BEEN A LONG TIME COMING

Anwar Ibrahim: Who is Malaysia's new prime minister?

"Always regarded as the man who could unite all warring factions, it is fitting that Anwar emerged during a divisive time."

Story by Reuters • Yesterday 

(Reuters) - Malaysia's new prime minister, 75-year-old Anwar Ibrahim, was sworn in on Thursday, bringing to a close his three-decade quest for the job that had eluded him time and again and led to him spending nearly a decade in jail.


Malaysia's PM Ibrahim's swearing-in ceremony in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

HOW DID HE RISE TO THE TOP?

As opposition leader, Anwar led tens of thousands of Malaysians in street protests in the 1990s against his mentor-turned-foe Mahathir Mohamad.

Anwar started off as a firebrand Islamic youth leader before joining then prime minister Mahathir's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which leads the Barisan Nasional alliance.

His strained relationship with the veteran leader shaped Anwar's own career, as well as Malaysia's political landscape, for nearly three decades.

Anwar's appointment as prime minister brings an end to a political crisis after an election on Saturday ushered in an unprecedented hung parliament. While Anwar's progressive bloc won the most seats in parliament, it fell short of a majority.

WHY WAS HE IN JAIL?

Between stints as deputy prime minister in the 1990s and as official prime minister-in-waiting in 2018, Anwar spent nearly a decade in jail for sodomy and corruption on charges he says were politically motivated.

Mahathir had called Anwar his friend and protege, and anointed him his successor, but later, amid criminal charges and disagreements over how to handle the Asian financial crisis in 1998, he said Anwar was unfit to lead "because of his character".

The two buried the hatchet briefly in 2018 to oust from power the political alliance they once belonged to - only to fall out again within two years, ending their 22-month-old government and plunging Malaysia into a period of instability.

WHAT IS HIS MANIFESTO?

Anwar told Reuters in an interview before the election that he would seek "to emphasize governance and anti-corruption, and rid this country of racism and religious bigotry".

For decades, Anwar has called for inclusiveness and an overhaul of the political system in the multi-ethnic country.

About 70% of the population of nearly 33 million comprises ethnic Malays, who are mainly Muslim, and indigenous groups with ethnic Chinese and Indians account for the rest.

Anwar called for the removal of policies favouring Malays and an end to a patronage system that had kept Malaysia's longest ruling coalition, the Barisan Nasional, in power.

His rallying cry of 'reformasi', or reforms, resonated nationwide, and is still the main promise of his alliance.

HOW HAVE MALAYSIANS REACTED?

Anwar's supporters expressed hope that their charismatic leader's government would head off a return to historic tension between the ethnic Malay, Muslim majority and ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.

"All we want is moderation for Malaysia and Anwar represents that," said a communications manager in Kuala Lumpur, who asked to be identified by her surname Tang.

"We can't have a country that is divided by race and religion as that will set us back another 10 years."

Authorities warned after the weekend vote of a rise in ethnic tension on social media and short video platform TikTok said it was on high alert for content that violated its guidelines.

"Always regarded as the man who could unite all warring factions, it is fitting that Anwar emerged during a divisive time," said political analyst James Chai, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in neighbouring Singapore.

(Reporting by Malaysia bureau; Writing by Clarence Fernandez; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

Malaysia's Anwar becomes prime minister, ending decades-long wait

Story by By A. Ananthalakshmi, Mei Mei Chu and Rozanna Latiff • Yesterday 

Malaysia's PM Ibrahim's swearing-in ceremony in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in as prime minister on Thursday, capping a three-decade political journey from a protege of veteran leader Mahathir Mohamad to protest leader, a prisoner convicted of sodomy and opposition leader.

His appointment ends five days of unprecedented post-election crisis, but could usher in a new instability with his rival, former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, challenging him to prove his majority in parliament.


Malaysia's PM Ibrahim's swearing-in ceremony in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

Both men failed to win a majority in a Saturday election, but the constitutional monarch, King Al-Sultan Abdullah, appointed Anwar after speaking to several lawmakers.

Anwar takes over at a challenging time: the economy is slowing and the country is divided after a tight election that pitted Anwar's progressive coalition against Muhyiddin's mostly conservative ethnic-Malay, Muslim alliance.



Malaysia's PM Ibrahim's swearing-in ceremony in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

Markets surged upon the end of the political deadlock. The ringgit currency posted its best day in two weeks and equities rose 3%.

The 75-year-old Anwar has time and again been denied the premiership despite getting within striking distance over the years: he was deputy prime minister in the 1990s and the official prime minister-in-waiting in 2018.

In between, he spent nearly a decade in jail for sodomy and corruption in what he says were politically motivated charges aimed at ending his career.

The uncertainty over the election threatened to prolong political instability in the Southeast Asian country, which has had three prime ministers in as many years, and risks delaying policy decisions needed to foster economic recovery.


Malaysia's newly appointed Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim signs documents after taking the oath during the swearing-in ceremony at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

Anwar's supporters expressed hope that his government would head off a return to historic tension between the ethnic Malay, Muslim majority and ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.

"All we want is moderation for Malaysia and Anwar represents that," said a communications manager in Kuala Lumpur, who asked to be identified by her surname Tang.

"We can't have a country that is divided by race and religion as that will set us back another 10 years."

Anwar told Reuters in an interview before the election that he would seek "to emphasize governance and anti-corruption, and rid this country of racism and religious bigotry" if appointed premier.

His coalition, known as Pakatan Harapan, won the most seats in Saturday's vote with 82, while Muhyiddin's Perikatan Nasional bloc won 73. They needed 112 - a simple majority - to form a government.


Malaysia's newly appointed PM Ibrahim takes the oath during the swearing-in ceremony at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

The long-ruling Barisan bloc won only 30 seats - the worst electoral performance for a coalition that had dominated politics since independence in 1957.



Malaysia's newly appointed Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim takes part in the swearing-in ceremony at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

Barisan said on Thursday it would not support a government led by Muhyiddin, though it did not make any reference to Anwar.

Muhyiddin, after Anwar's appointment, asked Anwar to prove his majority in parliament.

POLICE STEP UP SECURITY

Muhyiddin's bloc includes the Islamist party PAS, whose electoral gains raised concern among members of the ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian communities, most of whom follow other faiths.

Authorities warned after the weekend vote of a rise in ethnic tension on social media and short video platform TikTok said it was on high alert for content that violated its guidelines.

Social media users reported numerous TikTok posts since the election that mentioned a riot in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, on May 13, 1969, in which about 200 people were killed, days after opposition parties supported by ethnic Chinese voters made inroads in an election.



Malaysia's PM Ibrahim's swearing-in ceremony in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

Police told social media users to refrain from "provocative" posts and said they were setting up 24-hour check-points on roads throughout the country to ensure public peace and safety.



Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim attends a news conference in Kuala Lumpur© Thomson Reuters

The decision on the prime minister came down to King Al-Sultan Abdullah, after both Anwar and Muhyiddin missed his Tuesday afternoon deadline to put together a ruling alliance.

The constitutional monarch plays a largely ceremonial role but can appoint a premier he believes will command a majority in parliament.

Malaysia has a unique constitutional monarchy in which kings are chosen in turn from the royal families of nine states to reign for a five-year term.

As premier, Anwar will have to address soaring inflation and slowing growth as the economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, while calming ethnic tensions.

The most immediate issue will be the budget for next year, which was tabled before the election was called but has yet to be passed.

Anwar will also have to negotiate agreements with lawmakers from other blocs to ensure he can retain majority support in parliament.

"Anwar is appointed at a critical juncture in Malaysian history, where politics is most fractured, recovering from a depressed economy and a bitter COVID memory," said James Chai, visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

"Always regarded as the man who could unite all warring factions, it is fitting that Anwar emerged during a divisive time."

(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi, Mei Mei Chu and Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Robert Birsel)

Malaysia's Anwar begins work as PM after polarising election

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim is expected to start discussions on forming his cabinet on Friday as he begins work as prime minister at a challenging time, with the economy slowing and the country deeply split after a close election.


Malaysia's newly appointed Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim greets his supporters as he leaves his news conference in Sungai Long© Thomson Reuters

Anwar, 75, was sworn in as premier on Thursday, capping a three-decade political journey from a protege of veteran leader Mahathir Mohamad to protest leader, a prisoner convicted of sodomy and opposition figurehead.

Anwar, who was appointed by Malaysia's king following an inconclusive election, said that the people of Malaysia had long been awaiting change.

"We will never compromise on good governance, the anti-corruption drive, judicial independence and the welfare of ordinary Malaysians," he said late on Thursday.

Anwar's appointment ends five days of unprecedented post-election crisis but could usher in further instability with his rival, former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, challenging him to prove his majority in parliament.

Both men's coalitions failed to win a majority in Saturday's election, but Malaysia's constitutional monarch, King Al-Sultan Abdullah, appointed Anwar after speaking to several lawmakers.

The campaign pitted Anwar's progressive, multi-ethnic coalition against Muhyiddin's mostly conservative ethnic-Malay, Muslim alliance.

Anwar had previously been denied the premiership despite getting within striking distance over the years. In between, he spent nearly a decade in jail for sodomy and corruption in what he says were politically motivated charges.

The uncertainty over the election had threatened to exacerbate instability in Malaysia, which has had three prime ministers in as many years, and also risked delaying policy decisions needed to foster economic recovery.

"Anwar’s tasks have just started, to unite a very polarised and divided nation, based on race and religion," said former lawmaker and coalition ally Lim Kit Siang.

Markets surged on Thursday on the end of political deadlock, but investors will be monitoring how Anwar manages the aftermath of the election.

Malaysian stocks on Friday morning were flat, after 4% gains the previous day, while the ringgit extended gains, up nearly 1%.

ALLIANCE OF SUPPORT

Anwar's supporters expressed hope that his government would avert a return to historic tensions between the ethnic Malay, Muslim majority and ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.

Anwar's coalition, known as Pakatan Harapan, won the most seats in Saturday's vote with 82, while Muhyiddin's Perikatan Nasional bloc won 73. They needed 112 - a simple majority - to form a government.

The long-ruling Barisan bloc won only 30 seats - the worst electoral performance for a coalition that had dominated politics since independence in 1957.

Anwar said Barisan and an alliance of parties from Malaysian Borneo had pledged support, giving him a convincing majority. He indicated that there would be two deputy prime ministers - one from each of the blocs.

Muhyiddin's bloc includes the Islamist party PAS, whose electoral gains raised concern within the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities, most of whose members follow other faiths.

Authorities have warned of a rise in ethnic tension since the vote on social media and short video platform TikTok said this week was on high alert for content that violated its guidelines.

The most immediate issue facing Anwar beyond picking a cabinet will be the budget for next year, which was proposed before the election was called but has yet to be passed.

Anwar said he would convene parliament on Dec. 19 for a vote of confidence to prove his majority in the lower house.

(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi, Mei Mei Chu and Rozanna Latiff; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Robert Birsel)

US congratulates Anwar Ibrahim on taking office as Malaysia’s new prime minister

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has congratulated Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on his appointment as prime minister following elections in the Asian country, while expressing Washington's desire to work with Kuala Lumput for a "free and open" Indo-Pacific region.


Archive - Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim - Mustaqim Khairuddin/BERNAMA/dpa© Provided by News 360

"On behalf of the United States, I congratulate the people of Malaysia on their national elections and Anwar Ibrahim on his election as prime minister. Millions of Malaysians cast their votes, many for the first time, making the 15th general election a demonstration of the power of democracy," he said.

Thus, he noted that "the United States and Malaysia have forged a strong relationship, a comprehensive partnership, rooted in close economic, people-to-people and security ties." "We look forward to deepening our friendship and cooperation based on our shared democratic principles, respect for human rights and the rule of law," he added.

"We remain committed to working with Malaysia to advance a free and open, connected, prosperous, secure and resilient Indo-Pacific region," Blinken said, according to a statement released by the State Department.

Blinken's remarks come after Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in as Malaysia's prime minister after being appointed to the post by the king, Abullah of Pahang, following several days of talks to decide the formation of the government after weekend elections that resulted in a parliament without clear majorities that threatened political deadlock.

The politician was former President Mahathir Mohamad's 'number two' during the 1990s when he was prime minister, although the two drifted apart during the financial crisis that shook the continent between 1997 and 1999. After that, he was dismissed from the government party and created the Reform movement, although he was arrested weeks later and convicted on charges of "sodomy" and corruption. After being released in 2004, he was jailed again for "sodomy" in 2015, with Najib Razak in power.

The politician received a pardon from the Royal House in 2018 that allowed him to leave prison ahead of schedule, after which he announced his return to politics and returned in 2020 his position as opposition leader, from which he has led the efforts of the Alliance of Hope coalition to prevail in the last elections.

AUTHENTIC LIBERTARIANS

Majority of Canadians remain pro-choice regardless of circumstances

Canada is unique among G20 nations for having no laws whatsoever governing abortion.

ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE

Story by Liz Braun • Yesterday 
Toronto Sun

Pro-choice protesters dressed in red robes as characters from The Handmaid's Tale hold signs on Parliament Hill during the National March for Life in Ottawa, Ont., on May 12, 2022.

© Provided by Toronto Sun

A new Angus-Reid poll shows the majority of Canadians (52%) remain completely pro-choice and believe abortion is acceptable at any time in a pregnancy and for any reason.

Only 8% are totally pro-life, believing abortion is never acceptable, except where the health of the mother is in danger.

Another 41% consider themselves somewhere in between.

One in five Canadian pregnancies ends in abortion. One is six women has had an abortion.

Very few regret their decision.

Among women who have had an abortion ( Part One of the poll ), 58% are pro-choice, 6% are pro-life and 36% are somewhere in the middle, with no hard-and-fast rule — although 61% of the “in between” group are pro-choice based on timing.

(Of that 36%, a third are okay with abortion until 15 weeks of pregnancy, a quarter say abortion is acceptable until 23 or 24 weeks, and another third say they just don’t know at what point in a pregnancy abortion is or is not acceptable.)

In Part One of their poll, Angus Reid poll canvassed women about abortion.

About two in five women (41%) say someone close to them has had an abortion. One is six women has had an abortion (16%), and the same number of women (15%) carried an unwanted pregnancy to term.

Among the women who had an abortion, an overwhelming majority (65%) said they had made the right decision. Another 28% likewise stand by their decision but have some regrets.

Somewhat fewer (54%) who carried an unwanted pregnancy to term say they made the right decision, with 25% also standing by their decision but having some regrets.

There have been 3.2. million Canadian abortions over the last 25 years, with a greater number performed on women who vote Conservative.

Women across the political spectrum have had an abortion or are close to another woman who did so, with 18% of Conservative voters, 14% of Liberal voters and 16% of NDP voters saying they have had an abortion themselves.

The language of the poll discusses “unwanted or unplanned” pregnancies; it is not specified whether planned pregnancies ended for medical reasons (non-viable fetus; health of mother) are included in these figures.

The second part of the poll centres on gender, age, experience and faith, and how those factors affect views on abortion.

Young women (aged 18-34) are most likely to be completely pro-choice (65%) — but also most likely to be completely pro-life (14%).

Among religious Canadians, 40% voice pro-life sentiments, 21% are pro-choice and 39% are somewhere in between.

The majority of Canadians prioritize the rights of the mother over the rights of the fetus.

As the National Post reports , Canada is unique among G20 nations for having no laws whatsoever governing abortion.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down criminal provisions that previously restricted abortions only to extreme cases where the life of the mother was at risk.

Since then, only former prime minister Brian Mulroney has attempted a bill to impose strict guidelines on elective abortions, and it was defeated by the Senate.

There have been markedly fewer abortions in Canada every year since 2008.

The Angus Reid survey was done online from Aug. 29-30, 2022 with 1,805 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. The margin of error can be considered +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

As many as one in five Canadian pregnancies end in abortion and few regret decision, poll finds

Story by Tristin Hopper • Yesterday

 National Post

In this May photo, anti-abortion campaigners prepare for the annual National March for Life at the grounds of Parliament Hill.

While abortion remains a more controversial issue to Canadians than its politics would suggest, a new Angus Reid poll found that one in six Canadian women has had an abortion.

What’s more, of the tens of thousands of Canadian women who have undergone abortions, a clear majority say it was the right decision and have no regrets. And when women were asked about their party affiliation, it was Conservative voters who were most likely to have an abortion in their past.

Sixteen per cent of women responding to the poll reported that they have personally undergone an abortion at some point in their lives. A further 41 per cent said that they knew a “close friend or family member” who had undergone one.

Of the women who had undergone abortions, 65 per cent reported that it was the right decision and they had “no regrets,” while another 28 per cent said they stuck by the decision albeit with “some regrets.” Six per cent said they wish they hadn’t had an abortion.



As many as one in five Canadian pregnancies end in abortion and few regret decision, poll finds

Angus Reid pollsters also canvassed women who had rejected abortion and carried an unwanted pregnancy to term. Regrets among this group were actually slightly higher; with 10 per cent saying they wish they had made a “different choice” and only 54 per cent saying that the decision came with no regrets.

Canada is unique among G20 nations for having no laws whatsoever governing abortion. In the 1988 R. v. Morgentaler decision, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down criminal provisions that had previously restricted abortions only to extreme cases in which the life of the mother was at risk.

The Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney responded with a bill that would have imposed strict guidelines on elective abortions. But after the bill was defeated by the Senate, no subsequent Canadian government has ever tried again to pursue limits on abortion.



As many as one in five Canadian pregnancies end in abortion and few regret decision, poll finds

As a result, while individual health agencies maintain their own standards on when to permit abortions, Canadian federal law has nothing to say about pregnancy terminations right up until the point of birth.

Since 1989, there have been roughly 3.3 million Canadian abortions , an average of about 103,000 per year.

With Canadian live births averaging between 350,000 and 400,000 per year, in recent years this has meant that roughly one fifth of all Canadian pregnancies are terminated.

While Canadians have become more comfortable with abortion in the interim 34 years since R. v. Morgentaler, there remain tens of millions who oppose the status quo.

An Ipsos poll from July found that just 56 per cent of Canadians supported abortion “whenever a woman decides she wants one.” An Ipsos poll from the year prior found that up to a quarter of Canadians opposed abortion in almost all cases.

Notably, the July poll found that support for abortion was starting to wane among Canadians born in the wake of the Morgentaler decision. While 63 per cent of Canadian seniors support elective abortion in all cases, this proportion shrunk to just 50 per cent among Canadians born after 1988.


Chart showing how unconditional support for abortion is stronger among older Canadians than younger Canadians.© Ipsos

This roughly aligns with a marked decrease in the numbers of Canadian women who are seeking abortions. After Canadian abortions peaked in the early 2000s, the raw number of terminated pregnancies has been decreasing markedly every year since 2008.

In 2008, there were roughly 116,000 Canadian abortions — an average of 317 per day. By 2020, this was down to 75,000 – an average of 205 per day.

The Angus Reid Institute poll showed a similar trend. Nearly one quarter (23 per cent) of women aged 45-54 reported having personally undergone an abortion. Among women aged 18 to 34, that proportion was only 11 per cent.

Lukewarm Canadian attitudes to abortion all stand in contrast to much of Central and Western Europe, where abortion increasingly enjoys near-universal support.

A 2018 Pew Research poll found that more than 90 per cent of respondents in the Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Denmark favoured abortion in “all or most cases.”

Even Ireland was found to have higher overall support for abortion than Canada. As recently as 2018, abortion in Ireland was illegal as per an amendment to the country’s constitution. The measure was subsequently repealed following a referendum in which 66.4 per cent of Irish voters supported legal abortion.



Poll results from 2018 showing public support for abortion across Europe.© Pew Research Centre

According to Pew Research, roughly that same proportion of Irish citizens continue to favour abortion in “all or most cases.”

While abortion continues to be a major political issue in the United States, Canada is notable in that every major political party has spent the last 20 years explicitly vowing not to “reopen” the abortion debate. This includes the last four Conservative Party leaders.

One reason for this might lie in the fact that Canadian Conservatives seem to be having abortions at rates roughly on par with their NDP or Liberal opponents.



As many as one in five Canadian pregnancies end in abortion and few regret decision, poll finds

Eighteen per cent of Canadian women who voted Conservative told the Angus Reid Institute that they had personally undergone an abortion. This was against 14 per cent for Liberal voters, and 16 per cent for NDPers.

Angus Reid surveyed 1,805 Canadian members of the Angus Reid forum online from Aug. 29 to 30. A margin of error cannot be calculated for an online survey.

A former Alberta justice minister claims videos of him are 'fake.' Not everyone agrees

Story by Joel Dryden • Yesterday CBC

Near the end of September, a series of videos were posted to social media that purported to show some familiar figures in Calgary's political and legal worlds taking turns performing racist Indigenous caricatures.

One video appeared to take place at a barbecue, and another around a table with open bottles of alcohol and empty plates. The men purportedly pictured were Jonathan Denis, Alberta's former justice minister under the Progressive Conservative government from 2012 to 2015, and Calgary-based businessman and political activist Craig Chandler.

The videos spread quickly through social media to the point where Denis felt compelled to respond.

At the time, he offered an apology with a caveat. Later, he would claim the videos were fakes, and the duo would submit what they called proof of that claim.

But experts say claims of falsity in situations like this are hard to prove because the technology is debatable, even unreliable — and hints at a more significant problem to come.

The initial response

After the four videos floated around social media for some time, Denis sent a statement to local media outlets, writing that while he had no recollection of the events, it was possible they took place years ago while he was under the influence of alcohol. He said he apologized unreservedly to anyone he offended — if they depicted "real events." It would be his sole statement on the matter at the time.

Chandler, meanwhile, agreed to an interview with CBC News. He said the video of the barbecue was taken during a private function with his close friends. He said he was trying to cheer his friend Denis up by joking about Brocket 99, a fake radio show produced in Lethbridge, Alta., in the late 1980s, which was based on racist stereotypes of First Nations people.

It was ridiculous, Chandler said, that this had become an issue — that he was apparently not allowed to joke about an issue within the confines of his own home at a private barbecue. It was the same thing Dave Chappelle had to go through, he said, this "cancel culture."

But Chandler would say something else during that interview. He said Denis had a contact in Hollywood who had done an audit of the video. That contact, Chandler said, had determined that though the video was "correct," and the words had been said, the Indigenous accent had been "manipulated" and "exaggerated."

"Were the words said? Yeah. Was the accent there? Don't know," Chandler said at the time.

Exactly a month later, it was Calgary Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean who broadly apologized for "mistakes in the past" after other videos surfaced, purportedly involving McLean along with Chandler and Denis, which also included racist mockery of Indigenous people. He would later step back from council committees and boards and sit with a circle of Indigenous elders to "learn to grow, change and be better."

But though McLean was apologizing and stepping back, Denis' law firm Guardian Law Firm was taking a different position: that the videos were fake. The firm told the Calgary Herald and the Western Standard that it had evidence the videos had been doctored and added that the police were engaged in the matter.

Three days after McLean stepped down from city council committees, a new email landed in news agency inboxes, sent by Chandler. The subject line declared: "Videos reviewed by independent agency prove videos are fake."

He forwarded the results of an analysis done by Reality Defender, a "deepfake" detection platform headquartered in New York which was incubated by the AI Foundation and launched as a corporation in February. The platform doesn't involve human analysis, instead utilizing a tool that detects for manipulated media.

Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create convincing faked footage of real people. You may have seen a series of videos involving a fake Tom Cruise on the social media video platform TikTok pulling off some impressive magic tricks, or a fake Elon Musk being held hostage in a warehouse.

But experts are becoming increasingly worried that the growing prevalence and sophistication of these "deepfakes" is making detection all the more difficult.

As deepfakes become more convincing, there's more of an opportunity for them to be used to destroy reputations with words and images that are not real. By the same token, it is also easy for people legitimately caught on tape to falsely claim it never happened, and to allege that the visual evidence was somehow doctored.

So what was the case with Denis, Chandler, and McLean? Denis and Chandler contend that they are the victims of faked videos, while McLean didn't respond to CBC News' request for comment.

Deepfakes and probabilities

Identifying and removing "manipulated" media has been an urgent priority for companies like Meta over the past number of years. However, the category of "manipulation" is broad — it can involve using simple software to add blurs to photographs or to make audio more clear. On the flip side, manipulation also involves using artificial intelligence to create "deepfakes."

In his release, Chandler said he had submitted the videos to Reality Defender. Ben Colman, CEO of Reality Defender, said its platform determined that the four videos were "probabilistically fake."

"We live in the world of probabilities. And so we are comfortable saying that it's highly likely that the assets are fake, though we do not have the originals," said Colman in an interview, adding that the removal of conversion or compression would not change the company's conclusion.

The company uses its platform alone, and no experts review its conclusions, something Reality Defender views as an asset because it believes synthetic media can fool humans. One part of its analysis determined that two videos were 78 per cent "likely manipulated," while two others were assessed at 66 and 69 per cent.

Despite Chandler's contention at the time that only the Indigenous accent had been exaggerated in a video in which he had appeared — not the video or the words spoken — Reality Defender's initial analysis provided to CBC News only showed the video results, and did not show if audio was tested.

In a follow-up interview, Colman said its platform tested for the audio, which he said was manipulated in the style of a Nancy Pelosi video in which the U.S. House speaker's audio was slowed down to make her sound impaired.


U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks on the House floor at the Capitol in Washington D.C., on Nov. 17. In 2019, a video of Pelosi manipulated to make it appear as though she was impaired picked up millions of views on social media.© AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Upon being contacted to share the audio reports, Denis' law firm said they had not received them, adding that Reality Defender's conclusion was "definitive." Later that day, they shared the reports, which listed that Reality Defender's "all-purpose advanced speech feature spoof detector" had determined the audio was "99 per cent likely manipulated."

Colman said he couldn't speak directly to Chandler's claim that accents had been exaggerated.

"[Our engine] just detects that it was manipulated. The sentiment, or the reason for it, is nothing that we can speculate on," Colman said.

Denis' law firm did not respond to a follow-up question requesting more information on what, specifically, the two were alleging had been faked in the video.

A second analysis

Related video: Alberta justice minister calls on head of RCMP to resign

Duration 2:02

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In the days and weeks after Chandler sent out the press release contending the videos had been faked, former Calgary Conservative MP Joan Crockatt, speaking on behalf of Denis through her Crockatt Communications consultancy company, contacted CBC News on multiple occasions with requests to take the video down.

When CBC News declined to take down the videos, Crockatt submitted a second analysis, from the platform Deepware, which ran two of the videos through four different models.

One model, the face animation app Avatarify, indicated that it detected a deepfake on one of the videos at 99 per cent probability. However, none of the three other models listed detected a deepfake.

"These are definitive findings," Crockatt wrote in a statement, highlighting the result from Avatarify.

Contacted for comment by CBC News, Zemana, the Turkey-based company that runs Deepware, requested copies of the analysis.

Upon viewing the results, Yağizhan Atmaca, CTO of Zemana, repudiated the earlier results, saying the Avatarify model had in fact returned a false positive because of the high level of compression on the video.

"Nobody can say, 100 per cent [certainty] on such a bad video," Atmaca said, adding that the AI models the company uses can often make mistakes.

Contacted for comment on the model returning a false positive, Denis' law firm said they had not had any subsequent communication from Deepware.

When asked whether Deepware informs its clients if its model produces a false positive, Atmaca pointed to a note present on the company's results page, which reads, "As Deepware Scanner is still in beta, the results should not be treated as an absolute truth or evidence."

What's fake, what's real

CBC News asked another group, the Media Verification (MeVer) team, to look at the videos posted to Twitter. They applied their own deepfake detection service and three other detection algorithms to analyze the videos. Their analysis suggested that the possibility of the videos being deepfakes was very low.

There are some caveats, said Symeon Papadopoulos, principal researcher at the Information Technologies Institute, and head of the MeVer group: the field of deepfake generation is rapidly evolving, and the possibility of a very new sophisticated model, undetectable by state-of-the-art detectors such as the one used in the analysis, is always possible. In addition, though there are no obvious signs, researchers can't exclude other kinds of video tampering using conventional video editing tools.

That said, it would be surprising if the videos were fakes, Papadopoulos said. They don't bear any of the usual artifacts of deepfake videos — artifacts being visual clues left behind in the finished product by the deepfake generation model — and some angles at which the videos are shot are very challenging to fake.

Other experts in the field doubt the accuracy of online verification platforms altogether.

Hany Farid is a professor who specializes in digital forensics at the University of California, Berkeley. He also sits on TikTok's content advisory board.

A member of the Microsoft-led team that pioneered PhotoDNA, which is used globally to stop the spread of child sexual abuse imagery, Farid was named a lifetime fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2016 and has been referred to as the "father" of digital image forensics.

Farid viewed the videos frame-by-frame and said they indicated no signs of manipulation or synthesis. He said he didn't think online platforms were sufficiently accurate to say anything definitive, particularly not on low-quality resolution videos like those in question.

He likened the situation — the men initially offering vague apologies, then later claiming the videos were fake — to Donald Trump's conversation with Billy Bush of Access Hollywood in 2005, in which he bragged his fame enabled him to grope women. As a candidate for president in the 2016 election, Trump apologized for those comments, but later questioned their authenticity.

The art and science of the deepfake

Farid said the devil is in the details when it comes to online resources that analyze video. Most techniques are trained on very specific sets of videos, not handheld videos, for example.

State-of-the-art detectors have relatively low accuracies, Farid said, at a rate of around 90 per cent. That might sound impressive, but it means the detectors are making a lot of mistakes, and will say that real things are fake, and vice versa.

Plus, running videos through different techniques provides wildly different answers, from not at all fake, to maybe fake, to definitely fake.

"At that point, let's stop calling this science. I mean, now we're just making stuff up," he said.

Farid said he didn't have a lot of confidence in the results of the analyses provided, adding that the automatic techniques simply are not close to being sufficient enough to say with certainty what's real and what's fake, particularly because in the videos provided, where there's nothing obviously wrong in terms of the types of synthesis artifacts one would expect to see.

"I think there's something dangerous about saying, 'Well, just upload the video, and we'll tell you what's what.' The field is not there," Hany said. "These automatic techniques simply don't exist today. They're not even close to existing."

For example, in the videos, which are handheld, grainy, low-resolution and shot from a distance, the individuals involved often turn away from the camera.

"Even the best deepfakes — go look at the Tom Cruise TikTok deepfakes, and slow down and watch frame by frame by frame by frame, and you will see little artifacts, because synthesis is very hard," Farid said.

Farid explained that there are three general categories of deepfakes. The first is the face swap deepfake, which is probably what most people are familiar with. The Tom Cruise deepfake is an example of this, which involves a person moving and sees their face replaced, eyebrow to chin, cheek to cheek, with a face swap.

A lip-sync deepfake would take a video of someone talking and create a new audio stream, either synthesized or impersonated, and replace that person's mouth to be consistent with new audio.

A puppet master deepfake, finally, would take a single image of a person and animate a representation of that person based on what a "puppet master" did in front of a camera.

Each of these techniques has its strengths, but each has its weaknesses, too, which introduce artifacts. For example, the lip sync deepfake can create a "Frankenstein monster" effect when the mouth is doing one thing and the head another, while a puppet master deepfake has trouble simulating certain effects, like a hanging strand of hair bouncing up and down while someone nods their head.

All of that means the scenes depicted in the Denis and Chandler videos would be very difficult to fake. While not impossible, the videos are not shot in the form most of the best deepfakes tend to take with today's technology — newscasters or politicians standing in front of a camera, not moving a lot, not occluding the face.

"You should never say never. It's dangerous. Everything is possible, of course. But you have to look at likelihoods," Farid said. "We've enumerated the fact that all these different automated techniques are all over the place in terms of what they're saying.

"But the knowledge of how these things are made, how difficult it would be to make them, I think it's extremely unlikely that these are deepfakes."

As for claims that the audio was the part of the video that had been manipulated?

"Is it possible that somebody took that recording, took the audio of him and put it through some type of morphing, or modulation to change his intonation or his accent? Sure, that's possible," Farid said.

"But I don't know a voice modulator that makes you sound insulting."

The implications moving forward

Farid said that though the common perception is that deepfakes today are advanced enough to create any reality, the technology hasn't yet reached that point. He said that today, people claiming videos are fake is a bigger problem than actual faked videos.

"It's what's termed the liar's dividend. That when we enter a world where anything can be manipulated or synthesized, well, then we can dismiss inconvenient facts," he said.

"We can say a video of me doing something illegal or inappropriate or offensive, fake. Human rights violations, fake. War crimes, fake. Police brutality, fake. And that's really dangerous."

Contacted for comment after looking into the videos in more detail, Denis' law firm said the previous statement would be Denis' "last and final" on the matter, and asked: "Does the CBC want to continue to contribute to online harassment by posting falsified videos on its website?"



A file photo of Calgary-based businessman and FAR RIGHT political activist Craig Chandler. Though he initially said only an accent had been exaggerated in a disputed video posted to social media, he later said new information had led him to question his original statements.

© Terri Trembath/CBC

Chandler agreed to a follow-up interview, in which he said Calgary police and Alberta RCMP investigations were ongoing into the person who "filmed and then manipulated these videos." A spokesperson with RCMP said it would not confirm whether or not an investigation existed due to privacy, while Calgary police would only say it was "currently investigating various allegations" but would not provide further comment.

Though he initially said only the accent had been manipulated, Chandler said new information has led him to question his initial statements to CBC News. He said he couldn't clarify exactly what had been manipulated in the videos, based on advice from his legal counsel.

"There could be some footage that's real. But the content and the context may not be," he said.

He said that this story "had legs" and was not going away, but that he was limited in what he could say based on advice from counsel.

"I think the people who are going to determine it are not these companies, but the law," he said.

Wreck of 17th-century warship, sister ship to famous Vasa, found in Sweden

Story by Hafsa Khalil •

Archaeologists in Sweden have discovered the wreck of a 17th-century warship, the country’s Museum of Wrecks, or Vrak, announced Monday.

Warship found after nearly 400 years in 'great condition'
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Äpplet was one of four warships created on the order of King Gustavus Adolphus in 1625, along with the Vasa, which famously capsized on its maiden voyage.

Unlike the Vasa, whose salvaged wreck is now a Stockholm museum, the wreck of the Äpplet had long eluded marine archaeologists.


Äpplet was the sister ship to Vasa, which famously sank on its maiden voyage. - Jim Hansson

Both ships were created by shipbuilder Hein Jacobsson, with Äpplet an improvement on the poor design that made the Vasa unstable, the museum said in a statement.

After service in Europe’s 30 Years’ War, Äpplet was deliberately sunk in Vaxholm in the Stockholm archipelago in 1659, when it was deemed unseaworthy.

Working with the Swedish navy, Vrak’s marine archeologists initially discovered the wreck in December 2021, but they only identified it as Äpplet in spring this year, after a more in-depth study of the ship’s dimensions, construction, wood samples and archives.

Patrik Höglund, a maritime archaeologist at Vrak, told CNN that the discovery was “amazing” because they thought “nothing was left of wrecks in the area.”



The oak used for Äpplet's timber was felled in the same place as the wood for Vasa, further pointing to the wreck's identity. - Jim Hansson

The seabed in the area had been covered with stones in the 1800s and dredged in the early 1900s, so archaeologists thought there wasn’t anything else to find, he explained.

In a statement, Jim Hansson, a maritime archaeologist at Vrak who also worked on the discovery, said the team’s “pulses spiked” at the similarities between the wreck’s dimensions and construction and those of Vasa.

Analysis of the wreck found that the oak for its timber was felled in 1627 in Stockholm’s Mälaren Valley, which is also where Vasa’s timber was sourced.

Vrak archaeologists previously thought two shipwrecks found off Vaxholm in 2019 were the remains of Äpplet, but investigations revealed them to be the ships Apollo and Maria, built in 1648.

Most of the hull to the height of the lower battery deck has been preserved, protruding six to seven meters (20-23 feet) from the seabed, according to the museum.


The team made dives to the wreck to take samples. - Anders Nasberg

Talking about the significance of the discovery, Hansson described it as “another key piece of the puzzle in the development of Swedish shipbuilding.”

Höglund added in a statement that Äpplet will help them understand how the “large warships evolved from the unstable Vasa to seaworthy behemoths that could control the Baltic Sea – a decisive factor in Sweden’s emergence as a great power in the 1600s.”

Äpplet’s wreck lies in a protected military area, which means diving is prohibited unless accompanied by Swedish navy divers. There are no plans to salvage the wreck, Höglund told CNN, but they will make a 3D image of it.

IBEW VS LEDCOR

Port Coquitlam telecom workers win 5-year labour battle; employer ‘makes a mockery’ of bargaining process


Five years after joining a union and three years after commencing a strike, Port Coquitlam telecom employees have won a hard-fought labour victory against their employer.

The federal government’s Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) unanimously ruled on Nov. 10 that LTS Solutions, a subsidiary of Ledcor, “breached its duty to argue in good faith” with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

“It is the board’s view that the employer’s approach to bargaining, particularly since the advent of the strike, makes a mockery of the collective bargaining process,” the board stated.

“The employer’s actions have neutralized the union’s ability to participate in a meaningful way in collective bargaining.”

The union’s primary complaint was that LTS had engaged in “surface bargaining” – a term for superficial negotiation with no intention of agreeing to a collective agreement.

Robin Nedila, assistant business manager with IBEW 213, called the decision “monumental,” noting that a successful Section 80 decision – in which the board settles terms between union and employer – had not been won in decades.

“This decision will be referred to for a really long time,” he said. “It took too long to get to this point, if an employer is intent on not concluding a collective agreement, the board needs to be able to deal with it more effectively and more quickly. . . . That’s one of things we are hoping to come out of this.”

The board’s 72-page ruling decided found that LTS had created an impasse by insisting on “unusual terms,” such as being able to unilaterally reduce wages; refusing to negotiate for months after tendering an offer; and refusing to exchange proposals that might have led to a settlement.

What’s left of the local will soon have their collective agreement settled, with terms set by the board.

When the workers certified IBEW 213 in 2017, they were 238 members strong; only 65 remain, though some may return as a back-to-work protocol has been ordered.

LTS provides contract work for Telus, supplying technicians for installing and maintaining fibre optic networks owned by the telecom giant.

In the spring of 2017, IBEW began its organizing drive for field technicians at LTS, and certified the new local by summer. They sought better working conditions, higher wages and job security.

After two years of stalled negotiations, 79 percent of union members supported a strike vote.

The company offered its first and only collective agreement offer in September, 2019, with “unpalatable” terms, according to the union. IBEW 213 reps subsequently told their members the offer should be rejected.

Less than a week later, the company laid off 31 technicians, and the union declared a strike, starting on Sept. 30.

Prior to the board’s Nov. 10 decision, the union had submitted four unfair labour practice complaints to the board, though none related to surface bargaining.

Three were dismissed, though one, relating to LTS falsely informing certain employees they were not included in the bargaining unit, was substantiated.


In December, 2019, the union applied to the Minister of Labour to refer the dispute to CIRB.

When the company learned the union had made an application to the minister, its representatives walked out of a January, 2020 meeting.

The union later modified its position, and tendered another offer in October, 2020, which the company rejected, made no counteroffer and refused further negotiation.

In its own submission to the minister, LTS alleged the union had “essentially engaged in fraud” by making false and misleading statements. They called the union’s referral for a Section 80 decision an “abuse of process.”

The company’s position was it would be unable to operate without maintaining the principals of cost neutrality, operational flexibility and a merit-based culture.

The board noted the company’s shifting excuses for not continue the negotiations.

These ranged from demanding apologies for comments union members made to the press, COVID-19 and pandemic-related economic factors, the union’s ongoing application to the ministry, its refusal to concede positions, lost contracts, to certain employees wishing to revoke the union.

From July, 2020 onward, the board concluded that LTS “hoped that the union will simply go away” after one employee (supported by the company) filed an application to revoke its bargaining status.

“The employer has engaged in conduct that would render the union impotent in the eyes of employees,” the board said. “This is particularly the case where the employer refused to meet to bargain with the union, holding up a myriad of excuses.

“The board has determined that this is one of the rare instances in which it is advisable for it to settle the terms of the first (collective agreement).”

Both parties are slated to meet with an industrial relations officer, who will report back to the board within 30 days. The board will then hold a meeting with all parties to settle the terms.

The federal government has said it will introduce new anti-scab legislation by the end of 2023, and is currently conducting consultations to gather input on the issue.

The CIRB decision may have far reaching implications for how companies operating under federal law can behave during collective bargaining.

Ledcor’s ability to bring in replacement workers prolonged the strike, said Dustin Brecht, lead organizer with IBEW 213.

He said that many of those who crossed the picket line were hired after the union certified, and would be deemed scab labour under B.C. labour laws.

“A labour dispute is meant to put economic pressure on one side side or the other,” Brecht said. “The use of replacement workers, contractors included, allowed Ledcor to operate pretty close to normal during the strike.”

Local NDP MP, Bonita Zarrillo, released a joint statement with Hamilton MP Matthew Green in support of the union, highlighting the need for new legislation.

Today, my caucus colleague @BonitaZarrillo and I have issued the following statement in solidarity with @IBEW213 :We would like to extend our congratulations and solidarity to IBEW 213 on their successful ruling at the Canadian Industrial Relations Board.#CanLab #Cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/Ve5DnCGOCv— Matthew Green ??✊? (@MatthewGreenNDP)

“The fact that this process has gone on for more than five years, with workers having spent three of them on the picket line, clearly shows the need for the federal government to promptly table strong anti-scab legislation,” the letter states.

The Dispatch has reached out to Ledcor for comment on the decision but did not receive a response by press time.

Patrick Penner, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Tri-Cities Dispatch

REACTIONARY STATISM

Alberta government bans school mask mandates, online-only learning

Story by Janet French • Yesterday 

No Alberta schools or pre-kindergarten classes can require students to wear masks to attend school, says a new provincial government regulation.


Alberta schools cannot refuse to allow children who are not wearing a mask to attend school, say new regulations that take effect today.© Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press

The rules, which take effect today, also prevent almost every Alberta school from shifting Grade 1 to 12 classes to a solely online format.

Kindergarten and pre-kindergarten classes are excluded and schools in sensitive settings such as hospitals may be exempt from the rules.

"Parents and students have told me time and time again that they want a normal school environment for their kids," Premier Danielle Smith said in an afternoon news release Thursday.

Smith's statement said new regulations "enhance educational choice" and require the education system to support that choice.

The statement says the government is concerned about the mental health implications of children missing in-person classes during the pandemic. It also says some children struggled with online learning during the past three years, and that an in-person option should help children keep up with their academics.

The news release said schools and school boards were seeking clarity on what public health measures they could consider adopting.

Schools reconsider masking requirements as illnesses surge

The change comes as children's hospitals and schools are grappling with a wave of sick children and teens.

Doctors say pediatric emergency departments across the country are slammed with children showing up with respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.

Public health doctors have said influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and COVID-19 are leading to a triple whammy of health challenges for children.

Should Alberta's chief medical officer of health decide to require additional public health measures in school to control outbreaks of disease, those orders would take precedence over the new school regulations.

Last February, the Alberta government lifted mask mandates in schools. The families of five immunocompromised children and the Alberta Federation of Labour then challenged that government decision in court.

In October, a Court of King's Bench judge found the government's requirement to end mask mandates was "unreasonable" because the decision was made by cabinet and not the chief medical officer of health, who has that power under the Public Health Act.

The judge also found Education Minister Adriana LaGrange had not taken the legal steps required to prevent school mask mandates.

At the time, Smith said the government was looking at legal avenues to address this.

Smith campaigned for United Conservative Party leadership on the promise that children would never be required to masks in school again.

The new regulations apply to public, Catholic, Francophone, private and charter schools.

'Living fossil' undetected for nearly 30,000 years found in California

Story by Cheryl Santa Maria • Yesterday 

In a discovery that can only be described as a 'needle in a haystack,' a clam thought to be extinct for nearly 30,000 years has been found alive in California.

In November 2018, marine researcher Jeff Goddard was searching for slugs at Naples Point when two small, translucent clams caught his eye.

He snapped some high-quality images and shared them with colleagues, who asked him to go back and collect physical samples.

That was easier said than done.

These clams are tiny, with shells measuring only about 10 millimeters. It wasn't until March 2019, after nine unsuccessful trips, that he found another, solitary clam, just as he was about to give up.

A tiny C. cooki clam (bottom center), sitting next to a chiton in the tidepools of Naples Point. (Jeff Goddard)

SEE ALSO: Fossils of car-sized dinosaur-era sea turtle unearthed in Spain

Back in the lab researchers thought they had a new species - until they checked fossil records. They realized it was an ancient crab whose 28,000-year-old fossil described by George Willett in 1937.

Interesting side note: Willet collected upwards of a million fossil specimens from the area but never found that one particular crab, which he named Bornia cooki -- although it has since been re-classified as Cymatioa cooki. Willet named it after Edna Cook, a collector who owned the only two known fossils.

While Goddard's specimen was in the lab, he struck gold again - finding an empty Cooki shell in the sand.

So how did the clam fly under the radar all this time?



 C. cooki clam found at Naples Point.(Jeff Goddard)

Goddard suspects they were carried north between 2014 and 2016, during a marine heatwave event.

That could explain why there was seemingly no trace of them in the area prior to 2018.

“There is such a long history of shell-collecting and malacology in Southern California — including folks interested in the harder-to-find micro-mollusks — that it's hard to believe no one found even the shells of our little cutie,” Goddard said in a statement.

“The Pacific coast of Baja California has broad intertidal boulder fields that stretch literally for miles, and I suspect that down there Cymatioa cooki is probably living in close association with animals burrowing beneath those boulders.”

See Mysterious Alien-like Ocean Creature Going Viral

Story by Michileen Martin • Yesterday 

In James Cameron‘s Oscar-winning 1989 film The Abyss, he depicts the ocean floor as not being all that different from an alien world. If you watch the video below posted Wednesday on Twitter, you’re not going to have a difficult time imagining what Cameron meant. The mysterious ocean creature in the 20 second long video is a Crinoid, also known as a Feather star, even though the animal looks more akin to some kind of marine fern monster.

By Thanksgiving morning, the video had gone viral; attracting close to 90,000 likes and over 7600 retweets. Even with Twitter facing a somewhat chaotic and uncertain future, the captivating crinoid managed to get plenty of attention.

This is far from the first time a recorded video of a feather star has been released, but it’s still relatively rare to get images of the mysterious creature from the ocean. When National Geographic posted a similar video 6 years ago, the publication spoke to paleontology professor Tomasz K. Baumiller who likened the feather stars to “living fossils.” Baumiller said the crinoids “have a tremendous diversity that traces its roots deep down in the geological past.”

These mysterious invertebrates have been in the ocean for about 200 million years according to Baumiller. While they can be found all over the ocean, the professor says there’s a particularly “diverse” concentration of the feather stars in the western part of the Pacific, near Asia. The video the publication featured–with a feather star whose appendages had an almost zebra-like black-and-white striped pattern–was recorded in Thailand.

The mysterious crinoids are born with a stalk which eventually detaches from the ocean floor, allowing all of the feather stars capable of swimming–National Geographic says some are capable only of crawling along the sea bottom–to do so. They can have as few arms as five or as many as 200. The appendages also come in a wide variety of different colors.


A red feather star© Provided by Giant Freakin Robot

The feather stars’ appendages offer some interesting defenses against predators. Just as lizards may shed their tails when another creature latches onto it, the crinoids can detach their appendages. National Geographic also says some of the feather stars are toxic if ingested.

At the same time, other ocean creatures sometimes utilize the mysterious feather stars as kind of an indirect food source. Smaller aquatic creatures, like snails, live on feather stars; attracting fish who will swim through the crinoids’ appendages to munch on the tiny beasts making their homes there.

Feather stars feed on plankton and dead organic matter they capture in their appendages. According to a 2020 Nerdist article, some of the ocean creatures light up in rainbow colors while feeding; which sure beats a dinner bell.

Related video: Eerie creatures of the deep sea
Duration 1:47
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Lawyer for ‘Freedom Convoy’ organizers facing libel notice over inquiry claims

Story by Rachel Gilmore • Yesterday CBC

Security escort Freedom Corp. counsel Brendan Miller out of the hearing room at the Public Order Emergency Commission, in Ottawa, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022. Justice Paul Rouleau, the inquiry's commissioner, asked security to remove Miller from the hearing after Miller spoke over the commissioner and accused him of refusing to rule on similar applications. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

EDITOR'S NOTE: Enterprise Canada said on Wednesday their original cease-and-desist letter contained a "typo" when it referenced dates in 2021 instead of 2022. Their corrected letter was published on Tuesday afternoon, and the quotes from their updated letter are added below.

A lawyer representing the "Freedom Convoy" organizers is facing a cease-and-desist letter as well as a "forthcoming" notice of libel after allegations he made during the Emergencies Act inquiry on Monday.

Brendan Miller, the counsel representing Freedom Corp., had claimed during comments made at the commission that an employee of the government relations firm Enterprise Canada, Brian Fox, was carrying a Nazi flag during the protests earlier this year.

Read more:
‘Ungovernable’: Mendicino says it was near-impossible to enforce law amid convoy

In a cease and desist letter sent to Miller and published on Enterprise Canada's Twitter on Tuesday, lawyer Jeff Galway from Blakes, Cassels and Graydon said the "unfounded accusation" is "highly defamatory."

"It is irresponsible and reckless to use the Commission's process to make these false and damaging allegations in a highly visible forum," the letter said.

"These accusations could not be more baseless, and are causing immediate and irreparable harm to our clients."

Miller levied the accusation on Monday while questioning the head of Canada's spy agency, David Vigneault, during a hearing for the Public Order Emergencies Commission.

Miller had alleged that the Enterprise employee had been carrying a Nazi flag during the convoy.

Video: CSIS head urged Trudeau to invoke Emergencies Act during convoy, inquiry hears

When Vigneault responded that he hasn't testified to that, Miller fired back, "Yeah, you haven't testified to it, but you know that to be true, don't you?"

The commissioner then cut in and chastised Miller's conduct, saying the question was "not a fair statement."

Related video: Freedom Convoy lawyer kicked out of Emergency Act inquiry
Duration 0:49
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Enterprise Canada says convoy lawyer's allegations are 'highly defamatory'

cbc.ca

Convoy protest organizers testify at Emergencies Act inquiry

cbc.ca


In the cease and desist sent to Miller on Tuesday, Galway explained that Fox "was not in Ottawa at any time in January or February of 2022."

"His most recent visit to Ottawa, to the best of his recollection, was to attend the Manning conservative action conference in 2019," it added.

The letter went on to say that Fox was "not involved" in the "Freedom Convoy" protests and added that, "contrary to the misinformation (Miller's) statements have engendered online, Brian Fox is not a Liberal Party member, supporter, or collaborator."

"He is a longstanding member of and contributor to the Conservative Party of Canada, and participated in the recent leadership process to support Mr. (Pierre) Poilievre," it said.

"Your implication that Mr. Fox colluded with the incumbent government to discredit protestors has absolutely no basis in fact, and is reckless."

Read more:
CSIS head advised Trudeau to invoke Emergencies Act during convoy, inquiry hears

Shortly after Miller made the allegation, social media lit up with claims about the Enterprise employee. Some users on Twitter called him a "paid actor," while others questioned whether he was a "Liberal plant."

The letter concludes by demanding Miller "cease and desist immediately" and "correct" his "false statements."

"A formal notice of libel is forthcoming, and we expressly reserve all of our clients' legal rights and remedies."

Speaking outside the inquiry on Tuesday prior to the cease and desist being made public, Miller faced questions from reporters asking whether he was concerned about being sued for the allegation he made.

"No, I'm not. Because guess what? Truth is a full defence," Miller responded.

"We also have privileges for things of which we say in a courtroom -- and the reason that that exists is so that lawyers can do their job and witnesses can tell the truth."

He said he didn't care about Enterprise's "little announcement yesterday," referring to the government relation firm's statement that they were considering their legal options.

"I could care less," Miller said.

"If they want to bring that, I would be happy to do so and defend it, and get discovery, and get their records."

Miller proceeded to reiterate the assertion during his questioning of Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino on Tuesday afternoon, after receiving the cease and desist.

The Freedom Corp. lawyer also told the inquiry he had filed an "affidavit" from an individual "who identified this man, and the man is Mr. Brian Fox, according to that affidavit."

Murray Mandryk: Sask. issues $500 cheques while SHC units rat infested

Opinion by Murray Mandryk • Leader Post

Dominika Kosowska was invited by NDP to Monday's question period to tell the story of her rat-plagued Saskatchewan Housing Corporation apartment.

The sound of scratching in the walls in her Saskatoon apartment is one that Dominika Kosowska never heard in her previous homes in her native Poland or when she lived in England.

It’s a sound most Saskatchewan-born people blessed with the luxury of a quality home don’t have to live with, either. Most of us don’t have to worry about mice and rats in the walls or bats in the attic.

Unlike Kosowska, most of us also don’t live in Saskatchewan Housing Corporation units — some 3,000 of which now sit vacant in this province in various states of disrepair like the fourplex on Regina’s Retallack Street that blew up 10 days ago.

The disconnect here is staggering.

A bad public housing strategy has clearly caught up to this Saskatchewan Party government.  

This is not a good look for an administration that recently boasted the best population growth in any quarter since Statistics Canada began tracking numbers — growth, largely driven by immigrants like Kosowska, who is still reliant on SHC housing after eight years in Saskatchewan.

Yet the government clearly wants to push the perception that it takes care of those settling here for a better life, through support of charitable programs like Dress for Success.

It further revels in the notion that “our resources belong to everyone in Saskatchewan, so everyone in Saskatchewan should benefit” — as Premier Scott Moe recently reminded us in that letter you’ve likely received that accompanied your $500 affordability tax credit cheque.

Multis e gentibus vires — From many peoples, strength — is our provincial motto.

But does everyone benefitting mean handing the same cheque to everyone? Or does it mean truly offering real opportunity to people like Kosowska who have come here to contribute?

After 15 years in office, this Sask. Party administration still struggles with the notion that the right spending choices are usually the harder ones. Spending more to fix SHC units would be direct investment in immigrants like Kosowska the government boasts it is attracting.

But, sadly, too often these people are viewed as little more than background fill for feel-good news announcements, rather tha n people who need a little support … like an affordable home free of mice, rats and bats.

“I got stuck in this place because relocation is not always an option,” said Kosowska, invited to the legislature by the NDP Opposition in Monday’s question period. “For myself as an immigrant single mother, I spent the past seven years building the safety net within the community where I live.

“I don’t have family here. I don’t have any support. For me to relocate to the other side of the city, I have to uproot my son’s life. All friendships. All of my support network. It’s not as simple as you say.”

Kosowska said SHC offered her another unit across town, but that means an added cost of gas to get her nine-year-old to nearby Prairie Christian Academy or for working with her clientele in her work as a trauma counsellor specializing in domestic and sexual violence and intergenerational trauma.

“The moment I leave that apartment, someone else will be put in that apartment,” said Kosowska.

And, such as it is, she has to make her rodent-infested apartment her home. “They call me neighbour mama. It’s very hard for me to leave that neighbourhood,” said the former teacher. “I have been surrounded by children my entire life.”

So Kosowska has instead become an advocate for other immigrants living in her building — many of whom struggle with English or don’t have Internet access.

For now, it’s back to the business of sealing and plugging holes, setting snap traps for the mice, rats and the occasional bat. “It’s never boring in there, you know,” Kosowska said.

But it would be better if government made a few better choices.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

Related

Murray Mandryk: Vacant housing units amid homeless crisis unfathomable

Murray Mandryk: Population stats good news and spin for Sask. Party

"

The Rats in the Walls" by H. P. Lovecraft

https://www.hplovecraft.com › writings › texts › fiction

Peter Friedrichsen: Sask. health-care system in danger of collapse

Opinion by Peter Friedrichsen • Yesterday 

Ambulances are parked outside Regina General Hospital on Thursday, January 27, 2022 in Regina. KAYLE NEIS / Regina Leader-Post

A few days ago I heard on the radio that a four-year-old girl in Regina suffering from a brain tumour could not get a hospital bed for over 20 hours.

How is it that a hospital — in the capital city — isn’t able to accommodate a little girl in the fight of her life?

The stark reality is: Doctors, nurses and patients young and old have all been telling our provincial government that our health-care system is collapsing. Yet our government fails to acknowledge that our hospitals, clinics, labs — and all of the people working in them — have been sending SOS signals for months, if not years.

I see our public health system as if it’s the Titanic and Saskatchewan people are the passengers. Our state-of-the-art universal health-care system was built 60 years ago. But lately we’ve been dodging icebergs and now we’re on a collision course.

Last year, we ran out of ventilators and taxpayers paid for 22 people to get care in Ontario. This spring, an ICU doctor left the province and this fall a nurse was burnt out after only eight months of work.

And now, they still refuse to use public resource revenue windfalls or federal COVID-19 funding and acquiesce to the Liberal-NDP “costly coalition” as hospitals swell, families cannot find doctors or children’s medication and we plunge into flu season.

We must remember that the Titanic didn’t simply break in two. It was the captain’s and crew’s decisions that led it to sink. We must recognize the problem isn’t the system, but the decisions being made by those who are in charge of it.

The Saskatchewan Party government needs to immediately fund and restore our public health-care system — which includes shelters and harm reduction facilities. Our compromised health-care system can no longer respond to emergencies such as the Humboldt Broncos crash or the massacre at James Smith Cree Nation.

We’re taking on water and people have already perished. Just like the boiler men and third-class passengers of Titanic; those working on the front lines and most vulnerable are at the highest risk. Now the water has risen and even folks like me with good health and decent jobs are feeling stranded.

We cannot continue on a course toward outsourcing the public services and institutions we rely on for our safety and well-being.

In the past decade the province privatized MRI services, yet last year patients were expected to travel out of province to pay to get the procedure done. This move did not improve care; rather, it put an extra burden on Saskatchewan people.

A private health-care system boasts false security, like the watertight compartments that inevitably fail with a large enough hole. A private health-care system only benefits the wealthy at the expense of the disadvantaged and oppressed.

A private health-care system is the first-class passengers watching the flares like they’re fireworks on the first lifeboats out. People here are sinking — and literally freezing to death — and our elected leaders running our province fail to notice.

They fail to recognize that we have collided with an iceberg and all the rest of us can hear is mayday.

I dread that more four-year-old kids are left without a warm safe bed in a hospital, or that homeless folks are dying alone in the cold. I’m bewildered that the doctors, nurses and other medical workers are rendered a “heroic” band, drowning as they continue working through burnout.

The minister of health is not the noble captain who knows his grave fault and stays with the boat, but the selfishly unapologetic first mate who said we had to change our course — into the iceberg dead ahead. Bundle up and find your lifejackets, Saskatchewan. I hope there are enough lifeboats.

Peter Friedrichsen is a non-profit manager in Prince Albert with a background in economics and community development, particularly with Indigenous communities in north-central Saskatchewan.

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