Indigenous prof says UBC's silence on Turpel-Lafond controversy casts 'shadow' on institution

Tue, January 10, 2023 

From 2018 until 2022, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond was the director of UBC's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. (bccla.org - image credit)

Daniel Justice says he was met with silence by the University of British Columbia (UBC) for more than two months, despite his best efforts to raise concerns about how the institution was handling the controversy around former UBC professor Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond.

On Oct. 12, a CBC investigation found that genealogical evidence indicated Turpel-Lafond was of entirely European ancestry, despite the fact she had claimed for decades to be a treaty Indian of Cree ancestry. The investigation also raised concerns about false claims she had made regarding her academic achievements.

She no longer works for the university, as of Dec. 16, but UBC won't say why.

In a statement to other media outlets, Turpel-Lafond indicated that she retired to focus "on my health, family and spiritual journey."

Justice said he's not happy with how UBC handled this from the outset.

"The university comes out very strongly in defence of her at the very beginning," recalled Justice, an Indigenous UBC professor. "All of the concern — the public concern — was protecting Mary Ellen."

Grad.ubc.ca

In a statement to the Globe and Mail the day the story was published, UBC praised Turpel-Lafond's work as the head of UBC's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. It declined to comment on her Indigenous ancestry claims, noting that they played no role in the decision to hire her.

Justice said that approach stands in stark contrast to how the university treated him and other Indigenous professors who expressed concern.

"There was not any public acknowledgement that there were other people who were hurt by this and other relationships that were hurt by this," said Justice.

"It's hard not to look at all of that and not feel a little bit abandoned by the institution."

Candis Callison, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous journalism, media and public discourse at UBC, said the institution's response has cast an "unnecessary shadow" over UBC.

She said UBC went silent after its initial defence of Turpel-Lafond, rather than publicly acknowledging the seriousness of the concerns raised and committing to look into them.

"UBC looks like a very closed-door place for people to want to express concerns about something that affects us all," she said. "It doesn't appear that the university took into consideration many of the concerns that were expressed privately and directly."

Fnis.arts.ubc.ca

Silence 'a terrible idea'

An internal UBC email leaked to CBC provides some insight into the decision making process as the university found itself in the midst of what Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason has called a "full-on scandal."

The email was sent on Jan. 2 by UBC provost Gage Averill to a group of non-Indigenous professors who raised concerns about the growing controversy. CBC asked UBC questions about the email but it declined to respond, indicating it "represents an internal discussion around a very complex topic."

Arts.ubc.ca

CBC's story broke on Oct. 12. Averill said that day was a time of transition for the institution, noting it "was published by the CBC on the evening before our acting president, Deborah Buszard, took office." After six years as president, Santa Ono had left UBC for the University of Michigan.

Averill said the university received some questions about the story from the Globe and Mail.

"Although our comms team released a quick statement at the beginning of this issue, that was only a terse (and maybe not perfect, from my POV) response to some specific questions from a reporter," Averill wrote.

He indicated that going forward, the university had decided that silence was the preferred approach.

"The university has not issued a broader communication, as our concerns are foremost for our community," he wrote. "I have just wanted to avoid any hint of the institution doing 'damage control' or responding in an knee-jerk way."

Jean Teillet, a Métis lawyer and expert in Indigenous rights law, said that statement is amusing.

"I love that line," she said. "That's just like admitting the obvious. You are doing damage control and everybody knows it, and the fact that you're hiding just contributes to that."

Teillet, who investigated Carrie Bourassa and her false claims to Indigenous ancestry for the University of Saskatchewan, said she learned from that experience that everyone's observing and taking note.

"UBC's got their head in the sand, it seems to me, if they don't think that the rest of academia is carefully watching what they do," she said. "So this idea that they don't have to face the music in any public way at all, I think it's a terrible idea."

Ed Henderson

In the internal email, UBC's provost Averill said to the faculty that "anytime there is a credible charge of misrepresentation, the University would have to undertake some kind investigation."

But he said due to privacy law, he couldn't say what, if anything, the university did in the Turpel-Lafond's case.

"No matter how much anyone would like to know about such things, I am not permitted by law to say anything about any particular individual," Averill wrote.

Callison is puzzled by that claim. She noted that in 2021, when the University of Saskatchewan faced a similar situation with professor Carrie Bourassa, it announced it was investigating the matter.

"Even just to say 'we are investigating' would have been a huge leap forward at some point during the last two almost three months," she said.

Callison said she wrote private emails to university administrators and was part of a group of Indigenous academics that wrote a letter raising concerns as well. She also made her views known publicly in a podcast about the Turpel-Lafond situation.

Despite all of that, the university has still failed to reach out to her directly, she said.

"It seems like UBC is just hoping it will blow over, but that won't happen," she said.

UBC plans to connect with Indigenous faculty and staff

The internal email said that immediately after the story broke, the provost and the new acting president sought counsel from advisors.

"There was an early consideration of a meeting with all Indigenous faculty and staff," Averill wrote. "But it was suggested that the issue was at the time too raw, and that it may not be appropriate to have conflictual and emotional discussions among Indigenous community members in front of university administrators at that time."

Stephen Petrina, vice-president of the faculty association at UBC, said the idea that such a conversation is "too raw" is insulting.

This wasn't the first time UBC administration had urged restraint in the face of the Turpel-Lafond revelations. Ngia Pindell, the dean of UBC's law school, wrote an email to students shortly after the story broke.

"While it is natural that you might wish to discuss the story with colleagues, classmates and friends, please be mindful of the potential that what you say may exacerbate a difficult situation for someone you are engaging with."

Petrina said universities exist to have hard conversations about delicate and important topics, and they do that all of the time. Instead, he said, the university decided "that an issue of false identity claims and false credential claims would be too raw, too sensitive for our faculty or staff or students to countenance and that the best approach was, again, silence."

Experts.news.ubc.ca

Averill said in his email that instead of that broader conversation, administrators decided to meet with the president's advisory committee on Indigenous affairs as a first step.

That meeting took place on Dec. 12, two full months after the story broke.

Teillet said that may seem like a long time to wait for such a meeting, but that she has learned through dealing with universities that they operate on different time tables than the rest of society.

"I thought I knew bureaucracies, because I've been dealing with the federal government for most of my career, and you know, that's massive bureaucracy," she said. "It's nothing compared to the knots the university ties itself up in."

New policy in the works

Averill said in his email that until that time, UBC had relied on self-identification to determine Indigenous ancestry when offering Indigenous-specific jobs or scholarships.

He said that because the university had hired B.C.-based academics in many cases, "this system was buttressed by the familiarity that many of our Indigenous colleagues have with either the individual applicants or their home communities — thus, self-reporting was enhanced with community knowledge."

But, he acknowledged, "this did not work in the case of Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who came to UBC from decades of highly lauded work for the province, as a former advisor to the National Chief of the [Assembly of First Nations], and with a reputation of an advocate."

He said this situation has convinced the university that it needs to develop a new policy and that the university would begin consulting with Indigenous faculty, staff and others in the new year.

"This will not be a quick process, but we want to do it right, to be intentional and respectful, and to have it Indigenous led, but with strong support from the administration," Averill wrote.

He said so far, the president and provost have been told by advisors to look for B.C. Indigenous perspectives and "not to adopt made-in-other-province solutions such as the Queen's University or U [of] Saskatchewan approaches."

This is baffling to Teillet. She said last year, in the wake of the Carrie Bourassa controversy, First Nations University in Regina held a national conference on identity fraud.

"The whole idea was to learn from each other and to not have to reinvent the wheel, as everybody gains more experience in drafting policies to go through this," she said.

Teillet is the author of an almost 100-page report for the University of Saskatchewan on Indigenous identity fraud. It is the result of her months long investigation of the Carrie Bourassa situation.

"So the idea that an academic institution is closed off to learning from how others have dealt with the same issue seems to me to be bizarre," she said.

Justice said he's glad the university is looking forward by planning to develop a new policy, but hopes the university will also examine what went wrong.

"It's one thing to say 'It didn't work.' It's another thing entirely to talk about why it didn't work," he said. "And the 'why' matters here."

He said he believes that the university is being careful out of a "sincere concern to not make things worse," but that it can't ignore the past.

"There are actually concerns about the integrity of the process with that particular hire," Justice told CBC. "I guess my concern is if we don't do some looking back, how are we going to know what went wrong so that we don't replicate it again?"

Funding electric public transit can reduce emissions and address economic inequality

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, January 10, 2023 

An electric bus charging on the side of a street in Montréal. Funding public transit is a good way to reduce greenhouse emissions while ensuring economic equality in moving to clean transportation. (Shutterstock)

Electric vehicles have the potential to address climate change by producing significantly less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other air pollutants than conventional gasoline-powered vehicles.

To promote their use, the Canadian government incentivized the purchase of electric vehicles in 2019, making it easier for Canadians to buy zero-emission vehicles.

Yet, high prices continue to be a major barrier. Electric vehicles of all types, even after a decade of being on the market, remain too expensive for most Canadians — even after government incentives.

Prices for electric vehicles are increasing despite declining battery costs. The Tesla Model 3 is a classic example. Announced as an affordable car for the everyday person, it’s starting price exceeds $60,000.

So, while high-income consumers can purchase expensive electric vehicles and acquire virtue-signalling advantages for saving the planet, lower-income consumers are stuck with conventional vehicles that pollute more — if they can afford them at all.

Electric vehicles are unaffordable

The average electric vehicle buyer in the United States is a middle-aged man with an income exceeding $100,000. This suggests that electric vehicle incentives, totalling about $2.2 billion in Canada, primarily go to the top 16 per cent income bracket — an already privileged group.

A Tesla Model 3 sedan sits on display outside a Tesla showroom in Littleton, Colo. in 2018. (AP Photo/David Zalubowsi)

In order for lower-income people to benefit, electric vehicle prices need to decline. How can affordability be best addressed? MBA students at the University of Manitoba’s I.H. Asper School of Business recently considered this question and reached an unexpected conclusion.

Rather than promoting individual electric vehicles for lower-income consumers, the answer appears to lie with having better public transit instead. We carried out a series of cost-benefit analysis calculations to arrive at this conclusion.

Electric vehicle incentives

Based on statistical trends from Employment and Social Development Canada reports from 2016 and 2021, we calculated that lower-income consumers make up about 10 percent of the population — about 3.8 million Canadians, or 1.5 million households.

The first option for addressing electric vehicle affordability requires the federal government to provide enhanced incentives to low-income electric vehicle consumers. Such incentives would need to bridge the total cost of ownership gap — the purchase cost of the vehicle, plus operating and fuel costs — between modest new electric cars and modest new conventional cars.

The funds to balance the total cost of ownership would be provided by government, hence the economic program cost, with two main benefits: GHG reductions and air quality improvement.

By switching from gasoline to electric, GHG reductions average about 4.2 tonnes per vehicle annually across the country. We used the federal government’s social cost of carbon, which reflects future damage costs from releases today. It’s important to note that the social cost of carbon is different than current federal fuel charges, which merely provide a price-signal to consumers. We calculate that these reductions would result in a benefit of about $210 annually per vehicle.

The reduction of other air pollutants would also improve air quality. This would have positive benefits on human health.

We estimate this option would cost the government about $30 billion. After including benefits, the overall net cost would be about $20 billion. While this approach could overcome excessive electric vehicle prices, it would be a costly policy, especially considering there are other, more affordable options available.

Pay as you save programs

The second option is similar to an idea already available for home energy efficiency improvements, except applied to electric vehicles. This involves interest-free, pay-as-you-save loans from the federal government for lower-income households. Such a program was proposed in Manitoba in 2017.

Loans would cover the entire cost of modest electric vehicles over lifetime, but require consumers to make principal payments and pay for operating costs. Our calculations for this option, however, show an even higher overall net cost of about $35 billion, hence a poor policy choice.

The benefits would be the same, but no actual net annual savings would be achieved because of high electric vehicle prices. Lower-income consumers would be left paying more than they can afford.

Funding new public transport

The last two options involve fully funding additional new transit buses to meet the transportation needs of lower-income households. We estimate that about 30,000 buses are needed nationally. This would triple the number across the country, although in-depth investigation is needed to clarify requirements.

Funding new transit buses wouldn’t just provide GHG reductions and air quality improvements, but also relieve traffic congestion. It would provide economic savings to households too, because people would not have to pay for cars or gasoline.

A second-generation New Flyer electric transit bus in Winnipeg in February 2017. (Robert Parsons), Author provided

There are two options for the type of buses the government could fund. The first option involves funding 30,000 new diesel buses across Canada. Based on earlier research, we estimate this option would cost about $20 billion. This would result in an overall net benefit of about $30 billion and would include significant GHG reductions because less cars would be driven.

Alternatively, the government could fund 30,000 additional electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses, instead of diesel buses. We calculate this would cost the government about $38 billion with a smaller positive overall net benefit of about $17 billion. Emission reductions would be larger than that for diesel buses, yet our calculations show relatively consistent GHG reduction costs.

A transitional approach would be feasible — the government could start by adding some additional diesel buses now and working to add more zero-emission buses gradually. Net emission reductions and positive economic benefits are achieved across this spectrum.

How do we move forward?

No matter which approach is chosen, the way forward will come with many difficult challenges — often unexpected. One interesting example is Winnipeg Transit, which discovered they are initially limited to only 100 zero-emission buses due to electrical capacity constraints, beyond which implementation becomes much trickier.

We also know public transit was hit especially hard by COVID-19 and is still suffering badly today. Growing public safety concerns are also a severe issue.

Public transit needs more governmental assistance to fully recover from the pandemic, but little further direct operational aid has appeared from the federal government.

Our results, while preliminary, suggest that public transit is a good way to simultaneously reduce GHG emissions while ensuring economic equality as we move toward clean transportation. Public transit warrants much more attention to help Canada’s transportation industry fully recover.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Robert Parsons, University of Manitoba; Chueh-Ching (Janet) Chen, University of Manitoba, and Rohan Shanker, University of Manitoba. 

Read more:


There aren’t enough batteries to electrify all cars — focus on trucks and buses instead


How to get more electric vehicles on the road

Robert Parsons, Sessional Instructor, I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Rohan Shanker, MBA Student, I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, and Chueh-Ching (Janet) Chen, MBA Student, I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba

Robert Parsons was part of a team, as co-applicant, receiving funding in 2021 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for a Knowledge Synthesis Grant (KSG) – Mobility and Public Transit (2021-2022), entitled, “Public Transit and Active Transportation: Activity, Structural and Energy Efficiency Effects on Mobility and the Environment.”

Chueh-Ching (Janet) Chen is a member of IIBA (International Institue of Business Analysis)

Rohan Shanker is a Canadian Marketing Association and Canadian Public Relations Society member.

The humanities should teach about how to make a better world, not just criticize the existing one


Robert Danisch, Professor, Department of Communication Arts, University of Waterloo
Tue, January 10, 2023 

Learning to transform, not only criticize, circumstances is an important part of humanities education. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

This coming spring, a new group of students will think about choosing university majors when they apply to campuses across North America.

In all likelihood, fewer of those students will choose humanities subjects — traditionally understood to include history, literature, philosophy, languages and the arts — as their major, than in past years.

This is because of an ongoing “crisis” in the humanities, whereby the meaning, purpose, credibility and benefits of humanities majors are questioned.

Enrolment levels have dropped. Students have a harder time seeing the “relevance” of the humanities and so they choose science, engineering or business in greater numbers. Research also suggests when students do choose a humanities major, they often regret it. This is bad news for both democratic societies and leaders of university humanities faculties.

My pitch to reverse this trend: let’s teach students to be makers, builders and creators, the architects of the future, and not just demolition crews.

The meaning, purpose, credibility and benefits of humanities study are being questioned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

‘Elephant in the Zoom’

Journalist Ryan Grim provides some insight into the problem in his June 2022 article “Elephant in the Zoom,” which explores how “meltdowns have brought progressive advocacy groups to a standstill at a critical moment in world history.”

Grim examines the experiences of people working in non-profit organizations both after Donald Trump’s 2016 election, and following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police.

He found that workers in progressive organizations were skilled in analyzing and pointing out problems, but the skills required for constructively managing differences were absent.

He suggests that for many managers, members of an older generation, the focus should have been on the work of non-profits, but for workers — presumably at least some who would be younger — the focus was on their own work environments.

Members of organizations like the Sierra Club created major disruptions in those institutions.

Many projects stalled as organizations were left with the task of simply managing intense internal conflict.

Intense internal conflict

Grim’s portrait is a typical caricature of humanities graduates – they learn how to spend more time in meetings fighting with one another than changing the world.

The fights Grim chronicled were often about whether an institution saw, in sufficient detail and with sufficient urgency, how their own internal dynamics were corrupted by systemic racism or sexism or other systems of power and privilege.

These are valuable insights. But now we have “call-out culture,” which is more concerned with criticizing someone for lacking an appropriate level of moral purity than with changing systems or making people’s lives better.

In other words, “call-out” culture replaces the hard work of socio-political change with the easy work of shaming one person. As a primary way of engaging the world, there are limits to what “calling-out” systems and people can achieve, and the relationships and alliances required for democratic life risk being destroyed by such an approach.

Relationships and alliances are required for democratic life. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Examining what we do

“Critical Theory” emerged from the western Marxist tradition and aims to find and critique underlying assumptions in social life so that the power structures maintaining domination can be challenged and transformed.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that today “any philosophical approach with similar practical aims could be called a ‘critical theory,’ including feminism, critical race theory and some forms of post-colonial criticism.”

Critical theory has long been a preoccupation of humanities work.

Some might say critical theory has been the dominant way of doing humanities work particularly in North America since at least the 1970s, and its ascendancy has coincided with declining humanities enrolment.

At its best, critical theory is a toolbox for examining what we do and why we do it, especially by considering the ways in which existing systems of power limit (or condition) how we can act. While the aim of critical theory is to transform our world, too often the assumption is that if we see the hidden ways power operates we will be transformed by that insight.

Where is the humanities toolbox for creating or making a better world?

I used the word “examining” to describe the work of critical theory because it offers more a way of seeing than a way of doing — and implies that seeing is all we need for change.

Imagining a better world

The humanities aren’t just instruments of criticism. They also hold the keys to how we might imagine a better world, particularly through their emphasis on the public good and the skills necessary for constructively managing difference.

Here’s what I’ll be teaching this year in general first year Arts courses and upper year communication courses, and I hope there are others like me out there: I will introduce students to imaginative builders like activist Jane Addams who sought social and political change through engaging neighbours. We’ll read about writer and entrepreneur Chloe Valdary’s work on enchantment, anti-racism and equity and communication consultant Anat Shenker-Osorio’s work galvanizing current progressive movements.

These figures care most about generating meaningful change, not just through criticism but by embodying, managing and creating new ways of tackling challenges.

I’ll work with students on how to cultivate an imagination for the public good, how to co-ordinate action even in the presence of disagreement and how to persuade, or change minds, with respect and care.

Doing this work puts power and privilege at the centre of conversations in order to transform circumstances, not just criticize them.
Grief and new practices

Much critical theorizing, in its commitment to emancipation from oppression, has grappled with despair. We ought to be realistic about both the despair and grief people face.

There is grief because of harms to the disenfranchised, the collapse of old systems and the failures of western societies to imagine and realize alternatives.

Read more: 6 ways to build resilience and hope into young people's learning about climate change

But healing from this grief requires more than critical theory can offer. It requires a way to build new systems, to embody new practices and to foster new forms of co-operation so that we make a better future instead of repeating a grim past.

Fostering change

Carrying the burden of fostering change is no small task. At times that burden has fallen disproportionately on those that are most vulnerable to power, but that’s precisely why we need the humanities now more than ever.

Critics, and criticism, are necessary for making the world a better place, but we need people committed to building better democratic societies, not just destroying what isn’t working. This means we need humanities majors who are creators, builders, visionary architects, planners and inventors.

Maybe students would see more value in the humanities if those skills were taught too.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Robert Danisch, University of Waterloo
Read more:

How stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future: Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 7

How social sciences and humanities programs can prepare students for employment

CANADA
Opposition parties call for extension to deadline for military tainted water compensation


Tue, January 10, 2023 


The deadline for military members and their families to apply for compensation after drinking contaminated water is approaching fast — and federal opposition parties are urging Ottawa not to block an application for an extension.

Some current and former members and their families who lived in CFB Valcartier's married quarters from 1995 to 2000 could be eligible for thousands of dollars in compensation — if they apply before the Jan.15 deadline.

In 2020, the Quebec Court of Appeal awarded millions of dollars in compensation to some residents of Shannon, Que., a town close to CFB Valcartier. Only military members and their families who were living in married quarters in the town during that time period are eligible.

For decades, a cancer-causing industrial degreasing agent called trichloroethylene, or TCE, was used at Valcartier's research facility and a nearby ammunition factory. It leached into the water table. The Quebec Court of Appeal concluded the chemical was used over an "indeterminate period" from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Class-action lawyers representing residents of Shannon will be in court on Jan.11 asking for an extension to the deadline. The Conservative, NDP and Green parties are calling on the federal government to support the residents' request for more time.

"Conservatives support that call for an extension of the deadline," said James Bezan, the Conservative national defence critic. "We expect the government to do the right thing to provide the compensation and not try to do this on the cheap."

Bezan also called on the Department of National Defence (DND) and Veterans Affairs Canada to do more to help inform those affected that they can apply for compensation.

WATCH | Veteran says his family was exposed to tainted water on a military base:

One of the lawyers assisting class-action claimants estimates that about 2,800 have applied for compensation. But Steve Clarke said he fears roughly 2,000 more could be left out — many of them former spouses and children of personnel stationed in the Quebec community in the late 1990s.

"The people being left out are the most marginalized," Clarke said. "Women, children and those people who have moved around the world — the people who are least capable of finding out about this.

"These women, because of the high divorce rate amongst military people, have been divorced from their husbands. We have no way of contacting them."

NDP veteran's affairs critic Rachel Blaney agreed, saying military systems often fail women.

"There's a pattern that is very clear within the armed forces and then on to Veterans Affairs that leaves women behind and doesn't acknowledge both their roles as serving members [and] as support to those who serve our country," Blaney said.

Blaney said the federal government has an established pattern of mistreating military spouses, citing a clause that excludes many of them from survivor pension benefits — the so-called "golddigger clause."

The Green Party called on DND to extend the deadline and to extend the compensation criteria to include people who drank the water but didn't live in married quarters.

"It's not about technical definitions," said Green Leader Elizabeth May. "It's about justice, and people who were exposed to trichloroethylene in their water should know that that has occurred."

Veterans Affairs Canada and DND would not say whether the Government of Canada's lawyers will oppose the motion in court Wednesday.

"The court will make a decision as to whether or not to extend the deadline. Further discussions will then take place on next steps, but we cannot speculate on what those may be," said DND spokesperson Jessica Lamirande.

DND said it published class action notices in regional and national newspapers and issued several news releases to get the word out about compensation. It said it supplied the class-action lawyers with the names of members currently serving, but stopped short of providing the names of former members affected.

Defence Minister Anita Anand said in a media statement that the water contamination at CFB Valcartier was "unacceptable" and her thoughts are with those affected. Through the class action, she said, the military is ensuring identified claimants receive compensation.

Belgium extends life of its nuclear power industry by 10 years 

By Euronews with AFP • Updated: 10/01/2023 

Belgian nuclear power station - Copyright AFP

The Belgian government announced on Monday it has signed an agreement with French energy company Engie to extend two of the seven nuclear reactors operated in Belgium for ten years, starting in November 2026.

The two parties had been negotiating hard for months over the conditions of the extension, decided in March 2022 by Belgium to guarantee its energy supply beyond 2025, against a backdrop of uncertainties linked to the war in Ukraine.

The Belgian state and the energy company had already agreed to create a 50/50 joint venture to manage the two extended reactors, under a pre-agreement announced in July.

Announcing the deal at a news conference in Brussels, the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said it would allow the country to take back control of its “energy destiny”.

"This energy production which is naturally extremely efficient, is a form of energy which does not produce greenhouse gases and where the Belgian State will become an important partner,” said Mr De Croo.

“In the past, very often, it was said that the decisions in relation to energy policy in Belgium are not taken in Belgium, but are taken in other capitals. With these decisions, the decisions will be made in our country."

The Belgian government had announced on 18 March its decision to postpone by ten years its total withdrawal from nuclear power, which was initially planned for 2025. The seven reactors were to cease production in stages between the end of 2022 and 2025, and one of them was already shut down at the end of September.

But the Engie group demanded a number of conditions for feasibility, including a cap on the costs of processing radioactive waste and spent fuel.

AFN ex-CEO was sued by Indigenous health org over alleged 'reckless' payout in 2011

Tue, January 10, 2023 

AFN then-CEO Paulette Tremblay is blanketed on Dec. 4, 2019 by national chief Perry Bellegarde at the organization's annual winter gathering. (AFN - image credit)

A former CEO of the Assembly of First Nations who was in charge when an AFN official allegedly received a nearly $200,000 payout was sued in 2011 by a now-defunct Indigenous health organization over her alleged offer of a "large and unwarranted" payout to an official there, according to documents obtained by CBC News.

Paulette Tremblay, a Six Nations of the Grand River member who lives in Ottawa, served as the AFN's CEO between September 2017 and January 2020.

The National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO) sued her on Oct. 27, 2011, five months after she ceased to be its CEO, after its chief financial officer Jason Cheney launched a court bid to collect a $112,452 payout he claimed Tremblay offered him.

NAHO countersued Cheney and added Tremblay to the suit, claiming it withheld Cheney's cash after the not-for-profit's board came to believe the duo orchestrated the payment through collusion, "deceit and/or fraudulent misrepresentations" of facts.

Tremblay said she denies the accusations, although she didn't file a defence.

"First and foremost I would like to state unequivocally that there was no wrongdoing on my part in performing my job functions at the National Aboriginal Health Organization," she wrote in a letter to CBC News.

"Having left NAHO in July 2011, I was completely unaware of any actions of the organization related to the employee mentioned. I did not know about the lawsuit and the case was closed by the time it came to my attention, so it was not possible to provide a defence."

In the previously unreported lawsuit, NAHO alleged Tremblay approved an amendment to Cheney's contract and then, shortly after, terminated that contract while offering him one year's salary as severance — all without disclosing this information to the board.

NAHO alleged Cheney prepared his own cheque, Tremblay signed it, and Cheney then applied the signature block of NAHO's treasurer Oliver Okemow to it "without Okemow's knowledge or consent" to obtain the cash.

The lawsuit claimed NAHO then discovered and withheld the payment, calling it "reckless, wholly unwarranted and obviously contrary to the best interests of NAHO."

NAHO alleged Tremblay and Cheney committed "unconscionable" breaches of policy, fiduciary duty, loyalty and trust. The claim said Tremblay's actions "put the organization's existence in jeopardy" and "placed the financial stability of NAHO at risk."

The allegations were never proven in court.

The case reached a mediated out-of-court settlement on Nov. 25, 2011, filings say. CBC News was unable to learn the settlement's details despite asking Tremblay and making repeated attempts to contact Cheney and other parties.

The suit was dismissed without costs on April 2, 2012 with consent from all involved, including Tremblay, who signed a document agreeing to the dismissal.

NAHO closed its doors on June 30, 2012 after it learned Stephen Harper's Conservative government had slashed its annual funding of $4.4 million.

The Tories said NAHO's "governance challenges" contributed to the cuts.

Tremblay honoured in 2019

Tremblay has had a successful career as an executive and public administrator since then. She received an Indspire award for education in 2015 and joined the AFN in 2016.

The AFN announced her upcoming departure as CEO on Dec. 4, 2019 during its annual winter gathering, where then-national chief Perry Bellegarde honoured her work in a blanket ceremony.

In the months following Tremblay's departure, the AFN learned of an "irregularity" around a contract amendment and payout that allegedly occurred while Tremblay still worked there, according to an internal AFN briefing note dated Oct. 30, 2020.

National Chief RoseAnne Archibald has presented this briefing note or distributed it among an unknown number of AFN chiefs on at least two occasions. She showed it first to the Chiefs of Ontario, which advocates on behalf of 133 First Nations, during an in-camera session at their February 2021 gathering, documents confirm.

The briefing note later leaked to the media, along with a confidential resolution the Ontario chiefs carried demanding a review of the AFN's financial policies and contracting practices. The AFN executive later voted not to commission the review.

On July 1, 2022, Archibald emailed the briefing note to dozens of AFN chiefs across the country as she pressed for a forensic audit. She also distributed screenshots of internal AFN emails, a confidential chronology of events, and financial statements detailing two years' worth of AFN contract recipients.

"Attached are documents and emails which in my view show corruption and collusion at the AFN Secretariat," her email said.

Archibald is facing two defamation lawsuits because of this email and this statement.

The allegations have not been tested and no defences have been filed. CBC News has independently obtained the email and its attached documents.

Archibald's email included a memo she wrote the chiefs outlining why she felt the audit necessary. This memo said the AFN's executive committee of national and regional chiefs was called for an urgent meeting in October 2020 where the briefing note was presented.

During the meeting, they were told an employee had transferred nearly $200,000 from the AFN account to their personal bank account in 2019, according to the memo.

Archibald said the AFN received outside legal advice from a human resources lawyer who "told us that we needed to NOT say anything" about what happened, which APTN News previously reported.

"At the time, I said that this was wrong and that we had an obligation to reveal the truth of what happened," Archibald wrote.

Briefing note

The briefing note itself is marked confidential and indicates the AFN's current CEO Janice Ciavaglia requested and drafted it.

It said a senior AFN employee received a $191,134 "retiring allowance payout" on Aug. 19, 2019 followed by a part-time contract to continue working. It said it was "unclear" why the AFN would pay out an employee who resigns from full-time employment but then continues to work.

It also said in summer 2020 the AFN learned an AFN director received a revised employment contract that "significantly altered" their severance entitlements on Nov. 27, 2019, so the director would receive a minimum of six months notice upon termination without cause.

Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press

The briefing note recommended the AFN dismiss these two employees without cause to limit further expenses, publicity, litigation, reputational damage and potential funding cuts that could stem from an audit uncovering the irregularity.

The briefing note named Tremblay along with the two employees whose contracts were terminated. Tremblay did not receive the contract or payout, but signed the revised contract with the AFN director, according to the note.

Archibald shared this document with chiefs with redactions both times.

"I would suggest that you request the unredacted version from the AFN Secretariat," she wrote to them in July.

However, it is still possible to see the three employees' names through the attempted redactions. CBC News is naming only Tremblay because she was the senior official and because the other two employees could not be reached for comment.

Tremblay, who is now CEO of an AFN-funded organization, said she has not seen the briefing note but is unable to comment because issues relating to staff are a human resources matter and bound by privacy and confidentiality.

"In all my dealings with the AFN I have followed the policies, procedures and guidelines and processed all such matters through the AFN Executive Committee. Who at the AFN is implicating me in these matters?" she wrote.

Archibald on multiple occasions told CBC News she couldn't comment on this topic because a chiefs' resolution restrains her from discussing internal AFN issues publicly. CBC News contacted Ciavaglia to discuss the briefing note but the AFN supplied a statement instead.

"For reasons of privacy and confidentiality, the AFN does not comment on human resource matters regarding its staff," the statement said.

"The AFN is unable to confirm the elements of any confidential briefing note, as we were not provided with a copy of the document in your possession."

CBC News offered to provide Ciavaglia with the document if she wanted to discuss it but the AFN refused further comment.

Ciavaglia responded separately through her lawyer but also declined to answer questions.

Future of Eastway Tank unclear 1 year after deadly explosion



Tue, January 10, 2023 

A cap is among the items left by families and friends that remain at the Eastway Tank site. Six people were killed in an explosion there nearly one year ago. (Guy Quenneville/CBC - image credit)

Nearly a year after an explosion left six of its workers dead and triggered several provincial workplace safety charges for the decades-old company, Eastway Tank, Pump and Meter's future is unclear.

On Jan. 13, 2022, Kayla Ferguson, Rick Bastien, Etienne Mabiala, Danny Beale, and Russell McLellan died at the Ottawa tanker manufacturer's site on Merivale Road after a blast and fire. A sixth employee, Matt Kearney, died in hospital the next day, in what became the city's deadliest workplace incident in many years.

Last Friday, Ontario's Ministry of Labour charged the company and its owner, Neil Greene, with three offences each under the province's Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The company was accused, among other things, of not taking reasonable precautions to protect employees around the day of the blast. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Also on Friday, Transport Canada confirmed it has not received an application from Eastway to operate at a different location.

The agency also confirmed in an emailed statement to CBC that Eastway has not conducted regular operations as part of its registration with Transport Canada since the explosion, which left a building at the site badly damaged.

The company's owner, Neil Greene, has not responded to multiple requests for comment about the provincial charges or Eastway's current status.

Faded mementos still at site nearly 1 year later

In the immediate months after the explosion, a security vehicle could be seen during the daytime guarding the Eastway gate, up a short drive from Merivale Road.

Early Monday afternoon, however, there was no security at the gate, which was closed, and there appeared to be no activity at the site, where vehicles of all kinds remained parked.

Guy Quenneville/CBC

Weathered, faded photos and other mementos paying tribute to the explosion's victims still surrounded the Eastway sign facing Merivale drivers and passersby.

They had been left there by family and friends in the days following the blaze.

Guy Quenneville/CBC

Website devoted to listing inventory

Among the pieces of equipment parked on the other side of the Eastway gate Monday was a 1999 Freightliner Chassis.

Guy Quenneville/CBC

That same item, plus several trucks, tanks and refuelers, are listed on a website called usedoilandfiretrucks.com.

Visitors to Eastway's website, eastwaytank.com, were being redirected to the inventory site last week. Though that's no longer the case, the inventory site could still be reached directly on Monday.

usedoilandfiretrucks.com

Some photos on the inventory site feature either Eastway signage or signifiers of the Merivale site, including the red siding of the next-door car wash.

One of the items on the inventory is listed with the same 888 phone number featured in past Eastway advertisements which, when dialed, was out of service on Monday.

Listing inventory is nothing new for the company; its main website did so before the explosion. But unlike the inventory site, which only focuses on inventory listings, the main website also advertised other Eastway services.

usedoilandfiretrucks.com

Digital memorial plaque

As of last Thursday, Eastway was not listed in the registry of the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy in Ottawa.

According to the province's public records, Lewis Motor Sales in Barrie, Ont., has placed a lien on Eastway for purchased vehicles "as well as all accessories, spare parts, replacements, attachments and trade-ins."

A website called eastwaytank.ca — which featured the company's logo last summer — currently consists of an image of a memorial that looks similar to the one the City of Ottawa unveiled in honour of the explosion's six victims last October.

Last week, the website plaque said the six employees "lost their lives in the tragic events at Eastway Tank on January 13, 2022."

eastwaytank.ca

It was nearly identical to the city plaque's wording, except the city's plaque used the words "the Eastway explosion."

The wording of the website plaque was then changed. It no longer mentions the event; it just lists the names of the six employees and says "in our thoughts and prayers forever" and "never forgotten."

eastwaytank.ca

In its outreach, CBC has asked Greene both about the inventory website and if eastwaytank.ca belongs to Eastway.

ITS THE LAW

Protesters storm McGill University talk on sex vs. gender, shutting it down

Tue, January 10, 2023

Protesters stormed the talk which started at around 1 p.m. at McGill University. (Chloë Ranaldi/CBC - image credit)

Trans rights advocates stormed into a talk Tuesday afternoon at McGill University led by a speaker associated with a group they say is "notoriously transphobic and trans-exclusionary."

The talk was ultimately cancelled shortly after it started.

McGill University's Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) hosted the event, titled Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T. It was led by McGill alumnus Robert Wintemute.

The CHRLP's website describes the event as a conversation around whether the law should make it easier for a transgender person to change their legal sex, "and about exceptional situations, such as women-only spaces and sports, in which the individual's birth sex should take priority over their gender identity, regardless of their legal sex."

"The T (trans) is so much more vulnerable than the rest of LGB. I think there's tons of scientific evidence speaking to that," said Celeste Trianon, a trans activist who led the protest against the event.

Trianon said Wintemute's talk excludes transgender people's rights and is transphobic, further discriminating against the community.

But Wintemute, the man at the centre of the controversy, maintains he does not promote transphobic views and describes the reaction to his talk as "hysterical."

He says he has a 37 years' experience defending LGB human rights and he would never associate with any group that "promotes hate." He said he came to McGill to promote the message that women have human rights too, but they feel intimidated by the trans rights movement.

"So I have to thank the protesters for giving me first-hand experience of that intimidation," said Wintemute after the event. "Probably the majority of women in this country disagree with some of transgender demands but they refuse to say so because they will be seen as intolerant."

Any discussion or criticism is seen as "hate speech," he said. The protesters held signs saying "no debate," he noted, "and many women around the world disagree." The idea that his seminar would lead to genocide of trans people is "absolutely absurd," he said.

LGB Alliance denies being transphobic

Wintemute's work inspired the foundation of the LGB Alliance, a British group that advocates against transgender rights in the United Kingdom. Several British officials and LGBTQ+ groups have publicly called the LGB Alliance a hate group.

The group has opposed progressive gender affirmation bills in the U.K., like the Scottish Gender Recognition Act, which improves the system by which transgender people can apply for legal recognition.

Chloë Ranaldi/CBC

A Canadian chapter of the LGB Alliance lobbied against Bill C-4, which put an end to conversion therapy, demanding it remove the term "gender identity" from the offence.

The LGB Alliance website includes statements like "Fact: Sex is binary," "Fact: Sex is observed at birth," "Fact: Gender transition can be the result of homophobia" and "Fact: LGB Alliance is non-political."

The LGB Alliance denies being transphobic or hateful.

An open letter signed by McGill students, professors, alumni and others from the Montreal LGBTQ+ community says trans rights are not at odds with the rights of others.

"Undermining the human rights of trans people does not benefit any member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, nor the feminist movement," it says.

Facebook

Trianon said she was "surprised, shocked and disgusted" when she learned of the event.

"I feel like there's such a tragic irony where someone who is actively working toward dismantling human rights toward one of the most marginalized groups … how such an event can be hosted at the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism," she said.

Mona Greenbaum, the head of the LGBT+ Family Coalition in Montreal, worked with Wintemute on the World Outgames event in 2006. She said she was surprised to see the title of his talk and signed the open letter.

"It's just so sad to me that someone who should, in theory, be open to this, is so closed-minded about trans women and has the idea that if you give rights to trans women you're subtracting from the rights of cisgender women," she said.

"There's no ceiling on rights."

'Critical conversations'

The CHRLP says the event was not meant to be an endorsement of Wintemute's views but to be a platform for "critical conversations."

"Professor Wintemute is a trustee of the LGB Alliance since 2021 but he is not invited in that capacity," said Prof. Frédéric Mégret from the CHRLP.

"We understand that these are not consensual topics. However, we believe they can be productively and robustly discussed in an academic setting and could, in fact, be an opportunity to push back against certain views."

He said Prof. Shauna Van Praagh would chair the talk and Prof. Darren Rosenblum would act as commentator.

"It was always our intention that this would be a contradictory debate," said Mégret.

Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press

But activists like Trianon and Greenbaum remained skeptical.

"This form of free-speech absolutism: it has an end. One's rights end where another's begin," said Trianon.

Though Canada and Quebec have remained "mostly sheltered" from transphobic rhetoric, those ideas have gained momentum in the U.S. and the U.K. and could easily spread here, said Trianon.

She pointed to the multiple instances of drag queen story hours being attacked by anti-LGBT activists over the summer in Montreal.]

"This plays into the transfeminine predator stereotype. It's very much a debunkable thing," said Trianon.

 

Why are heat pumps so hot right now?

Victoria Fenn Alvarado

Tue, January 10, 2023 

Why are heat pumps so hot right now?

Heat pumps have never been hotter. And it's not just that everyone is suddenly clamouring for the latest in home-heating technology. Many experts are hailing heat pumps as the key to sustainable heating and a way to reduce global fossil fuel emissions.

A heat pump extracts heat from outside and redirects it inside, and then in a cooling cycle, it would extract heat from inside your house and send it outside.

“Everybody who has a fridge has a heat pump in their house,” explained Jeremy Sager, a Research Engineer for Natural Resources Canada in an interview with The Weather Network.

“The fridge has a heat pump, so it extracts heat from inside the fridge and rejects that heat to the surrounding air. If you've ever put your hand under or around the fridge when it's running, you'll fear feel some warm air. And that's as a result of the heat pump doing its work.”

HEAT PUMP TECH VICTORIA Moment

Air Sourced Cold Climate Heat Pump Installations. (Images via Natural Resources Canada.)

A recent study by Natural Resources Canada shows that heat pumps were much more efficient than any other system.

While the efficiency findings differ based on the province you live in due to climate and temperature differentials, Sager said, “Savings were highest when compared to oil heating systems. With the instability of the gas market, switching to an electric solution is a more stable way to save money yearly.”

“If you've heated with oil, propane, or natural gas, the heat pump is going to dramatically reduce your, your greenhouse gas emissions,” he added.

Thinking of making the switch? The Canadian government offers the “Greener Homes Grant” incentive, where you could get up to a $5,000 rebate on installing this technology in your home.

Thumbnail image courtesy of [Erik Mclean (Pexels)](https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-photography-of-a-residential-area-10894368/)

ARCTIC CANADA

Caribou at the crux of culture and industry

Mon, January 9, 2023 

Reconciling industrial and enviromental interests is a continual problem for the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economicAssessment Board (YESAB).

Projects have quickly become controversial when caribou are involved. BMC Minerals’ Kudz Ze Kayah project affecting the Finlayson herd is now before the courts for judicial review; Western Copper and Gold’s Casino project in Klaza caribou territory is now into its eighth year of assessment; and conditions have been recently imposed on Fireweed Zinc to mitigate effects of their drilling program on the Tay River caribou herd. Conditions for Fireweed’s project in the MacMillan Pass included that “if caribou are observable within one kilometre of active work areas, activities shall cease until the caribou have moved away on their own accord.”

There are 26 woodland and boreal caribou herds in the territory, plus the larger migratory herds that traverse international borders. There used to be many hundreds of thousands of caribou roaming the Yukon, but numbers have been drastically reduced since contact. Biologists admit there is a natural ebb and flow to caribou populations, and that the factors affecting mortality, health and migration patterns are complex.

The Fortymile herd has been growing since 2017 and in 2022 was hunted on both sides of the border, though to a significantly greater extent on the Alaska side. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in allowed a small hunt to proceed for cultural practices to continue. In August 2022, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game assessed the herd’s current habitat as too small to nutritionally sustain the animals and set a hunt quota of 1,200 bulls, saying that the herd needs to be reduced for its own survival. This move has not been well-regarded in Yukon.

The draft Dawson land use plan process only protects a small portion of the herd’s habitat. Ivvavik National Park, Vuntut National Park and Old Crow Flats Special Management Area in northern Yukon pale in comparison to the size of the 78,000 sq. km (19.2 million acres) Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on the U.S. side of the border.

Vuntut Gwitchin elders foresaw the devastation that would occur to their way of life if the Porcupine Caribou herd went into decline. Elders instructed their young people to travel to Washington, D.C., in the 1980s to lobby for the calving grounds’ protection. Efforts to protect ANWR from oil development continue to this day.

Caribou are sensitive

Because caribou move around and adjust to different circumstances, they are viewed as adaptive. However, moving from well-suited prime habitat to less rich settings has consequences for the health and survival of the animals.

“Caribou are really disturbance sensitive. They only have so much energy (fat reserves) in the winter to take to running, to take flight,” said John Meikle, a planner who has worked in the Yukon for decades.

This means that caribou are easily frightened, but tend not to flee in order to conserve their energy. This makes them susceptible to collision with vehicles.

In 2021, there were eight caribou-vehicular collisions in the vicinity of the Southern Lakes. This number runs constant with previous years, with the majority of collisions in the Jake’s Corner area. Data shows that more female animals tend to be killed than the larger males.

But not all the collisions that affect Yukon caribou take place in the territory. In spring of 2022, the Carcross/Tagish First Nation (C/TFN) was devastated with the news of a fast-moving truck colliding with a group of animals on the British Columbia section of the South Klondike highway. Two of the four animals were pregnant, increasing the loss for the herd.

Kelsey Russell, a Yukon government caribou biologist, says an “intergovernmental interdepartmental wildlife collisions working group” has been established. The fish and wildlife management board has created posters and highway signage has been placed in some high-risk areas. Vehicles are one threat, but habitat fragmentation is another.

One of the main complaints by C/TFN elders is about problems arising from frequent lot subdivisions – which means more dog team trails and recreational snowmobiles to startle sleeping caribou.

“There’s a lot of ways that human disturbance on the landscape can affect caribou beyond just that direct removal of habitat, but you’re also fragmenting habitats— you don’t have those large intact areas,” said Russell. The Southern Lakes area is without any regional land use plans and is home to over 2,000 residences scattered throughout the traditional caribou areas.

There is also the problem of noise. A BMC Minerals screening report cites a mitigation strategy that calls for regularly scheduled flights from its airstrip so to not disturb caribou in their wintering grounds.

“That’s getting more of that sensory side of things, so the habitat might still be there. But they are displaced from it because of sensory disturbances — people or vehicles or blasting or whatever, the activity around that area. And then there’s other things like increased predation,” Russell said. Mine development by its very definition is problematic for caribou on many fronts — surface disturbance, traffic, blasting and aircraft.

Spiritual connections

Yukon First Nations have traditionally followed food and animals in accordance with the changing seasons. Signs of the changing Chinook salmon run were first noticed in Teslin when the age and size of the fish changed. Population growth and residential infill drastically reduced the Southern Lakes caribou.

C/TFN voluntarily stopped harvesting caribou over 30 years ago with the establishment of the Southern Lakes caribou recovery program. Now three generations have gone without, and children are losing the cultural instruction that comes with knowing the ways of the caribou.

The Hatchet Lake voyeur canoe team told the News in June that the reason Denesuliné (a Dene language) was spoken as a first language in their northern Saskatchewan community was because of the caribou. “We take the children on the land and we teach them how to harvest in our language,” said Chief Bart Tsannia.

So just as the near extinction of chinook salmon has eliminated the family experience of “fish camps” along the Yukon River and its tributaries, the loss of caribou also threatens the demise of a “way of life.” Efforts continue to protect the various herds to sustain the people who depend on them— with different First Nations using different approaches, from the lobbying efforts of the Vuntut Gwitchin to the legal strategies of the Kaska Nations.

This past November, C/TFN hosted the Southern Lakes Caribou Summit with the six southern lakes nations. A summation of the event reads, “There were sentiments of incredible hope and appreciation for the caribou as well as pride for the recovery plan, implemented 30 years ago, which has allowed their population to grow.”

The Indigenous How We Walk the Land and the Water initiative stresses seasonal considerations respecting the movement of animals across the land — for instance the movement of caribou from high summer ranges to lower wintering grounds and on to more clustered calving areas. As anyone who has travelled the Dempster Highway during migration knows — cars and vehicles must wait for the caribou to cross the road.

Lawrie Crawford, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Yukon News