Young Innovators: USask researcher explores water economy on the Prairies

In the Prairie provinces, where agriculture is a fundamental industry, water is an essential ingredient in the recipe for a healthy economy.


Leila Eamen, PhD candidate, studies sustainable water resources management with a hydro-economic approach. (Photo: Submitted)

Sep 7, 2021

University of Saskatchewan (USask) PhD candidate Leila Eamen and her research team have developed a hydro-economic model that investigates alternative ways to allocate water resources from the Saskatchewan River Basin among the Prairie provinces to maximize economic benefits, such as a province’s gross domestic product.

In Saskatchewan, where precipitation has been low and heat levels high in the summer of 2021, such a model has become extremely relevant as natural water supply dwindles.

“In the case of shared waters, estimating the impacts of water allocation decisions in one part of the region on other parts is crucial to prevent economic losses and build resilience in our communities,” Eamen said.

In the Prairie provinces, where agriculture is a fundamental industry, water is an essential ingredient in the recipe for a healthy economy.

Close to 80 per cent of Canada’s irrigated agriculture operations take place in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. Although Canada is considered a water-rich country, it is important to closely manage the water supply as climate change has already begun to affect the amounts available.

For example, what would happen to the agriculture industry in Saskatchewan should Alberta provide its agricultural lands with more water from the Saskatchewan River? Eamen said her model will be able to aid in determining the answer.

The model will estimate the amount of water available in the river basin and how it should be shared among users to best support the economy. Making these determinations is a critical step to ensuring the security of water resources as supply levels change.

The model will also consider important influences in the environment that will most likely cause water shortages in the future, such as climate change and population growth.

“If water availability decreases by different percentages, for example, 10 per cent and 50 per cent as a result of climate change or socio-economic development, we can reduce the associated economic loss in GDP by up to 28 per cent and 69 per cent, respectively, by allocating water based on economic considerations rather than the existing priority-based allocation strategy in place in most parts of the Saskatchewan River Basin.”

The research is unique in that it allows for a number to be calculated for the first time to represent the climate change-induced effects of water shortage on the economy. The work has been published in Ecological Economics and Science of the Total Environment; two more papers are under revision for Water Resources Research and Environmental Modelling and Software.

Developed under the supervision of Dr. Saman Razavi (PhD), associate professor in the USask School of Environment and Sustainability (SENS), and Dr. Roy Brouwer (PhD) from the University of Waterloo, the research can inform policymakers about the impacts of water allocation on the economy and help them to make decisions that minimize economic losses and navigate trade-offs between economic, environmental and cultural considerations.

“The results of my research show that the economy of Alberta and Saskatchewan is vulnerable to water shortages that are likely (due to) climate change,” said Eamen.

“The economic platform developed in this research accounts for the interconnectedness between different industries and various regions.”

Although the model was developed based on the shared water resources in the Saskatchewan River Basin, its methodology can also be used in other regions.

“Being born and raised in the semi-arid region of my home country, Iran, made me understand the real meaning of limited water resources from the early stages of my life,” said Eamen, who defended her PhD thesis in July 2021.

“I came to Canada to pursue a PhD and help find methods of managing our water resources more efficiently, without eroding their sustainability. I am interested in opportunities I can explore to learn interactively and dynamically about water.”

In the future, Eamen and her team plan to share their hydro-economic model with important stakeholders and a wider audience. Interactive tools are being developed so anyone can view the economic effects of water-sharing at any time.

The research was funded by USask and the Integrated Modelling Program for Canada, as part of the Canada First Research Excellence Fund for Global Water Futures.

Deep Water: Researchers find more below than previously thought

More water lies within the Earth’s continental crust than previously thought, according to new estimates published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, which indicates the planet’s land mass groundwater is the largest store of water in any form, larger than ice sheets.


Dr. Grant Ferguson (PhD), University of Saskatchewan (USask) professor of civil, geological and environmental engineering. (Photo: University of Saskatchewan)

KATHY FITZPATRICK FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN
Sep 9, 2021

These are some of the main findings of lead author Dr. Grant Ferguson (PhD), University of Saskatchewan (USask) professor of civil, geological and environmental engineering, and his co-authors, an international and interdisciplinary group of scientists studying the earth’s subsurface biosphere. The newly published estimates are critical to their work.

“We know that there’s life,” Ferguson explained. “There’s been cell counts in these waters down to several kilometres. A lot of those estimates are based on how much water is available, how much pore space for these microbes to live in.”

The examination of deep groundwater reservoirs has implications for a wide array of challenges: the search for life on Mars, better understanding the origins of life on Earth — even underground nuclear waste storage, and extraction of lithium from these waters for such uses as electric batteries.

The paper builds on earlier work published in 2018 that focused in particular on water held in crystalline rock, the type that makes up the Precambrian shield and accounts for about 72 per cent of the continental crust. Ferguson added sedimentary rock to the calculation, and also looked at how porosity in rock may change at various depths thus affecting water volumes. (Rocks hold water in holes or pores, much like a sponge.)

The finding that crustal groundwater is a larger reservoir than ice sheets “has important implications in terms of how we think water has been moving around the planet for quite a long time,” Ferguson said. It’s known that some of these waters at depths of several kilometres can be millions of years old or, in some cases, more that a billion or more years old “so it rewrites how we think about how water cycles on our planet.”

Some of the oldest groundwater ever identified was discovered around Timmins, Ont., in 2013-2018 by a team led by Dr. Barbara Sherwood Lollar (PhD) and Dr. Oliver Warr (PhD) at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Chris Ballentine (PhD) of Oxford, co-authors in this paper.

“What’s fascinating about these fluids (crustal groundwater) is how much we still don’t know,” Sherwood Lollar said.

It is believed that groundwater exists down to at least 10 kilometres below the Earth’s surface, the authors write. Global groundwater volumes in the upper two kilometres, the zone where potable water is found, were previously well estimated. The paper concludes that a comparable volume, largely saline and non-potable, exists in the 2-10 kilometre zone. Although most of these deep groundwater systems are thought to be disconnected from the rest of the hydrologic cycle, they remain largely unexplored.

Sherwood Lollar wonders how much life is in the deep subsurface compared to Earth’s surface, and how and when it got there.

“Is it possible that life actually originated in these kinds of subsurface environments, and not in Darwin’s warm pond on the surface? And then finally what does all of this tell us about, for instance, the search for life elsewhere in our universe?” she said.

A scientific figure with three columns, comparing the relative compositions of different water reservoirs on Earth. From left to right, it shows global water, all continental water, and all fresh water. Together, shallow and deep groundwater (bottom and middle blocks in ‘continental’ column) make up around 60% of all continental water, while ice sheets are around 40%. (Credit: AGU/Geophysical Research Letters)

On Mars the search for life is linked with the search for water which, if it still exists there in liquid form, is probably buried deep in the subsurface.

Knowing the volume of Earth’s crustal groundwater, as well as the porosity of the subsurface, is also important in the production of elements that may be used in alternative energy such as hydrogen and helium, noted co-author Dr. Jennifer C. McIntosh (PhD), University Distinguished Scholar and professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona.

Her research focus — how old the water is and where it has travelled in the subsurface — has implications in the search for safe places to store radioactive waste and carbon dioxide emissions. There must be pore space, but also the groundwater must be isolated from the rest of the environment, not actively circulating and possibly re-emerging at the surface.

McIntosh is particularly interested in the interface between actively circulating shallow groundwater and stagnant deep groundwater, which may help to reveal the bottom of the hydrologic cycle. Not only is the extent of groundwater resources a critical issue around the world she explained, “knowing the depth that you can drill to fresh and brackish groundwater is really important.” A case example is her region, southwestern USA, where recently-announced cuts in the water supply from the Colorado River mean farmers now have to rely more on groundwater.

Notably, the paper also estimates less fresh water in the ground than previous estimates suggest.

Link to the article: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2021GL093549

 

'MRI' scan reveals spectacular ice age landscapes beneath the North Sea

by British Antarctic Survey

Credit: British Antarctic Survey

Spectacular ice age landscapes beneath the North Sea have been discovered using 3D seismic reflection technology. Similar to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) the images reveal in unprecedented detail huge seafloor channels—each one 10 times wider than the River Thames.

For the first time an international team of scientists can show previously undetectable landscapes that formed beneath the vast ice sheets that covered much of the UK and Western Europe thousands to millions of years ago. These ancient structures provide clues to how ice sheets react to a warming climate. The findings are published this week in the journal Geology.

So called tunnel valleys, buried hundreds of meters beneath the seafloor in the North Sea are remnants of huge rivers that were the 'plumbing system' of the ancient ice sheets as they melted in response to rising air temperatures.

Lead author James Kirkham, from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of Cambridge, says:

"The origin of these channels was unresolved for over a century. This discovery will help us better understand the ongoing retreat of present-day glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland.

"In the way that we can leave footprints in the sand, glaciers leave an imprint on the land upon which they flow. Our new cutting edge data gives us important markers of deglaciation. "

Dr. Kelly Hogan, co-author and a geophysicist at BAS, says:

"Although we have known about the huge glacial channels in the North Sea for some time, this is the first time we have imaged fine-scale landforms within them. These delicate features tell us about how water moved through the channels (beneath the ice) and even how ice simply stagnated and melted away. It is very difficult to observe what goes on underneath our large ice sheets today, particularly how moving water and sediment is affecting ice flow and we know that these are important controls on ice behavior. As a result, using these ancient channels to understand how ice will respond to changing conditions in a warming climate is extremely relevant and timely."

3D seismic reflection technology, which was provided by industry partners, uses sound waves to generate detailed three-dimensional representations of ancient landscapes buried deep beneath the surface of the Earth, in a similar manner to how magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans can image structures within the human body. The method can image features as small as a few meters beneath the surface of the Earth, even if they are buried under hundreds of meters of sediment. The exceptional detail provided by this new data reveals the imprint of how the ice interacted with the channels as they formed. By comparing these ancient 'ice fingerprints' to those left beneath modern glaciers, the scientists were able to reconstruct how these ancient ice sheets behaved as they receded.

By diving into the past, this work provides a window into a future warmer world where new processes may begin to alter the plumbing system and flow behavior of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

"Tunnel valley infill and genesis revealed by high‑resolution 3D seismic data" is published in the journal Geology.

New research reveals secrets of former subglacial lakes in North America

More information: James D. Kirkham et al, Tunnel valley infill and genesis revealed by high-resolution 3-D seismic data, Geology (2021). DOI: 10.1130/G49048.1

Journal information: Geology 

Provided by British Antarctic Survey 

North Sea's hidden ice age past is revealed in 3D

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent
@BBCAmoson Twitter
Published1 day ago

IMAGE SOURCE,JAMES KIRKHAM 

The tunnel valleys are now buried by North Sea bottom-muds, but their outline is seen in seismic data

Spectacular ice age landscapes have been revealed beneath the North Sea.

These deep, kilometres-wide channels, known as tunnel valleys, were cut by fast-flowing rivers that ran under Northern Europe's ancient ice sheets.

Today, the landforms are all hidden by the North Sea's bottom-muds, but new survey work has traced their outline in remarkable 3D detail.

Scientists say the channels should give us clues as to how modern-day ice sheets, such as Greenland, will decay.

That's because these features were all incised during periods of great melt.

"These tunnel valleys were formed during the death throes of an ice sheet in extremely warm climates," said James Kirkham, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Cambridge University.

"This makes them a great analogue for what Greenland, or even Antarctica, might begin to look like in the future, perhaps several 100 years down the line," he told BBC News.

IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'
Greenland and Antarctica ice loss accelerating
Underwater avalanche continued for two days

ROBBIE SHONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Surface meltwater gushes down a hole to the base of the Greenland ice sheet

Today, if you visit Greenland during summer months, you'll see huge lakes of meltwater pooling on the ice sheet's surface.

This water funnels down holes to reach the bed, where it then spreads out and drains to the sea. But as it does so, this water also lubricates the flow of the ice sheet above.

Researchers have used all manner of sensors to try to understand the sub-glacial processes involved. The US space agency Nasa even sent an armada of bath-time rubber ducks on a mission to see if they could traverse Greenland's under-ice rivers.

The landforms described by Mr Kirkham and colleagues in the journal Geology provide this information in a different way - at huge scale and with super-fine resolution.


This is made possible by new seismic (sound wave) survey techniques that ordinarily would be used to image the structure of sea-floor sediments to see that they're suitable to host oil and gas, or renewables, infrastructure. But scientists can exploit that same data to recall the glacial history of the North Sea.

The past 800,000 years have seen repeated incursions of thick ice over Northern Europe during cold periods, to be followed by mass retreat when temperatures rose again. It was during the very warm phases that the tunnel valleys were cut.

James Kirkham's team describes a complex network of incisions and deposits that were made both by the rivers and by the movement of the ice on top.

These landforms include so-called eskers where water has cut a recess in the ice above which then gets filled with mud to preserve a mound - a bit like a jelly mould.

There are long sinuous ridges where sediments got squeezed into the fractures that developed in fast-flowing ice that suddenly came to a stop.



And there are even "fossil icebergs", more properly called kettle holes. These are where chunks of ice broke off the edge of a retreating sheet, got stuck in mud and then, as the blocks melted away, created voids that were later filled with a different kind of sediment to the surroundings.

"These patterns we see in the seismic data show us what the sub-glacial rivers were doing over many years, centuries even, as the ice was retreating," explained BAS co-author Dr Kelly Hogan. "And they also show us how that ice on top was behaving. We can see where it was moving quickly or where it had simply stagnated and melted away," she told BBC News.

"This is all information we need to properly model modern ice sheets, to try to understand what Greenland and Antarctica might look like in the future."

The recent state-of-the-climate report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said surface melting of Greenland as a result of increased air temperatures would dominate the territory's ice losses this century.

This will boost the flow of water to the sub-glacial "plumbing system" that produces the kinds of features recorded in the North Sea sediments.

Antarctica is a little different. Ice losses in the polar south are driven largely by incursions of warm ocean waters at the ice sheet's margins. Warmer air causing melting at the surface is evident in a few places but is less of a factor.

IMAGE SOURCE,SENTINEL HUB

  Blue meltponds form on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet in summer months

Opinion: Nobody wins when Alberta plays games with COVID vaccines

Author of the article: Amy Kaler
Publishing date: Sep 08, 2021 •

Premier Jason Kenney announces the province's new COVID restrictions at McDougall Centre in Calgary on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.

 PHOTO BY AZIN GHAFFARI /Postmedia

Last Friday, Jason Kenney announced that his government will pay people who haven’t been vaccinated yet a hundred dollars to get their shot. No one thinks this is a good idea, except presumably a few UCP caucus members. Most of the negative reaction comes from the vaccinated majority in Alberta, who resent what they see, correctly, as a reward for procrastinating and heel-dragging on vaccination, while the fourth wave of COVID gathers steam and threatens to swamp our hospitals.

I’m a sociologist who studies infectious diseases. There are even bigger problems with the COVID-cash scheme than ticking off everyone who already got vaccinated.

Putting a cash bounty on shots is what economists and sociologists call gamification. Gamification means taking any process or activity and making it similar to playing a game, in order to motivate people to engage in it. The appeal of gamified activities is that they offer individual players a chance to get the highest score or win big through strategizing and outsmarting other players or through betting against the house.

Gamification has its place — in casinos and video games. It does not have a place in public health. Gamifying COVID vaccines, by awarding money to people who delay getting their shots, sets Albertans up to see themselves as games players rather than citizens or people who have responsibilities to look out for each other. If delaying your shots for six months gets you $100, why not hold out a while longer and see if the province will up the payout to $200 per shot? Why settle for $100 now?

Sure, you’re a lot more likely to get COVID if you aren’t vaccinated yet, or to spread COVID to vulnerable people. But by Thanksgiving, if you bet strategically, you might be getting $500 for a shot!

In the gamified world, people who got vaccinated on time and followed the rules are bad players. Sure, they did their part to protect the vulnerable and so forth, but they lost out on the money. Next time around — and there will be a next time; COVID-19 is not the last pandemic virus we’re going to see — how much can I get for a shot in my arm? What will the payout be? Getting vaccinated without getting paid for it will appeal to some people, but for an unknown part of the population, the expectation has now been set that public health emergencies are games, and holding out for money is a winning gamble.

In addition to setting a terrible precedent, paying people per shot just doesn’t work. A study by the University of Pennsylvania, released last Friday, comparing 24 states with different incentives for vaccination, found that paying people per shot does not increase vaccine uptake at all.

What does increase vaccine uptake is mandates — requiring proof of vaccination to take part in activities ranging from attending sports events to air travel. We’re seeing this right now in Ontario, where Premier Doug Ford announced on Wednesday the creation of a provincial vaccine certificate which could be used to access restaurants, bars and indoor entertainment, and within 24 hours, the number of vaccination bookings through the provincial health system doubled.

Vaccine certification is fair — everyone who gets vaccinated can benefit from it. It is easy to implement, through provincial health registries. It’s voluntary — no one is vaccinated against their will. And it works. And most importantly, it doesn’t turn COVID into a game, in which winning means not getting vaccinated until the province shows you the money.

Alberta has had a terrible year and half with COVID. Let’s hope the provincial government stops making it worse by ill-advised and ineffective COVID cash giveaways.

Amy Kaler is a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Alberta.

O’Toole on the Defensive Over His Plan to Cut Billions From Child Care, End Emergency Support for Workers


Canadian Labour Congress
Thu., September 9, 2021,

OTTAWA, Sept. 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- During the French debate last night, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole was on the defensive over his vow to tear up child care agreements with the provinces and cut billions from child care just when parents need them most.


“For many women, the lack of child care during the pandemic was a key reason they were forced out of the labour force. Today, many parents are still struggling to find spaces for their kids,” said Bea Bruske, President of the Canadian Labour Congress. “It is cold-hearted and irresponsible for Mr. O’Toole to turn to these women and say no to the high-quality, affordable child care spaces that would finally allow them to return to the labour force.”

O’Toole was also caught again showing his anti-worker tendencies while talking about labour shortages, saying that emergency support for workers should be shut down. Earlier in the pandemic, O’Toole also said that more money should have gone to business, less to workers.

“A lack of child care spaces, low wages and poor working conditions. These are some of the key factors leading to labour shortages,” said Bruske. “Yet Mr. O’Toole is just another Conservative blaming workers. He cannot pretend to be a friend to working families while saying they should be cut off from critical emergency pandemic support.”

Bruske added that O’Toole’s proposal for gig economy workers, which appeared to be written by Uber, shows just how far out of touch O’Toole is with the reality facing workers today.

CLIMATE CHANGE WHO CARES

Suncor reaches agreement to extend Terra Nova FPSO

As the lead operator of the offshore Newfoundland oilfield, the extension is expected to extend production life by approximately 10 years, providing an additional 70 million barrels of oil.

Wed., September 8, 2021,

Suncor Energy has announced a plan to extend the life of the Terra Nova FPSO has been reached.

According to a news release issued Wednesday night by the corporation, the lead operator of the offshore Newfoundland oilfield, the extension is expected to extend production life by approximately 10 years, providing an additional 70 million barrels of oil.

The deal also includes royalties and financial support from the provincial government, totalling up to $205 million.

The floating production, storage and offloading vessel has not produced oil since late 2019. Most of the more than 1,000 jobs linked to the oilfield have been lost.

The FPSO will undergo maintenance work at the Bull Arm Fabrication site starting in early September prior to sailing to dry dock in Spain later this year, according to the news release. A safe return to operations is expected before the end of 2022.

Since beginning production in January 2002, the Terra Nova has produced 425 million barrels of oil.

The agreement also includes the restructuring of project ownership between Suncor, Cenovus, and Murphy Oil. Suncor will control 48 per cent of the project, Cenovus will control 34 per cent, and Murphy Oil will control 18 per cent.

Alongside the announcement, Cenovus says it will be restructuring it's assets in the Terra Nova and White Rose projects. The corporation will reduce its working interest in the White Rose project, according to a news release, if a decision is made to restart the project.

'A horror story:' Quebec health worker recalls shocking scene at Herron care home


Wed., September 8, 2021, 3



MONTREAL — Health officials who arrived at a Montreal-area long-term care home during a COVID-19 outbreak last year found residents who were desperate for water and had been left in beds soaked with urine and feces, a Quebec coroner's inquest heard Wednesday.

Martine Daigneault, a coordinator for the local health authority, testified that she went to Résidence Herron the evening of March 29, 2020 after being informed that the facility was struggling with staff shortages.

What she saw shocked her: carts piled with barely touched trays of food, representing two or three meals; bandages that hadn't been changed in days; residents with greasy hair and long nails who were so soaked in urine and feces that it left burns on their skin.

"I never saw a centre like that, never saw residents like this," she told the coroner's inquest.

Daigneault, who began her career as a nurse, said she began making the rounds to help feed the residents, accompanied by a nurse who had come to volunteer.

She said most residents didn't want to eat the food, which had been left out for a while and contained large chunks she felt were unsuitable for elderly people, but they were very thirsty.

"I saw residents drink two, three cups of water and kissed our hands over our gloves to say thank you," said Daigneault, who added that some residents showed signs of dehydration.

"You're telling a horror story," Coroner Géhane Kamel said a moment later.

Kamel's mandate is to investigate 53 deaths at six long-term care homes and one seniors residence. The portion of the hearings involving Herron began Tuesday after being suspended while prosecutors decided whether to pursue charges against the owners of the now-closed facility. Ultimately they decided no criminal charges would be laid.

Forty-seven people died at the home during the first wave of the pandemic.

Daigneault said the residence lacked basic equipment such as bedsheets, soap and wipes, as well as personal protective equipment such as gowns.

Oxygen canisters were old and often empty, she said. Over the next few days, several people died following respiratory problems that were presumably linked to COVID-19. "Would they not have died had we given oxygen? I don’t know," said Daigneault, who added that she isn't a doctor.

Daigneault said she continued working at the home over the next two weeks because there wasn't enough staff to care for residents. She said relations with Herron's owners were strained, and the health authority never succeeded in obtaining work schedules in advance. Rather, she said they would get the schedules written on scraps of paper half an hour before shifts started, and often many of the names on the list didn't show up.

Earlier Wednesday, another manager from the health authority testified that Herron's severe understaffing issues were in part due to a self-isolation directive from the province's health hotline.

Dr. Nadine Larente testified that there were so few employees on site when she arrived on March 29 that she called her husband and three children to come help feed and change patients.

Larente, who is a director of professional care for the local health authority, said she was told some employees had stayed home because they were afraid, but many others were following advice from the province's Info-Santé telephone line to self-isolate for 14 days after coming into contact with a positive COVID-19 case.

Larente, who is also a geriatrician, said she questioned the wisdom of the directive given the long-standing staff shortages throughout the long-term care network.

"I was worried because, with all the centres in outbreaks across the province, that directive didn’t make sense, to abandon people before there are replacements," she told the inquest, adding that she contacted Dr. Lucie Opatrny, an associate deputy health minister, to express her concerns.

Larente said her group did their best to care for residents, but they didn't have enough masks for everyone or enough personal protective equipment to change it between patients.

At one moment, Larente said a patient fell to the ground as she helped her to the bathroom, and yelled for her daughter to help. Later, she learned the patient had COVID-19.

But Larente said residents on the ground floor, where she worked that evening, were more independent. Unlike what Daigneault encountered on higher floors, she said most of the patients she saw were dressed, hydrated and had received their medication and food that day.

At one point, Kamel interjected to ask whether doctors should have been called to do a proper examination of each patient.

“When I read this, and I get a chill up my spine to say this … I get the impression we let these people die,” the coroner said.

Larente acknowledged that in retrospect, many things should have been done differently. By the time the second wave came around, she said teams of doctors were going to care homes to assess the needs of the residents and ensure everything was in place to care for them.

But in the pandemic’s early days, she said, the health network was still scrambling to train personnel in hospitals, assuage fears and deal with shortages of personal protective equipment and staff as the number of outbreaks grew by the day.

“On March 29, we weren’t yet organized at that level,” she said. “We weren’t prepared.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept 8, 2021.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press

2022 rent increase capped at 1.5% in B.C.

Wed., September 8, 2021

B.C.'s maximum allowable rent increase for 2022 has been set at 1.5 per cent. (David Horemans/CBC - image credit)

With the province-wide pandemic rent freeze set to expire at the end of the year, the government has announced that landlords cannot raise rents by more than 1.5 per cent for 2022.

The maximum allowable increase is tied to inflation and was released by the Attorney General and Ministry responsible for Housing on Wednesday.

Any rent hike in 2022 cannot take place before Jan.1 and must be preceded by three months' notice from the landlord provided to the tenant.

The province introduced a rent freeze during the pandemic which is set to expire Dec. 31, 2021.

Landlords in B.C. can only increase rents once per year. Since 2018, the rate of increase has been tied to the rate of inflation.

The maximum allowable increase does not apply to commercial tenancies, non-profit housing tenancies where rent is geared to income, co-operative housing and some assisted-living facilities.

Tseshaht protect Broken Group Islands with debris clean up

Wed., September 8, 2021

Broken Group Islands, BC - For five days, Rachelle Packwood removed mounds of Styrofoam, rope and tires that had collected along the remote shorelines of the Broken Group Islands in Barkley Sound.

It was the first beach clean-up Packwood had participated in and she hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

“I feel really good about what we did,” she said. “Knowing how many tons of debris we took off that Broken Group is astounding. I have a sense of pride.”

The initiative was part of the West Coast Vancouver Island Coastal Improvement Project, which aims to support large-scale marine shoreline clean-ups and derelict vessel removals along British Columbia’s coastline.

Supported by the provincial government through the Clean Coast, Clean Waters Initiative Fund, the $2.5 million project is managed by the Coastal Restoration Society (CRS), in partnership with Surfrider Foundation Pacific Rim, Rugged Coast, Ocean Legacy, and the T’Sou-ke Nation. Ten First Nations, including Hesquiaht, Ahousaht, Tseshaht, and Ka:'yu:'k't'h'/Che:k:tles7et'h', are also participating in the project.

“Marine clean-up programs are a critical part of reducing pollution in these sensitive ecosystems and protecting fish and other marine life, as well as important food sources,” said George Heyman, minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, in a release. “These projects will remove tonnes of debris, create new jobs and provide much-needed support to local governments, Indigenous communities and other groups to address marine pollution.”

Alys Hoyland is the Surfrider Pacific Rim youth coordinator and said that the nations’ involvement was “absolutely crucial to do this work well.”

The nations bring knowledge of the historical and the cultural sensitivities of each site, she said.

“It's such an honour and privilege to learn from the beach keepers that we were working with from Tseshaht,” said Hoyland. “And to use that knowledge to do the work in the right way.”

Four other Tseshaht members participated in the clean up, including Packwood’s son, Jayden.

The 23-year-old said he hadn’t visited his traditional homelands since he was eight years old and that it felt “amazing” to finally return.

“I realized how beautiful it was and it made me want to go back again,” he said.

By the end of the five days, Jayden said he was “exhausted,” but “fulfilled.”

Hannah Gentes is the CRS Indigenous initiatives coordinator and said it’s important for the nations to have sovereignty over the work that’s being done in their traditional territories.

“It's really powerful to have the descendants of the original stewards of these lands come out and do some modern modes of stewardship,” she said. “It’s a really beautiful opportunity for community members to get together and be on the land together.”

Over 90 tonnes of debris have been removed from the coast between the Brooks Peninsula and the Broken Group Islands this summer – and the project isn’t over yet, said Hoyland.

“It’s the biggest clean-up that we’ve ever seen on this coast,” she said. “Getting the plastic out of water and off the beaches gives immediate and short-term relief to those ecosystems. But mostly, it's important for data collection. We need to know what's polluting our beaches so that we're able to do a better job of preventing that pollution in the first place.”

The data is used to influence policy and create better regulation over the use of certain materials in marine environments, such as Styrofoam, said Hoyland.

Styrofoam is a highly toxic substance widely used in the marine aquaculture industry. It breaks down into tiny pieces that are almost impossible to remove from the environment, described Hoyland.

A 2020 report from the province titled What We Heard on Marine Debris in B.C said many participants suggested Styrofoam makes up a “large proportion of marine debris.”

“Industry is moving towards alternatives to unprotected polystyrene docks; however, legacy issues of exposed StyrofoamTM remain even as new ones are being installed,” read the report. “The aquaculture industry alone has over 400 floats made from exposed StyrofoamTM that would need to be replaced and recycled in the coming years.”

Currently, the project is in the debris processing phase where various types of material are prepared for recycling and data collection, said Hoyland.

“The better informed we are on the problem we're facing, the better equipped we are to implement measures to prevent plastic pollution at the source,” she said.

Surfrider Pacific Rim has been doing remote beach clean-ups on the west coast of Vancouver Island for the past five years, said Hoyland.

“The sad thing about beach cleaning is that it just treats the symptoms, it doesn't stop the pollution,” she said. “Every year we go back, and every year there's more stuff.”

Hoyland said she hopes additional funding is secured for next year to “keep up with the flow of plastic that’s coming in.”

Packwood shared a similar sentiment and said, “it can't just be a one-time thing.”

“It has to be ongoing,” she said. “Once the north winds come through, it pushes all of the debris into the backside of the islands.”

Freezers, fridges, and legacy debris from the Japanese tsunami were some of the items Packwood said she found during her time on the islands.

“It was super eye opening,” she said. “It's really affecting our ocean and all of its inhabitants.”

As Packwood reflected on her time on the Broken Group Islands, she described it as “emotional.”

“I'm super passionate about my own territorial lands,” she said. “My grandfather grew up on Benson [Island] and I spent a lot of my time in my youth on Nettle [Island] in the summers. So, this just really hit home for me.”

For Packwood, the experience brought her closer to her ancestors.

“I felt gratitude for being out there and being able to do this for my people,” she said. “I want to be a protector of the land.



Melissa Renwick, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Ha-Shilth-Sa

Indigenous voters can play kingmaker in the federal election

Wed., September 8, 2021

This federal election sees a record-number of self-declared Indigenous candidates vying for seats in Ottawa at 77 and that could translate into a record number of Members of Parliament.

Courtney Skye, research fellow with the Indigenous think-tank the Yellowhead Institute, isn’t confident that higher numbers of Indigenous MPs will mean a stronger stand on Indigenous issues.

“I think until Indigenous people are elected they don’t really know the dynamics of being in caucus and being a part of a party,” she said.

She points to Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was recruited by Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, elected in 2015 in the British Columbia riding of Vancouver Granville, and appointed as Attorney General.

By the time Wilson-Raybould ran successfully for re-election in 2019 she had been expelled from the Liberal caucus and seeking a seat as an Independent. Wilson-Raybould, who was a former Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief for BC and a lawyer, had plenty of experience in the political realm.

“She was confronted with a lot of issues. (She) had a very strong agenda, very motivated to create change for her people and was stymied within the Liberal Party in not being able to affect the change she wanted to see. She came out very vocally that there was no hope in changing the system from within,” said Skye.

Wilson-Raybould’s book “Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power comes out on Sept. 14. The tell-all book will examine her experience in the Trudeau Cabinet and her struggles.

Wilson-Raybould is one of two Indigenous incumbents not running this time around. Eight incumbents are trying to win their seats again: six from the Liberals and one each from the New Democrats and Conservatives. Of those, four are Métis, three are First Nations and one is Inuk.

In 2015 and 2019, the election of 10 Indigenous MPs set a record.

According to numbers confirmed by Windspeaker.com, the NDP leads this election with 27 Indigenous candidates; the Liberals have 25; and the Conservatives have five. Unconfirmed numbers have the Green Party at 11 and the People’s Party of Canada with four.

As a policy analyst, Skye holds that while she has seen changes made in programming, she has not seen changes made in Canada’s systems.

“I think the system as it exists is embedded with colonialism, systemic racism and white supremacy and it is very hard to deconstruct that internally,” she said.

“What I’m interested in is nationhood and governance and restoring our traditional practices and that’s the kind of thing that can only be done in our communities internally. So that’s where I put my attention to,” said Skye, who has never voted in a federal election.

She says there is enormous pressure riding on the wins of Indigenous candidates.

“I think there are very high expectations,” she said.

Niigaan Sinclair, assistant professor of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba, goes a step further saying those expectations are unrealistic in a party system as “Canadian political parties serve Canadian political interests, period.”

“The Indigenous MPs will always serve Canadian interests. The only time in history that we’ve ever seen an Indigenous MP who could serve Indigenous interests it was Jody Wilson-Raybould when she was independent because she didn’t have to follow a party,” he said.

Indigenous MPs can only make an “incremental difference,” he says.

That’s not a view held by Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, who points to the work accomplished by Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou NDP MP Romeo Saganash, who did not run for re-election in 2019. Saganash, a Cree lawyer, laid the groundwork for what eventually became Bill C-15, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. The bill was passed into law this past June.

“I truly appreciate his individual efforts. Romeo singlehandedly brought forward United Nations legislation. He stimulated conversations and opportunities,” said Dumas in a television interview.

“Individually people can choose to use the opportunity they have to advocate and change discussions and conversations.”

Both Dumas and Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald have been vocal in encouraging First Nations voters to support First Nations and other Indigenous candidates.

The AFN has even gone as far as analyzing population data from Statistics Canada and Elections Canada and has identified 24 ridings in which First Nations electors could have made a difference in the 2019 election. In those ridings the representation of First Nations electors was higher than the margin of victory for the winning candidate; and First Nations electors represented at least five per cent of the electors and the margin of victory for the winning candidate was less than five per cent. These ridings are right across the country.

“All parties should consider the role that First Nations issues and electors play in the potential role of ‘kingmaker’ in the upcoming September 20, 2021 election. In this list, 10 seats are held by Liberals, 8 by New Democrats, 5 by Conservatives, and 1 by the Bloc Québécois,” says the AFN.

While leaders have been fairly quiet on Indigenous issues throughout most of the election campaign, Indigenous issues are topics in both the French and English leaders’ debates.

In the French debate tonight, “Indigenous peoples, cultural industries and cultural identity” is the issue, while tomorrow night’s English debate will address “Reconciliation.”

Joining Trudeau in the debates, both to be held in Gatineau, are Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc Québécois), Erin O’Toole (Conservatives), Annamie Paul (Green Party), and Jagmeet Singh (NDP).

Sinclair points out that the Trudeau government served the interests of Indigenous peoples best in its second term when the Liberals sat as a minority.

“It’s worth noting they’ve passed the most amount of bills in relation to Indigenous peoples when they have the NDP in their government, propping them up.

“Notice when you have a minority parliament you have the most amount of success for Indigenous peoples. Notice when the Liberals were a majority, almost nothing got done for Indigenous peoples. That just tells you how a minority parliament is the best situation for Indigenous peoples,” said Sinclair.

Windspeaker.com

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

AMC continues fight to reclaim Children's Special Allowance funds

AMC has previously claimed the government used “sneaky and immoral” tactics to get the omnibus bill  through the legislature, and “strategically hid” Section 231 of the bill.

Wed., September 8, 2021

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) has taken another step in their legal challenge of a provincial bill they say denies First Nations people who have been involved with the Child and Family Services (CFS) system the right to sue the government for money that AMC believes has been taken by the province illegitimately.

AMC, an organization that represents 62 First Nations in Manitoba, announced on Wednesday they have filed their written submissions in their challenge of the provincial Budget Implementation and Tax Statutes Amendment Act. (BITSA)

The province passed the omnibus bill in November of 2020, and AMC has previously claimed the government used “sneaky and immoral” tactics to get BITSA through the legislature, and “strategically hid” Section 231 of the bill.

AMC claims that Section 231 of BITSA will not allow for legal action to take place, and give no opportunity for the possibility that the provincial government could be forced to hand over hundreds of millions in federal money from the Children’s Special Allowance (CSA) to First Nations people who have been involved in the CFS system.

The CSA is a federal allowance of approximately $530 per month, per child given to agencies that care for First Nations children in care, and is meant to be used for education, training, and recreational activities.

But between 2005 and 2019 the Manitoba government forced agencies to remit the money to the province, as they argued they had been paying for the care of the children and therefore were entitled to CSA money.

A previously-filed Class Action Lawsuit against the Manitoba government could have potentially provided compensation for children who didn’t benefit from the CSA, but with Bill 34 passing last fall the province was granted immunity from its actions and from the lawsuit that could have seen them forced to hand over $338 million.

In a statement released on Wednesday AMC Grand Chief Arlen Dumas said that through BITSA the province “legitimized the capturing of Children’s Special Allowance.”

“First Nations children are disproportionately separated from their families, culture and Nations,” Dumas said. “The quality of care provided under the CFS system, and the lack of supports for life skills after leaving the system, leads many former First Nations youth to the justice system, becoming homeless, and/or becoming vulnerable to being missing or murdered.

“Instead of taking the CSA from First Nations children, the funding could have been used to ensure better outcomes for First Nations children leaving care.”

AMC said that in their written submissions they will argue the bill absolves the province from any liability for receiving CSA money, and in doing so “denies First Nations children equality and equal benefit of the law on the grounds of age, race, aboriginality-residence, and family status.”

Hearings for AMC’S legal challenge to the bill are scheduled to begin on October 25.

— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

Dave Baxter, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Sun

UN asked to censure discrimination against off-reserve, non-status Indigenous People

Thu., September 9, 2021
OTTAWA — The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples is filing a legal complaint against the Canadian government with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, alleging discrimination against off-reserve and non-status Indigenous People.

The complaint says Justin Trudeau's Liberal government has adopted a "distinctions-based approach" to developing Indigenous policy.

As part of that approach, the complaint says the government has chosen to engage with only three recognized groups: the Assembly of First Nations, the Metis National Council and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, none of which represents off-reserve or non-status Indigenous People.

More than 70 per cent of Canada's Indigenous People live off-reserve but the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), which touts itself as their national voice, says it has not been involved adequately, if at all, in consultations or negotiations on self-government, land claims, health care, education or natural resources.

CAP's complaint is being submitted under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Complaints under the covenant are adjudicated by the UN Human Rights Committee, and since Canada is a signatory to the covenant, CAP argues it will be bound by the committee's ruling on the matter.

The organization says it has chosen this approach because taking the federal government to court in Canada is "extremely expensive, takes many years to resolve and is unlikely to result in an effective remedy."

"The legal filing clearly makes the case that the Canadian government's discrimination is based on the inaccurate and stereotypical assumption that Canada's off-reserve Indigenous People are less Indigenous than their reserve-based counterparts and that federal government programs and policy fail to meet their needs," CAP says in a news release.

"Indigenous People in Canada still face widespread discrimination and racism in justice and health care," Kim Beaudin, national vice-chief of CAP, says in the release.

"Prime Minister Trudeau has allowed a discriminatory approach to off-reserve Indigenous Peoples that is wrong and is badly hurting grassroots Indigenous Peoples."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected version of an earlier story. It corrects the spelling of CAP national vice-chief Kim Beaudin's name.