Head of Ontario species at risk agency resigns over changes to Greenbelt, conservation authorities

Doug Varty, who stepped down as chair of Ontario’s Species Conservation Action Agency, said the government ‘is not listening to or acting in the best long-term interests of the people’

The Species Conservation Action Agency collects money from industry wanting to do work that harms the habitats of six species at risk, including the Blanding's Turtle. This week, the head of the agency resigned, citing the Ontario government's changes to environmental protections.
Photo: Flickr

By Emma McIntosh
Dec. 22, 2022 

NAWHALE

The head of an Ontario government agency aimed at protecting species at risk has resigned in protest of the province’s dismantling of environmental protections to get “More Homes Built Faster.”

The resignation comes less than a year after Premier Doug Ford’s government appointed Doug Varty to chair Ontario’s Species Conservation Action Agency. Varty said in a LinkedIn post Dec. 21 that he was resigning because of the Progressive Conservatives’ changes to land use policy, and because the government “is not listening to or acting in the best long-term interests of the people of this province.”

Since late October, Premier Doug Ford has opened the province’s Greenbelt for development and massively overhauled the environmental scrutiny applied to development, part of a suite of changes his government says is aimed at boosting housing supply.

“Like many Ontarians I have become increasingly disappointed in the recent direction of the Ford government with respect to land/greenbelt protection, watershed protection, sprawl and other related matters,” Varty wrote.

In an interview with The Narwhal, Varty said his resignation had nothing to do with the Species Conservation Action Agency, and everything to do with “personal” concerns that he felt he couldn’t express publicly as the chair of a government agency.

“It just seems to me that we’re sliding backwards in Ontario, when we need to be doing more faster on a bigger scale if we’re going to deal with climate change and biodiversity loss,” he said.

“To see it all disappear and get destroyed, I think would just be a shame. It’s not the sort of legacy I want to leave my children and grandchildren.”

Robert Dodd, a spokesperson for the office of Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini, didn’t address Varty’s critiques when asked by The Narwhal. According to Dodd, Varty had already told the government on Oct. 13, before changes to the Greenbelt were announced, that he wasn’t planning to seek a second term as chair. A new chair will be appointed next year, Dodd added.

“This makes it clear that people who are in leadership positions advising the government just can’t stand to be associated with the things that they’re doing,” Tim Gray, the executive director of the advocacy organization Environmental Defence, said in a phone interview.

“It’s very, very difficult for anyone who cares about the public interest to remain in any kind of leadership role working with the current Ontario government.”

The Ontario government created the Species Conservation Action Agency in 2021 to administer a new provincial fund for species at risk. That fund allows industry to do work that harms the habitats of six species at risk — the butternut tree, Blanding’s turtle populations in the Ontario shield region, and four birds, the barn swallow, bobolink, eastern meadowlark and eastern whip-poor-will — on the condition that they pay into the fund. Critics have called it a “pay to slay” fund.

A spokesperson for the office of Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini didn’t address Doug Varty’s critiques, telling The Narwhal Varty had already decided not to seek another term before changes to the Greenbelt were announced. 

Photo: Government of Ontario / Flickr

In an email sent after this story was published, Dodd said that criticism is “misleading,” and that the government expects the fund to benefit species overall by using the money “with the long-term interests of those species in mind.” Companies and people that propose projects impacting species at risk still have to comply with endangered species law, he added.

The Species Conservation Action Agency is tasked with managing the fund’s money and putting it towards projects that protect and help species at risk elsewhere. In his email, Dodd said the agency “will consider the nature and location of impacts to species at risk and their habitat by proponents paying the charge in its decision-making.”

In early December, The Narwhal reported on a letter sent from Parks Canada to the Ontario government, which said the decision to alter the Greenbelt’s boundaries violated an agreement between the two levels of government about the management of Rouge National Urban Park. Parks Canada highlighted the need to protect species at risk, saying the Blanding’s turtle was of particular concern. “While turtles are released in Rouge National Urban Park, these species move in an unrestricted fashion between the park and the adjacent Greenbelt lands,” the letter said.

Varty’s public condemnation of Ford’s changes comes 11 months after he had lauded the agency on LinkedIn, expressing his excitement as he began his new role as the chair.

“We have a great team launching this agency,” Varty wrote at the time. “I look forward to playing a greater role in protecting species at risk and working with the team at the ministry.”

Varty and the province’s online database of appointees say his term was due to expire on Jan. 26, 2023, along with the rest of the current board. Dodd said Varty’s term expires Dec. 31.

The remaining appointees to the agency’s board of directors include the CEO of the Toronto Zoo; a professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design; and the founding president of the Ontario Waterpower Association, which represents companies involved in hydroelectric power generation.

Two weeks before his resignation, Varty posted about attending a rally outside an MPP’s office to oppose the Ford government’s recent changes to environmental policy. “I am 64 years old, consider myself a conservative and have never participated in a protest and never thought I would,” he wrote.

Speaking to The Narwhal, Varty said he’s the type of person who usually works behind the scenes. “I just decided it was time in life to have that experience and be seen publicly opposing the directions of Bill 23 and other recent developments.”

Varty is a financial and business advisor by trade. He has also been involved with conservation as a board member for the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and as co-chair for Couchiching Conservancy Advisory Council, though he told The Narwhal he is speaking only on behalf of himself.

In 2020, the Ford government’s approach to urban development also triggered the resignations of seven members of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council. The council, a government-appointed expert panel, advises Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark on issues related to the Greenbelt. Its members quit en masse after the government watered down the powers of conservation authorities, agencies that oversee key watersheds in the province.

The Ford government disempowered conservation authorities again earlier this year with Bill 23, part of its recent rush of new housing legislation — a move Varty cited in his LinkedIn post about the resignation.

Varty told The Narwhal he hopes the government will reconsider its decision on the Greenbelt and listen to stakeholders who have expressed concern about Bill 23. It’s not just environmentalists, he added, but also a broad cross-section of people from across the business world who are worried.

“I don’t think they’re listening,” Varty said of the provincial government. “And they should be.”

Updated Dec. 23, 2022, at 12:30 p.m. ET: This story was updated to add more details about the Blanding’s turtle population eligible for work by the Species Conservation Action Agency, and to include additional responses from the Ontario government.

‘I have become increasingly disappointed in the Ford government’: Chair of Ontario species at risk agency resigns

Yesterday 

The Chair of Ontario’s government agency tasked with protecting species at risk has resigned over the wavering provincial leadership around environmental legislation, as Doug Ford and his PC government steams ahead with Bill 23 and the removal of protected Greenbelt lands for development.

Doug Varty’s decision to step down is the latest reaction to the collection of legislation recently passed by the Tories that has tossed aside environmental safeguards in the name of building more homes.

“In my view the province is not listening to or acting in the best long-term interests of the people of this province. As such I have made a personal decision to resign from this public appointment,” Varty wrote in a public statement.

The More Homes Built Faster Act, or Bill 23, aims to expedite the construction of 1.5 million homes over the next 8 years to accommodate projected population growth across the province, primarily in the Golden Horseshoe. The Bill overrides environmental protections, gutting the mandate of conservation authorities. The PC’s also introduced, and recently passed, a piece of legislation to remove 15 parcels of land from the Greenbelt totalling 7,400 acres and replace it with 9,400 acres of land elsewhere — experts have said the additional lands will do nothing to prevent the ecological devastation caused by the encroachment into the Greenbelt.

Ford and his cabinet colleagues responsible for environmental stewardship have repeatedly ignored the concerns of environmental, housing and community activists, and the public who have gathered en masse to protest these pieces of legislation. Nearly 30,000 almost exclusively negative public consultation comments were submitted in reference to the Greenbelt legislation before the end of the public consultation period on December 4. The PC government ignored the will of residents and passed the legislation anyway.

Varty was appointed as Chair of the Ontario Species Conservation Action Agency in February. It is a board-governed provincial body responsible for administering the Species at Risk Management Fund. It was formed in 2021 with the purpose of protecting species at risk, making investments to do so using a designated fund and ensuring habitats for select at risk species are safeguarded through the agency’s actions and investments.

In October, before the passing of Bill 23 and changes to the Greenbelt legislation, Varty had told the government he was not planning to seek a second term. Eleven months after being appointed, he has now left the position.

“My resignation has nothing to do with this new agency or its mandate, but rather like many Ontarians I have become increasingly disappointed in the recent direction of the Ford government with respect to land/greenbelt protection, watershed protection, sprawl and other related matters,” he wrote.

This is not the first time Ford’s demand to create sprawling development has led to a resignation. In 2020, seven members of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council — a government appointed expert panel that advises the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on matters related to the Greenbelt — quit after the provincial government watered down the mandate of conservation authorities.

Tim Gray, the Executive Director of Environmental Defence, went public on Twitter with support for Varty writing “Thanks to Doug for standing up for our future”.

Varty is part of the mass of Ontarians angry about the heavy hand of the provincial government which has imposed these legislative changes that planners have called the most significant land use moves in the history of the province. Two weeks before his resignation, Varty publicly posted on LinkedIn about joining a protest against Bill 23 and the Greenbelt changes outside of an Orillia MPP’s constituency office.

“I am 64 years old, consider myself a conservative and have never participated in a protest and never thought I would,” he wrote. “It is time to listen to the people of this province!”

Educating council members might be the key to saving Ontario’s natural spaces from Doug Ford’s housing agenda

Newly elected Brampton Councillor Navjit Kaur Brar was a respiratory therapist before running for local office. Rookie Mississauga Councillor Martin Reid has a master’s degree in social work. Caledon’s new Ward 6 Councillor, Cosimo Napoli, helped run his family’s home monitoring business prior to running for municipal government.

They had virtually no experience in the complex world of land use and development, but are suddenly responsible for decision making that has far-reaching consequences. They will profoundly impact numerous generations to come.

Currently, under the Doug Ford PC government at Queen’s Park, the adage that “municipalities are creatures of the province” is reverberating across Ontario’s 444 cities and towns. Its plan to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031 will put some of the most sensitive greenspaces and valuable agricultural lands at risk. The strategy has been aggressively pushed by the powerful subdivision development lobby, its battery of lawyers and the various consultants who often take over municipal planning meetings.

People like Brar, Reid and Cosimo represent the last line of defence to protect some of the most critical parts of Ontario that remain undeveloped.

But what happens when the whims of provincial leaders and the special interests they support run contrary to the responsibilities of a local councillor? Or go against the needs of the constituents who elected them to city hall?

The decisions by Ford and his government to push through Bill 23, strip away power from municipal councils and remove 7,400 acres from the once protected Greenbelt came weeks after the October municipal election, forcing many newly elected councils to either learn complex planning and land use policy on the fly, or succumb to the whims of people who don’t represent their community’s best interests.

To do their job effectively, local councillors rely on the expertise of staff members inside city hall. Their recommendations and reports distill and analyze important information to help elected officials make the best decisions on behalf of the residents who expect to be represented. Ford has upended this system. Planning and finance staff in municipalities across Ontario have scrambled to understand the implications of the PC government’s unprecedented move to curtail municipal authority in order to dramatically expand urban boundaries for sprawl-style development.

Trying to educate council members with zero experience is the monumental task facing staff, who themselves are struggling to understand the changes being forced upon cities and towns.

“Bill 23 represents the single most significant transformation of Ontario’s planning system that I’ve seen in my 36-year career in the field,” Paul Lowes, the president of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI), stated in a written submission to the Province.

The OPPI, which includes roughly 4,600 planners, is supportive of the PC government’s goal to solve the housing affordability crisis, but has significant concerns with the new legislation. The removal of power from conservation authorities, which are mandated to support local councils as part of their shared responsibility to protect watersheds and sensitive ecosystems, was a key criticism.

“Municipalities are kind of going in blind in rural areas, especially in places outside of the GTA, a lot of the municipal councils don't have the expertise, or the funds to be able to have staff that will do the job that conservation has already,” Margaret Prophet, Executive Director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition (SCGC), said.

When development applications are brought to conservation authorities, they pass through multiple hands before receiving approval. Conservation authorities are staffed with a variety of experts including biologists, hydrologists and GIS technicians who are well versed in the geography of the area. Hiring this kind of staff at local municipalities would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This is where the SCGC comes in.

Prior to the 2018 municipal election, Prophet and her colleagues at the SCGC saw a need to fill a gap within the municipal political system. It seemed as if there was a disconnect in the community. Organizations and leaders were not always acting in the best interest of the people they served.

Out of this, the Community Leaders for a Sustainable Simcoe (CLASS) was created; a collection of community organizations who pledge to act in the best interest of the people they serve, with a strong focus on sustainable communities and the environment.

It is arguable that with the recent passing of Bill 23 and the changes to the Greenbelt legislation, the importance of having municipal leaders who know how to take action on these environmental issues is increasing now more than ever. But the problem is council members, especially new council members, are often ill informed on issues of importance to their communities. In today’s political climate, a heavy reliance on city staff is not always the answer as more and more become tainted by outside interests.

“There was more of a need and more of a request from local councillors to get involved,” Prophet said.

As a result, the SCGC began working with EcoSpark, an environmental charity that focuses on connecting people to their local natural environment through education, to host events province wide that served as an educational tool for councillors on issues of importance often relating to the natural world.

In the aftermath of Bill 23, at the end of November, the SCGC hosted their very first event (featuring former MP and mayor of Toronto David Crombie) a webinar which brought together municipal leaders from across the province.

“We talked a lot about what does leadership look like now in a void of provincial support in a lot of ways? What does it mean to have an agenda that you want to be climate focused and environmentally focused?” Prophet said. “But when it came to audience questions, by and large, a lot of municipal councilors were like ‘what are we going to do about Bill 23? How do we respond to it? How do we maintain autonomy as a municipal council? How do we best represent our constituents?’”

These are questions that have come up in council chambers across the province since the Ford government blindsided Ontario with piece after piece of legislation. It is not uncommon for councils to whip through hard discussions, taking everything presented by staff at face value and voting as a group. However, it is no longer sufficient for those on council to instinctively take recommendations from staff without asking the important questions.

Debbie Gordon, of Save the Maskinonge, recalled attending council meetings with another advocate when working to protect the Oak Ridges Moraine and Greenbelt in York Region. She was astonished by the lack of education of the council members.

“I would go to council meetings and I could tell the councillors didn't know what she was talking about,” she said. “They don't know why it's important. They believe you that you tell them it's important. But they don't know why it’s important.”

This is why Prophet’s work is so vital. She is striving to create a council where municipal leaders have the expertise to make these decisions in the best interest of their communities.

For years, conservation authorities have played a critical role for local officials, informing them about complex watershed management techniques and providing crucial information about applications for development in sensitive areas of their jurisdiction. Bill 23 dismantles this support system by cutting out conservation authorities from much of their traditional role, barring them from communicating with local officials and staff regarding development applications. The Bill also severely weakened the remaining power of these organizations — the PCs' previous attack, Schedule 6, in 2020 left them gutted — and removes the ability of these watershed stewards to regulate or refuse development applications on the basis of “pollution” or “conservation of land”.

“We believe the proposed changes could negatively impact watershed management at a critical time when we need to do more to tackle the increasing impacts of climate change on our communities,” Lowes wrote in his submission to the Province.

One of the questions that has emerged is if not the conservation authorities, “who is going to do the work?” Who will be the body responsible for protecting the natural environment?

The answer is not clear cut, but it appears much of that responsibility will fall on individual municipalities. The problem: they do not have the resources or the expertise to protect some of the most critical ecosystems in the province.

Aside from the gutting of conservation authorities, there are other areas where Bill 23 will place a greater emphasis on the role of individual municipalities: downloading planning authority from upper-tier municipalities to lower-tier municipalities and changes to development charges.

On November 2, eight days after Bill 23 was first introduced, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) released a statement on its opposition to the legislation. “While AMO would like to support the province’s housing objectives, it cannot support changes that largely place the burden of carrying the costs associated with development onto municipalities”.

Under Bill 23, the planning authority of the Region of York, Peel, Durham, Halton, Niagara, Waterloo and the County of Simcoe will be removed. Lower-tier municipalities within these regions will be responsible for implementing the Region’s Official Plan as well as developing an Official Plan of their own, subject to the approval of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH). This has increased the responsibility of the municipalities tenfold.

“The Regional Official Plan, which has been approved with modifications by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, will become the responsibility of local municipalities in conjunction with their own Official Plans,” documents from the Region of Peel highlight. “The intent is that local municipal Official Plans will incorporate Regional Official Plan policies within their jurisdiction. In the interim, Planning Act decisions will be made by local municipalities having regard for both documents with the Regional Official Plan prevailing in the event of conflict.”

The same will ring true for the other six upper-tier municipalities whose planning authority will be removed.

“By removing the Region’s ‘planning responsibilities’ Bill 23 has the potential to eliminate the critical coordination function that the Region currently manages for the local municipalities within Peel. Failure to properly coordinate infrastructure delivery could have costly unintended consequences from both a planning and financial perspective,” the document continues.

Larger municipalities like Brampton and Mississauga have more capacity to undertake Planning Act responsibilities. They have a greater number of staff and more intellectual and financial resources. Smaller municipalities however, like Caledon, or even smaller ones like Tiny in Simcoe County with a population of just over 11,000, would not have the number of staff needed to ensure that not only these Official Plans are attended to, but are carried out in a sustainable manner.

Bill 23 will also impact development charges, fees collected by the municipality from builders to help pay for the cost of associated infrastructure such as roads, sewage systems, stormwater management etc. Under Bill 23, upper-tier municipalities will no longer be able to collect development charges. The Region of Peel estimates the revenue shortfall could be as much as $2 billion over the next decade. That could increase to as much as $6 billion if Bill 23’s housing targets are met.

Municipalities will not be able to collect development charges for affordable housing units. Without these revenue streams, municipalities will be strapped for the necessary funds needed to provide crucial infrastructure which could lead to higher tax costs, or the abandoning of affordable housing plans that taxpayers, ultimately, would have to pay for.

“What we worry about is that it's going to result in fewer affordable housing solutions for people in this area and across the province,” Prophet said.

With municipalities juggling deficits, they are less likely to pay for the expertise and resources needed to handle additional responsibilities previously managed by conservation authorities.

In the days following COP15 in Montreal, which just concluded, municipalities are now facind global pressure to cooperate with other levels of government to protect biodiversity. Ford’s sweeping legislative moves have shown different levels of government are often at odds with each other on environmental issues.

Mississauga is one of two Ontario municipalities to sign the Montreal Pledge so far (along with Toronto) cementing its commitment to protecting biodiversity. While this is a positive step forward for the city, it places even greater responsibility on its elected officials, many of whom are brand new to the job and have next to no knowledge and little experience around these complex issues.

But suddenly, thanks to Doug Ford, they are the last gatekeepers of the environment.

“In a lot of ways [the changes under Bill 23] put more responsibilities on municipal councils,” Prophet said. “In some ways they take away their autonomy, and in a lot of ways they've reduced their ability to handle their responsibilities.”

Email: rachel.morgan@thepointer.com
Twitter: @rachelnadia_
Rachel Morgan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

Ontario's accreditation program won't alleviate doctor shortage, experts say

LONG READ

Ontario must remove unfair, stringent eligibility criteria if the province hopes its fast-tracked accreditation program for internationally trained medical professionals will help address Canada's labour shortage.

Though no official announcement has yet been made, last week the Globe and Mail reported that Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government would be introducing a Practice Ready Assessment (PRA) program as a short-term remedy to hasten licensing for immigrant family physicians following 12 weeks of supervised work.

In 2016, the Ford government scrapped a similar pilot program to cut costs, making Ontario one of three provinces without a PRA program.

Now the government is working with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO); Ontario Health; the Ontario Medical Association (OMA); and the Touchstone Institute – which offers language benchmark assessments for nurses and optometrists – to redevelop the process. After multiple requests by NCM, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care did not provide a cost estimate for the program this time around.

The pilot program will begin with a cohort of only 50 candidates – hardly enough to address the national shortage, says Caroline Ewen, manager of policy and advocacy with the Strategy, Policy and Research team at World Education Services (WES) Canada, a non-profit enterprise focused on helping immigrant professionals through the accreditation process.

"It's very low relative to what the demand is for physicians," Ewen told NCM.

Last month, the Royal Bank of Canada reported Canada would be short 44,000 physicians by 2028. Statistics Canada reports that foreign medical graduates could potentially fill over a third of those positions, "if immigrants with foreign degrees had jobs in their field at the same rate as the Canadian-educated population,” according to its latest report on education, not including potential arrivals in the field between now and 2028.

"You also need to expand residency positions for (Internationally Trained Professionals). There's not enough access to do residency training, and that's the main route for licensing in Canada."

Ontario offers 200 first-year residency positions every year for internationally educated physicians, according to a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

In March, the Ministry planned to allocate 20 per cent of its additional post-graduate positions to international medical physicians, focusing on first-year residency positions. But that's only 58 more residency spots over the next five years.

Earlier in December, the Ontario college of physician's Registration Committee submitted a report to the province asking them to "create targeted or additional spots for Internationally Educated Physicians (IEPs) already in the province, including Canadians who have studied abroad and are looking to complete their residency in Ontario.

“As only a small number of residency positions are accessible to IEPs, Ontario is essentially limiting the opportunity to quickly grow our base of future physicians and support IEPs," reads a copy of the submission obtained by NCM.

"Taking immediate action now could create new opportunities for the summer of 2023, quickly injecting qualified IEPs into the system as trainees and creating a clear path to independent practice for this group.”

Rosemary Pawliuk is a B.C.-based lawyer and co-chair of a 2013 committee investigating how the foreign credential system works. She said the preferential treatment of Canadian and American medical school graduates has been a long-standing issue.

Last year, Pawliuk says there were more residency positions available to both these groups than there were graduating medical students, but residency positions were open for only 16 to 18 per cent of “fully qualified" Canadian International Medical Graduates (IMG).

"There is usually less than one position per [six] qualified IMG applicants with thousands of IMGs who have given up," Pawliuk wrote in a blog by the Society Of Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad.

Additionally, unlike their Canadian counterparts, immigrant physicians looking for residency must agree to a Return of Service (RoS) that requires them to "work where the government directs them for [up to five years] after they are fully licensed."

Failing to comply can result in fines ranging from $70,000 in Ontario to over $480,000 in B.C. for family medicine, and $897,581 for psychiatry.

Pawliuk says this takes away their right to mobility under Section 6 of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while CMGs are free to take their education and leave the country.

The Practice Ready Assessment process, re-introduced Dec. 15, will only benefit incoming professionals, not the thousands already seeking registration with the various Colleges across the country some of whom have been waiting for years.

Though she's currently working in her field, Jackie (who asked NCM not to use her real name), said she fought to be accredited with the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) from 2015 until 2019 before finally succeeding.

Jackie struggled through Canada’s accreditation process even after receiving an equivalent university degree in India, including four and a half years at the country’s leading hospital, and 20 years of experience working as a nurse in Kuwait from 1995 until her arrival in Canada.

She spent most of her time between 2016 and 2019 wading through convoluted and ever-changing requirements, she says.

“There’s no time frame,” Jackie said. “You’re just waiting for assessment, waiting for assessment.”

After she completed a bridge program in nursing at George Brown in 2017, the CNO still denied Jackie eligibility to write the certification exam for a Registered Nurse (RN), stating she had to attend a year at university first.

“I was frustrated that after all this they wouldn’t accept my university degree from India,” she said.

An Internationally Educated Nurse assessor was assigned to Jackie’s case in 2019, and she was given the opportunity to request an exemption to the university requirement. Within a couple of months, she secured her last necessary documents and received approval to take the RN’s exam. She has been working in the maternity ward at Scarborough Health Network in Toronto since passing the exam.

[caption id="attachment_34531" align="alignright" width="330"] The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) was founded in 1866, and acts as a regulatory body to ensure the quality of practice, huddling all factions of healthcare under its watch.[/caption]

While the PRA is a welcome short-term solution for Ontario, Ewen said it mustn't be overstated. In 2021, for instance, only 124 licenses were granted through a similar program nationwide.

In an email to NCM, Pawliuk wrote that "Practice Ready Assessments are only permitted in small numbers in family medicine in some provinces and in minuscule numbers in specialties." Ontario's first cohort will only focus on family medicine.

That's why Ewen says there needs to be commitments to make the entire system more accessible and less cumbersome. She says there are language proficiency standards, medical licensing exams, RoS requirements, among others, that could be relaxed without sacrificing quality standards.

For instance, those seeking registration with the Ontario college of physicians must first meet a series of registration requirements set out by the College, including obtaining a license from the Medical Council of Canada and certification, by examination, by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada or the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Applicants must also be citizens or permanent residents, excluding temporary landed immigrants.

This process "can be challenging, time-consuming, and complicated," according to Health Force Ontario.

Pawliuk is more blunt, saying it's unjustifiably unfair, as international medical graduates “must meet a higher standard of medical knowledge than CMGs or visa trainees to work as resident physicians."

That includes having to pass two national examinations (MCCQE1 and NAC OSCE) designed to determine whether candidates have the critical medical knowledge and decision-making ability and the clinical skills, respectively, "to prove that they meet the Canadian standard of medical education to be eligible to apply for residency training jobs."

By contrast their Canadian counterparts don't have to take the NAC OSCE to be eligible to work as resident physicians. And while domestically trained Canadians do have to take the MCCQE1 exam, some provinces allow them to fail it once.

There's also a “recency of practice” component that requires applicants to have experience in their field within the last five years to qualify, which varies from province to province and by discipline.

Ewen says this excludes many professionals with decades of experience who have turned to survival jobs after arriving in Canada and lose the opportunity to practice within this time frame.

"If you're a physician with 30 years of experience, and you've been out of practice for two years, that's different than somebody who has one year of experience and has been out for six months," she said, explaining the difficulty to define a standard of “recent practice.”

Ewen proposes allowing international medical school graduates to practice as clinical assistants under a defined class of registration with the Ontario college of physicians. Better yet, that requirement should be removed altogether, she said.

Another long-standing issue has been the limited capacity to train and supervise internationally trained professionals. There are thousands waiting to register licenses to practice, access mentors or residencies, and file requests for exemptions to practice. The Colleges simply do not have enough personnel to handle these requests or offer mentors, Ewen said

She said Colleges need to support incentives for mentors to open their capacity to train and supervise internationally trained physicians – either financially or by alleviating their workload. It's not about reducing standards or weakening the system, but about making it accessible to those who are qualified.

"We're saying make sure that it makes sense, so if there are these entry requirements, eligibility requirements, are there pathways for folks to be able to bridge into this? And right now it's quite limited."

Kaitlyn Smith and Fernando Arce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporters, New Canadian Media

Tackling Barriers for LGBTQ2S+ Canadians in the Workplace

Yesterday 

The job seekers that Nick Ebbadi-Cook works with have two things in common.

The first is that they’re LGBTQ2S+. And the second is that almost all of them have faced discrimination in the workplace because of it.

“We’ve had about 40 participants come through, and the majority of those folks have faced discrimination,” said Ebbadi-Cook in an interview earlier this month. “They’ve been misgendered. They’ve faced harassment. They’ve been let go because of their identity.”

Ebbadi-Cook is the program manager of Prism Employment Support Service, a program specifically designed to help LGBTQ2S+ people in Greater Vancouver learn skills, navigate workplace issues and find jobs. “The base of our resources are the general employment resources but with a queer lens,” he said.

The program, a collaboration between the YWCA and Vancouver resource centre Qmunity, is in part a reaction to what Ebbadi-Cook says is becoming an increasingly understood gap in work outcomes for LGBTQ2S+ people in Canada.

A growing body of research suggests people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities make less money than their cisgender and heterosexual counterparts. Community advocates say that reflects persistent problems of discrimination in Canadian workplaces, which are causing some LGBTQ2S+ workers to either leave certain jobs or simply not apply for them at all.

“These experiences seem to add and compound over peoples’ careers that result in lower overall earnings,” said Basia Pakula, a senior researcher with the non-profit Social Research and Demonstration Corp. “You may be choosing a pay cut in order to work for an employer where you are feeling safe.”

The SRDC partnered with Pride at Work Canada on a series of reports into the experiences of LGBTQ2S+ Canadians in the labour market. One of those studies, published this spring, linked demographic data collected by Statistics Canada with tax filings. It found heterosexual men, on average, made $55,959 a year, compared to $50,822 for gay men; $44,740 for lesbian women; $31,776 for bisexual men and $25,290 for bisexual women.

For gay men, the analysis found the gap in earnings was explained by other factors. But those factors couldn’t explain the gaps for any other demographic groups.

The centre also performed a second, qualitative analysis interviewing queer workers about their experiences. The findings were complex: in some cases, challenges with mental health contributed to the wage gap. In others, Pakula, one of the study’s authors, says it became clear some workers believed discrimination had affected their earnings, or had chosen to not apply for jobs in certain well-paying sectors — like the skilled trades — out of concern about discrimination.

“These experiences are not uniform. There is a tremendous amount of diversity within the community,” Pakula said.

Colin Druhan, the executive director of Pride at Work, has worked as a business advisor for members of the LGBTQ2S+ community for years. “It didn’t matter what part of their life they were in. The employment piece was always a thorn in their side,” he said.

Related video: Sharp surge in LGBTQ+ threats linked to orchestrated campaign by far-right (MSNBC)  Duration 7:39  View on Watch

Druhan noted many companies are more vocal than ever about their support for LGBTQ2S+ rights. They fly rainbow flags, post signs in store windows and participate in Pride parades.

But he said that doesn’t always mean they’ve made workplaces welcoming.

“A lot of people have questions: if you’ve got that rainbow flag out, what are you doing?” Druhan said.

Ebbadi-Cook said some employers, for example, may not know about their obligations pertaining to pronouns, or may not have amenities like gender-neutral washrooms. In many ways, he said, LGBTQ2S+ people are navigating an extra set of job politics; one of the services Prism hopes to soon offer is a workshop about how to come out in the workplace.

They also compile an internal job board, he said, list companies who have responded to a survey about their values and how they accommodate employees of diverse sexual and gender identities.

In other cases, though, Ebbadi-Cook says there can be explicit discrimination. He recalls one of the first jobs he ever worked in the service industry after coming out.

“I faced a lot of harassment. I guess at the time people would have considered it light-hearted ribbing. But it’s hard to feel safe and show up as your true self in places… it’s really demoralizing, and it really makes you question whether you belong in the space,” he said.

Druhan says many queer workers simply choose to not come out to their colleagues or employer, particularly those who are already part of other marginalized groups.

“They know they are perhaps already disadvantaged, and they don’t want to disadvantage themselves further. That tells us about how privilege operates in our communities,” Druhan said.

The problem is well-known, which is why Ebbadi-Cook says the YWCA and Qmunity partnered to create Prism. He says their goal is to serve approximately 60 people in their first few months of operation. If successful, he says, the goal would be to seek more funding to expand the program to the rest of the province. They also hope to work more directly with employers, he said.

On a larger scale, though, Pakula says government responses are restrained by a dearth of data. For example, the SRDC’s research couldn’t determine what real wage gaps were between heterosexual men and people with different gender identities, such as non-binary people or transgender people. Statistics Canada began asking census respondents in 2021 whether their sex assigned at birth differs from the one they currently identified with, something policymakers said would offer a national-level snapshot of the population.

She said there was a need for more “intervention-oriented research” focused more on determining needed solutions rather than drilling down on the well-known problems.

But Pakula said the national-level data picture is still far too weak.

“You just cannot understand what’s going on and why it’s going on just by looking at the numbers,” she said.

Zak Vescera, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

TRY ADOPTION FIRST

Employers boosting fertility treatment benefits but critics say provinces can do more
Tuesday

More companies are offering or boosting coverage for fertility treatments as they fill a void left by Canada's health-care system, which provides limited coverage in most of the country for people trying to have a baby.


Employers boosting fertility treatment benefits but critics say provinces can do more© Provided by The Canadian Press

Several big banks have hiked coverage this year for reproductive procedures and some also provide for surrogacy expenses as part of their benefits packages.

In vitro fertilization, or IVF, involves a series of procedures that include boosting the production of a woman's eggs with medication and retrieving them from her body. At least one egg is fertilized with sperm in a lab to create an embryo, which is placed into the woman's uterus in hopes of having a viable pregnancy.

Along with IVF, fertility benefits can include coverage for medication, freezing and storage of eggs, sperm and embryos and surrogacy costs as well as genetic testing. It may also cover a separate procedure called intrauterine insemination, or IUI, in which healthy sperm are injected directly into the uterus.

Benefits at Canada's five big bankscover most of those services, and coverage ranges from $30,000 to $60,000 in lifetime maximum coverage.

Starting in January 2023, the Bank of Montreal will increase the lifetime maximum for fertility drugs to $20,000, up from $15,000, a spokeswoman said. The bank also reimburses $20,000 each for fertility treatment and surrogacy expenses, for a potential $60,000 in capped benefits.

A spokeswoman for RBC said medication for fertility has been covered since 2004 but was increased from $6,000 to a maximum of $20,000 in July, when the bank also added up to $20,000 in costs for fertility treatment and surrogacy, for a potential lifetime maximum of $60,000 in coverage.

As of March, TD said in a statement it provides $20,000 each for treatment, medication and surrogacy expenses, for a total of $60,000 that could be accessed over a lifetime.

Scotiabank expanded coverage in April to a lifetime maximum of $10,000 for infertility treatment and medication as well as $10,000 for surrogacy expenses, to a maximum lifetime benefit of $30,000, a company statement said.

In January, CIBC began covering up to a maximum of $15,000 for treatment and drugs, along with an additional lifetime maximum of $15,000 for surrogacy, to a total lifetime maximum of $30,000 in benefits. The bank started paying up to $3,000 just for medication in 1996, a spokeswoman said.

Starbucks offers its Canadian employees a lifetime maximum of $25,000 in IVF treatment and $10,000 for medication, for a total of $35,000 in coverage, a company spokesperson said. It increased benefits for surrogacy and IUI in October to a maximum of $40,000, up from $30,000. The benefits are available to both hourly and salaried employees who work a minimum of 20 hours a week.

Sun Life Financial expanded its fertility coverage for employees in May to provide treatment, along with medication benefits, and offers a maximum lifetime benefit of $15,000 for those services.

The company said surrogacy expense benefits will be added in May 2023, but details about the coverage amount were not yet available.

Helena Pagano, a spokeswoman at Sun Life, said the benefits are a way to help make group benefits plans more inclusive.

"Everyone's path to parenting looks different and it can be a challenging and expensive process," she said in an emailed statement.

One round of IVF can cost up to $20,000 but most women do not get pregnant after a first attempt.

The Public Health Agency of Canada says about one in six couples experience infertility.

Related video: 'No point putting more money into a broken system': Trudeau on health-care funding (cbc.ca)  Duration 1:31  View on Watch

cbc.ca Head of Medical Society of P.E.I. says patients and health-care workers are suffering
7:07

Trista Harrison, 35, and her husband Kyle Harrison, of Airdrie, Alta., have spent $75,000 so far on three rounds of IVF and genetic testing since 2020.

Her public sector union provides some capped coverage, but only for medication related to infertility treatment, Trista Harrison said.

"My benefits covered $4,000, which was gone in our first round," she said.

Harrison's husband has brittle bone disease so the couple has paid $15,000 for genetic testing of embryos to screen for the disease, for which he has had numerous surgeries including for the placement of large metal rods in his legs to prevent future fractures, she said.

The couple's home province of Alberta, as well as British Columbia, Saskatchewan and all three territories do not cover fertility treatments, unlike other seven provinces that reimburse partial costs or provide a tax credit or grant for procedures and/or medication.

Harrison said increasing coverage for fertility treatment by the private and public sectors is a positive move.

"It's very encouraging that this conversation is out and that companies are seeing this as a need," she said. "But when do we get to bring in the government and how do we support Albertans and British Columbians and people from Saskatchewan? When do we get to do that as a holistic kind of thing and just have equal access?"

Prof. Sarah Kaplan, director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, said more companies are offering fertility benefits as a way to attract and retain a diverse talent pool, including LGBTQ employees who need those services in order to have a family.

"People are also choosing to have their families later. They want to invest in their careers and they want to build those skills and move up in organizations, which is what organizations should want — to help support their employees in achieving their career goals as well as their family goals. This goes part and parcel with creating policies that would be more supportive of caregiving responsibilities at home."

However, low lifetime caps would create challenges for workers paying for costly procedures, Kaplan said.

"If people are using surrogacy because they don't have the ability to carry children themselves that could be $80,000. So you have to be careful when they say 'We offer this benefit,' but the benefit is $2,000 for a lifetime. That's clearly not going to be enough."

Offering fertility benefits could also be cheaper in the long run compared with paying thousands of dollars for headhunters to replace people in mid-level or senior leadership positions if they quit to work for other employers providing that support in a competitive market, Kaplan said.

Dr. William Buckett, division director of McGill University's Medical Centre in Montreal, said benefits packages don't apply equitably or to everyone, and coverage through the universal health-care system would help solve that problem.

He called various provisions in seven provinces a complicated "mess."

Buckett believes it's only a matter of time before Canada will catch up with Scandinavian countries as well as others in western Europe including Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Great Britain in providing access to infertility treatment.

"It is a sexist issue," he said. "I think women's health care across Canada is poorly serviced. I think access to health generally is limited a lot by sex and I think this is one of many examples of that."

Harrison has called on Alberta politicians to join most provinces in providing some sort of financial assistance for those needing infertility treatment.

She has also joined forces with four other women to push the government to act before Albertans go to the polls in May.

"Our goal is to get a lot of things up and running early in the new year so we can begin lobbying efforts toward the election," she said.

Alberta's health ministry said it recognizes that "infertility is a problem affecting many individuals in Alberta."

"In order to balance the needs of all Albertans, Alberta Health must conduct a thorough examination of the evidence, economic impact, and potential trade-offs required to support the addition of new services to Alberta’s publicly funded health-care system," it said in an emailed statement.

"With this in mind, Alberta Health continues to review fertility treatments, including coverage for IVF."

This report by The Canadian Press was first publishedDec. 20, 2022.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

Camille Bains, The Canadian Press

Paradox between warming climate and intense snowstorms, say scientists

FREDERICTON — There is a complex, counterintuitive relationship between rising global temperatures and the likelihood of increasingly intense snowstorms across Canada.



Winters are becoming on average milder and warmer than they used to be, but there has also been a noted rise across the country in extreme weather events, such as intense snowstorms, said John Clague, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C.

People might think it illogical that parts of the country are seeing more snowstorms as the climate warms, he said. "What climate modelers are finding is that climate change involves more frequent extremes."

"That means during summer, you can have extreme high temperatures, kind of life-threatening high temperatures, such as they've experienced in India and Pakistan in recent years. And you also can have, during winter, these extreme cold conditions."

One of the reasons for the extremes involves the jet stream — defined by Environment Canada as "a narrow band of strong winds about 10 kilometres above the Earth, marking the dividing line between warm and cold air masses."

Clague said the jet stream, which moves from west to east and carries weather systems with it, is moving more slowly than it normally does and seemingly parking itself over an area for a period of time. The mass of cold or hot air that it's carrying lingers in the atmosphere where it clashes with moisture-laden currents, causing heavy snow or rain, he said.

"This interface between this moist, tempered air at lower latitudes, and the cold, drier air — Arctic air — generates snowfall."

Kent Moore, an atmospheric physics professor at the University of Toronto, said it's a paradox that climate change is producing more intense snowstorms. There is some evidence to show that the warming Earth is changing the dynamics of how the jet stream works, he said.

The jet stream can have "larger undulations" as the climate warms, which means it simply doesn't go west to east but sometimes travels north or goes south like a wave, he said. It also tugs Arctic air along with it as it moves southward, he added.

"There's some evidence that as the climate is warming, the jet stream is becoming more wavier," Moore said.

The interplay between diminishing sea ice and a fast-warming Arctic is reducing the temperature gradient from the southern tip of the country to the north, he said. And a wavier — or weakened — jet stream is bringing Arctic air south, creating intense snowstorms, he added.

Oceans on either coast also play a role because the warming climate produces more evaporation of water, Moore said. "That means that there's more water vapour in the atmosphere, which means that there's more snow as well because of that."

Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, said warmer air holds more moisture and has more heat energy than does colder air. "That often results in severe precipitation in the form of more rain in the summer and snow-blasts in the winter,” he said.

Global average temperatures have increased by about 1.1 C to 1.2 C over the past century, he said, adding that Canada has warmed up even more. The southern half of Canada has been warming around two times that of the global average, he said. The northern half, meanwhile, has been heating up around three times faster, he added.

"This is creating atypical or non-typical weather in different areas of the country. It's not just that we might have more snowfall, as we are seeing now, we can have extreme cold snaps as well."

Feltmate said the intensity of the top one per cent of precipitation events that occur in a single year has increased over the last six decades, by about 37 per cent toward the western end of the Great Lakes and 72 per cent toward the east.

Moore, who has studied snowfall in the Toronto region, said the amount of accumulation over a typical winter is becoming smaller while the volume of rain is increasing. "That doesn't mean you can't have a really, really intense storm that dumps a ton of snow in just a few days. That can still happen, even though in the long term, the trend is toward less snow."

Feltmate said the symphony of winter storms from Vancouver to Toronto and the Maritimes can be attributed to climate change. He used a baseball analogy to illustrate the link between climate change and recent severe weather events — the heat dome, atmospheric rivers, post-tropical storm Fiona, and "mammoth" snowstorms.

"It's a little bit like saying you have a baseball player who's gone on steroids. And all of a sudden that baseball player starts to hit five times as many home runs," Feltmate said.

"You can't say that any single home run is due to the steroids. But if he or she is hitting five times as many home runs, then you can pretty much say cause and effect is going on between taking the steroids and hitting home runs. With climate change, we have extreme weather on steroids — and the steroids are here to stay."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2022.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press

UPDATES

Canadian doctors raise alarm as Iranian healthcare workers targeted by regime

Story by Negar Mojtahedi • Yesterday 

Iranian hospitals and clinics have become the latest battleground in ongoing protests against the regime.


Tehran physician Dr. Aida Rostami was allegedly killed by Iranian regime forces for treating patients injured in anti-government protests. Her family says her body showed gruesome signs of torture.

“There are informants. Are they your so-called patients? Are they your colleagues, managers?” said Montreal resident Dr. Homa Fathi.

Read more:
Iranian-Canadians call on MPs to take a stand against regime’s deadly crackdown

Fathi, a former dentist in Iran, is referring to undercover officers of the Islamic Republic who often visit public hospital emergency departments searching for people injured while fighting for their freedoms on the streets – and the doctors treating them.

Iranian healthcare professionals are putting their lives at risk and facing death to help treat them.

The regime’s security forces, she said, are demanding names and details of anyone seeking treatment for wounds that could have been received in demonstrations.

Video: Canadian doctors make plea to protect Iranian healthcare professionals

Fathi, in conjunction with her sources inside the country, have created a database to track Iranian healthcare workers arrested, kidnapped and killed by the regime.

“We are sure of the death of five healthcare professionals. Two doctors, one nurse and one medical student. Apart from these healthcare professionals, there are a lot who have been arrested," Fathi said.

"So far, I have the list of 19 healthcare professions arrested. I have the list of 21 healthcare students who have also been arrested."

Iranians wounded by the Islamic Republic’s forces avoid treatment at hospitals for fear of being detained, prosecuted or killed. Many medics are defying the Islamic Republic and treating them either at home or at undisclosed locations.

Read more:
‘Silence is not the answer’: Iranian-Canadians horrified by first-known execution

Vancouver physician Dr. Katayoun Rahnavardi and a network of doctors throughout Canada are trying to help amplify the voices of medics in Iran whose lives are in danger for fulfilling an international oath.

Rahnavardi and her colleagues are writing letters and posting to social media to share the stories, names and photos of those workers, and taking part in local rallies to keep the issue in the spotlight.

Canadian creates database of Iranian healthcare professionals targeted

“Everything about what is happening looks and sounds so unbelievable," Rahnavardi said.

"All of these healthcare workers were not protesting when they got arrested or kidnapped. It’s only because they were doing their job to provide medical care to the patients."

She says she had started off with demands not to arrest Iranian healthcare professionals for doing their job but now it has escalated to “don’t kill them, don’t torture them, don’t kidnap them.”

Read more:
‘Oppressions and injustice’: Canadians want fair trial for imprisoned Iranian philanthropists

One well-known case is the killing of 36-year-old Tehran physician Dr. Aida Rostami. She treated demonstrators in secret.

Rostami disappeared on Dec. 12 after a Tehran hospital shift. When her family called the police, they claimed she had died in a car crash.

But according to sources in Iran, Rostami had injuries to her genitalia, and had one of her eyes pulled out. When her family reportedly tracked her body down at the morgue, her body was covered in bruises and showed signs of torture. She was reportedly killed by the regime.

Rahnavardi says Iranian medics are treating injuries of demonstrators who were shot in the eyes, breasts and genitals.

“Over 400 cases of eyes have been shot and removed after the injury. There are documents about that,” Rahnavardi said.

Even during the World Wars, an unspoken rule was that medics were not to be touched.

Doing so today is considered a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

Read more:
Iranian-born Canadian fears for his friends in Iranian prison where he spent 11 years

The dangers facing Iranian doctors have been recognized by medical associations across European and in North America, and the Canadian Medical Association released a statement calling on the Islamic Republic to let doctors do their jobs without interference.

The British Medical Association also released a statement calling on the regime to “cease persecution of health professionals” who treat those injured by the Islamic Republic’s forces, and the World Medical Association is demanding the immediate and unconditional end to violence against Iranian healthcare professionals.

“This is an issue of humanity. It’s my duty, my responsibility as a mother, as a woman, as a human being and as a doctor to be the voice of people who are trusting me, who don’t have help, who don’t have a voice," Rahnavardi said.

"I want everybody to follow their stories and try to provide support."

Video: Iran schoolchildren reportedly killed for protesting

Global NewsCanadian creates database of Iranian healthcare professionals targeted
1:57

At least 90 protesters detained in Iran face execution or life-threatening charges, CBC News has learned

Story by Nahayat Tizhoosh • Yesterday 

This month, a list was shared with CBC News from inside Iran, of the names of protesters who face execution by regime authorities.


A photo obtained by AFP outside Iran on Sept. 21, shows Iranian demonstrators taking to the streets of Tehran during a protest days after an Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in police custody. Over 18,000 people have so far been detained by the Islamic Republic since the start of the anti-regime protests in September, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.© AFP/Getty Images

In consultation with multiple activists and by accessing reporting by various human rights groups, CBC News can name 90 individuals detained in Iran as being at high risk.

According to information available, at least 19 have been sentenced to death, 65 could face execution and six have been handed lengthy and uncertain prison terms.

The vast majority of these individuals are accused by the regime of "waging war against God" and "corruption on earth" — crimes punishable by death under the Islamic Republic's sharia law.

Protests in Iran erupted in September after a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in police custody. The 22-year-old had been arrested by the regime's so-called morality police, allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly, part of the regime's strict Islamic dress code. Her family says she was beaten to death.

Activists shine spotlight on detained protesters

Human rights activists tell CBC News the need to identify and publicize the names of the detained protesters is urgent.

They say the attention and public pressure on the authorities in Iran, will help save the lives of many who are voiceless.

Across Europe dozens of politicians have taken on sponsorship of the vast majority of the names listed.

Many parliamentarians and senators in countries like Germany, Austria and France are amplifying the stories of those who have been detained and are lobbying Iranian ambassadors for their release.

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Dailymotion'We will not stop,' says World Cup attendee supporting Iranian protesters
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Over 18,000 people have so far been detained by the Islamic Republic since the start of the anti-regime protests in September, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Of those, 506 had been killed — including 69 children and teenagers — as of Dec. 21, 2022.

In less than a month, Iranian authorities arrested, charged and carried out two known executions of Mohsen Shekari and Majid Reza Rahnavard.

Treatment of unidentified prisoners

Iranian-Canadian activist Golsa Golestaneh, who focuses on fact-checking and propaganda, says the two men were "executed in silence" because the regime is often able to "distort the truth" by amplifying false charges and convictions of detained prisoners.

Golestaneh is the spokesperson of an advocacy group called Waves (امواج), made up of young Iranians in and outside Iran who want to have a say in the political opposition to the regime.

At least 19 protesters sentenced to death

"It is extremely important to continue emphasizing the unpredictability of the Islamic regime while recognizing the importance of accuracy, to the extent possible, to minimize the chances of another silent murder."

When it comes to the treatment of unidentified prisoners in Iran, Masoud Kazemi, a journalist based in Turkey, says the regime has a "dark history and horrific track record."

"Detained protesters who are unidentified are subjected to more torture and suffering than others," Kazemi said. "And they are also given lengthier prison terms and are sometimes also sentenced with execution."

65 protesters could face execution

Activists caution that executions are just one of the ways the regime kills prisoners. Golestaneh says that even when prisoners in Iran aren't facing executions, their lives are still at risk.

"The tortures are severe and several people have been killed under it. Some committed suicide or their families were forced to say they've committed suicide inside prison," she said.

Kurdish human rights activist Soran Mansournia, who works on identifying prisoners and those killed by the regime, is urging families to come forward and publish the names of their loved ones.

6 Protestors given lengthy prison sentences

"In the last two months, at least seven people from Iranian Kurdistan died under the torture of security forces of the Islamic Republic," Mansournia said.

"Many prisoners' lives are in danger and we don't even know their names. I ask all their families to make public the abduction of their loved ones."

Why anger is just another form of fear

Story by Refresh News • Yesterday


One would not intuitively assume that in many cases, behind anger, there is simply fear. After all, a temper tantrum is rather scary for those who have to witness it. So what does anger have to do with fear?

Seen from the outside, people must sometimes seem pretty crazy. They throw dishes, throw smartphones on the floor, yell like they’re insane. They attack the other person or flee head over heels to get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

Are you angry. Anger is an intense, but above all an offensive emotion. At least at first glance. Anger seems strong, dominant, frightening to those who have to witness it.
Personal experiences with anger and fear

Anger has been “my” emotion for half my life. If you look at the basic negative emotions – i.e. anger, fear and sadness – I have the impression that one of these emotions is particularly prominent in all people. In that regard, the world for me was divided into anger, fear, and sadness types. And I think I was definitely an anger guy.

In contrast, I’ve never actually considered myself anxious. The reason I didn’t do that was because I only looked at fear on the surface, as did anger. For me, anxious people were those who didn’t dare to jump into the water from the 3-meter tower in our small town swimming pool. Those who do not dare to get on a moped and drive off without any significant experience. Those who don’t dare to ride the roller coaster, who never do Skydive do and would never travel alone. Those who fear snakes, who flinch when dogs bark, and who would never ever mount a horse. Okay, admittedly, when it comes to fear of animals, I guess I’m not entirely fearless either, because I run away when I see a spider. But other than that, I never actually had any really obvious fears. So on the surface, I was (almost) fearless – which I couldn’t exactly say for myself when it came to anger.

I only know three people who could have held a candle to me when it came to outbursts of anger. When I say that the people who experienced my tantrums were afraid of me, that would be putting it nicely. Often they didn’t even dare to say what they were thinking, in order to somehow appease me.

So for most of my life, I’ve considered myself „angry,“ easily irritable. The anger was part of the image I had of myself. Quite the opposite of fear, which I never wanted to acknowledge as part of me. Fear and anger were difficult to reconcile in my head. So to speak, distant relatives who hardly have anything to do with each other.

I now believe that fear is the source of anger. Of course, that doesn’t mean that people who are less „angry“ don’t have fears. They’re just less likely to harbor those fears aggressions transform and thus externalize them.

Different types of anger

Related video: How to Control Anger and Calm Yourself (Health Apta)

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Of course, there is no question that behind every tantrum there is always fear. After all, there are many different reasons why one can get angry.

For example, if you are angry because you were hit on or groped in the most primitive way in the club for the tenth time, this anger certainly has little to do with fear, but with the fact that you are simply and poignantly concerned about the non-existent behavior of the person concerned excited. Same if you chatted up stupidly from the side on the street or being insulted. There are many things to get upset about, and yes, these things can also cause you to freak out. But from an emotional point of view, it’s mostly about the little things.

But this other kind of anger, which cannot simply be described using the word „freak out,“ is on a completely different level emotionally. It’s a deep-seated anger that’s deep because it feeds on our most intimate fears.

Fear as the source of anger

If you’re angry at your partner because they’d rather spend their annual vacation with friends, then you’re angry because it triggers a deep fear of missing out. Or the fear of not being good enough – and the thought that the partner would prefer to travel with other people for this reason.

If you’re angry because your partner keeps asking if you’d rather hang out with them instead of going out with friends, you’re not angry because of that fact, but because you’re scared, hemmed in and to be controlled.

fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of control – What makes people angry is so individual because everyone has different fears. Often you can’t understand why another person reacts angry – just as other people often can’t understand why you get so upset about a supposed little thing.

Often behind anger there are not just any fears, but the fears that arise manifested in us in our childhood to have. Because in principle it is always the same things that make us angry – just in different variations, which ultimately all address one and the same fear.

However, what fear is present in all „angry“ people is the fear of admitting fears. Because anger is a protective mechanism that ensures that we don’t have to allow ourselves to be afraid – neither of others nor of ourselves.

In my experience, the first and most important step you have to take to release your anger is to admit your fear. From the moment I acknowledged my fears, I was able to work on them – and from there I was suddenly largely free of this deep-rooted anger that I’ve believed for half my life to be a part of me.

Ban on flags: football patriotism equals nationalism?

Story by Refresh News • Yesterday 

Ban on flags: football patriotism equals nationalism?© Provided by Refresh Lifestyle CAEN

It’s here again, the high season of football. As always in the luggage:Fan miles mice and public viewing parasites, Schland chanters and flag-wavers. Surprisingly, it is the latter who are now the topic of the discussion, because the young greens seem to be at loggerheads with the German flag.
Shitstorm from the football fans

„For the European Football Championship, we call on all fans not to leave any room for nationalistic ideas! Football fans flags down”, was on Friday evening on the Facebook site read by the Green Youth of Rhineland-Palatinate. An absolute no-go, not only for the common beer hat wearer. Also the reactions of Bundestag politician and the Greens themselves ranged from amusement to horror. For example, SPD politician Johannes Kahrs tweeted that he would now “hang another German flag over the beach chair”.

Green youth calls on football fans, dte. Rolling up the flag would promote nationalism. If we asked that of others, it would be racism

— Julia Kloeckner (@JuliaKloeckner) June 12, 2016

#GreenYouth doesn’t get it: the fans‘ flags are the opposite of the flags of yore: a symbol of cosmopolitan, friendly Germany!

— Peter Altmaier (@peteraltmaier) June 12, 2016


How embarrassing is that. Now I’m hanging a German flag over the beach chair again. Yes sir. https://t.co/tszQ3AAF1R

— Johannes Kahrs (@kahrs) June 12, 2016

The fine line between patriotism and nationalism

“Nationalism is a form of patriotism. Those who define themselves as patriotic exclude others. The effect of patriotism always has consequences and is particularly evident where it presents itself as an aggressive form and stigmatizes the other as an enemy,” writes the Green Youth. One thing is clear: About the fashionable tastelessness of German flags on the face, as headgear, sunglasses or a Mohawk wig cannot be disputed. Apparently yes about the moral intentions behind it. Above all, the Green Youth itself criticizes the “party patriotism” that occurs during major events such as world or European Championships reigns. Is there a greater danger behind the beer bliss after a Schweinsteiger goal than we thought? Again this year there are enough idiots, riots and brawls. Before the opening game of the German team attacked over 50 hooligans Ukrainian fans in the city center of Lille, there were also massive outbreaks of violence among the English and Russians. Should these idiots but represent all football fans or opportunistic biennial viewers who celebrate the EM peacefully? Is it morally reprehensible to be proud of the National team to be?

What the Green Youth forgot somewhere between the search for clicks and the probably intended call for openness and tolerance: patriotism is not the same as nationalism. Patriotism denotes aloud Federal Agency for Civic Education „a special appreciation of the traditions, cultural and historical values ​​and achievements of one’s own people“, whereas nationalism glorifying one’s own nation and belittling other nations. Whether you should see the achievements of the German national team as your own remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: whoever is proud of the achievements of one’s own country is by no means disparaging the values ​​of another. So a patriot is not a nationalist, even if the line is often very thin.

The Germans and national pride

Terms such as love of fatherland and national pride have been difficult to come off the keyboard, and not just since the events of the last few years. Somewhere there is always this bad feeling, the fear of offending someone or someone xenophobic to give any form of confirmation among us. While in countries like the US it works the other way around, with every self-respecting suburban family displaying at least one flag in their front yard, we have a hard time feeling proud of our country. After National Socialism and a decades-long divided Germany national feeling is not a matter of course for most Germans. In fact, many of us find identification with our country rather uncomfortable. With patriotism we are either sarcastic or, at best, very timid. In principle, this is probably often the smarter option: identifying and boasting about yourself and your character traits instead of some outdated stereotypes. But are feelings of national unity just as dangerous, as Jamila Schäfer, federal spokeswoman for the Green Youth, claims? In an interview with Mirror online she explains: „We fundamentally consider national community feelings to be dangerous“ – suggests that the team could also be supported with a green DFB flag.“ You could. But you don’t have to.

You can be proud – at least for two weeks

Of course we distinguish ourselves with Schland calls and German flags and maybe even find ourselves better than the rest of the group for 90 minutes World. In the same way, we grow together a bit, hug complete strangers when we celebrate a goal and suddenly we are a big, happy one familywho is happy about her own country. After a month you glare at the same people you were holding in your arms just before Subway on. Everyone has to decide for themselves whether that’s so bad.

 

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rudolf-rocker-nationalism-and-culture

Nationalism and Culture - The Anarchist Library 

Nationalism and Culture is the first of the works of Rudolf Rocker to appear in English. Although the author is known as a platform speaker to wide circles ...