Ontario legislature resumes after Greenbelt about-face, minister resignations
The Canadian Press
Sun, September 24, 2023
TORONTO — Ontario's legislature resumes sitting Monday on the heels of two cabinet ministers' resignations, a cabinet shuffle, and a major policy reversal – and that was just in the past week.
Politicians will return to the business of the legislature after its 15-week summer break that saw the release of two damning reports from the auditor general and integrity commissioner about the process to remove lands from the Greenbelt for housing development.
The return of the legislature will see Premier Doug Ford set about backtracking on that decision, as announced last week, following nearly a year of public outcry.
But don't expect Ford's abrupt admission that "it was a mistake" to open the Greenbelt to equally abruptly quell the controversy. Opposition politicians say there are still many unanswered questions.
"I can assure you we are going to be using this opportunity to get more answers, because Ford and his Conservative government have a lot to answer for," NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Friday.
"We have every intention of continuing to hold them to account."
She said there are still questions surrounding what developers knew in advance of the official announcement that the Greenbelt was to be opened up, what the premier knew, what his staff knew, why his director of housing policy resigned last week, and what emails had been deleted, as referenced by the auditor general in the course of her investigation.
"There's endless questions and I think why it's really important is that this casts a long, dark shadow over this government in everything they do," she said.
"We have the privatization of health care, we have the selling off of the 95-year lease for Ontario Place that people are really opposed to. I think it's fair that we need to shine light in every corner."
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said "the heat is not going to get turned down any time soon," but it may take some time to get proper answers on outstanding Greenbelt questions, and the Liberals will also be advancing other priorities at the same time.
"It is really important for us to focus on the things that are important to Ontarians like housing, like health care, like education, like the environment," he said. "We have to keep doing that. I think we'll be able to walk and chew gum. So we will find different ways to dig deeper."
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said he doesn't want to lose sight of the fact there is still a housing affordability crisis, and will be pushing for solutions that don't involve prime farmland or enriching developers to the tune of $8.3 billion.
The auditor general found that's how much the landowners whose property was removed from the Greenbelt stood to see their land values rise. It's unclear if any of them will pursue any type of recourse over the government's policy reversal.
Both the auditor general and integrity commissioner found that the process to select lands was rushed and favoured certain developers.
More than 90 per cent of the land removed was in five sites passed on to then-housing minister Steve Clark's chief of staff, Ryan Amato, by two developers Amato met at an industry event, the auditor said. Both Clark and Amato have since resigned.
A second cabinet minister, Kaleed Rasheed, resigned this week after news reports raised questions about his connections to developer Shakir Rehmatullah and a trip to Las Vegas.
On Friday, a third cabinet minister resigned, though he said it was unconnected to the Greenbelt. Monte McNaughton resigned as labour minister to take a job in the private sector.
Stiles said it is indicative nonetheless of the turmoil Ford's government is facing.
"I'm beginning to wonder whether, in fact, we're going to have anybody left to question on Monday at this rate," she said.
The departures prompted a mini cabinet shuffle Friday, with Ford naming David Piccini, who has been environment minister for the past two years, as the new labour minister. Andrea Khanjin, who represents the riding of Barrie-Innisfil, is promoted to cabinet to serve as the new environment minister.
Todd McCarthy is the new minister of public and business service delivery, after having been named associate transportation minister less than three weeks ago in another mini cabinet shuffle that was prompted by Clark's resignation.
Vijay Thanigasalam, who represents Scarborough-Rouge Park, has been named the new associate transportation minister.
Opposition politicians won't be the only ones at the legislature Monday armed with criticisms of the government. The Ontario Health Coalition has said it will be busing in "thousands" of protesters to pressure Ford to drop his plan to expand the private delivery of public health care.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2023.
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
Monday, September 25, 2023
One of Canada's first feature films was mostly made in Nova Scotia, but you'll likely never see it
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
This scene from Evangeline was filmed in Halifax at the garden of the Billman residence, which would be located on present-day Herring Cove Road near the Armdale roundabout.
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
This scene from Evangeline was filmed in Halifax at the garden of the Billman residence, which would be located on present-day Herring Cove Road near the Armdale roundabout.
(James Billman Collection, Nova Scotia Archives 1981-295 no. 1. - image credit)
After travelling to about 30 states and a half-dozen provinces looking for a copy of Evangeline, one of Canada's first feature films, Bashar Shbib came up empty handed.
Shot in 1913 in Nova Scotia and Quebec, Evangeline is based on American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie. It tells the story of Evangeline and Gabriel, two star-crossed lovers from Grand Pré, N.S., torn apart by the Expulsion of the Acadians beginning in 1775.
There are no known copies of Evangeline. The proof of its existence lies in clues from a few surviving images, journalism of the day and a description of the film housed with the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington.
"The idea that the film has disappeared is definitely sad," said Shbib, a Montreal-based filmmaker who made a documentary about his efforts to find a copy of Evangeline. Fittingly, the 2013 documentary is titled The Search For Evangeline.
Evangeline is considered Canada's first feature film because it was made by a Canadian company, the Canadian Bioscope Company, which was headquartered in Halifax.
This ad for Evangeline appeared in the Feb. 7, 1914, edition of The Moving Picture World magazine.
Another scene from Evangeline shot at the Billman residence in Halifax. Fewer than 10 photos showing scenes from the film are known to exist.
Bashar Shbib's efforts to locate Evangeline took him to cities across North America, including Washington, D.C. (Oneira Pictures)
"In those days, you copyright the film by taking the image of the first of every shot [in the film]," said Shbib.
The film's description notes it had 200 scenes.
But to Shbib's dismay, he said he was told they had recently thrown the images out.
Why copies weren't kept of old films
George Melnyk, the author of One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema, said it's not surprising no known copies of Evangeline exist because that's common for most films of the time.
"Nobody thought of them as having longevity or archival value or meaning for the cultural history of a particular country," he said. "Companies, you know, disappeared. The films went in the trash or whatever happened to them, things like that, because they simply weren't seen as valuable cultural documents."
The Canadian Bioscope Company, which made Evangeline, was headquartered in Halifax on what is now present-day Barrington Street near Inglis Street. (Mark Crosby/CBC)
The Canadian Bioscope Company went out of business when the First World War broke out, says the Nova Scotia Archives' website.
While Nova Scotia now has a booming film and television industry, Evangeline is a reminder of its early days.
"There should be more research and more studies into what's missing," said Shbib. "What are the films that we're not talking about and what are the stories ... that have been overlooked?"
After travelling to about 30 states and a half-dozen provinces looking for a copy of Evangeline, one of Canada's first feature films, Bashar Shbib came up empty handed.
Shot in 1913 in Nova Scotia and Quebec, Evangeline is based on American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie. It tells the story of Evangeline and Gabriel, two star-crossed lovers from Grand Pré, N.S., torn apart by the Expulsion of the Acadians beginning in 1775.
There are no known copies of Evangeline. The proof of its existence lies in clues from a few surviving images, journalism of the day and a description of the film housed with the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington.
"The idea that the film has disappeared is definitely sad," said Shbib, a Montreal-based filmmaker who made a documentary about his efforts to find a copy of Evangeline. Fittingly, the 2013 documentary is titled The Search For Evangeline.
Evangeline is considered Canada's first feature film because it was made by a Canadian company, the Canadian Bioscope Company, which was headquartered in Halifax.
This ad for Evangeline appeared in the Feb. 7, 1914, edition of The Moving Picture World magazine.
(Canadian Bioscope Company, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
However, it wasn't necessarily the first feature film shot in Canada.
Shot for $30,000, Evangeline used American actors for its leading roles. In Nova Scotia, shooting locations included Halifax and the Annapolis Valley, duly noted in an ad for the film declaring it was "Made in Annapolis Valley amongst the Actual Scenes Described in the Poem."
Annapolis Royal mayor was 'moved to tears' by film
The film description housed at the Library of Congress echoes this as well and includes a signed reference letter, of sorts.
"I can certify having witnessed the churchyard scenes, played and filmed in the old graves yard there, being moved to tears by the realistic acting of women and children," notes a letter signed by three people, including the mayor of Annapolis Royal, Geo. J. Hawkesworth.
The document also describes what happens during each of the 75-minute film's five reels.
However, it wasn't necessarily the first feature film shot in Canada.
Shot for $30,000, Evangeline used American actors for its leading roles. In Nova Scotia, shooting locations included Halifax and the Annapolis Valley, duly noted in an ad for the film declaring it was "Made in Annapolis Valley amongst the Actual Scenes Described in the Poem."
Annapolis Royal mayor was 'moved to tears' by film
The film description housed at the Library of Congress echoes this as well and includes a signed reference letter, of sorts.
"I can certify having witnessed the churchyard scenes, played and filmed in the old graves yard there, being moved to tears by the realistic acting of women and children," notes a letter signed by three people, including the mayor of Annapolis Royal, Geo. J. Hawkesworth.
The document also describes what happens during each of the 75-minute film's five reels.
Another scene from Evangeline shot at the Billman residence in Halifax. Fewer than 10 photos showing scenes from the film are known to exist.
(James Billman Collection, Nova Scotia Archives 1981-295 no. 2)
While Evangeline was made by a Canadian company, it was distributed out of New York and released in 1914.
Film trade publication The Moving Picture World predicted Evangeline would be a "a strong favourite everywhere as the subject is well known to ... school children in the country, the study of Longfellow's classic poem being a part of the regular school work in nearly every city of the United States."
A 'soul-stirring love story'
Rival publication Motion Picture News echoed that.
"There are few Americans who do not know the pathetic and soul-stirring love story which Longfellow so plaintively poured into the poem Evangeline. Consequently, the picture should attract unusual and wide-spread attention," it said.
In a separate issue, Motion Picture News noted that a matinee was arranged in Buffalo, N.Y., for pupils of School No. 26 to see Evangeline.
"The pupils are studying this literary classic in their English courses and all were enthusiastic about the matinee," it said.
Where Evangeline screened
The film was screened in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax, and received glowing reviews.
Shbib's search for Evangeline saw him track down descendents of people who worked on the film in the hopes they had a copy. He even went to the Library of Congress.
While Evangeline was made by a Canadian company, it was distributed out of New York and released in 1914.
Film trade publication The Moving Picture World predicted Evangeline would be a "a strong favourite everywhere as the subject is well known to ... school children in the country, the study of Longfellow's classic poem being a part of the regular school work in nearly every city of the United States."
A 'soul-stirring love story'
Rival publication Motion Picture News echoed that.
"There are few Americans who do not know the pathetic and soul-stirring love story which Longfellow so plaintively poured into the poem Evangeline. Consequently, the picture should attract unusual and wide-spread attention," it said.
In a separate issue, Motion Picture News noted that a matinee was arranged in Buffalo, N.Y., for pupils of School No. 26 to see Evangeline.
"The pupils are studying this literary classic in their English courses and all were enthusiastic about the matinee," it said.
Where Evangeline screened
The film was screened in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax, and received glowing reviews.
Shbib's search for Evangeline saw him track down descendents of people who worked on the film in the hopes they had a copy. He even went to the Library of Congress.
Bashar Shbib's efforts to locate Evangeline took him to cities across North America, including Washington, D.C. (Oneira Pictures)
"In those days, you copyright the film by taking the image of the first of every shot [in the film]," said Shbib.
The film's description notes it had 200 scenes.
But to Shbib's dismay, he said he was told they had recently thrown the images out.
Why copies weren't kept of old films
George Melnyk, the author of One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema, said it's not surprising no known copies of Evangeline exist because that's common for most films of the time.
"Nobody thought of them as having longevity or archival value or meaning for the cultural history of a particular country," he said. "Companies, you know, disappeared. The films went in the trash or whatever happened to them, things like that, because they simply weren't seen as valuable cultural documents."
The Canadian Bioscope Company, which made Evangeline, was headquartered in Halifax on what is now present-day Barrington Street near Inglis Street. (Mark Crosby/CBC)
The Canadian Bioscope Company went out of business when the First World War broke out, says the Nova Scotia Archives' website.
While Nova Scotia now has a booming film and television industry, Evangeline is a reminder of its early days.
"There should be more research and more studies into what's missing," said Shbib. "What are the films that we're not talking about and what are the stories ... that have been overlooked?"
'Not just a magazine store': How Atlantic News is still surviving after 50 years
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
Michele and Stephen Gerrard have been the owners of Atlantic News, first opened by Pat Doherty in 1973, since 1998. (Andrew Sampson/CBC - image credit)
When Pat Doherty first opened Atlantic News in Halifax in 1973, print was still king.
On busy downtown street corners, pedestrians could easily grab a copy of the latest edition of The Chronicle Herald or The Globe and Mail from one of the city's news vending machines. At convenience stores, magazines lined the shelves alongside other necessities like shaving cream, condoms and toothbrushes.
But inside Doherty's newsstand, there was something for everyone — magazines from all over the world like Time and Saturday Night, scandalous rags like Playboy and others dedicated to almost every conceivable interest, no matter how niche.
Back then, Halifax was still a city modest in its ambitions. A place where, as Doherty suggested in an interview for Don Connelly's Halifax — a 1985 CBC Nova Scotia special — life seemed to glide along.
"Simply put, there's not too much of anything here," Doherty quipped.
"Because of that you don't get tired of it. There are no excesses. If you were living in the middle of the prairies, there'd be too much land. If you're living in Sable Island, there'd be too much sea. Our economy is mixed. Everything is very mixed."
Pat Doherty, seen here in this file photo from 1985, was the owner of Atlantic News until his death in 1991. (CBC Archives)
In the years since Doherty died in 1991, after a short battle with illness, the city has changed dramatically, with both the population and the cost of living on a steady incline.
But while few things have remained the same, his legacy at Atlantic News lives on at the corner of Morris and Queen streets, with the current staff and owners celebrating the store's 50th anniversary this weekend.
"When we took over in the 90s … I had a two-week-old baby and we had our two-year-old daughter, and we had to live up to this massive legacy of Pat Doherty," said Michele Gerrard, who assumed ownership of the shop with her husband Stephen in 1998.
Blowers Street Paperchase, seen here in two file photos from 1993, closed in 2015.
Michele (far right) and Stephen Gerrard celebrate the 25th anniversary of Atlantic News in 1998, the year they bought the store. (Submitted by Michele Gerard)
"It is strange to be in a landscape where we are the only ones," said Gerrard. "To have outlasted the competition, it's a sign of ... a business that's well-run, well-loved, but also that the product is still of value to people."
Reports of print's demise, said Gerrard, have been greatly exaggerated, but the store has had to evolve to reflect a changing climate.
As some newspapers became harder to ship to Halifax, Atlantic News got onboard with PressReader in the early 2000s, a service that allows them to print on-demand copies of thousands of newspapers around the world at the push of a button.
Likewise, when The Globe and Mail print edition stopped being distributed in Nova Scotia, the company pivoted and made a deal to fly copies in for 400 eager customers each Saturday.
The store now also carries books, sold next to magazines with similar subject matter, and has increased the amount of work sold by local artists, like holiday cards, games and puzzles.
Atlantic News has been located at the corner of Morris and Queen St. since 1973.
On Sunday, Atlantic News celebrated its 50th year in business. (Jeorge Sadi/CBC)
According to Gerrard, the store's inventory is down from a high of around 5,700 titles to a current roster of about half that amount, driven by a changing marketplace and the ubiquity of smartphones and social media.
When they first started out, the main threat to the business was leisure time, she said. The more people worked, the less time they had to read.
The bigger challenge now is capturing attention, something that has been decimated by the devices we keep in our pockets. The time many once spent leisurely flipping through a magazine is now monopolized by a sea of distractions, always just a swipe away.
But Gerrard said demand from many of her clients has remained strong, and an increasing number of people with screen fatigue are turning back toward print.
"I think we do see a desire to not be on our cell phones all day," she said.
Atlantic News still carries thousands of magazines, says owner Michele Gerrard, but has evolved to carry some books as well. (Andrew Sampson/CBC)
More recently, the store has survived the touch-and-go era of COVID-19 lockdowns.
As proprietors of a newstand for so long, the Gerrards have witnessed history unfold, quite literally, in the pages of the magazines on their newsstand.
They've seen the decline of Playboy, which no longer sells a print edition, and have watched events like 9/11 and, more recently, the death of Queen Elizabeth II, play out right in front of them.
"The impact of [Diana's] death was huge in the store," said Gerrard. "I can't even describe the sorrow, the panic, the frenzy, the needing to understand, and the voraciousness of our customers who were trying to find anything and everything [about] what's happened."
Michael Doherty says his brother would be thrilled the store he founded is still around 50 years later. (Andrew Sampson/CBC)
On Sunday, staff at the store were taking the time to celebrate, hosting a day of events to commemorate the store's eclectic history.
In the crowd were longtime customers, family, and friends.
One of them was Michael Doherty, the kid brother of Pat Doherty, who started it all back in 1973.
He can still picture his brother next to the cash register, writing out letters to send to publishers whose magazines he was interested in carrying, and chatting with his customers, many of whom grew to be close friends.
"He would have loved what they've done here and just the fact that they've survived," he said.
"When you think of all the things that came in, technology, books on the internet, and all of that competition, they were very creative. It's wonderful."
This framed portrait of Pat Doherty hangs near the same counter where he once stood. (Andrew Sampson/CBC)
The next 50 years at Atlantic News look to be just as eventful as the last, but whatever happens, the store's current owners won't be the ones to see it through.
After 25 years, they're planning to move closer to family in Australia, and looking to sell the shop to someone willing to carry its legacy forward.
"What we're hoping new owners will choose is that they want to continue the ethos of this," she said. "We're not just a magazine store."
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
Michele and Stephen Gerrard have been the owners of Atlantic News, first opened by Pat Doherty in 1973, since 1998. (Andrew Sampson/CBC - image credit)
When Pat Doherty first opened Atlantic News in Halifax in 1973, print was still king.
On busy downtown street corners, pedestrians could easily grab a copy of the latest edition of The Chronicle Herald or The Globe and Mail from one of the city's news vending machines. At convenience stores, magazines lined the shelves alongside other necessities like shaving cream, condoms and toothbrushes.
But inside Doherty's newsstand, there was something for everyone — magazines from all over the world like Time and Saturday Night, scandalous rags like Playboy and others dedicated to almost every conceivable interest, no matter how niche.
Back then, Halifax was still a city modest in its ambitions. A place where, as Doherty suggested in an interview for Don Connelly's Halifax — a 1985 CBC Nova Scotia special — life seemed to glide along.
"Simply put, there's not too much of anything here," Doherty quipped.
"Because of that you don't get tired of it. There are no excesses. If you were living in the middle of the prairies, there'd be too much land. If you're living in Sable Island, there'd be too much sea. Our economy is mixed. Everything is very mixed."
Pat Doherty, seen here in this file photo from 1985, was the owner of Atlantic News until his death in 1991. (CBC Archives)
In the years since Doherty died in 1991, after a short battle with illness, the city has changed dramatically, with both the population and the cost of living on a steady incline.
But while few things have remained the same, his legacy at Atlantic News lives on at the corner of Morris and Queen streets, with the current staff and owners celebrating the store's 50th anniversary this weekend.
"When we took over in the 90s … I had a two-week-old baby and we had our two-year-old daughter, and we had to live up to this massive legacy of Pat Doherty," said Michele Gerrard, who assumed ownership of the shop with her husband Stephen in 1998.
Blowers Street Paperchase, seen here in two file photos from 1993, closed in 2015.
(CBC Archives)
By her count, there were 11 major newstands in Halifax when they took over, including two other independents: Paperchase on Blowers Street and The Daily Grind on Spring Garden Road.
The 90s were perhaps the last golden age for magazines, marked by iconic issues like Kurt Cobain and Nirvana on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, tabloid headlines about the O.J. Simpson trial and Princess Diana's face on what seemed to be every magazine in the world in the months after her death.
"The idea [was] that this would just continue and continue. Everyone was reading. And then, of course, along came the internet," said Gerrard.
In Halifax today, only Atlantic News remains.
By her count, there were 11 major newstands in Halifax when they took over, including two other independents: Paperchase on Blowers Street and The Daily Grind on Spring Garden Road.
The 90s were perhaps the last golden age for magazines, marked by iconic issues like Kurt Cobain and Nirvana on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, tabloid headlines about the O.J. Simpson trial and Princess Diana's face on what seemed to be every magazine in the world in the months after her death.
"The idea [was] that this would just continue and continue. Everyone was reading. And then, of course, along came the internet," said Gerrard.
In Halifax today, only Atlantic News remains.
Michele (far right) and Stephen Gerrard celebrate the 25th anniversary of Atlantic News in 1998, the year they bought the store. (Submitted by Michele Gerard)
"It is strange to be in a landscape where we are the only ones," said Gerrard. "To have outlasted the competition, it's a sign of ... a business that's well-run, well-loved, but also that the product is still of value to people."
Reports of print's demise, said Gerrard, have been greatly exaggerated, but the store has had to evolve to reflect a changing climate.
As some newspapers became harder to ship to Halifax, Atlantic News got onboard with PressReader in the early 2000s, a service that allows them to print on-demand copies of thousands of newspapers around the world at the push of a button.
Likewise, when The Globe and Mail print edition stopped being distributed in Nova Scotia, the company pivoted and made a deal to fly copies in for 400 eager customers each Saturday.
The store now also carries books, sold next to magazines with similar subject matter, and has increased the amount of work sold by local artists, like holiday cards, games and puzzles.
Atlantic News has been located at the corner of Morris and Queen St. since 1973.
On Sunday, Atlantic News celebrated its 50th year in business. (Jeorge Sadi/CBC)
According to Gerrard, the store's inventory is down from a high of around 5,700 titles to a current roster of about half that amount, driven by a changing marketplace and the ubiquity of smartphones and social media.
When they first started out, the main threat to the business was leisure time, she said. The more people worked, the less time they had to read.
The bigger challenge now is capturing attention, something that has been decimated by the devices we keep in our pockets. The time many once spent leisurely flipping through a magazine is now monopolized by a sea of distractions, always just a swipe away.
But Gerrard said demand from many of her clients has remained strong, and an increasing number of people with screen fatigue are turning back toward print.
"I think we do see a desire to not be on our cell phones all day," she said.
Atlantic News still carries thousands of magazines, says owner Michele Gerrard, but has evolved to carry some books as well. (Andrew Sampson/CBC)
More recently, the store has survived the touch-and-go era of COVID-19 lockdowns.
As proprietors of a newstand for so long, the Gerrards have witnessed history unfold, quite literally, in the pages of the magazines on their newsstand.
They've seen the decline of Playboy, which no longer sells a print edition, and have watched events like 9/11 and, more recently, the death of Queen Elizabeth II, play out right in front of them.
"The impact of [Diana's] death was huge in the store," said Gerrard. "I can't even describe the sorrow, the panic, the frenzy, the needing to understand, and the voraciousness of our customers who were trying to find anything and everything [about] what's happened."
Michael Doherty says his brother would be thrilled the store he founded is still around 50 years later. (Andrew Sampson/CBC)
On Sunday, staff at the store were taking the time to celebrate, hosting a day of events to commemorate the store's eclectic history.
In the crowd were longtime customers, family, and friends.
One of them was Michael Doherty, the kid brother of Pat Doherty, who started it all back in 1973.
He can still picture his brother next to the cash register, writing out letters to send to publishers whose magazines he was interested in carrying, and chatting with his customers, many of whom grew to be close friends.
"He would have loved what they've done here and just the fact that they've survived," he said.
"When you think of all the things that came in, technology, books on the internet, and all of that competition, they were very creative. It's wonderful."
This framed portrait of Pat Doherty hangs near the same counter where he once stood. (Andrew Sampson/CBC)
The next 50 years at Atlantic News look to be just as eventful as the last, but whatever happens, the store's current owners won't be the ones to see it through.
After 25 years, they're planning to move closer to family in Australia, and looking to sell the shop to someone willing to carry its legacy forward.
"What we're hoping new owners will choose is that they want to continue the ethos of this," she said. "We're not just a magazine store."
Trekking hundreds of kilometres in the footsteps of Alice the moose
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
After 36 days on the trail, Jamie Findlay, left, completed the A2A Challenge Walk last Saturday.
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
After 36 days on the trail, Jamie Findlay, left, completed the A2A Challenge Walk last Saturday.
(www.a2acollaborative.org - image credit)
Two decades ago, a moose named Alice migrated from the Adirondack Park in New York state to Algonquin Park.
The 640-kilometre voyage, tracked by a team of researchers, saw her crossing busy highways and swimming the St. Lawrence River en route to the Ontario provincial park.
Nature Canada's storyteller and grant writer Jamie Findlay admitted he doesn't know exactly what motivated Alice to travel all that way, but he was inspired by her transnational trip.
"The journey of Alice the moose just kind of captured, symbolized this need on the part of wildlife to move and travel," Findlay said.
"And I thought it would be really neat to just follow in the footsteps of Alice the moose and do that route,"
Last week, Findlay completed the Adirondacks to Algonquin (A2A) trail, which follows a winding network of hiking paths, highways and back roads in honour of Alice's journey.
The route was conceived by The A2A Collaborative, a nonprofit that aims to connect and preserve the ecological corridor between the two parks.
From left to right, Bill Brown, Bill Barkley and Jamie Findlay plan the first leg of the trek. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
'Nature is flow'
Findlay didn't cross Highway 401 or swim the St. Lawrence but said he's gained an appreciation for Alice's lengthy migration.
"We create parks and protected areas for wildlife and we think that they stay in these places and that they're happy there," he said, adding that many animals, especially large mammals, move across human-made barriers, like roads, railways and agricultural development, often to their demise.
Findlay described being on the trail as 'life raised to the second power,' adding that every emotion he experienced, from boredom to excitement, was amplified. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
"Nature is flow — living things have to move and circulate and intermingle and it's hard for a lot of the animals to do that in the sort of environment they live in."
A 'patchwork quilt' of terrain, stories
Over 36 days, Findlay walked, cycled and paddled his way along the "patchwork quilt" of terrain, often bringing friends along for days or weeks at a time. He and a friend even hitched a ride on a horse and buggy on a section of country road in upper New York state.
"We figured that was a legitimate means of travel because it wasn't mechanized," Findlay said.
Findlay and Barkley got a ride in a horse and buggy in upper New York state. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
Findlay and his companions stopped at parks and schools between legs of the trek to share stories from the trail.
"Without exception, people were interested in what we were doing and they wanted to know more," he said.
Shortly after crossing the border, Findlay and Barkley held a talk at Thousand Islands National Park. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
"I hope to get people interested in this region," he said. "I'm hoping that people will be inspired to explore it and protect it."
The route Findlay followed. (CBC News Graphics)
Two decades ago, a moose named Alice migrated from the Adirondack Park in New York state to Algonquin Park.
The 640-kilometre voyage, tracked by a team of researchers, saw her crossing busy highways and swimming the St. Lawrence River en route to the Ontario provincial park.
Nature Canada's storyteller and grant writer Jamie Findlay admitted he doesn't know exactly what motivated Alice to travel all that way, but he was inspired by her transnational trip.
"The journey of Alice the moose just kind of captured, symbolized this need on the part of wildlife to move and travel," Findlay said.
"And I thought it would be really neat to just follow in the footsteps of Alice the moose and do that route,"
Last week, Findlay completed the Adirondacks to Algonquin (A2A) trail, which follows a winding network of hiking paths, highways and back roads in honour of Alice's journey.
The route was conceived by The A2A Collaborative, a nonprofit that aims to connect and preserve the ecological corridor between the two parks.
From left to right, Bill Brown, Bill Barkley and Jamie Findlay plan the first leg of the trek. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
'Nature is flow'
Findlay didn't cross Highway 401 or swim the St. Lawrence but said he's gained an appreciation for Alice's lengthy migration.
"We create parks and protected areas for wildlife and we think that they stay in these places and that they're happy there," he said, adding that many animals, especially large mammals, move across human-made barriers, like roads, railways and agricultural development, often to their demise.
Findlay described being on the trail as 'life raised to the second power,' adding that every emotion he experienced, from boredom to excitement, was amplified. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
"Nature is flow — living things have to move and circulate and intermingle and it's hard for a lot of the animals to do that in the sort of environment they live in."
A 'patchwork quilt' of terrain, stories
Over 36 days, Findlay walked, cycled and paddled his way along the "patchwork quilt" of terrain, often bringing friends along for days or weeks at a time. He and a friend even hitched a ride on a horse and buggy on a section of country road in upper New York state.
"We figured that was a legitimate means of travel because it wasn't mechanized," Findlay said.
Findlay and Barkley got a ride in a horse and buggy in upper New York state. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
Findlay and his companions stopped at parks and schools between legs of the trek to share stories from the trail.
"Without exception, people were interested in what we were doing and they wanted to know more," he said.
Shortly after crossing the border, Findlay and Barkley held a talk at Thousand Islands National Park. (www.a2acollaborative.org)
"I hope to get people interested in this region," he said. "I'm hoping that people will be inspired to explore it and protect it."
The route Findlay followed. (CBC News Graphics)
Manitoba could make history by electing first First Nations premier to lead province
The Canadian Press
Sat, September 23, 2023
WINNIPEG — A First Nations premier would head a province for the first time in Canadian history if the New Democrats win the Oct. 3 Manitoba election, and the significance is not lost on party leader Wab Kinew.
"My dad was not allowed to vote when he was a young man, and I have a shot at potentially leading the province," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press last month.
"That's a big change that speaks to progress in our country and in our province within one generation."
Kinew was born in Ontario and lived on the Onigaming First Nation as a young boy. His late father was a residential school survivor who endured horrific abuse and passed on to Kinew the importance of Anishinaabe culture and language.
The former CBC host was elected in the Winnipeg riding of Fort Rouge in 2016. The following year, he launched a successful bid for NDP leader, putting him on the path to potentially becoming the province's first First Nations premier and second Indigenous premier.
John Norquay was the first Indigenous person to serve as Manitoba's premier. Norquay, who was Métis, was the province's fifth premier until 1887.
And, while other Métis citizens have served at the highest level of politics in the province, Manitoba's history with First Nations leaders in provincial politics only goes back a few decades.
It wasn't until the '50s and '60s that First Nations people were allowed to vote without conditions in provincial and federal elections.
Former New Democrat Elijah Harper was one of the first First Nations people to become a member of Manitoba's legislative assembly in 1981. Since then, there have been more than a dozen Métis and First Nations people who have been elected to serve with the provincial New Democrats, Liberals and Progressive Conservatives.
But there are still disproportionately few Indigenous people entering provincial politics. There has been greater representation in the territories, with a history of Indigenous premiers in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
"There are historic barriers that are still being overcome. Some of them are things that have an impact on a personal level, like intergenerational trauma, other things are systemic barriers," said Kinew.
Réal Carrière, an assistant professor in the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba, researches Indigenous representation in Canadian politics.
He said if Kinew becomes premier, it would be a significant moment because it shows an Indigenous person excelling in a space that hasn't always been welcoming for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.
"There are still dominant stereotypes that view Indigenous Peoples negatively," said Carrière.
"And the real significance here is challenging those stereotypes and then allowing other Indigenous Peoples to see that it's possible to succeed at the highest level."
Kevin Chief knows the power representation can have on youth.
The former NDP member of the legislative assembly and cabinet minister often relays a story from his childhood growing up in Winnipeg's North End, where he boarded a transit bus to find an Indigenous man at the steering wheel.
That moment left a lasting impact on Chief. While he didn't become a bus driver, Chief said that man became a role model for him by opening his mind to possibilities.
"You can't tell young people things are possible, you really have to show them," said Chief.
If Kinew becomes premier, it symbolizes a larger reconciliation movement seen countrywide in Canadian politics and other sectors, said Chief.
"The only way you can become the first First Nations premier of a province is with the support of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous voters."
Indigenous politicians often have to walk in two worlds and balance the expectations within their own community and as an elected official representing a constituency.
Eva Aariak is well versed in this. The current commissioner of Nunavut was the territory's second premier and the first woman to serve in the role in the territory.
The Inuk woman has spent most of her career working in politics either at a local or territorial level.
"Indigenous leaders have an added level of understanding because they have to fully understand both worlds. In many cases, they become more effective that way," Aariak said.
She added that Canada still has a ways to go when it comes to seeing Indigenous people, especially Indigenous women, in leadership roles. But there has been progress, including the appointment of Mary Simon, who is Inuk, as Canada's first Indigenous governor general.
For Kinew, he has said he doesn't just want to be the best First Nations premier, he wants to be the province's best premier. Whether he succeeds in this year's election, he believes Manitoba is moving forward as a province.
"If we have increased participation from all corners of society, I think that strengthens our democracy."
— With files from Steve Lambert
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2023.
Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
Sat, September 23, 2023
WINNIPEG — A First Nations premier would head a province for the first time in Canadian history if the New Democrats win the Oct. 3 Manitoba election, and the significance is not lost on party leader Wab Kinew.
"My dad was not allowed to vote when he was a young man, and I have a shot at potentially leading the province," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press last month.
"That's a big change that speaks to progress in our country and in our province within one generation."
Kinew was born in Ontario and lived on the Onigaming First Nation as a young boy. His late father was a residential school survivor who endured horrific abuse and passed on to Kinew the importance of Anishinaabe culture and language.
The former CBC host was elected in the Winnipeg riding of Fort Rouge in 2016. The following year, he launched a successful bid for NDP leader, putting him on the path to potentially becoming the province's first First Nations premier and second Indigenous premier.
John Norquay was the first Indigenous person to serve as Manitoba's premier. Norquay, who was Métis, was the province's fifth premier until 1887.
And, while other Métis citizens have served at the highest level of politics in the province, Manitoba's history with First Nations leaders in provincial politics only goes back a few decades.
It wasn't until the '50s and '60s that First Nations people were allowed to vote without conditions in provincial and federal elections.
Former New Democrat Elijah Harper was one of the first First Nations people to become a member of Manitoba's legislative assembly in 1981. Since then, there have been more than a dozen Métis and First Nations people who have been elected to serve with the provincial New Democrats, Liberals and Progressive Conservatives.
But there are still disproportionately few Indigenous people entering provincial politics. There has been greater representation in the territories, with a history of Indigenous premiers in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
"There are historic barriers that are still being overcome. Some of them are things that have an impact on a personal level, like intergenerational trauma, other things are systemic barriers," said Kinew.
Réal Carrière, an assistant professor in the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba, researches Indigenous representation in Canadian politics.
He said if Kinew becomes premier, it would be a significant moment because it shows an Indigenous person excelling in a space that hasn't always been welcoming for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.
"There are still dominant stereotypes that view Indigenous Peoples negatively," said Carrière.
"And the real significance here is challenging those stereotypes and then allowing other Indigenous Peoples to see that it's possible to succeed at the highest level."
Kevin Chief knows the power representation can have on youth.
The former NDP member of the legislative assembly and cabinet minister often relays a story from his childhood growing up in Winnipeg's North End, where he boarded a transit bus to find an Indigenous man at the steering wheel.
That moment left a lasting impact on Chief. While he didn't become a bus driver, Chief said that man became a role model for him by opening his mind to possibilities.
"You can't tell young people things are possible, you really have to show them," said Chief.
If Kinew becomes premier, it symbolizes a larger reconciliation movement seen countrywide in Canadian politics and other sectors, said Chief.
"The only way you can become the first First Nations premier of a province is with the support of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous voters."
Indigenous politicians often have to walk in two worlds and balance the expectations within their own community and as an elected official representing a constituency.
Eva Aariak is well versed in this. The current commissioner of Nunavut was the territory's second premier and the first woman to serve in the role in the territory.
The Inuk woman has spent most of her career working in politics either at a local or territorial level.
"Indigenous leaders have an added level of understanding because they have to fully understand both worlds. In many cases, they become more effective that way," Aariak said.
She added that Canada still has a ways to go when it comes to seeing Indigenous people, especially Indigenous women, in leadership roles. But there has been progress, including the appointment of Mary Simon, who is Inuk, as Canada's first Indigenous governor general.
For Kinew, he has said he doesn't just want to be the best First Nations premier, he wants to be the province's best premier. Whether he succeeds in this year's election, he believes Manitoba is moving forward as a province.
"If we have increased participation from all corners of society, I think that strengthens our democracy."
— With files from Steve Lambert
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2023.
Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press
The threat of wildfires is rising. So is new artificial intelligence solutions to fight them
Sun, September 24, 2023
LONDON (AP) — Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence.
Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked.
With wildfires becoming larger and more intense as the world warms, firefighters, utilities and governments are scrambling to get ahead of the flames by tapping into the latest AI technology — which has stirred both fear and excitement for its potential to transform life. While increasingly stretched first responders hope AI offers them a leg up, humans are still needed to check that the tech is accurate.
California's main firefighting agency this summer started testing an AI system that looks for smoke from more than 1,000 mountaintop camera feeds and is now expanding it statewide.
The system is designed to find “abnormalities” and alert emergency command centers, where staffers will confirm whether it’s indeed smoke or something else in the air.
“The beauty of this is that it immediately pops up on the screen and those dispatchers or call takers are able to interrogate that screen” and determine whether to send a crew, said Phillip SeLegue, staff chief of intelligence for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The cameras, part of a network that workers previously had to watch, provide billions of bytes of data for the AI system to digest. While humans still need to confirm any smoke sightings, the system helps reduce fatigue among staffers typically monitoring multiple screens and cameras, alerting them to look only when there's possible fire or smoke, SeLegue said.
It's already helped. A battalion chief got a smoke alert in the middle of the night, confirmed it on his cellphone and called a command center in San Diego to scramble first responders to the remote area.
The dispatchers said that if they hadn’t been alerted, the fire would have been much larger because it likely wouldn't have been noticed until the next morning, SeLegue said.
San Francisco startup Pano AI takes a similar approach, mounting cameras on cell towers that scan for smoke and alert customers, including fire departments, utility companies and ski resorts.
The cameras use computer vision machine learning, a type of AI.
“They’re trained very specifically to detect smoke or not, and we train them with images of smoke and images of not smoke,” CEO Sonia Kastner said.
The images are combined with feeds from government weather satellites that scan for hotspots, along with other data sources, such as social media posts.
The technology gets around one of the main problems in the traditional way of detecting wildfires — relying on 911 calls from passers-by that need confirmation from staffers before crews and water-dropping planes can be deployed.
“Generally, only one in 20 of these 911 calls are actually a wildfire. Even during fire season, it might be a cloud or fog or a barbecue,” Kastner said.
Pano AI’s systems do still rely on final confirmation, with managers playing a time lapse of the camera feed to ensure it’s smoke rising.
For fighting forest fires, “technology is becoming really essential,” said Larry Bekkedahl, senior vice president of energy delivery at Portland General Electric, Oregon’s largest utility and a Pano AI customer.
Utility companies sometimes play a role in sparking wildfires, when their power lines are knocked down by wind or struck by falling trees. Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged that its power lines started a devastating blaze in Maui this summer after apparently being downed by high winds.
PGE, which provides electricity to 51 cities in Oregon, has deployed 26 Pano AI cameras, and Bekkedahl said they have helped speed up response and coordination with emergency services.
Previously, fire departments were “running around looking for stuff and not even really knowing exactly where it’s at,” he said. The cameras help detect fires quicker and get teams on the ground faster, shaving up to two hours off response times.
“That’s significant in terms of how fast that fire can can spread and grow,” Bekkedahl said.
Using AI to detect smoke from fires “is relatively easy,” said Juan Lavista Ferres, chief data scientist at Microsoft.
“What is not easy is to have enough cameras that cover enough places,” he said, pointing to vast, remote areas in northern Canada that have burned this summer.
Ferres' team at Microsoft has been developing AI models to predict where fires are likely to start. They have fed the model with maps of areas that burned previously, along with climate and geospatial data.
The system has its limitations — it can't predict random events like a lightning strike. But it can sift through historical weather and climate data to identify patterns, such as areas that are typically drier. Even a road, which indicates people are nearby, is a risk factor, Ferres said.
“It’s not going to get it all perfectly right," he said. "But what it can do is it can build a probability map (based on) what happened in the past.”
The technology, which Microsoft plans to offer as an open source tool, can help first responders trying to figure out where to focus their limited resources, Ferres said.
Another company is looking to the heavens for a solution. German startup OroraTech analyzes satellite images with artificial intelligence.
Taking advantage of advances in camera, satellite and AI technology, OroraTech has launched two mini satellites about the size of a shoebox into low orbit, about 550 kilometers (340 miles) above Earth’s surface. The Munich-based company has ambitions to send up eight more next year and eventually put 100 into space.
As wildfires swept central Chile this year, OroraTech said it provided thermal images at night when aerial drones are used less frequently.
Weeks after OroraTech launched its second satellite, it detected a fire near the community of Keg River in northern Alberta, where flames burned remote stretches of boreal forest repeatedly this summer.
"There are algorithms on the satellite, very efficient ones to detect fires even faster," CEO Thomas Gruebler said.
The AI also takes into account vegetation and humidity levels to identify flare-ups that could spawn devastating megafires. The technology could help thinly stretched firefighting agencies direct resources to blazes with the potential to cause the most damage.
“Because we know exactly where the fires are, we can see how the fires will propagate," Gruebler said. “So, which fire will be the big fire in one day and which will stop on their own.”
___
AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed.
Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press
Sun, September 24, 2023
LONDON (AP) — Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence.
Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked.
With wildfires becoming larger and more intense as the world warms, firefighters, utilities and governments are scrambling to get ahead of the flames by tapping into the latest AI technology — which has stirred both fear and excitement for its potential to transform life. While increasingly stretched first responders hope AI offers them a leg up, humans are still needed to check that the tech is accurate.
California's main firefighting agency this summer started testing an AI system that looks for smoke from more than 1,000 mountaintop camera feeds and is now expanding it statewide.
The system is designed to find “abnormalities” and alert emergency command centers, where staffers will confirm whether it’s indeed smoke or something else in the air.
“The beauty of this is that it immediately pops up on the screen and those dispatchers or call takers are able to interrogate that screen” and determine whether to send a crew, said Phillip SeLegue, staff chief of intelligence for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The cameras, part of a network that workers previously had to watch, provide billions of bytes of data for the AI system to digest. While humans still need to confirm any smoke sightings, the system helps reduce fatigue among staffers typically monitoring multiple screens and cameras, alerting them to look only when there's possible fire or smoke, SeLegue said.
It's already helped. A battalion chief got a smoke alert in the middle of the night, confirmed it on his cellphone and called a command center in San Diego to scramble first responders to the remote area.
The dispatchers said that if they hadn’t been alerted, the fire would have been much larger because it likely wouldn't have been noticed until the next morning, SeLegue said.
San Francisco startup Pano AI takes a similar approach, mounting cameras on cell towers that scan for smoke and alert customers, including fire departments, utility companies and ski resorts.
The cameras use computer vision machine learning, a type of AI.
“They’re trained very specifically to detect smoke or not, and we train them with images of smoke and images of not smoke,” CEO Sonia Kastner said.
The images are combined with feeds from government weather satellites that scan for hotspots, along with other data sources, such as social media posts.
The technology gets around one of the main problems in the traditional way of detecting wildfires — relying on 911 calls from passers-by that need confirmation from staffers before crews and water-dropping planes can be deployed.
“Generally, only one in 20 of these 911 calls are actually a wildfire. Even during fire season, it might be a cloud or fog or a barbecue,” Kastner said.
Pano AI’s systems do still rely on final confirmation, with managers playing a time lapse of the camera feed to ensure it’s smoke rising.
For fighting forest fires, “technology is becoming really essential,” said Larry Bekkedahl, senior vice president of energy delivery at Portland General Electric, Oregon’s largest utility and a Pano AI customer.
Utility companies sometimes play a role in sparking wildfires, when their power lines are knocked down by wind or struck by falling trees. Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged that its power lines started a devastating blaze in Maui this summer after apparently being downed by high winds.
PGE, which provides electricity to 51 cities in Oregon, has deployed 26 Pano AI cameras, and Bekkedahl said they have helped speed up response and coordination with emergency services.
Previously, fire departments were “running around looking for stuff and not even really knowing exactly where it’s at,” he said. The cameras help detect fires quicker and get teams on the ground faster, shaving up to two hours off response times.
“That’s significant in terms of how fast that fire can can spread and grow,” Bekkedahl said.
Using AI to detect smoke from fires “is relatively easy,” said Juan Lavista Ferres, chief data scientist at Microsoft.
“What is not easy is to have enough cameras that cover enough places,” he said, pointing to vast, remote areas in northern Canada that have burned this summer.
Ferres' team at Microsoft has been developing AI models to predict where fires are likely to start. They have fed the model with maps of areas that burned previously, along with climate and geospatial data.
The system has its limitations — it can't predict random events like a lightning strike. But it can sift through historical weather and climate data to identify patterns, such as areas that are typically drier. Even a road, which indicates people are nearby, is a risk factor, Ferres said.
“It’s not going to get it all perfectly right," he said. "But what it can do is it can build a probability map (based on) what happened in the past.”
The technology, which Microsoft plans to offer as an open source tool, can help first responders trying to figure out where to focus their limited resources, Ferres said.
Another company is looking to the heavens for a solution. German startup OroraTech analyzes satellite images with artificial intelligence.
Taking advantage of advances in camera, satellite and AI technology, OroraTech has launched two mini satellites about the size of a shoebox into low orbit, about 550 kilometers (340 miles) above Earth’s surface. The Munich-based company has ambitions to send up eight more next year and eventually put 100 into space.
As wildfires swept central Chile this year, OroraTech said it provided thermal images at night when aerial drones are used less frequently.
Weeks after OroraTech launched its second satellite, it detected a fire near the community of Keg River in northern Alberta, where flames burned remote stretches of boreal forest repeatedly this summer.
"There are algorithms on the satellite, very efficient ones to detect fires even faster," CEO Thomas Gruebler said.
The AI also takes into account vegetation and humidity levels to identify flare-ups that could spawn devastating megafires. The technology could help thinly stretched firefighting agencies direct resources to blazes with the potential to cause the most damage.
“Because we know exactly where the fires are, we can see how the fires will propagate," Gruebler said. “So, which fire will be the big fire in one day and which will stop on their own.”
___
AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed.
Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press
This season's widespread, severe wildfires will have long-lasting impact on N.W.T.'s boreal forest
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
Volunteers, including Edmund Gill, up front, clear dry branches to create a firebreak as wildfires threatened the Northwest Territories town of Yellowknife in August. More than four million hectares of N.W.T. forest have burned during the 2023 fire season.
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
Volunteers, including Edmund Gill, up front, clear dry branches to create a firebreak as wildfires threatened the Northwest Territories town of Yellowknife in August. More than four million hectares of N.W.T. forest have burned during the 2023 fire season.
(Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters - image credit)
Usually fires help to maintain a healthy boreal forest, but it's all about balance.
More than four million hectares of boreal forest have burned in the N.W.T. this wildfire season, and that paired with the severity of the fires will lead to a range of long-term impacts on the landscape.
Jennifer Baltzer is a professor of biology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Baltzer says wildfires are crucial to maintaining biodiversity in the boreal forest, but this is not a typical fire season.
"Wildfire is just a really important and central component of the way the boreal system functions," she said, "But with climate warming and drying and the kinds of conditions we've seen this summer and in previous summers, we're seeing fires that are burning in ways that we haven't seen before."
Jennifer Baltzer is the Canada Research Chair in forests and global change at Wilfrid Laurier University. She says while wildfires are vital to maintaining biodiversity in the boreal forest, the 2023 N.W.T. fire season is not a typical one. This year's fires, she says, will have a range of impacts on the landscape.
Peatlands store carbon and provide valuable habitat for forest species.
Dettah resident Bobby Drygeese says animals are out in the open more than usual this year due to the wildfires burning in N.W.T. However, he's optimistic they'll return to their normal habitats over the next few years.
Usually fires help to maintain a healthy boreal forest, but it's all about balance.
More than four million hectares of boreal forest have burned in the N.W.T. this wildfire season, and that paired with the severity of the fires will lead to a range of long-term impacts on the landscape.
Jennifer Baltzer is a professor of biology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Baltzer says wildfires are crucial to maintaining biodiversity in the boreal forest, but this is not a typical fire season.
"Wildfire is just a really important and central component of the way the boreal system functions," she said, "But with climate warming and drying and the kinds of conditions we've seen this summer and in previous summers, we're seeing fires that are burning in ways that we haven't seen before."
Jennifer Baltzer is the Canada Research Chair in forests and global change at Wilfrid Laurier University. She says while wildfires are vital to maintaining biodiversity in the boreal forest, the 2023 N.W.T. fire season is not a typical one. This year's fires, she says, will have a range of impacts on the landscape.
(Angela Gzowski/Wilfrid Laurier University)
What's different about this season's fires?
Area and severity of fires
This wildfire season has been the worst on record in the territory. Not only is the area burned extraordinary, but the season has been exceptionally dry, leading to the fires burning hotter, and deeper into the soil.
According to Baltzer, fires usually occur 70 to 100 years apart from one another in the N.W.T., but these intervals are getting shorter. The combination of more widespread, intense and frequent fires has several consequences to the forests.
Peat is the thick, spongy layer that forms part of the soil in boreal forests, and it's where 80 to 90 per cent of carbon in the boreal forest is stored. This layer builds up over time, storing carbon from the atmosphere as it grows.
What's different about this season's fires?
Area and severity of fires
This wildfire season has been the worst on record in the territory. Not only is the area burned extraordinary, but the season has been exceptionally dry, leading to the fires burning hotter, and deeper into the soil.
According to Baltzer, fires usually occur 70 to 100 years apart from one another in the N.W.T., but these intervals are getting shorter. The combination of more widespread, intense and frequent fires has several consequences to the forests.
Peat is the thick, spongy layer that forms part of the soil in boreal forests, and it's where 80 to 90 per cent of carbon in the boreal forest is stored. This layer builds up over time, storing carbon from the atmosphere as it grows.
Peatlands store carbon and provide valuable habitat for forest species.
(Taylor Holmes/CBC)
While wildfires will burn the peat soil, they are not usually intense enough to burn through the build up between fires, and there is enough time between burns for the peat layer to recover.
However, Baltzer said that this seems to be changing. She said that in the 2014 fires there were places where all of the carbon that was accumulated during the fire-free period burned, and the fires began burning older carbon, or what is known as legacy carbon.
"This is a really important change in the way the system responds to these more severe wildfires like we saw this summer, because it means that the carbon sequestration mechanisms of the boreal forest are not working the way they have in the past when they're challenged by these really large and extreme wildfires that are really deep-burning into the soils."
In the long term, the burning of legacy carbon in the boreal forests could mean the forests emit carbon dioxide rather than remove it from the atmosphere.
Forest regrowth
The extensive, deep burning can also affect how forests regenerate after the fires. If fires occur too frequently in an area, they can kill seeds stored in the soil. Short fire intervals may also kill trees before they are mature enough to reproduce and leave new seeds.
Black spruce reestablishes well on thick peat soils; pine and aspens do not. Baltzer says that after intense burns, forests dominated by spruce trees may be replaced with aspen and birch forests.
"The forest will stay as forest, but the composition changes, which has implications for the other plants that grow in the forest and for the wildlife that use that forest," she said, "In the most extreme situation, we see burning that is severe enough that we have no regeneration of trees, and in fact, a transition toward either grassland or shrubland systems."
This change may come with some benefits. Deciduous trees like aspen and birch tend to be less flammable than jack pine or black spruce, Baltzer said. A shift from primarily coniferous to primarily aspen forests could provide natural fire breaks on the landscape.
Impacts on wildlife
As the forests change, so do the species that inhabit them.
Samuel Hache is a landbird researcher with the Canadian Wildlife Service. He said that species adapted for mature boreal forests such as chickadees, nuthatches, warblers and Canada jays may struggle as more habitat is lost to wildfires.
"For me, a growing concern is perhaps how much mature forest will be left in the Northwest Territories to be able to support communities of mature forest specialists."
Mature boreal forests take decades to regrow. As large swaths of older forests burn, some species may struggle to find habitat. Baltzer said that caribou are one species that avoid burned areas for years following a fire.
Bobby Drygeese lives in Dettah, N.W.T., and he said he's been seeing more animals out in the open since the fires, and that the animals are more skittish than usual.
While wildfires will burn the peat soil, they are not usually intense enough to burn through the build up between fires, and there is enough time between burns for the peat layer to recover.
However, Baltzer said that this seems to be changing. She said that in the 2014 fires there were places where all of the carbon that was accumulated during the fire-free period burned, and the fires began burning older carbon, or what is known as legacy carbon.
"This is a really important change in the way the system responds to these more severe wildfires like we saw this summer, because it means that the carbon sequestration mechanisms of the boreal forest are not working the way they have in the past when they're challenged by these really large and extreme wildfires that are really deep-burning into the soils."
In the long term, the burning of legacy carbon in the boreal forests could mean the forests emit carbon dioxide rather than remove it from the atmosphere.
Forest regrowth
The extensive, deep burning can also affect how forests regenerate after the fires. If fires occur too frequently in an area, they can kill seeds stored in the soil. Short fire intervals may also kill trees before they are mature enough to reproduce and leave new seeds.
Black spruce reestablishes well on thick peat soils; pine and aspens do not. Baltzer says that after intense burns, forests dominated by spruce trees may be replaced with aspen and birch forests.
"The forest will stay as forest, but the composition changes, which has implications for the other plants that grow in the forest and for the wildlife that use that forest," she said, "In the most extreme situation, we see burning that is severe enough that we have no regeneration of trees, and in fact, a transition toward either grassland or shrubland systems."
This change may come with some benefits. Deciduous trees like aspen and birch tend to be less flammable than jack pine or black spruce, Baltzer said. A shift from primarily coniferous to primarily aspen forests could provide natural fire breaks on the landscape.
Impacts on wildlife
As the forests change, so do the species that inhabit them.
Samuel Hache is a landbird researcher with the Canadian Wildlife Service. He said that species adapted for mature boreal forests such as chickadees, nuthatches, warblers and Canada jays may struggle as more habitat is lost to wildfires.
"For me, a growing concern is perhaps how much mature forest will be left in the Northwest Territories to be able to support communities of mature forest specialists."
Mature boreal forests take decades to regrow. As large swaths of older forests burn, some species may struggle to find habitat. Baltzer said that caribou are one species that avoid burned areas for years following a fire.
Bobby Drygeese lives in Dettah, N.W.T., and he said he's been seeing more animals out in the open since the fires, and that the animals are more skittish than usual.
Dettah resident Bobby Drygeese says animals are out in the open more than usual this year due to the wildfires burning in N.W.T. However, he's optimistic they'll return to their normal habitats over the next few years.
(Avery Zingel/CBC)
"We've seen a lot of bears, a lot of foxes and stuff out on the highways and the roads."
However, Hache said there will be both "winners and losers."
After the fires in 2014, Hache and his colleagues discovered that some birds did make use of even the most-severely burned areas.
"In the next few years we expect that the so-called fire specialists, you can think about the black-back woodpecker, common nighthawk, and some other open-habitat species that will benefit for the first maybe two, three, four years," Hache said.
Drygeese is also optimistic about the return of wildlife. He expects animals to return to regrowth near Dettah in the coming years.
"Because of the new sprouts and all that, there'll be nice and fresh and clean food. So animals will be coming back to those burn areas, but it might not be for a couple years."
Fire and water
Wildfires can also affect permafrost thawing. Baltzer said that permafrost thawing is not only associated with the fires directly.
Peat serves as an insulating layer for permafrost, as does tree cover. When fires burn through the canopy and deep into the soil, it removes layers of insulation protecting permafrost. Blackened earth also adds to the problem, as the scorched soil absorbs more energy and accelerates permafrost thaw.
"A lot of those southerly permafrost landscapes are already thawing out just in the face of climate warming. You have that additional input of energy from wildfire, and that can be the extra energy input needed to push those systems to a permafrost-free state," Baltzer said.
There are other impacts on water systems from the wildfires.
Mike Waddington is a professor and Canada research chair in eco-hydrology at McMaster University. He studies the effects of wildfires, and said that there are multiple ways fire affects how water flows through a landscape.
After a wildfire the soil can become water repellant. This can contribute to erosion and also have impacts on water quality, as the runoff carries excess nutrients and carbon which can affect water quality, Waddington said.
"That's a concern that people in N.W.T. will need to be aware of. In many cases after fire, a decrease in the quality of the water increases nutrients, algal growth, dissolved organic carbon, which increases the cost for treatability."
While the immediate damage from the fires is easily visible, it will take years to determine the full effects of this exceptionally-severe wildfire season on the territory.
"We've seen a lot of bears, a lot of foxes and stuff out on the highways and the roads."
However, Hache said there will be both "winners and losers."
After the fires in 2014, Hache and his colleagues discovered that some birds did make use of even the most-severely burned areas.
"In the next few years we expect that the so-called fire specialists, you can think about the black-back woodpecker, common nighthawk, and some other open-habitat species that will benefit for the first maybe two, three, four years," Hache said.
Drygeese is also optimistic about the return of wildlife. He expects animals to return to regrowth near Dettah in the coming years.
"Because of the new sprouts and all that, there'll be nice and fresh and clean food. So animals will be coming back to those burn areas, but it might not be for a couple years."
Fire and water
Wildfires can also affect permafrost thawing. Baltzer said that permafrost thawing is not only associated with the fires directly.
Peat serves as an insulating layer for permafrost, as does tree cover. When fires burn through the canopy and deep into the soil, it removes layers of insulation protecting permafrost. Blackened earth also adds to the problem, as the scorched soil absorbs more energy and accelerates permafrost thaw.
"A lot of those southerly permafrost landscapes are already thawing out just in the face of climate warming. You have that additional input of energy from wildfire, and that can be the extra energy input needed to push those systems to a permafrost-free state," Baltzer said.
There are other impacts on water systems from the wildfires.
Mike Waddington is a professor and Canada research chair in eco-hydrology at McMaster University. He studies the effects of wildfires, and said that there are multiple ways fire affects how water flows through a landscape.
After a wildfire the soil can become water repellant. This can contribute to erosion and also have impacts on water quality, as the runoff carries excess nutrients and carbon which can affect water quality, Waddington said.
"That's a concern that people in N.W.T. will need to be aware of. In many cases after fire, a decrease in the quality of the water increases nutrients, algal growth, dissolved organic carbon, which increases the cost for treatability."
While the immediate damage from the fires is easily visible, it will take years to determine the full effects of this exceptionally-severe wildfire season on the territory.
B.C. mule deer stressed by wildfire, but still much to learn about wildlife impacts
The Canadian Press
Sun, September 24, 2023
Proof that deer experienced elevated stress in response to wildfires in British Columbia's southern Interior can be found in their poop, although researchers say there's still much to learn about what increasingly severe blazes mean for wildlife.
Shaun Freeman, a wildlife and habitat biologist with the Skeetchestn First Nation, said his team began gathering mule deer pellets in August 2021, while two large fires were still burning in the area between Cache Creek and Kamloops, B.C.
The samples were sent to the Toronto Zoo, where testing revealed elevated concentrations of the stress-induced hormone cortisol.
Stress can affect the animals' nutritional uptake, causing them to burn precious fat stores, and it can decrease their ability to produce offspring, Freeman said.
Cortisol levels have since dropped by around half in samples taken during more favourable conditions, he said, allowing the researchers to establish a baseline.
But the local mule deer population has been declining, and the Sparks Lake and Tremont Creek wildfires that together spanned 1,595 square kilometres scorched half of the animals' key winter habitat in Skeetchestn territory, Freeman said.
The winter range has mature old-growth conifers, which help deer move through the forest by shielding the ground from deep snowfall. The trees' needles and arboreal lichens also provide food during the sparse winter months, he explained.
Swathes of forests burned by the 2021 wildfires have shifted to the kind of habitat that deer would forage in during the summer, he said.
With access restrictions in response to the wildfires lifting this fall, the First Nation has asked people to stay out of the areas burned in 2021, especially at low elevations frequented by deer,in order to minimize stressors and disturbances.
Adam Ford, Canada research chair in wildlife restoration ecology based at the University of B.C.'s Okanagan campus, said there are many unknowns and variables when it comes to understanding the impacts of wildfire on wildlife.
The effects vary over the short and long term and across seasons and species, as well as different types of habitats and how animals use those areas, he said.
Ford said the return of fire to the landscape after decades of aggressive suppression efforts could actually be a "net benefit" for most wildlife.
But for that to happen it has to be the right kind of fire, and it must be combined with land-management approaches that support overall ecosystem health, he said.
"We're going to have fires regardless," Ford said.
"What we want to see is the return of good fire, cultural fire, prescribed fire."
Cultural fire — the strategicblazes Indigenous Peoples used to steward the land before fire suppression ramped up with colonization — would have led to explosions of vegetation for wildlife to feast on, among other benefits, Ford said.
Yet climate change is fuelling increasingly large, severe wildfires, and their effects interact with other disturbances, such as clear-cut logging and reforestation.
As fire returns to the landscape, Ford said it's important to manage those impacts.
If an ecosystem is already "sputtering along, then fire could be bad," he said.
The predominant approach in B.C. is to replant logged or burned areas with coniferous trees intended to feed the forest industry. It's also common practice to remove deciduous treesthat would otherwise play important roles in the ecosystem, including support for wildlife, Ford said.
"The problem is people think restoration is planting trees. You're restoring people's access to timber, but you're not restoring the habitat (or) the ecosystem," he said.
"If we want (wildfire) to be a benefit, then maybe we don't let all these other activities come in after the fire," Ford said. "Maybe we enjoy the flush of deciduous understory and don't see it as competition for softwood lumber species."
Fire can be used to promote regeneration and biodiversity on the landscape, agreed Sarah Dickson-Hoyle, an ecologist working with the Secwepemcul'ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society, of which Skeetchestn First Nation is a member.
"But that contrasts really drastically with these extensive high severity burns."
The onset of "megafire" has prompted calls for scientists to deepen their understanding of the long-term effects and trajectories of recovery, she said.
Secwepemc territories have been affected by several large, high-intensity blazes in recent years, including the 1,900-square-kilometre Elephant Hill fire in 2017.
Work so far has revealed limited short-term recovery in areas that wereseverelyscorched, said Dickson-Hoyle, an intern with the innovation organization Mitacs and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of B.C.'s faculty of forestry.
"We're seeing much lower diversity for those understory plants, for the shrubs, the grasses, the wildflowers that are not only the biggest part of biodiversity in those forests, but are really important for wildlife forage," she said.
"Understanding the impacts of these megafires is also bringing to the forefront that these fires in many of the landscapes in B.C. are not what those areas would have been adapted to. It's outside the historical range," she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2023.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
Sun, September 24, 2023
Proof that deer experienced elevated stress in response to wildfires in British Columbia's southern Interior can be found in their poop, although researchers say there's still much to learn about what increasingly severe blazes mean for wildlife.
Shaun Freeman, a wildlife and habitat biologist with the Skeetchestn First Nation, said his team began gathering mule deer pellets in August 2021, while two large fires were still burning in the area between Cache Creek and Kamloops, B.C.
The samples were sent to the Toronto Zoo, where testing revealed elevated concentrations of the stress-induced hormone cortisol.
Stress can affect the animals' nutritional uptake, causing them to burn precious fat stores, and it can decrease their ability to produce offspring, Freeman said.
Cortisol levels have since dropped by around half in samples taken during more favourable conditions, he said, allowing the researchers to establish a baseline.
But the local mule deer population has been declining, and the Sparks Lake and Tremont Creek wildfires that together spanned 1,595 square kilometres scorched half of the animals' key winter habitat in Skeetchestn territory, Freeman said.
The winter range has mature old-growth conifers, which help deer move through the forest by shielding the ground from deep snowfall. The trees' needles and arboreal lichens also provide food during the sparse winter months, he explained.
Swathes of forests burned by the 2021 wildfires have shifted to the kind of habitat that deer would forage in during the summer, he said.
With access restrictions in response to the wildfires lifting this fall, the First Nation has asked people to stay out of the areas burned in 2021, especially at low elevations frequented by deer,in order to minimize stressors and disturbances.
Adam Ford, Canada research chair in wildlife restoration ecology based at the University of B.C.'s Okanagan campus, said there are many unknowns and variables when it comes to understanding the impacts of wildfire on wildlife.
The effects vary over the short and long term and across seasons and species, as well as different types of habitats and how animals use those areas, he said.
Ford said the return of fire to the landscape after decades of aggressive suppression efforts could actually be a "net benefit" for most wildlife.
But for that to happen it has to be the right kind of fire, and it must be combined with land-management approaches that support overall ecosystem health, he said.
"We're going to have fires regardless," Ford said.
"What we want to see is the return of good fire, cultural fire, prescribed fire."
Cultural fire — the strategicblazes Indigenous Peoples used to steward the land before fire suppression ramped up with colonization — would have led to explosions of vegetation for wildlife to feast on, among other benefits, Ford said.
Yet climate change is fuelling increasingly large, severe wildfires, and their effects interact with other disturbances, such as clear-cut logging and reforestation.
As fire returns to the landscape, Ford said it's important to manage those impacts.
If an ecosystem is already "sputtering along, then fire could be bad," he said.
The predominant approach in B.C. is to replant logged or burned areas with coniferous trees intended to feed the forest industry. It's also common practice to remove deciduous treesthat would otherwise play important roles in the ecosystem, including support for wildlife, Ford said.
"The problem is people think restoration is planting trees. You're restoring people's access to timber, but you're not restoring the habitat (or) the ecosystem," he said.
"If we want (wildfire) to be a benefit, then maybe we don't let all these other activities come in after the fire," Ford said. "Maybe we enjoy the flush of deciduous understory and don't see it as competition for softwood lumber species."
Fire can be used to promote regeneration and biodiversity on the landscape, agreed Sarah Dickson-Hoyle, an ecologist working with the Secwepemcul'ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society, of which Skeetchestn First Nation is a member.
"But that contrasts really drastically with these extensive high severity burns."
The onset of "megafire" has prompted calls for scientists to deepen their understanding of the long-term effects and trajectories of recovery, she said.
Secwepemc territories have been affected by several large, high-intensity blazes in recent years, including the 1,900-square-kilometre Elephant Hill fire in 2017.
Work so far has revealed limited short-term recovery in areas that wereseverelyscorched, said Dickson-Hoyle, an intern with the innovation organization Mitacs and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of B.C.'s faculty of forestry.
"We're seeing much lower diversity for those understory plants, for the shrubs, the grasses, the wildflowers that are not only the biggest part of biodiversity in those forests, but are really important for wildlife forage," she said.
"Understanding the impacts of these megafires is also bringing to the forefront that these fires in many of the landscapes in B.C. are not what those areas would have been adapted to. It's outside the historical range," she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2023.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
PARENTAL RIGHTS
Ontario soccer refs start wearing body cams to deter parental abuse
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
Angelina Baldino, who's in her fifth year of refereeing, said the cameras make her feel safer. (Igor Petrov/CBC - image credit)
Some referees with Ontario's soccer association started wearing body cameras this week as part of a new pilot project meant to deter parental abuse, which is a main reason officials are quitting the job.
There are 50 body cameras available to the roughly 6,000 referees in the province, according to Ontario Soccer CEO Johnny Misley, who said the effort is the first of its kind in North America. The British Football Association rolled out a similar project earlier this year, which Misley said inspired the Ontario effort.
"We feel there's an opportunity here, that we can show some leadership and try to curb the culture of referee abuse, which is the number one reason why referees leave the game and sport in general," Misley said.
"This is not acceptable. And honestly, seeing these referees with cameras on them today is a pretty sad state of where our society is," he added.
Misley said the pilot project is being conducted in partnership with Brock University, who will handle the research component of the evidence-based trial. The number one objective, he said, is determining wether the cameras act as a physical deterrent for vocal and physical abuse.
On Sunday, refs got to test out the cameras during a match at the Ontario Soccer Centre in Vaughan, Ont. The trial will run through the rest of the outdoor season, which goes through October, Misley said. It will continue throughout the indoor soccer season in the cooler months as well.
'It makes us feel a lot safer,' says ref
Misley said just last year a 16-year-old girl was surrounded by parents in the parking lot after refereeing a match and was physically assaulted. In another instance, a player who received a red card in a men's game chased a referee around the field with a machete, according to Misley.
Referees who officiated games while wearing cameras on Sunday told CBC Toronto the devices are having an impact.
"It makes us feel a lot safer," said 21-year-old Angelina Baldino, who's in her fifth year of refereeing. "[There] have been some instances in my past refereeing career where I felt like I've needed one."
In her experience, she said people have threatened to follow her to a car because of her refereeing.
"Cameras could have definitely helped in those situations, either as a deterrent or to just capture the incident," she said.
Michael Cotton, a parent at the soccer centre on Sunday, thinks the initiative is a good one. (Igor Petrov/CBC)
Baldino said she's seen refs quit because the abuse was too much to handle.
"There are definitely really hard games where you stop and go, 'Why am I putting myself through this?'"
Lara Yassine has been reffing since she was 13 and said the abuse took a toll in her early years.
"It can put a lot of stress on you," she said. "At the end of the day, you're a student, right? And you're just a human being."
Michael Cotton, a parent at the soccer centre on Sunday, thinks the initiative is a good one. He said everyone gets wrapped up in the heat of the game, but there's one group of people at the pitch that need to exercise more patience.
"I would say the parents, maybe they're the ones that need to lower the temperature the most," he said. "We're not doing the world cup here, it's regional play."
Ontario soccer refs start wearing body cams to deter parental abuse
CBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
Angelina Baldino, who's in her fifth year of refereeing, said the cameras make her feel safer. (Igor Petrov/CBC - image credit)
Some referees with Ontario's soccer association started wearing body cameras this week as part of a new pilot project meant to deter parental abuse, which is a main reason officials are quitting the job.
There are 50 body cameras available to the roughly 6,000 referees in the province, according to Ontario Soccer CEO Johnny Misley, who said the effort is the first of its kind in North America. The British Football Association rolled out a similar project earlier this year, which Misley said inspired the Ontario effort.
"We feel there's an opportunity here, that we can show some leadership and try to curb the culture of referee abuse, which is the number one reason why referees leave the game and sport in general," Misley said.
"This is not acceptable. And honestly, seeing these referees with cameras on them today is a pretty sad state of where our society is," he added.
Misley said the pilot project is being conducted in partnership with Brock University, who will handle the research component of the evidence-based trial. The number one objective, he said, is determining wether the cameras act as a physical deterrent for vocal and physical abuse.
On Sunday, refs got to test out the cameras during a match at the Ontario Soccer Centre in Vaughan, Ont. The trial will run through the rest of the outdoor season, which goes through October, Misley said. It will continue throughout the indoor soccer season in the cooler months as well.
'It makes us feel a lot safer,' says ref
Misley said just last year a 16-year-old girl was surrounded by parents in the parking lot after refereeing a match and was physically assaulted. In another instance, a player who received a red card in a men's game chased a referee around the field with a machete, according to Misley.
Referees who officiated games while wearing cameras on Sunday told CBC Toronto the devices are having an impact.
"It makes us feel a lot safer," said 21-year-old Angelina Baldino, who's in her fifth year of refereeing. "[There] have been some instances in my past refereeing career where I felt like I've needed one."
In her experience, she said people have threatened to follow her to a car because of her refereeing.
"Cameras could have definitely helped in those situations, either as a deterrent or to just capture the incident," she said.
Michael Cotton, a parent at the soccer centre on Sunday, thinks the initiative is a good one. (Igor Petrov/CBC)
Baldino said she's seen refs quit because the abuse was too much to handle.
"There are definitely really hard games where you stop and go, 'Why am I putting myself through this?'"
Lara Yassine has been reffing since she was 13 and said the abuse took a toll in her early years.
"It can put a lot of stress on you," she said. "At the end of the day, you're a student, right? And you're just a human being."
Michael Cotton, a parent at the soccer centre on Sunday, thinks the initiative is a good one. He said everyone gets wrapped up in the heat of the game, but there's one group of people at the pitch that need to exercise more patience.
"I would say the parents, maybe they're the ones that need to lower the temperature the most," he said. "We're not doing the world cup here, it's regional play."
ONTARIO
Barrie wanted to ban donations to homeless people on its property. Advocates are sending the plan to the UNCBC
Sun, September 24, 2023
Alex Nuttall, the city's mayor, said city hall is
A coalition of advocacy organizations is taking a previously proposed Barrie bylaw amendment to the United Nations as an example of a policy that criminalizes homelessness in Canada.
In May and June, the city north of Toronto proposed and then walked back two bylaw amendments that would have made it illegal for people and charitable groups to distribute food, literature, clothes, tents and tarps to unhoused people on public property.
The proposal was sent back to staff for review in June but was discussed again at a community safety committee meeting on Tuesday. A date for another council vote on the bylaw has yet to be set.
After Tuesday's meeting, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and Pivot Legal society sent the proposed bylaw amendments to the UN's rapporteurs on the right to adequate housing and extreme poverty. The intergovernmental agency has put out a call for laws impacting unhoused people for a report on decriminalizing homelessness, with a submission deadline of early October.
The proposed amendments were shared along with several other policy examples from British Columbia.
"We're very concerned about the direction that the city [of Barrie] is taking and so we thought it was important to raise alongside a number of other bylaws across the country for consideration and context for the United Nations analysis," said DJ Larkin, the executive director of the drug policy coalition.
DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, said Barrie's proposal stood out as a particularly bad example of the potential criminalization of people who are unhoused in Canada.
DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, said Barrie's proposal stood out as a particularly bad example of the potential criminalization of people who are unhoused in Canada. (Submitted by DJ Larkin)
Alex Nuttall, the city's mayor, did not grant CBC Toronto with an interview for this story. In an email, he said city hall is "confused" as to why the organizations involved sent the proposals to the UN for examination.
"Council's intent was clear not to deter individual acts of kindness," he said.
In their report, the coalition says it's not aware of any substantive changes to the proposal. At Tuesday's meeting, city staff said council will have a revised proposal for the bylaws by the end of the calendar year.
When introduced, the proposed bylaw amendments also appeared to make it illegal for charitable organizations to provide supplies to unhoused people on city property. CBC Toronto asked Nuttall if there would still be restrictions on what charities do in the revised bylaw amendment proposals. Nuttall did not respond prior to publication.
Advocates want amendments rescinded entirely
The coalition's report to the UN was endorsed by Barrie Housing and Homelessness Justice Network, of which Michael Speers is a member. He says they'd ultimately like to see the proposed bylaw amendments rescinded.
"If they're determined to to go ahead with some type of bylaw [amendment], if they want to modernize the language, then we will be happy to submit language that is written through a human human rights lens," he said.
Speers was also critical of the city's current approach to the homelessness issue.
"They don't want to provide any real solutions that lift people up, they want to basically push people out," he said.
Michael Speers wants the city to rescind its proposed amendments instead of revising their language.
Michael Speers wants the city to rescind its proposed amendments instead of revising their language. (CBC)
Rob Romanek, chair of the civic engagement organization Engage Barrie, echoed Speers's calls for the proposals to be rescinded.
"To backpedal and say, 'No, that's not what we meant.' Well then take them out because that's what it says," Romanek said.
In response to criticism, the mayor said he's been "a longtime advocate for treatments and support for the community."
In a separate email, a city spokesperson said Barrie will spend at least $1.6 million on initiatives like a warming centre and food security programs over the next two years.
In preparing the coalition's report, Larkin said Barrie's proposal stood out as a particularly bad example of the criminalization of people who are unhoused.
"At the United Nations level, we are hoping to demonstrate how Canada's failure to address the overlapping crises of toxic drugs, homelessness and income insecurity are playing out on our streets," Larkin said.
A year after Fiona, a traumatized Newfoundland town backs away from the sea
The Canadian Press
Sun, September 24, 2023
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — One year after a wave driven by post-tropical storm Fiona slammed into the back of her house and twisted it like a corkscrew, Lori Dicks now lives up on a hill, far from the water.
She still has a view of the ocean, but she's far enough away that there's no chance it will swell up and swallow her entire life again like it did on the morning of Sept. 24, 2022, in Port aux Basques, N.L.
"I still think about it all the time. So much change has happened for us, for everyone. Even the whole town I find is affected, even the landscape has changed," she said in a recent interview from her new home across the province in Burin Bay Arm, N.L. "On our side of the street where all our homes were, it's completely gone. All of our homes are torn down now."
Fiona destroyed about 100 homes that morning in southwestern Newfoundland, and a 73-year-old woman died when she was swept out to sea. Houses that had belonged to families for generations were washed away or destroyed, and some lost everything inside their home.
Dicks and her husband Claude had lived in their Port aux Basques home for nearly three decades. They raised their daughter there. After Fiona cracked its foundation, the house was deemed too dangerous to return to, and it was condemned. Dicks was allowed back in for a brief time to remove what she could.
She feels lucky she was able to salvage anything at all.
Port aux Basques has now established what it calls the high-impact zone — an area deemed to be most at risk for severe damage from storms, even those with a fraction of Fiona's power. Some residents call it the "Fiona line."
Within that line, more than 80 homes were washed away by Fiona or later torn down after damage wrought by the storm left them uninhabitable, Mayor Brian Button said in an interview. Another 57 houses behind the line are still standing and occupied. Button said the owners will be bought out by the province so they can move somewhere else.
The provincial government has paid out about $41.6 million in compensation to people in southwestern Newfoundland who lost their homes in the storm, according to a statement from the Department of Justice and Public Safety. Owners of the 57 homes sill inside the impact zone will receive at least $200 per square foot for their houses, as well as money for their land, the department said.
The decisions to move people have been devastating to make, Button said, but they were necessary: Fiona crumbled so much of the town's shoreline into the sea, those houses are now dangerously close to the water.
"The whole thing is very emotional," he said. "We see all the damage that's around, that's visible. But nobody has realized the mental health aspect that this has had on the community."
"For me, personally, it's been a struggle ... just to mentally try to keep it together and deal with it all," he added.
Beyond the long hours and gut-wrenching decisions required of him as the volunteer mayor of a town beset by a crushing disaster, he's borne the brunt of some residents' grief. Heartbroken residents have yelled at him, only to approach him later in tears to apologize, he said.
"I've had people say to me, 'Well, you don't understand you didn't lose anything.'" But Button said he has sat with hundreds of affected families, and he's heard their stories and cried with them.
Ashley Smith is owner and managing director of St. John's-based climate consulting firm Fundamental Inc. She says that as the planet warms and powerful storms are expected to hit more frequently, the difficult discussions forced upon Port aux Basques need to happen in other coastal communities.
She uses the term "managed retreat" to describe a process of identifying vulnerable coastal areas, and perhaps enacting bylaws against building new homes in those areas and moving people out of them, just as Port aux Basques is doing.
"Any community along the coast is going to be vulnerable. Especially the small ones that are largely unchanged from like 50, 60, 70, 100 years ago," Smith said in a recent interview. "Most of the very small communities along (Newfoundland's) very long coasts are positioned right on the water ... and that is a vulnerable situation."
Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast is also vulnerable, she noted, as are parts of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
Conversations about managed retreat are fraught, she acknowledges. Asking people to leave behind homes that in many cases were built by family members generations ago is not easy. Most towns also don't have the data they need to inform those decisions, she added.
But it will be safer and less traumatic for communities to begin the work voluntarily, rather than have it be forced upon them by a storm like Fiona, she said.
In their hilltop home in Burin Bay Arm, Dicks and her husband have started over. She's rebuilt her hairstyling business in her new community, and she's a short drive away from her 29-year-old daughter, who is set to give birth next month — Dicks's first grandchild.
But she still fights back tears when she speaks about the morning Fiona hit, and the way it changed her life forever. She worries about her husband, who watched helplessly as the wave crashed into their house. Even their dog, Cooper, is having a hard time, she said.
She misses her neighbours back in Port aux Basques but doesn't think she could handle regularly passing by her old neighbourhood, where many of the homes are gone.
"In a way, I'm glad I'm not there to drive around on our street and see it," she said. "Because I don't think I could get past it, to tell you the truth."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2023.
Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
Sun, September 24, 2023
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — One year after a wave driven by post-tropical storm Fiona slammed into the back of her house and twisted it like a corkscrew, Lori Dicks now lives up on a hill, far from the water.
She still has a view of the ocean, but she's far enough away that there's no chance it will swell up and swallow her entire life again like it did on the morning of Sept. 24, 2022, in Port aux Basques, N.L.
"I still think about it all the time. So much change has happened for us, for everyone. Even the whole town I find is affected, even the landscape has changed," she said in a recent interview from her new home across the province in Burin Bay Arm, N.L. "On our side of the street where all our homes were, it's completely gone. All of our homes are torn down now."
Fiona destroyed about 100 homes that morning in southwestern Newfoundland, and a 73-year-old woman died when she was swept out to sea. Houses that had belonged to families for generations were washed away or destroyed, and some lost everything inside their home.
Dicks and her husband Claude had lived in their Port aux Basques home for nearly three decades. They raised their daughter there. After Fiona cracked its foundation, the house was deemed too dangerous to return to, and it was condemned. Dicks was allowed back in for a brief time to remove what she could.
She feels lucky she was able to salvage anything at all.
Port aux Basques has now established what it calls the high-impact zone — an area deemed to be most at risk for severe damage from storms, even those with a fraction of Fiona's power. Some residents call it the "Fiona line."
Within that line, more than 80 homes were washed away by Fiona or later torn down after damage wrought by the storm left them uninhabitable, Mayor Brian Button said in an interview. Another 57 houses behind the line are still standing and occupied. Button said the owners will be bought out by the province so they can move somewhere else.
The provincial government has paid out about $41.6 million in compensation to people in southwestern Newfoundland who lost their homes in the storm, according to a statement from the Department of Justice and Public Safety. Owners of the 57 homes sill inside the impact zone will receive at least $200 per square foot for their houses, as well as money for their land, the department said.
The decisions to move people have been devastating to make, Button said, but they were necessary: Fiona crumbled so much of the town's shoreline into the sea, those houses are now dangerously close to the water.
"The whole thing is very emotional," he said. "We see all the damage that's around, that's visible. But nobody has realized the mental health aspect that this has had on the community."
"For me, personally, it's been a struggle ... just to mentally try to keep it together and deal with it all," he added.
Beyond the long hours and gut-wrenching decisions required of him as the volunteer mayor of a town beset by a crushing disaster, he's borne the brunt of some residents' grief. Heartbroken residents have yelled at him, only to approach him later in tears to apologize, he said.
"I've had people say to me, 'Well, you don't understand you didn't lose anything.'" But Button said he has sat with hundreds of affected families, and he's heard their stories and cried with them.
Ashley Smith is owner and managing director of St. John's-based climate consulting firm Fundamental Inc. She says that as the planet warms and powerful storms are expected to hit more frequently, the difficult discussions forced upon Port aux Basques need to happen in other coastal communities.
She uses the term "managed retreat" to describe a process of identifying vulnerable coastal areas, and perhaps enacting bylaws against building new homes in those areas and moving people out of them, just as Port aux Basques is doing.
"Any community along the coast is going to be vulnerable. Especially the small ones that are largely unchanged from like 50, 60, 70, 100 years ago," Smith said in a recent interview. "Most of the very small communities along (Newfoundland's) very long coasts are positioned right on the water ... and that is a vulnerable situation."
Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast is also vulnerable, she noted, as are parts of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
Conversations about managed retreat are fraught, she acknowledges. Asking people to leave behind homes that in many cases were built by family members generations ago is not easy. Most towns also don't have the data they need to inform those decisions, she added.
But it will be safer and less traumatic for communities to begin the work voluntarily, rather than have it be forced upon them by a storm like Fiona, she said.
In their hilltop home in Burin Bay Arm, Dicks and her husband have started over. She's rebuilt her hairstyling business in her new community, and she's a short drive away from her 29-year-old daughter, who is set to give birth next month — Dicks's first grandchild.
But she still fights back tears when she speaks about the morning Fiona hit, and the way it changed her life forever. She worries about her husband, who watched helplessly as the wave crashed into their house. Even their dog, Cooper, is having a hard time, she said.
She misses her neighbours back in Port aux Basques but doesn't think she could handle regularly passing by her old neighbourhood, where many of the homes are gone.
"In a way, I'm glad I'm not there to drive around on our street and see it," she said. "Because I don't think I could get past it, to tell you the truth."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2023.
Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press
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