Saturday, December 24, 2022

KULTURAL MODIFICATION
Images: Renaissance women in hipster style

Story by Refresh News • Wednesday

The artistic representation of Women in the Renaissance is rather monotonous. Since they did not pursue a profession per se and were therefore perceived as having no identity, they were often used as representatives in painting role models Presents – Mother, Daughter, Harlot, Witch, Eve or the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
Roller skating renaissance with gum and popcorn

The Argentine photographer Romina Resia gives the women in her project How would have been? new identities and thus plays with the zeitgeist and nostalgia. In an interview with TIME campus she says: „When you think about the past, you usually only see the good and ignore the bad.“ past, modernity, digitization and globalization To draw attention, she depicts her ladies with modern objects – tennis rackets, sunglasses, sneakers. The result makes women look more confident and stronger than ever.

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Image source: All images via Instagram


„Weapons of peace“: Glass artists create elaborate weapon replicas

Story by Refresh News • TODAY

Of the Artist and glassblower Robert Mickelsen has spent the last few years producing outstanding glass art and now has his hands on incredibly crazy looking replicas of firearms tries. The grandiosely designed works of art are also perfectly usable hookahs. He himself describes the hookahs, which are constructed down to the smallest detail, as “weapons of peace”.

Mickelsen is not a fan of guns, he writes on his home page about himself. At first he primarily tried to keep himself financially afloat with his works of art, because the specially made water pipes were particularly popular with people. As he took a closer look at his cool designs himself, he’d have to admit that architecturally speaking, guns are beautiful machines. The bad thing is what people can do with it, says Mickelsen. He found himself in the midst of the contrast between beautiful aesthetics and bad weapon functioning.

But his answer to this paradox is his weapon replicas! His glass weapons are aesthetically beautiful and cannot kill anyone, but rather serve the peaceful things in life. 

In this way, Robert Mickelsen’s glass artworks ultimately become „weapons of peace“.



Robert Mickelsen Waffenkunst Art© Provided by Refresh Lifestyle CAEN





















Black Friday becomes Happy Friday: social commitment instead of maximizing profits

Story by Refresh News • Yesterday 



Those who run a company today not only want to generate sales, but also want to present themselves to customers as responsible and socially committed, because consumers are attaching ever greater importance to these qualities. You can do it with the Happy Friday campaign
WE PUT PRESSUREto meet both requirements.

Reach and sales strength as the basis for important values

The company WIRmachenDRUCK, founded by Samuel and Johannes Voetter in 2008, started out small, with just a few employees and a manageable range of online printing and printed products. With the help of constantly evolving production processes and the use of the latest technology, the company has succeeded in making it one of the leading service providers in Europe. A major development step for the company then followed in 2016 with the takeover by the online printing world market leader Cimpress.

Today, WIRmachenDRUCK has 300 employees, offers more than 5 million different print variations and serves half a million customers. The team generates around 150 million euros annually. The company has already received four awards from FOCUS-MONEY for customer loyaltythe award „Outstanding“. Those responsible not only use these successes to earn money, but also to do good for people, the environment and the climate.

Environmental and climate protection: An existential task for companies


Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of being responsible when purchasing commodities as well. More and more customers are willing to invest more money when productsclimate neutraland are therefore produced in an environmentally friendly manner. In the printing sector, climate neutrality is known to be a difficult undertaking.

Companies like WIRmachenDRUCK are aware of the problem and are looking for ways to offset the emissions they generate as much as possible. It is often by participating in or supporting environmental projects that they create a balance. In cooperation with ReviewForest, the company supports a climate protection project in which a tree is planted for every rating WIRmachenDRUCK receives. This is done by the youth organization Plant-for-Planet. The Yucatán peninsula in Mexico was chosen as the planting site.

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In order to do even more, various projects in the field of energy generation from solar thermal, wind power and biomass systems are also being promoted in India. These projects make a major contribution to avoiding CO2 emissions and the support is intended to make it clear that WIRmachenDRUCK is aware of its responsibility towards the climate and the local people.

Social commitment: Charity on Black Friday of all days


Gift boxes with all kinds of toys and sweets. Source: PR

Trade, both stationary shops and online trade, is dependent on the income in special consumption peaks. In addition to the time before Easter and Christmas, this is mainly the so-called Black Friday or Cyber ​​Monday, which is known as Singles Day in Asia and especially in the People’s Republic of China. On these days (depending on the country, there are now up to four) the shops advertise with high discounts and earn billions of euros, US dollars and yuan (officially renminbi).

In 2020, WIRmachenDRUCK made Black Friday, which was so profitable, Happy Friday for the first time. Behind this renaming was a charity funded by the founders and their leadership. Production stopped this Black Friday and the entire workforce packed a total of 10,000 gift boxes that were distributed to needy children in Romania and Hungary for Christmas. In an interview, Samuel Voetter explains why the campaign was started as follows: “Making a pair of children’s eyes smile makes them happy. Seeing 100 children’s eyes light up is like a fountain of youth. Making 100,000 children’s eyes shine is priceless!“

Also in 2021 there will be a Happy Friday

Not only because the campaign was a great success last year, but also because Happy Friday is a matter of the heart for everyone involved, children’s eyes should be made to shine again in 2021. Again, the Voetter brothers and their management team are providing 10,000 gift boxes. This time, however, they hope that many customers and other companies will also participate and also in the online shop ofWE PUT PRESSURE„to go shopping.

When you place an order, the invoice amount goes into a non-profit foundation set up especially for the campaign. This will then provide the money for the gift boxes and distribution on site. Anyone who participates will receive a donation receipt from the organization “Hilfstransporte + Waisenhilfe e.V.” on request from January. The organizers have great hope that there will be up to 50,000 gift boxes this year, so that 100,000 children’s eyes in Eastern Europe will actually light up at Christmas. Like last year, the campaign focuses on Hungary and Romania.

who am Black Friday earning a lot of money should always consider whether and how he can do something good with part of the income, not because he has to, but because he wants to.

Explore funny T-Shirt ideas on Amazon.
TERRY AND THE PIRATES
Milton Caniff Had a Special Appreciation for Soldiers at Christmastime

Story by Brian Cronin • Yesterday - CBR

It's our yearly Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar! This year, the theme is A Comic Strip Christmas! Each day will spotlight a notable comic strip, and at least three Christmas-themed comics from that strip. Today's comic is For Better or For Worse.


Milton Caniff

Every day until Christmas Eve, you can click on the current day's Advent Calendar post and it will show the Advent Calendar with the door for that given day opened, and you can see what the "treat" for that day will be! You can click here to see the previous Advent Calendar entries.

The drawing for this year's Advent Calendar, of Santa Claus giving out presents to comic strip kids (although instead of a present for Charlie Brown, his dog, Snoopy, gets a present instead), is by Nick Perks.

Day 20 is now opened (once opened, the door will feature an image from the featured comic strip)...

RELATED: We Followed the Pattersons Through Decades of Christmases, For Better or For Worse

WHAT WAS TERRY AND THE PIRATES?

In the history of comic strips, few artists are quite as revered as Milton Caniff, perhaps the most beloved artist of the 20th Century among other comic strip artists, and one of the most influential (Hal Foster and Alex Raymond being the other two of the trinity of influential comic strip artists with Caniff. Charles Schulz was obviously also very important, but the Schulz impact tended to be less immediate than artists who took after Foster, Raymond and Caniff. With Schulz, it was sort of a "feel" that other creators emulated, with Foster, Raymond and Caniff, artists would often pretty much just APE those guys).

Caniff was a skilled storyteller right off the bat, as soon as he began work at a syndicate in 1932, at the heart of the Great Depression. Storytelling was always something that Caniff was excellent at, but it is interesting to note that his character work was not always a strength of his. When you look at his early work compared to his heyday, the difference is striking. Especially when it came to how BROAD some of his early characters were. In any event, after working on a number of strips for the Associated Press' syndicate, he got a chance to launch the adventure strip, Dickie Dare, in 1933, inspired by the work Raymond was doing on Flash Gordon. Dickie Dare was about a boy who would imagine himself on all sorts of fantastical adventures. Eventually, Caniff decided to just send Dickie on REAL life adventures, traveling the world with his companion, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

Dickie Dare was a compelling enough strip that New York Daily News publisher Joseph Patterson hired Caniff to work on a new strip, which Patterson wanted to see based in Asia, as Patterson felt Asia to be one of the last great areas for adventure in the world (Patterson was the guy who told Chester Gould to change Plainclothes Tracy to Dick Tracy. He was heavily involved in the Chicago Tribune New York news comic strip syndicate. One of his other major strips that he had an outsized influence upon will be spotlighted soon). So Caniff launched Terry and the Pirates, which was, in a way, a riff on the Dickie Dare concept.

It starred Terry Lee, who traveled with his companion, journalist Pat Ryan. When the strip begins, they're on a search for gold, but obviously, their adventures soon take them all over the place. As the strip is about the piracy of the area, one of the major characters in the strip is the Dragon Lady, the most dominant pirate of the whole area, who seems to harbor a bit of a thing for Pat. Caniff slowly introduced a number of interesting supporting characters, like the Southern transplant, April Kane, an early girlfriend for Terry.

Obviously, once World War II began, the setting of the strip meant that it would have to deal with the war, and so both Terry and Pat ultimately enlist (Terry having eventually grown to the age where he could enlist in the Army Air Force). Also, the Dragon Lady briefly becomes an ally, as she hates the Japanese as much as Pat and Terrry (but only because they're messing with her making money). Once the war was over, Caniff was getting frustrated by the fact that he didn't own the strip, so a rival syndicate offered him the chance to launch his own creator-owned series, and so he left Terry and the Pirates at the end of 1946 and launched Steve Canyon, a strip about a pilot, very much in the mold of Terry and the Pirates (obviously). Terry and the Pirates continued under George Wunder until ending in 1973. Steve Canyon would last until Caniff's death in 1988.

RELATED: Little Orphan Annie Always Embraced Christmas No Matter How Dark Things Got

HOW DID TERRY AND THE PIRATES HANDLE CHRISTMAS?

In this 1939 strip, the gang are at the headquarters of the British pirate, Captain Blaze, when April Kane and Big Stoop (a very large and very mute Mongolian man who befriends Pat and Terry and their translator, George Webster "Connie" Confucius) decide to have some Christmas fun...

Click here to enlarge the strip.

In 1940, Terry has been injured, and he's being taken care of by two minor Chinese characters, Dr. Ping and Hu Shee, who were fighting back against the Japanese as guerillas. They decide to give Terry a Merry Christmas...

Click here to enlarge the strip.

In 1941, Pat gives Terry a great speech about Christmas...

Click here to enlarge the strip.

In 1944, Caniff started doing a very special thing. In this Christmas strip, he paid tribute to the pilots who transported supplies through the Himalayas at great peril...

Click here to enlarge the strip.

This became a yearly tradition for Caniff. He would spend each Christmas doing special tributes to the soldiers, like this excellent one right before Caniff left the strip in 1946 about how veterans might act kind of distant at Christmastime...

Click here to enlarge the strip.

Caniff continued it every year in Steve Canyon. What a neat thing to do. Caniff was really amazing.
2 VIEWS FROM POSTMEDIA

STELTER: The 'war on Christmas' is not based in reality

Opinion by Ryan Stelter • Yesterday 

Every year we hear anecdotally about the war on Christmas but it couldn’t be further from the truth.



There is no “war on Christmas.”

People will decry that you can’t say “Merry Christmas” anymore without offending anyone. That is nonsense.

You can say it all you want, whenever you want, really. Although you might look silly saying it in October.

That’s beside the point, however. I don’t know who concocted this idea about the “war on Christmas” but it resurfaces every year.

A recent Leger poll of 1,526 Canadians found that a whopping 92% of people would not be offended if someone wished them a Merry Christmas despite growing up in a culturally or religiously non-Christian household.

I have a theory that the “war on Christmas” is one born out of a fear of change. It is one of the holidays that is steeped in tradition and those traditions can be hard to follow every year. It’s not that you actually can’t say Merry Christmas to people anymore, it’s just a proxy for a larger feeling.

People are nostalgic around the holidays and it makes perfect sense. As every Christmas passes, we reflect on how much things have changed. Things aren’t the way they used to be, and it scares some people. It’s understandable as change can be hard.

For instance, I noticed a thread on Twitter the other day highlighting the “war on Christmas.” In it were screenshots of old newspaper articles dating back more than 100 years. Many of the articles were presented as people fearing that Christmas had been banned, that somehow everyone’s favourite holiday was being taken over by some mysterious Scrooge-like force.

There was even an article from 1961 that claimed communists were stealing Christmas away. Of course, this was during the Cold War when a word like communist was basically seen as a curse word.

It’s quite easy to cast blame on a nameless, common enemy trying to take away the precious holiday many hold so dear. When in reality, no one cares.

Perhaps the media holds a part of the blame, stirring up these ideas that Christmas is under attack. Any story where someone is criticizing the holiday garners major reactions and gets clicks. If we were to use older examples, it sold newspapers.

Yet with every passing year, Christmas has endured. On Dec. 25 people gather and swap presents while drinking egg nog and reflecting on the year that’s passed. (Also, can anyone please tell me if they actually tell scary ghost stories around Christmas? It’s for science, and my own personal intrigue).

While there is certainly the religious aspect of Christmas that many people adhere to, there are plenty who are not regular church-goers that celebrate the holiday. It’s hard not to, pretty lights, holiday parties and classic movies.

Of course, there are other holidays around this time of year, such as Hanukkah or Kwanzaa but they do not exist to eliminate Christmas.

I have yet to meet a single person who scoffed when I said to them “Merry Christmas” and I worked years in retail. If you’re the type of person who would get offended if someone wished you a Merry Christmas, I would kindly ask that you reflect a little bit on who you are as a person.

Saying “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings” is not silencing Christmas as those have been common sayings for years now. So, go on, spread that Christmas cheer this year and wish everyone you see on the street a Merry Christmas. Or don’t, it’s really up to you — it’s a free country.


Have a safe and happy holiday and please don’t drink and drive.

rstelter@postmedia.com
Twitter: @steltsy94

Opinion: Let's drop the arguing about a War on Christmas

Opinion by Joseph Wiebe • 

The 20-metre high Christmas tree in Churchill Square on Nov. 19, 2021. 
 Edmonton Journal

Every year, Halloween decorations come down, giving way to Remembrance Day poppies and then, it arrives — the Christmas season. Shops begin playing carols early and decorations adorn store displays. People begin winding down their schedules as many prepare to spend time with loved ones. We’re starting to get familiar with another season that descends with the last bugle call of Nov. 11: the “War on Christmas.”

Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s the season of arguing whether or not there is a war on Christmas. The Guardian has made a parody of the annual hostility while Fox News is blamed for declaring it. Whether or not you believe there’s a War on Christmas, it’s hard to deny that December brings out the worst in some people.

Every year online mobs claim that any non-Christian decoration or festivity without some Christmassy iconography is part of the battle. Just as the first strains of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” blare out from mall speakers, the sudden arrival of Starbucks holiday cups (an annual target for right-wing keyboard warriors) are taken as shots fired.

And while the fervour around this has been strong in the U.S., we’re not immune from the issue here. Just this year in Edmonton, racists pounced on a Edmonton Downtown Business Association decision to move the large tree they erect in Churchill Square to a business district on Rice Howard Way, blaming Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who was not even involved in the decision. It’s reminiscent of Fox News’ Christmas Tree fire last year, which several network folks called a hate crime.

Christmas is a contention as annual as the World Juniors hockey championship, yet how it’s celebrated changes constantly. Gerry Bowler, a.k.a. Dr. Christmas, has pointed out that Christmas has been in the crosshairs since the beginning of Christianity. There have always been attempts to restrain, transform, downplay, resist, and contain celebrations of Jesus’ birth. And yet Christmas remains. There have also always been voices calling for Christianity’s centrality in our society. And yet Christmas has been remarkably adaptable to both its adherents and people outside the faith.

One unique feature of this current controversy is its context within the general push for privatizing religion. Our own tree debacle here in Edmonton is one instance in a long line of religious conflict over Christmas that shows its political dimensions.

A case in New York in 1956 had to decide whether an inter-faith constructed Christmas creche could be displayed outside a high school (Baer v. Kolmorgen). An atheist parent in South Dakota contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who took the school board to court in 1971 after their child was forced to sing Christmas carols in school (Florey v Sioux Falls School District). What we see in these and many more cases is how the removal of Christmas from a more dominant cultural position can be seen as a secular move to relegate all religious holidays to society’s sidelines equally.

Is there a way to acknowledge Christmas as a religious, yet public holiday, without insisting on Christianity’s cultural supremacy? One way would be to not let the issue be as divisive as it has become. The narrative of the War on Christmas reflects already entrenched political divides. It’s not an exaggeration to draw the disagreement along stereotypes: liberals claim there is no war; conservatives maintain that it’s constant.

The left wants no Christianity in Christmas; the right wants only Christianity everywhere. We have the Guardian vs. Fox News; Jon Stewart vs. Tucker Carlson. Both sides think in terms of total opposition rather than an opportunity for reasoned, charitable conversation. Christmas can be a brief, fleeting moment of freedom from our divides rather than a way of entrenching them — much like the famous Christmas ceasefire on the Western Front in 1914.

But this will require a very different orientation to the conversation, one not trying to win an argument. This is the opportunity to have a different political dialogue, one that negotiates how to celebrate a religious holiday in a pluralistic society.

Christmas isn’t going anywhere; but what it looks like and how it’s celebrated in public will always fluctuate. Without Christmas, especially here in the Great White North, we’d lose a time of festivity and conviviality in the cold, dark months of winter. Without some restraint on public displays though and what it communicates beyond holiday cheer, we’d have the Ku Klux Klan erecting crosses on government property.

Christians point out that consumerism has already made the essence of Christmas unrecognizable in its celebration. Secular folks continue to celebrate Christmas by a vast majority. So, let’s have a multi-religious, cross-political conversation, not about what we should do but rather about what we’re already doing to celebrate at this time of year.

From this kind of conversation we can learn from sources we might not expect. Christians, for example, can look to religious minorities who are living their best religious lives through community service and care. When your holiday isn’t the norm, you’re really forced to reassess what the time means to you and how you can put your values forth nonetheless.

Non-Christian religious groups still participate in the season, not despite their religions but through them. We see Sikh groups providing free groceries and Muslim mosques offering shelter to unhoused people this time of year. If we can drop the obsession with proving whether or not there’s a war on Christmas and instead step outside to participate in unfamiliar traditions, publicly acknowledging the various religious communities of those traditions, then perhaps we can find a quieter return to the best elements of Christmastime beyond these distracting battles: charity, kindness, and family.

Joseph Wiebe is associate professor of Religion and Ecology at the University of Alberta Augustana, and the interim director of the Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life.


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.

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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.

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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