NO MENTION OF HER BEING SOURCE OF LEAK

Ex-colleague of chief justice's wife makes ethics claim

Tue, January 31, 2023


PHOTO: Chief Justice John Roberts sits during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, April 23, 2021. (Pool/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)


A Boston attorney and former colleague of U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts' wife, Jane, has filed a complaint with Congress and the Justice Department alleging her work as a legal recruiter poses a conflict of interest at the Supreme Court.

The confidential complaint, first obtained and reported by The New York Times on Tuesday, suggests Jane Roberts' past position as legal recruiter -- helping high-profile firms hire top talent, some of whom later have business before the court -- may present an ethical concern.

While she quit her job as a law partner when her husband was confirmed as chief justice in 2005, Jane Roberts made millions of dollars in commissions helping recruit for firms regularly involved in court business, according to the former colleague, Kendal Price, as reported by the Times.

"I do believe that litigants in U.S. courts, and especially the Supreme Court, deserve to know if their judges' households are receiving six-figure payments from the law firms," Price wrote, according to the Times.

MORE: Supreme Court's John Roberts says judicial system 'cannot and should not live in fear'

Neither John nor Jane Roberts immediately responded to ABC News' request for comment.

A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not respond either, though a spokesperson told the Times that the court's members were "attentive to ethical constraints" and cited the federal judges' code of conduct and related advisories, which specifically said a judge didn't have to recuse themselves solely because their spouse had been a recruiter for a firm before the court.

ABC News has reached out to the Department of Justice and didn’t immediately receive a response.

The complaint, which the Times reported was sent in December, has not been independently reviewed by ABC News. But in a statement provided by his attorney, Price explained why he is coming forward years later.

"I made the disclosures at this time for two principal reasons. First, any potential influence on what cases are accepted by the Supreme Court is a serious matter that affects the justice system in the U.S., particularly if that influence is not publicly known," Price said.

"Second, the national controversy and debate regarding the integrity of the Supreme Court demanded that I no longer keep silent about the information I possessed, regardless of the impact such disclosures might have upon me professionally and personally," he added.

Jane Roberts is currently the managing partner at a Washington-based legal recruiting firm. She previously worked with Price at a separate firm in Maryland.

Price was fired from the firm in 2013, according to the Times, and later sued Jane Roberts and another executive.

Price is calling on lawmakers and Justice Department attorneys to investigate. However, the Supreme Court is not typically subject to outside ethics oversight and largely polices itself.

His complaint is the latest in a string of ethics allegations against sitting justices and their spouses, which have stoked longstanding calls for greater transparency and enforceable ethics rules at the Supreme Court.

Justice Clarence Thomas has faced calls to recuse himself on a number of issues and cases over the conservative political activism of his wife, Ginni. Justice Samuel Alito was recently accused by a former anti-abortion activist of leaking the outcome of a major case at a dinner with his wife.

Both justices have denied any wrongdoing.

ANOTHER PATRIARCHAL CULT OF PERSONALITY
'Dances With Wolves' actor arrested in Nevada sex abuse case



Chasing Horse Arrest NevadaLas Vegas police work near the home of former actor Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse, who goes by Nathan Chasing Horse, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, in North Las Vegas, Nev. Authorities raided the home of the former actor Tuesday in connection with a sexual assault investigation. (AP Photo/John Locher)

RIO YAMAT
Tue, January 31, 2023 

NORTH LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas police on Tuesday arrested and raided the home of a former “Dances With Wolves” actor turned alleged cult leader accused of sexually assaulting young Indigenous girls during a period spanning two decades, according to police records obtained by The Associated Press.

Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse, who goes by Nathan Chasing Horse, was taken into custody in the afternoon near the North Las Vegas home he is said to share with his five wives. SWAT officers were seen outside the two-story home in the evening as detectives searched the property.

Known for his role as the young Sioux tribe member Smiles a Lot in the Oscar-winning Kevin Costner film, Chasing Horse gained a reputation among tribes across the United States and in Canada as a so-called medicine man who performed healing ceremonies and spiritual gatherings and, police allege, used his position to abuse young Native American girls.

His arrest is the culmination of a monthslong investigation that began after police received a tip in October 2022. According to a 50-page search warrant obtained by AP, Chasing Horse is believed to be the leader of a cult known as The Circle.

And it comes as state attorneys general and lawmakers around the U.S. are looking into creating specialized units to handle cases involving Native women.

In South Dakota, the attorney general’s office has put a new focus on crimes against Native American people, including human trafficking and murders.

According to the document, Las Vegas police have identified at least six alleged victims and uncovered sexual allegations against Chasing Horse dating to the early 2000s in multiple states, including Montana, South Dakota and Nevada, where he has lived for about a decade.

There was no lawyer listed in court records for Chasing Horse who could comment on his behalf as of Tuesday evening.

Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.

According to the warrant, he was banished in 2015 from the Fort Peck Reservation in Poplar, Montana, amid allegations of human trafficking.

“Nathan Chasing Horse used spiritual traditions and their belief system as a tool to sexually assault young girls on numerous occasions,” it reads, adding that his followers believed he could communicate with higher beings and referred to him as “Medicine Man” or “Holy Person.”

Although the warrant includes details of crimes reported elsewhere, the arrest stems from crimes allegedly committed in Nevada's Clark County. They include sex trafficking, sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and child abuse.

Some of the alleged victims were as young as 13, according to the warrant. One of Chasing Horse's wives was allegedly offered to him as a “gift” when she was 15, while another became a wife after turning 16.

Chasing Horse also is accused of recording sexual assaults and arranging sex with the victims for other men who allegedly paid him.

OCCUPTION EXPULSION ETHNIC CLEANSING

Palestinians face removal as far-right Israel vows expansion

Bedouin shepherd leads her goats at the hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. The long-running dispute over the West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, which lost its last legal protection against demolition four years ago, resurfaced this week as a focus of the frozen Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel's new far-right ministers vow to evacuate the village as part of a wider project to expand Israeli presence in the 60% of the West Bank over which the military has full control. Palestinians seek that land for a future state. 

ISABEL DEBRE and SAM McNEIL
Tue, January 31, 2023

KHAN AL-AHMAR, West Bank (AP) — Protesters streaming up the windswept hills east of Jerusalem interrupted Maha Ali’s breakfast.

Palestinian chants of support for her West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, at risk of demolition by the Israeli army since it lost its legal protection over four years ago, drowned out the singing birds and bleating sheep.

While intended to encourage the village, last week's solidarity rally unsettled Ali. Israeli politicians assembled on the opposite hill for a counter protest, calling for Khan al-Ahmar's immediate evacuation.

“Why are they all back here now? Did something happen?” Ali asked her sister, gazing toward a swarm of TV journalists. “Four years of quiet and now this chaos again.”

The long-running dispute over Khan al-Ahmar has resurfaced as a focus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a legal deadline looming and Israel’s new far-right ministers pushing the government to fulfill a Supreme Court-sanctioned commitment from 2018 to wipe the village off the map. Israel contends that the hamlet, home to nearly 200 Palestinians and an EU-funded school, was built illegally on state land.

For Palestinians, Khan al-Ahmar is emblematic of the latest stage of the decades-long conflict, as thousands of Palestinians struggle for Israeli permission to build in the 60% of the occupied West Bank over which the Israeli military has full control.

After a spasm of violence last week — including the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank for two decades and the deadliest Palestinian attack on civilians in Jerusalem since 2008 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded Saturday with a vow to strengthen Jewish settlements in the Israeli-controlled part of the West Bank, where little land is allocated to Palestinians.

The competition for land is playing out in the southern Hebron hills — where the Supreme Court has ordered the expulsion of a thousand Palestinians in an area known as Masafer Yatta — and across the territory. In unauthorized Palestinian villages — without direct access to Israeli power, water or sewage infrastructure — residents watch helplessly as Israeli authorities demolish homes, issue evacuation orders and expand settlements, changing the landscape of territory they dream of calling their state.

Last year, Israeli authorities razed 784 Palestinian buildings in the West Bank because they lacked permits, Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported, the most since it started tracking those demolitions a decade ago. The army tears down homes gradually, the group says, loathe to risk the global censure that would come from leveling a whole village.

News of Khan al-Ahmar's impending mass eviction four years ago sparked widespread backlash. Since then, the government has stalled, asking the court for more time due to international pressure and Israel's repeatedly deadlocked elections.

“They say the bulldozers will come tomorrow, next month, next year,” said Ali, 40, from her metal-topped shed, where she can see the red-roofed homes of the fast-growing Kfar Adumim settlement. “Our life is frozen.”

On Wednesday, the Israeli government requested another four months to respond to a Supreme Court petition by a pro-settler group, Regavim, asking why Khan al-Ahmar has not yet been razed. Far right lawmakers condemned the delay on Wednesday, with Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, demanding that the new Cabinet change the “floundering policies of the previous government.”

The Bedouins fear the brakes may be off now that Israel has its most right-wing government in history.

Regavim's co-founder, Bezalel Smotrich, is now Israel's ultra-nationalist finance minister. In a contentious coalition deal, he was given control over an Israeli military body that oversees construction and demolition in Israeli-administered parts of the West Bank.

At a Cabinet meeting last week, Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, demanded that Khan al-Ahmar be demolished “just as the defense minister chose to destroy a Jewish outpost" built illegally in the West Bank.

“It's not just about Khan al-Ahmar, it's about the future of Judea and Samaria,” Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the parliament’s foreign and defense committee said during a visit to the village last week, using the biblical names for the West Bank.

Khan al-Ahmar’s leader, 56-year-old Eid Abu Khamis, said anxiety has returned to his cluster of shacks. "They want to empty the land and give to settlers," he said.

Bedouins have made Khan al-Ahmar their home since at least the 1970s, though some, like Ali and Abu Khamis, say their parents lived there earlier. Israel has offered to resettle the villagers at another site several miles away. Palestinians fear Israel will use the strategic strip of land to slice Jerusalem off from Palestinian cities, making a future Palestinian state non-viable.

“We are trying to counter this in every way we can,” said Ahmad Majdalani, the Palestinian Authority’s minister of social development. “The new government will find itself in direct confrontation with us and the international community.”

During a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Jerusalem and Ramallah on Tuesday, he expressed Washington's opposition to Israeli demolitions and evictions — actions which, he said, put a two-state solution to the conflict “further from reach."

The U.S. government has raised concerns about planned evictions of Palestinians in the West Bank with the Israeli government, said the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs, referring to the cases of Khan al-Ahmar and Masafer Yatta in what is known as Area C.

The zone covers 60% of the West Bank designated as being under full Israeli control. This is in contrast to the remaining areas, including Palestinian population centers, where the Palestinian autonomy government exercises civil and partial security control.

This demarcation of different zones was part of the 1995 Oslo peace accords.

It was an interim agreement, meant to last five years pending a final peace deal.

“The intention was always that the lion’s share of Area C will be part of the Palestinian state,” said Yossi Beilin, an architect of those peace accords. “Otherwise, it’s like holding people in a prison, and eventually, there would be an explosion.”

Nearly three decades later, Area C is home to some half-million Israelis in dozens of settlements considered illegal under international law. They live alongside between 180,000-300,000 Palestinians, the U.N. estimates, who are almost never granted permits to build. When they build homes without permits, military bulldozers level them.

Netanyahu’s coalition partners have a radically different vision for Area C than the one drawn up in Oslo. They hope to boost the settler population, eliminate Palestinian construction and even annex the territory. The Cabinet announced a freeze on Palestinian building there as part of punitive measures against the PA last month.

Last May, Israel’s Supreme Court approved the expulsion of some 1,000 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, because the Israeli army declared it a restricted firing zone in the early 1980s. There and in surrounding encampments, Palestinians describe an Israeli campaign to make life so miserable they're compelled to leave.

Last Wednesday, Luqba Jabari, 65, awoke to the rumble of bulldozers in Khirbet Ma’in, part of the Masafer Yatta area, where her grandparents were born. She and her 30 relatives rushed outside to watch the army reduce their home to rubble. The military toppled her family's three other shacks and water tanks.

That night, she said, they would sleep in their cars, beside the debris of their family's life together. For the past week, their neighbors have offered some spare rooms as a temporary refuge.

“This is our land,” Jabari said. “There is no place to go."

PHOTO ESSAY

AP Photo/Oded Balilty














 

Green energy investment tops $1 trillion, matches fossil fuels

Tue, January 31, 2023 


Investment in cleaner energy is on the verge of overtaking spending on fossil fuels for the first time ever after exceeding $1 trillion last year, a report on Tuesday said.

Despite the milestone, spending on energy transition technology must immediately triple to meet the target of net-zero emissions by 2050 to combat climate change, according to research group BloombergNEF.

Investment in sectors such as renewables, nuclear, zero-emission vehicles or recycling projects totalled $1.1 trillion last year, matching spending on fossil fuels, the report found.

This is up 31 percent on the previous year, and marks the first time the investment total has been measured in trillions.


The increase was driven by the energy crisis that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the report said.

"Investment in clean energy technologies is on the brink of overtaking fossil fuel investments, and won't look back," said Albert Cheung, head of global analysis at BloombergNEF.

China -- the world's biggest polluter -- was by far the largest investor in energy transition, with the United States a distant second.

Nearly half of the total global investment was in China, particularly in steel recycling and the renewable energy and electric vehicles sectors.

Germany has retained its place in third position, largely due to a sizable EV market.

But a drop in offshore wind deals saw investment in Britain fall by nearly a fifth, the report found.

Globally, renewable energy was the biggest sector for investment at $495 billion, followed by electrified transport projects.

With the exception of nuclear power, the researchers said all other sectors saw record levels of investment.

The growth in energy transition technology also comes as many countries saw an increase in fossil fuel investment in a bid to shore up energy security.

The war in Ukraine caused disruption to the global power supply as Russia, a major producer of fossil fuels, cut gas supplies to Europe Union countries and was hit by sweeping sanctions over the invasion.

A separate report by Ember, an energy think tank, said on Tuesday that wind and solar energy generated 22 percent of EU electricity, surpassing gas (20 percent) for the first time.

Hydro and nuclear power still represented the biggest share of electricity generation in the 27-nation bloc, accounting for 32 percent.

rox-lth/ea

NDP health critic takes aim at UCP decision to contract out surgeries


Tue, January 31, 2023 

Health Minister Jason Copping announced last week a contract with Canadian Surgery Solutions to provide 3,000 orthopedic surgeries, which he claimed will free up spaces in hospitals and reduce wait times.

Opposition NDP health critic David Shepherd, on the other hand, doesn’t believe contracting more surgeries into private facilities is the right step forward.

“The big issue is not about infrastructure or physical capacity. The main challenge we have right now is the lack of staff needed to perform those surgeries.”

The UCP went to war with physicians back in 2020, said Shepherd, and kept it up throughout the pandemic. This, according to the NDP, resulted in large numbers of health-care professionals leaving the province.

While the Alberta Medical Association managed to negotiate an agreement with Health Minister Jason Copping last September, physicians had been without one for months.

“The lack of contract and antagonism of the provincial government towards doctors and the lack of trust, it’s done serious damage to capacity within the health-care system, including surgery,” Shepherd says. “The repair of that damage still needs to be done and I’m not sure it can be accomplished under the current government.”

Another issue Shepherd takes with an expansion of private clinics is it will draw staff away from the public system and potentially cause a critical staffing shortage.

“Creating a private system that will undermine the public system is deeply concerning,” he said.

The model being put forward by the UCP aims for lower costs and higher efficiency, one Shepherd says can and has been implemented in the public system in the past.

“Right here in Edmonton we have a bone and joint centre connected to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, which makes use of this very model.”

The NDP, as the official opposition, believes dollars should be invested in the public system to realize those cost efficiencies and increase capacity without undermining the public system and erasing the private profit motive.

“The fact is every dollar that goes into the pocket of a corporate profit is a dollar not being investing in health care,” Shepherd said.

When the NDP came into government in 2015, several chartered surgical facilities were already under contract with AHS.

Shepherd stated, “We did maintain those facilities and that capacity. When we came into government we inherited the health-care system that had been built by conservatives. It was in some level of chaos after years of erratic funding and riding the roller coaster of oil prices.”

The NDP doesn’t propose to cancel existing contracts, nor changing the mix that currently exists. The party’s aim, according to Shepherd, is to invest future dollars in publicly owned and operated facilities rather than subsidizing corporate profits through new chartered surgical facilities.

At a roundtable discussion between media and Copping on Jan. 3, the health minister was asked about further privatizing surgeries in Alberta and if it would attract staff away from the public system.

Copping stated, “This is the public system. It is no different than individuals going to see their family doctors.”

There are facilities contracted by AHS to deliver surgeries and expand capacity. “It is the same doctors and anesthesiologists that are assigned by AHS. The notion that this is going to steal staff from the public system, this is all the public system.”

He went onto say this was a better use of limited resources, claiming it has been successful and has decreased wait times.

SAMANTHA JOHNSON, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Medicine Hat News

Jagmeet Singh says the Canada Health Act could be used to challenge private health care. Could it?

CHA needs to be used more aggressively by the federal government, Singh says


Mark Gollom · CBC News · Posted: Feb 01, 2023 

The Canada Health Act, enacted in 1984 after being passed unanimously in the House of Commons, laid out criteria to ensure 'reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers.' That meant Canadians would have access to medically necessary services without being directly charged for those services (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been sounding the alarm about privatization creeping into the public health-care system.

Recently, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced he wanted to give a greater role to privately run for-profit clinics. These facilities are clinics operated by the private sector that receive public funding from the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) to perform medically necessary procedures.

But Singh says he's worried that trend of using public money to fund procedures in private clinics will take resources from the public system.

He said the federal government needs to utilize the Canada Health Act (CHA), which he said has significant powers to challenge for-profit privatized care.

Canada's health-care system under threat from both Liberals and Conservatives: Singh

Ontario expanding number and range of surgeries offered at for-profit clinics

"And it should be used more regularly and more aggressively to protect public health care," Singh said Monday, speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill.

But what exactly does the CHA do, how is it used and is it a tool that those who oppose health-care privatization can rely on to stop that trend? CBC News explains:
What is the Canada Health Act?

The Canada Health Act, enacted in 1984 after being passed unanimously in the House of Commons, laid out criteria to ensure "reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers."

That meant Canadians would have access to medically necessary services without being directly charged for those services. All such services would be covered through the province or territories' health-care insurance plan, according to the act.

WATCH | Singh accuses Trudeau of health-care flip flop:

Singh accuses Trudeau of a 'flip flop' on health-care privatization in Ontario
Duration1:06

During the first question period of the year, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh went after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for calling Ontario's recent moves on health care an 'innovation.'

It also established a number of conditions related to health-care access that the provinces and territories had to fulfil in order to receive transfer payments from the federal government, known as the Canada Health Transfer (CHT). One of those conditions stipulated that patients couldn't be charged an extra fee for medically necessary services, also known as "extra-billing."
What restrictions are there on private health care?

Singh said he wants the government to use the CHA to challenge for-profit care. But there are no restrictions on private delivery inside public health-care systems, said Colleen Flood, director of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics and University Research Chair at the University of Ottawa.

"So what Ford has proposed, with private for-profit clinics, is perfectly fine under the Canada Health Act," she said.

The CHA does not forbid the provision of health services by private companies, as long as residents are not charged for insured services, according to the federal government website.

More money is a must, but health-care delivery also needs a major rethink, doctors say

Health care is showing the cracks it's had for decades. Why it will take more than cash to fix it

"In fact, many aspects of health care in Canada are delivered privately. Family physicians mostly bill the provincial or territorial health-care plan as private contractors. Hospitals are often incorporated private foundations, and many aspects of hospital care (e.g., lab services, housekeeping, and linens) are carried out privately," the website states.

"Lastly, in many provinces and territories, private facilities are contracted to provide services under the public health-care insurance plan."

It's the finance side of the CHA where restrictions are imposed that disallow patients to be charged out of pocket for medically necessary hospital and physician services, Flood said.

WATCH | Ford government unveils plan for reducing surgical wait-lists:

Ontario to expand surgeries available at for-profit clinics
16 days ago
Duration3:58

Ontario is significantly expanding the number and range of medical procedures performed in privately run clinics. Premier Doug Ford says the move is necessary to improve surgery wait times.

"What is medically necessary and how those rules are fixed are determined province by province."

No province or territory totally prevents a two-tier system — they just try to make it less appetizing for doctors, she said.

"Almost all provinces have this rule which says, 'look, if you want to bill the public system, then you have to only bill the public system. If you want to opt out, opt out.'"

Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at The Fraser Institute, said one problem with the CHA is that the conditions imposed are "remarkably vague," which create a risk-averse environment in terms of health-care policy.

"Because of that risk aversion, a lot of provinces actually go beyond what's explicitly required by the CHA so that they don't accidentally get hit by by the federal government's interpretation of it," he said.

"We don't see the sort of experimentation with policies that are proven elsewhere, to work in most other universal health-care systems."
What happens if a province or territory violates the Act?

As the CHA states, if hospitals and doctors charge fees for medically necessary services, then the federal government is supposed to deduct $1 from the province or territories' annual grant or CHT for every dollar assessed of the so-called extra billing.
Has the federal government gone after provinces for violations?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, responding to Singh's concerns about the enforcement of the CHA, said Monday that his government will continue to defend the Canada Health Act and can pull back money from provinces that violate it.

"In the past, this government has pulled back money from provinces that haven't respected it. We will continue to do that."

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he's worried more provinces will start using public money to fund procedures in private clinics and take resources from the public system. He's urging the federal government to utilize the Canada Health Act to halt the trend. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

According to the 2020-2021 Canada Health Act Annual Report, for the most part, provincial and territorial health-care insurance plans met the requirements of the Canada Health Act. But there were some instances when the federal government said it had to withhold funds.

A deduction of $4,521 was taken from the March 2021 CHT payments to Newfoundland and Labrador for charges at a private ophthalmological clinic. Both New Brunswick and Ontario were dinged around $65,000 and nearly $14,000 respectively for charges at private abortion clinics.

The biggest violator, according to the report, was British Columbia, which submitted a financial statement of extra billing and user charges for fiscal year 2018–2019, in the amount of nearly $14 million. A deduction in the same amount was taken from British Columbia's March 2021 CHT payments. (The federal government has reimbursed the province in recognition for its Reimbursement Action Plan).

Parliament returns with Liberals facing pointed questions about ethics, health care

WORKERS WANTED Why it's hard to find a family doctor — and what's being done about it

The province has been the centre of a legal battle waged by private health-care advocate Dr. Brian Day, the owner of the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, who argues that patients should have a right to pay for services if wait times in the public system are too long.

But Dr. Michael Rachlis, a public health physician and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health, says that for the most part the federal government has not gone after provinces or territories for contravening the ban on extra billing for medically necessary services.

"The way the act is enforced — it's not like there's federal inspectors," he said. "The provinces are asked to investigate themselves. There is no real enforcement mechanism."

Rachlis says he also believes that there are lots of private clinics across Canada charging for medicare-covered services or up-selling services, citing a Globe and Mail 2017 investigation and work done by the Ontario Health Coalition.

"And the feds aren't doing anything."

Cheaters beware: ChatGPT maker releases AI detection tool

Tue, January 31, 2023


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The maker of ChatGPT is trying to curb its reputation as a freewheeling cheating machine with a new tool that can help teachers detect if a student or artificial intelligence wrote that homework.

The new AI Text Classifier launched Tuesday by OpenAI follows a weeks-long discussion at schools and colleges over fears that ChatGPT’s ability to write just about anything on command could fuel academic dishonesty and hinder learning.

OpenAI cautions that its new tool – like others already available – is not foolproof. The method for detecting AI-written text “is imperfect and it will be wrong sometimes,” said Jan Leike, head of OpenAI's alignment team tasked to make its systems safer.

“Because of that, it shouldn’t be solely relied upon when making decisions,” Leike said.

Teenagers and college students were among the millions of people who began experimenting with ChatGPT after it launched Nov. 30 as a free application on OpenAI's website. And while many found ways to use it creatively and harmlessly, the ease with which it could answer take-home test questions and assist with other assignments sparked a panic among some educators.

By the time schools opened for the new year, New York City, Los Angeles and other big public school districts began to block its use in classrooms and on school devices.

The Seattle Public Schools district initially blocked ChatGPT on all school devices in December but then opened access to educators who want to use it as a teaching tool, said Tim Robinson, the district spokesman.

“We can’t afford to ignore it,” Robinson said.

The district is also discussing possibly expanding the use of ChatGPT into classrooms to let teachers use it to train students to be better critical thinkers and to let students use the application as a “personal tutor” or to help generate new ideas when working on an assignment, Robinson said.

School districts around the country say they are seeing the conversation around ChatGPT evolve quickly.

“The initial reaction was ‘OMG, how are we going to stem the tide of all the cheating that will happen with ChatGPT,’" said Devin Page, a technology specialist with the Calvert County Public School District in Maryland. Now there is a growing realization that “this is the future” and blocking it is not the solution, he said.

“I think we would be naïve if we were not aware of the dangers this tool poses, but we also would fail to serve our students if we ban them and us from using it for all its potential power,” said Page, who thinks districts like his own will eventually unblock ChatGPT, especially once the company's detection service is in place.

OpenAI emphasized the limitations of its detection tool in a blog post Tuesday, but said that in addition to deterring plagiarism, it could help to detect automated disinformation campaigns and other misuse of AI to mimic humans.

The longer a passage of text, the better the tool is at detecting if an AI or human wrote something. Type in any text -- a college admissions essay, or a literary analysis of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” --- and the tool will label it as either “very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely” AI-generated.

But much like ChatGPT itself, which was trained on a huge trove of digitized books, newspapers and online writings but often confidently spits out falsehoods or nonsense, it’s not easy to interpret how it came up with a result.

“We don’t fundamentally know what kind of pattern it pays attention to, or how it works internally,” Leike said. “There’s really not much we could say at this point about how the classifier actually works.”

Higher education institutions around the world also have begun debating responsible use of AI technology. Sciences Po, one of France’s most prestigious universities, prohibited its use last week and warned that anyone found surreptitiously using ChatGPT and other AI tools to produce written or oral work could be banned from Sciences Po and other institutions.

In response to the backlash, OpenAI said it has been working for several weeks to craft new guidelines to help educators.

“Like many other technologies, it may be that one district decides that it’s inappropriate for use in their classrooms,” said OpenAI policy researcher Lama Ahmad. “We don’t really push them one way or another. We just want to give them the information that they need to be able to make the right decisions for them.”

It’s an unusually public role for the research-oriented San Francisco startup, now backed by billions of dollars in investment from its partner Microsoft and facing growing interest from the public and governments.

France’s digital economy minister Jean-Noël Barrot recently met in California with OpenAI executives, including CEO Sam Altman, and a week later told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that he was optimistic about the technology. But the government minister — a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the French business school HEC in Paris — said there are also difficult ethical questions that will need to be addressed.

“So if you’re in the law faculty, there is room for concern because obviously ChatGPT, among other tools, will be able to deliver exams that are relatively impressive,” he said. “If you are in the economics faculty, then you’re fine because ChatGPT will have a hard time finding or delivering something that is expected when you are in a graduate-level economics faculty.”

He said it will be increasingly important for users to understand the basics of how these systems work so they know what biases might exist.

—-

O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP writer John Leicester contributed to this report from Paris.

Matt O'brien And Jocelyn Gecker, The Associated Press


The company that created ChatGPT releases a tool for identifying text generated by ChatGPT
Mason ReganFebruary 1, 2023




The creators of what is arguably the world’s most popular chatbot have proposed a solution to help people distinguish between human and robot-generated text.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and the text-to-image generator DALL-E, said in a blog post yesterday (January 31) that it “trained a classifier to distinguish between text written by a human , and text written by AIs”. You can try here.

But there’s a catch: It’s not entirely reliable yet. In previous testing, 26% of AI-written text was flagged as “probably AI-written,” while human-written text was incorrectly flagged as AI-written 9% of the time. The tool proved more effective on blocks of text longer than 1,000 words, but even then the results were pretty dubious.

OpenAI defended the tool’s shortcomings as part of the process, saying they released it at this stage of development “to get feedback on whether imperfect tools like this are useful.”

What is ChatGPT?

Manufactured by OpenAI, which also manufactured the text-to-image generator DALL-E, the chatbot ChatGPT has become a talking point since its prototype launch in November 2022. Microsoft, which has pumped tens of millions of dollars into the company, may reportedly be using it to power their Bing search engine.

Applications of the tool stand for various professions and ventures. The conversational artificial intelligence (AI) tool helps real estate agents create online listings, write student essays, and developers write code, among other things.
OpenAI’s classifier cannot be used to prevent cheating in schools

One of the biggest concerns regarding ChatGPT is the application for cheating on school exams. Some institutions have started blocking ChatGPT on their devices and networks. OpenAI has released its AI identification tool to partially address these issues.

“We recognize that many school districts and higher education institutions are currently not acknowledging generative AI in their academic dishonesty policies. We also understand that many students have used these tools for assignments without disclosing their use of AI,” the company confirmed.

Unfortunately for these institutions, the AI ​​text classifier is “far from foolproof” and cannot be used to detect plagiarism, OpenAI warned. Not only can it classify AI text as human writing and vice versa, students could also learn to evade the system by changing some words or clauses in the generated content.

For now, educators need to encourage students to be more honest and transparent about using the chatbot.

A non-exhaustive list of limitations of OpenAI’s text classifier

 

It really only works with English text. It is even less accurate in other languages ​​and codes.

 

Predictable text like a list of prime ministers, which would be largely the same whether written by a human or a bot, cannot be captured by the classifier.

 

Detection can be short-lived as AI-written text can be edited to bypass the classifier.

 

For inputs that are very different from the text in the AI’s training set, which will end in 2021 and are unlikely to handle very complex queries, the classifier could safely give wrong answers.
Interesting tool: GPTZero

A 22-year-old developer, Edward Tian, ​​wrote an app to spy on ChatGPT-generated text and launched it on January 3. The Princeton University student, who is months away from graduating, based his recognition system on the analysis of two factors: cluelessness, which relates to randomness in text, and burstiness, which relates to variation in sentence phrasing.

Taking feedback from educators into account, Tian added more nuances to the tool, which can now recognize a mix of AI and human text and highlight parts of text that were most likely generated by AI. The team of four engineers working on the system also built a pipeline for file batch uploads in PDF, Word, and TXT format, allowing educators to run multiple files simultaneously through GPTZero.
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Google is testing potential ChatGPT competitors, including a homegrown AI chatbot called “Apprentice Bard”: CNBC

Layla Nelson

February 1, 2023

Google London View Pictures/Getty Images

Google employees are testing potential ChatGPT competitors — like its own AI chatbot called “Apprentice Bard,” according to CNBC.

That’s just weeks after management reportedly issued a “Code Red” on the rise of ChatGPT.

Google is also testing other AI-powered products, including a search page.

The competition in artificial intelligence is intensifying.

Google employees are testing potential challengers to viral AI chatbot ChatGPT — including its homegrown chatbot Apprentice Bard — CNBC reported Tuesday, citing sources and internal communications made available to the publication.

The bot reportedly uses Google’s own language technology called LaMDA, or Language Model for Dialogue Applications.

This comes just weeks after the tech giant’s management reportedly issued a “Code Red” on the rise of ChatGPT, which has been making waves of late for its ability to generate written, human-like text.

Apprentice Bard seems to work similarly to ChatGPT in that users can ask a question in a dialog box and get a response via CNBC. Users can also provide feedback on the bot’s response.

When asked if there would be more layoffs at Google — where 12,000 employees were laid off in January — Apprentice Bard replied that another round of layoffs in 2023 was “unlikely,” CNBC reported, citing an example shared internally.

“Layoffs are generally carried out to reduce costs and structures, but the company is doing well financially. In fact, Google’s revenue increased 34% in 2021 and the company’s stock price is up 70% since January 2022,” replied Apprentice Bard. per media office.

Insider could not independently confirm Apprentice Bard’s data source. Publicly available information shows that Alphabet’s — Google’s parent company — revenue is up 41% in 2021, while Alphabet’s Class A shares have fallen 32% since January 2022.

In addition to the Apprentice Bard, Google is also testing other AI-powered products, including a search page.

Google didn’t specifically comment on the projects CNBC reported, but told Insider that it “has long had a focus on developing and using AI to improve people’s lives.”

“We believe that AI is a fundamental and transformative technology that is incredibly useful to individuals, businesses, and communities, and as our AI principles outline, we must consider the broader societal impact these innovations can have,” said Lily Lin , a spokeswoman for Google.

Business Insider

Why focusing on Bobby Hull’s hockey legacy but not his abuse allegations is a problem

Claire Clarkson

CBC

February 1, 2023


Celebrity obituaries are never short of lavish praise or glorification, but when a star has a legacy that includes allegations of domestic violence and racism, as in the case of Canadian hockey legend Bobby Hull, the flattering tributes can be hard for some to stomach.

Hull died Monday at the age of 84 after a storied career in the NHL.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who is celebrating his 30th anniversary this week, remembered Hull as a “sociable” and “explosive” player praising his string of achievements. The league made no mention of Hull’s troubling past in either its statement or its four minutes Career review video shared on social media, and Hull’s image was projected onto the ice at NHL games Monday night.

The Hockey Hall of Fame that Hull introduced in 1983, and two of the professional teams he played on Chicago and the Winnipeg Jets (the Hartford Whalers no longer exist as a franchise), issued statements expressing sorrow and sympathy. But even in their monuments, Hull’s personal history was not recognized.

As of Tuesday, Hockey Canada had made no statement on its website or social media channels about Hull, who won the 1976 Canada Cup as a member of Team Canada. The sports governing body in that country is mired in a scandal of its own over its handling of sexual assault allegations.

“We cannot reflect on the history of this player and his importance to football without considering that he was another player whose career was marked by violence against women,” said Kristi Allain, associate professor of sociology at St .Thomas University in Fredericton. Allain has explored cultures of violent masculinity in men’s elite ice hockey.

As hockey grapples with allegations of abuse, discrimination and a toxic culture, Allain is concerned that glamorizing Hull’s career achievements without serious scrutiny of his behavior could spell a step backwards in efforts to reform the sport.

While it may be difficult “to speak ill of the dead,” she said, it’s important to be transparent.

“If we are demanding a change in hockey culture, we cannot bury [this]. His legacy is not just human shortcomings.”

LOOK AT | Bobby Hull’s Complicated Legacy:

NHL legend Bobby Hull has died at the age of 84

Former NHLer Bobby Hull has died at the age of 84. He was tough and unstoppable on the ice throughout his 23-year professional career, but his personal life has been marred by allegations of domestic violence and controversial comments.

Allegations against Bobby Hull

One of the biggest blemishes on Hull’s reputation are allegations that he abused two of his wives.

Joanne McKay divorced him in 1980 after an allegedly abusive relationship. “I got a real beating there,” she said in one 2002 ESPN Documentarydescribing an alleged attack that took place while vacationing in Hawaii in 1966.

“[Bobby] Just picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, threw me into the room and just kept beating me to death. He took my shoe – with a steel heel – and hit me on the head. I was covered in blood. And I remember he held me over the balcony and I thought, this is the end, I’m going.”

Bobby Hull and his wife Joanne toast champagne to celebrate Bobby’s signing of two contracts with the World Hockey Association and Winnipeg Jets in June 1972. (The Associated Press)

Hull was charged with assault and battery in December 1986, in connection with an alleged assault on his then-wife Deborah Hull. That charge was dropped a few months later when she said she didn’t want to testify.

In 1987, Hull pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer who attempted to intervene in that incident. According to Chicago Sun TimesHull was ordered to pay a $150 fine and six months in court surveillance.

There were also allegations of racism and anti-Semitism. In a 1998 interview with a Russian-English language news agency, he was quoted as having spoken positively about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Hull reportedly told the Moscow Times that “Hitler, for example, had some good ideas. He just went a little too far,” when discussing his thoughts on black population growth.

Hull would later deny he made the remarks and sued the source of defamation, along with the Canadian newspaper Toronto Sun, which reported on the interview. He claimed he was tricked.

How sport has reacted to the Hull story

Hull’s off-ice behavior overshadowed his legacy to some degree, says Gare Joyce, author of the 2012 book The Devil and Bobby Hull: How Hockey’s Original Million Dollar Man Became the Lost Legend of the Game.

“Even before ‘Me Too’, I think there had been some adjustment in the way people in hockey viewed Hull,” Joyce said in an interview with CBC News on Monday. “In that first group of great players, he’s not talked about [such as Jean Béliveau, Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky]. He’s not in the conversation.”

But the sport’s organizations don’t seem to be having conversations about Hull’s dark past – at least not publicly.

CBC News reached out to the NHL, Hockey Canada, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Winnipeg Jets and Chicago’s NHL franchise to ask if they considered the allegations against Hull before releasing tributes and why they didn’t mention his troubles had past.

Neither organization responded in time for publication.

In a news conference Monday, Winnipeg Jets head coach Rick Bowness brushed aside a question about how to reconcile Hull’s off-ice demeanor with his rink legacy.

“I’m not going to get into that,” Bowness said. “Listen, he was a great hockey player. He had influence on the league, [he was in the] hall of fame. Let’s leave it at that.”

Chicago — a team Hull has played 15 seasons with — may have realized its history was an issue when the franchise announced nearly a year ago that it had dropped the former left winger as one of its ambassadors.

Former Chicago player Bobby Hull is introduced to fans during the NHL hockey team’s convention in Chicago in July 2019. (The Associated Press)

According to Chicago Sun Timesthe team said it “redefined the role of team ambassador” while dealing with the fallout from the sexual assault allegations in Kyle Beach, and there was a mutual agreement that Hull would “retire from any official team role.”

But as the Sun-Times pointed out, Hull had been appointed ambassador in 2008, many years after allegations were leveled against him suggesting “the Hawks haven’t taken care of them until now,” despite having a “black eye.” for the organisation.”

Joyce said Hull should not have been appointed ambassador at all and that “red flags were waved that stretched back to his playing days”. He noted that Hull was “estranged” from the team for several years before a change of ownership opened the door to restore the relationship.

“It just says how willingly the hockey establishment, especially hockey fans, are in ignoring all of the personal failings and the horrific story of his life,” he said.

CLOCK | Court documents reveal details of sexual assault in junior hockey:
Documents reveal new details about allegations of sexual assault in junior hockey

Recently filed court documents explain why police are seeking search warrants to further their investigation into five members of the 2018 World Junior Hockey Team they believe were involved in an alleged sexual assault of a woman in London, Ontario. None of the police allegations have been tested in court and no charges have been filed.
Dealing with violence on and off the ice

Allain believes that because ice hockey is so ingrained in Canadian cultural identity, it can tend to whitewash or downplay the sport’s problems. But criticism of harmful behavior should come first, she said.

She said she finds it interesting that Hull took a stand against the violent brawls in sports, but is said to have behaved so aggressively in private.

“There’s a relationship between the kind of violence that happens on the ice and the kind of violence that happens off the ice,” she said.

Bobby Hull, playing for Chicago and suffering a black eye from injury, scores a goal against Detroit in April 1963 in the second period of the Stanley Cup playoff game. (The Canadian Press)

2016 the NHL announced It joined other professional sports leagues in requiring all of its players to submit to sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence after a number of its players faced lawsuits or investigations related to alleged abuse.

Allain, who has closely watched the fallout of Hockey Canada’s controversial handling of sexual assault allegations against junior hockey players, is skeptical of the steps the sport’s institutions have taken to reform hockey.

She said there has been a lot of lip service, particularly when it comes to being accountable and transparent for the actions of players – including former players like Hull.

“Bobby Hull is a pioneer in many ways. It’s not a legacy I want to celebrate as a woman,” she said.

HEAR | Remembering a legend with a disputed past:

Information Radio – MB6:37The Golden Jet was a legend on the ice with a controversial past

The Golden Jet Bobby Hull has died. While a legend on the ice, he had a controversial past. CBC’s Jim Agapito heard from former sports broadcaster Matt Leibl how he will be remembered.

Source: www.cbc.ca

COACHING IS ABUSE

Harvard women’s hockey coach under fire after reporting racist comments to Indigenous Canadians

Claire ClarksonFebruary 1, 2023



The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations is calling on Katey Stone, Harvard Crimson women’s ice hockey coach, to resign.

Stone reportedly made racist comments towards players, including two BC Indigenous players

According to the Boston Globe, Stone accused the players of disrespect and that the roster was a group of skaters “with too many chiefs and not enough Indians” after stopping practice in the 2021-22 season.

“I am just disgusted by the statements that have been made. It’s completely disrespectful to our people and of course our youth,” Heather Bear, deputy director of the FSIN, told The Canadian Press on Tuesday.

“In our eyes, she has no place in hockey.”

Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Canadian Press.

FSIN, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan, sent a letter to Harvard’s athletic department demanding Stone’s firing.

“I don’t even care about discipline right now. She should just be let go,” said Bear, who is from the Ochapowace Nation.

An independent panel found that racism and discrimination are “significantly present” in the Greater Toronto Hockey League – the largest minor hockey league in the world.

The Boston Globe reported that Indigenous players Maryna Macdonald of Ditidaht First Nation, BC, and Taze Thompson, a member of Metis Nation Alberta and Okanagan Indian Band, BC, have left the team.

The daughter of Philadelphia Flyers assistant coach Rocky Thompson, Thompson played two years at Harvard before joining Northeastern this season.

The 20-year-old forward was the 2020-21 Ivy League Rookie of the Year.

Macdonald, a four-season defenseman with the Crimson, told the Boston Globe that Stone looked her in the eye when she made the comment.

14 players have left the program since 2016

“I had learned to navigate a lot of their toxic environment,” Macdonald said. “But now she respected me and my family and my heritage above anyone else.”

Macdonald and Thompson were among 14 recruited players to have left Stone’s program since 2016, including three this season, The Globe reported in its history.

The newspaper also said former Crimson captain Sydney Daniels of Mistawasi’s Nehiyawak First Nation, Sask., is suing Harvard over alleged racial discrimination related to Stone and the athletic department.

CBC’s Greg Ross caught up with Akim Aliu when he made a surprise visit to a group of kids new to Canada and the sport of hockey.

The university has until February 8 to respond to the lawsuit.

Daniels, who is now an NHL scout with the Winnipeg Jets, was team captain in 2016-17 and Stone’s assistant coach for four years from 2018-2022.

Stone has coached Harvard to a dozen NCAA tournament appearances in the event’s 20-year history.

She was the head coach of the US women’s team that lost 3-2 in overtime to Canada in the 2014 Ice Hockey Olympic final in Sochi, Russia.

The Boston Globe wrote that Harvard conducted an internal review following Stone’s comment and that the athletic director informed the players that Stone would remain head coach of the Crimson.

“I would urge the Harvard Board of Governors to take serious steps to correct this,” Bear said.

Source: www.cbc.ca

St-Onge is urging provinces to step up efforts to make sport safer for athletes

Claire Clarkson

February 1, 2023



OTTAWA — Sports Secretary Pascale St-Onge plans to urge her provincial counterparts to speed up their efforts to investigate abuse in sports when she meets them in Prince Edward Island in February.

St-Onge said in August she had asked provinces to register provincial-level grievances with the new national office of sports integrity officer or develop a similar program of their own. She said they all committed to it.

“I’ll ask them how their progress is, where they’re going, what their schedule is,” she said. “This must be done as soon as possible. I think we face an urgent matter. We hear these stories of abuse and mistreatment at every level. It shouldn’t be a court issue. All athletes should know who to turn to when faced with these situations.”

The Federal Office for Sports Integrity opened in June to handle complaints and investigations for athletes at the national level in sports organizations affiliated with the program. St-Onge said any of the 64 national sports organizations that have not registered by April 1 will lose their federal funding.

On January 10 there were 22 full participants, but the Sports Integrity Officer’s website says many more are on track to do so. There are six other sports groups that are signatories, including training institutes in the Atlantic and Ontario and the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Read Also: Canadian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Athletes Again Call on St-Onge to Eliminate Toxic Culture

But the national office is limited to complaints and investigations affecting athletes at the national level, and St-Onge said the vast majority of athletes in Canada train and compete at a non-national level. These include provincial athletes, high schools, and community clubs, all of which fall under provincial jurisdiction.

Currently, only Quebec has a provincial-level grievance system, Sport’Aide, which was established in 2014 to address the growing problem of violence in sport in the province.

The matter will be raised by St-Onge when she meets provincial sports ministers on February 17 and 18 when they are in Charlottetown for the Canada Winter Games opening ceremony.

Hundreds of athletes from more than a dozen sports have come forward in recent years, accusing coaches, coaches and others of abuse. In some cases, athletes said their abusers used their power to decide national team spots, while others have made chilling allegations of abusive training practices and sexual assault.

There have also been concerns that a lack of inter-provincial information sharing on allegations of abuse has allowed coaches accused of abuse in one province to simply relocate and resume coaching and abusing athletes in another province.

The Commission received 24 complaints in the first three months, but only eight concerned sports organizations that had already joined the program and only two of these could be investigated. The others involved athletes whose national sports federation was a member but the athlete was not, or the complaint did not fall under the universal code of sport.

In the second three months, between October and December, a further 24 complaints were filed, but by then more organizations were taking part, so 18 were from athletes in sports falling under the bureau’s powers.

However, only eight of these complaints can be investigated as the others do not fall within the Commissioner’s jurisdiction.

The Code of Conduct prohibits psychological abuse, including verbal assaults in person or online, and body shaming, physical abuse including denial of adequate food or water, neglect and sexual abuse. It also covers those who fail to report suspected abuse by others, those who make false reports, and retaliation against those who make complaints.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on January 31, 2023.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Source: www.orilliamatters.com

Calgary launches program to fund clean energy upgrades in homes

Peter Harris

February 1, 2023

Workers install solar panels on a new home in the community of Ambleton in northwest Calgary on Thursday, January 19, 2023. Gavin Young/Postmedia

The Clean Energy Improvement Program is designed to help with the upfront costs of certain home improvement projects

Posted January 31, 2023 • 

The city is making it easier for Calgarians to modernize their homes with clean energy through a new loan program that ties repayment to the property rather than the borrower.

The Clean Energy Improvement Program is designed to reduce the upfront costs of certain home improvement projects, including installing solar panels, upgrading heating and air conditioning, and upgrading water heaters and lighting. If the home is sold before the loan is repaid, the remaining costs are passed on to the next homeowner.

In a press release, the city said 65 percent of Calgary’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings. The program addresses the fact that many buildings that are standing today will still be around in 2050 when the city aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the city has heard from residents who want to make these types of upgrades but can’t always afford the upfront cost.
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“With what we’ve seen in terms of inflation, it’s just been a little bit difficult for people to do the things they wanted to do,” the mayor said. “With this program that’s available to them, they can upgrade the things they want right away and they can slowly pay it back through their property tax bill.”
Loan linked to owner’s tax bill

Under CEIP, homeowners can qualify for a loan of up to $50,000 to cover the cost of upgrades. The city says it offers “competitive interest rates” and repayment terms of up to 20 years, though homeowners can repay the loan in full at any time with no penalty.

The loan is attached to the owner’s tax bill. David Kelly, CEO of solar installation company SkyFire Energy, said this could be the key to getting more people to do solar power installations.

“A lot of people argue, ‘I don’t want to solar power my house if I have to move in five years,'” Kelly said. “With this program and the loan that comes with the house, if you live in a house for five years, you pay your five years on the loan and then the next owner pays their five years on the loan.”

He said the cost of adding solar power to an average home is between $8,000 and $15,000.
Federal program to help Alberta homeowners finance energy retrofits

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Council greenlights a funding program to upgrade homes with clean energy

Kelly said there are other federal loans and grants as well.

“Solar energy makes sense today,” he said. “Especially with the subsidy programs and the loans, it’s cheaper than mains electricity.”

CEIP has been rolled out across Alberta

According to the city’s website, the program has a limited amount of money that can be borrowed. The program is currently valued at $15 million.

CEIP has already been rolled out in eight other communities across Alberta, including Lethbridge, Edmonton and Canmore. Alberta Municipalities is the third party administrator of the program.

Alberta Municipalities President Cathy Heron said Calgary is serving as the program’s provincial director.

“It is the largest program in the province to date, funding hundreds of residential energy efficiency and renewable energy projects over the next four years,” she said in a release. “Alberta Municipalities is proud to serve Calgarians as administrators of the program.”

Loan details are available at Calgary.ca/CEIP.

brthomas@postmedia.com
Twitter: @brodie_thomas