Disabled Models and Designers Take Center Stage at New York Fashion Week


Kristopher Fraser
September 7, 2022


Courtesy of Double Take

New York Fashion Week’s runways have become progressively more diverse over the past several seasons. Still, one group is only just starting to see more representation at Fashion Week: the disabled community.

Gabriella Santaniello is the founder and CEO of A Line Partners, a retail research firm investors turn to for help investing in brands and the fashion industry. In addition to her passion for retail, she is also passionate about disability rights and representation.

Why Mega-Brands Like Tommy Hilfiger and Puma Are Back at New York Fashion Week

She said in terms of trying to get fashion brands to listen to the issues the disabled community faces and bringing in more disabled representation, brands need to see this as a revenue driver.

“It’s unfortunate and horrible to say to get these brands to listen about disabled accommodation and representation we need, they need to see it as adding to their revenue,” Santaniello said. “It shouldn’t be that way, but the potential for brands to succeed in the disabled market is huge. I don’t understand why they can’t just get on board, and it drives me berserk.”

Open Style Lab, a nonprofit organization committed to making style accessible for everyone regardless of physical abilities, is helping fight for this representation. This season as a prelude to New York Fashion Week, the organization is debuting a first-of-its-kind runway show called Double Take, which aims to increase disability visibility and champion adaptive fashion.


Annika Hutsler poses during A Fashion Revolution by Runway of Dreams at The Majestic Downtown on March 8, 2022, in Los Angeles, California.
Jerod Harris/Getty for Runway of Dreams Foundation

Double Take was created for the broader disability community by the spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) community, and their runway show will see all models with SMA grace the runways.

“Disability visibility is one of the areas that needs to be more integrated into mainstream culture,” the organization’s CEO Grace Jun said. “We have to keep trying to put more people of different backgrounds on the runway because that’s a great place for it to start.”

This year, Open Style Lab’s fellows who are designing for Double Take were chosen from around the world, and 80 percent of them are disabled themselves. In a statement e-mailed to The Daily Beast, Andrea Saleh, one of this year’s fellows, said, “Thanks to the support of Genentech, Double Take gave me the opportunity to explore forward-thinking fashion designs that are inclusive of people of all abilities. I collaborated with several people living with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) to co-create accessible garments that fit both their personalities and their individual needs, including Shane Burcaw, who has SMA and uses a power wheelchair.”


Matthew and Mike Fernandez onstage during A Fashion Revolution by Runway of Dreams at The Majestic Downtown on March 8, 2022, in Los Angeles, California.
Jerod Harris/Getty for Runway of Dreams Foundation

Mindy Scheier, the founder of Runway of Dreams Foundation, an organization empowering people with disabilities through fashion, was inspired to start her organization because of her son who has muscular dystrophy. Now, she also focuses on helping champion the next generation of designers.

“One thing that I always try to tell people is that disability could happen to any of us at any stage of our lives,” Scheier said. “The industry is no question starting to get better about disabled representation, and brands are slowly starting to treat adaptive fashion for disabled people as a category no different than plus-size or petite. Runway of Dreams now uses the money we raise through our shows for scholarships for people focused on careers in adaptive fashion. We also partner with over 20 college clubs and universities to engage them in the adaptive fashion movement. Adaptive fashion is starting to become an incredibly important category in the industry.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Activism and '90s glamour on display at New York Fashion Week

AFP -

Glamour on the one hand, activism on the other: designers Tory Burch and Gabriela Hearst showcased two different approaches to New York Fashion Week on Tuesday.


American designer Burch offered New York a vintage-inspired collection that veered away from her well-known prints and bright colors

© ANGELA WEISS

- 'Richness and minimalism' -

American designer Burch offered New York a vintage-inspired collection that veered away from her well-known prints and bright colors.

"The collections have been for me much more personal now that I'm not running the business," she told AFP after the show.

Since 2019, Burch has entrusted her husband, Pierre-Yves Roussel, with managing the company, while moving into the roles of chief creative officer and executive chair.

For the Spring/Summer 2023 edit, Burch said she thought back to when she moved to New York in the 1990s and wanted to highlight "the concept of richness and minimalism" at the same time.

With sheer cotton tops, lace bras and silver shoes, Burch evoked the sleek sophistication and eroticism in vogue in the early '90s.

"I do think it's a bit sexier than what we have done in the past," she said. "And I think that women are feeling that right now. I see that that's how women want to dress, but I also love a certain elegance to it."

She said she also experimented with layering, using a jersey bandeau skirt as a recurring motif, sometimes worn over pants.

"I wanted to challenge us to push it a little further and also to have a more focused point of view," she explained.

- Women's empowerment -

Uruguayan designer Gabriela Hearst's show was imbued with ambiance. In an enormous warehouse with opaque windows, her models paraded down a runway lined with a gospel choir.



Since 2019, fashion designer Tory Burch has stepped away from managing her company to focus on the creative side© ANGELA WEISS

Gold dominated, shimmering across a cape, on a breastplate and popping against white and black accompaniments.

Long yellow and orange ponchos handsewn in Uruguay and red pantsuits also brought to mind the colors of fire.

Some pieces appeared to have been directly molded onto the models with the collection notes describing how leather had been soaked in water and then draped over a form to create unique pieces.


Sheer cotton tops, lace bras and silver shoes evoked the style in vogue in the early 90s© ANGELA WEISS

The theme of women's empowerment was also woven into the show.

Hearst, who is also the creative director at Chloe, said her 2023 Ready-to-Wear Collection was inspired by the ancient Greek poet Sappho and how she had shed light on the hardships women had to endure.

"This Joy," a gospel song written by Grammy winner Shirley Caesar, was performed by the Resistance Revival Chorus, which was billed as a collective of women and non-binary singers that addresses how "historically marginalized women have been in the music industry."

The catwalk cast included women's rights activist Cecile Richards, Mexican Chilean climate activist Xiye Ba and anti-toxic shock syndrome campaigner Lauren Wasser.

Hearst also said she had aimed to offset the climate footprint of her show by working with Swiss company Climeworks, which uses technology to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air.

tu-arb/led/lb/ssy

Forget quiet quitting: the latest work trend is 2 or more jobs — without any bosses knowing

Pete Evans - Yesterday - CBC

Like many Canadians, a woman we'll call Mary was looking for a little extra income during the pandemic, to offset the rising cost of living. But instead of turning to the traditional options of working some overtime, freelancing a little or starting up an unrelated side hustle, she and her partner took things a little further by each getting a second, full-time job in their field — without leaving their first one, or telling either boss about it.


Remote work has allowed for some workers to sign up for multiple jobs at the same time, often completing work for all of them at the same time.© Hollie Adams/Bloomberg

They are not alone. Mary and her partner, who have been granted anonymity to conceal their identities, are part of a growing trend that's being called overemployment. And there's a website — overemployed.com — to help remote workers do it.

It was set up by Isaac Price who, sensing layoffs were coming in 2020, "started on my exit plan," he says of his origin story. "After months of slogging through interviews, I landed a job offer." But the layoff never came and once he realized he could juggle both jobs at once, "it dawned on me, why quit my job at all? That's when the idea was born."

In contrast to the viral office trend of "quiet quitting" that sees many workers only engaging in the bare minimum that's required of them, people who sign up for the overemployed life are moving in the opposite direction: burning the candle at as many ends as they can manage, getting multiple full-time paycheques for as long as they can pull it off.

There's a thriving community on Reddit devoted to the movement. One prominent YouTuber proudly documented his experience dabbling in it — including how it came crashing down.

Working exclusively from home is almost always key to the entire operation. Mary's partner, an engineer, was the first to dip his toe into the overemployment pool, signing up for a second full-time engineering job paying $90,000 a year back in January 2021. Mary decided to follow suit last fall by getting two jobs — one in finance, and one in accounting, each paying $60,000 a year for full-time work.

"We just looked at the budgets and we thought we definitely need this," she says of their four jobs, which doubled their household income to $300,000. That's a large income by any definition, but Mary says they need the cash to stay afloat. "It wasn't about whether we can or not ... we have to," she said.

It makes for some long hours, as Mary says they each average 12-14 hours of work every day, and some on weekends. Others online say they're able to swing it without putting in much more than 40 hours a week. And the pandemic is what made it all possible, because of the widespread acceptance of remote work.

Mary and her partner were mindful of only seeking out jobs that could be done from home for the entire time, because the day any of their bosses call them into the office, the jig is up. If and when that happens, "I would quit," she said.

Even from home, it's hard to juggle it all. She started both her jobs around the same time, and at one point was in training modules for both jobs at once.

"Often I would just have to turn off my camera [and] put my stuff on mute on one," she said. "There have been a couple of times where I've been called upon to answer something from both companies simultaneously," she said. "Then you really scramble ... it really hits you."

Exact numbers on the trend are hard to come by, but Anthony Leutenegger, a Canadian and head of business development at technology company Aragon Labs, says it's clearly a growing trend, especially in technology.

"The reason you're seeing it pop up more now is because of the remote work," he said in an interview. "You couldn't do that as easily if you were in an office."

As remote and hybrid work gets more entrenched, he says overemployment will be, too. "I think we're going to see a huge rise in over employment over the next year," he said.

The concept of white collar workers moonlighting in a second job after working hours end is nothing new, but working two or more at the same time in secret is. While Leutenegger says he has no problem with employees working extra hours for someone else, in his experience, people trying to do too much don't end up doing good work for anyone.

"I'm the type of person that gives 150 per cent to the organization I work for, so it's not something that crosses my mind, nor would I have time to even consider it."

Growing trend

He manages multiple teams, entirely remotely, and he says while he doesn't think anyone he works with right now is doing it, it's certainly happened in the past.

He recalls one former worker who had given their notice of leaving the company. While doing research about the team at another company Aragon was going to be dealing with, it emerged that the worker in question was working there, and had been for some time.

"I had a hearty laugh," he recalls. He wasn't meeting expectations, he says, and while it wasn't bad enough that he was going to be let go, "at the end of the day, it's quite obvious when somebody is not giving all the time that they're supposed to, to the work," he said.

"I was not surprised at all."

For him, working two jobs isn't necessarily a firing offence, but he'd rather give the work to someone else "who can probably do a better job and won't be working multiple jobs at the same time and will be less distracted."

But that doesn't mean those doing it are on solid ground, legally speaking.

Employment lawyer Dennis Buchanan says even if a second job isn't against anything in the letter of an employment, a lot of the rules are implied to discourage that sort of arrangement.

In managerial positions especially, there's often what's known as a "full-time and attention" clause, which means the worker is obligated to "commit their full time and attention to the job and they're not going to go and do other things on the side," he said in an interview.

"When you're doing productive work, they want it to be for them unless they know and have consented otherwise," he said.

"If it's going to interfere with your job, if ... it's affecting your productivity or it's basically hours that we expect you to be working for us and you're working for them, either one of those is going to be a problem."

And of course, anything to do with working for a competitor in the same field is an obvious red flag for him, something that Mary says she's keenly aware of. She and her partner went through their contracts with a fine-tooth comb to make sure it was above board, and while she says no conflicts have emerged yet, she's well aware of the stakes.

"I think we'd get fired. I've had friends who've done two jobs at the same time. Their employers have found out and they got fired."

That anxiety is taking its toll, she says. "Each day you're like, is this going to be the day that I get fired? Or one calls us back to the office; every single day you're on high alert."

That's a big reason why even if they don't get caught, they don't plan on continuing their overmployment plan for much longer, because they've learned that the danger of burning the candle at both ends is usually burnout.

"As soon as we can stop working two jobs, we will," she said. "It's not recommended. It's not desirable."

Health care a top issue for Albertans but not for UCP leadership candidates

Michelle Bellefontaine - CBC


Problems accessing a family doctor or getting timely treatment in an emergency room are on the minds of many Albertans but health care isn't getting much attention during the United Conservative Party leadership race.


Candidates (left to right, Todd Loewen, Danielle Smith, Rajan Sawhney, Rebecca Schulz, Leela Aheer, Travis Toews and Brian Jean) attend the United Conservative Party of Alberta leadership candidates' debate in Medicine Hat in July.© Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

Only three of the seven candidates have specific health-care platforms posted on their campaign websites.

The others either have yet to release their policies, such as Leela Aheer, or are more focused on enacting measures to appeal tothose still upset about vaccine mandates and public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Janet Brown, an Alberta-based opinion researcher and pollster, said research she released in June showed Albertans' top priorities are inflation, health care and education. Practically no one mentioned sovereignty, freedom or autonomy — issues that have dominated the current contest to replace Jason Kenney as UCP leader.

"What gets most of the attention in this race are not the things that are of top of mind for Albertans, and the things that are top of mind are getting ignored," Brown said in an interview with CBC News.

"Health care, the second top priority, is one of those things that's getting very little attention, which is surprising given how important it is for people."

The platforms presented have common themes: returning to "local decision making" on health care, speeding up Canadian credentialing for foreign-trained medical professionals, and reviewing how the Alberta government responded to the pandemic.

Alberta Health Services, the provincial health authority that became a scapegoat during the pandemic, also figures largely.

Candidates want to review its structure, cull middle management or fire the entire board.

Actions aimed at mitigating the alleged infringements of personal freedom during the pandemic dominate the platforms of Danielle Smith, Todd Loewen and Brian Jean.

Lack of imagination, expert says

Candidates vow they will never impose vaccine mandates or restrictions. They also propose measures to diminish the role of public health authorities in Alberta.

Jean, in particular, focuses on changing the role of the chief medical officer of health to make it more accountable to the public and legislative assembly.

That includes changing the Public Health Act to mandate the establishment of a "religious and other assemblies advisory council" during a public health emergency. The council would advise the CMOH on how to protect the rights of religious assembly and public protest.

Steven Lewis, a health-care consultant and adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, looked at the platforms for CBC News.

Lewis said there is too much of a focus on the pandemic and public health and not enough discussion about solving critical problems in health care like massive backlogs in elective surgeries, dwindling access to family doctors and a demoralized workforce.

"If you look at these platforms collectively, it's a sadly lost opportunity to inject some creativity, imagination and forward thinking into solving longstanding problems," Lewis said.

"Who has anything beyond a cursory sentence or two about primary care, which is the real issue?"

Some candidates want to increase the supply of physicians and nurses, particularly in rural areas, either by increasing the number of seats in medical and nursing schools, speeding up Canadian credentials for international professionals and offering incentives.

Lewis said these frequently proposed ideas have proven not to work.

"The idea that more numbers is going to solve your problem, particularly in rural areas, is a myth," he said.

Physicians working in rural areas frequently face heavy workloads due to staff shortages. Demographics are also a factor, Lewis said.

"Urbanization is a relentless trend, particularly among professionals of all types," he said. "Nobody is flocking to live in rural areas, especially physicians."

Toews staying the course

If she becomes premier, Danielle Smith wants to give each Albertan a $300 health spending account to use on services not covered by medicare like counsellors, dietitians and massage therapists.

The former Wildrose leader and radio host has proposed asking the Health Quality Council of Alberta to review rural and urban hospitals to find facilities that are underused. She wants to fire the board of Alberta Health Services and appoint a commissioner to provide oversight on new management.

Toews, the former finance minister who represents the riding of Grande Prairie-Wapiti, has focused his attention on bolstering rural health care by providing incentives to bring practitioners to areas outside the large centres and spending $50 million a year to update rural health-care centres. He wants to appoint an associate minister who would be responsible for increasing health capacity.

Toews wants to encourage more private health-care providers to provide publicly funded services. He wants to help reduce COVID-related surgery backlogs by signing agreements so Albertans can get procedures in other provinces and in the United States that would be covered by medicare.

Brown said Toews' platform relies on the agenda the UCP government has rolled out over the past three years, which includes using for-profit private companies to deliver publicly-funded health-care services.

"Toews' approach would … continue to focus on outsourcing private delivery, making the system more accountable, making the system more decentralized," she said.

Sawhney, the former transportation minister, wants Alberta to expand home care and increase the use of virtual medicine and mobile clinics.

She is proposing a centralized province-wide list to refer patients to specialists. Sawhney also speaks about the need to respect health-care workers and finalize a deal with the Alberta Medical Association.

Both Sawhney and her former cabinet colleague Rebecca Schulz want to beef up primary care networks, where patients can access a wider range of health professionals in one spot.

Schulz, the former minister of children's services, is even proposing non-profit community care clinics in areas with more vulnerable populations and walk-in clinics near emergency rooms so nurses in charge of triage can direct patients with less serious ailments there.

Schulz also wants to expand the use of mobile clinics and virtual care in rural areas and increase access to home care for seniors.

Schulz is the only candidate to propose providing financial assistance for people undergoing fertility treatments as done in seven other Canadian provinces.

UCP/KENNEY BLACKMAIL

Alberta government will walk back legislation if doctors approve new contract, documents show

Janet French - Yesterday - CBC

If Alberta doctors ratify a proposed new agreement with the provincial government, the province pledges to reverse a controversial legislative change, say documents obtained by CBC News.


The trauma bay is photographed during simulation training at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto last year. A proposed new agreement between the Alberta government and the province's doctors could potentially resolve a lawsuit between the parties.© Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press

Neither the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) nor the province has spoken publicly since a late-Friday announcement the parties had reached a tentative agreement after nearly three years of tense relations.

An information package sent to doctors from the AMA and obtained by CBC News outlines the terms of that proposed agreement.

Included is a promise that if the government gives up its power to unilaterally rip up a contract with doctors — as the UCP government did in February 2020 — the AMA will drop a lawsuit against the province.

"The AMA lawsuit will only end once this legislation has been passed following agreement ratification," the documents say.

The United Conservative Party government imposed a new agreement on doctors in April 2020 that changed how they are paid for their work and cover their expenses.

An attempt to negotiate a new agreement failed in March 2021 when Alberta doctors voted to reject the offer.

The AMA president at the time said a sticking point was the inability to take unresolved issues to binding arbitration. Doctors were also upset the government said it would withhold some of their pay if the province went over its annual budget for doctor's billings, set at $5.5 billion this year.

The information obtained by CBC says doctors won't be held responsible if their billings exceed that value.

It says the four-year agreement includes one per cent billing rate increases each year from 2022 to 2025 and a one per cent lump sum payment in 2022-23.

A new committee will attempt to negotiate doctors' billing rates after 2025. Those rates could rise or fall depending on rates in other provinces, the documents say. The AMA and the government will negotiate compensation for the fourth year of the agreement. Either side can call for mediation and binding arbitration if they hit an impasse.

"This four-year agreement gives time for rebuilding relationships between physicians and Alberta Health," the document says. "The agreement provides a structure for the parties to work through challenges, issues and disagreements that may emerge."

The proposed new agreement would continue the stipends for doctors who work in Alberta Health Services facilities, such as hospitals, for two years. In 2019, the government proposed ending those stipends.

On March 31, 2020, the government stopped paying doctors when medical staff couldn't identify an Alberta Personal Health Number for the patient. These are called "good faith claims," and critics said the change could hurt vulnerable and impoverished people without health care cards.

The proposed deal now says doctors can bill for some good faith claims, retroactive to April 2022, through an application process.

The government also capped the number of patients most doctors could see per day to 65, which it said was for safety reasons.

The agreement would commit a committee to conducting an expedited review of that policy within 60 days of ratification.

The deal would also punt other points of contention before joint committees and panels, pushing resolution further down the road. That includes decisions about how much doctors should be paid for virtual mental health care, and how to handle future stipends for specialists working in hospitals.

Neither the government nor the AMA was answering questions about the proposal on Monday.

In a public letter Friday, AMA president Dr. Vesta Michelle Warren said the organization's board strongly recommends that doctors vote in favour of the offer. Voting starts Tuesday and runs until Sept. 28.

"We share the same goals of stabilizing the health system including the physician practices that are part of infrastructure and targeting other areas of concern," Warren said in a joint statement with Health Minister Jason Copping Friday.

Justin Trudeau on the attack against Pierre Poilievre's 'irresponsible' politics

Mon, September 12, 2022 


SAINT ANDREWS, N.B. — Canada needs responsible leadership, not dog-whistle and irresponsible politics, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday in a direct attack on new Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

In a speech before the first full caucus meeting of the three-day retreat for Liberal MPs, Trudeau first congratulated Poilievre for winning his party's leadership on Saturday.

Then he threw down the gloves.

"Now is not the time for politicians to exploit fears and to pit people one against the other," Trudeau said, surrounded by more than 150 Liberal MPs.

"Buzzwords, dog whistles and careless attacks don't add up to a plan for Canadians. Attacking the institutions that make our society fair, safe and free is not responsible leadership."

During the leadership campaign, Poilievre went after the Bank of Canada, accusing it of shirking its responsibility and allowing itself to be an "ATM" for Trudeau's spending habit. He also said that if he became prime minister, he would fire Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem.

Last winter, Poilievre professed to be a student of cryptocurrencies and advised Canadians that investing in Bitcoin could allow them to "opt out" of inflation.

"Telling people they can opt out of inflation by investing their savings in volatile cryptocurrencies is not responsible leadership. By the way, anyone who followed that advice would have seen their life savings destroyed," Trudeau said in his speech.

Poilievre also blames Trudeau for inflation in Canada, calling it a direct result of Trudeau throwing open the bank vault doors during the pandemic.

Trudeau said he will not apologize for being there for Canadian families and businesses who were in desperate straits as the economy shut down to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

"Let me be very clear, being there for workers, for families, for seniors, for young people, for businesses, it was the right thing to do," he said.

"It was the smart thing to do. Having Canadians' backs is something we will never back down from."

Trudeau tried to highlight policies that have helped, including signing child-care deals with every province that are lowering the cost of child care significantly for many families.

Liberals MPs are coming off the first summer when they were able to get a lot of face time with constituents since before COVID-19. Most said there were three constants in what people wanted to talk about: inflation, immigration and travel.

Quebec MP Alexandra Mendès said the message she got all summer in her riding was that government was not being good at delivering what Canadians needed.

"I'm not talking about management. I'm actually talking about executing the functions of governance," she said. "And in this very particular lens is what happened this summer, a lot of it could have been predicted. And, and I'm not putting blame in any person, per se, but more instructive in the way we function as a government."

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said there is no question it has been a tough two years, with a lot of disruptions and both the private sector and government have struggled to come back.

He said there are things that haven't performed well but the government has come together to respond so problems with airport delays and passport renewals are starting to improve.

"When we face challenges, we need to be honest with Canadians about why we are facing these challenges, and highlight our plan to get out of these challenges," said Alghabra.

He said at the beginning of the pandemic, people did not believe the government could get aid out the door for people and businesses quickly and it did because there was a hyper focus to do it.

This summer, he said, airport delays were caused mainly by labour shortages at both airlines and government agencies that provide security and border controls at airports. The government went to work to add more staff at the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and the Canada Border Services Agency, he said.

"There is significant improvement," Alghabra said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2022.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Feds to announce details of cost-of-living help for low, modest-income Canadians

Tue, September 13, 20



SAINT ANDREWS, N.B. — Liberal cabinet ministers said Tuesday the government is listening to Canadians who are struggling under the weight of inflation and entirely dismissed criticism from the new Conservative leader that they are part of a "radical woke coalition."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially announced the first policies to directly respond to the cost-of-living crisis spurred by an inflation rate that has averaged almost six per cent between January and July.

Until now, the government has said it is helping through existing policies, such as child care agreements with the provinces and automatic annual increases to programs like the GST rebate and Canada Child Benefit, as well as 2021 budget promises to increase benefits for seniors and low-income workers.

Trudeau will now outline a plan to double the GST benefit, introduce a temporary dental care benefit for most families with children under 12, and provide a one-time $500 payment for low-income renters.

"We spent a lot of time listening to Canadians from coast to coast to coast this summer," Trudeau said Monday, in his opening speech to his caucus at a Liberal retreat in St. Andrews, N.B.

"We heard from parents who are worried that the high cost of groceries or eating into their savings. We heard from nurses and health-care workers, stretched, working harder than ever, feeling ground down and undervalued."

The Liberals were wary of introducing too much money into the economy to avoid driving up demand and making inflation worse. They were warned against it by several economists, including just last week by CIBC World Markets chief economist Avery Shenfeld.

He noted provinces have already begun wide-scale handouts to appease voters concerned by inflation, and warned the federal government shouldn't follow suit.

"Unless very narrowly targeted to only reach those in the most need of support to put food on the table, or even better, financed by offsetting spending cuts elsewhere, they add to the inflation pressure in the economy by increasing spending power," Shenfeld said.

Tuesday's federal announcements are targeted at lower and moderate-income Canadians.

The new inflation response plan was supposed to have been unveiled last week during a Liberal cabinet retreat in Vancouver but was delayed following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Liberals have been criticized by opposition parties for months for not stepping up earlier.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in an interview that many people are going into debt to keep food on the table, and then paying higher interest rates on that debt because the Bank of Canada is raising interest rates to try and tamp down inflation.

"If you recall, as early as May we were saying to the government … those are two pressures that just make it harder for people who are already feeling squeezed. It just makes it worse," he said.

While the price of gasoline began to ease in June, the cost of basic necessities including food is up as much as 10 per cent compared to a year ago, and housing costs have also soared since the pandemic.

The new policies are all drawn from demands made by the NDP — including two that the Liberals have committed to as part of the supply and confidence agreement reached by the two parties last March.

Under that deal, the NDP agreed to support the minority government on key votes in return for the Liberals enacting some NDP priorities. Dental care and the housing benefit are explicitly included.

The NDP has also been asking the Liberals to double the GST rebate and expand the Canada Child Benefit, though those demands are not part of the deal.

"We think this is a starting point," Singh said of the announcement.

"It's something that we had fought for and we forced them to do. They would not have done this but for us, and they're not going to be able to get it passed but for us in the House. We're gonna need to have some legislation to make it happen. But we still think that (there are) other steps needed."

New Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is heavily critical of the supply and confidence deal, calling the Liberals and NDP a "radical woke coalition."

Liberal cabinet ministers at the retreat in New Brunswick rejected that notion.

"Frankly, I don't even know what it means to be woke," said Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, headed into the final day of caucus meetings Tuesday.

"I'm working to serve Canadians, and Canadians have asked us for three elections in a row to do more and to do it faster when it comes to fighting climate change."

Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said he is not woke, "and trust me, no one in my family believes that either."

He said the Liberal team is "fully committed to work on three things: the economy, the economy, the economy."

"That's what matters to Canadians," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2022.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Trudeau announces first steps on dental care, boosts to housing benefit, GST credit

Tue, September 13, 2022

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced new measures to help Canadians struggling with the rising cost of living — part of his government's deal with the New Democrats to secure parliamentary support for the governing Liberals until 2025.

The Liberals say they will be rolling out the first stage of a dental care program, boosting the GST tax credit and providing a one-time increase to the Canada Housing Benefit.

"Our government has been hard at work on a plan that will deliver relief to millions of Canadians," Trudeau said in St. Andrews, N.B. on Tuesday, where he is attending a Liberal caucus retreat.

"Today, we're announcing additional targeted new measures that will support the middle class and people working hard to join it. These will be the very first pieces of legislation that we introduce when the House returns."

The announcement was supposed to have been made on Sept. 8 in Vancouver, during a Liberal cabinet retreat. The sudden death of Queen Elizabeth II delayed its release.

The NDP pressed the Liberals to provide financial support to Canadians struggling with inflation through a boost to the GST tax credit. The Liberals voted against a motion proposing that relief back in May.

The plan announced Tuesday will see the GST tax credit doubled for six months — a move the government says will affect 11 million Canadians and families who currently receive the tax credit.

Singles without children will get up to $234 more from the credit, couples with children will get up to $467 more and seniors can expect an average boost of $225 this year.

Fruits of the Liberal/NDP deal

The Liberals also are rolling out a one-time increase to the Canada Housing Benefit, providing up to $500 to 1.8 million Canadian renters struggling with housing needs.

The Canada Housing Benefit, developed by the federal government and the provinces, launched in 2020 with joint funding of $4 billion over eight years.

The federal government said the benefit will be available to families with an adjusted net income below $35,000 — or to singles with incomes below $20,000 — who pay at least 30 per cent of their income on rent.

Earlier this year, the Liberals and New Democrats struck a deal committing the NDP to voting with the minority Liberal government in the House of Commons on confidence votes until June of 2025. In exchange, the government agreed to meet a number of policy benchmarks along the way.

The New Democrats said that at least two of those commitments must be met before the Christmas break if the Liberals want the deal to stay intact. The first was the boost to the Canada Housing Benefit, while the second is the introduction of the first stage of a dental care program.

Trudeau announced that his government is introducing a Canada Dental Benefit for children under 12 who do not have access to dental insurance.

Low- and middle-income families with a combined income of under $90,000 can access up to $650 per year for the next two years for dental services.

Trudeau said the next step will be to extend dental care to under 18s, seniors and people with disabilities by the end of 2023, before full implementation of the program by 2025.

Singh: We made this happen

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh welcomed the announcement and said his party has been working hard since the spring to press the governing Liberals to help Canadians with the cost of living.

"We have won," Singh said in Thunder Bay, Ont., where he is attending an NDP caucus retreat. "We have forced this government to deliver three things. Each of these items would not have happened but for the fact that we forced the government to deliver on this respect for people."

Singh said more needs to be done to help Canadians struggling with inflation and his party will continue to put pressure on the Liberal government.

"We're talking about putting money back in your pockets, helping out people and that's what we've done and we're going to continue to do even more of that," he said.

Lebanese woman robs bank to pay for sister's cancer treatment

AFP - 

A Lebanese woman held up a Beirut bank on Wednesday and reportedly walked out with thousands of dollars to fund what she said was hospital treatment for her ill sister.


The glass facade of a bank in the Lebanese capital Beirut is seen after a woman stormed it demanding access to her sister's deposits to allegedly pay for her hospital fees© ANWAR AMRO

The move and another heist Wednesday come as Lebanese depositors -- whose savings have been devalued and trapped in banks for almost three years amid an economic collapse -- take matters into their own hands.


People gather in front of a bank in the Lebanese capital Beirut after a woman stormed it demanding access to her sister's deposits© ANWAR AMRO

Sali Hafiz streamed a live video of her raid on a Beirut branch of Blom Bank, in which she could be heard yelling at employees to release a sum of money while entrances to the bank were sealed.

"I am Sali Hafiz, I came today... to take the deposits of my sister who is dying in the hospital," she said in the video.

"I did not come to kill anyone or to start a fire... I came to claim my rights."

In an interview with a local broadcaster after the heist, Hafiz said she managed to free around $13,000 from the $20,000 she said her family had deposited.

Cancer treatment for her sister costs $50,000, she said.

An AFP correspondent at the scene said gasoline had been poured inside the bank during the heist, which lasted under an hour.

Hafiz told local media she had used her nephew's toy pistol for the hold-up.

Hafiz and suspected accomplices managed to escape through a smashed window out the back of the bank before security forces arrived, the AFP correspondent said.

Also on Wednesday, a man held up a bank in the city of Aley northeast of Beirut, the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.

He was arrested, the NNA said, without specifying if he managed to take any money.

- 'Thank you' -

Hafiz is a 28-year-old activist and interior designer, her sister Zeina told AFP.

She said the family had not been in touch with Hafiz since the heist and was not involved in its planning.

Hafiz instantly turned into a folk hero on social media in Lebanon, where many are desperate to access their savings and furious at a banking sector perceived as a corrupt cartel.

Pictures and footage of her standing on a desk inside the bank carrying a gun went viral on social media.

"Thank you," one Twitter user wrote. "Two weeks ago I cried at Blom Bank. I needed the money for a surgery. I am too weak to hold a gun and take what is mine."

Last month, a man received widespread sympathy after he stormed a Beirut bank with a rifle and held employees and customers hostage for hours to demand some of his $200,000 in frozen savings to pay hospital bills for his sick father.

He was detained but swiftly released.

In January, a bank customer held dozens of people hostage in eastern Lebanon after he was told he could not withdraw his foreign currency savings, a source at the lender said.

Local media reported that the customer was eventually given some of his savings and surrendered to security forces.

Lebanon has been battered by its worst-ever economic crisis since 2019. The local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market, while poverty and unemployment have soared.

str/ho/lg

NO RIP

Joseph Hazelwood, captain of Exxon Valdez during 1989 oil spill, dies at 75

By Matt Bernardini


The Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 released almost 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound off Alaska. It was devastating for the area and wildlife that lived there. 

File Photo courtesy Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Joseph Hazelwood, the infamous captain of a tanker vessel that ran aground off Alaska in 1989 and created one of the worst oil spills in human history, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 75.

Hazelwood's family told The New York Times and The Washington Post that the former captain died in July after a fight with cancer and COVID-19.

A longtime sailor, Hazelwood was navigating the Exxon Valdez when it abruptly ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The accident tore the vessel open and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sound.

The spill devastated the area and killed wildlife that lived there, particularly those whose habitat was the waters of Prince William Sound. It damaged 1,500 miles of the Gulf of Alaska Coastline, killed 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, almost two dozen bald eagles and several killer whales.

Hazelwood was initially under suspicion of being intoxicated at the time of the spill, but he was cleared during a trial in 1990 in which witnesses said he appeared sober around the time the ship ran aground. After the spill, Exxon's chairman said that the company made "bad judgment" when it allowed Hazelwood, who'd been treated for alcoholism, to captain the Valdez.

"Someone in management should have been notified," the chairman said at the time. "Our policy would not have permitted this man back on the ship."

The Exxon Valdez disaster led to the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which strengthened the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to prevent and respond to oil spills.

"Had a spill the extent of the Exxon Valdez disaster occurred off the United States East Coast, the devastation would have stretched from Cape Cod to Chesapeake Bay," Walter Parker, head of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission, wrote not long after the spill.

Hazlewood was acquitted of a felony charge of operating a vessel while intoxicated, but was convicted of negligence. The court ordered him to perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay $50,000 in restitution.

Thousands of plaintiffs later sued Exxon and claimed they were significantly affected by the disaster. Five years after the spill, an Alaska jury awarded them $5 billion in punitive damages -- an amount that was later cut in half. The U.S. Supreme Court further reduced the award to $507 million in 2008.

Hazelwood wasn't even on the bridge when the ship ran aground, as he'd left his third mate in charge.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that the third mate failed to properly maneuver the vessel because of fatigue and excessive workload. Investigators also said Hazelwood failed to provide proper navigation. Hazelwood was the only person who was ever criminally charged for the oil spill.

The Exxon Valdez spill was the worst in U.S. history for more than 20 years before it was surpassed by the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, which spilled almost 170 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico -- more than 15 times the amount that the Valdez spilled off Alaska 21 years earlier.

RIP
Ramsey Lewis, Grammy-winning jazz pianist, dies at 87
By Sheri Walsh

Grammy-award winning jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis 

File photo by Ezio Petersen/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis, who reinvented his genre in a career spanning more than 60 years, has died. He was 87 years old.

The three-time Grammy award-winning member of the Ramsey Lewis Trio died Monday at his Chicago home.

Lewis was born and spent his life in Chicago where he started playing piano at the age of four. He formed his first jazz band, the Clefs, when he was in high school. Lewis went on to form the Ramsey Lewis Trio, with Eldee Young and Redd Holt, releasing their first album Ramsey Lewis and His Gentlemen of Jazz in 1956.

The trio's crossover Grammy-winning hit "The 'In' Crowd" pushed Lewis from the jazz charts to the pop charts in 1965. The hit single was followed by two more chart-toppers "Hang on Sloopy" and "Wade in the Water."

After Young and Holt left to form their own group, Lewis went on to work with Earth, Wind & Fire's drummer Maurice White. Lewis experimented with electronic keyboards for his 1974 album Sun Goddess, produced by White and featuring members of Earth, Wind & Fire.

Lewis continued playing jazz throughout the 1970s while exploring R&B and Latin music. He reunited his famous Ramsey Lewis Trio in 1983 for the album Reunited.

In 1995, Lewis introduced the crossover group Urban Knights featuring Grover Washington, Earl Klugh and Dave Koz. In 2005, Lewis recorded With One Voice, which earned him the Stellar Gospel Music Award for Best Gospel Instrumental Album.

During his lifetime, Lewis received five honorary doctorate degrees and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Artist. "The In Crowd" single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, while his personal memorabilia is currently on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

Lewis received a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award, placing him in the company of piano legends Ahmad Jamal, Chick Corea and McCoy Tyner.

The jazz legend continued working into his eighties. Lewis and his wife, Janet, produced the critically acclaimed Saturday Salon livestream series during the COVID-19 pandemic.

His latest album, The Beatles Songbook: The Saturday Salon Series, Volume One is scheduled to be released Nov. 11. He spent the final year of his life working on his memoir Gentlemen in Jazz which will be released in 2023.

Lewis is survived by his wife and five children.

"Ramsey's passion for music was truly fueled by the love and dedication of his fans across the globe. He loved touring and meeting music lovers from so many cultures and walks of life," his wife Janet said in a statement. "It was our family's great pleasure to share Ramsey in this special way with all those who admired his God-given talents."

Ramsey Lewis and Earth, Wind & Fire - Sun Goddess (Long Version) [Audio]

REST IN POWER

'Majestic' Greek 'Zorba' star Irene Papas dies at 93

Issued on: 14/09/2022 - 

Irene Papas was one of Greece's most renowned actors - 

INTERCONTINENTALE/AFP

Athens (AFP) – Greek-born actor Irene Papas, famous for her fiery appearances in the internationally acclaimed "The Guns of Navarone" and "Zorba the Greek", died Wednesday at the age of 93.

Greece's Culture Minister Lina Mendoni in a statement said Papas was "majestic" and "the personification of Greek beauty on the cinema screen and theatre stage".

Her cause of death was not immediately known, but the actor had Alzheimer's Disease and had been frail for some time.

One of Greece's most renowned actors, Papas appeared in over 60 films in a career spanning nearly six decades.

On screen and stage she starred with A-list partners, including Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas and Jon Voight.

"Ordinary actors have trouble sharing the screen with her," the late film critic Roger Ebert wrote in 1969.

Widely known as Pappas but personally preferring a single 'p' in her surname, the actor was born Irene Lelekou in 1929 in the village of Chiliomodi near Corinth, into a family of schoolteachers.

Gifted with a deep voice, piercing eyes and a chiselled face likened to the Caryatid statues of ancient Greece, Papas began performing at the age of 15 in local cultural events before studying drama in Athens.

She made her cinema debut in the 1948 Greek drama "Fallen Angels", and later broke onto the international scene with "Dead City", the first Greek movie shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952.

'Not looking for a career'

"The Guns of Navarone" in 1961, in which she starred alongside Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn, as a brooding Greek guerrilla fighter, was a landmark role in Papas's career.

She would again partner up with Quinn in 1964's "Zorba the Greek", another timeless classic.

"I left Greece to discover where the best acting was. I wanted to learn. I was not looking for a career," she told state TV ERT in 2002.

"If you do your job well, a career comes on its own."

In 1969, she played the widow of a murdered lawmaker in Costa-Gavras's Oscar-winning drama "Z".

Papas won several awards, including best actress at the 1961 Berlin Film Festival and the 2009 Golden Lion for lifetime achievement award in Venice.

Yet, she described herself as a "coward" who turned to theatre to overcome timidness and struggled to reconcile her fiery on-screen persona with her real self.
'Fame gave me nothing'

"Fame gave me nothing," Papas said in a 2003 interview with Greek daily Eleftherotypia.

"In contrast, it destroyed my private life. Because the person who will approach me, let's say sexually, has already fallen in love with my image."

In 2004, she revealed a secret, long affair with Marlon Brando in the 1950s.

"We had a love story," she told Italy's Corriere della Sera daily.

At the age of 18, Papas married her acting tutor Alkis Papas. They had no children and soon divorced, but she kept her husband's surname.

In her final years, she lived near Athens' Acropolis, cared for by a niece as she battled Alzheimer's.

© 2022 AFP

Irene Papas, Actress in ‘Zorba the Greek’ and Greek Tragedies, Dies at 96

She was best known for commanding movie roles in the 1960s but received the greatest plaudits for playing heroines of the ancient stage.

Irene Papas was best known by American moviegoers for her intensely serious and sultry-strong roles in films like “The Guns of Navarone,” “Z” and “Zorba the Greek.” Credit...Associated Press


By Anita Gates
Sept. 14, 2022, 

Irene Papas, a Greek actress who starred in films like “Z,” “Zorba the Greek” and “The Guns of Navarone” but won the greatest acclaim of her career playing the heroines of Greek tragedy, died on Wednesday. She was 96.

The death was confirmed by a spokesman for the Greek Culture Ministry in an email. He did not know the cause of death, but in 2018, it was announced that Ms. Papas had been living with Alzheimer’s disease for five years.

Ms. Papas was best known by American moviegoers for her intensely serious and sultry-strong roles in the 1960s. In “The Guns of Navarone” (1961), filmed partly on the island of Rhodes, she played a World War II resistance fighter who dared to do what a team of Allied saboteurs (among them Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn) would not: shoot an unarmed woman because she was a traitor


In “Zorba the Greek” (1964), with Mr. Quinn, she was a Greek widow who is stoned by her fellow villagers because of her choice of lover. In Costa-Gavras’s Oscar-winning political thriller “Z” (1969), set in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, she played Yves Montand’s widow, who evoked the film’s meaning with one final grief-ridden look out to sea.

But in the same decade, she was making her name in Greek film versions of classical plays, often directed by her countryman Michael Cacoyannis, who also directed “Zorba.” She played the title characters in “Antigone” (1961), Sophocles’s tale of a woman who pays dearly after fighting for her brother’s right to an honorable burial; and in “Electra” (1962), in which she and her brother plot matricide. She was also Electra’s mother, Clytemnestra, in “Iphigenia” (1977), the drama of a daughter offered as human sacrifice.

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In 1971, she received the National Board of Review’s best actress award for her role as Helen of Troy in “The Trojan Women.” Her co-stars were Katharine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave.

Ms. Papas was born Eirini Lelekou on Sept. 3, 1926, in Chiliomodi, Greece, a small village near Corinth, and grew up in Athens. She was one of four daughters of two schoolteachers and entered drama school at age 12. By the time she was 18, she had already played both Electra and Lady Macbeth. But her first professional stage role, in 1948, was as a party-hopping society girl in a musical.
She made her film debut the same year, in Nikos Tsiforos’s drama “Hamenoi Angeloi” (“Fallen Angels”), and appeared in 14 films during the 1950s — some American, some European — before her breakout role in “The Guns of Navarone.”

Ms. Papas with James Darren, center, and Anthony Quinn in 

“The Guns of Navarone” (1961).Credit... Everett Collection

The director Elia Kazan is often credited with discovering Ms. Papas. On a 1954 trip to the United States, she read a scene from “The Country Girl” for him. The following year, she was given a seven-year contract by MGM, although she made only one film under it: “Tribute to a Bad Man” (1956), a western starring James Cagney.

Ms. Papas’s other films included “Bouboulina” (1959), in which she played an 18th-century Greek revolutionary heroine; “The Brotherhood” (1968), as a Mafia wife (to Kirk Douglas); “Anne of the Thousand Days” (1969), as the discarded Catherine of Aragon opposite Richard Burton’s Henry VIII; and “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” (1987), based on the novel by Gabriel García Márquez.

The Greek tragedies were the focus of her New York stage career as well. She made her Broadway debut in 1967 in “That Summer — That Fall,” based on “Phèdre,” playing a passionate second wife in love with her stepson (Jon Voight), but the production closed after only 12 performances. The following year, she was Clytemnestra in a Circle in the Square production of “Iphigenia in Aulis.” She returned to Circle in the Square as the title character, a woman who kills her own children, in “Medea” (1973) and as Agave, who mistakenly kills her own son during an orgy of drugs, drink and violence, in “The Bacchae” (1980).

She was also a singer. She made two albums of Greek folk songs and hymns, “Odes” (1979) and “Rapsodies” (1986), and created something of a scandal with vocals that were condemned by some as lewd on “666,” the 1971 album by the rock group Aphrodite’s Child.

She had strong political feelings about her country and made them public. In 1967, she risked her citizenship by calling for a “cultural boycott” of Greece after a military junta took control, saying “Nazism is back in Greece” and describing the country’s new leaders as “no more than a band of blackmailers.” She never returned.

Although Ms. Papas spoke in interviews about a desire to give up acting and a regrettable tendency to be too obedient to directors, she continued film acting well into her 70s. Her final screen appearances included “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” (2001), in which she played Drosoula, the formidable mother of Mandras (Christian Bale), and “Um Filme Falado” (“A Talking Picture”), Manoel de Oliveira’s 2003 meditation on civilization, in which she portrayed a privileged actress sailing the Mediterranean.

She married Alkis Papas, a director and actor, in 1947, and they divorced four years later. A brief 1957 marriage to José Kohn, a producer, was annulled. She never married again.

She is survived by her nephews, the spokesman for the Greek Culture Ministry said.

Having played all those characters from ancient Greece, Ms. Papas had a worldview that took thousands of years of history and philosophy into account. “Plato made the first mistake,” she told Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times in 1969, lamenting an unnecessary delay in the scientific revolution. “He began to talk about the soul and morality, and he prevented the Epicureans from searching the nature of man.”