Biden attacks, McDonald’s and gaffes galore: Inside Trump’s tour of Ohio’s tragic train derailment

Andrew Feinberg
Wed, 22 February 2023

Former president Donald Trump took his 2024 presidential campaign to the site of a toxic chemical spill on Wednesday, surrounding himself with supporters and repeating discredited allegations about the Biden administration’s response to the East Palestine, Ohio disaster.

Mr Trump arrived at a nearby airport aboard his private Boeing 757 with camera crews present to watch him disembark as if he were still president, though without the massive security bubble or coterie of aides that accompanies an actual chief executive.

Speaking alongside members of the community who were arrayed behind him as a campaign-style backdrop, Mr Trump praised first responders and railroad workers for “serving bravely” over the two weeks following the Norfolk Southern freight train derailment and subsequent controlled burn of toxic chemicals approved by state and local authorities.

The twice-impeached ex-president also bragged of having brought cases of the Trump-branded bottled water used at his Mar-a-Lago club for use by East Palestine residents, with video of his arrival showing pallets of drinking water being unloaded by volunteers.

His arrival in East Palestine was meant as a rebuke to President Joe Biden, who has been overseas meeting with world leaders to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Mr Trump, whose 2016 election victory was aided by what the Justice Department found to be a “sweeping and systematic” campaign of interference on his behalf by the Russian government, has often denounced Mr Biden for his support of Ukraine’s defence.

Former President Donald Trump stands next to a pallet of water before delivering remarks at the East Palestine Fire Department station on February 22, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio (Getty Images)

Asked if he had a message for the man who defeated him in 2020, Mr Trump replied: “Get over here”.

He acknowledged the town’s mayor, Trent Conaway, at one point implying that his size makes him easily identifiable.

“I also want to recognise a man who has been working tirelessly for this community since the beginning of the nightmare,” Mr Trump said. “Trent? Where is Trent. He’s very easy to find.”

Mr Trump also purportedly bought McDonald’s for first responders during his visit.

He also repeated what has become an oft-voiced but false claim about Mr Biden’s lack of interest in helping the Ohio town, which voted overwhelmingly for the ex-president in 2020.

He claimed Mr Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency “said they would not send federal aid to East Palestine under any circumstance,” and suggested that his announcement of plans to visit the town caused the federal government to act.

Both of those statements, however, were false.

While Biden administration officials have limited their public comments about the matter because of ongoing investigations, the White House has dispatched federal resources to East Palestine in the weeks following the derailment. But the deployment of many federal resources requires a federal disaster declaration that must be requested by the state’s governor, Mike DeWine.

It was also on Mr Trump’s watch that the Department of Transportation repealed regulations that could’ve prevented the derailment by requiring better brakes on freight trains.

Ray LaHood, the ex-Illinois Republican congressman who served as Secretary of Transportation during the Obama administration, said the ex-president’s culpability is fair game for attack. He told Politico that it was “clear” that Mr Trump’s journey to Ohio was a “political stunt”.

"If he wants to visit, he's a citizen. But clearly his regulations and the elimination of them, and no emphasis on safety, is going to be pointed out,” he said.

Republicans have attacked Mr Biden for not personally attending to the disaster site and have claimed that his overseas visit to address foreign policy and national security matters is evidence of his alleged disdain for so-called “flyover country”.

But Mr Biden has frequently avoided visiting disaster areas during ongoing operations because the security and other personnel that accompany presidential movements can bring important relief work to a halt and divert first responders from more important tasks.

Parka-making course means new coats for kids in need — and lifelong skills for new sewers

Wed, February 22, 2023 

Rita Akearok holds up a parka she made as part of a three-week parka making course at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit. (Submitted by Mariana Barney - image credit)

Sewers in Iqaluit put their best work on display Friday afternoon at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit.

They were showcasing their handmade parkas at a fashion show, the final event after a special three-week parka-making course at the college.

The college said more than 100 people applied for the course, which was offered free of charge thanks to funding from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association. The college held a draw and selected 10 people randomly to participate.

Each person made two parkas — one for themselves, and a child's parka that will be donated to someone who needs it, said Sheila Oolayou, who taught the course alongside elder Annie Demcheson.

Jennifer Wilman, the continuing education co-ordinator at the college, said the funding from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association helped the college to redesign its parka program to allow for the children's parkas to be made.

She said many students have families and young children, and winter clothing can be expensive.

"We realized that we had an opportunity here to make things a bit easier for students," she wrote in a statement. "It was a win/win for everyone."

Submitted by Mariana Barney

Kendal Kuodluak, one of the participants, made the child's parka first — a little pink coat for a girl. It took her a little over half of the program to make that one, which was the first parka she had ever made.

"My second I made, it was much easier and I finished that one real quick," she said.

The parka she made for herself is a pullover one that she'll use for hunting.

"I've wanted to learn how to make parkas for a long time, and I finally seen an opportunity," she said.

Kuodluak now has patterns and can start making them for her family, too — and said she got to make some new friends along the way.

"I felt excited and felt in awe, because for a long time I always wondered how to make them," she said.

Submitted by Mariana Barney

Wilman said the overwhelming amount of people who applied for the program showed how much of a need there is for accessible, cultural programming.

"I'm hoping that with the success of this program, that we can offer more in the future," she stated.

The program was open to beneficiaries of the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement.

Surplus potatoes from federal research farm being donated to Charlottetown food bank

Wed, February 22, 2023 

Potatoes harvested at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Harrington Research Farm are now destined for the shelves of The Upper Room food bank.

 (Shane Hennessey/CBC - image credit)

In the past, most of the potatoes grown at the Harrington Research Farm in central P.E.I. would be composted. Some would be turned into animal feed, and the rest would become potato starch.

But now, they have a new purpose — feeding hungry Islanders.

"Since we're in Prince Edward Island, obviously potatoes are what we grow a lot of and they're in our rotation crops all the time," said Chris Kirby, acting associate director of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Charlottetown Research and Development Centre, which operates the farm.

"We never want to compete with a farmer, but we also want to feed the Canadian public."

Kirk Pennell/CBC

The farm grows produce for a variety of reasons, including improving best practices, testing pest resistance, and as rotational crops to keep soil healthy.

"We have to keep things going under the standard conditions that are used in Prince Edward Island," said Kirby.

Crops that are experimented on will still be directed away from human consumption, but the spuds grown in typical farm conditions will now end up at Charlottetown's Upper Room Hospitality Ministry.

Wasting 'perfectly good food'

In 2022 alone, more than 7,000 pounds of potatoes went to the food bank. And so far this year, 3,500 pounds were moved from the Research Farm's cold storage facilities to the food bank, one pallet at a time.

"We see hundreds of families every month coming in here with not enough food," said Mike MacDonald, executive director of The Upper Room. "So when there is food that's being wasted — perfectly good food — it does bother us, for sure."

Kirk Pennell/CBC

Across Canada, it's estimated that $50 billion worth of food is lost or wasted every year, even though many Canadians are struggling due to low incomes and high prices.

"This all came about after dealing with the pandemic, and everybody's worried about food security," said Kirby.

"So if we can give a constant supply of potatoes to the food bank from somewhere in December, January until April, that's a significant amount of time that they're able to get a product that they can then share with those in need. So we're very happy to be able to be a part of the solution for the public."

The initiative also exists in other provinces, with the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research farm in Newfoundland donating carrots and cabbage, apples being donated in Nova Scotia, and cherries and apples in British Columbia.

The Harrington Research Farm also grows other crops like barley and wheat, but potatoes made the most sense to donate. Kirby says the farm will keep up the donations as long as the food bank will take them.

"As long as they need it and we still have it, we will be giving them more potatoes," he said, adding, "I can't imagine we will stop growing potatoes anytime soon in Prince Edward Island."

Stellantis earnings rise as EV push drives higher sales

Wed, February 22, 2023 


AMSTERDAM (AP) — Automaker Stellantis on Wednesday reported its earnings grew in 2022 from a year earlier and said its push into electric vehicles led to a jump in sales even as it faces growing competition from an industrywide shift to more climate-friendly offerings.

Stellantis, formed in 2021 from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA Peugeot, said net revenue of 179.6 billion euros ($191 billion) was up 18% from 2021, citing strong pricing and its mix of vehicles. It reported net profit of 16.8 billion euros, up 26% from 2021.

Stellantis plans to convert all of its European sales and half of its U.S. sales to battery-electric vehicles by 2030. It said the strategy led to a 41% increase in battery EV sales in 2022, to 288,000 vehicles, compared with the year earlier.

The company has “demonstrated the effectiveness of our electrification strategy in Europe,” CEO Carlos Tavares said in a statement. “We now have the technology, the products, the raw materials and the full battery ecosystem to lead that same transformative journey in North America, starting with our first fully electric Ram vehicles from 2023 and Jeep from 2024.”

The automaker is competing in an increasingly crowded field for a share of the electric vehicle market. Companies are scrambling to roll out environmentally friendly models as they look to hit goals of cutting climate-changing emissions, driven by government pressure.

The transformation has gotten a boost from a U.S. law that is rolling out big subsidies for clean technology like EVs but has European governments calling out the harm that they say the funding poses to homegrown industry across the Atlantic.

Stellantis' Jeep brand will start selling two fully electric SUVs in North America and another one in Europe over the next two years. It says its Ram brand will roll out an electric pickup truck this year, joining a rush of EV competitors looking to claim a piece of the full-size truck market.

The company plans to bring 25 battery-electric models to the U.S. by 2030. As part of that push, it has said it would build two EV battery factories in North America.

Stellantis said that 40,500 unionized U.S. factory workers will get profit-sharing checks of about $14,760 on March 10. United Auto Workers members will get the checks based on North American pretax earnings last year.

A $2.5 billion joint venture with Samsung will bring one of those facilities to Indiana, which is expected to employ up to 1,400 workers. The other factory will be in Windsor, Ontario, a collaboration with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution that aims to create about 2,500 jobs.

The EV push comes amid a slowdown in U.S. car sales tied to a global computer chip shortage and other problems finding parts. Sales at Stellantis dropped 13% last year.

The company also announced a share buyback valued at up to 1.5 billion euros to be carried out this year as well as a 4.2 billion-euro dividend, amounting to 1.34 euros per share.

The Associated Press

EU pandemic fund inspectors say no sign of fraud in Spain

Wed, February 22, 2023 

MADRID (AP) — The European Parliament´s budget control committee said Wednesday it has found no evidence of deceit or fraud in Spain’s handling of the 31 billion euros ($33 billion) it has received so far in special European Union post-pandemic recovery funds.

But a visiting delegation urged the Madrid government to be more transparent and flexible in its use of the funds and in providing public information about them.

Speaking Wednesday at the end of a three-day inspection visit, committee chair Monika Hohlmeier said she was impressed with Spanish authorities’ commitment to make the most of the funds but added that she recognized that administrative hurdles were a major complaint from several regional officials.

“We have learned that the current implementation of the funds should be more flexible,” said Hohlmeier. “Administrative burden is a common complaint by the stakeholders. ”

She added that several of Spain’s regions complain about their proposals not being considered and called “on both the central and regional governments to deepen their dialogs and cooperation.”

Hohlmeier’s conciliatory tone in the end-of-visit press conference came as a surprise as it was expected that the delegation might be highly critical of Spain.

She said the visit was not chiefly intended to look for violations but rather to ensure transparency and that the funds be well spent.

Hohlmeier said there was a particular need to remove impediments to give fairer and faster access to the self-employed and small- and medium-sized companies that she said are so important to the Spanish economy.

She said the committee will draw up a series of recommendations in its upcoming report once they have reviewed all they have heard in the meetings with financial and political authorities during the visit.

Spain was one of the first EU countries to apply for and receive funds from the EU pandemic recovery fund and stands to be among its main beneficiaries. It is set to receive a total of 140 billion euros, half in direct transfers, half in loans.

Prior to the visit, the European Commission last Friday said it would deliver a further 6 billion euros to Spain, indicating its satisfaction with how Spain was handling the money so far.

Hohlmeier admitted that future funds would be contingent on Spain completing a reform of its pension system but said Madrid appeared committed to doing this and that there was no prospect of the money being blocked.

Ciarán Giles, The Associated Press

Horn of Africa drought trends said worse than in 2011 famine

Wed, February 22, 2023

ICONICLY IRONIC

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Trends in a historic Horn of Africa drought are now worse than they were during the 2011 drought in which at least a quarter-million people died, a climate center said Wednesday.

The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Center said below-normal rainfall is expected in the rainy season over the next three months.

“This could be the sixth failed consecutive rainfall season” in the region that includes Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, the center said.

The drought, the longest on record in Somalia, has lasted almost three years, and tens of thousands of people are said to have died. More than 1 million people have been displaced in Somalia alone, according to the United Nations.

Last month, the U.N. resident coordinator in Somalia warned that excess deaths in Somalia will “almost certainly” surpass those of the famine declared in the country in 2011.

Close to 23 million people are thought to be highly food insecure in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, according to a food security working group chaired by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development.

Already, 11 million livestock that are essential to many families’ health and wealth have died, Wednesday’s statement said. Many people affected across the region are pastoralists or farmers who have watched crops wither and water sources run dry.

The war in Ukraine has affected the humanitarian response as traditional donors in Europe divert funding to the crisis closer to home. The head of IGAD, Workneh Gebeyehu, urged governments and partners to act “before it’s too late.”

The IGAD climate center is a designated regional climate center by the World Meteorological Organization.

Cara Anna, The Associated Press

Royal Ontario Museum returns Chief Poundmaker's pipe and saddle bag to family

Wed, February 22, 2023 

Nikita Ashley Poundmaker, left, and lawyer and family friend Lawren Trotchie look at a saddle during a repatriation ceremony at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, on Feb. 22, 2023. A pipe and saddle belonging to Chief Poundmaker were returned to the family from the ROM collections. 

(Evan Mitsui/CBC - image credit)

Century old artifacts belonging to a 19th century Plains Cree chief who was known as a peacekeeper were returned to his descendants in a repatriation ceremony at the Royal Ontario Museum.

After months of conversation, the Toronto-based museum transferred a ceremonial pipe and a saddle bag that belonged to Chief Poundmaker back to members of his family on Wednesday.

Pauline Poundmaker, or Brown Bear Woman, has been leading efforts to repatriate her great-great-grandfather's belongings and sacred objects from collections held in Canada and internationally.

"It's an honour to be the generation that's able to bring these artifacts home," she said in a phone interview.

Under Poundmaker Cree Nation laws, descendants are required to initiate and lead repatriation. Poundmaker's family members are striving to bring home his personal belongings, which they say were taken from him under duress.

Pauline Poundmaker travelled this week from Saskatchewan to Toronto with nine others, including other direct descendants, to partake in a repatriation ceremony with staff at the museum.

It was the first time she got to see the two items in person that belonged to her great-great-grandfather. The special moment was sacred and emotional, she said.

"I had a moment there where I couldn't hold back the tears. The significance of being here and the honour it is to be able to bring these artifacts home. It's hard to describe."

A famed 19th century Indigenous leader

The museum acquired the two items nearly a century ago. The saddle bag is made out of tan hide and adorned with beads in colours ranging from red, yellow and green. The museum said the item was sold to them in 1924.

The ceremonial pipe is dark in colour and made out of ceramic or stone. Like many First Nations customs objects used in ceremony, the pipe cannot be photographed. The museum said in an email information from the donor suggests Chief Poundmaker presented the pipe to a doctor in 1885 after which is was passed down to others in the medical field before the museum received it in 1936.

The ROM did not make any representatives available for an interview ahead of the repatriation ceremony.

Oliver Buell/Library and Archives Canada

Poundmaker, whose Cree name is Pitikwahanapiwiyin, is considered one of the great Indigenous leaders of the 19th century and was key in negotiations that led to Treaty 6, which covers the west-central portions of present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan.

A number of the leader's belongings were taken and housed in museums after the Northwest Rebellion in 1885 — the same year Poundmaker was convicted of treason for leading his warriors in the battle against Canadian Forces after government soldiers attacked about 1,500 Indigenous people, including women and children. He served seven months before dying shortly after his release.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a formal apology and exoneration for Poundmaker at the First Nation that bears his name in 2019.

As the Poundmaker family strives to bring home the personal artifacts of Chief Poundmaker, they continue to be inspired by his willingness to stand up for what he believed in a peaceful way, said Pauline Poundmaker.

Parks Canada returned a ceremonial staff believed to belong to Chief Poundmaker last year that is to be put on display at the museum named in his honour in Saskatchewan.

Addressing harm

Pauline Poundmaker says the growing movement of institutions repatriating items shows there is a willingness to address previous harms against Indigenous Peoples.

"It's a beautiful shift to having different relationships and writing a different history," she said.

The saddle bag is to be put on display at the Chief Poundmaker Museum and the ceremonial pipe will be placed in safe keeping with the museum. The museum is tasked with making sure they are equipped with the tools to preserve the items for generations to come, said Pauline Poundmaker.

"We want to continue to preserve our history and honour history."

Liam Richards/The Canadian Press

She has been told there are about 20 other items spread across North America and Europe. The family is in the beginning stages of getting two other items repatriated.

The Royal Ontario Museum temporarily closed its gallery dedicated to First Peoples art and culture last year to work with Indigenous museum professionals on what they called critical changes to the gallery.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for POUNDMAKER 

US Air Force expands cancer review of nuclear missile personnel

Wed, February 22, 2023



WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force's review of cancers among its nuclear missile corps will include all personnel who worked on, guarded, supported or operated the nation’s ground-based warheads, Air Force Global Strike Command announced Wednesday.

Nine officers who had worked as missileers — the airmen who launch the warheads from underground silos and control centers — at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base were diagnosed with with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, Lt. Col. Daniel Sebeck of U.S. Space Force reported last month in a briefing obtained by The Associated Press.

Since that briefing, more missileers and missile support crew have come forward to the AP and other media outlets to report they, too, have been diagnosed with either non-Hodgkin lymphoma or other types of cancers.

The Air Force review will extend beyond Malmstrom to include F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Together the three bases operate 450 silos that house the nation’s arsenal of ground-based nuclear warheads carried by Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Malmstrom was one of the sensitive military locations over which a suspected Chinese spy balloon loitered as it transited the United States earlier this month.

The “Missile Community Cancer Study,” to be conducted by the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, will look at all ICBM wings and all Air Force personnel who support the ICBM mission. It will review environmental factors at the missile bases and silos, and examine “the possibility of clusters of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma” among missileers and those who maintained, guarded and supported the bases, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, said in a statement.

The review will look at active-duty medical data and the Department of Veterans Affairs' cancer registry data, mortality data and public cancer registries. Col. Lee Williams, the command's surgeon general, said there was not yet a timeline for the study.

The Air Force has also established a website to address the missileer community concerns.

Tara Copp, The Associated Press

Higgs's comments about family doctors could hurt recruitment, says N.B. Medical Society

Wed, February 22, 2023 

Dr. Michèle Michaud, president of the New Brunswick Medical Society, says the work of family doctors involves more than just office visits. (New Brunswick Medical Society - image credit)

The president of the New Brunswick Medical Society is challenging a suggestion by the premier earlier this week that everyone could have access to a family doctor if doctors would take on more patients, and says his comments could hurt recruitment and retention.

Dr. Michèle Michaud contends family doctors are already working beyond maximum capacity.

"With the current resources, you won't get there just by saying, 'Take two or three more,'" she said in French.

Michaud was reacting to comments Premier Blaine Higgs made Monday at a news conference in Charlottetown.

"If every doctor in our province took two or three more patients a week, we wouldn't have a backlog," Higgs said.

Radio-Canada

"Every one of us has to find out a way that we can deliver health care differently, because I think, unanimously, we'll all say just putting more money into an unmanaged system isn't going to fix it," he said.

"I think we're all in a position to be innovative in this process."

About 55,000 people are registered with the province as not having a family doctor.

According to Michaud, who is a family doctor, palliative care physician, pain clinic physician and hospitalist at the Edmundston Regional Hospital, family doctors "have already had their capacity at maximum and even beyond their maximum for some time."

They care for patients who are increasingly sick, she said, pointing to the aging population, who each require more time.

In addition, the work of family doctors is not limited to office appointments, Michaud stressed. It could include "working in an emergency room, doing obstetrics, deliveries, pregnancy follow-up clinics, palliative care. We are also doing more and more oncology clinics, in addition to serving nursing homes, which need doctors present on site on a regular basis," she said.

There are also follow-ups on the health of patients, the management of test results, as well as the management of the personnel and the other administrative tasks, said Michaud.

We risk causing more professional burnout among doctors in the community. - Michèle Michaud, New Brunswick Medical Society president

To alleviate the waiting lists, she suggests instead filling the lack of human resources. This would, for example, support collaborative work in clinics.

"Asking family doctors [to work] more is currently not necessarily the solution: on the contrary, we risk causing more professional burnout among doctors in the community," Michaud said.

"It also risks, in the long and medium term, harming our recruitment and the retention of doctors who are already in office."

Opposition calls comments 'irresponsible,' 'attack'

New Brunswick Liberal Party Leader Susan Holt agrees.

"It was a little irresponsible comment to just say, 'Hey, get two or three more people a week.' It does not respect the nature of the problem," she said.

According to Holt, Higgs's comments, made on a regional forum following a meeting of Atlantic premiers, do not help New Brunswick.

"It is not a good message to attract people here that we are asking our doctors to do more. That's not a good recruiting message."

iStock

Green Party health critic Megan Mitton was also surprised by Higgs's comments. "It is not only bizarre, it is also problematic that the premier is attacking the various health-care professionals," she said.

Mitton rejects the idea that doctors are not already doing enough. "It's not true that they sit around and do nothing, so it's a bit of an attack on doctors."

Like Michaud and Holt, Mitton believes a collaborative approach could help reduce waiting lists for a family doctor.

It would also be necessary, according to her, to hire more doctors in hospitals to free up family doctors to devote more time to their patients.

NB

Use of private agency nurses at Vitalité spiked in 2022, documents reveal

Wed, February 22, 2023 

The Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre's emergency department in Moncton is one of the places where Vitalité is using private agency nurses.

 (Patrick Lacelle/Radio-Canada - image credit)

Vitalité Health Network spent nearly $6 million last year to hire nurses from private agencies, according to documents obtained under the Right to Information Act.

That's 12 times more than Horizon Health Network spent on agency nurses.

Vitalité aims to end within two years the controversial practice that sees travelling nurses paid more than their permanent colleagues, according to Sharon Smyth-Okana, the senior vice-president of programs and nursing.

Right now, she said the use of private agencies is not only necessary but expected to increase in the coming months — for nurses, nursing assistants and orderlies.

"To be able to provide services to patients — safe services, we need more hands."

Hospitals in both health networks have faced closures, reduced hours and interruptions in services because of staffing shortages.

Horizon also anticipates an increase in the use of private agency nurses, but with an earlier target to end this fall.

Meanwhile the provincial government has also used agency nurses, documents obtained by the New Brunswick Nurses Union show.

From January to April 2022, the government paid $2.68 million to Canadian Health Labs. This money was used, among other things, to dispatch nurses to COVID-19 vaccination clinics.

Mostly for Moncton and Campbellton ERs

Vitalité paid $5,943,054 to three agencies between July and December 2022, to dispatch travelling nurses, the documents obtained by Radio-Canada Acadie show.

Almost all of this sum was used to send nurses to the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton, Zone 1, and at the Campbellton Regional Hospital, in Zone 5.

The nurses worked 20,098 hours, mainly in the emergency departments of the two hospitals as well as in the Moncton hemodialysis unit.

Evan Mitsui/CBC

The average cost per hour worked by a travelling nurse was $295. This includes nurses' salaries — $70 to $100 an hour, about twice as much as their permanent colleagues — as well as travel and administrative costs.

Horizon has also called on private agencies to support its teams at the Moncton Hospital and the Saint John Regional Hospital. It spent $475,786 between October and the end of December 2022.

Last resort

Vitalité sees the use of travelling nurses as a measure of last resort, according to Smyth-Okana.

The health network tried several other things first, she said. For example, hospitals are using more attendants and changes have been made to models of care.

Pascal Raiche-Nogue/Radio-Canada

Without the agency nurses, however, Vitalité would have had to close certain units, she said. This includes the hemodialysis unit at the Dumont hospital, which is struggling with a "critical shortage" of personnel.

"Our staff did an incredible job, working overtime and trying to rearrange some things. But we can't keep pushing employees that way for long."

Comparisons difficult

Smyth-Okana suggested "a few factors" could explain the difference in spending between Vitalité and Horizon.

For example, emergency services and the shortage of nurses may not be exactly the same from one network to another, she said.

"So it's easy to compare us, but it might not be apples-to-apples. So sometimes you have to be careful."

It's also more difficult to recruit permanent nurses within Vitalité because there are fewer French-speaking nurses than English-speaking ones both in Canada and abroad, according to Smyth-Okana.

Temporary measure

Using private agencies is a temporary measure, she said.

"It is an intervention of last resort, which has a beginning and an end. It's not something you plan to continue for five, 10, or 15 years. It is not in our objectives at all.

"It's short-term to be able to restore our work atmosphere, to reduce the workload and so that the nurses want to stay in our communities."

Meanwhile, the network is tackling staff recruitment and retention issues, and has set itself the goal of no longer needing agencies by 2025, said Smyth-Okana.

"Our objective is really for the next two years, maximum."

Horizon Health Network says it recently decided to send agency nurses to more hospitals and units.

"The use of traveling nurses will continue through the spring and summer. The expected end date is September 1, 2023. A review, assessment and recommendations will then be made," according to the documents.

Move not supported by union

The trend of paying millions of dollars to private agencies is not welcomed by the New Brunswick Nurses Union.

The arrival of these health workers in hospitals often creates unease, according to first vice-president, Maria Richard.

"The members tell us that they understand why these nurses come, but they find it a lack of respect," she said.

What bothers some nurses, she said, is that their agency colleagues are much better paid and need more coaching.

"In everyday work, they have to be trained and supported more because they are not there [permanently] and they are not used to doing this work," said Richard.

Patrick Lacelle/Radio-Canada

Like Smyth-Okana, she regularly speaks to nurses who testify to the effects of the staffing shortage and who ask for reinforcements.

"It is reality. And if private agency nurses allow our nurses to do less overtime, that's not bad. But the rest of us certainly don't see that as a solution."

Richard would like the health networks and the government focus more on recruitment, retention and the improvement of working conditions.