Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Flanagan. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Flanagan. Sort by date Show all posts

Sunday, November 05, 2023

Canada's largest fishing vessel will be ready for 2024, says Baffin Fisheries CEO


CBC
Sat, November 4, 2023 

The Inuksuk II fishing vessel was launched into the water at a shipyard in Turkey this week. The vessel is being built for Baffin Fisheries, which is based in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and has an operational office in St. John's. The company, which is 100 per cent Inuit-owned, harvests shrimp and turbot from Arctic waters for the benefit of Nunavut. 
(Submitted by Chris Flanagan/Baffin Fisheries - image credit)More

A ship being described as Canada's largest fishing vessel — one that will soon make regular ports of call in Newfoundland harbours like St. Anthony, Harbour Grace and Bay Roberts — was launched this week from a yard in Turkey, and the Nunavut-based owners say it's on track to be harvesting turbot and shrimp from Arctic waters by next year.

The vessel will also bear a name that's quite familiar to ship-spotters in Newfoundland and Labrador: Inuksuk II.

Baffin Fisheries currently operates a fleet of three fishing vessels, including the MV Inuksuk I.

"It's a great achievement for the Inuit owners of Baffin Fisheries in Nunavut," Baffin Fisheries CEO Chris Flanagan told CBC Radio's The Broadcast this week. Flanagan is based at the company's office in St. John's.

The vessel is 80 metres long, 18 metres wide, and will be capable of carrying up to 1,300 tonnes of frozen-at-sea turbot or 930 tonnes of shrimp.

In comparison, the Inuksuk II is six metres longer than the Calvert, the newest vessel in Ocean Choice International's fleet.

Deep connections to Newfoundland and Labrador

The Inuksuk II is owned by Baffin Fisheries, which is based in Nunavut and owned by a coalition of five Inuit hunters and trappers associations in the territory.

But the company also has strong connections to Newfoundland and Labrador because some industry leaders from this province, including people like Carey Bonnell, served on the original committee that helped established the turbot fishery in 2001. The current CEO is from St. John's, and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians often serve alongside Inuit from Nunavut on the company's vessels.

The company's vessels also land their catches in Newfoundland ports.

"A lot of Newfoundlanders were instrumental in setting up this fishery, but the Inuit owners of Baffin Fisheries are very proud and have done extremely well to be ready to get this vessel going. It's going to serve us well and serve Nunavut well for 25 to 30 years," said Flanagan.

The ship is known as a factory freezer trawler, was designed by a Norwegian company, and is being constructed at the Tersan Shipyard in Turkey.

It will be the company's first new vessel, said Baffin Fisheries board chairman Sandy Kautuq, who resides in Clyde River, Nunavut.

In a news release issued this week by the company, Kautuq said: "This beautiful new vessel will allow us to increase benefits to Nunavut communities and improve employment opportunities and working conditions for our fishermen."

A $72M price tag

The ship comes with a $72-million price tag, but Flanagan said the contract was signed before a sharp uptick in the cost of doing business.

"If you wanted to build that vessel today, it would certainly be over $100 million," said Flanagan.

Some important components, such as the main and auxiliary engines, and the shaft and propellers, have been installed.

Flanagan described the ship's power plant as "the world's most fuel efficient marine diesel engine," which he said will dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce fuel costs.

But Flanagan said the processing factory and the freezers are still under construction. He described this as "difficult, technical work."

The factory and freezer will feature automation that will reduce the need for heavy lifting by the crew, and include a first-of-its kind robotic arm.

The accommodations deck has not yet been constructed, and will include 36 bunks instead of 28 in order to accommodate more crew and improve training.

The vessel is scheduled to be delivered mid-year 2024, but Flanagan is not ruling out delays because of global supply constraints.

Flanagan said the Inuksuk name is being preserved because the existing vessel, Inuksuk I, has a strong reputation among the company's global clients.

Flanagan said the Inuksuk I will likely be sold, but he said there's also a possibility it could remain in service if Baffin Fisheries can acquire new quotas.

Last year, Baffin Fisheries harvested nearly 9,000 tonnes of turbot, also known as Greenland halibut, and nearly 5,000 tonnes of shrimp.

The company employed 78 Inuit employees last year, according to the company's annual report, which was an increase of six over 2021.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Kids judge Alexa smarter than Roomba, but say both deserve kindness

Four to 11-year-olds deem it wrong to attack either semi-intelligent robot

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

Alexa, You disappoint me 

IMAGE: KIDS AGREE THAT IT’S WRONG TO BE ATTACK SMART TECHNOLOGIES LIKE ROOMBA OR AN ALEXA, DESPITE RANKING AMAZON’S VIRTUAL ASSISTANT AS SAVVIER THAN ITS VACUUMING COUNTERPART. view more 

CREDIT: VERONIQUE KOCH, DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM, N.C. –- Most kids know it’s wrong to yell or hit someone, even if they don’t always keep their hands to themselves. But what about if that someone’s name is Alexa?

A new study from Duke developmental psychologists asked kids just that, as well as how smart and sensitive they thought the smart speaker Alexa was compared to its floor-dwelling cousin Roomba, an autonomous vacuum.

Four- to eleven-year-olds judged Alexa to have more human-like thoughts and emotions than Roomba. But despite the perceived difference in intelligence, kids felt neither the Roomba nor the Alexa deserve to be yelled at or harmed. That feeling dwindled as kids advanced towards adolescence, however. The findings appear online April 10 in the journal Developmental Psychology.

The research was inspired in part by lead author Teresa Flanagan seeing how Hollywood depicts human-robot interactions in shows like HBO’s “Westworld.”

“In Westworld and the movie Ex Machina, we see how adults might interact with robots in these very cruel and horrible ways,” said Flanagan, a visiting scholar in the department of psychology & neuroscience at Duke. “But how would kids interact with them?”

To find out, Flanagan recruited 127 children aged four to eleven who were visiting a science museum with their families. The kids watched a 20-second clip of each technology, and then were asked a few questions about each device.

Working under the guidance of Tamar Kushnir, Ph.D., her graduate advisor and a Duke Institute for Brain Sciences faculty member, Flanagan analyzed the survey data and found some mostly reassuring results.

Overall, kids decided that both the Alexa and Roomba probably aren’t ticklish and wouldn’t feel pain if they got pinched, suggesting they can’t feel physical sensations like people do. However, they gave Alexa, but not the Roomba, high marks for mental and emotional capabilities, like being able to think or getting upset after someone is mean to it.

“Even without a body, young children think the Alexa has emotions and a mind,” Flanagan said. “And it’s not that they think every technology has emotions and minds -- they don’t think the Roomba does -- so it’s something special about the Alexa’s ability to communicate verbally.”

Regardless of the different perceived abilities of the two technologies, children across all ages agreed it was wrong to hit or yell at the machines.

“Kids don’t seem to think a Roomba has much mental abilities like thinking or feeling,” Flanagan said. “But kids still think we should treat it well. We shouldn't hit or yell at it even if it can't hear us yelling.”

The older kids got however, the more they reported it would be slightly more acceptable to attack technology.

“Four- and five-year-olds seem to think you don't have the freedom to make a moral violation, like attacking someone," Flanagan said. “But as they get older, they seem to think it's not great, but you do have the freedom to do it.”

The study’s findings offer insights into the evolving relationship between children and technology and raise important questions about the ethical treatment of AI and machines in general, and as parents. Should adults, for example, model good behavior for their kids by thanking Siri or its more sophisticated counterpart ChatGPT for their help?

For now, Flanagan and Kushnir are trying to understand why children think it is wrong to assault home technology.

In their study, one 10-year-old said it was not okay to yell at the technology because, “the microphone sensors might break if you yell too loudly,” whereas another 10-year-old said it was not okay because “the robot will actually feel really sad.”

“It’s interesting with these technologies because there's another aspect: it’s a piece of property,” Flanagan said. “Do kids think you shouldn't hit these things because it's morally wrong, or because it's somebody's property and it might break?”

This research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (SL-1955280, BCS-1823658).

CITATION: “The Minds of Machines: Children’s Beliefs About the Experiences, Thoughts, and Morals of Familiar Interactive Technologies,” Teresa M. Flanagan, Gavin Wong, Tamar Kushnir. Developmental Psychology, April 10, 2023. DOI: 10.1037/dev0001524.

 

Alexa, You're my Friend

 

Sunday, September 03, 2023

CHICAGO
Steppenwolf Theatre announces major layoffs: ‘We’re not too big to fail’
2023/08/31
The atrium lobby for Steppenwolf's theater-in-the-round, part of its campus on Halsted Street, on Oct. 25, 2021, in Chicago.
 - E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS

CHICAGO — Steppenwolf Theatre Company, one of Chicago’s most storied arts institutions and long a crucial part of the city’s identity, said Thursday that it was laying off 12% of its staff, effectively immediately.

Thirteen current employees have been let go, with seven open positions eliminated.

Steppenwolf executive director Brooke Flanagan said in an interview that the theater’s subscription base had fallen from about 10,000 subscribers in pre-pandemic 2019 to about 6,000 today. She also said that single-ticket sales were down 31%, even as expenses were up 19% over the same term. (Steppenwolf is currently negotiating with its front-of-house staff, which has formed a union and is not part of the layoffs.)

Those are sobering numbers at one of the city’s marquee cultural attractions.

Steppenwolf already has reduced its mainstage shows from eight productions to six in a season, as previously reported in the Tribune. Flanagan said those shorter seasons likely would continue for at least three years, or until the theater, which still has debt from the physical expansion of its Lincoln Park home, can find a more stable financial footing. The current plan reduces the theater’s overall annual budget from about $20 million to about $16 million.

Flanagan also said that the theater had chosen to focus on three core platforms: new work centering on its famous ensemble of artists, a commitment to teens and educators through its educational programs, and its ability to host other theaters, maintaining the broader theater ecology.

But there are to be cuts outside those areas. For example, the popular Front Bar on Halsted Street now will only open around performances, rather than most nights.

Although shocking for a theater that has expanded for so long, Steppenwolf’s cuts are not out of line with the nonprofit theater sector across the country, which has seen a staggering drop-off in audience demand and a rise in costs. The causes and solutions are both debated and contested, but Flanagan pointed to the upcoming 50th anniversary of Steppenwolf in 2026 as an opportunity for the city to reflect on the importance of a company that has taken Chicago shows and talent across the world.

In an interview Thursday, the City of Chicago’s cultural commissioner Erin Harkey (appointed during Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration) said that Mayor Brandon Johnson was aware of the crisis among nonprofit theaters and recently had convened a group that included tourism, business development officials and representatives from the city’s theaters. The goal, she said, was to assess the situation and develop a plan.

“This will have to be an all-hands-on-deck effort involving the city, the philanthropic community and the theaters,” Harkey said, also noting that the situation varied from institution to institution, with some being in better fiscal shape than others. She also said that the city’s Choose Chicago tourism arm plans a fall campaign designed to boost the city’s theater companies, the kind of effort that Flanagan said was essential for the sector’s recovery.

“We are not too big to fail,” Flanagan said. “Steppenwolf is an important part of the fabric of what makes this a great American city. This is a crucial time for philanthropists to give with seriousness and for audiences to rediscover the joy of live theater.”

© Chicago Tribune

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Low-severity fires enhance long-term carbon retention of peatlands

Low-severity fires enhance long-term carbon retention of peatlands
A proscribed burn at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Curt Richardson, Duke University
High-intensity fires can destroy peat bogs and cause them to emit huge amounts of their stored carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, but a new Duke University study finds low-severity fires spark the opposite outcome.
The smaller fires help protect the stored  and enhance the peatlands' long-term storage of it.
The flash heating of moist peat during less severe surface fires chemically alters the exterior of clumped  and "essentially creates a crust that makes it difficult for microbes to reach the  inside," said Neal Flanagan, visiting assistant professor at the Duke Wetland Center and Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.
This reaction—which Flanagan calls "the crème brulee effect"—shields the -affected peat from decay. Over time, this protective barrier helps slow the rate at which a peatland's stored carbon is released back into the environment as climate-warming carbon dioxide and methane, even during periods of extreme drought.
By documenting this effect on peatland soils from Minnesota to Peru, "this study demonstrates the vital and nuanced, but still largely overlooked, role fire plays in preserving peat across a wide latitudinal gradient, from the hemi-boreal zone to the tropics," said Curtis J. Richardson, director of the Duke Wetland Center.
"This is the first time any study has been able to show that," Richardson said, "and it has important implications for the beneficial use of low-severity fire in managing peatlands, especially at a time of increasing wildfires and droughts."
The researchers published their peer-reviewed findings May 10 in the journal Global Change Biology.
Peatlands are wetlands that cover only 3% of Earth's land but store one-third of the planet's total soil carbon. Left undisturbed, they can lock away carbon in their organic soil for millennia due to natural antimicrobial compounds called phenolics and aromatics that earlier studies by the Duke team have shown can prevent even drier peat from decaying. If a smoldering, high-intensity fire or other major disturbance destroys this natural protection, however, they can quickly turn from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
To conduct the new study, Flanagan and his colleagues at the Duke Wetland Center monitored a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proscribed burn of a peatland pocosin, or shrub-covered wetland bog, at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in eastern North Carolina in 2015. Using field sensors, they measured the changing intensity of the fire over its duration and the effects it had on soil moisture, surface temperatures and plant cover. They also did chemical analyses of soil organic matter samples collected before and after the fire.
They then replicated the intensity and duration of the N.C. fire, which briefly reached temperatures of 850oF, in controlled  on soil from peatlands in Minnesota, Florida and the Amazon basin of Peru, and analyzed the burn samples using using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.
The analysis showed that the low-severity fires increased the degree of carbon condensation and aromatization in the soil samples, particularly those collected from the peatlands' surface. In other words, the researchers saw the "crème brulee effect" in samples from each of the latitudes.
Long-term laboratory incubations of the burnt samples showed lower cumulative CO2 emissions coming from the peat for more than 1-3 years after the tests.
"Initially, there was some loss of carbon, but long-term you easily offset that because there's also reduced respiration by the microbes that promote decay, so the peat is decomposing at a much slower rate," Flanagan said.
Globally, peatlands contain approximately 560 gigatons of stored carbon. That's the same amount that is stored in all forests and nearly as much as the 597 gigatons found in the atmosphere.
"Improving the way we manage and preserve peatlands is critical given their importance in Earth's carbon budget and the way climate change is altering natural fire regimes worldwide," Richardson said, "This study reminds us that fire is not just a destructive anomaly in peatlands, it can also be a beneficial part of their ecology that has a positive influence on their carbon accretion."
Flanagan and Richardson conducted the study with fellow Duke Wetland Center researchers Hongjun Wang and Scott Winton. Winton also holds appointments at ETH Zurich's Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.Natural mechanism could lower emissions from tropical peatlands
More information: Neal E. Flanagan et al, Low‐severity fire as a mechanism of organic matter protection in global peatlands: Thermal alteration slows decomposition, Global Change Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15102
Journal information: Global Change Biology 
Provided by Duke University 

Sunday, May 12, 2024

EDMONTON 
Police crackdown on Gaza protest encampments on campus sparks outcry

The Canadian Press
Sat, May 11, 2024



Edmonton police dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Alberta's campus on Saturday, prompting outrage from students and academics who described the operation as violent and contested allegations that demonstrators were breaking the law.

Organizers said police fired tear gas and pepper-spray balls and wielded batons against students at the university's north campus quad shortly after arriving at 4:30 a.m., resulting in one hospitalization and several attendees placed in zip-tie handcuffs.

Videos posted to social media show a line of police members clashing with protesters in the dawn light, as young people shout "Free, free Palestine" before officers advance chanting "Move" and shoving and striking some students with billy clubs.


The footage aligns with descriptions from political science professor David Kahane, a member of the Edmonton chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Canada who was on-site with the demonstrators and called the experience "violent" and "gutting."

"I personally saw quite a heavily bleeding surface wound that came from a baton strike. I personally saw — this was after the police engagement was over — bruises from non-lethal projectiles that people were showing on their legs and arms," Kahane said in a phone interview.

"It was not peaceful."

The scene portrayed by participants stood in stark contrast to the picture painted by authorities.

Police said no tear gas was deployed, no one was hospitalized and use of force was limited.

"Our response was specifically directed at three individuals who were being aggressive with EPS members, one of whom assaulted an officer," said spokesman Scott Pattison in an email.

University president Bill Flanagan echoed police in saying "almost all of the occupants of the encampment peacefully dispersed."

In a statement Saturday, he cited fire hazards and the risk of escalation and violent clashes with counter-protesters among the reasons for the police action at the two-day-old camp.

"Of great concern, some members of the group brought in wood pallets, materials known to be used as barricade-making materials — actions that are counter to peaceful, law-abiding protests," he said.

"Overnight protests are often accompanied by serious violence and larger crowds amplify those inherent risks — especially as they attract counter-protesters or outside agitators."

Flanagan said "approved, peaceful protests are welcome" but must comply with university policies and public safety rules. "Every University of Alberta student, faculty and staff member has the right to feel secure and welcomed ... on our campuses."

About one quarter of the 50 protesters were University of Alberta students, he said.

Kahane countered that many others were alumni, organizers had already removed the handful of pallets from the site and concerns about disrupting lectures or encroaching on community members' rights were "inaccurate."

"I was one of a large group of Jews who led a Shabbat service for the whole camp yesterday evening. Students were reading, discussing being kind to one another," he said.

"It looked more like a picnic with some tents than it did like some kind of fortified encampment."

Organizers called for the resignation of the University of Alberta's president and an apology from the administration.

Following the lead of protesters on U.S. campuses, demonstrators in Canada have erected encampments at universities in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver as well as Calgary, where police forcibly removed participants from campus on Thursday night. The head of the University of Calgary said the dismantling operation devolved into a clash with officers because of counter-protesters.

That incident, along with Saturday's clearance in Edmonton, prompted a group of about 500 mostly Canadian academics to call for censure of the two Alberta institutions.

"In light of the undemocratic and harmful actions taken by the University of Calgary and University of Alberta, we, the undersigned, demand an immediate academic boycott of the institution," the group said in a statement Saturday.

The professors said the boycott should remain in place until administrators rescind "legal and administrative measures" against student protesters and respond to their demands.

Protesters in Edmonton called on the university to divest from Israeli institutions, give "amnesty" to encampment participants, condemn Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip as a "genocide" and demand that the federal government end any military contracts with the country.

The Indigenous Students' Union also decried the actions by administrators and police as "unacceptable."

The University of Alberta said no students were suspended and no community members banned in connection with the encampment, despite what some participants say they were told by an official who was on-site.

Meanwhile, McGill University has sought a court order to clear an encampment at the heart of its campus in Montreal, saying safety and security are at stake.

In a judicial application for an injunction filed Friday, the university framed its request around sanitary concerns and what it described as the "risk of violence and intimidation."

The filing cites "fierce verbal exchanges" between protesters and counter-protesters earlier this month, barrels of "human waste" on site, possible fire code breaches such as a single point of exit and the encampment's potential as a "magnet" for further clashes.

On top of a doubling of the security detail on the quad, McGill said it will likely have to spend more than $700,000 on an alternate venue for spring convocation ceremonies that are typically held on the grounds partially occupied by the protesters.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2024.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

3 men arrested as Edmonton police cleared pro-Palestinian encampment at U of A campus

CBC
Sat, May 11, 2024 

More than 100 students, staff and supporters gathered at the University of Alberta on Thursday to start a pro-Palestinian encampment in support of Gaza. 
(Mrinali Anchan/CBC - image credit)

Edmonton police arrested three people while clearing a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Alberta campus early Saturday morning.

Amid the months-long conflict in the Middle East, more than 100 students, staff and allies set up camp Thursday in support of Gaza and demanded that the university disclose its investments and cut any ties with Israel.

Communication with the demonstrators about what was allowed was unsuccessful and "escalating actions put the university community's safety at risk," according to university president Bill Flanagan. The university had to call on police to vacate its property.

"I know the last two days have been particularly challenging for many in the university's diverse community. The activity on our campus today was not taken lightly and there was no easy path forward for anyone involved," Flanagan said in a public statement issued Saturday.

The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) arrived at the north campus quad early Saturday morning, after the university had warned protesters several times that they were violating university policy and trespassing, according to a statement police issued Saturday morning.

The final warning was issued shortly after 4:30 a.m. MT Saturday, police said. Officers arrived later, warned the remaining protesters to leave, then cleared those who remained off campus.

Most protesters left after a third trespass notice was issued, Flanagan said. When it was cleared, there were about 40 tents and 50 people — less than a quarter of whom were U of A students, he said.

Police arrested three men Saturday: a 23-year-old from Edmonton, a 30-year-old whose address is currently unknown and a 30-year-old Australian, an EPS spokesperson told CBC News. None of them were registered U of A students.

The men were charged and released on a promise to appear in court, the spokesperson said.

Videos taken by demonstrators at the scene showed some officers using batons and, at one point, a gas emanated as police moved the crowd.

The EPS spokesperson confirmed that some officers deployed "special munitions" to deal with the three men who were arrested, one of whom is charged with assaulting a peace officer. They denied that tear gas was used.

People gather on the legislative grounds for a pro-Palestinian protest in Edmonton. The previously scheduled protest on May 11, 2024, happened hours after police cleared an encampment at the University of Alberta that was in support of Gaza. (Emily Fitzpatrick/CBC)

No major injuries were reported to paramedics on scene by demonstrators or police, the spokesperson said.

Social media posts from protesters suggested they were off the university campus by approximately 7:30 a.m.

The People's University for Palestine, the group that organized the encampment, posted a statement about the situation Saturday afternoon.

It said four students were injured to "various degrees," including one who was sent to hospital after being found on the ground near campus.


Nour Salhi, a University of Alberta student, has acted as the encampment’s spokesperson. She described the scene Saturday morning as 'surreal.' (Maxime Lamache/Radio-Canada)

Nour Salhi, a U of A student who acted as the encampment's spokesperson, was on campus Saturday morning when police arrived. She described the ensuing sweep as "surreal."

"It's absolutely unacceptable what happened today and the entire city of Edmonton should be appalled," Salhi told reporters Saturday afternoon.

Campus encampments

The U of A encampment is one of several that popped up on university campuses across Canada, including the University of British Columbia, the University of Calgary, the University of Toronto, the University of Ottawa and McGill University in Montreal.

Calgary police cleared an encampment at the U of C this week. Police used force to remove demonstrators who hadn't left the site; five people were arrested.

In Montreal, McGill University is seeking a court injunction against an encampment on its downtown campus.

The encampments are a response to the war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Health authorities in Gaza say the conflict has killed almost 35,000 Palestinians and injured more than 78,000 others since the conflict started on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. According to Israeli tallies, Hamas killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took 253 hostage that day.

Flanagan's statement suggested U of A officials were watching what was happening elsewhere. He said that overnight demonstrations can escalate quickly.

The statement also suggested the demonstration was an unapproved event that contradicts university policy.

The university allows people to apply to book events on its property, regardless of whether the hosts are affiliated with the school. It has operating procedures for events that are not approved, however.

Its campus is considered private property, so any unapproved events are considered trespassing, the policy states.

The school was clear from the jump that demonstrations could not break the law or violate university policy, Flanagan said.

University officials "repeatedly informed" the group — verbally and in writing — about its procedures, he said, adding that they told the group they could protest on campus if they did not erect temporary structures, including tents and barricades, and did not stay overnight.

Some demonstrators also brought in wood pallets, Flanagan said, which could be used as "barricade-making materials — actions that are counter to peaceful, law-abiding protests."

The fire inspector examined the scene and declared the pallets a fire hazard, he added.

In its statement, the People's University for Palestine accused the university of being misleading about Saturday's sweep. The group also denied that the administration tried communicating with demonstrators, saying only campus police delivered notice.

David Kahane, a member of the Edmonton chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, is a political science professor at the University of Alberta. He said he was speaking with campus security on behalf of the encampment. (Maxime Lamache/Radio-Canada)

David Kahane, a member of the Edmonton chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, an anti-racism organization that advocates for justice and peace for Israel and the Palestinian territories, had spent time at the camp. He was also skeptical of Flanagan's statement.

Kahane, a U of A political science professor, told reporters Saturday that he was speaking with campus security on behalf of the encampment about any possible issues, including safety. Initially, the dialogue was amicable, he said, but that changed after the University of Calgary encampment was cleared.

"I am outraged and devastated," he said Saturday afternoon.

"Rather than the university saying, 'This is a legitimate protest, it is asking legitimate questions on which we will engage' … [it] instead called in the police."

Opposition NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir and advanced education critic Rhiannon Hoyle issued a joint statement to news media Saturday, decrying the response by Edmonton police as "completely disproportionate to student actions."

They condemned the campus protests in Edmonton and Calgary being treated as public safety issues, and are "deeply saddened" that the institutions "appear to abandon the rights of its students to free speech and to demonstrate.

Friday, December 05, 2008

Harpers Putsch


Since winning power in 2006, albeit as a minority government, Stephen Harper has been set on gaining a majority to keep HIM in power as PM. That first summer his reading included a biography of Stalin, the Man of Steel.

And like Stalin his recent political machinations reminded me of the intriques in the Bolshevik Party as Stalin played off alliances of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Bukharin, and other central committee and politburo members, against each other to maintain power.

In porouging parliment he saved his job and his government...for the moment.

And despite his protestations about saving demoracy, his actions are the opposite. Which is typical of the right wing, who use language to mean its opposite. For instance Freedom of Information acts passed by right wing governments are anything but that, they actually limit freedom of informantion and access. Just as the Harperocrites transperancy and accountability act is anything but.
And right wing parties manufacture political crisises in order to create the conditions to either take power or stay in power.

So when Harper talks about democracy he means something other than parlimentary democracy. Rather he looks south and want to create a PMO with the power of the U.S. Presidency.

"The Canadian government has always been chosen by the people," the prime minister declared in his mid-week televised address to the country.
But now, he told viewers, a coalition of opposition parties is trying to oust him through a backroom deal "without your say, without your consent and without your vote."
Just how valid is Harper's claim that changing governments without a new election would be undemocratic?
"It's politics, it's pure rhetoric," said Ned Franks, a retired Queen's University expert on parliamentary affairs. "Everything that's been happening is both legal and constitutional."
Other scholars are virtually unanimous in their agreement. They say Harper's populist theory of democracy is more suited to a U.S.-style presidential system, in which voters cast ballots directly for a national leader, than it is to Canadian parliamentary democracy.
"He's appealing to people who learned their civics from American television," said Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster University.
In Canada, there's no national vote for prime minister. People elect MPs in 308 ridings, and a government holds power only as long as it has the support of a majority of those MPs.
"We have a rule that the licence to govern is having the confidence of the House of Commons," said Peter Russell, a former University of Toronto professor and adviser to past governors general.
"I'm sorry, that's the rule. If they want to change it to having a public opinion poll, we'd have to reform and rewrite our Constitution."


If we are to understand the current political situation and how we got here we have to review Harpers rise to power. Firstly he left the Reform Party as a short lived MP, having been a former assistant to its first MP Deborah Grey. He had an ego that would not let him work with Preston Manning then Reform Party leader who is a prairie populist. Harper however comes from the Calgary School, a modern neo-con politick influenced by Reagan/Gingrich Republicanism, and the authoritarian ideology of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss. Several members of the Calgary School being ex-pat Americans.

The new conservative movement sled by Harper shed its populist appeal, and its base, while maintaining the language of reform to appeal to that base. Under the tutelage of Calgary School mandrin Tom Flanagan. the object was not Preston's agenda to reform Canadian politics, but to gain power and destroy their main opponent the Liberal Party. It was to hold power at all costs, first and foremost, democratic reform was abandoned for the politics of right wing political economic social engineering, to transform the state in Canada into a Republican lite government. In order to do this it was required to Unite the Right.

With the failure of the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance to do this, it was clear that a strong man, a man of steel, would be needed to bind the disparte right wing base together into a party capable of winning an election and begin the process of defeating and destroying the Liberal Party, Canada's Natural Governing Party, andultimately what these ex-American politicos hate most the liberal social democratic Canadian State.

This was the same agenda of the Gingrich Republicans and their Contract With America, to defeat forever the Democrats, who had been the Natural Governing Party in the United States.

With Harpers win of the leadership of the newly minted Conservative Party, which intigrated the Canadian Alliance with the old Progressive Conservative Party, purging the progressives and populist Reformers, the Republican Revolution model of politics was adapted to Canada.

The arrogance of the Liberals was finally met with an arrogant Conservative leader set with and agenda to seize power and destroy them once and for all. No other Canadian politician had ever been elected to parliment like Harper. None of the previous Conservative PM's had ever viewed taking power to mean destroying their political opposition.

This should have been clear to the Liberals, but in their arrogance as the Natural Ruling Party they chaose instead to view their defeat in 2006 as the fault of the internal clash between Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. A clash that had led to Martin gaining a minority government bequethed with a Chretien era scandal. Even after Martin's defeat the party failed to realize how serious Harper was about his mission and political agenda to destroy them.

In their arrogance they held a six month leadership race complete with supposed party revitalization discussions. The latter ended up on the cutting room floor. The former was hotly contested, and included a front runner, Michael Ignatieff, brought from Harvard to battle the Calgary School boys. Unfortunately the race which got nasty ended in a lame duck choice; Stephane Dion, whom nobody really wanted, but appeared at th moment to unite the party as the best of a bad lot. Again the failures and foibles of all the leadership candidates were exposed for all Canadians to see, and their words used in the leadership debates would come back to haunt them.

In choosing Dion, they thought they would naturally regain power, they were unprepared for the total war that Harper was about to unleash on them.
With a minority government and buckets of money available the Harper government wasted no time in perparing for another election. And it began the day that the Liberals elected Dion as their leader.

Gone now were the catcalls about you had ten yearsto fix things, and accusations about the Quebec Ad Scam and being entitled to their entitlements. No the Liberals played into Harpers
hands, his strong leadership, his furherprinzpal, versus their milqutoast soft leader Dion.

They prepared for a spring election, spending on attack ads against Dion that left the broke Liberal party reeling. When that election did not happen they porogued parliment for the summer to return in the fall, blaming the Liberals for their failure to pass law and order legislation that was their stock in trade appeal to their right wing base.

By the end of 2007 they had wasted the surplus the Liberals had left them with GST cuts, tax cuts for big business and bloated military budgets for their war in Afghanistan. This was always a key element of the neo-con agenda, spend government money so that they had no alternative but to cut politically objectionable services and programs.

"I'm hopeful there will be some ideologically-driven, neo-conservative cuts to government," political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former chief of staff to Harper, said in an interview.
Such cuts, he added, would be consistent with Harper's long-term goal of reducing the size and scope of government.
"I think that's always been sort of the long-term plan, the way that Stephen was going about it of first depriving the government of surpluses through cutting taxes . . . You get rid of the surpluses and then it makes it easier to make some expenditure reductions."
At a minimum, Flanagan said: "I think there's certainly room for some incremental cuts to useless programs."
The government has already used the economic crisis to put off plans for a national portrait gallery, citing the need for fiscal restraint in uncertain times.
From Flanagan's perspective, the government would do well to scupper a host of grants, contracts and business subsidies and to pare a lot of what he considers wasteful spending on cultural and aboriginal programs.

Despite passing legislation for fixed date federal election, with the next one being the fall of 2009, Harper kept up the election style attacks on Dion and the Liberals. It was always about Harper versus the other guy, who was a wimp, not a leader, etc. etc. Canada was kept on election footing, the Conservatives showed off their new war room for the election, and then quietly closed shop six months later.

Durng the Fall of 2007 through the spring of this year the rudderless Liberals prop up the Harper government, unable and unwanting to bring down the government, unprepared to go to the polls, Dion allows his MP's to bow out of critical votes, including confidence votes, with only token opposition to Harper.

Come the summer of 2008 and again government is porugued for the summer to resume in the fall. Everyone is busy watching the U.S. Presidential race, and watching house prices drop as oil prices rise, and the loonie gains on the U.S. dollar. Then everything begins to fall apart. The recession comes, a recession that George Bush spends a year denying, saying the fundamentals of American Capitalism are strong. John McCain his replacement says the same thing on the campaign trail. Heck even our Economist In Chief, our PM Stephen Harper assures Canadians that our economic fundamentals are strong, and a recession and credit melt down won't hurt our financial system and the government surpluses.

But Harper see's the writing on the wall, a recession would bring down his minority government, so being the opportunist he is he gambled on an early election, before the meltdown got to bad. Despite fix election dates he threw that aside like his promise not to tax Income Trusts. Two years of election style campaigning had left the Liberals and Dion weakened, and the polls showed that in the early days of the recession he was risisng in the polls, Canadians were looking for secure leadership in this time of unease and uncertainty.

So he called an election in September for October. The Man of Steelwas now transformed into Uncle Steve, the sweater wearing, father of two, a serious listner at the kitchen tables of immigrant and ethnic Canadians as nmumerous TV ads showed us.

And then the sweater came off. Harper announced political cuts to Arts and Culture programs, and denounced artists and cultural workers as effette elitists (read Liberals) who criticise the government that feeds them. And he introduced tough Law and Order promises to put teenagers in adult prisons. Appealing to his right wing base in Western Canada. But it bombed in Quebec and we were to discover that the Conservatives had contracted out their campaign in Quebec leaving them with no one to effectively counter the BQ attacks on these policies.

All along our esteemed Economist and PM insisted like his counterparts to the south that Canada's economic fundamentals were strong. And then the market crashed. And despite that crash Harper lied to the Canadian people saying that he would not have a deficit and that his government would still have a surplus. He insisted our financial market place could weather the storm, while promising $75 billion to bail out the banks.

An all the while the Liberals floundered about with a lacklustre leader whose complex Green Plan was obtuse except for one fact, it was a tax increase. Harper leaped on this from the earliest days of the Green Shift even before the election to call it a deficit plan and a tax grab. And the Liberals could not convince Canadians otherwise. The Natural Governing Party entered the election as the Natural Bumbling Party.

Jack Layton on the other hand finally abandoned the politcs of being the Opposition and ran for the PM's job. While Elizabeth May and the Green Party finally got into the leaders debates.
Still we all watched the U.S. election campaign between Obama and McCain.
And despite the pre-election polling, the defeat of the Liberals and their leader, Harper won a pyrichic victory, he ended up with more seats, as did Jack Layton and the NDP, but Harper remained with a minority government, in the midst of the biggest crisis capitalism has faced since the Great Depression.

Dion having blown it,by leading the Liberals to their worst historic defeat ever, mopped around Stornmount, spending several days before announcing his retirement as leader of the Liberals. Dion was always his own worst advisor. And his shock at losing as well as his hubris and arrogance that he could be defeated so badly, would siber him up.

Despite bailing out the banks Harper insisted that he would not run a deficit, that he could balance the budget, that his government would have a surplus, as the loonie crashed, the Big 3 Automakers called for bailouts, and the market crash created a recession in Canada.

And so we come to the last two weeks as Parliment resumed. Promising a fiscal update to address the economic crisis facing the country and the world Harper produced a political document that was aimed at his long range plan all along, to finally destroy the Liberal Party once and for all. There was no investment strategy, no bail out for the Big Three, no economic plan perser. Hower there was further cuts to government spending, the only thing neo-cons know how to do, wage controls and the end of the right to strike for federal public sector workers, and the end of public financing of political parties. It was this that was the final straw that broke the camels back.

The path to Conservative political dominance is to financially bankrupt your opponents.
So wrote Tom Flanagan, one of the deep thinkers of the conservative movement in Canada and a mentor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Flanagan's prescient op-ed piece from August appeared to come to fruition in Thursday's fiscal update when Harper's Conservatives moved to end public financing of federal political parties under the guise of austerity. "There will be no free ride for political parties," Flaherty told the House of Commons in his speech on the update. "Even during the best of economic times, parties should count primarily on the financial support of their own members and their own donors."

The irony is that public financing of political parties was a longstanding Reform Party demand, along with fixed election dates and Senate Reform. Even though it was introduced by Jean Chretien in his final days as PM, a legacy project, it passed the house unanimously. The Canadian Alliance, the former Reform Party, supported it becaue they saw it as a way of leveling the playing field, the Liberals had long benefited from Corporate and Union donations. For Harper now to eliminate it, without even having bothering to raise the matter during the election was simply another example that his agenda was to destroy the weakened Liberals. Finally Dion the doormouse woke up to the fact that the Harper agenda was not just power for its own sake, but the destruction of the Liberal Party. Indeed the entire Liberal cacus finally read the writing on the wall, which had been Conservative graffiti for a decade.

And the little professor saw a chance to be PM, in a coalition government playing right into the hands of Harper. The NDP and Bloc had begun coalition discussions and invited the Liberals in, as they fumed over the betrayl and attack by Harper. Their mistake was to allow Dion to remain in charge, thus playing into Harpers hands. Jack Layton had gotten more popular votes than Dion and indeed the NDP won more seats, and came in second in many regions including Alberta. The Liberals were decimated, and the little professor who would be PM was not seen by Canadians as worthy of the job. Even as leader of a coalition.

Harper played on that to his advantage, while lying about the whole way we had gotten into this mess. We had seen what was supposed to be a fiscal update, changed into a attack on other political parties, wage controls on the public sector, and cuts to government spending. No fiscal stimulaus, other than bailing out the banks, was proposed. No fiscal plan was offered, and still Harper and his ministers claimed they would have a surplus and would not go into deficit.

He could not help himself, he was true to his long term goal of destroying the Liberals, and he saw them severly weakened and he took advantage. He did not expect that the opposition would coalesce into a united front coalition that could offer an alternative to his government.

Which they did.

He quickly backtracked, withdrawing the offending proposals to remove public financing and the right to strike, though wage controls were not off the table. However the damage was done.

And he insisted the next election would be fought over public financing which he couched in the old language of the 2006 election, that the opposition wanted their entitlements.

Faced with a united opposition, a coalition prepared to govern in his stead, who had already let the Govenor General know that, he began another election campaign. With coffers full of donations, he launched his so called defense of democracy, note well not defense of Parliment, but of that American abstract notion of democracy, one person one vote.

Not willing to face the wrath of the house he approached the GG to porouge parliment, to live to fight another day. While he accused the opposition of courting a coup with their coalition, he in fact conducted a parlimentary putsch yesterday to stay in power for another seven weeks.And he did so not for the good of Canada, or the Canadian people, nor even for the good of his own party. He has no plan to deal with the recession and its spiral into depression, rather he will use the seven weeks to run yet another election campaign against the Liberals.

The Liberals mistake and the cracks are showing now with dissident MP's denoucning Dion, was to not have demanded Dion step down and appoint an interm leader to be the PM in a coalition government.

That option remains open. Or they could make Jack PM. Not likely.

So let us recap the Harper government is a minority, the majority of Canadians voted for the opposition. They don't want another election, only Harper does because he has the money to run one. He wants an election not to govern but to finally kill the Liberal party, to run a stake thrrough its heart so it will not rise again.

And that is all his political agenda was ever about. So lets not hear anymore about defending democracy, or being best suited to solve the economic crisis, which he denied we were in and still has not offered any solutions for.Or that he is fighting for Canadian unity against nasty seperatists that he was willing to join with to defeat the Liberal minority government of Paul Martin.

Let us understand that Harper and his cronies seek power for its own sake, to mold Canada in their neo-con image. He has pulled off a parlimentary putsch to stay in power. We need a strong coalition to defeat him and replace him in January.

SEE:


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Sunday, June 17, 2007

An End to Colonial Assimilation?

With the Harper Governments announcement that it was abandoning forty years of colonial assimilation that was Liberal Indian policy of Trudeau and Chretien. This is one Liberal policy I am happy to see torn up. Could this be a new beginning for Canada's First Nations peoples?

Statement of the Government Of Canada On Indian Policy, 1969

Presented to the First Session of the Twenty-Eighth Parliament

by the Honorable Jean Chrétien, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development


The Government believes that its policies must lead to the full, free and non-discriminatory participation of the Indian people in Canadian society. Such a goal requires a break with the past. It requires that the Indian people's roles of dependence be replaced by a role of equal status, opportunity and responsibility, a role they can share with all other Canadians.

The policies proposed recognize the simple reality that the separate legal status of Indians and the policies which have flowed from it have kept the Indian people apart from and behind other Canadians. The Indian people have not been full citizens of the communities and provinces in which they live and have not enjoyed the equality and benefits that such participation offers.
Ironically it is a policy that Harpers grey eminence Tom Flanagan of the Calgary School agrees with.

“Europeans are, in effect, a new immigrant wave, taking control of land just as earlier aboriginal settlers did. To differentiate the rights of earlier and later immigrants is a form of racism.”

So sayeth Tom Flanagan, Stephen Harper’s advisor and mentor, a political science professor who the Tory leader first met at the University of Calgary.

In order to become self-supporting
and get beyond the social pathologies
that are ruining their communities,
aboriginal people need to acquire the
skills and attitudes that bring success
in a liberal society, political democracy,
and market economy. Call it assimilation,
call it integration, call it
adaptation, call it whatever you want:
it has to happen.
Tom Flanagan, First Nations?
Second Thoughts, pp.195-196
.


And Harpers announcement would be more credible if this wasn't happening;

- Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice replaced some of the country's most seasoned federal land-claim negotiators with hand-picked choices who have comparatively less experience - including his former law partner. Critics say the unusual political handling of the lucrative contracts is further proof that Conservative vows to shun patronage were hollow at best. It will also slow down complex land-claim talks as new negotiators climb steep learning curves, they say.

And while the Harpocrite Government practices realpolitik to avoid a showdown with First Nations peoples, their reactionary right-whing republican base uses this opportunity to attack the leadership of of those same first nations as unconstitutional.

According to a press release from the right-leaning Canadian Constitution Foundatiom, prominent legal experts agree with Chief Mountain and Nisibilada that the “third order” of government created by the Nisga’a Treaty violates Canada ’s constitution. Retired Supreme Court of Canada Justices William McIntyre and the late Willard Estey, retired B.C. Court of Appeal Justice D.M. Michael Goldie, former NDP Attorney-General Alex MacDonald, the late Mel Smith, Q.C. and former B.C. Attorney-General Geoff Plant have all stated publicly that parts of the Nisga’a Treaty are unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

Chief Mountain’s constitutional challenge has received funding from the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a registered charity with a mandate to promote and defend Canadians’ constitutional freedoms.

The foundation's website says it was founded in 2002 to explain to Canadians "the role of the Constitution in their daily lives, to teach them how to recognize infringements and abuse of the Constitution in the world around them, and to help them defend its principles from improper decisions or actions of governments, regulators, tribunals or special-interest groups."

The foundation, which believes the Constitution only recognizes two levels of government - federal and provincial - has a board of directors comprising some prominent conservatives.

Its board includes Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard magazine, and William Johnston, a family physician in Vancouver and president of Canadian Physicians for Life.

Foundation executive director John Carpay, a former Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, says the Nisga'a dissidents claim that the treaty "violates their constitutional rights as Canadians. It does so by creating a third order of government that is not accountable to either Ottawa or Victoria. "

One Step forward two steps back. Of course recognition of liberal human rights vs. collective rights is what this is all about. Whether Trudeau or Harper, both the Liberals and Conservatives see assimilation of first nations as an imperative, no matter what else they say. It's what they do that counts.
For over 100 years, aboriginal children, about 150,000 of them - Metis, Indian and Inuit, some only five years old - were yanked out of their homes and jammed into residential schools, some hundreds of miles from their families. They were not allowed to speak their native language, many died from tuberculosis and others suffered sexual, emotional and physical abuse.

In a shameful attempt to cover their butts, governments passed legislation that made it illegal to resist giving up these children, thus legalizing cultural assassination.
Given this history and the documented facts, it was heartening to see 270 MPs vote to apologize, but it was mostly symbolic since Prime Minister Stephen Harper has refused to issue an official apology. In fact, he sent Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice out to say such an act could be years away. There is a word for the government's action, it's "disgraceful."

There are still 80,000 natives alive to whom it applies.

The Harper government continues to stall on what is an abomination. It sits on its hands despite the fact the Chretien government admitted in 1998 that native students had been badly treated, and in 2005 a compensation offer of $2 billion was introduced for surviving students. But in the meantime, a sneaky band of Tories has decided that a special investigative commission will travel across Canada before any apology is issued. This is a stubborn, hard-hearted stance, and the prime minister should be ashamed of himself.

Canada's decision to withdraw support for the United Nations Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples coincided with a visit to Ottawa by Prime Minister John Howard of Australia -- a country that strongly opposes the declaration.

Shortly after Mr. Howard's meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in May, 2006, Mr. Harper called Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice to tell him to review Canada's position of support, government sources said yesterday.

Although previous Liberal governments had difficulty with the declaration that had taken more than two decades to craft, by 2005 Canada was fully supportive and actively encouraging other countries to sign on.

But the United States and Australia remained staunchly opposed. And Mr. Harper walked away from his meeting with Mr. Howard believing the declaration would be problematic, the sources said.

"It was very much the Prime Minister [Harper] directing Prentice to relook at this thing," a source said.

Mr. Prentice has since said there are concerns that the declaration is unconstitutional, that it could prevent military activities on aboriginal land and that it could harm existing land deals.



SEE:

Mike Harris and State Terrorism

Tories Crush Whistleblower

Land claim

Alcoholism Is Colonialism

Bev Oda Minister of Aboriginal Affairs

Hewers of Wood

Cardston Home of Bigots


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