Lack of school structure putting children's mental health at risk

THE HIERARCHY HAS CONDITIONED THEM
FREEDOM TO LEARN ON THEIR OWN IS UNKNOWN
READ AS NEIL SUMMERHILL

A.S. Neill's Summerhill A Different View of Curriculum and ...

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“Summerhill is possibly the happiest place in the world” – A.S. Neill. Alexander Sutherland Neill opened the first Summerhill School in England in 1924 after ...

A.S. Neill - Philosophies of Education - Google Sites

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Alexander Sutherland Neill (1883-1973) believed in the philosophy of existentialism. He believed that individuals had the ability to direct their own learning and ...                           

 

comparing as neill to rousseau, appropriate? - The Journal of ...

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by MA PRUD’HOMME - ‎2011 - ‎Related articles

We have to admit that Neill read Rousseau's Émile, but only late in life (Darling, 1984). He had designed. Summerhill School long before that point. As far as ... 

A.S. Neill's Summerhill - New Learning Online

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A.S. Neill (1883–1973) was the founder of a progressive school, Summerhill, in England in 1924. In this school, he implemented his ideas about pupil freedom.                                 

     

Alexander Sutherland Neill - International Bureau of Education

www.ibe.unesco.org › sites › default › files › neille

by JF Saffange - ‎2000 - ‎Cited by 19 - ‎Related articles

The death of A.S. Neill on 23 September 1973 went almost unrecorded in the newspapers, yet it marked the end of the saga of Summerhill, his little school in ...

© Shane Hennessey/CBC Child psychologists say the switch from classroom to at-home learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has left some children stressed and anxious, particularly those with pre-existing mental health conditions.

A lack of routine and certainty during the COVID-19 pandemic is creating mental health challenges for Ontario's school kids, psychologists say.

"This is an extremely stressful and traumatic time," said Gail Beck, a child psychologist who works with adolescents and young adults at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.

Beck said she's worried about how some children are coping without the daily rhythms of school days and the absence of classmates.

The young people she counsels, Beck said, are increasingly anxious about their uncertain academic future.

And for those who suffered from depression or other mental health disorders before COVID-19 arrived, the pandemic "could be the straw that breaks the camel's back," Beck said.

Prolonged absences from school have been shown to negatively affect the "social, emotional and academic development of children," said Maria Rogers, a member of the University of Ottawa's department of psychology.

Her greatest concern, Rogers said, is for children with depression who have been deprived of support during the pandemic, as they don't have access to teachers, social workers or school psychologists.

"I think we really need to sort of come together as a community to help look after our children's mental health right now." said Rogers. "The good news is that all the kids are in this together, they're all going through this together."
Behavioural changes noted

According to an Ipsos public health survey released by Children's Mental Health Ontario in late spring, half of Ontario's children were experiencing mental health issues during the pandemic.

The survey also found 59 per cent of Ontario parents had noticed behavioural changes in their child "ranging from outbursts or extreme irritability to drastic changes in mood, behaviour or personality and difficulty sleeping/altered sleeping patterns as well as persistent sadness."

The lack of predictability that a regular school day provides, as well as the longing for classmates and outdoor games, is destabilizing for youngsters in particular, said Beck.

"It is that feeling of lack of control that's upsetting," she said. "And the younger they are, the more they need a routine."
Fall return

The Ontario government is planning for school to resume this September, although with changes that include more remote learning and class sizes capped at 15 students.

So with the return to a normal school schedule unlikely for the foreseeable future, Beck said it's up to adults to build structure into their child's lives by having set meal times and planned family activities.

For some children who are more introverted, the at-home learning experience has been successful, Rogers noted.

Regardless, when school does resume, it will be important for parents and teachers keep the lines of communication open and take note of any "concerning" changes, she said.

"I think it's going be especially important that parents caregivers and teachers are working together collaboratively, in the best interests of the child," said Rogers.

Toilet paper wars: Contested report claims TP production devastating Canadian forests

© Matt Medler/International Boreal Conservation Campaign via Associated Press In this undated photo provided by the International Boreal Conservation Campaign, the forest is seen after being clear-cut in the southern regions of Quebec's boreal Forest.
The toilet paper crisis of 2020 will probably be remembered as a strange and humorous aside to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But a new report from the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defence Council says there's a different but more worrisome toilet paper crisis now looming in Canada, and it's driving global climate change.

The Issue with Tissue 2.0: How the tree-to-toilet pipeline fuels our climate crisis, claims that a million acres of Canadian boreal forest is being clear cut every year, with a significant portion of the virgin wood fibre going to large American toilet paper producers.

"With every roll of their unsustainable toilet paper, companies are pushing the world toward an unthinkable future, destroying ancient and irreplaceable Canadian boreal forest for something as short lived as a flush," said co-author Jennifer Skene.

The Forest Products Association of Canada says the report contains numerous false claims and accusations. 

'Wanton polarization'

President and CEO Derek Nighbor says the characterization that Canadian forests are being cut down to make toilet paper is patently untrue, and that the report is an exercise in "wanton polarizaton."

"In Canada, we're not harvesting trees to make toilet paper, we're harvesting trees in a planned and sustainable way to produce lumber. And then at those sawmills, the leftover wood chips, sawdust and bark then go off to different facilities for further processing," he said.

"The wood fibre that ends up going to toilet paper is about one per cent of our overall wood fibre basket."

The report says clear-cutting for toilet paper and other short-term use products like facial tissues and paper towels, is putting 26 million metric tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year.

"This is releasing an enormous Pandora's box of previously locked up carbon from the forest vegetation and soils, reducing the forest's capacity to absorb more carbon and creating an insurmountable carbon deficit at current rates of logging," said Skene.

In the report, the NRDC takes aim at Proctor & Gamble, maker of Charmin, the best selling toilet paper brand in the U.S., criticizing it for continuing to use 100 per cent virgin forest fibre without any shift to recycled fibre or more sustainable wheat straw or bamboo fibre.

"We are ... demanding that Charmin manufacturer Procter and Gamble and other tissue manufacturers change their recipe to reduce pressures on our boreal forests and push the Canadian government to protect the forest before it's too late," said Stand.earth's Tzepora Berman. 

3 times the climate impact

According to Skene, toilet paper made from virgin fibre has three times the climate impact as that made from recycled material.

© CBC A new, contested report from the Natural Resources Defence Council in the U.S. says Canadian toilet paper production is devastating Canadian boreal forests and fuelling climate change.
In a statement to CBC, Proctor & Gamble said: "When you buy Charmin, you are making a responsible choice. Charmin is Rainforest Alliance and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, sourced from responsibly-managed forests."

Nighbor says so far consumers have not shown much demand for toilet paper made with recycled fibre. Plus, he says, there is a limit to its use.

"I think you can recycle paper six times, so you're always going to need virgin fibre," he said.

"If you have lumber sawmills with chip piles piling up that they can't sell, that becomes a fire risk. So we view it as part of the circular economy. And if people, based on preference, want more recycled content, we would support that."

According to Nighbor, only 0.5 per cent of the harvestable Canadian forest is cut every year, with the vast majority used for lumber production.

The Canadian boreal forest stretches from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Yukon. According to Natural Resources Canada, it is not considered ancient because most of its trees are relatively young and regularly affected by forest fires, insects and other natural disturbances.

Bayer bets on science in bid to prevent future Roundup lawsuits: legal experts

WOULD THAT BE NAZI SCIENCE LIKE BAYER USED DURING WWII

© Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay FILE PHOTO: The historic headquarters of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG is pictured in LeverkusenBy Tina Bellon(Reuters) - Seeking to forestall further claims, Bayer AG is taking a risky bet that an independent scientific review will ultimately show that its widely used weed killer Roundup does not cause cancer, legal experts said.

The company on Wednesday agreed to pay as much as $10.9 billion to settle about 75% of the 125,000 filed and unfiled claims by Roundup users who say the herbicide caused them to develop a form of blood cancer.

But Bayer had to find a separate solution to mitigate the risk of future claims without pulling the product off the shelves. The company decided to make a calculated gamble on the scientific evidence which so far has overwhelmingly supported its claim that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is safe for agricultural use.
Regulators worldwide, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Chemicals Agency, have determined glyphosate to be non-carcinogenic.

But the World Health Organization's cancer research arm determined the herbicide to be a "probable carcinogen" in 2015 and since 2018, three consecutive U.S. juries, who listened to scientific evidence from both sides during trial, found that Roundup causes cancer.

"Bayer is taking a huge risk by doing this and it's a bet that time can show that the science underlying the plaintiffs' claims is bad," said David Noll, a law professor at Rutgers University.




While many details of the proposal have yet to be released by Bayer and approved by a federal judge, the plan calls for an independent panel of scientific experts, who will likely be chosen and agreed upon by both sides.

The company will pay $1.25 billion to support the panel's research, an amount that does not include any payouts to settle future lawsuits.

The scientific review process is expected to take at least four years, and findings by the panel would be binding on Bayer and anyone who has used Roundup before Wednesday but not developed cancer.

If the panel finds glyphosate to be non-carcinogenic, those users could not sue.

If the panel determines glyphosate causes cancer, however, Bayer could face a flood of new lawsuits, with potential damages determined at a later stage. Bayer on Wednesday said the lead plaintiffs' lawyers have agreed to its plans, but Reuters was not immediately able to reach those attorneys for comment.

Lawyers for Roundup cancer claimants in the past have alleged that Bayer manipulated scientific studies and deceived the scientific community, claims Bayer denies.

Company executives on calls with reporters and analysts on Wednesday repeatedly said the science was in their favor.

"We are confident that the science panel will look at the scientific body of evidence and come to the conclusion that glyphosate is safe," said Bayer's global head of litigation, Bill Dodero.






Scientific panels have been set up in previous mass torts but generally not as part of a settlement process, legal experts said. Bayer's proposal was "creative but risky" and will likely face procedural challenges in court, said Adam Zimmerman, a professor at Loyola Law School.

The experts said many details, including how people who have not yet gotten sick could give up their rights to a future lawsuit under the proposal, remained unclear.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Kenney speechwriter called residential schools a 'bogus genocide story'

Elise von Scheel

© Thomson Reuters Alberta Premier Jason Kenney speaks during a news conference after meeting with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada December 10, 2019. REUTERS/Blair Gable

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's speechwriter once wrote an article dismissing the "bogus genocide story" of Canada's residential school system and said Indigenous youth could be "ripe recruits" for violent insurgencies.

Paul Bunner penned the column, titled "The 'Genocide' That Failed," for the online magazine C2C Journal in 2013. Brunner was a speechwriter for prime minister Stephen Harper from 2006 to 2009 and was hired by Kenney last spring.

C2C IS A RIGHT  WING NEO CALVINIST JOURNAL PUT OUT BY THE REFORMED CHURCH OF CANADA, FORMERLY OF SOUTH AFRICA, AND ITS FRONT GROUPS CLAC THE FAKE UNION, AND CFAC THEIR FARMERS GROUP. C2C WAS FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE WORK RESEARCH FOUNDATION 

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/11/canadas-right-wing-union.html

The article questioned what Bunner deemed the "unchallenged" view of residential schools.

"Vast swathes of the public education system are uncritically regurgitating the genocide story as if it were fact," Bunner wrote, arguing that fuels certain Indigenous activists in their "never-ending demands" for money and autonomy.

Bunner argued that if Indigenous youth are "indoctrinated" in the belief that Canada wilfully tried to annihilate their ancestors it could make them "ripe recruits" for potential violent insurgencies, referring to a novel about an Indigenous uprising that he said was "frighteningly plausible."

He encouraged people to question the balance of residential school stories, to push back against "perverse financial incentives" that "reward stories of abuse" and called for more context about the general hardships of life at that time. © Indian and Northern Affairs/Library and Archives Canada/Reuters Female students and a nun pose in a classroom at Cross Lake Indian Residential School in Cross Lake, Man., in a February 1940 archive photo. Alberta had some of the highest numbers of residential schools.

In at least one interview since, Bunner has stood by the column.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families and compelled by the government to attend residential schools over the course of a century.

Many relayed stories of physical abuse, sexual assault and emotional anguish at the hands of those who ran the schools. Most of the perpetrators were never prosecuted. The last federally run school closed in the late 1990s.

One of the heads of the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission that investigated residential schools from 2007 to 2015 says he's heard these arguments before, but can't swallow them.

"I really wish he'd walked in my shoes for those 14 years," said Chief Willie Littlechild, who was among those sent to a residential school. "I think you would have a totally different story."

Littlechild recounted how he was stripped of his name and given a number.

"They called me 65. You idiot, 65. Stupid 65."

He said he's "insulted" by the arguments in Bunner's column, but he holds no grudge.

Bunner was Harper's chief speechwriter when the prime minister made a historic apology in the House of Commons to residential school survivors.

"There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian residential schools system to ever again prevail," he said in 2008.

Bunner has said he didn't write Harper's speech. He told APTN News in 2015 that he stood by his column and wasn't happy with Harper's apology.

The premier's office declined CBC News' request to interview Bunner. Interviews with backroom staff are uncommon.

"Mr. Bunner is a speechwriter. He is employed to take the Government's policy and put it into words. Mr. Bunner is not employed as a policy advisor nor is he involved in policy making," a spokesperson wrote in an email.

"I'll also remind you that the Premier was a senior minister of the federal government which issued the apology and settlement. Elected officials set policy — not staff."

The Kenney government has made several efforts to advance partnerships between the province and Indigenous groups since he was elected last year, particularly around natural resource development. The premier called it an "economic and moral imperative."

Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary says the premier's office needs to address Bunner's article. He added it's a blow to Alberta's efforts to build trust with Indigenous communities.

"This isn't written 30 years ago. This isn't written 20 years ago. This was written after a public apology."

Bratt also said that while speechwriters don't dictate policy, they can influence it like any other adviser.

Bunner's column says that not all residential school students had a bad experience, and that white children also experienced abuse at boarding schools. He did acknowledge that Indigenous people endured worse than most.

But he blamed prominent Indigenous activists for using residential schools to propagate an "entitlement narrative" that has morphed into a "gold mine."

"The bogus genocide story of the Canadian Aboriginal residential schools system is an insult to all of us, Native and non-Native, dead or alive, who are justifiably proud of the peaceful, tolerant, pluralistic history and values of our great country," the article concludes.

Gabrielle Lindstrom is from the Kainaiwa First Nation in southern Alberta and teaches Indigenous studies at Mount Royal University. She wasn't surprised when she read the article.

"I would say that these claims are very common," she said, explaining that she often sees university students with similar misconceptions.

Lindstrom says this issue is not just about one man's words, but generations of stereotypes against Indigenous people.

"We've made the abuse of children debatable and we've made the violence against Indigenous people something that is alleged and something that is debatable."

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard from 6,500 witnesses, creating a historical database made up of five million documents. At the end of its work, the commission released 94 calls to action, which were accepted by the federal government.

The commission said the schools amounted to cultural genocide, attempted to eradicate Aboriginal culture and to assimilate Aboriginal children into mainstream Canada.

Littlechild still sees many areas for improvement — and says he wants to work on that shoulder to shoulder with people like Bunner.

"When we have challenges like this, let's talk about it and see how we find a solution to it," he said.

"It would serve [us] much greater if we walked that path together."

Pride Hamilton files Human Rights Tribunal complaint against Hamilton police, city

© Will Erskine / Global News Pride Hamilton has filed a human rights complaint against Hamilton police following the events of the organization's Pride 2019 event.Pride Hamilton has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario against the Hamilton Police Service and the City of Hamilton.

The application, which was filed on June 12 ahead of a one-year deadline, alleges police discriminated against the organization by failing to protect Pride-goers from violence at the Hamilton Pride festival at Gage Park on June 15, 2019.

"It's our view that Hamilton Police Services discriminated against our organization on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression through its failure to properly plan for, protect and respond to threats to the 2019 Pride celebrations in Hamilton," reads a statement from the organization.

Read more: Hamilton LGBTQ2 residents react to Pride 2019 review: ‘We knew that we were right about this’

It's asking for $600,000 in damages to support "initiatives, programs and/or organizations in Hamilton's two-spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities."

That's the same amount that the city's police services board allocated for an independent review of police response to Pride 2019, which determined that police response was "inadequate" in dealing with violence before, during and after it unfolded.

The complaint also singles out the city for defending the police response.

"The chair of the Hamilton Police Services Board and the mayor of the city of Hamilton made public comments that defended the HPS’s preparation and response," the statement goes on to say. "These comments served to support and embolden the conduct of the Hamilton Police Service."

Read more: Independent review says police response to violence at 2019 Hamilton Pride ‘inadequate’

Pride Hamilton says it's retained Ross & McBride LLP and will be represented by a legal team led by human rights lawyer Wade Poziomka.

The City of Hamilton has not responded to Global News' requests for comment.

Hamilton police spokesperson Jackie Penman says the service has not yet received a notice from the tribunal.

"Hamilton Police are aware of the media release issued by Pride Hamilton but we have not received anything from the human rights tribunal yet, " Penman told Global News, "We will not be making any comment on the application."

B.C. researchers testing wastewater to help detect COVID-19
Researchers have a new surveillance tool that could give them a head start when it comes to coronavirus outbreaks: our wastewater.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control is leading a pilot project to test B.C. wastewater for evidence of COVID-19.

"You can use [wastewater] to survey what people are consuming," said Natalie Prystajecky, who is leading the project.

"In this case … it could serve as an early warning system. It could show that there's a lack of cases."

It's a tactic that's been used in other parts of the world, letting health officials know just how prevalent the virus is.

In Italy, researchers found traces of the virus in samples from 2019 — before the pandemic was declared.
Useful for 2nd wave

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has spoken in support of the idea of testing wastewater.

"It's kind of an exciting thing. We have some expertise that's quite unique here," Henry said Tuesday.

"Where I think it's going to be helpful for us is if we start to see cases, one or two in a small community or we're worried about transmission in a community.".

© Mike McArthur/CBC B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry spoke in favour of wastewater testing in B.C. Tuesday.

For now, researchers have been drawing samples from Vancouver and Surrey but with less than 200 confirmed cases provincewide, they haven't found any trace of COVID-19 yet.

Prystajecky said with the caseload low, that makes sense.

"As we go into the second wave, we could use it for communities that can't access testing easily," Prystajecky said.

"You can test an entire population without having to use swabs, which are a limited resource right now."

Officials say they'll have a better understanding of the data they've collected by the fall.

The project will run until at least December.

‘I can make more money on CERB’: More concerns benefit may be a disincentive for workers

TIME TO MAKE CERB A UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME UBI

Jon Azpiri and Catherine Urquhart

© Global News Anthony Walsh hopes to the open the Cervecería Astilleros, a Mexican-themed brewpub, in August.

Andrew Doyle and Anthony Walsh plan to open La Cervecería Astilleros, a Mexican-influenced micro-brewery, in August, but hiring staff hasn't been easy.

Walsh says they placed an ad on Craigslist and heard from people who said they'll pass on working for $15 to $20 an hour and collect the $500 a week from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) instead. 

BETTER MAKE THAT $25 PER HR THE POST CERB WAGE 

"We got quite a few positive responses; we're gonna bring in about 10 people for interviews," Walsh said.

"There was a bit of backlash arguing, 'You know what, I can make more money on CERB.' That just came as a bit of a surprise to us."

Muriel Protzer, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says the CERB system needs to be more like employment insurance (EI) benefits.

"This will ensure that those who are collecting the benefit are people who desperately and genuinely need this," she said.

Read more: CERB may discourage people from returning to work, B.C. businesses say

The organization says the federal government is looking to introduce new guidelines, which would include an end to benefits if an employee is called back, and a requirement that people receiving funds be available and looking for work, as is the case with EI.

“Moving forward with our bill would give us further measures to encourage people and to make sure that people were taking work when it came up,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week.

“We’re still looking at ways of moving forward to encourage people to look for work and to make sure that they are taking jobs that become available.”

Despite the hiring challenges, Doyle and Walsh are hopeful they'll find staff in the coming weeks.

— With files from Nadia Stewart


WORKERS ARE DISCOURAGED FROM GOING TO WORK BECAUSE BOSSES PAY THE LEAST THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH.

MAKE THE BOSSES PAY MORE

Catering business brings back employees to help Lethbridge Food Bank feed 800 children
Taz Dhaliwal 

© Taz Dhaliwal/Global News As COVID-19 continues to impact many people's livelihoods, a Lethbridge catering company is doing what it can to help feed those in need.
L.A. Chefs Catering and the Lethbridge Food Bank have been teaming up to help feed more than 800 children with sandwiches for the month of June as part of the food bank's Mindful Munchies lunch program.

"Prior to COVID[-19], we had just launched a campaign called Feed our Kids and we were in discussions with the schools as to providing some meals to the children of the schools, and then COVID-19 hit," said Marci Stickel the owner of L.A. Chefs Catering.

With the closure of schools, that campaign came to a halt and the catering company reached out to the food bank to find out how they could still help provide food to families who need it the most.

"We've received a lot of response from our families. They've been grateful for the support," said Maral Kiani Tari, the executive director of the Lethbridge Food Bank.

Kiani Tari said the Mindful Munchies program initially was a collaboration between My City Care and the Lethbridge Food Bank that went through the school year, which involved them providing nutritious lunches to different schools in the city.

Read more: Lethbridge lunch program goes mobile after COVID-19 threat closes schools

When the schools closed due to COVID-19, that program temporarily stopped, but they wanted to continue providing those nutritious lunches.

The food bank, My City Care and the Holy Spirit Catholic School Division worked together to take the program to homes across the city to help supplement the nutritional and mental wellness of students.

"There have been various different situations that people have been going through, whether it's layoffs or loss of jobs, you know, childcare... elimination of child care," Kiani Tari said.

Read more: Lethbridge organizations try to help vulnerable people during COVID-19 pandemic

The catering company has been able to bring roughly half of its staff members back to work for this campaign.

"It's between 30 to 40 [people] that we've been able to bring back on the wage subsidy for a variety of purposes, and one of them is helping out with this sandwich program," Stickel said.

She added that the company will try to use the wage subsidy for as long as it needs to in order to keep staff.

Ever since the pandemic and the cancellation or postponement of several events, the company has lost much of its revenue.

However, as restrictions continue to ease up and gatherings on a much smaller scale take place, the company is trying to slowly regain its footing.

One staff member said working for a good cause such as this one makes them feel optimistic about the future.

"It is really nice, especially because I am a father of two kids. It is really special for me to know that we are not only back, but we are also helping the community... especially helping kids, because even the staff is very happy," said Roberto Cano, chef and banquet manager for L.A. Chefs Catering.

"It's such a great feeling knowing that we can help around the community, how ever way we can," said Makafui Nyavor, a banquet server and supervisor with L.A. Chefs Catering.

Nyavor went on to say she loves her job and is glad her employer is very proactive when it comes to assisting those less fortunate.

The company says it will continue to work with the food bank and plans to collaborate with Volunteer Lethbridge are also in the works.

Petition calls for CALGARY BOARD OF EDUCATION to establish school-focused racism task force

© Terri Trembath/CBC Thousands gathered in Calgary's Olympic Plaza earlier this month for a candlelight vigil in honour of victims of racism and police brutality.

A high school teacher and a not-for-profit focused on multiculturalism and race relations are behind a petition to have the Calgary Board of Education establish a task force to root out systemic racism in the school system.

The petition is asking the CBE to have a task force collect data based on race, gender, socio-economic status and other historic barriers to success in the classroom.

The data would then be used to identify and address any problematic policies and practices that have never been questioned or even noticed before and look at ways to revamp the system and improve equality.


It might involve training and education for staff, including a locally developed anti-racism course.

"It's not just about the CBE," said Courtney Walcott, a high school teacher in Calgary.

"If I was working for the Calgary Catholic School Board, the Palliser Regional Schools, Rocky View Schools or even the City of Calgary, every institution really needs to take a look at themselves and do this work," said Walcott.

Walcott says that after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the global Black Lives Matter protest movement that followed, it's now the perfect time to seek change. He says the school system has long perpetuated problematic ideologies from the past that have no place in today's society.

"I felt helpless and now I don't," said Walcott.

Walcott says everything from a Eurocentric curriculum to policy and unconscious bias needs to be looked at.

He says as well as overt racism there are long standing norms and traditions that now need closer inspection, as well as a focus on improving the representation of minorities in the school system, in both teaching and administration positions.

"I had no idea how to have my voice heard or who to speak to, so I built this proposal and started seeking out allies," said Walcott. "We're still hearing these stories of kids saying they're not represented."

"No matter what comes of this, the more names that show up on the petition, the more the people that have the power to change things can see people do want that. And sometimes silence is just a function of not knowing where to yell," he said.

"In Calgary you're starting to see these small pockets of protest pop up, and I'm just hoping whatever comes of this is concrete solutions," said Walcott.

The Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation, which is partnering with Walcott, says it's targeting school boards directly after being ignored by the provincial government. The petition already has nearly 4,000 signatures.

The foundation released a study in 2019 highlighting racism as a concern to Albertan teachers. It also gathered more than 72,000 signatures for a petition for the City of Calgary to create a similar task force.

"It was hoped our research results would raise awareness about the magnitude of the issues discussed," said Iman Bukhari, CEO of the foundation, speaking about the 2019 study.

"And that further steps would be taken in order to address racism among school-aged children, however, we see nothing was done provincially or locally," she said.

Bukhari says she hopes going straight to school boards and bypassing a province that she says simply doesn't care about the issue might be more successful.

The Change.org petition can be found on the Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation website.

TRAGEDY IN BC

Only two of 17 baby great blue herons survive falling tree in Tsawwassen


Kevin Griffin

© Paul Steeves These two baby great blue herons survived a fall from their nests in the rookery on Tsawwassen First Nation land. They're being nursed back to health with feedings every 45 minutes from dawn to dusk at the Wildlife Rescue Association hospital in Burnaby.
WARNING: This story contains an image of dead birds that some readers may find distressing.

A “devastating” loss of 15 baby Pacific great blue herons could happen again in Tsawwassen, according to the Wildlife Rescue Association .

Janelle Stephenson , manager of the association’s wildlife hospital, said loss of habitat due to development in Metro Vancouver is causing the herons to move out of some areas and into others that aren’t safe — including on a major rookery on Tsawwassen First Nation land.

“Animals are being pushed into areas they wouldn’t normally be nesting in because of development. It’s really devastating. We want them to all be safe. There’s a big worry it can happen again.”

Stephenson said last Thursday night or Friday morning, a tree with three heron nests fell to the ground, bringing down nests in at least two other nearby trees.

A total of 17 baby herons, or nestlings, were affected: 11 were found dead and six were brought into the WRA hospital in Burnaby. Only two survived.

“We went in with volunteers and natural resource officers to find as many animals as we could find after the tee had fallen,” she said.

A falling tree on Tsawwassen First Nation land led to the deaths of 15 baby great blue herons when they fell from their nests.

Rescuers worked with Tsawwassen First Nation to rescue the baby herons, Stephenson said.

Pacific great blue herons are normally solitary but come together in rookeries to breed and nest.

They choose the site because there aren’t many humans or predators around. In the past, trees have fallen in the area but it wasn’t a problem until herons started expanding their rookery, Stephenson said.

The nestlings couldn’t escape because they were too young to fly

“They were all too young to be out of the nest,” she said. “When they dropped, it was like dropping a baby. They didn’t have any ability to hold themselves up.”

© Paul Steeves These two baby great blue herons survived a fall from their nests in the rookery on Tsawwassen First Nation land.

The two that survived have damage to their central nervous system as well as small wounds and scratches.

“Right now, they’re doing well,” Stephenson said. “We’re feeding them every 45 minutes from dawn to dusk.”

The rookery in Tsawwassen near the ferry spit is the largest in the region with 350 to 450 nests, which represent about 12 per cent of the country’s population of Pacific great blue herons.

In 2008, herons were described as a species of “special concern” in a status report. It estimated there were upwards of 5,000 nesting adults in the country.

A senior species at risk biologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada said in an earlier story that Pacific great blue herons are an “indicator species.

“It’s one of these species that exists at the top of the food chain and is susceptible to pollutants and changes in food supply,” said Ross Vennesland . “It represents an indicator of ecosystem health.”

A panic over fireworks shows how quickly conspiracy theories can spread
Anthony L. Fisher

Illegal fireworks illuminate the sky over the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn, NY. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson



A lot of people are unnerved right now, and for good reason. Thunderous explosions throughout the night are not making life any easier. 

The substantial increase in illegal fireworks being lit in inner cities, weeks before the Fourth of July, has spawned fantastical conspiracy theories about a massive government psy-op operation. 

These evidence-free theories have been spread by people and organizations with massive platforms who should know better. 

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

Fireworks are making people lose their minds.

Unauthorized pyrotechnics going off in the days around the Fourth of July is common. But in cities across the country they are being lit far earlier than usual, for longer periods of time, and appear to be louder and brighter than is typical of amateur fireworks.

It's led to conspiracy theories alleging a coordinated psychological operation designed to destabilize communities and prepare citizens for a coming government assault on the populace.

That police could engage in coordinated harassment of communities is indeed plausible. And such harassment reasonably breeds mistrust in government authorities. But it still doesn't make a nationwide fireworks conspiracy plausible.


Relentless thunderous booms in the night — in an era of profound anxiety due to a pandemic and unprecedented social unrest — are reasonably unnerving. But going down evidence-free rabbit holes won't help the credibility of the cause.
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and chemtrails

Indulging conspiracy theories is as American as apple pie.

A 2016 study by Chapman University showed 54% of Americans believe the government is concealing what it knows about the 9/11 terror attacks. 61% percent of Americans in 2017 believed in some form of an untold conspiracy theory surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination, according to FiveThirtyEight. And while it's down from a high of 30% in 1970, 6% of Americans still believe the 1969 moon landing was faked, according to Voice of America.

One thing that 9/11, the JFK assassination, and the moon landing all have in common is that they were all global paradigm-shifting events.


In a politically charged moment such as the present, highly implausible conspiracy theories about far less consequential incidents are being floated by some of the most prominent people in the country — the president, in particular.

In recent months, some of these acts of mass misinformation led to calls for Trump to be banned from social media platforms because of the societal damage that could be caused.

But Trump isn't the only American with a prominent platform that's susceptible to flirting with an unvetted conspiracy theory.

Last weekend, recently-minted Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times Magazine national correspondent Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted "Read This" while sharing a viral thread by author Robert Jones Jr. which posited that large amounts of fireworks going off late at night in certain cities are "part of a coordinated attack on Black and Brown communities by government forces. Jones, Jr. added: "The government and the mainstream media are being coy or pretending to be clueless about it all, of course."


To her credit, Hannah-Jones apologized, demonstrating she has more integrity than Trump — who has pretty much never admitted he was wrong about anything. Hannah-Jones on Monday told the National Review that urging her followers to "Read This" appeared as if it were an endorsement, and that it "was an irresponsible use of my platform and beneath my own standards, which is why I deleted my Tweet."

In a moment when government and law enforcement are rightfully and belatedly being criticized for their lack of accountability and transparency, a journalist of Hannah-Jones' stature propagating such theories contributes to the discreditation of journalism at a time when the public has never been more sympathetic to the need for massive reform.

Had Hannah-Jones issued a correction on her own Twitter feed, where she shared the conspiracy theory, the mea culpa would have been more effective than an emailed apology published on a conservative magazine's website.

Regardless, there's something about this particular conspiracy theory: that there's a massive, nationwide, coordinated effort to flood inner cities with fireworks to, as Jones, Jr. put it, desensitize Black and brown people "to get us so used to the sounds of firecrackers and other fireworks that when they start using their real artillery on us we won't know the difference. It's meant to sound like a war zone because a war zone is what it's about to become."

This, if true, would be an act of war on the citizenry by agents of the state, with the seeming complicity of the news media, and would require the cooperation and silence of thousands of people.

Put simply, even if the government were as evil as this theory alleges, it would still be implausible that they could pull off such a complicated, fiendish psy-op without anyone finding out about it.
Grucci's Razor

"Boompilling" is apparently a thing, according to BuzzFeed News' Craig Silverman.

The term is a play on "red-pilling" — a "Matrix" reference and internet-speak for a political turn to the right. But in this case, it refers to people who are convinced that increased fireworks activity is the work of a master plan by a nefarious, all-reaching government.

"Occam's Razor" is the principle which holds in a situation with multiple possible explanations, the simplest answer is also the likeliest.

For the boompilled, I propose "Grucci's Razor" (named for the US' first family of pyrotechnics): when an abnormal amount of fireworks are going off two weeks before the Fourth of July, evidence-based conclusions are the likeliest.

First, fireworks laws have been liberalized throughout the country. The increased availability means a lot of people have graduated from bottle rockets and Roman candles to much larger and more vibrant explosives that appear to be professional-grade, but are actually just of the more-impressive amateur variety.

Second, much of this country has been cooped up with absolutely nothing to do for months. So it's not implausible to assume that what is normally just a few nights of unauthorized fireworks going off around July 4th is now spread over a few weeks.

Third, as one fireworks distributor told Business Insider's Juliana Kaplan: "I'll tell you where the money is coming from: the unemployment stimulus, the extra $600 they're getting a week, 100%, because I'm swiping those red cards all day."

We're unnerved. We've lost confidence in institutions and are suspicious of authority. And at a time when sincere efforts at national conciliation would still be tough to succeed, Donald Trump is president.

Add sustained and irregular sessions of concussive explosions to the mix and you've got a pretty good brew to make most people unhinged.

Still, we need to maintain our grip, particularly those with prominent platforms, like Pulitzer Prize winners at the most prestigious news outlets in the English language. Especially since after Hannah-Jones apologized and deleted her tweet, the theories persist.

Hannah Hart — a YouTube star with nearly a million Twitter followers — on Tuesday shared screengrabs of what she called a "friendly neighborhood chat" that included theories that "government agencies" were driving around Los Angeles in SUVs and selling fireworks to "teens."

Even CNN offered some credence to the theories in an article that read in part, "Why the fireworks are going off so frequently is anyone's guess" and "Conspiracies abound over who's responsible."

We know that when Trump indulges in evidence-free conspiracy theories — even using the disingenuous "I'm just asking questions" posture — it's dangerous and irresponsible.

Trump's steadfast opponents, particularly decorated journalists, need to be better than that.

Fireworks are booming before July 4, but why the ruckus?

© Provided by The Canadian Press

NEW YORK — They are a symbol of celebration, loudly lighting up the night sky and best known in the U.S. as the explosive exclamation point to Fourth of July festivities.

This year, fireworks aren't being saved for Independence Day.

They've become a nightly nuisance ringing out from Connecticut to California, angering sleep-deprived residents and alarming elected officials.

All of them want to know: Why the fascination with fireworks, and where is everybody getting the goods?

“I had that same question,” said Julie L. Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association.

Theories range from co-ordinated efforts to blame those protesting police brutality to bored people blowing off steam following coronavirus lockdowns. Most states allow at least some types of consumer fireworks, making them difficult to contain in cities like New York where they're banned because people can drive a couple of hours away to buy them legally.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio set up a multiagency task force in hopes of getting answers, after blasts from Brooklyn to the Bronx have people in the city that never sleeps desperate to actually get some.

Made up of police, firefighters and the Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the task force will conduct sting operations to try to stop the sales of explosives that are proving dangerous. A 3-year-old boy was injured Wednesday while watching fireworks from her apartment window.

“This is a real problem. It is not just a quality-of-life problem and a noise problem,” de Blasio said.

Many Fourth of July celebrations will be smaller or eliminated entirely because of coronavirus restrictions. Yet the business of fireworks is booming, with some retailers reporting 200% increases from the same time last year, Heckman said.

Her industry had high hopes for 2020, with July 4 falling on a Saturday. Then came the pandemic and its closures and cancellations, leaving fireworks retailers worried they wouldn’t be able to scratch out much of a sales season.

Those fears have gone up in smoke.

“Sales are off the hook right now. We’re seeing this anomaly in use,” Heckman said. “What’s concerning to us is this usage in cities where consumer fireworks are not legal to use.”

Officials have the same concern.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said there are too many reports of fireworks being set off across the state, where they are mostly illegal.

“This is no way to blow off steam,” he told reporters Tuesday in Trenton, the capital.

New Jersey outlaws pyrotechnics except for sparklers and snakes, which produce smoke but don't explode, though residents have easy access to fireworks at shops in Pennsylvania.

In Morrisville, Pennsylvania, Trenton’s neighbour, a big shop sits at the foot of the bridge leading to New Jersey. On Tuesday, the parking lot was nearly full, with cars primarily from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but others from New York, North Carolina and even Texas.

Officials in Oakland, California, say they have received more complaints of illegal fireworks and reports of celebratory gunfire this year than is typical before the Fourth of July. At least five fires have been linked to fireworks since late May, officials said.

In Denver, authorities seized up to 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) of illegal fireworks discovered during a traffic stop this week.

Theories abound for why fireworks have gotten so popular.

Some speculate on social media that police are either setting them off themselves or giving them to local teens in hopes people blame those protesting racist policing. Another claim says police are just harassing communities of colour.

“My neighbours and I believe that this is part of a co-ordinated attack on Black and Brown communities by government forces,” tweeted the writer Robert Jones Jr., whose recent posts on fireworks have been retweeted thousands of times.

A video captured in New York appears to show fire department staff setting off the explosives outside their station.

Pyrotechnics expert Mike Tockstein, who has directed hundreds of professional fireworks shows, thinks there’s an easier explanation: the upcoming holiday and a nation filled with young people fed up with quarantines.

“I’ve heard a lot of conspiracy theories, and none of them are based in logic or data or facts,” said Tockstein, owner of Pyrotechnic Innovations, a California-based company that trains fireworks professionals.

“Fireworks are used across the entire country for a full month leading up to the Fourth of July,” he said. “There is a slight uptick, but I don’t think it’s anything more than people are stuck at home and hey, look, fireworks are available.”

One theory that can probably be blown up: organizers of cancelled Fourth of July events passing surplus products to recreational users.

“Nothing could be further from the truth in that regard,” Heckman said, “because that would be a felony.”

Those who sell professional fireworks, which are much more dangerous for amateurs to fire, need licenses from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and goods are housed in secure facilities, often guarded.

“It’s like the Fort Knox of fireworks,” said Larry Farnsworth, a spokesman for the National Fireworks Association.

Retail use falls under the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The fireworks Heckman is seeing aren’t professional. Retail aerial fireworks are capped at under 2 inches (5 centimetres) in diameter and burst at just under 200 feet (60 metres). Professional fireworks are wider and can explode hundreds of feet higher.

Still, they can be a bother at any height for young children, pets and veterans and others with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In Hartford, Connecticut, police say they have been responding to up to 200 complaints a day. Connecticut allows only fireworks that don’t explode or launch into the air, but they're legal a drive away in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia has some restrictions on fireworks and warned of their dangers this week after a number of complaints.

"We understand the absence of in-person festivals may cause some to crave the excitement of an enormous fireworks display over the river. But the simple fact is that these are extremely dangerous products, and the risks far outweigh the momentary excitement of the explosions,” city Managing Director Brian Abernathy said.

The light shows could last a while longer. Many pop-up seasonal stores only opened this week. Tockstein predicts more people will buy fireworks in the coming weeks as they realize traditional July 4 displays won’t happen.

“I think with all these public events being cancelled, more families will bring the celebration home for the Fourth of July,” Heckman said.

___

Klepper reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writers Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia; and Cuneyt Dil in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the child injured in New York was a boy, not a girl, per new information from police.

Brian Mahoney And David Klepper, The Associated Press

Anonymous Twitter accounts in Brazil are pressuring advertisers to drop conservative media campaigns
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia Jun 18, 2020

Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro. Reuters


Sleeping Giants is a Twitter account that has participated in news-making actions that have inspired many advertisers to pull funding from conservative media outlets, such as Fox News and Breitbart.

In 2020, a copycat account was made in Brazil, finding fast success in getting ads pulled from numerous right-wing sites.

In Brazil's regional media economy, numerous off-shoot accounts have sprung up to pressure local advertisers.

In 2016, Matt Rivitz created Sleeping Giants, a Twitter profile dedicated to reporting big brand advertisements on conservative websites. With a few clicks, Rivitz helped catalyze an international political movement.

After finding huge success in pushing for the withdrawal of millions in funds from right-wing websites and news organizations in the US, such as Breitbart and Fox News, his idea ended up spreading across the world and reached Brazil where, in less than a month, the profile Sleeping Giants Brasil has quickly managed to convince brands to withdraw ads from the Jornal da Cidade Online, considered one of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's largest mouthpieces and propagators of misinformation. It's also the target of a Congressional investigation.Through Google's ad platform, websites like Jornal da Cidade Online earn money based on views and clicks on ads displayed from advertisers who buy advertising spaces with target audience data.

Sleeping Giants Brasil was created on May 18 and in just a few days it managed to dry up the ads-revenue of its first target — more than 130 brands have committed to remove ads from Jornal da Cidade Online, demonetizing the publication of about $70,000.

On June 5 Sleeping Giants Brasil set its sights on a second target, right-wing site Conexão Política. In less than 24 hours it removed its advertising tool.

The reaction was immediate in Bolsonaro's camp, with one of the sons of the Brazilian president revolting on Twitter and Bolsonaro's followers accusing the companies that removed ads of "censorship." Carlos Bolsonaro, a city councilman in Rio de Janeiro and son of the president, was appointed by the Federal Police as the leader of the so-called "Office of Hate," a term coined by government leader Joice Hasselmann to describe a group of advisors to the president who allegedly spread misinformation in support of the government as part of their job.

After being alerted by Sleeping Giants, Banco do Brasil (Brazil's largest state-owned bank) removed its advertisements from Jornal da Cidade Online. The reaction of the government and the "Office of Hate" was swift. Carlos Bolsonaro and the government's communications secretary, Fabio Wajngarten, complained about the decision and the bank's marketing department removed the advertising restriction on the website.
A conservative version of Sleeping Giants Brasil has been created in response to the movement

In response to Sleeping Giants Brasil, the conservative "Gigantes Não Dormem" (Giants Don't Sleep) was created, though it only has a fraction of the followers (about 28,000 followers compared to more than 360,000). Its target is the left-wing website Brasil 247 — accused of receiving money from lobbyist Milton Pascowitch at the request of then Workers' Party treasurer João Vaccari Neto. The payment was discovered during investigations of the Car Wash Operation, in 2015.


The success of the far-right venture, however, is so far doubtful.

According to the founder of Sleeping Giants Brasil, who remains anonymous for fear of political retribution, the idea of creating the profile came from reading an article in the Spanish newspaper El País about the movement created by Rivitz, noting that it's not restricted to far-right sites.
Regional off-shoot accounts are targeting different ad markets

Sleeping Giants Rio Grande do Sul told Insider that "the movement has no political party and no ideological tendency. It has a very simple objective: to fight fake news and hate speech that goes against democracy and science, with the intention of providing a service to companies that often do not know that they advertise on these sites."

They added that "there are people [within the movement] with different worldviews, but everyone respects the goal and knows how to separate [their own view with the work done]. We don't exclude left-wing websites from the analysis, but the daily use of lying from emerging ultra-right sites is remarkable. We don't perceive this same commitment in left-wing sites, for example, in how they deal with the issue of pandemic, quarantine, chloroquine, etc. We have truth, science and democracy among our principles. Any website that attacks [these principles] will have more weight in the choice."


Insider also talked to Sleeping Giants Curitiba's profile administrator. Curitiba is the capital of the southern state of Paraná. They said there were inspired "to look for ways to combat disinformation" and decided to "adapt to the Brazilian reality," in part by regionalizing their activity. "There are particularities in Brazil, for example the capillarity of regional initiatives, unprecedented until then."

"The purpose of regional accounts is simple," They said. "As programmatic advertising is geolocalized they serve to inform local advertisers. This work has proven to be the most complicated because they are generally not large companies, they are smaller companies without marketing departments that buy Google AdSense ads without knowing the tool itself. Many do not even seem to know how to do the filters there. It's more of an orientation job. We're developing tutorials to help."

The Sleeping Giants Rio Grande do Sul profile administrator also explained to Business Insider that they concluded "that it would be a good idea to create regional profiles, because Brazil is very large and the algorithms currently allow a well regionalized dissemination [of advertisements]. This way, many regional advertisers don't reach the [main] centers of the country, so they wouldn't be approached."

But, the profile administrator added, "these regional advertisers are many and they alone are enough to sustain a large network of hatred and lies," and this is why the first regional profile, the Sleeping Giants RS, was created, "which immediately got positive responses from several big local brands."


"There have been cases of ad agencies and giant companies that just didn't know who had bought the ads and how to block them," they added. "The campaign is to inform and charge for more enlightened advertising, we don't propose boycotts or coercion to companies. We have been particularly careful with small businesses."

The demonetization of their targets via Adsense has occurred faster than they expected and Rio Grande do Sul's creator said that "without the regional ones I imagine that the work of the national profile would take more time."

Their targets are chosen based on lists of the largest misinformation propagators given out by fact-checking agencies, such as A Pública. "We're in the midst of a very serious pandemic, [therefore] websites that spread many lies related to Covid-19 will have more weight in the choice. We work with one target at a time to increase the effectiveness of the action."

Sleeping Giants Brazil membership has grown exponentially, as has its success, which has caused serious problems for the Brazilian far-right.


"All we want is for society to stop being ruled by fake news propagators," said the administrator of Sleeping Giants Rio Grande do Sul.