Canada 'watching closely' as Biden pressed to fix Inflation Reduction Act 'glitches'

Yesterday 

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that Canada will be "watching closely" as the United States responds to complaints from Europe about the North American protectionism built into President Joe Biden's signature climate change initiative.


Canada 'watching closely' as Biden pressed to fix Inflation Reduction Act 'glitches'© Provided by The Canadian Press

Biden received an earful from French President Emmanuel Macron about "super aggressive" climate incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act — incentives that favour manufacturers in Canada and Mexico, as well as the U.S.

It wasn't always that way. Biden's original Build Back Better package included a tax credit scheme for electric vehicles that reserved the most generous incentives for U.S.-assembled EVs built with union labour.

That package fell apart, but its 11th-hour replacement — a kitchen-sink, pre-midterms effort framed as an inflation fighter — brought North American vehicles and critical minerals into the fold, thanks in part to concerted Canadian lobbying.

Now, Europe is complaining about the very aspects of the law that prompted sighs of relief from north of the border, and Biden has acknowledged "glitches" that he insisted last week were never meant to alienate allies.

"It's something we're watching closely and we're engaged with our European counterparts, as well as our American counterparts, to make sure that we're working together," Trudeau told a news conference Monday.

He was with Ontario Premier Doug Ford in Ingersoll, Ont., to celebrate the launch of Canada's first full-scale commercial EV plant, a GM Canada facility that's on tap to build 50,000 electric delivery vans a year by 2025.

Whatever steps the Biden administration ends up taking to placate other disgruntled allies, Canada's auto sector isn't afraid of a little friendly competition, Trudeau suggested.

"We have a free trade deal with Europe that we signed a few years ago … which is an advantage Canada has over the United States when it comes to accessing the European market," he said.

"We're always going to focus on remaining competitive. We're always going to focus on making sure that we can sell not just into the United States, and manufacture here in Canada for the United States, but also for partners around the world."

With Macron at his side, Biden last week characterized one of the most important aspects of the law for Canada — content requirements for critical minerals that favour countries with a free trade agreement with the U.S. — as an error.


"He didn't mean, literally, 'free trade agreement,'" Biden said, an apparent reference to Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia swing-vote Democrat who successfully retooled the legislation with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

"It was never intended, when I wrote the legislation, to exclude folks who were co-operating with us. That was not the intention."

And yet that was exactly what happened with the original iteration of the bill, Biden's doomed Build Back Better legislation, which triggered an all-hands effort from business leaders, provinces and Ottawa to convince the U.S. it would be shooting itself in the foot, economically speaking.

"Our only objective was the make sure that we didn't get excluded," said Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, who spent much of the last year in D.C. to help make Canada's case.

"If it includes everybody else, well, we compete with everybody else anyway."

Volpe called it a bonus — "maybe an accidental bonus" — that for the moment, the law only includes the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But that was never the ultimate intent, he said.

"To be frank, the threat was that if it was only American, we were in big trouble, because we sell 80 per cent of the cars we make to those consumers."

Monday also happened to mark the third meeting of the Trade and Technology Council of the U.S. and the European Union, a coalition of senior leaders tasked by Biden back in 2021 with fostering their own bilateral trade ties.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who co-chairs the council, made it clear that Europe's concerns about the Inflation Reduction Act were top of mind during the group's meeting in Maryland.

"I think we advanced that discussion," said Blinken, noting that the group talked about electric and commercial vehicle tax credits, critical minerals and supply chains.

The U.S. and the EU have already established a task force to explore possible solutions, with Biden's own public comments helping to ramp up the urgency of those talks, he added.

"We are committed to moving forward together — not at the expense of each other, but to the benefit of each other."

Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president of the European Commission and one of Blinken's co-chairs, acknowledged that sense of urgency, noting that Europe, too, has its own work to do to improve its environmental bona fides.

"The most important thing is probably that the U.S. is fully engaged in fighting climate change," Vestager said.

"We can solve the things that are of concern — we have showed that before, we'll show that again — but the most important message I think for everyone is that we're together in what is needed to fight climate change."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

Richard Serra's art installation hard to miss in Qatar desert, once you get there

Yesterday 

ZEKREET, QATAR — Art stands tall in the desert some 75 kilometres northwest of Doha.


Richard Serra's art installation hard to miss in Qatar desert, once you get there© Provided by The Canadian Press

You need a rugged vehicle and no small resolve to find it, given signage is almost non-existent. The last few kilometres take time as you cross the desert on a slightly flattened but irregular path well away from the closest blacktop. Proceed with caution.

But "East-West/West-East" by American sculptor Richard Serra is worth the effort.

Completed in 2014, the installation comprises four giant steel plates — the outer two stand 16.7 metres high and the inner two 14.7 metres — and span more than a kilometre. Slightly different in height, to compensate for the difference in ground level, they line up like enormous fence posts in the barren desert flanked by gypsum plateaus at some points.

If not the middle of nowhere, it's well on the way.

Possibly the last place on earth you'd expect to see "one of the most significant artists of his generation," as Serra is dubbed by the Gagosian Gallery which has showcased his work in both New York and France.

"Taking art to the people," is how Qatar Museums, the country's arts and culture arm, explains it..

Depending on the direction you approach, you see only part of the art. As you get closer, the dark plates get bigger and bigger and you get to see all four.

"After the perceptual bombardment of Doha, with its architecture dominated by idiosyncratic shapes and kitschy facades, the sensuous experience prompted by the rigorous abstraction of the (desert) sculpture is at once bracing and sensitizing," wrote Artforum magazine.

"Serra reminds the viewer, like 19th-century German Romantic artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, of man’s frailty in the face of nature’s omnipotence," added Numero magazine.


For non art-critics, imagine the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey" on steroids and times four in the desert. Stand next to one and you feel like an ant — a very hot ant under the blazing Qatari sun.

You'll also likely be alone, albeit under review from what seemed like security in a nearby pickup truck.

The 84-year-old Serra, who worked in steel mills during college, is known for his large-scale abstract steel sculptures.

There is another in Doha itself. A sculpture called "7" — the number seven has spiritual significance in Islamic culture — was commissioned by Qatar Museums.

Built out of seven steel plates, it faces the sea at MIA Park, adjacent to the Museum of Islamic Art.

Like a billionaire stocking his mansion with objets d'art, the government of Qatar has dug deep into its oil-filled coffers to decorate the country with world-class art.

There are big-ticket art works all over.

In 2013, Qatar Museums Authority head Sheikha al-Mayassa al-Thani, the daughter of the emir of Qatar, was listed atop ArtReview magazine's annual Power 100 list "on account of her organization’s vast purchasing power and willingness to spend at a rate estimated to be (US)$1 billion a year — in order to get top works of art for its Doha museums," ArtReview said.

"Le Pouce," a giant golden thumb by French artist Cesar Baldaccini, is front and centre in Doha's Souq Waqif market. French-American artist Louise Bourgeois' "Maman," a giant spider that can also be found outside Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada, stands inside the Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC), which doubles as the World Cup's main press centre.

Another edition of "Maman," one of seven, was sold for US$32 million by Christie's in 2019.

"The Miraculous Journey" by English artist Damien Hirst is hard to miss outside Sidra Medicine centre just down the street from the QNCC. The 14 monumental bronze sculptures chronicle the gestation of a fetus inside a uterus, from conception to birth — ending with a statue of a 14-metre-tall anatomically correct baby boy.

---

Follow @NeilMDavidson on Twitter

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press

DNA analysis of soil from paw prints could help save Sumatra's tigers

Story by Katie Hunt • Yesterday 

Dr. Mrinalini Watsa, a researcher at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in California, scoops up soil from a fresh paw print made by Rakan, a 4-year-old male Sumatran tiger who lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and secures it in a specimen jar.

Researchers test a breakthrough way to track tigers
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Duration 2:54

Back in her lab, Watsa analyzes the sample using a small electrophoresis device that’s connected to a smartphone. Jackpot. She’s able to detect Rakan’s DNA in the soil.

The proof of concept experiment is part of her work adapting existing genome-sequencing technology so it can be easily used to detect individual tigers in the wild using their DNA. Watsa hopes the application will make it easier to track Rakan’s wild counterparts in Sumatra, Indonesia’s biggest island, and tiger populations across the rest of Asia.

“Now, instead of saying we’ve seen about 40 prints in this 3-kilometer-square (1.8-mile-square) area, actually you can see those 40 prints come down to four tigers and that gives us so much more power in terms of how we go about counting them,” she said in the latest episode of CNN Original Series “This Is Life with Lisa Ling.”

All living organisms, including humans, shed genetic material into the environment when they excrete waste, bleed, or shed skin or fur.

Conservation scientists are increasingly making use of this environmental DNA — whether it’s in soil, water, snow or even air — to gather information about particular species or ecosystems. It can alert scientists to the effects of the climate crisis or the existence of harmful pathogens, and help them track animal populations.

In her experiments to date, Watsa has been able to detect Sumatran tiger DNA in soil and determine the sex of the animal. Watsa wants to refine her approach so she can identify individual tigers before testing it in the field.


Paw prints made by 4-year-old Sumatran tiger Rakan at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park help researcher Mrinalini Watsa develop a cost-effective technique to detect tiger DNA in soil. - Courtesy San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance/Tammy Spratt
Success story?

Tiger numbers have increased 40% in seven years, from 3,200 in 2015 to 4,500 in 2022, according to the latest estimates released in July by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

This promising population growth has been hailed as a conservation success story, but Watsa and other tiger experts say it’s not mission accomplished. Tigers still hold endangered status on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species and are a fraction of the 100,000-strong population that roamed Asia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Plus, the headline figures mask a more nuanced picture.

Tiger populations are growing in some places in India and Nepal, but the big cats are clawing out a much more fragile existence in Southeast Asia. Tigers have been extinct in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos since 2000 and are teetering on the brink in Malaysia. In Sumatra, where Watsa’s work is focused, it’s thought that fewer than 800 tigers remain, with only two protected areas containing more than 25 breeding female tigers.

What’s more, it’s not clear to what degree the detected increase in numbers is down to intensified and improved tracking techniques or actual population increases. Tiger counts are rarely based on direct sightings; instead, population numbers are inferred from tracks or pugmarks, or how often tigers are detected by hidden cameras.

“It’s a cautious optimism. Tiger numbers are better known than they’ve ever been. More than a rebound, I’d say it’s a much more accurate estimate,” said Abishek Harihar, the deputy director of the tiger program at big cat conservation group Panthera.

“A lot of so called increases are more to do with better estimation methods,” he added.

Watsa hopes the DNA detection methods she is developing, with help from Rakan, will improve the tracking of tiger populations in the wild. - Courtesy San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance/Tammy Spratt

For example, Harihar said that India, which accounts for about 64% of the world’s wild tiger population, conducts a survey every four years — but the area surveyed has increased over the past 12 years, making it hard to truly understand population trends.

Population monitoring in India is typically done using camera traps, Harihar added. He believes DNA techniques could help scientists better understand how some tigers disperse between different areas, which can be hard to pick up with cameras.

“It’s good to understand where the different tigers come from and then we can secure these dispersal routes,” he added. “DNA techniques will also be useful where camera trapping is difficult,” he added, such as the remote, mountainous regions in Southeast Asia.

Watsa belives the techniques she is pioneering will overcome some of the weaknesses of camera-based monitoring.

“The camera is only looking at a very small radius around it, so an animal could walk just outside of that and it would be missed entirely. This means they have a massive margin of error,” she said.

In developing techniques that are more cost effective and easy to use, Watsa is aiming for more accurate tiger population numbers.

Tiger trade

Watsa also has hopes her portable DNA analysis techniques could be used for forensic investigation. The biggest threat to tigers today is poaching and trade in their body parts, which are prized for traditional medicine in places like China.

The analysis of tiger DNA in soil samples could help forensic investigations in the battle against the illegal wildlife trade. - Courtesy San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance/Ken Bohn

Tigers only occupy 45% of the 2.1 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles) of remaining tiger habitat that still exists in South Asia and East Asia, an indication of the magnitude of poaching, Harihar said.

Analysis of DNA samples from confiscated skins, bones and animals could help identify tiger populations most at risk from poaching and track down people and organizations involved in the illegal tiger trade, Watsa said.

Between 2000 and June 2022, there were 2,205 confiscations of tigers and their body parts across 50 different countries, according to Traffic, a group that monitors the illegal wildlife trade. Of these, one-third involved whole tigers, with 665 found alive and 654 found dead.

In the United States, the popular 2020 Netflix documentary “Tiger King” publicized the exploitation of tigers for entertainment. The Big Cat Public Safety Act, a piece of legislation that would set limits on private ownership of tigers and help prevent big cats from entering the illegal animal trade, was passed by the House of Representatives in late July.

CNN.com

WAR? WHAT WAR?!

Komatsu CEO: no immediate plan to withdraw from Russia


TOKYO (Reuters) - Komatsu Ltd, the world's second-largest construction machinery maker after Caterpillar Inc, has no immediate plan to withdraw from its Russian operations, it said on Monday, but did not rule out exiting the country in the future.


FILE PHOTO: A Komatsu representative cleans a D65PXi bulldozer at the Komatsu booth at CONEXPO-CON/AGG convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas© Thomson Reuters

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, Komatsu, which also competes with Sany Heavy Industry and Hitachi Construction Machinery Co Ltd, halted shipments to Russia as well as local production but still offers maintenance services for its machinery already in the country.

Komatsu has a manufacturing plant in Yaroslavl, Russia.

"At the moment, like we said in April, we are not considering withdrawal. But various developments could take place as we go forward," Komatsu Chief Executive Hiroyuki Ogawa told reporters in an online interview.

"There may come a time when we will need to decide whether or not to withdraw (from Russia). But that's not something we are considering at the moment."

Russia and other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) accounted for 7% of Komatsu's heavy machinery sales in the year to end-March 2022.

Komatsu in October posted a 75% jump in net profit for the first half of the current business year thanks to strong heavy machinery demand and a softer yen, and raised its full-year net profit forecast by 32% to a record 298 billion yen ($2.21 billion).

Ogawa warned, however, that global demand will likely slow in the next business year due to higher interest rates, inflation and slower economic growth.

"I don't necessarily think demand in the next business year will be good when compared with this year's," Ogawa said.

He also said Komatsu has no plan to pull out of its ammunition business, which he said accounted for less than 1% of total revenue, although it has practically withdrawn from armoured vehicle operations.

"As for our ammunition business...We are conducting the operation as our way of contributing to national defence, and we will keep on doing it," Ogawa said.

($1 = 134.9800 yen)

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Apple explores moving some iPad production to India, sources say
Story by Seema Mody • 

Apple has talked to Indian officials about locating some iPad manufacturing in the country as U.S.-China relations sour and China's Covid crackdowns snarl supply chains.
Apple already manufactures older iPhones and some iPhone 14s in India.
The biggest barrier now is a lack of local manufacturing expertise.


Apple chief executive Tim Cook leaves the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai

© Provided by CNBC

India is exploring options to bring some of Apple's iPad production to the country from China, according to two sources close to the Indian government. The tech giant is said to be holding ongoing discussions with officials. No concrete plans have been made, but if the effort is successful, it would expand Apple's footprint in the country.

Apple announced earlier this year it had begun assembling its flagship iPhone 14 in southern India. The tech giant has been producing the older models of the iPhone in the country for a few years.

The tech giant's ambitions to diversify more of its supply chain away from China follows protests across the country over the past two weeks amid Beijing's strict zero-Covid policy. Apple warned in early November that iPhone shipments would be delayed due to the lockdowns in China, and analysts have been trimming iPhone estimates for the crucial holiday quarter.

The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Apple is actively looking to shift production out of China to other countries in Asia, including India and Vietnam.

However, sources caution that a lack of highly skilled talent and individuals with expertise in building highly complex devices like the iPad could slow down these plans in India. The foreign policy backdrop also doesn't help, with tensions growing between India and China. The two countries have squared off in recent years over territorial disputes resulting in escalated military presence at the India-China border.

Gene Munster at Loop Ventures estimates that 10% of iPhones are manufactured in India, but he expects production to increase at a slow pace.

"I think in five years, 35% will be manufactured in India," added Munster. "I think Apple will add iPhone production to other countries outside of India and China in the next five years. Perhaps Vietnam, Malaysia and the USA."

In a note to clients today, Piper Jaffray's Harsh Kumar wrote: "While Apple has made efforts to move production out of China, in our opinion, India still accounts for less than 5% of total iPhone 14 production and is likely to help only to a limited degree at this time."

Apple declined to comment.

YOUNG FASCISTS OF AMERIKA
Milo Yiannopoulos Fired From Kanye West Campaign: Report
Story by Peter Wade • Yesterday 

Milo Yiannopoulos Fired From Kanye West Campaign: Report© Provided by Rolling Stone

Milo Yiannopoulos has been released from his position on Kanye West’s 2024 presidential campaign, The Daily Beast reported.

“Ye and I have come to the mutual conclusion that I should step away from his political team,” Yiannopoulos wrote on his Telegram account on Sunday. “Ye is a genius whom I have come to love and respect. We remain friends. I will continue to pray for Ye and all his endeavors.”

Yiannopoulos, whom the Anti-Defamation League describes as a “misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, transphobic troll,” was West’s informal campaign manager and among the first people the rapper brought in to what Kanye says is a legitimate campaign for president. Yiannopoulos’ stint as Kanye’s campaign manager followed his congressional internship with far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene this past summer.

Yiannopoulos recently claimed credit for setting up the now-infamous dinner meeting between Trump, West, and white supremacist and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes. Yiannopoulos told NBC News he was “the architect” of the plan to have Fuentes accompany himself and West to Mar-a-Lago in the hopes that Fuentes could get into their dinner with Trump.

“I wanted to show Trump the kind of talent that he’s missing out on by allowing his terrible handlers to dictate who he can and can’t hang out with,” he told NBC News, explaining why he arranged for Trump to meet Fuentes. “I also wanted to send a message to Trump that he has systematically repeatedly neglected, ignored, abused the people who love him the most, the people who put him in office, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the end.”

Yiannopoulos added that he arranged the meeting “just to make Trump’s life miserable.”

And it seemed to work. As soon as news of the dinner broke, Trump suffered backlash, including from members of his own party, for meeting with extremists like Fuentes and West. “He tried to f*** me. He’s crazy. He can’t beat me,” Trump said of West and his political ambitions, according to an NBC source.

Despite announcing his intent to run last month, West has not yet filed the paperwork for a 2024 presidential campaign. The rapper launched an official run in 2020 and earned 60,000 votes across the 12 states where he was on the ballot. This past week, West proclaimed, “I like Hitler,” and said, “We got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time,” during an appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars show. West has lost lucrative business partnerships, including a deal with Adidas estimated at $1.4 billion, due to his recent antisemitism.

Trump took to Truth Social to defend himself over the dinner. He said he was just trying to “help” West because he has “been decimated in his business and virtually everything else.” West “has always been good to me,” Trump added.

The meeting was such a PR disaster Trump’s team is reportedly increasing security around the former president — including vetting everyone before he meets with them and assigning a member of his senior campaign staff to be with him at all times. They hope this will prevent him from again accidentally breaking bread with far-right extremists — or at least with the ones who aren’t on the Republican Party’s approved list.

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Ontario education workers accept labour contract with province

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) -Education workers in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, have voted to accept a labour deal with the provincial government, union representatives said Monday.

The vote comes after about 55,000 education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) - a group including education assistants and library workers - called off a strike on Nov. 7 after two days when Ontario's government said it would rescind a law imposing a contract and using a legal clause to override workers' right to strike.

The provincial government "thought we'd roll over, we'd suck it up and we'd accept less than we were worth," CUPE Ontario School Board Council of Unions President Laura Walton told reporters.

More than 40,000 of the union's members voted, she said, with 73% voting in favour of the agreement. The educators were demanding better pay and more frontline staff in schools.

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in a tweet the deal was "a great outcome that keeps kids learning in class."

"We are so pleased we've been able to reach an agreement that has been overwhelmingly ratified by the members that keeps kids in classrooms and preserves the learning experience."

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Alexander Smith)

CUPE members vote yes on less-than-ideal deal

Education workers in Ontario have voted to accept the four year deal offered by the provincial government.

The ratification vote brings lengthy, and at times contentious, negotiations between the two sides to a close after strike action saw schools across Ontario close in early November, and threatened to once again weeks later.

While CUPE-OBSCU President Laura Walton said the government's deal "falls short" as the bargaining team prepared to present it to members, the prevailing belief was that it was the best offer this government would make to education workers.

CUPE 1480 Local President Erin Provost said members are happy to at least not have to give up ground on a number of things like sick days, but that the deal isn't really a big victory for CUPE members.

"We didn't lose anything," Provost said.

"They had concessions for a lot of things and we didn't end up losing anything. We kept everything basically as status quo and we ended up with a dollar an hour raise. It isn't nearly enough, but it's more than we've seen in over a decade."

Provost said the bargaining team wasn't sure the Ontario government would even rejoin them at the table, and worried that interest arbitration could lead to a less favourable deal for workers.

76% of 55,000 education workers participated in the ratification vote between November 24 and December 4, with 73% of those voting in favour of the agreement.

In a statement from CUPE, Laura Walton said she and her coworkers stood up to the Ford government's bullying, and being able to actually have members agree to their own deal is notable.

“This collective agreement is our first in 10 years to be freely bargained instead of forced on us with legislative interference,” Walton said.

“It’s the product of democracy in action – workers having the freedom to negotiate and to withdraw our labour if necessary.”

Provost said that the recent court decision to overturn the public sector wage-suppressing Bill 124 didn't really have any bearing on members' willingness to go back to the table, expecting that any effort to make right to employees would likely come in the form of a lump sum payment rather than adjusting wages retroactively.

She says however the Ford government's intent to appeal that decision demonstrates the contempt the government has for its' school children, as the money that will be spent on an expectedly lengthy and rigorous legal challenge could have gone towards supports for students.

"Our students really need those supports and the government is refusing to give it to them," Provost said.

"The majority of our members are disappointed that there was no support for students and nothing put in place for services so our fight there isn't over we're going to continue fighting however we can, that's not just a bargaining issue, that's a government issue."

The bargaining team said that there is no new money for supports or services as part of this deal.

Workers will receive a fixed rate $1 raise every year of the four year agreement, roughly a 3.59% raise for members.

Owen Fullerton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, YGK News

BC

The keepers of Cheewaht: Restoring an ecosystem for generations to come

By Alexandra Mehl

Cheewaht Lake, BC - Off the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island, inland from the West Coast Trail, is a quiet and remote lake brimming with vibrant ecosystems. From trumpeter swans to black bears, the Cheewaht Lake watershed provides a home for dense and rare biodiversity.

The Cheewaht Lake watershed is on the traditional territory of Ditidaht First Nation, who, for thousands of years, managed the area from villages along the coast at the mouth of the Cheewaht River.

According to the Government of Canada website, in 1973 logging practices began to pose a threat to the pristine ecosystem, which concerned Ditidaht First Nation and environmental groups. Cheewaht Lake and salmon-bearing streams became a part of the West Coast Trail Unit of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve to protect the area.

Though the Parks Canada protected Cheewaht Lake from industrial activity, logging swept through up to the park boundary, which would impact the Cheewaht Lake watershed years later.

Cla-oose Riverkeepers

Historically, the village of Cla-oose managed the salmon population traveling to Cheewhat Lake, and further upstream to spawn.

“It was… managed well, pre-contact,” said Paul Sieber, the Ditidaht First Nation’s natural resource manager.

They harvested the salmon with fishing weirs and traps. They would methodologically select harvest for the village, and then release the females, said Sieber.

The fishing weirs and the way that the salmon were managed fed the people in the village of Cla-oose for thousands of years, he continued.

Sieber recalls stories that he heard from elders.

“There was a designated riverkeeper, a Cheewaht riverkeeper family, at least one,” he said. “They collectively maintained it [at] the head.”

“[They had] a certain family or combination of families that would actually manage the fishery,” continued Sieber. “They just managed it for the benefit of all, and for the fishermen. They weren't allowed to overfish it.”

The area not only holds cultural significance for Ditidaht because of the salmon, but for the many traditional resources it provided for the people, said Sieber.

“It’s very important to the people,” he said. “It’s so culturally important as a food resource.”

Merging Boundaries

When Mike Wright, a registered professional biologist and owner of M.C. Wright and Associates Ltd., began research at Cheewaht Lake watershed in 1984, he said the streams were in “pristine form” prior to industrial logging.

That same year the industry logged northeast of Cheewaht Lake up to the park boundary, though it didn’t impact Sockeye tributaries, said Wright. In 1986 logging in the upper reaches of a stream leading to Cheewaht Lake started, he continued. This forestry activity affected S-2, one of the three streams that feed the lake.

According to the Government of Canada, at this time Ditidaht First Nation limited their fishing capacity in the area to preserve the salmon population.

“There's usually a 10-year window before we really start to see things change,” said Wright.

However, in 1989, a sediment wedge and log jam ruptured, which sent gravel and woody debris downstream. This destroyed an area in the stream where coho and sockeye spawned, including the eggs in that area, explained Wright. The woody debris collected at the confluence between S-1 (Stream 1) and S-2, which interrupted the waterflow of S-1 and S-2, he continued.

“We didn't see heavy impacts, everything we're experiencing was incremental,” said Wright.

Another issue that emerged from logging was the formation of avulsions, the creation of a new water channel, said Wright.

“You're taking water that would have been more concentrated to transport sediment, and now you're losing that because it's going elsewhere,” said Wright. “There's all these things that get layered on that make incubation success very difficult.”

B.C. Timber Sales hired a specialist who helped determine and design a way to manage the debris jam and sediment transport, he said.

“There's a lot of investment by industry to get the study, [and] get enough information, so that we could start talking about restoration,” said Wright.

The same specialist was hired by Western Forest Products to design a sediment trap for S-3, he said.

The sediment traps were built at the top of S-2 and S-3, where gravel and woody debris would be held and emptied. Wright said that the basin filled almost annually.

“What we had to do is get to a point where we were controlling that sediment so that we could start to plan to work down below,” said Wright.

“[It] was a real wake up, then the populations were at high risk of being extirpated,” noted Wright, reflecting upon 2014.

When the finger pointing stopped

In 2017, the Cheewaht Restoration Working Group was re-established to collaborate on ways to restore salmon spawning streams in the Cheewaht Lake that had been impacted by logging.

The working group is made up of a diverse group of representatives. Participation comes from the Ditidaht First Nation, Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council/Uu-a-thluk, Parks Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Nitinaht Hatchery, the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (South Island), British Columbia Timber Sales, Western Forest Products, the Teal-Jones Group, biological consultant MC Wright and Associates Ltd., as well as the environmental non-governmental organization West Coast Aquatic.

“When we created the working group we said, ‘Look, we all know how we got here’,” said Wright. “The finger pointing stops…but we all came together to work towards a solution.”

Sieber said that it was an intermittent process to come together and discuss restoration.

“Without the industry and the First Nations, and DFO [representatives] coming together, that funding wouldn't have been approved,” said Sieber. “They needed the background and a justification to move forward with the project.”

Parks Canada received a letter from Ditidaht nation urging them to address restoration in the creek, said Yuri Zharikov, an ecologist for Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

“We put together a proposal for the work and in formulating the proposal, we've been working closely with the nation and other land managers in the area,” said Zharikov.

Parks Canada funded the 1.1 million dollars to cover the cost of the project, according to the Government of Canada website.

“What we didn't know is whether the landscape around the park could be maintained and kept in such a way that no more major impacts would occur,” said Zharikov. “That was the main purpose of the table, to kind of coordinate everybody in a way that would ensure the success of the restoration.”

The regions that had been previously harvested, causing impacts in the Cheewaht Lake watershed, are no longer being logged, said Ryan Abbott, a registered professional biologist at M.C. Wright Associates.

Restoring a system to its natural state

In 2020, the restoration team, which consisted of Ditidaht, Parks Canada, M.C. Wright, Roc-Star Enterprises Ltd., and Nitinaht River Fish Hatchery, hit the ground running beginning phase one of the onsite restoration of S-1, S-2, and S-3.

When the project started Abbott described the streams as “choked with gravel.” First, they would need an excavator to remove any excess gravel. They began by building a temporary corduroy road, so that the excavator could be brought to the remote location, he explained.

The project was completed with no environmental catastrophe and with limited access to equipment, explains Abbott.

The team removed a total of 3,206 square metres of gravel, which is over ten times the capacity of the sediment basins at the top of S-2.

“Not only do you have to remove the gravel and try to make the creek stable again. But you have to establish a split where the two creeks diverge from one another in a way that's going to actually last,” said Abbott.

The same specialist that designed the sediment basins at the top of S-2 and S-3 also designed a flow splitting structure at the confluence of S-1 and S-2.

“We had to try and figure out a way to make a stable split in this creek, where you're going to actually re-establish those historic two channels that are going to share the flow between one another,” said Abbott.

In phase two, which occurred in 2021, the team focused on improving the flow splitter, removing features that contributed to blockages, and anchoring woody debris along the streams.

“What wood does, one of its big functions in a creek like this, especially a creek that can move a lot of material…it's the driver of the habitat,” said Abbott.

Abbott explains that by anchoring wood along the stream, they are able to facilitate the creation of long-term pools because of the increased water pressure and ability to scour gravel.

“We tried to do what we could with the materials that were on site,” said Abbott. “We also tried to keep with the aesthetic of a park, where you have this kind of natural look.”

The fluvial process, a healthy system

The consistent delivery of gravel that continues from the sediment trap about one kilometre upstream from the anadromous barrier is what made this restoration project particularly complicated, said Abbott.

“Gravel will continue to come, over time. And that's just part of what they call the fluvial process,” he said. “Rivers, they move more than just water…they basically transport the land, off mountains and onto the beaches.”

Every system transports sediment and gravel, however the problem occurs when the system is out of balance, said Abbott.

Abbott said that to continue the movement of gravel, they ensured that there isn't as much wood or features in the way. He predicts that the streams will have excess gravel for the next 10 to 20 years.

The flow splitter, at the confluence of S-1 and S-2, has a V shape to it in order for woody debris to deflect into either stream and continue traveling, said Wright.

“This should get back into some form of balance,” said Abbott.

Salmon returns

According to the Government of Canada Website, in October 2020 salmon started returning to the Cheewaht Lake watershed to spawn in the streams.

This year hundreds to thousands of fish have been filling the creeks to spawn, while black bears in the area have been feasting.

Since restoration Parks Canada has continued to monitor the area for the immediate results of restoration, said Zharikov. They frequent the streams counting the active fish and carcasses in and around the streams to determine the lifespan of the salmon in the creek, he explains.

Some of the fish are tagged, and when they are scanned it allows Zharikov to understand “what an average individual in the population does,” he said.

This information will then get analyzed, he explained.

“It's a big run this year…the fish are waiting,” said Zharikov. “Almost lining up, there’s just too many of them.”

In coordination with Parks Canada, Ditidaht’s Stewardship and Monitoring program will continue to check on the restored streams and surrounding ecosystems, said Abbott. They will monitor things like rainfall, water quality, stream levels, and invertebrates.

“This project’s really about Ditidaht. And it was important that we made sure that the sockeye run was going to be there for future generations,” said Wright.

In four years, the eggs from this season will return as adults, and spawn in the Cheewaht watershed’s streams.

“We’ll see the results in four years,” said Sieber. “First results.”

Alexandra Mehl, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Ha-Shilth-Sa

ONTARIO
PCs’ Bill 7 constitutionally challenged for charging hospital patients $400 daily when refusing involuntary transfers

When Ontarians first heard the Doug Ford government’s plan to charge hospital patients, mostly seniors, $400 a day if they refused to be involuntarily uprooted from their hospital bed, residents flooded social media with their angry responses.

Now, Bill 7, The More Beds, Better Care Act, is heading to court, after the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) and the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) launched a Constitutional Challenge to the PCs’ controversial Bill, calling it an “egregious violation” of the Charter rights of elderly residents.

The Act received Royal Assent on August 31, drawing the ire of opposition MPPs and health advocates. It took effect November 20, and allows hospital patients to be charged $400 a day if they refuse to be transferred to an alternative setting like a long-term care home or assisted living facility.

Its critics have labelled the legislation as ageist and discriminatory toward the elderly population who will be disproportionately affected, and unprecedented in that it allows personal healthcare information to be shared without consent.

The OHC points out that in Southern Ontario, patients will be transferred up to 70 kilometres away. In Northern Ontario, patients can be transferred up to 150 kilometres away, or if there are no beds available, any distance necessary to find appropriate care. If a patient refuses to go, the hospital is required to charge them $400 per day.

Natalie Mehra, executive director of the OHC, said the group is currently filling out affidavits, accepting donations and seeking patients who are being pushed out into long-term care homes under threat of being charged $400 daily.

“We’ve been receiving correspondence from people all over Ontario who are really appalled at this legislation– people who are facing these circumstances in hospitals, people who have been wanting to support and donate. I’ve done this for 27 years, and it happens, but it doesn’t happen very often that you get such a mass of people who understand what the legislation is about and are just horrified that our province is doing this to the elderly.”

In one case, Mehra said a family is spending $4,000 a month for a retirement home to avoid being put in a long-term care facility against their choosing.

“I’ve heard from another person that in order to prevent them from moving to a long-term care home that is awful, they moved her to one that is more than 100 kilometres away but it is decent.”

With the challenge, the Ontario Health Coalition has compiled and released a list of long-term care homes with the longest and the shortest wait times in each region of the province to illustrate where patients would most likely be transferred to.


“There’s no appeal in the legislation or regulation and so this is our only way to challenge this. We’re hoping to have it heard as quickly as possible.”

Represented by Goldblatt Partners LLP, the co-applicants’ case to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice centres around the Bill’s alleged violation of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Section 15. It states that “every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

If the case is successful, the Superior Court can striked down Bill 7.

“The purpose of the legislation and mandatory $400 fee is to intimidate and coerce older adults to leave hospital, to any destination, even those which are inappropriate,” Jane Meadus, lawyer and institutional advocate at ACE, said. “Under this law, hospitalized senior's personal health information can be sent to any long-term care home without their consent, breaching a fundamental right to privacy over health information that every other Ontario citizen enjoys.”

Steven Shrybman, lawyer at Goldblatt Partners LLP, said that because the intention, allegedly, is to coerce certain hospital patients who can no longer be cared for at home into being placed in a long-term care setting, it violates the fundamental right to require informed consent for medical treatment.

“Bill 7 represents an unprecedented and egregious deprivation of the Charter rights of many elderly and vulnerable hospital patients in respect of both their right to life, liberty and security of the person and to equality,” Shrybman said.

Those who have been impacted by the legislation can email the OHC at: ohc@sympatico.ca.

Email: jessica.durling@thepointer.com

Twitter: @JessicaRDurling

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Jessica Durling, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

COP15

National and global climate and biodiversity goals predicated on protection of peatlands, scientists say


As the United Nations biodiversity conference draws near, dozens of scientists from 13 countries are calling for protection of the world’s waterlogged, carbon-rich peatlands, a quarter of which exist within Canada’s borders and are threatened by development.

Canada’s peatlands store about 150 billion tonnes of carbon, the most common heat-trapping element in the atmosphere responsible for global warming. If we were to lose just one per cent of that stored carbon, global greenhouse gas emissions would increase by 11 per cent, said Lorna Harris, the lead author of the statement and a forests, peatlands and climate change scientist at Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. Canada’s peatlands span northern Manitoba, Quebec, Alberta and Ontario as well as throughout the Northwest Territories and Yukon.

“That's what's at stake,” Harris told reporters at a Zoom press briefing on Dec. 1. For years, the peatlands of the Hudson Bay Lowlands in Ontario have been under threat of mining development. Ontario Premier Doug Ford wants to develop a 5,000-square-kilometre mineral deposit in the area called the Ring of Fire, which could impact an estimated 450 million tonnes of carbon and presents a “huge risk to Canada's climate targets,” said Harris. Most of Canada’s peatlands sit on the traditional territories of Indigenous nations, including the Hudson Bay Lowlands, which is one of the largest concentrations of peatlands in the world, second only to the West Siberian Lowland in Russia.

Peatlands make up only three per cent of the Earth’s land surface, but their soils contain more than 44 per cent of all soil carbon, making these landscapes a larger carbon sink than all the world’s forests combined, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The 40 scientists involved in the statement are raising the alarm about two massive threats to preserving these climate-crucial landscapes: development of the Ring of Fire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s decision to open up parts of the Congo Basin peatlands to bids from oil and gas companies.

Peatland ecosystems are emblematic of how climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked. In Southeast Asia, for instance, 45 per cent of mammals — like the critically endangered orangutan and Sumatran tiger — and 33 per cent of birds that live in tropical peat swamp forests are near threatened, vulnerable, or endangered, according to a 2011 study published in BioScience.

“These remote landscapes are so big, they are some of the last places that we have migratory caribou, wolverine and migratory birds … so keeping these places intact, protecting them and valuing them is really, really important,” said Harris.

Harris said she will be at COP15, the UN biodiversity conference, advocating for peatlands to be included “very clearly” in the final text of the post-2030 global biodiversity framework, which will guide global action on conserving biodiversity.

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer