CANADA

Government's $50-billion loan program coming due, but many businesses can't pay

ALL CAPITALI$M IS $TATE CAPITALI$M

Story by Ryan Tumilty • POSTMEDIA

Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said the debt is weighing on business owners as the deadline looms.© Provided by National Post

OTTAWA – A $50-billion pandemic loan program is becoming a ticking time bomb for the government and Canadian businesses with six months left before the money is supposed to be repaid.

The government launched the Canada Emergency Business Account during the early months of the pandemic, offering businesses loans up to $60,000. While the loans were processed through regular banks and financial institutions, the federal government backed them leaving the liability on the government’s coffers.

The interest-free loans were designed to help businesses with expenses like patio expansions, personal protective equipment or other pandemic-related needs. They came on top of the wage and rent subsidy programs that offered more specific support to businesses.

If businesses repay the loans by the end of this year, they can receive loan forgiveness on up to a third of the amount they borrowed, but if they don’t they must repay the full amount and will face five-per-cent interest on their remaining balance.

Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said the debt is weighing on business owners as the deadline looms.

“There is near panic on the part of close to half of Canada’s small businesses about the looming deadline that is approaching for CEBA loans,” he said.

The CFIB does regular surveys of its members and Kelly said many of them believe repaying on time is going to be a major challenge.

“About 43 per cent of small businesses are telling us they just don’t have the money to repay their CEBA loans and they’re gonna have to take some pretty drastic action if they are required to repay them by the end of this year.”

He said companies don’t want to miss out on the forgiveness, leaving them to consider some fairly desperate options.

“Some of them are looking at borrowing money in order to repay their loan, if they don’t have it, and so there are all sorts of companies out there right now offering crazy, high-interest loans,” he said.

The government gave out just under $50 billion in CEBA loans to nearly 900,000 individual businesses. The program began as a loan of up to $40,000, but was extended to $60,000 as the pandemic dragged on. The government has already given businesses another year to repay their loans and receive forgiveness.

An order paper question submitted in the House of Commons earlier this year, identified more than 50,000 businesses, owing just over $2 billion, who have already been deemed ineligible and ordered to pay back their loans immediately.

The National Post asked the finance department for updated numbers on how many businesses have paid back the loans, how many the government forecast could default and how much is still outstanding, but they provided none of those figures.

With no interest on the loans, Martin Bégin, a spokesperson for the finance department, said they expect many businesses will wait until the end of the year before repaying.

“We will have a more clear indication of a business’s ability to repay closer to the deadline. It’s expected many businesses, even those that are in a position to repay now, will only do so closer to Dec. 31, 2023.”

Businesses that miss this year’s deadline will lose the debt forgiveness and will begin paying five-per-cent interest for two years, before the full loan becomes due at the end of 2025.

Bégin said the government intends to take a cautious approach to collections, as it has with the wage subsidy and Canada Emergency Response Benefit overpayments.

“This approach emphasizes fairness and empathy, and the CRA will work with the businesses to help them resolve their debts based on their ability to pay,” he said.

While the government could not provide numbers, financial statements from Export Development Canada, which housed the program, priced the cost to the government at $13.1 billion, estimating that is how much of the initial $50 billion would be forgiven.

“The full potential impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the assumptions such as credit quality and probability of default used to measure the allowance for credit losses is unknown as it will depend on future developments that are uncertain,” the financial statements said.

In the CFIB’s surveys, nine out of 10 businesses said they had taken some CEBA money and 78 per cent said they had not made any payments on their loan so far.

Kelly said they expect as many as 250,000 businesses in Canada could risk closing their doors over the issue. He is encouraging Ottawa to extend the repayment deadline by at least another year.

“If the business goes down Ottawa won’t get even the $40,000 back, so we could end up cutting off our nose to spite our face,” he said. “I do believe that there are some serious risks to Ottawa getting its money back, if this doesn’t happen, if they’re not patient.”

Tourism businesses in a ‘dire’ state, with debt mounting and demand meager: industry

Story by The Canadian Press •

The head of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada says businesses are struggling to stay afloat under a pile of debt and a dearth of overseas visitors.

In a poll of tourism operators, some 45 per cent said they were likely or somewhat likely to shut down within three years unless the government steps in to adjust their loan conditions.

“Unless there's some change to the payback system and the payback requirements, they're in danger of closing in the next three years,” said Beth Potter, CEO of the trade organization.

“Everything from campgrounds to hotels to amusement parks to outdoor adventure,” Potter said.

"Festival events oftentimes are run by non-profit organizations, and they're really challenged right now in paying back these loans," she said.

“It’s dire."

Many businesses surveyed said they will not be able to make debt payments that are slated to come due in the next two years. The loans include those taken out through federal pandemic relief programs such as the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) as well as the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund and the Highly Affected Sectors Credit Availability Program.

The tourism association is calling on the federal government to extend the zero-interest repayment deadline for CEBA loans to Dec. 31, 2025, two years past the current deadline.

It is also asking Ottawa to boost the forgivable portion of fully repaid loans to 50 per cent, from up to 33 per cent, and to extend the qualifying deadline for that forgiveness to the end of 2024, rather than by the end of this year.

About 30 per cent of survey respondents, mainly small- and medium-sized operations, reported more than $250,000 in outstanding debt. One in five claimed debt between $100,000 and $250,000.

One reason for revenue struggles weighing on repayment efforts is a lack of tourists from abroad compared with 2019.

In March, the combined number of visitors to Canada and returning residents sat at 77 per cent of March 2019 levels, according to the most recent figures from Statistics Canada.

Potter said business travel in particular remains down relative to pre-pandemic totals. “Not only business events like conferences and trade shows and that kind of thing, but also transient business travel, with somebody flying into Toronto for a meeting and then flying back out again.”

Americans have “cocooned within their own country,” Potter said, adding that she remains hopeful they will return in force soon.

Even in the United States, whose travel industry rebounded more quickly than Canada's, business and international travel remain below 2019 levels — "and business travel appears to have stalled at current levels," said TD Cowen analyst Helane Becker in a note to investors on May 30.

Labour shortages remain another problem, hobbling business owners’ capacity to fill skilled positions, market and promote, serve customers at scale and manage their teams.

“We were in a challenging position with labour before the pandemic hit, and the pandemic has just accentuated it,” Potter said.

The exit of many baby boomers from the workforce hasn't helped, she added: "They've said, ‘Nope, we're out, we're retiring, we're moving to the cottage.’ We have lost a huge amount of leadership within the industry.”

After several program extensions and top-ups, the government says on its CEBA website that all “repayment deadlines are now final and cannot be changed.”

The CEBA program funded more than 898,000 small businesses and not-for-profits with $49.2 billion in interest-free loans of up to $60,000 after the COVID-19 pandemic set in, according to the government.

Conducted by Nanos, the online survey polled 149 financial controllers and accountants of businesses in the tourism sector between April 28 and May 12.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 20, 2023.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

California
A restaurant must pay workers $140,000 after allegedly hiring a fake priest to extract confessions of workers’ ‘sins

Story by Jordan Valinsky • CNN


A restaurant in California has been ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages to employees after it hired a priest to extract workers’ confessions, in what federal investigators are calling “the most shameless” acts of corruption an employer has taken against its staff.

The US Department of Labor said an employee testified that owner Che Garibaldi, who operates two locations of Taqueria Garibaldi in northern California, hired a fake priest to hear confessions during work hours and “get the sins out,” including asking them if they had been late for work, stolen money from the restaurant or had “bad intentions” toward their employer.

“Under oath, an employee of Taqueria Garibaldi explained how the restaurant offered a supposed priest to hear their workplace ‘sins’ while other employees reported that a manager falsely claimed that immigration issues would be raised by the department’s investigation,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Marc Pilotin in the release.

The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento confirmed that they found “no evidence of any connection” between the fake priest and their diocese. “While we don’t know who the person in question was, we are completely confident he was not a priest of the Diocese of Sacramento,” a diocese spokesman told the Catholic News Agency last week.

Garibaldi and three other restaurant owners and operators were ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages to 35 employees. The restaurant will also have to pay $5,000 in civil penalties.

Taqueria Garibaldi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Investigators also found that the restaurant denied employees overtime pay, managers were paid bonuses from the employee tip pool and some employees faced “adverse immigration consequences” for cooperating with investigators.

“This employer’s despicable attempts to retaliate against employees were intended to silence workers, obstruct an investigation and prevent the recovery of unpaid wages,” Pilotin said.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

RCMP reportedly investigating Liberals' SNC-Lavalin affair over obstruction of justice

Story by Bryan Passifiume • Yesterday National Post

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an event for Liberal supporters in 2022.

Nearly four years after Canada’s prime minister broke federal ethics laws by pressuring a former justice minister to intervene in the prosecution of a Montreal-based engineering firm, the RCMP have reportedly opened an investigation into allegations of prosecutorial obstruction in connection with the SNC-Lavalin affair.

A May 25 response to an access to information request filed by Democracy Watcher co-founder Duff Conacher was partially denied by the Mounties, as the requested records concerned a matter “currently under investigation,” inviting him to re-submit his request once court proceedings had concluded.

“As it did in February 2021 in a letter to the RCMP, Democracy Watch again requests records with regard into all decisions made concerning the examination and any subsequent investigations that have been undertaken, and all decisions concerning prosecuting anyone involved in the situation of the allegation that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former finance minister Bill Morneau, some members of their staff, and former Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick obstructed justice by pressing then-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin,” read Conacher’s original access-to-information request to the RCMP.

The National Post has asked the RCMP for comment but has not yet received a response.

The last time the RCMP spoke publicly about the SNC-Lavalin affair was in 2019, when a police service spokesperson told CBC that they were “examining this matter carefully” and will take “appropriate actions as required.”

That was shortly after the federal ethics commissioner deemed the prime minister had violated Section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act by improperly pressuring then-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to curtail criminal prosecution against SNC-Lavalin.

“The RCMP should have confirmed long ago that it was investigating the situation given the evidence,” Conacher told the National Post.

“And that more than four years have passed since the situation was made public, and almost four years since the Ethics Commissioner’s ruling finding that Prime Minister Trudeau violated the federal ethics law pressuring the Attorney General.”

The ordeal began in Feb. 2015 when the RCMP filed fraud and corruption charges against the Montreal-based engineering firm in connection with their business dealings in Libya.

Three years later, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada declined a request by SNC-Lavalin to negotiate a remediation agreement in connection with those charges in Sept. 2018 — a deal that would allow them to avoid a criminal trial in exchange for accepting responsibility for the crime, paying a fine and agreeing to an oversight regime.

The Trudeau Liberals passed a bill that March allowing for such remediation agreements, a provision lobbied for by SNC-Lavalin.

In September, Wilson-Raybould claims the prime minister asked her to “find a solution” for SNC-Lavalin — a request that prompted the former justice minister to ask if he was attempting to politically interfere with the matter, to which Trudeau said he wasn’t.

Despite threats to cleave the company in two and divest itself of its Canadian offices and workforce, the prosecution service again denied SNC-Lavalin’s request for a remediation agreement — even after pleas from the company’s board chair to former Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick, who told him it was up to Wilson-Raybould.

Wilson-Raybould was shuffled out of her position in Jan. 2019, and replaced as justice minister with David Lametti.

SNC-Lavalin settled the matter in Dec. 2019 by pleading guilty to a single count of fraud , accepting a $280-million fine to be paid over five years, and three years’ probation.

As RCMP investigators began to look into the matter throughout the summer of 2019, The Globe and Mail reported that in September that investigators’ efforts were being hindered by the federal government’s refusal to lift cabinet confidentiality . The story was reported one day before Parliament was dissolved ahead of that fall’s federal election.

An RCMP source told the newspaper at the time that investigators were looking into launching an obstruction of justice investigation.

Conacher said there needs to be more urgency in any investigation.

“Are the RCMP and prosecutors waiting for a third federal election to pass? Or doing what often happens in Canada when powerful politicians and government officials are involved in alleged illegal activities: delaying with the hope that they can eventually bury the results of the investigation?” he said.

— With files from The Canadian Press

PRODUCTIVITY IS SURPLUS VALUE
FIRST READING: Canadian economic productivity is in freefall
Opinion by Tristin Hopper • 

Construction workers assemble a crane high in the air in Toronto in this 2021 photo.© Provided by National Post

First Reading is a daily newsletter keeping you posted on the travails of Canadian politicos, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper.

Although Canadian economic growth is just barely keeping its head above water, data keep emerging to show that, for the average Canadian, the economic situation is getting progressively worse.

New data from Statistics Canada show that Canadian labour productivity has dropped for the fourth consecutive quarter. Compared to this time last year, the average Canadian is now producing two per cent less during every hour they spend at work.

And it’s not like our per-capita productivity was all that good to begin with. An analysis by University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe found that Canada’s per-person rate of economic output is now on the level of some of the poorest states in the U.S.

Ontario’s rate of per-capita productivity, for instance, is now about the same as Alabama. And even Alberta – Canada’s most unambiguously wealthy province – wouldn’t come close to cracking the top 10 among richest per-capita U.S. states.

Tombe noted that recent drops in productivity have effectively erased five years of gains, sending Canada right back to the productivity levels of 2017. If Canada had instead spent those last five years matching the productivity growth of the United States, Tombe estimates that it would have meant an extra $5,500 in increased economic output per Canadian.

“Given how closely wages are tied to productivity, this directly affects our living standards and, in my view, poses a bigger affordability challenge than recent high inflation,” he wrote.

The new figures on dropping productivity add to revelations in May that Canada was already well into a “per-capita” recession.

Official figures show that Canada has not met the technical definition of a recession: two consecutive quarters of negative growth. As of the last count, GDP growth stood at 0.3 per cent in the last quarter of 2022, just enough for policymakers to be able to say that the economy isn’t contracting.

But those statistics change when accounting for the fact that Canada is packing in unprecedented numbers of new immigrants, meaning that a relatively stagnant national economy is now being shared among a pool of people that is getting three per cent larger every year.

Over the weekend, the Canadian population officially passed 40 million people thanks largely to a dramatic scale-up in the country’s annual intake of permanent residents. In 2022 alone, Canada added one million newcomers, the equivalent of the entire population of Nova Scotia.

The housing-news publication Better Dwelling recently crunched the numbers on Canada’s economic performance as measured at a per-capita level. What it found was that, while the aggregate economy may be keeping its head above water, the average Canadian would have experienced the last quarter of 2022 as a 0.9 per cent contraction.

“Canadians are likely seeing an erosion in quality of life, and while incomes are rising they aren’t rising enough to compete with inflation,” wrote Better Dwelling.

And overarching everything are OECD projections showing that Canada is on track to become the world’s worst-performing advanced economy.

In Dec. 2021, a report by the OECD predicted how GDP growth was expected to look in each of the world’s developed economic between now and 2060. In terms of “real per capita GDP growth,” Canada was ranked dead last.


OECD projection on real per capita GDP growth into 2060. Canada, which has the lowest of any developed nation, is circled in red.© OECD

For decades on end, the Canadian economy was expected to yield annual growth rates of no more than 0.8 per cent. So while Canada wouldn’t necessarily decline, its economy would remain stagnant, causing living standards to drop as compared to its peer nations.

At the time, an analysis by the Business Council of British Columbia blamed a political class that had “lost interest in efforts to raise workers’ productivity.”

“Past generations of young Canadians entering the workforce could look forward to favourable tailwinds lifting real incomes over their working lives. That’s no longer the case,” the council concluded.

NIMBY
Build begins on Wyoming-to-California power line amid growing wind power concern



RAWLINS, Wyo. (AP) — Portrait photographer Anne Brande shoots graduation and wedding engagement photos at scenic spots throughout southeastern Wyoming's granite mountains and sprawling sagebrush valleys, but worries what those views will look like in a few years. Wind energy is booming here.

“Dandelions in my yard, you know, when there's four or five, it's OK,” Brande said. “When my whole yard is dandelions, I'm just not too excited.”

In a state where being able to hunt, fish and camp in gorgeous and untrammeled nature is a way of life, worries about spoiled views, killed eagles and disturbed big-game animals such as elk and mule deer have grown with the spread of wind turbines.

On Tuesday, state and federal officials will break ground on TransWest Express, a transmission line that will move electricity from the $5 billion, 3,000-megawatt, 600-turbine Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind farm to southern California, a place legally mandated to switch to clean energy. The wind farm will be the country's biggest yet.

Federal regulators gave the go-ahead to TransWest in April. The International Energy Agency and other experts say wind power is crucial to attaining a carbon-neutral world by 2050. Developers here estimate they'll prevent between 7 and 11 million tons of carbon dioxide a year and provide enough carbon-free electricity to power 1 million homes.

But in Wyoming, despite extensive wildlife studies and lengthy federal environmental reviews, there's more skepticism about wind power than when the projects were first proposed 17 years ago.

“I think it’s just as simple as too much of a good thing,” Brande said.

As elsewhere, opposition to wind farms in Wyoming correlates with proximity to homes and cabins: Chokecherry and Sierra Madre is massive but isolated, and has generated less opposition than some others. But Brande and rural property owners opposed a 500-megawatt, 120-turbine wind farm soon to be built near the Colorado state line. They lost, but the matter reached the Wyoming Supreme Court.

The contentious county approval process included a five-hour public hearing in a packed courtroom in Laramie in 2021. Residents expressed a range of concerns, from turbine blades killing birds to construction blasting damaging home foundations.

In neighboring Carbon County, the county commission on June 6 held off permitting for a 280-megawatt, 79-turbine project called Two Rivers, after hearing from people with concerns. Commissioners told the developers to get federal approval first.

The local opposition to a wind farm is a recent development in an area that previously welcomed the economic benefits with few questions, Carbon County Commission Vice Chairman Sue Jones said. Named for its coal reserves that once fueled steam engines, Carbon County adopted an official seal in 2021 that features a wind turbine.

Yet county officials recently required wind farms to turn off their red warning lights except when aircraft approach, responding to public complaints.

The regulation wasn't retroactive. But PacifiCorp, which serves customers in Wyoming, Utah and the Pacific Northwest, retrofitted its wind turbines in the area with the on-and-off pilot warning system anyway, Jones said.


“The companies do try to be good neighbors," Jones said. "But it is starting to show and it is reaching a point where maybe it’s too much. It’s affecting wildlife habitat. It’s affecting the birds and the bats.”

In just four years, wind generation capacity in Wyoming has doubled, adding about 600 turbines — the bulk of them in the southeast — since 2020, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Chokecherry and Sierra Madre alone will double that amount again — and at least five more wind farms are planned, according to a 2022 University of Wyoming report.

If they all stay on schedule, Wyoming could soon vault from 14th to among the top five states for wind energy, though wind energy is booming elsewhere, too.

Almost 60% of electricity generated in Wyoming, wind power included, isn't used here but goes to other states, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Increasingly the state's wind energy is coveted by utilities in California, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest.

TransWest Express will move the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre electricity 732 miles (1,178 kilometers) from south-central Wyoming to just outside Las Vegas. Along the way, it will cross northwestern Colorado and Utah, with conversion from direct to alternating current in central Utah.

The wind farm and transmission lines, both projects of The Anschutz Corporation owned by Denver oil and gas billionaire Phil Anschutz, are scheduled to come online around the same time, starting in late 2027.

The transmission line's direct-current section allows efficient, long-distance electricity transfer with no tie-ins to other power lines, while the alternating current segment is less efficient but connects to the rest of the grid.

Wyoming wind averages almost 13 mph (21 kph) day and night, year-round, matching well with daytime solar generated elsewhere. But so far there aren't a lot of ways to get wind power from Wyoming onto the western U.S. power grid, said Roxane Perruso, TransWest Express executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“So we’re going to enhance the ability to move renewables and other power, carbon-free power in the future, around the grid," Perruso said.

Paralleling TransWest Express in places, Pacificorp's Gateway South transmission lines connecting Wyoming wind farms to southern Utah are scheduled for completion next year. Pacificorp's Gateway West lines, already partly built across southern Wyoming, will stretch all the way to the Pacific Northwest sometime after 2030.

While wind power benefits the climate, environmentalists are split over its costs to wildlife. In Wyoming, wind farms pose a risk to golden eagles and sage grouse, a chicken-sized, ground-dwelling bird that tends to avoid high structures that can provide perching spots for predatory birds, said Erik Molvar, of Laramie, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project.

"The real answer is to incentivize the siting of solar panels in urban areas where the electricity’s actually going to get used," Molvar said.

Power Company of Wyoming, the Aschutz subsidiary building Chokecherry and Sierra Madre, spent years working with federal regulators on ways to minimize harm to sage grouse and golden eagles, such as tweaking turbine locations to reduce bird collisions. But eagle deaths at wind farms are a common problem, one that often goes unprosecuted.

Wyoming's position as the country's top coal-producer and a major source of oil and gas, meanwhile, has meant an uneasy relationship with wind at times. Wyoming is the only state that taxes wind energy, a $1 per megawatt-hour charge lawmakers have discussed raising to $4 or more.

And local resistance could grow. People often don’t appreciate what a wind farm with its turbines, lights, roads, power lines and substations will look like, said Jones, the Carbon County commissioner.

“You really have no idea what that’s like until it’s there. And then you go, wow. It’s an industrial area. A different kind of industry, but an industrial area,” Jones said.

Mead Gruver, The Associated Press

SASKATCHEWAN
Murray Mandryk: First Nations not sharing economic success, says chief

Opinion by Murray Mandryk • 

FSIN vice-chief David Pratt said the rhetoric we hear from Premier Scott Moe and his government on economic successes doesn't include First Nations.© Provided by Leader Post

What bothered David Pratt is what he didn’t hear from Premier Scott Moe at his annual premier’s dinner/Saskatchewan Party fundraiser in Saskatoon last week.

The first vice-chief for the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations heading FSIN’s social policy issues sat at the table of TransCanada Energy, where he heard Moe talk about a booming economy with low unemployment and unlimited potential in oil, potash, and especially the new critical minerals opportunities.

What the premier didn’t mention is how badly First Nations people are doing during this time of bounty.

By way of coincidence, the first vice-chief was engaged with Statistics Canada, trying to get additional information on First Nations poverty.

Pratt was eventually provided a chart showing there are some 29,870 “employable” adult First Nations people on Saskatchewan reserves with some 12,800 dependents requiring income assistance.

This would not necessarily capture all the urban First Nations people living off reserve, suggesting vast numbers of people not benefiting from all this prosperity.

“He (Moe) painted such a rosy picture of the economy,” Pratt said in an interview. “But you can’t ignore one-fifth of the population and expect them to continue to live in squalor and poverty.

“It’s like the sleeping giant, the 10,000-pound elephant and bear all in the room.”

While Saskatchewan has temporary foreign workers coming in from all over the world, the province sits on untapped human resources in our own backyard that are largely being excluded from that workforce, Pratt said.

Those temporary foreign workers may or or may not stay in Saskatchewan if better opportunities open up elsewhere, but First Nations people are mostly here to stay, he noted. That will mean that Saskatchewan will continue to struggle with their issues of addictions, housing, health care and poverty.

Such thoughts were foremost in Pratt’s mind last week as he listened to the premier offer his glowing assessment to a room of well-heeled political donors — the very people who likely have the wherewithal to help address these issues.

“I was standing on the bow of the ship and it felt like there’s an iceberg ahead,” Pratt said.

In fairness, Pratt said he believes there are ministers in Moe’s cabinet — many of them from rural Saskatchewan with reserves in their ridings — who do comprehended the extent of this problem.

The vice-chief also noted there are success stories to draw from, like the Meadow Lake Tribal Council’s forestry business that paid healthy dividends during the recent lumber shortage, jobs with pipelines and in the potash and other mining sectors where emphasis is being placed on First Nations hirings.

Asked what practices work best, Pratt cited the success of the Fort MacKay, Alta. band during the oilsands boom in which a mentorship program instilled needed job skill training and expectations on workplaces that stuck with those who participated.

“Some of the kids (that went through the oilsands mentorship program) are still there,” he said. “Some of them may be retired by now.”

Programs that work have a lot to do with solid First Nations leadership, but Pratt said chiefs and band councillors are overwhelmed with the problems before them.

“The reality is that First Nations leaders are managing poverty,” the vice-chief said, noting issues of health outcomes, food, water, drug and alcohol addiction, crime and gang violence and other issues now swamping reserve communities.

“I think the problem is that they are so overwhelmed.”

Clearly, the premier and his provincial government must work in unison with First Nations and the federal government to address issues. Co-operation has often been near non-existent and needs to be vastly improved.

Pratt noted that after Moe went to Washington to talk about critical minerals , the FSIN made the same trip to Washington a week later to discuss the same issue. Such a lack of co-ordination is unhelpful.

Worse, it’s an acknowledgement the government doesn’t recognize the First Nations problem or see how First Nations could be part of the solution.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

The toxic workplace trait that's costing employees money and burning them out

Story by Victoria Wells • Financial Post

Many people don't disconnect from work when they take a vacation, research shows.

Canadians are complaining they have too much to do at work, yet many are also failing to use their vacation time , which could be why 36 per cent of professionals say they’re more burned out now than they were last year, according to new research from consulting company Robert Half Canada.

Millennials, gen-Zers, parents of younger kids and people who’ve been at their company between two and four years are bearing the brunt of the pain. But the overall numbers seem surprisingly high, and even “shocking,” said Michael French, national director of Robert Half Canada. “When you hear one-third … are saying they’re more burnt out than a year ago, that blew me away,” he said. “That’s one in three people.”

Some of the burnout could be from challenges outside of work as people emerge from three years of COVID-19 only to face inflation, war and wildfires, while also juggling personal responsibilities such as elder or child care, French said. But more than half of professionals point the finger at work as the source of their burnout, saying they’re managing ever-larger workloads with less staff, perhaps because of labour shortages or hiring freezes. Others blame a lack of support from management or a toxic work environment. A push to return to the office might also be behind some of that stress, he said.

One might think burnt-out employees would jump at the chance to book time away from the grind so they can recover, yet a surprising number aren’t doing so, choosing instead to keep working even as their exhaustion builds. “The biggest problem is that people aren’t taking (breaks),” French said.

Indeed, 20 per cent of professionals aren’t planning to use their vacation days in the weeks ahead because they feel they can’t afford to take the time off, either because they think they’ll fall behind or because they fear it could somehow be used against them, perhaps even threatening their job security.

Those that do take vacation days — and 32 per cent plan to do so — may not be taking a true break because they’re not really disconnecting from their jobs. Robert Half’s study said 18 per cent of professionals expect to “check in” at work while on vacation. It might be even worse than that. A survey by Ceridian Inc. indicates 50 per cent of Canadian workers feel they don’t unplug completely from work while on vacation. So much for rest and relaxation.





Professionals aren’t the only class of workers guilty of letting their unused vacation days pile up. More than half of all Canadians failed to use their allotted time off in 2022, according to a recent survey by travel site Expedia Inc. Others are using those precious vacation days for things that definitely don’t sound relaxing, such as running errands or taking care of sick kids or other family members.

Aside from being a recipe for burnout, foregoing vacation time also amounts to leaving money on the table, ultimately cutting into a workers’ overall compensation. Plus, failing to take a break doesn’t make someone a workplace hero, and might even irritate the boss. After all, companies give employees vacation days because they want people to rest enough so they can keep performing to the best of their abilities at work. Research shows that those who take time off come back feeling refreshed, more productive and happier about their jobs, all good for a company’s bottom line. “Companies want their people to be well-cared for,” French said. “They need you to be doing your job very, very well. They want you in your best health.”

But if leaders want to ensure their employees — and companies — are benefiting from vacation uptake, they might have to make some changes. Widespread resistance to time off might come down to a culture problem in which managers don’t model what it looks like to take a true break. “As a leader, you need to take your vacation,” French said. “It is more important that (employees) see you take time away so they take their time away.”

Of course, a vacation isn’t necessarily a burnout cure. The American Psychological Association (APA) conducted research in 2018 that showed people got a nice boost from taking a vacation , but the effects wore off a few days later. “Employers shouldn’t rely on the occasional vacation to offset a stressful work environment,” David Ballard, head of the APA’s Center for Organizational Excellence, said in the report. “Unless they address the organizational factors causing stress and promote ongoing stress management efforts, the benefits of time off can be fleeting.”

It all comes down to balance, French said. For example, there are times when a team must work more than usual to hit a deadline, but those periods should segue into quieter periods so workers can breathe. Short breaks throughout the workday are also crucial to help keep equilibrium, he said. It could be as easy as a walk around the block, or if working from home, a moment to take in some fresh air on the balcony or backyard.

Want workers back in the office? A free lunch isn't going to cut it

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“Hustle culture needs to be rebalanced. If you’re going to work hard, you need to balance that with ‘relax hard’ and fully disconnect,” French said. “Work hard, play hard … is just bringing burnout.”

• Email: vwells@postmedia.com | 

1933

USA TODAY VS GOOGLE
Gannett sues Google, Alphabet claiming they have a monopoly on digital advertising



Gannett sues Google, Alphabet claiming they have a monopoly on digital advertising© Provided by The Canadian Press

Gannett has filed a civil lawsuit against Google and its parent company Alphabet, claiming that they unlawfully hold monopolies in the advertising technology tools that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell online ad space.

The largest U.S. newspaper publisher by total daily circulation alleges in the suit that Google controls how publishers sell their ad slots and forces them to sell an increasing amount of ad space to Google at lower prices. This in turn results in less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals and more money for Google.

In January the Justice Department and eight states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, seeking to shatter its alleged monopoly on the entire ecosystem of online advertising as a hurtful burden to advertisers, consumers and even the U.S. government. The suit accused the company of unlawfully monopolizing the way ads are served online by excluding competitors.

The European Union launched an antitrust investigation into Google’s digital ad dominance in 2021. And last week EU regulators hit Google with fresh antitrust charges, saying the only way to satisfy competition concerns about its lucrative digital ad business is by selling off parts of the tech giant’s main moneymaker.

The unprecedented decision to push for such a breakup marks a significant escalation by Brussels in its crackdown on Silicon Valley digital giants, and follows a similar move by U.S. authorities seeking to bust Google’s alleged monopoly on the online ad ecosystem.

Gannett CEO Mike Reed, in an opinion piece published Tuesday by Gannett-owned USA Today, said that the company is looking to "restore fair competition in a digital advertising marketplace that Google has demolished."

Reed claims that local news outlets are hurting because of unlawful bid-rigging practices used by Google.

“The core of the case and our position is that Google abuses its control over the ad server monopoly to make it increasingly difficult for rival exchanges to run competitive auctions,” Reed wrote.

“These claims are simply wrong. Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetize – in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager," Dan Taylor, vice president of Google Ads said in a written statement. "And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue. We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”

Gannett's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks an unspecified amount of damages and injunctive relief. The Virginia company is seeking a trial by jury.

Michelle Chapman, The Associated Press

France to shut down climate NGO after protest violence

POLICE VIOLENCE

Story by AFP •

UN experts have urged France to review policing tactics after the clashes at Sainte-Soline

© THIBAUD MORITZ

French authorities are expected shortly to issue a decree shutting down a climate activist group after demonstrators clashed with police over a controversial irrigation project that left one man in a coma.

Government spokesman Olivier Veran accused the Uprisings of the Earth (SLT) coalition of encouraging the violence at the March protests near Sainte-Soline in western France, where authorities said around 30 officers were also injured.


France will officially dissolve the Soulevements de la Terre (Uprisings of the Earth) coalition© Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS

"You don't dissolve an association because of its ideas. You dissolve it because there is violence or a risk for public safety," Veran told CNews television.

SLT had vowed to fight the shutdown order, saying on its website: "You cannot dissolve a movement. You cannot dissolve a revolt."

Veran said SLT "whipped up violence at Sainte Soline by inviting rioters, who came from across Europe with metal bars and petanque balls to try and kill police officers".

"The climate question does not justify throwing rocks at police in a field," he said.

SLT, a coalition of several activist associations, was also behind a recent protest against a sand quarry in western France, during which protesters tore up fields and equipment at a farm.

Its dissolution was officially launched by the interior ministry in March.

The decree is likely to be discussed at the government's weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday, a source close to the issue said.

France has faced a wave of protests in recent months, mainly over a hotly contested decision to push back the retirement age.

The protests have at times turned violent.

Demonstrators have vandalised buildings and street furniture or thrown rocks at riot police.

Critics accuse authorities of fomenting tensions with heavy-handed policing tactics and aggressive confrontations with demonstrators.

Many in France were shocked by the scenes at Sainte-Soline, where around 5,000 protesters clashed with more than 3,000 police officers.

The demonstrators were protesting against a giant reservoir for storing water pumped up from the underground water table.

Critics say it will penalise smaller farmers, local people and the ecosystem, while benefitting mainly industrial agriculture groups.

Earlier this month, United Nations experts urged France to review its policing practices, expressing concern at the "reported excessive use of force" against protesters, in particular at Sainte-Soline.

lum/arz/js/sjw

Buttigieg says US 'green corridors' initiative is key to cutting shipping industry emissions

Buttigieg says US 'green corridors' initiative is key to cutting shipping industry emissions© Provided by The Canadian Press

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — An American push to establish “green shipping corridors” is key to reducing carbon emissions from the shipping industry, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday while touring the port of Yokohama near Tokyo.

Buttigieg was in Japan to attend a meeting over the weekend of transport ministers of the Group of Seven advanced economies, who reaffirmed a commitment to reducing emissions from the transport industry and to keeping navigation free and open in the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. is seeking to develop and strengthen partnerships with “like-minded countries” to improve maritime security and keep shipping and aviation corridors open, he told The Associated Press in an interview.

Emissions from maritime transport account for about 3% of total global emissions from human activities. Some 40% of Yokohama's emissions come from its port.

About 90% of all traded goods are moved by sea, and maritime trade volumes are expected to triple by 2050, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Studies predict the industry’s share of greenhouse gas emissions could reach 15%. That has added urgency to efforts to cut such pollution.

The International Maritime Organization, which regulates commercial shipping, wants to halve its greenhouse gas releases by midcentury and may seek deeper cuts this year.

The Port of Los Angeles signed an agreement in March with port authorities of Yokohama and Tokyo to establish the so-called green shipping corridors, aiming to promote emissions reductions through use of net-zero emissions vessels and other efforts to reduce the flow of greenhouse gases from ports and shipping.

It also has formed similar partnerships with Singapore and Shanghai and the U.S. has begun discussing setting up such corridors in Southeast Asia. The initiative is also under discussion by the Quad, which includes Japan, the U.S., India and Australia.

Yokohama is the closest major port to North America across the Pacific and is a major regional hub.

Japan is working to reduce fossil fuel use and promote hydrogen and ammonia as alternative fuels. Yokohama plans to build a terminal for ships to import hydrogen, officials said. Other facilities in Yokohama allow a ship that is idling at the port to be powered electronically instead of burning heavily polluting marine fuel oil.

Similar initiatives are being promoted in U.S. ports, Buttigieg said, adding that Japanese leadership in developing hydrogen as fuel is going to be “a big part of the future.”

The Biden administration is pushing to speed up the transition to renewable and less polluting energy sources. While attending G7 meetings in April in Sapporo, northern Japan, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm toured the world’s first and only liquefied hydrogen carrier, a ship that showcases Japanese efforts to transform heavily polluting coal into emissions-free hydrogen power.

Japan aims to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, with a goal of becoming a “hydrogen society.” But its hydrogen industry is still in its initial stages, and still mostly reliant on hydrogen produced using fossil fuels.

“We know it will take more time for these to be deployed on a widespread basis, but you have to begin somewhere,” he said.

In a joint statement, Buttigieg and other G7 ministers reiterated their countries' determination to support free and open navigation and expressed strong opposition to any attempts to change the “peacefully established status of territories by force” — a reference to concerns over China's growing military presence and its longstanding claim to the separately governed island of Taiwan.

Disruptions to China-based manufacturing and trade during the pandemic, as well as the risk of conflict have prompted moves to diversify supply chains and reduce reliance on Chinese production of strategically important goods and commodities.

“We recognize that there will be a lot of geopolitical challenges affecting both trade and security in this region. This is party of why we have such an emphasis on de-risking and diversifying the economic relationships with regard to China,” Buttigieg said.

Yokohama is in the midst of a “blue carbon infrastructure” project that features promoting coastal structures like sea walls that can serve as habitat for marine life while absorbing planet-warming gasses emitted by the port.

While touring the port, Buttigieg was briefed about efforts to increase efficiency by accelerating use of remote-controlled cranes and autonomous-driven trailers, which can reduce waiting times for truck drivers and reduce emissions.

Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press