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Saturday, June 19, 2021

Chipotle gave huge payouts to its CEO and shareholders, then blamed workers for price increases - here's what's really going on
insider@insider.com (Paul Constant)

© Provided by Business Insider Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures and cohost of the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast with Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein.

In the latest episode, they spoke about Chipotle's announcement to increase menu prices by about 4% to cover increased employee wages.

Constant points out, however, the price increase could be to cover the $24 million raise recently given to CEO Brian Niccol.

Last week, the "New York Times" ran a story about a small menu price increase at a fast-casual food chain. Written by Julie Creswell, the piece began, "Executives at Chipotle said on Tuesday that the fast-food chain had raised menu prices by about 4% to cover the cost of the increased employee wages."

Headlined "Chipotle will increase its menu prices as labor costs rise," this story is confusing for a few reasons.

Price increases and wages

Firstly, the New York Times is not traditionally in the business of reporting on price increases in restaurants. And a 4% increase doesn't seem newsworthy at all - Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol admits in the last paragraph of the piece that the increase amounts to "quarters and dimes that we're layering in" to existing prices.

So the only reason this story could possibly be considered worthy of the Times's world-famous "All the News That's Fit to Print" slogan is Chipotle's claim that the price increases were directly caused by increased worker pay. The chain recently raised its starting wages to an average of $15 per hour - but only in a fraction of its restaurants. Creswell writes that the "pay increases apply only to [Chipotle's] 650 company-owned restaurants; the vast majority of its nearly 14,000 restaurants in the United States are independently owned."

So with all that information in mind, the hook of this New York Times story seems to be that Chipotle's executives are blaming a tiny menu price-bump on a starting-wage increase that's been enacted in roughly one out of 20 of its restaurants.

Video: Why Chipotle raising prices may be a good thing for its stock (Yahoo! Finance)

What's disappointing is that Creswell seems to be repeating Niccol's claims without doing any investigation into Chipotle's finances. Chipotle never supports its claims that the price increase is due to wage increases, and Creswell never mentioned that Chipotle paid Niccol $38 million last year - an all-time high.

Joanna Fantozzi at Nation's Restaurant News reports that Niccol's 2020 salary was "set to be just $14.8 million but financial targets were waived in light of the company's stellar performance during the pandemic." So Chipotle's executives gave its CEO a $24 million dollar raise, which means that Niccol earned "2,898 times more than the median Chipotle worker's salary of $13,127."

Why didn't Chipotle's board mention Niccol's $24 million raise as a possible reason for its menu price increases? Creswell doesn't say. She also doesn't note that as of the first quarter of 2021, Chipotle was sitting on $1.2 billion in cash and equivalents.

The Times story also doesn't mention that the company is now in the middle of a huge stock buyback campaign. Sakshi Agarwalla writes at Seeking Alpha that "In an effort to enhance shareholders' value, [Chipotle] restarted its stock repurchase plans and have announced additional $100 million for stock buyback, bringing to a total $153.8 million repurchase plan. At the end of the first quarter, [Chipotle] repurchased 61.2 million shares worth $87.2 million."

Stock buybacks and wealth transfer

You can learn more about stock buybacks in this week's episode of "Pitchfork Economics" with special guest Senator Cory Booker, but the shorthand is this: Stock buybacks, which were illegal before 1982, have proven to be one of the most efficient mechanisms of wealth transferral from workers to the wealthy over the last 40 years.

The richest 10%of American households own 84% of the stock in this country, and the top 1% holds about 38%. So Chipotle takes profits that could go to keeping menu prices low and employee wages high and instead hands them off to wealthy shareholders, no strings attached.

Despite the fact that Chipotle has dedicated nearly $200 million to executive and shareholder payouts in the last few months, the New York Times credulously reprinted the company's claims that an average $15/hour starting wage in 650 restaurants is the reason why the company is increasing menu prices by 4%. To be clear, I'm only singling the Times out as an example here because they're the gold standard of journalism - the truth is that a number of outlets repeated Chipotle's claims without investigating the numbers.

The complete failure of many legitimate news sources to interrogate these claims should be a learning moment for business journalists. If you're simply repeating the information given to you in a press release from a corporation's PR department, you're not in the news business - you're volunteering for the company's marketing campaign.

Business Insider

First-of-a-kind study reveals Canada’s most vulnerable eco-regions
Nathan Howes

WEATHER NETWORK

JUNE 19/2021

Embedded content: https://players.brightcove.net/1942203455001/B1CSR9sVf_default/index.html?videoId=6237786286001

Conservation isn't just about saving Canada's endangered species, it's also about restoring and protecting nature, so future generations can continue to reap the benefits it provides.

That's why the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has conducted and released the first study of its kind in the country's most populated sector -- the Conservation Assessment for Southern Canada (CASC). The organization reviewed 77 ecological regions including nine crisis eco-regions, where wildlife and their habitats are the most diverse and under the greatest threats.

SEE ALSO: Canadians explore nature more to relieve COVID-19 pandemic stress

The analysis focused on endangered species and habitats, land use and wildlife corridors. Eco-regions were classified based on their biodiversity and threats compared to other eco-areas in Southern Canada. The regions cover many of the major cities, such as Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver, along with many smaller communities.

The study was published in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation. The full analysis and details of the eco-regions including nine crisis territories can be found here.

The eco-regions are a "great way of looking at our country through an ecosystem lens," said Dan Kraus, NCC's senior conservation biologist, who recently spoke to The Weather Network about the study.

© Provided by The Weather Network

Backus Woods nature preserve in Walsingham, Ont. Photo: Nature Conservancy of Canada.

"That way we’re able to rank these eco-regions in terms of what’s happening, what are some of the opportunities for conservation and identify places where maybe we need to accelerate our efforts to protect wildlife and wild spaces," said Kraus.

"Southern Canada is where most endangered species are and where most Canadians live. As a result, it’s where our wildlife and habitats are at the greatest risk.”

CRISIS REGIONS, AREAS WITH HIGHEST NUMBER OF THREATENED SPECIES

The nine crisis eco-regions identified represent less than five per cent of Canada. They are situated in Canada’s most heavily settled landscapes, where 70 per cent of people live, according to NCC. More than 60 per cent of Canada’s species at risk are found in these eco-regions, which generally have few existing protected areas or remaining natural areas.

Southwestern Ontario contains more than 130 of Canada’s most endangered species -- the highest of anywhere else in the country, according to the study. Other regions with a high number of species of national and global concern include parts of Vancouver Island, particularly the eastern sections, the Prairies and portions of the Maritimes including southwestern Nova Scotia and P.E.I.

© Provided by The Weather Network

Sharp-tailed snake. Photo: Marsgal Hedin.

Although the NCC began developing conservation assessments for broad areas in Canada 20 years ago, the group decided to examine the southern half of the country as a whole would help put its work into context and how it contributes to the protection of local and national biodiversity, Kraus said.

“It would also be great for the people if they can identify the ecological region they live in because ultimately the decisions about conservation, the decisions about the species we save and species we lose will be up to the people living in those regions,” said Kraus.

STUDY ALSO HIGHLIGHTS 'BRIGHT SPOTS' ACROSS CANADA

The study may paint a grim picture about the state of Canada's biodiversity in many regions, but it also has an optimistic tone to it -- to highlight "bright spots across the country where conservation is working and working well, including many Nature Conservancy of Canada projects," Kraus said.

© Provided by The Weather Network

Foxner Nature Reserve, N.B. Photo: Mike Dembeck.

"Our challenge now is to replicate some of those success stories and to amplify them, and to stop the loss of habitats and species in our country," said Kraus.

The next 10 years are going to be the “most exciting in Canada’s history for conservation,” Kraus said, as the federal government has some “ambitious” plans in terms of expanding the parks and protected areas.

“Nature Conservancy of Canada will use studies like this to help direct us to the places where conservation work is not just important, but urgent. The decisions we make in the next 10 years are going to have an effect on nature in our country forever,” said Kraus.

Thumbnail courtesy of Nature Conservancy of Canada, of the Clayoquot Island Preserve in British Columbia.

Nathan Howes can be followed on Twitter: @HowesNathan.

ATTENTION WOLF KILLERS

Culling cutlines, not wolves, key to preserving caribou herds: researcher

New research suggests wolves can be steered away from the endangered caribou herds they prey on by making the man-made trails they use to hunt harder to move along.

Provided by The Canadian Press

The recently published study adds to the debate over whether governments should depend on shooting and poisoning wolves to protect caribou, said lead author Jonah Keim.

"It's probably one of the most challenging conservation issues in the Northern Hemisphere," said Keim, an independent researcher based in New York state.

Woodland caribou herds in Alberta and British Columbia have been declining for decades. Scientists blame habitat loss — since 2000, B.C. and Alberta have lost at least 33,000 square kilometres of old-growth forest — and increasing predation as wolves and bears follow roads and seismic lines into landscapes that once offered caribou refuge.

Governments, with scientific support, have turned to maternity pens, captive breeding and killing hundreds of wolves in an effort to keep caribou around.

Maybe there's another way, Keim thought. Maybe the problem isn't the wolves — it's the artificial trails they're taking advantage of.

"How do we get at movement?" he asked.

Keim and his colleagues set up motion detector cameras on logging roads, seismic lines and game trails throughout the Parker caribou range in northeast B.C. The team recorded movements of animals past those cameras for a year.

They measured which of those features were easiest to travel by timing themselves as they walked them. They considered which ones lead into the marshy wetlands that caribou like and which went to higher ground favoured by moose and deer.

Then, they made the easy trails into the best caribou habitat harder to move through.

"We hinged trees from the sides of the features into the seismic line," Keim said. "(We) did soil mounding to create hummocks. We tried to make the feature as difficult to move down as was the adjacent habitat beside it."

They sat for another year and let the cameras roll. Then they compared the incidence of wolves or bears and caribou using the same trail on the same day to what it was before the treatment as well as to an untreated control area.

"We were able to reduce the encounter rate between wolves and caribou by 85 per cent," said Keim.

Dave Hervieux, an Alberta Environment caribou specialist, said Keim's results are consistent with other studies but only address half the problem.

"Unnaturally high and unsustainable levels of wolf predation on caribou are due to both increases in wolf travel and increases in wolf numbers," he wrote in an email.

"Linear feature restoration is a key action. However, our conclusion is that it is unlikely that linear feature restoration, as a sole action, will provide sufficient protection in the near-term for endangered woodland caribou populations."

Hervieux said the government is working with industry to restore forest cover to seismic lines, pipelines and roads.

Still, Keim said focusing "encounter management" could go a long way to reducing Alberta's and B.C.'s dependence on the annual killing of wolves.

"We know that predator removal is socially and ethically controversial and it may not be solving the true problem."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2021.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Experts urge caution as Canada’s COVID-19 waste washes up on coastlines

Twinkle Ghosh

Each year, nearly eight million tonnes of plastic pollution enters the oceans from all over the world, but for the first time in 27 years, Canadians are witnessing an unusual clutter of masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) kits washing up along the country's shorelines.

Play "Microscopic plastics polluting our waterways"

According to Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup’s annual “Dirty Dozen” 2020 report, some 15,000 volunteers removed over 41,000 kilograms of litter from Canadian coasts and listed finding discarded COVID-19-related supplies among them.

Read more: Plastic pollution crisis — How waste ends up in our oceans

"This is the first time that we've seen it recorded and sort of statistically significant numbers too," Laura Hardman, leader of plastic-free oceans at Ocean Wise, told Global News Thursday.

"We just need to remember that as a society, as a whole, that whatever we dispose, whatever leaks out into our environment has implications."

The organization didn’t have a category on its data cards last year to formally track the amount of PPE-related litter but has added one for 2021, given the situation.

Play "All-female crew sailing globe to raise plastics awareness"

"I would really, really be asking for people to think responsibly about their personal impacts and to think about not only how they are disposing of masks, but also how they are using them, how they are ensuring that they don't get lost, that they don't leak out into the world," Hardman said.

While disposable masks may look like they are made of paper or natural fabric, they are manufactured using polymers that sometimes take decades or centuries to decompose.

Read more: Swirling pile of trash in Pacific Ocean is now 3 times the size of France

"That's an important consideration," Dr. Shoshanah Jacobs, associate professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of Guelph, told Global News Thursday. "These are new sorts of pollutants that are being introduced into the environment... So, we don't really know about how they'll kind of spread around quite, quite yet."

That does not, however, mean that public health should be compromised and people should give up on masks and PPEs Jacobs said.

"But surely we could have anticipated the need to provide proper disposal outlets and venues and also proper messaging to the public with respect to how we manage these important health-saving devices to ensure that it doesn't compromise the environment."

"If people are comfortable and able to use reusable masks, obviously that's a great thing," Jacobs said, but emphasized the need "to be supporting people" who are not, and guiding them on "proper disposal" of the single-use masks.

Hardman agreed.

Caught off guard

At the onset of the pandemic, Hardman said Canadians were caught off guard and were very "quick to react and we were put in a position where we had to change our behaviour."

As a result, she noted, a lot of single-use masks were given out initially. And whilst that was a great initiative, she said, "one of the things that we need to do as a society is to keep thinking about when single-use is necessary and when we can opt for a reusable alternative."

"I feel that, again, this is a message that continually needs to be, it should be, reinforced," Hardman said.

"It is for all of us to take responsibility for what we are, what we are purchasing and that we are handling it and we are disposing of it correctly, by making sure that we are putting the right things in recycling streams and are always doing it right."

"Canadian entrepreneur working to turn plastic waste into clean fuel"

For Jacobs, it's not really "a littering problem."

"It's a mask and PPE disposal problem. It may also be that people just really don't know how," she said.

The question we need to ask here, she said, is if "we need to have separate receptacles for PPEs, can they go in regular garbage or do we need to launch an education program" to make people aware of how to handle these products.

At this point, Jacobs said, it is of utmost importance that we follow "the guidelines or the advice of municipalities that are involved in waste management."

Video: Scientists find microplastics deep in Arctic ice

While recycling schemes differ between municipalities, Hardman said most of them are "very good" at keeping their websites updated.

"You can see very clearly what material can be recycled within a jurisdiction," she said. "So I think it is for the citizens to make sure that we are checking up on that. It is for municipalities to keep that information up to date, and it is for businesses to provide us with clear and transparent information about how a certain material can be handled."
How big is our plastic problem?

According to the United Nations, more than eight billion tons of plastic have been produced globally over the last 65 years, of which only a fraction has been recycled.

In 2020 alone, the proportion of single-use food packaging litter found on Canadian coastlines doubled. According to the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup report, single-use food and beverage litter jumped "from 15.3 per cent of all litter in 2019 to 26.6 per cent in 2020.”

Read more: Whale dies after 80 plastic bags found crammed in its stomach

Once plastic gets into the ocean, it can be hard to filter it back out. Instead of biodegrading, most plastics simply break into smaller fragments until they become known as micro-plastics, which are less than five millimetres in size.

By 2050, the World Economic Forum predicts that the oceans will hold more plastic than fish. The biggest polluting countries of the world so far are all in Asia, with China contributing the most.

Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka are among the top five. Canada and the United States not far behind.

Montreal police filmed kneeling on Black teen's neck

Duration: 01:41

The video was filmed by a passerby in front of a bus stop in the city's Villeray district on June 10.

cbc.ca

Families speak out against police violence at BLM Toronto Juneteenth event in Ottawa

Several Black and Indigenous families whose loved ones have been harmed and killed by police came together in Ottawa to mark Juneteenth and demand accountability and changes to the justice system.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Black Lives Matter Toronto organized the gathering on the steps of the prime minister's office, where 10 families from across the country shared their harrowing experiences and called for a defunding of the police system.

The event came on what's also known as Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. and has been declared a federal holiday south of the border.

Black Lives Matter Canada co-founder Syrus Marcus Ware says while Juneteenth is about celebrating liberation and justice, it's also a day to highlight activism and the struggle for freedom.

The visual artist, activist and scholar says the group wanted to come together on Juneteenth to show that they're still living with a lot of the same conditions and racism that the police force was built on.

BLM dubbed the event as Canada's first gathering of Black and Indigenous families affected by police violence, and the group hopes to bring them back together on Juneteenth next year.

"Juneteenth is a day to come together and to continue our activism and to say, 'Until we are all free, the work is not done,'" Ware said in a phone interview after Saturday's gathering, which was livestreamed on the BLM Toronto Facebook page.

"Because Blackness has no borders, because Indigeneity has no borders, because the concept of U.S. and Canada was a colonial-created construct, we know that the celebration of emancipation is felt all throughout North America. So on Juneteenth, we are definitely in a moment of celebration and activism here in Canada, saying: 'What can we do to talk about the struggles here in Canada on Juneteenth?'"

While Juneteenth specifically commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, it's also a time to remember "there was slavery here in Canada, too," added Ware.

"This is part of why we mark August 1 as Emancipation Day, which was when the British Empire outlawed slavery. So these struggles are connected, our work is connected," he said. "And Juneteenth is a day here in Canada to talk about our colonial past, our history with slavery, and also to say, 'What is still happening for Black life? And how can we improve the conditions so that we're not living under these terrible situations where all of these families are losing their loved ones?'"

Saturday's news conference included the family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a Toronto woman who fell to her death from a balcony while police were in her home on May 27, 2020.

Last summer the Ontario police oversight body known as the Special Investigations Unit cleared the six Toronto police officers who were in the apartment, saying their efforts to de-escalate the situation were unsuccessful but none of them broke the law.

The family's lawyer, Jason Bogle, said her relatives are still seeking accountability after the Office of the Independent Police Review Director rejected the family's application to file a complaint over the SIU findings.

"We are appealing to once again bring to the forefront that systemic racism exists in police forcing, that systemic racism has to be battled inside of police forcing, and that if the powers that be do not hold those accountable for these actions, that these situations will still occur again and again," Bogle told the gathering.

"We will not stand for it, we will continue to fight and we will find answers, whether it's by marching or by protesting or by lobbying the powers that be that change has to come."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2021.

Victoria Ahearn, The Canadian Press

Black Lives Matter marks Juneteenth in Ottawa with protest

Duration: 02:59

Protesters in Ottawa are calling for police accountability and justice reform on the same day the U.S. is observing a new federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery

cbc.ca

Edmonton-raised Mahmud Jamal nominated as first person of colour to Supreme Court of Canada

ALSO THE FIRST OF THE BAHAI FAITH

Duration: 01:34

At a time when incidents of racism and hate keep making headlines in Alberta and across the country, news that Canada's highest court could welcome its first person of colour is inspiring people in Edmonton that knew him. Chris Chacon has more on the early life of Mahmud Jamal.

PHENOM

One-legged woman is a world class salsa dancer

Duration: 00:44

"On this occasion, I participated in a cultural activity with our academy @fbacklatino and its director @roberteran84, also my life partner and my dance partner who would never ever change for anything or anyone." "This activity was carried out in my community and I am very happy to have participated, and even more so knowing that many people like our work, what we do and project as an academy. In addition to also observing the happiness and motivation of people when seeing a person in my condition dance, and much more considering that just in that area was where that tree was that was the one that caused the loss of my lower left limb." "This loss was not an impediment at all. from the first moment I discovered that I could dance again. nothing stopped me. I'll keep doing what I like until the end of time!"