Drag isn't a danger to kids. It can help them find themselves – just like it did for me.

Opinion by Keygan Miller • 10h ago

I tried on a chest binder for the first time a few days before I was scheduled to perform in my very first drag show.

USA TODAY

Tennessee drag performer says community 'very vulnerable' after drag ban signed into law

View on Watch

 Lexington, KYDrag community remembers lessons from history

2:01

In that moment, I experienced gender euphoria – or a feeling of joy because of how my gender was being expressed – after seeing my chest flat as I always imagined it should be. That began my journey into understanding my identity as a transgender person. But drag didn’t just help me shape my personal identity. It also helped me find a second family, grow as a leader, provide support to my community and so much more.

That’s why it is so heartbreaking for me to see bill after bill introduced in statehouses across the country aiming to outlaw drag. These so-called drag bans are part of a much larger effort by anti-transgender politicians to weaponize gender identity in hopes of scoring political points.

LGBTQ-affirming spaces save lives

Politicians are trying to paint drag as dangerous, but in reality, drag creates lifesaving and affirming spaces for so many. When I first started performing in drag, it was on my college campus. I was trying to find my place in the world and figure out who I was as a person, and drag let me explore. Drag allowed me to try on different expressions and identities, all while being supported by my peers.

Looking back my performances were not that great, but I had a community, brought together by drag, that supported me and affirmed me for who I was.


Keygan Miller appears in drag in an undated photo.© Rusty Lockett

It’s no hyperbole to say that the power of LGBTQ-affirming spaces is lifesaving. The Trevor Project’s research has consistently found that LGBTQ youth who live in an accepting community, report access to LGBTQ-affirming spaces and feel high social support from those around them report significantly lower rates of attempting suicide in the past year compared with their peers.

Young people deserve to have more opportunities to experience affirming environments, and the drag community is one of those places.

What are people afraid of?: We celebrated my husband's 90th birthday at a drag show

Leaning into culture-war cruelty: DeSantis expands anti-LGBTQ 'Don't Say Gay' law. Might as well not say 'president' either.

Drag provides a way to give back to the community. When I started doing drag outside of my college campus, I found myself among a group of drag queens and kings that spent the vast majority of their time in drag raising money for local charities as part of the Imperial Court System (ICS). My local chapter was one of 70 chapters of drag performers who raised money for their local communities.

Originating as a way to fund HIV/AIDS nonprofits, their mission has expanded beyond the LGBTQ community, supporting food banks, animal shelters, cancer research, anti-violence organizations and other well deserving charities. But the ICS isn’t the only group of drag performers doing good for the community. Drag performers all across this country spend their time and money putting on their best, simply to host benefits and volunteer their time for charities.



1 of 14 Photos in Gallery

©Alexander Lewis / Staff Writer
Rahway, New Jersey: Harmonica Sunbeam, a New Jersey-based entertainer, actor and drag queen for the past 28 years, began her version of a children's story hour in 2017. About 50 children and parents came to her 11:30 a.m. story hour Aug. 21, 2018, at Rahway Public Library.

Glitter is the only dangerous thing about drag

In recent years, there has been a systematic attack on all things related to gender identity and gender expression. These past few months have seen countless laws that seek to ban drag performances in a variety of ways.

There is a narrative that we should be protecting our children from drag performers, as if they are dangerous. The only thing dangerous about drag queens is the amount of glitter you may come in contact with.

That'll save us!: Tennessee Republicans target America's greatest threat – drag shows

'I just hope that he's always confident': Raising LBGTQ+ kids to be strong, successful

If we really want to protect our children, we should be focused on providing affirming environments for all young people, supporting youth with mentors, and adding resources to schools and public libraries to increase literacy – all things ironically that drag performers are already doing.

There are a lot of things that pose a threat to young people in this country these days. Young people are facing a mental health crisis, and it’s hitting LGBTQ young people in horrifyingly disproportionate ways. LGBTQ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. That’s not because they are inherently prone to suicide risk, but rather, they are placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated by society.

Kids are in a mental health crisis: We need real resources – not culture wars

Gender-affirming care is crucial: Transgender young people face a mental health crisis. Extremist politics makes it worse.

Too few have listened: Alarm on children's mental health has been ringing for decades

Members of our community – especially our youngest – are regularly exposed to anti-LGBTQ language, discrimination, bullying and violence. And the more than 600 anti-LGBTQ bills that have been introduced in states across the United States already this year – including dozens of anti-drag bills – are making matters worse.

These proposed laws are an attempt to push LGBTQ rights back to our pre-Stonewall days, when a person could be arrested by the police simply for wearing clothes that were “meant for the opposite sex.”

These new bills represent a longstanding attempt to prevent our community from coming together to be ourselves. They are an attempt to erase LGBTQ people from the public eye and put us back into the closet and, frankly, every drag performer knows that there isn’t even enough room in the closet for our drag garments, let alone ourselves.

But these drag bans will not dull our shine. Drag culture has always been a way for people to explore gender expression, provide entertainment and build community. Where some people just see glitter, glam and glitz – where certain politicians see something to fear – I see individuals willing to be vulnerable, digging into their deepest selves and giving back to the community.


Keygan Miller© The Trevor Project

I count myself lucky to have been a part of such an amazing community of drag performers. I encourage everyone to see past the fearmongering of certain politicians and see drag for what it truly is: a treasured part of the LGBTQ culture that encourages self-expression and community building.

We will continue to be loud, and bold, and refuse to shrink ourselves for the sake of a handful of hateful politicians. And I hope that our allies will have our backs through it all.

Keygan Miller (they/them) is the interim director of Public Training at The Trevor Project.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Drag isn't a danger to kids. It can help them find themselves – just like it did for me.

How 'Perry Mason' captured 1930s Los Angeles, race divisions

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Early in the second season finale of “Perry Mason,” which aired Monday, the titular character pulls up on his motorcycle to Los Angeles City Hall and pauses for a long moment. He stares up at the edifice, as if sizing up an opponent, before walking in with hopes to intercede with a judge on behalf of his clients.


How 'Perry Mason' captured 1930s Los Angeles, race divisions© Provided by The Canadian Press

Although the scene has no dialogue, the shot of City Hall is pregnant with meaning, almost taunting the maverick lawyer for having the audacity to think he could bring about justice within such a corrupt system.

It’s one of many scenes throughout the Emmy-nominated HBO drama, based on Erle Stanley Gardner’s books and a prequel of sorts to the long-running show starring Raymond Burr, where 1930s Los Angeles is itself a star through the creators’ use of iconic institutions, public landmarks, terrain — and racial and class divisions.

Matthew Rhys, who plays Mason, only became aware of how much attention to detail went into fashioning “LA as that kind of other character” after being “invited to the grown ups’ table” as an executive producer for the second season.

And although the Welsh actor and alum of “The Americans” had previously lived in Los Angeles for six years, he said the experience made him fall in love with the city in new ways.

“They really had to eke out where those little special places were still left in LA that we could shoot. Seeing some of those last kind of hold ons of yesteryear ...” he trailed off, smiling as he reminisced about filming at longstanding institutions like Musso & Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard. “It was magical.”

Showrunner Michael Begler echoed Rhys’ comments about the production team's diligence, maintaining that their commitment to understanding LA’s complex history wasn’t superficial, as evidenced by their reliance on a group of historians from the University of Southern California.

“Any question that I’d have, they’d say, ‘Well, did you look into this?’ And then that would send me down, you know, to do a deep dive,” Begler said.

Those questions could be about anything from class tensions and racial segregation to the ways people talked and the shoes they wore, explained historian William Deverell, one of the professors who worked as a consultant on the show.

“Los Angeles was growing with just remarkable velocity,” he said of the Depression-era time period in which the show is set. “The big details are just making sense of a place that kind of exploded into international perspective over a very, very short period of time.”

But in addition to those big details, Deverell said he and the other historians also focused on granular ones about what life in Los Angeles looked like at the time, as many of its residents were relegated to Hoovervilles as a result of the city's changing economy.

“People are both exhilarated to be here but also trying to figure the place out. And then that chaos also exacerbating all kinds of class and racial tensions,” Deverell said.

One aspect of 1930s Los Angeles that he wanted to ensure was accurately portrayed was its complex racial landscape, particularly as it related to Black communities — in this reimagining of “Perry Mason,” mainstay Paul Drake is a Black LAPD police officer turned private investigator, played by Chris Chalk — and the influx of migrants as a result of the Mexican Revolution.

The second season revolves around the murder of an oil scion — his profession alone emblematic of who comprised the city’s elite in its 1930s economy — and the two brothers of Mexican descent accused of it. The prosecutor and press gleefully term the brothers “savages” and use “us vs. them” and other racially coded rhetoric to paint the Southern California-born young men as “others.”

“Here. We’ve always been from here,” the younger brother, Rafael, tells Mason in a jailhouse consultation.

In episode five, the brothers reveal their personal connection to the victim, Brooks McCutcheon, when they recount the tragic story of their sister’s death as the family is forced from their home so McCutcheon can build a stadium in its place. The story is loosely based on the Chavez Ravine evictions, which took place in the 1950s to pave way for what would eventually become Dodger Stadium.

“The racial restrictions pick up in neighborhoods where it’s more expensive. So neighborhoods down around the LA River in this period are going to be just remarkably diverse,” Deverell explained. “That’s a rich, complicated story that could lend itself to caricature and kind of stock imagery. And I think they steered clear of that.”

When told correctly, Rhys says, those complicated stories make for good TV.

“It was one of the only cities in America having this enormous influx of wealth because of Hollywood, but also in the midst of this enormous Depression,” he said. “That backdrop would just help set up any kind of story, especially in season two, where it is about exactly that, those who have and those who have not.”

But the City of Angels' role in “Perry Mason” can be attributed to more than just its ripe landscape for interesting storytelling, given that the American noir genre has become almost inseparable from its frequent Los Angeles setting.

This became apparent to Begler, who considered himself “noir illiterate” prior to signing on as a showrunner for season two and sought to learn as much as he could. He likened his journey to that of Mason, who begins the series as a bruising private eye and becomes a full-fledged lawyer in a matter of days, thanks to desperate circumstances and not-quite-licit plotting by Della Street ( Juliet Rylance, playing an updated, ambitious version of the secretary ).

“I had what Perry has in this season, which is imposter syndrome,” Begler recalled of his inexperience with the genre. “I really tried to immerse myself in it. And honestly I’ve probably watched 100 of them since and I just love the genre now.”

___

Follow Krysta Fauria on Twitter at https://twitter.com/krystafauria

Krysta Fauria, The Associated Press

Google’s Bard AI exposed as a “pathological liar” by the company’s own employees

Story by MobileSyrup • Friday

Google employees recently fired shots at the company’s AI chatbot through internal messages, calling Bard “a pathological liar” and pleading with the company not to launch it.



A report from Bloomberg has uncovered discussions from 18 current and former Google workers as well as screenshots from internal messages. Among them include an employee stating that Bard would regularly give users dangerous advice. Another worker said Bard is “worse than useless: please do not launch.”

If employee complaints weren’t enough to warrant genuine concern, an internal safety team submitted a risk evaluation for the project, stating that the system was not ready for general use.

Google overruled the request for a risk evaluation, opening up early access to the experimental chatbot in March instead.

Related video: Google Bard Can Now Generate and Debug Code (Cover Video)

Duration 1:30   View on Watch

The report from Bloomberg sheds light on the company’s decision to override moral sense in favour of competing with rival AI projects such as OpenAI.

The decision looks especially bad for Google if you go back to early 2021, when the company fired two researchers after they authored a research paper that showed flaws in the same AI language systems that support chatbots like Bard.

Although some would argue that public testing is necessary for projects of this nature, there’s no denying that with multiple cases of the tech giant cutting corners on its AI chatbox, a public launch was a risky choice.

Brian Gabriel, a spokesperson for Google, told Bloomberg that AI ethics are still a top priority for the company. Google Bard received received an update page that details new changes and additions to the chat service.

Source: Bloomberg Via: The Verge

ACCELERATIONISM
Pandemic accelerated occupation shift trends, US Labor Department data shows

(Reuters) - Many of the fastest-growing occupations held by U.S. workers in the run-up to the pandemic, such as management, finance and transportation, gained even more ground in the first two years of the health crisis, government data released on Tuesday showed.


FILE PHOTO: People return to work in Philadelphia© Thomson Reuters

The Labor Department's annual snapshot of occupations and what they pay also showed that a number of job categories that were already struggling to attract workers before the pandemic found those trends continued or accelerated in the chaotic job market that emerged following the brief but historic employment losses in the spring of 2020.

Indeed, the annual Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics report appears to show the pandemic was a trend-hastening event rather than a trend disrupter. A larger share of jobs reshuffled across occupations from 2016 to 2019 than did so between 2019 and 2022, as the economy emerged from the pandemic.


Only a handful of the major occupation groups that had held steady or shown growth in their share of total employment from 2016 to 2019 flipped to losing share from 2019 to 2022. And all of those that had lost the most ground before the health crisis - office and administrative support jobs, sales roles and personal care-related services - saw further erosion in its aftermath.

The report is released each spring and provides a snapshot from the prior May of more than 800 occupations, showing how many people held those jobs and what each paid.

The data also shows the onset of the wage growth dynamics that increasingly have become a worry for the Federal Reserve in its fight to contain inflation. Across all occupations, average hourly wages rose by 15.7% between May 2019 and May 2022, roughly double the increase in the three years from May 2016 to May 2019.

(Reporting By Dan Burns and Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

David Cunningham · A Marxist heresy?: Accelerationism and its discontents (2015) (radicalphilosophy.com)

HAL’S HEADLINES: Compassion growing for the homeless

Opinion by Hal Anderson • 
Winnipeg Sun

I’ve said for a long time there needs to be more empathy when dealing with homeless people. I’m happy to report one expert who’s travelling the country is starting to see that trend develop. Winnipeg hosted a national homelessness forum this week. One of the participants, Dr. Cheryl Forchuck, assistant scientific director at Lawson Health Research Institute, was on my radio show on Tuesday to talk about what’s been learned in the past year about Canada’s homeless. I was excited to hear her cite several examples of YIMBY instead of NIMBY. Forchuk says there’s still plenty of Not In My Back Yard but she’s definitely seeing more Yes In My Back Yard. People in several communities she’s visited have gone so far as to invite people living in their cars into their own homes for a shower and a hot meal. In most cases, these were neighbours who ended up without a roof over their head. All I ask is you keep an open mind and heart on this issue. Help where you can and when you can. There but for the grace of God go I…


An expert visiting Winnipeg this week said she's starting to see more compassion for the homeless.© Provided by Winnipeg Sun

Xbox's first union begins contract bargaining

Story by Dustin Bailey • 3h ago

ZeniMax Workers United, a union representing over 300 QA workers, has announced that it is entering into contract bargaining with Microsoft and ZeniMax.


null© Bethesda

In a tweet, the union said that "today, we are excited to announce that ZeniMax Workers United of CWA have started our first day of bargaining for our first ever contract with ZeniMax and Microsoft! IN SOLIDARITY!"

ZeniMax Workers United was formed in December 2022. In January the group announced that a supermajority of ZeniMax QA employees had voted in favor of the union, and that Microsoft had officially recognized the body. The contract bargaining beginning today will set the terms of the benefits offered to employees represented by the union.

ZeniMax is the parent company of several of the most beloved studios now under the Microsoft banner, including the developers behind Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Wolfenstein, Doom, Ghostwire Tokyo, Hi-Fi Rush, Dishonored, and Redfall.

We obviously won't know the terms of the union contract until the bargaining is done, but the CODE branch of the CWA - a union group that has been involved with several of the recent organizing efforts in the US games industry - has previously noted that it would like to secure protections for members against things like the mass layoffs Microsoft made earlier this year.

That's not the only big game industry unionization news this week. Yesterday, the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega - or AEGIS - announced its formation. The union said it intends to seek higher base pay, better benefits, clearer opportunities for promotion, and better work balance. Sega of America has not yet recognized AEGIS.

Activision Blizzard workers formed the first major US games union last year.

I work at the famed Esalen Institute. Tech workers are asking this one question as they visit the cliffside retreat amid widespread layoffs.

Story by lvaranasi@insider.com (Lakshmi Varanasi) • 

Justin Michael Williams, an instructor at Esalen, with his students. 

Justin Michael Williams

The Esalen Institute is a retreat and educational institute that was established in Big Sur, California in 1962.
Esalen has become known as a moral gathering ground for Silicon Valley executives.
Tech workers visiting Esalen are asking how to map out their next career move amid mass layoffs.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Justin Michael Williams, a motivational speaker and instructor at the Esalen Institute. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

When I came to Esalen for the first time in 2014 I thought: How does this place even exist?

Esalen is located in Big Sur, California, which is a small, mountainous stretch off the coastline. It's a rare place where water coming down from the mountains, hot spring water coming up from the Earth, and water from the Pacific Ocean all collide in one place. During your orientation here you'll learn that the Esselen, a Native American tribe, have been coming to this spot for years due to their belief in its healing powers.

So, it's not an accident that this place feels spiritual. There are years of intentions and prayers that have gone into this land.

The stories about Esalen suggest that Silicon Valley executives flock to us as a way to clear their soul and grapple with the consequences of technologies they've created.

But I wouldn't describe Esalen as a place that exclusively offers people spiritual experiences. What we're really trying to do is help people expand their human potential, which can help increase their productivity, and improve their performance.

'I'm not meditating all day'


Three bodies of water collide at the land at the Esalen Institute which is why it has long be revered as a sacred place by the Esselen tribe. Justin Michael Williams© Justin Michael Williams

Esalen was founded in 1962 by Michael Murphy and Richard Price, two Stanford grads inspired by ideas of the psychologist Abraham Maslow and the writer Aldous Huxley.


The human potential movement – which posits that there is extraordinary untapped potential in people— was born here.

Sixty years later, our goal is still to help high-achievers reach their potential.

I'd describe myself as a high-achieving, Type A individual. For almost 11 years, I ran a marketing firm called SketchbookLA, and worked with clients like plastic surgeon Dr. Paul Nassif and Fox Studios. I wrote a book on meditation. I'm also a Grammy-nominated recording artist.

Now, I like to say that I'm in the field of "transformation." I travel all over the world giving motivational speeches and I also teach. When I'm not at Esalen, or traveling, my home base is Los Angeles.

But I'm not meditating all day at Esalen — I'm focused on making an impact in the world.

I spend about 20 minutes every morning practicing a form of meditation called "Freedom Meditation." Then I take a shower in the hot springs, get dressed, and head to breakfast. A typical breakfast might be bacon, farm-to-table eggs, a fresh croissant, and a green salad. The food here is healthy, yet so delicious, it almost feels a little sinful.

I'll probably be teaching a class after that. Right now, I'm teaching Come Alive: Meditation for People Who Can't Stop Thinking. As you can imagine, it draws a lot of over-thinkers.

I might have a few Zoom calls after that and teach an afternoon course. In the evenings, there's usually a bonfire, a concert, or a hangout by the baths under the stars.

People are coming to us in transition

Given our proximity to Silicon Valley, we do draw people from the tech world. But they're not representative of everyone who comes here.

We have limited WiFi, and there's no cell phone signal here, so you naturally have to disconnect a bit. What I've observed from those who do work in tech is how they're taken by the physical world beyond the screen. They don't even want to be on their devices.

There was a woman here a few weeks ago who said she was putting her phone in a drawer for the first time in 10 years.

I've noticed that people often come here in hopes of improving something in one of six areas of life: their career, their creativity, their relationships, their health, their money, or their desire to be of service to a broader community.

Right now, with layoffs hemorrhaging the tech industry, so many people are coming to us in transition. The question everyone is asking themselves across the board is:

"I've been working in this job that I thought was secure. Now, how do I figure out a next step that is authentically aligned with what I really care about?

A guest who was recently laid off from his big, big tech job arrived here too scared to admit that he wanted to start his own company. By the time he left, he had written an entire business plan.

People think they're coming to Esalen to disconnect, but what they find when they get here is how to connect to a greater source of power. Ultimately, we're here to help people do the internal work to show up differently in the external world.

AMERIKA CUT'S NOSE TO SPITE FACE
Health groups sound the alarm over foreign nurse visa freeze

Story by Nathaniel Weixel • THE HILL

Newly announced limits on visas for foreign nurses threatens to further a staffing strain on hospitals, nursing homes and other major health employers.



The State Department in its May Visa Bulletin announced that nearly all the available green card slots that nurses are eligible for had been filled. Only people who applied prior to June 1, 2022 will be eligible to continue with visa interviews, even if an applicant already had a job offer in the U.S.

Those with more recent applications will have to go back in line when the quota resets in October at the start of the next fiscal year, resulting in a backlog and further delaying the entrance of new nurses into the workforce.

The U.S. is facing a major nursing shortage amid unprecedented burnout and an aging workforce, and federal estimates show the country will need about 200,000 more nurses every year through at least 2030 to fill the gaps.

“Prior to COVID we had a nursing shortage. During COVID, it’s estimated that we lost about 100,000 nurses,” said Patty Jeffrey, a registered nurse and president of the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment.




Seniors 50+ Will Get Benefits


Ad
www.addtaxca.com




“If we don’t have a steady flow of these international nurses to enter the country and provide services, this is dire for our hospitals, who have become more dependent on this workforce,” Jeffrey said.

Foreign nurses comprise about 15 percent of the nursing workforce. They are eligible to enter the country with an EB-3 visa, a permanent residency green card that includes all occupations which require at least an associate’s degree but not a master’s degree.

But the immigration quota hasn’t changed since 1990. The State Department limits the total number of EB-3 visas to just 28.6 percent of all employment-based visas, about 40,000 each fiscal year.

Even though nurses are considered essential health workers, they are generally not in the same category as physicians and even some IT workers, and they are competing for slots against both skilled and unskilled workers.

According to the State Department, an immigrant visa must be available to the applicant both at the time of filing and at the time a decision is made on the application.

The monthly Visa Bulletin lists the cut-off dates, and lets applicants know when they are eligible to be granted permanent resident status. Applicants who have a priority date—the date the green card petition is first officially filed — earlier than the cut-off date are eligible to apply for permanent residence.


When more people apply for a visa in a particular category or country than there are visas available, the eligibility date retrogresses, or moves backwards.

Chris Musillo, an immigration attorney and managing partner at Musillo Unkenholt, said anyone with an interview this month will still be able to enter the country either late this year, or more likely the first part of 2024.

But as of May 1, anyone with a pending interview will have to wait until Oct. 1, when the quotas will likely reset. That creates a backlog, Musillo said.

Musillo said he’s telling hospitals that even if they have a qualified nurse candidate they want to sponsor and start the process today, the nurse won’t be allowed into the country until late 2024 or “more realistically, 2025.”

Most of the nurses that are being affected by the retrogression filed their green cards within the past 9 to 12 months, with an expectation that they’d come to the U.S. and start working in 2023. But now, they won’t get an interview and are stuck waiting overseas.

“This is a multi-year process to get people there, our hospitals were depending on [these individuals], and now because of the retrogression they won’t receive them,” said Jeffrey.

But it’s also not just hospitals that are being impacted.

“To freeze the ability for foreign-born nurses to immigrate to the U.S. using the EB-3 visa eliminates a valuable option for bringing more qualified workers into the aging services sector,” said Ruth Katz, senior vice president of policy at LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit aging services providers.

“This visa retrogression shuts off one meaningful workforce solution, and, ultimately, harms older adults and families who cannot access needed care and services. Without staff, there is no care,” Katz said.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, more nurses were able to enter the country because other family visas were going unused, and were able to be rolled over into employment-based visas.

In FY 2022, the rollover of family visas doubled the number of available employment-based slots.

But with the pandemic waning, family visas are increasing again, and the EB-3 cap was reached quickly.

Health groups and immigration advocates are pressing for Congress to fix the problem by recapturing unused immigrant visas and giving them to nurses and physicians. But immigration politics are making passing any kind of fix difficult.

Musillo and Jeffrey said they thought Congress found a bipartisan solution last year with the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act, but it never made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“This is a health care problem, but unfortunately the solution is an immigration solution,” Jeffrey said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

Head of Alberta Energy Regulator declines to say when province told of oilsands leak

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 


OTTAWA — The head of the Alberta Energy Regulator has refused to tell a parliamentary committee investigating releases from an oilsands tailings pond about when the provincial government was told about the problem.



Laurie Pushor was questioned Monday by the House of Commons environment and sustainable development committee about a nine-month gap between when Imperial Oil learned one of its tailings ponds may have been leaking and when area First Nations and governments were notified.

"When was any representative from the provincial government notified?" asked Edmonton New Democrat member of Parliament Heather McPherson.

Pushor, who was asked the question three times, said he preferred not to answer.

"We do have a review that is being conducted by our board of directors," he said.

"I think it's best that we let that review be a full independent review. All of those answers and all of those questions will be addressed in that review."

That report will be released, he said. The regulator's board did not immediately respond to a question about the inquiry's terms of reference or if anyone had been hired for it.

At McPherson's request, Pushor testified under oath, the only witness to do so in three days of hearings on the Imperial leaks. Conservative MP Greg McLean apologized to Pushor "for the way you were treated differently."

In an emailed statement, McPherson said she was "exasperated" by Pushor's response.

"His excuse — citing his internal investigation — has no merit whatsoever," she wrote.

"He is accountable to Parliament. He is accountable to Canadians. Albertans have a right to know when the (regulator) informed (Alberta's governing United Conservative Party) about the seepage and what the government’s response was."

Related video: How small Alberta towns can team up on renewable projects (The Weather Network)

In Alberta, small towns may struggle to attract renewable energy

Duration 2:01  View on Watch

Pushor apologized for the notification delay and pledged improvement.

"It is clear that we did not meet community expectations in this case," he said.

Imperial first noticed discoloured water by its pond in May 2022 and knew it was contaminated with tailings by August.

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and his provincial counterpart Sonya Savage have both said they didn't learn about the seepage — as well as a second 5.3-million litre wastewater release — until the regulator issued a protection order on Feb. 6.

On Monday, Pushor said he personally told the province about the releases before then.

"I communicated with the provincial government one or two days prior to the environmental protection order being issued," he said.

But for most of his testimony, Pushor repeated assurances that the regulator was ensuring that none of the toxins from the release had entered drinking water or affected wildlife. Imperial has been required to install dozens of new monitoring wells and has made public all the relevant data from them, he said.

It's the company's job to inform communities about emergencies, he said.

"The first communication should come from the producer," Pushor said.

In earlier testimony Monday, Indigenous groups from the area called for reform to how Alberta's oilsands are regulated, with some asking for more federal involvement.

"Canada needs to be a larger presence in the mismanaged oilsands," said Carmen Wells, speaking for the Fort Chipewyan Metis Nation.

"These decades of poor regulation require an overhaul, where (the nation) is not at the mercy of the decisions of Alberta's policymakers, who are willing to sacrifice northeastern Alberta."

Her testimony echoed that from other First Nations last week. Representatives of six nations, including the Athabasca Chipewyan and the Mikisew Cree, testified they had no remaining trust in the regulator.

They called for the agency to be disbanded.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2023.

— By Bob Weber in Edmonton

The Canadian Press

Yukon government starts funding 40 hours of paid sick leave

Story by The Canadian Press • 

WHITEHORSE — Yukon's premier says the territory is the first in Canada to provide government-funded paid sick leave with a program targeting workers who are most likely to suffer from taking unpaid time off.


Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai 

As of April 1, anyone without paid sick leave through their employer and making less than or equal to $33.94 per hour, will qualify for 40 hours of pay over 12 months covered by the government.

The territory says in a statement that the threshold represents the average Yukon private-sector wage and workers who earn less than that are most likely to experience financial hardship if they take unpaid sick leave.

The program also applies to self-employed Yukoners and is slated to cover sick leave taken from April 1 to March 31, 2025.

The territory says when an employee takes time off because they are sick, they will continue to be paid by their employer as if they had been at work and the employer will apply to the government for a rebate.

Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai says the pandemic emphasized how important it is for people to have access to paid sick leave.

"Our government is proud to become the first jurisdiction in Canada to provide government-funded paid sick leave," he said in a statement.

The program replaces a paid sick leave program launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic but is not restricted just to those missing work due to the virus.

"We are confident that this will help balance the needs of employers and workers while contributing to public health and economic resilience," Pillai said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 25, 2023

The Canadian Press