Canada may have entered a technical recession, early StatCan data show

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

The Canadian economy may have entered a technical recession, according to the preliminary gross domestic product estimate from Statistics Canada. 

The federal agency released its August GDP report on Tuesday, which shows the Canadian economy remained flat in the month, while a preliminary estimate suggests it shrank in the third quarter.

The report says higher interest rates, inflation, forest fires and drought conditions continued to weigh on the economy.

August marked the second consecutive month where growth remained flat, and advance data suggests the economy continued that trend in September.

For the third quarter, Statistics Canada's preliminary estimate suggested the economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.1 per cent, which would follow a contraction in the second quarter.

A technical recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, but economists generally look for broader-based weakness to qualify a downturn as a recession. 

"The declines are still very small," said Nathan Janzen, assistant chief economist at RBC. 

The report said eight out of 20 industries grew in August, while growth in services-producing sectors was offset by goods-producing sectors.

Among the industries that experienced growth are wholesale trade and mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction.

Industries such as agriculture and forestry, manufacturing, retail and accommodation and food services shrank.

The Bank of Canada opted to hold its key interest rate steady at five per cent at its last two decision meetings. Janzen said Tuesday's release solidifies this decision. 

"This makes it more likely that they won't hike interest rates again," he said. 

High interest rates are expected to continue dampening growth in the economy, particularly as more households renew their mortgages at higher rates.

A recent forecast from the Bank of Canada suggests economic growth will remain weak for the rest of the year, and into 2024.

The pullback in spending caused by higher borrowing costs is supposed to help cool high inflation, which was sitting at 3.8 per cent in September.

The Bank of Canada expects annual inflation will return to the two per cent target in 2025.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2023.

'Very weak': economists react to GDP figures

Iva Poshnjari, BNN Bloomberg

The Canadian economy came to a standstill in August as overall demand for goods and services weakened, according to Statistics Canada data released Tuesday – and economists predict the slowdown will continue in the months ahead.   

Gross domestic product (GDP) came in flat in the month of August and saw 0.9 per cent growth year-over-year, according to data released by Statistics Canada on Tuesday. Flash estimates for the country’s third-quarter GDP show a contraction of 0.1 per cent. 

“There’s a lack of business confidence. It’s very weak. It’s at recession levels and consumer confidence keeps coming down as well, and there’s a real risk here that this could unravel into something deeper,” Pedro Antunes, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada, told BNN Bloomberg in an interview on Tuesday. 
 
While Antunes isn’t calling for a recession, he does anticipate flat economic activity to continue from now until 2024. 
 
“We’re starting to see the full impacts of this very restrictive monetary policy,” Antunes said. 
 
Accommodation and food services declined 1.8 per cent in August, while retail trade contracted 0.7 per cent, continuing the downward trend that started at the beginning of 2023, the data showed.  
 
In terms of what’s driving the economic weakness, Antunes pointed to a weakened consumer with spillover effects for business profitability, as well as a general slowdown in global growth. Despite those factors, Canada's labour market is still proving to be fairly resilient, he noted. 
 
“We’re still calling for a soft landing but there are some risks there,” he said.

FIRMS 'HOARDING WORKERS'

Typically there is a lag between economic data and job cuts, Jean-François Perrault, senior vice-president and chief economist at Scotiabank, told BNN Bloomberg in an interview on Tuesday.

“We are expecting a modest tick up of unemployment, a half a percentage point or so in the next few quarters, which isn’t really big deal by historical standards, but of course is required if you’re trying to slow the economy,” he said.

Economists typically expect more job losses during an economic slowdown, but Perrault said recent labour shortages may explain the current pattern.

“Firms spent a tremendous amount of energy attracting and retaining workers over the last couple of years, and we know that that’s probably leading them to hoarding workers,” he said.

“Once workers are gone in this economy, they’re going to be very difficult to get back,” Perrault added.

FORECASTED THIRD-QUARTER CONTRACTION

A preliminary reading of Canada's third-quarter growth revealed an economic contraction, which is in line with what an RBC economist had forecasted. 
 
“Details were arguably softer than the headline growth number suggested, with consumer-sensitive sectors like retail sales and hospitality services looking softer (despite surging population growth) and the manufacturing sector pulling back for a third straight month," Nathan Janzen, assistant chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada, wrote in a note on Tuesday. 
 
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR INFLATION?
 
The weakening of the Canadian economy is likely to ease any inflationary pressures ahead, despite the Bank of Canada’s concerns of inflation running above its two per cent target, he added. 
 
"We don't expect additional interest rate hikes from the (Bank of Canada) as long as that continues,” Janzen wrote. 

Desjardins economists agreed that inflation would likely ease as a result of the economic climate, allowing the Bank of Canada to stay on the sidelines. 

“We think inflation should come in weaker that the (Bank of Canada’s) upwardly revised forecast, allowing it to remain on hold for the foreseeable future,” Randall Bartlett, Desjardins senior director of Canadian Economics, wrote in a note on Tuesday. 

“We remain of the view that the next move by the Bank will be a cut around the middle of 2024,” he said. 

'The market is wrong' on rate cut timeline: Ed

 Devlin

Iva Poshnjari, BNN Bloomberg

The Bank of Canada decided not to hike interest rates any further this week, and two prominent experts predict economic weakness ahead will prompt aggressive rate cuts that the market is overlooking.
 
While the central bank has not indicated when it will start cutting rates, the street is projecting rate cuts will begin by late 2024. Devlin Capital founder Ed Devlin told BNN Bloomberg that he’s betting against that sentiment. 
 
“The market’s not always right. I think the market is wrong,” he said. 
 
Devlin said he believes the Bank of Canada will cut rates in the not-so-distant future as he says the monetary policy in both Canada and the U.S. is too tight. 
 
“(Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem) and (U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell) do not want to go down in history as the folks who let the inflation genie out of the bottle … (but) they already are overly restrictive,” he said.
 
Economist David Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research, told BNN Bloomberg that he agrees with Devlin’s assessment. 
 
“They’ve already put the inflation genie back in the bottle,” he said Thursday.
 
Rosenberg pointed to Canada’s fractionally negative GDP read in the second quarter and signs of no momentum in the third quarter as proof that “a recession has already begun.”
 
“When you strip out all the nonsense, such as mortgage interest rates in the consumer price index, inflation in Canada is running right at target,” he explained. 
 
“(The Bank of Canada) actually should be thinking about cutting rates, but it’s hubris that’s preventing them from doing that,” he added. 
 
In this economic environment, Rosenberg believes the Bank of Canada will need to act fast. 
 
“Rates are going to be coming down much more quickly and forcefully than the markets (have) priced in right now,” he warned. 

Canada facing 'stagflation' risk: former Bank 

of Canada official

Ben Cousins, BNN Bloomberg

As the Bank of Canada hints that interest rates may stay at five per cent for some time, a former deputy governor at the central bank says the country’s economy now risks "stagflation."

On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada held interest rates at five per cent. It kept the door open to further hikes in the future, while reiterating that “supply and demand in the economy are now approaching balance.”

Paul Beaudry, deputy governor at the Bank of Canada from 2019 until July of this year, said Canada should be concerned about stagflation, which occurs when an economy faces slow growth, high unemployment and high prices.

“I think we're in that risk right now,” he said.

“Growth is very slow right now. If you look at it per capita, it's actually declining. The actual growth of the economy per capita is already negative and we still have inflation well above the Bank of Canada's target. That’s, in some sense, a sign of that stagflation.”

Beaudry said the hope is that an economic slowdown will be enough to bring prices back down, but stagflation remains a risk.

“If … inflation doesn't come back down because the economy has gotten used to an inflation rate more around three and a half, or four per cent, then that's going to be a real difficulty and a real challenge going forward,” Beaudry said.

The Bank of Canada downgraded its growth outlook the 2023 and 2024 in its Monetary Policy Report on Wednesday, with growth expected to reach 1.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent in those respective years.

Beaudry said mortgage renewals, which could see some homeowners suddenly paying thousands of dollars more when it comes time to renew, will have a significant impact on growth in Canada.

“More and more people start renewing and are renewing that rates that are much higher than when they first took out that mortgage,” he said.

“That’s … a long shadow on the Canadian economy. The Bank of Canada has taken that into account.”

BANK OF CANADA ‘NOT THINKING ABOUT RATE CUTS’

Beaudry also warned against high hopes of a rate cut in the near future.

“Whatever the interpretation you take from yesterday's decision, interest rates are not coming down for a while,” he said, pointing to the Bank of Canada’s forecasts for inflation staying above 3.5 per cent into next year and starting to come down in 2025.

“That's not an environment where it's suggesting the Bank of Canada is thinking about rate cuts at this point.”

 

Canada could be world leader in mass timber construction: RBC report

Ben Cousins, BNN Bloomberg

Canada could become a world leader in sustainable construction if the country shifts to using mass timber for buildings, according to a new report from RBC.

The report published on Oct. 27 found steel and concrete in construction projects represent 92 megatons of carbon dioxide sent to the atmosphere in Canada, amounting to 13 per cent of all emissions in 2022.

However, the report found that Canada’s emissions could be cut by 5.5 megatons if a third of new large construction projects by 2030 were made with mass timber instead of steel and concrete.

Emissions would be reduced further by three megatons if all future apartment and condo builds used mass timber for their floor systems, the report found.

“Now is the time for all players in the building sector to work together to act on these challenges and solutions and for Canada to showcase to the world that we are a nation of innovators in building construction and climate action,” Myha Truong-Regan, head of research at the RBC Climate Action Institute, wrote in the report.

WHAT IS MASS TIMBER?

Mass timber refers to large pieces of timber that can be used for load-bearing beams in low and mid-rise construction projects. They are lighter than steel and concrete and emit fewer emissions in production.

“While towering steel-and-concrete structures once symbolized economic growth, they are now emblematic of the climate challenge that needs to be scaled,” Truong-Regan said. “The extensive use of carbon-intensive cement, steel and aluminum in buildings has made it the third most emissions-generating sector in Canada.”

Given Canada’s vast forest resources, the report made the case that the country could create a global marketplace for mass timber and become a world leader in the market when it comes to sustainable construction practices.

“We may be on the cusp of the next wave of sustainable buildings: made with low-carbon mass timber and assembled like an Ikea wardrobe to help bring down emissions,” Truong-Regan wrote.

A 25 per cent global market share would add $1.2 billion to the economy by 2030, the report said. 

CHALLENGES FOR THE INDUSTRY

There are some hurdles to overcome with mass timber, however, as there are just 661 completed mass timber projects in Canada to date.

Notable mass timber projects include George Brown College’s Limberlost Place, the College of the Rockies Kootenay Centre South in Cranbrook, B.C. and the Winnipeg Humane Society.

Insurance premiums on mass timber projects can be 10 times higher than similar buildings made of steel and concrete, the report said, while the specialized tools needed for these projects are also much more expensive.

Standardizing insurance fire risks and government grants for mass timber projects could help reduce building costs, the report said.

20,000 Toxic Sites in Sagging Arctic Permafrost

Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall

by Robert Hunziker / October 27th, 2023

“Massive Permafrost Thaw Documented in Canada, Portends Huge Carbon Release”, Bob Berwyn, February 28, 2017 (Credit: Wikimedia)

New studies show the Arctic heating up 4-times the overall rate of global warming. This startling rate in one of the most sensitive environments in the world could trigger toxic disasters in up to 20,000 industrial contamination sites.

Twenty-five percent (25%) of the Northern Hemisphere is covered by permafrost that’s melting the fastest ever. The risks of toxic leaks at industrial sites are immeasurable. Nobody really knows for sure how it ends, but it has started.

Industrial contaminants accumulated in Arctic permafrost regions have been largely neglected in existing climate impact analyses. Here we identify about 4500 industrial sites where potentially hazardous substances are actively handled or stored in the permafrost-dominated regions of the Arctic. Furthermore, we estimate that between 13,000 and 20,000 contaminated sites are related to these industrial sites.

— Moritz Langer et al, “Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination”, Nature Communications, March 28, 2023.

This percolating threat is starting to become reality as Arctic climate conditions shift into overdrive, heating up like never before. As stated in the Langer study: “The latest data analyses suggesting up to four-fold faster warming, substantially changing the ground stability.”

“Substantially changing the ground stability” is the last thing anybody wants to hear. Previously, it was thought that the Arctic was warming roughly 2+times faster than the rest of the planet, but this new data suggests 4-fold, which is roughly twice the rate of past warming. It is a shocker with potential to kick-start release of massive amounts of extremely dangerous toxic materials, including radioactive waste, in permafrost throughout the Far North.

For decades, industrial and economic development of the Arctic assumed that permafrost would serve as a permanent and stable platform: Past industrial practices also assumed that perennially frozen ground would function as long-term containment for solid and liquid industrial waste due to its properties as a hydrological barrier… A number of experiments were conducted in Alaska, Canada, and Russia in which toxic liquids and solids, including radioactive waste, were deliberately placed in permafrost for containment.

— Ibid.

Between 1955 and 1990, the Soviet Union conducted 130 nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and near surface ocean of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago off the coast of north-west Russia. The tests used 224 separate explosive devices, releasing around 265 megatons of nuclear energy. More than 100 decommissioned nuclear submarines were scuttled in the nearby Kara and Barents seas. While the Russian government has since launched a strategic clean-up plan, the review notes that the area has tested highly for the radioactive substances’ caesium and plutonium, between undersea sediment, vegetation, and ice sheets…The United States’ Camp Century nuclear-powered under-ice research facility in Greenland also produced considerable nuclear and diesel waste. When it was decommissioned in 1967, waste was left in the accumulating ice, which faces a longer-term threat from changes to the Greenland Ice Sheet.

— “Rapidly Warming Arctic Could Cause Spread of Nuclear Waste, Undiscovered Viruses and Dangerous Chemicals, New Report Finds”, Aberystwyth University, September 30, 2021.

In 2021 the Russian newswire Tass claimed the country was at “the finish line,” removing thousands of tons of radioactive material from the Arctic. However:

Since the 1990s, the Bellona Foundation has been involved in discovering and documenting nuclear hazards and radiation threats in Arctic Russia and based on that experience, the organization asserts that Likhachev’s announcement is untrue — Russia is nowhere near the “finish line” in these efforts.

— “Rosatom Says Nuclear Cleanup in Arctic Done- Far from the Case, Says Bellona”, Bellona, June 7, 2023.

The problem may be magnified beyond what’s already known simply because, to date:

There has been no assessment of the environmental impact of these activities on the Arctic as a whole.

— Ibid.

In other words, nobody really knows what’s happened or what’s happening. This is a new under-researched arena of study that has horns protruding like glistening daggers in the night.

The following research of danger lurking in the Arctic should spook the daylights out of anybody:

Over 110 of Russia’s decommissioned nuclear submarines still have operating nuclear reactors, which, according to Russian designs, means two reactors per vessel or more than 220 individual reactors. There is nowhere to put the liquid waste or to store the spent fuel, so the reactors have to keep operating with only skeleton crews. While, in the past, one country’s failure to safely dispose of its military hardware might rightly have been viewed as its own problem, the case of nuclear submarines cannot be seen in the same light. The proliferation threats these vessels pose is global, due to the large amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium—the key ingredients of nuclear weapons—contained in their fresh and spent fuel. This enormous stockpile of fissile material, which is currently not well protected from theft or diversion, presents an attractive target for a potential proliferator, whether a rogue state or sub-state actor.

— “Dismantling Russia’s Nuclear Subs”, Arms Control Association, May 19, 2021.

Throughout the Arctic, the issue of what to do for remediation or cleanup is compounded due to the loss of ground stability which limits access to impacted sites and use of heavy equipment. As such, permafrost melt creates a barrier to cleanup. The Langer study found that many former industrial-use facilities are now abandoned and difficult to access.

In the face of clear warnings, the scope of danger is increasing in real time because of new industrial development. There are no international environmental regulations for the Arctic as formulated for the Antarctic in the Madrid Protocol that requires transparent documentation of contamination and potential sources of hazardous substances. However, governance for the Arctic falls under an umbrella organization called PAME (1991) that established an Arctic Council. PAME does delineate environmental issues and shipping issues with a softball approach that does not appear to have teeth for enforcement.

At the same time as scientists uncover more and more risks of toxic materials, the situation is made all the worse because of increased economic interest and commercial development in a less forbidding melting Arctic. But that is merely a ruse as it’s more forbidding than ever before; a melting Arctic is filled with unexpected dangers lurking right around the corner. There is risk of multiple contaminated sites leaking at the same time whilst new industrial development runs amok. Alas, this is starting to look like an exercise in madness at a level of human stupidity seldom witnessed in the history of civilized society. Such situations likely never end well.

“Oceana Warns That Irresponsible Industrialization of the Arctic Could Lead to Catastrophic Consequences Worldwide”, Oceana, “Protecting the World’s Oceans”:

This sea ice loss has also opened the Arctic to the immediate threat of rapid industrialization. As Arctic sea ice melts, Arctic waters have become susceptible to new threats of increased industrial fishing, shipping, and oil and gas exploration and development. Increasing human activities could significantly accelerate the threats facing the Arctic, which would have cascading effects all over the world.

The Norilsk Diesel Tank Incident

The disaster scenario is already playing-out for all to witness: The Norilsk Diesel Tank Incident d/d June 2020: A regional emergency was declared in the city of Norilsk when the supporting posts in the basement of a storage tank of diesel fuel suddenly sank because of cascading permafrost causing 21,000 tonnes of diesel to pour into rivers and lakes in Russia’s Arctic North. President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency. Just wondering: How many diesel tanks are located in the Arctic permafrost?

The scope of the Arctic permafrost problem is beyond belief with (1) pesticides like DDT packed in barrels and buried in the permafrost (2) increasing oil leaks by pipelines that stretch throughout the landscape (3) radioactive materials buried around former and current military bases, and (4) deposit reservoirs containing numerous industrial toxicants. Making matters even worse yet, only recently Canada’s massive fires are bringing into focus a whole new dynamic. Wildfires could be sending up plumes of toxicant-laden smoke that spreads across the land and to adjoining countries, like the USA.

Throughout the Arctic, airport runways are sinking, roads are cascading, and buildings are tilting, as some of the most toxic materials known to humankind sit in waiting to be released into the environment because of man-made global warming; once again proving the ancient proverb: “You reap what you sow.” According to Darcy Peter, a permafrost researcher at Woods Hole Research Center:

I’ve heard of dozens of houses falling in, and a few churches. There are multiple graveyards that are falling in, and there’s nothing that anybody can to.

— Eos, June 24, 2020.

Analysts that research and study Arctic permafrost say: “It’s a ticking time bomb.”

As the Arctic fall season of 2023 turns into an icy Arctic winter, which is a shadow of its former self, COP28 is scheduled to be held in Dubai where oil sheiks have taken over control of the science-based UN COP/28 meeting aka: Conference of the Parties for the UN Climate Change Conference starting in a few weeks, late November, when nations of the world and at least 100+ prime ministers and presidents show up for photo ops with Bono to allegedly challenge climate change with 80,000 attendees roaming the decorated halls, similar in many respects to extravagant US auto shows, that presupposes “all will be well, just hang in there, we’ll find solutions.” That would be historic!

Will climate scientists attend?

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

The Afterlife: A Trick or a Treat?

Halloween Celebrations Past and Present

by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / October 28th, 2023

Snap-Apple Night, painted by Daniel Maclise in 1833, shows people feasting and playing divination games on Halloween in Ireland.   It was inspired by a Halloween party he attended in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832.

The answer seems to be that we make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones. With the endless inventiveness of humankind, we grasp the very elements which are so divisive and destructive and try to turn them into tools—to dismantle themselves.
― Stephen King, Danse Macabre, April 209, 1981

Halloween is creeping up on us again replete with all its ghostly traditions celebrated all over the world.

Also known as All Saints’ Eve, it is the time in the liturgical year or Christian year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. It is followed by All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day on the 1 November, and All Souls’ Day, a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed, observed by certain Christian denominations on 2 November.

However, it is also believed that Halloween is rooted in the ancient pagan Gaelic festival of Samhain which marks the change of seasons and the approach of winter. Samhain begins at sunset on October 31 and continues until sunset on November 1, marking the end of harvest and the start of winter. This Celtic pagan holiday followed the great cycle of life as part of their year-round celebrations of nature along with Imbolc (February 1), Beltane (May 1) and Lughnasadh (August 1).

During Samhain people would:

bring their cattle back from the summer pastures and slaughter livestock in preparation for the upcoming winter. They would also light ritual bonfires for protection and cleansing as they wished to mimic the sun and hold back the darkness. It was also a time when people believed that spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí ) were more likely to pass into our world. […] Dead and departed relatives played a central role in the tradition, as the connection between the living and dead was believed to be stronger at Samhain, and there was a chance to communicate. Souls of the deceased were thought to return to their homes. Feasts were held and places were set at tables as a way to welcome them home. Food and drink was offered to the unpredictable spirits and fairies to ensure continued health and good fortune.

Dancing around the bonfire. The Graphic | 7 January 1893

The Celts believed in an afterlife called the Otherworld which was similar to this life but “without all the negative elements like disease, pain, and sorrow.”

Therefore, the Celts had little to fear from death when their soul left their body, or as the Celts believed, their head.

As Christianity spread in pagan communities, the church leaders attempted to incorporate Samhain into the Christian calendar. The Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic lands by A.D. 43 and combined two Roman festivals, Feralia and Pomona with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. Feralia was similar to Samhain as the Romans commemorated the passing of their dead, while Pomona, whose symbol was the apple, was the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, and may be the origin of the apple games of Halloween.

Some centuries later the church moved again to supplant the pagan traditions with Christian ones:

On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead.

While on the surface the changes from the Celtic Otherworld to the Christian concepts of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell may not seem very radical yet when one looks further into the different beliefs about the afterlife a very different story emerges.

The Otherworld

The Celtic Otherworld is “more usually described as a paradisal fairyland than a scary place” and sometimes described as an island to the west in the Ocean and “even shown on some maps of Ireland during the medieval era.” It has been called, or places in the Otherworld have been called,  “Tír nAill (“the other land”), Tír Tairngire (“land of promise/promised land”), Tír na nÓg (“land of the young/land of youth”), Tír fo Thuinn (“land under the wave”), Tír na mBeo (“land of the living”), Mag Mell (“plain of delight”), Mag Findargat (“the white-silver plain”), Mag Argatnél (“the silver-cloud plain”), Mag Ildathach (“the multicoloured plain”), Mag Cíuin (“the gentle plain”), and Emain Ablach (possibly “isle of apples”).”

As can be seen from the names given to the places of the Otherworld there are two important, salient points. One is the positive, almost welcoming aspect of the descriptions implied, and secondly their close relationship with nature and places in the real world. The Otherworld is described “either as a parallel world that exists alongside our own, or as a heavenly land beyond the sea or under the earth,” and could be entered through “ancient burial mounds or caves, or by going under water or across the western sea.”

We may then ask who could enter the Otherworld in the afterlife?

Although there are no surviving texts from the continent which comment on this, on the basis of comparisons with comparable societies and burial practices we can guess that both the gods and the ancestral dead were believed to inhabit the Otherworld. The earliest literary texts in Irish reflect exactly this idea.

These deductions about the afterlife then reflect the nature-based ideology of pagan religion which is focused on the cycles of nature, and also the fact that we ourselves are part of that nature, thus both the ancestral dead and the gods inhabited the Otherworld. It seems that the dead entered the Otherworld fairly quickly and could even return to visit the living when the darkness started to take over from the light at Samhain. Even the living could visit the Otherworld but these visits would have their own drawbacks; for example, Oisín discovers that what had only seemed a short stay in Tír na nÓg had been hundreds of years in the real world.

Ghosts walk the night in Brittany by F. De Haenen | The Graphic | 5 November 1910

Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory

The differences between nature-based paganism and the Master and Martyr ethics of Christianity mean that entry to heaven is not guaranteed and may even be delayed for a long time in purgatory. For example:

Christianity considers the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to entail the final judgment by God of all people who have ever lived, resulting in the approval of some and the penalizing of most. […] Belief in the Last Judgment (often linked with the general judgment) is held firmly in Catholicism. Immediately upon death each person undergoes the particular judgment, and depending upon one’s behavior on earth, goes to heaven, purgatory, or hell. Those in purgatory will always reach heaven, but those in hell will be there eternally.

Hell is often depicted with fire and torture of the guilty. Thus, Christianity brings a strong element of fear into perceptions of the afterlife. The people whose behaviour needs to be controlled are frightened into being good and given long promises about eventual eternal bliss at the end of time.

The patriarchal element of Christianity and its desire to control and direct the remnants of pagan religion gave rise to other important aspects of Halloween. The dark symbolism of witches on broomsticks with black cats are an essential element of the Halloween imagery. By late medieval/early modern Europe, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. The Church saw these women (whose knowledge of nature was transformed into healing homoeopathic treatments) as a threat to their authority and demonised them before their own communities.

The witches “occasionally functioned as midwives, assisting the delivery and birth of babies, aiding the mother with different plant-based medicines to help with the pain of childbirth. […] The word Witch comes from the word for ‘wise one’ that was ‘Wicca’, and who were once considered wise soon became something to be feared and avoided.”

“Halloween Days”, article from American newspaper, The Sunday Oregonian, 1916

Like many traditional festivals Halloween has different historical sources, pagan and Christian, that have come together to form the holiday as we know it today.

Jack-o’-lantern

Jack-o’-lantern represents the soul caught between heaven and hell who can know no rest and must wander on the earth forever. It is believed to originate in an old Irish folk tale from the mid-18th century which tells of Stingy Jack, “a lazy yet shrewd blacksmith who uses a cross to trap Satan.”

A plaster cast of a traditional Irish Jack-o’-Lantern in the Museum of Country Life, Ireland. Rutabaga or turnip were often used.

Jack tricks Satan who lets him go only after he agrees to never take his soul. When the blacksmith dies he is considered too sinful to enter heaven. He could not enter hell either and asks Satan how he will be able to see his way in the dark. Satan’s response was to toss him “a burning coal, to light his way. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the coal inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place.”

The Irish emigrants to the United States are believed to have switched the turnip for a pumpkin as it was more accessible and easier to carve. Ironically, in Ireland now, pumpkins are grown and sold to make modern Jack-o’-lanterns.

Modern carving of a Cornish Jack-o’-Lantern made from a turnip.

Door to door traditions

Another American tradition, trick-or-treating, has also taken root in Ireland in recent decades. As a child growing up in the United States, I also went trick-or-treating in Boston. However, after our move to Dublin, our trick-or-treating questions at Halloween were met with bewilderment as Irish people were used to a simple request for ‘anything for the Halloween party’.

The tradition of going door to door on Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or the souls of the dead, roamed the earth at this time and needed to be appeased. In Europe, from the 12th century, special ‘soul cakes’ would be baked and shared. People would pray for the poor souls of the dead (in purgatory) in return for soul cakes. In Ireland and Scotland “mumming and guising (going door-to-door in disguise and performing in exchange for food) was taken up as another variation on these ancient customs. Pranks were thought to be a way of confounding evil spirits. Pranks at Samhain date as far back as 1736 in Scotland and Ireland, and this led to Samhain being dubbed ‘Mischief Night.’”

Antrobus Soul Cakers at the end of a performance in a village hall in or near Antrobus, Cheshire, England in the mid 1970s. The Soul Cakers are a traditional group of mummers, who perform around All Soul’s Day (October 31st, Hallowe’en) each year. The characters are (left to right) Beelzebub, Doctor, Black Prince, Letter-In, Dairy Doubt, King George, Driver, Old Lady, and Dick, the Wild Horse in the foreground.

It has also been suggested that trick-or-treating “evolved from a tradition whereby people impersonated the spirits, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf.” It was thought that they “personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune”. Impersonating these spirits or souls was believed to protect oneself from them.

Thus, while Halloween may have become highly commercialised in recent years it is still an important custom that brings people and families together in their communities. It still marks an important part of the annual  cycles of nature as the bountifulness of harvest time is contrasted with the bareness of winter. It prepares us psychologically for the dark days ahead. In the past Halloween allowed people to celebrate the completion of the work of life (the production of food) to having the time to contemplate the absence of their forebears: the people who gave them life, nurtured them, and taught them the skills of survival. It is a time to make the young generation aware of their parents’ temporary existence too, in a fun way.

Halloween is a time for confronting our basic fears about death and darkness. It is a time to remember the ancestral spirits of past generations who have ‘passed’ (a word that has become more popular than ‘died’ in recent years) through the thin veil between life and death. And, most importantly, a time to rethink our relationship with nature.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. Read other articles by Caoimhghin.

The Osage want you to know their story doesn’t end with Killers of the Flower Moon

Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon describes the struggles of the Osage people. Here’s why they are still fighting...

by Greg Palast / October 27th, 2023

This week, director Martin Scorsese releases his film Killers of the Flower Moon: the true story of the mass murder of Osage Native Americans and the plot to steal the tribe’s oil wealth. The film is a powerful telling of what came to be known as the Reign of Terror, a period that resulted in the deaths of as many as 200 Osage. But the story didn’t end there. For the past 27 years, I have been reporting on what happened afterwards.

My documentary Long Knife – produced by George DiCaprio, with his son Leonardo’s encouragement – recounts, in the words of the Osage people, what happened in the century since the killings portrayed in the film, from the Terror to oil thievery to today’s fight for sovereignty

‘The Osage Nation has continued to suffer massive oil thievery, impoverishment and oil-sludge poisoning’. Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon.

Over the past century, the Osage Nation has continued to suffer massive oil thievery, impoverishment and oil sludge poisoning on their Oklahoma reservation. “It’s not over,” Osage principal chief, Geoffrey Standing Bear, tells me. “It’s still happening.” At the heart of it is legal control of Osage native land by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, an entity the Osage call the Ma-he-tah, or the Long Knife. Standing Bear, a lawyer himself, likens the arrangement to a military occupation.

The Osage’s current misfortunes began in 1894 with, ironically, the discovery of a gigantic oil reservoir under their Oklahoma land. Suddenly, desperately poor Osage became the richest people on Earth.

But for the US government, that was too much oil and too much money under the control of a people who were not at that time recognised as US citizens. In 1906, the US Congress passed the Burke Act, named after congressman Charles Burke, who called American Indigenous people “half animal”. Burke would head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which determined that Osage were not sufficiently competent to handle their new wealth. It assigned each full-blood Osage a white “guardian”.

These guardians wrote themselves into Osage wills and insurance policies, then systematically murdered their wards and took their oil rights. That’s where Killers of the Flower Moon ends, in the 1920s.

But the predation continued. The US government barred the tribe from developing their own oil and instead auctioned off the Osage’s drilling rights. The giant reserves were then exploited by the behemoths we now know as Getty Oil, ConocoPhillips, Sinclair and Exxon.

The Osage were left with small “stripper” wells producing too little oil to send out through pipelines. Beginning in the 1960s, a small operator out of Wichita, Kansas, Koch Industries, agreed to send out small tanker trucks to take the Osage crude. Except that Koch truckers would take 30 barrels and write down 20. In 1996, I was brought in as a forensic expert on energy frauds. I calculated they had skimmed off $2.4bn (£2bn) – about $6bn in today’s money.

It’s said that behind every great fortune is a great crime. It was this Osage oil that created one of America’s greatest fortunes: the Koch family, whose wealth is calculated at over $120bn. The Kochs have used this wealth to build a fearsome ultra-rightwing force that can create and destroy political careers. Lisa Graves of True North, an authority on corporate lobbying, calculates that Koch interests have spent no less than $200m on campaigns to attack climate change science.

Everett Waller, Chairman of the Osage Minerals Council from Greg Palast and George DiCaprio’s documentary, Long Knife: Osage Oil and the New Trail of Tears, to be released in 2024. Photo, © Palast Investigative Fund, 2023.

To the Osage, it’s still raw. Only months ago, Everett Waller, Osage’s resource chair, confronted the Bureau of Indian Affairs at a tense hearing. “When you get a quote from Koch Oil that said they deserve a barrel for every two they had to pay for, you should have hung the bastards.” (Appropriately, in Killers, Waller plays the fierce Osage leader, Paul Red Eagle.)

Today, the Koch oil trucks are gone, but their poisons are left behind – and I’m not just talking about the economic legacy. Former Koch trucker Jack Crossen told me that Koch ordered its workers to cover up toxic sludge spilt into creeks and water supplies.

Right now, Chief Standing Bear is at war with the system that engendered the Koch heist, the 1920s Reign of Terror and continuing cruelties. The US government still claims ultimate power over Osage money and lands, simply changing the murderous “guardianship” scheme to the “trusteeship” of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The chief explains: “This is our land, and we bought this land with our own money. But the federal government says: ‘The ownership title may belong to you, but the day-to-day control and operation belongs to the federal government.’ And who do they get to help manage? Koch oil!”

For the chief, it’s also personal. The US government to this day lists Chief Standing Bear as “incompetent”, despite his national recognition as one of America’s top trial attorneys. During those few years of oil wealth 100 years ago, the Osage invested in education and skills, with some becoming noted scholars at Stanford and Oxford, and they gave America its first prima ballerina, Maria Tallchief (née Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief). The chief took me to the Bureau of Indian Affairs office, where, in a huge leatherbound book, he and other college graduates in his family are listed as incompetent. It’s more than an insult. It is part of the legal structure that allows the federal government to remain as sovereign over reservation affairs.

The father of Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear as a baby, surrounded by his family and in the lap of oilman Frank Phillips, in 1929. Photograph: Courtesy of Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear.

Today, Koch’s trucks are gone, but Koch’s campaign to deny climate science and stop the government taking action on greenhouse gas emissions has undermined Osage demands for funds to seal up the thousands of methane-spewing, poisonous wells abandoned by corporate drillers. And Waller needs the sovereign rights granted to other Americans so the Osage can launch his long-term plan to “put it all underground” – that is, instead of drilling oil, drilling huge, clean geothermal reserves. That puts the Osage on the frontline in the war over climate and Koch-ocracy.

While the Osage are appreciative of Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio bringing the 1920s Terror to the screen, they want the world to know that their story doesn’t end when the movie credits roll. Former chief Jim Roan Gray, whose great-grandfather’s murder is at the centre of Killers, says the Osage want to be seen as more than victims: they are warriors confronting their US rulers for control of their own land and lives.

• First published in The Guardian

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits and the book and documentary, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His latest film is Vigilante: Georgia's Vote Suppression Hitman. Read other articles by Greg, or visit Greg's website.

 

More US Controls on China’s Chip Industry

News on China No. 169

by Dongsheng News / October 28th, 2023

This week’s News on China.

• More US sanctions against Chinese chip industry
• China tightens graphite export controls
• Industrial renaissance in northeast China
• China approves GM soybeans and corn

Dongsheng (Eastern Voices) is an international collective of researchers interested in Chinese politics and society. The interest in China is growing everywhere. Yet most of the available news and analysis outside China is produced by corporate media from the Global North. Dongsheng provides access to Chinese perspectives. Read other articles by Dongsheng News, or visit Dongsheng News's website.

 

Muddled Interventions: Haiti, the UN and Resolution 2699

by Binoy Kampmark / October 28th, 2023

A country broken by constant foreign interventions, its tyrannical regimes propped up by the back brace of the United States (when it wasn’t intervening to adjust it), marred by appalling natural disasters, tells a sad tale of the crippled Haitian state.  Haiti’s political existence is the stuff and stuffing of pornographic violence, the crutch upon which moralists can always point to as the end, doom and despair that needs change.  Every conundrum needs its intrusive deliverer, even though that deliverer is bound to make things worse.

Lately, those stale themes have now percolated through the corridors of the United Nations to renewed interest.  The staleness is evident in the menu: servings of failed state canapes; vicious, murderous, raping, pillaging gangs as the main musical score; collapse of civic institutions as the dessert. It’s the sort of menu to rile and aggravate any mission or charity, and yet, military-security interventions continue to capture the feeble imagination.

Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, the constant theme in reporting from Haiti is that of rampant, freely operating gangs.  Sophie Hills, a staff writer of the Christian Science Monitor, offered this description in October last year: “Armed gangs have immobilized the capital, Port-au-Prince, shutting down the already troubled economy and creating fear among citizens to even walk the streets.”

This October 23, the UN special envoy to Haiti, María Isabel Salvador, reported to the UN Security Council that the situation had continued “to deteriorate as growing gang violence plunge the lives of the people of Haiti into disarray and major crimes are rising sharply to new record highs.”  These included killings and sexual violence, the latter marked by instances of rape and mutilation.

To add further complexity to the situation, vigilante groups such as the “Bwa Kale” movement have responded through resorting to lynching (395 alleged gang members are said to have perished in that gruesome way between April 24 and September).

Moïse’s opportunistic replacement, Ariel Henry, has served as acting prime minister, persistently calling for foreign intervention to right the worn vessel he is steering into a sunset oblivion.  The past presidential elections were last held in 2016, but Henry has not deemed it appropriate to stage elections, preferring the bureaucratic formula of a High Transition Council (HTC) tasked with eventually achieving that goal.  When the announcement establishing the body was made in February, Henry loftily claimed that this was “the beginning of the end of dysfunction in our democratic institutions.”

These weak assertions have not translated into credible change on the ground.  The contempt with which the HTC has been viewed was indicated by the news from the UN envoy that its Secretary General had been kidnapped by gang members posing as police officers.

In September, Henry addressed the UN hoping to add some mettle to the Haitian National Police, urging the Security Council to adopt measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to “authorize the deployment of a multinational support mission to underpin the security of Haiti”.

The measure can be read as a stalling measure to keep Henry and his Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK) ensconced.  This is certainly the view of the National Haitian-American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON) and the Family Action Network Movement (FANM).  In their September letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the organisations warned that, “Any military intervention supporting Haiti’s corrupt, repressive, unelected regime will likely exacerbate the current political crisis to a catastrophic one.”  The move would “further entrench the regime, deepening Haiti’s political crisis while generating significant civilian casualties and migration pressure.”

In its eternal wisdom, the United Nations Security Council felt that an intervention force consisting of Kenyan police, supplemented by assistance from other states, would be required for this mission.  Resolution 2699, establishing a Multinational Security Support Mission led by Kenya, received a vote of 13 in favour, with Russia and China abstaining.  This would entail a co-deployment with Haitian personnel who have melted before the marauding gangs. Thus, history continues to rhyme (the US occupation, 1915-1934 and the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) from 2004-2017).

Armed gangs feature as a demonic presence in the UN deliberations, regularly paired with such opaque terms as “a multidimensional crisis”.  It is telling that the cliché-governed reasons for that crisis never focus on how the gang phenomenon took root, not least those mouldering state institutions that have failed to protect the populace. Little wonder then, that the Russian representative Vassily Nebenzia felt that sending in armed elements was “an extreme measure” that unnecessarily invoked the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

Undeterred by such views, the US representative Jeffrey Delaurentis noted that the mission would require the “inclusion of dedicated expertise in anti-gang operations, community-oriented policing, and children and women’s protection.”  That Washington approved the measure can be put down to endorsing a policy which might discourage – if only in the short term – the arrival of Haitian asylum seekers which have been turned around en masse.

Despite claiming a different tack from his predecessor in approaching the troubled Caribbean state, President Biden has sought to restrict the influx of Haitian applications using, for instance, Title 42, a Trump policy put in place to deport individuals who pose a pandemic risk, in spite of any asylum credentials they might have.  Within 12 months, the Biden administration was responsible for expelling more than 20,000 Haitians – or as many as the combined totals of three different presidents over two decades.

Resolution 2699 also suffers from another glaring fault.  Kenya’s dominant contribution to the exercise has raised searching questions back home.  Opposition politician Ekuru Aukot, himself a lawyer who had aided in drafting Kenya’s revised 2010 constitution, saw no legal basis for the government to authorise the Haitian deployment.  In his view, the deployment was unconstitutional, lacking any legal backbone or treaty.

In granting Aukot an interim injunction, this point was considered by the Nairobi High Court worthy of resolution.  Judge Enock Mwita was “satisfied that the application and petition raise substantial issues of national importance and public interest and require urgent consideration.”  The judge accordingly issued a conservatory order “restraining the respondents from deploying police officers to Haiti or any other country until 24th October 2023.”

On October 24, Judge Mwita extended the duration of the interim order till November 9, when an open session is scheduled for the petition to be argued.  “This court became seized of this matter earlier than everyone else and it would not make sense for it to set aside or allow the interim orders to lapse.”  The whole operation risks being scuttled even before it sets sail.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.