U.S. FDA approves 2 at-home rapid COVID-19 tests. When will Canada catch up?
Hannah Jackson

Pressure is mounting for the Canadian government to authorize COVID-19 rapid tests to be used at home as more have been approved for use in the United States.

© Provided by Global News epa08998601 View of nasal swab samples at a test station for Covid-19 coronavirus in Montpellier, France, 09 February 2021. The top French medical authority (Haute autorite de Sante) has approved the vaccine AstraZeneca-Oxford for use in France, but only for people under 65, echoing decisions made in Sweden, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland over concerns about a lack of data on the effectiveness of the vaccine for over 65s. EPA/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO ATTENTION: IMAGE PARTLY BLURED TO PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

Earlier this week, the U.S. Food And Drug Administration (FDA) authorized two more over-the-counter COVID-19 tests that can be used at home to get rapid results.

Read more: ‘We need it now’: Experts say at-home coronavirus tests critical to fight 2nd wave

The FDA said Abbott’s BinaxNow and Quidel’s QuickVue tests can now be sold in the country without a prescription.

The tests allow users to collect a sample at home, with a nasal swab that is inserted into a test strip. The results are usually ready within 10 to 20 minutes.

Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard told The Associated Press that the expanded testing options would be critical as new virus variants spread and researchers study how long protection from vaccines lasts.

“Vaccines are incredibly important but they are not the end-all, be-all to this pandemic,” he told the outlet. “We need other tools in our arsenal and the widespread availability and rapid scale-up of tests for people to use in the privacy of their homes is going to be an extraordinary gain.”

How does Canada measure up?

To date, Health Canada has only authorized the sale and use of COVID-19 tests administered by health professionals or trained operators.

In an email to Global News on Saturday, a spokesperson for Health Canada said the agency "is aware of the approval of the COVID-19 tests" in the United States.

"It is important to recognize that Canada's context is different from the U.S.," the email read.

Video: Rapid COVID-19 testing for LNG workers starts at YLW

The agency did not expand on how exactly the context differs.

Read more: U.S. approves 2 more over-the-counter COVID-19 tests

To date, 63 tests to identify the novel coronavirus have been approved by the Canadian agency. Of those, 15 point-of-care or 'rapid tests' devices have been authorized for use.

Those tests, however, still require a health professional or trained personnel to administer.

However, the agency's website says it is "open to reviewing all testing solutions."

"This includes approaches that use self-testing kits, to enable individuals with or without symptoms to assess and monitor their own infection status."

Health Canada requires rapid tests to meet a minimum standard of 80 per cent sensitivity or accuracy before their application can be approved.

However, the federal government is allowing people who enter into the country at some land border crossings to administer their own test, in an effort to limit the amount of professionals needed.

Those samples are then sent to a lab for processing.

In a series of tweets Sunday morning, Kashif Pirzada, an emergency physician in Toronto, said "rapid tests need to be used ASAP to get workplace outbreaks under control."

"Many are sitting unused in warehouses across the country," he wrote. "You can combine the rapid strips (like Abbott Panbio) with much more accurate molecular tests onsite to recheck positive results (Abbott IDNOW)."


He said this, combined with "better masks, vaccinations, improved sick leave, will go a long way to get the situation under control."

The total number of COVID-19 infections in Canada topped one million on Saturday, as cases of the new, more transmissible variants continue to climb.

Several provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, have imposed more stringent measures in a bid to stem the spread of the virus, while officials work tirelessly to vaccinate the population.

Advocates have, for months, been urging Health Canada to approve over-the-counter rapid tests for use in Canada, saying they are key to identifying asymptomatic cases and would help alleviate lab backlog.

Video: COVID-19: Thousands attend Barcelona concert in arena after testing

In a previous interview with Global News, Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, said while the rapid tests approved by Health Canada are useful, at-home screening tests could be even more so.

He said this type of screening test would be “enormously useful” in helping to alleviate the backlog of tests in Canada’s laboratories and would allow businesses and schools to remain open more safely.

Read more: Canada has approved another rapid coronavirus test. Here’s how it could help

He said they should be utilized not as a diagnostic test, but rather a "screening tool."

"It should be seen a little bit like taking your temperature at home," he explained, adding that anyone who receives a positive result would then follow up with a lab test to confirm the results.

Video: Saskatchewan Teachers Federation on need for testing amid variants

According to the Health Canada website, the agency is receiving a "very high volume of requests for authorization."

It was not immediately clear, though, how many of those applications were for rapid, at-home, or 'over-the-counter' COVID-19 tests.

--With files from The Associated Press

US Federal government sued as monarch butterfly, spotted owl await protection decisions

The Biden administration is continuing to field lawsuits filed over Endangered Species Act decisions made by the Trump administration.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday over its failure to provide protections under the Endangered Species Act for 10 species "it admitted needed them," according to the organization.

MORE: Fate of monarch butterfly still hangs in the balance after endangered species decision

Among the species are the monarch butterfly, which in December the Trump administration decided that adding it to the list of threatened species was "warranted but precluded." This meant that while the monarch butterfly became a candidate for listing as an endangered species, it was not yet listed as the agency prioritizes other candidates.

The monarch butterfly was added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species in 2014 after it was determined that 90% of its population had declined from its original levels. While millions of the butterflies spent winters in the coastal groves of California in the 1980s, just 30,000 were counted in 2019

.

© Elizabeth Sellers/USGS via Gado via Getty Images, FILE In this 2014, file photo, a monarch butterfly, an iconic pollinator species, alights on a plant.

The iconic butterfly's numbers have drastically diminished.due to increased use of farm herbicides, climate change and the destruction of milkweed plants, which is what monarch caterpillars eat and where monarch butterflies lay their eggs.© Elizabeth Sellers/USGS via Gado via Getty Images, FILEMORE: Government refusal to protect wolverines sparks lawsuit from conservation groups

Other species that the lawsuit describe as being left in "regulatory purgatory" are the northern spotted owl, which was found in December to warrant an uplisting from threatened to endangered, and the Eastern gopher tortoise, which has been awaiting protections since 1982

.

© Don Ryan/AP, FILE In this May 8, 2003, file photo, a northern spotted owl sits on a tree branch in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Ore.

Northern spotted owl populations have continued to decline in the face of continued loss of old forests to logging and invasion of its habitat by barred owls, while the gopher tortoise, which need large, un-fragmented, long-leaf pine forests to survive, are severely threatened by development, which caused habitat loss and fragmentation.This limits food availability and options for burrow sites and exposes them to being crushed in their burrows during construction, run over by cars or shot, according to the Center for Biological Diversity

.

© UIG via Getty Images, FILE In this undated file photo, a gopher tortoise is shown at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park in Naples. Fla.

There have been a number of additional lawsuits brought against the federal government since Biden took office.

Multiple conservation groups sued the USFWS on March 25 over a decision by the Trump administration to deny the north Oregon coast population of red tree voles protection under the Endangered Species Act. Red tree vole populations have been devastated by logging, wildfires and inadequate protections on state and private lands. The USFWS found the vole warranted protection in 2011 but deemed that the protection was precluded by listing other species. The vole was then denied protections in 2019.

The Center sued the USFWS on March 25 to challenge the Trump administration's downlisting of the American burying beetle from endangered to threatened. The lawsuit requested that the endangered status be reinstated as the beetle continues to face threats from climate change and habitat destruction that are pushing it to the brink of extinction. The delisting came following the petition by the Independent Petroleum Association of America to delist the species, according to the Center.

Multiple conservation groups sued the USFWS on March 24 for refusing to designate critical habitat for the highly endangered rusty patched bumblebee. The USFWS stated in September that listing was "not prudent" because the availability of habitat does not limit the bee's conservation. The bumblebee was protected in 2017, but the USFWS failed to designate critical habitat by the statutory deadline.

The Center sued the USFWS on March 3 for failing to designate critical habitat and develop a recovery plan for Hawaii's threatened 'i'iwi, or "honeycreeper" bird. The USFWS listed the species as threatened in 2017.

© Sami Sarkis/Getty Images, FILE This Iiwi bird, on the island of Maui, has a long curved beak which enables it to extract nectar from flowers.

On Wednesday, the Center also filed a notice of intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service to make a decision on whether the Oregon coast spring-run chinook salmon warrants protection. Chinook salmon once thrived in all of Oregon's coastal watersheds but have largely disappeared due to logging, roads and other sources of habitat degradation, such as dams and poorly run hatcheries, according to the Center. The decision has been overdue since September.

On Feb. 4 the Biden administration responded to a lawsuit filed by multiple conservation groups on Jan. 19 -- one day before Inauguration Day -- by delaying a rule finalized in the last weeks of Donald Trump's presidency to eliminate long-standing, vital protections for more than 1,000 species of waterfowl, raptors and songbirds. The decision was made over a reinterpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.MORE: Animal conservation groups to sue federal government over dwindling giraffe population

Only 25 species were give protections under the ESA during Trump's four years in office, according to the Center.

In 2019, the Trump administration made changes to how the government handles endangered species, altering the requirements for how the government decides to add or remove species from the list of endangered animals that are regulated by the government, including limiting how much habitat must be protected.

The changes require separate plans for protecting any new species listed as threatened instead of granting them the same protections as those listed as endangered, a move that advocates say could make it more difficult to protect species that are threatened by human activity and climate change.MORE: How advocates say Trump's endangered species rules could threaten conservation

"The past four years were a dark period for endangered wildlife and the environment overall," Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement Thursday. "We're bringing this lawsuit to ensure these 10 species that so desperately need help are prioritized by the Biden administration, which has its work cut out for it to undo the incredible harm done under Trump."

A representative for USFWS declined to comment.

Bonnie Rice, a representative for the Sierra Club Endangered Species said to ABC News in a statement that "The Trump administration's Fish and Wildlife Service made a major push to strip as many species as possible of endangered species protections" including other animals like the grey wolf.

Rice said the Sierra Club is challenging Trump's rollbacks, some of which will be legal challenges.

The Sierra Club "is committed to protecting 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030 to halt extinction and we're encouraged by the Biden administration's early work to act on climate and review endangered species rollbacks," Rice also said in the statement.

Trudeau’s military misconduct response highlights ‘pattern’ of ignoring complaints: Singh

Amanda Connolly 

4/3/2021

GLOBAL NEWS

© Provided by Global News NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is seen during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Wednesday February 3, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's response to multiple allegations of high-level sexual misconduct in the Canadian military adds to a "pattern of behaviour" when it comes to ignoring red flags and complaints, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

In an interview with The West Block's Mercedes Stephenson, Singh said the government's lack of action in responding to the allegations about high-level appointees sends the message that women's complaints and safety are not being taken seriously.

"Right now, the message being sent is a woman came forward – women came forward in different cases – with complaints, they made it to the desk of the defence minister, and nothing was done. This falls directly at the feet of the prime minister," said Singh.

“So far, it looks like there’s a pattern of behaviour of ignoring sexual harassment or misconduct complaints – that women come forward, and nothing happens.”

“So far, the Liberal government’s sent the message they are not safe, and that’s wrong.”

READ MORE: Military facing ‘reckoning’ over misconduct but no details yet on action: Monsef

Global News first reported allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Gen. Jonathan Vance on Feb. 2.

Days later, the military promised an independent review into misconduct within its ranks but shortly after that, Adm. Art McDonald stepped back from his role as chief of the defence staff following an allegation.

Multiple sources have told Global News the complaint is an allegation of sexual assault.

And last week, CBC News reported another senior military leader is facing an allegation of sexual assault.

READ MORE: Trudeau says he did not personally know of 2018 Vance allegation

Trudeau said last week he was never made aware of one of the allegations against Vance, which was shared with his defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, in 2018. Sajjan's chief of staff then shared it with Trudeau's office and the staff at the Privy Council Office -- the department supporting Trudeau's office -- have said they discussed the matter with officials in the Prime Minister's Office.

Vance was appointed by the previous Conservative government but got a pay raise and term extension under Trudeau, while both McDonald and Vice-Adm. Haydn Edmundson were promoted to their current senior roles under the Trudeau government.

The web of revelations has led to questions about why no one appears to have acted on the allegations sooner, and why none of the people paid to advise Trudeau appear to have told him anything about a serious allegation against a senior appointee.

It is not the first time the government's vetting and handling of allegations against senior appointee has come under scrutiny in recent months.

VIDEO "Trudeau criticized for appointing Payette as Governor General"

Former governor-general Julie Payette resigned in January following a scathing independent review into allegations of workplace bullying and abuse during her time at Rideau Hall.

READ MORE: From a ‘great adventure’ to resignation: The rise and fall of Julie Payette

Trudeau abandoned the use of an advisory panel normally used to select governors-general when he appointed Payette, a former astronaut and scientist. And his government appears not to have checked with several of Payette's former employers about her workplace conduct.

CBC News has reported that Payette faced workplace conduct complaints dating back to the 1990s, and stemming from her time at the Canadian Space Agency, the Montreal Science Centre, and the Canadian Olympic Committee, including two internal investigations into her behaviour.

Trudeau has defended the vetting done on Payette, saying all procedures were followed but said in January that the government would look at what could be done to improve vetting of appointees.

Adios to Edmonton's Spanish-style apartment block and the unique community it fostered

Andrea Huncar 

EDMONTON JOURNAL

4/3/2021

I NEVER HAD THE PLEASURE TO LIVE IN THE MIRADOR, BUT HAD FRIENDS THAT DID

I LIVED IN A DIFFERENT SELF CREATED COOP APARTMENT BLDG WITH A SIMILAR SOCIAL ECOLOGY IN THE EIGHTIES; BALFOUR PLACE ON 116ST.

© Jamie McCannel/CBC El Mirador Apartments is one of the residential and commercial buildings near the intersection of 108th Street and Jasper Avenue that is being demolished for an incoming development.

Gatherings in the cherished courtyard of Edmonton's El Mirador Apartments are coming to an end after residents were told they have to move out by June 30.

The El Mirador is among the buildings being demolished at 108th Street and Jasper Avenue to make way for a commercial and residential development at the intersection's northeast corner.

With its white stucco walls, spiralling staircases and balconies, the wrecking ball won't just sweep away Edmonton's only known piece of Spanish Revival architecture. It will also demolish a unique building design that has fostered a sense of community for decades.

"A lot of the tenants became our roommates and the courtyard is our living room and our party room," said Charlie May, who has lived at El Mirador for the past 16 years.

"Every night after work, people would come out here and we'd all get together, sometimes 15, 20 people even, and we'd stay out till it got dark. Just chatting, having a few beers," he told CBC News this week.

"Sometimes when people move out, we'd have big going-away parties —and I mean big parties, lots of fun. The most amazing wedding that I'd ever attended took place here. And the porches were full of people. The courtyard was full of people."

The interior is just as impressive, with its original glass doorknobs, old fireplaces and hardwood floors.

'It's a beautiful building and it had a real heart. But now that's gone," May said. "It's very, very sad."

© Jamie McCannel/CBC Charlie May, a longtime resident of El Mirador, has years of fond memories of socializing in the complex's unique courtyard.

Community by design

According to the Edmonton Historical Board, the El Mirador was built in stages. Its core was a wood-framed house built in 1912 which in 1935 saw the addition of a 12-unit apartment building on the home's front. Another addition, in 1937, was a U-shaped building that created the building's distinctive courtyard.

El Mirador is not the kind of architecture typically found in Alberta, but rather is of a flavour more common in southern California, the historical board says on its website.

Unlike some building courtyards that sit unused, the design of El Mirador means tenants have to walk through the courtyard to get to their apartments.

News of the demolition has put a damper on residents' annual spring ritual of buying flowers and sprucing up the courtyard to usher in another summer of making memories.

Phillip Thomarat recalled years of parties and potlucks, Christmas dinners and Taco Tuesdays at the apartment that has been home for the past 18 years.

Former residents still turn up for festivities — and many are expected to attend the final going-away bash.

"It is kind of like living in a goldfish bowl because everybody's doors faces onto the courtyard," Thomarat said.

But that helped foster the sense of community spirit, he said.

"Neighbours have always helped out. We've always made lots of friends. It's just a great community."

The incoming project by Pangman Development Corporation will see a mid-rise building connecting 35- and 45-storey towers that stretch up into the skyline. It's a development that aims to revitalize the area with hundreds of rental and condominium units as well as street-level retail space.

"We're getting ready to start construction this summer," Pangman told CBC on Thursday. "We wanted to give tenants at least 90 days to find a new home."

Thomarat is pretty sure he won't find another home like El Mirador.

"In Edmonton, we have a lot of beautiful new buildings but this is something totally unique that I think should have been kept if possible," said Thomarat.

"It's a really good design for keeping people together and creating a community."

How the Alberta doctors' contract dispute could impact the UCP government now and in the 2023 election

Ashley Joannou 

4/2/2021

© Provided by Edmonton Journal (left to right) Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Premier Jason Kenney take part in a press conference where they provided an update on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines through participating community pharmacies, in Edmonton Thursday March 18, 2021. The press conference was held outside the Shoppers Drug Mart at 5970 Mullen Way.


Tuesday’s decision by Alberta doctors to vote down a proposed master contract with the provincial government has thrown the already contentious relationship back into the fire.

After taking more than a year for the government and the Alberta Medical Association to reach the deal that doctors quashed, both sides are on their way back to the bargaining table. Political watchers say the longer the dispute drags on, the more it could influence other government contract negotiations on the horizon — and the 2023 election.
What are the obstacles?

Fifty-three per cent of doctors who voted said no to the deal.

The proposed contract gave Health Minister Tyler Shandro final say on budgetary decisions, University of Calgary health law professor Lorian Hardcastle, who has seen the rejected deal, said. While doctors understood the minister would have significant power, she said “a lot of people were concerned specifically how he would use that discretion.”

That mistrust has grown over the past year and throughout the pandemic. It began in February 2020 when Shandro ended the province’s master agreement with doctors and unilaterally imposed billing and compensation changes, in the name of fiscal responsibility and aligning Alberta’s costs with those of other provinces. Many of those changes were rolled back.

Doctors have said the numbers the government uses is not their take-home pay and does not account for overheard costs of running an office.

Shandro has also faced criticism during the conflict for his behaviour away from the bargaining table. In March 2020, he shouted at a doctor in his driveway over a social media post, and in April 2020 he contacted doctors on their personal phones.

Over the past year, some doctors have either left or threatened to leave the province, and the association sued the government over the ripping up of the contract.

Hardcastle believes the deal could have been ratified if it was being managed by someone other than Shandro.

Premier Jason Kenney has backed his health minister throughout the fight and on Wednesday said Shandro has his “full, 100 per cent confidence” amid calls to shuffle him out of his post.

Melissa Caouette, a political strategist and vice-president of business development and government relations at Edmonton’s Canadian Strategy Group, said the government may be reluctant to change the face of their negotiations mid-stream.

“I think that it could be interpreted that switching the person who’s dealing with those is sort of a signal that they’ve changed their mind on their stated desire to bring public sector compensation in alignment with other provinces, which is still a goal for them,” she said.

Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University, said Kenney could also be afraid of what shuffling Shandro out would signal to other negotiating groups.

“The next labour people are going to go well, if I’m the ATA, and I don’t agree to a deal with (Education Minister Adriana) LaGrange, is Kenney going to shuffle her out?” he said.

© Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press/File Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro has been at odds with doctors since he ended the master agreement for physicians in Feb. 2020.

More than one health-care bargaining table

Doctors aren’t the only ones in the medical community negotiating with the government.

Shandro also announced last year that he was scrapping the government’s deal with radiologists. The recently extended contract now ends in September.

Last month, Alberta’s largest nurses union, the United Nurses of Alberta, rejected a proposal to delay bargaining until June, which the government blamed on the pandemic.

Caouette said the loss to doctors makes those negotiations even harder for the government.

“Physicians are supposed to be the easiest historically to have these conversations with,” she said.

“I think that other groups are going to see what’s happened here, see (that) they can drag the fight on for a long time and I would imagine that some of those folks are going to hope to drive those conversations on and make this an election issue.”

Hardcastle said she could see having multiple organizations negotiating with the government at the same time embolden those groups to push and ask for more “because they’re not the only ones pushing back.”
Election 2023

With the government midway through its four-year term, Caouette said the doctors’ contract could be at risk of becoming an issue in the 2023 election.

“I think if it does persist, if there isn’t an agreement, it is going to have worse of an impact on the government than it does on physicians, especially if we are still in a state of heightened public health concern with the pandemic,” she said.

The striking down of the contract comes as the UCP government’s popularity slides.

In March, researchers with the University of Alberta and the University of Saskatchewan’s Common Ground project found that UCP support has swung significantly and directly to the NDP for the first time since the party was formed in 2017.

The poll found NDP support at 39.1 compared to 29.8 per cent for the UCP. Researchers noted that two other polls in the field at the same time also had the NDP significantly ahead.

Health care and education are two key areas voters care about come election time, Caouette said, and any uncertainty in those files leads to uncertainty amongst the electorate.

In rural Alberta — a key region for the United Conservative Party’s base — the link between physicians and their community may be stronger than in urban environments, she said.

“If we are in a situation where family physicians in rural Alberta are making a decision to leave, or perhaps scaled down or shut down their practices because of economic concerns, it’s definitely going to be something that the base is worried about,” she said.

To date, the government has denied doctors are leaving the province, saying its numbers show a net increase.
Now what?

While there’s no hard deadline for when a new contract has to be in place — doctors could continue with the status quo indefinitely — the uncertainty of working without one could have an impact on the province’s health-care system.

“It’s uncertainty for perhaps new graduates who may look at what’s happening and say, ‘I would like to work in another part of Canada versus Alberta.’ It is uncertainty for existing physicians who might be having some of the same thoughts as well,” Caouette said

.

© David Bloom (left to right) Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Premier Jason Kenney adjust their face masks as they take part in a press conference where they provided an update on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines through participating community pharmacies, in Edmonton Thursday March 18, 2021.

When it comes to getting back at the table, Hardcastle said the government seems unlikely to budge on two specific issues in the proposed contract that irked doctors: the end of binding arbitration, and the placing of a cap on physician compensation that would allow the government to withhold payment if the budget were exceeded. But there may be wiggle room with other points, such as potentially more consistent virtual care funding or a stronger grant program, she said.

When asked whether the government might try and impose a contract on doctors as they continue to butt heads at the bargaining table, Hardcastle said the status quo already gives government significant power.

Bratt believes that reading between the lines of the MacKinnon Report — commissioned by Kenney in 2019 to examine Alberta’s finances — offers a path where the government could impose contracts using Canada’s notwithstanding clause.

The report does not explicitly make that suggestion. It concedes that the “Supreme Court of Canada decisions on collective bargaining have limited the power of governments to set aside or impose collective agreements.”

However, it says legislative mandates can be used not as an ongoing way to conduct collective bargaining but “in exceptional circumstances such as the current situation in Alberta where the government has committed to balance the budget by 2022/23.” Since the pandemic, the government has backed away from that timeline.

The report later mentions that Saskatchewan used the notwithstanding clause in 1986 to overturn a court decision on labour relations.

“And so you negotiate” Bratt said. “If that doesn’t work, then you impose. And if it goes to the courts, well, we’ll take it to the courts. And if the courts ruled against us, then you use (the notwithstanding clause)."

Related
Kenney says Shandro has his ‘full, 100 per cent confidence’ after doctors vote down proposed contract with government
'I want to leave the rhetoric behind': Shandro extends olive branch in contrite letter to doctors
NDP calls for Health Minister Tyler Shandro's removal after he contacted doctors on their personal phones
Kenney rejects NDP's calls to fire health minister over confrontation with doctor

ajoannou@postmedia.com

Opinion: With Keystone cancelled, we must resuscitate Northern Gateway

THEY NEVER GIVE UP 

THIS ROUTE GOES THROUGH CONTESTED INDIGENOUS LANDS

Special to National Post 4/3/2021

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Day 1 decision to cancel the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline is still being heavily litigated in the American press — and is now in the courts, with 21 states’ attorneys general filing suit. Even Democratic governors and senators like Joe Manchin are writing letters asking for a reversal of the decision due to its negative economic, environmental and strategic consequences.

© Provided by National Post The Enbridge Edmonton Terminal.

For the Americans, the country’s recent loss of energy independence combined with the cancellation of KXL and the Texas blackouts highlighted the fragility of energy supply and, stunningly, has increased essential imports from Russia, and OPEC states that don’t share its democratic values.

For Canada, however, the KXL cancellation has generated a different debate. Being dependent on the whims of U.S. politics for our largest and most valuable export is a strategic vulnerability. It hinders our ability to make sovereign decisions, which hinders our ability to make progress on the economy and the environment. It is time to change that. We need to build Canadian-controlled access to global energy markets. This means building the necessary infrastructure immediately.

The Trans Mountain (TMX) pipeline showed Canada that it’s possible to forge a public-private partnership on essential energy infrastructure that protects the public interest in balancing the economy and the environment. That pipeline is an important first step in giving Canadian energy companies direct access to growing Asian markets. Building the shelved Northern Gateway pipeline is the critical next step. It would offer a number of key benefits to Canadians.

First, it would expand Canada’s global economic reach and create thousands of jobs at a critical time for the economy. Canada thrives on supplying essential resources globally, and our growing and more efficient energy sector is now strong enough to move away from being reliant on the U.S.

As the U.S. oil industry is in free fall, Alberta has emerged as the most competitive major oil producer in the free world, hitting its all-time record oil production last quarter. Canada has more reserves than Russia, China and the U.S. combined. With our leaner and cleaner production positioned to grow another 25 per cent over the next decade, by 2030, Canada is expected to account for one-quarter of the entire free world’s oil production.

National infrastructure is a prerequisite to meeting these targets and growing our economy. When the U.S. cancels a project like KXL due to its own domestic politics, Canada cannot be seen as helpless. We have to act decisively to replace the lost capacity. Northern Gateway will add back 65 per cent of the oil that would have flowed through the KXL pipeline by 2025. It will also pivot that supply away from the U.S. to high-demand Asian markets, buttressing our sovereign economic and strategic relevance across Asia.

Second, Canada leads global energy markets with the best environmental, social and governance practices in the world, including methane regulation, water use and local stakeholder engagement — all while leading the world in decarbonizing oil production.

Since the Kyoto Accord, Alberta has reduced emissions per barrel by over 40 per cent. The average Canadian barrel is now cleaner than a barrel from California. Our recent projects are even better, and the latest study from researchers at the University of Calgary, University of Toronto and Stanford University found that, since 2018, oilsands emissions have been reduced far faster than initial models indicated, with our pace of decarbonization increasing.

Canadian barrels are getting cleaner, and this comes with cost savings that make our production leaner. This cleaner and leaner production is a double threat to state dictatorships that control 80 per cent of global reserves and place far lower value on ethical production commitments.

Third, we need to increase our ability to export our leaner and cleaner energy to Asian markets. Asia has 3.4 billion people who live in energy poverty. They need real solutions right now. With the right infrastructure, Canada can meet the needs of the emerging Asian middle class with cleaner Canadian energy solutions. Asia is the most important growth market for energy in the world and will take all of Northern Gateway’s 525,000 barrels per day the moment it is completed.

By the end of the decade, if Northern Gateway were built, Canada could be exporting five million barrels per day — 3.6 million to the U.S. and 1.4 million to Pacific tidewater. This pivot from our over-dependency on the U.S. will direct 30 per cent of our supply to key Asian markets, buttressing our commercial relevance and, with it, our soft power and diplomatic influence, particularly with China and India.

Canada can do this if we follow the model set by TMX. Following the government’s acquisition of TMX, a federal court decided that there had been insufficient Indigenous consultations and inadequate studies on how to minimize the impact of coastal tankers on marine life.

This led the government to conduct best-in-class consultations and marine studies, which in turn let the pipeline proceed. Like ports, airports and other public infrastructure, TMX showed that the government can play an essential role in funding and building essential Canadian energy infrastructure.

When TMX is completed in 2022, the government can use the assembled expertise and the proceeds from its subsequent sale to help finance Northern Gateway, and add best practices on tankers and Indigenous ownership to the original plan. This is a perfect moment to demonstrate to the world that Canada has the will and the capacity to build our own sovereign infrastructure to access markets and defend our economic and strategic interests globally.

Canada can meet Asia’s growing need for energy while leading the world in decarbonizaton, ethical production and environmental regulation. Building Asia-facing infrastructure is key to economic growth, jobs and our strategic relevance in that part of the world. Canada can do more in the world, and the world needs more of what we have to offer. Following TMX with Northern Gateway is an opportunity worth pursuing.

National Post

David Knight Legg is chairman of the ESG Working Group of the Province of Alberta and CEO of Invest Alberta Corporation. Adam Waterous is founder and managing partner of Waterous Energy Fund, a deep value, special situations investor in established North American oil and gas assets.

Carson Jerema: Keystone XL failure a major blow to Jason Kenney, but it's early days

 SUNDAY SERMON; DEUS EX MACHINA

Bionic arm answers trainee vicar's prayers  

Swiss robots use UV light to zap viruses aboard passenger planes

By Arnd Wiegmann and John Miller

© Reuters/ARND WIEGMANN A robot developed by Swiss company UVeya armed with virus-killing ultraviolet light is seen aboard an airplane at Zurich AIrport

ZURICH (Reuters) - A robot armed with virus-killing ultraviolet light is being tested on Swiss airplanes, yet another idea aiming to restore passenger confidence and spare the travel industry more pandemic pain.

UVeya, a Swiss start-up, is conducting the trials of the robots with Dubai-based airport services company Dnata inside Embraer jets from Helvetic Airways, a charter airline owned by Swiss billionaire Martin Ebner.

Aircraft makers still must certify the devices and are studying the impact their UV light may have on interior upholstery, which could fade after many disinfections, UVeya co-founder Jodoc Elmiger said.

Still, he's hopeful robot cleaners could reduce people's fear of flying, even as COVID-19 circulates.

"This is a proven technology, it's been used for over 50 years in hospitals and laboratories, it's very efficient," Elmiger said on Wednesday. "It doesn't leave any trace or residue."

Elmiger's team has built three prototypes so far, one of which he demonstrated inside a Helvetic jet at the Zurich Airport, where traffic plunged 75% last year.

The robot's lights, mounted on a crucifix-shaped frame, cast everything in a soft-blue glow as it slowly moved up the Embraer's aisle. One robot can disinfect a single-aisled plane in 13 minutes, start to finish, though larger planes take longer.

Dnata executives hope airplane makers will sign off on the robots -- Elmiger estimates they'll sell for 15,000 Swiss francs ($15,930) or so -- as governments require new measures to ensure air travellers don't get sick.

"We were looking for a sustainable, and also environmentally friendly solution, to cope with those requests," said Lukas Gyger, Dnata's chief operating officer in Switzerland.

While privately owned Helvetic has not needed bailouts like much of the industry, its business has also been gutted, with its fleet sitting largely silently in hangars. UVeya's UV robots may help change that, said Mehdi Guenin, a Helvetic spokesman.

"If our passengers, if our crew know our aircraft are safe -- that there are no viruses or bacteria -- it could help them to fly again," Guenin said.

($1 = 0.9418 Swiss francs)

(Writing by John Miller, reporting by Arnd Wiegmann in Zurich; Editing by David Gregorio)

 

           WILD PIGS are destroying Canada's natural habitat

A locust plague hit East Africa. The pesticide solution may have dire consequences.

A swarm of locusts is awe inspiring and terrible. It begins as a dark smudge on the horizon, then a gathering darkness. A rustle becomes a clatter that crescendos as tens of millions of voracious, finger-sized, bright yellow insects descend on the land. Since late 2019, vast clouds of locusts have shrouded the Horn of Africa, devouring crops and pastureland—and triggering an operation of staggering proportions to track and kill them

.

© Photograph by David Chancellor Seen from the air, at dawn, a swarm of desert locusts begins to move along agricultural land towards the forests of Mount Kenya.

© Photograph by David Chancellor At dusk a swarm of desert locusts gather over acacia tree’s where they roost for the night, Borana Conservancy, northern Kenya

So far, a ground and air spraying campaign over eight East African countries, coordinated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has staved off the worst—the very real prospect that the locusts would destroy the food supply for millions of people. Last year, the operation protected enough pastureland and food stocks, by the FAO’s calculations, to feed 28 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa and Yemen for an entire year

.

© Photograph by David Chancellor Grants gazelle, and Oryx stand amongst a swarm of desert locusts, Borana conservancy, northern Kenya

But progress comes with yet-unknown consequences to the landscape, and responders have sought to find the elusive balance between eradicating the invading pests without destroying foliage and harming insects, wildlife, and humans. Northern Kenya is renowned worldwide for its bee diversity, and farmers and conservationists worry that bees are becoming casualties.

So far, 475,000 gallons (1.8 million liters) of chemical pesticides have been sprayed over 4.35 million acres (1.76 million hectares) at a cost the FAO says is $118 million. The spraying is expected to continue this year.

Assessments of possible environmental damage are incomplete at best, though the effects of pesticides have been well documented for decades in other settings. Broad spectrum pesticides are not only very effective at killing locusts, they also kill bees and other insects. They leach into water systems and can damage human health.

“Of course, there is collateral damage,” says Dino Martins, an entomologist and executive director of the Mpala Research Center in Kenya. “All these chemicals are designed to kill insects and they do so in very large numbers.”

Caught off guard

© Provided by National Geographic SLIDE SHOW

A locust plague hit East Africa. The pesticide solution may have dire consequences. (ms

Kenya had not suffered a major locust invasion in 70 years. When the first swarms arrived in 2019, the country was woefully unprepared for what had been, quite reasonably, regarded as a remote threat.

“They had no equipment, no expertise, no pesticides, no aircraft, no knowledge,” says Keith Cressman, the FAO’s senior locust forecaster.

The swarms began forming in 2018 after cyclones dumped heavy rain on the inhospitable deserts of Arabia, allowing locusts to breed unseen in the wet sands. Strong winds in 2019 blew the growing swarms into Yemen’s inaccessible conflict zones, then across the Red Sea into Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

© Photograph by David Chancellor Desert locusts swarm on the open bush, Lewa conservancy, northern Kenya

In the early stages of the locust control effort Kenya threw everything it had at the problem. “It was a panic reaction,” says James Everts, a Dutch ecotoxicologist specializing in the environmental effects of pesticide use.

The spraying continued even as the COVID-19 pandemic spread and shuttered much of the world. Donning face masks against the coronavirus, hundreds of local volunteers, as well as members of Kenya’s National Youth Service, shouldered knapsack sprayers and, with minimal training, unloaded on the locusts with whatever pesticides happened to be in stock. They sprayed tens of thousands of liters of deltamethrin, as well as hundreds of liters of fipronil, chlorpyrifos, and other insecticides, many of which are banned in Europe and parts of the United States.

© Photograph by David Chancellor Standing in the eye of a swarm of desert locusts, Lewa Conservancy, northern Kenya

In one documented case in the northern region of Samburu, a ground control team sprayed 34 times the recommended dose of pesticide on a patch of ground, killing bees and beetles while spilling pesticide on themselves and crops.

“In the beginning it was an emergency,” says Thecla Mutia, who leads an FAO team monitoring the environmental effects of locust-control efforts in Kenya. “The whole idea was to manage this as fast as possible to ensure food security.”

The FAO says, however, that it did not approve the use of volunteers in the campaign nor the spraying of pesticides not recommended for locust control.
Pesticides banned in Europe and the U.S.

Designed to kill, pesticides are toxic by definition, but they are also blunt weapons. Three of the four chemicals recommended by the FAO and authorized by regional governments—chlorpyrifos, fenitrothion, and malathion—are broad-spectrum organophosphates, widely used pesticides sometimes referred to as “junior-strength nerve agents” because of their kinship to Sarin gas. The other, deltamethrin, is a synthetic pyrethroid, which is especially toxic to bees and fish, though much less so to mammals.

The FAO’s Pesticides Referee Group, which vets pesticides for use in locust control, lists all four chemicals as high risk to bees, low or medium risk to birds, and medium or high risk to locusts’ natural enemies and soil insects, such as ants and termites.

The European Union banned chlorpyrifos early last year, and in the U.S. state bans have been enforced in New York, California, and Hawaii. Fenitrothion, too, is banned in Europe, but permitted in the U.S. and in Australia, where the government deploys it as a central weapon in the fight against locusts.

“We are not hiding what conventional pesticides are,” says Cyril Ferrand, FAO resilience team leader in Nairobi, who points out that doing nothing was not an option in the face of the rapidly expanding swarms. “We want to lower the population of desert locusts in a way that is responsible.”
Non-toxic alternatives

Non-toxic biological alternatives that kill locusts, but do no other harm, have been available for decades. Yet chemical pesticides remain the weapon of choice, accounting for 90 percent of the spraying in the current East Africa campaign.

Biopesticide development began in the late 1980s after the end of a years-long locust plague that stretched from North Africa to India.

“When we saw the figures of the millions of liters of pesticide being sprayed, even the donor community was horrified,” recalls Christiaan Kooyman, a Dutch scientist who developed the biopesticide using a fungus, Metarhizium acridum, that attacks locusts. “And they asked the scientists, ‘Is there nothing else we can do?’”

Metarhizium, which has been on the market since 1998, is recommended by the FAO as the “most appropriate control option” for locusts, yet is rarely used. It is slow acting with a low “knockdown” rate—meaning it kills over days rather than hours. It is expensive and tricky to apply. And it is most effective against immature “hoppers,” rather than the adult swarms that are the greater threat.

Its best feature—that it kills only locusts—also makes it a less profitable product. Companies have little incentive to manufacture metarhizium and go through the costly bureaucratic process of registering it in a country until it is needed—and by then it is too late.

“Locusts aren’t around very much, and manufacturers are not keen on producing something that doesn’t get used,” says Graham Matthews, a British scientist and the founding chair of the Pesticides Referee Group. When the swarms arrive, “you don’t want to wait for production, you want it off-the-shelf,” he adds.

Instead, governments reach for the broad-spectrum toxic chemicals mass-produced by large agrochemical companies.

Extent of harm is unknown

What makes widespread spraying of chemical pesticides especially worrisome to farmers, herders, scientists, and conservationists in Kenya is that so little is known about what, if any, harm the pesticides have done. A U.S. government environmental assessment of the regional locust operation warned of the “potential for significant adverse impacts on environment and human health,” and a review by the World Bank found the environmental risk to be “substantial.”

Yet more than a year into the control campaign, the FAO’s assessment of the environmental impact of the spraying has not been made public.

“The excessive use of pesticides is of course detrimental to biodiversity, but it has not really been quantified as to what the level of impact is,” says Sunday Ekesi, an entomologist and director of research and partnerships at the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, part of a government task force set up to tackle the desert locust invasion.

“Our key concern is the impact it has on the pollinators,” says Anne Maina, of the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya. The farmers she works with attribute reduced honey and mango harvests to the disappearance of bees. Martins shares these concerns, but says the lack of monitoring information means it is impossible to know what’s really going on.

“Northern Kenya and the greater Horn of Africa is one of the world’s hotspots of bee diversity, with thousands of species, most of which we know absolutely nothing about,” he says. “We need to develop tools that allow us to both control locusts and protect the fragile biodiversity of the region’s drylands.”

The FAO’s 2003 guidelines on safety and environmental precautions acknowledge that aerial spraying may have less impact on human health than ground spraying, but often creates “more environmental concerns” because it risks contaminating ecologically sensitive areas. Aerial spraying increases the potential for “uncontrolled drift,” whereby chemicals—much like the locusts themselves—are blown off course by the wind.

Mutia, the FAO’s team leader for environmental monitoring, insists that ground-spraying teams have become better trained and local communities are better informed about the spraying and the risks to themselves and their livestock. Kenya’s overall locust operation today has improved since the early weeks of the invasion.

“Done right, the environmental impact is very low,” says Cressman.

A key report still under wraps

Still, Mutia’s environment and health monitoring report, finished last September, has yet to be made public. And there is confusion over why. The FAO says the report is for Kenya’s agriculture ministry to release, but a ministry spokeswoman says the FAO has yet to deliver it.

In an interview, Mutia says she found “no cause for alarm,” in her review of the spraying.

However, a copy of the report obtained by National Geographic paints a more detailed and problematic picture, with evidence of heavy overdosing at the Samburu site and widespread lack of communication with residents in sprayed areas.

In four of the 13 sites inspected, there was no sign of locust deaths at all, suggesting either that the spraying had been ineffective or that the monitoring teams weren’t in the right locations. The report says they were repeatedly given inadequate location information and lacked the helicopters and other vehicles required to quickly reach more remote sites.

“Our main concern has been the focus on control of the locusts without a parallel monitoring system of the undesired effects,” says Raphael Wahome, an animal scientist at the University of Nairobi. He says the FAO’s information should be made available to researchers and others: “Your guess is as good as mine as to what is happening wherever [the pesticides] have been used.”

Our Synthetic Environment - The Anarchist Library

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lewis-herber-murray-bookchin... · PDF file

can be discovered and thus controlled.”) With all due respect to genetics and to theories that attribute chronic disease to senescence, it would be more rewarding to examine the changes