Indigenous people more likely to have housing issues as population grows: StatCan

WINNIPEG — Angela Klassen Janeczko calls out to a young woman sitting behind a building in downtown Winnipeg to see if she needs any water or food.

I LIVE IN AN INDIGENOUS INNER CITY NEIGHBOURHOOD FOLKS LIVE IN HOUSES

AND YES WE HAVE SOME HOMELESS TENTS TOO

They know each other by name and Janeczko has seen the young Indigenous woman struggle with housing and addiction for more than year.

Janeczko works with the Bear Clan Patrol, a neighbourhood watch group in Winnipeg that walks through streets and alleys looking to help those most in need. She says they have seen rooming houses and apartment buildings become derelict. At the same time, rent has also gone up and nearby houses are selling for record amounts.

It is disproportionately affecting Indigenous people in the neighbourhood, she says, and many are ending up in tents tucked behind buildings, along the riverbank or in small community parks. The COVID-19 pandemic just exacerbated the problem, she adds.

“Treat people with humanity and respect,” Janeczko says, as she hands out some food to another person nearby.

Statistics Canada's latest release of 2021 census data shows the Indigenous population is still growing, although the pace has slowed, and is much younger than the rest of Canada. However, the data says, they are also struggling with housing in a system that's already stretched thin.

The census says there are 1.8 million Indigenous people in Canada, accounting for five per cent of the total population. The Indigenous population grew by 9.4 per cent from 2016 to 2021, almost twice the pace of the non-Indigenous population.

While the number of Indigenous people in insufficient housing decreased slightly, it is still much higher than the non-Indigenous population.

Almost one in six Indigenous people lived in a home in need of major repairs in 2021, a rate almost three times higher than for the non-Indigenous population, and more than 17 per cent of Indigenous people lived in crowded housing.

Statistics Canada says because of difficulties in collecting census data on First Nations and other Indigenous communities, some caution should be exercised in comparing census years. The agency says it made adjustments to track overall trends.

Wednesday’s census release comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government set housing for Indigenous Peoples as a priority. It was also a part of the agreement between the minority Liberal government and the New Democrats.

The 2022 federal budget committed $4.3 billion over seven years to help improve Indigenous housing, a number the Assembly of First Nations says falls far short of what is needed. The national advocacy organization had asked to see $44 billion to deal with overcrowding and homes in dire need of repair on reserves.

Michael Yellow Bird, dean of the University of Manitoba's social work faculty, says it is a byproduct of colonization. Forced relocation, a loss of sovereignty and decades of underfunding have contributed to poverty and poor housing for Indigenous people. The trauma and displacement caused by residential schools is also a factor, he adds.

Housing on-reserve also doesn’t work the same as elsewhere, Bird explains, and it can be a complex administrative process for First Nations to work with Ottawa to tackle those long-standing issues.

The effect of unstable and overcrowded housing on- and off-reserve can be the same, Bird says. Poor housing is connected to major health issues, mental health problems, poor education outcomes and higher rates of suicide, he says.

“These things are all so connected,” Bird says. “It’s the demography of these things that we know, that these critical factors are causing a number of different kinds of disorders in communities.”

The Liberals have promised to develop an urban, rural and northern Indigenous housing strategy and have budgeted $300 million over five years so that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation can work with Indigenous communities to build the plan.

Affordability has become an issue in many real estate markets in Canada, but Indigenous people are more likely than their non-Indigenous counterparts to be living in a low-income situation.

The census found 18.8 per cent of Indigenous people lived in a low-income household. The rate was highest among First Nations people, particularly those who lived on a reserve.

"Nearly one-quarter of Indigenous children 14 years of age and younger lived in a low-income household in 2021, which is over double the rate among non-Indigenous children," said Annie Turner, with the centre for Indigenous statistics and partnerships at Statistics Canada.

Research shows that Indigenous people are also disproportionately homeless.

Janeczko walks through an alley with a handful of volunteers as the call of “sharp” echoes each time they find a needle. The group picked up more than 325 needles in a couple of hours during the recent patrol. Not every person without a home has addictions, but it can be a way those community members cope, Janeczko says.

Winnipeg has the largest Indigenous population of any major city in Canada and it continues to grow. Janeczko says every level of government has committed to studying the housing problem, but the people most affected need help now.

A sign on a nearby garage reads that a person has permission to live there. The young man inside thanks the Bear Clan volunteers for food and water as they check on him. Inside the garage is a makeshift living area with a couch covered in blankets, a table and a handful of personal items.

Janeczko explains the property where the garage stands used to be a rooming house that had about 20 occupants. When the owner died it was abandoned, she says.

The housing needs in the neighbourhood are immense, so the loss of an affordable rental space left many people at risk of being on the street, she says.

“The housing need is here,” she says.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2022.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press

Calls grow to streamline licensing for doctors as health-care systems struggle


ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — As Canadian health-care systems buckle under the weight of doctor shortages, the past president of the Canadian Medical Association is calling for a national licensing pathway for doctors — and some provinces are on board.



The current system, in which each province has its own licensing system, is confusing and bureaucratically cumbersome, particularly for doctors trained outside of Canada, said Dr. Katharine Smart said in a recent interview.

A national physician licence could provide a single, streamlined process for verifying the credentials of internationally trained doctors, she said.

"To have (all the) provinces credentialing every university, or every country, independently doesn't really make a lot of sense," Smart said. "It would make sense that would be done once, for the country."

Doctors trained abroad arrive in the country hoping to practise, but are often stymied by the confusing and costlylicensing process, she said. Some ultimately leave for countries where it is easier to start working, she said, adding: "Many people are never able to enter the system and actually practise medicine."

The issue of cumbersome licensing for doctors trained outside the country has recently come to a head in several provinces. Last month, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones directed the province's regulatory colleges to develop plans to more quickly register internationally educated doctors and nurses.

"The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has already taken steps to facilitate interprovincial coverage with as little as a day’s notice to meet urgent needs," said college spokesman Shae Greenfield in an email Wednesday. He said the college has also proposed creating a new temporary registration class, "specifically designed to support mobility between provinces and territories."

Other provinces, including Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, are working to streamline their procedures as they welcome Ukrainian doctors fleeing the war in their country.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador supports "exploring the concept of physician mobility throughout Canada, while maintaining our mandate of public protection," according to a statement emailed Thursday.

And Dr. Gus Grant, registrar of Nova Scotia's college of physicians and surgeons, said the idea of a national licensing system has merit, though he noted it would be an enormous administrative undertaking.

In the meantime, Grant said the four Atlantic provinces are discussing ways to co-ordinate licensingacross the region.

"I think that's more easily attainable and readily attainable," he said. "I'm excited by the momentum towards that right now."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2022.

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press

Salmon struggle to spawn amid record-setting drought, with tens of thousands dead in B.C.

Yvette Brend - Oct 5,2022-CBC

After three parched months, much of B.C. is experiencing drought and ongoing hot weather has left streams running dry, leaving no way for some salmon to return to their spawning grounds, killing hundreds in a mass die-off on the province's central coast.


Salmon counters for the Heiltsuk First Nation found Neekas Creek littered with dead or dying pink salmon over the first weekend in October, after months of record-breaking dry weather in B.C.

© Sarah Mund

The situation has scientists and salmon watchers concerned.

The Pacific Salmon Commission initially projected a return of 9.8 million fish to the Fraser River this year. By August, predictions were reduced to 5.5 million. This was readjusted again, on Sept. 28, to 6.8 million.

There were record-low rainfalls in September, and dry weather and heat has continued into October, a month known for rain. For some migrating salmon, that lack of moisture is proving deadly.

William Housty, the conservation manager for the Heiltsuk First Nation in Bella Bella, B.C., says crews from his band walk the creek beds and count returning adult salmon.

The number of salmon returning to the Neekas River, about 25 kilometres north of Bella Bella, has been declining for decades, from an average of 47,000 in the 1970s to just 750 in 2021, according to federal data from Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

This year's drought may have wiped out many more fish when water levels dropped after their return.

This past weekend, researchers discovered piles of lifeless fish – mostly pink salmon — floating dead or plastered together along the bottom of the Neekas near Spiller Channel.

By Oct. 7, Simon Fraser University researchers had tallied 65,000 dead pink salmon, according to Kyle Wilson, a biologist with Central Coast Indigenous Resource Alliance.

'Heartbreaking' scenes of dead fish

Photos and videos taken by German anthropologist Sarah Mund, who was helping Simon Fraser University salmon counters, show what appear to be hundreds of salmon, a few still gasping for air. Many were lying limp over logs or along a creek bed, or floating in shallow, warm waters of a creek that's usually much deeper this time of year.

"To see it kind of come to this magnitude is quite shocking," said Housty.

He estimates that if this scene is extrapolated over many creeks, it's likely hundreds of thousands of fish have died along rivers and streams in their territory this year, due to the warm temperatures and low water levels.

"All of those salmon that are just kind of wasted away and didn't even have the opportunity to reproduce is just heartbreaking," said Housty. "It's sad to watch the wild salmon deteriorate right in front of your eyes.

Housty said that the full impact of a mass die-off of fish won't be seen until about 2026, when the adult salmon spawned this year return. He estimates hundreds of thousands of fish have been lost.

Provincial ministries responsible for salmon and the environment offered emailed statements about the situation, but would not confirm the location of the videos or cause of the mass salmon die off seen in the images.

"However, we're feeling the impacts of climate change all around us in B.C. This is a highly unusual situation caused by recent drought conditions and it is very concerning to see the impact of drought conditions on wild salmon," the Ministry of Lands, Water and Resource Stewardship said in an email that outlined efforts to help wild salmon recover and better monitor their environment.

Every fall, salmon return to the rivers where they hatched from eggs and fight upstream to spawning grounds. Females dig a nest and their eggs are fertilized by males who cloud the water with their milt (seminal fluid). Most adult salmon then die, leaving their future to the fry that are able to develop and survive predators.

Wilson confirmed that the salmon in the videos and stills taken near Bella Bella were mostly pink salmon that had not yet spawned.

While it's not unheard of for salmon to suffer or die due to low rainfall, Wilson called this mass die-off "abnormal." He blamed it, in part, on the hot, dry weather, followed by a bit of recent rain that he says "tricked" salmon to head upstream, to their deaths.

He predicts very few pink will survive in this creek — and only in deeper pools higher up the waterway.

"For this generation, there will be a really low rate of return in a couple of years," said Wilson.

But it may not be a total catastrophe, he says, as pink salmon from other river systems may opt to spawn in the Neekas River.

Until then, Wilson says the loss of the fish will affect predators like bears, wolves and eagles.

It will also affect the commercial and Indigenous fisheries that rely on the salmon that return to wild central B.C. streams each fall.

Other B.C. creeks low, salmon struggling

The same scenario is playing out in other parts of the province that celebrate the return of salmon. Tens of thousands of finger-length salmon fry are released each year from streams into the Burrard Inlet.

Dave Bennie, who has volunteered at the Noon's Creek salmon hatchery for the Port Moody Ecological Society for 28 years, says "it's just so abnormal."

"I don't know what to say to kids. It's dry, there's no water. There's no fish," said Bennie. "[I've] never seen it this low."

He points out that salmon are jumping offshore, but the creek bed is so dry that the chum and coho returning can't get from the ocean into Noon's Creek to swim upstream to spawn.

"Every year, less and less come back," said Bennie, while sitting on dry rocks in a creek that he says would usually be flowing as high as his chest by October.

For now, surviving fry hide in the tiny pools below the rocks, but he says that leaves them vulnerable to predators like otters and blue herons, not to mention the unseasonable heat.

Festivals planned to welcome the salmon, Bennie says, may have very few fish to celebrate. He fears for all the Burrard Inlet hatcheries.

"We could lose everything — all the work we've done for years and years."

Ottawa should move fast on promised $200M fund for Black-led charities, group says

David Thurton - Oct 4, 2022-CBC

The federal government needs to follow through quickly on its promise to create a self-sustaining investment fund for Black-led charities and community-based organizations, says a spokesperson for a group backing the idea.

Liban Abokor, a board co-chair with the Foundation for Black Communities, made the comment after Ottawa took another step in laying the groundwork for what's supposed to be a $200 million Black-led philanthropic endowment fund.

"While this $200 million endowment is certainly a historic commitment, it needs to move from commitment to action," Abokor told CBC News.

While Abokor praised the proposal, he warned that Ottawa can't afford to drag its heels.

"There are community organizations in desperate need of resources to flow right away," he said.

The Foundation for Black Communities has been pushing for the Black-led and administered endowment fund. On Monday, the federal government announced it's seeking an organization to administer the fund.

Proposals are due on November 25. Abokor said the foundation will be one of the applicants.

The government promised the fund in the 2021 budget. Housing, Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen said the government has been conducting "extensive" consultations ever since. He said that, with the next steps now underway, he hopes to announce the fund's manager by the spring of 2023.

But Black organizations won't see funding immediately after the fund is put in place.

"The expectation is that at the conclusion of the first year … you'll have enough capacity built to start to see proceeds from the investment of that initial $200 million," Hussen told a news conference Monday. "Which is then expected to go in perpetuity to Black-led and Black-serving non-profits and charities across the country."

Concerns about the pace of the endowment fund project emerged after CBC reported last year that a federal loan program meant for Black entrepreneurs was difficult to access, offered unclear payment terms and asked invasive questions of applicants.

After the government announced the investment fund's next steps, the Parliamentary Black Caucus said it would be conducting its annual pre-budget consultations.

One of the joint chairs of the caucus, MP Michael Coteau, said ideas like the endowment fund emerged after Black Canadians pushed for such programs.

"Those are the types of ideas that have come from the community," Coteau said. "These are the ideas that people have gone out there and researched and championed."

The Parliamentary Black Caucus pre-budget consultations are open until Nov. 4 and comments can be submitted online here.

Climate Changed: Fiona demonstrated wild hurricane future, and need to adapt

HALIFAX — As she stood near the remnants of flattened homes in Port aux Basques, N.L., Denise Anderson said the thought of continuing to live next to the ocean is hard after a deadly storm foreshadowed the violence of weather to come.



"I grew up in this area, I wanted to come back to this area, but now I'm not so sure I want to," she said two days after post-tropical storm Fiona damaged the home where she has lived for three years, destroyed her neighbours' houses and swept one local woman out to sea.

Across the East Coast, similar emotions about the way climate change is altering life can be heard, as residents rebuild their homes and cope with weeks without power, and political leaders are asked how they'll prepare the coastlines and power grids to meet the next gale.

About 200 kilometres to the south across the Cabot Strait, in Reserve Mines, N.S., Reggie Boutilier pointed out a missing portion of his roof and wondered when the next storm would come. "It's only early in the hurricane season, and I'm thinking we're off to a bad start," he said the day after Fiona hit.

The scientific predictions on what's to come aren’t reassuring.

Canada's Changing Climate, a federal summary of climate science released in 2019, said fossil fuel emissions are likely increasing the intensity of tropical storms that form in the southern Atlantic and head north to the Canadian coast.

Blair Greenan, a federal scientist at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography who worked on the report, said in an interview that water temperatures off the Maritimes have gone up 1.5 C over the past century, adding a potent source of increased energy for the storms.

Anya Waite, a professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University, said the "sobering" reality is the warmer water shoots heat and moisture into storms like Fiona, giving them a longer duration and, often, a wider path.

While utility spokespeople referred to Fiona as "historic" in their news releases, Waite — also the science director of the Ocean Frontier Institute — says storms of this magnitude will become increasingly common. "We will be getting storms that have a lot more longevity because of the surface water being so much warmer," she said.

A "perfect trifecta" of conditions — general sea-level rise over the past century created by melting glaciers, storm surges and lower barometric pressures during storms — is also increasing the likelihood of coasts being swamped during hurricanes, she added.

"In terms of adaptation ... one of the main things is we will just have to move away from the coast," she said. "We love the coast so much that people are clinging to their last rock as it goes under. We can't do that."

Peter Bevan-Baker, the leader of the Prince Edward Island Green Party, saw an altered landscape as he drove around the Island last Friday, with thousands of trees down, farmers' barns destroyed and beaches that define the Island suddenly washed away. "The Island is changed forever," he said in an interview.

Meanwhile, thousands of people remained without power nearly two weeks after the storm hit, and complaints rose about the lack of basics such as heat, electricity, gasoline and even food for seniors in provincially operated buildings.

Yet, during briefings last week, the privately owned utilities Nova Scotia Power and Maritime Electric, which serves P.E.I., dismissed the suggestion that power lines should be buried, saying underground lines would cost up to 10 times more without eliminating the risk of outages.

Bevan-Baker said these kinds of "standard" answers don't recognize the changing climate realities. "I understand burying lines is an enormously expensive proposition, but so is rebuilding if it's a storm like this every few years," he said.

Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, said that while further studies on how utilities should adapt may be useful, the time for action arrived with the 170 kilometre-per-hour gusts that buffeted the region.

Endless scenario planning can become "a substitute for action," he said in an interview.

He said where housing or infrastructure was destroyed close to the shore, the rebuild needs to occur further inland. More crucially, modelling is needed on potential coastal damage throughout the Atlantic region, in order to set rules on building that take climate adaptation into account.

Solutions will vary. In some instances, higher seawalls will protect towns; in others, development may have to retreat, while tidal flats and marshes are created to absorb some of the sea's fury, Feltmate said.

Bevan-Baker points out that in P.E.I., there are close to 30,000 undeveloped lots near the coast, and yet there's still no provincewide land-use plan taking into account future storm surges.

Joanna Eyquem, a geoscientist who also works with the University of Waterloo climate adaptation centre, said the providers of key infrastructure — whether utilities, railways or ports — "really need to step up to the adaptation challenge" and consider climate change in all they're doing, something that is still not universal in Canada.

By contrast, in the United Kingdom, most similar organizations and companies report climate adaptation progress every five years, in addition to making mandatory climate-related financial disclosures annually, she said.

Feltmate said ordinary citizens have to act as well. His studies show many homeowners in flood-prone areas still don't have generators to run sump pumps if the power goes out and haven't graded their land to slope rainfall away from the buildings.

While some of the adaptation is costly, Feltmate points to research indicating that for each dollar spent — whether in cutting trees around power lines or creating power grids that are more decentralized — there are savings of five to six dollars in averted damage.

After prior severe storms, such as Juan in 2003 and Dorian in 2019, similar messages were delivered, and governments in the region briefly seemed attentive to the changing realities. But during election campaigns that followed, climate adaptation policies were only sketched out broadly and the focus shifted back to ailing health systems.

Will this time be different, after roofs are replaced, harbours rebuilt and freezers restocked? There are signs that even if officials are slow to change course, the urgency is sinking in at ground level.

In Burnt Islands, N.L., fisherman Murray Hardy gestured around his basement after shovelling out the mud deposited by Fiona's tidal surge, saying he'll prepare for the next hurricane by emptying out the space and replacing gyprock before mould sets in.

"What am I going to do? You got your home," he said, when asked if moving was an option. "I expect more of this. All they talk about is global warming and the tides and such. I'll just clean all this out."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 6, 2022.

— With files from Holly McKenzie-Sutter in Port aux Basques and Burnt Islands, N.L.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press

'Just chaos': P.E.I. residents turned away from lines for Red Cross Fiona payments

CHARLOTTETOWN — Frustration is growing in Prince Edward Island as some residents face their 19th straight day without power, and others wait hours in lineups for payments to offset the financial fallout from post-tropical storm Fiona.



Stephen Petrie said Wednesday he had spent more than three hours that morning standing in lineups in a Charlottetown mall, waiting to have his identify verified by the Canadian Red Cross. The organization is distributing $250 payments on behalf of the provincial government to Islanders impacted by the storm.

Petrie said that when his identity was finally verified, he was told he would have to wait another 10 days or so for an email transfer of the funds.

"It's just chaos," Petrie said in an interview, adding that many others were forced to wait in line alongside him. "Everyone's already tense and angry."

Red Cross spokesperson Dan Bedell said the organization is doing its best to meet the demand, adding that mobile payments centres could be up and running by the weekend.

"We only have a small group of volunteers in Prince Edward Island and just a couple staff," Bedell said in an interview Wednesday. "We have since deployed people literally from across the country to assist.

Fiona brought unprecedented destruction to parts of Atlantic Canada when it barrelled through the region on Sept. 24. The storm tore up trees, knocked down power lines and swept houses out to sea.

As of 4:45 p.m. local time, Maritime Electric's website showed that 1,042 customers in Prince Edward Island were still without power. The company has said it could be Friday until the last account is restored.

The province first announced last month that it had enlisted the Canadian Red Cross to dole out relief funds. The agency has also announced it will be distributing additional payments of $500, coming from donations.

Bedell said the Red Cross is also overseeing the Fiona financial assistance programs announced in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial governments require that anyone benefiting from the funds must have their identifies verified, he said, adding that the same protocols are being used in all three provinces.

Bedell said there could be several reasons why Islanders such as Petrie needed to have their identities verified in person. Their online registration may have been flawed or incomplete, for example. And while many others have been able to provide their identification through email or Zoom calls, there are an abnormally high number of Islanders who don't have or cannot use those options, he said.

"We also have to bear in mind to some of the people most affected still don't have power yet," he added.

Of the 52,539 households on the Island that have registered for aid money, Bedell said that so far, more than 36,000 have been authenticated and more than 28,000 households have received payments.

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

— By Sarah Smellie in St. John's.

The Canadian Press

Fiona reshaped P.E.I.'s coastlines, stoking fears for the Island's future

Devon Goodsell - Sept 29, 2022- CBC

A picture of how much post-tropical storm Fiona has reshaped Prince Edward Island is beginning to emerge — and in some cases, whole coastlines made of sand and stone have been erased.

The storm hit P.E.I. in the early morning hours of Sept. 24, leaving widespread destruction.

Six days after Fiona, the cleanup is far from over, with the majority of the Island still without power, and downed trees and power lines still blocking driveways and roads.

As Islanders begin the long road to recovery, many are wondering where to rebuild and how far from the shore is safe enough.

"I never seen anything like this before," said Oyster Bed Bridge resident Wayne McCaron, whose home now sits closer to the water after Fiona took a six-metre chunk out of the cliffside.

McCaron's home is still a few hundred metres back from the water, but a nearby small cottage now sits right at the edge.


Oyster Bed Bridge resident Wayne McCaron says he's never seen anything like this storm.

© Martin Trainor/CBC

"Come this winter, if we get a couple of storm surges … I feel sorry for this fella if he doesn't soon get out," McCaron said.

"Whatever he's going to save there, it's pretty well stone walls is all that's going to save him now. Expensive!"

'Now it's just straight down'

McCaron's neighbour, Jonathan Davidson, says the surge was so high it threw heavy iron oyster cages right into the treetops.

And there used to be — like, there were staircases going down. Some of the properties had staircases and they're just washed away," he said.

"You can see how sharp of an incline it is now. It's just — it's a cliff," Davidson said. "There was a fairly decent grade that you could walk down at one point, but now it's just straight down."



Jonathan Davidson says staircases to beaches were washed away in the storm.

© Martin Trainor/CBC

Further along P.E.I.'s North Shore, the entrance to Brackley Beach in P.E.I. National Park was being guarded by Parks Canada staff on Wednesday. Fiona caused the worst damage the park's iconic sand dunes have seen in a century, leaving the dunes dangerously unstable.

"What we saw was up to 10 metres of the dune completely eroded away," said Chris Housser, a professor at the school of the environment at the University of Windsor who specializes in coastal science.

"It's almost like somebody cut the dune completely in half — about 40 percent of the volume of sand in the dune has been lost to the near shore. It will eventually come back, but it's going to take a lot of time — years to potentially even a decade."

'Theword that I have to use is the word relocate'

Fiona voraciously ate away at parts of Atlantic Canada's coast, demolishing wharfs, and sucking homes and shoreline into the sea.

The devastation left in the storm's wake has prompted calls for the federal government to do more about coastline erosion, by building up breakwaters and raising wharfs.

At a briefing on Wednesday, Minister of Infrastructure Dominic LeBlanc acknowledged the federal government needs to move quickly with new programs and more money.



The storm left huge swaths of the P.E.I. National Park coastline forever changed.

© Shane Hennessey/CBC

"The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has tens of millions of dollars annually to repair small craft harbours," he said.

"That clearly is going to need to be augmented in light of what happened, and I am very confident it will be. We are in the middle of renewing a number of our federal infrastructure programs."

Leblanc said he's meeting with provincial and territorial infrastructure ministers to map out the next generation of infrastructure programs.

"We have some money available now around disaster mitigation and adaptation. This is a direct line to climate change .. and to these atmospheric events," he said.

"In the part of the country I represent, Atlantic Canada, it is exactly these coastal communities that, in the case of a hurricane like we saw last week, face the brunt of these losses … So we need to find the right instructions to ensure people are protected."

Retired Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientist Denis Gilbert says the unfortunate truth for many people is that they might have to move.

"I'll be very honest and give you the full amplitude of my thoughts without any filter. I sincerely think that everywhere in Canada — and in the world — people are putting blinders on their eyes, trying to preserve what's there," he said.

The discussions are always to the effect of, 'Why doesn't my municipality or the provincial government or the federal government build a nice brick wall … to protect my house?' Theword that I have to use is the word 'relocate'."

Marineland drops $1.5M lawsuit against former employee and agrees to rehouse walruses


After a decade-long legal battle, former Marineland trainer Philip Demers was able to see his beloved walrus Smooshi this week, after the Niagara Falls, Ont., tourist attraction dropped a $1.5-million lawsuit against its former employee.


Phil Demers worked at Marineland for 12 years before becoming an animal activist. Demers and the Niagara Falls, Ont., park have settled a decade-long legal battle that will see two walruses relocated.© Submitted by Phil Demers

Demers, the animal rights activist and whistleblower, is still banned from Marineland, but was allowed inside the park Wednesday for a reunion with Smooshi — the first time he had seen her in a decade, he said — after news emerged that the legal issues were resolved.

The lawsuit, filed in 2013 by Marineland, alleged Demers trespassed and plotted to steal the 800-pound walrus. Demers filed a counterclaim, also in 2013, for defamation and abuse of process, he told CBC Hamilton.

After several weeks of negotiations, both sides have dropped legal action and, as part of the mutual agreement, Smooshi and her calf Koyuk will be rehoused as soon as "reasonably possible" where "they can join other walruses."

In a news release issued Wednesday, Marineland said "litigation between Marineland … and Phil Demers has been resolved amicably... Mr Demers acknowledges Marineland's evolution towards education, conservation and research, and its commitment to enhanced animal care."

Demers said he would leave the exact location of where the walruses are going to Marineland to share publicly but that he agrees the new location is better.

"I'm incredibly pleased. I'm ecstatic," he said. "The contrast of where she's going now, and the fact she will no longer perform and she won't be under the blazing hot sun and she won't be separated from her baby anymore, which to me is probably the greatest piece of justice that that animal deserves."

Koyuk was born in June, 2021, but Demers said the two have been kept apart since Koyuk's birth so Smooshi could perform in shows.

The fight to free Smooshi

Demers was a Marineland trainer for 12 years before becoming a whistleblower and activist, shedding light on the conditions the animals were living in at the facility.

Demers said he decided to use the lawsuit to leverage the animals' release.

"It's been a tunnel vision-like experience for me. I've only ever thought about the walrus and the conflict with Marineland."

He said the settlement has taken a weight off him.

"There's a certain poetic justice to it all."

Marineland still in court

Demers's efforts aren't the only ones that have put Marineland in hot water for its use of animals.

The animal rights group Last Chance for Animals (LCA) filed complaints against the facility last year, saying videos showed illegal dolphin and whale shows.

Miranda Desa, a lawyer for LCA, said a 2021 video shows "dolphins performing tricks to music for an audience" and "beluga whales being instructed to perform tricks for food in front of on-watchers" but that Marineland refers to their shows as "educational presentations" to get around not having a licence.

Under a section of the Canadian Criminal Code introduced in 2019, captive cetaceans — large sea mammals such as dolphins and orcas — cannot be used "for performance for entertainment purposes" unless the performance is authorized with a licence from the Ontario government.

Niagara Regional Police told CBC Hamilton that the complaint resulted in Marineland being charged with the criminal offence related to the of "use cetacean for performance/entertainment without a licence" and that this charge is still before the courts.

Police said they have received additional complaints but as they are actively under investigation, police cannot provide further information.

Desa said Marineland will have its seventh court appearance on September 28 in St. Catharines, Ont.

As for Demers succeeding in having Marineland rehousing Smooshi and Koyuk, Desa said it is an important step in increasing awareness of "animals in captivity and the harms they suffer, especially at Marineland."

In its statement Wednesday, Marineland said it "has a historic obligation to care for the marine mammals in its care.

"Marineland must care for its animals and there is no simple or obvious solution to rehouse them."

The most important reunion

Demers called his reunion with Smooshi "powerful." He joked it was a red-carpet entrance, adding, "It was more like grey, dreary, concrete carpet."

He also tweeted a photo of himself being allowed back onto Marineland's grounds.

Demers said he plans to keep advocating for marine mammals in captivity, but for now, he's happy he caught his proverbial white whale in seeing Smooshi and Koyuk being freed from captivity.

Although he wasn't able to get really close to Smooshi Wednesday, he's hopeful it's just the beginning of a new chapter.

"The door for many more [visits] is wide open," he said. "I look forward to all of them."

Cara Nickerson -CBC- Sept 21

Restoring the culinary and cultural bounty of ancient Indigenous sea gardens in B.C.

SALT SPRING ISLAND, B.C. — A family of sea otters emerges from the ocean and rambles up the rocky shoreline, while a great blue heron in search of a meal pokes at a wall of rocks.

Fountains of water squirt upwards from clams that have buried themselves across the beach.

Ken Thomas, standing on a rocking boat just off British Columbia's Salt Spring Island, marvels at the beauty and bounty of the ancient Fulford Harbour sea garden.

He reflects on how the long row of rocks piled along the shoreline represents both past and modern-day West Coast Indigenous culture.

"I'm like, 'My ancestors touched this, were part of building this.' It's something more special than a pile of rocks to hold clams," said Thomas, the fisheries, wildlife and natural resources director for the Penelakut Tribe on southern Vancouver Island.

For years, academics wondered about the origins of the long string of rocks piled along the tide line. The answer came when they spoke to local First Nations, who said the rocks were sea gardens created by their ancestors as cultivation sites thousands of years ago.

Indigenous Peoples used the tides to trapclams, mussels, kelp and fish in the shallows once the water receded.

Now, Indigenous leaders hope to to gain approval for clam harvesting at the sea garden site on Salt Spring Island's coast, and another at nearby Russell Island in Gulf Islands National Park, both of which are undergoing restoration. They are thousands of years old.

Thomas said on a recent trip to the sites that all participants want to ensure the clams and other food from the gardens are safe to harvest, which involves testing by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian Food Inspection Agencyand Environment and Climate Change Canada.

He said he's optimistic harvesting approval could come within one year, although others suggest it could be three or four years.

Indigenous nations, Parks Canada, scientists and academics are jointly participating in the restoration of the sea gardens, located along ancestral territories of Coast Salish First Nations who travelled the Gulf Islands trading and gathering food.

The COVID-19 pandemic halted efforts to restore the sea gardens, but the rebuilding work is resuming, Thomas said.

"When the tide comes in and out, it's got the seeds floating around in the current, and if you've got a wall there, the seed will get stuck behind the wall when the tide goes out and settle into the beach," said Thomas.

"These gardens have been here for generations and generations, pre-contact," he said.

Elizabeth May, Saanich-Gulf Islands member of Parliament and former Green Party leader, said the presence of the rock walls on B.C. beaches had confounded scientists for years.

"We are, as settler-culture Canadians, blind to what's right in front of us," she said. "A wall along the side of an island, and to know that for quite a long time our expert geologists we're baffled by these walls. Where did they come from? How were they formed?

"How about the obvious thing: Indigenous people moved the rocks to create a place to ensure food supplies of multiple species," said May.

The work to restore the sea gardens involves aeration, debris removal and some harvesting and marks them as much more than heritage zones, said Nicole Norris, a First Nations partnerships co-ordinator who works for the Solicitor General's Ministry.

"We're not just here removing and filtering rocks through a wall," she said. "We're creating a sustainable food source in the same way that our old ones did."

Adam Olsen, the Gulf Island region's Green representative in the B.C. legislature, said sea gardens were managed for thousands of years until colonial settlers banned Indigenous Peoples from the beaches.

"This is an example of environmental racism," said Olsen, who's a member of the Victoria-area Tsartlip First Nation. "These policies are used to deliberately disconnect Indigenous people from their lands."

The work to jointly restore the sea gardens is "inspirational," considering past government policies of prohibiting access and disregarding Indigenous knowledge, said Erich Kelch, the sea garden project's restoration manager for Parks Canada.

"It's foundational how government and First Nations can be working together in a positive way on the land that's taking care of it for future generations," he said.

For the longest time, the government disregarded and even disbelieved the traditional Indigenous practices of managing the land, he said.

"And this is trying to change that, recover that and restore that and build a better future," Kelch said.

Thomas said he once considered moving rocks as a form of exercise, but when he's at the sea gardens it becomes a matter of cultural rebuilding.

"It's more than just a clam bed," he said. "It's more than just a rock wall. It's the connections there that our people have."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2022.

Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press

#ABOLISHMONARCHY

Majority of Canadians want referendum on monarchy ties after queen’s death: poll

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, adorned with a Royal Standard and the Imperial State Crown is pulled by a Gun Carriage of The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery, during a ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall. Wednesday Sept. 14, 2022. Thousands of members of the public are expected to come to pay their final respects at her lying in state. 

(Isabel Infantes/pool photo via AP)© Provided by Global News

Majority of Canadians want referendum on monarchy ties after queen’s death: poll

Nearly 60 per cent of Canadians want a referendum held to determine whether the country stays tied to the British monarchy, a new poll suggests — despite nearly equal support both for and against preserving those ties.

The Ipsos poll, conducted exclusively for Global News just days after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, found support for a referendum on the future of the monarchy has gone up since last year, from 53 per cent in 2021 to 58 per cent today.

"(Canadians) would like to have their say," said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.

Whether support continues to grow for holding a vote on the issue will likely depend on "the performance of King Charles III and what people feel about him after we get out of this period of mourning" for the queen, Bricker added.

Ipsos interviewed over 1,000 Canadians online earlier this week for the survey.

The results suggest King Charles has a lot to prove with the Canadian public.

While 82 per cent of respondents said they approve of Queen Elizabeth's performance as monarch, just 56 per cent agree Charles will do a good job in her place. Even worse, only 44 per cent said they view Charles favourably, with that support dipping to just 27 per cent for his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort.

"There's never been a great deal of enthusiasm about King Charles," said Bricker, who pointed to the bruising his reputation took in the aftermath of his divorce from Princess Diana.

"People aren't hostile about the new King, but they're certainly not as enamoured with him as they were with his mother. ... That 82 per cent (support) is not just a sympathy number for Queen Elizabeth. She consistently got numbers like this for as long as we've been polling.

"It's a very, very hard act to follow."

‘We shall all miss her immensely’: Canadian MPs pay tribute to Queen in special Parliament session

Notably, Canadians appear eager to skip over King Charles' right entirely and enter the era of William, Charles' son and the new heir apparent.

Compared to 47 per cent of survey respondents who believe King Charles and Camilla will help keep the monarchy relevant to Canada, 60 per cent feel the same about Prince William and Princess Catherine — though that number has fallen seven points since 2016.

Both William and his brother Harry, as well as their respective wives Kate and Meghan, earned a majority of support from respondents compared to their father. William scored the highest support rating among them, with 66 per cent saying they view him favourably.

Read more:
As King Charles III begins his reign, what legacy will he bring to the British throne?

Overall, only a slim majority (54 per cent) said Canada should sever its ties with the monarchy now that Queen Elizabeth has died. That number largely aligns with other polls held both before and after the queen's death.

That majority was largely driven by respondents in Quebec, where 79 per cent of those surveyed agreed Canada should separate from the monarchy. In English Canada, support for such a move only reached 46 per cent on average, with only Saskatchewan and Manitoba seeing a slight majority.

Younger Canadians under 55 years old also drove animosity toward the monarchy, with 57 per cent saying the bond should be severed compared to 49 per cent of older Canadians.

Those relative splits in opinion were also seen when survey participants were asked if they agreed with arguments both for and against keeping the monarchy in Canada.

Poll: Majority of Canadians not feeling impacted by Queen’s death

A small majority (between 55 and 61 per cent) agreed that the constitutional monarchy helps to define Canadian identity and should continue as the current form of government, that keeping the monarchy helps separate Canada from the United States, and that it is important to Canadian heritage.

Yet the roughly same range of respondents also agreed that the royal family should not have any formal role in Canadian society and should not be seen as more than celebrities; that Canada is not a truly independent nation if it stays tied to the monarchy; and that the monarchy is too linked to the history of colonialism and slavery to have a place in modern Canadian society.

"All of this suggests that Canadians are not particularly intense on this issue one way or another, though they are somewhat concerned about it," Bricker said.

"There's definitely more room for the anti-monarchy side to grow ... as one generation replaces the other. But right now ... these symbolic feelings are not enough to trigger something decisive yet."

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between September 13 and 14, 2022, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,001 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

GLOBAL NEWS - Sean Boynton - Sept 16, 2022

Messy process to abolish monarchy likely ‘nonstarter’ amid pressing problems: Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the complicated process that would come with any attempts to abolish the monarchy are likely a "nonstarter" for Canadians amid pressing national problems like inflation, climate change and the need for continued work on reconciliation.


Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau arrives at 10 Downing Street for a bilateral meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss, in London, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022. 

(Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)

In an interview with Global News from London, U.K., where he is part of a Canadian delegation attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Trudeau reflected on what her death means for this country, and why he thinks Canadians have bigger things on their minds than abolishing the monarchy.

"We are able to have all the strength of debates that we need to have in Canada without worrying about the overarching stability of institutions because they are embodied by structures that have been in place for hundreds of years," Trudeau said in the interview, which airs in full Sunday on Global National.

"Canadians have been through a lot of constitutional wrangling over the past decades. I think the appetite for what it would take when there are so many big things to focus on, is simply a nonstarter."

Among the big challenges, he pointed to are inflation and the cost of living, climate change, greater clean technology jobs, reconciliation with Canada's Indigenous peoples, and global affairs in what his defence minister, Anita Anand, earlier this year called a "darker" and "more chaotic" world.

Last week, Ipsos polling conducted exclusively for Global News just days after the death of the queen suggested nearly 60 per cent of Canadians want a referendum on the future of the monarchy.

That's an increase from last year, when the sentiment stood at just over half of respondents.

At the same time, that poll suggested there is nearly equal support among those who favour both preserving or eliminating the ties to the monarchy.

In particular, the polling indicated King Charles III has a lot to prove with the Canadian public.

While 82 per cent of respondents said they approved of Queen Elizabeth’s performance as monarch, just 56 per cent agreed Charles will do a good job in her place. Even worse, only 44 per cent said they view Charles favourably, with that support dipping to just 27 per cent for his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort.

“It’s a very, very hard act to follow," said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, last week.

However, abolishing the monarchy would require a feat of political maneuvering that has rarely been seen throughout the years, requiring unanimous agreement among the House of Commons, the Senate and all of the provincial legislatures.

Read more:
Queen Elizabeth death: What will her passing mean for the future of Canada’s monarchy?

Trudeau said his impression of the new king is that he will be "steady and engaged and thoughtful like his mother was."

"He knows Canada very well. He spent so much time there. He's been active on protecting the planet, on engaging with people around the world. He's very interested in Indigenous reconciliation," Trudeau said.

"There's a lot of good work to do that he is going to be able to to lead, within the limits and the position he has. But I think his commitment to listening, engaging, learning, embodying a thoughtful, generational path forward rather than short-term political preoccupations is exactly the kind of frame that I think democracies like ours need."

Read more:
Ahead of queen’s funeral, governor general says King Charles ‘committed to reconciliation’

Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, who is also in London as part of the delegation for the queen's funeral, expressed similar thoughts in an interview with The West Block's Mercedes Stephenson on Sunday.

Simon, who is the first Indigenous person to hold the position as the monarch's representative in Canada, described King Charles as “very different” from his mother, while being "very committed to reconciliation … between Indigenous peoples and the Crown."

“He has told me directly that he’s committed to working on these issues, and hopefully I’ll have a lot of opportunities to continue working with them," Simon said in the interview.

Video: Gov. Gen. Mary Simon remembers the queen’s calm, steadfast leadership

Trudeau added he believes that rather than being an impediment to reconciliation, the Crown is "a powerful tool" in those efforts.

"It's going to be a part of the path forward. Appointing the first Indigenous Governor-General, for example, was a key step forward in reconciliation," he said.

"Having a King who is making deliberate efforts to learn, to understand, to embody a new relationship with Indigenous peoples that we're developing as a country is essential."

Video: Queen Elizabeth death: Can King Charles III keep the monarchy alive?

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, Trudeau's spouse, also weighed in.

"Symbolic institutions are not just symbols. They also have the power to validate, recognize and legitimize people's emotions and their lives and what they have gone through," she said.

"And I think that holds a great strength and depth."

The symbol that the monarchy represents, the prime minister added, also gives Canadians a powerful opportunity to "position ourselves in the sweep of history" as the Crown passes from the longest-reigning monarch in British history to the first King in 70 years.

"We know how fast everything moves and how complicated, how troubled the world is right now," he continued.

"This is a moment to take stock, to reflect on where we're going and what we're focusing on and how we continue to be there for each other — in a world that is changing, but still has symbols of steadiness that we can anchor ourselves to."

Amanda Connolly - Sept 18, 2022
— With files from Global News' Sean Boynton.