'Flying Tiger' ace WW2 pilot dies at 103

P40 MUSTANG

The Flying Tigers operated out of Burma in the early 1940s in support of Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese, conducting dangerous missions over occupied China and shooting down hundreds of enemy bombers 

JONATHAN DANIEL GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File


Issued on: 17/09/2021 - 

Washington (AFP)

An ace US fighter pilot and one of the last surviving members of the swashbuckling "Flying Tigers" who fought the Japanese for Nationalist China during World War Two has died at 103, friends and colleagues announced Thursday.

The Flying Tigers operated out of Burma in the early 1940s in support of Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese, conducting dangerous missions over occupied China and shooting down hundreds of enemy bombers.

They initially operated as mercenaries with the tacit support of the US government, given Washington's official neutrality towards Imperial Japan before the Pearl Harbor attacks in late 1941.

Serving under the legendary lieutenant general Claire Chennault between 1943 and 1944, Stephen Bonner flew "five confirmed and five probable aerial victories and additionally was credited with damaging two more fighters and bombers," Jeff Green, Chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation, told AFP.

"With his remarkable longevity, Steve would become the last living 'Fighter Ace' to have flown in China during the Second World War," Green said, describing him as a "Gallant Soldier and a Christian Gentleman."

Later in life Bonner became an advocate for the commemoration of the Flying Tigers' legacy and China-US dialogue, founding the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation and receiving the Congressional Gold Medal.

He also visited China with fellow veterans in 2005, where they were named honorary citizens of the city of Kunming. The Flying Tigers had played a critical role in putting a stop to a Japanese bombing campaign in the city during the war.

© 2021 AFP

Desolate villages face famine in Madagascar drought

Issued on: 17/09/2021 - 

Across Madagascar's vast southern tip, drought has transformed fields into dust bowls. More than one million people face famine 

RIJASOLO AFP


Amboasary (Madagascar) (AFP)

Nothing to eat, nothing to plant. The last rain in Ifotaka fell in May, for two hours.

Across Madagascar's vast southern tip, drought has transformed fields into dust bowls. More than one million people face famine.

Across tens of thousands of acres, the countryside is desolate. Harvest season begins in October, leaving long, lean weeks before the meagre crops come in.

Some villages are abandoned. In others, people should be working the fields, but instead are languishing at home. There's nothing to reap.

Hunger weighs people down, both in mind and body. They move slowly, and struggle to follow conversation.

"I feel sick, and worried. Every day I wonder what we're going to eat," says Helmine Sija, 60 and a mother of six, in a village called Atoby.

- Eating cactus and weeds -

A petite woman with grey hair and a hardened face, Sija tends a boiling pot of cactus in front of her home. She chopped the pricks off with a machete to prepare them for cooking.

It can't really be called food. The concoction has little nutritional value, but it's a popular appetite suppressant, even though it causes stomach aches.

Her three oldest children have left home to look for work in other towns. She's caring for the young ones.

"I want to move somewhere more fertile, where I can farm. But I don't have enough money to leave," she says.

Doctors Without Borders has dispatched a mobile clinic to travel from village to village RIJASOLO AFP

Arzel Jonarson, 47, a former cassava farm worker, now gathers firewood to sell, earning about a 25 US cents a week. Enough to buy one bowl of rice.

In Ankilidoga, an elderly couple and their daughter are making a meal of wild herbs, which they season with salt to cut the bitterness. In better times, these were cast off as weeds. But their crops of corn, cassava and sweet potato have failed.

Their village does have a reservoir to collect rain water. No one can remember the last time it was full.

"I haven't received any aid for two months," said Kazy Zorotane, a 30-year-old single mother of four. "That last time, in June, the government gave me some money."

About $26 (22 euros).

- Climate crisis -

Malnutrition afflicts southern Madagascar regularly. But the current drought is the worst in 40 years, according to the United Nations, which blames climate change for the crisis.

Around the town of Ifotaka, people said the government had brought some rice, beans and oil. But that was in August. Of 500 people designated for financial aid, about 90 received the $26.

Doctors Without Borders has dispatched a mobile clinic to travel from village to village. Children clutch at packets of "plumpy", a peanut butter-flavoured paste designed to help the severely malnourished.

Through the waiting crowds, nurses and aides spot the most urgent cases, guiding them to the front of the line. Small children are weighed in a blue bucket.

Measuring tapes are wrapped around their tiny arms, to get an indication of just how acutely malnourished they are.

In Befeno, another village, nine-year-old Zapedisoa came with his grandmother. He's sluggish, his eyes look vacant. At 20 kilos (44 pounds), he's showing alarming symptoms, and is given medicine and food supplements.

Satinompeo, a five-year-old with short hair, weighs only 11 kilos. She's severely malnourished, but she's terrified of the doctors. She hangs onto her father's yellow shorts and cries.

Families are sent home with a two-week food supply, based on the number of children in the house.

The current drought is the worst in 40 years, according to the United Nations

 RIJASOLO AFP

In Fenoaivo, two sisters and a brother, all retirees, share a home.

"It's been a long time since we grew anything. On good, days, the three of us share a bowl of rice," said Tsafaharie, 69.

At another home in this town, a 45-year-old man holds watch over his father's body.

While it is hard to determine an accurate death toll from hunger, that is why he died in in June, his family say.

"We don't have enough money to buy a (cow) to feed mourners, so we can't have a funeral," Tsihorogne Monja said.

The corpse is in a separate hut, partially covered by a cloth.

Across tens of thousands of acres, the countryside is desolate

 RIJASOLO AFP

"My father was very hungry. He ate too much cactus and tuber bark. That's what killed him. It's like he was poisoned."

© 2021 AFP

Rich nations make 'disappointing' progress in climate finance: OECD

Issued on: 17/09/2021 - 

Wealthy nations are falling well short of the $100 billion they promised to give poorer countries every year to combat climate change 

Omar TORRES AFP/File


Paris (AFP)

Rich countries are making little progress towards meeting their pledge to provide $100 billion a year to poorer nations to combat climate change, the OECD said Friday.

Developing countries, which bear the greatest impact from climate change, received $79.6 billion in 2019, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in its latest report on the issue.

That is more than $20 billion below what wealthy nations promised to give every year starting from 2020 to help poorer countries curb their carbon footprint and cope with future climate impacts.

The 2019 figure is the most recent available and marked a two percent increase from the year earlier, a sharp slowdown from the rates of earlier years.

And watchdog groups have warned that even those numbers may be inflated.

"The limited progress in overall climate finance volumes between 2018 and 2019 is disappointing, particularly ahead of COP26 (the UN climate summit in November)," OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said in a statement.

"While appropriately verified data for 2020 will not be available until early next year it is clear that that climate finance will remain well short of its target," he said.

"More needs to be done. We know that donor countries recognise this," he said, adding that Canada and Germany are moving forward a plan to mobilise the additional finance required to reach the $100 billion annual goal.

Meanwhile, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic is still unknown.

Low income countries have been hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 crisis, with waves of disease and lockdowns wreaking economic havoc, even as climate change-driven disasters and threats continue to mount.

Public climate finance from developed countries accounted for the lion's share of the 2019 figure, some $62.9 billion, with another $2.6 billion in government-backed export credits.

The rest, some $14 billion, came from private investment mobilised by public mechanisms.

The 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen mandated that poorer nations were to receive the $100 billion and the pledge was renewed in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But where the money was to come from and how it would be allocated were not spelt out, which has made tracking progress toward that goal both difficult and disputed.

The promise has been a recurring source of anger in poor countries and it will likely be a key point of contention at the crunch UN climate talks in Glasgow in November.

© 2021 AFP

Why 'Attica' Filmmakers Cut Historians From Prison Riot Doc: 'There's No Second-Guessing'

Brian Welk -  © TheWrap

The new documentary "Attica" that tells the story of the 1971 prison riot at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York made a specific choice to cut the voices of academics and historians, opting instead to make this film exclusively the story of the prisoners and families who lived through it.

"Your instincts whenever you're telling the story is go to the historians. It was so dissonant with the voices of the prisoners and the families because you're putting this disconnected, academic, pedantic voice," the film's producer Traci Curry told TheWrap's Steve Pond at the Toronto Film Festival. "It just became clear that this just has to be their story."

"It was definitely the right decision. There's no second-guessing," director Stanley Nelson added. "It was like he was coming from another world. Butted up against people like Tyrone who had been there, and him talking about it in academic tones just didn't work."

One of those individuals is Tyrone Larkins, who was in the prison yard in 1971 when over a thousand men in the prison rioted, took control of the prison and took hostages in their demand for better living conditions, political rights and to push back against the racism they endured. For him, he found the trust in Curry to effectively tell his story for the first time and that he was "never asked" before.

"It allowed me to go back to the recesses of my mind," Larkins said. "I wouldn't say that what Tracy and I did was an interview but a conversation."

Larkins recalled what he was thinking nearly 50 years ago to the day, believing for days that there might be a chance for an amenable solution, that they might be granted some more rights and that "no one would get hurt."

"That's when we were informed that a prison guard died in the hospital in Buffalo," Larkins said. "That's when we knew that things were going to change very, very drastically."

What came after was a military-style raid in which 29 prisoners and 10 hostages were killed, with at least 43 people dead by the end of the whole ordeal.

Nelson said that they gained access to rare, uncut video camera footage that showed that for nearly eight full minutes, they heard nothing but shooting as law enforcement fought their way into the prison. And asking their subjects to relive that moment demonstrated that there was "profound trauma" for everyone involved.

"I don't think there was a single person I interviewed where there were not either tears or great emotion during the course of the interview. It's clear that 50 years later, this has not left anyone unscarred," Curry said. "In that scene in particular, we bring to bear all of the tools we have as filmmakers to make that resonate with audiences and make them feel unsettled and disturbed by this orgy of violence."

Larkins said in the fray that he was "shot severely," and he remembers being instructed to lay on the ground as a helicopter flew overhead and fired gas into the prison yard, all as bullets were flying as well.

"This is not the first rodeo that people under the law enforcement veil has done something of this nature," Larkins said. "What we learned from Attica is that those in power, when they get frustrated, they rely on the only thing they know, and that is violence."

'Becoming Cousteau' Director Explains How Explorer Went From Exploiting Nature to Protecting It 

Brian Welk - © TheWrap


Liz Garbus' documentary "Becoming Cousteau" uncovers troves of unseen footage from the voyages and explorations of aquatic star and pioneer Jacques Cousteau. But it also charts his own growth from entertainer to environmentalist and provides a framework for how society needs to evolve on similar issues of climate change.

"We are in the middle of a climate crisis, and Cousteau's journey from explorer and conqueror to protector and conservationist is a really relevant one for this moment," Garbus told TheWrap's Beatrice Verhoeven.

The film, which made its premiere as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, starts off by showing how his early TV shows, the "ones we fell in love with," focused on "introducing us to the wonders of the sea" and were filled with positive messages about the world's natural beauty. But over time, he noticed the changes to the environment and later in his life took it up as an urgent cause.

"As he matured and began to see, literally before his very eyes, places he had been diving, disintegrating, and the ocean and the water against his skin getting warmer, he changed." Garbus told TheWrap at TIFF. "I think that his change and his voice and his shows is a metaphor for what the world needs to do. We have to change from that mode of exploitation to conservation."

Garbus says she and Nat Geo had worked closely with The Cousteau Society over a period of five years to obtain access to the archival footage that had never been seen, even though for years the society had been "fiercely protective" of his work and legacy.

"They appreciated that he was becoming lost, and the time was now to discuss what he did and what he learned, and it was urgent actually," she explained.

"Becoming Cousteau" also makes a case that Jacques Cousteau was quite the innovator, arguing that he's responsible for the surge in scuba diving in the world and directly led to the explosion of underwater, exploration, nature films and television that we enjoy today.

But she also includes a line in the film that Cousteau for years hated the term "documentary" because it felt like they were a "lecture from someone who knows better than you."

"Of course I put that in there as a little wink and my nod to my fellow filmmakers," Garbus said, adding that if he were making films today with the plethora of options he might've seen documentaries differently. "That was the beginning of his journey. He wanted to provide entertainment, it wasn't about a message. But of course later in his life the message became the dominant thing."

Future of Lake Tahoe clarity in question as wildfires worsen


© Provided by The Canadian Press


CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — When a wildfire crested the mountains near North America's largest alpine lake, embers and ash that zipped across a smoky sky pierced Lake Tahoe’s clear blue waters.

The evacuation order for thousands to flee their homes has been lifted, but those who returned have found black stripes of ash building up on the shoreline — a reminder that success fighting the Caldor Fire won’t insulate the resort region on the California-Nevada line from effects that outlast wildfire season.

Scientists say it’s too soon to draw conclusions about the lasting damage that record-setting wildfires will have on Lake Tahoe. But they’re not wasting time. Researchers and state officials on the Tahoe Science Advisory Council discussed future study at a meeting Thursday.

Scientists funded by California, Nevada and the League to Save Lake Tahoe are researching lake clarity and biodiversity during and after wildfires. They’re using collection buckets — some loaded with glass marbles — to capture and measure the size and quantity of particles and pollutants from wildfires that have sullied the normally crystal-clear waters. They’re studying how particles enter the lake, how they move around it and the effect on algae production.

The clarity of the iconic alpine lake can vary even without catastrophic wildfires. On average, Lake Tahoe is clear 65 feet (20 meters) below the water’s surface. Through wildfire season, scientists stationed near the lake's center have only been able to see 50 feet (15 meters) below the surface — a reduction they aren’t sure is due to particles, algae or simply lack of sunlight, said Geoff Schladow, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the University of California, Davis' Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

“My feeling is, in some ways, it may look worse than it is,” Schladow said. “What smoke in the basin actually does, particularly when it lasts for months, is something we don’t really know. We’re finding that out as we speak.”

Smoke from Northern California wildfires has cloaked the Lake Tahoe basin in past years. But as blazes have grown in size and intensity — partially due to climate change, scientists say — smoke that has sat atop the lake for two to three months in the past two wildfire seasons has exceeded the expectations of many residents and tourists who flock to the deep blue lake for its clean alpine air and fragrant pine trees.

It’s also concerned scientists, who have spent years studying how algae, erosion and air pollution from vehicles that 15 million tourists drive in each year affect clarity. They say the sheer amount of wildfire smoke that has lingered could harm lake clarity in ways that weren’t previously considered.

“Our bread-and-butter sources of declining lake clarity are pretty well understood,” said Allison Oliver, an ecologist at the Skeena Fisheries Commission in western Canada who studied how rivers and creeks delivered murky sediment to Lake Tahoe after the 2007 Angora Fire.

“This new phenomenon where we’re getting these big shifts in climate regimes and this pattern of big summer fires," she said of the Sierra Nevada mountains, "that’s not something that was on people’s radar as much 15 or 20 years ago. Now, it’s routine.”

On many days, smoke has blotted out views of the mountains that wrap the lake’s pristine waters and left an inescapable campfire stench on clothes, in cars and beneath fingernails.

“It’s really apparent that we need to be concerned about not only fires burning in the basin that cause erosion and burn scars, but the smoke generated from massive fires outside the basin," said Jesse Patterson, the League to Save Lake Tahoe’s chief strategy officer. “We need to think bigger, if we want to keep Tahoe blue decades to come.”

The league, best known for its “Keep Tahoe Blue” bumper stickers, has aggressively pursued environmental restoration projects to maintain the lake’s clarity, prevent erosion and replant burn scars. But amid accelerating climate change, Patterson fears local land management efforts may no longer be enough to protect the lake.

Scientists fear alpine lakes can act as “sponges,” soaking up the microscopic particles in wildfire smoke, said Sudeep Chandra, a biology professor and director of the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno. Regardless of whether studies end up showing smoke obscures algae-fighting sunlight or increases the flow of pollutants into the lake, he believes the challenge for scientists will be expanding the scope of research into factors affecting Lake Tahoe.

Chandra applauded efforts to maintain lake clarity through restoring rivers, preventing erosion and encouraging responsible development. But after he saw how much smoke from California's Dixie Fire further north in the Sierra Nevada ended up in the basin, he said questions about the lake’s future need to reckon with broader climate change trends.

“We’re clearly regionally connected. That’s going to be a new way of thinking about managing the Lake Tahoe basin,” he said.

___

Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Sam Metz, The Associated Press

Bullying, racism and being 'different': Why some families are opting for remote learning regardless of COVID-19

Rebecca Collins-Nelsen, Postdoctoral Scholar, McMaster Children and Youth University, Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Sandeep Raha, Associate professor, Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, and J. Marshall Beier, Professor, Political Science, McMaster University - 




The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked a public debate about the value of learning online for elementary school students. Much of this dialogue has been negative, with a focus on the experiences that children are missing by not being a part of in-person classrooms.

In an effort to learn more about remote education at the elementary level, we collected data from those with the most first-hand experiences — parents, students and teachers — in the form of a survey and interviews.

As we suspected, we found that the situation of online schooling is more complex than a simple “good” or “bad” — and the public dialogue is not telling the full story. We think it’s important to ask for whom and when is online learning a good fit.
Parent, student, teacher surveys

We are a team of multidisciplinary researchers with an interest in children’s rights and education who collaborate with community partners to better understand how to improve the equitable delivery of engaging educational experiences.

Through our program, the McMaster Children and Youth University (MCYU), McMaster professors and students from different faculties and departments offer public lectures and community-based workshops designed to appeal to children, youth and families.

We recruited participants through e-mail requests for participation distributed in collaboration with the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board to those who experienced remote learning during the 2020-2021 academic year.


© (Pexels/Valery)It’s important to consider: for whom and when is online learning a good fit?

Before the pandemic

Online schooling existed in limited formats long before the pandemic and has been valuable for certain students and specific circumstances.

In 2010, research reporting on national studies of school district administrators in the United States found the majority of “K-12 online learning is conducted at the secondary level where students are older and beginning to come into their own socially and emotionally.” It also found that the “basic reason K-12 schools are offering online and blended learning is to meet the special needs of a variety of students” — and that online learning is helpful for offering courses that are not otherwise available in schools and for reducing scheduling conflicts.

Students in remote areas, hospitalized students, incarcerated students, elite athletes, students with severe anxiety and students who learn differently are also among those who have often benefited from remote learning.
What students, families said

While this year’s version of online learning must be contextualized as “emergency remote teaching,”, many still found advantages to this format.

Specifically, some students found the lack of bullying, peer pressure and social anxiety were a welcomed change that allowed them to better focus on learning.

Others mentioned the comfort of being at home, the reduced stress around the morning rush, the extra time to sleep, the increased time with family and the ability to eat and have washroom breaks at will as all contributing to a more fruitful learning environment.

Fewer barriers, safer learning environment

One parent of a child with physical disabilities mentioned that their child preferred online learning because, “his physical disabilities aren’t a barrier to inclusion as much as they are in person.” This student already used a computer to learn, so they felt like they were no longer standing out as being “different.”

In fact, unlike the in-person experience, they were able to take on a leadership role that had previously been inaccessible. As explained by the parent:

“He is very proficient online and this has provided opportunities for him to help others when he’s usually the one requiring all the help. He’s having his best year with remote learning […] now he’s just another kid.”

In another example, a parent mentioned their relief knowing that their child will not be around school-based racism: “Racism is there, bullying is there in schools for brown kids. So staying away from school and study[ing] from home helped kids to be safe and away from bullying and racism.”

Read more: Struggling with racial biases, black families homeschool kids

As a result, not all families are eager to return to in-person education and many are opting to continue with remote learning regardless of public health recommendations.


© (Shutterstock)For some students, staying at home meant being away from bullying and racism.

Some missed social interaction

Of course, this is not to say that the transition to virtual learning was a seamless fit for everyone. Many parents, students and teachers recounted the negative issues associated with online learning.

Most notably, participants highlighted the lack of social interaction, the limited physical exercise, the increased amounts of screen time and tech issues as all contributing to an overall negative experience.

The variation in experiences is perhaps the very lesson that should come from this unique year: learners require many strategies and opportunities to learn effectively, and we should be sceptical of a one-size-fits-all model or even a one-size-fits-most model.
Include children in conversations

Additionally, it is important to include children in conversations about what is best for them.

At the onset of the pandemic, leaders, like the prime ministers of Canada, Denmark and Norway, made direct appeals to the children of their countries recognizing the importance of their participation.

But as we can see in reviewing debates about deciding on a return to in-person learning, children’s voices were largely left out.

Read more: World Children’s Day: Young people deserve to be heard during COVID-19
Failures of traditional classrooms

Based on our early findings, we caution against arguments that solely champion the need to promptly return to in-person classrooms, as these arguments glorify traditional learning environments and reinforce the idea that they are ideal for everyone. Our team continues to work on several papers related to equity and barriers to education to be published out of this research.

Read more: Schools after coronavirus: Seize 'teachable moments' about racism and inequities

Rather than using this moment to make a definitive call on remote education for elementary students, we should consider how we can be creative and re-imagine classroom formats to better meet all students where they are.

We are not advocating abandoning efforts at being inclusive and addressing power dynamics in the classroom. Rather, we must address the reality that testimony of positive experience in this alternative format demonstrates the need for multiple approaches.

Conversations about what post-COVID schooling looks like must consider the reality that traditional learning formats often fail marginalized students. We must create opportunities to bolster learning formats and processes that benefit students who face barriers to education via traditional schooling and delivery.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Rebecca Collins-Nelsen receives funding from SSHRC and McMaster University Covid-19 Stream 2.

J. Marshall Beier receives funding from SSHRC.

Sandeep Raha receives funding from McMaster Covid-19 funding, Stream 2 and SSHRC

Comparing vaccine passports to residential schools 'repugnant': B.C. chiefs



OTTAWA — The British Columbia Assembly of First Nations says it is "harmful and repugnant" that a People's Party of Canada candidate is comparing vaccine passports to residential schools.

Vancouver-Quadra PPC candidate Renate Siekmann sent a pamphlet to voters in her riding this week with "no vaccine passport" and "discrimination is wrong" written on a photo of Indigenous children at a residential school in 1880.

"Today my campaign sent out this literature to approximately 52,000 homes in Vancouver Quadra," Siekmann wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

"B.C.’s history hasn’t always been great, we must learn from the past and improve. This analogy may make some uncomfortable or angry but this is a hard and important conversation to have."

In a later tweet she said "now that I have your attention" and posted an article from the online Canadian Encyclopedia about the "pass system" implemented by the federal government in 1885, that required Indigenous people on reserves to get a pass from an Indian Agent when they wanted to leave their community.

"History is an important lesson," she wrote. "Don't let history repeat itself."

BCAFN Regional Chief Terry Teegee, however, said Siekmann's attempt to say a public health measure like vaccine passports is equivalent to the genocidal and violent practices inflicted on Indigenous Peoples shows an "immense depth of ignorance and lack of judgment."

“As First Nations, entire generations of our peoples were stolen from their families and communities," Teegee said in a statement.

"They were tortured, physically and sexually abused, and murdered. They lost their languages and cultures, and thousands of our precious children never came home. Claiming that a public health measure, such as a vaccine passport, is somehow comparable or equivalent to violent and genocidal practices is harmful and repugnant.”

Teegee went on to say that "an inconvenient interruption in your social life to save lives during a deadly pandemic is not discrimination."

He is asking for an apology and said PPC Leader Maxime Bernier should fire Siekmann as a candidate.

The PPC did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Siekmann said on Twitter she is "pro-vaccine" but that vaccine passports are a violation of human rights.

She also on Thursday shared a tweet from Rebel News publisher Ezra Levant comparing the decision by the Alberta government to ban unvaccinated people from attending private gatherings indoors to Nazis going door-to-door searching for "unclean citizens."

"If you cannot see the writing on the wall, go re read the history books. Everyone," Siekmann wrote on her retweet, with the hashtag #VoteforHumanRights.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2021.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Carson Jerema: Jason Kenney kills game night in Alberta even for the vaccinated


© Provided by National Post

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney during a news conference regarding the surging COVID cases in the province in Calgary on Wednesday, September 15, 2021.

EDMONTON — The Alberta government was apparently so keen to avoid bringing in vaccine passports, or as it likes to call them out here, a “restriction exemption program,” that it waited until the last possible minute , ensuring not only would we be subject to one, but also to new restrictions on schools, onerous limits on private gatherings and caps on weddings and funerals — and all just in time for the health-care system to still collapse. It is the best of all COVID worlds.

Alberta might be a singularly difficult place for a Conservative premier to govern. Whereas his counterparts in other provinces are largely criticized for not doing enough to slow the pandemic, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney faces equal pressure from those who say he is doing too much.

Kenney has been consistent in expressing his belief in a limited-government approach to pandemic management — one that only imposes restrictions that are necessary based on data, and allowing for as much freedom as possible. But he has been much less consistent in his execution of that philosophy, preferring instead to avoid restrictions altogether for as long as he can, then bringing them in all at once.

He quelled one burgeoning party rebellion in the spring, when several MLAs signed a letter criticizing restrictions , followed a few weeks later when one backbencher publicly called for him to resign , which led to the ouster of two members from caucus. The premier is wily, but his tank of political capital must be close to empty.

Kenney made a big show about lifting all restrictions at the beginning of July so the province could be “ open for good .” A review of data coming from the United Kingdom did show a decoupling of case rates and hospitalizations, but other highly vaccinated jurisdictions like Israel and some American states did not show the same trend.

Even still, removing enough restrictions to permit the Calgary Stampede to take place need not have resulted in the current crisis. However, the province had no plan to ensure its test-and-trace system was capable of managing any spikes in cases and, in fact, the government had planned to do away with routine testing altogether.

Other measures that also could have allowed more freedom, while limiting spread, would have been the distribution of higher-quality masks, improved indoor ventilation systems in schools and businesses, and rapid testing. It is incredible that a year and a half into this mess, rapid tests are still controversial.

The summer was also exactly the time to test the $100 incentive to get vaccinated, rather than when hospitals were already overflowing.

Had Kenney and Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw pivoted even in August when it became obvious that intensive care units were filling up, largely with the unvaccinated, and brought in even modest restrictions, we might have avoided this. Instead, Alberta could run out of intensive care beds within 10 days and the government says it has asked other provinces to make room in their hospitals. Elective, but often still serious, surgeries have been postponed.

Health policy experts react to Stampede recording of Jason Kenney

A province-wide mask mandate was brought in earlier this month, and starting Monday businesses will be asked to either implement proof of vaccination or a negative test in order to avoid restrictions on capacity and distancing, and elementary schools will be required to enforce distancing and classroom cohorting.

Weddings and funerals do not have the option to avoid restrictions, upending long-planned events. Nor do places of worship, though one suspects not even giving churches the option to use vaccine passports was a political calculation to avoid blow-back from congregations that have been skeptical of any COVID measures.

Perhaps most infuriating for the average Albertan, certainly for me, is restrictions on private indoor gatherings that limit them to no more than 10 people from only two households for the vaccinated. Those who live alone are limited to two contacts. The unvaccinated are banned outright from socializing indoors, but good luck enforcing that. While it is true that it is more difficult to regulate private spaces than public ones, it is bizarre that one can go to the bar and dance up close with strangers, but a routine game night with vaccinated friends from more than two homes is now illegal.

I am skeptical vaccine passports will be effective. The system is based around health information Albertans are asked to download and either keep on their phone or print off, which if you’re concerned about security or fraud, is a completely laughable system.

Mandates incentivize people to find ways around the rules. And, whatever your thoughts on vaccine refusers, and I have as little patience for them as anyone, a common theme among them is their distaste for government. So, even if passports succeed in lowering case counts, it could mean even less trust in the health system, and less trust between Albertans.

Vaccine passports will also impose costs on businesses now tasked with policing everyone who comes in their doors.

But, if passports are going to be imposed, giving people less than five days notice is the worst possible way to do it. Any gains that might have happened from the unvaccinated choosing to get their shot ahead of the mandate coming into effect have been negated.

All of us are now scrambling. When I went Wednesday night to sign into the health website, I was put into a lineup that was over 100,000 people long — and frozen.

There has been some speculation that Kenney’s relative absence in recent weeks was to help federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, by removing a target the Liberals could use as a wedge in the election campaign.

But it isn’t only Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau that the Tories should worry about. People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, once dubbed the Albertan from Quebec, seized on the new restrictions. Fixing to be a spoiler in the election, Bernier accused Kenney of declaring “war” on our charter rights and called him a “despot.”

As ever in Alberta, the most potent political threats are on the right.

Canada's third-largest pension fund beefs ups plan to cut carbon emissions


By Nia Williams and Maiya Keidan

CALGARY, Alberta/TORONTO (Reuters) - Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (OTPP), Canada's third-largest pension fund, announced on Thursday new interim targets to cut the carbon emissions intensity of its portfolio as part of a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

OTPP, which manages C$227.7 billion ($180.11 billion) in assets, plans to reduce emissions intensity by 45% by 2025 and 67% by 2030, from 2019 levels.

Fellow pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec also has a net-zero target by 2050, but environmental campaigners said OTPP's interim targets are the strongest climate commitment yet from a Canadian pension fund.

Ziad Hindo, OTPP's chief investment officer, said the fund would be looking to invest more in clean-energy companies, as well as firms offering software and services that allow other companies to transition to a lower carbon economy.

"Climate change permeates the entire investing landscape. Tackling it requires substantial effort and massive amounts of capital," said Hindo. He compared the climate sector today with the technology sector in the 1990s, and predicted it would cause huge disruption across every industry.

OTPP is increasing staffing across various asset classes to keep up with growing investment in the climate sector, Hindo added. The fund's portfolio currently includes more than C$30 billion in green investments such as renewable energy, energy storage, electrification, electricity transmission, energy efficiency and green real estate.

Unlike some large pension funds in the United States, OTPP is not divesting from oil and gas altogether, although it stopped actively investing in listed exploration and production companies in 2019.

"OTPP will need to go further if it wants to be considered a global leader on climate," said Adam Scott, director of pension activist group Shift. "While this announcement describes how the OTPP will invest in solutions to the climate crisis, it makes no mention of how it will eliminate its exposure to the causes of it, namely high-risk fossil fuels."

($1 = 1.2642 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan and Nia Williams; Editing by Peter Cooney)