EPA Acts to Keep ‘Inactive’ Forever Chemicals Off the Market

WASHINGTON, DC, February 3, 2023 (ENS) – They’re called “forever chemicals” for a reason – because they don’t break down in the environment over time. Toxic per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, are the forever chemicals, and they’re not rare – more than 9,000 PFAS have been identified.

These chemicals, resistant to both water and grease, are used in products from nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, take-out containers and food packaging, to firefighting foams, fire retardants and repellents. And these compounds now are found in drinking water systems across the United States.

Scientists from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, David Andrews and his EWG colleague Olga Naidenko, estimated in 2021 that the tap water of more than 200 million people, a majority of Americans, is contaminated with a mixture of PFOA and PFOS at concentrations of one part per trillion (ppt) or higher.

Last October, another nonprofit, the Waterkeeper Alliance, released its analysis of American waterways. It, too, sounds a loud alarm. In a test of 114 waterways across the country, 83 percent were found to contain at least one type of PFAS.

San Diego Creek, Orange County, California in 2016. In 2022 it tested higher in PFAS than any waterway tested on the West Coast.
(Photo by Sergei Gussev)

San Diego Creek in Orange County, California contained the highest levels of PFAS concentrations of all sample sites on the West Coast. In total, 15 different PFAS compounds were found in detectable quantities.

But exposure to these chemicals harms both the environment and health health. Human exposure to PFAS is linked to kidney and testicular cancer, impaired functioning of the liver, kidneys, and immune system, endocrine disruption, fertility problems, birth defects, and developmental damage to infants, according to the National Institutes of Health. The agency points to a long-term study showing a link between PFAS exposure and increased risk of Type 2 diabetes in women. Other studies indicate a decrease in vaccine effectiveness in children.

When he was campaigning for the 2020 election, now President Joe Biden issued an environmental justice plan that called out forever chemicals. The plan promised that if elected Biden would “tackle PFAS pollution by designating PFAS as a hazardous substance, setting enforceable limits for PFAS in the Safe Drinking Water Act, prioritizing substitutes through procurement, and accelerating toxicity studies and research on PFAS.”

In October 2021, the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, launched a new three-year PFAS Roadmap to guide the agency’s activities to research, restrict, and remediate harmful PFAS through 2024.

The PFAS Roadmap includes a new national testing strategy to accelerate research and regulatory development, a proposal to designate certain PFAS as hazardous substances under an existing law, and actions to broaden and accelerate the cleanup of PFAS as well as steps to, “hold polluters accountable [and] address the impacts on disadvantaged communities,” according to a White House fact sheet. The roadmap is the product of the EPA PFAS Council, which EPA Administrator Michael Regan established soon after he took office.

The alarm bells keep ringing. Last June, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, released updated health advisories warning that even tiny amounts of two types of the chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, are harmful to human health.

On the cleanup front, the Department of Defense is moving swiftly to address PFAS at military sites throughout the country, but it’s a big job and progress is slow. The department is currently conducting PFAS cleanup assessments at the nearly 700 DOD installations and National Guard locations where PFAS was used or may have been released, and expects to have completed all initial assessments by the end of 2023.

Last week, the EPA took another step to limit the amount of PFAS chemicals are released into the environment by seeking public comment on limiting “inactive” PFAS.

EPA Proposal Would Check Out “Inactive” PFAS

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has just proposed for public comment a rule that would prevent companies from starting or resuming the manufacture, processing or use of an estimated 300 PFAS that have not been made or used for many years without a complete EPA review and risk determination.

In the past, these chemicals, known as “inactive PFAS,” may have been used as binding agents, surfactants, in the production of sealants and gaskets, and may have been released into the environment, the EPA says.

An “inactive” designation means that a chemical substance has not been manufactured (including imported) or processed in the United States since June 21, 2006. Without the proposed rule, companies could resume uses of these PFAS without notification to and review by EPA.

Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Michal Freedhoff (Photo courtesy U.S. EPA)

“This proposal is part of EPA’s comprehensive strategy to stop PFAS from entering our air, land and water and harming our health and the planet,” said Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff, who helped to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act in 2016.

“The rule would put needed protections in place where none currently exist to ensure that EPA can slam the door shut on all unsafe uses of these 300 PFAS,” she said.

When the Toxic Substances Control Act, TSCA, was first passed in 1976, thousands of chemicals were grandfathered in under the statute and allowed to remain in commerce without additional EPA review.

Before TSCA was amended in 2016, EPA completed formal reviews on only about 20 percent of new chemicals and had no authority to address new chemicals about which the agency lacked sufficient information. This is part of the reason why many chemicals, including PFAS, were allowed into commerce without a complete review, Freedhoff explained in a statement.

Under the newly proposed Significant New Use Rule, if the EPA adopts it after public comment, the agency must formally review the safety of all of new chemicals before they are allowed into commerce.

TSCA also requires EPA to compile, keep current and publish a list of each chemical that is manufactured, imported, or processed in the United States for uses under TSCA, known as the TSCA Inventory. TSCA also requires EPA to designate each chemical on the TSCA Inventory as either “active” or “inactive” in commerce.

The proposal would first require companies to notify EPA before they could use any of these 300 chemicals. The agency would then be required to conduct a robust review of health and safety information under the modernized 2016 law to determine if their use may present unreasonable risk to human health or the environment and put any necessary restrictions in place before the use could restart.

EPA will accept public comments on the proposed rule for 60 days following publication in the Federal Register via docket EPA-HQ-OPPT-2022-0876 at www.regulations.gov

Meanwhile, There’s a Tool for That

On January 5, the EPA offered something new for people concerned about PFAS and the harms they can cause.

EPA released a new interactive webpage, called the “PFAS Analytic Tools,” which provides comprehensive information about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances across the country.

Map of known sites contaminated with PFAS across the United States. (Map courtesy U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

EPA’s PFAS Analytic Tools draws from multiple national databases and reports to consolidate information in one webpage.

The tools allow mapping, charting, and filtering functions, so the public can see where testing has been done and what level of PFAS detections were measured.

“EPA’s PFAS Analytic Tools webpage brings together for the first time data from multiple sources in an easy to use format,” said John Dombrowski, director of EPA’s Office of Compliance. “This webpage will help communities gain a better understanding of local PFAS sources.”

The PFAS Analytic Tools includes information on Clean Water Act PFAS discharges from permitted sources, reported spills containing PFAS constituents, facilities historically manufacturing or importing PFAS, federally owned locations where PFAS is being investigated, transfers of PFAS-containing waste, PFAS detection in natural resources such as fish or surface water, and drinking water testing results.

The tools cover a broad list of PFAS and represent EPA’s ongoing efforts to provide the public with access to the growing amount of testing information that is available.

Because the regulatory framework for PFAS chemicals is emerging, data users should pay close attention to the caveats found within the site, the EPA advises.

Rather than wait for complete national data to be available, EPA is publishing what is currently available while information continues to fill in. Because of the differences in testing and reporting across the country, EPA officials warn that the data “should not be used for comparisons across cities, counties, or states.”

To improve the availability of the data in the future, EPA has published its fifth Safe Drinking Water Act Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to expand on the initial drinking water data reporting that was conducted in 2013-2016.

Beginning in 2023, this expansion will bring the number of drinking water PFAS samples collected by regulatory agencies into the millions, the agency says.

EPA also expanded the Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirements in recent years to include over 175 PFAS substances, and more information should be received in 2023.

EPA will continue working toward the expansion of data sets in the PFAS Analytic Tools to improve collective knowledge about PFAS occurrence in the environment.

See information about the new PFAS Analytic Tools here and open the tools here.

PFAS Fighters Make Progress on the Scientific Front

The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Superfund Research Program funds the search for practical applications to protect the public from exposures to hazardous substances.

Examples include:

• The Sources, Transport, Exposure, and Effects of PFASs (STEEP) project, at the University of Rhode Island, is identifying sources of PFAS contamination, assessing human health effects, and educating communities on ways to reduce exposure. ¹¹
• The Michigan State Superfund Research Center is developing energy-efficient nanoreactors capable of breaking the carbon-fluorine bond that keeps PFAS from degrading.
• Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are working on options to contain aqueous film-forming foams used for firefighting, a major source of PFAS contamination.
• The Brown University Superfund Research Center has developed databases that exploit land use data to identify cities and towns at high risk for PFAS exposure. ¹²
• Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grantee CycloPure, Inc., has developed a new way to remove hazardous PFAS from water. The water pitcher-based filters should be an affordable option for people concerned about PFAS exposure where they live or work.
• A team at the North Carolina State University SRP Center is studying alligators living in PFAS-contaminated water to understand possible effects on the immune system. They also developed a new high-throughput tool to quickly characterize how PFAS may be transported within the body and potentially cause harm.
• Another SBIR project by EnChem Engineering, Inc. is developing an innovative technology to speed up removal of PFAS at Superfund sites.
• SRP-funded small business AxNano developed a portable tool that relies on nanoparticles to quickly detect PFAS in samples. Their method is more affordable and efficient than traditional mass spectrometry.

Featured image: Drillers with Plains Environmental Services, Inc. conduct hydraulic profiling and electrical conductivity testing using a Geoprobe mobile drilling rig during a remedial investigation into the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, at Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin, March 22, 2022. (Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Paul Gorman courtesy U.S. Air National Guard)

Environment News Service (ENS) © 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Activists Attempt To Derail An $8 Billion Alaskan Oil Project

By Charles Kennedy - Feb 02, 2023, 

Environmental activists are bracing for one last push to try and cancel the Willow oil project in Alaska, which they have slammed as a “carbon bomb”.

The project, led by ConocoPhillips, was awarded to the company by the Trump Administration’s Bureau of Land Management in 2020. The project could deliver 160,000 bpd of crude, the BLM said at the time, with reserves estimated at between 400 and 750 million barrels. The lifetime of the project was estimated at up to 30 years in 2019.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that President Biden could approve the $8-billion project with a reduced number of wells, which sparked concern among activists and they are now preparing for battle.

According to a new Bloomberg report, this time they are using a new tactic that involves a focus on efforts to push for approval for the project at a reduced scale that would render it uneconomical rather than trying to stop its approval altogether.

The latest official input from the federal government came this week in the form of a report published by the Bureau of Land Management, which features a suggestion that four drill sites would be better than five, and another one should be deferred pending additional environmental impact analysis.

According to the BLM, fewer drilling sites would reduce the risk for local ecosystems, reduce freshwater consumption by the project, and reduce the total length of pipelines related to the project.

The Willow project has been seen as a fine balancing act for the Biden administration as it seeks the middle ground between its emission reduction ambitions and the immediate need for hydrocarbons to secure the country's energy supply.

The final decision on Willow is scheduled to be made in a month and the BLM has indicated an approval is not certain at all.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

Biden administration recommends major Alaska oil project

By BECKY BOHRER and MATTHEW DALY

 This 2019 aerial photo provided by ConocoPhillips shows an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow oil project on Alaska's North Slope. The Biden administration issued a long-awaited study on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023, that recommends allowing three oil drilling sites in the region of far northern Alaska. The move, while not final, has angered environmentalists who see it as a betrayal of President Joe Biden's pledges to reduce carbon emissions and promote green energy.

 (ConocoPhillips via AP)

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Biden administration released a long-awaited study Wednesday that recommends allowing a major oil development on Alaska’s North Slope that supporters say could boost U.S. energy security but that climate activists decry as a “carbon bomb.”

The move — while not final — drew immediate anger from environmentalists who saw it as a betrayal of the president’s pledges to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean energy sources.

ConocoPhillips Alaska had proposed five drilling sites as part of its Willow project, and the approach listed as the preferred alternative by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the report calls for up to three drill sites initially. Even as the land agency released its report, the U.S. Interior Department said in a separate statement that it has “substantial concerns” about the project and the report’s preferred alternative, “including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.”

The Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior Department, also said in the report that identifying a preferred alternative “does not constitute a commitment or decision” and notes it could select a different alternative in the final decision.

Opponents have raised concerns about the impacts of oil development on wildlife, such as caribou, and efforts to address climate change.

The project is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a vast region roughly the size of Indiana on Alaska’s resource-rich North Slope. ConocoPhillips Alaska says the project, at its peak, could produce an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil a day.

The Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, an Alaska Native corporation, and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope joined the North Slope Borough in praising the proposed alternative and calling on the administration to move ahead on the project. In a joint statement, they said advancing the project “is critical for domestic energy independence, job security for Alaskans and the right of Alaska Natives to choose their own path.”

This Sunday, June 30, 2019, aerial photo released by Earthjustice shows the Alaska's North Slope in the Western Arctic on the edge of Teshekpuk Lake, Alaska. 

 (Kiliii Yuyan for Earthjustice via AP)

Other Alaska Native groups have expressed concerns.

Leaders of the Native Village of Nuiqsut and city of Nuiqsut in a recent letter said they do not feel like the Bureau of Land Management is listening. The community is about 36 miles (58 kilometers) from the Willow project, in a remote region of Alaska’s far north.

The Bureau of Land Management’s “engagement with us is consistently focused on how to allow projects to go forward; how to permit the continuous expansion and concentration of oil and gas activity on our traditional lands,” Native Village of Nuiqsut President Eunice Brower and City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak wrote in a letter dated last week.

ConocoPhillips has estimated the project would create as many as 2,000 jobs during construction and 300 permanent jobs and generate between $8 billion and $17 billion in federal, state and local revenue in an area more than 600 miles (965 kilometers) from Anchorage.

Erec Isaacson, the president of ConocoPhillips Alaska, said in a statement the company believes the project will “benefit local communities and enhance American energy security while producing oil in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.” He said the review process “should be concluded without delay.”

The members of Alaska’s congressional delegation — Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat — all said they welcomed Wednesday’s environmental review and urged the administration to allow the project to move forward.

The project would bring miles of roads and hundreds of miles of pipeline to the area, disrupt animal migration patterns and erode habitat if it goes forward, said Earthjustice, an environmental group.

Jeremy Lieb, an attorney with the group, said Willow is currently the largest proposed oil project in the U.S. He said it is “drastically out of step with the Biden administration’s goals to slash climate pollution and transition to clean energy.” President Joe Biden campaigned on pledges to end new drilling on public lands and has set an ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

Biden “will be remembered for what he did to tackle the climate crisis, and as things stand today, it’s not too late for him to step up and pull the plug on this carbon bomb,” Lieb said.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who fought the Willow project as a member of Congress, has the final decision on whether to approve it, although top White House climate officials are likely to be involved. Haaland has multiple options, including outright approval or rejection or a middle ground that allows some drilling but blocks other development. A final decision is expected no sooner than early March.

Federal agencies have within the last week made two major decisions around resources in Alaska. Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it was reinstating restrictions on road-building and logging on the country’s largest national forest in southeast Alaska, the Tongass National Forest.

And on Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it was exercising its so-called veto authority under the federal Clean Water Act to block plans for a proposed copper and gold mine in a mineral-rich area of southwest Alaska because of concerns about its environmental impact on a rich Alaska aquatic ecosystem that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

___

Daly reported from Washington, D.C.

ConocoPhillips sees profits rise on higher commodity prices

ConocoPhillips emphasized its natural gas and liquefied natural gas portfolio in its fourth quarter earnings report. Both are important for a European economy looking to rely less on Russian resources. Photo courtesy of ConocoPhillips.

Feb. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. major ConocoPhillips on Thursday reported fourth quarter profits that were nearly 25% higher than year-go levels, supported in large part by higher commodity prices.

Conoco reported fourth quarter earnings of $3.2 billion, compared with $2.6 billion during the three-month period ending in December 2021. The company attributed much of the earnings to higher volumes and better prices.

The realized price, the price at which Conoco sold its products, came in at $71.05 per barrel of oil equivalent, 8% higher than the same period last year. Full-year revenue of $18.7 billion was supported by a realized price of $79.82 per barrel of oil equivalent, 46% higher than the previous year.

Crude oil prices moved above $100 per barrel last year, supported by supply-side concerns that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia was a major crude oil and natural gas supplier before Western sanctions limited its output.

Similar to Shell, top brass at Conoco said much of the corporate focus last year was on natural gas and liquefied natural gas, which is replacing some of the market share that Russia has lost.

"Building on 60 years of global LNG expertise, we expanded our LNG business in Australia, Germany, Qatar and along the U.S. Gulf Coast," chairman and CEO Ryan Lance said.

Conoco has a deep LNG bench, but the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi export terminals in the United States are among the largest in its portfolio. Of the 25 vessels loaded with LNG that left U.S. export terminals during the week ending Jan. 25, nine departed from the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana and five left from Corpus Christi.

All told, its production for the fourth quarter was only slightly above year-ago levels, with late-year storms impacting the company's operations in the Lower 48 U.S. states.

Further north, however, the company is among the few to set its sights on Alaska. Despite "substantial" environmental concerns, the government gave its tentative approval to the development of the Willow project, situated on land that Conoco has leased for decades.

The reserve could yield as much as 614 million barrels of oil over the next three decades.

Biden blocks Pebble copper-gold mine in Alaska

Bloomberg News | January 31, 2023 |

The area where Pebble mine would be built, 320 km southwest of Anchorage, within the Bristol Bay watershed. Image courtesy of Northern Dynasty Minerals.

The Biden administration banned the dumping of mining waste near Bristol Bay, Alaska, issuing a decree that thwarts longstanding plans to extract gold, copper and molybdenum because of potential harm to the region’s thriving sockeye salmon industry.


The Environmental Protection Agency’s final determination, announced Tuesday, effectively blocks the mine planned by Pebble Limited Partnership as well as future mining of the same deposit in headwaters of Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest sockeye harvest.

“The Bristol Bay watershed is a vital economic driver, providing jobs, sustenance, and significant ecological and cultural value to the region,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in an emailed release. “With this action, EPA is advancing its commitment to help protect this one-of-a-kind ecosystem, safeguard an essential Alaskan industry and preserve the way of life for more than two dozen Alaska Native villages.”

Pebble, a subsidiary of publicly traded Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., has been seeking to mine in the area for roughly two decades and could challenge the decision in federal court. Chief Executive Officer John Shively said the “next step will likely be to take legal action to fight this injustice,” calling the EPA’s move an unprecedented preemptive veto of the project that “is not supported legally, technically or environmentally.”

Shares of Northern Dynasty Minerals fell in Toronto trading.

The ban dovetails with a pledge President Joe Biden made while campaigning for the White House, when he called Bristol Bay “no place for a mine.”

Bristol Bay supplies roughly half of the world’s wild sockeye salmon, generating an estimated $2.2 billion in economic activity each year. A record number of sockeye have returned to Bristol Bay to spawn in recent years, even as other salmon runs have declined.

Katherine Carscallen, director of Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay, called EPA’s final action “surreal,” because it “will finally put an end to the threat of Pebble.”

“Any mining of that site would do irreperable damage to the watershed,” Carscallen said. “This is not just about fighting this mine this year or the last 20 years but making sure we won’t be fighting another mine at that site in the future.”

The proposed Pebble Mine has been a source of contention for years. Under former President Barack Obama, the EPA recommended restrictions that would rule out the project. But the agency later withdrew the controls after a legal challenge. A federal judge last year sent the issue back to the EPA for reconsideration.

Critics said the decision conflicts with the Biden administration’s commitment to accelerating the deployment of renewable power and electric vehicles that rely on critical minerals.

These goals “cannot possibly be realized responsibly if US government authorities continue on this adversarial path with domestic mining projects,” the National Mining Association said in an emailed statement. “This end-run of the proper permitting process creates significant regulatory uncertainty for the mining industry during a crisis point for minerals demand.”

The ban, ordered under the Clean Water Act, represents a victory for conservationists and local residents who lobbied the EPA to definitively kill the mine by wielding broad authority under the statute to veto projects involving the discharge of dredged material. The Bristol Bay move marks only the third time in 30 years the EPA has used the authority.

Under the final determination, the EPA is prohibiting certain waters in the Bristol Bay region from being used as disposal sites for waste associated with Pebble Limited Partnership’s plan as well as any future proposals targeting the same deposit that would result in equivalent or greater loss or change to aquatic resources.

The EPA “truly listened to the original stewards and first peoples of this land,” said Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. “These Clean Water Act protections provide certainty that Pebble cannot be built in Bristol Bay.”

(By Jennifer A. Dlouhy)

EPA’s move to block Pebble project in Alaska ‘unlawful’, says CEO

Reuters | January 31, 2023 

Drilling at the Pebble project in Alaska. (Image courtesy of Northern Dynasty Minerals.)

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to block the proposed Pebble copper and gold mining project near Alaska’s ecologically sensitive Bristol Bay watershed is “unlawful” and hurts the state, said the top boss of the mining project.


The EPA has moved to prevent the company from storing mine waste at the watershed, home to important salmon species, including the world’s largest sockeye salmon fisheries, which have supported critical wildlife and a multibillion-dollar industry.

“This preemptive action against Pebble is not supported legally, technically, or environmentally,” said John Shively, chief executive of Pebble LP, a unit of Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.

He also said US President Joe Biden’s strategy to secure minerals for green energy goals seems to be giving “passing support” to minerals such as lithium in the United States and seeking an “enormous supply of copper … from other nations”.

The project has been on a roller coaster for the past 15 years. Former US President Barack Obama opposed the project, and his successor Donald Trump ultimately also did after deciding it was too risky.

Earlier in December, the regional EPA head suggested that the agency veto the project, which has one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits.

The EPA was not immediately available for comment.

(By Sourasis Bose; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Immigration increase alone won't fix the labour market, experts say

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press
Feb 1, 2023    

Experts say Canada’s plan to increase immigration may ease some pressures in the labour market, but bigger changes are needed to ensure new permanent residents are matched with the jobs that most need filling.

With the unemployment rate at historic lows, many companies are “starved” for workers, and new immigrants will help fill some of the need, said Ravi Jain, principal at Jain Immigration Law and co-founder of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association.

The federal government’s new immigration plan calls for the admission of 1.45 million more new permanent residents over the next three years, beginning with 465,000 in 2023 and reaching 500,000 in 2025. That's compared with 341,000 in 2019.

According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the plan is intended to help attract labour in key sectors, including healthcare, skilled trades, manufacturing and technology.

“It’s clear that there are real gaps, real demands, and real needs,” said Naomi Alboim, a senior policy fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University and a former Ontario Deputy Minister of Immigration.

But upping immigration levels is just one way to begin addressing those needs, she said -- the government's plan should be part of a wider initiative to address temporary workers, international students and a larger range of jobs.

Change is needed to ensure new Canadians are well-matched to jobs that maximize their skills, qualifications and experience, said Alboim.

Recent immigrants are less likely to see their skills and education utilized than Canadian-born workers, Statistics Canada said, and new and recent immigrants are overrepresented in certain industries, including transportation and warehousing, and accommodation and food services.

Government policies have created a mismatch between the specific skills employers are looking for and the skills of immigrants being approved, Toronto immigration lawyer Sergio Karas said.

Some of this mismatch begins with international students, said Karas. Though many international students plan to become permanent residents after they graduate, many of them aren’t in programs for jobs that are in demand by immigration policies, like healthcare or trades, he said.

International students and temporary foreign workers (TFWs) have made up an increasingly large portion of Canada's economic immigrants, or those selected for their contribution to the economy, who made up more than half of recent immigrants in 2021, Statistics Canada said.

In 2020, 67 per cent of the country’s principal applicants in the economic class were previously temporary foreign workers or international students, the agency said.

But that 67 per cent is a relatively small portion of all the temporary workers and international students in Canada, said Alboim. Canada had 777,000 TFW work permit holders in 2021, and almost 622,000 international students that year, Statistics Canada said.

Canada’s dependence on temporary workers to fill long-term gaps is a huge problem, said Alboim. It creates little incentive to improve wages, conditions or supports for temporary workers, she said.

Federal immigration policy seems laser-focused on jobs requiring higher levels of training and education, said Alboim, a barrier to permanent residency for many TFWs and international students.

That's despite the fact that much of Canada’s labour shortage is in jobs that require lower levels of education or experience, jobs that many temporary workers and students take on, said Alboim.


The federal government should expand its scope to prioritize more of these kinds of jobs, she said.

“There are way, way, way more people here now with temporary status that will never be able to transition to permanent residency, assuming they want to, unless the rules for permanent residency are changed to recognize that we actually need them too,” she said.

However, not all the onus lies on the federal government, Jain said. One ongoing problem has been immigrants’ credentials not being recognized in Canada, and while there have been some recent changes aimed at improving that, more needs to be done, he said. These credentials are the jurisdiction of provinces and territories, not Ottawa.

Provincial and regional immigration programs often do a better job of bringing in workers who can meet a wide range of labour needs including in lower-skill jobs, Alboim said, noting those programs are set to increase under the federal government’s plan.

A legislative amendment recently gave the minister of immigration the power to select immigrants for Express Entry programs based on specific qualities like occupation, but currently Alboim anticipates that use of that power will be focused on higher-level jobs.

“(There are) real needs at the high end, which immigration should certainly be focused on, but not exclusively,” she said.

Jain agreed.

“My worry is that if the targeted draws get too heavy, like if it's weighted too much in terms of the proportion of people coming in, then I worry that some of these other folks will get marginalized,” he said.

“There needs to be some kind of a balance.”

— With files from Lee Berthiaume

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2023.

Feds to lay out 'sustainable jobs' plan for energy transition ahead of legislation

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press
Feb 2, 2023

The federal government will show Canadians its plan to protect jobs during the clean energy transition no later than early spring, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Wednesday.

Legislation to guide how that plan is implemented, however, won't come for some time after that.

The Liberals have promised a "just transition act" since at least 2019, and Wilkinson has been saying it will finally happen this year.

That prospect prompted outcry in Alberta, where the energy transition will have the biggest impact and provincial politicians are headed for a tightly contested election this spring.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has asked for a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help shape that legislation. Her chief opponent, NDP Leader Rachel Notley, asked the federal Liberals to delay the whole thing at least until after the election, which is scheduled for the end of May.

But Wilkinson said the bill, for which he didn't offer a timeline, will in some ways be secondary to the action plan listing what the government intends to do. He said that plan will hopefully be revealed by the end of March, though it may "slip into the next quarter."

"The legislation will guide future efforts and will create a governance structure, but it's the policy statement that I think is going to be the most impactful," he said. "And, as I say, we will be releasing that in the coming few months."

He said the plan is based on lengthy consultations with provinces, labour organizations, business and Indigenous communities. Ultimately, he said, it will contain no surprises.

The concept of a "just transition" has existed for several decades, but it took on new meaning after the 2015 Paris climate agreement committed most of the world to transitioning to cleaner energy sources in a bid to slow climate change.

The idea is that any efforts to adjust reliance on fossil fuels must ensure that people who work in energy industries can move to new sectors and will not be left out in the cold.

The "just transition" debate exploded last month when Smith lambasted the federal government for a briefing document that listed the number of jobs that could be affected by the ongoing global transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy.

Smith misread the total number of jobs in the affected sectors to mean the number of jobs the federal government expected would be lost, and pledged to "fight this just transition idea" with everything she had.

A week later, the premier wrote to Trudeau warning him that the Ottawa-Alberta relationship was "at a crossroads," and demanding that Alberta be included in all discussions on a "just transition" going forward.

She also said the legislation shouldn't be labelled as a "just transition" bill, but one about "sustainable jobs."

That request hit the federal government with interest and even amusement, since several federal ministers had already signalled their intention to use the term.

"I think I've been pretty clear I don't like the term 'just transition,'" Wilkinson said Wednesday.

"I prefer 'sustainable jobs.' I think it speaks to a future where we're looking to build economic opportunity for all regions of this country, very much including Alberta and Saskatchewan."

Smith will be in Ottawa next week as part of a first ministers meeting on health care, but there is no sign she will get a one-on-one meeting with Trudeau on sustainable jobs.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2023.

OTTP

Canada's US$181B pension fund pauses private China deals

Layan Odeh and Ben Bartenstein, Bloomberg Ne

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a Canadian fund that manages $242.5 billion (US$181 billion) of assets, has paused direct investing in private assets in China, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Geopolitical risk is among the reasons behind the pension fund’s move, said one person, who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive matter. 

 “Our current focus is on listed securities, building value in our existing portfolio, and investing in public and private assets via fund partners,” rather than direct private investments, according to a statement from Dan Madge, a spokesperson for Ontario Teachers’.

Canada has already started restricting Chinese investment in its critical minerals sector, ordering three Chinese firms to divest from a trio of junior lithium explorers in early November. The country has also proposed to change its foreign investment law, creating new powers for a cabinet minister to impose conditions on deals to protect national security.  

Teachers’ has about $5 billion invested in China, equal to about 2 per cent of its portfolio, Madge said. Direct investments include online education startup Zuoyebang, community group buying company Xingsheng Youxuan, and micro lender CD Finance, according to its website. 

China assets are rallying as a relaxation of pandemic restrictions and renewed support for the embattled property sector boost sentiment after two years of declines. China’s main stock index has soared almost 20 per cent from October lows, putting it on the verge of a bull market.

Even with the private asset pause in China, the Toronto-based fund is growing in Asia. Teachers’ plans to deploy about half of new investments outside North America, and recently opened an office in Mumbai while expanding in Singapore.

“We have strong momentum in Asia and will continue seizing diversified investment opportunities in the region,” Madge said.

Ontario Teachers’ manages funds for 333,000 retired and working teachers in Canada’s most-populous province. It has set a target to have $300 billion in net assets by 2030, according to its website. 

Michele Romanow strives to 'show up and take responsibility' after Clearco layoffs


Holly McKenzie-Sutter, BNN Bloomberg

Jan 31, 2023

Just days after stepping down as CEO of Clearco, founder Michele Romanow is still at the Toronto office every day and doesn’t have much time for extra hobbies. As she puts it, she remains “incredibly active” in the e-commerce company that went from being valued at $2 billion two years ago, to laying off more than half its workforce and exiting international markets in the last six months.

The Canadian entrepreneur recognizable for her role on on CBC television show Dragons’ Den is now an executive co-chair and board member at Clearco, which has shifted from “growth mode” to a focus on profitability amid a downturn in the technology sector that’s led to tens of thousands of layoffs in recent months.

For Romanow, it’s important “to show up and take responsibility” during tough times, even if “founders don't control macroeconomic conditions” like Russia’s attack on Ukraine or rising interest rates.

“The reality is when you sign up for this job, it's kind of all your fault,” she said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg.

That’s meant sleepless nights and difficult goodbyes to colleagues after making the “devastating” decision to pursue a further round of layoffs, slashing the workforce by another quarter this month. Last summer, Clearco cut 125 positions in July and another 60 jobs in August.

“It's the hardest move for a leader,” she said. “Every time you have to fire a single person or multiple people in a layoff, you don't sleep as a founder, and I think that's a good thing. I think that makes you human.”

Romanow said she and company co-founder Andrew D’Souza have opened their networks to help former employees land new jobs, while trying to be generous with severance.

Looking forward, Romanow said she is focused on what’s best for Clearco and its remaining employees as the “COVID boom” in tech wanes and companies across the sector adjust. Big names like Canada’s Shopify Inc., Google, Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, Inc. have also cut thousands of jobs in the past several months.

“It's fun to build when the sun is out…(but) real leaders are made when it starts raining,” Romanow said. “You have to figure out how to fix and pivot and adjust a business for the economic climate you're in.”

NEW ECONOMIC REALITY

Romanow got the idea for Clearco from Dragons’ Den, where she and other business leaders hear pitches from Canadian entrepreneurs. The company, founded in 2015, loans money to businesses based on revenue rather than assets. It does not require personal guarantees, so people do not have to put their mortgages on the line to start businesses.

E-commerce and technology companies generally benefited from a growing customer base and more demand for online services during the pandemic as people were forced to stay home. Romanow contends a recession that was held back due to government supports early in the pandemic “had to catch up with itself” eventually.

Clearco “hired too quickly” in the past few years, Romanow said, as the company built new projects and expanded into 13 countries, where credit markets eventually turned. The combination of events ultimately led to it scaling back over the last year, pulling the plug on some projects and cutting its workforce to 140 this month, down from 500 early in 2022. Romanow also stepped down as CEO, a year after taking on the role.

“The goal is what the market is demanding, which is that every tech company become profitable,” she said. “We’re very focused on our path to profitability, the capital, the structures and our funds that we need to do that, and being as efficient as possible.”

Romanow grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and started her first business as a post-secondary student – and she has faced the need to pivot in a changing economy before. She recalled starting an East Coast caviar fishery as one of her earliest ventures, only to realize, come 2008, that she had “started a business with the world's most unnecessary luxury product” during a recession.

At this chapter in Clearco’s story, she decided the time was right to move into a different kind of leadership role where she now focuses on fundraising, relationships with partners and directing strategy, while new CEO Andrew Curtis takes the helm.

“For me, this is really about not having an ego. I care about the success of the company and that's it,” Romanow said.

She sees opportunities for Clearco despite tightening economic conditions. Entrepreneurs have shown more interest in Clearco’s products in the last six months, Romanow said, as venture capital has become less available amid economic headwinds and businesses owners seek other funding options.

INNOVATION BOOM POTENTIAL

Romanow said she also sees potential for an innovation boom as highly skilled tech workers are laid off in droves, similar to the period of business creativity she saw after the 2008 recession, when she started a competitor to Groupon and other now-ubiquitous companies like Instagram, Airbnb, Inc. and Uber Technologies, Inc. came to be.

Some laid off Clearco employees have already started new businesses, Romanow said, hinting at the beginnings of a potential silver lining to the distressing period for the technology sector.

“I think what's going to happen is we're going to see a lot of new businesses being created, which is a really positive thing, although this is going to be a tough period of time,” she said.

As for herself, Romanow said she is staying focused on her company’s goals before jumping headfirst into another business idea.

“I think once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, but right now my focus is Clearco,” she said. ”This is a tough environment and I need to remain focused on getting through this next chapter.”'

Clearco CEO Romanow steps down as firm slashes jobs


Amber Kanwar, BNN Bloomberg
Jan 16, 2023

Canadian fintech Clearco – once a high-flier in this country’s high-tech sector – is undertaking another major round of layoffs and will replace the company’s co-founder Michele Romanow as CEO.

Clearco plans to reduce its workforce by another 25%-- just six months after a similar layoff at the company saw 125 employees let go. Romanow, who started the company in 2015 with four other founders and became CEO less than a year ago, will become Executive co-Chair and remain on the board. She is expected to be replaced as CEO by Andrew Curtis, who has been working as an advisor with the company for the past 6 months.

Toronto-based Clearco, whose official name is CFT Clear Finance Technology, lends money to people and companies based on revenue rather than assets.

The company is coming off a tumultuous year. Two years ago, Clearco embarked on an ambitious international expansion. But by the end of last August, the company announced it was exiting all international markets. At the time, the company blamed a combination of rising interest rates, inflation, currency swings and an overall slowdown in e-commerce, as well as supply chain constraints the companies it lends to were dealing with.

Clearco is by no means the only tech company finding itself in deep cost-cutting mode. Last summer, Shopify cut its workforce by 10%. In the U.S., major tech companies like Meta, Amazon, Salesforce and Twitter have announced thousands of job cuts. A total of 237,874 tech jobs were lost last year according to TrueUp, which tracks tech layoffs. So far in 2023, more than 30,000 jobs have been cut.

Still, it marks a tremendous turn of fortunes for a company that was valued at $2 billion dollars less than two years ago when Softbank led the funding round. Clearco, which has yet to turn a profit, has raised almost $700 million in funding over the past several years, according to Crunchbase. Part of that is a debt investment from Silicon Valley Bank. Sources say that recently the debt has become increasingly difficult to service.

Incoming CEO Andrew Curtis has a finance and capital markets background. He was brought in as an advisor six months ago, in part to help with capital structure issues the company has been working through. Curtis denied any struggles with servicing the debt from Silicon Valley Bank in an interview with BNN Bloomberg saying, “We are able to service the Silicon Valley Bank debt and have been able to service the Silicon Valley Bank debt.”

Late last summer, Clearco hired U.S. fintech investment bank Financial Technology Partners to explore strategic options, including a possible sale. There was some inbound interest but the focus of the strategic review was injection of capital instead of an outright sale, according to a source familiar with the matter. Financial Technology Partners had no comment. In an interview with BNN Bloomberg, Romanow denied that the purpose of the engagement with Financial Technology Partners was to sell the company, "I wouldn’t call that a failed process at all because that wasn’t the purpose of that.”

In addition to layoffs and management changes, the company also intends to raise more capital. “We have a plan for profitability, so we may be taking on additional capital raises,” said Curtis in an interview, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t have very strong liquidity right now.” In October, Clearco raised US$30 million from existing investors and founders. “In our business there is always a need to raise capital,” added Romanow.

Michele Romanow's e-commerce investing company Clearco has laid off 60 employees as it hands off its international business, a month after cutting 25 per cent of its workforce.

Spokesperson Nick Rosen-Wachs says the staff impacted were located in the U.K., Ireland, Australia and Germany.

The layoffs at the "Dragon's Den" star's company come as Clearco announced a strategic partnership with Outfund, the U.K. and Australia's largest e-commecer investor.

The terms of the partnership between the companies that provide founders with non-dilutive capital were not publicized, but Clearco says the agreement does not include any of its staff, technology, intellectual property, infrastructure or operations.

Clearco says it will offer departing employees severance and a two-year window to exercise equity as it moves towards focusing entirely on its two core and largest markets, the U.S. and Canada.

On July 29, Clearco announced it was laying off 125 employees of its 500-person workforce, saying it had grown its head count too quickly in anticipation of continued economic growth.

At the time, the company said it was considering “strategic options” for its international operations.

"We are confident that this is the best decision for our customers who will continue to benefit from Outfund’s revenue-based financing model without ever having to give up equity in their businesses," Romanow said in a statement Tuesday.

"It is of course with great regret that we have had to let our international team go as part of this partnership. They are a hugely talented team and we are confident that we will be able to support them in their next steps.”

The reasoning behind the recent cuts at Clearco speak to a broader trend happening in the tech sector worldwide as exuberance around stocks has faded, inflation has soared and recession rumours have loomed.

CANADA

Senate passes Liberals' controversial online streaming act with a dozen amendments

Mickey Djuric, The Canadian Press

Big tech companies that offer online streaming services could soon be required to contribute to Canadian content as a controversial Liberal bill gets one step closer to becoming law.

The Senate has passed the online streaming act known as Bill C-11 with a dozen amendments following a lengthy study by senators.

The bill would update Canada's broadcasting rules to reflect online streaming giants such as YouTube, Netflix and Spotify, and require them to contribute to Canadian content and make it accessible to users in Canada — or face steep penalties.

Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez says he hopes the House of Commons will pass the bill next week after it reviews the Senate's changes.

Senators made amendments intended to protect user-generated content and highlight the promotion of Indigenous languages and Black content creators.

They also included a change that would prohibit CBC from producing sponsored content, and another that would require companies to verify users' ages before they access sexually-explicit material.

Rodriguez said Thursday that the Liberal government would not accept all of the Senate's recommendations, but he didn't say which ones he disagrees with.

"We'll see when the bill comes back. There are amendments that have zero impact on the bill. And others that do, and those, we will not accept them," the minister said Thursday during a Canadian Media Producers Association panel.

The Senate also removed a clause in the bill that Sen. Paula Simons described as giving "extraordinary new powers to the government to make political decisions about things."

Ian Scott, the former chair of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, had told a Senate committee that some provisions in the bill did move the balance point "slightly closer to lessening the independence" of the regulator — though he insisted that it would remain independent.

The CRTC, now under the leadership of Vicky Eatrides, will be tasked with enforcing the bill's provisions.

The Senate passed the bill on the anniversary of its introduction in the House of Commons. 

Between the House of Commons and Senate, there have been approximately 218 witnesses, 43 meetings, 119 briefs and 73 proposed amendments, said Rodriguez. 

"It's the longest bill," he said. 

The proposed law has come under intense scrutiny amid accusations from companies and critics who said it left too much room for government control over user-generated content and social-media algorithms.

Rodriguez said tech giants can get creative with ways they promote Canadian content, such as with billboards, advertising or, if they so choose, tweaks to their algorithms.

The bill has also caught the attention of the United States. Its embassy in Ottawa recently said that it is holding consultations with U.S. companies that it is concerned could face discrimination if the bill passes.

Last week, two U.S. senators called for a trade crackdown on Canada over Bill C-11, saying that the prospective law flouts trade agreements. 

"I'm not worried, because we think it complies with trade obligations," Rodriguez said. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2023.