OP-ED: LATINOS AND ANTI-BLACKNESS—THE SILENT DIALOGUE THAT NEEDS TO BE DISCUSSED IN SCHOOLS

Disgraced former Los Angeles Councilwoman Nury Martinez recently resigned after revelations of her racist comments. Image: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

By Tyrone Howard | October 13, 2022

The recent uproar around racist comments by members on the Los Angeles City Council has reverberations that goes far beyond politics. Recent comments by former Los Angeles City Council president Nury Martinez speaks to an issue that plays out in the wider society and in education—the prevalence of anti-Blackness. For those unfamiliar with the context, Martinez offered up some vile comments that were recorded without her knowledge with several other L.A. city council members. Among some of the comments made by Martinez was that one of her colleagues 3-year-old Black son looked “like a monkey,” that he demonstrated behaviors that required “a beatdown” and she referred to Oaxacans as “little short dark people” and” tan feos” or “they’re ugly.” These comments are vile and reprehensible and have no place for anyone in public service.

What is important to note is that Martinez at one time served on the Los Angeles Unified School District board. One can only imagine how a person with such anti-Black beliefs acted in her role as a board member. How did such beliefs affect how she led on the board of the second largest school district in the nation? How did she see Black children? What did she think of Black families? What were her perceptions of Black communities? What policies did Martinez support or thwart that were harmful to Black students? These questions are all fair game now. One can only wonder.

What is certain is that Martinez is probably not the only person involved in governing schools who hold anti-Black beliefs. Anti-Black racism are beliefs, thoughts and actions that any person, regardless of race, can have towards Black or dark-skinned people. So yes, Latinos can and do hold anti-Black beliefs. The idea of Black-Brown unity has been lauded as a way for the nation’s two largest minority group to recognize that they share more in common than they have differences. Yet, what is unspoken is that beneath the surface there is a minority of Latinos who share ideas similar to Martinez, and this conversation needs to be had. It is the silent dialogue that needs to be had immediately.

The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools released a report in 2018 called “Beyond the Schoolhouse,” in which they documented the declining presence of Black families in Los Angeles County. In short, the report documents that critical mass matters, and the declining numbers of Black students has resulted in intense exclusion, hostility and disproportionate punishment of Black youth in schools. It is important to note that one of the important tenets of anti-Blackness is the embracing or upholding of whiteness. I have worked with numerous school districts across the country, and have often been criticized when I talk about the need to challenge whiteness in schools. To be clear, I make the distinction, whiteness is not the same as white people. Whiteness is an embodiment of the belief that white people are superior to non-whites, and those that are non-white are undesirable, unattractive and deserving of inferior support, services and treatment. And to be clear, people of color can and do subscribe to tenets of whiteness. Council person Martinez’ comments make that point loud and clear. Any references to Black children as monkeys and references to people of indigenous Mexican lineage with darker hues as “ugly” lifts up the ugliness of whiteness.

And what does this mean for schools? Needless to say, Black children and other darker-skinned children are subjected to anti-Black racism daily in school yards and classrooms from adults and peers. What can and should schools do?

Believe Black Children

Many Black children have shared accounts of how they are vilified, excluded, made to feel less than or frequently referred to as the N-word by peers; yet, there are no ramifications for the perpetrators. Some of my own research with Black students has revealed jaw dropping accounts of what they are subjected to at school by peers and adults. Administrators and teachers have a professional obligation to make sure that all students have a safe please to learn. Verbal assaults and insults are not safe ways to learn. Dark-skinned children cannot learn equitably when they are deemed as being inferior to anyone. Thus, accounts of anti-Blackness cannot be dismissed, ignored or overlooked. Education professors Luke Wood and Frank Harris refer to the concept of race lighting, wherein individuals point out and explain issues of racism, but are often told by others that these things really did not happen.
Upstanders Are Needed

One of the most common concepts in the literature on bullying is to ask children who are privy or a witness to bullying to speak up, and to stand up to the harmful behavior of others. Children are asked to do this, but frequently adults do not. The disappointing aspect of Council member Martinez's comments were that other leaders were present and co-signed. For educators who hear colleagues make incendiary comments about Black students, the hope is that they will speak up, stand up and be the upstanders that we ask students to be. It is important to note that silence in the presence of racist language and behavior is a form of complicity.
Anti-Bias Training Is Not Enough

In many districts across the country, the response to acts of racism or discrimination is to engage in a single session of “diversity training.” Such trainings have become quite popular for many districts, and most rarely never change adult behaviors. Schools need to commit to ongoing professional learning about how to unlearn anti-Black racism. School and district leaders have to initiative and sustain these dialogues. Moreover, equity audits are needed to see how anti-Blackness is prevalent in curriculum, teacher-student interactions, access to opportunities and perception of parents and caregivers.

Anti-Blackness has no place in our politics, our schools and society at-large. The ugliness with the L.A. City Council this week has opened an opportunity. An opportunity for all of us to talk about how certain students are deemed undesirable, inhumane and worthy of violent behavior. Such thoughts and actions need to be stopped. Our students deserve better.

Tyrone C. Howard is professor of education at UCLA. He is the president-elect of the American Educational Research Association.

REST IN POWER

Winnipeg biochemist, human rights advocate Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti dies at age 94

Rachel Bergen - Yesterday 

Family and friends are celebrating the full life of a Winnipeg human rights activist and biochemist who worked to ensure the world was a better place when he left it.

Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti died on Thursday after his health declined three weeks ago. The Winnipeg-based biochemist and human rights advocate was almost always seen wearing a suit and bowtie.© Submitted by Sowmya Dakshinamurti

Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti died in palliative care in Winnipeg on Thursday morning at the age of 94 after suffering a heart attack three weeks prior.

His youngest daughter, Dr. Sowmya Dakshinamurti, said she thinks of a quote by the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell when she thinks of her father.

"'The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.' It makes me sad but it makes me happy. That's really how I would describe my dad," Sowmya said in an interview on Friday.

"A life in science, a life in community service, a life in advocacy — he's had a lot of lives."

Born in India in 1928, Dakshinamurti's father served in the British Army during the First World War in what's now known as Iraq. His father's experience in combat affected Dakshinamurti's worldview greatly, Sowmya said.

"The idea that there are non-violent ways of making things better grew into him," she said, adding that he became very interested in the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, meeting him once at a student rally that Dakshinamurti had organized in the 1940s.

Before he left India and eventually settled in Manitoba in 1965, Dakshinamurti married his wife of 61 years, Ganga Dakshinamurti, which their daughter says was the high point of both of their lives.

"They lived the perfect life where each of them was full of projects, and full of passion, and full of energy and full of things they were doing, which weren't necessarily the same thing, but they each supported each other so much," Sowmya said.

Human rights work in Manitoba

Dakshinamurti is the founder of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre in Winnipeg, which has worked to foster the Indian legend's teachings of non-violence and respect for human rights since it was started in 2007.

Up until his last days on earth, his coworker and friend Sudhir Kumar says Dakshinamurti was involved in the centre as the president.

For the last 15 years, Dakshinamurti has overseen the centre's peace award, which is bestowed to people who have been at the forefront of promoting and preserving human rights.

Two days before he died, Dakshinamurti was texting Kumar about their award celebration next week, which they haven't held since before the pandemic.

Dakshinamurti also ensured that youth interested in working towards those rights have money towards their education.

"That's the way he wanted his legacy, that the human rights should be known very well all over the world and especially in Canada," said Kumar.

"He is a mentor for me to continue on his legacy."

Award-winning biochemist

In addition to his work advocating for human rights, Dakshinamurti was a well-respected biochemist who published nearly 190 articles, many of which were on metabolic syndrome disorders and the pharmacology of vitamins.

He was an long-time professor at the University of Manitoba and a senior advisor to the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre.

Raj Bhuller was a PhD student under Dakshinamurti in the 1980s, and now is a professor at the University of Manitoba in the faculty of health sciences.

He says Dakshinamurti was an easygoing, gentle mentor, who was brilliant but unassuming.

"Mentorship at that stage, at the early stage of education was the key to succeeding later on, so I think that was a great takeaway for me," Bhuller said in an interview on Friday.

In 2020, he was named to the Order of Manitoba for his biochemistry work.

Dakshinamurti was publishing articles until he was 92, his daughter says.

He was happiest when he was doing scientific research or supporting others doing so.

"My email inbox is currently full of scientists around the world contacting me to say, 'He's why I got into this,' 'He inspired me,' 'He made me want to do better, research better,'" Sowmya said.

Sowmya says Dakshinamurti's science work and human rights work were the perfect marriage.

"Science is … a process and a search and as you learn new things, you improve the state of knowledge as you go, and you make things better for the people who are going to come after you," she said.

"I feel like he really did see human rights as that same kind of evolution."

Involved in community

Sowmya will remember her father as very supportive and involved, an impeccable dresser (always wearing a suit and bowtie) and a slight but captivating man, who made a mean martini.

During his decades living in Winnipeg, he was very involved in community events, taking part in everything from Folklorama to Lunar New Year celebrations to sitting on the original committee to develop the Centennial Concert Hall.

He was fearless, she says, getting involved in community building in Winnipeg when his family was among the first South Asian families to settle in the area.

"He never kept himself in a cultural or social silo. He never wanted to just be involved in 'Indian things.' He wanted to be involved in his community and he wanted to make his community better," Sowmya said.

"My dad, to his last minute was a proud and happy Winnipegger."

The mighty Mississippi is so low, people are walking to a unique rock formation rarely accessible by foot

Allison Chinchar - CNN

Tower Rock – a massive island in the middle of the Mississippi River south of St. Louis – is typically surrounded by water and only accessible by boat. But as severe drought spreads across the Midwest and pushes river levels to near-record lows, people can now reach the rock formation on foot.

“The river has dropped low enough that you can walk over to Tower Rock and not get your feet wet or muddy,” Missouri resident Jeff Biget told CNN. “I only remember being able to do this one other time in my life.”

Photos taken by Biget show people hiking across the rocky river bed to the island tower – a trek that poses little risk in the near-term as water levels are expected to continue to drop for at least the next two weeks.

Tower Rock can be reached on foot when the water level is below 1.5 feet at the Chester, Illinois, river gauge, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. That gauge dropped to around zero on Thursday and shows no sign of significant recovery in the forecast.

More than 55% of the contiguous United States is in drought, according to the US Drought Monitor, which is the largest area since April. And more than 133 million people live in those drought-stricken areas – the biggest population affected since 2016.

Severe drought covers more than 70% of Arkansas and nearly 40% of Missouri, up from just 5% a month ago. Several locations have seen record-low precipitation over the past few weeks, including Memphis, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Springfield, Missouri. The forecast from the Climate Prediction Center is dry, with below-average rainfall in the outlook through at least October 23.



Tower Rock is part of the Tower Rock Natural Area on the Missouri bank of the Mississippi River. - KFVS

The drought’s early autumn expansion in the central US has had a significant impact on the Mississippi River. In Memphis, the river was at its lowest level since 2012 this week and and its fifth-lowest on record. By next week, the forecast calls for it to decline further, to the third-lowest level on record.

More than 40 river gauges in the Mississippi River Basin are reporting low water levels, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

CNN Weather

Bailey White, who lives in Tennessee north of Memphis, tells CNN she has never seen the Mississippi River’s water level drop this low. White says she and her family boat on the river a few times a month, but they had a difficult time putting it in on Saturday.

“I’ve seen the water levels drop a little and I’ve seen them super high – but I’ve never seen them this low before,” White said. “We couldn’t even get our small boat on the river. We had to try five different docks until we were able to do so. It’s a small boat, so it doesn’t sit deep in the water, but we definitely had to pay extra attention a few times or we would’ve hit some sand.”

Photos show how the river has contracted away from its banks. The usually mighty Mississippi looks more like a trickle in some areas, with dry sand exposed where several feet of water usually flows.


The mighty Mississippi is so low, people are walking to a unique rock formation rarely accessible by foot© Provided by CNNThe Mississippi River at Memphis -- shown here near the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge -- has slowed to a trickle. It was at its fifth-lowest level on record this week and continues to drop. - Bailey White



The mighty Mississippi is so low, people are walking to a unique rock formation rarely accessible by foot© Provided by CNNLow water levels shown in the Memphis area. - Bailey White

The low water levels come at a crucial time of the year for the transport of crops from the nation’s heartland, CNN has previously reported. The Army Corps of Engineers has been dredging portions of the river to keep traffic flowing – albeit at a much slower pace. Hundreds of barges and vessels have been queuing up, waiting for the all-clear to pass through the treacherously-low river.

The Consolidated Grain and Barge Company, which buys, stores and sells crops for shipping, can usually move grain on barges loaded up to 80,000 bushels, according to David Gilbert, the company’s superintendent at its Greenville, Mississippi, office.

But recently the low water levels have forced the company to keep the loads far lighter, at around 55,000 bushels.

“I ain’t seen it lower than it is now,” Gilbert told CNN. “We’re not loading right now.”

Gilbert said that instead of shipping their harvests right now, many farmers are “just throwing it in their bins” and waiting for better conditions, which could still be weeks away.



Tower Rock, left, taken this week. Tower Rock aerial photo, right, under normal water conditions.

But even as the supply chain crisis grows, a playful mood is taking hold around Tower Rock.

“Tower Rock, walking on the river out to it only happens every so often,” Elainna Froemsdorf told CNN affiliate KFVS.

She took her grandchildren to make the hike on Monday, which was a school holiday.

“Today was no school, so it means fun grandma day,” Froemsdorf said.

She tells KFVS that her grandchildren are the third generation in her family to experience walking out to the formation. And her granddaughter, Adilyn Chowder, was happy for the new experience.

“I haven’t done anything like that before, and it was kind of challenging, but it was fun,” Crowden told KFVS.

CNN’s Carroll Alvarado, Amanda Watts and Judson Jones contributed to this story

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Opinion: University of Alberta's system of governance under threat

Opinion by Carolyn Sale - 

In the last few years, the University of Alberta has faced twin attacks that pose a threat to its future as one of Canada’s top research universities. It has had hundreds of millions of dollars lopped out of its budget by Alberta’s UCP government. These cuts have been devastating. But equally troubling internal developments are threatening the university’s system of governance.


University of Alberta campus.© Provided by Edmonton Journal

When the university was incorporated under The University Act of 1906, it had only one governing body, with members appointed by the government. But in response to the recommendations of the Flavelle Commission , which sought to prevent political interference in public universities, the university joined all other universities in Canada in embracing a bicameral model of governance under which the senior academic body of the university has responsibility for academic affairs and the board of governors has responsibility for financial and administrative matters.

This was formalized in the revision to The University Act in 1910 and has been a cornerstone of all revisions since. The current law specifies that the university’s general faculties council (GFC), “subject to the authority of the board, … is responsible for the academic affairs of the university.”

Since 2020, GFC’s ability to fulfill its statutory role is being undermined. On his first official day on the job in 2020, President Bill Flanagan announced he had laid off the person responsible for safeguarding the university’s governance processes, university secretary Marion Haggarty-France. Across the fall of 2020, the GFC faced considerable obstacles to it playing something that resembled its proper statutory role even as the university community experienced a shallow consultation process about the radical restructuring forced by the UCP’s cuts.

Then, when GFC, responsive to the strong message it had heard from the university community, did not agree to recommend that the board create new senior administrators called “college deans,” President Flanagan refused to represent the GFC’s position to the board.

The outcry from the university community at his choice to “recuse” himself from the board’s decision-making was tremendous. Formal expressions of concern included a letter from department chairs claiming a breach of trust and the establishment of an ad hoc committee of GFC to review what had happened. That committee’s final report in March 2022, declared that “[t]he events of fall 2020 demonstrated the need to reinvigorate bicameral governance at the University of Alberta and to take seriously the role of GFC as the body responsible for the academic affairs of the university.”

Despite these developments, just three months later the university community had to learn from a student reporter’s tweets that the president had decided to bypass GFC altogether and take his recommendation for how these new college deans are to be selected straight to the board.

Nothing could possibly have more impact on the academic affairs of the university over the next five years than the work of the college deans who will be appointed under the new selection procedure, but GFC could not make a recommendation in regard to a proposed policy item about which it was kept in the dark.

At its September meeting, the board chair informed GFC that the board had “pressured” the president to bring the recommendation straight to the board. Both she and the president are now claiming that the board has an “exclusive jurisdiction” over the appointment of senior academic officers that allows them to circumvent GFC’s right under Section 26.1(o) of the Postsecondary Learning Act to make recommendations to the board on any matter.

To ensure GFC could exercise that statutory right, the president was advised a motion would be brought to the next GFC meeting calling on the president and provost to notify GFC in advance of any policies they were planning to bring to the board. At the Oct. 3rd meeting of the GFC executive, the president declared he would rule any such motion out of order. He added that if someone wishes to take the matter to judicial review he will be happy to see them in court.

It is a very sorry day for a treasured public institution in which generations of faculty, students, alumni, and taxpayers have invested for its president to seek to defeat the GFC’s statutory right to play its proper role in the development of policies relating to the academic affairs of the university.

Perhaps it is time for a 21st century successor to the Flavelle Commission. An independent investigation of what has been occurring could be the opportunity for recommendations to strengthen the bicameral system of governance not just at the University of Alberta, but across Canada.

Carolyn Sale is an associate professor, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta.

Senior KFC executives opt for retirement as interest rates hit pension payouts -WSJ

(Reuters) - Three senior KFC executives have notified the U.S. fried chicken chain's parent company Yum Brands Inc that they will take early retirement as rising interest rates threaten to dent lump sum payouts for corporate pensions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.


FILE PHOTO - Vehicles line up around Kentucky Fried Chicken after a state mandated carry-out only policy went into effect in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Louisville© Reuters/BRYAN WOOLSTON

KFC's U.S. Chief Operating Officer Monica Rothgery, Chief Financial Officer Trip Vornholt and Jeff Griffin, its director of national field operations will leave the company this year, the report said, citing company messages without specifying between whom.

KFC and Yum Brands did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

"Because of these interest rates, some associates across Yum! and its brands who qualify for pensions have decided to retire in 2022," the report quoted one of the KFC messages as saying.

Vornholt will leave at the end of November, the report said.

The Federal Reserve has raised its policy rate from near-zero in March to the current range of 3.00% to 3.25% as it battles inflation. A fourth straight 75-basis-point interest rate hike is expected next month after data on Thursday showed inflation accelerating faster than expected in September.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Iranian-Canadian director prevented from leaving Tehran to attend London film fest

An Iranian-Canadian director says he was unable to attend a film festival in London Friday as Iranian authorities prevented his departure.


Iranian-Canadian director prevented from leaving Tehran to attend London film fest© Provided by The Canadian Press

Director Mani Haghighi said in an Instagram video he couldn't be at the screening of his film at the London Film Festival because Iranian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight in Tehran and later confiscated his passport.

The British Film Institute said in a statement that Haghighi was due to present his film "Subtraction," which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.

While promoting the film, Haghighi told Variety his Iranian-Canadian identity was important to him. Haghighi attended school in Ontario and Quebec, and he told the entertainment publication he still has close friends in Canada.

Canadian music critic, Carl Wilson said he went to McGill University with Haghighi in the late 1980s and has been friends with the director ever since, even providing editorial help on some English subtitles for “Subtraction”.

Haghighi later went to study in Ontario, and became a Canadian citizen in the 1990s said Wilson.

In his video message, Haghighi said he was given no reasonable explanation by authorities for the confiscation of his passport.

Two weeks earlier, Haghighi posted a video criticizing Iran's mandatory hijab law and recent crackdown on youth protesters.

Public anger in Iran has coalesced around last month's death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the country's morality police, an advocacy group said. Amini's death has led to a series of demonstrations against the government, some in which girls and women remove their mandatory head scarves on the street in a show of solidarity.

As the movement entered its fifth week, at least 233 protesters have been killed ⁠— 32 among the dead were below the age of 18, according to U.S.-based rights monitor HRANA.

Haghighi said that he believes authorities have kept him in Tehran to watch over him and to prevent the director from speaking out.

"The very fact that I am talking to you in this video right now undermines that plan," said Haghighi.

Despite the inability to attend the festival in London or leave Iran, Haghighi said in a video that he is honoured to bear witness to history in Iran, and that he would rather be in Tehran than anywhere else in the world.

“Being here in Tehran right now, is one of the greatest joys of my life," said Haghighi in a video. “If this is a punishment for what I've done, then by all means, bring it on."

The London Film Festival said it supports Haghighi and all filmmakers in their freedom to present their films around the world.

Global Affairs Canada said it's aware "of reports of a Canadian citizen in Iran" and that officials were ready to provide consular assistance, but would not disclose any more information citing privacy concerns.

Spokesperson Patricia Skinner also said in an emailed statement Canadian citizens should avoid all travel to Iran due to the volatile security situation.

Canada stands in solidarity with women and other protesters in Iran and calls on the Iranian regime to listen to the concerns of its citizens and protect their right to peaceful protest, Skinner said.

Haghighi could not be reached for comment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2022.

Caitlin Yardley, The Canadian Press

Affordable housing should be treated and funded as 'core infrastructure,' says Edmonton's mayor

Lauren Boothby - Thursday - Edmonton Journal

Affordable housing should be treated as core infrastructure that all levels of government invest in long-term as Edmonton anticipates a growing need, says the mayor.


Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen, left, Tourism Minister and Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault, Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, and David Mitton, president of Leston Holdings (1980) Ltd., announce the Heritage Flats project, that includes 102 affordable housing units for members of Enoch Cree Nation, in southwest Edmonton on March 15, 2022.

During a discussion of Edmonton’s affordable housing strategy at city hall this week, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said he wants to see a shift in how the city, and others, think about this topic. Edmonton’s recent housing needs assessment found 59,000 households, mostly renters, will be in core housing need by 2026 .

“We never stop building roads, we never stop building the LRT, we never stop building fire halls and recreation centres, but we tend to stop building affordable housing — not just us, but every order of government,” Sohi said at the community and public services committee on Tuesday. “We have always seen affordable housing as an add-on, not as core infrastructure. I think that’s why I would like to see that mind shift.

“Affordable housing is so integral to our economic growth, to our community’s well-being, and the well-being of individuals and families,” he told reporters.

The mayor wondered whether the city could look at converting empty commercial or office spaces into housing. City administration said they are investigating this idea.

Related
Edmonton expects housing affordability shortage by 2026 hitting nearly 60,000 households, mostly renters

Edmonton councillors urged to include precariously housed people in creating affordable housing solutions

Alberta's affordable housing plan raises red flags among critics

Sohi said the city also needs to figure out how to mobilize the private sector and gather support from the province and the federal government to fill the need.

Ward papastew Coun. Michael Janz said Edmonton needs a regulatory environment that encourages investment in housing, and other governments need to chip in as well.

Janz pointed to renters protection policies, vacant lot or homes taxes, and inclusionary zoning — a policy that requires an affordable housing contribution through the development approval process — that he would like to see contemplated for the city’s refreshed approach.

Inclusionary zoning is a power currently available to the city under the Municipal Government Act, although Edmonton is not using it.

“Trusting the development and real estate industry to solve homelessness is like asking grocery stores to end hunger — it’s not going to happen,” Janz said on Tuesday. “We need to look at conditions and to treat housing the way we do other institutions that require investment, require regulation, require a serious contemplation of how we, as the city, can get the outcomes that we want.

“I’m really worried about what we’re seeing in other cities around the world where the financialization of housing is putting homes out of (reach) for the vast majority of citizens.”

Susan Morrissey, executive director of the Edmonton Social Planning Council, agrees with the mayor that affordable housing needs to be treated as core infrastructure.

The more people that are housed, the better quality of life they can have, and the more they can contribute to the community, she said.

“Housing is a right, not a privilege. We should all be able to have a roof over our head, so the fact that the supply and the demand don’t square together … has been troubling for many years, and it continues to be an issue,” she said in an interview Thursday.

“It’s been neglected. Both new builds and also maintenance of existing housing, and it does come down to government.

Edmonton’s housing needs assessment identifies the withdrawal of funding for affordable housing in the 1990s by all orders of government as responsible for creating the gap that the market alone cannot solve.

Deeply subsidized homes needed

Edmonton’s affordable housing plan approved in 2018 aimed to build 2,500 units from 2019-2022 with a $132 million investment. By the end of the year, the city will have built 2,842 affordable homes, including 704 supportive housing units, in this time period. Another 1,559 social housing units were renovated.

However, the vast majority of the units the city helped pay for in this period are “near market” rentals, meaning they can charge up to 80 per cent of current market rates. This is much higher than what a significant number of Edmontonians can afford, according to the housing needs assessment.

By September, apart from the supportive housing units, only 36 of these new homes were deeply subsidized.

Christel Kjenner, director of the city’s affordable housing and homelessness files, said the updated plan will look at how to create more deeply-subsidized homes.

“The market alone will not provide adequate affordable housing for all income levels, so there needs to be investment by all three orders of government in affordable housing,” she said.

Provincial and federal housing plans

Last month, the Alberta government announced plans to sell off, transfer or redevelop affordable housing stock which critics say will worsen an already dangerous shortage.

Dylan Topal, spokesman for Seniors and Housing Minister Josephine Pon, said while direction could change under the new premier, Alberta’s current 10-year affordable housing strategy aims to expand help to 25,000 more households, and that they consider “affordable housing” to be housing expenses not exceeding 30 per cent of household income.

In an interview Thursday, he said the new management plan won’t mean people lose their affordable housing spot.

“I want to be explicitly clear … we aren’t going to be selling apartments where some people are living in some of them, we’re not going to be kicking people out … I will strongly imagine that is not going to change,” he said.

“The properties that we’re going to be selling, these are under-used, or not utilized at all for affordable housing … we can sell them to a developer, and when we get the proceeds from the sale we can reinvest that back into affordable housing.”

Asked whether the reason they aren’t being used is because the province hasn’t maintained them, Topal said this isn’t the case.

For example, one building up for sale soon in Edmonton isn’t housing people, is “an eyesore,” and it will be sold to fund more affordable homes, he said.

“Some of these buildings, to renovate them, it would cost us more to do that than to just build new. We’re being good stewards of government-owned assets and of taxpayers’ dollars and doing these things effectively.”

He said the province will work with municipalities as their housing needs change using a new questionnaire.

In 2019, the federal and Alberta governments signed an agreement to spend $339 million each as part of the National Housing Strategy.

Arevig Afarian, press secretary to federal Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen, said the federal government could not answer a question about how much more affordable housing, and of what type, will be built in Edmonton because of confidential agreements.

So far, she said nearly $90 million has been contributed toward projects by the federal government in Alberta to help more than 31,000 households either through building new housing, repairing of existing housing, or through rental supports.

“We look forward to continue working with Alberta to keep investing in affordable and safe housing options for Albertans and Edmontonians through this bilateral agreement,” she stated.

“We are committed to close the housing gap and ensuring all Canadians access safe and affordable housing that is right for their needs.”

Topal said the province has fulfilled its side of the funding agreements with the federal government.

lboothby@postmedia.com

@laurby

Talk Title: Radiation Exposures and Compensation of Victims from French Nuclear Testing in the Pacific

February 21st, 2022

Bradford Seminar Series Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment Princeton School of Public and International Affairs Princeton University Speaker: Sebastien Philippe: Associate Research Scholar, School of Public and International Affairs with the Program on Science and Global Security. Princeton University

Killer Whale harvested in Pond Inlet

Nunavut
Yesterday


An orca whale, better known as the killer whale, was harvested in Pond Inlet on Oct. 10. The hunt recieved a lot of attention on social media and although Inuit are used to hunting whales, not all communities target orcas.

“I thought these wern’t supposed to be hunted?” comments Beverly Kingmiaqtuq.

The species is considered as one of the smartest whales in the sea and is both respected and feared by hunters.

“Future boaters in the area must be careful now. They remember people and heartbreaks that they feel. They will attack next time, flipping boats,” commented Alayna Beaulieu on the trend.

Plenty of other Facebook users were also worried future hunters would get attacked by the killer whales.

One hunter from Pangnirtung, Leo Francois Maktar, had a different opinion:

“In the past Pangnirtung hunters harvested more than one killer whales, there hasn’t been boat flipping in the next years.”

Some Northern hunters consider the animal as a nuisance, as the species is a predator to a lot of animals they hunt. Catherina Qirngnuq posted as such

The killer whales are known to hunt even when they are not hungry, which can seriously lower populations of other species of whales in certain areas.

“Killer whales kill for fun, when they are full,” said Maktar. “Every year hunters find dead narwhals that killer whales killed.”

Locals who tasted the animals explain the taste is similar to other whales they hunt.

“It tastes kind of like narwhal maktaaq but the blubber is tougher,” described Sam Inootik.

But amid all of the excitement about the harvest, there came a warning from the Department of Health on Oct. 12. Tests performed on the animal found it contained trichinella. In a press release, the department warned that anyone who ate uncooked meat from the whale may have become infected with trichinosis.

The release stated that freezing or fermenting meat won’t get rid of trichinella — it must be cooked in order to kill the bacteria.

The symptoms of trichinosis include stomach pain, muscle pain, diarrhea, swollen eyelids, sweating or weakness. If you’ve experienced any of this after eating the meat, the department is urging you to talk to a health care provider.

Félix Charron-Leclerc, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Nunavut News

Equifax fired at least two dozen employees after it used its own tool to suss out if workers had a second job

ddefrancesco@businessinsider.com (Dan DeFrancesco) -

Four of the big six US banks (JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo) all report their Q3 earnings today. Our friends over at Markets Insider will have the immediate reaction to all the revenue numbers as they're posted. As for how bank executives respond to analysts' questions about "zooming in" or "double clicking" on particular topics, we've got you covered.

In the meantime, we've got lots to talk about, including a JPMorgan-Kanye West breakup, why you probably don't want to rely on "finfluencers" for financial advice, and the death of an emoji.

But first, Equifax would like a word with you.


Credit reporting company Equifax Inc. corporate offices are pictured in Atlanta, Georgia. REUTERS/Tami Chappell© Provided by Business Insider

1. Say sayonara to your side hustle.

That's clearly the message at Equifax, which fired at least 24 workers for secretly having second jobs, Insider reported Thursday.

On paper that might not seem too surprising. The credit-reporting giant does hold a ton of sensitive data and doesn't have a spotless record when it comes keeping that data secure. It might be in its best interest to make sure everyone is soley focused on their job.

But it's moreso how they went about discovering those side hustles.

An Insider report uncovered the company actually used its own product, The Work Number (TWN), as part of a larger investigation to suss out if people had multiple jobs. TWN includes employment records of 105 million US workers, including their payroll information.

That might seem like a shining endorsement of TWN — "This thing is so good we use it ourselves!" —but in reality it's more likely to upset the rank and file.

"I'm not sure how Equifax can be trusted with data when it uses it to spy on its own employees," an Equifax employee told Insider.

Spying on employees isn't necessarily a new phenomenon. But the rise of remote work made previous metrics — like when an employee would swipe into and out of the office — essentially useless. The resulting environment has forced companies to get creative.

JPMorgan is one of the biggest examples of this, as Insider has previously reported. The bank spun up an entire proprietary system for keeping tabs on folks.