Friday, July 14, 2023

Why the movie ‘Exodus’ still matters

On the 75th anniversary of Israel’s birth, the blockbuster movie still raises serious questions.

Martini Judaism
July 13, 2023
By  Jeffrey Salkin


(RNS) — They just don’t make movies like this anymore.

You know the kind — the ones with casts that contain every A-list actor and actress in the industry.

That was the 1960 movie “Exodus,” directed by Otto Preminger. The screenwriter was the blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, who based his script on the 1958 blockbuster novel by Leon Uris, which had been the biggest bestseller since “Gone With the Wind.”

Uris’ epic dive into Jewish history crossed the generations, chronicling the emigration to the land of Israel and the struggles that accompanied its creation. In particular, it focused on the voyage of the refugee ship “Exodus,” which defied the British blockade of the land of Israel, and the subsequent creation of the state.

The book was not only iconic; it was redemptive. It was nothing less than a modern Haggadah for a modern Pesach. In the former Soviet Union, refuseniks passed dog-eared copies of the novel around; it served as the inspiration for their own anticipated exodus.

Because I am in Israel, and it is Israel’s 75th birthday, and because recent events have made me wistful for that old heroic image of Israel, I decided to watch the movie again.

So, how does it hold up?

Surprisingly well.

This is why it still matters.

The conversation about Jewish power. The main dramatic tension in the film is the conflict between the two Ben Canaan brothers. Barak, the father of Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman, at his blue eyes-est), is a statesman, a moderate. His brother Akiva is a leader of the Irgun, the militant underground force that regularly attacked both British and Arab targets.

The duo was not invented for mere dramatic effect. The tensions were, and are, real — between the Haganah’s policy of restraint and the Irgun’s policy of attack.

As I watched “Exodus,” I reflected on how that sibling rivalry — which ideology will shape the future of the Jewish nation? — is alive and well today.

Consider: The leader of the Irgun was Menachem Begin, who would ultimately serve as prime minister of Israel. His teacher was Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism. Jabotinsky’s secretary was the late historian Benzion Netanyahu, father of Benjamin, the current prime minister.

I write this with almost unspeakable pain: Akiva Ben Canaan’s heirs are winning.

The presence of the Holocaust. When the novel and the movie each appeared, the Holocaust had barely appeared in American popular culture; up to that point, only the various popular culture iterations of Anne Frank’s diary had made a mark.

So “Exodus” was a key moment in the American cultural experience of the Holocaust — decades ahead of its time.

First, there is the scene when Karen, the young refugee girl, reunites with her father, who had survived the camps. He is entirely broken and unresponsive. My parents explained that he was “shellshocked” — the only available term for what we now call PTSD.

That scene made an indelible impression upon me; it was the first time that I had encountered anything about the Holocaust.

Second: Dov Landau (Sal Mineo), the young hothead who wants to join the Irgun. The Irgun leaders interrogate him mercilessly on how he survived the camps. He explains that he had been a sonderkommando, responsible for disposing of bodies in the ovens, but there are holes in his story.

Finally, he breaks down and he admits that he had survived because he was a sexual slave in the homosexual brothels of the SS: “They used me like you would use a woman!”

In retrospect, this is remarkable. The conversation about the ovens was decades ahead of its time; no one was talking about that grisly reality.

But, to talk about homosexual rape in the camps? No one was talking about that then; not many more are talking about it now. “Exodus” named the un-nameable.

The meaning of Zionism. The American nurse, Kitty Fremont, takes an immediate liking to Karen. She invites the girl to return to the United States with her, in essence to become a bourgeois American, and to escape the burdens of Jewish history and destiny.

Karen refuses Kitty’s offer. Her place is with her people, and she wants to be a pioneer in the building of the land.

Welcome to Zionism 101.

Where is Judaism in “Exodus?” The short answer: missing in inaction.

With the exception of the mashgiach (supervisor of kashrut) who is checking the meat in the Acre prison, and the traditional shoveling of dirt into a grave, you will see no Jewish religious ritual, though you will see Christian religious processions.

The only name of God that you will hear is Allah, referred to respectfully by Barak Ben Canaan, and invoked by the muezzin in Akko; Elohim doesn’t get a shoutout.

So, where, exactly, was Judaism? It has vanished. In that sense, “Exodus” understood Zionism all too well. The new Jew is the secular Zionist.

The relations between Jews and Arabs. The first dramatic pairing in the film was the two Ben Canaan brothers. The second was Taha, the mukhtar of Abu Yesha, the Arab village that is adjacent to the moshav of Gan Dafna and Ari’s boyhood friend, and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husayni (sometimes, Husseini).

The grand mufti represents the nightmare. He was the chief Muslim religious authority of Jerusalem from 1921 to 1937, during the time of the British Mandate. As such, he was the undisputed leader of the Palestinian Arab community, and he was as close to pure evil as the past century has produced. (See the excellent biography, “Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam.”)

The Nazi in the film says that the grand mufti “was our guest in Berlin during the war.” That is true. Al-Husayni was a Nazi sympathizer and a virulent Jew-hater. He had trained an elite corps of Bosnian Muslims for the SS, planning to exterminate the Jews of Palestine.

The grand mufti represents the nightmare. His militant Islam still exists.

Taha represents the dream — of Arab-Jewish cooperation.

That was not a fantasy. The story of Arab cooperation with Zionism is underappreciated. As Hillel Cohen writes in ”Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration With Zionism, 1917-1948,” there were many stories of local Arabs inviting Jewish immigrants to purchase land. My Israeli friends who grew up in Haifa and Akko speak of their grandparents’ warm friendships with Arab families in the 1940s.

As the state of Israel is declared, Taha declares to Ari: “You have won your freedom and I have lost mine.”

Ari refuses to see this as a zero sum game. He begs Taha and his people to stay on as residents of the new state — to become Israeli Arabs — that we “work together as equals in the free state of Israel.” Ari sees the promise in Israel’s Declaration of Independence — that Israel would be both a Jewish stateֶ and “a state of all its citizens.”

That tension — Jewish state, or a state of all its citizens — is still raging today.

Then comes the scene that ranks with the most horrific of my childhood cinematic memories. The mufti’s forces cannot abide Taha’s warm relationship with the Jews. They destroy the Arab village. They hang Taha, daubing his body with Stars of David.

As the film ends, Ari says over the joint grave that receives the bodies of both Taha and Karen, who has been killed by an Arab fighter: “I swear on the bodies of these two people that the day will come when Arab and Jew will share in a peaceful life in this land that they have always shared in death.”

”Exodus” forces me, and all of us, to demand that Ari’s prayer be more than a prayer.

It is not too late, but the clock is ticking.

 

Where will SCOTUS draw the line on religious liberty?
At this point it’s impossible to say.
 Justice Neil Gorsuch

July 13, 2023
By Mark Silk

(RNS) — The most consequential religion case of this year’s Supreme Court term wasn’t actually a religion decision. 303 Creative v. Elenis featured a conservative Christian website designer who, having decided to begin designing websites for weddings, claimed that her free speech rights would be violated if Colorado’s anti-discrimination law forced her to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple.

Yes, they would, said the court’s six-member conservative supermajority, with its three liberals dissenting.

Why the court chose to take up this feared possibility, in apparent violation of the Constitution’s requirement that the judiciary confine itself to actual cases and controversies, may perhaps be explained by what happened after its Masterpiece Cakeshop case four years ago. In that actual controversy, involving a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple who asked him to, the court found that the Colorado Civil Rights Division had acted prejudicially in ordering the baker to bake the cake, and the case was sent back for a rehearing.

But rather than rehear the case, the Civil Rights Division decided to let the baker have his way — very likely figuring that with the famously LGBTQ-supportive Justice Anthony Kennedy now retired and replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, a second ruling against the baker would be overturned on the merits. Deprived of that opportunity, the court granted certiorari to a hypothetical.

Did I mention that Masterpiece Cakeshop was also a free speech case? One reason is that, under current First Amendment law, religious free exercise cases cannot be brought in federal court against state laws that are “neutral” and “generally applicable.” Colorado’s anti-discrimination law is both.
RELATED: LGBTQ+ Americans are more religious than our Supreme Court battles let on

Still, just as the freedom of speech clause is adjacent to the free exercise clause in the First Amendment, so has free speech long been free exercise-adjacent in jurisprudence — going back to West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), in which the court ruled that children of Jehovah’s Witnesses could not be compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school.

Indeed, Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the 303 Creative majority, cites Barnette repeatedly and quotes from that most famous of sentences in Justice Robert Jackson’s majority opinion: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Doth Gorsuch protest too much? Allowing a child to opt out of a patriotic exercise is a far cry from enabling a small business owner to discriminate against a protected class of people. Still, it’s easy enough to come up with hypothetical examples of small business owners who should be permitted to turn down clients who ask them to engage in expressive conduct (speech) they find unconscionable.

A Jewish baker, say, asked by local white supremacists to decorate a cake with swastikas. Or a Muslim glassmaker asked to design a window depicting Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Or a Hindu flag maker asked by the Freedom from Religion Foundation to create a banner that reads, “Celebrating a Century of Godlessness.”

So why not Lorie Smith, the Christian website designer? In her case, according to Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion, the court’s decision committed the “grave error” of “conflat[ing] denial of service and protected expression.”



Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Specifically, wrote Sotomayor, Smith conceded that “if a same-sex couple came across an opposite-sex wedding website created by the company and requested an identical website, with only the names and date of the wedding changed, petitioners would refuse. That is status-based discrimination, plain and simple.”

In the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, baker Jack Phillips said he’d have no problem with a same-sex couple coming into his store and buying a cake off the shelf for their wedding. He just didn’t want to have to create it to order for them.

Smith, while insisting that she’d design a website for a business owned by a same-sex couple, made it clear that she doesn’t want her work in any way associated with same-sex weddings. To consider that to be “compelled speech,” a la Gorsuch, is a step beyond what Phillips claimed.

The question is how many steps further this court will go.

In the Hobby Lobby case decided a decade ago, the court for the first time permitted a for-profit corporation a religious free exercise right, in that case to refuse to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that female employees receive contraception coverage as part of their health plan — provided the for-profit company was “closely held” and its religious belief “sincere.”

Will the current court extend a right to refuse wedding services to same-sex couples to family-owned companies like Hobby Lobby that have hundreds of stores and thousands of employees? What about publicly traded companies? At this point it’s impossible to say where it will draw the line.

This week, the Minnesota state Court of Appeals, deferring to an order from Gorsuch, decided that an Amish community doesn’t have to obey state health regulations and install a septic system to treat water used for dishwashing, laundry and bathing (“gray water”) — because the government failed to demonstrate a compelling interest in its doing so in violation of religious scruples.
'We need action': Treaty 6 chiefs declare opioid crisis emergency

Story by Aaron Sousa • CBC


The Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations is calling on provincial and federal governments to provide immediate support to address the deadly opioid crisis.

The nations declared a state of emergency on Monday at their annual general meeting.

Treaty 6 territory covers the central regions of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Figures provided by the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations show Indigenous peoples in Alberta are seven times more likely to die of opioid toxicity. Leaders say death rates have spiked since the provincial government closed safe consumption sites.

Grand Chief Leonard Standingontheroad said people will continue dying if harm reduction isn't made available and hopes provincial and federal leaders step up to the plate.

"We need action right now, not just talk about it," he said.


Dr. Esther Tailfeathers was senior medical director with Alberta Health Services' Indigneous Wellness Core. (EstherTailfeat1/Twitter)© Provided by cbc.ca

The confederacy said 71 First Nations in Alberta have already declared an opioid crisis state of emergency, but only about two dozen have received funding to come up with solutions.

The chiefs noted the Indigenous Health Equity Fund, announced in February, promised $2 billion in federal funding over 10 years, but they said it was not communicated well and funding has not been provided.



Carolyn Bennett, federal Minister for Mental Health and Addictions, makes an announcement regarding the decriminalization of people who use hard drugs in Vancouver on Jan. 30, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, the former medical lead for the Indigenous Wellness Core Network at Alberta Health Services, applauded the Treaty 6 chiefs for taking a stand.

"All of our nations are suffering and we're burying people daily," she said.

"We're asking for help and nobody's helping."

Tailfeathers, who now works as a family doctor in Blood Tribe, said Indigenous communities are routinely left out of obtaining proper resources to handle addiction issues.


Tailfeathers said recovery treatment beds promised to First Nations are often non-existent or inaccessible and that's part of the reason why her community launched harm reduction treatment programs in 2014.

"[The province] can continue to preach abstinence-based therapies, but people can't even make it to the abstinence-based therapy because they're dying on the streets," said Tailfeathers.


"We're creating an eventual crisis that's going to be even larger than today."

She said if the Alberta government is unwilling to provide support, the federal government needs to step in.


Carolyn Bennett, Canada's minister of mental health and addictions, told an event in Edmonton on Monday that solving the opioid crisis means listening to the Treaty 6 chiefs and giving them the support they need.

"There's no treatment model for people who are dead," she said.

Alberta Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams said in a written statement the province is partnering with First Nations in the spirit of reconciliation.

He joined Indigenous leadership in calling on Ottawa to provide more support to nations, as they have been "absent in this conversation for far too long."

"The federal government has failed to support First Nations to address addiction, and Alberta has been left to address the issues resulting from their failures," said Williams.

"There is no solution to the deadly disease of addiction that does not involve partnerships with First Nations and a shared focus on recovery, which is why Alberta's government is making these investments.

"Our government will continue to work with the Confederacy of Treaty 6 Nations to address the deadly disease of addiction in Alberta."

As for Standingontheroad, he said the confederacy already has a plan on how it will help its people.

"We just want commitment in the dollars to make this happen."
ICYMI

Watchdog probing claims that Nike Canada, gold company benefiting from forced Uyghur labour

Story by Catharine Tunney • CBC - Tuesday, July 11,2023

Canada's watchdog for corporate wrongdoing says she has enough to launch an investigation of allegations that Nike Canada and a gold mining company are benefiting from the forced labour of Uyghurs in China.

It's the first time the office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) has launched an investigation since the federal government appointed Sheri Meyerhoffer to the role in April 2019.

"These are very serious issues that have been brought to our attention," Meyerhoffer said Tuesday.

"Canadian companies are expected to respect Canadian standards for human rights and environmental protection when they work outside of Canada."

A coalition of 28 civil society organizations, including the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, launched more than two dozen complaints with her office regarding forced labour practices.

In the first complaint, they alleged that Nike Canada Corp. has supply relationships with six Chinese companies that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) identified as using or benefiting from Uyghur forced labour.

The think tank released a report in 2020 estimating that more than 80,000 Uyghurs had been transferred to work in factories across China. It said some were sent directly from detention camps.

Last year, the United Nations concluded China had committed "serious human rights violations" against Uyghurs and other Muslim communities, particularly arbitrary detentions that may constitute crimes against humanity.

The coalition argued there is no indication that the popular clothing company has taken any concrete steps to ensure "beyond a reasonable doubt" that forced labour is not involved in its supply chain.

In a separate complaint, the group alleges that Dynasty Gold Corp. allows for forced labour at its gold mine in the Hatu district, close to what China has called "detention" centres or "re-education" camps.

The complainants point to a statement from the mine's CEO in January 2021 that "many ethnicities, including Uyghur, were represented in all ranks of the work force."

Meyerhoffer said she assessed the two complaints and decided there was enough to dig deeper.

"On their face, the allegations made by the complainants raise serious issues regarding the possible abuse of the internationally recognized right to be free from forced labour," Meyerhoffer said in a copy of her initial assessment, made public Tuesday.

"I have decided to launch investigations into these complaints in order to get the facts and recommend the appropriate actions. I have not pre-judged the outcome of the investigations. We will await the results and we will publish final reports with my recommendations."

Nike Canada denies the allegations


The complainants' allege that Nike Canada is the primary customer of Qingdao Taekwang Shoes Co. Ltd., a factory that reportedly employs Uyghur workers who attend classes in the evening for "vocational training" and "patriotic education."

It also said the clothing company has relationships with five other companies accused of using Uyghur forced labour:

Haoyuanpeng Clothing Manufacturing Co. Ltd.,
Esquel Textile Co. Ltd.,
Qingdao Jifa Group,
Huafu Fashion Co. Ltd.,
Texhong Textile Group.

Meyerhoffer's office said it made several unsuccessful attempts to make contact with Nike Canada Corp beginning in the summer of 2022.

Earlier this year, Nike Inc., the parent company, turned down the ombudsman's request for a meeting but sent a statement saying it is "committed to ethical and responsible manufacturing and we uphold international labour standards," said the ombudsman report.

"We are concerned about reports of forced labour in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Nike does not source products from the XUAR and we have confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region," said a copy of Nike's statement.


The Nike logo is displayed at a Nike store in South Miami on Sept. 20, 2011. (The Associated Press)© Provided by cbc.ca

Meyerhoffer said there is a conflict between what Nike says and what an Australian Strategic Policy Institute report said about the factories in the region.

Related video: Corporate ethics czar probing claims of forced labour in China by Nike Canada, Dynasty Gold (The Canadian Press)   Duration 1:56   View on Watch

For example, she said there is a contradiction with regard to Nike's claim that Qingdao Taekwang Shoes Co. Ltd. stopped hiring new employees from Xinjiang after human rights abuses were reported in 2019 by the ASPI.

CORE said it will proceed with an investigation through independent fact-finding on the Nike assertions, but added that mediation is available at any stage of the complaint process.

"Given the high-risk context, there is a need for enhanced human rights due diligence to identify, prevent and mitigate the human rights-related risks of Nike's operations," said the initial assessment report.

"In this regard, Nike Canada Corp. has not provided a satisfactory response or remedy to the allegations in the complaint, nor satisfactorily demonstrated that it conducts human rights due diligence."

Mining company 'deliberately avoided' participating: ombudsman

Meyerhoffer fared worse when trying to get Dynasty to respond despite multiple attempts

"DYG [Dynasty Gold Corp.] only provided its comments to the draft initial assessment report. Prior to that, DYG appears to have deliberately avoided participating in and cooperating with the CORE's dispute resolution process without providing any explanation," said the report.

The mining company eventually did send a comment denying it has operational control over the Hatu mine. Meyerhoffer said that might not be true given statements it has made in corporate documents and press releases.

"DYG's assertion that it terminated its mineral exploration activities in Xinjiang in 2008 does not seem to be supported by its press releases dated January 25, 2021 and April 13, 2022," says the report.

"Even if DYG does not have operational control, DYG is still responsible for ensuring that forced labour is not present in the Hatu mine over which it asserts 70 per cent ownership."



Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), Sheri Meyerhoffer, holds a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. Ottawa's corporate-ethics watchdog has announced investigations into a mining corporation and the Canadian branch of Nike for possible forced labour in supply chains. 
(Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)© Provided by cbc.ca

In a statement issued to CBC News, Dynasty's CEO Ivy Chong called the initial assessment "totally unfounded."

"Like many western companies, the wages that we paid to local workers were almost double the local wages. We gave them on-the-job training, such as how to use mining software etc. Everyone was happy working for us," said Chong.

"We don't understand on what evidence and basis that CORE conducts its investigation on Dynasty Gold Corp."

Meyerhoffer said her team won't be able to travel to the Xinjiang region to conduct their investigations.

China insists it's not committing genocide

The coalition filed 13 admissible complaints with the CORE office, Meyerhoffer said Tuesday. Her assessments on the remaining 11 will be made public in the coming weeks.

"It is our mission to resolve human rights complaints in a fair and unbiased manner in order to help those impacted and to strengthen the responsible business practices of the companies involved," she said.

In January 2021, the federal government announced a suite of new regulations to ensure that Canadian companies are not complicit in human rights abuses or the use of forced labour in China's Xinjiang province.

Later that year, Canadian MPs passed a motion saying that China's persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim groups amounts to genocide, according to the definition set out in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and most of his cabinet were absent for the vote.

China has called the genocide allegations "the lie of the century."

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis said it's "shameful" that the federal government hasn't recognized the Uyghur genocide.

"Over 600 shipments of goods have been denied entry to the United States over concerns about products tainted by Uyghur slave labour. Under Justin Trudeau, not a single shipment has been denied into Canada. Zero," wrote the international development critic in a media statement.

"CORE has an important role to play, but more direct leadership from the government is also required."

NDP MP Heather McPherson said Tuesday's report shows that CORE lacks teeth.

"Clearly these companies don't care. They don't feel it will hurt their bottom line," she said.

"This ombudsperson needs the power to compel testimony and witness and documentation and does not have that."
AGRICULTURE IS OUR PRIMARY INDUSTRY

Alberta seeing 'crisis' in veterinarian staff shortages, emergency animal care

Story by Madeline Smith • 

Pet owners and veterinarians are sounding the alarm about a shortage of veterinary professionals in Alberta, and they say more action is needed for short-term relief.

One vet clinic that previously offered after-hours emergency services shifted last week to a referral-only practice, and animals that need urgent care after business hours have to be sent to one of the two other Edmonton and area clinics that are open at night.

Zoe's Animal Rescue co-director Kath Oltsher recently brought a critically sick kitten to an emergency vet, only to find them so full overwhelmed they couldn't even get in to wait — they had to rush her across town to the other after-hours vet instead.

"There is an unbelievable shortage and it's happened since the pandemic," Oltsher told CBC News.

"We have so many dogs now and so many cats now, I think we're well over what our system can handle."


Kath Oltsher, the co-director of Edmonton-based Zoe's Animal Rescue, says the shortfall in emergency veterinarian services is a "crisis." (Ayesha Haq/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

According to Alberta Veterinary Medical Association president Natasha Kutryk, Alberta has a higher pet ownership rate than the Canadian average, sitting above 60 per cent.

And while the vet shortage is a problem globally, Albertans trying to get care for their animals are facing daily frustrations, with vets left scrambling to help.

The same problems affecting access to emergency care are showing up in general veterinary practice too.

Glenora Family Pet Clinic veterinarian Nick Barbaza said he sees staffing problems as the "top issue" in vets' minds, as they struggle to find qualified vets and veterinary technicians to meet demand at their practice.

Barbaza's clinic doesn't offer after-hours emergency services, but he said he often hears about animals waiting eight or 10 hours to be seen at emergency centres.

"When they cannot get that care, it can be very tough," he said.

"As a result, the pets are going to suffer, or prices are going to increase — and mental health, we're struggling. People are angry, and we're trying to help everybody, but it's only so much we can do."

'The crisis is real'

The province's only veterinary medicine program at the University of Calgary received additional funding in the 2022 provincial budget to bolster enrolment to 100 students by 2025..

But University of Calgary faculty of veterinary medicine dean Renate Weller said even as more vets are trained, it will take time for them to cycle into the province's workforce.

"We're putting more vets on the market. It will take us until 2029 to feel the effects of that. So we need to do something in between, really."

Weller said workforce retention is one problem, and the U of C is revising its curriculum to better prepare future veterinarians for the stresses that come with the profession.

But she added that the university also has a role to play in helping recruit and onboard veterinarians trained in other countries, making sure they can get the credentials they need to practice in Alberta.

Barbaza said that's a critical piece of the puzzle.


Veterinarian Nick Barbaza says it's difficult to find enough qualified vets and vet technicians to meet the demand for care. (Nathan Gross/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

"Part of the solution is to bring more foreign-trained veterinarians that are already out there but they have a hard time coming in," he said.

"We don't see the support that we need here."

At Zoe's Animal Rescue, Oltsher said people trying to get help paying to get their pets spayed or neutered are facing waits for vet care too, potentially exacerbating the current issue even more.

"We are now looking at booking up to a month out in order for us to help people prevent their animals from having more babies. ... We're not able to handle the amount we have now," Oltsher said.

"The crisis is real. So real."
Net-zero electricity grid for Alberta is possible, Wilkinson says




DRUMHELLER, Alta. — Against the backdrop of Alberta’s newest solar farm, federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Tuesday he still believes the province can get its electricity grid to net zero by 2035 – in spite of Premier Danielle Smith’s insistence to the contrary.

Wilkinson made the comments in Starland County near Drumheller, Alta., in front of the thousands of gleaming solar panels that make up the latest solar project to be connected to the province’s electricity grid.


“The federal government’s view is that it can be done,” Wilkinson said, moments after renewable energy firm Capstone Infrastructure formally cut the ribbon on its 25 MW Michichi solar project, which will produce enough renewable power to offset approximately 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 each year.

“But we also have to be willing to listen to the concerns of Alberta and Saskatchewan and try to find ways to address those concerns – and ideally, address those within the 2035 time frame.”

Wilkinson announced more than $160 million in federal investments for nine Alberta-based solar projects Tuesday.


As part of its sweeping climate goals, the federal government plans to soon release a draft of its promised clean electricity regulations, which will aim to ensure Canada's electricity grid is a net-zero emitter of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2035.

Canada's current electricity grid is more than 80 per cent non-emitting, and in provinces with vast amounts of hydro-electric generating capacity, decarbonizing within the next decade is feasible.

But though Alberta has committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, the province's lack of hydroelectricity and heavy reliance on natural gas for power generation means its grid faces steeper transition challenges than many other jurisdictions.


Saskatchewan, too, has said the 2035 time frame is unachievable and has said it will aim to achieve a net-zero electricity grid by 2050 instead.

On Monday, Smith reiterated her government's belief that any federal electricity regulations that are "too aggressive" would infringe on the province's constitutional authority over its natural resources.

“We’re just not going to anything that is going to damage our economy or do anything that’s going to indicate that our oil and gas sector is going to be phased out," the premier said at a Stampede breakfast in Calgary.

However, Wilkinson said Tuesday that by agreeing to Alberta's proposal to form a bilateral working group, Ottawa is showing it is willing to listen to the province's concern

The working group, which Wilkinson said will be made up of "senior people on both sides," will aim to come to some sort of federal-provincial alignment on emissions reduction – including on the issue of greening the electricity grid.

Wilkinson pointed out that not that long ago, Alberta was largely reliant on coal for electricity. He said the fact that the province is now slated to be off of coal entirely by next year is an immense achievement.

The province is also in the midst of a boom in wind and solar development. Alberta is now home to more than 3,800 megawatts of wind and solar capacity, and last year forecaster Rystad Energy predicted the province would lead the country in total installed utility-scale wind and solar power by the middle of the decade.

Still, at this point, more than 70 per cent of the province's total electricity generating capacity is non-renewable. Wilkinson said his government understands that wind and solar will only take Alberta so far.

"For Saskatchewan and Alberta, I would say that natural gas with carbon capture is going to continue to be part of the conversation," he said.

"And small modular reactors and nuclear power, understanding there's going to be some time that will take, is also going to be part of the reality."

Wilkinson said the aim of the working group will be to determine what technical and financial barriers to getting to net zero exist for Alberta, and how the federal government can help.

While he said Ottawa has already made significant financial commitments, it may be willing to do even more to get provinces over the finish line.

"I would say the federal government has to be open to that conversation," he said, adding the most recent federal budget included funding for an investment tax credit for electricity generation and inter-provincial transmission.

"The reason we did that is we saw the scale of the challenge, and our view was it was beyond the fiscal capacity of any of the provinces in terms of what's going to be required in the coming decades," Wilkinson said.

"So we have put money on the table for those provinces that are willing to engage in that conversation. It may be that we have to do more."

In an interview at solar site Tuesday, Capstone Infrastructure CEO David Eva said he also believes net-zero electricity is possible for Alberta by 2035.

He said within the span of a few short years, the cost of solar technology has come down so much that it's now cheaper than fossil fuel generation, and many of Alberta's traditional oil and gas companies are signing off-take agreements with renewable power companies for their own electricity needs.


"I believe (net zero) is possible," Eva said.

"It's a challenge, but at the rate we're going, as long as we invest into the grid to enable these projects to connect, and we continue to see support from all levels of government ... I have every confidence that we'll get there."


This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11,2023.

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press
Explainer-How big oil won the bidding for German offshore wind sites

 Wind turbines, including some from RWE's new Kaskasi offshore wind farm, are pictured during the opening of the RWE-Offshore-Windpark Kaskasi
© Thomson Reuters

By Vera Eckert and Susanna Twidale

FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) - Energy majors BP and TotalEnergies have won a 7 gigawatt (GW) offshore wind site auction in Germany worth a record 12.6 billion euros ($14.1 billion), allowing them entry to the central European market without a partnership.

Previous auctions have been won by consortia, as happened in 2021 when British tenders were awarded to BP and EnBW, and Macquarie and TotalEnergies.

The awards for capacity due to come online in 2030 also excluded leading offshore wind developers, such as RWE and Orsted.

Guaranteed rights to grid connection are included in the new leases, but the cost of developing and operating the infrastructure is not included.

Below are details of the auction, which will be followed by one other in August.

AUCTION DESIGN

The 7 GW electronic auction officially opened in January and bidders had until June 1 to submit offers. The winning bids for the four leases ranged from 1.56 million to 2.07 million euros per megawatt and set a record for Germany.

In previous German lease auctions, companies have made low or negative bids with the expectation of subsidies from the state. This time, some companies pledged to build projects without subsidies, triggering what the regulator Bundesnetzagentur called a "dynamic bidding process".

The auctions were hourly electronic get-togethers.

Bidders had to offer 30,000 euros minimum per MWh in the first round, with bids rising by that amount for as long as all bidders stayed on board. Once bidders dropped out in successive rounds, the bids rose in steps of 15,000 euros.

As part of a total of 8.8 GW to be auctioned this year - more than doubling Germany's existing 8.2 GW installed at the end of 2022 - the country will also tender 1.8 GW of offshore wind on pre-developed sites in August under different criteria.

USE OF THE REVENUE

Germany has a target to develop 30 GW of offshore capacity by 2030 and will use revenues from the auction to help improve transmission networks and invest in environmental projects.

Improving and developing transmission infrastructure to accommodate all the new renewable power on the grid could cost some 128 billion euros by 2025, Germany's grid companies have said.

ARE THEY VALUE FOR MONEY?

With the headline cost of the sites equating to $2 billion per GW, analysts at Bernstein said the cost was high compared with other similar tenders, such as the 2021 auctions for sites off the coast of England.

Wind industry profits have been sapped by supply chain problems, quality issues and competitive pressures.

Industry groups have said the high costs of the leases could drive up the cost of offshore wind projects.

"These costs must be passed on. Either to the supply chain which is already struggling with inflation and surging input costs. Or to the consumers who already face higher electricity prices and costs of living," industry group WindEurope said.

Danish wind developer Orsted said it exited the auction because of the costs involved. Norway's Equinor, which also participated, said it would continue to evaluate opportunities in Germany as part of its strategy of developing profitable growth in renewables.

BP said the projects aligned with its strategy of targeting returns of 6%-8% for its renewable projects and of transitioning to an integrated energy company with the possibility of using the power for its electric vehicle or hydrogen businesses.

TotalEnergies said the projects fit with plans to be a profitable player in the electricity market and said it will sell the power either directly on the market or via power purchase agreements (PPAs) made directly with end users.

($1 = 0.8945 euros)

(Reporting by Vera Eckert, Susanna Twidale, Christoph Steitz, Ron Bousso and Nora Buli; editing by Nina Chestney and Barbara Lewis)
ITS NOT A HUNT ITS A MASSACRE
78 whales killed in front of cruise ship passengers

Story by Aliza Chasan • Yesterday 

Cruise ship passengers arrived in the Faroe Islands as dozens of whales were killed as part of a traditional hunt, the cruise line confirmed Thursday.

Ambassador Cruise Line apologized to the passengers of the ship Ambition. Passengers were there as 78 pilot whales, which are techncally one of the largest members of the dolphin family, were killed in the port area on Sunday.

Hunting whales and dolphins is a common and regulated practice in the islands, which are a self-governing, semi-autonomous region of Denmark. The local government describes the pilot whale hunt, also known as "grind," as "an ancient and integral part of Faroese food culture."

"We strongly object to this outdated practice and have been working with our partner, ORCA, the marine conservation charity dedicated to studying and protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises in UK and European waters, to encourage change since 2021," a spokesperson for the cruise line said.

The killing of more than 1,400 dolphins in the region sparked outrage in 2021. At the time, the chairman of the Faroese Whalers Association told the BBC that while the number of dolphins killed was excessive, it was accidental.

"It was a big mistake," he told the BBC. "When the pod was found, they estimated it to be only 200 dolphins."

The Faroese catch an average of 600 pilot whales annually, according to government data. From 2000 to 2020, no more than 773 white-sided dolphins were caught in a single year.


Fishermen on a boat drive pilot whales towards the shore during a hunt on May 29, 2019 in Torshavn, Faroe Islands. / Credit: ANDRIJA ILIC/AFP via Getty Images© Provided by CBS News

"Whaling in the Faroe Islands is conducted in accordance with international law and globally recognized principles of sustainable development," according to the island's government website. "It is sustainable and fully regulated, with a strong emphasis on animal welfare, and a requirement today for participants to be licensed to use the mandatory methods and equipment. Whale drives only take place in bays that are officially approved for the purpose, and only schools of whales found in close proximity to land, usually within one nautical mile, are driven ashore."

Whatever is caught during the hunt is distributed to island residents for free.

Ambassador Cruise Lne said the company told "guests and crew not to buy or eat any whale or dolphin meat and stand against any profiteering from commercial whaling and dolphin hunts."

Conservationists from ORCA were on board the shp as it arrived in the Faroe Islands. According to the organization, small boats and jet skies were used to herd the pilot whales into shallow waters. The whales were hauled ashore and killed.

"It defies belief that the Faroese authorities allowed this activity to take place in clear sight of a cruise ship packed with passengers sitting in dock," ORCA CEO Sally Hamilton said. "On one hand, they promote their pristine environment and spectacular wildlife while simultaneously wielding gaff hooks and lances to kill whales and dolphins. It's almost as if they are flaunting the hunt and taunting the tourists."

Long-finned pilot whales live 35-60 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They grow to be 19-25 feet long and weigh 2,900 to 5,000 pounds. The species is threatened by whaling, entanglement in fishing gear, disease and contaminants in ocean waters, NOAA says.



The oceans are rich in critical minerals. But will miners be allowed to get them?

Story by Susan Ormiston and Carly Thomas • TODAY

Gerard Barron, the CEO and chairman of The Metals Company, pulls a fist-sized black rock out of his pocket and displays it proudly in his hand.

"Everything you need to build an EV battery cathode is in here," he says. "It's an amazing mix of metals that are just made for this time we find ourselves in."

Barron carries that rock everywhere and has finely tuned his pitch over hundreds of investor meetings as he tries to explain his vision of mining the deep seabed, which has never been done before.

The rock, technically a polymetallic nodule, is laced with high concentrations of nickel and copper, along with cobalt and manganese. Barron calls it a "battery in a rock" — another pitch line.

Registered in Canada, The Metals Company (TMC) is operationally an international mining start-up headed up by Barron, an Australian.

Dressed in a navy T-shirt and designer sneakers, Barron is in his mid-50s and gave off an air of part-prospector, part-promoter when CBC met him in late June by the ocean in Los Angeles, a pit stop in his international travels to sell deep sea mining to a wary public.



Gerard Barron, the CEO of The Metals Company, holds a piece of a polymetallic nodule laced with high concentrations of nickel and copper, along with cobalt and manganese. (Andrew Lee/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

"What we need are base metals so that we can build batteries and wind turbines and solar panels so we can move away from fossil fuels and address climate change and global warming," says Barron.

But to get them, TMC is going to vacuum the bottom of the sea in two parcels in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a 4.5-million-square-kilometre area in the Pacific Ocean partway between Mexico and Hawaii.

There are potentially big profits in the CCZ, one of the richest areas for nodules in the world's oceans.

"The reason they want to mine the deep seabed is not to protect the Earth from climate change," said Catherine Coumans, research co-ordinator at MiningWatch Canada. "They want to mine the deep sea because they want to make a profit."

This month, high-stakes international negotiations in Kingston, Jamaica, hosted by the International Seabed Authority could determine the future of deep sea mining and whether TMC can successfully pursue a permit this year to mine commercially.

Barron, who is in Kingston all month, is staring down a growing chorus of critics, including environmentalists and marine scientists who warn of irreversible damage, as well as a number of skeptical countries, including Canada, which signalled this week that it supports a "pause" on exploitation.

Massive deposits

Trillions of polymetallic nodules lie on the seafloor — "like golf balls on a driving range," says Barron. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the nodules in the CCZ could hold more critical metals than all of the world's terrestrial reserves.

While this "green rush" to the bottom has attracted about a dozen competing companies and countries, TMC is leading the charge.

Last October, the company, with its partner Allseas, lowered an 80-tonne robotic "collector" to the ocean floor in exploration trials. Fitted with tracks, the vehicle rolled along the seabed sucking up nodules and everything else in its path.

Barron insists that the impact in the ocean is reduced compared with the bulldozing and blasting that takes place in terrestrial mines. But the robotic collector vehicle stirred up sediment, creating big plumes before the nodules travelled up a 4.5-kilometre-long riser to the surface.

Allseas retrofitted a former deepwater drill ship — renaming it The Hidden Gem — to do the trials, collecting 3,200 tonnes of rock.

"This one is about four million years old," said Barron, caressing the nodule in his hand.

But this is exactly the point, said Coumans. "This is an ecosystem that took millions of years to form and it has been untouched by human activity and it will take millions of years for this ecosystem to come back."

Mining it "is so destructive and so irreversible," she said.

Surging demand

But it's clear that to meet decarbonization goals, the world will need more critical minerals.

Josipa Petrunic, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium, said electric vehicles are "growing rapidly in Canada and globally."

The International Energy Agency estimates the world will need 19 times more nickel by 2040 to meet its decarbonization targets. Indonesia, the world's biggest nickel supplier, is bulldozing rainforests to expand mines.

"It is essentially like a gold rush — the exploration of the unknown without a lot of regulatory oversight right now, with the potential for billions and billions of dollars in profit," said Petrunic.



An increase in domestic electric vehicle production has been a priority for the Canadian government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen at an announcement on a Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas, Ont., in April 2023.
 (The Canadian Press/Tara Walton)© Provided by cbc.ca

But some marine scientists are climbing onboard an international campaign to stop the moves toward commercial mining.

More than 700 marine scientists and policy experts signed an open letter in 2021 stating "we strongly recommend that the transition to the exploitation of mineral resources be paused."

Last month, the European Academies' Science Advisory Council echoed the warning: We should pause to reflect instead of rushing to an early decision that will later be regretted," wrote Peter Haugan, policy director at the Institute for Marine Research in Bergen, Norway.

A habitat for unique sea creatures

Earlier this year, Diva Amon, a marine biologist from Trinidad and Tobago wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled, "A rush to mine the deep sea is underway. It must be stopped."

"For me, using deep sea mining to help fight the climate crisis is like smoking to lower stress," Amon told CBC News during a visit to Vancouver.

Contrary to the image of the deep sea as dark and lifeless, she says it is actually full of creatures who survive without light and at low oxygen levels.


Diva Amon, a deep sea marine biologist from Trinidad and Tobago, says the deep sea is full of creatures who survive without light and at low oxygen levels. (JAMSTEC/UH/TMC)© Provided by cbc.ca

"It looks like something from a Dr. Seuss novel — just this weird, wonderful, colourful but still just incredibly amazing life."

In May, scientists at the Natural History Museum in London released a database of new species discovered in the CCZ, including 5,000 that had never before been formally identified, like a mauve-coloired creature nicknamed "gummy squirrel."

In a statement, museum researcher Adrian Glover said, "It is imperative that we work with the companies looking to mine these resources to ensure any such activity is done in a way that limits its impact upon the natural world."

Amon argues mining is "short-term action that will cause long-term damage" to oceans, "which are critical for absorbing heat and sequestering carbon and storing it away for millions of years."

Not all countries on board

Barron admits he's not "feelin' the love" from his many critics. But he and The Metals Company also dispute many of the "desktop predictions" being fired his way.

He says TMC has spent $150 million US so far on scientific research and assessing the environmental impact. In fact, about 80 scientists and researchers went out on the exploration trials in the Pacific last year.


Diva Amon, a deep sea marine biologist from Trinidad and Tobago, said mining the deep seas to help fight the climate crisis 'is like smoking to lower stress.'
 (Martin Diotte/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

The company says the sediment plumes will not travel as far or as high in the water column, as claimed, and the noise from the mining is mostly at the surface.

He's called the opposition "noise," and claims "the debate over deep sea mining is over, done."

That point is hyperbole, if the talks in Jamaica this month are any indication. The politics are thick at meetings of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which grew out of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Created in 1994, the ISA regulates activities in international waters, guided by its 167 member nations, plus the European Union.

The ISA has been trying to come up with regulations — a mining code — but it's come up against a deadline, what's called the "two-year rule."

TMC partnered with the tiny island country of Nauru, which triggered the rule in 2021. The deadline passed last Sunday, meaning the ISA is obligated to consider applications for commercial mining.

Barron says his company will apply near the end of this year. But with mining regulations still not in place, a growing number of countries and observers are firmly opposed to fast-tracking permits.

Canada taking wait-and-see approach

On Monday, Canada announced it supported an interim moratorium on deep sea mining, essentially signalling it would not agree to mining regulations until it had seen more science on how to do it with the least impact on the environment.


Greenpeace protesters demonstrate against deep sea mining near a ship operated by Allseas called The Hidden Gem. 
(Gustavo Graf/Greenpeace)© Provided by cbc.ca

Canadian Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, along with the ministers of Fisheries and Oceans and Global Affairs Canada, released a statement clarifying their position.

"We recognize the importance of marine ecosystems as a climate regulator, and will continue to take and advocate for a precautionary approach to development."

In an interview with CBC News, Wilkinson said "it's not 'no' forever," but that there's a lot more science that needs to be done.

"It may well be that after we accumulate the science, that we actually make a decision that this can be done in a certain way, perhaps in certain places, but I'm not going to prejudge that," he said.



Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson has said that more science needs to be done to ensure the safety of seabed mining on marine ecosystems. 
(Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Environmental groups who've been advocating for more countries to sign onto a moratorium applauded Canada's stance.

We definitely see it as a small win and a step in the right direction," said Sarah King, head of Greenpeace Canada's Oceans and Plastics campaign. "Every country that voices opposition to this industry sends a signal that it's unacceptable that we allow a destructive industry to proceed."

Petrunic said mining is inherently "dirty" no matter where it occurs.

"There's no pretty picture to mining, whether it's under the water or above ground. And our question to ourselves, as Canadians and internationally, is how much destruction are we willing to accept in the interest of decarbonizing?"

Gerard Barron remains undeterred. When asked what will happen if the ISA decides to pause or block his company's application for commercial mining, he waved it away.

"I rate that as 0.1 of one percent chance," he says, the final point in his pitch.
ONTARIO

Kincardine council says people in this area ‘get it’ about nuclear


Story by The Canadian Press


KINCARDINE – Kincardine council met the evening of July 5, hours after the announcement that the province is beginning the planning and consultation process for what the council is already referring to as “Bruce C.”

Kincardine Mayor Kenneth Craig raised a number of points, saying pre-development work will take five to seven to 10 years before there’s a shovel in the ground. However, “the consultations will start soon,” he said.

He drew council’s attention to a county meeting in September on municipalities inventorying land that would be suitable for housing. “The importance of that has just skyrocketed,” Craig said.

He noted that when construction does begin, there’ll be an additional 3,000 employees in the area. He spoke of the need to find a middle ground between remaining a beachfront community, and undergoing quick, unplanned growth. “Progressive, fruitful development – this is the direction we want development to go,” he said.

Coun. Bill Stewart raised the matter of the water agreement the municipality and Bruce Power are working on. The agreement would see Kincardine supply drinking water; Bruce Power would continue with its own supply of water for use in the production of nuclear energy.

Stewart said the announcement raises the question of how much water the municipality will be asked to supply, and whether it will be possible without adding major infrastructure. “Part of the discussion will have to be with this in mind,” he said.

Coun. Mike Hinchberger said the announcement was “a pleasant surprise – 4,800 megawatts – that’s Bruce C and then some!”

Coun. Doug Kennedy was openly pleased with the news. “We deserve this,” he said. He referred to the area’s acceptance of and support for nuclear power. “People around here get it!”

Pauline Kerr, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Walkerton Herald Times