‘Docile’ creature — with ‘triangular’ head — found eating frogs. It’s a new species

Aspen Pflughoeft
Wed, August 23, 2023 

Slithering near a stream in India, a “docile” creature went about its day. Scientists spotted the scaly animal and watched as it munched on frogs. Taking a closer look, they discovered it was a new species.

Researchers set out to survey biodiversity in the Western Ghats region of Maharashtra, Zeeshan Mirza and Harshil Patel told McClatchy News. They started noticing that snakes in the northern area looked quite different from those in the southern area.

To investigate, researchers captured six snakes from the northern area, , according to a study published Aug. 21 in the journal Taxonomy. Studying the reptiles, they discovered a new species: Sahyadriophis uttaraghati, or the Northern Sahyadri keelback snake.

The Northern Sahyadri keelback snake is “medium”-sized, reaching just over 2 feet in length, the study said. It has a “triangular” head and keeled scales, a type of scale that feels rough or scratchy because of a raised ridge.

Photos show the Northern Sahyadri keelback snake. It is dark brown with speckles of black and white-cream between its scales. Its underside is a lighter white-cream and its eyes are orange-brown with a circular pupil, a close-up photo shows.

A Sahyadriophis uttaraghati, or Northern Sahyadri keelback snake, curled up on a leaf.

Researchers found the Northern Sahyadri keelback snake was most active during the day. They spotted it slithering along “a dried streambed” and eating frogs and their eggs.

Northern Sahyadri keelback snakes, like other Sahyadriophis snakes, were “mostly active during monsoons and are commonly encountered along streams,” Mirza and Patel said. “The snakes are extremely docile in nature and seldom bite when handled.”

The new species was “common and widespread” throughout the Western Ghats region along the coast of Maharashtra, the study said. The state of Maharashtra is about 715 miles southwest of New Delhi.

A close-up of the head of a Sahyadriophis uttaraghati, or Northern Sahyadri keelback snake.

The Northern Sahyadri keelback snake was identified by its scale pattern, body shape and genitalia shape, the study said. DNA analysis also confirmed the new species was genetically distinct from other known snake species.

Researchers named the new species after the Sanskrit words “’uttara’ for north and ‘ghati’ meaning dweller of the mountains (or) Ghats.”

The research team included Patel, Tejas Thackeray, Patrick Campbell and Mirza. They also identified a new snake genus, the Sahyadriophis snake genus, that includes the new species.

Elusive sea creature — that ‘walks’ on its ‘hands’ — seen for first time in 27 years

Aspen Pflughoeft
Wed, August 23, 2023 

Aboard a research vessel off the coast of Australia, scientists watched as their underwater camera moved along the seafloor. They saw fish swim past and marine plants sway in the current.

Then something much more unusual — and elusive — caught their attention.

Candice Untiedt, a marine ecologist onboard the SEA-MES RV Investigator, was the first to recognize the animal, the Australian research organization CSIRO said in an Aug. 23 news release.

The sea creature was almost ghostly white, photos show. It had a blunt head, tapering tail and appendages that almost looked like feet.

“Handfish have a very distinctive shape and features so I was pretty sure it was a handfish,” Untiedt said in the release. Her colleague, Carlie Devine, confirmed her “suspicions.”

Researchers identified it as a narrowbody handfish, the release said. The sighting is the first time this “camera-shy” species has been seen since 1996.

A close-up photo shows the handfish spotted off the coast of Tasmania.

Handfish are a poorly understood group of fish that move by “walking” on their hand-like fins, according to the Handfish Conservation Project. There are 14 known species of handfish exclusively found around southern Australia.

“If you’ve never seen a handfish before, imagine dipping a toad in some brightly coloured paint, telling it a sad story, and forcing it to wear gloves two sizes too big,” the organization said.

A photo shows a preserved specimen of a narrowbody handfish. The recently spotted fish was “much bigger” than specimens seen 27 years ago, Devine said in the release.

“Without seeing others or collecting a sample fish,” Devine said, “we can’t be 100 percent sure which handfish species it is.”

A narrowbody handfish specimen.

Still, researchers were thrilled by the sighting.

“I was pretty excited to find the handfish,” Untiedt said in the release. “I know that this is a rare and special fish. And that the chances of seeing one in this environment and capturing it on the deep tow camera are very rare. It’s an important discovery.”

The elusive handfish was spotted about 1,000 feet underwater and near Flinders Island, the release said. Flinders Island is south of mainland Australia and north of Tasmania.

The sighting took place during a research expedition that was “trying to determine how climate is affecting marine parks and fisheries” in southeastern Australia, CSIRO said. Data from the expedition will be analyzed and the survey repeated the next two years.

Crowd-sourced science sheds light on how new species form across space and time


Emily Black, Master of Science student, Zoology, University of British Columbia 

Katie Marshall, Associate professor, Zoology, University of British Columbia
Thu, August 24, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

The fall webworm is a moth found from Mexico to Canada. 

Imagine a jungle. It’s probably a lush forest, filled with different bird songs and the hum of thousands of different kinds of insects. Now imagine a tundra: barren, windswept terrain with relatively few kinds of plants or animals.

These two places highlight an interesting phenomenon — that some places on Earth have far more species than others. In fact, the distribution of species across the globe follows a curiously consistent pattern: generally, there are more species closer to the equator and fewer as you move towards the poles. This “latitudinal biodiversity gradient” can be observed across many different groups of organisms over time.

One possible explanation for the presence of more species closer to the equator is that changes in climate from the equator to the poles affects the ability of new species to evolve — a process called speciation.

Diversity in action

Our research team at the University of British Columbia turned to unique tools and species to track exactly how climate influences evolution, and what this means for where new species appear. And we conducted this research while we were stuck at home during COVID-19 lockdowns.

The fall webworm is a moth found from Mexico to Canada (a range of almost 4,000 km) whose caterpillars have either black or red heads. While this might seem like a subtle difference, caterpillars with these different colours seem to have different behaviours and appear at different times of the year, and genetic studies suggest that they are evolving into different species.

This moth is also found throughout vastly different climates, which allowed us to explore how latitude and climate might be affecting their ability to turn from one species into two.

However, we had a problem: with global lockdowns and travel restrictions, we couldn’t even leave our homes, much less sample caterpillars across an entire continent. So, we turned to crowd-sourced science. Some apps and websites use user-uploaded photos or audio clips to identify flora and fauna, creating huge databases of nature observations.

Thanks to backyard observers, we could access thousands of observations across North America from the comfort of our homes to begin investigating speciation on a large geographic scale.

Birth of new species

The process of speciation occurs when two groups of organisms belonging to the same species are separated by a barrier that prevents them from reproducing. The most well-known way that this can occur is through a physical barrier between the groups, like a mountain range or a highway.

For the fall webworm, the barrier causing them to become two different species is time. In general, moth species only appear and reproduce during the summer, and when they do, they breed for only a few weeks, at most.

The red-headed and the black-headed fall webworms tend to emerge and reproduce at different times during the summer, and this time gap creates a barrier that is causing them to become two different species.

Summers toward the equator tend to be much longer, so the fall webworms go through more life cycles in a year compared to northern populations, which are only able to breed once during short summers. If the red-headed and black-headed fall webworms closer to the equator have more flexibility in when they can breed, they may be able to avoid each other in time better, making speciation more effective.

Caterpillars in a lockdown

Thanks to the fall webworm’s fluffy appearance and garden pest status, thousands of geotagged and dated photographs were available on the crowd-sourced science site iNaturalist. We reviewed 11,000 fall webworm photos from over 7,000 users, manually checking the thousands of photographs for whether the caterpillar was red- or black-headed.

A photograph of a fall webworm caterpillar uploaded by a user in Sydney, N.S., on iNaturalist. (Sarah Smith/iNaturalist), CC BY

While quite a feat, these methods gave us a window into fall webworm populations from Florida to Ontario. To see how speciation was changing across latitudes, we compiled the times and dates each fall webworm photograph was taken and measured the colours of the caterpillars from each picture.

Using all these observations, we found that in more northerly regions with short summers, the red-headed and black-headed fall webworm caterpillars were forced to breed at the same time and had more similar colouration. This suggests that more breeding was occurring between the groups, and they looked and acted more like a single species.

However, in their southern range, the black- and red-headed caterpillars were able to separate their generations more and had less similar colouration, meaning they may be further along in the process of becoming two species.

Climate and diversity

We found that differences in climate from the equator to the poles affect how well species can evolve when time is the barrier, mirroring the latitudinal biodiversity gradient. In short, climate can change how easily species form in the first place.

There are approximately 2.1 million classified species on Earth, and over one million of these are insects (with many millions more undiscovered), making them the most diverse animals on the planet.

Species are migrating, either as invasive species coming to new places, or moving poleward to escape warming climates.

Humans have an immense effect on our planet’s ecosystems, and new species may be forming just as quickly as they disappear. So, to understand processes driving biodiversity on Earth, we need to understand how those processes impact the creatures that make up much of that biodiversity.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

It was written by: Katie Marshall, University of British Columbia and Emily Black, University of British Columbia.

Read more:

Did sex drive mammal evolution? How one species can become two

Humans now drive evolution on Earth, both creating and destroying species

Katie Marshall receives funding from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She is affiliated with with the Canadian Society of Zoologists and the BC Humanist Association.

Emily Black receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Natural Resources Canada.

MARINELAND

Canada: 14 whales have died at aquarium since 2019, exposé reveals

Tracey Lindeman in Ottawa

THE GUARDIAN
Thu, 24 August 2023 



Fourteen whales and a dolphin have died since 2019 at a popular Canadian aquarium and theme park, according to a new exposé by the Canadian Press.

Of the marine animals that have died, 13 were belugas and one was Kiska – the world’s loneliest orca, who died of a bacterial infection after four decades in captivity, the last 12 of which were in isolation.

The cause of death of the other 14 animals remains unclear.

Since January 2020, Ontario’s provincial animal welfare services has inspected Marineland 160 times. In 2021, it said all of Marineland’s marine animals were in distress because of the quality of the water and ordered the park to make improvements.

Canadian Press published its revelations on Thursday after receiving documents through access to information requests. A journalist, Liam Casey, said this story got him banned from Marineland.

Marineland, which opened in 1961, is also home to land animals including bears, bison, elk and deer, according to its website.

Earlier this year, the province charged Marineland over failing to provide adequate enclosures and water access to its three black bears.

Animal welfare activists have long accused the park of cruelty and abuse for keeping animals in unfit tanks and enclosures. Many of the sea animals at Marineland are trained to perform tricks in exchange for fish.

The former Marineland employee and whistleblower Phil Demers spent a decade trying to free Smooshi, a walrus he had previously trained and had since plotted to steal because of concerns over her health and safety.

This past spring, Smooshi and her calf Koyuk were relocated to SeaWorld in Abu Dhabi.

Marineland has steadfastly denied any mistreatment. “We have a strong record of providing for the welfare of our animals and will continue to prioritize their health and wellbeing as a central focus of our mission,” reads a website post signed by Marie Holer, who took over the park after her husband and Marineland’s founder died in 2018.

Reports in January showed Marineland is looking for a new buyer to help it “evolve, develop and grow”.

Wayne Gates, a member of provincial parliament in Niagara Falls, told the Canadian Press the time has come to repurpose Marineland.

Charles River Lab signs joint agreement for protection of crabs used in medical tests


Reuters
Thu, August 24, 2023 

(Reuters) - Charles River Laboratories has signed a joint agreement with four entities to enhance protections in South Carolina for horseshoe crabs and a bird that feeds on their eggs, they said on Thursday.

The crabs, prized for their milky-blue blood that is used to detect bacterial contamination in intravenous drugs or implants, have been listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Wildlife advocates have for long criticized the use of blood of horseshoe crabs in safety tests for medical products, including those needed before a COVID-19 vaccine.

Red knots, a bird federally listed as a threatened species, eats horseshoe crab eggs.

The agreement restricts the collection of horseshoe crab on the beaches of over 30 islands across the South Carolina coast, and prohibits the temporary placement of female horseshoe crabs in holding ponds so they continue to spawn on the state's beaches, among other measures.

The joint agreement was signed by South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, private companies Gault Seafood and Marsh Point Farm and the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing Defenders of Wildlife and the Coastal Conservation League.

The agreement provides for five years of enhanced protections for spawning horseshoe crabs and migrating red knots while ensuring continued access to horseshoe crabs for use in biomedical testing.

(Reporting by Pratik Jain and Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

Two Assistant Directors Create Strike Fund For Production Assistants: “They Have Been Forgotten”

Story by Lynette Rice • DEADLINE

Two Assistant Directors Create Strike Fund For Production Assistants: “They Have Been Forgotten”© Provided by Deadline

A pair of former production assistants-turned-assistant directors have created a nonprofit in hopes of providing financial aid to PAs who’ve been put out of work due to the strike.

Katie Hacker and Andrea Block argue that most PAs don’t qualify for most of the strike relief that’s available out there — not to mention how they are already the lowest paid crew members on TV and film projects. Once work resumes, the women argue, PA paychecks will be much smaller than those of the rest of the crew — making it harder for them to recover from the strike.

That’s why Hacker and Block formed the Go for PAs Alliance in July.

“Our entire industry is in this together, and we feel strongly that the little guys should not be ignored in this conversation,” the women, both of whom went through the DGA training program, said in a statement.

The 501c3 status for the nonprofit org was just approved by the IRS. Hacker and Block, who worked on Max’s Minx before the strike began, said they recognized the need for a fund after realizing how hard it was to find temporary work during the work stoppage.

“We were noticing that our skills don’t seem to be transferable to other industries because no one really quite understands what goes on in the movie industry unless you’re in it,” Hacker says to Deadline. “As assistant directors, we’re basically like project managers and we manage a lot of staff and we run the show and we budget, but none of those things were translating. We couldn’t get jobs, even entry level jobs. And so we were thinking, ‘well, if this is the case for us and I have a master’s degree, what does this mean for the PAs who are completely entry level and don’t have more advanced skill sets?”

Hacker and Block aren’t the only ones looking out for production assistants. As Deadline reported Tuesday, folks in front of and behind the camera on Chicago P.D. are giving $1,500 each to 13 PAs on the NBC series. The campaign was organized by Chicago P.D. First AD Richard White, with stars Patrick John Flueger, Marina Squerciati, Amy Morton and Tracy Spiridakos, executive producer/showrunner Gwen Sigan, writer/executive producer Gavin Harris and writer/co-executive producer Scott Gold among those who have contributed.

Hacker and Block are taking donations now. For more information, go to www.goforpasalliance.org.


More from Deadline
WGA Slams Studios’ Latest Offer & Meeting As Attempt To Make Guild “Cave”; “Not To Bargain, But To Jam Us”
15 Movies About Labor Unions And Strikes – Photo Gallery
Writers Strike Takes Center Stage In WGA East's Officer & Council Election

Church replaces stained glass window of Edward Colston with ‘non white’ Jesus in boat with refugees

St Mary Redcliffe church in Bristol removed four glass panels dedicated to the 17th-century English slave trader.

Jimmy Nsubuga
Thu, 24 August 2023 

The new stained glass windows are installed at St Mary Redcliffe Church, in Bristol. (SWNS)

A church has replaced a stained glass window of slave trader Edward Colston with one featuring Jesus ‘in multiple ethnicities’ and refugees in a boat.

St Mary Redcliffe church in Bristol removed four glass panels dedicated to the 17th-century English merchant following the toppling of his statue in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests.

The window was temporarily replaced with plain panels and the church invited the public to submit new designs in a competition.

Local junior doctor Ealish Swift won the contest with a series of images showing a ‘non-white’ Jesus in a variety of situations and the new windows were installed on Thursday.

Read more: Edward Colston: Why toppled statue was hated by many

A young Jesus is shown as a refugee in a boat fleeing to Egypt. (SWNS)

Jesus is shown on a ship. (SWNS)

Vicar of St Mary Redcliffe, Canon Dan Tyndall, previously said: "The toppling of Edward Colston turned an international spotlight onto Bristol and its entangled history profiting, as it most certainly did, from human trafficking.

"The opportunity to reimagine how we can tell the story of the Good Samaritan was grasped enthusiastically by the church.

"We look forward to the new windows being installed."

Permission for the windows to be replaced was granted by the Church of England’s court in Bristol.

Read more: Street named after slave trader Edward Colston 'renamed' after activists who tore his statue down

The window shows the 1963 Bristol civil rights bus boycott. (SWNS)

The windows show a 'non-white' Jesus in a boat with refugees and with the Bristol Bus Boycott campaigners.

The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 arose from the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ black or Asian bus crews in the city.

At that time, there was widespread racial discrimination in housing and employment against people of colour.

A St Mary Redcliffe Church spokesperson said the new designs referred to Bristol’s ''rich multicultural past and present''.

The statue of Colston is pushed into the river Avon. (Getty)
Controversy over Edward Colston statue

The bronze statue of Edward Colston, which had long been a source of division in Bristol, was hauled down during an anti-racism demonstration, one of the many that swept the globe in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Three men and a woman were eventually cleared in January 2022 of causing criminal damage for helping to pull down the statue and throw it into Bristol harbour.

The incident prompted a national debate about memorials to figures linked to the slave trade or Britain's colonial past, with some government ministers arguing the action amounted to the censoring of history.

Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees said the statue was in storage, but the long-term plan is for it to be displayed in public “with context”.

Ontario Green Party leader calls for public inquiry into Greenbelt land removals

The Canadian Press
Thu, August 24, 2023 



TORONTO — Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner called Thursday for a public inquiry into Greenbelt land removals, saying the resignation of a top political staffer is a start, but it's far from the end.

A report this month from the auditor general found that developers who owned 15 sites of land that the Progressive Conservative government removed from the protected Greenbelt area last year now stand to see those properties rise in value by $8.3 billion.

Bonnie Lysyk found that developers who had access to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark's chief of staff at an industry event wound up with 92 per cent of the land that was removed from the Greenbelt for housing.

Schreiner said Thursday that the report answered some questions, but raised even more.

"People want transparency, they want accountability, and they want to know the truth, and the only way that we're going to get that level of transparency and accountability is through an independent public inquiry, so the public can see the evidence themselves, so they can hear the testimony directly from those involved," Schreiner said at a press conference.

"The people of Ontario deserve to know how wealthy insiders could hand over an envelope that led to government policy decisions with windfall profits of $8.3 billion going to a handful of wealthy elite speculators."

But Premier Doug Ford's office quickly shot down the idea of a public inquiry.

"No," a spokesperson wrote when asked if the premier would consider calling one.

Meanwhile, the RCMP said Wednesday they have started to look into the matter, weighing whether to launch an investigation by evaluating information sent over by the Ontario Provincial Police. The provincial force had been assessing information for months and turned the potential case over to the Mounties to avoid any perceived conflicts of interest.

News of the potential police probe came a day after Ryan Amato resigned as Clark's chief of staff, saying he is confident he acted appropriately but that he didn't want to be a distraction to the government's work of getting housing built.

But the NDP pointed Thursday to a reference in the auditor general's report to a second staffer, saying it raises more questions and makes Clark's assertions that he did not know the process was being controlled by Amato even more unbelievable.

All but one of the 22 Greenbelt sites considered for removal — 15 were ultimately selected — were brought forward by Amato instead of the team of civil servants he struck for that purpose, Lysyk found.

Of those 22 sites, Amato said nine were brought to his attention by developers or their representatives and five were identified by a deputy chief of staff who was working on a review of municipal official plans, Lysyk wrote.

NDP municipal affairs critic Jeff Burch said Ontarians need more information.

“Who was this staffer that had a role in carving up five parcels of the Greenbelt?" he wrote in a statement. "What was their role?"

Ivana Yelich, Ford's deputy chief of staff of stakeholder relations, media relations and forward planning, said in a statement that Clark's deputy chief of staff wasn't involved in any decision making on Greenbelt changes.

Some of the public submissions received in the official plan review the staffer was working on included requests for removal of lands from the Greenbelt, so the staffer sent them to the civil servants working on the Greenbelt project, Yelich said.

Lysyk's report also found that political staff received emails from lobbyists on their personal accounts, sometimes forwarded emails from their government accounts to personal ones, contrary to public service guidelines, and were regularly deleting emails, contrary to the rules.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario said Thursday that retention of government records is a key component of ensuring transparency and accountability of government decisions.

"The IPC is gathering relevant information and considering next steps," the office said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 24, 2023.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press

Investigation needed into entire PC development agenda following Greenbelt scandal, advocates state

Story by The Canadian Press •

Following the release of Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s report exposing the broken process that resulted in the removal of 15 parcels of land from the Greenbelt, the Alliance for a Liveable Ontario (ALO), an advocacy super group made up of prominent organizations in the environment, housing and labour sector, is calling on Lysyk to keep digging.

ALO, which counts Ontario Nature, Environmental Defence and CUPE Ontario among its membership, in a letter sent last week has requested Lysyk launch a new investigation, this time, into the laundry list of planning policy changes and development legislation alterations made since Premier Doug Ford took office in 2018. The request extends to the Integrity Commissioner, asking him to include other planning policies in his investigation that is currently ongoing.

“Transparent, defensible and unbiased land use planning is a cornerstone of a healthy economy and democracy. We are concerned that, given the revelations from the Auditor General’s report about the Greenbelt land removal, there is a disturbing possibility that other recent provincial land use planning policies may have and may come from equally problematic processes,” the Alliance wrote in a letter addressed to both Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk and Integrity Commissioner David Wake.

Lysyk’s report, which was released last week, found that ‘certain developers’ were heavily favoured in the process to remove sizable chunks of land from the Greenbelt. She detailed the working of a Greenbelt Project Team overseen by Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark’s Chief of Staff that led to the chosen 15 parcels. Despite the fact that 630 requests for removal of land have been received since the Greenbelt was formed in 2005, the Greenbelt Project Team only assessed 22 parcels, 21 of which were chosen by the Chief of Staff, sidestepping consultation with the public and Indigenous groups and ignoring environmental concerns and servicing capabilities to favour certain parcels.

Lysyk’s report found that contrary to the repeated refrain from Premier Ford and those in his cabinet, no Greenbelt land is needed to meet the Province’s ambitious housing targets. She determined that opening these 15 parcels of land would increase their value by approximately $8.3 billion. Most of this value would be gained by two prominent developers—Silvio De Gasperis and Michael Rice, both of whom suggested the very parcels of land for removal that were eventually chosen.

The unveiling of the Lysyk’s audit has led to calls from politicians, environmental organizations and other community groups for Minister Clark to resign. Both Minister Clark and Premier Ford have repeatedly made the baffling claim that they did not know what was going on when the 15 parcels were decided upon. It’s a claim many advocates, opposition politicians and members of the public find hard to believe.

The claims by Ford and Clark were labelled “dubious” and “implausible” by NDP leader Marit Stiles, who said she was hard pressed to believe the two leaders were not involved in the process

“It is absurd that they think they can blame a political appointee—there is absolutely no way the Minister and Premier did not know,” Victor Doyle, the original architect of the Greenbelt, told The Pointer.

The Chiefs of Ontario First Nations Leadership Council said Clark’s resignation was pertinent to their continued relationship with the government and the MMAH.

“The Leadership Council has explicitly stated that we will not shy away from outlining their concerns with the situation and that the way in which government representatives are evading responsibility and ignoring critical findings within the Auditor General’s Report is unacceptable,” the organization stated in a press release. “The Chiefs of Ontario will continue to work with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) but will cease any current relationships with Minister Steve Clark until an adequate resolution of this issue has been confirmed.”

The groups who make up the ALO are refusing to give the PCs a pass and are speculative that if backroom dealings and unethical sidestepping of proper procedures were used in developing the Greenbelt Plan, then the same could be true for the countless other changes the PCs have made to planning processes in their two term tenure. In that time, the PC government has completely rewritten the way municipalities are planned in Ontario. This has resulted in the dismantling of environmental safeguards put in place to protect critical ecosystems and species at risk; the elimination of many standards designed to limit urban sprawl and build dense, walkable communities; and repeated examples of the PC government overruling municipal desires with Minister’s Zoning Orders, without consideration for local priorities or the realities of infrastructure on the ground.

“What we are witnessing is the culmination of a multi-faceted, heavily resourced strategic development industry campaign stretching back well over 10 years—setting the stage for when a careless, uninformed and/or ideologically wreckless government came to power which lacked integrity and honesty and was more than willing to simply accept whatever industry positions were given to it —as the Auditor General clearly revealed when documenting developers writing content and lands to be removed from the Greenbelt which was simply cut and pasted into Ontario legislation and policy,” Doyle said.

Much of the province turned its attention to Ford’s development plan when, in October of last year, days after the municipal election, his government rammed through Bill 23, which stripped conservation authorities of much of their power to intervene in development applications (even if those applications were taking place in sensitive ecosystems or dangerous locations like floodplains) and placed much of the costs of development onto municipalities and local taxpayers. The legislation, which was passed in 34 days with very little consultation with local leaders, Indigenous groups and the public, triggered an outburst of opposition by Ontarians for the consequences it would have on local planning—removing all planning directives from upper tier municipalities—financial stability and the environment. Tim Grey, Executive Director of Environmental Defence called it a “catastrophic attack on planning that looks to blow up the system.”

One of the most dramatic environmental changes that came under Bill 23 were the alterations made to the Wetland Evaluation System. Under the Bill, the majority of wetlands across the province would lose their eligibility for any sort of protection, further increasing the potential of development on these critical habitats. Wetlands are rated on a scale of zero to 1,000 and require a score of at least 600 to be considered provincially significant. The changes to the evaluation criteria make it harder for wetlands to reach this minimum score by removing the scoring potential for the presence of endangered species and eliminating the concept of wetland complexes.

In a follow-up to Bill 23, the PCs introduced Bill 97 earlier this year, which consisted of legislative changes necessary to enable the construction of 1.5 million homes by 2031. Along with Bill 97 came the repeal of the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which guided development in the most populous areas of southern Ontario for the better part of a decade. The government also proposed the conglomeration of the Growth Plan and the Provincial Policy Statement into a new, more streamlined Provincial Planning Statement. The new PPS eliminates specific intensification targets, eradicates the concepts of built-up boundaries and municipal comprehensive reviews and reclassifies employment lands.

“These are all extremely regressive actions that have nothing to do with housing,” Doyle previously told The Pointer.

In between the legislative changes that came under the Bills with names like the More Homes Built Faster Act and the Helping Homeowners, Protecting Tenants Act, Ford was using other avenues to push his development heavy agenda. During its Official Plan review, the City of Hamilton voted down a controversial plan to expand the city’s urban boundary by over 3,000 acres. But just as Hamilton was being celebrated for doing what most municipalities didn’t dare to do, the Ford government overruled the decision, approving an expansion of almost 5,500 acres, far greater than the initial expansion recommended by staff. The decision was met with disdain from local councillors who referred to the act as “very concerning” and a “betrayal”.

Given the swath of changes that have come at the expense of the environment, municipal finances and community members, the ALO states that unlawful processes could have been at play.

“We would like to know whether these processes are defensible, whether, as with the Greenbelt exclusions, these decisions stand to benefit only a small number of select interests — and whether this decision-making structure and its outcomes provide Ontarians with value for money,” the letter stated.

A new audit from Lysyk would be an immense undertaking—the Greenbelt audit was first called for in January and not completed until August—and an expansion of the current Integrity Commissioner report would add a significant amount of time to the current investigation. It is unknown how much longer it will take to investigate the inner workings of the process that went into crafting Bill 23 and Bill 97, to name just two pieces of legislation that could come into question under such a probe. It’s also unclear if unlawful processes were at play for more than just the Greenbelt Plan, how many more people would become a part of these investigations.

The Integrity Commissioner’s Office confirmed for The Pointer in an email statement that it had received the request from ALO, but did not give any indication whether it plans to expand the ongoing investigation or what resources and time it would take to do so. Lysyk’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Email: rachel.morgan@thepointer.com

Twitter: @rachelnadia_

Rachel Morgan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

SASKATCHEWAN
Wildfire fighting program tailored to needs of Indigenous communities

Story by The Canadian Press •

A two-year pilot program in Saskatchewan aims to build a better understanding of the needs and requirements of First Nations in regions affected by wildfires. The federal government recently announced a program for fighting wildfires in the Prince Albert area specific to the region’s Indigenous communities. The two-year training initiative — billed as the Prince Albert Grand Council Indigenous wildfire stewards pilot program — looks to combine traditional and modern techniques for combating wildfire.

“Individual communities require individual responses,” said Krystopher Chutko, an assistant geography and planning professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

“What happens in (Saskatchewan) can be very different from what happens in any other community in Canada.”

The program, receiving nearly $525,000 in federal funding, is scheduled to start in 2024. Providing a more specialized plan of action for one community is an approach Chutko believes will offer valuable knowledge and possibly better solutions for the growing concern of climate change.

“The pilot project underscores the indispensable role that First Nations people play in safeguarding our communities, ancestral lands and Inherent and treaty rights, particularly in the face of climate change,” said Prince Albert Grand Council Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte.

“This initiative strengthens community resilience against fires by endorsing First Nations-led, field-based fire camps. It also fosters intergenerational dialogue and knowledge exchange by bringing together elders and young people with fire experts trained in both traditional methods and modern techniques.” The Prince Albert Grand Council applied to Natural Resources Canada for funding for the program. Cliff Buettner, program director with the Prince Albert Grand Council said the program seeks to update its controlled fire burning plan and hire more personnel. “We’re responding to climate change,” Buettner said, in correction when asked if the program could mitigate fires as a result of climate change. The program is also expected to help address employment barriers that exist for Indigenous peoples.

It’s expected that 320 existing woodland fire practitioners will participate in the traditional ecological knowledge training portion of the program with elder advisors. Another 125 Indigenous fire stewards are expected to be trained on fire camp and fire guardian programs. In all, upwards of 445 participants could complete the pilot program.

Related video: More resources brought in to help fight Okanagan fires (Global News)

Duration 1:54  View on Watch

“The Indigenous wildfire stewards pilot program will increase capacity to prepare for and respond to wildfires through training and traditional ecological knowledge,” Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson said in a statement.

It’s been a terrifying summer for wildfires across the country.

In Saskatchewan, there are currently 22 active wildfires. According to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, there have been 410 to date this year.

More than 22,000 people are reported to have been ordered to evacuate due to wildfires in the Northwest Territories. The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency deployed 40 firefighters to aid with the evacuations; 16 were deployed to the Yukon. In British Columbia, upwards of 36,000 are subject to evacuation due to ongoing wildfires in and around Kelowna. The province has declared a state of emergency and imposed a ban on non-essential travel to better aid firefighters and evacuees.

“Canada is committed to keeping communities safe from wildfires,” Wilkinson said. “This means providing people with the skills needed to identify and fight wildfires in their communities.”

Kimiya Shokoohi is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. The LJI program is federally funded by the Government of Canada.

Kimiya Shokoohi, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The StarPhoenix

Canadians mixed on who to blame for housing crisis: poll

Story by The Canadian Press •

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to reporters in Cornwall, P.E.I., Monday, August 21, 2023.© Provided by National Post

Despite what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said recently, a new poll suggests 40 per cent of Canadians think his government is to blame for the country’s housing crisis.

Leger surveyed 1,537 people between Aug. 18 and 20, asking a series of questions about the rising cost of housing and what should be done about it.

When asked which level of government deserves the most blame for the crisis, 40 per cent of respondents pointed the finger at the federal government and 32 per cent at their provincial government.

Just six per cent of those polled felt their municipal government was to blame and another 22 per cent said they were not sure.

Renters were more likely to blame the province, while those who own their homes were inclined to blame the feds.

Trudeau was criticized by opposition parties and experts after he told reporters earlier this month that “housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility,” suggesting that the provinces and municipalities should step up.

Even so, this week the Liberal cabinet has been meeting with two experts who published a report on housing that sets out 10 recommendations for how the federal government could tackle the problem.

One of those is a national housing accord that would see all three levels of government agree to work with builders and non-profit agencies to co-ordinate their efforts. The government hasn’t detailed its plans yet but ministers at the meetings in Prince Edward Island have been clear that housing is a top priority.

The Leger poll cannot be assigned a margin of error because online surveys are not considered truly random samples.

Overall, 95 per cent of respondents said the rising cost of rents and lack of affordable homes are serious problems.

And more than half of the people polled — 55 per cent — reported that they worried at least once or twice about being able to pay their own mortgage or rent in the last couple of months. That includes 16 per cent who say they worried “frequently’ about being able to make the payments.

Respondents from rural areas were most likely to say they never worried about paying their rent or mortgage, as were those over the age of 55.

People between the ages of 18 and 24 were most likely to fret, and the proportion of people worried was highest in cities. Regionally, Albertans and British Columbians were most likely to be concerned about making their payments, while Quebecers were least likely.

The poll also listed possible solutions governments could implement, and asked whether respondents agreed with them.

The top choices, with 79 per cent support each, were building more government-supplied housing and offering incentives to developers to build affordable homes. Seventy-seven per cent of respondents agreed with tightening rent controls, and 68 per cent said there should be income-based rent subsidies.

The lowest support, 56 per cent, was for discouraging short-term rentals and offering homeowners incentives to provide rental suites, at 64 per cent.

Renters were more likely than homeowners to support each of those choices.

Overall, homeowners were less likely than renters to support any of the proposed solutions.

The poll also asked whether the 1,019 respondents who owned their homes had any available space to rent. Only five per cent said they do rent space out, with just one per cent saying they have a short-term rental space.

Fifteen per cent said they have a space that could be rented that is vacant, and another 15 per cent said they have space that could be turned into something rentable.


Canada must explore links between immigration, housing crunch: Mark Miller

Story by The Canadian Press •



CHARLOTTETOWN — The federal government is examining its approach to immigration as part of a wider look at what is driving Canada's housing crunch and what it can do about it.

The Liberal government set new immigration targets last fall that would see Canada welcome 500,00 newcomers in 2025. That compares with 341,000 immigrants arriving in 2019, and a record high of 431,645 in 2022.

Immigration Minister Mark Miller said Tuesday that at present he has no intention of adjusting that target, but that population growth fuelled by new arrivals cannot be ignored as the federal Liberal cabinet considers what is behind a worsening affordability crisis for buying or renting a home.

"I don't see a world in which (changing the target) happens but again, I'm going to be looking at the facts and I'm not a dogmatic person," he said in Charlottetown, where federal ministers are holding a three-day retreat.

"We have to look at what that impact is, and what the impact of immigrants actually is on the housing supply."

Multiple ministers, including Miller, stressed that immigrants are not to blame for Canada's housing challenges, but he said the volume of immigration, including international students, does impact the availability of housing.

"You'll find a wide divergence of views of what that impact is, of immigration on housing," he said.

"Volume is volume, and it does have an impact. There's no denying that. But the specific role that immigration plays in certain areas is something we have to kind of break down a little more."

The housing crisis is a chief topic of conversation at the retreat, which comes as the federal Liberals prepare their agenda for the fall sitting of Parliament.

The Liberals introduced a national housing strategy in 2017, promising to spend billions over a decade to restore Ottawa's involvement in building social housing. In 2019, legislation was passed designating housing as a human right.

But little progress has been made to improve the situation, and the post-pandemic cost-of-living crisis, rising interest rates and rapid population growth are exacerbating the problem.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. estimates Canada needs about 5.8 million new homes by 2030 to restore housing affordability.

In Charlottetown, ministers received a briefing on Tuesday afternoon from two national housing and homelessness experts who last week published a report identifying 10 ways the federal government could improve the situation.

That included a national housing accord between the federal government, provinces, municipalities, housing builders and not-for-profit agencies. The report pointed to a lack of co-ordination between those responsible for housing as one thing getting in the way.

On Monday, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said it was too early to commit to all 10 recommendations in the report, but that the government would be examining them and deciding what the next steps will be.

"So there's a number of different elements to what we want to do next," he said.

"How we precisely frame it, and whether that is a revisitation of the national housing strategy, is something that I'm sure we're going to get into really interesting discussions on over the course of the next couple of days here in Charlottetown," he said.

Report co-author Tim Richter, president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said he left Tuesday's session with cabinet feeling like the housing crisis "is an issue the government is seized with."

"I got a sense of impatience and a sense of urgency," he said.

Richter and his co-authors say at least two million of the new homes that CMHC estimates are needed by 2023 should be designated as affordable housing.

Census data suggests that in 2021, about 10 per cent of the population, or 1.5 million people, were considered to be in need of affordable housing, but social housing accounts for only about 3.5 per cent of the country's housing stock.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Tuesday changing the new immigration target isn't a conversation he's had with any fellow ministers, but he said the government must tailor its policies on immigration and housing to acknowledge the link between the two.

Immigration, said LeBlanc, is "essential for the economic prosperity and growth of the country" and that every premier is talking about needing more immigrants to fill jobs. That includes those needed to build houses, as the construction industry is facing a critical labour shortage.

"But we're not insensitive to the housing challenges that existed before provinces asked us to bring in more immigrants to help with the labour force," he said.

"So you have to be coherent a little bit here, but we totally accept that the conversation needs to proceed at the same time so that we don't inadvertently end up in a position that makes the housing affordability issue worse."

The government is considering possibly capping the annual number of international students issued new permits to study in Canada. Universities and colleges have been recruiting thousands of additional international students each year, who pay more in tuition fees and help schools pay their bills.

But Fraser said the schools haven't all kept pace with the housing needs associated with that extra demand and both he and Miller said putting a cap on international students may be necessary.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 22, 2023.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press