Edmonton mayoral candidate Amarjeet Sohi, a former Liberal MP, outside a coffee shop on Aug. 26 (Jeff Labine/iPolitics)Amarjeet Sohi doesn’t miss federal politics.
The 57-year-old former bus driver is one of 10 candidates vying to succeed Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson in the municipal election on Oct. 18.
Sohi served two terms as a city councillor after getting elected for the first time in 2007.
In 2015, he won as the Liberal candidate for Edmonton—Mill Woods. He played a key role in Justin Trudeau’s government by taking on the portfolios of Infrastructure and Communities, and Natural Resources.
Sohi would only serve one term in the House of Commons after losing to Conservative MP Tim Uppal in 2019.
Sohi said little about his next political move until last May, when he announced his mayoral campaign.
With a federal election underway, Sohi said his sights are set solely on Edmonton.
“I honestly don’t miss being part of partisan politics,” he told iPolitics. “I really enjoyed working as a member of Parliament, as a minister, … but I did not enjoy the lifestyle of going back and forth (to Ottawa) and travelling throughout the country.”
Sohi’s return to municipal politics comes during significant changes in both Edmonton and Calgary.
Iveson and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, both seen as progressive mayors, won’t be running again. Iveson made his decision public in November last year, and Nenshi made his intentions known in April.
The mayors of Alberta’s largest cities often butted heads with Jason Kenney’s provincial government.
A significant point of contention was the United Conservative Party’s decision to reduce Edmonton and Calgary’s base funding of $500 million per year, which is split between the two, by $45 million, thus ending years of negotiations to give the two cities more say in how they spend their money, according to a CBC report.
“We had no sense that the city-charter fiscal framework was going to be ripped up today,” Iveson told reporters afterward.
When asked how he’d handle the situation, Sohi said he’d start by making sure Edmontonians understand what’s at stake.
“If city-infrastructure funding is being cut back, that means you’re going to see cracks in roads, traffic is going to see gridlock, transit systems will not be expanded,” he said. “Those are the kinds of conversations I want to have with Edmontonians and the province. (I want to) find commonalities around those issues.”
If elected, Sohi said he’d try to collaborate with all the city’s partners, including the provincial government.
THE DECOLONIZED TAROT PROJECT
Card: Magician
Artist Reina iris
Art direction thiha
Country Myanmar
Zawgyi
Zawgyi are legendary semi-immortal beings believed to be both mystics and alchemists. They figure prominently in the mythology and folklore of the Myanmar people. The word is believed to be derived from the Indian word “yogi” and similarly the Zawgyi is credited with many supernatural talents.
The reason for their red appearance is attributed to mercury; from the anatomy of an ordinary human being, they transformed into a Zawgyi. As a Zawgyi, they are believed to have 5 supernatural powers – the ability to fly, travel beneath the earth and oceans, perform various forms of divination, necromancy and resurrection as well.
Legend have them living alone in an invisible mythical forest set deep in Himalaya Mountains. Here, the Zawgi forage herbs for magical purposes. After an ardous and extensive search, they obtain the mythical Philosopher's stone and thus gain the status of Zawgyi.
To satisfy their desires, it is said that by touching the Nariphon (Tuyaung Fruit Trees) with their magical wands, they are able to bring to life illusory females" (Thuyaung-mèý) as these trees will bear female-shaped fruits. They spend their lives searching for various herbs to treat pain, suffering, illness, and other forms of ailments brought on by magical spells.
The magic wands are used primarily to grind the medicinal herbs and roots, although these wands also double up as walking sticks, especially in negotiating very rugged footpaths.
The Zawgyi Dance reproduces many aspects of the legend; the red clothing, the magical wand, the journey through the forest among other significant characteristics.
September 17, 2021https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seamstarot/seams-tarot-3/
Moving from fringe to 4th place, PPC complicates the Conservatives' path to power
At a recent campaign event, Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole couldn't quite bring himself to say the name of the man who could end up thwarting his shot at power.
People's Party of Canada (PPC) Leader Maxime Bernier has gone from leading a small fringe group with tepid support to heading up a right-wing party that, according to the CBC Poll Tracker, could have the fourth-highest share of the vote on Sept. 20.
After the last election campaign, a CBC News analysis showed that — even with its rather dismal level of support — the PPC likely cost the Conservatives seven seats in the House of Commons by splitting the vote (six seats went to the Liberals, one to the NDP). With polls suggesting PPC support is now well above the 1.6 per cent of the vote it got last time, its impact could be even greater in 2021.
When asked by CBC News recently what he plans to do to blunt Bernier's momentum and prevent a vote-splitting scenario that could hand Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau another term, O'Toole didn't say much — and never mentioned Bernier by name.
O'Toole was asked three questions about the former Conservative cabinet minister-turned PPC leader at a Sunday press conference and ducked every one of them.
"I remind Canadians, if you're tired of a Liberal government that's constantly in scandal, corrupt at its core with Mr. Trudeau's constant ethics investigations, there's one team and one leader that can replace him — Canada's Conservatives," O'Toole finally said when pressed.
His party's campaign material insists Canadians only have four choices in this election. "If you don't care about creating Canadian jobs and standing up to the Chinese Communist Party, you have three parties to choose from. If you do, you only have one choice – Canada's Conservatives," reads a recent press release.
While polls suggest some PPC support is coming from first-time or infrequent voters, there's no question the PPC is drawing at least some support from former Conservative voters.
"The Conservative party is no longer a conservative party," Craig Mostat, an-ex Conservative supporter of the PPC from Edmonton, told CBC News.
"They are bending over backwards to do everything the Liberals are doing," he said, referring to the party's more moderate brand of conservatism under O'Toole.
An outgoing Conservative MP, David Yurdiga, is backing Bernier and Shawn McDonald, the local PPC candidate in his Fort McMurray, Alta. riding.
"We're the true conservatives. We're bringing people home," McDonald told the conservative online media outlet True North.
Some pollsters — notably those using more anonymous collection methods, like interactive voice response (IVR) — show higher levels of PPC support than those firms using live telephone agents or an online forum to survey the public on their voting choices.
While the country's major polling firms can't agree on just how much support the PPC enjoys, it's clear that the party is much more of a force now than it was in the 2019 campaign
"There's definitely a lot more people jumping on the PPC train even compared to two months ago. It's definitely getting bigger," said Rodolpho Menjivar, an infrequent Alberta voter who has voted Liberal in the past but plans to pick the PPC this time.
"People are looking for another option because they don't like what everyone else is doing."
Philippe Fournier, a polls analyst with 338Canada, said the PPC's strength could spell trouble for the Conservatives in close races in Prairie cities like Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg. In 2019, the party only narrowly won seats like Manitoba's Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley and Alberta's Edmonton Centre over the Liberals.
"The PPC could get more votes than the Bloc Quebecois in this election, which was unfathomable only one year ago," Fournier said. "We can say with confidence that many of their supporters used to vote Conservative."
Bernier's dramatic break from the Conservative party in 2018 was a troubling development for some Conservative operatives who feared a fractured right-centre vote would guarantee Liberal victories for years to come.
At the time, however, most Conservative insiders — especially those who knew him from his time as a Harper-era cabinet minister — were dismissive of Bernier's potential political impact.
They feared a splintered vote but they didn't think Bernier was well-equipped to get a new party off the ground and compete meaningfully in enough ridings to make much of a difference.
The PPC's poor showing in 2019 — Bernier lost the Beauce seat he'd held for years — bolstered the naysayers.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a political realignment, breathing new life into a party that looked all but dead.
Public health measures like lockdowns slowed the spread of the virus — and likely saved lives — but they also prompted anger and frustration among some Canadians who saw their livelihoods destroyed as economic and social life ground to a halt.
The federal Conservative Party and some of its provincial counterparts, like the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, were generally deferential to public health officials who called for restrictions — a sensible position during a pandemic but one that also generated backlash from people who bristle at limits on their freedoms.
The PPC welcomed those voters with open arms. A party promising a radically smaller government with fewer regulations was suddenly embraced by people who saw government as an oppressive force.
Bernier, a libertarian who has long railed against government overreach, became a champion of the "no more lockdowns" crowd, routinely appearing at well-attended protests against these restrictions.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's push for a vaccine mandate for federal public servants and the travelling public has also given Bernier another cause as he warns of what he calls Canada's descent into "tyranny."
"We are the only national political party against vaccine passports. We believe in freedom of choice — everyone must be able to decide for themselves," Bernier said a recent rally.
O'Toole is opposed to Trudeau's proposed vaccine mandate but has said he'd let provinces introduce their own vaccine passport programs.
Bernier's pitch to voters also includes a plan to "defund" the CBC, balance the budget quickly, cut all foreign aid, "say no to the UN" — a body he calls "a dysfunctional organization" — and pull out of the Paris climate accord.
"More and more people are coming on our side. You can count on us," Bernier said.
But it's Bernier's strident opposition to the idea of vaccine passports — credentials people vaccinated against COVID-19 can show to businesses to make everyday activities safer — that attracted Menjivar.
"The particular thing I like about them is that they're a no to vaccine passports and mask mandates. I don't believe in mandatory stuff forced on people and not being able to go places if I don't have a vaccine," he said.
"People just want to be left alone and not be called the bad guy for not getting their vaccine. We just want to live and be able to do everything we did two years ago."
Fournier said the polls suggest it's Bernier's anti-vaccination passport rhetoric driving the party's rise.
"We know from polls before the election that anti-vaxxers were about eight to 10 per cent of the Canadian population," Fournier said. "He is taking his message to new heights to appeal to these people.
"And if he goes from 1.6 per cent in 2019 to seven or eight or more per cent in this election, it would be an incredible achievement."
Recent rates of hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death among unvaccinated Albertans have been at least eight times higher — and as much as 60 times higher — compared to the fully vaccinated population, depending on which age range you look at.
That's according to a new CBC News analysis of data published by the provincial government.
Data experts with Alberta Health reviewed the analysis and confirmed the methodology as an effective way to compare severe outcomes relative to both vaccination status and age — while also accounting for the population sizes of each group.
These types of comparisons can be tricky, because the risk of severe outcomes increases with age, but so too does the rate of vaccination. As such, population-wide comparisons don't tell the full story.
For example, it's often reported that unvaccinated Albertans make up just 32 per cent of the population but a whopping 74 per cent of the COVID-19 patients in hospital. But this actually under-represents the risk for unvaccinated adults, because a huge proportion of the unvaccinated population is made up of children who are both ineligible for the vaccine and unlikely to end up in hospital.
Breaking the data down by age helps to better understand how things compare among the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated.
"Age, in particular, really controls a few outcomes here in the province," said Craig Jenne, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Calgary.
Jenne also reviewed the data analysis and says it illustrates how effective vaccination against COVID-19 has been in Alberta, so far.
"We see that there's huge protection offered by vaccines, and that's something I think gets missed in the daily updates when we simply see numbers or the percentage of people in hospital," he said.
Here's how it breaks down.
It's well known by now that older people are far more likely to end up in hospital than younger people, but looking at the data by both age and vaccination status reveals some stark comparisons.
For instance, it shows that unvaccinated Albertans in their 30s have been ending up in hospital with COVID-19 at roughly the same rate as fully vaccinated Albertans over the age of 80.
From mid-May to mid-September, 400 unvaccinated people in their 30s were admitted to hospital with COVID-19.
That works out to a rate of about 146 hospitalizations per 100,000 unvaccinated 30-somethings over that four-month span.
And that's almost identical to the rate of hospitalization among fully vaccinated Albertans aged 80 and up.
Meanwhile, among unvaccinated Albertans 80 and over, the rate was nine times higher — 1,271 hospitalizations per 100,000.
And the differences in ICU admissions were even starker.
Just seven fully vaccinated Albertans in their 50s have been admitted to an intensive care unit with COVID-19 since mid-May.
That compares to 181 unvaccinated people of the same age — despite the fact that there are far fewer of them.
Fully vaccinated 50-somethings were admitted to ICU at a rate of less than 3 per 100,000.
The rate among the unvaccinated, by comparison, was 139 per 100,000.
It was a similar story among unvaccinated Albertans in their 60s and 70s, who were admitted to ICU at rates about 60 times higher than their fully vaccinated counterparts.
There were major differences among younger Albertans, as well.
Not a single fully vaccinated person under the age of 40 was admitted to ICU over the past four months.
That compares to 129 people under the age of 40 who were eligible for the vaccine but didn't get a shot.
One person in their 30s who was partially immunized, with a single dose of vaccine, did wind up in ICU during that time.
Similar with ICU admissions, there was not a single death among fully vaccinated Albertans under the age of 40 in the past four months.
That compares to seven deaths among unvaccinated people of the same age.
When it comes to the most vulnerable age group — those 80 and over — there were 61 deaths among the unvaccinated, who represent a tiny proportion of the total population in that age range.
That translates to a rate of about 393 per 100,000.
The rate among fully vaccinated Albertans aged 80-plus, meanwhile, was 42 per 100,000.
For Jenne, the infectious-disease expert with the University of Calgary, the implications of the data are clear.
"Vaccines are dramatically reducing loss of life, hospitalization and intensive-care-unit admissions across the province," he said.
This can be seen, he said, by directly comparing the rates of hospitalization, ICU admission and death among the fully vaccinated and the unvaccinated in each age range.
Those numbers are set out in the table below.
As the number of COVID-19 patients in ICU set another new high on Thursday, the Alberta government reached out to Ontario to ask for help, in case Alberta completely runs out of capacity in the near future and needs to fly patients out of province for intensive care.
"I cannot stress enough how serious the situation is in our hospitals," said Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services.
"I also cannot stress enough that we need your help. Please get immunized. ... The vaccine is safe — and effective."
Notes about the data and methodology:
Alberta Health publishes two different sets of data that were used for this analysis.
The first is the total number of people who have been hospitalized, admitted to ICU or died over the past 120 days, broken down by their age range and vaccination status.
The second is the number of people in each age range who are fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated or unvaccinated. For the purposes of the analysis, the size of the fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated and unvaccinated population in each age range was calculated by taking an average of daily data over the past 120 days.
These population sizes were then used to calculate the rates of hospitalization, ICU admission and death per 100,000 fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated and unvaccinated people in each age range.
This method doesn't account exactly for the individual vaccination status of every person who was hospitalized, admitted to ICU or died of COVID-19, but officials with Alberta Health said "as an overall method this approach does make sense" as a means of making better comparisons between each of these sub-groups at an aggregate level.
One other caveat Alberta Health noted is that the data on hospitalization, ICU admission and death by vaccination status over the past 120 days defines a "fully vaccinated" person as someone who had their second dose at least two weeks earlier, and a "partially vaccinated" person as someone who had their first dose at least two weeks earlier. This differs from the vaccine-uptake data, in which the dates are "based strictly on receiving a dose."
