THE ORIGINAL CONSPIRACY THEORY

'What are they hiding?': Group sues Biden and National Archives over JFK assassination records


Bettmann Archive

Marc Caputo
Wed, October 19, 2022 

The country's largest online source of JFK assassination records is suing President Joe Biden and the National Archives to force the federal government to release all remaining documents related to the most mysterious murder of a U.S. president nearly 60 years ago.

The Mary Ferrell Foundation filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday one year after Biden issued a memo postponing the release of a final trove of 16,000 records assembled under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which Congress passed without opposition in response to Oliver Stone's Oscar-nominated film “JFK.”

The JFK records act, signed by President Bill Clinton, required that the documents be made public by Oct. 26, 2017, but President Donald Trump delayed the release and kicked the can to Biden, who critics say continued the policy of federal obfuscation that has existed since Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963, in an open motorcade at Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

“It’s high time that the government got its act together and obeyed the spirit and the letter of the law,” said the vice president of the nonpartisan Mary Ferrell Foundation, Jefferson Morley, an expert on the assassination and the CIA.

“This is about our history and our right to know it,” said Morley, the author of the JFK Facts blog.

Morley’s sentiment is shared by fellow historians, open government advocates and even some members of the Kennedy family, who usually don’t comment on the assassination.



“It was a momentous crime, a crime against American democracy. And the American people have the right to know,” said Robert Kennedy Jr., the son and namesake of JFK’s brother. “The law requires the records be released. It’s bizarre. It’s been almost 60 years since my uncle’s death. What are they hiding?”

Most experts believe that the unreleased or heavily redacted records almost certainly don’t include irrefutable proof that shows others were complicit in the murder of Kennedy along with accused shooter Lee Harvey Oswald.

What the records would shed more light on, they say, is a seminal period in American history linked to JFK’s presidency and assassination: Cold War operations by U.S. intelligence agents, U.S.-Cuba relations and the plot to kill dictator Fidel Castro, and the war on the Mafia waged by then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated five years after his brother.

The hidden documents, however, could also show something potentially more sinister: CIA contacts with Oswald while Kennedy was still alive, which the CIA has repeatedly covered up, according to experts like Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA agent who is critical of the agency and has lectured about JFK's assassination at Harvard University.

“What I think happened, in a nutshell, is that Oswald was recruited into a rogue CIA plot,” Mowatt-Larssen said. “This group of three, four or five rogues decided their motive [was] to get rid of Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis because they thought it was their patriotic duty given the threat the country was under at the time and their views, which would be more hard-line or more radically anti-communist and very extreme politically.”

In a statement to NBC News, the CIA said it is adhering to the JFK records act and Biden’s memo, which called for the release of the documents by Dec. 15. The National Archives and Records Administration, the agency in charge of the JFK documents, also said it’s complying with the law and the procedures Biden outlined.

But the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, argues that the federal agencies haven’t followed the law and that both Biden’s executive order and Trump's previous delay violated the 1992 statute, creating new loopholes and avenues for further unjustifiable postponements after six decades of opacity.

The suit asks a judge to declare Biden's memo void and disclose the records as Congress intended 30 years ago. Biden’s memo blamed the coronavirus pandemic for slowing the disclosure process, an argument rejected by the foundation’s attorney, Bill Simpich.

“It’s a ‘dog ate my homework’ argument,” Simpich said. “This case is all about delay. The agencies always have new and better excuses.”

The foundation fears that agencies haven’t made enough progress in the year since the memo was issued in meeting the basic rules of disclosure under the JFK records act, necessitating the lawsuit.

The 16,000 documents are among the most sensitive records concerning JFK’s assassination. About 70% of them are controlled by the CIA, followed by the FBI, which is in charge of about 23% of the records, according to Morley’s count.

The suit alleges the federal government unlawfully redacted 11 specific records, including: a 1961 memo to reorganize the CIA after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, personnel files of three CIA officers tied to Oswald, a 1962 Defense Department “false flag” plan to stage a “violent incident” in the U.S. that would be blamed on Cuba, records relating to the Castro assassination plot, and a JFK document removed from Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt’s security file.

The foundation is also asking the court to order the National Archives to find records that are “known to exist but that are not part of the JFK Collection.”

One of those records, according to the lawsuit, concerns George Joannides, who was the chief of covert action at the CIA’s Miami station and “served as case officer for a New Orleans-based CIA-funded exile group that had a series of encounters with Lee Oswald in 1963.” The lawsuit accuses the CIA of wrongly withholding files related to Joannides from the National Archives.

In another instance, the lawsuit asks the court to compel the public release of taped recordings of a man named Carlos Marcello, who allegedly told a cellmate that he was involved in JFK’s assassination. Transcripts of the recordings exist, but the foundation wants to hear the recordings to “fully evaluate the veracity and significance of these conversations.” Marcello died in 1993.

The foundation says the timing of the lawsuit is coincidental to Trump’s fight over classified records with the Justice Department and the National Archives, an agency that is seldom in the news but now plays a central role in the investigation of records stored at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after he left office.

JFK assassination historian David Talbot, a Trump critic, said he sees an irony in the two cases.

“They decided to pillory Trump over this issue because he’s a political enemy, but they’re guilty of violating records laws themselves with the JFK records act: Trump took documents the federal government owned, but they’re sitting on documents that belong to the American people,” said Talbot, the author of “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years” and “The Devil’s Chessboard,” about the rise of the national security state.

A spokesman for Trump declined to comment.

Talbot said the agencies' stonewalling and the Warren Commission’s disputed conclusion in 1964 that Oswald was a lone wolf has only led people to mistrust the government.

An expert on conspiracy theories, Joseph E. Uscinski, a University of Miami political science professor, says his polling and research have shown that a majority of Americans don’t believe Oswald acted alone, making it the most popular conspiracy theory in the country.

Uscinski said he’s hesitant to draw a direct line between lack of trust in the government and the refusal to release the JFK records, but he argued the feds essentially have themselves to blame.

"The whole argument about documents is stupid. The CIA is wrong. All of this should have been released a long time ago, and it’s shameful the government has yet to do so," Uscinski said. "At the same time, there’s not a document sitting in a government vault somewhere that says, ‘We did it.’”

ATTENTION AQUARISTS
Sparkling fish, murky methods: the global aquarium trade

LES, Indonesia (AP) — After diving into the warm sea off the coast of northern Bali, Indonesia, Made Partiana hovers above a bed of coral, holding his breath and scanning for flashes of color and movement. Hours later, exhausted, he returns to a rocky beach, towing plastic bags filled with his darting, exquisite quarry: tropical fish of all shades and shapes.



Millions of saltwater fish like these are caught in Indonesia and other countries every year to fill ever more elaborate aquariums in living rooms, waiting rooms and restaurants around the world with vivid, otherworldly life.

“It’s just so much fun to just watch the antics between different varieties of fish,” said Jack Siravo, a Rhode Island fish enthusiast who began building aquariums after an accident paralyzed him and now has four saltwater tanks. He calls the fish “an endless source of fascination.”

But the long journey from places like Bali to places like Rhode Island is perilous for the fish and for the reefs they come from. Some are captured using squirts of cyanide to stun them. Many die along the way.

And even when they are captured carefully, by people like Partiana, experts say the global demand for these fish is contributing to the degradation of delicate coral ecosystems, especially in major export countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

There have been efforts to reduce some of the most destructive practices, such as cyanide fishing. But the trade is extraordinarily difficult to regulate and track as it stretches from small-scale fishermen in tropical seaside villages through local middlemen, export warehouses, international trade hubs and finally to pet stores in the U.S., China, Europe and elsewhere.

“There’s no enforcement, no management, no data collection,” said Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley, founder of LINI, a Bali-based nonprofit for the conservation and management of coastal marine resources.

That leaves enthusiasts like Siravo in the dark.

“Consumers often don't know where their fish are coming from, and they don't know how they are collected,” said Andrew Rhyne, a marine biology professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

STUNNED BY CYANIDE

Most ornamental saltwater fish species are caught in the wild because breeding them in captivity can be expensive, difficult and often impossible. The conditions they need to reproduce are extremely particular and poorly understood, even by scientists and expert breeders who have been trying for years.

Small-scale collection and export of saltwater aquarium fish began in Sri Lanka in the 1930s and the trade has grown steadily since. Nearly 3 million homes in the U.S. keep saltwater fish as pets, according to a 2021-2022 American Pet Products Association survey. (Freshwater aquariums are far more common because freshwater fish are generally cheaper and easier to breed and care for.) About 7.6 million saltwater fish are imported into the U.S. every year.

For decades, a common fishing technique has involved cyanide, with dire consequences for fish and marine ecosystems.

Fishermen crush the blue or white pellets into a bottle filled with water. The diluted cyanide forms a poisonous mixture fishermen squirt onto coral reefs, where fish usually hide in crevices. The fish become temporarily stunned, allowing fishermen to easily pick or scoop them from the coral.

Many die in transit, weakened by the cyanide – which means even more fish need to be captured to meet demand. The chemicals damage the living coral and make it more difficult for new coral to grow.

LAX ENFORCEMENT

Cyanide fishing has been banned in countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines but enforcement of the law remains difficult, and experts say the practice continues.

Part of the problem is geography, Reksodihardjo-Lilley explains. In the vast archipelago of Indonesia, there are about 34,000 miles (54,720 kilometers) of coastline across some 17,500 islands. That makes monitoring the first step of the tropical fish supply chain a task so gargantuan it is all but ignored.

“We have been working at the national level, trying to push national government to give attention to ornamental fish in Indonesia, but it’s fallen on deaf ears,” she said.

Indonesian officials counter that laws do exist that require exporters to meet quality, sustainability, traceability and animal welfare conditions. “We will arrest anyone who implements destructive fishing. There are punishments for it,” said Machmud, an official at Indonesia’s marine affairs and fisheries ministry, who uses only one name.

“NO REAL RECORD-KEEPING”

Another obstacle to monitoring and regulating of the trade is the quick pace that the fish can move from one location to another, making it difficult to trace their origins.

At a fish export warehouse in Denpasar, thousands of fish a day can be delivered to the big industrial-style facility located off a main road in Bali’s largest city. Trucks and motorbikes arrive with white Styrofoam coolers crammed with plastic bags of fish from around the archipelago. The fish are swiftly unpacked, sorted into tanks or new plastic bags and given fresh sea water. Carcasses of ones that died in transit are tossed into a basket or onto the pavement, then later thrown in the trash.

Some fish will remain in small rectangular tanks in the warehouse for weeks, while others are shipped out quickly in plastic bags in cardboard boxes, fulfilling orders from the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. According to data provided to The Associated Press by Indonesian government officials, the U.S. was the largest importer of saltwater aquarium fish from the country.

Once the fish make the plane ride halfway around the world from Indonesia to the U.S., they’re checked by the Fish and Wildlife Service, which cross-references the shipment with customs declaration forms.

But that’s designed to ensure no protected fish, such as the endangered Banggai Cardinal, are being imported. The process cannot determine if the fish were caught legally.

A U.S. law known as the Lacey Act bans trafficking in fish, wildlife, or plants that were illegally taken, possessed, transported, or sold – according to the laws in the country of origin or sale. That means that any fish caught using cyanide in a country where it’s prohibited would be illegal to import or sell in the U.S.

But that helps little when it’s impossible to tell how the fish was caught. For example, no test exists to provide accurate results on whether a fish has been caught with cyanide, said Rhyne, the Roger Williams marine biology expert.

“The reality is that the Lacey Act isn’t used often because generally there’s no real record-keeping or way to enforce it,” said Rhyne.

LOCAL RESPONSE

In the absence of rigorous national enforcement, conservation groups and local fishermen have long been working to reduce cyanide fishing in places like Les, a well-known saltwater aquarium fishing town tucked between the mountains and ocean in northern Bali.

Partiana started catching fish – using cyanide -- shortly after elementary school, when his parents could no longer afford to pay for his education. Every catch would help provide a few dollars of income for his family.

But over the years Partiana began to notice the reef was changing. “I saw the reef dying, turning black,” he said. “You could see there were less fish.”

He became part of a group of local fishermen who were taught by a local conservation organization how to use nets, care for the reef and patrol the area to guard against cyanide use. He later became a lead trainer for the organization, and has trained more than 200 fellow aquarium fishermen across Indonesia in use of less harmful techniques.

Reksodihardjo-Lilley says it this type of local education and training that should be expanded to reduce harmful fishing. “People can see that they’re directly benefitting from the reefs being in good health.”

For Partiana, now the father of two children, it's not just for his benefit. “I hope that (healthier) coral reefs will make it possible for the next generation of children and grandchildren under me,” He wants them to be able to “see what coral looks like and that there can be ornamental fish in the sea.”

A world away in Rhode Island, Siravo, the fish enthusiast, shares Partiana's hopes for a less distructive saltwater aquarium industry.

“I don't want fish that are not collected sustainably,” he says. "Because I won't be able to get fish tomorrow if I buy (unsustainably caught fish) today."

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Associated Press video journalist Kathy Young reported from New York. Marshall Ritzel contributed to this report from Rhode Island. Edna Tarigan contributed from Jakarta.

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Follow Victoria Milko on Twitter: @thevmilko

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Victoria Milko, Firdia Lisnawati And Kathy Young, The Associated Press

Mexico’s Parliament endorses ban on the use of marine mammals in shows

Daniel Stewart - Yesterday-360 NEWS

The plenary of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies has approved a draft decree reforming the General Wildlife Law to prohibit the use of marine mammals in shows.


File - Image of a dolphin at sea. - TURSIOPS© Provided by News 360

The initiative -considered of urgent resolution- has been approved with 331 votes in favor, 17 against and 125 abstentions, after it was submitted for discussion and voted immediately. It was then sent to the Senate.

This amendment, which prohibits the use of marine mammals in "any activity", specifies that it is a prohibition in shows, whether fixed or itinerant, while scientific research or teaching is excluded.

"The use of marine mammal specimens in fixed or traveling shows is prohibited, as well as in any activity whose purpose is not scientific research for their conservation", says the modification of the law, according to the Mexican newspaper 'El Universal'.

"The owners and keepers must guarantee the conservation of marine mammals in optimal conditions of dignified and respectful treatment until their death," states the law.

The law also prohibits the reproduction of specimens under intensive management for purposes other than repopulation.

Opinion: Liz Truss is on track to become Britain's shortest-serving prime minister


“The Prime Minister is not under a desk.”

Opinion by Rosa Prince - CNN

It says much about the current state of Liz Truss’s troubled premiership that this statement by fellow Conservative minister Penny Mordaunt on Monday afternoon was made, ostensibly at least, as a show of support.



A little over a month after being crowned leader, just about the best that can be said for the embattled Truss is that she is not cowering beneath the furniture inside 10 Downing Street.

She is, however, very much stranded in a wilderness of her own making; “in office but not in power” as was once said of her 1990s’ predecessor John Major; stripped of her authority, policy agenda, grip on her government and party, and, short of a miracle, prospects of leading her party into the next general election.

On Wednesday Truss faced a grilling in her first Prime Minister’s Questions session since u-turning on her flagship economic plan. Her third PMQ’s, as it’s known, proved an ugly affair, with opposition MPs repeatedly calling on her to resign and – worse – cries of derision echoing around the Commons chamber.

Hard to believe it is less than six weeks since Truss descended a helicopter to “kiss hands” with Queen Elizabeth II (two days before the latter’s death in Balmoral Castle, Scotland), becoming the United Kingdom’s 56th prime minister.

As she surveys the shattered wreck of her premiership, Truss must be wondering where it all went wrong – and quite how it collapsed around her ears so quickly.

How Truss’s ‘mini-Budget’ blew up

To recap: as the country observed 10 days official mourning for the late Queen, Truss and her close ally and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng drew up plans for a financial package dubbed the “mini-Budget” but with consequences which would feel decidedly maxi.

Truss and Kwarteng’s prescription for turbo-powering the economy in a quest for growth through unfunded tax cuts unnerved the markets, triggering a run on the pound and forcing the Bank of England to step in to prevent pension funds collapsing.

Last week, Truss hoicked Kwarteng back from Washington DC, where he was attending a gathering of the IMF, to fire him for, as critics quipped, following her policies to the letter. In his stead, she installed as Chancellor the experienced Jeremy Hunt, a candidate from the opposite moderate wing of the party, but who trailed in eighth place behind her in the contest to replace Boris Johnson last summer.



Opinion: The British prime minister is not hiding 'under a desk' -- yet© Provided by CNNNew finance minister Jeremy Hunt speaks at the House of Commons on Monday, with prime minister Liz Truss seated nearby. - Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament/Reuters

On Monday, Hunt took steps to steady the markets by jettisoning the entire mini-Budget, including a planned 1p cut in income tax, a corporation tax rise and VAT-free shopping for tourists (Truss and Kwarteng had already been forced to ditch plans to scrap the top 45p tax rate).

That left Truss’s low-tax economic vision in tatters, a boil lanced not only for the short term but, to the fury of those who had been in her camp, leaving sufficient scar tissue to warn politicians off repeating the experiment for a generation.

In office but not in power

Hunt’s statements did the trick in terms of settling the markets, but had the opposite effect on Truss’s authority. When she was late to Parliament on Monday to answer a question from opposition leader Keir Starmer, rumors swept Westminster that she was on her way to Buckingham Palace to proffer her resignation to the King.

Her absence meant Mordaunt – who by the way had come third in the leadership contest – was tasked with answering in her place.

Mordaunt was gifted the opportunity to “helpfully” answer a Labour MP’s question about Truss’s whereabouts by repeating the query – about whether the prime minister was “cowering under her desk” – serving up a dynamite clip for broadcasters and further undermining the prime minister’s authority.

A government living day by day

So what now? There are two questions on the lips of every Conservative MP: how long has she got; and how do we get her out?

The answer to the first question lies in the second. The latest rumor suggests that Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, has already agreed with Truss that she will be gone by the end of the week.

Another rumor whispers that she is refusing to budge, gambling that this divided parliamentary party, which threw up no natural successor to Johnson, will be unable to agree on a candidate to replace her.

Having been in government for 12 years, the most electorally successful party in British political history is indeed battle scarred, riven into multitudes of factions and overhung with an air of bitterness.

With voters unlikely to accept another nine-week leadership contest during a time of economic crisis, the received wisdom is that any transfer of power would have to be a coronation rather than a competition.

Polls showing the Conservatives trailing their Labour rivals by a record 36 points, and with Truss appearing increasingly uncomfortable and isolated, mean MPs minds may well have become focused in the last few days.

If the choice is between backing a colleague they disdain and electoral oblivion with Truss, many may well find it expedient to hold their nose and do the former – particularly if their own seat is in peril.

Some now give Truss a few days, some a week or two; few expect her to survive long enough to overtake George Canning to avoid becoming the shortest serving prime minister in British history (in 1827, after barely five months in office, he died suddenly from pneumonia).

For Truss, that would mean surviving another 80-odd days, which in the current, febrile atmosphere feels unlikely if not quite impossible.

Who might replace Truss?

The man who came second to Truss, former chancellor Rishi Sunak, has been very quiet in recent days; suspiciously quiet. Those close to him are briefing that, after a bruising defeat to Truss, he has no appetite to wield the knife himself, but suggest he could be persuaded to step up if the call was nearly unanimous.

Boris Johnson had a favorite expression to hint when he was on maneuvers – an old chestnut he returned to even in his departure speech.

“If, like Cincinnatus, I were to be called from my plow, then obviously it would be wrong of me not to help out,” he said in 2009, a decade before winding up in Number 10.

The reference was to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who Livy relates gave up being consul to return to his farm in the hills above Rome, only to return to lead again when the city was besieged.

Truss will not be the only one wondering this week how long Sunak will remain at his plow.

First Native American woman in space awed by Mother Earth

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The first Native American woman in space said Wednesday she is overwhelmed by the beauty and delicacy of Mother Earth, and is channeling “positive energy” as her five-month mission gets underway.


First Native American woman in space awed by Mother Earth© Provided by The Canadian Press

NASA astronaut Nicole Mann said from the International Space Station that she’s received lots of prayers and blessings from her family and tribal community. She is a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in Northern California.

Mann showed off the dream catcher she took up with her, a childhood gift from her mother that she’s always held dear. The small traditional webbed hoop with feathers is used to offer protection, and she said it's given her strength during challenging times. Years before joining NASA in 2013, she flew combat in Iraq for the Marines.

"It’s the strength to know that I have the support of my family and community back home and that when things are difficult or things are getting hard or I’m getting burned-out or frustrated, that strength is something that I will draw on to continue toward a successful mission,” Mann told The Associated Press, which gathered questions from members and tribal news outlets across the country.

Mann said she's always heeded her mother's advice on the importance of positive energy, especially on launch day.

“It's difficult for some people maybe to understand because it's not really tangible,” she said. “But that positive energy is so important, and you can control that energy, and it helps to control your attitude."

Related video: Watch: SpaceX mission brings first Native American woman to space
Duration 1:40
View on Watch

Mann, 45, a Marine colonel and test pilot who was born in Petaluma, California, said it’s important to recognize there are all types of people aboard the space station. It's currently home to three Americans, three Russians and one Japanese astronaut.

“What that does is it just highlights our diversity and how incredible it is when we come together as a human species, the wonderful things that we can do and that we can accomplish,” she said.

While fascinated with stars and space as a child, Mann said she did not understand who became astronauts or even what they did. “Unfortunately, in my mind at that time, it was not in the realm of possibilities,” she said.

That changed later in her career. Now, she's taking in the sweeping vistas of Earth from 260 miles (420 kilometers) up and hoping to see the constellations, as she encourages youngsters to follow their dreams.

As for describing Earth from space, “the emotions are absolutely overwhelming,” she said. "It is an incredible scene of color, of clouds and land, and it’s difficult not to stay in the cupola (lookout) all day and just see our planet Earth and how beautiful she is, and how delicate and fragile she is against the blackest of black that I’ve ever seen — space — in the background.”

Mann rocketed into orbit with SpaceX on Oct. 5. She'll be up there until March. She and her husband, a retired Navy fighter pilot, have a 10-year-old son back home in Houston.

The first Native American in space, in 2002, was now retired astronaut John Herrington of the Chickasaw Nation.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

FIRST NATIVE AMERICAN MAN IN SPACE

Poverty remains an ever-present problem in Lethbridge: report

IN RICHEST PROVINCE IN CANADA

Wed, October 19, 2022 

The Social Health Equity Network of Lethbridge and Area (SHENLA) has released a report that identifies the rates of child and family poverty in Lethbridge and surrounding areas.

The report, titled 2022 Lethbridge Child and Family Poverty Report: Laying the Groundwork for a Just Recovery, considers the relationship between poverty and social determinants of health, identifying a variety of recommendations for collective action.

The report was prepared by HELPSEEKER, with partnership from the City of Lethbridge, the United Way of Lethbridge and South Western Alberta, and SHENLA. To date, according to information from Statistics Canada cited in the report, poverty rates among all family types in the city decreased from 15.4 per cent to 12.4 per cent between 2000 and 2019. In 2019, approximately 15.2 per cent of youths were considered to be living in low-income housing in Lethbridge, and children aged zero to five experienced the highest rate of poverty among all age groups.

“The numbers are certainly alarming that poverty is where it is,” said Jacki Zalesak, executive director of United Way Lethbridge. “Poverty went down slightly due to the policies of the provincial and federal governments, with efforts on taxes and cost of living. But barriers are still out there and we still want to be able to support the efforts, and the data is important in helping find out what the barriers are and what the solutions are.”

AB LIVING WAGE $21 PR HR

Zalesak also expressed advocacy for the Alberta living wage, with the higher cost of living adding to higher costs for food and electricity.

“Living wage allows people to meet their basic needs with dignity, and to participate in society,” said Sharon Yanicki, spokesperson for SHENLA. “When we calculate the living wage, it includes opportunities for recreation for children, and opportunities for education for a single adult. It is being able to participate and to learn, not just about being able to keep yourself housed and have food.”

Speaking about the negativity of child poverty, Yanicki notes the fallbacks have a rippling effect.

“Child poverty is associated with a cascade of negative impacts on health and well being,” said Yanicki. “Early life, it’s critical for children’s learning and development. If you are experiencing crowded housing, a lack of food, all of these things have impacts negatively towards children’s health.”

Looking to help towards the cost of living, SHENLA and United Way are working together to help those in the city.

“We have asked city council to consider, and we presented to the Community Safety Standing Policy Committee, asking them for low-income bus passes,” said Yanicki. “Because that’s really essential for low-income people to be able to participate in community life, and to be able to get to work and children to have access to recreation.”

With reports helping outline the risks toward poverty and how they can help, the work of United Way and SHENLA will continue in Lethbridge as they advocate for those in need. “We want to address what poverty looks like and be able to end that,” said Zalesak. “We want to come together as a group and continue on our work. Our work doesn’t stop until we have ended poverty, so we will continue on and make those recommendations.”

Ryan Clarke, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Lethbridge Herald

Vancouver task force on Indigenous rights releases report for city council

Wed, October 19, 2022 

Vancouver could become the first city in Canada to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with a plan developed alongside the three First Nations on whose territory the city is located.

A joint task force with city officials and members of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations has produced a report with 79 calls to action aimed at implementing the United Nations declaration in Vancouver.

The report has passed through the councils of the three nations and it will be considered by city council on Oct. 25 with a recommendation that it be endorsed.

The release of the report today was marked with a ceremony, with attendees including outgoing Mayor Kennedy Stewart; the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald; and B.C. regional chief Terry Teegee.

Squamish council chairperson and task force co-chair Khelsilem told the gatheringthe strategy came about because of a "genuine, mutual respect" between those involved, and a desire to create a meaningful pathway for reconciliation in the city.

The recommendations are sorted into themes: social, cultural and economic well-being; ending Indigenous-specific racism and discrimination; self-determination and inherent right of self-government; and rights and title of Indigenous Peoples.

Among the calls to action are prioritizing access to cultural sites for the nations' members and developing a policy to assess industrial infrastructure development through the lens of Indigenous rights and environmental racism.

The report also recommends the Vancouver Police Department work with Indigenous Peoples to integrate into its operations the principles of the United Nations declaration and recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Vancouver city council unanimously adopted a motion in March 2021 to create an UNDRIP task force in partnership with the nations, which produced what officials say is the first co-developed strategy to implement the United Nations declaration between a municipality and Indigenous governments in Canada.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Windsor West MPP calls for 'urgent' repeal of Bill 124 in wake of Essex County state of emergency

Wed, October 19, 2022 

Windsor West NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky says, 'Hearing that Essex County went almost three consecutive hours without a single ambulance available is simply horrifying.' 

(Jason Viau/CBC - image credit)

NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky is calling for the "urgent" repeal of Bill 124 in response to news of a state of emergency declared in Essex County, due to persistent delays and wait times for ambulances in the region.

The law was passed in 2019 and limits wage increases at one per cent per year for Ontario Public Service employees as well as broader public sector workers, including nurses and teachers.

The provisions of the bill were to be in effect for three years as new contracts were negotiated, and the Tories had said it was a time-limited approach to help eliminate the deficit. Critics have long called for the bill to be repealed, saying it has contributed to a severe nursing shortage.

"Hearing that Essex County went almost three consecutive hours without a single ambulance available is simply horrifying," said Gretzkey, in a news release.

It's stressful and it adds to a lot of heart ache for county workers. — James Jovanovic, president of the paramedics union, CUPE Local 2974

"A critical and systemic lack of hospital funding, staff, and access to primary care physicians are forcing them into impossible situations. Doug Ford has not acknowledged the depth of this crisis. It's clear that in Essex County, Ford's lack of health care funding has reached an emergency level," she said.

Gretzky added that the Ford government should direct money from its $2.1 billion surplus into health care to ensure critical care is available to Ontarians when they need it.

In the first two weeks of October alone, Essex-Windsor EMS issued more than 500 Code Black alerts, to notify community members trying to access care about delays and wait times.

Photo courtesy of @CupeMedics2974 on Twitter

Contributing factors

On Monday, EMS Chief Bruce Krauter said the issue is caused by offload delays at hospitals, saying, "The causes of off-load delays are complex and relating to long-standing issues of hospital capacity, patient flow, a lack of local primary care providers, which causes increased usage of [the] 911 system."

But James Jovanovic, president of the paramedics' union, CUPE Local 2974, told CBC Windsor that there are other contributing factors that need to be addressed.

"Such as increase in call volume, in EMS specifically, due to such things as an increasingly aging population," Jovanovic said.

Jacob Barker/CBC

"Ultimately it's a bottleneck of, again, those increasing emergency calls, increasing volumes of patients going to the hospital and not enough beds, not enough staff to care for them and properly process them," he said.

Jovanovic added that the situation has contributed to poor morale among the county's paramedics.

"When we are faced with these conditions where no matter what we do we're unable to help the situations we're seeing - that weighs heavily on health-care workers and the emergency responders, so it certainly adds to a decrease in morale, the level of burnout," he said.

"It's stressful and it adds to a lot of heart ache for county workers."

Jovanovic said the union is in full support of the state of emergency. Hopefully, he said, the declaration will motivate different levels of government to take action.

He said more staffing and increased funding is critical in addressing the issue in a meaningful way.

Some P.E.I. businesses and workers feeling overlooked by Fiona wage rebates

Wed, October 19, 2022

The 5th Wave Espresso & Tea Bar in downtown Charlottetown, P.E.I. had its power restored the Monday after Fiona, but owners say it could only operate at 30 per cent capacity with limited hours due to issues with the district heating system. 

(Steve Bruce/CBC - image credit)

Despite more government supports being announced Wednesday for those who lost income after post-tropical storm Fiona, some businesses and workers on the Island say they're being overlooked.

The 5th Wave Espresso & Tea Bar in Charlottetown just opened about eight months ago, and now co-owner Laura Noel said they're trying to figure out how to make up for losses suffered after Fiona because they don't qualify for the province's wage rebate programs — something she said is "discouraging."

"The government support is lacking a little bit," said Laura Noel. "I find we fall between the cracks."

Steve Bruce/CBC

Noel said the cafe's power was restored the Monday after the storm, but the building is old and part of a district heating system that was still having issues, meaning they couldn't use their dishwasher or espresso machine.

They were only able to function at about 30 per cent of their usual capacity, said Noel, but decided to open anyway with limited hours so that staff would earn some money working reduced hours and customers would have a place to get hot coffee and Wi-Fi.

Mid-week following the storm, the P.E.I. government announced a wage rebate program meaning businesses that had to stay closed due to power outages or major damage could apply to have their workers' wages covered.

But since The 5th Wave didn't shut down entirely, Noel said she's had no luck getting wage help for staff who only worked about half of their regular hours that week.

Steve Bruce/CBC

"We were trying to be open, accessible, inclusive to the community," she said. "And it didn't get us anywhere. In fact, it kind of put us back a few steps."

CBC News has heard from other small businesses in similar circumstances. Noel said for a relatively new business, the lost revenue could mean "making or breaking it."

"This could unfortunately take out a company similar to ours," she said. "We're going to stay positive and push through this. But I can see how some people would want to give up with all the struggles."

New relief announced Wednesday

On Wednesday, the province announced that people who typically work remotely for off-Island companies, but couldn't do so without power — or workers who had to take time off to look due to child-care issues — can now apply for a one-time $500 payment.

"It's one of those programs where you try to help as many as you can, and as quickly and as simply as you can," said Bloyce Thomson, Minister of Economic Growth, Tourism, and Culture. "We figured 500 [dollars] was a fair value."

Steve Bruce/CBC

But for some workers who spoke to CBC News while in the lineup for Red Cross relief payments this week, this wage relief program doesn't apply.

Some lost hours and wages because, like The 5th Wave, their workplace was open but not fully operational, or in some cases, not busy enough to keep regular staffing levels.

Those people will still get the $250 relief payment from the province for every household impacted by the storm, and some will qualify for the additional $500 payment from donations to the Red Cross Hurricane Fiona in Canada Appeal.

Although there isn't a specific government program to cover lost income in those situations, Thompson said there will be more to come, and his department welcomes feedback and suggestions from small business owners and workers.

"These are tough situations and we're trying to continue to evaluate as best we can all the one-offs and the situations out there," Thompson said.

"There will continue to be other programs as the weeks go along ... we hope we can help as many people in these financially troubling times as we can."

Estimate puts hurricane Fiona insured damages at $660 million

Wed, October 19, 2022

An initial estimate by Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. suggests hurricane Fiona caused $660 million in insured damage.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says the storm was the most costly extreme weather event ever recorded in Atlantic Canada in terms of insured damages based on the estimate provided by CatIQ.

It added that many of those affected by the storm were located in high-risk flood areas and floodplains where residential flood insurance coverage is not available.

As a result, the bureau says the overwhelming majority of costs for the disaster will be borne by government.

The storm made landfall in Nova Scotia on Sept. 24 and ripped through the region, knocking out power to more than 500,000 customers in the Maritimes.

The bureau says the storm also washed at least 20 homes into the ocean.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2022.

The Canadian Press