Review: The Pink Floyd Exhibition is a Must-See For Every Music Fan

POSTED BY AESTHETIC MAGAZINE ⋅ JULY 8, 2023 ⋅
By: Curtis Sindrey –


What is there left to say about Pink Floyd? A lot apparently with the opening of a new exhibition that extensively details every era of the iconic psych-rock band’s multi-decade career that produced some of the most beloved rock music of all-time including the now legendary albums Wish You Were Here, The Wall, and Dark Side of the Moon.

As soon as you put on the complimentary headphones, and you walk into the exhibition, it’s more than overwhelming to take everything in. The exhibition, which opened on June 16th, features over 350 objects from throughout Pink Floyd’s existence, from concert posters, to original instruments, to stage props, and everything in between.

Starting in the mid-1960’s, you quickly get introduced to the band’s initial lineup featuring troubled frontman Syd Barrett, who struggled with mental health issues throughout his tenure with the band. During this time, the band developed a strong appreciation for blues legends like Blind Boy Fuller, along with Pink Anderson, and Floyd Council, the band’s namesakes.

As Pink Floyd dived deeper into the 1960’s, so did their level of experimentation and their embrace of everything psychedelia. By the release of their 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the group had already been heavily experimenting with projectors and light/sound manipulation to give the audience an elevated experience. And by their 1970’s creative peak and beyond, it was so enlightening to see the band’s sonic evolution in terms of the on-stage visual effects they once used, to the wide assortment of guitars, basses, drums, synths, and other instruments that came to define the Pink Floyd sound.

One of the most interesting aspects of the exhibition was the complete visual history of the band. Brought to life in part by designer duo Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, the exhibition includes many concert posters, album designs, and more, that take you into the creative brainstorm of some of Pink Floyd’s most iconic album covers. It was especially fascinating to see the creative process behind a pair of my favourite album covers of Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. The WYWH section goes into great detail about the making of the inner sleeve artwork (spoiler: the “wave-less” effect was made with the model doing a handstand while wearing a scuba mask underwater). The exhibition also shows the design process behind the iconic WYWH album cover that depicts too men shaking hands with one of the men on fire.

Overall, this new Pink Floyd exhibition is a must-see for not only Pink Floyd fans but for fans of that beloved era of music. There are so many pieces of memorabilia, instruments, etc, that you almost need to walk through twice just to take everything in. The exhibition is a touching, informative, entertaining, and exhaustive examination of a band’s influence that goes beyond music and extends almost into the cosmos.

 

How rare footage of Pink Floyd concert dubbed 'the Woodstock of Hamilton' made it to the big screen

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An estimated 52,000 people attended the 1975 show. 

Cara Nickerson · CBC News · Posted: Jul 08, 2023 

Over 50,000 fans showed up to watch Pink Floyd play at Ivor Wynne Stadium in 1975. (Submitted by Jacob Tutt)

Nowadays it's hard to imagine being Jim 'Speedy' Kelly, the lone man with a camera in a crowd of 52,000 fans at the 1975 Pink Floyd show at Hamilton's Ivor Wynne Stadium. 

Speedy's footage gives a glimpse into an almost-forgotten moment in Hamilton history.

More than 50,000 hippies made a pilgrimage to the heart of Hamilton to see the psychedelic British band. 

"When the gates got torn down, thousands of people poured in there," said Rob Gronfors, who went to the concert when he was around 12 with his older brother. 

A prolific concert videographer, Speedy caught bands like Rush, Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper on Super 8 film.

• COMMOTION
  What we can learn about our favourite '70s bands from Speedy Films

When Speedy died in 2021, he left all of his films to Gronfors, his good friend — including the Pink Floyd concert at Ivor Wynne Stadium.

Pink Floyd on stage at Ivor Wynne Stadium in 1975. (Submitted by Jacob Tutt)

Gronfors said the original Super 8 film was grainy, but he was approached by a few people who said they could restore the footage into 4K quality, with the help of artificial intelligence.

The rare footage of the Hamilton Pink Floyd concert is part of a double bill alongside Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii at Playhouse Cinema, playing Saturday evening and then again on Aug. 2. 

"Pink Floyd never recorded anything in 1975. It's just not out there on any YouTube channels or anything," Gronfors said.

The Ivor Wynne show was "like the Woodstock of Hamilton," said Jacob Tutt, manager of Playhouse Cinema. 

Tutt said footage of Pink Floyd was so rare in the 70s that most fans likely wouldn't have recognized the band members. 

"Through the 70s and 80s, there's very little concert footage that's out there to see of Pink Floyd playing," he said. 

Fans just outside Ivor Wynne Stadium in 1975, where Pink Floyd played for 50,000 people. (Submitted by Jacob Tutt)

Photos from the concert show the toll the 52,000 fans took on the quiet neighbourhoods surrounding the stadium. 

Gronfors described the scene to CBC's Commotion earlier this week.

"The stadium was right in the middle of a wartime-houses subdivision," he said.

"They had the nice porches with the pillars and little tiny front yards to the street. Well, everybody's front yard was just full of all these... hippies, I'll say, passing joints around, drinking—just enjoying the day and having fun." 

"It was the first major concert event that happened at Ivor Wynne Stadium," Tutt said.

The promoter who booked Pink Floyd, Tutt said, had a number of other major acts set to play at stadium. But the Pink Floyd concert "set a precedent" against large concerts in the city for decades.

"There were never any concerts or major musical acts that played at Ivor Wynne Stadium until I think 2012, when The Tragically Hip played," he said. 

The size of the crowd at the Pink Floyd concert in 1975 set a precedent for not hosting big performers at the stadium for the next 40 years. (Submitted by Jacob Tutt)

Gronfors said the show itself "made history." 

It was the last North American date of the 'Wish You Were Here' Tour, he said, and the band didn't want to bring any leftover fireworks back to England. 

"They decided to blow them all off. Let's have a huge send off and and unfortunately some of them hit the scoreboard and wrecked the Hamilton Tiger Cats scoreboard," he said. 

The neighbourhood around Ivor Wynne Stadium was overwhelmed by the crowds that came out for the 1975 Pink Floyd concert. (Submitted by Jacob Tutt)

Gronfors posts the restored footage shot by Speedy on the YouTube channel he created last year, where you can also see clips and hear audio from Van Halen, Alice Cooper, Rush, Cheap Trick and others from the 1970s. Gronfors, who goes by the name Dolph on the channel, also tells the stories of some of the shows.

But while the channel lets people watch the concerts at home, Gronfors said he knows Speedy would be happy his videos are being screened at a theatre. 

"He would be ecstatic. He would be so happy. It makes my heart boom. You know, I'm a spiritual person, so Speedy is definitely there through my eyes. He's definitely going, 'Way to go, Dolph. Way to go.'" 

Rob Gronfors went to the Pink Floyd concert at Ivor Wynne Stadium in 1975 when he was around 12 years old. (Submitted by Jacob Tutt)

Toyota's Next-Gen BEVs: This Is What We Know

BY HENRY KELSALL

PUBLISHED JUL 7, 2023

Toyota is set to commit and invest more into BEVs, having been reluctant to do so due to fears that the world isn't ready to go all-electric.

While many automotive manufacturers are embracing the electric era and moving towards battery electric vehicles (BEVs), Toyota is not. The Japanese manufacturer is keeping its cards close to its chest regarding electric vehicles and has recently said it doesn’t believe the world is ready for mass adoption of EVs.

Despite that, as reported by The Guardian, it is pushing on with the development of electric cars knowing one day it will have to adopt them. Plus, it looks like it is set to launch its own, dedicated EV platform.

This platform firmly has Tesla in its sights as it looks to dethrone the long-time kings of the EV world. It is planning on introducing 10 new vehicles over the next few years and hopes that by 2026, annual sales of its EVs will surpass the 1.5 million mark.

The push for more EVs comes after a change at the top of Toyota. The grandson of its founder, Akio Toyoda, stepped down from the CEO role of the company earlier in 2023. He was then replaced by Koji Sato, who was widely expected to turn things around.

That is set to happen and while he is keeping the manufacturer's current hybrid strategy, Sato has indicated that EV development will accelerate. A new vision for the company was revealed a couple of months ago, which included boosting EV productivity as well as profitability.

This includes the introduction of 10 new BEVs, and the introduction of a completely new BEV platform, designed exclusively for those new models set to launch in 2026. A staggering $7.5 billion is to get invested into EV development and production at Toyota by the end of 2030.

The hope is that its dedicated EV platform will double the range of future models, thanks to more efficient batteries. Toyota also revealed it is to introduce a new in-house BEV development center, the “BEV Factory” which will help accelerate the development of their EVs. In addition, Toyota is hoping to enhance the manufacturing process of BEVs to reduce costs.

The first of these next-generation EVs is set to launch in 2026 and will take advantage of the new platform. Initial rumors point towards this model being a sporty and sleek-looking vehicle, based on images Toyota released earlier in the year.

Highlighting that cost-cutting, Toyota is set to introduce single-piece front and rear castings for its EVs. This could reduce the number of parts required from 86 to just one, and massively streamline the manufacturing process. The investment Toyota is putting in will certainly become enough to worry the likes of Tesla.

While it is developing its next generation of EVs, Toyota has also claimed to have made a huge technological breakthrough, one that will lead to a solid-state battery that is capable of delivering a range of up to 745 miles.

Not only that, but the new battery will go from 0 to 100 percent charge in just 10 minutes. That would be a groundbreaking achievement by the Japanese manufacturer, and a bonus would be Toyota managing to simplify the production of the material used in batteries

This applies to both solid-state and liquid-based batteries, allowing Toyota to save on weight by almost half, as well as reduce the size by a similar margin and the cost of the packs. Weight is a huge problem for BEVs, often weighing more than their ICE counterparts.

So Toyota’s efforts to bring that down are very welcome. Solid-state batteries in particular could become the future of EVs, as they are now seen as safer and more reliable than lithium-ion cells. But they are more expensive to manufacture and Toyota thinks it could simplify the process and bring costs down.
via Toyota

As part of this plan, Toyota’s BEVs may become even more versatile. It has an ambitious plan to launch EVs with a range of over 600 miles by 2026, on its new platform, and with a range of around 900 miles by 2028.

In 2026-27, Toyota is hoping to launch a bipolar lithium iron phosphate battery that could bring costs down by as much as 40 percent compared to the previous iteration. A more advanced bipolar lithium iron battery is set for introduction in 2027-28, as part of that push for 900 miles of range.

Toyota’s BEV Plans Are Undergoing A Major Refresh

This push for more advanced and cheaper batteries should help Toyota achieve the annual production figures it is hoping for with its EVs. It marks a massive change in philosophy from a company that has previously been quite reluctant to pick up the pace in the electric vehicle race.

Environmentalists and shareholders have launched criticism at Toyota over the last 12 months due to it dragging its feet somewhat over the electrification of its lineup, but this is a big statement of intent from the manufacturer.

However, the reasons behind its initial reluctance are sound enough. Toyota believed that the world as a whole isn’t ready for widespread EV adoption, due to the major problems in charging infrastructure.

Then there are the cost problems highlighted here, and just how long it takes an EV to become green. The company has also heavily invested in hydrogen technology, with the Mirai proving that hydrogen cars can work in the real world. So in some ways, Toyota’s hand has been rather forced into the EV world, but it is certainly committing in a big way.

Toyota Had To Commit To A Future With BEVs

The Japanese manufacturer didn't have much choice but to fully put its recourses into EVs at some point. It has badly lagged behind many rivals, much like fellow Japanese manufacturer Honda. But it's going one step further and taking a page from Tesla’s playbook and creating its own, fully dedicated EV platform. The fact it is already looking to improve manufacturing efficiency before even building its next-generation EVs shows just how committed Toyota now is to the segment.

It is seeing a slight uptick in its sales in China with regard to its current BEVs. But it still got a way to go before it is globally among the big players like Tesla, Hyundai, and others. Perhaps committing to a 2026 release of the next-gen EVs is too much, with so many more models set to launch from rival manufacturers before then.

But with the financial might and technical know-how that Toyota has, do not be at all surprised if Toyota does come good, sooner rather than later. We know exactly how strong Toyota is as a manufacturer and only time will tell if they can apply that same success to this segment.

Sources: Toyota, The Guardian

Toyota’s newest breakthrough could be the ‘kiss of death’ for gas-powered cars — and could hit the market as early as 2027



Mary Swansburg
July 9, 2023·

Toyota has announced exciting advancements in batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), which are pointing to longer battery life by as early as 2026. The breakthrough occurred on two fronts: increased optimization of lithium-ion batteries and advancements in solid-state batteries for EVs.

Findings for lithium-ion batteries will result in increased battery life and shorter charging time, common concerns among prospective EV buyers. Current EVs allow for approximately 330 miles on one charge, while the updated battery could handle up to 621 miles.

Solid-state batteries would take that even further, allowing for approximately 745 miles on one charge. Created for items like pacemakers and smartwatches, they are similar in structure to lithium-ion batteries but historically have not been durable enough to support EVs.

Toyota’s new breakthrough could put EVs with solid-state batteries on the market by 2027, and they have mentioned zeroing in on a more affordable manufacturing process — leaning more on automated processing than human labor on an assembly line.

Best of all, EVs provide a long list of user benefits.

Currently, it costs about half as much to power an electric car than it does a gasoline-powered vehicle. Public charging costs are expensed by the minute — meaning that with the breakthroughs in battery life, owning an EV will become even more affordable.

On top of that, there are federal and local monetary incentives depending on where you live, and EVs require less maintenance overall.

EVs also leave a much smaller impact on the environment. Just one electric car on the road can save 1.6 tons of pollution annually, while gas-powered vehicles produce, on average, over 10,000 pounds of harmful gases per year.

In a recent Reuters article, solid-state batteries were called “the kiss of death” for gasoline-powered cars — speaking to just how convenient and wallet-friendly this new batch of EVs may be.

Toyota Plans To Share EV Technology With Mazda, Subaru And Other Japanese Carmakers

JUL. 07, 2023 

BY REX SANCHEZ ELECTRIC VEHICLES / 

The Japanese alliance produces over 16 million cars a year.


Following the unveiling of its next-generation electric vehicle (EV) technologies, Toyota Motor Corporation now has strong momentum heading into a (possible) EV-only future. In a recent announcement, the Japanese automaker revealed that it could share the new EV technologies with local partners to bolster its presence in the electric car market.

Automotive News reports that automakers like Subaru, Mazda, Suzuki, Daihatsu, Hino, and Isuzu may receive Toyota's in-development EV tech. Together, the alliance, formed through cross-shareholdings, has posted global sales of 16.3 million units.

Toyota's next-gen EV tech promises to deliver a cruising range of 930 miles (1,500 km) using solid-state batteries, almost twice what long-range all-electric cars offer today. It looks to add over 600 miles in 10 minutes of charging.

Toyota's only active EV, the bZ4X, currently has around 250 miles of range. The bZ4X's twin, the Subaru Solterra, offers around 228 miles of cruise range. Both EVs are available in the US market, as is their more premium counterpart, the Lexus RZ 450e, which has an infamous 220 miles of EV range.

Considering the significant improvements in EV capabilities, Toyota's partners should benefit big time, allowing them to make a mark in their respective markets. In the US, Tesla is still the top dog in the electric car market thanks to its volume-sellers, the Model Y and Model 3.

Of note, Toyota's next-gen EV technologies are scheduled to arrive in 2026.

Production is another key factor Toyota is looking at to bring its ambitious plans to fruition. New techniques are being considered, such as giga casting and its proposed self-propelled production, in which cars drive themselves through assembly plants. It is said to reduce reliance on human labor, but it just might help Japan's labor shortage as the population ages and shrinks.

"Those technologies should not be applied only to battery electric vehicles," said BEV Factory President Takero Kato. "It's about increasing our quality and flexibility. We will be able to streamline all our manufacturing and production activities through this activity."

Here's How Mazda And Subaru Could Benefit From Toyota's New Solid-State Battery Technology

BYNOAH STAATS

PUBLISHED JUL 7, 2023

Toyota is gearing up for one of the most groundbreaking EV developments in history: here's how it may also affect brands like Mazda and Subaru.

Side profile graphic of a battery design EV

As the automotive industry races to develop electric battery-powered cars, carmakers are constantly vying for technological advancements that will give them a competitive edge. Toyota, the Japanese car group, recently announced its plans to produce "solid-state" batteries as early as 2027, unveiling ambitions to revolutionize its electric vehicle power units. This breakthrough technology addresses the shortcomings of current liquid lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, such as their heavy weight, slow charging times, and safety concerns.

Solid-state battery technology, which utilizes a solid electrolyte, offers promising solutions to these challenges. With the ability to hold more power, solid-state batteries can be made smaller without sacrificing range. They also enable rapid charging without overheating, resulting in safer and more efficient electric vehicles. Toyota envisions its electric cars powered by solid-state batteries to have a range of 1,200 km (746 miles) and a charging time of 10 minutes or less, surpassing the capabilities of current EVs. While the technology is still in its early phases despite years of global investment, Toyota remains confident in its ability to commercialize solid-state batteries by 2027.

Here's how Toyota's advancements in solid-state battery technology could benefit its partner automakers, Mazda and Subaru. Additionally, we will examine the potential implications of these developments for the broader EV market as competition intensifies in the race to bring solid-state batteries to market.

RELATED:Toyota's Solid-State Batteries Will Offer Over 900 Miles On A Single Charge

Toyota Introducing Solid-State Batteries To Its EV Fleet Will Change The Industry

With the EV market rapidly advancing, major brands like Toyota are making gains (in very big ways). Recently, the company announced that it plans to develop and introduce solid-state batteries into its electric vehicles in the next few years, promising things like safer, better driving. Notably, several Toyota executives spoke at a recent event, mentioning that the automaker would be significantly improving how its electric vehicle fleet is made and consumed.

Here are some key points mentioned:Manufacturing upgrades to reduce costs
Hypersonic tech to enhance aerodynamics
EV battery tech, including solid-state batteries
Fundamental changes to improve EV product appeal

What makes the idea of Toyota mass-producing solid-state EV batteries is not only are they safe, but they will dramatically increase the driving range of electric vehicles sold by Toyota. On top of that, the carmaker claims that with this new and improved solid-state technology, Toyota EVs could drive 900+ miles per single charge, revolutionizing the industry. When one brand takes a leap of faith, others will soon follow. We could see electric cars charging in 10 minutes and driving for weeks on end soon. This is all thanks to solid-state batteries.

One of the major benefits of solid-state batteries is that they are lightweight and don't have the same toxic and flammable qualities as currently-used lithium-ion batteries. That, paired with their ability to charge at the speed of light, makes them a contender to be the new "normal" for EVs.

Toyota's New Solid-State Batteries Could Offer Up Over 900 Miles Of Range

Shot of an engineer holding Solid State Batteries

Toyota initially pioneered the solid-state battery revolution back in 2012. Fast-forward eleven years later, and the company is still working on solid batteries, with new developments being announced sporadically. In 2020, the company unveiled the world's first EV to run on solid-state batteries and promised to display a production prototype by 2021, but it never did. The lengthy process has pushed many consumers to wonder if we’ll ever see the touted technology at a commercial level. Yet, the company assures us that its clientele will soon have access to a hybrid car featuring solid-state batteries by 2025, through joint efforts with Panasonic, which also happens to be Tesla’s battery supplier. Toyota made the dangling carrot even more appetizing when it recently announced a new breakthrough. The latest milestone in Toyota’s solid-state battery research is expected to increase range by 20 percent, and has the potential to deliver a ten-minute quick charge.

Toyota’s bZ4x is its only fully electric vehicle at the moment, and can run for 252 miles on a single charge as per the EPA ratings. The increase could thus help the fully-electric SUV reach 458 miles CLTC. Toyota claims it has already sped up the development process with hopes of achieving mass-production by 2027 to 2028. The Japanese manufacturer also claims it has also been toiling away on a performance-oriented solid-battery technology that promises to up cruising range by 50 percent, which would consequently amount to over 900 miles on a full charge.

What Toyota’s New Solid-State Battery Means For Hydrogen

BYNACIM OURABAH

PUBLISHED JUN 24, 2023

Toyota seems finally ready to embrace the EV industry, with groundbreaking technology and $850 million in subsidies at its disposal.

Will Toyota finally concede to follow the EV revolution instead of going its own way? The more time passes, the more it seems like it. Under its new management, the Japanese company appears to be more oriented toward the electric model than it was under Akio Toyoda’s reign as CEO. We’ve recently heard encouraging news regarding the production of an upcoming electric Toyota GR Sports. The prominent automaker is now set to reach the next level, with the announcement of $850 million in subsidies from the Japanese government. Toyota claims it will use the money to develop its bipolar lithium iron phosphate battery, a variation of lithium-ion technology that is expected to improve range by 20 percent when it eventually enters the market in 2027. Another chunk of that amount will also be used to enhance solid-state battery development. Toyota has been pioneering solid-state battery technology for over a decade, and is set to incorporate them in a hybrid vehicle by 2025.

The company also plans to propel solid-state batteries into mainstream use by 2030. Now, here’s where things get trickier. Instead of taking a clear, forward path like Volvo, Volkswagen, and General Motors, which all plan to fully electrify their fleet in the future, Toyota’s EV manufacturing will only account for 12 percent of its production in 2030. To make its route even more labyrinthine, the Asian automaker is still clinging to hydrogen vehicles, which have already been disregarded by most of the industry.

LOTS MORE TO READ HERE

Here's How Mazda And Subaru Could Benefit From Toyota's New Solid-State Battery Technology (topspeed.com)

Are best-before dates on food necessary? Some food charities say it’s time to reevaluate

By Andrew Benson Global News
Updated July 12, 2023

A "best before" date is shown on a food container in Toronto, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. A report from a House committee is recommending the government take another look at its rules around best before dates in an effort to cut down on food waste. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini. GAC

best-before dates on their favourite foods.


And now, there is a call on the government to reevaluate whether best-before dates on foods are even necessary.

John Bailey, the CEO of the Regina Food Bank, said best-before dates are often intertwined with expiry dates, but the two are very different.

“The idea of a best-before date is about peak freshness and quality control,” Bailey explained. “(With) expiry dates, once it is surpassed, you start to run into potential issues with contamination and the food not being healthy.

Bailey said with best-before dates, depending on the food, there is a large grace period when foods are actually okay to eat.

“Anywhere from a few weeks to several months to even a year or so beyond is when you can still sort of safely … enjoy the food that is past the best-before date.”

For items such as dairy, produce and meat, however, the food can quickly go downhill after the best-before date. Bailey said the safest way to check is to smell the food rather than taste-testing it.

Second Harvest, a Food Rescue Charity in Canada, is raising the alarm on the misconception between best-before dates and expiry dates.

They say the issue is leading to unnecessary food waste and food insecurity. And now, they are calling on the federal government to address it.

“People are throwing food away and people are struggling to put food on their tables, but people are still throwing it away because they think it’s a food safety issue and it’s simply not,” Lori Nikkel, Second Harvest CEO said when discussing best-before dates.

Nikkel said the issue isn’t only happening at a household level, but at all levels of the production train.

“It’s across the supply chain and it is trailer loads of food being dumped because of an arbitrary best-before date,” she said.

With rising inflation, Bailey said more people than ever are turning to food banks, so any changes to the best before dates is a win for them.

“We live in a country that produces more than enough food for every citizen, yet we have seven or eight million people who are facing food insecurity on a daily basis,” Bailey said. “Anything we can do to sort of eliminate waste and get good quality food into people’s hands is bound to be helpful.”

Nikkel said Second Harvest isn’t calling for the removal of best-before dates, but rather a re-examination of what foods require them — something she argues should only be said of a handful of foods, including those that expire.

“We’re asking the government to investigate this,” Nikkel said. “Nobody is advocating for people to eat bad foods. What we would like to do is remove best-before dates on foods that don’t require it.”

She says her Zoom layoff was short and cruel. Why virtual layoffs still lack etiquette

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Experts say virtual layoffs are part of remote work, but the 

process remains inelegant

Paul Hantiuk · CBC Radio · Posted: Jul 08, 2023 2:00 AM MDT | Last Updated: July 8

Terry Compton says that she spent almost two hours of her time in interviews to get her job with a university ESL program and had hoped her employer would give her at least 10 minutes of theirs when laying her off over Zoom. (Terry Compton)

Terry Compton's 24 years at a Toronto university's English-as-a-second-language program ended with a four-minute Zoom call in March 2020.

She said her director's camera was off and a "second-in-command" informed her and her colleagues that they had been permanently laid off because of the impact of COVID-19.

"It felt inhuman and cruel," she told Cross Country Checkup.

Compton said the chat function in the meeting was off and no followup questions were allowed.

Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University’s master of public policy in digital society program, isn’t sure digital communication will ever rival the physical version for cues and body language but does note technology is changing layoff scenarios on a number of fronts. (Georgia Kirkos/McMaster University)

"To add insult to injury, the next day we all received emails inviting us to the yearly instructor appreciation party. I guess the other departments hadn't been told that we were leaving."

Vass Bednar, the executive director of McMaster University's master of public policy in digital society program, said the etiquette of virtual layoffs is evolving. "We don't have norms yet," Bednar said. "And this is a good opportunity to set them."

While some employers are calling for employees to return to offices following the pandemic, recent research from the U.S. nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research indicates job postings for new employees in Canada mentioning one or more days of remote work increased "by a factor of five or more" between 2019 and 2023.

• ANALYSIS
  Tech layoffs mount — but skilled workers are still hard to find

Most Canadians who have tried remote work want it to remain an option. A survey published last year by the Environics Institute for Survey Research noted the proportion of respondents who preferred working from home to the office increased between 2020 and 2022. 

But career coach Sarah Vermunt said it's important to keep in mind "if you're working fully remotely — if you're getting hired via Zoom — you're going to get fired via Zoom."

Offboard like you onboard

Stories of mass virtual layoffs like Compton's became notorious during the pandemic, especially in 2021, after Better.com CEO Vishal Garg laid off hundreds of employees in a Zoom webinar.

Vermunt said Garg erred by delivering the news in a way that focused on how it impacted him rather than its impact on employees. 

Career coach Sarah Vermunt says some companies who have made headlines with their remote layoffs erred by not delivering the news in a way that focused on the personal impacts to the employees. (Anushila Shaw)

Another example in 2022 saw reports of online used car retailer Carvana disconnecting employees from work apps like Slack before sending out an invitation to a Zoom meeting where workers got confirmation if their job had been cut.

"I think the reason why people are having such a hard time with it right now and there's been so many reports of negative incidents is because people, for the most part, don't know how to do it with kindness and humanity yet," Vermunt said of online layoffs. 

"It's still a bit clunky."

Bednar believes companies should take seriously how they terminate people in a virtual world.

"If you're hired online, you're not hired in a way that's highly automated with a prerecorded video or, you know, someone is interviewing you and they have their camera off." That same level of basic decency should be applied to layoffs, she added. 

Reflecting on her experience, Compton agrees.

"I gave them almost two hours of my time to get the job. So I don't think it's asking too much to, say, give us each even 10 minutes."

Bednar wonders if a bad reputation for how virtual layoffs are handled could impact a firm's recruitment efforts.

The norms of laying off remote workers through virtual communication platforms like Zoom are still a work in progress, according to experts, but there are several ways to improve a process some say can be 'inhuman.' (Amnaj Khetsamtip/Shutterstock)

"I almost wonder if people might start asking in their initial job interviews, 'In the event of a mass layoff … how is this firm prepared to proceed? What should I expect?'"

She also thinks there needs to be more procedures and planning when firing remote workers, such as clear rules for handling company devices through which the layoff news may be communicated.

"I think firms should be looking at those tools as kind of essentially a write off. And that's part of why you have to think about offboarding ahead of time, because you also want [a plan] from [a] cybersecurity and a privacy perspective if someone's keeping the hardware."

How to communicate the news

Vermunt understands the underlying logic of why companies might risk bad press to maintain a barrier when mass layoffs transpire.

"It's a way to try to control the situation … let's say you're laying off a group of ten or 20 or 50 or 100 people, you don't necessarily want everybody's mics on."

There are ways to stress an interpersonal connection when communicating remotely. Certain things, like signal delays making people seem less friendly are difficult to control, but many people fall into the trap of looking at themselves while speaking on a Zoom call.

Vermunt tells clients to make sure to look into the camera on their computer to establish eye contact.

WATCH | What it's like to be fired over Zoom: 

Joanne Gallop was let go from Canopy Growth through a mass layoff of 200 employees — via the video chat platform Zoom. Illustrations by Chelle Lorenzen.

In a mass layoff scenario, she said one-on-one follow ups are an important gesture. That's something Compton echoes reflecting on her experience.

"I think just a little one-on-one humanity could have made the whole thing a lot better."

Bednar isn't sure digital communication will ever rival the physical version for cues and body language but does think technology is changing layoff scenarios on a number of fronts.

In the recent past, she said business leaders were more insulated, but they may need to be more mindful of how to conduct layoffs because "suddenly your CEO is being tagged on Twitter or chirped on LinkedIn."

• You've heard of quiet quitting. Here's how to tell if you're being quietly fired

• Companies embraced technology to work remotely during the pandemic — now they're using it for layoffs

Even if they're not delivering the news themselves, being on a Zoom call during a layoff potentially puts executives in the midst of the real-time response more than in the past when word was handled by middle management.

Bednar also said to keep in mind there's always new tech emerging in virtual communication, such as virtual reality headsets.

"Maybe we have a kind of a new augmented reality that's going to smooth or soften these interactions by getting closer to feeling like we're having a more kind of authentic human connection."

Sex worker wins in Nova Scotia court, but ruling leaves sex industry conflicted

By The Staff The Canadian Press
Posted July 9, 2023 

Emma Halpern, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, says clients refusing to pay or underpaying is one of the greatest challenges faced by sex workers. 

. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan. AV

In a legal decision described as the first of its kind in Canada, a Halifax sex worker successfully sued a client for nonpayment of services, but actors in the industry are conflicted about the ruling’s impacts.


Former sex worker Brogan Sheehan took Bradley Samuelson to small claims court after he didn’t fully pay her fee, which both parties had agreed to beforehand. Samuelson argued that the agreement was invalid because it is illegal to purchase sexual services, but court adjudicator Darrel Pink said the contract could still be enforced and awarded Sheehan $1,800.

Sex work remains criminalized in Canada, but a 2014 law removed criminal penalties for people, like Sheehan, who sell sexual services. Paying for sex, however, remains illegal.

Sheehan’s lawyer, Jessica Rose, says she and her client wanted to expose the court to the “economic realities of doing sex work.” As well, Rose said they wanted to raise awareness about “what is needed as far as access to the civil justice system to ensure sex workers are treated fairly by their clients.”

“This type of issue had never been addressed before in court,” Rose said in a recent interview.

Emma Halpern, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, says the decision empowers sex workers to seek legal remedies to enforce their contracts.

The decision also reflects a changing attitude within society and the law toward sex work, Halpern said. The public is beginning to understand the difference between “extremely harmful, predatory things like sex trafficking, and legitimate sex work by an adult who is a worker, pays taxes, has a business.”

As a response to the ruling, Halpern and Sheehan said they planned to hold workshops for sex workers to help them understand their legal rights.

But not everyone in the sex industry sees the court’s decision as a step forward. Real change will occur once politicians decriminalize sex work, said Sandra Wesley, executive director of Stella, a Montreal-based organization by and for sex workers.

The vast majority of sex workers, she said, won’t seek financial recourse via the court system because sex work is still criminalized in Canada. Going to court exposes a sex worker, and potentially everyone else she is associated with, to the justice system, Wesley said.

“Even if there’s a chance she can win, there’s always a risk of workplaces being shut down, police being alerted to the activity, being evicted, deported,” she said. “There are many consequences of being criminalized, even if we win in court.”

Wesley says the small claims court decision actually goes against the 2014 federal sex work law, called the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. That law emphasizes the importance of discouraging sex work and denouncing and prohibiting the purchase of sexual services “because it creates a demand for prostitution.”

Wesley says, “I hope the minister of justice and prime minister read the decision, read the law, and consider it’s time to change it.”

And while Pink’s decision says that both sides in the court case believe it is the first of its kind in Canada, a legal expert questions its importance on jurisprudence because the ruling was rendered in small claims court.

“The usual court hierarchy doesn’t apply,” said Wayne MacKay, professor emeritus at Dalhousie University’s law school. “Another small claims judge wouldn’t necessarily have to follow it, nor a
higher court.”

And while the decision doesn’t have a binding precedent, it could still influence other court rulings, he said.

“The message is out there,” MacKay said. “Sex work is work, legal work, and deserves to be treated like other legal work, and if people chose not to pay, they can get a remedy in small claims court.”

According to documents filed in Nova Scotia’s small claims court, Sheehan charged $300 an hour for her services, and spent seven hours with Samuelson on Jan. 26, 2022. But the next morning, when she attempted to take cash out of an ATM with his bank card, the transaction was denied. After several text exchanges, Samuelson eventually paid Sheehan $300, leaving $1,800 outstanding.

Pink’s decision, rendered in April, says public policy requires the courts “not to increase or contribute to exploitation of sex work, and thus favours a regime that gives aggrieved sex workers access to the civil courts when they have a civil claim.”

MacKay said the broader social impact of the novel decision may be more important than the technical, legal impact.

“One has to kind of admire the sex worker that decided to test the waters, see what small claims court would do, and succeeded,” he said. “That’s the way things change sometimes.”

Sheehan, who advocates for the decriminalization of sex work, said she wanted to pursue the case in court because she was a victim of human trafficking when she was a minor.

“I feel obligated to not leave things the way that they were,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2023.

Drag queen Brooke Lynn Hytes asks the haters, ‘What are you afraid of?’

CBC News: The National

 #Drag #DragQueen #DragRace

On stage, Brooke Lynn Hytes is Canada’s most famous drag queen. Off stage, he’s Brock Hayhoe, a former ballet dancer that grew up in an ultra-conservative, deeply religious family. He talks to The National’s Ian Hanomansing about his journey to the top and what it’s like to be on the frontline of the war on drag.

US religious right at center of anti-LGBTQ+ message pushed around the world

American groups have helped to establish global web who share ideas and funding in bid to restrict gay and trans rights


Tom Perkins

Sun 9 Jul 2023 

When the US evangelical preacher and anti-LGBTQ+ crusader Scott Lively landed in Uganda in 2009 to warn of the “gay agenda”, he was arriving after a series of culture-war defeats at home.

More and more US states were recognizing same-sex marriage, and opinion polls were showing fewer and fewer Americans objected. Lively was there to offer Uganda’s lawmakers some advice on how to drum up outrage. “Emphasize the issue of the homosexual recruitment of children,” he advised.


US Intel executive ‘actively responsible’ for driving anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in Africa, say campaigners

Five years later, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni signed a law that made same-sex relationships punishable by death, asserting that western groups and gay people were “coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality”.


As wave of anti LGBTQ+ legislation sweeps the US, some may hear echoes of Lively’s messaging. Fine-tuned in Africa and elsewhere, arguments used to attack rights overseas have been re-imported to the US as the religious right warns again that the left and gay people are “grooming seven-year-olds” and “promoting pedophilia”.

The spread across the world illustrates how America’s evangelical and Catholic right has globalized over the past 15 years by helping establish a vast web of anti-LGBTQ+ zealots who share ideas, messaging and funding.

Africa, eastern Europe and Latin America often function as petri dishes for strategy as US groups abroad help craft legislation and fight legal battles. The new global front in culture wars is in turn empowering a resurgent domestic religious right that is pushing book bans, Pride flag bans and record 491 state level bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights.

In late June an argument frequently made by the European religious right – that religion-based objections to same-sex marriage trumped the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals – was used to win a case before the US supreme court that critics say will allow businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.

“The policy ideas and solutions that are traveling the globe look rather similar,” said David Paternotte, a sociologist at Université libre de Bruxelles. “The US is a key player in that game, but the circulations can go in different directions.”

The religious right’s play in Africa, where it has successfully lodged itself in many nations’ political and elite establishment, is about “power and money”, said Kapya Kaoma, a Uganda-born pastor who now lives in Boston. How that global success has fueled the religious right “is something people in the west fail to understand”, he added.


Lively is not acting alone: the US Christian right spent at least $280m abroad between 2008 and 2019, an investigation by the British news site openDemocracy found. Lively, however, is among the most infamous, having made his name from his 1995 book The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, which claimed Hitler and Nazi leadership were gay, and gay men were behind the Holocaust.

His 2009 speech to Uganda’s parliament planted the seeds for the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was ultimately struck down by the nation’s supreme court. But Uganda recently passed a new version with the help of fundamentalist US groups like Family Watch International, whose leader, Sharon Slater, has said LGBTQ+ rights are “fictitious”, and The Family, a secretive group that reportedly helped author the bill. OpenDemocracy found it spent $20m in Africa between 2008 and 2019.

Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and other nations have introduced anti-LGBTQ+ bills that impose harsher punishments with the assistance of US groups.

Meanwhile, the US Christian right in the European Union largely focuses on legal infrastructure, said Neil Datta, who leads the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights.

“The added value the Americans bring is the expertise of the legal culture wars in the US,” he said. “There’s 60 more years of litigation on social issues than what we have in Europe.”

Hungary banned the sharing of LGBTQ+ content to people under 18, and passed a law allowing anonymous reporting of same-sex couples raising children. Its far-right leader Viktor Orbán recently echoed Lively when he defended the legislation, saying in a speech: “Gender propaganda is not just … rainbow chatter, but the greatest threat stalking our children.”

In Poland, authorities have used new laws to harass LGBTQ+ activists, and around 100 municipalities – nearly a third of the country – in 2019 passed resolutions declaring themselves free of “LGBT ideology”.

Among key US groups backing these other efforts are the American Center for Law and Justice and European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), both run by Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Jay Sekulow. In a legal brief, the ECLJ defended the Polish municipalities, arguing there is nothing discriminatory “in considering that pro-LGBT+ social pressure is the vector of an ideology, and in refusing to promote it among children”. The ECLJ has also provided legal assistance defending Italy’s ban on gay marriage, and for other human rights cases at the EU level.

OpenDemocracy identified over $14m that Sekulow’s US operation has spent in Europe since 2007, which is part of at least $88m in total spending by the US Christian right during the same period.


The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which boasts having won 14 supreme court cases since 2011, has spent $21m in Europe and regularly intervenes or argues in front of the European Court of Human Rights. In 2015, it defended national laws requiring sterilization for transgender people, telling the court “equal dignity does not mean that every sexual orientation warrants equal respect”.
‘They’re trying to redefine human rights’

Leaders from the world’s religious right regularly meet at forums hosted by groups across the globe, like the Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC), World Congress of Families and Political Network for Values.

“Once they’re all there together they exchange ideas and they’re able to see ‘Well, this worked well in this country, so I can take and adopt it, and it should work in my country’s context,’” Datta said.

In Europe, the religious right’s latest messaging has its roots in the 1990s, when social advances that expanded rights for LGBTQ+ people and access to abortion drew the ire of the Vatican and other European conservative groups.

“They had lost these important moments and went through a process of thinking: why did we lose? Was it our narrative, leaders, strategy?” Datta said.

Out of that process, the Vatican in the 2000s developed the term “gender ideology”, Datta said, which is similar to potent transgender messaging the US religious right imported several years later.

“There can be different versions in different countries, but it means the same thing, and it works very well in other languages,” Datta said. The term has functioned as a rallying cry in Europe around which the political and legal infrastructure sprouted with the assistance of US expertise and funding.

A person holds an umbrella bearing the colors of the rainbow flag in Entebbe, Uganda. 

Photograph: Isaac Kasamani/AFP/Getty Images


At the same time, the European religious right “modernized” its messaging, Paternotte said. It is no longer “trying to be against things, but in favor of things”, he added: instead of being against LGBTQ+ rights, it is “pro-family”.

The religious right also now positions itself as a defender of human rights, but that’s “partly a trick”, Paterrnotte said. Though it claims to be for freedom of speech, it is against gay marriage, so the religious right feels it should not have to accept gay marriage, and attempts to limit speech around it.

“Then that human right [religious freedom] is more important than other human rights,” Paternotte said. “They’re trying to redefine human rights in a more restrictive sense ... and that’s happening nationally and globally.”

The ADF effectively made that argument in a recent case before the US supreme court, which ruled on 30 June that a conservative website designer could refuse service to a gay couple despite a Colorado state law that forbids discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.

Following the ruling, the ADF general counsel Kristen Waggoner wrote in a statement: “Disagreement isn’t discrimination, and the government can’t mislabel speech as discrimination to censor it.”

Just as it has in the US in recent years, the European religious right has claimed expanded LGBTQ+ rights are a form of “totalitarianism”. Other variations of that message hold that the European Union is engaged in a form of imperialism.

In its legal brief to the EU human rights court defending some nations’ forced sterilization programs for transgender people, the ADF wrote that protecting those laws “is a powerful way of ensuring that human rights are properly protected whilst at the same time mitigating the risk of human rights imperialism”.
‘Social imperialism’

A similar tactic has been used in Uganda by the religious right and Museveni.

“There’s now an attempt at social imperialism, to impose social values,” Museveni said after signing the 2014 bill. “We’re sorry to see that you [the west] live the way you live, but we keep quiet about it.”

In reality, many western religious leaders have profited from business in Africa and are embedded with countries’ leaders, which is a form of colonialism, said Victor Mukasa, a transgender person with Sexual Minorities Uganda who now lives in the US.

Lively’s 2009 visit in which he addressed Uganda’s parliament represented a pivotal moment on several levels. It marked the beginning of the US religious right’s close relations with the government, and while Ugandans prior to Lively’s campaign generally did not approve of homosexuality, the US pastor’s message that LGBTQ+ people were “preying on” children generated a dangerous climate.

“Here was propaganda saying we were sodomizing children while parents were at work, and we were recruiting teenagers in big numbers into homosexuality,” Mukasa said.

Since then, the religious right and Ugandan government have run an effective propaganda machine that capitalizes on a dearth of information available to many Ugandans, Kaoma said.

When a transgender person recently went on a shooting spree in Tennessee, the story was pushed in Uganda as an example of LGBTQ+ violence, just as it was in the US, Kaoma said. But most Africans do not know that the majority of mass shootings in the US are carried out by rightwing straight men, and there is little counter to the messaging.

“Africans who don’t know the context look at this and say, ‘This is what transgender people do,’” Kaoma said.

Though some find Lively’s assertion that the Nazi leadership was gay to be absurd, Kaoma said it is common for LGBTQ+ people to be compared by African and US religious right leadership to Nazis or others who carry out genocide, and use that as a call to arms.

“They say, ‘If you don’t fight this movement, lose your rights, lose your children,’ and that has led to the destruction of human life,” Kaoma said. “Unless the world becomes aware of this, Africa will never be the same again.”

The solutions are few. Kaoma called on Pope Francis to intervene but the Vatican has long avoided the issue until earlier this year when Francis said being gay is a sin, but not a crime.

For Mukasa, there is no easy solution, but he and others are working on engaging Ugandans, and “sensitizing our communities and being present in our communities in safe ways so that they see the humanity in us”.

“So they see that we too are parents, we too protect our children, we too are professionals, that we love our country, and we will stand to protect our country,” Mukasa said.