of green claims in public communications versus this ongoing strategy to kind of undermine and block climate policy," report co-author and program manager Faye Holder told AFP.
She said the gap between what the majors advertised and what they were investing in was misleading the public as to their role in battling climate change.
"Based on the public communications, and particularly social media, it would be fair enough if you walked away with the impression that these companies are acting to solve climate change, because that's what you're hearing from them," she said.
- 'Climate disinformation' -
The analysis found that Shell had the largest disparity between its green talk and actual low-carbon investment. InfluenceMap said that 70 percent of Shell's communications last year contained at least one green claim, compared with just 10 percent of planned investment in low-carbon activities this year.
A spokesman for Shell told AFP the major was already investing "billions of dollars in low-carbon energy".
"To help alter the mix of energy Shell sells, we need to grow these new businesses rapidly. That means letting our customers know through advertising or social media what lower-carbon solutions we offer now or are developing."
The analysis found that 62 percent of TotalEnergies' communications mentioned green activities, while it planned to allocate 25 percent of 2022 capital expenditure on low-carbon projects.
A TotalEnergies spokeswoman countered that 30 percent of the firm's investments are devoted to "decarbonised energy".
"Our public announcements policy reflects the transformation of TotalEnergies in a multi-energy company," she told AFP.
An ExxonMobil spokesman said it "continues to mitigate emissions from its operations and achieved its 2025 emission-reduction plans four years earlier than planned".
BP and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment. The analysis found that overall the five corporations had spent $750 million on climate-related messaging last year alone.
Report co-author Ed Collins said that represented good business for the majors, as it was significantly cheaper than decarbonising their business models and would encourage governments to continue subsidising their products.
"The costs seem huge, but the investment is tiny in comparison to the potential reward in terms of favourable policy conditions and subsidisation of building assets," he said.
Some of the firms analysed plan to increase oil and gas production by 2026, something the analysts said would see their emissions "significantly overshoot" the International Energy Agency's recommended net-zero pathway.
Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, a Greens member of the European Parliament, said Thursday's analysis proved that the firms studied were engaged in "climate disinformation".
"It shows the lengths oil and gas companies are willing to go to mislead citizens and protect their own interests."
pg/klm/lth
Countries growing 70% of world's food face 'extreme' heat risk by 2045 AFP Wed, September 7, 2022
Blistering crop-withering temperatures that also risk the health of agricultural workers could threaten swathes of global food production by 2045 as the world warms, an industry analysis warned Thursday.
Climate change is already stoking heatwaves and other extreme weather events across the world, with hot spells from India to Europe this year expected to hit crop yields.
Temperature spikes are causing mounting concern for health, particularly for those working outside in sweltering conditions, which is especially dangerous when humidity levels are high.
The latest assessment by risk company Verisk Maplecroft brings those two threats together to calculate that heat stress already poses an "extreme risk" to agriculture in 20 countries, including agricultural giant India.
But the coming decades are expected to expand the threat to 64 nations by 2045 -- representing 71 percent of current global food production -- including major economies China, India, Brazil and the United States.
"With the rise in global temperatures and rise in global heat stress, we're going to see crops in more temperate countries as well start being affected by this," said Will Nichols, head of climate and resilience at Verisk Maplecroft.
Rice is particularly at risk, the assessment said, with other crops like cocoa and even tomatoes also singled out as of concern.
- Growing risk -
Maplecroft's new heat stress dataset, using global temperature data from the UK Met Office, feeds into its wider risk assessments of countries around the world.
It is based on a worst-case emissions scenario leading to around 2 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels as soon as 2045.
However, the authors stress that in projections to mid-century, even scenarios that assume higher levels of carbon-cutting action could still result in temperatures nearing 2C.
India -- responsible for 12 percent of global food production in 2020 and heavily reliant on outdoor labour productivity -- is already rated as at extreme risk, the only major agricultural nation in that category at current temperatures.
"There's a very real worry that people in rural areas, which are obviously highly dependent on agriculture, are going to be much more vulnerable to these kinds of heat events going forward," Nichols told AFP.
That could impact productivity and in turn exports -- and have potentially "cascading" knock-on effects on issues such as the country's credit rating and even political stability, he said.
By 2045, the list grows much longer.
Nine of the top ten countries affected in 2045 are in Africa, with the world's second largest cocoa producer Ghana, as well as Togo and Central African Republic receiving the worst possible risk score.
The top 20 at-risk countries in the coming decades include key Southeast Asian rice exporters Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, the authors said, noting that rice farmers in central Vietnam have already taken to working at night to avoid the high temperatures.
The assessment highlights that major economies like the US and China could also see extreme risk to agriculture in 2045, although in these large countries the impacts vary by region.
Meanwhile, Europe accounts for seven of the 10 countries set to see the largest increase in risk by 2045.
"I think what it reinforces is that, even though a lot of us are sort of sitting in sort of Western countries, where we might think we're a bit more insulated from some of these threats, actually we are not necessarily," Nichols said.
"Both in terms of the sort of physical risks that we're facing, but also in terms of the kind of knock on effects down the supply chain."
klm/pg/rox
US returns antiquities to Egypt
Wed, September 7, 2022
Authorities in New York announced Wednesday the return of 16 antiquities to Egypt, including five works that were seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of a probe into international art trafficking.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the 16 works were worth more than $16 million. He spoke a day after announcing a similar return of 58 artworks to Italy.
"Today’s repatriation shows the breadth and prevalence of antiquities trafficking networks," Bragg said in a statement.
Nine of the pieces had been in the possession of Michael Steinhardt, whom Bragg described as one of the world's largest collectors of ancient art.
In 2021, Steinhardt was forced by US authorities to return 180 stolen ancient artworks worth a total of $70 million.
Under that deal he avoided going to jail but was banned for life from acquiring antiquities in the legal market.
Five other pieces were seized in May and June from the Met, worth $3.1 million, as part of a probe carried out by US and French authorities and under which former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez was charged in France.
Those five pieces had been looted from archeological sites in Egypt, smuggled through Germany or the Netherlands to France, and sold by the Paris-based Pierre Berge & Associes to the Met, Bragg said.
"The information developed and shared by the Manhattan DA’s office with law-enforcement agencies around the world related to this investigation has led to the indictment or arrest of nine individuals in France, including the former Louvre Director Jean-Luc Martinez," Bragg said.
nr/arb/rle/dw/des
Over $4M worth of stolen antiquities returned to Egypt from New York
Jonathan Rizk - WPIX New York City, NY
MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) — Manhattan DA Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. announced the return of more than a dozen antiquities worth more than $4 million back to Egypt Wednesday.
In total, 16 antiquities were returned to Egypt during a repatriation ceremony attended by Egypt's Consul General Howaida Essam Mohamed and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York Acting Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel.
"Today's repatriation shows the breadth and prevalence of antiquities trafficking networks, but thanks to the work of our dedicated prosecutors and analysts, we have made tremendous progress in cracking down on this illegal activity," said District Attorney Bragg. "We will not allow our borough to be used by dealers and traffickers to turn a profit off these stolen artifacts."
The limestone Stele of a Singer was looted from the archaeological site of Kom Abu Billo in the southwestern Nile Delta and dates from 690-650 B.C. Following the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, Kom Abu Billo was subjected to widespread looting. The piece was smuggled into France for auction at the Paris-based Pierre Bergé & Associés, where it was given a false provenance. In 2015, Pierre Bergé & Associés sold the Fayum Mummy Portrait to the Met.
The Manhattan DA’s office said it has been performing a multi-year, international criminal investigation into one of the world’s largest ancient art collectors and billionaire hedge fund manager, Micahel Steinhardt. In total, 180 stolen antiquities were taken from Steinhardt with a value of over $70 million. The investigation resulted in a lifetime ban on having antiquities, a first-of-its-kind ban.
"Our cooperation with the New York District Attorney’s Office has been eventful and fruitful, to say the least, during the last few years,” said Mohamed. “It is safe to say that we can open an entire museum solely based on the artifacts repatriated via the support and efforts of the District Attorney of New York, and for that, we are eternally grateful."
The Fayum Mummy Portrait, dates from 54 to 68 C.E., was stolen from Egypt in the 1990s. The piece ended up in the hands of the Simonians, who smuggled it into France for auction at the Paris-based Pierre Bergé & Associés and provided it with a false provenance. In 2013, Pierre Bergé & Associés sold the Fayum Mummy Portrait to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Nine pieces seized from Steinhardt were sent back to the people of Egypt. They were trafficked by Israeli antiquities dealers Rafi Brown and Gil Chaya. Brown would purchase antiquities from unlicensed diggers, middlemen and smugglers, according to the DA. Chaya and his then-wife would buy illegal antiquities directly from looters.
Five of these pieces were described as an Egyptian Hoard made up of gold and silver ornaments and plaques dating to 1300-1101 B.C.E. The Egyptian Hoard first showed up on the international art market in 1999, when Steinhardt paid $70,000 for them from Brown with no prior documentation.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art had a total of six items taken. Five items taken from the Met, valued at $3.1 million, came from an investigation into the Dib-Simonian trafficking network. The pieces were looted from archaeological sites in Egypt, smuggled through Germany or the Netherlands to France, and sold by the Paris-based Pierre Bergé & Associés to the Met.
According to the DA’s office, this investigation resulted in the indictment or arrest of nine people in France, including former Louvre Director Jean-Luc Martinez. Two of these pieces were the Stele of a Singer, which was sold to the Met in 2015, and Fayum Mummy Portrait, which the Met purchased in 2013.
Another piece was seized from the Met as part of an investigation into trafficker Georges Lotfi. He was the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by this DA’s office in early September.
A bronze statuette called Kneeling Ruler or Priest is said to be from the 8th century B.C.E. Lofti bought the statuette in 2005 and sold it in 2006 to the Met.
The final piece was seized as part of another ongoing investigation.
CANADIAN MEDIA VIEW
SASKATCHEWAN
Murray Mandryk: First Nations leader says violence all too predictable
Murray Mandryk -Leader Post Former FSIN chief Sol Sanderson said the tragedy of James Smith Cree First Nation and Weldon was long in coming.
Provided by Leader Post The powderkeg of violence that exploded on the James Smith Cree First Nation and in the small northern grainbelt community of Weldon this weekend was long predicted by Saskatchewan’s First Nations leadership.
His 32-year-old brother Myles Sanderson — still at large as of this writing and last reported being seen on James Cree on Tuesday — is being investigated as a possible suspect in that death as well.
Tuesday, the province entered the third day of a manhunt for Myles Sanderson, casting a chilling pall on an entire province.
Sol Sanderson recalls attending a conference on Aboriginal issues in 1985 and listening to the then-chief of what was then known as the James Smith band predict that ongoing poverty, addictions and hopelessness on reserves would one day manifest in violence.
For Sanderson, that decades-old prediction was little more than acknowledgement of issues centuries in the making.
“The violence will be internal, but that that won’t last for long,” Sanderson said in an interview Monday evening. “It will become external.”
And when it comes to the justice system, there are now serious questions to be asked about why fugitive Myles Sanderson was at large in the first place and why the RCMP didn’t immediately better communicate the threat he posed.
“It is the Board’s opinion that you will not present an undue risk to society if released on statutory release and that your release will contribute to the protection of society by facilitating your reintegration to society as a law-abiding citizen,” read Parole Board of Canada documents obtained by several media outlets .
The parole board’s documents showed Myles Sanderson had 59 criminal convictions, including assaults with a weapons and assaulting a police officer he repeatedly kicked in the face during an arrest.
In 2017, the alleged perpetrator still at large raged into an ex-girlfriend’s home and punched a hole through a bathroom door where children cowered in the bathtub for safety, the documents show.
He threw a cement block at a woman’s car windshield, threatened to murder a band store employee and threatened to burn down his parents’ home. In 2018, he stabbed two men with a fork and beat another man senseless, leaving him unconsciousness in a ditch.
Long before this weekend’s tragedy, Myles Sanderson should have been considered a man at large and long out of control with outstanding arrest warrants.
It’s unhelpful to add to the speculation at this point, which only serves to hammer communities that need time. What we do know is gone in the wake of this mad rampage are decent and beloved people who quietly contributed to making their communities better.
Gone is 62-year-old Gloria Burns, who was an addictions counsellor who tried to help many James Smith First Nations residents with their addictions including, according to news reports, Myles Sanderson.
Having used cocaine since he was 14 years old, according to those parole records, Myles Sanderson’s story has been one of addictions and violence coupled with a childhood “involving physical abuse, domestic violence and instability” that saw his parents separate when he was just nine years old.
“Your regular use of cocaine, marijuana, and hard alcohol would make you ‘lose your mind’ and that you can be easily angered when drunk, but are a different person when sober,” the parole documents state.
But for Sol Sanderson — who was born on the James Smith First Nation but is actually a member of the Chakastaypasin Cree First Nation — Myles Sanderson’s background is one that’s all too familiar. And Sol Sanderson argues it’s become all too easy to trace this dysfunction back to decades — and even centuries — of First Nations history, all the way back to the Papal Bull of 1493 that allowed white people to conquer First Nations land and first took away their rights to control their own communities and the children they were raising in them. “We’ve lost total control. We’ve lost control for 500 years,” Sol Sanderson said. “For a society that loses total control of its political developments and institutions, the social safety net and how it raises a child, there are consequences.
“After you lose control, there is alcohol, drugs and violence — the things you see today. You wonder why we have a high suicide and murder rate? (Why) gangs are a problem? We’ve lost self-esteem.”
Sanderson says the two brothers “are not not part of his own family.” However, he said can’t “deny the relationship” he has with people in the James Smith community, that have suffered the “impact of his hostile environment that has been developed over generations.”
Even most First Nations people have no understanding of their history, Sol Sanderson said.
What is now the James Smith Cree First Nation was created by the signing of Treaty 6 in 1876. What was once a peaceful gathering place for First Nations and traders at Fort a la Corne and an early adopter of First Nations agriculture quickly descended into a community victimized by infighting and white land speculators.
“This has been a hostile environment ever since,” said Sol Sanderson, who was asked by elders to go to James Smith and address a broken community to help them better understand why such a tragedy would happen to them. “The impact of this hostile environment has been felt for generations.”
Murray Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
AMERICAN MEDIA VIEW
Saskatchewan Why was suspect in Canadian stabbing rampage on the streets?
An armored RCMP vehicle, right, drives past a police roadblock set up on the James Smith Cree First Nation reservation in Saskatchewan, Canada, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022, as they search for a suspect in a series of stabbings. (Heywood Yu/The Canadian Press via AP)
JAMES SMITH CREE NATION, Saskatchewan (AP) — As the manhunt dragged on for one of two brothers wanted in the stabbing deaths of 10 people in Saskatchewan, the rampage raised questions Wednesday of why the suspect -- an ex-con with 59 convictions and a long history of shocking violence -- was out on the streets in the first place.
Myles Sanderson, 32, was released by a parole board in February while serving a sentence of over four years on charges that included assault and robbery. But he had been wanted by police since May, apparently for violating the terms of his release, though the details were not immediately clear.
His long and lurid rap sheet also showed that seven years ago, he attacked and stabbed one of the victims killed in the weekend rampage, according to court records.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said there will be an investigation into the parole board’s assessment of Sanderson.
“I want to know the reasons behind the decision” to release him, he said. “I’m extremely concerned with what occurred here. A community has been left reeling.”
Sanderson and his brother Damien, 30, are accused of killing 10 people and wounding 18 in a string of attacks across an Indigenous reserve and in the nearby town of Weldon. Damien was found dead Monday, and police were investigating whether his own brother killed him.
This combination of images shown during a press conference at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police "F" Division headquarters in Regina, Saskatchewan, on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022, shows Damien Sanderson, left, and his brother Myles Sanderson. Canadian police said Monday, Sept. 5 Damien Sanderson, one of the suspects in the killing of multiple people in a series of stabbings has been found dead, and his injuries are not self inflicted. They said his brother, also a suspect, may be injured and remains on the run.
(Royal Canadian Mounted Police via AP, File)
Investigators have not given a motive for the bloodshed.
The Saskatchewan Coroner’s Service said nine of those killed were from the James Smith Cree Nation: Thomas Burns, 23; Carol Burns, 46; Gregory Burns, 28; Lydia Gloria Burns, 61; Bonnie Burns, 48; Earl Burns, 66; Lana Head, 49; Christian Head, 54; and Robert Sanderson, 49, One was from Weldon, 78-year-old Wesley Patterson. Authorities would not say whether or how the victims might be related.
But court documents said Myles Sanderson attacked his in-laws Earl Burns and Joyce Burns in 2015, knifing Earl Jones repeatedly and wounding Joyce Burns. He later pleaded guilty to assault and threatening Earl Burns’ life.
Many of Sanderson’s crimes were committed when he was intoxicated, according to court records. He told parole officials at one point that substance use made him out of his mind.
Canada’s Indigenous reserves are plagued by drugs and alcohol.
“The drug problem and the alcohol problem on these reserves is way out of hand,” said Ivor Wayne Burns, whose sister was killed in the weekend attacks. “We have dead people and we asked before for something to be done.”
Myles Sanderson’s childhood was marked by violence, neglect and substance abuse, court records show. Sanderson, who is Indigenous and was raised on the Cree reserve, population 1,900, started drinking and smoking marijuana at around 12, and cocaine followed soon after.
In 2017, he barged into his ex-girlfriend’s home, punched a hole in the door of a bathroom while his two children were hiding in a bathtub and threw a cement block at a vehicle parked outside, according to parole documents.
He got into a fight a few days later at a store, threatening to kill an employee and burn down his parents’ home, documents said.
That November he threatened an accomplice into robbing a fast-food restaurant by clubbing him with a gun and stomping on his head. He then stood watch during the holdup.
In 2018, he stabbed two men with a fork while drinking and beat someone unconscious.
When he was released in February, the parole board set conditions on his contact with his partner and children and also said he should not enter into relationships with women without written permission from his parole officer.
In granting Sanderson “statutory release,” parole authorities said: “It is the Board’s opinion that you will not present an undue risk to society.”
Canadian law grants prisoners “statutory release” after they serve two-thirds of their sentence. But the parole board can impose conditions on that freedom, and inmates who violate them -- as Sanderson did more than once -- can be ordered back to prison.
Sharna Sugarman, who was organizing a GoFundMe for the victims, questioned the parole board for releasing him and wondered why Sanderson was still on the loose so many months after he was deemed “unlawfully at large.”
“That’s just egregious to me,” said Sugarman, a counselor who counted one of the stabbing victims as a client. “If they claim that they’ve been looking for him, well, you weren’t looking that hard.”
Mendicino, the public safety minister, said authorities have to make sure nothing like this happens again.
“It’s incredibly important that when someone is at large and there’s a warrant for their arrest, and they have an extensive criminal background, that all the resources are there to be able to apprehend that person as quickly as possible,” he said. “We do need to take a very careful look at what occurred.
___
AP writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City contributed to this report.
Parole records reveal Saskatchewan suspect's violent history
Katie Nicholson - Monday
Long before he became the main suspect in a mass killing and the subject of a multi-province alert, Myles Sanderson had a history of explosive violence, according to Parole Board of Canada documents from February of this year.
Sanderson's contacts with the criminal justice system span more than two decades. As an adult, he racked up 59 convictions for assault, assault with a weapon, uttering threats, assaulting a police officer and robbery. Roughly half of the offences were for breaches or failure to comply with pre-existing orders. Because of his violent behaviour, he has a lifetime prohibited weapons ban.
Sanderson, 30, was one of two suspects wanted by police after a string of fatal stabbings in Saskatchewan on Sunday left 10 people dead and many more injured. One of the suspects, Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead Monday. Police are still searching for Myles, who is Damien's brother.
Myles faces three counts of first-degree murder; Damien had been charged with one count of first-degree murder. Both men were also charged with attempted murder and break and enter.
The parole documents paint a picture of a man who struggled with drug and alcohol use in late childhood and note that Myles Sanderson started using cocaine at age 14.
"You ... said that your regular use of cocaine, marijuana, and hard alcohol would make you 'lose your mind' and that you can be easily angered when drunk, but are a different person when sober," the parole documents state.
The documents contain details of specific moments of rage, including a 2017 incident in which Sanderson forced his way into an ex-girlfriend's home, talking about a gang and punched a hole in the bathroom door where children were hiding in a bathtub for protection.
Once outside the home, Sanderson threw a cement block at a woman's car windshield. A few days later, the documents say Sanderson threatened to murder a band store employee and then burn down his parents' home. Attacked police officer
In 2018, Sanderson stabbed two men with a fork and beat another man until he lost consciousness in a ditch. In June of that year, he repeatedly kicked a police officer in the face while being taken into custody.
The documents also make reference to Sanderson's childhood. His parents separated when he was nine and he grew up in an environment "involving physical abuse, domestic violence and instability."
While incarcerated, Sanderson had trouble following the rules and got in trouble twice for possessing contraband. Despite those issues, in February of 2021, his security classification was reduced and he was transferred to a healing lodge.
Risk assessment tools found Sanderson to be in medium-to-high and high-risk categories to reoffend.
Sanderson was released from minimum security on statutory release in August 2021, according to the documents, but the release was suspended in November of that year when his ex-spouse reported that they had been living together in contravention of the conditions.
The statutory release came with six conditions that prohibited Sanderson from consuming alcohol and drugs, required him to follow a treatment plan for substance abuse and domestic violence, and to refrain from intimate relationships with women without written permission from his parole officer.
Sanderson was also ordered to avoid people involved in criminal activity and drugs and was barred from contact with four people, identified only by their initials.
Concern about behaviour
The documents state that while on release, Sanderson stayed sober, got a job and was seeing a therapist and was engaged in cultural ceremonies. They note he was working on managing his emotions and felt that his risk factors were manageable in the community.
But they also noted there were long-standing concerns about his behaviour.
The February parole documents reveal the board ultimately decided to cancel the November suspension of the release but left a reprimand in his file.
"It is the board's opinion that you will not present an undue risk to society if released on statutory release and that your release will contribute to the protection of society by facilitating your reintegration to society as a law-abiding citizen," the documents state.
By May, Crime Stoppers had issued an alert for Sanderson, who was described as being "unlawfully at large."
Saskatoon police earlier confirmed they've been searching for Myles Sanderson since then, after he stopped meeting with his assigned caseworker.
James Smith Cree Nation Asks People Not To Donate To New GoFundMe Pages For Sask. Stabbings
Canada Edition (EN) - Provided by Narcity
After the Saskatchewan stabbings, James Smith Cree Nation has asked people not to donate to any new GoFundMe pages that are set up because they aren't official.
This article contains content that may be upsetting to some of our readers.
On Tuesday, September 6, 2022, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan, shared a statement on Twitter about fundraisers for those affected by the stabbings.
"Please be advised that the existing GoFundMe page created by Rob Clarke has reached its goal of $100,000 and will now close, concluding his involvement with the James Smith Cree Nation — Emergency Operations Centre (JSCN-EOC)," the statement said.
"The leadership of James Smith Cree Nation is grateful to all the donors who have contributed funds to support its affected members."
People were also asked to help "spread the word" that no other crowdfunding campaigns related to the Saskatchewan stabbings have been officially endorsed by James Smith Cree Nation or JSCN-EOC.
According to the statement, JSCN-EOC will release details of a new trust fund that will be established in the near future.
More than $110,000 has been raised by almost 2,000 donations in the GoFundMe endorsed by James Smith Cree Nation.
That money is set to help with the costs of funerals for the victims and counselling for the victims' families.
Early in the morning on Sunday, September 4, Saskatchewan RCMP received a report of a stabbing in James Smith Cree Nation, and several calls reported more stabbings at different locations minutes later.
Police said that some victims were targeted, but it's believed others were "attacked randomly."
Also, a Dangerous Persons Alert was issued for Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta.
It was also reported that one of the suspects in the stabbings, Damien Sanderson, had been found dead. His body was found in James Smith Cree Nation, and his injuries are not believed to have been self-inflicted.
RCMP said the other suspect, Myles Sanderson, might be injured and could try to seek medical attention.
However, later that day, RCMP said that the investigation determined that he was not in the community, and the search for him is still ongoing.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
Carson Jerema: Danielle Smith's Alberta sovereignty act is a set up for disappointment
Carson Jerema - National Post UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith speaks at a campaign rally in Chestermere on Tuesday, August 9, 2022. Azin Ghaffari/Postmedia
EDMONTON — Supporters of United Conservative Party leadership candidate Danielle Smith who are galvanized by her proposed Alberta sovereignty act are in for disappointment. They need only look at outgoing Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who Smith hopes to replace. He came to power on a similar anti-Ottawa, anti-Trudeau message, which he, like Smith, blamed for policies that either worsened the downturn in the energy industry, or would ensure the oil patch could never fully recover.
While in office, Kenney held a referendum on removing equalization from the Constitution, established a “war room” to defend the energy industry, sued the federal government over the carbon tax and launched a lawsuit over Bill C-69, which is on its way to the Supreme Court. Yet this was not enough, and was never going to be enough for some. Kenney was seen as too weak, too ineffective — even, in some corners, as an agent of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He lost the UCP leadership, in part, because he wasn’t anti-Ottawa enough.
Smith herself has dismissed Kenney’s efforts as “ineffective letter-writing campaigns and empty rhetoric.” It is clear that Kenney over-promised what was possible, but within a federation like Canada, which is governed by the rule of law, it is not really clear what else he should have been doing.
This is especially true in Canada, where there are no national institutions that can effectively represent provincial interests, unless those interests belong to Ontario or Quebec. The Senate lacks democratic legitimacy and doesn’t represent provinces equally, like in other federations. Cabinet ministers have long since abandoned their role as provincial advocates as power has centralized in the Prime Minister’s Office, and representation in the House of Commons will skew even more towards Quebec under a proposed Elections Canada redistribution plan.
All that remains are the premiers, who have no authority beyond their borders and are left to bluster away, claiming powers they don’t have and making promises they can’t possibly keep.
Nonetheless, Smith is making even bigger promises than Kenney — ones that will be even more impossible to keep. As for the Constitution, she wants to pretend it works differently than it does. And anyone who disagrees is “woke,” part of the “political establishment,” and otherwise guilty of “fear mongering” and of “spreading disinformation.”
She presents her proposed sovereignty act as the “first step” in reasserting provincial rights against “the destructive overreach of Ottawa,” which has put the country “on a path of division and disunity.” Despite the separatist nods — why else call it the sovereignty act? — Smith claims this is “the only viable way for Canada to remain a unified nation long into the future.”
If passed, Smith claims, the act would give the Alberta legislature the authority to pass a “special motion” declaring that a federal law that encroaches on provincial jurisdiction, or otherwise violates the Constitution, “shall not be enforced by the provincial government within Alberta.” It would then be up to the federal government to litigate the non-enforcement of the law in court. Examples of federal laws this would apply to are mostly related to those that would impose production cuts on resource industries.
It isn’t difficult to understand why an approach like Smith’s would be appealing. Ottawa is happy to benefit from the tax revenues that Alberta generates, and use them to bolster Quebec with equalization payments. But the government’s green agenda is disproportionately targeted at Alberta, giving the energy industry more onerous emissions targets than others.
While oil revenues have returned to Alberta, new investment has not. Energy companies are wary of new projects as future regulations are uncertain. The jobs lost after the 2014 oil price crash have largely not returned and wage growth in Canada has been muted since the Liberals took power.
Quebec has successfully negotiated powers for itself and routinely passes legislation that would be unconstitutional, if not for the notwithstanding clause. Quebec is constantly testing the boundaries of the federation, so it isn’t surprising to see similar tactics being employed in Alberta.
However, while Smith may say her plan is “clearly constitutional,” it is clearly not. There is no provincial right to “nullification.” There is a federal right of disallowance, which gives Ottawa the ability to disallow provincial legislation, but it has fallen out of use. While it is still part of the “written” and legal Constitution, it isn’t part of what lawyers call the “political constitution.”
The only means for resolving such disputes are the courts. As imperfect and often frustrating as that may be for many Albertans, that is the reality in Canada. The rule of law demands governments not act outside constitutional bounds. Here is how Father of Confederation George Étienne Cartier put it: “The courts of justice will decide all questions in relation to which there may be differences between the two powers.”
The idea of a sovereignty act originated last fall under the Free Alberta Strategy. Barry Cooper, one of the authors of that document, has argued that the whole point of the strategy is to create a constitutional crisis. “But, but — gasp! — that would be unconstitutional! Indeed, that is the whole point,” he wrote in the National Post.
Cooper was referring to a version of the act he co-authored and not specifically to Smith’s proposal, but the two are close enough in concept to wonder what exactly Smith’s plan is here. Does she genuinely think her sovereignty proposal is constitutional? If so, she should maybe enlist better lawyers. If the point is to deliberately bring an unconstitutional law and to cause a crisis, then she should be honest with her supporters.
In either case, it is hard to imagine Smith will have more success than Kenney at forcing a Liberal government in Ottawa to reverse itself.
National Post
A BOOK REVIEW ABOUT CHINA
John Ivison: Poilievre should know better than to tear down Canadian institutions
John Ivison - National Post Pierre Poilievre, contender for the leadership of the federal Conservative party.
OTTAWA — On Labour Day, Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre repeated his denunciation of “Trudeau’s central banker,” Tiff Macklem, for advising business leaders not to raise workers’ wages.
The Bank of Canada governor has said he is confident inflation will come down, if companies don’t build increases into wage contracts.
The would-be prime minister, on the other hand, encouraged workers to demand pay increases to match rising prices — the typical “power without responsibility” prerogative of opposition leaders and harlots down the ages.
What struck me, beyond the debate about wages, was Poilievre’s continual pounding on institutions like the Bank of Canada and the Supreme Court, to the extent he is undermining their legitimacy. These institutions and others — Parliament, health authorities, police, universities and the electoral process — have rarely been under greater threat in the age of chronic rage.
Yet, they provide the constitutional checks that sustain our democracy and constrain the power of flawed politicians like Justin Trudeau and Poilievre.
The horseshoe theory in political science holds that, rather than being at opposite ends of a linear political continuum, the far left and far right closely resemble each other.
There are few better illustrations of this than American leftist Naomi Wolf’s new book, The Bodies of Others, which opens dramatically with the Canadian trucker convoy offering “joyous hope” to all those fed up with “pandemic totalitarianism.” The freezing of bank accounts without a court order by the Liberals meant “for a time, representative government was suspended in the nation of Canada” — all part of a plot to “dissolve human civilization” and replace it with a “techno-fascist culture,” wrote Wolf.
Poilievre, another convoy supporter, has dipped his toes into similarly conspiratorial waters. In his speeches he has railed against government bureaucrats being given the power to manipulate social media algorithms, so that only state-approved content is visible; he has hammered on the government’s use of laws that “empower police to seize the bank accounts of political opponents” during the truckers’ convoy; and has said he will repeal Trudeau’s “censorship laws and vaccine mandates.”
While it is becoming clear the Liberal government used a sledgehammer to crack a walnut in its invocation of the Emergencies Act (as I said at the time ), the federal government’s actions fall far short of the oppression that both left and right would have you believe. For one thing, the Emergencies Act is multi-layered to protect rights and requires the government to explain itself after the fact.
All of which brings me to my late summer reading — and the real threat of techno-autocracy. In Xi Jinping — The Most Powerful Man in the World, to be released in English later this month, German journalists Stefan Aust and Adrian Geiges detail the Chinese president’s idea to use internet censorship, video surveillance and artificial intelligence to create what he sees as the perfect society. “The goal is no less than the creation of a new kind of human being,” the authors wrote.
The idea emerged from the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, when Xi used a network of surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition to prevent demonstrations. When he became president in 2013, the system was expanded across China — by 2020, there were 600 million cameras.
According to the authors, Xi sees digitization as a way of improving communal life and enforcing Communist Party rule, via a so-called “social credit system.” Points are awarded for “good” behaviour, for example, aiding promotion at work, and deducted for “bad” behaviour, hindering job mobility or travel.
The system has been trialled in cities, including Rongcheng, population 670,000, where the scores of citizens are publicly displayed. Every citizen begins with 1,000 points. If you reach 1,050 points you are awarded the title “model of honesty.” But behaviour deemed “dishonest,” including “illegal religious behaviour,” means points are deducted. If your score sinks below 850 points, you receive a warning. Below 600, you are publicly exposed as dishonest and life becomes much harder.
Such an extension of the power of the state clearly creates the prospect for massive abuse — as has happened to Muslims in Xinjiang province, where one million citizens (or perhaps as high as three million by some estimates) have been interned in re-education camps.
People are locked up in these camps for any number of “suspicious factors,” including having an “extremist” name such as Mohammed or Fatima.
Aust and Geiges recount that teaching begins at 7 a.m., when an instructor stands in front of dozens of uniformed, shaven-headed Muslims in clanking leg irons, who are forced to learn about topics ranging from Chinese wedding customs to Xi Jinping’s speeches. “The Muslim inmates repeat together: ‘I’m proud to be Chinese’ and ‘I love Xi Jinping’.”
The new authoritarians are not to be found in Ottawa or Washington, but they are thriving in Beijing and Moscow.
Yet, in the West, trust and patience is running on empty.
“It seems that democratic principles and the proper functioning of states are increasingly standing in an antagonistic relation to each other,” said Aust and Geiges.
The answer to that is to reinforce our institutions to withstand the anger and to perform better, not to tear them down. What social psychologist Jonathan Haidt referred to as “the exhausted majority” needs to rouse itself from its slumber and resist the mob dynamics from partisan minorities who are not representative of the broader society.
Citizens should demand transparency and competence, not snake-oil solutions.
It’s a time of turmoil and confused people are being convinced by cynical politicians that the blame lies with elites and “the deep state.” But changing societies need to fall back on their traditions and customs. The purpose of conservatism should be to conserve institutions designed to reduce social conflict. Poilievre should, and indeed does, know better.
Calgary's three liquor stores busy, as province gives $20 oil dividend to Albertans: From the archives, 1957
Monica Zurowski, Calgary Herald -
There was a time when $20 had significant purchasing power. Just travel back in time 65 years. That’s when $20 could buy you two loaves of bread per week for the entire year or enough gas for your car for almost two months. Those 1957 prices now seem the stuff of dreams — $2,800 for a brand new car or $20,000 for a single family house in Canada’s most expensive cities.
Thus, many Albertans were thrilled when the provincial government decided to share proceeds from oil and gas windfalls, by offering citizens a $20 dividend bonus. Sixty-five years ago this month, Albertans were lining up to apply for the $20 bonus at banks and Treasury Branches. If you were 21 years of age or older and had lived in Alberta for at least a decade, you qualified.
To get an idea of how fast Alberta was growing at the time, the Social Credit government of the day estimated that only half of the province’s population of 1,123,000 would qualify for the bonus. As a Calgary Herald front page story noted on Sept. 7, 1957, “It is expected that fewer than half of Calgary’s 200,000 residents will prove to be eligible because of this city’s rapid growth during the past 10 years.”
The province planned to do a survey to see how the bonus was affecting sales in Calgary stores, but one early impact was being seen in government controlled liquor stores. “The government appears to be getting a good share of the money back through liquor sales,” stated the Herald story. “The three liquor stores here have been particularly busy this week, as have most beverage rooms.”
From the Calgary Herald; Sept. 17, 1957 front page
A Calgary Herald story on Sept., 3, 1957, noted that if all eligible Albertans got the dividend, the program would cost the province up to $11 million , representing one-third of the province’s net royalties from oil and gas production. To get the bonus, citizens only needed to sign a statutory declaration that they were eligible to receive the dividend and provide identification. The dividends were then paid in cash to recipients.
Recommended video: Alberta anticipates $13B surplus due to high oil and gas prices
While many Albertans welcomed the cash infusion, the plan had become controversial for some. Political opponents of the Social Credit government and Premier Ernest Manning said the plan was a tactic to buy votes and believed the money could be spent in a more productive manner for the province. Other Albertans said they’d rather see the money spent on education and health initiatives, but the government argued all Albertans were entitled to a share of the oil-and-gas windfall the province was experiencing. Working-class folks and average-wage earners greeted the dividend warmly.
Unfortunately, a number of opportunists — er, criminals — decided the dividend plan was fertile ground for committing fraud. An early case of someone convicted for making a false declaration and obtaining the citizen’s royalty by false pretences was a Calgary man, Angus Lera, who was sentenced to three months of hard labour in the Lethbridge jail. Another man, Roy Gordon Ohlhauser — a 24-year-old living in a downtown hotel — pleaded guilty in January 1958 to fraudulently obtaining 41 Alberta oil dividends. He received a six-month sentence, to be served concurrently, on each charge.
In the end, there was an estimated loss of $40,000 in fraudulent claims for the dividend, but critics suggested that dollar amount was actually higher. A Calgary Herald editorial on Feb. 12, 1958 questioned what the real losses were, giving a big thumbs down to the entire plan. “How many thousands of dollars were taken by clever crooks, who were able to switch identities and make claims will never be known,” the opinion piece stated.
The provincial government announced in February 1958 that the next round of dividends would be based on a slightly lower payout and that the process would be tighter, involving either “electrical sorting machines” or application punch cards, complete with an individual’s photo.
In August 1958, Premier Ernest Manning revealed a five-year development program for Alberta, with spending to be focused on schools, hospitals and municipalities. He also said the citizen’s oil and gas dividend program was being suspended, so that the $10 million that would have been spent on these dividends could instead be diverted to the aforementioned projects.
Alberta's new teacher registry criticized for outing trans people
Janet French - CBC
Some teachers initially included in a new provincial registry say the government's publication of all their legal names could lead to discrimination, harassment and safety issues.
When the government's new teacher registry went live last week, Calgary teacher, consultant and PhD student Jamie Anderson found an unwelcome surprise — his birth name, listed underneath his legal name.
Anderson is trans. His former name is a legal identity he no longer uses.
"Being outed and people having access to that information can have, sometimes, dire consequences," said Anderson, who is researching the experiences of trans teachers at the University of Calgary.
CBC News has identified multiple instances of former names listed for trans teachers.
Anderson's worry is that anyone can use the registry to look up any Alberta teacher certified since 1954 and see a name that doesn't match their gender identity.
It could prompt parents to demand their children be removed from their classrooms, Anderson said. Employers could pass over a teacher for a job, or even fire them, he added.
He contacted Alberta Education's registrar to ask the name be removed. He said the registrar has temporarily removed him from the registry while they process his exemption application — but he has no guarantee the name is gone permanently.
He's talking to lawyers about whether there are potential grounds for a human rights complaint.
Registry intended to improve transparency and safety
The new registry went live on Sept. 1 after the legislature passed a bill in 2021 enabling its creation. The government says it's one of several changes that will increase the transparency of teacher discipline and improve student safety.
About 162,000 current and former teachers are listed, including information on whether their certificate is active, and, in some cases, links to any disciplinary decisions if their certificate has been suspended or revoked.
The government's website says the registry includes all legal names known to the registrar. Teachers or their families can apply to exclude a previous legal name from the registry "if it may cause personal injury or hardship," it says.
The new legislation requires the registry to include all of the teachers' legal names. Although that information was not in letters the government sent to some teachers in June, it was included in a fact sheet online.
Critics say including past legal names could also put domestic abuse survivors at risk, along with other people who changed their names for safety reasons.
Lethbridge kindergarten teacher Laurie McIntosh said she was livid when she checked the registry last week and found a name included from a marriage that ended 20 years ago.
"It certainly was a traumatic time, and seeing that name written in a place that was never associated with me as a teacher, was certainly retraumatizing," McIntosh said.
After she posted about her frustration on social media, her former name disappeared from the registry, McIntosh said.
Someone from the registrar's office told her she'd have to apply for an exemption to make the removal permanent.
Minister says teachers knew registry was coming A spokesperson for Education Minister Adriana LaGrange was unable to answer questions by publication time, and referred instead to Friday tweets from LaGrange addressing some concerns.
In it, LaGrange says the government informed current and former teachers the registry was coming and explained how to apply for an exemption.
The letters to teachers said exemptions would be granted in rare circumstances where legally required or when a person's safety is jeopardized. Of the three other provinces that have public teachers' registries, only Ontario's includes past legal names. A spokesperson for the Ontario Teachers' College said teachers can request past names be removed from the database in extenuating circumstances, including gender identity.
McIntosh says the province should consider pulling the registry offline, or temporarily masking some of the information, until it can deal with the concerns teachers have raised.
"I just can't understand why, how this came about," McIntosh said. "It's not keeping anyone safe. If anything, it's putting more people in harm – especially teachers."
UCP WANTED AHS TO TELL THEM
Alberta premier accuses health system of giving government unreliable pandemic information
WHAT THEY WANTED TO HEAR
Premier Jason Kenney says Alberta Health Services did not respond to political direction during the most dire waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney blames AHS for providing what he says was fluctuating information about intensive care capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
KENNEY IGNORED THE SCIENCE TO OPEN UP FOR THE CALGARY STAMPEDE
Janet French - CBC
Kenney told reporters at a Calgary news conference Wednesday that Alberta Health Services (AHS) provided the government with continually changing numbers about the number of intensive care beds it could operate across the province during the pandemic.
"All politics aside, decision makers need clear and timely information when you're dealing with a crisis like this, and we simply did not receive that," Kenney said at a news conference about expanding private surgery capacity in the province. Critics who wanted more measures to contain the spread of the virus causing COVID-19 have lambasted Kenney and his government for being too slow to respond at times when cases increased in the province.
Kenney took particular heat for going on vacation during the summer of 2021 when most health restrictions were removed and cases of the Delta variant began to rise rapidly in August and September of 2021.
Kenney said Wednesday that AHS had initially said it could operate more than 1,000 ICU beds across the province during the pandemic. By May 2021, the government was saying its maximum ICU bed capacity was 425.
"We were given a September surprise a year ago that the best the system could do was to stretch from 173 [beds] to 230," Kenney said.
ICU bed peak
According to government data, pandemic ICU bed use peaked in the province on Sept. 28, 2021, at 337 patients with and without COVID-19. Another 53 beds were considered unoccupied that day.
But the situation was more acute on May 15, 2021, when there were only six ICU beds considered unoccupied while patients were in 259 ICU beds.
However, Kenney said the information from AHS about ICU capacity limits the next fall were unexpected.
"It was in my view unacceptable to have decision makers surprised with that radical reduction in stretch capacity at the last minute in a critical moment," he said Wednesday.
AHS has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Many politicians have pointed fingers at the health agency for their pandemic response and claimed they were unprepared to handle a large influx of sick patients. In April, AHS suddenly announced CEO Dr. Verna Yiu was leaving less than halfway through a two-year contract. At the time, the government said they were looking for a new, longer-term leader to oversee changes, such as the use of more private surgical clinics.
Critical care expansion
United Conservative Party leadership candidate Danielle Smith, who is vying to replace Kenney, has proposed firing the board overseeing AHS. Most board members were appointed by the current government.
Kenney said his government has since made it clear to AHS they expect a permanent expansion of critical care capacity, and have funded an expansion of 50 more ICU beds, 32 of which are now open.
NDP leader Rachel Notley said Wednesday that earlier in the pandemic, people working within the health-care system didn't believe they could scale up intensive care units as much as the government was promising. She said it was unachievable with Alberta's health-care worker numbers.
"Jason Kenney's attempts to whine about AHS is nothing but a continuation of a long practice of falling to take responsibility for really bad decisions that he has made that hurt Albertans."
Notley said the government's management of health-care has been chaotic, by ending a master agreement with Alberta's doctors, threatening some workers with pay cuts and outsourcing jobs to private companies.
